Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/163

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was once an angry wife, who—as my young readers may well suppose—lived unhappily with her husband. She never obeyed him, and always did exactly what he told her not to do. She made him get up early to bake the cakes and do all the cooking, while she slept three times as long as was good for her!

One day, when her husband was busy baking cakes, she cried out,—

"You must not eat any of those cakes, for you don't deserve to have them!"

"In that case, I don't see why I should bake them," was his reply; "come and do them yourself."

But the angry wife was by no means anxious to give herself the trouble, so she replied quickly that he could have fifty, on condition that he would eat them up at once, without stopping. However, the old man did not quite see why he should make himself ill to please his wife; so having a will of his own he left the cakes to look after themselves, and went for a stroll in the forest, and gathered some strawberries for his lunch; anything was better than eating at home with his angry wife!

As he walked about thinking how he could get rid of his wife, he came upon a pit covered over with strawberry leaves. He stopped in front of it, and said to himself,—