e to sing?"

"Yes, master," answered Woe: "it's I that's helping you."

"Well then, Woe! let's all go on together."

"Very good, master! I'll never depart from you now."

When the peasant got home, Woe bid him to the _kabak_ or
pot-house.

"I've no money," says the man.

"Out upon you, moujik! What do you want money for? why
you've got on a sheep-skin jacket. What's the good of that? It
will soon be summer; anyhow you won't be wanting to wear it.
Off with the jacket, and to the pot-house we'll go."

So the peasant went with Woe into the pot-house, and they
drank the sheep-skin away.

The next day Woe began groaning--its head ached from
yesterday's drinking--and again bade the master of the house
have a drink.

"I've no money," said the peasant.

"What do we want money for? Take the cart and the
sledge; we've plenty without them."

There was nothing to be done; the peasant could not shake
himself free from Woe. So he took the cart and the sledge,
dragged them to the pot-house, and there he and Woe drank them
away. Next morning Woe began groaning more than ever, and
invited the master of the house to go and drink off the effects
of the debauch. This time the peasant drank away his plough
and his harrow.

A month hadn't passed before he had got rid of everything
he possessed. Even his very cottage he pledged to a neighbor,
and the money he got that way he took to the pot-house.

Yet another time did Woe come close beside him and say:

"Let us go, let us go to the pot-house!"

"No, no, Woe! it's all very well, but there's nothing more
to be squeezed out."

"How can you say that? Your wife has got two petticoats:
leave her one, but the other we must turn into drink."

The peasant took the petticoat, drank it away, and said to
himself:

"We're cleaned out at last, my wife as well as myself. Not
a stick nor a stone is left!"

Next morning Woe saw, on waking, that there was nothing
more to be got out of the peasant, so it said:

"Master!"

"Well, Woe?"

"Why, look here. Go to your neighbor, and ask him to
lend you a cart and a pair of oxen."

The peasant went to the neighbor's.

"Be so good as to lend me a cart and a pair of oxen for a
short time," says he. "I'll do a week's work for you in return."

"But what do you want them for?"

"To go to the forest for firewood."

"Well then, take the