SADKO.


In Novgorod in the old days there was a young man--just a boy he
was--the son of a rich merchant who had lost all his money and died.
So Sadko was very poor. He had not a kopeck in the world, except what
the people gave him when he played his dulcimer for their dancing. He
had blue eyes and curling hair, and he was strong, and would have been
merry; but it is dull work playing for other folk to dance, and Sadko
dared not dance with any young girl, for he had no money to marry on,
and he did not want to be chased away as a beggar. And the young women
of Novgorod, they never looked at the handsome Sadko. No; they smiled
with their bright eyes at the young men who danced with them, and if
they ever spoke to Sadko, it was just to tell him sharply to keep the
music going or to play faster.

So Sadko lived alone with his dulcimer, and made do with half a loaf
when he could not get a whole, and with crust when he had no crumb. He
did not mind so very much what came to him, so long as he could play
his dulcimer and walk along the banks of the little[1] river Volkhov
that flows by Novgorod, or on the shores of the lake, making music for
himself, and seeing the pale mists rise over the water, and dawn or
sunset across the shining river.

"There is no girl in all Novgorod as pretty as my little river," he
used to say, and night after night he would sit by the banks of the
river or on the shores of the lake, playing the dulcimer and singing
to himself.

Sometimes he helped the fishermen on the lake, and they would give him