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“And what about you, boasting one? You know nothing but how to gad about and lick your own face. We’ll soon see which of us he’ll take.”

And the two girls went on wrangling and wrangling till they began to freeze in good earnest.

Suddenly they cried out together,–

“Devil take these bridegrooms for being so long in coming! You have turned blue all over.”

And together they replied, shivering,–

“No bluer than yourself, tooth-chatterer.”

And Frost, not so far away, crackled and laughed, and leapt from fir tree to fir tree, crackling as he came.

The girls heard that some one was coming through the forest.

“Listen! there’s some one coming. Yes, and with bells on his sledge!”

“Shut up, you slut! I can’t hear, and the frost is taking the skin off me.”

They began blowing on their fingers.

And Frost came nearer and nearer, crackling, laughing, talking to himself, just as he is doing to-day. Nearer and nearer he came, leaping from tree-top to tree-top, till at last he leapt into the great fir under which the two girls were sitting and quarrelling.

He leant down, looking through the branches, and asked,–

“Are you warm, maidens? Are you warm, little red cheeks? Are you warm, little pigeons?”

“Ugh, Frost, the cold is hurting us. We are frozen. We are waiting for our bridegrooms, but the cursed fellows have not turned up.”

Frost came a little lower in the tree, and crackled louder and swifter.

“Are you warm, maidens? Are you warm, my little red cheeks?”

“Go to the devil!” they cried out. “Are you blind? Our hands and feet are frozen!”

Frost came still lower in the branches, and cracked and crackled louder than ever.

“Are you warm, maidens?” he asked.

“Into the pit with you, with all the fiends,” the girls screamed at him, “you ugly, wretched fellow!”… And as they were cursing at him their bad words died on their lips, for the two girls, the cross children of the cruel stepmother, were frozen stiff where they sat.

Frost hung from the lowest branches of the tree, swaying and crackling while he looked at the anger frozen on their faces. Then he climbed swiftly up again, and crackling and cracking, chuckling to himself, he went off, leaping from fir tree to fir tree, this way and that through the white, frozen forest.

In the morning the old woman says to her husband,–

“Now then, old man, harness the mare to the sledge, and put new hay in the sledge to be warm for my little ones, and lay fresh rushes on the hay to be soft for them; and take warm rugs with you, for maybe they will be cold, even in their furs. And look sharp about it, and don’t keep them waiting. The frost is hard this morning, and it was harder in the night.”

The old man had not time to eat even a mouthful of black bread before she had driven him out into the snow. He put hay and rushes and soft blankets in the sledge, and harnessed the mare, and went off to the forest. He came to the great fir, and found the two girls sitting under it dead, with their anger still to be seen on their frozen, ugly faces.

He picked them up, first one and then the other, and put them in the rushes and the warm hay, covered them with the blankets, and drove home.

The old woman saw him coming, far away, over the shining snow. She ran to meet him, and shouted out,–

“Where are the little ones?”

“In the sledge.”

She snatched off the blankets and pulled aside the rushes, and found the bodies of her two cross daughters.

Instantly she flew at the old man in a storm of rage. “What have you done to my children, my little red cherries, my little pigeons? I will kill you with the oven fork! I will break your head with the poker!”

The old man listened till she was out of breath and could not say another word. That, my dears, is the only wise thing to do when a woman is in a scolding rage. And as soon as she had no breath left with which to answer him, he said,–

“My little daughter got riches for soft words, but yours were always rough of the tongue. And it’s not my fault, anyhow, for you yourself sent them into the forest.”

Well, at last the old woman got her breath again, and scolded away till she was tired out. But in the end she made her peace with the old man, and they lived together as quietly as could be expected.

As for Martha, Fedor Ivanovitch sought her in marriage, as he had meant to do all along–yes, and married her; and pretty she looked in the furs that Frost had given her. I was at the feast, and drank beer and mead with the rest. And she had the prettiest children that ever were seen–yes, and the best behaved. For if ever they thought of being naughty, the old grandfather told them the story of crackling Frost, and how kind words won kindness, and cross words cold treatment. And now, listen to Frost. Hear how he crackles away! And mind, if ever he asks you if you are warm, be as polite to him as you can. And to do that, the best way is to be good always, like little Martha. Then it comes easy.

* * * * *

The children listened, and laughed quietly, because they knew they were good. Away in the forest they heard Frost, and thought of him crackling and leaping from one tree to another. And just then they came home. It was dusk, for dusk comes early in winter, and a little way through the trees before them they saw the lamp of their hut glittering on the snow. The big dog barked and ran forward, and the children with him. The soup was warm on the stove, and in a few minutes they were sitting at the table, Vanya, Maroosia, and old Peter, blowing at their steaming spoons.