A Hedgehog met Master Reinecke in a field, and said to him, “Hello, Master! Whither away?”

“Oh, I’m just loafing around!” answered the Fox.

“Tell me, now,” said Reinecke after a while to the Hedgehog, “how manifold is your understanding?”

“Threefold,” answered the Hedgehog.

“Why, how is that?” asked the Fox.

“Why, you see, I have one sense above, one below, and the third everywhere,” replied the Hedgehog; and added, “And how manifold is your understanding?”

“Oh, mine is seventy-sevenfold,” answered the Fox.

“Well, well!” said the Hedgehog.

Thereupon they walked along through the fields, and so eagerly were they talking that they gave no heed to the way, and presently stumbled into a Wolf’s den. Then was good counsel precious! How should they ever get out of this scrape?

Said Reinecke to the Hedgehog, “Come now, search around in your head-piece for a means of getting out of this pickle.”

“I should have done that before,” answered the Hedgehog, “but I was afraid that by and by you would curse me. How shall I, a little Hedgehog, with only a threefold understanding, devise anything better than you, who have a seventy-sevenfold understanding?”

However, after talking back and forth a long time, the Hedgehog made this suggestion, “Say, Reinecke, just seize me by the ear and throw me up out of the den, because I am the smaller.”

“Yes, but how shall I get out?”

“Oh, just stick up your tail and I will pull you out!”

So Reinecke seized the Hedgehog by the ear and tossed him up out of the den. Then he called upon him to keep his word. “Hello there, Gossip, now pull me out!”

“Do you know what,” answered the Hedgehog, “I’ll tell you something. I have only a threefold understanding, and yet I found a way of helping myself. Now do you help yourself with your seventy-sevenfold understanding.”

By this time a moujik came along, and finding the Fox in the den he made short work with him. But the Hedgehog crept away through the thicket with his threefold understanding, while Reinecke, with all his seventy-sevenfold understanding, was carried off by the moujik.

“Reinecke was too proud of himself,” said the little boy.

“It is a great sin to be proud,” observed the grandmother. “The pop said so on Sunday in church.”

There was a pause. Then the little boy said coaxingly:

“You are tired yet, little grandmother!”

“It was a short story,” replied the grandmother, patting the little boy on the shoulder, “and grandmother is a little tired still. She will tell you the story of

Once upon a time, Reinecke, the Fox, met Gockeling, the Cock, and said to him, “Come, show me how your hens cackle!”

The Cock, quite willing, stretched out his neck and began to crow, when in a trice Reinecke pounced upon him and seized him by the throat.

“O Reinecke!” cried the Cock, “first give thanks to God, who has sent you so good a meal!”

And Reinecke fell into the Cock’s trap, for he stood upon his hind legs and began to give thanks. Quick as thought the Cock flew up into the nearest tree, and cried to Reinecke:

“Well, cousin, how does my fresh meat taste?”

“That was very clever of the Cock,” said the little boy. “But, grandmother, I don’t think that Fox belonged to our mir, for he was not at all clever. He must have belonged to your mother’s mother’s mir.”

“You are perfectly right,” replied the grandmother. “That is a story from her mir. And as it is a very short story, I shall tell you just one more.”

So the grandmother told the story of

Once upon a time a little old woman, who was walking in the forest, climbed up into a wild-cherry tree to gather cherries. Now a Bear espied her, and he came under the tree and cried, “Come down, old woman, that I may eat you!”

“Go along with you!” answered the old woman. “Why should you eat a scrawny old woman like me? Here, gnaw upon my shoe till I come down, and I will take you to my house; I have two little children there, named Janko and Mirko; they will make you a right savory dish. So have patience till you get them.”

So said the little old woman and threw down one of her shoes. Master Petz gnawed and gnawed upon it, but the more he gnawed the hungrier he grew. Greatly enraged, he screamed up to the old woman:

“Come down, you old wench, and let me eat you!”

“Just wait a little longer, till the old wench has gathered enough cherries,” she answered. “Here, gnaw this other shoe awhile; she’ll soon come down and show you the way to her house.” So saying, she threw down the other shoe.

When Petz found that the second shoe was no juicier than the first he made no further effort, but contented himself with thinking of the fat little children at the old woman’s house. When she had gathered cherries enough, down she came and went home, the Bear tramping along behind her.

When they reached the house the old woman said, “I’ll tell you what, first let me give the children a good supper, that they may be all the fatter; and meanwhile do you run about till evening to get up a better appetite.”

So Petz went away and ran about in the woods all the rest of the day, and at evening he came back to the hut.

“Here I am, little mother!” he cried; “now bring out Janko and Mirko, and see me polish them off. I am starving to death!”

“Oho!” answered the little old woman from within, “Janko has made the door fast with bolts, and I have just put Mirko to sleep. I couldn’t think of waking him. And little mother is so old and weak that she can’t unbolt the door alone. Come some other day.”

Then Master Petz perceived that he had been fooled, and he walked reluctantly away, with drooping snout and an empty stomach.

“I’m glad he didn’t get Janko and Mirko,” said the little boy.