By this time the Bear lost sight of the Cat, which had reached the threshing-floor under cover of the grass, and was creeping about in the straw in search of mice. Full of curiosity, the Boar stuck his head out a little way to see what was going on; when the Cat, mistaking his snout for a mouse, sprang forward and buried her claws in it. At this the Boar gave a fearful grunt, and rushed frantically into a neighboring stream, while the Bear, who, from the uproar, concluded that the Cat had killed the Boar and would seize him next, tumbled headlong from the pear-tree in terror, and breaking his neck by the fall, perished miserably. So Master Reinecke got all the grain and the straw into the bargain. "I am glad he got it all," said the little boy. "It wasn't fair of Petz and the Boar to serve Reinecke that way." "Master Reinecke is generally able to look out for himself," said the grandmother. CHAPTER V FROST-BITTEN TOES There was a great shouting and hurrahing in the court, for the moujiks had found the sheep and were driving them home. The little boy ran out to see them come in. They were trembling with cold and looked very weak, for they had had nothing to eat for two days. They had been buried under the snow, and it had taken all that time to find them. They were glad to go into their pen, and the little boy was glad when his father gave him a pail with food in it and let him help the moujiks feed them. The cow-herd woman came to watch. "You should not have come out in bare feet," she said to the little boy. "Where are your bachmaki?" "Your feet are bare," replied the little boy. "I am old and am used to it," said the cow-herd woman. "You will freeze your toes." When the sheep were all fed the little boy's toes began to ache, and he ran into the house. "Keep away from the fire," said his eldest sister, who was weaving at the loom in the corner. "If you go near the fire your toes will sting." The little boy's toes were stinging already, and he began to cry. "Run away to grandmother," said the eldest sister. "She will warm your toes with her hands." The grandmother heard the little boy crying and she came to the door to see what was the matter, for it makes a grandmother's heart ache to hear a child's cries. When she saw the bare toes, white with cold, she gathered the little boy up in her arms and carried him to her room. There she sat down, far away from the fire, took the cold feet in her hands and rubbed them to make them warm. Then the little boy stopped crying. "They are warm now," he said. "But I don't want to get down. It is nice in your lap." "You may sit here while I tell you a story," said the grandmother. "Then you must get down, for I haven't finished my stint of spinning." "I will," said the little boy; and the grandmother told him the story of THE MAN, THE HARE, THE FOX, AND THE BEAR