Father Kirila had no luck with the workers. No matter how much he hired them, not one lived for more than a month. Who is to blame for this? The priest complains that the workers are to blame. And the workers are like priests: they force you to work, but they don’t want to feed you.
Whether it is so or not, one day priest Kiril went again to look for a new worker. I drove a little away from the house, and lo and behold, a lad was coming towards me. With a stick in his hand, with a bag over his shoulders.
He held back the horse.
-Where are you going, boy?
- Yes, wherever the eyes look.
- Why so?
- Yes, maybe someone will hire you. The priest took a closer look at the passerby. “Why not a worker? - he thinks. - The sprout, however, did not come out, but he is strong and broad-shouldered.”
“Then hire me,” says the priest.
- Why not hire me, I’ll hire you.
- What kind of payment do you want?
“No, no,” the boy answers. “If I’ve served you for a year, I’ll hit you once in the back with my fist and once with my mother.” And if not, you will give me one fist on the back and drive me out of the yard. That's the whole fee.
Well, the priest really liked this worker. "Well," he thought to himself, "we'll give him and mother a couple of fists and in a month or two we'll drive him away. In the meantime, there's no better worker, let this one stay."
“Okay,” says the priest. - I agree. What's your name?
- Gavrila.
- Well, sit down, Gavrila, on the cart.
The lad sat down on the cart, and the priest rode back happy. We drove halfway - the horse was tired. Already all wet, covered in soap. His sides are shaking and he can’t catch his breath.
- What's wrong with the horse? - the priest is surprised. “We’re traveling light, and she’s more washed up than with luggage.”
“Apparently, father, you spare her oats,” the boy chuckles.
The priest thought: maybe Gavrila was telling the truth. And he didn’t even know that his new employee was so heavy.
Somehow we got home. The priest gives the worker an ax in his hands:
“Go,” says Gavrila, “to chop wood.”
“What do I need an ax for,” the worker refuses, “I can manage without it.”
The priest thinks: “And some stupid guy got caught this time! How can you chop wood without an ax?”
And Gavrila went up to the woodpile, took the largest log, swung it and hit the ground! The log fell into small pieces and flew apart. He hit another and it broke into splinters.
The priest looks out the window and rejoices: he hired a suitable worker! The next morning the priest sends Gavrilo to the field. Gavril harnessed the horse to the plow and began to plow. The horse runs and runs and does not get tired at all, because the plowman himself pushes the plow.
Pop brought lunch at noon.
“Stop plowing,” he says to the worker, “go have lunch!”
Gavrila unharnessed the horse and slapped it on the croup with his palm. Then the horse collapsed on all four hooves to the ground.
Pop's eyes widened:
- Why did the horse fall?
“Yes, she wanted to lie around,” the worker answers.
Gavrila had lunch and said to the priest:
“Let the horse rest a little, we’ll do the plowing ourselves.”
The priest took the plow, Gavrila took the drawbar, and they went to plow. The priest raised the floors and could barely keep up with the worker: he gave him such a hard time!
They plowed and plowed until the sun went down.
We arrived home and went to bed. Here is the priest and the priest boasting:
- Well, we have an employee! If you look for something like this, you won’t find it. He eats anything, but has the strength of an ox. Today, as soon as I hit a horse on the croup with my fist, my dun raised his hooves.
Mother listened and said:
- You are stupid, Kirila. And I found something to be happy about! If a worker knocked down a horse with his fist, then what will happen to us...
“It’s true,” the priest grabbed his back. “But I forgot about the agreement.” What should we do, mother?
“Here’s what we’ll do,” the priest advises. - Bears have gotten into the habit of walking into our oats. So you wake him up and say: “Go, Gavrila, drive the cows out of the oats. And if you catch one, then drive it home.” Well, the bear will catch him there...
Pop did just that. He woke up the worker and sent him into the field to drive the cows out of the oats.
Gavril took the whip and rope and went. He sees bears grazing in the oats. Then he shouts to the whole field:
- Hey, hey!..
The bears got scared and - in all directions. One of them is frightened and runs straight towards Gavrila. And Gavrila grabbed him by the ears, tied him with a rope, pulled him once or twice with a whip and dragged him to the priest’s yard. The bear resists, digs the ground with its paws, dug a whole ditch.
Gavrila somehow dragged him into the yard.
- Father, where to put the cow? - shouts. The priest, half asleep, couldn’t understand it and answered:
- Drive me into the barn! He said and started snoring again throughout the house. And Gavrila dragged the bear into the barn. Here the bear went wilder than ever. He dug up the entire yard and knocked down all the pillars. Gavrila barely drove him into the barn.
In the morning, mother went to milk the cows, and lo and behold, there were only scraps of them lying around, and in the corner a bear was snoring. The priest ran home from fright, barely alive.
- Send your worker to the mill at night! - shouts the priest. - Let the devils strangle him there...
The priest called the worker in the evening and said:
“Tomorrow we have to make the dough, but we don’t have a ton of flour in our house.” Go, Gavrila, to the mill.
There is nothing to do. It’s true what they say: if you hired, you sold out. Gavril harnessed his horse, put the sacks of grain on the cart and went to the mill.
And there were devils in that mill, and none of the people ground there at night.
So Gavrila arrived at midnight and went to the door:
- Open it, miller!
