Boris Zhitkov stories about animals. Stories about animals that will enrich a child’s inner world
We lived by the sea, and my dad had good boat with sails. I knew how to navigate it perfectly - both oars and sails. And yet, my dad never let me into the sea alone. And I was twelve years old.
One day, my sister Nina and I found out that my father was leaving home for two days, and we decided to go on a boat to the other side; and on the other side of the bay stood a very pretty house: white, with a red roof. And a grove grew around the house. We had never been there and thought it was very good. Probably a kind old man and an old woman live. And Nina says that they certainly have a dog and a kind one too. And the old people probably eat yogurt and will be happy and give us yogurt.
I
I lived on the seashore and fished. I had a boat, nets and various fishing rods. There was a booth in front of the house, and a huge dog on a chain. Shaggy, covered in black spots, Ryabka. He guarded the house. I fed him fish. I was working with a boy, and there was no one around for three miles. Ryabka was so used to talking to him, and he understood very simple things. You ask him: “Ryabka, where is Volodya?” The hazel grouse wags its tail and turns its face where Volodka went. The air is drawn through the nose, and it’s always true. It used to be that you would come from the sea with nothing, and Ryabka was waiting for fish. He stretches out on a chain and squeals.
You turn to him and say angrily:
Our affairs are bad, Ryabka! Here's how...
He will sigh, lie down and put his head on his paws. He doesn’t even ask, he understands.
When I went to sea for a long time, I always patted Ryabka on the back and persuaded him to guard him well.
One old man walked through the ice at night. And he was just approaching the shore, when suddenly the ice broke and the old man fell into the water. And there was a steamer near the shore, and an iron chain ran from the steamer into the water to the anchor.
The old man reached the chain and began to climb along it. He got out a little, got tired and started shouting: “Save me!”
The sailor on the ship heard it, looked, and someone was clinging to the anchor chain and screaming.
Three brothers were walking along the road in the mountains. They were going down. It was evening, and below they already saw how the window in their house lit up.
Suddenly clouds gathered, it immediately became dark, thunder struck, and rain poured down. The rain was so heavy that water flowed down the road like a river. The elder said:
Wait, there is a rock here, it will cover us a little from the rain.
All three sat down under a rock and waited.
The youngest, Akhmet, got tired of sitting, he said:
The cow Masha goes to look for her son, the calf Alyosha. Can't see him anywhere. Where did he go? It's time to go home.
And the calf Alyoshka ran around, got tired, and lay down in the grass. The grass is tall - Alyosha is nowhere to be seen.
The cow Masha was afraid that her son Alyoshka had disappeared, and she started mooing with all her strength:
One collective farmer woke up early in the morning, looked out the window at the yard, and there was a wolf in his yard. The wolf stood near the stable and scratched the door with its paw. And there were sheep in the stable.
The collective farmer grabbed a shovel and headed into the yard. He wanted to hit the wolf on the head from behind. But the wolf instantly turned and caught the handle of the shovel with his teeth.
The collective farmer began to snatch the shovel from the wolf. Not so! The wolf grabbed it with his teeth so tightly that he couldn’t pull it out.
The collective farmer began to call for help, but at home they were sleeping and did not hear.
“Well,” the collective farmer thinks, “the wolf won’t hold the shovel forever; but when he lets go, I’ll break his head with the shovel.”
The brother and sister had a pet jackdaw. She ate from her hands, let herself be petted, flew out into the wild and flew back.
Once my sister began to wash herself. She took the ring off her hand, put it on the sink and lathered her face with soap. And when she rinsed the soap, she looked: where is the ring? But there is no ring.
She shouted to her brother:
Give me the ring, don't tease me! Why did you take it?
“I didn’t take anything,” the brother answered.
One guy had an accordion. He played it very well, and I came to listen. He hid it and didn’t give it to anyone. The accordion was very good, and he was afraid that it would be broken. And I really wanted to try it.
One time I came when my uncle was having lunch. He finished eating, and I began to ask him to play. And he said:
What a game! I want to sleep.
I began to beg and even cried. Then the uncle said:
Okay, maybe a little.
The girl Katya wanted to fly away. There are no wings of their own. What if there is such a bird in the world - big as a horse, wings like a roof. If you sit on such a bird, you can fly across the seas to warm countries.
You just need to appease the bird first and feed the bird something good, cherries, for example.
Over dinner, Katya asked her dad:
Nobody believes this. And the firefighters say:
Smoke is worse than fire. A person runs away from the fire, but is not afraid of the smoke and climbs into it. And there he suffocates. And yet, you can’t see anything in the smoke. You can’t see where to run, where the doors are, where the windows are. Smoke eats your eyes, bites your throat, stings your nose.
And the firefighters put masks on their faces, and air flows into the mask through a tube. In such a mask you can be in the smoke for a long time, but you still can’t see anything.
And once the firemen were extinguishing a house. Residents ran out into the street. The senior fireman shouted:
Well, count, is that all?
One tenant was missing.
And the man shouted:
Our Petka stayed in the room!
Works are divided into pagesStories by Boris Zhitkov
Children's literature should always contain inspiration and talent at its core. Boris Stepanovich Zhitkov First of all, I proceeded from the conviction that it should in no way appear as an addition to adult literature. After all, most of the books that children will definitely read are a textbook of life. The invaluable experience that children gain by reading books has exactly the same value as real life experience. The child always strives to copy the characters of a literary work or openly does not like them - in any case literary works They allow you to directly and very naturally integrate into real life, take the side of good and fight evil. That's why Zhitkov stories about animals wrote in such wonderful language.
He very clearly understood that any book that was read by a child would remain in his memory for the rest of his life. It is thanks to this stories by Boris Zhitkov quickly give children a clear idea of the interconnectedness of generations, the valor of enthusiasts and workers.
All Zhitkov's stories are presented in prose format, but the poetry of his narratives is clearly felt in every line. The writer was convinced that without the memory of his childhood, there was little point in creating literature for children. Zhitkov clearly and vividly teaches children to determine where good and bad are. He shares his invaluable experience with the reader, strives to convey all his thoughts as accurately as possible, and tries to attract the child to active interaction.
Writer Boris Zhitkov stories about animals created in such a way that they vividly reflect his entire rich and sincere inner world, his principles and moral ideals. For example, in the wonderful story “About the Elephant,” Zhitkov talks about respect for the work of others, and his story “Mongoose” clearly conveys the energy, strength and accuracy of the Russian language. On our website we tried to collect as many of his works as possible, so read Zhitkov's stories, as well as view their entire list, you can absolutely free.
All the work of the beloved writer is inextricably linked with thoughts about children and concern for their upbringing. Throughout his short life he communicated with them, and, like a professional researcher, studied how he fairy tales and stories influence sensitive and kind children's souls.
RED COMMANDER
A mother was driving to the city with small children in a chaise. They've already moved into
street, suddenly the horses got scared of something and bolted.
The coachman pulled the reins with all his strength, fell completely back - nothing
The horses don’t smell it, they carry it at full speed, and the chaise is about to overturn.
The mother grabbed the children and shouted:
- Oh, hold on, hold on!
And passersby shied away, huddled close to houses and shouted:
- Hold it! Hold it!
A driver with a cartload of hay is approaching.
The driver got scared, quickly moved to the side, almost knocked over his cart and
shouts: “Hold it! Hold it!” And the chaise is rushing, the horses are galloping like mad.
The chaise is about to break, and everyone will fly onto the stone pavement from all over
scattering
Suddenly a red commander rode out from around the corner on a horse. And the chaise is right on
it rushes. The commander understood what was going on. He didn’t shout anything, but turned
his horse and stood across the chaise.
Everyone looked and waited for the commander to gallop away, for how close the madmen would fly
horses! But the commander stands, and the horse under him does not move. That's it really
a chaise swoops in - suddenly the horses came to their senses and began to stand. Just a little short of the commander
we've arrived.
And the commander pushed the horse with his foot and rode on.
FLOWER
The girl Nastya lived with her mother. Once they gave it to Nastya in a pot
flower. Nastya brought it home and put it on the window.
- Ugh, what an ugly flower! - Mom said. - Its leaves look like tongues,
and even with thorns. Probably poisonous. I won't water it.
Nastya said:
- I'll water it myself. Maybe his flowers will be beautiful.
The flower grew big, big, but didn’t even think about blooming.
“It should be thrown away,” said my mother, “there is no beauty or joy from it.”
When Nastya got sick, she was very afraid that her mother would throw away the flower or
If you don't water it, it will dry out.
Mom called the doctor to Nastya and said:
- Look, doctor, my girl is still ill and has become completely ill.
The doctor examined Nastya and said:
- If you could get the leaves of one plant. They look inflated and with spikes.
- Mommy! - Nastya screamed. - This is my flower. Here it is!
The doctor looked and said:
- He's the one. Boil the leaves from it and let Nastya drink it. And she
will get better.
“I wanted to throw it away,” said my mother.
Mom began giving Nastya these leaves, and soon Nastya got out of bed.
“Here,” said Nastya, “I took care of him, my little flower, and he took care of me.”
saved.
And since then, my mother bred many of these flowers and always gave Nastya something to drink.
of which is medicine.
SOAP
One boy kept wanting to know if soap floated. That's when he came to
kitchen. And in the kitchen there was a bucket full of water, and next to it a new bar of soap.
The boy looked around and saw: no one was there. He took the soap, put it in the water and let it go.
Soap - yurk! And underwater. The boy was afraid that he had drowned the soap. Ran away from the kitchen
and didn't tell anyone.
Everyone went to bed, and no one was missing new soap.
The next morning the mother began to set the samovar. He sees that there is not enough water in the bucket.
She threw everything into the samovar and quickly poured it into the water to top up the samovar.
So everyone sat down at the table to drink tea. Mother brought the samovar to the table.
The samovar is boiling. Everyone is looking - what a miracle! Bubbles bubble up from under the lid, and
more and more. Lo and behold, the whole samovar is covered in foam.
Suddenly the boy began to cry and shouted:
- I thought it was floating! - And he told me how it all happened.
“Oh,” said my mother, “that means I put soap and water in the samovar.”
I splashed it out and then topped it up with fresh water.
The father said to the boy:
- You would rather try it in a plate than drown it in a bucket. And cry
nothing. Now I have to go to work without tea, but you see, I’m not paying.
The father patted his son on the shoulder and went to work.
IN THE MOUNTAINS
Three brothers were walking along the road in the mountains. They were going down. It was evening, and downstairs they
have already seen the window in their house light up.
Suddenly clouds gathered, it immediately became dark, thunder struck, and rain poured down.
The rain was so heavy that water flowed down the road like a river.
The elder said:
- Wait, there is a rock here, it will cover us a little from the rain.
All three sat down under a rock and waited.
The youngest, Akhmet, got tired of sitting, he said:
- I'll go. Why be cowardly? Not far from home. I don't want to be here with you
get wet. I'll have dinner and sleep in a dry bed for the night.
“Don’t go, you’ll be lost,” said the elder.
“I’m not a coward,” said Akhmet and came out from under the rock.
He boldly walked along the road - he didn’t care about water.
And the water was already turning over the stones and rolling them down behind it. The stones caught up with
during the acceleration they hit Akhmet on the legs. He started to run.
He wanted to see the light in the house ahead, but the rain was pouring so hard that nothing
there was nothing visible ahead.
"Shouldn't we go back?" - thought Akhmet. But I became ashamed: I boasted - now
his brothers will laugh.
Then lightning flashed and thunder struck as if all the mountains had cracked and
fell down. When the lightning struck, Akhmet did not know where he was.
“Oh, it seems I’m lost,” Akhmet thought and got scared.
His legs were beaten with stones, and he walked more quietly.
He walked very quietly and was afraid to stumble. Suddenly it hit again
lightning, and Akhmet saw that right in front of him was a cliff and a black abyss.
Akhmet sat down on the ground out of fear.
“Now,” thought Akhmet, “if I had taken one more step, I would have fallen down and
I would have crashed to death."
Now he was afraid to go back. What if there’s a break there again and
abyss.
He sat on the wet ground, and cold rain poured down on him from above.
Akhmet just thought:
“It’s good that I didn’t take another step: I would have been completely lost.”
And when morning came and the thunderstorm passed, the brothers found Akhmet. He was sitting on
edge of the abyss and completely numb from the cold.
The brothers didn’t say anything to him, but picked him up and took him home.
HOW SASHA SCARED MOM
Mom went to the market and told me:
- Lock yourself on a hook and don’t let anyone in, otherwise, look, thieves and robbers
they will come.
I didn’t lock myself in, but when my mother left, I took a washcloth, ruffled it and tied it up -
it came out like a beard.
Then he took coal out of the stove and smeared it on his mustache under his nose. I'm on my head
I put on my dad's T-shirt. I looked in the mirror and saw that I had become very scary.
Then I placed a stool in the entryway. He put his felt boots in front of the stool and
I put on my father’s sheepskin coat, took an ax in my hand and climbed onto the stool.
I waited for a long time, suddenly I heard: mom is coming. I tried the door, the door and
opened. When she saw him so big and with an axe, she stood in
doors.
I raised my ax hand and said:
- I'm a robber.
Suddenly my mother laughed and said:
- You’re not a robber at all, but Sashka. - And she pushed me off the stool. - Ugh,
How scared!
And she found out that I had a thin voice. Then she said to
I didn’t dare anymore - after all, it means I was scared.
BEARD
One old man walked through the ice at night. And he was just approaching the shore when
suddenly the ice broke and the old man fell into the water. And there was a steamer near the shore, and with
The steamer had an iron chain going into the water to the anchor.
The old man reached the chain and began to climb along it. Got out a little, tired and
began to shout: “Save me!”
The sailor on the ship heard it, looked, and there was someone on the anchor chain
clings and screams.
The sailor did not think long, found a rope, grabbed the end in his teeth and
climbed down the chain to save the old man.
“Here,” says the sailor, “tie the rope, grandfather, I’ll pull you out.”
And grandfather says:
- You can’t pull me: my beard is frozen to the iron.
The sailor took out a knife.
“Cut off,” says grandfather, “the beard.”
“No,” says the grandfather. - How can I live without a beard?
“You won’t be hanging from your beard until spring,” said the sailor, and grabbed
cut the beard with a knife, tied the old man up and pulled him out on a rope.
Then the sailor brought him to a warm cabin and said:
- Undress, grandfather, go to bed, and I’ll warm you some tea.
“What tea,” says the grandfather, “if I have no beard now.” - And he cried.
“You’re funny, grandfather,” said the sailor. - You almost disappeared completely, but
Why spare a beard if it grows?
The old man took off his wet clothes and lay down in a warm bed.
And the next morning he said to the sailor:
- Your truth: a beard will grow, but without you I would be lost.
HOW THE BOY DROWNED
I walked along the shore and watched the carpenters building the pier. Huge
the logs floated in the water tightly one to one. They were taken out of the water and killed
into the bottom, so that a whole fence of logs stuck out of the water. Suddenly it seemed to me
that where the piles floated, something flashed. I didn’t know what, but I ran there.
I kept my eyes on this place and ran as fast as I could.
And from the side I saw out of the corner of my eye: a telegraph operator was running right there. Runs with
all legs and holding his stomach. He had a bag with telegrams on his belt, and
he was afraid they would fall out.
The telegraph operator also looked in the same place where I was looking. The earth is crumbling there
went down to the water, and piles floated on the water - tightly, like a raft. Telegraphist
He didn’t say a word to me, but just pointed his finger, planted his feet on the scree and
extended his hand. I didn’t say a word either, but grabbed the telegraph operator firmly by the
hand, and he lay down on the piles and stuck his hand between them - in the very place where
We both looked without taking our eyes off.
I began to fumble with my hand in the water. And suddenly little fingers came across me and
grabbed my hand tightly. I grabbed it too. And then the telegraph operator pulled
me to the shore. The piles parted, and after my hand a small hand came out,
and behind it was a head, and we pulled out the boy. He was red-haired, about seven years old. It was blinking
eyes and said nothing. The carpenters arrived. One took the boy, lifted him up and
shook above the ground. The boy poured water from his mouth. They brought him to his feet and
They asked: how did he drown? The boy said that he wanted to walk on the stilts, but they
They parted under his feet, and he fell headlong between them. And then we got together
above him like a ceiling. And now he began to cry:
-Where is my hat? Where is the fishing rod! I won't go home without a hat.
Everyone started laughing: say thank you for being alive, and you about the hat
you cry.
I found his fishing rod and began looking for his hat in the water. He hooked it and pulled it out.
But it was an old bast shoe. Then he caught it again, and it was a wet cap.
The boy began to feel sorry for her that she was wet. I went. And when I looked back, boy
He kept holding his cap and crying.
The telegraph operator waved his hand, looked to see if the telegrams were there, and hurried
away.
HARMONIC
One guy had an accordion. He played it very well, and I
came to listen. He hid it and didn’t give it to anyone. The accordion was very
good, and he was afraid that they would break it. And I really wanted to try it.
One day I came when my uncle was having lunch. He finished eating and I started
ask him to play. And he said:
- What a game! I want to sleep.
I began to beg and even cried. Then the uncle said:
- Well, okay, maybe a little.
And he took out an accordion from the chest. I played a little, put the accordion on the table,
and he fell asleep here on the bench.
I thought: “That’s when happiness came to me. I’ll quietly take the accordion and play.”
I'll try it in the yard."
I got the hang of it, grabbed the accordion by the handle and pulled. And how she barks at
all the voices are as if alive. I pulled my hand away in fright. Then the uncle jumped up.
“You,” he says, “what is this!”
And to me, and by the hand.
Then I cried and told the whole truth.
“Well,” said the uncle, “don’t cry: if you have such a desire, come, I’ll
I will teach you.
I came, and my uncle showed me how to play. I have learned now
I play very well.
Petya lived with his mother and sisters on the top floor, and on the bottom floor he lived
teacher. One day mom went swimming with the girls. And Petya was left alone
guard the apartment.
When everyone left, Petya began to try his homemade cannon. She was from
iron tube. Petya filled the middle with gunpowder, and there was a hole in the back so that
light gunpowder. But no matter how hard Petya tried, he could not set fire to anything. Petya
very angry. He went into the kitchen. He put some wood chips in the slab and poured them
kerosene, put a cannon on top and lit it. “Now it’ll probably shoot!”
The fire flared up, began to hum in the stove - and suddenly there was a shot! Yes
such that all the fire was thrown out of the stove.
Petya got scared and ran out of the house. No one was home, no one did anything
I heard. Petya ran away. He thought that maybe everything would go out on its own.
But nothing went out. And it flared up even more.
The teacher was walking home and saw smoke coming from the upper windows. He ran to
column where the button was made behind the glass. This is a call to the fire department. Teacher
broke the glass and pressed the button.
The fire department's bell rang. They quickly rushed to their fire trucks
and ran at full speed. They drove up to the post, and there the teacher showed them
where it burns. The firefighters had a pump on their vehicles. The pump began to pump water, and
Firefighters began dousing the fire with water from rubber pipes. Firefighters assigned
ladders to the windows and climbed into the house to find out if there were any people left in the house.
There was no one in the house. The firefighters began to take things out.
Petya’s mother came running when the whole apartment was already on fire. Policeman
I didn’t let anyone get close so as not to disturb the firefighters.
The most necessary things did not have time to burn, and the firefighters brought them to Petina
mom.
And Petya’s mother kept crying and saying that Petya had probably burned out,
because he is nowhere to be seen.
But Petya was ashamed, and he was afraid to approach his mother. The boys saw him and
brought by force.
The firefighters did such a good job of extinguishing the fire that nothing burned downstairs.
The firefighters got into their cars and drove away. And the teacher let Petya’s mother in
live with yourself until the house is repaired.FLOOD
There are rivers in our country that do not flow all the time in one place.
Such a river will rush to the right, flow to the right, then after a while,
as if she was tired of flowing here, suddenly she would crawl to the left and flood her left
shore. And if the bank is high, the water will wash it away. The steep bank will collapse into
river, and if there was a house on the cliff, then the house will fly into the water.
A tugboat was walking along such a river, pulling two barges. Steamboat
stopped at the pier to leave one barge there, and then approached him from the shore
the boss arrived and said:
- Captain, you will go further. Be careful not to run aground: river
has gone far to the right and is now flowing along a completely different bottom. And now she's coming
more and more to the right and it floods and washes away the shore.
“Oh,” said the captain, “my house is on the right bank, almost right next to the water.”
His wife and son remained there. What if they didn’t have time to escape?!
The captain ordered the car to be put into full speed. He hurried quickly to
home and was very angry that the heavy barge was delaying its progress.
The steamer had sailed a little, when suddenly it was signaled to go to shore.
The captain anchored the barge and sent the steamer towards the shore.
He saw that on the shore thousands of people with shovels and wheelbarrows were rushing -
they carry earth, build a wall to prevent the river from flooding the bank. They take you to
camels carried wooden logs to drive them into the bank and strengthen the wall. A
a machine with a tall iron arm walks along the wall and shovels onto it with a bucket
land.
People ran to the captain and asked:
- What's in the barge?
“A stone,” said the captain.
Everyone shouted:
- Oh, how good! Let's come here! And then look, the river is about to break through
wall and will wash away all our work. The river will rush into the fields and wash away all the crops.
There will be hunger. Hurry, quickly, give me the stone!
Here the captain forgot about his wife and son. He launched the ship as it is
spirit and brought the barge right to the shore.
People began to carry stone and strengthened the wall. The river still stopped
didn't go. Then the captain asked:
- Do you know how it is at my home?
The boss sent a telegram, and the answer soon came. They worked there too
all the people there were and saved the house where the captain’s wife and son lived.
“Here,” said the chief, “here you helped our people, and there your comrades
saved yours.HOW THE STEAMER DROWNED
There was a war. People were afraid that enemies would sail to their land in military
ships. Warships can use cannons to destroy everything on the shore. And then
they can bring soldiers with them and land them ashore.
So, so that warships are afraid to approach the shore, at sea
They sent out large round iron boxes. This box is designed in such a way that if
If a steamer touches it, it will immediately explode. Yes, with such force that
will certainly make a hole in the steamer. And the steamer will begin to fill with water, and
then he may drown.
These boxes are called mines. So that the mines do not get carried away anywhere and that they
stood near the shore in the water, they were tied with a wire rope to heavy
anchors The anchors lie firmly on the bottom and hold the mines. So that they are not on top
apparently, the wire rope is made shorter, so that the mine sits under water, but
not very deep. The steamer will not pass over it; it will certainly catch it with its bottom. When
fought, many warships ran into mines. The mines exploded and
ships were sunk.
But now the war is over. They took the mines out of the water. And when they calculated it, then
It turned out that not everything was taken out. There are still a few mines left in the sea. They couldn't
find. Simple steamships began to sail on the sea, not military ones. Simple steamers
transported people and goods from port to port, from country to country.
One steamer was carrying cargo. It was summer and the weather was calm.
The steamer passed by fishermen, and from the steamer everyone watched as fishermen
They raise the nets and see how many fish they caught.
Suddenly there was a sound like thunder. The steamer shook, and from under the side
a sheaf of water flew into the air higher than the mast. It was the ship that pushed the mine, and it
exploded. The ship began to sink quickly.
The fishermen left their nets, sailed in boats to the ship and took all the people.
The captain did not want to leave for a long time. He felt sorry for the ship. He thought that
Maybe the ship can be saved somehow and it won’t sink. But everyone saw
that the ship will sink anyway. And the captain was taken by force into the boat.
The ship sank along with its cargo.
HOW THEY RAISED THE STEAMER FROM THE BOTTOM
The steamer sank to the bottom and lay down, leaning to one side. He had a big one
there was a hole, and it was all filled with water.
There was water where the car is parked; there was water in the cabins where people lived;
there was water in the holds where the goods lay. The little fish came by to have a look, no
Is there anything to profit from?
The captain knew very well the place where his ship sank. There was no
very deep: divers could go down there. They decided to raise the steamer!
A rescue boat arrived and began lowering divers under the water.
The divers are all dressed in rubber suits: water does not pass through them. Chest and
The collar of this suit is copper. The diver's head is covered with copper
cap. This cap is screwed to the collar. And in a copper cap there is
glass window - for the diver to watch. And it also goes in this cap
a rubber pipe into which air is pumped from above so that a diver can
breathe.
The divers tied huge cans - pontoons - to the ship. To these pontoons
They let air through the pipes. The pontoons floated upward and pulled the steamer with them.
When the ship surfaced, everyone was happy, and most of all the captain. Steamboat
They took me in tow for repairs. There was only one person on it. This is the captain
I quickly wanted to go to my ship. They repaired the steamer for twenty days - and
repaired the hole.
FIRE AT SEA
One steamer was going to sea with a cargo of coal. The ship needed three more days
go to the place. Suddenly a mechanic from the engine room came running to the captain and
said:
- We came across very bad coal, it caught fire in our hold.
- So fill it with water! - said the captain.
- Late! - answered the assistant captain. - It got very hot. This is all
It's like pouring water on a hot stove. There will be as much steam as in a steam
boiler
The captain said:
- Then seal the room where the coal is burning so tightly that there is
like in a corked bottle. And the fire will go out.
- Will try! - said the captain's assistant and ran to give orders.
And the captain turned the ship straight to the shore - to the nearest port. He gave in
this port telegram on the radio: “My coal has caught fire. I’m going at full speed to
to you." And from there they answered: "Hold on as long as you can. Help is coming."
Everyone on the ship knew that their coal had caught fire, and tried their best to
I could have sealed this coal so that no air could get through to it. But already
the wall that separated the coal heated up. Everyone already knew that now
the fire will burst out and there will be a terrible fire.
And from the sea came radio telegrams from three rescue ships that
they are rushing to help at full speed.
The captain's assistant climbed onto the mast to quickly see from above where
steamships. The steamers were not visible for a long time, and the sailors already thought that they would have to
lower the boats and leave the ship.
Suddenly a flame burst out of the hold and such a fire rose that the boats
it was impossible to pass. Everyone screamed in horror. Only the assistant was not afraid
the captain who stood on the mast.
He pointed into the distance with his hand. And everyone saw that there, in the distance, they were rushing towards them
three ships. People were delighted and rushed to put out the fire themselves as best they could. A
As soon as the rescue ships arrived, so many fire engines were put into action,
that the entire fire was soon extinguished.
Then they took the ship to the port, and at the port it was repaired, and a month later it
moved on.
In winter the sea froze. The fishermen of the entire collective farm gathered on the ice to fish.
We took the nets and rode on a sleigh across the ice. The fisherman Andrei also went, and with him his
little son Volodya. We went far, far away. And wherever you look, everything is ice and
ice: the sea is so frozen. Andrey and his comrades drove the farthest. We've done it
there were holes in the ice and nets began to be launched through them. It was a sunny day, everyone
it was fun. Volodya helped unravel the fish from the nets and was very happy that
a lot was caught. Large piles of frozen fish were already lying on the ice. Volodin's dad
said:
- That's enough, it's time to go home.
But everyone began to ask to stay overnight and fish again in the morning.
In the evening we ate, wrapped ourselves tightly in sheepskin coats and went to bed in the sleigh. Volodya
He snuggled up to his father to keep him warm and fell soundly asleep.
Suddenly at night the father jumped up and shouted:
- Comrades, get up! Look how windy it is! There would be no trouble!
Everyone jumped up and ran around.
- Why are we shaking? - Volodya shouted.
And the father shouted:
- Trouble! We were torn off and carried on an ice floe into the sea.
All the fishermen ran along the ice floe and shouted:
- It's torn off, it's torn off!
And someone shouted:
- Gone!
Volodya began to cry. During the day the wind became even stronger, the waves splashed on
an ice floe, and all around was only the sea. Volodin's dad tied a mast from two poles,
tied a red shirt at the end and set it up like a flag. Everyone looked, no
I see there's a steamer somewhere. Out of fear, no one wanted to eat or drink. And Volodya
I lay in the sleigh and looked at the sky to see if the sun would come out. And suddenly in a clearing
Volodya saw a plane between the clouds and shouted:
- Airplane! Airplane!
Everyone started shouting and waving their hats. A bag fell from a plane. It contained
food and a note: “Hold on! Help is coming!” An hour later the ship arrived and
overloaded people, sleighs, horses and fish. The port chief found out
that eight fishermen were carried away on an ice floe. He sent a ship to help them and
airplane. The pilot found the fishermen and told the ship captain on the radio where
go.
In the north, where the Nenets live, even in the spring, when the snow has already melted everywhere,
There are still frosts and there are strong snowstorms.
Once in the spring, a Nenets postman had to carry mail from one
Nenets village in another. Not far - only thirty kilometers.
The Nenets have very light sleds - sledges. They harness reindeer to them. Deer
rushing like a whirlwind, faster than any horses.
The postman went out in the morning, looked at the sky, crushed the snow with his hand and thought:
“There will be a snowstorm starting at noon. I’ll harness up now and have time to get through before
blizzards."
He harnessed four of his best reindeer, put on a malitsa - a fur
a robe with a hood, fur boots and picked up a long stick. With this stick
he will drive the deer so that they run faster.
The postman tied the mail tightly to the sledge, jumped onto the sleigh, and sat sideways
and let the deer run wild.
He was already leaving the village, when suddenly his sister came towards him. She waved
hands and shouted:
- Stop!
The postman got angry, but still stopped. My sister started asking
the postman so that he could take her daughter with him to her grandmother. The postman shouted:
- Hurry! Otherwise there will be a snowstorm.
But the sister fussed for a long time while she fed and collected the girl. Postman
He sat the girl in front of him, and the deer rushed off. And the postman was still urging them on,
to have time to drive before the snowstorm.
Halfway there the wind began to blow - straight towards us. There was sun and snow
was shining, and then suddenly it got dark, the snow began to swirl, and it wasn’t even visible
front deer.
The deer began to get stuck in the snow and stopped.
The postman unharnessed the reindeer, stood the sleigh upright, and tied his
a long stick, and tied the girl’s pioneer tie to the end of the stick. And myself
I stomped around the area near the sleigh, put the mail there, laid out the reindeer, lay down and snuggled
to them with the girl. They were soon covered with snow, and the postman dug them out under the snow
cave, and it turned out like a snow house. It was quiet and warm there.
And in the village where the postman was going, they saw that there was a snowstorm, but he was not there, and
They asked on the phone if he had left. And everyone realized that the postman had been captured
blizzard. We waited for the snowstorm to pass.
The next day the snowstorm did not subside, but the snow was flying lower. On reindeer
You couldn’t go looking for the postman; only snowmobiles could get through. They -
like a house on runners, and they run forward because they have a motor. Motor
turns a propeller, like that of an airplane.
The doctor, the driver and two men with shovels got into the snowmobile. And snowmobile
They ran along the road where the postman was driving.
Suddenly, above a low snowstorm, as if a flag was made of water, they saw a stick with
pioneer tie.
The snowmobile drove up and stopped. Now they have dug up the postman,
girl and deer. The postman immediately asked:
- Did they bring food? The girl is crying.
“Even hot,” said the doctor and carried the girl into the snowmobile.
While the postman and the girl were warming up, a snowstorm passed.
The ship was made at the factory. It was built on the shore and now it is being lowered
into the water.
The ship was named "Partizan".
The Partizan, completely ready, stands at the pier, and cargo is placed in it. To him
assigned to go to Arctic Ocean. The ice never melts there. Far away there
on the island people can't wait for the ship. They need boards to build a house,
you need flour, sugar, vegetables, milk. "Partisan" even brings them a live cow.
"Partizan" is in a hurry. If winter catches him, he won't get out
out of the ice without the help of an icebreaker and cannot return back.
The machine is running at full speed. "Partisan" goes day and night. At night
lights are lit: white on the masts, and red and green on the sides, so that
oncoming steamships did not encounter him.
Suddenly a terrible storm arose. It became difficult to move forward. Huge waves
rushed to board the ship. But the Partizan was a strong and strong ship: it sailed
through the wind and waves, forward and forward. The captain knew: on a distant island
people are waiting. If he is late and winter catches him on the way, they will be left without
bread
But then the captain saw: he was dying at sea sailing ship. Needs to be saved
people! They threw a rope from the Partizan, and attached it to the sailboat
mast. A basket was tied to a rope, and people were dragged in it
"Partisan". Everyone was saved and we moved on. Hurry up, hurry up!..
Partizan was already halfway through safely. But then I went up to the sea
fog. You can’t see anything around, it’s like you’re floating in milk. "Partizan" is coming
slowly and blows the horn so as not to collide. Suddenly very close
another ship appeared. The captain wanted to turn, but it was too late.
An oncoming steamer hit the Partizan in the side and punched a large hole.
But the Partizan did not sink. There was a hole in the side above the water. I had to
go to the port to repair the hole. The captain asked that they repair it quickly.
We had to get to a distant island before winter. They put it in place of the hole
new iron sheet, and “Partizan” became like new again.
Now "Partizan" was in a hurry more than before and still did not have time: the ice
surrounded him on all sides.
“Partizan” cannot break through the ice.
But then the icebreaker steamer helped him. The icebreaker doesn't care about ice. He's his
breaks and makes a channel among the ice, similar to a river with icy banks.
The Partizan followed the icebreaker along this river.
So the Partizan followed the icebreaker to the island, where people had been waiting for it for a long time.
The captain told everything that happened to him on the way. And everyone was happy that the ship
still came before winter. They began to quickly unload sugar, flour, boards, and the cow
They brought us down the gangplank. Then they loaded the ship with animal skins and walrus tusks
- everything that we caught and shot during the whole year.
It was already frosty in the north when Partizan went home.
A frosty storm hit the ship at sea, waves swept over the deck, and
the water froze. The weight of the ice could cause the ship to capsize. People were chipping
ice for three days and three nights without rest and saved the Partizan.
The closer to home, the warmer it became. And when we came home, it was
It was already quite warm and the sun was shining. The ship was decorated with flags. On the pier
people met him; they waved their hats and shouted “hurray.” Everyone was glad that
"Partizan" did not freeze in the ice.
He delivered everything necessary for people on the island. And I brought a lot from there
furs and skins, and seal oil, and salted fish, and walrus tusks, and even
live polar bear for the zoo.COLLAPSE
The girl Valya was eating fish and suddenly choked on a bone. Mom screamed:
- Eat the crust quickly!
But nothing helped. Valya had tears flowing from her eyes. She couldn't
to speak, but only wheezed and waved her arms. Mom got scared and ran to call
doctors And the doctor lived forty kilometers away. Mom told him on the phone
so that he comes as soon as possible. The doctor immediately collected his tweezers and sat down in
car and drove to Valya. The road went along the shore. On one side there was the sea,
and on the other side there are steep cliffs. The car was racing at full speed. The doctor is very
I was afraid for Valya. Suddenly there was a thunder in front, and the driver stopped the car. This
one rock crumbled into stones and covered the road. It became impossible to travel, and
the doctor almost cried. There was still a long way to go. But the doctor still wanted
walk Suddenly a horn sounded from behind. The driver looked back and said:
- Wait, doctor, help is coming!
And it was a truck in a hurry. He drove up to the rubble. Jumped out of the truck
People. They removed the pump machine and rubber pipes from the truck. And they laid a pipe
in the sea. The pump started working. He sucked water from the sea through a pipe, and then drove it into
another pipe. Water flew out of this pipe with terrible force. She's with this
flew out with force that people could not hold the end of the pipe: it shook so much and
fought. It was screwed to an iron stand and directed water directly towards the collapse.
It turned out as if they were shooting water from a cannon. The water hit so hard
a landslide that knocked down clay and stones and carried them into the sea. The whole collapse is water
washed off the road.
- Let's go quickly! - the doctor shouted to the driver.
The driver started the car. The doctor came to Valya, took out his tweezers and took out
a bone from the throat. And then he sat down and told Valya how the road was blocked and how
the hydraulic ram pump washed away the collapse.
SMOKE
Nobody believes this. And the firefighters say:
- Smoke is worse than fire. A man runs away from fire, but is not afraid of smoke and climbs
into it. And there he suffocates. And yet, you can’t see anything in the smoke. Can't see where
run where the doors are, where the windows are. Smoke eats your eyes, bites your throat, stings your nose.
And the firefighters put masks on their faces, and air flows into the mask through a tube. IN
With such a mask you can be in the smoke for a long time, but you still can’t see anything.
And once the firemen were extinguishing a house. Residents ran out into the street. Senior
The fireman shouted:
- Well, count, is that all?
One tenant was missing.
And the man shouted:
- Our Petka stayed in the room!
The senior fireman sent a masked man to find Petka. The man entered
room.
There was no fire in the room yet, but it was full of smoke. The masked man searched
the whole room, all the walls and shouted with all his might through the mask:
- Petka, Petka! Come out, you'll burn! Give me your vote!
But no one answered. The man heard the roof falling, got scared and
left.
Then the senior fireman got angry:
-Where is Petka?
“I searched all the walls,” said the man.
- Give me a mask! - the elder shouted.
The man began to take off his mask. The elder sees: the ceiling is already on fire. Wait
once.
And the elder did not wait; dipped the mitten in the bucket, stuck it in his mouth and
rushed into the smoke.
He immediately threw himself on the floor and began to fumble. I came across the sofa and thought:
“He probably hid there, there’s less smoke there.”
He reached under the sofa and felt his legs. The senior fireman grabbed them and
pulled out of the room.
He pulled the man onto the porch. It was Petka. And the fireman stood and
staggered. So the smoke got to him.
And then the ceiling collapsed and the whole room caught fire.
Petka was carried aside and brought to his senses. He said that with
I hid under the sofa in fear, covered my ears and closed my eyes. And then he doesn’t remember that
was.
And the senior fireman took the mitten into his mouth so that through the wet
It's easier to breathe with a rag in the smoke.
After the fire, the elder told the fireman:
- Why were you rummaging around the walls? He won't be waiting for you by the wall. When he is silent,
So, that means he’s suffocated and is lying on the floor. I would search the floor and the beds right away
I would have found it.
The brother and sister had a pet jackdaw. She ate from her hands, let herself be petted, flew out into the wild and flew back.
Once my sister began to wash herself. She took the ring off her hand, put it on the sink and lathered her face with soap. And when she rinsed the soap, she looked: where is the ring? But there is no ring.
She shouted to her brother:
Give me the ring, don't tease me! Why did you take it?
“I didn’t take anything,” the brother answered.
His sister quarreled with him and cried.
Grandma heard.
What do you have here? - speaks. - Give me glasses, now I’ll find this ring.
We rushed to look for glasses - no glasses.
“I just put them on the table,” the grandmother cries. -Where should they go? How can I thread a needle now?
