Prishvin stories from the life of the forest. Stories about the nature of Russian writers. Mikhail Prishvin “Dead tree”

Georgy Skrebitsky “Forest Echo”

I was then five or six years old. We lived in the village.

One day my mother went into the forest to pick strawberries and took me with her. There were a lot of strawberries that year. She grew up right outside the village, in an old forest clearing.

I still remember this day, although more than fifty years have passed since then. It was sunny and hot like summer. But as soon as we approached the forest, suddenly a blue cloud came running and frequent rain fell from it. heavy rain. And the sun continued to shine. Raindrops fell to the ground, splashing heavily on the leaves. They hung on the grass, on the branches of bushes and trees, and the sun was reflected and played in each drop.

Before my mother and I had time to stand under the tree, the sunny rain had already stopped.

“Look, Yura, how beautiful it is,” said my mother, coming out from under the branches.

I looked. A rainbow stretched across the entire sky in a multi-colored arc. One end of it abutted our village, and the other went far into the meadows beyond the river.

- Wow, great! - I said. - Just like a bridge. I wish I could run through it!

“You better run on the ground,” my mother laughed, and we went into the forest to pick strawberries.

We wandered through clearings near hummocks and stumps and found large ripe berries everywhere.

Light steam came from the sun-heated earth after the rain. The air smelled of flowers, honey and strawberries. If you smell this wonderful smell with your nose, it’s like you’re taking a sip of some kind of fragrant, sweet drink. And to make this seem even more true, I picked strawberries and put them not in a basket, but directly in my mouth.

I ran through the bushes, shaking off the last raindrops. Mom wandered nearby, and therefore I was not at all afraid of getting lost in the forest.

A large yellow butterfly flew over the clearing. I grabbed the cap from my head and rushed after it. But the butterfly either descended to the grass itself, then rose up. I chased and chased after her, but I never caught her - she flew off somewhere into the forest.

Completely out of breath, I stopped and looked around. “Where is mom?” She was nowhere to be seen.

- Aw! - I shouted, as I used to shout near the house, playing hide and seek.

And suddenly, from somewhere far away, from the depths of the forest, a response was heard: “Ay!”

I even shuddered. Have I really run so far away from my mother? Where is she? How to find her? The whole forest, previously so cheerful, now seemed mysterious and scary to me.

“Mom!.. Mom!..” I screamed with all my might, already ready to cry.

“A-ma-ma-ma-ma-a-a-a!” - as if someone in the distance was mimicking me. And at that very second my mother ran out from behind the neighboring bushes.

- Why are you shouting? What's happened? - she asked fearfully.

- I thought you were far away! — I immediately calmed down, I answered. “There’s someone teasing you in the forest.”

- Who's teasing? - Mom didn’t understand.

- Don't know. I scream and so does he. Listen! - and I again, but this time bravely shouted: - Ay! Aw!

“Aw! Av! Aw!” - echoed from the distance of the forest.

- Yes, it’s an echo! - said mom.

- Echo? What is it doing there?

I listened to my mother in disbelief. “How is this so? It’s my voice that answers me, and even when I’m already silent!”

I tried to shout again:

- Come here!

“Over here!” - responded in the forest.

- Mom, maybe someone is still teasing there? - I asked hesitantly. - Let's go have a look.

- How stupid! - Mom laughed. “Well, let’s go if you want, but we won’t find anyone.”

I took my mother’s hand just in case: “Who knows what kind of echo this is!” - and we walked along the path deep into the forest. Occasionally I shouted:

- Are you here?

“Here!” - answered in front.

We crossed a forest ravine and emerged into a light birch forest. It wasn't scary at all.

I let go of my mother's hand and ran forward.

And suddenly I saw an “echo”. It was sitting on a stump with its back to me. Everything is gray, wearing a gray shaggy hat, like a goblin from a picture from a fairy tale. I screamed and rushed back to my mother:

- Mom, mom, there’s an echo sitting on a tree stump!

- Why are you talking nonsense! - Mom got angry.

She took my hand and bravely walked forward.

-Will it not touch us? - I asked.

“Don’t be stupid, please,” my mother answered.

We entered the clearing.

- Out, out! - I whispered.

- Yes, it’s Grandpa Kuzma who grazes the cows!

—- Grandfather, I thought you were an echo! - I shouted, running up to the old man.

- Echo? - he was surprised, lowering the wooden pity pipe, which he was whittling with a knife. - Echo, my dear, is not a person. This is the voice of the forest.

- Yes. You shout in the forest, and he will answer you. Every tree, every bush gives an echo. Listen to how we talk to them.

Grandfather raised his pity pipe and began to play tenderly and drawlingly. He played as if he was humming some sad song. And somewhere far, far away in the forest, another similar voice echoed him.

Mom came up and sat down on a nearby tree stump. Grandfather finished playing, and the echo also finished.

—- So, son, have you heard me calling to the forest now? - said the old man. — Echo is the very soul of the forest. Whatever a bird whistles, whatever an animal screams, it will tell you everything, it will not hide anything.

So I didn’t understand then what an echo was. But on the other hand, I fell in love with it for the rest of my life, loved it like the mysterious voice of the forest, the song of pity, like an old children’s fairy tale.

And now, many, many years later, as soon as I hear an echo in the forest, I immediately remember: a sunny day, birches, a clearing and in the middle of it, on an old stump, something shaggy, gray. Maybe this is our village shepherd sitting, or maybe not a shepherd, but a fairy-tale grandfather-goblin.

He sits on a tree stump, whittling a maple pipe. And then he will play it in the quiet evening hour, when the trees, grass and flowers fall asleep and the horned moon slowly emerges from behind the forest and the summer night sets in.

Georgy Skrebitsky “Ivanovich the Cat”

There lived in our house a huge fat cat - Ivanovich: lazy, clumsy. He ate or slept all day long. Sometimes he would climb onto a warm bed, curl up in a ball and fall asleep. In a dream, it will spread its paws, stretch itself out, and hang its tail down. Because of this tail, Ivanovich often got it from our yard puppy Bobka. He was a very mischievous puppy. As soon as the door to the house is opened, he will rush into the rooms straight to Ivanovich. He will grab him by the tail with his teeth, drag him to the floor and carry him like a sack. The floor is smooth, slippery, Ivanovich will roll on it as if on ice. If you're awake, you won't be able to figure out what's going on right away. Then he will come to his senses, jump up, hit Bobka in the face with his paw, and go back to sleep on the bed.

Ivanovich loved to lie down so that he was both warm and soft. Either he will lie down on his mother’s pillow, or he will climb under the blanket. And one day I did this. Mom kneaded the dough in a tub and put it on the stove. To make it rise better, I covered it with a still warm scarf. Two hours passed. Mom went to see if the dough was rising well. He looks, and in the tub, curled up like on a feather bed, Ivanovich is sleeping. I crushed all the dough and got all dirty myself. So we were left without pies. And Ivanovich had to be washed.

Mom poured it into the basin warm water, put the cat there and started washing it. Mom washes, but he doesn’t get angry - he purrs and sings songs. They washed him, dried him and put him back to sleep on the stove.

Ivanovich was so lazy that he didn’t even catch mice. Sometimes a mouse scratches somewhere nearby, but he doesn’t pay attention to it.

One day my mother called me into the kitchen: “Look what your cat is doing!” I look - Ivanovich is stretched out on the floor and basking in the sun, and next to him a whole brood of mice is walking: very tiny ones, running around the floor, collecting bread crumbs, and Ivanovich seems to be grazing them - looking and squinting his eyes from the sun. Mom even threw up her hands:

- What is this being done?

And I say:

- Like what? Can't you see? Ivanovich is guarding the mice. Probably, the mother mouse asked to look after the children, otherwise you never know what could happen without her.

But sometimes Ivanovich liked to hunt for fun. Across the yard from our house there was a grain barn; there were a lot of rats in it. Ivanovich found out about this and went hunting one afternoon.

We were sitting by the window, and suddenly we saw Ivanovich running across the yard with a huge rat in his mouth. He jumped out the window - straight into his mother's room. He lay down in the middle of the floor, released the rat, and looked at his mother: “Here, they say, what kind of hunter I am!”

Mom screamed, jumped up on a chair, the rat scurried under the closet, and Ivanovich sat and sat and went to sleep.

Since then, Ivanovich has been gone. In the morning he will get up, wash his face with his paw, have breakfast and go to the barn to hunt. Not a minute will pass, and he is in a hurry home, dragging the rat. He will bring you into the room and let you out. Then we got along so well: when he goes hunting, now we lock all the doors and windows. Ivanovich scolds the rat around the yard and lets it go, and it runs back into the barn. Or, it happened, he would strangle a rat and let him play with it: he would throw it up, catch it with his paws, or he would put it in front of him and admire it.

One day he was playing like this - suddenly two crows came out of nowhere. They sat down nearby and began jumping and dancing around Ivanovich. They want to take the rat away from him - and it’s scary. They galloped and galloped, then one of them grabbed Ivanovich’s tail from behind with her beak! He turned head over heels and followed the crow, and the second one picked up the rat - and goodbye! So Ivanovich was left with nothing.

However, although Ivanovich sometimes caught rats, he never ate them. But he really loved to eat fresh fish. When I come back from fishing in the summer, I just put the bucket on the bench, and he’s right there. He will sit next to you, put his paw in the bucket, straight into the water, and fumble around there. He will hook a fish with his paw, throw it on the bench and eat it.

Ivanovich even got into the habit of stealing fish from the aquarium. Once I put the aquarium on the floor to change the water, and I went to the kitchen to get water. I come back, I look and can’t believe my eyes: at the aquarium, Ivanovich stood up on his hind legs, and threw his front legs into the water and caught fish, as if from a bucket. I was then missing three fish.

From that day on, Ivanovich was simply in trouble: he never left the aquarium. I had to cover the top with glass. And if you forget, now he’ll pull out two or three fish. We didn’t know how to wean him off this.

But, fortunately for us, Ivanovich himself weaned himself very soon.

One day I brought crayfish from the river instead of fish in a bucket and put it on the bench, as always. Ivanovich immediately came running and pawed right into the bucket. Yes, suddenly he screams. We look - the crayfish grabbed the paw with its claws, and after it - a second one, and after the second - a third... Everyone is dragging their paws out of the bucket, moving their mustaches and clicking their claws. Here Ivanovich’s eyes widened in fear, his fur stood on end: “What kind of fish is this?” He shook his paw, and all the crayfish fell to the floor, and Ivanovich himself tailed like a pipe - and marched out the window. After that, he didn’t even come close to the bucket and stopped climbing into the aquarium. I was so scared!

In addition to fish, we had a lot of different animals in our house: birds, guinea pigs, hedgehogs, bunnies... But Ivanovich never touched anyone. He was a very kind cat and was friends with all animals. Only at first Ivanovich could not get along with the hedgehog.

I brought this hedgehog from the forest and put it on the floor in the room. The hedgehog first lay curled up in a ball, and then turned around and ran around the room. Ivanovich became very interested in the animal. He approached him in a friendly manner and wanted to sniff him. But the hedgehog, apparently, did not understand Ivanovich’s good intentions; he spread his thorns, jumped up and stabbed Ivanovich very painfully in the nose.

After this, Ivanovich began to stubbornly avoid the hedgehog. As soon as he crawled out from under the closet, Ivanovich hurriedly jumped onto a chair or onto the window and did not want to go down.

But one day after dinner, mom poured soup into a saucer for Ivanovich and put him on the rug. The cat sat down more comfortably near the saucer and began to lap. Suddenly we see a hedgehog crawling out from under the closet. He got out, pulled his nose and went straight to the saucer. He came over and also started eating. But Ivanovich doesn’t run away - apparently he’s hungry, he glances sideways at the hedgehog, but he’s in a hurry, drinking. So the two of them lapped up the entire saucer.

From that day on, mom began to feed them together every time. And how well they adapted to it! All mother has to do is hit the ladle against the saucer, and they are already running. They sit next to each other and eat. The hedgehog will stretch out its muzzle, add some thorns, and look so smooth. Ivanovich stopped being afraid of him completely, and so they became friends.

Everyone loved Ivanovich very much for his good disposition. It seemed to us that in his character and intelligence he was more like a dog than a cat. He ran after us like a dog: we go to the garden - and he follows us, mother goes to the store - and he runs after her. And when we return in the evening from the river or from the city garden, Ivanovich is already sitting on a bench near the house, as if he was waiting for us. As soon as he sees me or Seryozha, he will immediately run up, start purring, rub himself against our legs, and after us he will quickly hurry home.

The house where we lived stood on the very edge of the town. We lived in it for several years, and then moved to another one, on the same street.

When we moved, we were very afraid that Ivanovich would not get along in the new apartment and would run away to his old place. But our fears turned out to be completely unfounded. Finding himself in an unfamiliar room, Ivanovich began to examine and sniff everything, until he finally reached his mother’s bed. At this point, apparently, he immediately felt that everything was in order, jumped onto the bed and lay down. And when there was a clatter of knives and forks in the next room, Ivanovich immediately rushed to the table and sat down, as usual, next to his mother. That same day he looked around the new yard and garden, even sat on a bench in front of the house. But he never left for the old apartment. This means that it is not always true when they say that a dog is faithful to people, and a cat to its home. For Ivanovich it turned out quite the opposite.

Konstantin Paustovsky “My House”

The small house where I live in Meshchera deserves a description. This is a former bathhouse, a log hut covered with gray planks. The house is located in a dense garden, but for some reason it is fenced off from the garden by a high palisade. This stockade is a trap for village cats who love fish. Every time I return from fishing, cats of all stripes - red, black, gray and white with tan - lay siege to the house. They scurry around, sit on the fence, on roofs, on old apple trees, howl at each other and wait for the evening. They all look, without looking away, at the kukan with fish - it is suspended from the branch of an old apple tree in such a way that it is almost impossible to get it.

In the evening, the cats carefully climb over the palisade and gather under the kukan. They rise on their hind legs, and make swift and deft swings with their front legs, trying to catch the kukan. From a distance it looks like the cats are playing volleyball. Then some impudent cat jumps up, grabs the fish with a death grip, hangs on it, swings and tries to tear the fish off. The rest of the cats hit each other's whiskered faces out of frustration. It ends with me leaving the bathhouse with a lantern. The cats, taken by surprise, rush to the stockade, but do not have time to climb over it, but squeeze between the stakes and get stuck. Then they lay back their ears, close their eyes and begin to scream desperately, begging for mercy.

In autumn, the whole house is covered with leaves, and in two small rooms it becomes light, like in a flying garden.

The stoves are crackling, there is a smell of apples and cleanly washed floors. The tits sit on the branches, pour glass balls in their throats, ring, crackle and look at the windowsill, where a piece of black bread lies.

I rarely spend the night in the house. I spend most nights at the lakes, and when I stay at home, I sleep in an old gazebo in the back of the garden. It is overgrown with wild grapes. In the mornings the sun hits it through the purple, lilac, green and lemon foliage, and it always seems to me that I wake up inside a lit tree. The sparrows look into the gazebo with surprise. They are deadly busy for hours. They tick on a round table dug into the ground. The sparrows approach them, listen to the ticking with one ear or the other, and then peck the clock hard at the dial.

It’s especially good in the gazebo during quiet times autumn nights, when a leisurely vertical rain rustles in a low voice in the garden.

The cool air barely moves the candle tongue. Angular shadows from grape leaves lie on the ceiling of the gazebo. Moth, looking like a lump of gray raw silk, sits on an open book and leaves the finest shiny dust on the page. It smells like rain - a gentle and at the same time pungent smell of moisture, damp garden paths.

At dawn I wake up. The fog rustles in the garden. Leaves are falling in the fog. I pull a bucket of water out of the well. A frog jumps out of the bucket. I douse myself with well water and listen to the shepherd’s horn - he is still singing far away, right at the outskirts.

I go to the empty bathhouse and boil tea. A cricket starts its song on the stove. He sings very loudly and does not pay attention to my steps or the clinking of cups.

It's getting light. I take the oars and go to the river. The chain dog Divny sleeps at the gate. He hits the ground with his tail, but does not raise his head. Marvelous has long been accustomed to my leaving at dawn. He just yawns after me and sighs noisily. I'm sailing in the fog. The East is turning pink. The smell of smoke from rural stoves can no longer be heard. All that remains is the silence of the water and the thickets of centuries-old willows.

Ahead is a deserted September day. Ahead - lost in this huge world fragrant foliage, grass, autumn withering, calm waters, clouds, low sky. And I always feel this confusion as happiness.

Konstantin Paustovsky “Farewell to Summer”

It poured for several days without stopping, cold rain. A wet wind rustled in the garden. At four o'clock in the afternoon we were already lighting the kerosene lamps, and it involuntarily seemed that summer was over forever and the earth was moving further and further into the dull fogs, into the uncomfortable darkness and cold.

It was the end of November - the saddest time in the village. The cat slept all day, curled up on an old chair, and shuddered in his sleep when dark water rushed through the windows.

The roads were washed away. The river carried yellowish foam, similar to a shot down squirrel. The last birds hid under the eaves, and for more than a week now no one has visited us: neither grandfather Mitri, nor Vanya Malyavin, nor the forester.

It was best in the evenings. We lit the stoves. The fire was noisy, crimson reflections trembled on the log walls and on the old engraving - a portrait of the artist Bryullov. Leaning back in his chair, he looked at us and, it seemed, just like us, having put the book aside, he was thinking about what he had read and listening to the hum of the rain on the plank roof.

The lamps burned brightly, and the disabled copper samovar sang and sang his simple song. As soon as he was brought into the room, it immediately became cozy - perhaps because the glass was fogged up and the lonely birch branch that knocked on the window day and night was not visible.

After tea we sat by the stove and read. On such evenings, the most pleasant thing was to read the very long and touching novels of Charles Dickens or leaf through the heavy volumes of the magazines “Niva” and “Picturesque Review” from the old years.

At night, Funtik, a small red dachshund, often cried in his sleep. I had to get up and wrap him in a warm woolen rag. Funtik thanked him in his sleep, carefully licked his hand and, sighing, fell asleep. The darkness rustled behind the walls with the splash of rain and blows of the wind, and it was scary to think about those who might have been overtaken by this stormy night in the impenetrable forests.

One night I woke up with a strange sensation. It seemed to me that I had gone deaf in my sleep. I lay with my eyes closed, listened for a long time and finally realized that I was not deaf, but that there was simply an extraordinary silence outside the walls of the house. This kind of silence is called “dead”. The rain died, the wind died, the noisy, restless garden died. You could only hear the cat snoring in its sleep.

I opened my eyes. White and even light filled the room. I got up and went to the window - everything was snowy and silent behind the glass. In the foggy sky, a lonely moon stood at a dizzying height, and a yellowish circle shimmered around it.

When did the first snow fall? I approached the walkers. It was so light that the arrows showed clearly. They showed two o'clock.

I fell asleep at midnight. This means that in two hours the earth changed so unusually, in two short hours the fields, forests and gardens were bewitched by the cold.

Through the window I saw a large gray bird land on a maple branch in the garden. The branch swayed and snow fell from it. The bird slowly rose and flew away, and the snow kept falling like glass rain falling from a Christmas tree. Then everything became quiet again.

Reuben woke up. He looked outside the window for a long time, sighed and said:

— The first snow suits the earth very well.

The earth was elegant, looking like a shy bride.

And in the morning everything crunched around: frozen roads, leaves on the porch, black nettle stems sticking out from under the snow.

Grandfather Mitri came to visit for tea and congratulated him on his first trip.

“So the earth was washed,” he said, “with snow water from a silver trough.”

- Where did you get this, Mitri, such words? - Reuben asked.

- Is there anything wrong? - the grandfather grinned. “My mother, the deceased, told me that in ancient times, beauties washed themselves with the first snow from a silver jug ​​and therefore their beauty never faded. This happened even before Tsar Peter, my dear, when robbers ruined merchants in the local forests.

It was difficult to stay at home on the first winter day. We went to the forest lakes, and my grandfather accompanied us to the edge of the forest. He also wanted to visit the lakes, but “the ache in his bones did not let him go.”

It was solemn, light and quiet in the forests.

The day seemed to be dozing. Lonely snowflakes occasionally fell from the cloudy high sky. We carefully breathed on them, and they turned into pure drops of water, then became cloudy, froze and rolled to the ground like beads.

We wandered through the forests until dusk, going around familiar places. Flocks of bullfinches sat, ruffled, on rowan trees covered with snow.

We picked several bunches of red rowan, caught by the frost - this was the last memory of summer, of autumn.

On the small lake - it was called Larin's Pond - there was always a lot of duckweed floating around. Now the water in the lake was very black and transparent - all the duckweed had sank to the bottom by winter.

A glass strip of ice has grown along the coast. The ice was so transparent that even close up it was difficult to notice. I saw a flock of rafts in the water near the shore and threw a small stone at them. The stone fell on the ice, rang, the rafts, flashing with scales, darted into the depths, and a white grainy trace of the impact remained on the ice. That’s the only reason we guessed that a layer of ice had already formed near the shore. We broke off individual pieces of ice with our hands. They crunched and left a mixed smell of snow and lingonberries on your fingers.

Here and there in the clearings birds flew and squeaked pitifully, the sky overhead was very light, white, and towards the horizon it thickened, and its color resembled lead, from there came slow, snowy clouds.

The forests became increasingly gloomy, quieter, and finally thick snow began to fall. It melted in the black water of the lake, tickled my face, and powdered the forest with gray smoke.

Winter began to rule the earth, but we knew that under the loose snow, if you rake it with your hands, you can still find fresh forest flowers, we knew that the fire would always crackle in the stoves, that the tits stayed with us for the winter, and winter seemed to us as beautiful as summer.

Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak “Emelya the Hunter”

Far, far away, in the northern part of the Ural Mountains, hidden in the impenetrable forest wilderness is the village of Tychki. There are only eleven courtyards in it, actually ten, because the eleventh hut is completely separate, but right next to the forest. Around the village, an evergreen rises like a jagged wall. coniferous forest. From behind the tops of spruce and fir trees you can see several mountains, which seem to have been deliberately surrounded by Tychki on all sides with huge bluish-gray ramparts. Closest to Tychky is the humpbacked Ruchevaya Mountain, with its gray hairy peak, which in cloudy weather is completely hidden in muddy, gray clouds. Many springs and streams run down from Ruchevoy Mountain. One such stream merrily rolls towards Tychky, winter and summer, feeding everyone with icy water, clear as a tear.

The huts in Tychki were built without any plan, as anyone wanted. Two huts stand above the river itself, one is on a steep mountain slope, and the rest are scattered along the bank like sheep. In Tychki there is not even a street, and between the huts there is a well-worn path. Yes, the Tychkovsky peasants probably don’t even need a street at all, because there is nothing to ride on it: in Tychki no one has a single cart. In summer, this village is surrounded by impassable swamps, swamps and forest slums, so that it is barely accessible on foot only along narrow forest paths, and even then not always. In bad weather, mountain rivers play strongly, and it often happens that Tychkovo hunters wait three days for the water to subside from them.

All Tychkovsky men are dedicated hunters. In summer and winter, they almost never leave the forest, fortunately it’s just a stone’s throw away. Every season brings with it certain prey: in winter they kill bears, martens, wolves, and foxes; in autumn - squirrel; in spring - wild goats; in the summer - all kinds of birds. In short, the work is hard and often dangerous all year round.

In that hut, which stands right next to the forest, lives the old hunter Emelya with his little grandson Grishutka. Emelya’s hut has completely grown into the ground and looks at the light of God with just one window; the roof on the hut had long since rotted, all that was left of the chimney were fallen bricks. There was no fence, no gate, no barn - there was nothing at Emelina’s hut. Only under the porch made of unhewn logs does the hungry Lysko, one of the best hunting dogs in Tychki, howl at night. Before each hunt, Emelya starves the unfortunate Lysk for three days so that he can better look for game and track down every animal.

“Dedko... and Dedko!..” little Grishutka asked with difficulty one evening. — Do deer walk with calves now?

“With the calves, Grishuk,” Emelya answered, braiding new bast shoes.

- If only I could get a calf, grandpa... Eh?

- Wait, we’ll get it... The heat has arrived, the deer with their calves will be hiding from the gadflies in the thicket, then I’ll get you a calf, Grishuk!

The boy did not answer, but only sighed heavily. Grishutka was only six years old, and he was now lying for the second month on a wide wooden bench under a warm reindeer skin. The boy caught a cold in the spring, when the snow was melting, and still could not get better. His dark face turned pale and lengthened, his eyes became larger, his nose became sharper. Emelya saw how his grandson was melting by leaps and bounds, but did not know how to help the grief. He gave him some kind of herb to drink, took him to the bathhouse twice, but the patient did not feel any better. The boy didn't eat anything. He chews a crust of black bread - and that’s all. Salted goat meat remained from the spring; but Grishuk could not even look at her.

“Look for what you want: a little calf...” thought old Emelya, picking at his bast shoe. “We need to get it now...”

Emelya was about seventy years old: gray-haired, hunched, thin, with long arms. Emelya’s fingers barely straightened, as if they were wooden branches. But he still walked cheerfully and got something by hunting. Only now the old man’s eyes began to change greatly, especially in winter, when the snow sparkles and glitters all around like diamond dust. Because of Emelin’s eyes, the chimney fell apart and the roof rotted, and he himself often sits in his hut when others are in the forest.

It’s time for the old man to retire, to a warm stove, but there’s no one to replace him, and then Grishutka found himself in our arms, we need to take care of him... Grishutka’s father died three years ago from a fever, his mother was eaten by wolves when she was with little Grishutka on a winter evening was returning from the village to her hut. The child was saved by some miracle. The mother, while the wolves were gnawing at her legs, covered the child with her body, and Grishutka remained alive.

The old grandfather had to raise his granddaughter, and then the disease happened. Misfortune never comes alone...

stood last days June, the hottest time in Tychki. Only old and small ones remained at home. Hunters have long scattered through the forest after deer. In Emelya’s hut, poor Lysko had been howling from hunger for three days now, like a wolf in winter.

“Apparently Emelya is going hunting,” the women in the village said.

It was true. Indeed, Emelya soon left his hut with a flintlock rifle in his hand, untied Lysk and headed towards the forest. He was wearing new bast shoes, a knapsack with bread on his shoulders, a torn caftan and a warm reindeer hat on his head. The old man had not worn a hat for a long time, and winter and summer wore his deer hat, which perfectly protected his bald head from the winter cold and from the summer heat.

“Well, Grishuk, get better without me...” Emelya said to his grandson goodbye. “Old woman Malanya will look after you while I go get the calf.”

- Will you bring the calf, grandpa?

“I’ll bring it,” he said.

- Yellow?

- Yellow...

- Well, I’ll wait for you... Be careful, don’t miss when you shoot...

Emelya had been planning to go after the reindeer for a long time, but he still regretted leaving his grandson alone, but now he seemed to be better, and the old man decided to try his luck. And old Malanya will look after the boy - it’s still better than lying alone in a hut.

Emelya felt at home in the forest. And how could he not know this forest when he spent his whole life wandering through it with a gun and a dog. All the paths, all the signs - the old man knew everything for a hundred miles around. And now, at the end of June, it was especially good in the forest: the grass was beautifully full of blossoming flowers, the wonderful aroma of fragrant herbs was in the air, and the gentle summer sun looked from the sky, bathing the forest, the grass, and the river babbling in the sedge with bright light, and distant mountains. Yes, it was wonderful and good all around, and Emelya stopped more than once to take a breath and look back. The path along which he walked snaked up the mountain, passing large stones and steep ledges. large forest was cut down, and near the road there were young birch trees, honeysuckle bushes, and rowan trees spread out like a green tent. Here and there there were dense copses of young spruce trees, which stood like a green brush on the sides of the road and cheerfully puffed up their pawed and shaggy branches. In one place, from half the mountain, there was a wide view of the distant mountains and Tychki. The village was completely hidden at the bottom of a deep mountain basin, and the peasant huts seemed like black dots from here. Emelya, shielding his eyes from the sun, looked at his hut for a long time and thought about his granddaughter.

“Well, Lysko, look...,” said Emelya when they descended from the mountain and turned off the path into a dense dense spruce forest.

Lysk did not need to repeat the order. He clearly knew his business and, burying his sharp muzzle in the ground, disappeared into the dense green thicket. Only for a moment did we glimpse his back with yellow spots.

The hunt has begun.

Huge spruces rose high to the sky with their sharp tops. Shaggy branches intertwined with each other, forming an impenetrable dark vault above the hunter’s head, through which only here and there a ray of sunlight would glance cheerfully and burn yellowish moss or a wide leaf of fern like a golden spot. Grass does not grow in such a forest, and Emelya walked on the soft yellowish moss, as if on a carpet.

The hunter wandered through this forest for several hours. Lysko seemed to have sunk into the water. Only occasionally will a branch crunch under your foot or a spotted woodpecker fly over. Emelya carefully examined everything around: was there any trace somewhere, had the deer broken a branch with its antlers, had a cloven hoof imprinted on the moss, had the grass on the hummocks been eaten away. It's starting to get dark. The old man felt tired. It was necessary to think about lodging for the night. “Probably the other hunters scared the deer,” thought Emelya. But then Lysk’s faint squeal was heard, and branches crackled ahead. Emelya leaned against the spruce trunk and waited.

It was a deer. A real ten-horned deer, the noblest of forest animals. There he put his branched horns to his very back and listens attentively, sniffing the air, so that the next minute he will disappear like lightning into the green thicket. Old Emelya saw a deer, but it was too far from him to reach it with a bullet. Lysko lies in the thicket and does not dare to breathe, waiting for a shot; he hears the deer, feels its smell... Then a shot rang out, and the deer rushed forward like an arrow. Emelya missed, and Lysko howled from the hunger that was taking him away. The poor dog has already smelled the roasted venison, seen the delicious bone that the owner will throw to him, but instead he has to go to bed with a hungry belly. A very bad story...

“Well, let him take a walk,” Emelya reasoned out loud when he sat by the fire in the evening under a thick hundred-year-old spruce tree. - We need to get a calf, Lysko... Do you hear?

The dog just wagged its tail pitifully, placing its sharp muzzle between its front paws. Today she received one dry crust, which Emelya threw to her.

Emelya wandered through the forest with Lysk for three days and it was all in vain: he didn’t come across a deer with a calf. The old man felt that he was exhausted, but he did not dare to return home empty-handed. Lysko also became depressed and completely emaciated, although he managed to intercept a couple of young hares.

We had to spend the night in the forest near the fire for the third night. But even in his dreams, old Emelya kept seeing the yellow calf that Grishuk asked him for; The old man tracked his prey for a long time, took aim, but every time the deer ran away from under his nose. Lysko, too, probably raved about deer, because several times in his sleep he squealed and began to bark dully.

Only on the fourth day, when both the hunter and the dog were completely exhausted, they completely accidentally attacked the trail of a deer with a calf. It was in a thick spruce thicket on the slope of a mountain. First of all, Lysko found the place where the deer had spent the night, and then he sniffed out the tangled trail in the grass.

“A uterus with a calf,” thought Emelya, looking at the traces of large and small hooves in the grass. “I was here this morning... Lysko, look, my dear!”

The day was hot. The sun was beating down mercilessly. The dog sniffed the bushes and grass with its tongue hanging out; Emelya could hardly drag his feet. But then the familiar crackling and rustling... Lysko fell on the grass and did not move. The words of her granddaughter ring in Emelya’s ears: “Dedko, get a calf... And be sure to have a yellow one.” There's the queen... It was a magnificent doe. He stood at the edge of the forest and fearfully looked straight at Emelya. A bunch of buzzing insects circled above the deer and made him flinch.

“No, you won’t deceive me...” thought Emelya, crawling out of his ambush.

The deer had long sensed the hunter, but boldly followed his movements.

“This mother is taking me away from the calf,” thought Emelya, crawling closer and closer.

When the old man wanted to take aim at the deer, he carefully ran a few yards further and stopped again. Emelya crawled up again with his rifle. Again there was a slow creep, and again the deer disappeared as soon as Emelya wanted to shoot.

“You won’t get away from the calf,” Emelya whispered, patiently tracking the animal for several hours.

This struggle between man and animal continued until the evening. The noble animal risked its life ten times, trying to take the hunter away from the hidden fawn; old Emelya was both angry and surprised at the courage of his victim. After all, she still won’t leave him... How many times did he have to kill his mother, who sacrificed herself in this way. Lysko, like a shadow, crawled behind the owner, and when he completely lost sight of the deer, he carefully poked him with his hot nose. The old man looked around and sat down. Ten fathoms from him, under a honeysuckle bush, stood the same yellow calf that he had been following for three whole days. It was a very pretty fawn, only a few weeks old, with yellow fluff and thin legs, its beautiful head was thrown back, and it stretched its thin neck forward when it tried to grab a higher branch. The hunter, with a sinking heart, cocked his rifle and aimed at the head of a small, defenseless animal...

One more moment, and the little deer would have rolled across the grass with a plaintive death cry; but it was at that moment that the old hunter remembered with what heroism his mother defended the calf, remembered how his mother Grishutka saved her son from the wolves with her life. It was as if something broke in old Emelya’s chest, and he lowered the gun. The fawn continued to walk around the bush, plucking leaves and listening to the slightest rustle. Emelya quickly stood up and whistled - the small animal disappeared into the bushes with the speed of lightning.

“Look, what a runner...” the old man said, smiling thoughtfully. - I saw only him: like an arrow... After all, Lysko, our fawn ran away? Well, he, the runner, still needs to grow up... Oh, how nimble you are!..

The old man stood in one place for a long time and kept smiling, remembering the runner.

The next day Emelya approached his hut.

- And... grandfather, did you bring the calf? - Grisha greeted him, waiting impatiently for the old man all the time.

- No, Grishuk... I saw him...

- Yellow?

- He’s yellow, but his face is black. He stands under a bush and plucks leaves... I took aim...

- And missed?

- No, Grishuk: I felt sorry for the small animal... I felt sorry for the uterus... As soon as I whistled, and he, a calf, goaded into the thicket - that’s all I saw. He ran away, shot like that...

The old man told the boy for a long time how he searched for the calf in the forest for three days and how it ran away from him. The boy listened and laughed merrily with his old grandfather.

“And I brought you a wood grouse, Grishuk,” added Emelya, finishing the story. - The wolves would have eaten this anyway.

The capercaillie was plucked and then ended up in a pot. The sick boy ate the wood grouse stew with pleasure and, falling asleep, asked the old man several times:

- So he ran away, little deer?

- He ran away, Grishuk...

- Yellow?

- All yellow, only a black muzzle and hooves.

The boy fell asleep and all night saw a little yellow fawn walking happily through the forest with his mother; and the old man slept on the stove and also smiled in his sleep.

Victor Astafiev “Grandma with raspberries”

At the hundred and first kilometer, a crowd of berry pickers storms the Komarikhinskaya - Tyoplaya Gora train. The train stops here for one minute. And there are tons of berry fields, and everyone has dishes: pots, buckets, baskets, cans. And all the dishes are full. There are raspberries in the Urals - you won’t have too many.

The people are noisy, worried, dishes are rattling and cracking - the train stops for only a minute.

But if the train had stopped for half an hour, there would still have been crush and panic. This is how our passengers are designed - everyone wants to get into the carriage as quickly as possible and then grumble: “What’s it worth? What are you waiting for? Workers!”

There is especially a lot of hubbub and bustle in one carriage. About thirty children are trying to fit into the narrow door of the vestibule, and an old woman is scurrying among them. She “cuts the masses” with her sharp shoulder and reaches the footrest, clinging to it. One of the guys grabs her under the arms, trying to pull her upstairs. The grandmother jumps up like a cockerel, perches on the step, and at this time an accident occurs. What an accident - a tragedy! A real tragedy. A birch bark tube, tied on the chest with a handkerchief, overturns, and raspberries spill out of it - every single berry.

Tues is hanging on his chest, but upside down. The berries rolled on the gravel, along the rails, along the running board. The grandmother became numb and clutched her heart. The driver, who had already overstayed his stop by three minutes, sounded his horn and the train started moving. The last berry pickers jumped onto the step, hitting the grandmother with the dishes. She looked in shock at the floating red spot of raspberry splashed on the white gravel, and, perking up, shouted:

- Stop! Dear ones, wait! I'll collect it!..

But the train had already picked up speed. A red spot flashed like lightning and went out behind the last carriage. The conductor said sympathetically:

- What is there to collect! What fell from the cart... Grandma, you should have walked into the carriage and not hung on the step.

So, with a suit dangling from her chest, the grandmother appeared in the carriage. The shock still hadn't left her face. Dry, wrinkled lips trembled and trembled, the hands that had worked so hard and deftly that day, the hands of the old peasant woman and the berry farmer, also trembled.

They hastily made room for her - and not just a seat, but the entire bench - by quiet schoolchildren, apparently the whole class had gone out to pick berries. The grandmother sat down silently, noticed the empty container, tore the container along with the old scarf over her head and angrily pushed it under the seat with her heel.

The grandmother sits alone on the entire bench and motionlessly looks at the empty lantern bouncing on the wall. The door of the lantern opens and closes. There is no candle in the lantern. And the lantern is no longer needed. This train has been illuminated by electricity for a long time, but they simply forgot to remove the lantern, and so it remained an orphan, and its door was hanging loose. The lantern is empty. Empty in the room. Grandma’s soul is empty. A. after all, just an hour ago she was completely happy. For once, I went to pick berries, climbed through thickets and forest rubble with great effort, quickly, with dexterity, picked raspberries and boasted to the children who met in the forest:

“I used to be agile! Oh, she's agile! I picked two buckets of raspberries a day, and scooped up more blueberries or lingonberries with a scoop. I won’t see white light if I’m lying,” the grandmother assured the amazed children. And - once again, imperceptibly, under the tongue, she picked raspberries from the bushes. Things were going well for her, and the convenient old vessel was quickly filling up.

The grandmother is clever and surprisingly talkative. She managed to tell the guys that she was not a lonely person, she survived the entire birth. She shed tears, remembering her grandson Yurochka, who died in the war, because he was a dashing guy and rushed onto a tank, and immediately, wiping away the tears from her sparse eyelashes with a handkerchief, she began to say:

Raspberries in the garden

Grew-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

And she even waved her hand smoothly. There must have been a sociable grandmother once upon a time. I walked and sang in my lifetime...

And now she’s silent, withdrawn. Grandma's grief. The schoolchildren offered her help - they wanted to take the bag and carry it into the carriage - but she didn’t give it. “I myself, little ones, somehow, blessed myself, I’m still agile, wow, agile!”

So much for being agile! So much for you! There were raspberries - and there are no raspberries.

At the Kommuna Ridge crossing, three fishermen pile into the carriage. They place bundles of fishing rods with landing nets in the corner, hang duffel bags on ancient cast-iron hooks and sit down next to the grandmother, since only next to her there are free seats.

Having settled down, they immediately burst out a song to the tune of “The Nightingale, the Nightingale is a Little Bird”:

Kalino, Lyamino, Levshino!

Komarikha and Tyoplaya Gora!..

These fishermen themselves composed a song from the names of the local stations, and they apparently liked the song. They repeated it over and over again. The grandmother glanced sideways at the fishermen with annoyance. A young fisherman in a tattered straw hat shouted to the grandmother:

- Pull up, grandma!

The grandmother spat heartily, turned away and began to look out the window. One of the schoolchildren moved closer to the fisherman and whispered something in his ear.

- Oh well! - the fisherman was surprised and turned to the grandmother, who was still looking out the window aloofly and without interest: - How did this happen to you, grandma?! How awkward you are!

And then the grandmother could not stand it, she jumped up:

- Awkward?! You are very clever! I used to know what I was like! I wounded...” She shook her withered fist in front of the fisherman and just as suddenly sank as she became ruffled.

The fisherman cleared his throat awkwardly. His fellow travelers also cleared their throats and stopped singing. The one in the hat thought and thought and, having thought about something, slapped himself on the forehead as if he had killed a mosquito, moved around the carriage, looking into the dishes of the guys:

- Well, show me the trophies! Wow, well done! I picked a bunch of raspberries, well done!..” he praised the freckled girl in ski pants. - And you and your mop!.. And you!.. Well done! Well done! You know what, guys,” the fisherman squinted slyly, meaningfully, “move closer, and I’ll tell you something very interesting in your ear.”

The schoolchildren reached out to the fisherman. He whispered something to them, winking at the grandmother, and the guys’ faces lit up.

Everything in the carriage came to life at once. The schoolchildren began to fuss and talk. Grandma's cup was taken out from under the bench. The fisherman put him at his feet and gave the command:

- Come on! Rash a handful each. Don't make yourself poor, but grandma will be happy!

And the raspberries flowed into the tub, handfuls at a time, two at a time. The girl in ski pants removed the “stack” from her bucket.

Grandma protested:

- I won’t take someone else’s! I've never used someone else's!

- Shut up, grandma! — the fisherman reasoned with her. - What kind of alien thing is this? These guys are all your grandchildren. Good guys. Only their guess is still weak. Rash, boys, rash, don’t be shy!

And when the container was filled to the top, the fisherman solemnly placed it on his grandmother’s lap.

She hugged the vessel with her hands and, sniffing her nose, on which a tear danced, kept repeating:

- Yes, dear, yes, dear!.. But why is this? Why do I need so much? Yes, you are my killer whales!..

Tues was full, even with a “shock”. The fishermen burst into song again. The schoolchildren also picked it up:

Eh, Kalino, Lyamino, Levshino!

Komarikha and Tyoplaya Gora!..

The train was flying towards the city. The electric locomotive barked mischievously, as if shouting: “Get loose, people! I’m bringing grandma with raspberries!” The wheels of the carriages echoed: “Grandma! Grandma! With raspberries! With raspberries! I'm taking you! I'm taking you!"

And the grandmother sat, clutching a bag of berries to her chest, listened to a silly song and shook her head with a smile:

- And they’ll come up with it! They'll come up with an idea, the devils! And what kind of Eastern-speaking people have gone!..

Victor Astafiev "Belogrudka"

The village of Vereino is located on a mountain. There are two lakes under the mountain, and on their shores, an echo of a large village, there is a small village of three houses - Zuyat.

Between Zuyatami and Vereino there is a huge steep slope, visible many dozens of miles away as a dark humpbacked island. This whole slope is so overgrown with dense forest that people almost never bother there. And how do you get around? As soon as you take a few steps away from the clover field, which is on the mountain, you will immediately roll head over heels down, hitting the dead wood lying crosswise, covered with moss, elderberry and raspberries.

It’s quiet on the slope, damp and twilight. Spruce and fir support reliably bury their inhabitants - birds, badgers, squirrels, stoats - from evil eyes and raking hands. The hazel grouse and capercaillie live here, they are very cunning and cautious.

And one day, perhaps one of the most secretive animals - the white-breasted marten - settled in the thicket of the slope. She lived alone for two or three summers, occasionally appearing at the edge of the forest. The white breast trembled with sensitive nostrils, caught the nasty smells of the village and, if a person approached, pierced like a bullet into the wilderness of the forest.

In the third or fourth summer, Belogrudka gave birth to kittens, small as bean pods. The mother warmed them with her body, licked each one until it was shiny, and when the kittens grew a little older, she began to get food for them. She knew this slope very well. In addition, she was a diligent mother and provided the kittens with plenty of food.

But somehow Belogrudka was tracked down by the Vereinsky boys, followed her down the slope, and hid. The belogrudka meandered through the forest for a long time, waving from tree to tree, then decided that the people had already left - they often pass by the slope - and returned to the nest.

Several human eyes were watching her. Belogrudka did not feel them, because she was all trembling, clinging to the kittens, and could not pay attention to anything. The white-breasted licked each of the cubs on the muzzle: they say, I’m here now, in an instant, and flew out of the nest.

It became more and more difficult to obtain food day by day. He was no longer near the nest, and the marten went from tree to tree, from fir to fir, to the lakes, then to the swamp, to a large swamp beyond the lake. There she attacked a simple jay and, joyful, rushed to her nest, carrying in her teeth a red bird with a spread blue wing.

The nest was empty. The white-breasted bird dropped its prey from its teeth, darted up the spruce, then down, then up again, to the nest, cunningly hidden in the thick spruce branches.

There were no kittens. If Belogrudka could scream, she would scream.

The kittens are gone, gone.

Belogrudka examined everything in order and discovered that people were trampling around the spruce tree and a man was clumsily climbing the tree, tearing off the bark, breaking off twigs, leaving a reeking smell of sweat and dirt in the folds of the bark.

By evening, Belogrudka definitely tracked down that her cubs were taken to the village. At night she found the house to which they were taken.

Until dawn she rushed around the house: from the roof to the fence, from the fence to the roof. I spent hours sitting on the bird cherry tree, under the window, listening for the kittens to squeak.

But in the yard a chain rattled and a dog barked hoarsely. The owner came out of the house several times and shouted angrily at her. The whitebreast was huddled in a lump on the bird cherry tree.

Now every night she sneaked up to the house, watched, watched, and the dog rattled and raged in the yard.

Once Belogrudka crept into the hayloft and stayed there until daylight, but during the day she did not dare to go into the forest. That afternoon she saw her kittens. The boy carried them out to the porch in an old hat and began to play with them, turning them upside down and flicking them on the nose. More boys came and began to feed the kittens raw meat. Then the owner appeared and, pointing to the kunyat, said:

- Why are you torturing animals? Take it to the nest. They will disappear.

Then there was that terrible day when Belogrudka again hid in the barn and again waited for the boys. They appeared on the porch and argued about something. One of them brought out an old hat and looked into it:

- Eh, I died alone...

The boy took the kitten by the paw and threw it to the dog. A fold-eared yard dog, who had been chained all his life and was accustomed to eating whatever was given, sniffed the kitten, turned it over with his paw and began to leisurely devour it from the head.

That same night, many chickens and hens were strangled in the village, and an old dog was strangled to death on a high dam after eating a kitten. Belogrudka ran along the fence and teased the stupid mongrel so much that she rushed after her, jumped over the fence, fell off and hung.

Ducklings and goslings were found strangled in gardens and on the street. In the outermost houses, which are closer to the forest, the bird has completely hatched.

And for a long time people could not find out who was robbing the village at night. But Belogrudka became completely furious and began to appear at houses even during the day and deal with everything that was within her power. The women gasped, the old women crossed themselves, the men swore:

- It's Satan! They called for an attack!

Belogrudka was waylaid and shot down from a poplar tree near old church. But Belogrudka did not die. Only two pellets got under her skin, and she hid in the nest for several days, licking her wounds.

When she cured herself, she again came to that house, where she seemed to be dragged by a leash.

Belogrudka did not yet know that the boy who took the baby birds was flogged with a belt and ordered to take them back to the nest. But the carefree boy was too lazy to climb into the forest support, threw the coonlets in a ravine near the forest and left. Here they were found and killed by a fox.

Belogrudka was orphaned. She began to recklessly crush pigeons and ducklings not only on the mountain, in Vereino, but also in Zuyaty.

She was caught in the cellar. Having opened the cellar trap, the owner of the last hut in Zuyaty saw Belogrudka.

- So there you are, Satan! - She clasped her hands and rushed to catch the marten.

All the cans, jars, and cups were knocked over and beaten before the woman grabbed the marten.

Belogrudka was imprisoned in a box. She gnawed the boards savagely, crumbling wood chips.

The owner came, he was a hunter, and when his wife told him that she had caught a marten, he said:

- Well, in vain. It is not her fault. She was offended, orphaned, and released the marten into the wild, thinking that she would never appear in Zuyaty again.

But Belogrudka began to rob even more than before. The hunter had to kill the marten long before the season.

In the garden near the greenhouse, he saw her one day, drove her onto a lonely bush and shot. The marten fell into the nettles and saw a dog running towards her with a big barking mouth. The white-breasted snake rose from the nettles, grabbed the dog’s throat and died.

The dog rolled around in the nettles, howling wildly. The hunter unclenched Belogrudka's teeth with a knife and broke two piercingly sharp fangs.

Belogrudka is still remembered in Vereino and Zuyaty. Until now, children here are strictly punished so that they do not dare touch baby animals and birds.

Squirrels, foxes, various birds and little animals now live and breed peacefully between two villages, close to housing, on a steep wooded slope. And when I am in this village and hear the deep-voiced morning hubbub of birds, I think the same thing: “If only there were more such slopes near our villages and cities!”

Boris Zakhoder "Gray Star"

“Well,” said Papa Hedgehog, “this fairy tale is called “The Gray Star,” but from the title you would never guess who this fairy tale is about. Therefore, listen carefully and do not interrupt. All questions later.

- Are there really gray stars? - asked the Hedgehog.

“If you interrupt me again, I won’t tell you,” Hedgehog answered, but, noticing that his son was about to cry, he softened. - Actually, it doesn’t happen, although, in my opinion, this is strange - after all, gray is the most beautiful color. But there was only one Gray Star.

So, once upon a time there lived a toad - clumsy, ugly, in addition it smelled of garlic, and instead of thorns it had - can you imagine! - warts. Brr!

Fortunately, she did not know that she was so ugly, nor that she was a toad. Firstly, because she was very small and didn’t know much at all, and secondly, because no one called her that. She lived in a garden where Trees, Bushes and Flowers grew, and you should know that Trees, Bushes and Flowers only talk to those whom they really, really love. But you wouldn’t call someone you really, really love a toad.

The hedgehog snorted in agreement.

- Here you go. Trees, Bushes and Flowers loved the toad very much and therefore called it the most affectionate names. Especially Flowers.

- Why did they love her so much? — the Hedgehog asked quietly. The father frowned, and the Hedgehog immediately curled up.

“If you keep quiet, you’ll soon find out,” Hedgehog said sternly. He continued:

— When the toad appeared in the garden, the Flowers asked what its name was, and when she answered that she didn’t know, they were very happy.

“Oh, how great! - said Pansies (they were the first to see her). “Then we’ll come up with a name for you!” Do you want us to call you... let us call you Anyuta?”

“It’s better than Margarita,” said the Daisies. “This name is much more beautiful!”

Then the Roses intervened - they suggested calling her Beauty; The bells demanded that she be called Tinkerbell (it was the only word, which they knew how to speak), and a flower named Ivan-da-Marya suggested that she be called Vanechka-Manechka.

The Hedgehog snorted and glanced sideways at his father in fear, but the Hedgehog did not get angry, because the Hedgehog snorted at the right time. He continued calmly:

- In a word, there would be no end to the disputes if not for the Asters. And if it weren’t for the Scientist Starling.

“Let her be called Astra,” said the Asters.

“Or better yet. “A star,” said the Scientist Starling. - This means the same thing as Astra, only much more understandable. Besides, she really resembles a star - just look at how radiant her eyes are! And since she is gray, you can call her Gray Star - then there will be no confusion! Seems clear?

And everyone agreed with the Scientist Starling, because he was very smart, could speak several real human words and whistled almost to the end a piece of music, which, it seems, is called Hedgehog-Pyzhik or something like that. For this, people built him a house on a poplar tree.

Since then, everyone began to call the toad Gray Star. Everyone except the Bells - they still called her Tinker Bell, but that was the only word they knew how to say.

“There’s nothing to say, little star,” hissed the fat old Slug. He crawled onto the rose bush and approached the tender young leaves. - Nice star! After all, this is the most ordinary gray..."

He wanted to say “toad,” but did not have time, because at that very moment the Gray Star looked at him with her radiant eyes - and the Slug disappeared.

“Thank you, dear Star,” said Rose, turning pale with fear. “You saved me from a terrible enemy!”

“You need to know,” explained the Hedgehog, “that Flowers, Trees and Bushes, although they do no harm to anyone, on the contrary, do only good!” - there are also enemies. A lot of them! The good thing is that these enemies are quite tasty!

- So, Star ate this fat Slug? - asked the Hedgehog, licking his lips.

“Most likely yes,” said the Hedgehog. - True, you can’t guarantee.

No one saw how Star ate Slugs, Voracious Bugs and Harmful Caterpillars. But all the enemies of the Flowers disappeared as soon as Gray Star looked at them with her radiant eyes. Disappeared forever. And since the Gray Star settled in the garden, the Trees, Flowers and Bushes began to live much better. Especially Flowers. Because the Bushes and Trees protected the Birds from enemies, but there was no one to protect the Flowers - they were too short for Birds.

That's why the Flowers fell in love with Gray Star so much. They blossomed with joy every morning when she came to the garden. All you could hear was: “Star, come to us!” - “No, come to us first! To us!.."

The flowers spoke to her the most kind words, and thanked her, and praised her in every way, but the Gray Star was modestly silent - after all, she was very, very modest, and only her eyes were shining.

One Magpie, who loved to eavesdrop on human conversations, once even asked if it was true that she had something hidden in her head. gem and that's why her eyes shine so much.

“I don’t know,” Gray Star said embarrassedly. “In my opinion, no...”

“Well, Soroka! What a blabbermouth! - said the Scientist Starling. - Not a stone, but confusion, and not in the Star's head, but in yours! Gray Star has radiant eyes because she has clear conscience- after all, she is doing useful work! Seems clear?

- Dad, can I ask a question? - asked the Hedgehog.

- All questions later.

- Well, please, daddy, just one!

- One - so be it.

- Dad, are we useful?

“Very much,” said the Hedgehog, “you can rest assured.” But listen to what happened next.

So, as I already said, the Flowers knew that Gray Star was kind, good and useful. The Birds knew this too. Of course, people knew too, especially Smart people. And only the enemies of the Flowers did not agree with this. “Vile, harmful little bitch!” - they hissed, of course, when Zvezdochka was not around. "Freak! It's disgusting! - the Gluttonous Beetles creaked. “We must deal with her! - the Caterpillars echoed them. “There’s simply no life for her!”

True, no one paid attention to their abuse and threats, and besides, there were fewer and fewer enemies, but, unfortunately, the closest relative of the Caterpillar, the butterfly Urticaria, intervened in the matter. She looked completely harmless and even pretty, but in reality she was terribly harmful. This happens sometimes.

Yes, I forgot to tell you that Gray Star never touched the Butterflies.

- Why? - asked the Hedgehog. -Are they tasteless?

“That’s not why at all, stupid.” Most likely because butterflies look like Flowers, and Star loved Flowers so much! And she probably didn’t know that Butterflies and Caterpillars are almost the same thing. After all, Caterpillars turn into Butterflies, and Butterflies hatch new Caterpillars...

So, the cunning Nettle came up with a cunning plan - how to destroy Gray Star.

“I will soon save you from this vile toad!” - she said to her sisters, the Caterpillars, and her friends, the Beetles and Slugs. And she flew away from the garden.

And when she returned, a Very Stupid Boy was running after her.

He had a skullcap in his hand, he was waving it in the air and thought that he was about to catch the pretty Nettle. Skullcap.

And the cunning Nettle pretended that she was about to get caught: she would sit on a flower, pretend not to notice the Very Stupid Boy, and then suddenly fly up in front of his very nose and fly to the next flowerbed.

And so she lured the Very Stupid Boy into the very depths of the garden, right on the path where Gray Star was sitting and talking with the Learned Starling.

The nettle was immediately punished for her vile act: the Scientist Starling flew off the branch like lightning and grabbed her with his beak. But it was already too late, because the Very Stupid Boy noticed the Gray Star.

Gray Star at first did not understand that he was talking about her, because no one had ever called her a toad. She did not move even when the Very Stupid Boy swung a stone at her.

At that same moment, a heavy stone fell to the ground next to Gray Star. Fortunately, the Very Stupid Boy missed, and Gray Star managed to jump to the side. Flowers and Herbs hid her from view. But the Very Stupid Boy did not stop. He picked up a few more stones and continued to throw them where the grass and flowers were moving.

"Toad! Poisonous toad! - he shouted. - Beat the ugly one!

“Dur-ra-chok! Dur-ra-chok! - the Scientist Starling shouted to him. - What kind of confusion is in your head? After all, she is useful! Seems clear?

But the Very Stupid Boy grabbed a stick and climbed into the Rose Bush - where, as it seemed to him, the Gray Star was hiding.

The Rose Bush pricked him with all its might with its sharp thorns. And the Very Stupid Boy ran out of the garden roaring.

- Hurray! - Hedgehog shouted.

- Yes, brother, thorns are a good thing! - Hedgehog continued. “If Gray Star had thorns, then perhaps she would not have had to cry so bitterly that day.” But, as you know, she had no thorns, and so she sat under the roots of the Rose Bush and wept bitterly.

“He called me a toad,” she sobbed, “ugly!” That's what the Man said, but people are everything they know! So, I’m a toad, a toad!..”

Everyone consoled her as best they could: Pansy said that she would always remain their sweet Gray Star; The roses told her that beauty is not the most important thing in life (this was no small sacrifice on their part). “Don’t cry, Vanechka-Manechka,” Ivan-da-Marya repeated, and the Bells whispered: “Ding-Ding, Ting-Ding,” and this also sounded very comforting.

But Gray Star cried so loudly that she did not hear any consolation. This always happens when people start consoling too early. The flowers didn’t know, but the Scientist Starling knew it very well. He let Gray Star cry as much as she could, and then said:

“I won’t console you, darling. I'll tell you only one thing: it's not about the name. And in any case, it doesn’t matter at all what some Stupid Boy, who has nothing but confusion in his head, says about you! For all your friends, you were and will be a sweet Gray Star. Seems clear?

And he whistled a piece of music about... about the Hedgehog-Fawn to cheer up Gray Star and show that he considered the conversation over.

Gray Star stopped crying.

“You’re right, of course, Skvorushka,” she said. “Of course, it’s not a matter of the name... But still... still, I probably won’t come to the garden during the day anymore, so... so as not to meet someone stupid...”

And since then, Gray Star - and not only she, but all her brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren come to the garden and do their useful work only at night.

The hedgehog cleared his throat and said:

- Now you can ask questions.

- How many? - asked the Hedgehog.

“Three,” answered the Hedgehog.

- Oh! Then... First question: is it true that Stars, that is, toads, do not eat butterflies, or is this just in a fairy tale?

- Is it true.

- And the Very Stupid Boy said that toads are poisonous. This is true?

- Nonsense! Of course, I don’t advise you to put them in your mouth. But they are not poisonous at all.

- Is it true... Is this the third question?

- Yes, the third one. All.

- As everybody?

- So. After all, you already asked it. You asked: “Is this the third question?”

- Well, dad, you're always teasing.

- Look, how smart! Okay, so be it, ask your question.

- Oh, I forgot... Oh, yes... Where did all these nasty enemies disappear to?

- Well, of course, she swallowed them. She just grabs them with her tongue so quickly that no one can follow it, and it seems like they just disappear. And now I have a question, my little furry one: isn’t it time for us to go to bed? After all, you and I are also useful and must also do our Useful Work at night, and now it’s morning...

Marina Moskvina “Magnifying glass”

Once upon a time there was a magnifying glass. It was lying there, lying in the forest - apparently someone had dropped it. And this is what came out of it...

A hedgehog was walking through this forest. He walked and walked and looked and there was a magnifying glass. The hedgehog lived his whole life in the forest and never saw a magnifying glass. He didn't even know that a magnifying glass was called a magnifying glass, so he said to himself:

- What is this thing lying around? Some interesting stuff, huh?

He took the magnifying glass in his paws and began to look through it at the whole the world. And I saw that the world around me had become big, big, much bigger than before.

And there was a lot more stuff that he hadn’t noticed before. For example, small grains of sand, sticks, holes, lines and boogers.

And then he saw an ant. He had not noticed the Ants before because they were small. And now the ant was large, magnified with a magnifying glass, and it was also dragging a real log.

Although in fact it was a blade of grass, if you look without a magnifying glass.

The hedgehog really liked this ant, the way it was dragging a heavy log. And I liked his face: the ant had a good face - kind and thoughtful.

And suddenly... the ant fell into the spider's web. I gaped and - bam! - got it. I immediately got confused, and the spider was right there, dragging the ant towards itself, wanting to eat it!

The hedgehog pointed a magnifying glass at the spider and even got scared - this spider had such an angry, angry and greedy face!

Then the hedgehog said to the spider:

- Well, let the ant go, or else I’ll give it to you! There won’t be a wet spot left of you, you’re so mean and greedy!

The spider chickened out because the hedgehog was much larger than him and much stronger. He released the ant, pretended that it had changed for the better, and said:

- I won't do it again. From now on I will only eat mushrooms and berries. Well, I'm off...

And he thinks:

“What’s wrong with the hedgehog? In the good old days, I ate whole heaps of Ants - he never stood up for anyone. It's all the magnifying glass's fault! Well, I’ll take revenge on him, destroy him, smash him to pieces!..”

And the spider followed the hedgehog unnoticed. But the hedgehog doesn’t notice him, he walks along and looks around through a magnifying glass.

- Tell me, dear, where are you from? Who are you? - he asks everyone he meets.

- I am an aphid!

- I am a scolopendra!

- I am a forest bug!..

- Buddies! Countrymen! Brother rabbits!!! - the hedgehog is surprised. - There are so many people in the world!.. Caterpillar, stop gnawing on the leaves!

- This is my own business! - the caterpillar snapped.

- Yes! - A spider poked its head out of the bushes. — It’s everyone’s personal business what and who they eat.

- No, public! - says the hedgehog. He turned around, but the spider had disappeared.

- Comrade! - the hedgehog shouts to the centipede. - Why are you darker than a cloud?

- I twisted my ankle. As you can see, there is a fracture.

The hedgehog put down a magnifying glass, wanted to render the first medical care. And how the spider throws a lasso! He threw it on a magnifying glass and dragged him into the bushes!

Fortunately, the hedgehog without glass could not tell which leg the centipede was hurting - the thirty-third or thirty-fourth. I made it on time. Otherwise, look for fistulas!..

At every step there was danger lurking with a magnifying glass.

- Friends! - the hedgehog screams. —— Single-celled brothers! Midges, insects, ciliates, slippers! I invite everyone to visit! I'll give you a feast!

He leaned the glass against a pine tree and left it unattended for a minute. Spider grab a shovel! And let’s quickly bury the magnifying glass in the ground.

And through the glass the sun began to shine on the spider, the heat turned out to be increased! Like in Africa, in the Sahara Desert. Only a tarantula or a scorpion could endure this. And this was our Central Russian spider. I barely made it off my feet, otherwise I would have been guaranteed sunstroke.

The hedgehog is walking home, and behind him is a countless company that cannot be seen with the naked eye. They fly, crawl, swim, some jump... Shu-shu-shu! - They won’t understand what’s the matter. The hedgehog never paid any attention to them, but then suddenly - all of a sudden!

But the spider is not far behind.

“I won’t be me,” he thinks, “if I don’t hurt the hedgehog!” I won't do any harm! I won’t destroy the magnifying glass!”

Everyone comes into the house in a crowd, and he waits outside, waiting for the right moment.

The insects sat down at the table, prepared to help themselves, and heard a hoarse bass voice coming from under the table:

- Basta, I'm leaving! I will live and work on a river boat.

The hedgehog looked under the table through a magnifying glass - and there was a terrible creature. He has such a long body, long wings, long legs and a long mustache. But that's not all. Lying there under the table musical instrument- saxophone.

- Who is this? - asks the hedgehog.

“Oh, you,” said the creature. “You and I have been living in the same house for ages, and you don’t even know that I’m a cricket.”

“Here the cricket’s life is full of sadness,” said the cricket. - I'm always sick. There has been no glass in the window for a year now. I’ll get a job in a street orchestra!.. Big band!.. Otherwise, the hedgehog, apparently, decided that any idiot can play jazz.

- Don't go! - says the hedgehog. - So many songs have not been sung yet!..

And he put a magnifying glass in the window.

The festive dinner has begun! The cricket warmed up and alone replaced the whole dance orchestra. He didn't even expect that it could turn out so great. The forest bug sang, the others - including a hedgehog and a centipede with a plastered leg - danced. The ciliate slipper was tap dancing!..

And the caterpillar ate without stopping. I devoured six buns with jam, Apple pie, four kulebyaki, drank two liters of milk and a pot of coffee.

It got dark outside. The stars lit up in the sky. Through a magnifying glass they seemed huge and bright. And the spider is right there. I crept up to the house under the cover of darkness with a big, big soccer ball, took aim at the magnifying glass and wow!

“Yeah! - thinks. “Now it’s ding-ding and gone!”

And it stands in the frame undamaged - and enlarges, as if nothing had happened. The spider beat him, beat him, beat him with a stick, shot him with pine cones, but did not harm him in any way.

It is very thick and strong - a magnifying glass.

Fox bread

One day I walked through the forest all day and in the evening I returned home with rich booty. I took the heavy bag off my shoulders and began to lay out my belongings on the table.

- What kind of bird is this? - Zinochka asked.

“Terenty,” I answered.

And he told her about the black grouse: how it lives in the forest, how it mutters in the spring, how it pecks at birch buds, collects berries in the swamps in the fall, and warms itself from the wind under the snow in winter. He also told her about the hazel grouse, showed her that it was gray with a tuft, and whistled into the pipe in the hazel grouse style and let her whistle. I also poured a lot of porcini mushrooms, both red and black, onto the table.

I also had a bloody boneberry in my pocket, and a blue blueberry, and a red lingonberry. I also brought with me a fragrant lump of pine resin, gave it to the girl to smell and said that trees are treated with this resin.

- Who treats them there? - Zinochka asked.

“They are treating themselves,” I answered. “Sometimes a hunter comes and wants to rest, he’ll stick an ax into a tree and hang his bag on the ax, and lie down under the tree.” He'll sleep and rest. He takes an ax out of the tree, puts on a bag, and leaves. And from the wound from the wood ax this fragrant resin will run and heal the wound.

Also on purpose for Zinochka, I brought various wonderful herbs, one leaf at a time, a root at a time, a flower at a time: cuckoo’s tears, valerian, Peter’s cross, hare’s cabbage. And just under hare cabbage I had a piece of black bread lying around: it always happens to me that when I don’t take bread to the forest, I’m hungry, but if I take it, I forget to eat it and bring it back. And Zinochka, when she saw black bread under my hare cabbage, was stunned:

-Where did the bread come from in the forest?

- What's surprising here? After all, there is cabbage there!

- Hare...

- And the bread is chanterelle bread. Taste it.

She tasted it carefully and started eating.

- Good chanterelle bread!

And she ate all my black bread clean. And so it went with us: Zinochka, such a copula, often won’t even take white bread, but when I bring Lisichka’s bread from the forest, she will always eat it all and praise it:

- Fox bread is much better than ours!

"Inventor"

In one swamp, on a hummock under a willow, wild mallard ducklings hatched.

Soon after this, their mother led them to the lake along a cow path. I noticed them from a distance, hid behind a tree, and the ducklings came right to my feet. I took three of them into my care, the remaining sixteen went further along the cow path.

I kept these black ducklings with me, and they soon all turned gray.

Then a handsome multi-colored drake and two ducks, Dusya and Musya, emerged from the gray ones. We clipped their wings so they wouldn’t fly away, and they lived in our yard along with poultry: we had chickens and geese.

With the onset of a new spring, we made hummocks for our savages out of all sorts of rubbish in the basement, like in a swamp, and nests on them. Dusya laid sixteen eggs in her nest and began to hatch the ducklings. Musya put down fourteen, but didn’t want to sit on them. No matter how we fought, the empty head did not want to be a mother. And we planted our important black hen, the Queen of Spades, on duck eggs.

The time has come, our ducklings have hatched. We kept them warm in the kitchen for a while, crumbled eggs for them, and looked after them.

A few days later it was very good, warm weather, and Dusya led her little black ones to the pond, and the Queen of Spades led hers to the garden for worms.

- Hang down! - ducklings in the pond.

- Quack-quack! - the duck answers them.

- Hang down! — ducklings in the garden.

- Kwok-kwok! - the chicken answers them.

The ducklings, of course, cannot understand what “kwoh-kwoh” means, but what is heard from the pond is well known to them.

“Svis-svis” means: “friends to friends.”

And “quack-quack” means: “you are ducks, you are mallards, swim quickly!” And they, of course, look there, towards the pond.

- Ours to ours!

- Swim, swim!

And they float.

- Kwok-kwok! — an important bird, a hen, insists on the shore.

They keep swimming and swimming. They whistled, swam together, and Dusya joyfully accepted them into her family; According to Musa, they were her own nephews.

All day long a large duck family swam on the pond, and all day the Queen of Spades, fluffy, angry, clucked, grumbled, kicked worms on the shore, tried to attract ducklings with worms and clucked to them that there were too many worms, so good worms!

- Rubbish, rubbish! - the mallard answered her.

And in the evening she led all her ducklings with one long rope along a dry path. Right under your nose important bird they passed, little black ones, with big duck noses; no one even looked at such a mother.

We collected them all in one high basket and left them to spend the night in the warm kitchen, near the stove.

In the morning, when we were still sleeping, Dusya crawled out of the basket, walked around on the floor, screamed, and called the ducklings to her. The whistlers answered her cry in thirty voices.

The walls of our house, made of ringing pine forest, responded to the duck cry in their own way. And yet, in this confusion, we heard the separate voice of one duckling.

- Do you hear? - I asked my guys.

They listened.

- We hear! - they shouted.

And we went to the kitchen.

There, it turned out, Dusya was not alone on the floor. One duckling was running next to her, very worried and whistling continuously. This duckling, like all the others, was the size of a small cucumber. How could such and such a warrior climb over the wall of a basket thirty centimeters high?

We all began to guess about this, and then came new question: Did the duckling himself come up with some way to get out of the basket after his mother, or did she accidentally touch him with her wing and throw him out? I tied this duckling's leg with a ribbon and released it into the general herd.

We slept through the night, and in the morning, as soon as the morning duck cry was heard in the house, we went into the kitchen.

A duckling with a bandaged paw was running on the floor with Dusya.

All the ducklings, imprisoned in the basket, whistled, were eager to be free and could not do anything. This one got out. I said:

- He came up with something.

- He's an inventor! - Leva shouted.

Then I decided to see how this “inventor” solved the most difficult problem: to climb a steep wall on his duck’s webbed feet. I got up the next morning before light, when both my boys and

The ducklings slept soundly. In the kitchen, I sat down near the switch so that, when necessary, I could turn on the light and look at the events in the depths of the basket.

And then the window turned white. It was getting light.

- Quack-quack! - said Dusya.

- Hang down! - answered the only duckling.

And everything froze. The boys slept, the ducklings slept.

A beep sounded in the factory. The light has increased.

- Quack-quack! - Dusya repeated.

No one answered. I realized: the “inventor” has no time now - now, probably, he is solving his most difficult problem. And I turned on the light.

Well, that's how I knew it! The duck had not yet stood up, and its head was still level with the edge of the basket. All the ducklings slept warmly under their mother, only one, with a bandaged paw, crawled out and climbed up the mother’s feathers, like bricks, onto her back. When Dusya stood up, she raised it high, level with the edge of the basket. The duckling, like a mouse, ran along her back to the edge - and somersaulted down! Following him, the mother also fell to the floor, and the usual morning chaos began: screaming, whistling throughout the house.

About two days after that, in the morning, three ducklings appeared on the floor at once, then five, and it went on and on: as soon as Dusya quacked in the morning, all the ducklings would land on her back and then fall down.

And my children called the first duckling, who paved the way for others, the Inventor.

Guys and ducklings

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 them and threw their hats at them. All the time while they were catching the ducklings, the mother ran after them with an open beak or flew several steps in different directions 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!

Forest Doctor

We wandered in the forest in the spring and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly, in the direction where we had previously planned interesting tree, we heard the sound of a saw. It was, as we were told, the collection of firewood from dead wood for a glass factory. We were afraid for our tree, we hurried towards the sound of the saw, but it was too late: our aspen lay, and there were many empty trees around its stump. fir cones. The woodpecker peeled all this off over the long winter, collected it, carried it to this aspen tree, laid it between two branches of his workshop and hammered it. Near the stump, on our cut aspen, two boys were resting. All these two boys were doing was sawing the wood.

- Oh, you pranksters! - we said and pointed them to the cut aspen. “You were ordered to cut dead trees, but what did you do?”

“The woodpecker made a hole,” the guys answered. “We took a look and, of course, we cut it down.” It will still be lost.

Everyone began to examine the tree together. It was completely fresh, and only in a small space, no more than a meter in length, did a worm pass inside the trunk. The woodpecker obviously listened to the aspen like a doctor: he tapped it with his beak, realized the emptiness left by the worm, and began the operation of extracting the worm. And the second time, and the third, and the fourth... The thin trunk of the aspen looked like a pipe with valves. The “surgeon” made seven holes and only on the eighth he caught the worm, pulled out and saved the aspen. We cut this piece out as a wonderful exhibit for a museum.

“You see,” we told the guys, “the woodpecker is a forest doctor, he saved the aspen, and it would live and live, and you cut it down.”

The boys were amazed.

Hedgehog

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 it with the tip of my boot; he snorted terribly and pushed his needles into his boot.

- Oh, you do this to 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 a 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 there, there, and finally chose a place for himself 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 what it was like forest clearing. I took the pipe, lit a cigarette and blew a cloud near the moon. It felt just like being in the forest: the moon and the clouds, and my legs were like tree trunks and the hedgehog probably really liked them, he just darted between them, sniffing and scratching the back 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 heard some rustling in my room, I struck a match, lit the candle and only noticed how a 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 didn’t sleep myself, thinking: “Why did the hedgehog need the newspaper?” Soon my tenant ran out from under the bed - and straight to the newspaper, hovered around it, made noise, made noise and finally managed to somehow put a corner of the newspaper on the 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, however, that 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 candle - the moon.

I let the clouds in and ask:

- What else do you need?

The hedgehog was not afraid.

- Do you want something to drink?

I wake up. The hedgehog doesn't run.

I took a plate, put it on the floor, brought a bucket of water, and then I poured water into the plate, then poured it into the bucket again, and I 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 up 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 moves, and I 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 one!

The hedgehog got drunk, I say:

- Let's 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 to 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 - on the thorns he dragged another apple into the nest.

So this is how my hedgehog settled down. And now, when drinking tea, I will certainly bring it to my table and either pour milk on a saucer for him to drink, or give him some buns for him to eat.

Golden Meadow

My brother and I always had fun with them when dandelions ripened. It used to be that we were going somewhere on our business, he was in front, I was at the heel.

“Seryozha!” - I’ll call him in a businesslike manner. He will look back, and I will blow a dandelion right in his face. For this, he begins to watch for me and, like a gape, he also makes a fuss. And so we picked these uninteresting flowers just for fun. But once I managed to make a discovery.

We lived in a village, in front of our window there was a meadow, all golden with many blooming dandelions. It was very beautiful. Everyone said: “Very beautiful! Golden meadow." One day I got up early to fish and noticed that the meadow was not golden, but green. When I returned home around noon, the meadow was again all golden. I began to observe. By evening the meadow turned green again. Then I went and found a dandelion, and it turned out that it had squeezed its petals, just as if our fingers on the palm side were yellow and, clenching it into a fist, we would close the yellow one. In the morning, when the sun rose, I saw the dandelions opening their palms and this made the meadow turn golden again.

Since then, dandelion has become one of the most interesting flowers for us, because dandelions went to bed with us children and got up with us.

Beast chipmunk

You can easily understand why sika deer There are frequent white spots scattered everywhere on his skin.

Once in the Far East I was walking very quietly along a path and, without knowing it, I stopped near lurking deer. They hoped that I would not notice them under the trees with wide leaves, in the thick grass. But it happened that a deer tick bit the little calf painfully; he trembled, the grass swayed, and I saw him and everyone. It was then that I realized why deer have spots. The day was sunny, and in the forest there were “bunnies” on the grass - exactly the same as those of deer and fallow deer. It’s easier to hide with such “bunnies.” But for a long time I could not understand why the deer has a large white circle like a napkin on its back and near its tail, and if the deer gets scared and starts running, then this napkin becomes even wider, even more noticeable. What does the deer need these napkins for?

I thought about this and this is how I guessed it.

One day we caught wild deer and started feeding them beans and corn in the home nursery. In winter, when in the taiga it is so difficult for deer to get food, they ate our ready-made and favorite, the most delicious dish in the nursery. And they are so used to it that when they see a bag of beans on our premises, they run to us and crowd around the trough. And they poke their snouts so greedily and hurry that the beans and corn often fall out of the trough onto the ground. The pigeons have already noticed this - they fly in to peck the grains under the very hooves of the deer. Chipmunks, these small, striped, pretty squirrel-like animals, also come running to collect the falling beans. It’s hard to convey how shy these sika deer are and what they can imagine. Our female, our beautiful Hua-Lu, was especially shy.

It happened one time, she was eating beans in a trough next to other deer. Beans fell to the ground, pigeons and chipmunks ran near the deer's hooves. So Hua-Lu accidentally stepped on the fluffy tail of one animal with her hoof, and this chipmunk responded by biting into the deer’s leg. Hua-Lu shuddered, looked down, and she probably thought the chipmunk was something terrible. How she will rush! And behind her all at once onto the fence, and - bang! — our fence fell down.

The small chipmunk animal, of course, immediately fell off, but for the frightened Hua-Lu, now it was not a small, but a huge chipmunk animal that was running after her, rushing in her footsteps. The other deer understood her in their own way and quickly rushed after her. And all these deer would have run away and all our great work would have been lost, but we had a German shepherd, Taiga, who was well accustomed to these deer. We let Taiga follow them. The deer rushed in insane fear, and, of course, they thought that it was not the dog running after them, but the same terrible, huge chipmunk beast.

Many animals have such a habit that if they are chased, they run in a circle and return to the same place. This is how hunters of hares chase with dogs: the hare almost always comes running to the same place where it was lying, and then the shooter meets it. And the deer rushed for a long time over the mountains and valleys and returned to the same place where they lived well - both well-fed and warm.

So the excellent, smart dog Taiga returned the deer to us. But I almost forgot about the white napkins, which is why I started this story. When Hua-Lu rushed over the fallen fence and out of fear her white napkin became much wider, much more noticeable, then only this flickering white napkin was visible in the bushes. Another deer ran after her along this white spot and he himself also showed his own to the deer following him. White spot. It was then that I first realized what these white napkins serve for sika deer. In the taiga, there are not only chipmunks - there are also wolves, leopards, and the tiger itself. One deer will notice the enemy, rush, show a white spot and save another, and this one saves the third, and everyone comes together to a safe place.

White necklace

I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I admit, I didn’t believe it. But he assured me that in the old days this incident was even published in a Siberian magazine under the title:

"Man with a bear against wolves."

There lived a watchman on the shore of Lake Baikal, he caught fish and shot squirrels. And then once this watchman seems to see it through the window - he runs straight to the hut A big bear, and a pack of wolves is chasing him. That would be the end of the bear... He, this bear, don’t be bad, is in the hallway, the door closed behind him, and he still leaned on it with his paw. The old man, realizing this matter, took the rifle off the wall and said:

- Misha, Misha, hold it!

The wolves climb on the door, and the old man aims the wolf at the window and repeats:

- Misha, Misha, hold it!

So he killed one wolf, and another, and a third, all the time saying:

- Misha, Misha, hold...

After the third, the pack scattered, and the bear remained in the hut to spend the winter under the guard of the old man. In the spring, when the bears come out of their dens, the old man allegedly put a white necklace on this bear and ordered all the hunters that no one should shoot this bear with a white necklace: this bear is his friend.

Conversation between birds and animals

Hunting foxes with flags is fun! They will go around the fox, recognize its bed, and by the bushes a mile or two around the sleeping one they will hang a rope with red flags. The fox is very afraid of colored flags and the smell of red, frightened, looking for a way out of the terrible circle. They leave her a way out, and a hunter is waiting for her near this place under the cover of a Christmas tree.

Such a hunt with flags is much more productive than with hounds. And this winter was so snowy, with such loose snow, that the dog drowned up to its ears, and it became impossible to chase foxes with the dog. One day, having exhausted myself and the dog, I said to the huntsman Michal Mikhalych:

- Let's leave the dogs, let's get flags - after all, with flags you can kill every fox.

- How is it each? - asked Michal Mikhalych.

“It’s so simple,” I replied. - After the powder, we’ll take a fresh trail, go around, cover the circle with flags, and the fox will be ours.

“That was in the old days,” said the huntsman. “It used to be that a fox would sit for three days and not dare to go beyond the flags.” What a fox! The wolves sat for two days! Now the animals have become smarter, often rutting right under the flags, and goodbye.

“I understand,” I answered, “that seasoned animals, who have been in trouble more than once, have become wiser and go under the flags, but there are relatively few of them, the majority, especially young people, have never seen flags.”

- We haven’t seen it! They don't even need to see. They are having a conversation.

- What kind of conversation?

- Ordinary conversation. It happens that you set a trap, an old, smart animal will visit you, he won’t like it and will move away. And then others won’t come far. Well, tell me, how will they find out?

- What do you think?

“I think,” answered Michal Mikhalych, “animals read.”

- Do they read?

- Well, yes, they read with their noses. This can be seen in dogs as well. It is known how they leave their notes everywhere on posts, on bushes, others then go and take everything apart. So the fox and the wolf constantly read; We have eyes, they have noses. The second thing in animals and birds, I think, is their voice. A raven flies and screams, at least we have something. And the fox pricked up its ears in the bushes and hurried into the field. The raven flies and screams above, and below, following the cry of the raven, the fox rushes at full speed. The raven descends on the carrion, and the fox is right there. What a fox! Haven’t you ever guessed something from a magpie’s cry?

Of course, like any hunter, I had to use the magpie’s ticking, but Michal Mikhalych told a special case. Once his dogs broke during the hare rutting. The hare suddenly seemed to fall through the ground. Then a magpie began to cackle in a completely different direction. The huntsman stealthily approaches the magpie so that it does not notice him. And this was in winter, when all the hares had already turned white, only all the snow had melted, and the white ones on the ground became far visible. The huntsman looked under the tree on which the magpie was chattering, and saw: a white midge was simply lying on a green one, and its little eyes, black as two bobbins, were looking...

The magpie betrayed the hare, but it also betrays a person to the hare and to any animal, as long as it wants to notice whom it notices first.

“You know,” said Michal Mikhalych, “there is a small yellow marsh bunting.” When you enter the swamp for ducks, you begin to quietly sneak away. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this same yellow bird lands on the reed in front of you, swings on it and squeaks. You go further, and it flies to another reed and squeaks and squeaks. This is what she lets the entire swamp population know; you look - there the ducks guessed that the hunter was approaching and flew away, and there the cranes flapped their wings, there the snipes began to escape. And it’s all her, it’s all her. Birds say this differently, but animals read tracks more.

Birds under the snow

The hazel grouse has two salvations in the snow: the first is to sleep warmly under the snow, and the second is that the snow drags with it to the ground from the trees various seeds for the hazel grouse to eat. Under the snow, the hazel grouse looks for seeds, makes passages there and opens upward for air. Sometimes you go skiing in the forest, you look - a head appears and hides: it’s a hazel grouse. There are not even two, but three salvations for a hazel grouse under the snow: warmth, food, and you can hide from a hawk.

The black grouse does not run under the snow, it just needs to hide from the bad weather.

Grouse do not have large passages, like hazel grouse under the snow, but the arrangement of the apartment is also neat: in the back there is a latrine, in front there is a hole above the head for air.

Our gray partridge does not like to burrow in the snow and flies to the village to spend the night on the threshing floor. A partridge spends the night in the village with the men and in the morning flies to the same place to feed. The partridge, according to my signs, has either lost its wildness, or is naturally stupid. The hawk notices her flights, and sometimes she is just about to fly out, and the hawk is already waiting for her on the tree.

The black grouse, I think, is much smarter than the partridge. Once it happened to me in the forest.

I'm going skiing; Red day, good frost. A large clearing opens up in front of me, in the clearing there are tall birches, and on the birches black grouse feed on buds. I admired it for a long time, but suddenly all the black grouse rushed down and buried themselves in the snow under the birches. At the same moment, a hawk appeared, hit the place where the black grouse had buried itself, and entered. But he walks right above the black grouse, but he can’t figure out how to dig with his foot and grab it. I was very curious about this, I thought: “If he walks, it means he feels them under him, and the hawk has a great mind, but he doesn’t have enough to guess and dig with his paw an inch or two in the snow, which means it’s not for him.” given."

He walks and walks.

I wanted to help the black grouse, and I began to steal the hawk. The snow is soft, the ski does not make any noise, but as soon as I started to go around the clearing with bushes, I suddenly fell into the juniper up to my ear. I climbed out of the hole, of course, not without noise and thought: “The hawk heard this and flew away.” I got out and don’t even think about the hawk, and when I drove around the clearing and looked out from behind a tree, a hawk right in front of me was walking for a short shot at the black grouse overhead. I fired. He lay down. And the black grouse were so frightened by the hawk that they weren’t even afraid of a shot. I approached them, swung my ski, and one after another they began to fly out from under the snow; whoever has never seen it will die.

I’ve seen a lot of things in the forest, it’s all simple for me, but I’m still amazed at the hawk: so smart, but in this place he turned out to be such a fool. But I think the partridge is the stupidest of all. She got spoiled among people on the threshing floors, she doesn’t have, like a black grouse, so that when she sees a hawk, she can rush into the snow with all her might. The partridge will only hide its head in the snow from the hawk, but its entire tail will be visible. The hawk takes her by the tail and drags her like a cook in a frying pan.

Squirrel Memory

Today, looking at the tracks of animals and birds in the snow, this is what I read from these tracks: a squirrel made its way through the snow into the moss, took out two nuts hidden there since the fall, ate them right away - I found the shells. Then she ran ten meters away, dived again, again left a shell on the snow and after a few meters made a third climb.

What kind of miracle? It’s impossible to think that she could smell the nut through a thick layer of snow and ice. This means that since the fall I remembered about my nuts and the exact distance between them.

But the most amazing thing is that she could not measure centimeters like we did, but directly by eye she determined with precision, dived and reached. Well, how could one not envy the squirrel’s memory and ingenuity!

Forest floors

Birds and animals in the forest have their own floors: mice live in the roots - at the very bottom; various birds like the nightingale build their nests right on the ground; blackbirds - even higher, on the bushes; hollow birds - woodpeckers, titmice, owls - even higher; At different heights along the tree trunk and at the very top, predators settle: hawks and eagles.

I once had the opportunity to observe in the forest that they, animals and birds, have floors that are not like our skyscrapers: with us you can always change with someone, with them each breed certainly lives in its own floor.

One day while hunting we came to a clearing with dead birches. It often happens that birch trees grow to a certain age and dry out.

Another tree, having dried up, drops its bark to the ground, and therefore the uncovered wood soon rots and the whole tree falls; The birch bark does not fall off; This resinous bark, white on the outside - birch bark - is an impenetrable case for a tree, and a dead tree stands for a long time as if it were alive.

Even when the tree rots and the wood turns into dust, weighed down with moisture, the white birch appears to stand as if alive. But as soon as you give such a tree a good push, it suddenly breaks into heavy pieces and falls. Cutting down such trees is a very fun activity, but also dangerous: a piece of wood, if you don’t dodge it, can hit you hard on the head. But still, we hunters are not very afraid, and when we get to such birches, we begin to destroy them in front of each other.

So we came to a clearing with such birches and brought down a rather tall birch tree. Falling, in the air it broke into several pieces, and in one of them there was a hollow with a nut nest. The little chicks were not injured when the tree fell; they only fell out of the hollow together with their nest. Naked chicks, covered with feathers, opened their wide red mouths and, mistaking us for parents, squeaked and asked us for a worm. We dug up the ground, found worms, gave them a snack; they ate, swallowed and squeaked again.

Very soon the parents arrived, chickadees, with white chubby cheeks and with worms in their mouths, they sat down on nearby trees.

“Hello, dears,” we told them, “a misfortune happened: we didn’t want this.”

The Gadgets couldn’t answer us, but, most importantly, they couldn’t understand what had happened, where the tree had gone, where their children had disappeared.

They were not at all afraid of us, they fluttered from branch to branch in great anxiety.

- Yes, here they are! — we showed them the nest on the ground. - Here they are, listen to how they squeak, how they call you!

The Gadgets didn’t listen to anything, they fussed, worried, and didn’t want to go down and go beyond their floor.

“Or maybe,” we said to each other, “they are afraid of us.” Let's hide! - And they hid.

No! The chicks squealed, the parents squeaked, fluttered, but did not go down.

We guessed then that the birds, unlike ours in skyscrapers, cannot change floors: now it just seems to them that the entire floor with their chicks has disappeared.

“Oh-oh-oh,” said my companion, “what fools you are!”

It became pitiful and funny: so nice and with wings, but they don’t want to understand anything.

Then we took that large piece in which the nest was located, broke the top of a neighboring birch tree and placed our piece with the nest on it exactly at the same height as the destroyed floor. We didn't have to wait long in ambush: a few minutes later the happy parents met their chicks.

birch bark tube

I found an amazing birch bark tube. When a person cuts himself a piece of birch bark on a birch tree, the rest of the birch bark near the cut begins to curl into a tube. The tube will dry out and curl up tightly. There are so many of them on birch trees that you don’t even pay attention.

But today I wanted to see if there was anything in such a tube.

And in the very first tube I found a good nut, grabbed so tightly that it was difficult to push it out with a stick.

There were no hazel trees around the birch tree. How did he get there?

“The squirrel probably hid it there, making its winter supplies,” I thought. “She knew that the tube would roll up tighter and tighter and grab the nut tighter and tighter so that it wouldn’t fall out.”

But later I realized that it was not a squirrel, but a nutcracker bird that had stuck a nut, perhaps stealing it from the squirrel’s nest.

Looking at my birch bark tube, I made another discovery: I settled under the cover of a walnut - who would have thought? — the spider covered the entire inside of the tube with its web.

One day I walked through the forest all day and in the evening I returned home with rich booty. I took the heavy bag off my shoulders and began to lay out my belongings on the table. Read...

In one swamp, on a hummock under a willow, wild mallard ducklings hatched. Soon after this, their mother led them to the lake along a cow path. I noticed them from a distance, hid behind a tree, and the ducklings came right to my feet. Read...

A small wild teal duck finally decided to move her ducklings from the forest, bypassing the village, into the lake to freedom. Read...

We wandered in the forest in the spring and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly, in the direction where we had previously identified an interesting tree, we heard the sound of a saw. Read...

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. Read...

My brother and I always had fun with them when dandelions ripened. It used to be that we were going somewhere on our business, he was in front, I was at the heel. Read...

Once we had it - we caught a young crane and gave it a frog. He swallowed it. They gave me another - I swallowed it. The third, fourth, fifth, and then we didn’t have any more frogs at hand. Read...

I’ll tell you an incident that happened to me during the hungry year. A young yellow-throated rook got into the habit of flying onto my windowsill. Apparently he was an orphan. Read...

Yarik became very friendly with young Ryabchik and played with him all day. So, he spent a week in the game, and then I moved with him from this city to a deserted house in the forest, six miles from Ryabchik. Before I had time to get settled and properly look around the new place, Yarik suddenly disappeared. Read...

My dog ​​puppy is called Romulus, but I prefer to call him Roma or just Romka, and occasionally I call him Roman Vasilich. Read...

All hunters know how difficult it is to teach a dog not to chase animals, cats and hares, but to look only for birds. Read...

A dog, just like a fox and a cat, approaches its prey. And suddenly it freezes. Hunters call this a stance. Read...

Three years ago I was in Zavidovo, the farm of the Military Hunting Society. Gamekeeper Nikolai Kamolov invited me to look at his nephew’s one-year-old pointer dog, Lada, at the forest lodge. Read...

You can easily understand why a sika deer has frequent white spots scattered everywhere on its skin. Read...

I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I admit, I didn’t believe it. But he assured me that in the old days this case was even published in a Siberian magazine under the title: “A man with a bear against wolves.”

Hunting foxes with flags is fun! They will go around the fox, recognize its bed, and from the bushes a mile or two around the sleeping one will hang a rope with red flags. The fox is very afraid of colored flags and the smell of red, frightened, looking for a way out of the terrible circle. Read...

I got a speck of dust in my eye. While I was taking it out, another speck got into my other eye. Read...

The hazel grouse has two salvations in the snow: the first is to sleep warmly under the snow, and the second is that the snow drags with it to the ground from the trees various seeds for the hazel grouse to eat. Under the snow, the hazel grouse looks for seeds, makes passages there and opens upward for air. Read...

Today, looking at the tracks of animals and birds in the snow, this is what I read from these tracks: a squirrel made its way through the snow into the moss, took out two nuts hidden there since the fall, ate them right away - I found the shells. Read...

At midday the snow began to melt from the hot rays of the sun. Two days will pass, sometimes three, and spring will begin to hum. At midday the sun is so steamy that all the snow around our house on wheels is covered with some kind of black dust. Read...

Stories about the interaction between man and nature. Stories on ecology for primary schoolchildren

Konstantin Ushinsky “Wind and Sun”

One day the Sun and the angry North Wind started a dispute about which of them was stronger. They argued for a long time and finally decided to measure their strength against the traveler, who at that very time was riding on horseback along the high road.

“Look,” said the Wind, “how I’ll fly at him: I’ll instantly tear off his cloak.”

He said and started blowing as hard as he could. But the more the Wind tried, the tighter the traveler wrapped himself in his cloak: he grumbled about the bad weather, but rode further and further. The wind became angry, fierce, and showered the poor traveler with rain and snow; Cursing the Wind, the traveler put his cloak into the sleeves and tied it with a belt. Here the Wind himself became convinced that he could not pull off his cloak. The sun, seeing the powerlessness of its rival, smiled, looked out from behind the clouds, warmed and dried the earth, and at the same time the poor half-frozen traveler. Feeling the warmth of the sun's rays, he perked up, blessed the Sun, took off his cloak, rolled it up and tied it to the saddle.

“You see,” the meek Sun then said to the angry Wind, “you can do much more with affection and kindness than with anger.”

Konstantin Ushinsky “The dispute between water and fire”

Fire and water argued among themselves which of them was stronger.

They argued for a long time, even fought.

The fire attacked the water with its fiery tongue, the water, hissing with anger, poured into the spreading flame, but they could not resolve the dispute and chose the wind as their judge.

“Great wind,” the fire said to the judge, “you rush around the whole world and know what’s going on in it.” You know better than anyone how I turn entire villages and cities into ashes, how I embrace vast steppes and impenetrable forests with my all-destroying embrace, how my flame rushes to the clouds and how every living thing, including birds, runs in horror before me , and the beast, and the pale trembling man. Calm down the impudent water and make it recognize my primacy.

“You know, mighty wind,” said the water, “that I not only fill rivers and lakes, but also the bottomless abysses of the seas.” You have seen how I throw whole flocks of ships like chips and bury countless treasures and daring people in my waves, how my rivers and streams tear out forests, drown homes and livestock, and my sea waves flood not only cities and villages, but entire countries. What can powerless fire do to a rock? And I have already ground many such rocks into sand and covered the bottom and shores of my seas with them.

“Everything you boast about,” said the wind, “reveals only your anger, but not yet your strength.” Better tell me what good you both do, and then, perhaps, I will decide which of you is stronger.

“Oh, in this regard,” said the water, “fire cannot argue with me.” Am I not the one who gives drink to both animals and humans? Can the most insignificant grass vegetate without my drops? Where I am not, there is only sandy desert, and you yourself, the wind, sing a sad song in it. Everyone can live without fire warm countries, but nothing can live without water.

“You forgot one thing,” objected the water’s rival, “you forgot that fire burns in the sun, and what could live without the sun’s rays, carrying light and warmth everywhere?” There, where I rarely look, you yourself float like dead blocks of ice in the middle of a desert ocean. Where there is no fire, there is no life.

— Do you give much life in the African deserts? - asked the water angrily. “You burn there all day long, but there’s no life.”

“Without me,” said the fire, “the whole earth would be an ugly frozen block.”

“Without me,” said the water, “the earth would be a block of soulless stone, no matter how much the fire burned it.”

“Enough,” the wind decided, “now the matter is clear: alone, both of you can only bring harm, and both of you are equally powerless for a good deed.” Only the one who forced you and me to fight with each other everywhere and in this fight to serve the great cause of life is strong.

Konstantin Ushinsky “The Story of an Apple Tree”

A wild apple tree grew in the forest; in the fall a sour apple fell from her. The birds pecked at the apple and also pecked the grains.

Only one grain hid in the ground and remained.

The grain lay under the snow for the winter, and in the spring, when the sun warmed the wet ground, the grain began to germinate: it sent out a root and sent up the first two leaves. A stem with a bud ran out from between the leaves, and green leaves came out of the bud at the top. Bud by bud, leaf by leaf, twig by twig - and five years later a pretty apple tree stood in the place where the grain had fallen.

A gardener came to the forest with a spade, saw an apple tree and said: “This is a good tree, it will be useful to me.”

The apple tree trembled when the gardener began to dig it up, and thought:

“I’m completely lost!” But the gardener dug up the apple tree carefully, without damaging the roots, moved it to the garden and planted it in good soil.

The apple tree in the garden became proud: “I must be a rare tree,” she thinks, “when they brought me from the forest to the garden,” and looks down on the ugly stumps tied with rags; She didn’t know that she was in school.

The next year a gardener came with a curved knife and began to cut the apple tree.

The apple tree trembled and thought: “Well, now I’m completely lost.”

The gardener cut off the entire green top of the tree, left one stump, and even split it on top; the gardener stuck a young shoot from a good apple tree into the crack; I covered the wound with putty, tied it with a cloth, set up a new clothespin with pegs and left.

The apple tree fell ill; but she was young and strong, she soon recovered and grew together with someone else’s branch.

The twig drinks the juice of a strong apple tree and grows quickly: it throws out bud after bud, leaf after leaf, shoots out shoot after shoot, twig after twig, and three years later the tree blooms with white-pink fragrant flowers.

The white and pink petals fell, and in their place a green ovary appeared, and in the autumn apples became from the ovary; Yes, not wild sorrel, but large, rosy, sweet, crumbly!

And the apple tree was such a pretty success that people came from other orchards to take shoots from it for clothespins.

Konstantin Ushinsky “How a shirt grew in a field”

Tanya saw her father scattering handfuls of small shiny grains across the field, and asked:

- What are you doing, daddy?

- But I’m sowing flax, daughter; a shirt will grow for you and Vasyutka.

Tanya thought: she had never seen shirts growing in a field.

Two weeks later the strip was covered with green silky grass and Tanya thought: “It would be nice if I had a shirt like that.”

Once or twice Tanya’s mother and sisters came to weed the strip and each time they said to the girl:

- You will have a nice shirt!

A few more weeks passed: the grass on the strip rose, and blue flowers appeared on it. “Brother Vasya has such eyes,” Tanya thought, “but I’ve never seen such shirts on anyone.”

When the flowers fell, green heads appeared in their place. When the heads turned brown and dried out, Tanya’s mother and sisters pulled out all the flax by the roots, tied sheaves and put them in the field to dry.

When the flax dried out, they began to cut off its heads, and then they sank the headless bunches in the river and piled another stone on top so that they would not float up.

Tanya watched sadly as her shirt was drowned; and the sisters then told her again:

- You have a nice shirt, Tanya.

About two weeks later, they took the flax out of the river, dried it and began to beat it, first with a board on the threshing floor, then with a whip in the yard, so that the poor flax sent fire flying in all directions. Having frayed, they began to comb the flax with an iron comb until it became soft and silky.

“You’ll have a nice shirt,” the sisters said to Tanya again.

But Tanya thought:

“Where is the shirt? It looks like Vasya’s hairs, not a shirt.”

The long winter evenings have arrived. Tanya's sisters put flax on their combs and began to spin threads from it.

“These are threads,” Tanya thinks, “but where is the shirt?”

Winter, spring and summer have passed, autumn has come. The father installed crosses in the hut, pulled the warp over them and began to weave. The shuttle ran quickly between the threads, and then Tanya herself saw that canvas was coming out of the threads.

When the canvas was ready, they began to freeze it in the cold, spread it on the snow, and in the spring they spread it on the grass, in the sun, and sprinkled it with water. The canvas turned from gray to white, like boiling water.

Winter has come again. The mother cut shirts from canvas; The sisters began to sew shirts and for Christmas they put new shirts as white as snow on Tanya and Vasya.

Konstantin Ushinsky “Alien Egg”

Early in the morning, old lady Daria got up, chose a dark, secluded place in the chicken coop, put a basket there, where thirteen eggs were laid out on soft hay, and sat the Corydalis on them.

It was just getting light, and the old woman did not notice that the thirteenth egg was greenish and larger than the others. The hen sits diligently, warms her testicles, runs off to peck some grains, drink some water, and then returns to her place; even faded, poor thing. And she became so angry, hissing, clucking, she wouldn’t even let the cockerel come, but he really wanted to see what was going on there in the dark corner. The hen sat there for about three weeks, and the chicks began to hatch from the eggs, one after another: they would peck the shell with their nose, jump out, shake themselves off and begin to run around, rake up the dust with their legs, look for worms. Later than everyone else, a chick hatched from a greenish egg.

And how strange he came out: round, fluffy, yellow, with short legs, and a wide nose.

“I have a strange chicken,” the hen thinks, “it pecks, and it doesn’t walk like ours; wide nose, short legs, kind of clubfooted, swaying from one foot to the other.”

The hen marveled at her chick, but no matter what it was, it was still a son. And the chicken loves and takes care of him, like the others, and if she sees a hawk, then, fluffing up her feathers and spreading her round wings wide, she hides her chickens under herself, without distinguishing which legs they have.

The chicken began to teach the children how to dig worms out of the ground, and took the whole family to the shore of the pond: there were more worms there and the earth was softer. As soon as the short-legged chicken saw the water, it jumped straight into it.

The chicken screams, flaps its wings, rushes to the water; the chickens were also worried: they were running, fussing, squeaking; and one cockerel, in fright, even jumped up on a pebble, stretched out his neck and for the first time in his life yelled in a hoarse voice: “Ku-ku-re-ku!” Please help me good people! Brother is drowning!

But the brother did not drown, but joyfully and easily, like a piece of cotton paper, he swam through the water, scooping up the water with his wide, webbed paws.

At the hen’s cry, old Daria ran out of the hut, saw what was happening, and shouted: “Oh, what a sin! Apparently, I blindly put a duck egg under the chicken.”

And the chicken was eager to get to the pond: they could have driven it away by force, poor thing.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin “The Last Mushrooms”

The wind scattered, the linden tree sighed and seemed to exhale a million golden leaves. The wind scattered again, blew with all its might - and then all the leaves flew off at once, and only rare gold coins remained on the old linden tree, on its black branches.

So the wind played with the linden tree, got close to the cloud, blew, and the cloud splashed and immediately burst into rain.

The wind caught up and drove another cloud, and from under this cloud bright rays burst out, and the wet forests and fields sparkled.

The red leaves were covered with saffron milk caps, but I found a few saffron caps, aspen boletuses, and boletus mushrooms.

These were the last mushrooms.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin “Conversation of trees”

The buds open, chocolate, with green tails, and on each green beak hangs a large transparent drop.

You take one bud, rub it between your fingers, and then for a long time everything smells like the fragrant resin of birch, poplar or bird cherry.

You sniff a bird cherry bud and immediately remember how you used to climb up a tree for shiny, black-lacquered berries. I ate handfuls straight from the bones, but nothing but good came from it.

The evening is warm, and there is such silence, as if something should happen in such silence. And then the trees begin to whisper among themselves: a birch with another white birch echoes from afar; a young aspen came out into the clearing like a green candle, and called to itself a greener aspen candle, waving a twig; The bird cherry gives the bird cherry a branch with open buds.

If you compare with us, we echo sounds, but they have aroma.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin “Birch bark tube”

I found an amazing birch bark tube. When a person cuts himself a piece of birch bark on a birch tree, the rest of the birch bark near the cut begins to curl into a tube. The tube will dry out and curl up tightly. There are so many of them on birch trees that you don’t even pay attention.

But today I wanted to see if there was anything in such a tube.

And in the very first tube I found a good nut, grabbed so tightly that it was difficult to push it out with a stick.

There were no hazel trees around the birch tree. How did he get there?

“The squirrel probably hid it there, making its winter supplies,” I thought. “She knew that the tube would roll up tighter and tighter and grab the nut tighter and tighter so that it wouldn’t fall out.”

But later I realized that it was not a squirrel, but a nutcracker bird that had stuck a nut, perhaps stealing it from the squirrel’s nest.

Looking at my birch bark tube, I made another discovery: I settled under the cover of a walnut - who would have thought? — the spider and the entire inside of the tube were covered with its web.

Eduard Yurievich Shim “The Frog and the Lizard”

- Hello, Lizard! Why are you without a tail?

— The puppy still has it in his teeth.

- Hee hee! I, Little Frog, even have a small tail. A. you couldn’t save it!

- Hello, Little Frog! Where is your ponytail?

- My tail has withered...

- Hee hee! And for me, Lizard, a new one has grown!

Eduard Yuryevich Shim "Lily of the Valley"

- Which flower in our forest is the most beautiful, most delicate, most fragrant?

- Of course it's me. Lily of the valley!

- What kind of flowers do you have?

“My flowers are like snow bells on a thin stem.” It's like they glow in the twilight.

- What is the smell?

- The smell is so bad you can’t breathe it in!

- What do you have on your stem now, in place of the little white bells?

- Red berries. Beautiful too. What a sight for sore eyes! But don’t tear them off, don’t touch them!

- Why do you, a delicate flower, need poisonous berries?

- So that you, sweet tooth, don’t eat it!

Eduard Yurievich Shim “Stripes and Specks”

Two kids met in a clearing: Little Roe, a little forest goat, and Kabanchik, a little forest pig.

They stood nose to nose and looked at each other.

- Oh, how funny! - says Kosulenok. - All striped, as if you were painted on purpose!

- Oh, how funny you are! - says Kabanchik. - All covered in spots, as if you were splashed on purpose!

- I wear spots so that I can play hide and seek better! - said Kosulyonok.

“And I’m striped so I can play hide and seek better!” - said Boar.

- It's better to hide with spots!

- No, it’s better with stripes!

- No, with spots!

- No, with stripes!

And they argued, and they argued! No one wants to give in

And at this time the branches crackled and the dead wood crunched. The Bear and her cubs came out into the clearing. The Pig saw her and goaded into the thick grass.

All the grass is striped, striped, - the Pig disappeared in it, as if he had fallen through the ground.

The Little Roe Bear saw and shot into the bushes. The sun breaks through the leaves, everywhere yellow spots, spots, - Little Roe disappeared in the bushes, as if he had never existed.

The Bear did not notice them and passed by.

This means that both of them have learned to play hide and seek well. There was no point in arguing.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Swans"

Swans flew in a herd from the cold side to warm lands. They flew across the sea. They flew day and night, and another day and another night they flew, without resting, over the water. Was in the sky full month, and the swans below them saw blue water.

All the swans were exhausted, flapping their wings; but they did not stop and flew on. Old, strong swans flew in front, and younger and weaker ones flew behind.

One young swan flew behind everyone. His strength weakened.

He flapped his wings and could not fly any further. Then he, spreading his wings, went down. He descended closer and closer to the water, and his comrades further and further became whiter in the monthly light. The swan landed on the water and folded its wings. The sea rose beneath him and rocked him.

A flock of swans was visible as a white line in the bright sky. And in the silence you could barely hear the sound of their wings ringing. When they were completely out of sight, the swan bent its neck back and closed its eyes. He did not move, and only the sea, rising and falling in a wide strip, raised and lowered him.

Before dawn, a light breeze began to sway the sea. And the water splashed into the white chest of the swan. The swan opened his eyes. The dawn reddened in the east, and the moon and stars became paler.

