At that very time Elijah and Nicholas came walking by again. Joyfully did the Prophet gaze on all the land, and say:
“Only look, Nicholas! what a blessing! Why, I have rewarded the Priest in such wise, that he will never forget it all his life.”
“The Priest? No, brother! the blessing indeed is great, but this land, you see, belongs to the Moujik. The Priest hasn’t got anything whatsoever to do with it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s perfectly true. When the hail beat all the cornfield flat, the Moujik went to the Priest and bought it back again at half price.”
“Stop a bit!” says Elijah. “I’ll take the profit out of the corn. However many sheaves the Moujik may lay on the threshing-floor, he shall never thresh out of them more than a peck[446] at a time.”
“A bad piece of work!” thinks St. Nicholas. Off he went at once to the Moujik.
“Mind,” says he, “when you begin threshing your corn, never put more than one sheaf at a time on the threshing-floor.”
The Moujik began to thresh: from every sheaf he got a peck of grain. All his bins, all his storehouses, he crammed with rye; but still much remained over. So he built himself new barns, and filled them as full as they could hold.
Well, one day Elijah and Nicholas came walking past his homestead, and the Prophet began looking here and there, and said: