A certain housewife had a young servant-lad who devoured everything eatable that came in his way. He would rummage in the storeroom until he smelled out something good, and would give himself no rest until he had devoured it all.

Now the woman had a jar of preserved fruit, and, as she feared that the youngster would eat it and leave her nothing to put into her pies, she said to him:

“My good boy, you have now eaten everything that I have except this jam, and you have left this just as if you knew that it was poisoned. See how good God is to have preserved you from it. One single spoonful is enough to kill one instantly; so I warn you not to touch it unless you want to die.”

“Very well,” answered the boy.

On the next Sunday, as the woman was getting ready to go to Mass, she said to the boy, “Cook the soup and boil the meat and roast this duck; we will have a good dinner to-day. See that you have all done and ready when I come home.”

“Very well; it shall all be done,” answered the boy.

When the woman was gone he cooked the soup and boiled the meat, and then he put the duck upon the spit to roast. When he saw what a delicious brown crisp was forming all over the duck, he thought, “It can roast itself another one,” and ate the crisp all off. He turned the spit and turned it, but the second brown crisp never came.

When he saw this, he thought, “When the mistress comes home she will pepper me well,” and he began to consider how he could escape a beating. In his desperation he remembered the jar of poison against which his mistress had warned him the day before. With a sudden resolution he went into the storeroom and devoured the whole jarful of preserved fruit and then crouched down in a corner to wait for death.

Presently his mistress came home and cried out angrily, “What have you done to this duck?” She was about to belabor him well, when he cried, “Ah, leave me in peace, dear mistress! I shall die in a minute anyway, for I have eaten up all the poison!”

At this the woman broke out into a laugh and could not refuse to forgive him. The duck and the preserves, however, were gone all the same.

“That was a greedy boy, grandmother,” said the little boy. “Am I greedy because I ate too much at sister’s wedding-feast?”

“That was only grandmother’s little joke. It is not greedy to eat too much at a feast. Every one does,” said the grandmother.

A wedding-feast lasts three days, as every one in Russia knows, and during all that time there was eating and drinking going on in the little boy’s house, with much singing and many games, some of them pretty loud and boisterous. The second evening, when the fun had become pretty noisy, the little boy went to his grandmother for a story. She told him about

Once upon a time there was a woman to whom it was revealed in a dream that she must fast one day in every week, for if she neglected to do so she would give birth to something other than human. The woman obeyed the behest, but one day she forgot to fast, and not long after she gave birth to a wonderfully beautiful and fragrant bush which in this world is called basil.

The woman watched and tended the bush, and the fame of it spread through the whole world, even to a distant country, where the son of an emperor heard of it and at once set out to see it.

When he beheld the basil-plant he felt an extraordinary love for it, and he begged the mother either to present it to him or else to sell it at a high price. But she would not hear a word of it, but sent him away, saying, “It is not to be bought, even for one-half of your father’s kingdom.”

Now the Prince’s servant, who overheard this, whispered to his master to say no more, and he would steal the plant for him. So said and so done. The servant managed somehow to steal the plant, and brought it to the Prince. The Prince, delighted to find his dearest wish gratified, richly rewarded the servant and locked the bush safely in a room.

Some days after the Prince invited a great company to a feast, intending to take this opportunity to exhibit the basil-plant. The feast was ready, and the servants hastened to announce it to the company; but when they went back there lay all the meats and pastries scattered in the dirt of the kitchen floor!

When they saw this they hastened to tell the Prince, and as he saw no way of getting over the difficulty, nothing was left for him but to excuse himself to the guests for that day and invite them to return upon the morrow.

The next day, when all was ready and the servants went to announce it, some one came again and threw all the food about the kitchen and broke all the dishes. The servants wondered at this no less than the Emperor’s son himself, and the Prince ordered that a feast should again be prepared upon the third day and that some one should keep watch through the keyhole to discover the mischief-maker.

When the meal was ready every one left the room and peeped through the keyhole to catch the culprit. Behold, what did they see? A golden-haired maiden!

The attendants flew back into the kitchen, held the little culprit fast, and called to the Emperor’s son. As soon as he beheld the maiden he was beside himself with surprise and joy, and he asked her how she had come into the kitchen.

