“Do you see what barns he’s built? has he got anything to put into them?”
“They’re quite full already,” answers Nicholas.
“Why, wherever did the Moujik get such a lot of grain?”
“Bless me! Why, every one of his sheaves gave him a peck of grain. When he began to thresh he never put more than one sheaf at a time on the threshing-floor.”
“Ah, brother Nicholas!” said Elijah, guessing the truth, “it’s you who go and tell the Moujik everything!”
“What an idea! that I should go and tell—”
“As you please; that’s your doing! But that Moujik sha’n’t forget me in a hurry!”
“Why, what are you going to do to him?”
“What I shall do, that I won’t tell you,” replies Elijah.
“There’s a great danger coming,” thinks St. Nicholas, and he goes to the Moujik again, and says: