ILLUSTRATIONS
- [The old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herself] Frontispiece
- FACING PAGE
- [Took his place in the middle of the field, with his mouth wide open] 10
- [Step into this sack, ... and I will carry you around the field] 46
- [A shower of golden ducats fell, and lay upon the plates in three great heaps] 106
- [The third hoop dropped off; the cask fell asunder, and a dragon flew out] 172
- [Then the youth clambered down and took the Vila home] 194
- [Drive the sheep slowly, one by one, to the other side] 240
- [When he beheld the basil-plant he felt an extraordinary love for it] 288
The Russian Grandmother’s Wonder-Tales
CHAPTER I
THE LITTLE BOY AND THE GRANDMOTHER
The little boy’s father was starosta, that is, Elder of the village, and the house the little boy lived in was grander than any other, on whichever side of the long street you might look. For it had two rooms opening into the court, and all the other houses, even that of the pop, who said Mass in the church on Sunday, had only one. And this grand house was not crowded like the other houses, where the grandparents and the parents and all the married sons and their wives and children lived in the one room. The starosta was not a bolshak, or head of a family, of the old-fashioned sort. He did not consider that he had a right to rule his children like a despot and make them work for him, however old they might be, as many of the fathers in the village did. He even approved of young people setting up housekeeping by themselves. Therefore, though some of the older bolshaks shook their heads and said harm would come of it, when the little boy’s elder brother married he permitted him to have a house of his own. It was at the far end of the village.