"What for?" said Maroosia.
"To eat up little Russian children," said old Peter, "when she can get them. She usually only eats bad ones, because the good ones get away.
She is bony all over, and her eyes flash, and she drives about in a mortar, beating it with a pestle, and sweeping up her tracks with a besom, so that you cannot tell which way she has gone."
"And her hut?" said Vanya. He had often heard about it before, but he wanted to hear about it again.
"She lives in a little hut which stands on hen"s legs. Sometimes it faces the forest, sometimes it faces the path, and sometimes it walks solemnly about. But in some of the stories she lives in another kind of hut, with a railing of tall sticks, and a skull on each stick. And all night long fire glows in the skulls and fades as the dawn rises."
"Now tell us one of the Baba Yaga stories," said Maroosia.
"Please," said Vanya.
"I will tell you how one little girl got away from her, and then, if ever she catches you, you will know exactly what to do."
And old Peter put down his pipe and began:--
BABA YAGA AND THE LITTLE GIRL WITH THE KIND HEART.
Once upon a time there was a widowed old man who lived alone in a hut with his little daughter. Very merry they were together, and they used to smile at each other over a table just piled with bread and jam.
Everything went well, until the old man took it into his head to marry again.
Yes, the old man became foolish in the years of his old age, and he took another wife. And so the poor little girl had a stepmother. And after that everything changed. There was no more bread and jam on the table, and no more playing bo-peep, first this side of the samovar and then that, as she sat with her father at tea. It was worse than that, for she never did sit at tea. The stepmother said that everything that went wrong was the little girl"s fault. And the old man believed his new wife, and so there were no more kind words for his little daughter. Day after day the stepmother used to say that the little girl was too naughty to sit at table. And then she would throw her a crust and tell her to get out of the hut and go and eat it somewhere else.
And the poor little girl used to go away by herself into the shed in the yard, and wet the dry crust with her tears, and eat it all alone.
Ah me! she often wept for the old days, and she often wept at the thought of the days that were to come.
Mostly she wept because she was all alone, until one day she found a little friend in the shed. She was hunched up in a corner of the shed, eating her crust and crying bitterly, when she heard a little noise.
It was like this: scratch--scratch. It was just that, a little gray mouse who lived in a hole.
Out he came, his little pointed nose and his long whiskers, his little round ears and his bright eyes. Out came his little humpy body and his long tail. And then he sat up on his hind legs, and curled his tail twice round himself and looked at the little girl.
The little girl, who had a kind heart, forgot all her sorrows, and took a sc.r.a.p of her crust and threw it to the little mouse. The mouseykin nibbled and nibbled, and there, it was gone, and he was looking for another. She gave him another bit, and presently that was gone, and another and another, until there was no crust left for the little girl. Well, she didn"t mind that. You see, she was so happy seeing the little mouse nibbling and nibbling.
When the crust was done the mouseykin looks up at her with his little bright eyes, and "Thank you," he says, in a little squeaky voice.
"Thank you," he says; "you are a kind little girl, and I am only a mouse, and I"ve eaten all your crust. But there is one thing I can do for you, and that is to tell you to take care. The old woman in the hut (and that was the cruel stepmother) is own sister to Baba Yaga, the bony-legged, the witch. So if ever she sends you on a message to your aunt, you come and tell me. For Baba Yaga would eat you soon enough with her iron teeth if you did not know what to do."
"Oh, thank you," said the little girl; and just then she heard the stepmother calling to her to come in and clean up the tea things, and tidy the house, and brush out the floor, and clean everybody"s boots.
So off she had to go.
When she went in she had a good look at her stepmother, and sure enough she had a long nose, and she was as bony as a fish with all the flesh picked off, and the little girl thought of Baba Yaga and shivered, though she did not feel so bad when she remembered the mouseykin out there in the shed in the yard.
The very next morning it happened. The old man went off to pay a visit to some friends of his in the next village, just as I go off sometimes to see old Fedor, G.o.d be with him. And as soon as the old man was out of sight the wicked stepmother called the little girl.
"You are to go to-day to your dear little aunt in the forest," says she, "and ask her for a needle and thread to mend a shirt."
"But here is a needle and thread," says the little girl.
"Hold your tongue," says the stepmother, and she gnashes her teeth, and they make a noise like clattering tongs. "Hold your tongue," she says. "Didn"t I tell you you are to go to-day to your dear little aunt to ask for a needle and thread to mend a shirt?"
"How shall I find her?" says the little girl, nearly ready to cry, for she knew that her aunt was Baba Yaga, the bony-legged, the witch.
The stepmother took hold of the little girl"s nose and pinched it.
"That is your nose," she says. "Can you feel it?"
"Yes," says the poor little girl.
"You must go along the road into the forest till you come to a fallen tree; then you must turn to your left, and then follow your nose and you will find her," says the stepmother. "Now, be off with you, lazy one. Here is some food for you to eat by the way." She gave the little girl a bundle wrapped up in a towel.
The little girl wanted to go into the shed to tell the mouseykin she was going to Baba Yaga, and to ask what she should do. But she looked back, and there was the stepmother at the door watching her. So she had to go straight on.
She walked along the road through the forest till she came to the fallen tree. Then she turned to the left. Her nose was still hurting where the stepmother had pinched it, so she knew she had to go straight ahead. She was just setting out when she heard a little noise under the fallen tree. "Scratch--scratch."
And out jumped the little mouse, and sat up in the road in front of her.
"O mouseykin, mouseykin," says the little girl, "my stepmother has sent me to her sister. And that is Baba Yaga, the bony-legged, the witch, and I do not know what to do."
"It will not be difficult," says the little mouse, "because of your kind heart. Take all the things you find in the road, and do with them what you like. Then you will escape from Baba Yaga, and everything will be well."
"Are you hungry, mouseykin?" said the little girl
"I could nibble, I think," says the little mouse.
The little girl unfastened the towel, and there was nothing in it but stones. That was what the stepmother had given the little girl to eat by the way.
"Oh, I"m so sorry," says the little girl. "There"s nothing for you to eat."
"Isn"t there?" said mouseykin, and as she looked at them the little girl saw the stones turn to bread and jam. The little girl sat down on the fallen tree, and the little mouse sat beside her, and they ate bread and jam until they were not hungry any more.
"Keep the towel," says the little mouse; "I think it will be useful.
And remember what I said about the things you find on the way. And now good-bye," says he.
"Good-bye," says the little girl, and runs along.
As she was running along she found a nice new handkerchief lying in the road. She picked it up and took it with her. Then she found a little bottle of oil. She picked it up and took it with her. Then she found some sc.r.a.ps of meat.
[Ill.u.s.tration: There she was, beating with the pestle and sweeping With the besom.]
"Perhaps I"d better take them too," she said; and she took them.
Then she found a gay blue ribbon, and she took that. Then she found a little loaf of good bread, and she took that too.
"I daresay somebody will like it," she said.