OH

A COSSACK FAIRY TALE.

HE olden times were not like the times we live in. In the olden times all manner of evil powers walked abroad. The world itself was not then as it is now: now

there are no such evil powers among us. I'll tell you a tale of Oh, the King of the Forest, that you may know what manner of being he was.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, beyond the times that we can call to mind, ere yet our great-grandfathers or their grandfathers had been born into the world, there lived a poor man and his wife, and they had one only son, who was not as an only son ought to be to his old father and mother. So idle and lazy was that only son that heaven help him! He would do nothing, he would not even fetch water from the well, but lay on the stove all day long and rolled among the warm cinders. Although he was now twenty years old, he would sit on the stove without any trousers on, and nothing would make him come down. If they gave him anything to eat, he ate it; and if they didn't give him anything to eat, he did without. His father and mother fretted sorely because of him, and said:

"What are we to do with thee, O son? for thou art

good for nothing. Other people's children are a stay and a support to their parents, but thou art but a fool and doth consume our bread for nought."

But it was of no use at all. He would do nothing but sit on the stove and play with the cinders. So his father and his mother grieved over him for many a long day, and at last his mother said to his father:

"What is to be done with our son? Thou dost see that he has grown up and yet is of no use to us, and he is so foolish that we can do nothing with him. Look now, if we can send him away, let us send him away; if we can hire him out let us hire him out; perchance other folks may be able to do more with him than we can."

So his father and mother laid their heads together, and sent him to a tailor's to learn tailoring. There he remained three days, but then he ran away home, climbed up on the stove, and again began playing with the cinders. His father then gave him a sound drubbing and sent him to a cobbler's to learn cobbling, but again he ran away home. His father gave him another drubbing and sent him to a blacksmith to learn smith's work. But there, too, he did not remain long but ran away home again, so what was that poor father to do?

"I'll tell thee what I'll do with thee, thou son of a dog!" said he; "I'll take thee, thou lazy lout, into another kingdom. There, perchance, they will be able to teach thee better than they can here, and it will be too far to run away from."

So he took him and set out on his journey.

They went on and on, they went a short way and they went a long way, and at last they came to a forest so dark that they could see neither earth nor sky. They went through this forest, but in a short time they grew very tired, and when they came to a path leading to a clearing full of large tree-stumps, the father said:

"I am so tired out that I will rest here a little," and with that he sat down on a tree-stump and cried :

He had no sooner said these words than out of the tree-stump, nobody could say how, sprang such a little little old man, all so wrinkled and puckered, and his beard was quite green and reached right down to his knee.

"What dost thou want of me, O man?" he asked. The man was amazed at the strangeness of his coming to light, and said to him:

"I did not call thee; begone!"

"How canst thou say that when thou didst call me?" asked the little old man.

“Who art thou, then?" asked the father.

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"I am Oh, the King of the Woods," replied the old man; "why didst thou call me, I say?"

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Away with thee, I did not call thee," said the man. "What! thou didst not call me when thou saidst "Oh'?"

"I was tired, and therefore I said 'Oh!'" replied the man.

"Whither art thou going?" asked Oh.

"The wide world lies before me," sighed the man. "I am taking this scurvy blockhead of mine to hire