Old Peters Russian Tales | Page 6

He took a
pinch of snuff from a little wooden box, and then he went on with his
tale.
Time did not stop with the death of the little girl. Winter came, and the
snow with it. Everything was all white, just as it is now. And the
wolves came to the doors of the huts, even into the villages, and no one
stirred farther than he need. And then the snow melted, and the buds
broke on the trees, and the birds began singing, and the sun shone
warmer every dry. The old people had almost forgotten the little pretty
one who lay dead in the forest. The bad ones had not forgotten, because
now they had to do the work, and they did not like that at all.
And then one day some lambs strayed away into the forest, and a young
shepherd went after them to bring them safely back to their mothers.
And as he wandered this way and that through the forest, following
their light tracks, he came to a little birch tree, bright with new leaves,
waving over a little mound of earth. And there was a reed growing in
the mound, and that, you know as well as I, is a strange thing, one reed
all by itself under a birch tree in the forest. But it was no stranger than
the flowers, for there were flowers round it, some red as the sun at
dawn and others blue as the summer sky.
Well, the shepherd looks at the reed, and he looks at those flowers, and
he thinks, "I've never seen anything like that before. I'll make a
whistle-pipe of that reed, and keep it for a memory till I grow old."
So he did. He cut the reed, and sat himself down on the mound, and
carved away at the reed with his knife, and got the pith out of it by
pushing a twig through it, and beating it gently till the bark swelled,
made holes in it, and there was his whistle-pipe. And then he put it to
his lips to see what sort of music he could make on it. But that he never
knew, for before his lips touched it the whistle-pipe began playing by

itself and reciting in a girl's sweet voice. This is what it sang:--
"Play, play, whistle-pipe. Bring happiness to my dear father and to my
little mother. I was killed--yes, my life was taken from me in the deep
forest for the sake of a silver saucer, for the sake of a transparent
apple."
When he heard that the shepherd went back quickly to the village to
show it to the people. And all the way the whistle-pipe went on playing
and reciting, singing its little song. And everyone who heard it said,
"What a strange song! But who is it who was killed?"
"I know nothing about it," says the shepherd, and he tells them about
the mound and the reed and the flowers, and how he cut the reed and
made the whistle-pipe, and how the whistle-pipe does its playing by
itself.
And as he was going through the village, with all the people crowding
about him, the old merchant, that one who was the father of the two bad
ones and of the little pretty one, came along and listened with the rest.
And when he heard the words about the silver saucer and the
transparent apple, he snatched the whistle-pipe from the shepherd boy.
And still it sang:--
"Play, play, whistle-pipe! Bring happiness to my dear father and to my
little mother. I was killed--yes, my life was taken from me in the deep
forest for the sake of a silver saucer, for the sake of a transparent
apple."
And the old merchant remembered the little good one, and his tears
trickled over his cheeks and down his old beard. Old men love little
pigeons, you know. And he said to the shepherd,--
"Take me at once to the mound, where you say you cut the reed."
The shepherd led the way, and the old man walked beside him, crying,
while the whistle-pipe in his hand went on singing and reciting its little
song over and over again.

They came to the mound under the birch tree, and there were the
flowers, shining red and blue, and there in the middle of the mound was
the Stump of the reed which the shepherd had cut.
The whistle-pipe sang on and on.
Well, there and then they dug up the mound, and there was the little girl
lying under the dark earth as if she were asleep.
"O God of mine," says the old merchant, "this is my daughter, my little
pretty one, whom we called Little Stupid." He began to