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 dinner instead. And I’ve brought the magic wand, too, so it will be easy enough to plant a vineyard that will produce ripe grapes by tomorrow morning.”

They ate together and after dinner Ludmila took the wand and struck the earth. At once a vineyard appeared and, as they watched, the vines blossomed and the blooms turned to grapes.

It was harder than before for Raduz to let Ludmila go, for he wanted to keep on talking to her forever, but she remembered that Yezibaba was waiting for her and she hurried away.

The next morning when Raduz presented a basket of ripe grapes, old Yezibaba could scarcely believe her eyes. She sniffed the grapes suspiciously and then very grudgingly acknowledged that he had accomplished his second task.

“What am I to do today?” Raduz asked.

Yezibaba led him to a third window and told him to look out and tell her what he saw.

“I see a great rocky cliff.”

“Right,” she said. “Go now to that cliff and grind me flour out of the rocks and from the flour bake me bread. Tomorrow morning bring me the fresh loaves. Today you shall have no tools of any kind. Go now and do this task or suffer the consequences.”