Thus the youth took the maiden home amid song and chime of bells, and there he treated everybody royally to meat and drink, until finally they took their homeward way. But he stayed there with his young wife, and God knows what fortunes they met with in life that are all forgotten now. "I am sorry you have forgotten anything, grandmother," said the little boy. "It is not dark yet, and I wanted a longer story." "It is not I who forgot," answered the grandmother. "I remember every word as it was told to me." "It must have been your great-grandmother," observed the little boy. "I wish she had had a better memory." "I will tell you a short story to make up," said the grandmother. "It explains why there is so much knot-grass." "I should like to know that," said one of the sisters. "My fingers are tired rooting it out." So the grandmother told about THE KNOT-GRASS Once upon a time an old hag got up early and went out among the mountains to gather all sorts of green herbs and practise her sorceries. About midday she set out upon her return, and met some Knot-grass hastening to the mountains. "Hi! whither away?" asked the witch. "What bad luck sends you on this rough road?" "Upon my word, little mother, I can't stand it down there any longer! Wherever the moujik digs or ploughs he does his best to root me out, tearing and clawing me with all his might. There is nothing left for me but to flee away and seek some quiet place where I can grow and spread in peace." "Go back to your home, little grass," replied the old hag. "Mark my words, the more they dig and hoe about a plant the better it thrives and the more it spreads. What does the proverb say? 'Woe to the thing that never is harvested!'" The Knot-grass turned about, and ever since that day it has been found in meadow and field, in vineyard and garden--everywhere, indeed, where it is not wanted; and it is a hard matter to root it out. CHAPTER XXI THRESHING-TIME It was the joyous threshing-time. The summer's work was over. The harvest had been good, and from all the fields the high-piled carts were bringing the sheaves to the threshing-floors. On these high levels busy flails were flying, making a quick music that chimed well with the sweet, melancholy threshing-song of the girls who were gathering the wind-swept grain into bags. When the threshing was all done the little boy's eldest sister would be married, for autumn is the time for marriages, when vegetables and pork are plenty and there is money to buy brandy from the Jew. The grandmother had gone out with the little boy to see the threshing and to hear the threshing-song. She had sung that same song in her young days, and so had her great-grandmother before her. On the way back to the house a cow-herd woman met them--not their own, but that of a neighbor--and told them that her old master, the bolshak, or head of the family, was dead. The grandmother looked terror-stricken, and hastily exclaimed: