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At last, towards evening, old Peter packed what was left of the hay into the cart, and packed Vanya and Maroosia in with the hay. Everybody said good-byes all round, and Peter climbed in and took up the rope reins.

“He’ll be a fine man,” he shouted through the door to Nastasia, “a fine man; and God grant he’ll be as healthy as he is good.–Till we meet again,” he cried out merrily to the villagers; and Vanya and Maroosia waved their hands, and off they drove, back again to the hut in the forest.

They were very much quieter on the way back than they had been when they drove to the village in the morning. And the early summer day was quiet as it came to its end. There was a corncrake rattling in the fields, and more than once they saw frogs hop out of the road as they drove by in the twilight. A hare ran before them through the dusk and disappeared. And when they came to the wooden bridge over the stream, a tall gray bird with a long beak rose up from the bank and flew slowly away, carrying his long legs, like a thin pair of crutches, straight out behind him.

“Who is that?” asked Vanya sleepily from his nest in the hay.

“That is Mr. Crane,” said old Peter. “Perhaps he is on his way to visit Miss Heron and tell her that this time he has really made up his mind, and to ask her to let bygones be bygones.”

“What bygones?” said Vanya.

Old Peter watched the crane’s slow, steady flight above the low marshy ground on either side of the stream, and then he said,–

“Why, surely you know all about that. It is an old story, little one, and I must have told it you a dozen times.”

“No, never, grandfather,” said Maroosia. She was nearly as sleepy as Vanya after the day in the village, and the fuss and pleasure of the christening.

“Oh, well,” said old Peter; and he told the tale of Mr. Crane and Miss Heron as the cart bumped slowly along the rough road, while Vanya and Maroosia looked out with sleepy eyes from their nest of hay and listened, and the sky turned green, and the trees grew dim, and the frogs croaked in the ditches.

* * * * *

Mr. Crane and Miss Heron lived in a marsh five miles across from end to end. They lived there, and fed on the frogs which they caught in their long bills, and held up in the air for a moment, and then swallowed, standing on one leg. The marsh was always damp, and there were always plenty of frogs, and life went well for them, except that they saw very little company. They had no one to pass the time of day with. For Mr. Crane had built his little hut on one side of the marsh, and Miss Heron had built hers on the other.

So it came into the head of Mr. Crane that it was dull work living alone. If only I were married, he thought, there would be two of us to drink our tea beside the samovar at night, and I should not spend my evenings in melancholy, thinking only of frogs. I will go to see Miss Heron, and I will offer to marry her.

So off he flew to the other side of the marsh, flap, flap, with his legs hanging out behind, just as we saw him to-night. He came to the other side of the marsh, and flew down to the hut of Miss Heron. He tapped on the door with his long beak.

“Is Miss Heron at home?”

“At home,” said Miss Heron.

“Will you marry me?” said Mr. Crane.

“Of course I won’t,” said Miss Heron; “your legs are long and ill-shaped, and your coat is short, and you fly awkwardly, and you are not even rich. You would have no dainties to feed me with. Off with you, long-bodied one, and don’t come bothering me.”