Old Peters Russian Tales | Page 7

weep loudly
and wring his hands; but the whistle-pipe, playing and reciting,
changed its song. This is what it sang:--
"My sisters took me into the forest to look for the red berries. In the
deep forest they killed poor me for the sake of a silver saucer, for the
sake of a transparent apple. Wake me, dear father, from a bitter dream,
by fetching water from the well of the Tzar."
How the people scowled at the two sisters! They scowled, they cursed
them for the bad ones they were. And the bad ones, the two sisters,
wept, and fell on their knees, and confessed everything. They were
taken, and their hands were tied, and they were shut up in prison.
"Do not kill them," begged the old merchant, "for then I should have no
daughters at all, and when there are no fish in the river we make shift
with crays. Besides, let me go to the Tzar and beg water from his well.
Perhaps my little daughter will wake up, as the whistle-pipe tells us."
And the whistle-pipe sang again:--
"Wake me, wake me, dear father, from a bitter dream, by fetching
water from the well of the Tzar. Till then, dear father, a blanket of
black earth and the shade of the green birch tree."
So they covered the little girl with her blanket of earth, and the
shepherd with his dogs watched the mound night and day. He begged
for the whistle-pipe to keep him company, poor lad, and all the days

and nights he thought of the sweet face of the little pretty one he had
seen there under the birch tree.
The old merchant harnessed his horse, as if he were going to the town;
and he drove off through the forest, along the roads, till he came to the
palace of the Tzar, the little father of all good Russians. And then he
left his horse and cart and waited on the steps of the palace.
The Tzar, the little father, with rings on his fingers and a gold crown on
his head, came out on the steps in the morning sunshine; and as for the
old merchant, he fell on his knees and kissed the feet of the Tzar, and
begged,--
"O little father, Tzar, give me leave to take water--just a little drop of
water--from your holy well."
"And what will you do with it?" says the Tzar.
"I will wake my daughter from a bitter dream," says the old merchant.
"She was murdered by her sisters--killed in the deep forest--for the sake
of a silver saucer, for the sake of a transparent apple."
"A silver saucer?" says the Tzar--"a transparent apple? Tell me about
that."
And the old merchant told the Tzar everything, just as I have told it to
you.
And the Tzar, the little father, he gave the old merchant a glass of water
from his holy well. "But," says he, "when your daughterkin wakes,
bring her to me, and her sisters with her, and also the silver saucer and
the transparent apple."
The old man kissed the ground before the Tzar, and took the glass of
water and drove home with it, and I can tell you he was careful not to
spill a drop. He carried it all the way in one hand as he drove.
He came to the forest and to the flowering mound under the little birch

tree, and there was the shepherd watching with his dogs. The old
merchant and the shepherd took away the blanket of black earth.
Tenderly, tenderly the shepherd used his fingers, until the little girl, the
pretty one, the good one, lay there as sweet as if she were not dead.
Then the merchant scattered the holy water from the glass over the little
girl. And his daughterkin blushed as she lay there, and opened her eyes,
and passed a hand across them, as if she were waking from a dream.
And then she leapt up, crying and laughing, and clung about her old
father's neck. And there they stood, the two of them, laughing and
crying with joy. And the shepherd could not take his eyes from her, and
in his eyes, too, there were tears.
But the old father did not forget what he had promised the Tzar. He set
the little pretty one, who had been so good that her wicked sisters had
called her Stupid, to sit beside him on the cart. And he brought
something from the house in a coffer of wood, and kept it under his
coat. And they brought out the two sisters, the bad ones, from their dark
prison, and set them in the cart. And the Little Stupid kissed them and
cried over them, and wanted to loose