announcement, once, twice, and once more. Finally he made the sign of
the cross and went to the palace. He said to the servants:

"Open the window and let me listen to the birds."

The servants obeyed and Ivan listened for a while. Then he said:

"Show me to your sovereign king."

When he reached the room where the king sat on a high, rich chair, he
bowed and said:

"There are three crows, a father crow, a mother crow, and a son crow.
The trouble is that they desire to obtain thy royal decision as to
whether the son crow must follow his father crow or his mother crow."

The king answered: "The son crow must follow the father crow."

As soon as the king announced his royal decision the crow father with
the crow son went one way and the crow mother disappeared the other
way, and no one has heard the noisy birds since. The king gave
one-half of his kingdom and his youngest korolevna to Ivan, and a
happy life began for him.

In the meantime his father, the rich merchant, lost his wife and by
and by his fortune also. There was no one left to take care of him,
and the old man went begging under the windows of charitable people.
He went from one window to another, from one village to another, from
one town to another, and one bright day he came to the palace where
Ivan lived, begging humbly for charity. Ivan saw him and recognized