At first she was terrified, but at last she confessed to him secretly that she was the basil-plant which he watched and tended so carefully, and which shed such sweet perfume in his room; that she thought the feast was in honor of his wedding, and this had made her unhappy, for she had hoped that he would marry her and not another maiden.

When the Prince heard these words and saw that the maiden was beautiful beyond all comparison, he was most happy, and assured the maiden that he would marry her as soon as she had embraced the Christian faith. She declared herself ready to do this without delay.

In the meantime, however, the Prince’s time of service in the army arrived, and he was so much needed that he could by no means be permitted to absent himself. He therefore called his beloved to him before his departure and said to her:

“I must go to the army. With a bleeding heart I part from you; but, I pray you, change yourself again into a basil-plant and remain so until my return. Show yourself to no one, whoever it may be, who enters this room. And on my return, if God wills, I will ring this little bell, and then do you again take on your present form.”

When he had once again kissed her she changed herself into a basil-plant, and he rode away. But two maidens who loved the Prince, and who of late had found themselves neglected and forgotten, soon learned the cause of their sorrow—namely, that the Prince had chosen another maiden. Therefore they agreed to force their way into the Prince’s room and search for some token of her.

When they were there they found nothing except his clothes and the basil-plant, and in it they saw nothing remarkable. They rummaged all around the room, trying to find some clew to the whereabouts of the maiden, and one of them in her restlessness took the little bell in her hand and rang it. The sorrowing golden-haired maiden, believing that it was the Prince who rang the bell, immediately changed herself back into human shape and suddenly appeared between the two.

At first they were all alike embarrassed, but the two trespassers soon perceived that they had found what they sought, and they seized the poor little creature, killed her, and carried her body into the mountains. In the evening the servant who had charge of bringing the maiden her supper found no basil-plant there, but in its place a horrible pool of blood. In a moment he saw the great danger of his position, and fearing the wrath of the Emperor’s son when he should return home, he fled away with all speed.

But to return to the maiden. An old woman who was going along among the mountains found the headless body and the head lying near, and, feeling compassion for the young creature, she gathered certain herbs with which she called the maiden back to life. When the poor child again awoke to life and found herself in the depths of the mountains, she fell upon the old woman’s neck and promised that she would never abandon her.

But the old woman answered, “My dear little daughter, go, in God’s name, wherever you like! I, a poor old worn-out woman, can hardly support myself, to say nothing of you. But you are young and strong, and, with God’s help, will get on nicely.”

But the maiden answered her, “Neither now nor ever, so long as God lives in heaven! You have called me back to life, and it is my debt and duty to love you till death. We shall surely make our way in the world. I will sell my golden hair, and will buy food for you; and when my hair is all sold I will gather herbs in the mountains and feed you.”

At last the old woman consented, and a few days later the maiden cut off a lock of her golden hair and sent the old woman with it to market, bidding her not to sell it for less than a hundred ducats. The old woman went straight to the very city where the Prince lived, for he had returned from camp and had ordered the whole city to go into mourning because of his lost love.

Fortunately the old woman met the Prince and asked him if he would like to buy a lock of golden hair. The moment the Prince saw the lock he was beside himself with surprise, for he perceived at once that it was his beloved’s hair. So he seized hold of the old woman and asked her how she came by it The old woman, terrified, confessed the whole.

Upon this he quickly mounted his horse, placed the old woman upon another, and they rode to the village where the old woman lived. When they arrived they found the maiden bathed in tears, bewailing her lost lover. He rushed to her, they kissed and embraced, and then went home, taking the old woman with them.

When the Emperor’s son had heard the details of the whole story he commanded the two maidens to be put to death. Then he married his own love. The old woman he honored as his own mother, and when she died he gave her an imperial funeral.

“That is a beautiful story, grandmother,” said the little boy, “although there is not a Dragon nor a Fox nor a Mouse in it. There is a plant, though. I wish one of the plants in our field would turn into a golden-haired maiden—a very little one, big enough to play with me.”

“Wait till the little baby in your brother’s house grows bigger,” said the grandmother. “It will not be long.”