morning I started to reel that yarn. I reeled
and reeled and the spool remained full. One skein, two skeins, three
skeins, and still the spool was full. 'What evil spirit has spun
that?' I cried out impatiently, and instantly the yarn disappeared
from the spindle as if blown away. Tell me, what does it mean?"

So Betushka confessed and told her mother all she knew about the
beautiful maiden.

"Oh," cried her mother in amazement, "that was a wood maiden! At noon
and midnight the wood maidens dance. It is well you are not a little
boy or she might have danced you to death! But they are often kind to
little girls and sometimes make them rich presents. Why didn't you
tell me? If I hadn't grumbled, I could have had yarn enough to fill
the house!"

Betushka thought of the little basket and wondered if there might be
something under the leaves. She took out the spindle and unspun flax
and looked in once more.

"Mother!" she cried. "Come here and see!"

Her mother looked and clapped her hands. The birch leaves were all
turned to gold!

Betushka reproached herself bitterly: "She told me not to look inside
until I got home, but I didn't obey."

"It's lucky you didn't empty the whole basket," her mother said.

The next morning she herself went to look for the handful of leaves
that Betushka had thrown away. She found them still lying in the road
but they were only birch leaves.

But the riches which Betushka brought home were enough. Her mother
bought a farm with fields and cattle. Betushka had pretty clothes and
no longer had to pasture goats.

But no matter what she did, no matter how cheerful and happy she was,
still nothing ever again gave her quite so much pleasure as the dance
with the wood maiden. She often went to the birch wood in the hope of
seeing the maiden again. But she never did.

THE GOLDEN SPINNING WHEEL

THE STORY OF KING DOBROMIL AND THE GOOD DOBRUNKA

[Illustration: {A spinning wheel}]

THE GOLDEN SPINNING WHEEL

There was once a poor woman who had twin daughters. The girls were
exactly alike in face and feature but utterly different in
disposition. Dobrunka was kind, industrious, obedient, and everything
a good girl ought to be. Zloboha, her sister, was spiteful,
disobedient, lazy, and proud. In fact, she had just about as many
faults as a person could have. Yet strange to say the mother loved
Zloboha much better and made everything easy for her.

[Illustration: _Alike in Featur