Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/266

250 well. But one thing the young blacksmith would not do, and that was to regard the devil with the same respect with which his father had treated it before him. When he went into the smithy in the morning he never by any chance greeted the devil, and instead of saying a kind word or two, he would take up a large iron hammer, and give the unfortunate devil three blows on the forehead, and then go on with his work.

Three years went by, during which he continually treated the evil-spirit to the hammer. The devil bore all this very patiently for some time, but at last he could stand it no longer.

"I have had enough of this!" thought the devil. "I can stand these insults no more. I will be artful, and pay him out somehow or another!"

So the devil changed himself into a young man, and entered the smithy.

"Good-day, uncle!" the devil said.

"Good-day, young fellow; what do you want?"

"I have come to ask you whether you would take me for an apprentice. I can, at any rate, carry the coals for you, and blow the bellows, to commence with!"

The blacksmith was delighted.

"Yes; why not?" he cried. "It will be more amusing to have some one else with me!"

So the devil began to learn and help the blacksmith, and in about a month's time he knew everything much better than the master himself. What the blacksmith could not do, the devil did for him; and very soon he won the affections of the blacksmith,