ing the meat and listened.

"I haven't caught a mouse to-day," he thought.

Once more the leaves rustled.

The cat leapt through the air and dropped with all four paws, and his
claws out, on the nose of the wolf. How the wolf yelped! The leaves
flew like dust, and the wolf leapt up and ran off as fast as his legs
could carry him.

Well, the wolf was frightened, I can tell you, but he was not so
frightened as the cat.

When the great wolf leapt up out of the leaves, the cat screamed and
ran up the nearest tree, and that was the tree where Michael
Ivanovitch the bear was hiding in the topmost branches.

"Oh, he has seen me. Cat Ivanovitch has seen me," thought the bear. He
had no time to climb down, and the cat was coming up in long leaps.

The bear trusted to Providence, and jumped from the top of the tree.
Many were the branches he broke as he fell; many were the bones he
broke when he crashed to the ground. He picked himself up and stumbled
off, groaning.

The pretty young fox sat still, and cried out, "Run, run, Brother
Levon!... Quicker on your pins, Brother Michael! His Excellency is
behind you; his Excellency is close behind!"

Ever since then all the wild beasts have been afraid of the cat, and
the cat and the fox live merrily together, and eat fresh meat all the
year round, which the other animals kill for them and leave a little
way off.

And that is what happened to the old tom-cat with one eye, who was
sewn up in a bag and thrown away in the forest.

"Just think what would happen to our handsome Vladimir if we were to
throw him away!" said Vanya.

SPRING IN THE FOREST.

Warmer the sun shone, and warmer yet. The pines were green now. All
the snow had melted off them, drip, drip, the falling drops of water
making tiny wells in the snow under the trees. And the snow under the
trees was melting too. Much had gone, and now there were only patches
of snow in the forest--like scraps of a big white blanket, shrinking
every day.

"Isn't it lucky our blankets don't shrink like that?" said Maroosia.

Old Peter laughed.

"What do you do when the warm weather comes?" he asked. "Do you still
wear sheepskin coats? Do you still roll up at night under the rugs?"

"No," said Maroosia; "I throw the rugs off, and put my fluffy coat
away till next winter."

"Well," said old Peter, "and God, the Father of us all, He does for
the earth just what you do for yourself; but He does it better. For
the bla