ought to have starved there. But I am afraid some silly, greedy fellow
thought to get a new wheel for nothing, and pulled the wedges out and
let him go; for, by all I hear, Misery is still wandering about the
world and making people wretched--bad luck to him!




A CHAPTER OF FISH.


Sometimes in spring, when the big river flooded its banks and made
lakes of the meadows, and the little rivers flowed deep, old Peter
spent a few days netting fish. Also in summer he set night-lines in
the little river not far from where it left the forest. And so it
happened that one day he sat in the warm sunshine outside his hut,
mending his nets and making floats for them; not cork floats like
ours, but little rolls of the silver bark of the birch tree.

And while he sat there Vanya and Maroosia watched him, and sometimes
even helped, holding a piece of the net between them, while old Peter
fastened on the little glistening rolls of bark that were to keep it
up in the water. And all the time old Peter worked he smoked, and told
them stories about fish.

First he told them what happened when the first pike was born, and how
it is that all the little fish are not eaten by the great pike with
his huge greedy mouth and his sharp teeth.

* * * * *