Ivan heard all they had to say, and told them to employ him as a shepherd, taking turns in doing so.
The old devil saw no other way out of the difficulty and was obliged to submit.
It soon came the old devil’s turn to go to Ivan’s house. He went there to dinner and found Ivan’s dumb sister preparing the meal. She was often cheated by the lazy people, who while they did not work, yet ate up all the gruel. But she learned to know the lazy people from the condition of their hands. Those with great welts on their hands she invited first to the table, and those having smooth white hands had to take what was left.
The old devil took a seat at the table, but the dumb girl, taking his hands, looked at them, and seeing them white and clean, and with long nails, swore at him and put him from the table.
Ivan’s wife said to the old devil: “You must excuse my sister-in-law; she will not allow any one to sit at the table whose hands have not been hardened by toil, so you will have to wait until the dinner is over and then you can have what is left.
With it you must be satisfied.”
The old devil was very much offended that he was made to eat with “pigs,” as he expressed it, and complained to Ivan, saying: “The foolish law you have in your kingdom, that all persons must work, is surely the invention of fools. People who work for a living are not always forced to labor with their hands. Do you think wise men labor so?”
Ivan replied: “Well, what do fools know about it? We all work with our hands.”
“And for that reason you are fools,” replied the devil. “I can teach you how to use your brains, and you will find such labor more beneficial.”
Ivan was surprised at hearing this, and said:
“Well, it is perhaps not without good reason that we are called fools.”
“It is not so easy to work with the brain,” the old devil said. “You will not give me anything to eat because my hands have not the appearance of being toil-hardened, but you must understand that it is much harder to do brain-work, and sometimes the head feels like bursting with the effort it is forced to make.”
“Then why do you not select some light work that you can perform with your hands?” Ivan asked.
The devil said: “I torment myself with brain-work because I have pity for you fools, for, if I did not torture myself, people like you would remain fools for all eternity. I have exercised my brain a great deal during my life, and now I am able to teach you.”
Ivan was greatly surprised and said: “Very well; teach us, so that when our hands are tired we can use our heads to replace them.”
The devil promised to instruct the people, and Ivan announced the fact throughout his kingdom.
The devil was willing to teach all those who came to him how to use the head instead of the hands, so as to produce more with the former than with the latter.
In Ivan’s kingdom there was a high tower, which was reached by a long, narrow ladder leading up to the balcony, and Ivan told the old devil that from the top of the tower every one could see him.
So the old devil went up to the balcony and addressed the people.
The fools came in great crowds to hear what the old devil had to say, thinking that he really meant to tell them how to work with the head. But the old devil only told them in words what to do, and did not give them any practical instruction. He said that men working only with their hands could not make a living. The fools did not understand what he said to them and looked at him in amazement, and then deParted for their daily work.
The old devil addressed them for two days from the balcony, and at the end of that time, feeling hungry, he asked the people to bring him some bread. But they only laughed at him and told him if he could work better with his head than with his hands he could also find bread for himself. He addressed the people for yet another day, and they went to hear him from curiosity, but soon left him to return to their work.
Ivan asked, “Well, did the nobleman work with his head?”
“Not yet,” they said; “so far he has only talked.”
One day, while the old devil was standing on the balcony, he became weak, and, falling down, hurt his head against a pole.
Seeing this, one of the fools ran to Ivan’s wife and said, “The gentleman has at last commenced to work with his head.”
She ran to the field to tell Ivan, who was much surprised, and said, “Let us go and see him.”
He turned his horses’ heads in the direction of the tower, where the old devil remained weak from hunger and was still suspended from the pole, with his body swaying back and forth and his head striking the lower Part of the pole each time it came in contact with it. While Ivan was looking, the old devil started down the steps head-first — as they supposed, to count them.
“Well,” said Ivan, “he told the truth after all — that sometimes from this kind of work the head bursts. This is far worse than welts on the hands.”
The old devil fell to the ground head-foremost. Ivan approached him, but at that instant the ground opened and the devil disappeared, leaving only a hole to show where he had gone.
Ivan scratched his head and said: “See here; such nastiness! This is yet another devil. He looks like the father of the little ones.”
Ivan still lives, and people flock to his kingdom. His brothers come to him and he feeds them.
To every one who comes to him and says, “Give us food,” he replies: “Very well; you are welcome. We have plenty of everything.”
There is only one unchangeable custom observed in Ivan’s kingdom: The man with toil-hardened hands is always given a seat at the table, while the possessor of soft white hands must be contented with what is left.
How The Little Devil Earned The Crust Of Bread Or Promoting The Devil
How The Little Devil Earned The Crust Of Bread
Translated by N. and A. C. Fifield 1910
A poor peasant went out to plough his field one morning, before breakfast, taking with him a crust of bread. He tipped the plough over took out the bar, and laid it under a bush with the crust, and spread his coat over all. Presently the peasant got hungry, and the horse was tired. So he stuck the plough into the ground, unharnessed the horse and let her loose to graze, and went to the bush to have a bite and rest awhile. He lifted the coat: the crust had gone! He looked and looked, rummaged in the coat, shook it still no crust ! The peasant wondered. “ That’s strange,” he said; “ 1 saw no one, yet someone must have taken the bread.”
It was a little Devil who had taken the crust while the peasant was ploughing, and he now sat behind the bush to listen how the peasant would swear and call on his the devil’s name.
The peasant was sorry.
“ Oh, well,” he said; “ I shan’t die of hunger ! I suppose whoever took it was in need of it. Let him eat it, and may it give him health!”
And the peasant went to the well, drank some water, rested, caught the horse, harnessed her, and set to work again.
The little devil was disappointed that he had not led the peasant into sin, and he went to tell it to the big devil.
He came to the big devil and told how he had stolen the bread, and how the peasant instead of swearing, had wished him good health.
The big devil was very angry.
If the peasant has had the best of you in this matter,”
he said, “ it’s your own fault : you were a fool about it. If the peasants and then their women get into that sort of habit, we shall have nothing left to live by. The matter can’t be left like this ! Go to that peasant again, and earn your crust. If in three years you haven’t got the better of the peasant, I’ll throw you into holy water ! “
The little devil was frightened, and ran out on to the earth thinking how to redeem his error. He thought and thought, and at last found it.
He turned himself into a workman and hired himself out to the poor peasant. The following year was a dry summer, and the little devil told the peasant to sow his corn en marshy ground. All the other peasants’ corn was burned up by the sun; but the poor peasant’s corn grew tall and thick and full-eared. The peasant lived on it till the next harvest and still had a lot left. Next summer the little devil told the peasant to sow his corn on the moun-tain. The summer was a rainy one : all the corn was beaten down, and rotted, and the grains died, but the peasant’s crops on the mountain side were splendid.
He had still more extra corn now, and didn’t know what to do with it.
And
