He went out with a round knife, but the bobtailed devil had been there before him and had so mixed up the rye that he could not cut it with the round knife. Iván went back, took the sickle, and began to cut it; he cut all the rye. "Now I must go to the oats," he said. The bobtailed devil heard it, and thought: "I could not cope with him on the rye, but I will get the better of him in the oats,--just let the morning come." The devil ran in the morning to the oats-field, but the oats were all cut down. Iván had cut them in the night, to keep them from dropping the seed. The devil grew angry: "The fool has cut me all up, and has worn me out. I have not seen such trouble even in war-time. The accursed one does not sleep,--I cannot keep up with him. I will go now to the ricks, and will rot them all." And the devil went to the rye-rick, climbed between the sheaves, and began to rot them: he warmed them up, and himself grew warm and fell asleep. Iván hitched his mare, and went with the girl to haul away the ricks. He drove up to one and began to throw the sheaves into the cart. He had just put two sheaves in when he stuck his fork straight into the devil's back; he raised it, and, behold, on the prongs was a live devil, and a bobtailed one at that, and he was writhing and twisting, and trying to get off. "I declare," he said, "it is a nasty thing! Are you here again?" "I am a different devil," he said. "My brother was here before. I was with your brother Semén." "I do not care who you are," he replied, "you will catch it, too." He wanted to strike him against the ground, but the devil began to beg him: "Let me go, and I will not do it again, and I will do for you anything you please." "What can you do?" "I can make soldiers for you from anything." "What good are they?" "You can turn them to any use you please: they will do anything." "Can they play music?" "They can." "All right, make them for me!" And the devil said: "Take a sheaf of rye, strike the lower end against the ground, and say: 'By my master's command not a sheaf shall you stand, but as many straws as there are so many soldiers there be.'" Iván took the sheaf, shook it against the ground, and spoke as the devil told him to. And the sheaf fell to pieces, and the straws were changed into soldiers, and in front a drummer was drumming, and a trumpeter blowing the trumpet. Iván laughed. "I declare," he said, "it is clever. This is nice to amuse the girls with." "Let me go now," said the devil. "No," he said, "I will do that with threshed straw, and I will not let full ears waste for nothing. I will thresh them first." So the devil said: "Say, 'As many soldiers, so many straws there be! With my master's command again a sheaf it shall stand.'" Iván said this, and the sheaf was as before. And the devil begged him again: "Let me go now!"