chin with her fist and going for the sack.
But the weaver and the chum valiantly defended the sack and forced her to retreat. Before they had time to recover, the spouse came running back to the front hall, this time with a poker in her hands. She nimbly whacked her husband on the hands and the weaver on the back with the poker, and was now standing beside the sack.
'What, we let her get to it?' said the weaver, coming to his senses.
'Eh, what do you mean we let her-why did you let her?' the chum said with sangfroid.
'Your poker must be made of iron!' the weaver said after a short silence, rubbing his back. 'My wife bought a poker at the fair last year, paid twenty-five kopecks-it's nothing… doesn't even hurt…'
Meanwhile the triumphant spouse, setting a tallow lamp on the floor, untied the sack and peeked into it. But her old eyes, which had made out the sack so well, must have deceived her this time.
'Eh, there's a whole boar in there!' she cried out, clapping her hands for joy.
'A boar! do you hear, a whole boar!' the weaver nudged the chum. 'It's all your fault!'
'No help for it!' the chum said, shrugging.
'No help? Don't stand there, let's take the sack from her! Come on! Away with you! away! it's our boar!' the weaver shouted, bearing down on her.
'Get out, get out, cursed woman! It's not your goods!' the chum said, coming closer.
The spouse again took hold of the poker, but just then Choub climbed out of the sack and stood in the middle of the hall, stretching, like a man who has just awakened from a long sleep.
The chum's wife gave a cry, slapping her skirts, and they all involuntarily opened their mouths.
'Why did she say a boar, the fool! That's not a boar!' said the chum, goggling his eyes.
'See what a man got thrown into the sack!' said the weaver, backing away in fear. 'Say what you like, you can even burst, but it's the doing of the unclean powers. He wouldn't even fit through the window!'
'It's my chum!' cried the chum, looking closer.
'And who did you think it was?' said Choub, smiling. 'A nice trick I pulled on you, eh? And you probably wanted to eat me as pork? Wait, I've got good news for you: there's something else in the sack-if not a boar, then surely a piglet or some other live thing. Something's been moving under me all the time.'
The weaver and the chum rushed to the sack, the mistress of the house seized it from the other side, and the fight would have started again if the deacon, seeing there was nowhere to hide, hadn't climbed out of the sack.
'Here's another one!' the weaver exclaimed in fright. 'Devil knows how this world… it makes your head spin… not sausages or biscuits, they throw people into sacks!'
'It's the deacon!' said Choub, more astonished than anyone else. 'Well, now! that's Solokha for you! putting us into sacks… That's why she's got a house full of sacks… Now I see it all: she had two men sitting in each sack. And I thought I was the only one she… That's Solokha for you!'
The girls were a bit surprised to find one sack missing. 'No help for it, this one will be enough for us,' Oksana prattled. They all took hold of the sack and heaved it onto the sled.
The headman decided to keep quiet, reasoning that if he shouted for them to untie the sack and let him out, the foolish girls would run away, thinking the devil was sitting in it, and he would be left out in the street maybe till the next day.
The girls, meanwhile, all took each other's hands and flew like the wind, pulling the sled over the creaking snow. Many of them sat on the sled for fun; some got on the headman himself.
The headman resolved to endure everything. They finally arrived, opened the doors to the house and the front hall wide, and with loud laughter dragged the sack inside.
'Let's see what's in it,' they all shouted and hastened to untie the sack.
Here the hiccups that had never ceased to torment the headman all the while he was sitting in the sack became so bad that he started hicking and coughing very loudly.
'Ah, somebody's in there!' they all cried and rushed out of the house in fear.
'What the devil! Why are you running around like crazy?' said Choub, coming in the door.
'Ah, Papa!' said Oksana, 'there's somebody in the sack!'
'In the sack? Where did you get this sack?'
'The blacksmith left them in the middle of the road,' they all said at once.
'Well,' Choub thought to himself, 'didn't I say so?…'
'What are you so afraid of?' he said. 'Let's see. Now, then, my man, never mind if we don't call you by your full name-get out of the sack!'
The headman got out.
'Ah!' cried the girls.
'The headman was in it, too,' Choub said to himself in perplexity, looking him up and down, 'fancy that!… Eh!…' He could say nothing more.
The headman was no less confused himself and did not know how to begin.
'Must be cold out?' he said, addressing Choub.
'A bit nippy,' Choub replied. 'And, if I may ask, what do you grease your boots with, mutton fat or tar?'
