went home looking as if he had swallowed a needle. "How can my little frog-wife make a shirt?" he thought—"she who only creeps on the floor and croaks!" And his bright head hung down lower than his shoulders.
When she saw him, however, the frog spoke. "Kwa! Kwa! Tzarevich Ivan, why art thou so downcast? Hast thou heard from the Tzar thy father a hard, unpleasant word?"
"How can I fail to be downcast?" answered Ivan. "The Tzar, my father, has ordered that thou shouldst sew a shirt out of this linen for him to-morrow."
"Worry not," said the frog, "and have no fear. Go to bed and rest. There is more wisdom in the morning than in the evening!"
When Tzarevich Ivan had laid himself down to sleep, she called servants and bade them cut the linen he had brought into small pieces. Then dismissing them, she took the pieces in her mouth, hopped to the window and threw them out, saying: "Winds! Winds! Fly abroad with these linen shreds and sew me a shirt for the Tzar, my father-in-law!" And before one could tell it, back into the room flew a shirt all stitched and finished.
Next morning when Tzarevich Ivan awoke, the
