Took his place in the middle of the field, with his mouth wide open
As luck would have it, a moujik was standing behind the tree, and he fetched the Wolf a blow on the head with his axe. Then Isegrim cried out with his last breath, “Well, I vow, on this blessed day one can’t even talk to himself without being made sorry for it!”
The little boy was thoughtful for a few minutes. “Did you know that Wolf, little grandma?” he asked at length.
“No, not I,” replied the grandmother; “it was my great-great-grandmother who knew him.”
CHAPTER II
THE MOTHER’S FÊTE-DAY
It was the fête-day of the little boy’s mother, and she was dressed in the beautiful clothes that had been her mother’s and her grandmother’s festival clothes. Her gown, which she called her sarafam, was of a lovely light-blue stuff, and on her head she wore a diadem of gold, all studded with little pearls. Many of the village people came to kiss the baboushka’s hand and to bring her gifts, so that the house was quite crowded with people drinking coffee and talking loudly. When the baboushka went to church to offer thanks she put on her long fur-trimmed chougaii (we should call it a coat), and over that a thick, wadded duchegreika, or hug-me-tight. It was a cold day, and she was not too warmly clothed, but if her fête-day had come in the heat of summer she would have worn these things just the same.