Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/161

Rh "I am always with you."

"But I am a poor man. When I come home, I shall make myself a coffin and die; so you had better find somebody else."

"No; if you die, I shall die also."

The poor brother thought this very extraordinary; so as soon as he came home he set to work and made himself a coffin, thinking all the time that if he buried Want he might become rich. So when the coffin was quite ready, he said,—

"Want! I say, Want! get into the coffin, for I am about to die, and you said you would die with me."

He waited a little, and then asked,—

"Want, are you in?"

"Yes, I am," replied Want.

So the poor fellow took the coffin to the cemetery and buried it. From that time he grew to be a rich man.

When his brother got to hear of this, he came to him, and asked,—

"How came you to be so rich all at once, brother?"

The other told him the whole story. How he had made the coffin and got Want to get into it, and also how he had buried him in the cemetery.

His brother, full of envy, went to the burial-ground, dug up the coffin, and called out,—

"Want, Want! are you there?"

"Y—e—s, near—ly de—ad," piped out Want.

"Come with me then, to my brother," said he. "He is now a rich man, maybe he will do something for you." L