And she screamed at the boy.
It's your business! Why are you teasing grandma?
The boy got offended and ran out of the house. He looks, and a jackdaw is flying above the roof, and something glitters under her beak. I took a closer look - yes, these are glasses! The boy hid behind a tree and began to watch. And the jackdaw sat on the roof, looked around to see if anyone was watching, and began pushing the glasses on the roof into the crack with her beak.
The grandmother came out onto the porch and said to the boy:
Tell me, where are my glasses?
On the roof! - said the boy.
Grandma was surprised. And the boy climbed onto the roof and pulled out his grandmother’s glasses from the crack. Then he pulled out the ring from there. And then he took out pieces of glass, and then a lot of different pieces of money.
The grandmother was delighted with the glasses, and the sister was delighted with the ring and said to her brother:
Forgive me, I was thinking about you, but this is a thief jackdaw.
And they made peace with their brother.
Grandma said:
That's all them, jackdaws and magpies. Whatever glitters, they drag everything away.
The cow Masha goes to look for her son, the calf Alyosha. Can't see him anywhere. Where did he go? It's time to go home.
And the calf Alyoshka ran around, got tired, and lay down in the grass. The grass is tall - Alyosha is nowhere to be seen.
The cow Masha was afraid that her son Alyoshka had disappeared, and she started mooing with all her strength:
At home they milked Masha, milked a whole bucket fresh milk. They poured it into Alyosha’s bowl:
Here, drink, Alyoshka.
Alyoshka was delighted - he had been wanting milk for a long time - he drank it all to the bottom and licked the bowl with his tongue.
Alyoshka got drunk and wanted to run around the yard. As soon as he started running, suddenly a puppy jumped out of the booth and started barking at Alyoshka. Alyoshka was scared: that’s right, scary beast, if he barks so loudly. And he started to run.
Alyoshka ran away, and the puppy did not bark anymore. It became quiet all around. Alyoshka looked - no one was there, everyone had gone to bed. And I wanted to sleep myself. He lay down and fell asleep in the yard.
The cow Masha also fell asleep on the soft grass.
The puppy also fell asleep at his kennel - he was tired, he barked all day.
The boy Petya also fell asleep in his crib - he was tired, he had been running around all day.
And the bird has long since fallen asleep.
She fell asleep on a branch and hid her head under her wing to make it warmer to sleep. I'm tired too. I flew all day, catching midges.
Everyone has fallen asleep, everyone is sleeping.
Only the night wind does not sleep.
It rustles in the grass and rustles in the bushes.
About the monkey
I was twelve years old and in school. One day during recess my friend Yukhimenko came up to me and said:
Do you want me to give you a monkey?
I didn’t believe it - I thought he was going to pull some kind of trick on me, so that sparks would fly out of my eyes, and say: this is the “monkey.” I'm not like that.
Okay, I say, we know.
No, he says, really. Live monkey. She's good. Her name is Yashka. And dad is angry.
To whom?
Yes to me and Yashka. Take it away, he says, wherever you want. I think it's best for you.
After classes we went to see him. I still didn't believe it. Did I really think I would have a live monkey? And he kept asking what she was like. And Yukhimenko says:
You'll see, don't be afraid, she's small.
Indeed, it turned out to be small. If it stands on its paws, it will be no more than half an arshin. The muzzle is wrinkled, like an old woman, and the eyes are lively and shiny. Its fur is red and its paws are black. It’s like human hands in black gloves. She was wearing a blue vest.
Yukhimenko shouted:
Yashka, Yashka, go, whatever I'll give you!
And he put his hand in his pocket. The monkey shouted: “Ay! ah!” - and in two leaps she jumped into Yukhimenka’s arms. He immediately put it in his overcoat, in his bosom.
Let's go, he says.
I couldn't believe my eyes. We walk down the street, carrying such a miracle, and no one knows what we have in our bosom.
Dear Yukhimenko told me what to feed.
He eats everything, come on. Loves sweets. Candy is a disaster! If he gets too full, he will definitely overeat. He likes his tea to be liquid and sweet. You're giving her a hard time. Two pieces. Don’t give him a bite: he’ll eat the sugar and won’t drink the tea.
I listened to everything and thought: I won’t spare her even three pieces, she’s so cute, like a toy man. Then I remembered that she didn’t have a tail either.
“You,” I say, “cut off her tail at the very root?”
“She’s a macaque,” says Yukhimenko, “they don’t grow tails.”
We arrived at our home. Mom and the girls were sitting at lunch. Yukhimenka and I walked in straight in our greatcoats.
I speak:
And who do we have!
Everyone turned around. Yukhimenko opened his overcoat. No one had time to make out anything yet, but Yashka was about to jump from Yukhimenka onto his mother’s head; pushed with his legs - and onto the buffet. I ruined my mother’s entire hairstyle.
Everyone jumped up and shouted:
Oh, who, who is it?
And Yashka sat down on the sideboard and made faces, slurped, and bared his teeth.
Yukhimenko was afraid that they would scold him now, and quickly went to the door. They didn’t even look at him - everyone looked at the monkey. And suddenly the girls all began to sing in one voice:
How pretty!
And mom kept fixing her hair.
Where is this from?
I looked back. Yukhimenka is no longer there. So, I remained the owner. And I wanted to show that I know how to handle a monkey. I put my hand in my pocket and shouted, as Yukhimenko did earlier:
Yashka, Yashka! Go, I'll give you what!
Everyone was waiting. But Yashka didn’t even look - he began to itch slightly and often with his black little paw.
Until the evening, Yashka did not go downstairs, but jumped from top to bottom: from the sideboard to the door, from the door to the closet, and from there to the stove.
In the evening my father said:
You can’t leave her like that overnight, she’ll turn the apartment upside down.
And I started catching Yashka. I go to the buffet - he goes to the stove. I brushed him out of there - he jumped on the clock. The clock swayed and began to swing. And Yashka is already swinging on the curtains. From there - at the painting - the painting looked sideways - I was afraid that Yashka would throw himself at the hanging lamp.
But then everyone had already gathered and began to chase Yashka. They threw balls, spools, matches at him and finally drove him into a corner.
Yashka pressed himself against the wall, bared his teeth and clicked his tongue - he began to scare. But they covered him with a woolen scarf and wrapped him up, entangling him.
Yashka floundered and screamed, but they soon twisted him around so that only his head was left sticking out. He turned his head, blinked his eyes, and seemed like he was about to cry out of resentment.
You can't swaddle a monkey every night! Father said:
Bind. For the vest and to the leg, to the table.
I brought the rope, felt the button on Yashka’s back, threaded the rope into the loop and tied it tightly. Yashka’s vest on the back was fastened with three buttons. Then I brought Yashka, wrapped up as he was, to the table, tied a rope to his leg, and only then unwound the scarf.
Wow, how he started jumping! But where can he break the rope! He screamed, got angry and sat down sadly on the floor.
Konstantin Paustovsky
The lake near the shores was covered with heaps yellow leaves. There were so many of them that we couldn't fish. The fishing lines lay on the leaves and did not sink.
We had to take an old boat out to the middle of the lake, where the water lilies were blooming and the blue water seemed black as tar. There we caught multi-colored perches, pulled out tin roach and ruff with eyes like two small moons. The pikes flashed their teeth, small as needles, at us.
It was autumn in the sun and fogs. Through the fallen forests, distant clouds and thick blue air were visible.
At night, in the thickets around us, low stars moved and trembled.
There was a fire burning in our parking lot. We burned it all day and night to drive away the wolves - they howled quietly along the far shores of the lake. They were disturbed by the smoke of the fire and cheerful human cries.
We were sure that fire frightens animals, but one evening in the grass, near the fire, some animal began to snort angrily. He was not visible. He ran around us anxiously, rustling the tall grass, snorting and getting angry, but didn’t even stick his ears out of the grass. Potatoes were fried in a frying pan, a sharp, tasty smell emanated from them, and the animal obviously came running to this smell.
A boy came to the lake with us. He was only nine years old, but he tolerated spending the night in the forest and the cold of autumn dawns well. Much better than us adults, he noticed and told everything. He was an inventor, this boy, but we adults really loved his inventions. We couldn’t, and didn’t want to, prove to him that he was telling a lie. Every day he came up with something new: either he heard the fish whispering, or he saw how the ants made a ferry across the stream from pine bark and cobwebs and crossed in the light of the night, an unprecedented rainbow. We pretended to believe him.
Everything that surrounded us seemed extraordinary: the late moon shining over the black lakes, and high clouds like mountains of pink snow, and even the familiar sea noise of tall pines.
The boy was the first to hear the animal’s snort and hissed at us to keep quiet. We became silent. We tried not to even breathe, although our hand involuntarily reached for the double-barreled gun - who knows what kind of animal it could be!
Half an hour later, the animal stuck out a wet black nose from the grass, similar to a pig’s snout. The nose sniffed the air for a long time and trembled with greed. Then a sharp muzzle with black piercing eyes appeared from the grass. Finally the striped skin appeared. A small badger crawled out of the thicket. He pressed his paw and looked at me carefully. Then he snorted in disgust and took a step towards the potatoes.
It fried and hissed, splashing boiling lard. I wanted to shout to the animal that it would get burned, but I was too late: the badger jumped to the frying pan and stuck his nose into it...
It smelled like burnt leather. The badger squealed and rushed back into the grass with a desperate cry. He ran and screamed throughout the forest, broke bushes and spat in indignation and pain.
Confusion began on the lake and in the forest: frightened frogs screamed without time, birds became alarmed, and a pike worth a pound struck right at the shore like a cannon shot.
In the morning the boy woke me up and told me that he himself had just seen a badger treating its burnt nose.
I didn't believe it. I sat down by the fire and listened sleepily to the morning voices of the birds. In the distance, white-tailed sandpipers whistled, ducks quacked, cranes cooed in the dry moss swamps, and turtle doves cooed quietly. I didn't want to move.
The boy pulled me by the hand. He was offended. He wanted to prove to me that he didn't lie. He called me to go see how the badger was being treated. I reluctantly agreed. We carefully made our way into the thicket, and among the thickets of heather I saw a rotten pine stump. He smelled of mushrooms and iodine.
A badger stood near a stump, with its back to us. He picked up the stump and stuck his burnt nose into the middle of the stump, into the wet and cold dust. He stood motionless and cooled his unfortunate nose, while another little badger ran around and snorted. He was worried and pushed our badger in the stomach with his nose. Our badger growled at him and kicked with his furry hind paws.
Then he sat down and cried. He looked at us with round and wet eyes, moaned and licked his sore nose with his rough tongue. It was as if he was asking for help, but we could do nothing to help him.
Since then, the lake - it was previously called Nameless - we have nicknamed the Lake of the Stupid Badger.
And a year later I met a badger with a scar on its nose on the shores of this lake. He sat by the water and tried to catch the dragonflies rattling like tin with his paw. I waved my hand at him, but he sneezed angrily in my direction and hid in the lingonberry bushes.
Since then I haven't seen him again.
Belkin fly agaric
N.I. Sladkov
Winter is a harsh time for animals. Everyone is preparing for it. The bear and badger fatten up fat, the chipmunk stores pine nuts, the squirrel stores mushrooms. And everything, it would seem, is clear and simple here: lard, mushrooms, and nuts will come in handy in winter!
Just not at all, but not with everyone!
Here, for example, is a squirrel. She dries mushrooms on twigs in the fall: russula, honey mushrooms, moss mushrooms. The mushrooms are all good and edible. But among the good and edible ones you suddenly find... fly agaric! Stumbled upon a twig - red, speckled with white. Why does a squirrel need poisonous fly agaric?
Maybe young squirrels unknowingly dry fly agarics? Maybe when they grow wiser they won’t eat them? Maybe dry fly agaric becomes non-poisonous? Or maybe dried fly agaric is something like medicine for them?
There are many different assumptions, but there is no exact answer. I wish I could find out and check everything!
White-fronted
Chekhov A.P.
The hungry wolf got up to go hunting. Her cubs, all three of them, were fast asleep, huddled together, warming each other. She licked them and walked away.
It was already the spring month of March, but at night the trees crackled with cold, like in December, and as soon as you stuck out your tongue, it began to sting strongly. The wolf was in poor health and suspicious; She shuddered at the slightest noise and kept thinking about how at home without her no one would offend the wolf cubs. The smell of human and horse tracks, tree stumps, stacked firewood and the dark, manure-laden road frightened her; It seemed to her as if people were standing behind the trees in the darkness and dogs were howling somewhere beyond the forest.
She was no longer young and her instincts had weakened, so that it happened that she mistook a fox’s track for a dog’s and sometimes even, deceived by her instincts, lost her way, which had never happened to her in her youth. Due to poor health, she no longer hunted calves and large rams, as before, and already walked far around horses with foals, and ate only carrion; She had to eat fresh meat very rarely, only in the spring, when she, having come across a hare, took her children away from her or climbed into the peasants' barn where the lambs were.
About four versts from her lair, near the post road, there was a winter hut. Here lived the watchman Ignat, an old man of about seventy, who kept coughing and talking to himself; He usually slept at night, and during the day he wandered through the forest with a single-barreled gun and whistled at the hares. He must have served as a mechanic before, because every time before stopping he shouted to himself: “Stop, car!” and before going further: " Full speed ahead! With him was a huge black dog unknown breed, named Arapka. When she ran far ahead, he shouted to her: “Reverse!” Sometimes he sang and at the same time staggered greatly and often fell (the wolf thought it was from the wind) and shouted: “He went off the rails!”
The wolf remembered that in the summer and autumn a sheep and two lambs grazed near the winter hut, and when she ran past not so long ago, she thought she heard something bleating in the barn. And now, approaching the winter quarters, she realized that it was already March and, judging by the time, there must certainly be lambs in the barn. She was tormented by hunger, she thought about how greedily she would eat the lamb, and from such thoughts her teeth clicked and her eyes shone in the darkness like two lights.
Ignat's hut, his barn, stable and well were surrounded by high snowdrifts. It was quiet. The little black must have been sleeping under the barn.
The wolf climbed up the snowdrift to the barn and began raking the thatched roof with her paws and muzzle. The straw was rotten and loose, so that the wolf almost fell through; Suddenly a warm smell of steam, the smell of manure and sheep's milk hit her right in the face. Below, feeling the cold, the lamb gently bleated. Jumping into the hole, the wolf fell with her front paws and chest on something soft and warm, probably on a ram, and at that time something in the barn suddenly squealed, barked and burst into a thin, howling voice, the sheep shied towards the wall, and The wolf, frightened, grabbed the first thing she caught in her teeth and rushed out...
She ran, straining her strength, and at this time Arapka, who had already sensed the wolf, howled furiously, disturbed chickens clucked in the winter hut, and Ignat, going out onto the porch, shouted:
Full speed ahead! Let's go to the whistle!
And it whistled like a car, and then - go-go-go-go!.. And all this noise was repeated by the forest echo.
When little by little all this calmed down, the she-wolf calmed down a little and began to notice that her prey, which she held in her teeth and dragged through the snow, was heavier and seemed to be harder than lambs usually are at this time, and it smelled as if differently, and some strange sounds were heard... The wolf stopped and put her burden on the snow to rest and start eating, and suddenly jumped back in disgust. It was not a lamb, but a puppy, black, with a large head and high legs, large breed, with the same white spot all over the forehead like Arapka. Judging by his manners, he was an ignoramus, a simple mongrel. He licked his bruised, wounded back and, as if nothing had happened, waved his tail and barked at the wolf. She growled like a dog and ran away from him. He's behind her. She looked back and clicked her teeth; he stopped in bewilderment and, probably deciding that it was she who was playing with him, stretched his muzzle towards the winter hut and burst into a loud, joyful bark, as if inviting his mother Arapka to play with him and the wolf.
It was already dawn, and when the wolf made her way to her place through the dense aspen forest, every aspen tree was clearly visible, and the black grouse were already waking up and beautiful roosters often fluttered up, disturbed by the careless jumps and barking of the puppy.
“Why is he running after me? - thought the wolf with annoyance. “He must want me to eat him.”
She lived with the wolf cubs in a shallow hole; three years ago, during a strong storm, a tall old pine tree was uprooted, which is why this hole was formed. Now at the bottom there were old leaves and moss, and there were bones and bull horns with which the wolf cubs played. They had already woken up and all three, very similar to each other, stood side by side on the edge of their hole and, looking at the returning mother, wagged their tails. Seeing them, the puppy stopped at a distance and looked at them for a long time; noticing that they were also looking at him attentively, he began to bark angrily at them, as if they were strangers.
It was already dawn and the sun had risen, the snow was sparkling all around, and he still stood at a distance and barked. The wolf cubs sucked their mother, pushing her with their paws into her skinny belly, and at that time she was gnawing on a horse bone, white and dry; she was tormented by hunger, her head ached from the dog’s barking, and she wanted to rush at the uninvited guest and tear him apart.
Finally the puppy became tired and hoarse; Seeing that they were not afraid of him and did not even pay attention, he began to timidly, now crouching, now jumping, approach the wolf cubs. Now, in daylight, it was easy to see him... His white forehead was large, and on his forehead there was a bump, such as happens to very stupid dogs; the eyes were small, blue, dull, and the expression of the entire muzzle was extremely stupid. Approaching the wolf cubs, he stretched his wide paws forward, put his muzzle on them and began:
Me, me... nga-nga-nga!..
The wolf cubs did not understand anything, but waved their tails. Then the puppy hit one of the wolf cubs with his paw. big head. The wolf cub also hit him on the head with his paw. The puppy stood sideways to him and looked at him sideways, wagging its tail, then suddenly rushed away and made several circles on the crust. The wolf cubs chased him, he fell on his back and lifted his legs up, and the three of them attacked him and, squealing with delight, began to bite him, but not painfully, but as a joke. The crows sat on a tall pine tree and looked down at their struggle, and were very worried. It became noisy and fun. The sun was already hot like spring; and the roosters, every now and then flying over the pine tree, fallen by the storm, seemed emerald in the brilliance of the sun.
Usually she-wolves accustom their children to hunting by letting them play with prey; and now, watching how the wolf cubs chased the puppy along the crust and fought with it, the wolf thought:
“Let them get used to it.”
Having played enough, the cubs went into the hole and went to bed. The puppy howled a little with hunger, then also stretched out in the sun. And when they woke up, they started playing again.
All day and evening the wolf remembered how last night the lamb bleated in the barn and how it smelled of sheep's milk, and she clicked her teeth with appetite for everything and did not stop gnawing greedily on an old bone, imagining to herself that it was a lamb. The wolf cubs suckled, and the puppy, who was hungry, ran around and sniffed the snow.
“Let’s eat him...” the wolf decided.
She came up to him, and he licked her face and whined, thinking that she wanted to play with him. In the past, she ate dogs, but the puppy smelled strongly of dog, and, due to poor health, she no longer tolerated this smell; she felt disgusted and walked away...
By night it got colder. The puppy got bored and went home.
When the wolf cubs were fast asleep, the wolf went hunting again. Like the previous night, she was alarmed by the slightest noise, and she was frightened by stumps, firewood, and dark, lonely juniper bushes that looked like people in the distance. She ran away from the road, along the crust. Suddenly, far ahead, something dark flashed on the road... She strained her eyes and ears: in fact, something was walking ahead, and measured steps could even be heard. Isn't it a badger? She carefully, barely breathing, taking everything to the side, overtook dark spot, looked back at him and recognized him. It was a puppy with a white forehead who was returning to his winter hut, slowly and step by step.
