here isn't a chink I can't get into!"

"Get along with you!" answered the merchant. "Why you
couldn't creep into that wheel there, and yet you talk about
chinks!"

"I can't creep into that wheel? See if I don't go clean out
of sight in it!"

Woe slipped into the wheel; the merchant caught up the
oaken wedge, and drove it into the axle-box from the other
side. Then he seized the wheel and flung it, with Woe in it,
into the river. Woe was drowned, and the merchant began to
live again as he had been wont to do of old.

In a variant of this story found in the Tula Government we have, in
the place of woe, _Nuzhda_, or Need. The poor brother and his wife are
returning home disconsolately from a party given by the rich brother
in honor of his son's marriage. But a draught of water which they take
by the way gets into their heads, and they set up a song.

"There are two of them singing (says the story), but three voices
prolong the strain.

"'Whoever is that?' say they.

"'Thy Need,' answers some one or other.

"'What, my good mother Need!'

"So saying the man laid hold of her, and took her down from his
shoulders--for she was sitting on them. And he found a horse's head
and put her inside it, and flung it into a swamp. And afterwards he
began to lead a new life--impossible to live more prosperously."

Of course the rich brother becomes envious and takes Need out of the
swamp, whereupon she clings to him so tightly that he cannot get rid
of her, and he becomes utterly ruined.[235]

In another story, from the Viatka Government, the poor man is invited
to a house-warming at his rich brother's, but he has no present to
take with him.

"We might borrow, but who would trust us?" says he.

"Why there's Need!" replies his wife with a bitter laugh. "Perhaps
she'll make us a present. Surely we've lived on friendly terms with
her for an age!"

"Take the feast-day sarafan,"[236] cries Need from behind the stove;
"and with the money you get for it buy a ham and take it to your
brother's."

"Have you been living here long, Need?" asks the moujik.

"Yes, ever since you and your brother separated."

"And have you been comfortable here?"

"Thanks be to God, I get on tolerably!"

The moujik follows the advice of Need, but meets with a cold reception
at his brother's. On returning sadly home he finds a horse standing by
the road side, with a couple of bags slung across its back. He strikes
it with h