Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/164

148 "Because I live with so bad-tempered a wife my whole life is a misery. I can stand it no longer, but will try by some means or other to shut her up in this pit; it will teach her to behave better in future."

So he returned home, and told his wife,—

"Don't go into the forest for strawberries."

"I certainly shall, if I choose."

"Well, you had better not, for I have found a place where there are some beautiful large strawberries, but under them is a pit."

"I shall go at once and pick the strawberries off that very spot, and shan't give you one of them. There, now! take me and show me the place this moment, come!"

Ofif they both went to the forest; the man showed the place to his wife and asked her again not to go near it, knowing all the time that the harder he begged, the more certain she was to go. When the angry wife beheld all the delicious strawberries round the pit, she jumped for joy, and rushing in among the leaves over the pit she went to the bottom.

The old man, when he saw that his wife was safely disposed of, for the present at least, went home, and for some time lived in peace and harmony with himself. One day it struck him that he might go and look his wife up in the pit, and ask her how she liked her new home, and whether it agreed with her better, adding that if she had improved in her temper he would draw her up again by a rope.

When he got to the pit he began calling to his wife, but receiving no answer, he thought he would