“I hope he doesn’t bother me again,” the wolf thought and quickly ran forward.
But the winter hut was already close. She again climbed up the snowdrift into the barn. Yesterday's hole had already been filled with spring straw, and two new strips stretched across the roof. The wolf began to quickly work with her legs and muzzle, looking around to see if the puppy was coming, but as soon as the warm steam and the smell of manure hit her, a joyful, liquid bark was heard from behind. It's the puppy back. He jumped onto the wolf's roof, then into a hole and, feeling at home, in the warmth, recognizing his sheep, barked even louder... Arapka woke up under the barn and, sensing the wolf, howled, the chickens cackled, and when Ignat appeared on the porch with with her single-barreled gun, the frightened wolf was already far from her winter hut.
Fut! - Ignat whistled. - Fut! Drive at full speed!
He pulled the trigger - the gun misfired; he fired again - again it misfired; he lowered it a third time - and a huge sheaf of fire flew out of the trunk and a deafening “boo” was heard! boo! There was a strong blow to his shoulder; and, taking a gun in one hand and an ax in the other, he went to see what was causing the noise...
A little later he returned to the hut.
Nothing... - Ignat answered. - It's an empty matter. Our White-fronted one got into the habit of sleeping with the sheep, in the warmth. Only there is no such thing as a door, but everything seems to be going through the roof. The other night he tore up the roof and went for a walk, the scoundrel, and now he’s returned and tore up the roof again. Silly.
Yes, the spring in the brain burst. I don't like death, stupid people! - Ignat sighed, climbing onto the stove. - Well, man of god, it’s too early to get up, let’s go to sleep at full speed...
And in the morning he called White-fronted to him, tore him painfully by the ears and then, punishing him with a twig, kept saying:
Walk through the door! Walk through the door! Walk through the door!
Faithful Troy
Evgeny Charushin
My friend and I agreed to go skiing. I went to pick him up in the morning. He's in big house lives on Pestel Street.
I entered the yard. And he saw me from the window and waved his hand from the fourth floor.
Wait, I'll come out now.
So I’m waiting in the yard, at the door. Suddenly someone from above thunders down the stairs.
Knock! Thunder! Tra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta! Something wooden is knocking and cracking on the steps, like some kind of ratchet.
“Is it really possible,” I think, “that my friend with skis and poles fell and is counting the steps?”
I came closer to the door. What is there rolling down the stairs? I am waiting.
And then I saw a spotted dog, a bulldog, coming out of the door. Bulldog on wheels.
His torso is bandaged to a toy car - a gas truck.
And the bulldog steps on the ground with its front paws - it runs and rolls itself.
The muzzle is snub-nosed and wrinkled. The paws are thick, widely spaced. He drove out of the door and looked around angrily. And then a ginger cat crossed the yard. Like a bulldog rushing after a cat - only the wheels are bouncing on the rocks and ice. He drove the cat into the basement window, and he drives around the yard, sniffing the corners.
Then I pulled out a pencil and notebook, sat down on the step and let's draw it.
My friend came out with skis, saw that I was drawing a dog, and said:
Draw him, draw him - this is not an ordinary dog. Because of his bravery, he became crippled.
How so? - I ask.
My friend stroked the bulldog along the folds on the back of his neck, gave him candy in his teeth and said to me:
Let's go, I'll tell you the whole story along the way. Wonderful story, you really won’t believe it.
So,” said the friend when we went out the gate, “listen.
His name is Troy. In our opinion, this means faithful.
And it was right to call him that.
One day we all left for work. Everyone in our apartment serves: one is a teacher at school, another is a telegraph operator at the post office, the wives also serve, and the children study. Well, we all left, and Troy was left alone to guard the apartment.
Some thief found out that our apartment was empty, turned the lock on the door and started running our house.
He had a huge bag with him. He grabs everything he can find and puts it in a bag, grabs it and sticks it. My gun ended up in the bag, new boots, a teacher’s watch, Zeiss binoculars, and children’s felt boots.
He pulled on about six jackets, French jackets, and all sorts of jackets: there was obviously no room in the bag.
And Troy lies by the stove, is silent - the thief does not see him.
This is Troy’s habit: he’ll let anyone in, but he won’t let anyone out.
Well, the thief has robbed us all clean. I took the most expensive, the best. It's time for him to leave. He leaned towards the door...
And Troy is standing at the door.
He stands and is silent.
And what kind of face does Troy have?
And looking for a pile!
Troy is standing, frowning, his eyes are bloodshot, and a fang is sticking out of his mouth.
The thief was rooted to the floor. Try to leave!
And Troy grinned, leaned forward and began to advance sideways.
He approaches quietly. He always intimidates the enemy like this - whether a dog or a person.
The thief, apparently out of fear, was completely stunned, rushing around
He started talking to no avail, and Troy jumped on his back and bit through all six jackets on him at once.
You know how bulldogs have a death grip?
They will close their eyes, their jaws will slam shut, and they will not open their teeth, even if they were killed here.
The thief rushes about, rubbing his back against the walls. Flowers in pots, vases, books are thrown off the shelves. Nothing helps. Troy hangs on it like some kind of weight.
Well, the thief finally guessed, he somehow wriggled out of his six jackets and the whole sack, along with the bulldog, was out the window!
This is from the fourth floor!
The bulldog flew headfirst into the yard.
Slurry splashed to the sides, rotten potatoes, herring heads, all sorts of rubbish.
Troy and all our jackets ended up right in the trash heap. Our garbage dump was filled to the brim that day.
After all, what happiness! If he had hit the rocks, he would have broken all his bones and not made a sound. He would die immediately.
And here it’s as if someone deliberately set him up for a trash heap - still, it’s easier to fall.
Troy emerged from the trash heap and climbed out as if completely intact. And just think, he still managed to intercept the thief on the stairs.
He grabbed him again, this time in the leg.
Then the thief gave himself away, screamed and howled.
Residents came running to howl from all the apartments, from the third, and from the fifth, and from the sixth floor, from the entire back staircase.
Keep the dog. Ooh! I'll go to the police myself. Just tear off the damned devil.
It's easy to say - tear it off.
Two people pulled the bulldog, and he only waved his stumpy tail and clamped his jaw even tighter.
The residents brought a poker from the first floor and stuck Troy between his teeth. It was only in this manner that they unclenched his jaws.
The thief came out into the street - pale, disheveled. He's shaking all over, holding on to the policeman.
What a dog,” he says. - What a dog!
They took the thief to the police. There he told how it happened.
I come home from work in the evening. I see the lock on the door is turned inside out. There is a bag of our goods lying around in the apartment.
And in the corner, in his place, Troy lies. All dirty and smelly.
I called Troy.
And he can’t even come close. Crawling and squealing.
His back legs were paralyzed.
Well, now the whole apartment takes turns taking him out for a walk. I fitted him with wheels. He rolls down the stairs on his wheels himself, but can’t climb back up. Someone needs to lift the car from behind. Troy himself steps over with his front paws.
This is how the dog on wheels lives now.
Evening
Boris Zhitkov
The cow Masha goes to look for her son, the calf Alyosha. Can't see him anywhere. Where did he go? It's time to go home.
And the calf Alyoshka ran around, got tired, and lay down in the grass. The grass is tall - Alyosha is nowhere to be seen.
The cow Masha was afraid that her son Alyoshka had disappeared, and she started mooing with all her strength:
At home, Masha was milked and a whole bucket of fresh milk was milked. They poured it into Alyosha’s bowl:
Here, drink, Alyoshka.
Alyoshka was delighted - he had been wanting milk for a long time - he drank it all to the bottom and licked the bowl with his tongue.
Alyoshka got drunk and wanted to run around the yard. As soon as he started running, suddenly a puppy jumped out of the booth and started barking at Alyoshka. Alyoshka was frightened: it must be a terrible beast if it barks so loudly. And he started to run.
Alyoshka ran away, and the puppy did not bark anymore. It became quiet all around. Alyoshka looked - no one was there, everyone had gone to bed. And I wanted to sleep myself. He lay down and fell asleep in the yard.
The cow Masha also fell asleep on the soft grass.
The puppy also fell asleep at his kennel - he was tired, he barked all day.
The boy Petya also fell asleep in his crib - he was tired, he had been running around all day.
And the bird has long since fallen asleep.
She fell asleep on a branch and hid her head under her wing to make it warmer to sleep. I'm tired too. I flew all day, catching midges.
Everyone has fallen asleep, everyone is sleeping.
Only the night wind does not sleep.
He rustles in the grass and rustles in the bushes
Volchishko
Evgeny Charushin
A little wolf lived in the forest with his mother.
One day my mother went hunting.
And a man caught the wolf, put it in a bag and brought it to the city. He placed the bag in the middle of the room.
The bag did not move for a long time. Then the little wolf wallowed in it and got out. He looked in one direction and was scared: a man was sitting, looking at him.
I looked in the other direction - the black cat was snorting, puffing up, twice his size, barely standing. And next to him the dog bares his teeth.
The little wolf was completely afraid. I reached back into the bag, but I couldn’t fit in - the empty bag lay on the floor like a rag.
And the cat puffed up, puffed up and hissed! He jumped on the table and knocked over the saucer. The saucer broke.
The dog barked.
The man shouted loudly: “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The little wolf hid under a chair and began to live and tremble there.
There is a chair in the middle of the room.
The cat looks down from the back of the chair.
The dog is running around the chair.
A man sits in a chair and smokes.
And the little wolf is barely alive under the chair.
At night the man fell asleep, and the dog fell asleep, and the cat closed his eyes.
Cats - they don't sleep, they only doze.
The little wolf came out to look around.
He walked around, walked around, sniffed, and then sat down and howled.
The dog barked.
The cat jumped on the table.
The man on the bed sat up. He waved his arms and shouted. And the little wolf crawled under the chair again. I began to live there quietly.
In the morning the man left. He poured milk into a bowl. The cat and dog began to lap up milk.
The little wolf crawled out from under the chair, crawled to the door, and the door was open!
From the door to the stairs, from the stairs to the street, from the street across the bridge, from the bridge to the garden, from the garden to the field.
And behind the field there is a forest.
And in the forest there is a mother wolf.
And now the little wolf has become a wolf.
Thief
Georgy Skrebitsky
One day we were given a young squirrel. She very soon became completely tame, ran around all the rooms, climbed on cabinets, shelves, and so deftly - she would never drop or break anything.
In my father’s office, huge deer antlers were nailed above the sofa. The squirrel often climbed on them: it used to climb onto the horn and sit on it, like on a tree branch.
She knew us guys well. As soon as you enter the room, a squirrel jumps from somewhere from the closet right onto your shoulder. This means she asks for sugar or candy. She loved sweets very much.
There were sweets and sugar in our dining room, in the buffet. They were never locked up because we children didn’t take anything without asking.
But then one day my mother calls us all into the dining room and shows us an empty vase:
Who took the candy from here?
We look at each other and are silent - we don’t know which of us did it. Mom shook her head and said nothing. And the next day the sugar disappeared from the cupboard and again no one admitted that they had taken it. At this point my father got angry and said that now he would lock everything up and wouldn’t give us any sweets all week.
And the squirrel, along with us, was left without sweets. He used to jump up on his shoulder, rub his muzzle against his cheek, pull his ear with his teeth, and ask for sugar. Where can I get it?
One afternoon I sat quietly on the sofa in the dining room and read. Suddenly I see: a squirrel jumped up on the table, grabbed a crust of bread in its teeth - and onto the floor, and from there onto the cabinet. A minute later, I look, she climbed onto the table again, grabbed the second crust - and again onto the cabinet.
“Wait,” I think, “where does she take all the bread?” I pulled up a chair and looked at the closet. I see my mother’s old hat lying there. I lifted it up - here you go! There’s just something under there: sugar, candy, bread, and various bones...
I go straight to my father and show him: “That’s who our thief is!”
And the father laughed and said:
How could I not have guessed this before! After all, it is our squirrel who makes supplies for the winter. Now it’s autumn, all the squirrels in the wild are stocking up on food, and ours is not lagging behind, it’s also stocking up.
After this incident, they stopped keeping sweets away from us, they just attached a hook to the sideboard so that the squirrel couldn’t get into it. But the squirrel did not calm down and continued to prepare supplies for the winter. If he finds a crust of bread, a nut or a seed, he will immediately grab it, run away and hide it somewhere.
We once went into the forest to pick mushrooms. We arrived late in the evening, tired, ate, and quickly went to bed. They left a bag of mushrooms on the window: it’s cool there, they won’t spoil until the morning.
We get up in the morning - the whole basket is empty. Where did the mushrooms go? Suddenly my father shouts from the office and calls us. We ran to him and saw that all the deer antlers above the sofa were covered with mushrooms. There are mushrooms everywhere on the towel hook, behind the mirror, and behind the painting. The squirrel did this early in the morning: he hung mushrooms for himself to dry for the winter.
In the forest, squirrels always dry mushrooms on branches in the fall. So ours hurried. Apparently she sensed winter.
Soon the cold really set in. The squirrel kept trying to get into some corner where it would be warmer, and one day she completely disappeared. They looked and looked for her - she was nowhere to be found. She probably ran into the garden, and from there into the forest.
We felt sorry for the squirrels, but there was nothing we could do.
We got ready to light the stove, closed the vent, piled on some wood, and set it on fire. Suddenly something moves in the stove and rustles! We quickly opened the vent, and from there the squirrel jumped out like a bullet - straight onto the closet.
But the smoke from the stove continues pouring into the room, it doesn’t go down the chimney. What's happened? The brother made a hook out of thick wire and stuck it through the vent into the pipe to see if there was anything there.
We look - he is dragging a tie from the pipe, his mother’s glove, he even found his grandmother’s holiday scarf there.
Our squirrel dragged all this into the chimney for its nest. That's what it is! Even though he lives in the house, he does not abandon his forest habits. Such is, apparently, their squirrel nature.
Caring mom
Georgy Skrebitsky
One day the shepherds caught a fox cub and brought it to us. We put the animal in an empty barn.
The little fox was still small, all gray, his muzzle was dark, and his tail was white at the end. The animal hid in the far corner of the barn and looked around in fear. Out of fear, he didn’t even bite when we stroked him, but only pressed his ears back and trembled all over.
Mom poured milk into a bowl for him and placed it right next to him. But the frightened animal did not drink milk.
Then dad said that the little fox should be left alone - let him look around and get used to the new place.
I really didn’t want to leave, but dad locked the door and we went home. It was already evening, and soon everyone went to bed.
At night I woke up. I hear a puppy yapping and whining somewhere very close by. Where do I think he came from? Looked out the window. It was already light outside. From the window you could see the barn where the little fox was. It turns out that he was whining like a puppy.
The forest began right behind the barn.
Suddenly I saw a fox jump out of the bushes, stop, listen and stealthily run up to the barn. Immediately the yapping stopped, and a joyful squeal was heard instead.
I slowly woke up mom and dad, and we all started looking out the window together.
The fox ran around the barn and tried to dig up the ground underneath it. But there was a strong stone foundation there, and the fox could not do anything. Soon she ran away into the bushes, and the little fox again began to whine loudly and pitifully.
I wanted to watch the fox all night, but dad said that she wouldn’t come again and told me to go to bed.
I woke up late and, having dressed, first of all hurried to visit the little fox. What is it?.. On the threshold right next to the door lay a dead bunny. I quickly ran to my dad and brought him with me.
That's the thing! - Dad said when he saw the bunny. - This means that the mother fox once again came to the little fox and brought him food. She couldn't get inside, so she left it outside. What a caring mother!
All day I hung around the barn, looked into the cracks and went with my mother twice to feed the little fox. And in the evening I couldn’t fall asleep, I kept jumping out of bed and looking out the window to see if the fox had come.
Finally, mom got angry and covered the window with a dark curtain.
But in the morning I got up before the light and immediately ran to the barn. This time it was no longer a bunny lying on the doorstep, but a strangled neighbor’s chicken. Apparently, the fox came again at night to visit the fox cub. She failed to catch prey for him in the forest, so she climbed into her neighbors’ chicken coop, strangled the chicken and brought it to her cub.
Dad had to pay for the chicken, and besides, he got a lot from the neighbors.
Take the little fox wherever you want,” they shouted, “or else the fox will take all the birds with us!”
There was nothing to do, dad had to put the little fox in a bag and take it back to the forest, to the fox holes.
Since then, the fox never came to the village again.
Hedgehog
MM. Prishvin
Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He noticed me too, curled up and started tapping: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was walking in the distance. I touched him with the tip of my boot - he snorted terribly and pushed his needles into the boot.
Oh, you're like that with me! - I said and pushed him into the stream with the tip of my boot.
Instantly, the hedgehog turned around in the water and swam to the shore, like a small pig, only instead of bristles there were needles on its back. I took a stick, rolled the hedgehog into my hat and took it home.
I had a lot of mice. I heard that the hedgehog catches them, and I decided: let him live with me and catch mice.
So I put this prickly lump in the middle of the floor and sat down to write, while I kept looking at the hedgehog out of the corner of my eye. He did not lie motionless for long: as soon as I quieted down at the table, the hedgehog turned around, looked around, tried to go this way, that way, finally chose a place under the bed and became completely quiet there.
When it got dark, I lit the lamp, and - hello! - the hedgehog ran out from under the bed. He, of course, thought to the lamp that the moon had risen in the forest: when there is a moon, hedgehogs love to run through forest clearings.
And so he started running around the room, imagining that it was a forest clearing.
I took the pipe, lit a cigarette and blew a cloud near the moon. It became just like in the forest: both the moon and the cloud, and my legs were like tree trunks and, probably, the hedgehog really liked them: he darted between them, sniffing and scratching the backs of my boots with needles.
After reading the newspaper, I dropped it on the floor, went to bed and fell asleep.
I always sleep very lightly. I hear some rustling in my room. He struck a match, lit the candle and only noticed how the hedgehog flashed under the bed. And the newspaper was no longer lying near the table, but in the middle of the room. So I left the candle burning and stayed awake, thinking:
Why did the hedgehog need the newspaper?
Soon my tenant ran out from under the bed - and straight to the newspaper; he spun around around her, made noise, made noise, and finally managed to: somehow put a corner of a newspaper on his thorns and dragged it, huge, into the corner.
That’s when I understood him: the newspaper was like dry leaves in the forest to him, he was dragging it for his nest. And it turned out to be true: soon the hedgehog wrapped himself in newspaper and made himself a real nest out of it. Having finished this important task, he left his home and stood opposite the bed, looking at the moon candle.
I let the clouds in and ask:
What else do you need? The hedgehog was not afraid.
Do you want to drink?
I got up. The hedgehog doesn't run.
I took a plate, put it on the floor, brought a bucket of water and then poured water into the plate, then poured it into the bucket again, and made such a noise as if it was a stream splashing.
Well, go, go, I say. - You see, I made the moon for you, and sent the clouds, and here is water for you...
I look: it’s like he’s moved forward. And I also moved my lake a little towards it. He will move, and I will move, and that’s how we agreed.
Drink, I say finally. He began to cry. And I ran my hand over the thorns so lightly, as if I was stroking them, and I kept saying:
You're a good guy, you're a good guy!
The hedgehog got drunk, I say:
Let's go to sleep. He lay down and blew out the candle.
I don’t know how long I slept, but I hear: I have work in my room again.
