How Okhrim Proved His Youth on a Tree Stump

Every village has an old man like that: the bench under him already creaks with old age, and he keeps thinking, "Eh, I'm still not so bad." Ours was Okhrim. And then one day Okhrim heard that the young widow Motria had said at the market: I need a husband not old and not young, but one who's alive. The old man fairly jumped off the bench. Alive? Why, I'm so alive the rooster can't keep up with me. He decided to go courting.

He began his preparations. Rubbed his mustache with soot from the stove so it would look black. Dug out of the chest a red sash that still remembered his father's wedding. Cinched himself in so tight his belly nearly sloshed over. He asks his kum: well, do I look young? The kum squinted: From behind - almost a lad. If from a distance. And in fog.

Off he went to Motria's. He walks proudly, but his knees creak louder than an accordion at a toloka. The neighbor's gander hisses as if it sees not a young suitor but an old hide. The children shout: look, the old man's mustache is running! The sun had scorched down, soot all over his cheeks. And by the fence the sash caught on a stake.

He arrived at Motria's. She's on the porch, wiping her hands on her apron. She looks at this sooty mask, at the tangled sash, and doesn't laugh cruelly - only tucks away the corners of her mouth. She says: Very well, grandpa. If you're that alive, show me your husbandry. Take this axe and split that stump by the well.

Okhrim spat on his palms and swung. The axe bounced off the oak, the old man sat down in the nettles, and the sash finally burst. He sits in the grass, red all over, cheeks quite rosy with shame. Motria comes up, holds out her hand. She says: The stump I can split myself. But who's going to replaster my stove for the winter?

Okhrim got up, brushed off the nettles. The stove? Why, I'll build you such a stove you'll sit in your shirt in the depths of February. And he built it. Built it so the chimney doesn't smoke, and the warmth walks about the house like a cat. Motria barely keeps up pulling pies out of the oven, and the neighbor women drop in to warm themselves and gossip.

And come evening, Okhrim sits on the ledge by the stove, feet in the warmth, and Motria pours him some mead. The old man strokes his mustache - gray now, for he doesn't smear it with soot anymore. He says: see, Motria, I told you I was alive. She laughs: alive, grandpa, alive. Only now you're not chasing the rooster - you're warming grandchildren on the stove.

And so they live. And I'll say this: in a house, the main man isn't the one who splits an oak with a single blow. It's the one who knows which side to light the fire from so his wife is warm, and when to hold his tongue so she splits the stump herself.