"What do you mean, alone!" we gasped.

"That's right, alone," boasted the stranger. "Well, listen up. I was walking along, just walking, and it started getting dark. Not very dark, but, well, all gray-like. I was tiptoeing so as not to scare the firelings when suddenly: shush-shush-shush! 'What's that?' I thought. I looked-no one there. I went on. Again: shush-shush-shush. Like someone was shushing the leaves. I looked around. No one. I took another step. And there he was right in front of me. There was nothing there 'tall, and then all of a sudden I seen him. At arm's length. Just a little feller. Maybe up to my waist or chest. Looked like he were made of old hay, his eyes shone red and he had palms on his feet. And he was stomping those palms on the ground and chanting: pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. Did I run, let me tell you! Don't know how I ended up at home. My old lady didn't get her firelings that time."

The children asked him: "Grandfather, tell us what other monsters there are in the forest."

They poured the old man some egg kvas and he started. "I was young back then, hotheaded. Not afraid of a thing. Once I tied three logs together with reeds, set them on the water-our river is fast and wide-sat myself down on them, and off I floated. The honest truth! The women ran down to the bank, there was a hollering and a wailing, like you might expect. Where do you see people floating on the river? Nowadays, I'm told, they hollow out trunks and put them on the water. If they're not lying, of course."

"No, they're not, they're not! It's our Fyodor Kuzmich, Glo-rybe. He invented it!" we cried out, Benedikt loudest of all.

"Don't know any Fyodor Kuzmich myself. We aren't book-learned. That's not my story. Like I said, I wasn't afraid of nothing. Not mermaids or water bubbles or wrigglers that live under stones. I even caught a whirlytooth fish in a bucket."