Atondido Stories
angrily. "Or did you pick more and eat them yourself on the way
home?"
"No, no, my dear sister," Marushka said. "I haven't eaten any,
truly I haven't. They wouldn't let me pick any more than two.
They shouted to me not to pick any more."
"I wish the lightning had struck you dead!" Holena sneered.
"I've a good mind to beat you!"
After a time the greedy Holena left off her scolding to eat one
of the apples. It had so delicious a flavor that she declared she
had never in all her life tasted anything so good. Her mother
said the same. When they had finished both apples they began to
wish for more.
"Mother," Holena said, "go get me my fur cloak. I'm going up
the mountain myself. No use sending that lazy little slattern
again, for she would only eat up all the apples on the way home.
I'll find that tree and when I pick the apples I'd like to see any-
body stop me!"
The mother begged Holena not to go out in such weather,
but Holena was headstrong and would go. She threw her fur
cloak over her shoulders and put a shawl on her head and off
she went up the mountain side.
All around the snow lay deep with no track of man or beast
in any direction. Holena wandered on and on determined to find
those wonderful apples. At last she saw a light in the distance
and when she reached it she found it was the great fire about
which the Twelve Months were seated.
At first she was frightened but, soon growing bold, she el-
bowed her way through the circle of men and without so much
as saying: "By your leave," she put out her hands to the fire. She
hadn't even the courtesy to say: "Good-day."
Great January frowned.
309