ines. Tomorrow morning bring me the ripe grapes.
Here is another wooden hoe with which to work."

Raduz took the hoe and set to work manfully. At the first blow the hoe
broke into three pieces.

"Alas," he thought, "what is going to happen to me now? Unless Ludmila
helps me again, I am lost."

At home Yezibaba was busy cooking a mess of serpents. When noonday
came she said to Ludmila: "Here, my child, is dinner for the serving
man. Take it out to him."

Ludmila took the nasty mess and, as on the day before, threw it away.
Then again hiding Yezibaba's wand under her apron, she went to Raduz,
carrying in her hands her own dinner.

Raduz saw her coming and at once his heart grew light and he thought
to himself how kind Ludmila was and how beautiful.

"I have been sitting here idle," he told her, "for at the first blow
my hoe broke. Unless you help me, I don't know what I shall do."

"Don't worry," Ludmila said. "It is true your mistress sent you a mess
of serpents for your dinner, but I threw them out and have brought you
my own dinner instead. And I've brought the magic wand, too, so it
will be easy enough to plant a vineyard that will produce ripe grapes
by tomorrow morning."

They ate together and after dinner Ludmila took the wand and struck
the earth. At once a vineyard appeared and, as they watched, the vines
blossomed and the blooms turned to grapes.

It was harder than before for Raduz to let Ludmila go, for he wanted
to keep on talking to her forever, but she remembered that Yezibaba
was waiting for her and she hurried away.

The next morning when Raduz presented a basket of ripe grapes, old
Yezibaba could scarcely believe her eyes. She sniffed the grapes
suspiciously and then very grudgingly acknowledged that he had
accomplished his second task.

"What am I to do today?" Raduz asked.

Yezibaba led him to a third window and told him to look out and tell
her what he saw.

"I see a great rocky cliff."

"Right," she said. "Go now to that cliff and grind me flour out of the
rocks and from the flour bake me bread. Tomorrow morning bring me the
fresh loaves. Today you shall have no tools of any kind. Go now and do
this task or suffer the consequences."

As Raduz started off, Yezibaba looked after him and shook her head
suspiciously.

"I don't understand this," she said to her husband. "He could never
have done these two tasks alone. Do you suppose Ludmila has been
helping him? I'll punish her if sh