long-horned oxen, the
Tartars brought barrels of frozen honey, quarters of killed lambs,
poultry and game, and returned heavily laden with bags of flour and
rolls of sole leather. The whole day long the crack of whips and the
curses of the drivers rent the icy atmosphere. Whatever their
destination, the carters were in a hurry to reach human habitation
before nightfall--before the dreaded time when packs of wolves came out
to prey for food.

In cold, clear nights, when even the wind was frozen still, the
lugubrious howling of the wolf permitted no sleep. The indoor people
spent the night praying for the lives and souls of the travellers.

All through the winter there was not one morning but some man or animal
was found torn or eaten in our neighbourhood. The people of the village
at first built fires on the shores to scare the beasts away, but they
had to give it up because the thatched roofs of the huts in the village
were set on fire in windy nights by flying sparks. The cold cowed the
fiercest dogs. The wolves, crazed by hunger, grew more daring from day
to day. They showed their heads even in daylight. When Baba Hana, the
old gypsy fortune-teller, ran into the school-house one morning and
cried, "Wolf, wolf in the yard," the teacher was inclined to attribute
her scare to a long drink the night before. But that very night, Stan,
the horseshoer, who had returned late from the inn and had evidently not
closed the door as he entered the smithy, was eaten up by the beasts.
And the smithy stood in the centre of the village! A stone's throw from
the inn, and the thatch-roofed school, and the red painted church! He
must have put up a hard fight, Stan. Three huge dark brown beasts, as
big as cows' yearlings, were found brained. The body of big Stan had
disappeared in the stomachs of the rest of the pack. The high leather
boots and the hand that still gripped the handle of the sledgehammer
were the only remains of the man. There was no blood, either. It had
been lapped dry. That stirred the village. Not even enough to bury
him--and he had been a good Christian! But the priest ordered that the
slight remains of Stan be buried, Christian-like. The empty coffin was
brought to the church and all the rites were carried out as if the body
of Stan were there rather than in the stomachs of wild beasts.

But after Stan's death the weather began to clear as if it had been
God's will that such a price be paid for His clemency. The co