The Child's Story

"A Russian Tale"

Peter was an old man who worked in his field like any other peasant... but he was not as clever as he ought to have been. In truth, Peter was, in people's opinion, very dull-witted; but in any case he had an opinion of himself quite different from people's opinions of him!... In his own eyes he was one of the cleverest peasants in the fields of the village, and he counted himself among the most skillful hunters in that region... nay, more than that... he counted himself among the cleverest and most skillful people in all Russia!... And Russia, as you can see on the map, is a very vast country!

Everyone treated Peter gently and kindly, because Peter would do his utmost to lend people a hand whenever they needed help.

One summer's day, the clouds gathered suddenly in the sky, and

rain came down in a strange, unaccustomed fashion... The river in Peter's village overflowed and flooded all the farms and fields. People were forced to live on the roofs of their houses and to go about in boats... and they waited for a famine that threatened their lives.

One day at noon, Peter was searching among the people for a boat to go out in and hunt rabbits... He had great difficulty convincing people of what he had resolved to do, for they laughed at him, since all the rabbits had fled.

At last Peter found the boat, and found its oar inside it; and he saw hundreds of rabbits perched on trees floating on the face of the water, having fled from the floodwaters that had drowned their burrows.

Peter thought long as he eyed the flocks of terrified rabbits, and said to himself: By heaven, this is a fine chance to prove my cleverness to the people... Come along, Peter... come along, clever fellow!

Peter drew his boat up close to the rabbits and stretched out a wide plank for them, and the rabbits walked along it, one after another, into the belly of the boat — where there was safety and peace and deliverance from death by drowning!

Peter was delighted at the success of his idea and began talking to himself: Come, you people, and see how clever and quick-witted I am... come, you dunces, and see how many rabbits I have caught in a single stroke, inspired by my own cleverness. They will all call down blessings on me when they