"What good are they?"
"You can turn them to any use you please: they will do anything."
"Can they play music?"
"They can."
"All right, make them for me!"
And the devil said:
"Take a sheaf of rye, strike the lower end against the ground, and say: 'By my master's command not a sheaf shall you stand, but as many straws as there are so many soldiers there be.'"
Iván took the sheaf, shook it against the ground, and spoke as the devil told him to. And the sheaf fell to pieces, and the straws were changed into soldiers, and in front a drummer was drumming, and a trumpeter blowing the trumpet. Iván laughed.
"I declare," he said, "it is clever. This is nice to amuse the girls with."
"Let me go now," said the devil.