Random Story To Tell

“Thank you, Antipka,” she said sweetly. “I heard everything. I don’t know how to thank you.”

Before Antipka could reply, the merchant and his wife rushed in and first hugged their daughter and then hugged Antipka. Then the merchant beamed and his wife burst into tears again.

“You shall name your reward, my friend,” said the merchant. “Go away and think it over. And then come back and ask for whatever you want and you shall have Continue reading

Feeling please with his morning’s work, he took up his basket and hummed to himself as he made his way back home. “I wouldn’t want to hurt her,” he thought, “but it would do her good to sit at the bottom of a cold, dark pit for just one night.”

The sound of the latch woke up his wife, who had been asleep all the morning in front of the stove.

“What time do you call this?” she demanded. “And look at the basket: it’s not Continue reading

She was such a big woman and Antipka was such a small, mild young man that he always got the worst of their arguments. And so to calm her down he said quietly, “If you would like to go picking cranberries, my dear, I’ll go indoors and do the washing-up and the housework.”

“That’s right,” shrieked his wife. “That’s you all over. Trust a man to choose the light work and send his poor wife off to break her back and catch her death of cold Continue reading

Early one morning Antipka was sitting sadly on the steps of his little wooden house, sunk in thought. He had plenty to be happy  about: a cosy home which he had built himself, a nice plot of ground and a good crop of cabbages and sunflowers. And yet one thing made him miserable; he had married a bad-tempered woman. When he first knew her she seemed such a sweet young girl and then, immediately after the wedding, she became spiteful and irritable, and now Antipka’s life was absolute Continue reading