of foreign birth build them for
thee as well as their wisdom teaches them. But if thou wilt order, I
will build them simply--one, two! and the ship is ready. My ships will
be the result of the quick headwork of a peasant simpleton. But where
a foreign ship sails a year, mine will sail an hour, and where others
take ten years, mine will take not longer than a week."

"Well, well!" laughed the Tsar. "And thy trade, the fourth Simeon?" he
asked.

The fourth brother bowed.

"My trade needs no wisdom either. If my brother will build thee a
ship, I then will sail that ship; and if an enemy gives chase or a
tempest rises, I'll seize the ship by the black prow and plunge her
into the deep waters where there is eternal quiet; and after the storm
is over or the enemy far, I'll again guide her to the surface of the
wide sea."

"Good!" approved the Tsar. "And thou, fifth Simeon, what dost thou
know? Hast thou also a trade?"

"My trade, Tsar Archidei Aggeivitch, is not a fair one, for I am a
blacksmith. If thou wouldst order a shop built for me, I at once would
forge a self-shooting gun, and no eagle far above in the sky or wild
beast in the wood would be safe from that gun."

"Not bad either," answered the Tsar Archidei, well pleased. "Thy turn
now, sixth Simeon."

"My trade is no trade," answered the sixth Simeon, rather humbly. "If
my brother shoots a bird or a beast, never mind what or where, I can
catch it before it falls down, catch it even better than a hunting
dog. If the prey should fall into the blue sea, I'll find it at the
sea's bottom; should it fall into the depth of the dark woods, I'll
find it there in the midst of night; should it get caught in a cloud,
I'll find it even there."

The Tsar Archidei evidently liked the trade of the sixth Simeon very
well also. These were all simple trades, you see, without any wisdom
whatever, but rather entertaining. The Tsar also liked the peasants'
speech, and he said to them:

"Thanks, my peasants, tillers of the soil, my faithful workers. Your
father's words are true ones: 'A trade is not a burden, but a profit.'
Now come to my capital for a trial; people like you are welcome. And
when the season for harvest arrives, the time to reap, to bind in
bundles the golden grain, to thresh and carry the wheat to the market,
I will let you go home with my royal grace."

Then all the seven Simeons bowed very low. "Thine is the will," said
they, "and we are thy obedient subject