Thus, in the little boy’s house there were only the grandmother, the father and mother, the three daughters, the half-grown son, and the little boy. They were not at all crowded, you see, for they had two rooms. The cowherd woman and the two moujiks who helped the starosta on the land, slept, of course, in the stalls with the cattle under the shed that went around three sides of the court. In their warm sheepskin coats, made with the wool outside, they would not have been at all cold, even if the cows beside which they slept had not kept them warm.
The family always slept warm, too, for father, mother, and all the children slept on the great tile stove which occupied the centre of the larger room, and in this stove the fire never went entirely out. The grandmother did not sleep on this stove, however. The starosta greatly honored his old mother, and to her he gave the second room in the house for herself alone. She had a stove all to herself, and slept on it all alone, except when the little boy ran away from the great room and cuddled down beside his grandmother for the night.
She did not tell him stories then, for night is the time for sleeping, and grandmother was tired after a long day in the fields. But on rainy days, when the starosta would not permit his old mother to do field work, grandmother would sit at home and spin, and then for happy times!
It was growing cold weather; the harvests were all in, the rains had begun, and grandmother was sitting by the stove, with her distaff and spindle and a basket of wool by her side. In came the little boy, settled himself in a snug place on the stove-top, and said, very coaxingly:
“Tell me a story, little grandmamma!”
The grandmother ceased the song she had been singing, and answered:
“Shall I tell you about the Wolf that wanted to be a Roman?”
“Oh, yes, yes!” exclaimed the little boy. “Tell me about the wolf!”
So the grandmother began.