I light a candle, and what do you think? A hedgehog is running around the room, and there is an apple on its thorns. He ran to the nest, put it there and ran into the corner after another, and in the corner there was a bag of apples and it fell over. So the hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and ran again, dragging another apple into the nest on the thorns.
So the hedgehog settled down to live with me. And now, when drinking tea, I will certainly bring it to my table and either pour milk into a saucer for him to drink, or give him some buns for him to eat.
Hare's feet
Konstantin Paustovsky
Vanya Malyavin came to the veterinarian in our village from Lake Urzhenskoe and brought a small warm hare wrapped in a torn cotton jacket. The hare was crying and blinking his eyes red from tears often...
Are you crazy? - the veterinarian shouted. “Soon you’ll be bringing mice to me, you fool!”
“Don’t bark, this is a special hare,” Vanya said in a hoarse whisper. - His grandfather sent him and ordered him to be treated.
What to treat for?
His paws are burned.
The veterinarian turned Vanya to face the door,
pushed him in the back and shouted after him:
Go ahead, go ahead! I don't know how to treat them. Fry it with onions and grandpa will have a snack.
Vanya didn’t answer. He went out into the hallway, blinked his eyes, sniffed and buried himself in the log wall. Tears flowed down the wall. The hare quietly trembled under his greasy jacket.
What are you doing, little one? - the compassionate grandmother Anisya asked Vanya; she took her only goat to the vet. - Why are you two shedding tears, dear ones? Oh what happened?
“He’s burned, grandfather’s hare,” Vanya said quietly. - On forest fire He burned his paws and can't run. Look, he's about to die.
“Don’t die, darling,” Anisya mumbled. - Tell your grandfather, if he really wants the hare to go out, let him take him to the city to Karl Petrovich.
Vanya wiped his tears and walked home through the forests, to Lake Urzhenskoye. He did not walk, but ran barefoot along the hot sandy road. The recent forest fire passed away, to the north, near the lake itself. It smelled of burning and dry cloves. She large islands grew up in the meadows.
The hare moaned.
Vanya found fluffy leaves covered with soft silver hair along the way, tore them out, put them under a pine tree and turned the hare around. The hare looked at the leaves, buried his head in them and fell silent.
What are you doing, gray? - Vanya asked quietly. - You should eat.
The hare was silent.
The hare moved his ragged ear and closed his eyes.
Vanya took him in his arms and ran straight through the forest - he had to quickly let the hare drink from the lake.
There was unheard-of heat over the forests that summer. In the morning, strings of dense white clouds floated in. At noon, the clouds quickly rushed upward, towards the zenith, and before our eyes they were carried away and disappeared somewhere beyond the boundaries of the sky. The hot hurricane had been blowing for two weeks without a break. The resin flowing down the pine trunks turned into amber stone.
The next morning the grandfather put on clean boots and new bast shoes, took a staff and a piece of bread and wandered into the city. Vanya carried the hare from behind.
The hare became completely silent, only occasionally shuddering with his whole body and sighing convulsively.
The dry wind blew up a cloud of dust over the city, soft as flour. Chicken fluff, dry leaves and straw were flying in it. From a distance it seemed as if a quiet fire was smoking over the city.
The market square was very empty and hot; The carriage horses were dozing near the water shed, and they had straw hats on their heads. Grandfather crossed himself.
Either a horse or a bride - the jester will sort them out! - he said and spat.
They asked passersby for a long time about Karl Petrovich, but no one really answered anything. We went to the pharmacy. Thick old man wearing pince-nez and a short white robe, he shrugged his shoulders angrily and said:
I like it! Enough strange question! Karl Petrovich Korsh, a specialist in childhood diseases, has stopped seeing patients for three years now. Why do you need it?
The grandfather, stuttering from respect for the pharmacist and from timidity, told about the hare.
I like it! - said the pharmacist. - There are some interesting patients in our city! I like this great!
He nervously took off his pince-nez, wiped it, put it back on his nose and stared at his grandfather. Grandfather was silent and stomped around. The pharmacist was also silent. The silence became painful.
Poshtovaya street, three! - the pharmacist suddenly shouted in anger and slammed some disheveled thick book. - Three!
Grandfather and Vanya reached Pochtovaya Street just in time - a high thunderstorm was setting in from behind the Oka River. Lazy thunder stretched beyond the horizon, like a sleepy strongman straightening his shoulders, and reluctantly shaking the earth. Gray ripples went down the river. Silent lightning surreptitiously, but swiftly and strongly struck the meadows; far beyond the Glades, a haystack that they had lit was already burning. Large drops of rain fell on the dusty road, and soon it became like the surface of the moon: each drop left a small crater in the dust.
Karl Petrovich was playing something sad and melodic on the piano when his grandfather’s disheveled beard appeared in the window.
A minute later Karl Petrovich was already angry.
“I’m not a veterinarian,” he said and slammed the lid of the piano. Immediately thunder roared in the meadows. - All my life I have been treating children, not hares.
“A child, a hare, it’s all the same,” the grandfather muttered stubbornly. - It’s all the same! Heal, show mercy! Our veterinarian has no jurisdiction over such matters. He horse-rided for us. This hare, one might say, is my savior: I owe him my life, I must show gratitude, but you say - quit!
A minute later, Karl Petrovich, an old man with gray ruffled eyebrows, worriedly listened to his grandfather’s stumbling story.
Karl Petrovich eventually agreed to treat the hare. The next morning, the grandfather went to the lake, and left Vanya with Karl Petrovich to go after the hare.
A day later, the entire Pochtovaya Street, overgrown with goose grass, already knew that Karl Petrovich was treating a hare that had been burned in a terrible forest fire and had saved some old man. Two days later everyone already knew about it small town, and on the third day a long young man in a felt hat came to Karl Petrovich, introduced himself as an employee of a Moscow newspaper and asked for a conversation about the hare.
The hare was cured. Vanya wrapped him in a cotton rag and took him home. Soon the story about the hare was forgotten, and only some Moscow professor spent a long time trying to get his grandfather to sell him the hare. He even sent letters with stamps in response. But the grandfather did not give up. Under his dictation, Vanya wrote a letter to the professor:
“The hare is not for sale, living soul, let him live in freedom. With this I remain Larion Malyavin.”
This fall I spent the night with Grandfather Larion on Lake Urzhenskoe. Constellations, cold as grains of ice, floated in the water. The dry reeds rustled. The ducks shivered in the thickets and quacked pitifully all night.
Grandfather couldn't sleep. He sat by the stove and repaired the torn fishing net. Then he put on the samovar - it immediately fogged up the windows in the hut, and the stars turned from fiery points into cloudy balls. Murzik was barking in the yard. He jumped into the darkness, clattered his teeth and bounced away - he fought with the impenetrable October night. The hare slept in the hallway and occasionally, in his sleep, loudly tapped his hind paw on the rotten floorboard.
We drank tea at night, waiting for the distant and hesitant dawn, and over tea my grandfather finally told me the story about the hare.
In August, my grandfather went hunting on the northern shore of the lake. The forests were as dry as gunpowder. Grandfather came across a little hare with a torn left ear. The grandfather shot at him with an old gun tied with wire, but missed. The hare ran away.
The grandfather realized that a forest fire had started and the fire was coming straight towards him. The wind turned into a hurricane. The fire raced across the ground at an unheard of speed. According to the grandfather, even a train could not escape such a fire. Grandfather was right: during the hurricane, the fire moved at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour.
Grandfather ran over the bumps, stumbled, fell, the smoke ate his eyes, and behind him a wide roar and crackle of flames could already be heard.
Death overtook the grandfather, grabbed him by the shoulders, and at that time a hare jumped out from under the grandfather’s feet. He ran slowly and dragged his hind legs. Then only the grandfather noticed that the hare’s hair was burnt.
The grandfather was delighted with the hare, as if it were his own. As an old forest dweller, grandfather knew that animals are much more better than man they sense where the fire is coming from and are always saved. They die only in those rare cases when fire surrounds them.
Grandfather ran after the hare. He ran, cried with fear and shouted: “Wait, honey, don’t run so fast!”
The hare brought the grandfather out of the fire. When they ran out of the forest to the lake, the hare and grandfather both fell from fatigue. Grandfather picked up the hare and took it home.
The hare's hind legs and stomach were singed. Then his grandfather cured him and kept him with him.
Yes,” said the grandfather, looking at the samovar so angrily, as if the samovar was to blame for everything, “yes, but before that hare, it turns out that I was very guilty, dear man.”
What have you done wrong?
And you go out, look at the hare, at my savior, then you will know. Take a flashlight!
I took the lantern from the table and went out into the hallway. The hare was sleeping. I bent over him with a flashlight and noticed that left ear the hare's is torn. Then I understood everything.
How an elephant saved its owner from a tiger
Boris Zhitkov
The Hindus have tame elephants. One Hindu went with an elephant into the forest to collect firewood. 
The forest was deaf and wild. The elephant trampled the owner's path and helped to cut down trees, and the owner loaded them onto the elephant.
Suddenly the elephant stopped obeying its owner, began to look around, shake its ears, and then raised its trunk and roared.
The owner also looked around, but did not notice anything.
He became angry with the elephant and hit its ears with a branch.
And the elephant bent its trunk with a hook to lift its owner onto its back. The owner thought: “I’ll sit on his neck - this way it will be even more convenient for me to rule over him.”
He sat on the elephant and began to whip the elephant on the ears with a branch. And the elephant backed away, trampled and twirled its trunk. Then he froze and became wary.
The owner raised a branch to hit the elephant with all his might, but suddenly a huge tiger jumped out of the bushes. He wanted to attack the elephant from behind and jump on its back.
But he got his paws on the firewood, and the firewood fell down. The tiger wanted to jump another time, but the elephant had already turned, grabbed the tiger across the stomach with its trunk, and squeezed it like a thick rope. The tiger opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue and shook his paws.
And the elephant had already lifted him up, then slammed him to the ground and began to trample him with his feet.
And the elephant's legs are like pillars. And the elephant trampled the tiger into a cake. When the owner recovered from his fear, he said:
What a fool I was for beating an elephant! And he saved my life.
The owner took the bread he had prepared for himself from his bag and gave it all to the elephant.
Cat
MM. Prishvin
When I see from the window how Vaska is making his way in the garden, I shout to him in the most gentle voice:
Wow!
And in response, I know, he also screams at me, but my ear is a little tight and I don’t hear, but only see how, after my scream, a pink mouth opens on his white muzzle.
Wow! - I shout to him.
And I guess - he shouts to me:
I'm coming now!
And with a firm, straight tiger step he heads into the house.
In the morning, when the light from the dining room through the half-open door is still visible only as a pale crack, I know that Vaska the cat is sitting right by the door in the dark, waiting for me. He knows that the dining room is empty without me, and he is afraid: in another place he might doze off my entrance to the dining room. He has been sitting here for a long time and, as soon as I bring the kettle in, he rushes towards me with a kind cry.
When I sit down for tea, he sits on my left knee and watches everything: how I crush sugar with tweezers, how I cut bread, how I spread butter. I know that he does not eat salted butter, and only takes a small piece of bread if he does not catch a mouse at night.
When he is sure that there is nothing tasty on the table - a crust of cheese or a piece of sausage, he sits down on my knee, stomps around a little and falls asleep.
After tea, when I get up, he wakes up and goes to the window. There he turns his head in all directions, up and down, counting the dense flocks of jackdaws and crows flying at this early morning hour. Of everything complex world life big city he chooses only birds for himself and rushes entirely towards them.
During the day - birds, and at night - mice, and so he has the whole world: during the day, in the light, the black narrow slits of his eyes, crossing a dull green circle, see only birds, at night the whole black luminous eye opens and sees only mice.
Today the radiators are warm, and that’s why the window fogged up a lot, and the cat had a very bad time counting ticks. So what do you think my cat! He stood up on his hind legs, his front legs on the glass and, well, wipe, well, wipe! When he rubbed it and it became clearer, he again sat down calmly, like porcelain, and again, counting the jackdaws, began to move his head up, down, and to the sides.
During the day - birds, at night - mice, and this is Vaska's whole world.
Cat Thief
Konstantin Paustovsky
We were in despair. We didn't know how to catch this red cat. He stole from us every night. He hid so cleverly that none of us really saw him. Only a week later it was finally possible to establish that the cat’s ear was torn and a piece of his dirty tail was cut off.
It was a cat who had lost all conscience, a cat - a tramp and a bandit. Behind his back they called him Thief.
He stole everything: fish, meat, sour cream and bread. One day he even dug up a tin can of worms in the closet. He didn’t eat them, but the chickens came running to the opened jar and pecked our entire supply of worms.
The overfed chickens lay in the sun and moaned. We walked around them and argued, but fishing was still disrupted.
We spent almost a month tracking down the ginger cat. The village boys helped us with this. One day they rushed in and, out of breath, said that at dawn a cat had rushed, crouching, through the vegetable gardens and dragged a kukan with perches in its teeth.
We rushed to the cellar and discovered that the kukan was missing; on it were ten fat perches caught on Prorva.
This was no longer theft, but robbery in broad daylight. We vowed to catch the cat and beat him up for gangster tricks.
The cat was caught that same evening. He stole a piece of liverwurst from the table and climbed up a birch tree with it.
We started shaking the birch tree. The cat dropped the sausage and it fell on Reuben's head. The cat looked at us from above with wild eyes and howled menacingly.
But there was no salvation, and the cat decided on a desperate act. With a terrifying howl, he fell from the birch tree, fell to the ground, bounced up like a soccer ball, and rushed under the house.
The house was small. He stood in a remote, abandoned garden. Every night we were awakened by the sound of wild apples falling from the branches onto his plank roof.
The house was littered with fishing rods, shot, apples and dry leaves. We only spent the night in it. All days, from dawn to dark,
We spent time on the banks of countless streams and lakes. There we fished and made fires in the coastal thickets.
To get to the shores of the lakes, one had to trample down narrow paths in the fragrant tall grasses. Their corollas swayed above their heads and showered their shoulders with yellow flower dust.
We returned in the evening, scratched by rose hips, tired, burned by the sun, with bundles of silvery fish, and each time we were greeted with stories about new tramp antics of the red cat.
But finally the cat was caught. He crawled under the house into the only narrow hole. There was no way out.
We blocked the hole with an old net and began to wait. But the cat didn't come out. He howled disgustingly, like an underground spirit, howled continuously and without any fatigue. An hour passed, two, three... It was time to go to bed, but the cat howled and cursed under the house, and it got on our nerves.
Then Lenka, the son of the village shoemaker, was called. Lenka was famous for his fearlessness and agility. He was tasked with getting the cat out from under the house.
Lenka took a silk fishing line, tied a fish caught during the day to it by the tail, and threw it through the hole into the underground.
The howling stopped. We heard a crunch and a predatory click as the cat grabbed the fish’s head with its teeth. He grabbed with a death grip. Lenka pulled the fishing line. The cat desperately resisted, but Lenka was stronger, and, besides, the cat did not want to release the tasty fish.
A minute later, the cat’s head with flesh clamped in its teeth appeared in the hole of the manhole.
Lenka grabbed the cat by the collar and lifted him off the ground. We took a good look at it for the first time.
The cat closed his eyes and laid back his ears. He tucked his tail under himself just in case. It turned out to be a skinny, despite the constant theft, fiery red stray cat with white markings on his stomach.
What should we do with it?
Rip it out! - I said.
It won’t help,” said Lenka. - He has had this character since childhood. Try to feed him properly.
The cat waited, closing his eyes.
We followed this advice, dragged the cat into the closet and gave him a wonderful dinner: fried pork, perch aspic, cottage cheese and sour cream.
The cat ate for more than an hour. He came out of the closet staggering, sat on the threshold and washed himself, looking at us and at the low stars with green, impudent eyes.
After washing, he snorted for a long time and rubbed his head on the floor. This was obviously supposed to mean fun. We were afraid that he would rub the fur on the back of his head.
Then the cat rolled over onto his back, caught his tail, chewed it, spat it out, stretched out by the stove and snored peacefully.
From that day on, he settled in with us and stopped stealing.
The next morning he even performed a noble and unexpected act.
The chickens climbed onto the table in the garden and, pushing each other and quarreling, began to peck buckwheat porridge from the plates.
The cat, trembling with indignation, sneaked up to the chickens and jumped onto the table with a short cry of victory.
The chickens took off with a desperate cry. They overturned the jug of milk and rushed, losing their feathers, to run away from the garden.
A long-legged fool rooster, nicknamed “Gorlach,” rushed ahead, hiccupping.
The cat rushed after him on three legs, and with its fourth, front paw it hit the rooster on the back. Dust and fluff flew from the rooster. Inside him, with each blow, something thumped and hummed, as if a cat was hitting a rubber ball.
After this, the rooster lay in a fit for several minutes, his eyes rolled back, and moaned quietly. He was doused cold water, and he walked away.
Since then, chickens have been afraid to steal. Seeing the cat, they hid under the house, squeaking and jostling.
The cat walked around the house and garden like a master and watchman. He rubbed his head against our legs. He demanded gratitude, leaving tufts of red fur on our trousers.
We renamed him from Thief to Policeman. Although Reuben argued that this was not entirely convenient, we were sure that the police would not be offended by us for this.
Mug under the Christmas tree
Boris Zhitkov
The boy took a net - a wicker net - and went to the lake to catch fish.
He was the first to catch a blue fish. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the fish’s tail is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.
The boy took a mug, a small mug made of thin glass. He scooped some water from the lake into a mug, put the fish in the mug - let it swim for now.
The fish gets angry, fights, breaks out, and the boy quickly grabs it - bang!
The boy quietly took the fish by the tail, threw it into the mug - it was completely out of sight. He ran on himself.
“Here,” he thinks, “wait, I’ll catch a fish, a big crucian carp.”
The first one to catch a fish will be a great guy. Just don’t grab it right away, don’t swallow it: there are prickly fish - ruff, for example. Bring it, show it. I myself will tell you which fish to eat and which to spit out.
The ducklings flew and swam in all directions. And one swam the farthest. He climbed out onto the shore, shook himself off and began to waddle. What if there are fish on the shore? He sees that there is a mug under the Christmas tree. There is water in a mug. “Let me take a look.”
The fish are rushing about in the water, splashing, poking, there is nowhere to get out - there is glass everywhere. The duckling came up and saw - oh, yes, fish! He took the biggest one and picked it up. And hurry to your mother.
“I’m probably the first. I was the first to catch the fish, and I’m great.”
The fish is red, white feathers, two antennae hanging from its mouth, dark stripes on the sides, and a spot on its comb like a black eye.
The duckling flapped its wings and flew along the shore - straight to its mother.
The boy sees a duck flying, flying low, right above his head, holding a fish in its beak, a red fish as long as a finger. The boy shouted at the top of his lungs:
This is my fish! Thief duck, give it back now!
He waved his arms, threw stones, and screamed so terribly that he scared away all the fish.
The duckling got scared and screamed:
Quack-quack!
He shouted “quack-quack” and lost the fish.
The fish swam into the lake, into deep water, waved its feathers, and swam home.
“How can you return to your mother with an empty beak?” - thought the duckling, turned back and flew under the Christmas tree.
He sees that there is a mug under the Christmas tree. A small mug, in the mug there is water, and in the water there are fish.
The duckling ran up and quickly grabbed the fish. Blue fish with a golden tail. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the fish’s tail is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.
