olden Antlers was very
kind but he spanked Smolicheck when Smolicheck was disobedient. And
Smolicheck didn't want to get a spanking. So he put his hands over his
ears to shut out the sound of the sweet voices and that time he didn't
open the door.

"You're a good boy," Golden Antlers said in the evening when he came
home. "Those must have been the wicked little wood maidens. If you had
opened the door they would have carried you off to their cave and then
what would you have done!"

So Smolicheck was very happy to think he had obeyed Golden Antlers and
he said he would never open the door to strangers, no, never!

The next day after Golden Antlers had gone out and Smolicheck was left
alone, again there came a knocking on the door, and when Smolicheck
called out: "Who's there?" voices sweeter than before answered:

_"Smolicheck, Smolicheck, please open the door
Just a wee little crack of two fingers--no more!
We'll reach in our cold little hands to get warm,
Then leave without doing you the least bit of harm!
So open, Smolicheck, please open the door!"_

Smolicheck said, no, he couldn't open the door. He thought to himself
that he would like to have one peep at the wood maidens just to see what
they looked like. But he mustn't open the door even a crack, no, he
mustn't!

The little wood maidens kept on begging him and shivering and shaking
and telling him how cold they were, until Smolicheck felt very sorry for
them.

"I don't think it would matter," he said to himself, "if I opened the
door just a weeny teeny bit."

So he opened the door just a tiny crack. Instantly two little white
fingers popped in, and then two more and two more and two more, and
then little white hands, and then little white arms, and then,
before Smolicheck knew what was happening, a whole bevy of little
wood maidens were in the room! They danced around Smolicheck and
they howled and they yelled and they took hold of him and dragged
him out of the house and away towards the woods!

Smolicheck was dreadfully frightened and he screamed out with all his
might:

_"Oh, dear Golden Antlers, wherever you are
In valley or mountain or pasture afar,
Come quick! Don't delay!
The wicked wood maidens are dragging away
Your little Smolicheck!
Come quick! Don't delay!"_

This time by good luck the deer was not far away. When he heard
Smolicheck's cry, he bounded up, drove the little wood maidens off, a