One farmer used to quarrel with his wife all the time.
"Lazy you are!" - He shouted at her. - "I follow the plough and mow down the grass in a pasture, but you are too lazy to budge an inch and to bring me meals in the field!"
"I work at home a little more than you do." - said the wife. - "I don't even have time to catch my breath!"
The husband did not believe his wife: "And what is the work at home? I can easily cope with all this housework!"
One day, angry became the wife:
"If so," - she said, - "I will go to plough the field, and you stay at home!"
The man was overjoyed:
"Okay. Now you'll see who of us is telling the truth: to follow the plough - it's not the same as to move the pots on the stove!"
When the woman was about to go to the field, she said to her husband:
"Look, man, you know: you have to do all the work!"
The husband looked around the hut and asked:
"What sort of work do you mean?"
"Here, you see, there is a trough for leavened dough."
"I see," - said the husband.
"So, grind wheat into flour with the millstones, knead dough in the trough and bake bread in the oven."
"Well, it's an easy job," - the husband waved his hand. - "What now?"
"Make butter."
"No problem, a piece of cake! What else?"
"Look after calves in the pasture before they cause some more trouble. Keep an eye on the sitting hen - she could fall down from the basket and cool the eggs. Cook the dinner for my return!"
The wife told her husband what he must do at home and then went to the field. The man was stomping around in the room and grinning to himself:
"I can do the whole job and I still have some time to sleep."
He lighted his pipe, chuckled away in silence and began to grind the wheat. In order to do the work smoothly, he tied a butter churn to his belt. He rotated the millstones, swaying from side to side. Well, sour cream - plop, plop - was gradually churning into the butter. The work was going well, but suddenly the boy next door shouted at the window:
"Uncle, your calves have got into the oat field!"
"Shit, bite them the wolves!" - cried the man and rushed to the pasture.
And the butter churn - bams, bams - hit him on the knee. He ran a little, then stumbled over a stone and fell to the ground like a sheaf. A cover jumped down from the churn, and all the sour cream spilled on the ground. The man stood up, spat with anger and ran on. He turned calves out from the oat field and drove them home.
"You don't want to graze on the grass," - he said to the calves, - "So, stay hungry in the stall!"
The man came back to the hut, took a quick look - there was a pockmarked pig bustling about the kitchen. Having ransacked the hut, the unwelcome pig strewed all the flour, ate the dough and drove the hen away from the basket. The man chased the pig out of the hut. He stood in the middle of the house, scratching his head - what should he do?
"I have better save the eggs! If they are cool, there would be no chickens and my wife will give me what for."
He twirled back and forth - there was no hen! The poor man was so upset that he gingerly sat down on the eggs and thought:
"When the hen is back, I will get up and set her on the eggs; then I can cook the dinner."
At that time, there appeared a Cossack riding down the road. He came into the house to get a drink of water. He saw a man, sitting in the basket.
"What are you doing there?" - asked the Cossack.
"I'm hatching out the chickens."
"Who put you, the devil, in the basket?"
The man told everything about his trouble: how he stayed home to do the household chores, how he had no luck. The Cossack laughed and began to beat him with a horsewhip. He was beating and saying:
"Here you get for your stupidity! The wife is ploughing the field, and what are you doing!"
The farmer was spinning and spinning, and then suppressed all the eggs. He saw that something bad has happened. The man jumped out of the basket in fright. He climbed into the attic and hid in a box with feathers. He remained there, sitting in feathers and trembling with fear. The Cossack drank water, left the farm and went on his way.
Meanwhile the wife's parents came to visit their daughter. They entered the hut. The mother-in-law looked at the mess in the house and said to her husband:
"No wonder that our son-in-law got a habit to quarrel with our daughter. It's true that she is lazy."
"If so," - said the old man, - "let's give a fairing the son-in-law, not the daughter!"
The farmer heard all this from the attic and thought:
"What kind of gift they have brought?"
He leant out of the box to look at the fairing, and the box - wham - flew down with the man. The elderly couple suddenly heard the roar. They ran out into the hallway and saw a man covered with feathers.
"Devil! Devil!" - they screamed in unison.
The old woman began to cross herself, and the old man grabbed a poker and began to hit "the devil":
"Look, what the evil spirit got into the habit - hiding in the attic!"
The farmer stood up, ran into the garden and hid in the hemp field. He was sitting there more dead than alive, scratching the injured part of his body...
His wife came back from the field in the evening. Her father said to her:
"Well, now you will live in peace and harmony with your husband."
"What has happened?" - asked the daughter.
"Yeah, we kicked the devil out of your house! It was him right enough, who was urging you to the scandals!"
Indeed, from that time the farmer stopped calling his wife lazy.
![The Man and his Wife [Славянский Владимир Владимирович]](/img/s/slawjanskij_wladimir_wladimirowich/themanandhiswife/themanandhiswife-1.jpg)