Parker Hoysted Fillmore

“ The black cloud descended upon them with thunder and a shower of hailstones that beat down the growing rye.
“Take care!” Raduz cried. “You’re trampling my rye! Leave some of it for me.”
“Very well,” the old man said, alighting from his steed, “I’ll leave some of it for you. But tell me, reaper, have you seen anything of two young people passing this way?” ”

“ Here is a wooden hoe with which to work.”
“Alas,” thought Raduz to himself, “did ever a man have such a task as this? What can I do on that rocky hillside with a wooden hoe? How can I finish my task in so short a time?”
He started to work but he hadn’t struck three blows with the wooden hoe before it broke. In despair he tossed it aside and sat down under a beech tree.
In the meantime wicked old Yezibaba had cooked a disgusting mess of toads which she told Ludmila to carry out to the serving man for his dinner. ”

“ As for your task,” she continued, “I will help you with that. Here is my mother’s magic wand. I have but to strike the rocky hillside and by tomorrow the trees that my mother has ordered will spring up, blossom, and bear fruit.” ”

“ That’s the old man on the black horse that rides on the clouds. Quick! We must be ready for him!”
Ludmila struck the ground with Yezibaba’s wand and changed it into a field. She turned herself into the growing rye and made Raduz the reaper who was cutting the rye. Then she instructed him how to answer the old man with cunning. ”

“ The farmer near whose house it stood begged hard to have it saved, but the king was firm.
Shortly after the poplar was cut down there grew up under the king’s very window a pretty little pear tree that bore golden pears. It was a wonderful little tree. No matter how many pears you picked in the evening, by the next morning the tree would again be full. ”