Atondido Stories
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
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