Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/295

Rh And Opanas would have another drink there. First thing you knew he would turn home without having been anywhere else at all.

Yes, he was a good peasant, but fate had ordained him always to fall between the two taverns. And yet he was a merry fellow and was always singing songs. That is man's nature. When he has drunk up everything he possesses and knows that an angry wife is waiting for him at home, he will make up a song and think he has got rid of his troubles. And so it was with Opanas. He was lying in his wagon singing so loudly that even the frogs jumped into the water as he drove up, and this was his song:

"Oi, what is that devilish brute standing right in the middle of the dam for, keeping my oxen from crossing? If I wasn't too tired to get out of the cart, I'd show him how to plant himself there in the middle of the road. Gee, gee, gee-up!"

"Stop a minute, my good man!" said the devil very sweetly. "I want to have a minute's talk with you."

"A minute's talk? All right then, talk away, only