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Updated: June 27, 2025
Much had gone, and now there were only patches of snow in the forest like scraps 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?"
"It means that Prince Ivan and the Sun's little sister have gone to sleep over their games and forgotten to put their toys away." This is the story which old Peter used to tell whenever either Vanya or Maroosia was cross. This did not often happen; but it would be no use to pretend that it never happened at all.
Sometimes it was Vanya who scolded Maroosia, and sometimes it was Maroosia who scolded Vanya. Sometimes there were two scoldings going on at once. And old Peter did not like crossness in the hut, whoever did the scolding. He said it spoilt his tobacco and put a sour taste in the tea.
And Vanya and Maroosia ate sunflower seeds too, and sometimes played outside the cottage and sometimes inside; but mostly stood very quiet close to the swinging cradle, waiting till old Babka Tanya, the nurse, should pull the shawls a little way aside and let them see the pink, crumpled face of the little Nikolai, and the yellow fluff, just like a duckling's, which covered his bumpy pink head.
And she has never yet learnt how it was that he knew what she did in the hut while he was away in the forest. "Yes," said Maroosia, "but then she was a bad woman; and besides, my husband would never call me an old witch." "Old witch!" said Vanya, and bolted out of the hut with Maroosia after him; and so old Peter was left in peace.
"Not to-night, grandfather," said Vanya. "We'd like that tale when the snow melts," said Maroosia. "To-night we'd like a story we've never heard before," said Vanya. "Well, well," said old Peter, combing his great gray beard with his fingers, and looking out at them with twinkling eyes from under his big bushy eyebrows.
Before, perhaps, it made them feel a little frightened. "Well, little pigeons, little hawks, little bear cubs, what is it to be?" said old Peter. "We don't know," said Maroosia. "Long hair, short sense, little she-pigeon," said old Peter. "All this time and not thought of a story? Would you like the tale of the little Snow Girl who was not loved so much as a hen?"
"Come, wife," says the poor brother as he trudged along, "let us sing a song like the others." "What a fool you are!" says his wife. Hungry and cross she was, as even Maroosia would be after a day like that watching other people stuff themselves. "What a fool you are!" says she. "People may very well sing when they have eaten tasty dishes and drunk good wine.
"Wouldn't that be lovely!" said Maroosia. Vanya thought for a minute, and then he said, "I'd love her much more than a hen." Once upon a time, very long ago, there was a little Prince Ivan who was dumb. Never a word had he spoken from the day that he was born not so much as a "Yes" or a "No," or a "Please" or a "Thank you." A great sorrow he was to his father because he could not speak.
Presently Vanya and Maroosia were tucked into the hay, and old Peter climbed in with the plaited reins, and away they went along the narrow forest track, where the wheels followed the ruts and splashed through the deep holes; for the spring was young, and the roads had not yet dried.
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