The duckling flew higher and closer to its mother.
“Well, now I won’t scream, I won’t open my beak. Once I was already gaping.”
Here you can see mom. It's already very close. And mom shouted:
Quack, what are you talking about?
Quack, this is a fish, blue, gold, - there is a glass mug under the Christmas tree.
So again the beak opened, and the fish splashed into the water! A blue fish with a golden tail. She shook her tail, whined and walked, walked, walked deeper.
The duckling turned back, flew under the tree, looked into the mug, and in the mug there was a small, small fish, no bigger than a mosquito, you could barely see the fish. The duckling pecked into the water and flew back home with all his strength.
Where's your fish? - asked the duck. - You can't see anything.
But the duckling is silent and does not open its beak. He thinks: “I’m cunning! Wow, how cunning I am! Cunningest of all! I’ll be silent, otherwise I’ll open my beak and miss the fish. Dropped it twice."
And the fish in its beak beats like a thin mosquito and crawls into the throat. The duckling got scared: “Oh, I think I’ll swallow it now!” Oh, I think I swallowed it!”
The brothers arrived. Everyone has a fish. Everyone swam up to mom and poked their beaks. And the duck shouts to the duckling:
Well, now show me what you brought! The duckling opened its beak, but there was no fish.
Mitya's friends
Georgy Skrebitsky
In winter, in the December cold, a moose cow and her calf spent the night in a dense aspen forest. It's starting to get light. The sky turned pink, and the forest, covered with snow, stood all white, silent. Fine shiny frost settled on the branches and on the backs of the moose. The moose were dozing.
Suddenly, somewhere very close, the crunch of snow was heard. The moose became wary. Something gray flashed among the snow-covered trees. One moment - and the moose were already rushing away, breaking the icy crust of the crust and getting stuck knee-deep in deep snow. The wolves were chasing them. They were lighter than moose and galloped across the crust without falling through. With every second the animals are getting closer and closer.
The moose could no longer run. The elk calf stayed close to its mother. A little more - and the gray robbers will catch up and tear both of them apart.
Ahead is a clearing, a fence near the forest guardhouse, and a wide open gate.
The moose stopped: where to go? But behind, very close, the crunch of snow was heard - the wolves were overtaking. Then the moose cow, gathering the rest of her strength, rushed straight into the gate, the calf following her.
The forester's son Mitya was shoveling snow in the yard. He barely jumped to the side - the moose almost knocked him down.
Moose!.. What's wrong with them, where are they from?
Mitya ran up to the gate and involuntarily stepped back: there were wolves right at the gate.
A shiver ran down the boy’s back, but he immediately swung his shovel and shouted:
Here I am!
The animals scurried away.
Atu, atu!.. - Mitya shouted after them, jumping out of the gate.
Having driven away the wolves, the boy looked into the yard. A moose cow and a calf stood huddled in the far corner of the barn.
Look how scared they were, everything is trembling... - Mitya said affectionately. - Don't be afraid. Now it won't be touched.
And he, carefully moving away from the gate, ran home - to tell what guests had rushed into their yard.
And the moose stood in the yard, recovered from their fright and went back into the forest. Since then, they stayed in the forest near the lodge all winter.
In the morning, walking on the way to school, Mitya often saw moose from afar on the forest edge.
Having noticed the boy, they did not rush away, but only watched him closely, pricking up their huge ears.
Mitya cheerfully nodded his head at them, like old friends, and ran further into the village.
On an unknown path
N.I. Sladkov
I had to walk on different paths: bear, boar, wolf. I walked along rabbit paths and even bird paths. But this was the first time I had walked such a path. This path was cleared and trampled by ants.
On animal trails I unraveled animal secrets. Will I see anything on this trail?
I did not walk along the path itself, but nearby. The path is too narrow - like a ribbon. But for the ants it was, of course, not a ribbon, but a wide highway. And many, many Muravyov ran along the highway. They dragged flies, mosquitoes, horseflies. The transparent wings of the insects glittered. It seemed that a trickle of water was pouring between the blades of grass along the slope.
I walk along the ant trail and count my steps: sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five steps... Wow! These are my big ones, but how many ants are there?! Only at the seventieth step did the trickle disappear under the stone. Serious trail.
I sat down on a stone to rest. I sit and watch the living vein beat under my feet. The wind blows - ripples along a living stream. The sun will shine and the stream will sparkle.
Suddenly, it was as if a wave rushed along the ant road. The snake swerved along it and - dive! - under the stone on which I was sitting. I even pulled my leg back - it was probably a harmful viper. Well, rightly so - now the ants will neutralize it.
I knew that ants boldly attack snakes. They will stick around the snake and all that will remain is scales and bones. I even decided to take the skeleton of this snake and show it to the guys.
I'm sitting, waiting. A living stream beats and beats underfoot. Well, now it's time! I carefully lift the stone so as not to damage the snake skeleton. There is a snake under the stone. But not dead, but alive and not at all like a skeleton! On the contrary, she became even thicker! The snake, which was supposed to be eaten by the ants, calmly and slowly ate the Ants itself. She pressed them with her muzzle and pulled them into her mouth with her tongue. This snake was not a viper. I have never seen such snakes before. The scales are like sandpaper, fine, the top and bottom are the same. Looks more like a worm than a snake.
An amazing snake: it raised its blunt tail up, moved it from side to side, like its head, and suddenly crawled forward with its tail! But the eyes are not visible. Either a snake with two heads, or without a head at all! And it eats something - ants!
The skeleton didn't come out, so I took the snake. At home I looked at it in detail and determined the name. I found her eyes: small, about the size of a pinhead, under the scales. That's why they call it the blind snake. She lives in burrows underground. She doesn't need eyes there. But crawling either with your head or your tail forward is convenient. And she can dig the ground.
This is the unprecedented beast that the unknown path led me to.
What can I say! Every path leads somewhere. Just don’t be lazy to go.
Autumn is on the doorstep
N.I. Sladkov
Forest dwellers! - the wise Raven shouted one morning. - Autumn is at the threshold of the forest, is everyone ready for its arrival?
Ready, ready, ready...
But we'll check it now! - Raven croaked. - First of all, autumn will let the cold into the forest - what will you do?
The animals responded:
We, squirrels, hares, foxes, will change into winter coats!
We, badgers, raccoons, will hide in warm holes!
We, hedgehogs, bats, will fall into a deep sleep!
The birds responded:
We, the migratory ones, warm regions Let's fly away!
We, sedentary people, will put on down padded jackets!
Secondly, - the Raven shouts, - autumn will begin to rip off the leaves from the trees!
Let him rip it off! - the birds responded. - The berries will be more visible!
Let him rip it off! - the animals responded. - It will become quieter in the forest!
The third thing, - the Raven does not let up, - autumn will click the last insects with frost!
The birds responded:
And we, blackbirds, will fall on the rowan tree!
And we, woodpeckers, will begin to peel the cones!
And we, goldfinches, will get to the weeds!
The animals responded:
And we will sleep more peacefully without mosquito flies!
The fourth thing,” the Raven buzzes, “autumn will become boring!” He will catch up with dark clouds, let down tedious rains, and incite dreary winds. The day will be shortened, the sun will be hidden in your bosom!
Let him pester himself! - the birds and animals responded in unison. - You won’t keep us bored! What do we care about rain and wind when we
V fur coats and down padded jackets! Let's be well-fed - we won't get bored!
The wise Raven wanted to ask something else, but he waved his wing and took off.
He flies, and under him is a forest, multi-colored, motley - autumn.
Autumn has already crossed the threshold. But it didn’t scare anyone at all.
Hunting for a butterfly
MM. Prishvin
Zhulka, my young blue marble hunting dog, rushes like crazy after birds, after butterflies, even after large flies until the hot breath throws her tongue out of her mouth. But that doesn't stop her either.
Today there was such a story in front of everyone.
The yellow cabbage butterfly caught my eye. Giselle rushed after her, jumped and missed. The butterfly continued to move. The crook is behind her - hap! At least there’s something for the butterfly: it flies, flutters, as if laughing.
Hap! - past. Hap, hap! - past and past.
Hap, hap, hap - and there is no butterfly in the air.
Where is our butterfly? There was excitement among the children. "Ahah!" - that was all I could hear.
The butterfly is not in the air, the cabbage plant has disappeared. Giselle herself stands motionless, like wax, turning her head up, down, and sideways in surprise.
Where is our butterfly?
At this time, hot steam began to press inside Zhulka’s mouth - dogs don’t have sweat glands. The mouth opened, the tongue fell out, steam escaped, and along with the steam a butterfly flew out and, as if nothing had happened to it at all, fluttered about over the meadow.
Zhulka was so exhausted with this butterfly, it was probably so difficult for her to hold her breath with the butterfly in her mouth, that now, having seen the butterfly, she suddenly gave up. With her long, pink tongue hanging out, she stood and looked at the flying butterfly with eyes that immediately became small and stupid.
The children pestered us with the question:
Well, why doesn’t a dog have sweat glands?
We didn't know what to tell them.
Schoolboy Vasya Veselkin answered them:
If dogs had glands and they didn’t have to laugh, they would have caught and eaten all the butterflies a long time ago.
Under the snow
N.I. Sladkov
Snow poured out and covered the ground. The various small fry were happy that no one would find them under the snow now. One animal even boasted:
Guess who I am? Looks like a mouse, not a mouse. The size of a rat, not a rat. I live in the forest, and I’m called Vole. I - water vole, but simply - water rat. Even though I am a merman, I am not sitting in the water, but under the snow. Because in winter all the water froze. I’m not the only one sitting under the snow now; many have become snowdrops for the winter. We've waited for carefree days. Now I’ll run to my pantry and pick out the biggest potato...
Here, from above, a black beak pokes through the snow: in front, behind, on the side! Vole bit her tongue, shrank and closed her eyes.
It was the Raven who heard the Vole and began to poke his beak into the snow. He walked above, poked, and listened.
Did you hear it, or what? - muttered. And he flew away.
The vole took a breath and whispered to herself:
Phew, how nice it smells like mouse meat!
Vole rushed backwards with all her short legs. I barely escaped. I caught my breath and thought: “I’ll be silent - the Raven won’t find me. What about Lisa? Maybe roll out in the grass dust to fight off the mouse spirit? I will do so. And I’ll live in peace, no one will find me.”
And from the snorkel - Laska!
“I found you,” he says. He says this affectionately, and her eyes shoot out green sparkles. And the little white teeth shine. - I found you, Vole!
A vole in a hole - Weasel follows it. Vole in the snow - and Weasel in the snow, Vole in the snow - and Weasel in the snow. I barely escaped.
Only in the evening - without breathing! - Vole crept into her pantry and there - with a look around, listening and sniffing! - I chewed a potato from the edge. And I was glad about that. And she no longer boasted that her life under the snow was carefree. And keep your ears open under the snow, and there they will hear and smell you.
About the elephant
Boris Zhidkov
We were approaching India by boat. They were supposed to come in the morning. I changed my shift, was tired and couldn’t fall asleep: I kept thinking about how it would be there. It’s like if, as a child, they brought me a whole box of toys and only tomorrow I could uncork it. I kept thinking - in the morning, I’ll immediately open my eyes - and Indians, black, will come around, muttering incomprehensibly, not like in the picture. Bananas right on the bush
the city is new - everything will move and play. And elephants! The main thing is that I wanted to see the elephants. I still couldn’t believe that they weren’t there like in the zoological department, but were simply walking around and carrying things around: suddenly such a huge mass was rushing down the street!
I couldn’t sleep; my legs were itching with impatience. After all, you know, when you travel by land, it’s not at all the same: you see how everything gradually changes. And then for two weeks the ocean - water and water - and immediately new country. It's like the curtain has been raised in a theater.
The next morning they stamped on the deck and began to buzz. I rushed to the porthole, to the window - it was ready: the white city stood on the shore; port, ships, near the side of the boat: they are black in white turbans - their teeth are shining, they are shouting something; the sun is shining with all its might, pressing, it seems, pressing with light. Then I went crazy, just suffocated: as if I was not me and it was all a fairy tale. I haven't wanted to eat anything since the morning. Dear comrades, I will stand two watches at sea for you - let me go ashore as soon as possible.
The two of them jumped out onto the shore. In the port, in the city, everything is seething, boiling, people are milling about, and we are like crazy and don’t know what to look at, and we don’t walk, as if something is carrying us (and even after the sea, it’s always strange to walk along the shore). We look - a tram. We got on the tram, we didn’t really know why we were going, just to keep going - we went crazy. The tram rushes us along, we stare around and don’t notice that we have reached the outskirts. It doesn't go any further. We got out. Road. Let's go along the road. Let's come somewhere!
Here we calmed down a little and noticed that it was very hot. The sun is above the crown itself; the shadow does not fall from you, but the whole shadow is under you: you walk and trample on your shadow.
We've already walked quite a distance, there are no more people to meet, we look - an elephant is approaching. There are four guys with him, running along the road. I couldn’t believe my eyes: I hadn’t seen one in the city, but here it was just walking along the road. It seemed to me that I had escaped from the zoological. The elephant saw us and stopped. We felt terrified: there was no one big with him, the guys were alone. Who knows what's on his mind. Moves its trunk once - and it's done.
And the elephant probably thought this about us: some extraordinary, unknown people are coming - who knows? And so he did. Now he bent his trunk with a hook, the older boy stood on this hook, like on a step, holding the trunk with his hand, and the elephant carefully sent it onto his head. He sat there between his ears, as if on a table.
Then the elephant, in the same order, sent two more at once, and the third was small, probably about four years old - he was only wearing a short shirt, like a bra. The elephant offers its trunk to him - go, sit down. And he does all sorts of tricks, laughs, runs away. The elder shouts to him from above, and he jumps and teases - you won’t take it, they say. The elephant did not wait, lowered his trunk and walked away - pretending that he did not want to look at his tricks. He walks, sways his trunk rhythmically, and the boy curls around his legs and makes faces. And just when he was not expecting anything, the elephant suddenly grabbed his trunk! Yes, so clever! He caught him by the back of his shirt and lifted him up carefully. With his arms and legs, like a bug. No way! None for you. The elephant picked it up, carefully lowered it onto its head, and there the guys accepted it. He was there, on an elephant, still trying to fight.
We caught up, walking along the side of the road, and the elephant was on the other side, looking at us carefully and cautiously. And the guys also stare at us and whisper among themselves. They sit, as if at home, on the roof.
This, I think, is great: they have nothing to fear there. Even if a tiger were to come across, the elephant would catch the tiger, grab it across the stomach with its trunk, squeeze it, throw it higher than a tree, and, if it didn’t catch it with its tusks, it would still trample it with its feet until it was trampled into a cake.
And then he picked up the boy like a booger, with two fingers: carefully and carefully.
An elephant passed us: we looked, it turned off the road and ran into the bushes. The bushes are dense, prickly, and grow like walls. And he - through them, like through weeds - only the branches crunch - climbed over and went to the forest. He stopped near a tree, took a branch with his trunk and bent it down to the guys. They immediately jumped to their feet, grabbed a branch and robbed something from it. And the little one jumps up, tries to grab it for himself, fidgets as if he were not on an elephant, but standing on the ground. The elephant let go of a branch and bent another one. Same story again. Here the little one, apparently, has stepped into the role: he completely climbed onto this branch so that he too would get it, and he works. Everyone finished, the elephant let go of the branch, and the little one, lo and behold, flew off with the branch. Well, we think he disappeared - now he flew like a bullet into the forest. We rushed there. No, where is it going? Do not get through the bushes: prickly, and dense, and tangled. We look, an elephant is rummaging through the leaves with its trunk. I felt for this little one - he was apparently clinging on there like a monkey - took him out and put him in his place. Then the elephant walked onto the road in front of us and walked back. We're behind him. He walks and from time to time looks around, looks sideways at us: why, they say, are some people walking behind us? So we came to the house to get the elephant. There is a fence around. The elephant opened the gate with its trunk and carefully poked its head into the yard; there he lowered the guys to the ground. In the yard, a Hindu woman started shouting something at him. She didn't notice us right away. And we stand, looking through the fence.
The Hindu woman yells at the elephant, - the elephant reluctantly turned and went to the well. There are two pillars dug in at the well, and a view between them; there is a rope wound on it and a handle on the side. We look, the elephant took the handle with its trunk and began to twirl it: it twirled it as if it was empty, and pulled it out - there was a whole tub there on a rope, ten buckets. The elephant rested the root of its trunk against the handle to prevent it from spinning, bent its trunk, picked up the tub and, like a mug of water, placed it on the side of the well. The woman fetched water and made the boys carry it too - she was just doing the laundry. The elephant lowered the tub again and twisted the full one up.
The hostess began to scold him again. The elephant put the tub into the well, shook his ears and walked away - he didn’t get any more water, he went under the canopy. And there, in the corner of the yard, a canopy was built on flimsy posts - just enough for an elephant to crawl under it. There are reeds and some long leaves thrown on top.
Here it’s just an Indian, the owner himself. He saw us. We say - we came to see the elephant. The owner knew a little English and asked who we were; everything points to my Russian cap. I say Russians. And he didn’t even know what Russians were.
Not the British?
No, I say, not the British.
He was happy, laughed, and immediately became different: he called to him.
But Indians cannot stand the British: the British conquered their country long ago, rule there and keep the Indians under their thumb.
I ask:
Why doesn't the elephant come out?
And he, he says, was offended, and that means it was not in vain. Now he won’t work for anything until he leaves.
We look, the elephant came out from under the canopy, through the gate - and away from the yard. We think it will go away completely now. And the Indian laughs. The elephant went to the tree, leaned on its side and, well, rubbed. The tree is healthy - everything is just shaking. He itches like a pig against a fence.
He scratched himself, collected dust in his trunk and, wherever he scratched, dust and earth as he blew! Once, and again, and again! He cleans this so that nothing gets stuck in the folds: all his skin is hard, like a sole, and in the folds it is thinner, and in the southern countries there are a lot of all kinds of biting insects.
After all, look at him: he doesn’t itch on the posts in the barn, so as not to fall apart, he even carefully makes his way there, but goes to the tree to itch. I say to the Hindu:
How smart he is!
And he laughs.
Well,” he says, “if I had lived for one and a half hundred years, I would have learned the wrong thing.” And he,” he points to the elephant, “babysaw my grandfather.”
I looked at the elephant - it seemed to me that it was not the Hindu who was the master here, but the elephant, the elephant was the most important one here.
I speak:
Is it your old one?
No,” he says, “he’s one hundred and fifty years old, he’s just in time!” I have a little elephant over there, his son, he’s twenty years old, just a child. By the age of forty, one begins to gain strength. Just wait, the elephant will come, you will see: he is small.
A mother elephant came, and with her a baby elephant - the size of a horse, without tusks; he followed his mother like a foal.
The Hindu boys rushed to help their mother, began jumping and getting ready somewhere. The elephant also went; the elephant and the baby elephant are with them. The Hindu explains that he is on the river. We are also with the guys.
They didn't shy away from us. Everyone tried to speak - they in their own way, we in Russian - and laughed all the way. The little one pestered us the most - he kept putting on my cap and shouting something funny - maybe about us.
The air in the forest is fragrant, spicy, thick. We walked through the forest. We came to the river.
Not a river, but a stream - fast, it rushes, it gnaws at the shore. To the water there is a cut off a yard long. The elephants entered the water and took the baby elephant with them. They put him where the water was up to his chest, and the two of them began to wash him. They will collect sand and water from the bottom into the trunk and, as if from a gut, water it. It's great - only the splashes fly.
