e river?"

"Why, the little river, of course," said old Peter. "It's always the
little streams that wake first in the spring, and running down to the
big river make it swell and flood and break up the ice. It's always
been so ever since the quarrel between the Vazouza and the Volga."

"What was that?" said Vanya.

"It was like this," said old Peter.

* * * * *

The Vazouza and the Volga flow for a long way side by side, and then
they join and flow together. And the Vazouza is a little river; but
the Volga is the mother of all Russia, and the greatest river in the
world.

And the little Vazouza was jealous of the Volga.

"You are big and noisy," she says to the Volga, "and terribly strong;
but as for brains," says she, "why, I have more brains in a single
ripple than you in all that lump of water."

Of course the Volga told her not to be so rude, and said that little
rivers should know their place and not argue with the great.

But the Vazouza would not keep quiet, and at last she said to the
Volga: "Look here, we will lie down and sleep, and we will agree that
the one of us who wakes first and comes first to the sea is the wiser
of the two."

And the Volga said, "Very well, if only you will stop talking."

So the little Vazouza and the big Volga lay and slept, white and
still, all through the winter. And when the spring came, the little
Vazouza woke first, brisk and laughing and hurrying, and rushed away
as hard as she could go towards the sea. When the Volga woke the
little Vazouza was already far ahead. But the Volga did not hurry. She
woke slowly and shook the ice from herself, and then came roaring
after the Vazouza, a huge foaming flood of angry water.

And the little Vazouza listened as she ran, and she heard the Volga
coming after her; and when the Volga caught her up--a tremendous
foaming river, whirling along trees and blocks of ice--she was
frightened, and she said,--

"O Volga, let me be your little sister. I will never argue with you
any more. You are wiser than I and stronger than I. Only take me by
the hand and bring me with you to the sea."

And the Volga forgave the little Vazouza, and took her by the hand and
brought her safely to the sea. And they have never quarrelled again.
But all the same, it is always the little Vazouza that gets up first
in the spring, and tugs at the white blankets of ice and snow, and
wakes her big sister from her winter sleep.