The devils are silent, thinking about who to send to open the door.
Then Gavrila kicked the door and dropped her off at once. The devils saw this and scattered - some into the bushes, some into the swamp...
- Hey, millers! Where are you going? - Gavrila shouts.
He grabbed one by the scruff of the neck:
- Stop! Meli!
Damn, this way and that - he just can’t escape. Gavrila holds him tightly.
He began to grind instead of the miller.
Gavrila piled a cart full of sacks, and all the flour was pouring out of the tray.
“Well, that’s enough,” Gavrila says to the miller, “otherwise the horse won’t make it.”
He loaded sacks of flour onto a cart, and it’s true that a horse couldn’t move such a cart. What to do here? He grabbed Gavril by the devil's horns, put him in harness and - let's go! At home he let the devil into the stable and went to bed.
The next morning the priest sees the devil jumping into the stable. The priest got scared, waved his cross and ran towards the priest.
- What should I do, mother? Even the devils didn’t take our Gavrila...
Mother spread her hands.
“Well,” he says, “there’s only one thing left to do.” Write him a paper and send him to the Tsar so that he can get you a pension in three years... And while he’s on the road, we’ll pack up our belongings and go to another place. Gavrila will come back, but we won’t be there...
Pop did just that. He called Gavrila and said:
- You have this paper on you. Take a horse and a cart and go to the king, get me a pension for three years.
Gavrila took an old cart on which hay was transported, harnessed the bear and the devil into a harness and drove it to the king. He drives, only thunder roars, only dust smokes.
He arrives in the capital and drives straight to the royal court. The sentries got scared and reported to the king:
“So, they say, and so, Your Majesty, some unfamiliar lad from an unknown kingdom came to you on a bear and a devil.”
The king was frightened and hid behind the throne.
“Ask me,” he says, “what does he want from me?”
The guards returned and asked. Gavrila took the paper out of his bosom and handed it to the guards. They go back to the king with the paper.
But the tsar did not pay any pension to the priests. The priests received a pension from the bishop. But in order not to have to deal with the devil, the tsar counted out a thousand rubles and said to the sentries:
“Give them to the priest’s messenger, but just let him go back as soon as possible.”
Gavrila received a thousand rubles and turned the cart back. Comes home. He sees two carts standing in the yard, and all the priest’s belongings are on them. “Hey!” thinks Gavrila. “Apparently, the owners are moving somewhere. Who will I serve then?”
He hid the bear and the devil in the stable, and he tore open a sack on one of the carts, poured out crackers, climbed into it and lay there.
Meanwhile, the owners returned from their rooms. The priest sat on one cart, the priest on the other - and off we went.
And I must say that the hit weighed ten pounds. As she sat down on the sack where Gavrila was lying, the worker began to groan. She listened to the priest - something was cracking under her...
“Father!..” she shouts to the priest. — The axle on my cart is cracking. I'm afraid it might break.
The priest approached the cart and looked - the axle was intact and the wheels were intact.
“It was you, mother, who sat on the crackers, and that’s why they crack.”
- No, Kirila, the crackers are hard, and I’m sitting on a soft bag!
- Crackers, I'm telling you, crackers! - the priest argued. “I put them on this cart myself.”
Mother got up, looked into the bag, and there was their worker Gavrila!.. The priest and priest’s eyes widened.
- So it’s you here, Gavrila? - says the priest.
-Where should I be? - Gavrila laughs. “Where the owner is, there the worker must be.”
What's a butt to do here? He and his mother sat down on the front cart and off they went.
And the worker follows them on another cart.
The priest rides and scratches his back:
- What should we do, mother? How to get rid of Gavrila?
“Nothing,” says the priest, “we’ll get rid of it!” Just listen to me.
Evening came. And here we found some good places - a lake with a steep bank and bushes.
“Come on,” mother says to the priest, “we’ll spend the night here.” We will lie down next to you, and we will put Gavrila aside, closer to the water. And as soon as he falls asleep, we’ll throw him into the lake.
“Okay,” the priest rejoiced, “that’s what we’ll do!”
And the worker heard all this: the priest was somewhat deaf and mother spoke loudly in his ear.
The travelers stopped on the shore of the lake. We had dinner and went to bed. The priest and the priest were tired from the journey and immediately fell asleep like the dead. And the worker went into the bushes, built a fire, and sat and warmed himself.
She woke up in the night of the priest and, without realizing it, threw the priest into the lake. The priest flopped down like a sack and went to the bottom...
The next morning Gavrila prepared something to eat and woke up his mother:
- It's time, mother, for breakfast. She rubbed the priest’s eyes and saw that in front of her was the worker Gavrila, healthy and alive!..
- Have you... returned from the other world? — the priest marvels.
“That’s right, mother, he’s back,” says the worker.
- Well, how is it there?
- Very good,
- Where is father? - The priest looked around.
“Yes, he is where I was,” says the worker.
- In the next world?
- Yeah. He liked it there so much that he said that he would find another one for himself and would never return here again.
- How about another?! - the priest screamed. - Who will I be with? No, old devil, I’ll rip all your hair out for talking like that! Look, you want another butt...
And as it stood, Kiril’s butt fell into the lake and looked for it in the next world.
And Gavrila harnessed the horses and went his way.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru