and when he opened
his big sheepskin coat, they tumbled into it together and clung to his
belt. Then he closed the big woolly coat over the top of them and they
squealed; and he opened it a little way and looked down at them over
his beard, and then closed it again for a moment before letting them
out. He did this every night, and Bayan always barked when they were
shut up inside.

Then old Peter took his big coat off and lifted down the samovar from
the shelf. The samovar is like a big tea-urn, with a red-hot fire in
the middle of it keeping the water boiling. It hums like a bee on the
tea-table, and the steam rises in a little jet from a tiny hole in the
top. The boiling water comes out of a tap at the bottom. Old Peter
threw in the lighted sticks and charcoal, and made a draught to draw
the heat, and then set the samovar on the table with the little fire
crackling in its inside. Then he cut some big lumps of black bread.
Then he took a great saucepan full of soup, that was simmering on the
stove, and emptied it into a big wooden bowl. Then he went to the wall
where, on three nails, hung three wooden spoons, deep like ladles.
There were one big spoon, for old Peter; and two little spoons, one
for Vanya and one for Maroosia.

And all the time that old Peter was getting supper ready he was
answering questions and making jokes--old ones, of course, that he
made every day--about how plump the children were, and how fat was
better to eat than butter, and what the Man in the Moon said when he
fell out, and what the wolf said who caught his own tail and ate
himself up before he found out his mistake.

And Vanya and Maroosia danced about the hut and chuckled.

Then they had supper, all three dipping their wooden spoons in the big
bowl together, and eating a tremendous lot of black bread. And, of
course, there were scraps for Vladimir and a bone for Bayan.

After that they had tea with sugar but no milk, because they were
Russians and liked it that way.

Then came the stories. Old Peter made another glass of tea for
himself, not for the children. His throat was old, he said, and took a
lot of keeping wet; and they were young, and would not sleep if they
drank tea too near bedtime. Then he threw a log of wood into the
stove. Then he lit a short little pipe, full of very strong tobacco,
called Mahorka, which has a smell like hot tin. And he puffed, and the
smoke got in his eyes, and he wiped them with the back of his big