And the guys are afraid to get into the water - it hurts fast current, will carry away. They jump on the shore and throw stones at the elephant. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t even pay attention - he keeps washing his baby elephant. Then, I look, he took some water into his trunk and suddenly he turned towards the boys and blew a stream straight into the belly of one - he sat down. He laughs and bursts out.
The elephant washes his own again. And the guys pester him even more with pebbles. The elephant just shakes his ears: don’t pester me, you see, there’s no time to play around! And just when the boys weren’t waiting, they thought he would blow water on the baby elephant, he immediately turned his trunk towards them.
They are happy and tumble.
The elephant came ashore; The baby elephant extended its trunk to him like a hand. The elephant intertwined its trunk with his and helped him climb out onto the cliff.
Everyone went home: three elephants and four children.
The next day I asked where I could see elephants at work.
At the edge of the forest, near the river, a whole city of hewn logs is fenced in: the stacks stand, each as high as a hut. There was one elephant standing right there. And it was immediately clear that he was quite an old man - his skin was completely sagging and stiff, and his trunk was dangling like a rag. The ears are kind of chewed off. I see another elephant coming out of the forest. A log is swinging in its trunk - a huge hewn beam. There must be a hundred pounds. The porter waddles heavily and approaches the old elephant. The old man picks up the log from one end, and the porter lowers the log and moves his trunk to the other end. I look: what are they going to do? And the elephants together, as if on command, lifted the log up on their trunks and carefully placed it on the stack. Yes, so smoothly and correctly - like a carpenter on a construction site.
And not a single person around them.
I later found out that this old elephant and there is the chief artel worker: he has already grown old in this work.
The porter walked slowly into the forest, and the old man hung up his trunk, turned his back to the stack and began to look at the river, as if he wanted to say: “I’m tired of this, and I wouldn’t look.”
And the third elephant with a log is already coming out of the forest. We are going to where the elephants came from.
It’s downright embarrassing to tell you what we saw here. Elephants from the forest workings carried these logs to the river. In one place near the road there are two trees on the sides, so much so that an elephant with a log cannot pass. The elephant will reach this place, lower the log to the ground, tuck his knees, tuck his trunk, and with his very nose, the very root of his trunk, pushes the log forward. The earth and stones fly, the log rubs and plows the earth, and the elephant crawls and kicks. You can see how difficult it is for him to crawl on his knees. Then he gets up, catches his breath and doesn’t immediately take up the log. Again he will turn him across the road, again on his knees. He puts his trunk on the ground and rolls the log onto the trunk with his knees. How can the trunk not crush! Look, he's already up and running again. The log on its trunk swings like a heavy pendulum.
There were eight of them - all elephant porters - and each had to push the log with his nose: people did not want to cut down the two trees that stood on the road.
It was unpleasant for us to watch the old man straining at the stack, and we felt sorry for the elephants that were crawling on their knees. We stayed for a short time and left.
Fluff
Georgy Skrebitsky
There was a hedgehog living in our house; he was tame. When they stroked him, he pressed the thorns to his back and became completely soft. For this we nicknamed him Fluff.
If Fluffy was hungry, he would chase me like a dog. At the same time, the hedgehog puffed, snorted and bit my legs, demanding food.
In the summer I took Pushka for a walk in the garden. He ran along the paths, caught frogs, beetles, snails and ate them with appetite.
When winter came, I stopped taking Fluffy for walks and kept him at home. We now fed Cannon with milk, soup, and soaked bread. Sometimes a hedgehog would eat enough, climb behind the stove, curl up in a ball and sleep. And in the evening he will get out and start running around the rooms. He runs all night, stomps his paws, and disturbs everyone's sleep. So he lived in our house for more than half the winter and never went outside.
But then I once got ready to sled down the mountain, but there were no comrades in the yard. I decided to take Cannon with me. He took out a box, laid it with hay and put the hedgehog in it, and to make it warmer, he also covered it with hay on top. He put the box in the sled and ran to the pond where we always slid down the mountain.
I ran at full speed, imagining myself as a horse, and was carrying Pushka in a sled.
It was very good: the sun was shining, the frost stung my ears and nose. But the wind had completely died down, so that the smoke from the village chimneys did not billow, but rose into the sky in straight columns.
I looked at these pillars, and it seemed to me that this was not smoke at all, but thick blue ropes were coming down from the sky and small toy houses were tied to them by pipes below.
I rode my fill from the mountain and took the sled with the hedgehog home.
As I was driving, suddenly I met some guys: they were running to the village to look at the dead wolf. The hunters had just brought him there.
I quickly put the sled in the barn and also rushed to the village after the guys. We stayed there until the evening. They watched how the skin was removed from the wolf and how it was straightened out on a wooden spear.
I only remembered about Pushka the next day. I was very scared that he had run away somewhere. He immediately rushed into the barn, to the sled. I look - my Fluff lies curled up in a box and does not move. No matter how much I shook or shook him, he didn’t even move. During the night, apparently, he completely froze and died.
I ran to the guys and told them about my misfortune. We all grieved together, but there was nothing to do, and decided to bury Pushka in the garden, burying him in the snow in the very box in which he died.
For a whole week we all grieved for poor Fluffy. And then they gave me a live owl - he was caught in our barn. He was wild. We began to tame him and forgot about Cannon.
But spring has come, and how warm it is! One morning I went to the garden: it’s especially nice there in the spring - the finches are singing, the sun is shining, there are huge puddles all around, like lakes. I make my way carefully along the path so as not to scoop mud into my galoshes. Suddenly, ahead, in a pile of last year’s leaves, something moved. I stopped. Who is this animal? Which? A familiar face appeared from under the dark leaves, and black eyes looked straight at me.
Without remembering myself, I rushed to the animal. A second later I was already holding Fluffy in my hands, and he sniffed my fingers, snorted and poked my palm with his cold nose, demanding food.
Right there on the ground lay a thawed box of hay, in which Fluff had happily slept all winter. I picked up the box, put the hedgehog in it and brought it home in triumph.
Guys and ducklings
MM. Prishvin
A small wild teal duck finally decided to move her ducklings from the forest, bypassing the village, into the lake to freedom. In the spring, this lake overflowed far and a solid place for a nest could only be found about three miles away, on a hummock, in a swampy forest. And when the water subsided, we had to travel all three miles to the lake.
In places open to the eyes of man, fox and hawk, the mother walked behind so as not to let the ducklings out of sight for a minute. And near the forge, when crossing the road, she, of course, let them go ahead. That’s where the guys saw it and threw their hats at me. All the time while they were catching ducklings, the mother ran after them with an open beak or flew into different sides several steps in the greatest excitement. The guys were just about to throw hats at their mother and catch her like ducklings, but then I approached.
What will you do with the ducklings? - I asked the guys sternly.
They chickened out and replied:
Let's go.
Let's "let it go"! - I said very angrily. - Why did you need to catch them? Where is mother now?
And there he sits! - the guys answered in unison. And they pointed me to a nearby hillock of a fallow field, where the duck was actually sitting with her mouth open in excitement.
Quickly,” I ordered the guys, “go and return all the ducklings to her!”
They even seemed to be delighted at my order and ran straight up the hill with the ducklings. The mother flew away a little and, when the guys left, rushed to save her sons and daughters. In her own way, she quickly said something to them and ran to the oat field. Five ducklings ran after her, and so through the oat field, bypassing the village, the family continued its journey to the lake.
I joyfully took off my hat and, waving it, shouted:
Bon voyage, ducklings!
The guys laughed at me.
Why are you laughing, you fools? - I told the guys. - Do you think it’s so easy for ducklings to get into the lake? Quickly take off all your hats and shout “goodbye”!
And the same hats, dusty on the road while catching ducklings, rose into the air, and the guys all shouted at once:
Goodbye, ducklings!
Blue bast shoe
MM. Prishvin
There are highways through our large forest with separate paths for cars, trucks, carts and pedestrians. Now, for this highway, only the forest has been cut down as a corridor. It’s good to look along the clearing: two green walls of the forest and the sky at the end. When the forest was cut down, the large trees were taken away somewhere, while small brushwood - rookery - was collected in huge piles. They wanted to take away the rookery to heat the factory, but they couldn’t manage it, and the heaps throughout the wide clearing were left to spend the winter.
In the fall, hunters complained that the hares had disappeared somewhere, and some associated this disappearance of the hares with deforestation: they chopped, knocked, made noise and scared them away. When the powder flew in and all the hare’s tricks could be seen in the tracks, the ranger Rodionich came and said:
- The blue bast shoe all lies under the heaps of the Rook.
Rodionich, unlike all hunters, did not call the hare “slash”, but always “blue bast shoe”; there is nothing to be surprised about here: after all, a hare is no more like a devil than a bast shoe, and if they say that there are no blue bast shoes in the world, then I will say that there are no slanting devils either.
The rumor about the hares under the heaps instantly spread throughout our town, and on the day off, hunters led by Rodionich began to flock to me.
Early in the morning, at dawn, we went hunting without dogs: Rodionich was such a skill that he could drive a hare to a hunter better than any hound. As soon as it became visible enough that it was possible to distinguish fox tracks from hare tracks, we took the hare track, followed it, and, of course, it led us to one heap of rookery, as high as our wooden house with a mezzanine. There was supposed to be a hare lying under this heap, and we, having prepared our guns, stood in a circle.
“Come on,” we said to Rodionich.
- Get out, blue bast shoe! - he shouted and stuck a long stick under the pile.
The hare did not jump out. Rodionich was dumbfounded. And, after thinking, with a very serious face, looking at every little thing in the snow, he walked around the whole pile and walked around again in a large circle: there was no exit trail anywhere.
“He’s here,” Rodionich said confidently. - Take your seats, guys, he’s here. Are you ready?
- Let's! - we shouted.
- Get out, blue bast shoe! - Rodionich shouted and stabbed three times under the rookery with such a long stick that the end of it on the other side almost knocked one young hunter off his feet.
And now - no, the hare did not jump out!
Such embarrassment had never happened to our oldest tracker in his life: even his face seemed to have fallen a little. We started to get into a fuss, everyone began to guess about something in their own way, stick their nose into everything, walk back and forth in the snow and so, erasing all traces, taking away any opportunity to unravel the clever hare’s trick.
And so, I see, Rodionich suddenly beamed, sat down, contentedly, on a stump at a distance from the hunters, rolled himself a cigarette and blinked, so he blinked at me and beckoned me to him. Having realized the matter, I approach Rodionich unnoticed by everyone, and he points me up, to the very top of a high pile of rookery covered with snow.
“Look,” he whispers, “the blue bast shoe is playing a trick with us.”
It took me a while to see two black dots on the white snow—the hare’s eyes and two more small dots—the black tips of long white ears. It was the head that stuck out from under the rookery and turned in different directions after the hunters: where they went, there the head went.
As soon as I raised my gun, the life of the smart hare would have ended in an instant. But I felt sorry: you never know how many of them, stupid ones, are lying under the heaps!..
Rodionich understood me without words. He crushed a dense lump of snow for himself, waited until the hunters were crowded on the other side of the heap, and, having outlined himself well, launched this lump at the hare.
I never thought that our ordinary white hare, if he suddenly stood on a heap, and even jumped two arshins up, and appeared against the sky - that our hare could seem like a giant on a huge rock!
What happened to the hunters? The hare fell straight from the sky towards them. In an instant, everyone grabbed their guns - it was very easy to kill. But each hunter wanted to kill before the other, and each, of course, grabbed it without aiming at all, and the lively hare set off into the bushes.
- Here's a blue bast shoe! - Rodionich said after him admiringly.
The hunters once again managed to hit the bushes.
- Killed! - shouted one, young, hot.
But suddenly, as if in response to “killed,” a tail flashed in the distant bushes; For some reason, hunters always call this tail a flower.
The blue bast shoe waved only its “flower” to the hunters from the distant bushes.
Brave duckling
Boris Zhitkov
Every morning the housewife brought out a full plate of chopped eggs for the ducklings. She put the plate near the bush and left.
As soon as the ducklings ran up to the plate, suddenly a large dragonfly flew out of the garden and began to circle above them.
She chirped so terribly that the frightened ducklings ran away and hid in the grass. They were afraid that the dragonfly would bite them all.
And the evil dragonfly sat on the plate, tasted the food and then flew away. After this, the ducklings did not come to the plate for the whole day. They were afraid that the dragonfly would fly again. In the evening, the hostess removed the plate and said: “Our ducklings must be sick, for some reason they are not eating anything.” Little did she know that the ducklings went to bed hungry every night.
One day their neighbor came to visit the ducklings, little duckling Alyosha. When the ducklings told him about the dragonfly, he began to laugh.
What brave men! - he said. - I alone will drive away this dragonfly. You'll see tomorrow.
“You are bragging,” said the ducklings, “tomorrow you will be the first to get scared and run.”
The next morning, the hostess, as always, put a plate of chopped eggs on the ground and left.
Well, look, - said the brave Alyosha, - now I will fight with your dragonfly.
As soon as he said this, a dragonfly began to buzz. It flew straight from above onto the plate.
The ducklings wanted to run away, but Alyosha was not afraid. Before the dragonfly had time to sit on the plate, Alyosha grabbed its wing with his beak. She forcibly escaped and flew away with a broken wing.
Since then, she never flew into the garden, and the ducklings ate their fill every day. They not only ate themselves, but also treated the brave Alyosha for saving them from the dragonfly.
Current page: 1 (book has 3 pages in total)
Boris Stepanovich Zhitkov
Stories about children
© Ill., Semenyuk I.I., 2014
© AST Publishing House LLC, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet or corporate networks, for private or public use without the written permission of the copyright owner.
© Electronic version books prepared by liters company
Fire
Petya lived with his mother and sisters on the top floor, and the teacher lived on the bottom floor. One day mom went swimming with the girls. And Petya was left alone to guard the apartment.
When everyone left, Petya began to try his homemade cannon. It was made of an iron tube. Petya filled the middle with gunpowder, and at the back there was a hole to light the gunpowder. But no matter how hard Petya tried, he could not set fire to anything. Petya was very angry. He went into the kitchen. He put wood chips on the stove, poured kerosene on them, put a cannon on top and lit it: “Now it will probably fire!”
The fire flared up, began to hum in the stove - and suddenly there was a shot! Yes, such that all the fire was thrown out of the stove.
Petya got scared and ran out of the house. No one was home, no one heard anything. Petya ran away. He thought that maybe everything would go out on its own. But nothing went out. And it flared up even more.
The teacher was walking home and saw smoke coming from the upper windows. He ran to the post where the button was made behind the glass. This is a call to the fire department.
The teacher broke the glass and pressed the button.
The fire department's bell rang. They quickly rushed to their fire trucks and ran at full speed. They drove up to the post, and there the teacher showed them where it was burning. The firefighters had a pump on their vehicle. The pump began pumping water, and firefighters began pouring water from rubber pipes onto the fire. Firefighters placed ladders against the windows and climbed into the house to see if there were any people left in the house. There was no one in the house. The firefighters began to take things out.
Petya’s mother came running when the whole apartment was already on fire. The policeman did not let anyone get close, so as not to disturb the firefighters. The most necessary things did not have time to burn, and the firefighters brought them to Petya’s mother.
And Petya’s mother kept crying and saying that Petya must have burned out, because he was nowhere to be seen.
But Petya was ashamed, and he was afraid to approach his mother. The boys saw him and brought him in by force.
The firefighters did such a good job of extinguishing the fire that nothing burned downstairs. The firefighters got into their cars and drove away. And the teacher allowed Petya’s mother to live with him until the house was repaired.
On an ice floe
In winter the sea froze. The fishermen of the entire collective farm gathered on the ice to fish. We took the nets and rode on a sleigh across the ice. The fisherman Andrei also went, and with him his son Volodya. We went far, far away. And wherever you look, everything is ice and ice: the sea is so frozen. Andrey and his comrades drove the farthest. They made holes in the ice and began to throw nets through them. The day was sunny and everyone was having fun. Volodya helped unravel fish from the nets and was very happy that they caught a lot.
Large piles of frozen fish were already lying on the ice. Volodin's dad said:
- That's enough, it's time to go home.
But everyone began to ask to stay overnight and fish again in the morning. In the evening we ate, wrapped ourselves tightly in sheepskin coats and went to bed in the sleigh. Volodya snuggled up to his father to keep him warm and fell fast asleep.
Suddenly at night the father jumped up and shouted:
- Comrades, get up! Look how windy it is! There would be no trouble!
Everyone jumped up and ran around.
- Why are we shaking? - Volodya shouted.
And the father shouted:
- Trouble! We were torn off and carried on an ice floe into the sea.
All the fishermen ran along the ice floe and shouted:
- It's torn off, it's torn off!
And someone shouted:
- Gone!
Volodya began to cry. During the day, the wind became even stronger, the waves splashed onto the ice floe, and all around was only the sea. Volodin's dad tied a mast from two poles, tied a red shirt at the end and set it up like a flag. Everyone was looking to see if there was a steamer somewhere. Out of fear, no one wanted to eat or drink. And Volodya lay in the sleigh and looked at the sky: would the sun shine. And suddenly, in a clearing between the clouds, Volodya saw a plane and shouted:
- Airplane! Airplane!
Everyone started shouting and waving their hats. A bag fell from a plane. It contained food and a note: “Hold on! Help is coming! An hour later the steamer arrived and loaded people, sleighs, horses and fish. It was the port master who learned that eight fishermen had been carried away on the ice floe. He sent a ship and an airplane to help them. The pilot found the fishermen and radioed the ship's captain where to go.
Collapse
The girl Valya was eating fish and suddenly choked on a bone. Mom screamed:
- Eat the crust quickly!
But nothing helped. Valya had tears flowing from her eyes. She could not speak, but only wheezed and waved her arms.
Mom got scared and ran to call the doctor. And the doctor lived forty kilometers away. Mom told him on the phone to come quickly.
The doctor immediately collected his tweezers, got into the car and drove to Valya. The road went along the shore. On one side there was the sea, and on the other side there were steep cliffs. The car was racing at full speed.
The doctor was very afraid for Valya.
Suddenly, ahead, one rock crumbled into stones and covered the road. It became impossible to travel. It was still far away. But the doctor still wanted to walk.
Suddenly a horn sounded from behind. The driver looked back and said:
- Wait, doctor, help is coming!
And it was a truck in a hurry. He drove up to the rubble. People jumped out of the truck. They removed the pump machine and rubber pipes from the truck and ran the pipe into the sea.
The pump started working. He sucked water from the sea through a pipe, and then drove it into another pipe. Water flew out of this pipe with terrible force. It flew out with such force that people could not hold the end of the pipe: it was shaking and beating. It was screwed to an iron stand and directed water directly towards the collapse. It turned out as if they were shooting water from a cannon. The water hit the landslide so hard that it dislodged clay and stones and carried them into the sea.
The entire collapse was washed away by water from the road.
- Hurry, let's go! - the doctor shouted to the driver.
The driver started the car. The doctor came to Valya, took out his tweezers and removed the bone from her throat.
And then he sat down and told Valya how the road was blocked and how the hydraulic ram pump washed away the landslide.
How one boy drowned
One boy went fishing. He was eight years old. He saw logs on the water and thought that it was a raft: so they lay tightly one to the other. “I’ll sit on the raft,” thought the boy, “and from the raft I can cast a fishing rod far!”
The postman walked by and saw the boy going to the water.
The boy took two steps along the logs, the logs parted, and the boy could not resist and fell into the water between the logs. And the logs came together again and closed over him like a ceiling.
The postman grabbed his bag and ran as fast as he could to the shore.
He kept looking at the place where the boy fell so that he knew where to look.
I saw the postman running headlong, and I remembered that a boy was walking, and I saw that he was gone.
I immediately ran towards where the postman was running. The postman stood near the water and pointed his finger in one place.
He didn't take his eyes off the logs. And he just said:
- Here he is!
I took the postman by the hand, lay down on the logs and stuck my hand where the postman was pointing. And just there, under the water, little fingers began to grab me. The boy could not emerge. He hit his head on logs and looked for help with his hands. I grabbed his hand and shouted to the postman:
We pulled the boy out. He almost choked. We started to bother him, and he came to his senses. And as soon as he came to his senses, he roared.
The postman raised his fishing rod and said:
- Here is your fishing rod. Why are you crying? You're on the shore. Here's the sun!
- Well, yes, but where is my cap?
The postman waved his hand.
- Why are you shedding tears? And so wet... And without a cap, your mother will be happy with you. Run home.
And the boy stood.
“Well, find him a cap,” said the postman, “but I have to go.”
I took the fishing rod from the boy and began to fish around under the water. Suddenly something caught on, I took it out, it was a bast shoe.
I fumbled for a long time. Finally he pulled out some kind of rag. The boy immediately recognized that it was a cap. We squeezed the water out of it. The boy laughed and said:
- It’s okay, your head will dry out!
Smoke
Nobody believes this. And the firefighters say:
- Smoke is worse than fire. A person runs away from the fire, but is not afraid of the smoke and climbs into it. And there he suffocates. And one more thing: you can’t see anything in the smoke. You can’t see where to run, where the doors are, where the windows are. Smoke eats your eyes, bites your throat, stings your nose.
And the firefighters put masks on their faces, and air flows into the mask through a tube. In such a mask you can be in the smoke for a long time, but you still can’t see anything.
And once the firemen were extinguishing a house. Residents ran out into the street.
The senior fireman shouted:
- Well, count, is that all?
One tenant was missing. And the man shouted:
- Our Petka stayed in the room!
The senior fireman sent a masked man to find Petka. A man entered the room.
There was no fire in the room yet, but it was full of smoke.
The masked man searched the entire room, all the walls and shouted with all his might through the mask:
- Petka, Petka! Come out, you'll burn! Give me your voice.
But no one answered.
The man heard the roof falling, got scared and left.
Then the senior fireman got angry:
- Where is Petka?
“I searched all the walls,” said the man.
- Give me a mask! - the elder shouted.
The man began to take off his mask. The elder sees that the ceiling is already on fire. There is no time to wait.
And the elder did not wait - he dipped his mitten into the bucket, stuck it in his mouth and rushed into the smoke.
He immediately threw himself on the floor and began to fumble. I came across the sofa and thought: “He probably hid there, there’s less smoke there.”
He reached under the sofa and felt his legs. He grabbed them and pulled them out of the room.
He pulled the man onto the porch. It was Petka. And the fireman stood and staggered. So the smoke got to him.
And then the ceiling collapsed and the whole room caught fire.
Petka was carried aside and brought to his senses. He said that he hid under the sofa out of fear, covered his ears and closed his eyes. And then he doesn’t remember what happened.
And the senior fireman put the mitten in his mouth because it would be easier to breathe through the smoke through a wet rag.
After the fire, the elder told the fireman:
- Why were you rummaging around the walls? He won't be waiting for you by the wall. If he is silent, it means he has suffocated and is lying on the floor. If I had searched the floor and the beds, I would have found them right away.
Razinya
My mother sent the girl Sasha to the cooperative. Sasha took the basket and went. Mom shouted after her:
- Look, don’t forget to take the change. Make sure your wallet isn't snatched!
So Sasha paid at the cash register, put her wallet in the basket at the very bottom, and potatoes were poured into her basket on top. They put cabbage and onions - the basket was full. Come on, get your wallet out of there! Sasha had such a clever idea against thieves! I left the cooperative and suddenly became afraid: oh, it seems I forgot to take the change again, and the basket is heavy! Well, for one minute Sasha put the basket at the door and ran up to the cash register:
- Auntie, it seems you didn’t give me change.
And the cashier said to her from the window:
– I can’t remember everyone.
And in the queue they shout:
- Don't delay!
Sasha wanted to take the basket and go home without change. Look, there is no basket. Sasha was scared! She began to cry and scream at the top of her voice:
- Oh, they stole it, they stole it! My basket was stolen! Potatoes, cabbage!
People surrounded Sasha, gasped and scolded her:
– Who throws their things like that! Serves you right!
And the manager jumped out into the street, took out a whistle and started whistling: call the police. Sasha thought that now they would take her to the police station for being ugly, and she roared even louder. A policeman came.
-What's the matter? Why is the girl screaming?
Then the policeman was told how Sasha was robbed.
The policeman says:
- We’ll arrange it now, don’t cry.
And he started talking on the phone.
Sasha was afraid to go home without her wallet and basket. And she was also scared to stand here. How can a policeman take you to the police station? And the policeman came and said:
– Don’t go anywhere, stay here!
And then a man comes to the store with a dog on a chain. The policeman pointed at Sasha:
- It was stolen from her, from this girl.
Everyone parted, the man led the dog to Sasha. Sasha thought that the dog was going to start biting her. But the dog only sniffed it and snorted. And at that time the policeman asked Sasha where she lived. Sasha asked the policeman not to say anything to her mother. And he laughed, and everyone around him laughed too. And that man with the dog had already left.
The policeman also left. And Sasha was afraid to go home. She sat down in the corner directly on the floor. He sits and waits for what will happen.
She sat there for a long time. Suddenly he hears his mother shout:
- Sasha, Sasha, are you here, or what?
Sasha will shout:
- Tuta! – and jumped to her feet.
Mom grabbed her hand and brought her home.
And at home in the kitchen there is a basket with potatoes, cabbage and onions. Mom said that the dog led that man by scent following the thief, caught up with the thief and grabbed his hand with his teeth. The thief was taken to the police, the basket was taken from him and brought to his mother. But the wallet was not found, so it disappeared along with the money.
- And it didn’t disappear at all! – said Sasha and turned the basket over. The potatoes spilled out and the wallet fell out of the bottom.
- That's how smart I am! - says Sasha.
And her mother:
- Smart, but ugly.
White House
We lived at sea, and my dad had a nice boat with sails. I knew how to navigate it perfectly – both oars and sails. And yet, my dad never let me into the sea alone. And I was twelve years old.
One day, my sister Nina and I found out that my father was leaving home for two days, and we decided to go on a boat to the other side; and on the other side of the bay stood a very pretty house: white, with a red roof. And a grove grew around the house. We had never been there and thought it was very good. Probably a kind old man and an old woman live. And Nina says that they certainly have a dog and a kind one too. And the old people probably eat yogurt and will be happy and give us yogurt.
So we started saving bread and water bottles. The water in the sea is salty, but what if you want to drink on the way?
My father left in the evening, and we immediately filled the bottles with water on the sly from my mother. Otherwise he will ask: why? - and then everything disappeared.
As soon as it was dawn, Nina and I quietly climbed out of the window and took our bread and bottles into the boat with us. I set the sails and we went to sea. I sat like a captain, and Nina obeyed me like a sailor.
The wind was light, and the waves were small, and Nina and I felt as if we were on a large ship, we had supplies of water and food, and we were going to another country. I headed straight for the house with the red roof. Then I told my sister to prepare breakfast. She broke some bread and uncorked a bottle of water. She was still sitting on the bottom of the boat, and then, as she stood up to give me food, and as she looked back at our shore, she screamed so loudly that I even shuddered:
- Oh, our house is barely visible! – and wanted to cry.
I said:
- Reva, but the old people’s house is close.
She looked ahead and screamed even worse:
“And the old people’s house is far away: we didn’t get any closer.” And they left our house!
She began to roar, and out of spite I began to eat the bread as if nothing had happened. She roared, and I said:
“If you want to go back, jump overboard and swim home, and I’m going to the old people.”
Then she drank from the bottle and fell asleep. And I’m still sitting at the helm, and the wind doesn’t change and blows evenly. The boat goes smoothly, and the water murmurs behind the stern. The sun was already high.
And now I see that we are getting very close to that shore and the house is clearly visible. Now let Ninka wake up and take a look - she’ll be happy! I looked to see where the dog was. But neither the dog nor the old people were visible.
Suddenly the boat stumbled, stopped and tilted to one side. I quickly lowered the sail so as not to capsize at all. Nina jumped up. Woke up, she did not know where she was, and looked with wide eyes. I said:
- They hit the sand. Ran aground. Now I'll sleep. And there's the house.
But she was not happy about the house, but was even more frightened. I undressed, jumped into the water and began to push.
I was exhausted, but the boat did not move. I tilted it to one side or the other. I lowered the sails, but nothing helped.
Nina started screaming for the old man to help us. But it was far away, and no one came out. I told Ninka to jump out, but this did not make the boat any easier: the boat was firmly dug into the sand. I tried to wade towards the shore. But it was deep in all directions, no matter where you went. And it was impossible to go anywhere. And so far away that it’s impossible to swim.
And no one left the house. I ate the bread, washed it down with water and didn’t speak to Nina. And she cried and said:
- Well, I brought it, now no one will find us here. Stranded in the middle of the sea. Captain! Mom will go crazy. You'll see. My mother told me: “If anything happens to you, I’ll go crazy.”
And I was silent. The wind has completely died down. I took it and fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was completely dark. Ninka whimpered, hiding in her very nose, under the bench. I stood up, and the boat rocked easily and freely under my feet. I purposely shook her harder. The boat is free. I was so happy! Hooray! We got off the ground. It was the wind that changed, caught up with water, lifted the boat, and it went aground.
I looked around. In the distance there were sparkling lights—lots and lots of them. This is on our shore: tiny, like sparkles. I rushed to raise the sails. Nina jumped up and at first thought I was crazy. But I didn't say anything. And when he had already pointed the boat towards the lights, he said to her:
- What, roar? So we're going home. There's no point in crying.
We walked all night. In the morning the wind stopped. But we were already near the shore. We rowed home. Mom was both angry and happy at once. But we asked her not to tell her father anything.
And then we found out that no one had lived in that house for a whole year.
How I caught little men
When I was little, I was taken to live with my grandmother. Grandmother had a shelf above the table. And on the shelf there is a steamboat. I've never seen anything like this. He was completely real, only small. He had a trumpet: yellow and on it two black belts. And two masts. And rope ladders went from the masts to the sides. At the stern there was a booth, like a house. Polished, with windows and door. And just at the stern there is a copper steering wheel. Below under the stern is the steering wheel. And the propeller shone in front of the steering wheel like a copper rose. There are two anchors on the bow. Oh, how wonderful! If only I had one like this!
I immediately asked my grandmother to play with the steamboat. My grandmother allowed me everything. And then suddenly she frowned:
- Don’t ask for that. If you don’t want to play, don’t you dare touch it. Never! This is a dear memory for me.
I saw that even if I cried, it wouldn’t help.
And the steamboat stood importantly on a shelf on varnished stands. I couldn't take my eyes off him.
And grandma:
- Give me your word of honor that you won’t touch me. Otherwise I’d better hide it from sin.
And she went to the shelf.
- Honest and honest, grandma. - And grabbed my grandmother’s skirt.
Grandmother did not remove the steamer.
I kept looking at the ship. He climbed onto a chair to see better. And more and more he seemed real to me. And the door in the booth must certainly open. And probably, little people live in it. Small, just the size of the ship. It turned out that they should be slightly lower than the match. I began to wait to see if any of them would look through the window. They're probably peeking. And when no one is home, they go out onto the deck. They are probably climbing ladders to the masts.
And a little noise - like mice: they dash into the cabin. Down and hide. I looked for a long time when I was alone in the room. Nobody looked out. I hid behind the door and looked through the crack. And they are cunning, damned little men, they know that I am spying. Yeah! They work at night when no one can scare them away. Tricky.
I began to quickly and quickly swallow the tea. And asked to sleep.
Grandma says:
- What is this? You can’t be forced into bed, but then you’re asking to sleep so early.
And so, when they settled down, the grandmother turned off the light. And the steamboat is not visible. I tossed and turned on purpose, so that the bed creaked.
- Why are you tossing and turning?
“And I’m afraid to sleep without light.” At home they always light a night light.
I lied: the house is dark at night.
Grandma cursed, but got up. I spent a long time poking around and made a night light. It didn't burn well. But you could still see how the steamboat glittered on the shelf.
I covered my head with a blanket, made myself a house and a small hole. And he looked out of the hole without moving. Soon I looked so closely that I could clearly see everything on the boat. I looked for a long time. The room was completely silent. Only the clock was ticking. Suddenly something rustled quietly. I was wary - this rustling sound was coming from the ship. And it was as if the door had opened slightly. I lost my breath. I moved forward a little. The damned bed creaked. I scared the little man away!
Now there was nothing to wait for, and I fell asleep. I fell asleep out of grief.
The next day I came up with this. The humans are probably eating something. If you give them candy, it's a whole lot for them. You need to break off a piece of the candy and put it on the steamer, near the booth. Near the doors. But such a piece that it won’t fit through their doors right away. They'll open the doors at night and look out the crack. Wow! Sweets! For them it’s like a whole box. Now they’ll jump out, quickly take the candy to themselves. They are at her door, but she won’t get in! Now they’ll run away, bring hatchets - small, small, but completely real - and start baling with these hatchets: bale-bale! bale bale! bale bale! And quickly push the candy through the door. They are cunning, they just want everything to be neat. So as not to get caught. Here they are bringing in candy. Here, even if I creak, they still won’t be able to keep up: the candy will get stuck in the door - neither here nor there. Let them run away, but you will still see how they carried the candy. Or maybe someone will miss the hatchet out of fright. Where will they choose! And I will find on the deck of the ship a tiny real hatchet, very sharp.
And so, secretly from my grandmother, I cut off a piece of candy, just the one I wanted. He waited a minute while the grandmother was busy in the kitchen, once or twice - on the table with her feet and put the lollipop right next to the door on the steamer. Theirs is half a step from the door to the lollipop. He got off the table and wiped away with his sleeve what he had left behind with his feet. Grandma didn't notice anything.
During the day I secretly glanced at the ship. My grandmother took me for a walk. I was afraid that during this time the little men would steal the candy and I wouldn’t catch them. On the way, I purposely whined that I was cold, and we returned soon. The first thing I looked at was the steamboat! The lollipop, as it was, is in place. Well, yes! They are fools to take on such a thing during the day!
At night, when my grandmother fell asleep, I settled down in the blanket house and began to look. This time the night light burned wonderfully, and the candy sparkled like a piece of ice in the sun with a sharp light. I looked and looked at this light and fell asleep, as luck would have it! The little people outsmarted me. I looked in the morning and there was no candy, but I got up before everyone else and ran around in my shirt to look. Then I looked from my chair and, of course, there was no hatchet. Why did they have to give up: they worked slowly, without interruption, and not even a single crumb was lying around - they picked everything up.
Another time I put in bread. I even heard some fuss at night. The damned night light was barely smoking, I couldn’t see anything. But the next morning there was no bread. There are only a few crumbs left. Well, it’s clear that they don’t really care about bread or candy: every crumb is a piece of candy for them.
I decided that they had benches on both sides of the ship. Full length. And during the day they sit there side by side and whisper quietly. About your business. And at night, when everyone is asleep, they have work here.
I thought about little people all the time. I wanted to take a cloth, like a small rug, and place it near the door. Wet a cloth with ink. They will run out, you won’t notice right away, they will get their feet dirty and leave marks all over the ship. At least I can see what kind of legs they have. Maybe some are barefoot to make their feet quieter. No, they are terribly cunning and will only laugh at all my tricks.
I couldn't stand it anymore.
And so - I decided to definitely take the steamboat and look and catch the little men. At least one. You just need to arrange it so that you can stay alone at home. My grandmother took me with her everywhere, to all her visits. All to some old women. Sit and you can’t touch anything. You can only pet a cat. And the grandmother whispers with them for half a day.
So I see that my grandmother is getting ready: she began to collect cookies in a box for these old women to drink tea there. I ran into the hallway, took out my knitted mittens and rubbed it on my forehead and cheeks - my whole face, in a word. No regrets. And he quietly lay down on the bed.
Grandma suddenly snapped:
- Borya, Boryushka, where are you?
I remain silent and close my eyes. Grandma to me:
- Why are you lying down?
- My head hurts.
She touched her forehead.
- Look at me! Stay at home. I'll go back and get some raspberries from the pharmacy. I'll be back soon. I won't sit for long. And you undress and lie down. Lie down, lie down without talking.
She began to help me, laid me down, wrapped me in a blanket and kept saying: “I’ll be back now, in spirit.”
Grandma locked me up. I waited five minutes: what if he came back? What if you forgot something there?
And then I jumped out of bed with my shirt on. I jumped up on the table and took the steamer from the shelf. Immediately, with my hands, I realized that it was made of iron, completely real. I pressed it to my ear and began to listen: were they moving? But they, of course, fell silent. They realized that I had grabbed their ship. Yeah! Sit there on the bench and are silent, like mice. I got off the table and began to shake the steamer. They will shake themselves off, will not sit on the benches, and I will hear them hanging out there. But it was quiet inside.
I realized: they were sitting on the benches, their legs were tucked under and their hands were clinging to the seats with all their strength. They sit as if glued.
Yeah! So just wait. I'll dig around and raise the deck. And I’ll cover you all there. I began to take out a table knife from the cupboard, but I didn’t take my eyes off the steamer so that the little men wouldn’t jump out. I began to pick at the deck. Wow, how tightly everything is sealed!
Finally I managed to slip the knife a little. But the masts rose along with the deck. And the masts were not allowed to rise by these rope ladders that went from the masts to the sides. They had to be cut off - there was no other way. I stopped for a moment. Just for a moment. But now, with a hasty hand, he began to cut these ladders. I sawed them with a dull knife. Done, they are all hung, the masts are free. I began to lift the deck with a knife. I was afraid to immediately give a big gap. They will all rush at once and run away. I left a crack so I could climb through alone. He will climb, and I will clap him! – and I’ll slam it like a bug in the palm of my hand.
I waited and kept my hand ready to grab.
Not a single one climbs! I then decided to immediately open the deck and slam it in the middle with my hand. At least one will come across. You just have to do it right away: they’ve probably already got ready there - you open it, and the little men all jump to the sides. I quickly threw back the deck and slammed my hand inside. Nothing. Nothing at all! There weren't even these benches. Bare sides. Like in a saucepan. I raised my hand. Nothing at hand, of course.
My hands were shaking as I adjusted the deck back. Everything was becoming crooked. And there is no way to attach ladders. They were hanging out randomly. I somehow pushed the deck into place and put the steamer on the shelf. Now everything is gone!
I quickly threw myself into bed and wrapped my head up.
I hear the key in the door.
- Grandmother! – I whispered under the blanket. - Grandma, dear, dear, what have I done!
And my grandmother stood over me and stroked my head:
- Why are you crying, why are you crying? You are my dear, Boryushka! Do you see how soon I am?
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