“Oh, my saviour!” said Vasilísa. “You have helped me in my great need.”
“You now have only to get dinner ready,” the doll answered, and clambered back into Vasilísa’s pocket. “With God’s help get it ready, and stay here quietly waiting.”
In the evening Vasilísa laid the cloth and waited for Bába Yagá. The gloaming came, and the black horseman reached by: and it at once became dark, but the eyes in the skulls glowed. The trees shuddered, the leaves crackled, Bába Yagá drove in, and Vasilísa met her.
“Is it all done?” Bába Yagá asked.
“Yes, grandmother: look!” said Vasilísa.
Bába Yagá looked round everywhere, and was rather angry that she had nothing to find fault with and said: “Very well.” Then she cried out: “Ye my faithful servants, friends of my heart! Store up my oats.” Then three pairs of hands appeared, seized the oats and carried them off.
Bába Yagá had her supper, and, before she went to sleep, once more commanded Vasilísa: “To-morrow do the same as you did to-day, but also take the hay which is lying on my field, clean it from every trace of soil, every single ear. Somebody has, out of spite, mixed earth with it.”
And, as soon as she had said it, she turned round to the wall and was snoring.
Vasilísa at once fetched her doll, who ate, and said as she had the day before: “Pray and lie down to sleep, for the morning is wiser than the evening. Everything shall be done, Vasilísushka.”
Next morning Bába Yagá got up and stood at the window, and then went into the courtyard and whistled; and the mortar, the besom, and the pestle appeared at once, and the red horseman came by: and the sun rose. Bába Yagá sat in the mortar and went off, sweeping away her traces as before.