The dinner came to an end. One by one the guests went up to the giver of the feast to thank him for his good cheer. And the poor brother too got up from the bench, and bowed low before his brother and thanked him.
The guests went home, drunken and joyful. A fine noise they made, as people do on these occasions, shouting jokes to each other and singing songs at the top of their voices.
The poor brother and his wife went home empty and sad. All that long way they had walked, and now they had to walk it again, and the feast was over, and never a bite had they had in their mouths, nor a drop in their gullets.
"Come, wife," says the poor brother as he trudged along, "let us sing a song like the others."
"What a fool you are!" says his wife. Hungry and cross she was, as even Maroosia would be after a day like that watching other people stuff themselves. "What a fool you are!" says she. "People may very well sing when they have eaten tasty dishes and drunk good wine. But what reason have you got for making a merry noise in the night?"
"Why, my dear" says he, "we have been at my brother's name-day feast. I am ashamed to go home without a song. I'll sing. I'll sing so that everyone shall think he loaded us with good things like the rest."
"Well, sing if you like; but you'll sing by yourself."
So the peasant, the poor brother, started singing a song with his dry throat. He lifted his voice and sang like the rest, while his wife trudged silently beside him.
But as he sang it seemed to the peasant that he heard two voices singing—his own and another's. He stopped, and asked his wife,—
"Is that you joining in my song with a little thin voice?"