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Updated: June 27, 2025
Sitting in the hut you could hear the crashing again and again out in the forest, as the tired branches flung down their loads of snow. Yes, and now and then there was the howling of wolves far away. Little Maroosia heard them, and thought of them out there in the dark as they galloped over the snow.
But there was never a cross word between them, and they went to bed singing like nightingales. "Is that the end?" Maroosia always asked. "Is that all?" asked Vanya, though he knew it was not. "Not quite," said old Peter; "but the tale won't go any quicker than my old tongue." In the morning the old woman had forgotten about her promise.
"He'd have found it very dull in Novgorod, even though it is a big town." The children, in their little sheepskin coats and high felt boots and fur hats, trudged along the forest path in the snow. Vanya went first, then Maroosia, and then old Peter. The ground was white and the snow was hard and crisp, and all over the forest could be heard the crackling of the frost.
"Perhaps it is a little calf," said Maroosia. "I know what it is," said Vanya. "Well?" "It's a foal. It's brown all over with white on its nose, and a lot of white hairs in its tail." "No." "What is it then, grandfather?" "I'll tell you, little pigeons. It's small and red, and it's got a bumpy head with hair on it like the fluff of a duckling.
And he puffed, and the smoke got in his eyes, and he wiped them with the back of his big hand. All the time he was doing this Vanya and Maroosia were snuggling together close by the stove, thinking what story they would ask for, and listening to the crashing of the snow as it fell from the trees outside. Now that old Peter was at home, the noise made them feel comfortable and warm.
As soon as he came within sight of his hut he saw his wife, and she was waving her arms and shouting. "Stir your old bones," she screamed out. "It's as fine a loaf as ever I've seen." And he hurried along, and found his old wife cutting up a huge loaf of white bread, mind you, not black a huge loaf of white bread, nearly as big as Maroosia.
And once, when Vanya asked him why the sun was hot, and his sister Maroosia went on and on asking if the sun was a fire, who lit it? and if it was burning, why didn't it burn out? old Peter grumbled that he would not answer any more. For a moment the two children were quiet, and then Maroosia asked one more question. Old Peter looked up from the net he was mending.
Vanya and Maroosia had jumped up to welcome him, and when he opened his big sheepskin coat, they tumbled into it together and clung to his belt. Then he closed the big woolly coat over the top of them and they squealed; and he opened it a little way and looked down at them over his beard, and then closed it again for a moment before letting them out.
He put the tip of his finger into the little box of salt on the table, and then he touched his tongue with his finger to taste. "But of course there is a story about salt," said old Peter. "Tell it us," said Maroosia; and presently, when his pipe had been lit twice and gone out, old Peter began.
"No," said Maroosia; "I throw the rugs off, and put my fluffy coat away till next winter." "Well," said old Peter, "and God, 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."
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