The hare came up, slowly, two steps at a time, trembling with fright.
"Now then, you squinting rascal," says the bear, "do you know where the fox lives, over there?"
"I know, Michael Ivanovitch."
"Get along there quickly, and tell her that Michael Ivanovitch the bear and his brother Levon Ivanovitch the wolf have been ready for a long time, and have brought presents of a sheep and an ox, as greetings to his Excellency ..."
"His Excellency, mind," says the wolf; "don"t forget."
The hare ran off as hard as he could go, glad to have escaped so easily. Meanwhile the wolf and the bear looked about for good places in which to hide.
"It will be best to climb trees," says the bear. "I shall go up to the top of this fir."
"But what am I to do?" says the wolf. "I can"t climb a tree for the life of me. Brother Michael, Brother Michael, hide me somewhere or other before you climb up. I beg you, hide me, or I shall certainly be killed."
"Crouch down under these bushes," says the bear, "and I will cover you with the dead leaves."
"May you be rewarded," says the wolf; and he crouched down under the bushes, and the bear covered him up with dead leaves, so that only the tip of his nose could be seen.
Then the bear climbed slowly up into the fir tree, into the very top, and looked out to see if the fox and Cat Ivanovitch were coming.
They were coming; oh yes, they were coming! The hare ran up and knocked on the door, and said to the fox,--
"Michael Ivanovitch the bear and his brother Levon Ivanovitch the wolf have been ready for a long time, and have brought presents of a sheep and an ox as greetings to his Excellency."
"Get along, Squinteye," says the fox; "we are just coming."
And so the fox and the cat set out together.
The bear, up in the top of the tree, saw them, and called down to the wolf,--
"They are coming, Brother Levon; they are coming, the fox and her husband. But what a little one he is, to be sure!"
"Quiet, quiet," whispers the wolf. "He"ll hear you, and then we are done for."
The cat came up, and arched his back and set all his furs on end, and threw himself on the ox, and began tearing the meat with his teeth and claws. And as he tore he purred. And the bear listened, and heard the purring of the cat, and it seemed to him that the cat was angrily muttering, "Small, small, small...."
And the bear whispers: "He"s no giant, but what a glutton! Why, we couldn"t get through a quarter of that, and he finds it not enough.
Heaven help us if he comes after us!"
The wolf tried to see, but could not, because his head, all but his nose, was covered with the dry leaves. Little by little he moved his head, so as to clear the leaves away from in front of his eyes. Try as he would to be quiet, the leaves rustled, so little, ever so little, but enough to be heard by the one ear of the cat.
The cat stopped tearing the meat and listened.
"I haven"t caught a mouse to-day," he thought.
Once more the leaves rustled.
The cat leapt through the air and dropped with all four paws, and his claws out, on the nose of the wolf. How the wolf yelped! The leaves flew like dust, and the wolf leapt up and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.
Well, the wolf was frightened, I can tell you, but he was not so frightened as the cat.
When the great wolf leapt up out of the leaves, the cat screamed and ran up the nearest tree, and that was the tree where Michael Ivanovitch the bear was hiding in the topmost branches.
"Oh, he has seen me. Cat Ivanovitch has seen me," thought the bear. He had no time to climb down, and the cat was coming up in long leaps.
The bear trusted to Providence, and jumped from the top of the tree.
Many were the branches he broke as he fell; many were the bones he broke when he crashed to the ground. He picked himself up and stumbled off, groaning.
The pretty young fox sat still, and cried out, "Run, run, Brother Levon!... Quicker on your pins, Brother Michael! His Excellency is behind you; his Excellency is close behind!"
Ever since then all the wild beasts have been afraid of the cat, and the cat and the fox live merrily together, and eat fresh meat all the year round, which the other animals kill for them and leave a little way off.
And that is what happened to the old tom-cat with one eye, who was sewn up in a bag and thrown away in the forest.
"Just think what would happen to our handsome Vladimir if we were to throw him away!" said Vanya.
SPRING IN THE FOREST.
Warmer the sun shone, and warmer yet. The pines were green now. All the snow had melted off them, drip, drip, the falling drops of water making tiny wells in the snow under the trees. And the snow under the trees was melting too. Much had gone, and now there were only patches of snow in the forest--like sc.r.a.ps of a big white blanket, shrinking every day.
"Isn"t it lucky our blankets don"t shrink like that?" said Maroosia.
Old Peter laughed.
"What do you do when the warm weather comes?" he asked. "Do you still wear sheepskin coats? Do you still roll up at night under the rugs?"
"No," said Maroosia; "I throw the rugs off, and put my fluffy coat away till next winter."
"Well," said old Peter, "and G.o.d, the Father of us all, He does for the earth just what you do for yourself; but He does it better. For the blankets He gives the earth in winter get smaller and smaller as the warm weather comes, little by little, day by day."
"And then a hard frost comes, grandfather," said Ivan.
"G.o.d knows all about that, little one," said old Peter, "and it"s for the best. It"s good to have a nip or two in the spring, to make you feel alive. Perhaps it"s His way of telling the earth to wake up. For the whole earth is only His little one after all."
That night, when it was story-time, Ivan and Maroosia consulted together; and when old Peter asked what the story was to be, they were ready with an answer.
"The snow is all melting away," said Ivan.
"The summer is coming," said Maroosia.
"We"d like the tale of the little snow girl," said Ivan.
""The Little Daughter of the Snow,"" said Maroosia.