Old Peters Russian Tales | Page 4

new dress; but the little pretty one took care of her old
mother, and scrubbed and dusted and swept and cooked, and every day
the other two said that the soup was burnt or the bread not properly

baked.
Then one day there were a jingling of bells and a clattering of horses'
hoofs, and the old merchant came driving back from the fair.
The sisters ran out.
"Where is the necklace?" asked the first.
"You haven't forgotten the dress?" asked the second.
But the little one, Little Stupid, helped her old father off with his coat,
and asked him if he was tired.
"Well, little one," says the old merchant, "and don't you want your
fairing too? I went from one end of the market to the other before I
could get what you wanted. I bought the silver saucer from an old Jew,
and the transparent apple from a Finnish hag."
"Oh, thank you, father," says the little one.
"And what will you do with them?" says he.
"I shall spin the apple in the saucer," says the little pretty one, and at
that the old merchant burst out laughing.
"They don't call you 'Little Stupid' for nothing," says he.
Well, they all had their fairings, and the two elder sisters, the bad ones,
they ran off and put on the new dress and the new necklace, and came
out and strutted about, preening themselves like herons, now on one leg
and now on the other, to see how they looked. But Little Stupid, she
just sat herself down beside the stove, and took the transparent apple
and set it in the silver saucer, and she laughed softly to herself. And
then she began spinning the apple in the saucer.
Round and round the apple spun in the saucer, faster and faster, till you
couldn't see the apple at all, nothing but a mist like a little whirlpool in
the silver saucer. And the little good one looked at it, and her eyes

shone like yours.
Her sisters laughed at her.
"Spinning an apple in a saucer and staring at it, the little stupid," they
said, as they strutted about the room, listening to the rustle of the new
dress and fingering the bright round stones of the necklace.
But the little pretty one did not mind them. She sat in the corner
watching the spinning apple. And as it spun she talked to it.
"Spin, spin, apple in the silver saucer." This is what she said. "Spin so
that I may see the world. Let me have a peep at the little father Tzar on
his high throne. Let me see the rivers and the ships and the great towns
far away."
And as she looked at the little glass whirlpool in the saucer, there was
the Tzar, the little father--God preserve him!--sitting on his high throne.
Ships sailed on the seas, their white sails swelling in the wind. There
was Moscow with its white stone walls and painted churches. Why,
there were the market at Nijni Novgorod, and the Arab merchants with
their camels, and the Chinese with their blue trousers and bamboo
staves. And then there was the great river Volga, with men on the banks
towing ships against the stream. Yes, and she saw a sturgeon asleep in
a deep pool.
"Oh! oh! oh!" says the little pretty one, as she saw all these things.
And the bad ones, they saw how her eyes shone, and they came and
looked over her shoulder, and saw how all the world was there, in the
spinning apple and the silver saucer. And the old father came and
looked over her shoulder too, and he saw the market at Nijni Novgorod.
"Why, there is the inn where I put up the horses," says he. "You haven't
done so badly after all, Little Stupid."
And the little pretty one, Little Stupid, went on staring into the glass
whirlpool in the saucer, spinning the apple, and seeing all the world she

had never seen before, floating there before her in the saucer, brighter
than leaves in sunlight.
The bad ones, the elder sisters, were sick with envy.
"Little Stupid," says the first, "if you will give me your silver saucer
and your transparent apple, I will give you my fine new necklace."
"Little Stupid," says the second, "I will give you my new dress with
gold hems if you will give me your transparent apple and your silver
saucer."
"Oh, I couldn't do that," says the Little Stupid, and she goes on
spinning the apple in the saucer and seeing what was happening all
over the world.
So the bad ones put their wicked heads together and thought of a plan.
And they took their father's axe, and went into the deep