Masha set down her pail and undid the rags. When she had opened the bundle, there came forth a cry from out the rags, ua! ua! ua!
Masha bent over and saw that it was a pretty little baby. He was crying lustily, ua! ua! ua! Masha took him up in her arms and carried him into the house, and tried to give him some milk with a spoon.
The mother said:—
"What have you brought in?"
Masha said:—
"A baby; I found it at our door."
The mother said:—
"We are so poor, how can we get food for another child? I am going to the police and tell them to take it away."
Masha wept, and said:—
"Matushka, he will not eat much; do keep him! Just see what pretty little dimpled hands and fingers he has."
The mother looked, and she had compassion on the child. She decided to keep him. Masha fed him and swaddled him, and she sang cradle songs to him when she put him to sleep.
CHAPTER IV
THE PEASANT AND THE CUCUMBERS
Once upon a time a peasant went to steal some cucumbers of a gardener. He crept down among the cucumbers, and said to himself:—
"Let me just get away with a bag of cucumbers; then I will sell them. With the money I will buy me a hen. The hen will lay some eggs, and will hatch them out, and I shall have a lot of chickens. I will feed up the chickens, and sell them, and buy a shoat—a nice little pig. In time she will farrow, and I shall have a litter of pigs. I will sell the little pigs and buy a mare; the mare will foal, and I shall have a colt. I will raise the
