"Who would have believed it! Here's a pity! I was wondering why my old woman didn't take care of me. Now because I wronged her so terribly I must take her back a red fez and a bag of butter to remind her of our youth. Evidently I took them out yesterday with my pipe. But my poor, good old wife, difficult though she is, knew all I should want on the journey, only she did not put them in their right place. But the woman tried to understand all her husband wanted! Mistress Malca! Mistress Malca!" "What is it, Mosh Nichifor?" "Do you know that I have found the axe, and the rope and the gimlet and everything I want." "Where, Mosh Nichifor?" "Why, under your bundles. Only they had no mouths with which to tell me. We have made a mistake: we have been like some one sitting on hidden treasure and asking for alms. But it's good that we have found them now. It shows my poor old woman did put them in." "Mosh Nichifor, you are feeling remorse in your heart." "Well, yes, young lady. I see I am at fault. I must sing a song of penitence: Poor old wife of mine! Be she kind or be she harsh, Still her home is mine." And so saying old Nichifor rolled up his sleeves, cut a beech stick, and made a wonderful axle-pin. Then he set it in position, put the wheel in place, harnessed the mares, quietly took the road and said: "In you get, young lady, and let's start." As the mares were refreshed and well rested they were at Peatra by middle day. "There you will see your home, Mistress Malca." "Thank God, Mosh Nichifor, that I came to no harm in the forest." "The fact is, young lady, there's no doubt about it, there's no place like home." And while they were talking they reached the door of Itzic's house. Itzic had only just come back from the school, and when he saw Malca he was beside himself with joy. But when he heard all about the adventures they had met with and how the Almighty had delivered them from danger he did not know how to thank old Nichifor enough. What did he not give him! He himself marvelled at all that was given him. The next day old Nichifor went back with other customers. And when he reached home he was so gay that his old woman wondered what he had been doing, for he was more drunk than he had been for a long time. From now on Malca came every two or three weeks to visit her parents-in-law in Neamtzu: she would only let old Nichifor take her back home, and she was never again afraid of wolves.