The swan sighed, stretched out its neck and flapped its wings, rose up and flew, clinging to the water with its wings. He rose higher and higher and flew alone over the quietly swaying waves.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Cheryomukha"

One bird cherry tree grew on the hazel path and was choking out the hazel bushes. I thought for a long time whether to chop it or not to chop it, I was sorry. This bird cherry grew not as a bush, but as a tree, three inches in diameter and four fathoms in height, all branched, curly and all sprinkled with bright, white, fragrant flowers. Her scent could be heard from afar. I wouldn’t have cut it down, but one of the workers (I had previously told him to cut down all the bird cherry trees) started cutting it down without me. When I arrived, he had already cut an inch and a half into it, and the juice was still squelching under the ax when it fell into the same chopper. “There’s nothing to do, apparently it’s fate,” I thought, I took the ax myself and began to chop together with the man.

Every job is fun to work on and fun to cut. It’s fun to thrust the ax deeply at an angle, and then cut straight down what was cut down, and continue to cut further and further into the tree.

I completely forgot about the bird cherry tree and was only thinking about how to knock it down as quickly as possible. When I was out of breath and put the ax down, I ran into a tree with the man and tried to knock him down. We swayed: the tree shook its leaves, and dew dripped from it and white, fragrant flower petals fell on us.

At the same time, something seemed to scream and crunch in the middle of the tree; we lay down, and as if we were crying, there was a crack in the middle, and the tree fell down. It tore at the cut and, swaying, lay like branches and flowers on the grass. The branches and flowers trembled after the fall and stopped.

“Eh, something important! - said the man. “It’s such a pity!” And I was so sorry that I quickly moved to other workers.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “Apple Trees”

I planted two hundred young apple trees and for three years, in spring and autumn, I dug them up, and wrapped them in straw to prevent hares for the winter. In the fourth year, when the snow melted, I went to look at my apple trees. They got fatter in the winter; the bark on them was glossy and plump; the branches were all intact and on all the tips and forks there were round flower buds, like peas. In some places the buds had already burst and the scarlet edges of flower leaves were visible. I knew that all the blossoms would be flowers and fruits, and I rejoiced looking at my apple trees. But when I unfolded the first apple tree, I saw that below, above the ground, the bark of the apple tree was gnawed all around right down to the wood, like white ring. The mice did it. I unwrapped another apple tree - and the same thing happened on the other one. Of the two hundred apple trees, not a single one remained intact. I covered the gnawed places with resin and wax; but when the apple trees blossomed, their flowers immediately fell asleep. Small leaves came out - and they withered and dried up. The bark wrinkled and turned black. Of the two hundred apple trees, only nine remained. On these nine apple trees the bark was not completely eaten away, but a strip of bark remained in the white ring. On these strips, in the place where the bark separated, growths appeared, and although the apple trees were sick, they continued to grow. The rest all disappeared, only shoots appeared below the gnawed places, and then all of them were wild.

The bark of trees is the same as the veins of a person: blood flows through the veins through a person, and through the bark the sap flows through the tree and rises into branches, leaves and flowers. You can hollow out the entire inside of a tree, as happens with old vines, but as long as the bark is alive, the tree will live; but if the bark is gone, the tree is gone. If a person’s veins are cut, he will die, firstly, because the blood will flow out, and secondly, because the blood will no longer flow through the body.

So the birch tree dries up when the guys dig a hole to drink the sap, and all the sap flows out.

So the apple trees disappeared because the mice ate up all the bark all around, and the juice could no longer flow from the roots into the branches, leaves and flowers.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “Hares”

Description

Hares feed at night. In winter, forest hares feed on tree bark, field hares on winter crops and grass, and bean hares on grain grains on threshing floors. During the night, hares make a deep, visible trail in the snow. Hares are hunted by people, dogs, wolves, foxes, crows, and eagles. If the hare had walked simply and straightly, then in the morning he would have been found by the trail and caught; but the hare is cowardly, and cowardice saves him.

The hare walks through fields and forests at night without fear and makes straight tracks; but as soon as morning comes, his enemies wake up: the hare begins to hear the barking of dogs, the screeching of sleighs, the voices of men, the crackling of a wolf in the forest, and begins to rush from side to side out of fear. He will gallop forward, get scared of something and run back in his tracks. If he hears something else, he will jump to the side with all his might and gallop away from the previous trail. Again something knocks - again the hare turns back and again jumps to the side. When it becomes light, he will lie down.

The next morning, the hunters begin to disassemble the hare's trail, get confused by the double tracks and distant jumps, and are surprised at the hare's cunning. But the hare didn’t even think of being cunning. He's just afraid of everything.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “The Owl and the Hare”

It got dark. The owls began to fly in the forest along the ravine, looking out for prey.

A big hare jumped out into the clearing and began to preen himself. The old owl looked at the hare and sat down on a branch, and the young owl said:

- Why don’t you catch the hare?

The old one says:

- It’s beyond your strength - the Russian is a great man: you cling to him, and he will drag you into the thicket.

And the young owl says:

“And I’ll grab hold of the tree with one paw and quickly hold on to the tree with the other.”

And the young owl set off after the hare, grabbed its back with its paw so that all its claws were gone, and prepared its other paw to cling to the tree. As the hare dragged the owl, she clung to the tree with her other paw and thought: “He won’t leave.”

The hare rushed and tore the owl apart. One paw remained on the tree, the other on the hare's back.

The next year, the hunter killed this hare and was amazed that it had overgrown owl claws in its back.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Bulka"

An officer's story

I had a little face... Her name was Bulka. She was all black, only the tips of her front paws were white.

Everyone has little faces lower jaw longer than the upper one and the upper teeth extend beyond the lower ones; but Bulka’s lower jaw protruded forward so much that a finger could be placed between the lower and upper teeth. Bulka's face was wide; the eyes are large, black and shiny; and white teeth and fangs always stuck out. He looked like a blackamoor. Bulka was quiet and did not bite, but he was very strong and tenacious. When he would cling to something, he would clench his teeth and hang like a rag, and, like a tick, he could not be torn off.

Once they let him attack a bear, and he grabbed the bear’s ear and hung like a leech. The bear beat him with his paws, pressed him to himself, threw him from side to side, but could not tear him away and fell on his head to crush Bulka; but Bulka held on to it until they poured cold water on him.

I took him as a puppy and raised him myself. When I went to serve in the Caucasus, I didn’t want to take him and left him quietly, and ordered him to be locked up. At the first station, I was about to board another transfer station, when suddenly I saw something black and shiny rolling along the road. It was Bulka in his copper collar. He flew at full speed towards the station. He rushed towards me, licked my hand and stretched out in the shadows under the cart. His tongue stuck out the entire palm of his hand. He then pulled it back, swallowing drool, then again stuck it out to the whole palm. He was in a hurry, did not have time to breathe, his sides were jumping. He turned from side to side and tapped his tail on the ground.

I found out later that after me he broke through the frame and jumped out of the window and, right in my wake, galloped along the road and rode like that for twenty miles in the heat.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Bulka and the Boar"

Once in the Caucasus we went boar hunting, and Bulka came running with me. As soon as the hounds started driving, Bulka rushed towards their voice and disappeared into the forest. This was in November: wild boars and pigs are very fat then.

In the Caucasus, in the forests where wild boars live, there are many delicious fruits: wild grapes, cones, apples, pears, blackberries, acorns, blackthorns. And when all these fruits are ripe and touched by frost, the wild boars eat up and grow fat.

At that time, the boar is so fat that it cannot run under the dogs for long. When they have been chasing him for two hours, he gets stuck in a thicket and stops. Then the hunters run to the place where he stands and shoot. You can tell by the barking of dogs whether a boar has stopped or is running. If he runs, the dogs bark and squeal, as if they are being beaten; and if he stands, then they bark as if at a person and howl.

During this hunt I ran through the forest for a long time, but not once did I manage to cross the path of the boar. Finally, I heard the prolonged barking and howling of hound dogs and ran to that place. I was already close to the wild boar. I could already hear more frequent crackling sounds. It was a boar with dogs tossing and turning. But you could hear from the barking that they did not take him, but only circled around him. Suddenly I heard something rustling from behind and saw Bulka. He apparently lost the hounds in the forest and got confused, and now he heard their barking and, just like me, he rolled in that direction as fast as he could. He ran across the clearing, through the tall grass, and all I could see from him was his black head and his tongue bitten between his white teeth. I called out to him, but he did not look back, overtook me and disappeared into the thicket. I ran after him, but the further I walked, the more dense the forest became. Twigs knocked my hat off, hit me in the face, thorn needles clung to my dress. I was already close to barking, but I couldn’t see anything.

Suddenly I heard the dogs bark louder, something crackled loudly, and the boar began to puff and wheeze. I thought that now Bulka had gotten to him and was messing with him. With all my strength I ran through the thicket to that place. In the deepest thicket I saw a motley hound dog. She barked and howled in one place, and three steps away from her something was fussing and turning black.

When I moved closer, I examined the boar and heard Bulka squeal piercingly. The boar grunted and leaned towards the hound - the hound tucked its tail and jumped away. I could see the side of the boar and its head. I aimed at the side and fired. I saw that I got it. The boar grunted and rattled away from me more often. The dogs squealed and barked after him, and I rushed after them more often. Suddenly, almost under my feet, I saw and heard something. It was Bulka. He lay on his side and screamed. There was a pool of blood underneath him. I thought, “The dog is missing”; but I had no time for him now, I pressed on. Soon I saw a wild boar. The dogs grabbed him from behind, and he turned to one side or the other. When the boar saw me, he poked his head towards me. I shot another time, almost point-blank, so that the bristles on the boar caught fire, and the boar wheezed, staggered, and the whole carcass slammed heavily to the ground.

When I approached, the boar was already dead and was only heaving and twitching here and there. But the dogs, bristling, some tore at his belly and legs, while others lapped up the blood from the wound.

Then I remembered about Bulka and went to look for him. He crawled towards me and moaned. I walked up to him, sat down and looked at his wound. His stomach was torn open, and a whole lump of intestines from his stomach was dragging along the dry leaves. When my comrades came to me, we set Bulka’s intestines and sewed up his stomach. While they were stitching up my stomach and piercing the skin, he kept licking my hands.

They tied the boar to the horse's tail to take it out of the forest, and they put Bulka on the horse and brought him home.

Bulka was ill for six weeks and recovered.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Milton and Bulka"

I got myself a pointing dog for pheasants.

This dog's name was Milton: she was tall, thin, speckled gray, with long wings and ears, and very strong and smart.

They didn’t fight with Bulka. Not a single dog ever snapped at Bulka. Sometimes he would just show his teeth, and the dogs would tuck their tails and move away.

Once I went with Milton to buy pheasants. Suddenly Bulka ran after me into the forest. I wanted to drive him away, but I couldn’t. And it was a long way to go home to take him. I thought that he would not disturb me, and moved on; but as soon as Milton smelled a pheasant in the grass and began to look, Bulka rushed forward and began poking around in all directions. He tried before Milton to raise a pheasant. He heard something in the grass, jumped and spun; but his instincts were bad, and he could not find the trail alone, but looked at Milton and ran to where Milton was going. As soon as Milton sets off on the trail, Bulka runs ahead. I recalled Bulka, beat him, but could not do anything with him. As soon as Milton began to search, he rushed forward and interfered with him. I wanted to go home because I thought that my hunt was ruined, but Milton came up with a better idea than me how to deceive Bulka. This is what he did: as soon as Bulka runs ahead of him, Milton will leave the trail, turn in the other direction and pretend that he is looking. Bulka will rush to where Milton pointed, and Milton will look back at me, wave his tail and follow the real trail again. Bulka again runs to Milton, runs ahead, and again Milton will deliberately take ten steps to the side, deceive Bulka and again lead me straight. So throughout the hunt he deceived Bulka and did not let him ruin the matter.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “Turtle”

Once I went hunting with Milton. Near the forest he began to search, stretched out his tail, raised his ears and began to sniff. I prepared my gun and went after him. I thought he was looking for partridge, pheasant or hare. But Milton did not go into the forest, but into the field. I followed him and looked ahead. Suddenly I saw what he was looking for. A small turtle, the size of a hat, ran ahead of him. The bare dark gray head on a long neck was stretched out like a pestle; the turtle moved its bare paws widely, and its back was completely covered with bark.

When she saw the dog, she hid her legs and head and sank down on the grass, so that only one shell was visible. Milton grabbed it and began to gnaw it, but could not bite through it, because the turtle has the same shell on its belly as on its back. Only in front, behind and on the sides there are openings where it allows the head, legs and tail to pass through.

I took the turtle away from Milton and looked at how its back was painted, and what kind of shell it was, and how it hid there. When you hold it in your hands and look under the shell, it’s only inside, like in a basement, that you see something black and alive.

I threw the turtle on the grass and moved on, but Milton did not want to leave it, but carried it in his teeth after me. Suddenly Milton squealed and let her go. The turtle in his mouth released its paw and scratched at his mouth. He got so angry with her for this that he started barking and again grabbed her and carried her after me. I again ordered to quit, but Milton did not listen to me. Then I took the turtle from him and threw it away. But he didn't leave her. He began to hurry with his paws to dig a hole next to her. And when he dug a hole, he threw the turtle into the hole with his paws and buried it with earth.

Turtles live both on land and in water, like snakes and frogs. They hatch children with eggs, and they lay the eggs on the ground and do not hatch them, but the eggs themselves, like fish eggs, burst and hatch turtles. Turtles are small, no larger than a saucer, and large, three arshins in length and weighing twenty pounds. Large turtles live in the seas.

One turtle lays hundreds of eggs in the spring. A turtle's shell is its ribs. Only humans and other animals have separate ribs, but a turtle’s ribs are fused into a shell. The main thing is that all animals have ribs inside, under the meat, but a turtle has ribs on top, and the meat under them.

Nikolai Ivanovich Sladkov

Day and night, rustling sounds are heard in the forest. These are the trees, bushes and flowers whispering. Birds and animals chatter. Even fish say words. You just need to be able to hear.

They will not reveal their secrets to the indifferent and indifferent. But they will tell the inquisitive and patient everything about themselves.

In winter and summer, rustling sounds are heard,

In winter and summer, conversations do not stop.

Day and night...

Nikolai Ivanovich Sladkov “Forest Strongmen”

The first drop of rain hit and the competition began.

Three competed: boletus mushroom, boletus mushroom and moss mushroom.

The boletus was the first to squeeze out the weight. He picked up a birch leaf and a snail.

The second number was the boletus mushroom. He picked up three aspen leaves and a frog.

Mokhovik was third. He got excited and boasted. He parted the moss with his head, crawled under a thick twig and began to squeeze. I stung, stung, stung, stung, but I didn’t squeeze it out. As soon as he split his hat in two, he looked like he had a harelip.

The winner was the boletus.

His reward is the scarlet hat of the champion.

Nikolai Ivanovich Sladkov “Songs under the ice”

This happened in winter. My skis started singing! I was skiing across the lake, and the skis were singing. They sang well, like birds.

And there is snow and frost all around. Nostrils stick together and teeth freeze.

The forest is silent, the lake is silent. The roosters in the village are silent. And the skis sing!

And their song is like a stream, it flows and rings. But it’s not the skis that really sing, even the wooden ones! Someone is singing under the ice, right under my feet.

If I had left then, the under-ice song would have remained a wonderful forest mystery. But I didn't leave...

I lay down on the ice and hung my head into the black hole.

Over the winter, the water in the lake dried out, and the ice hung over the water like an azure ceiling. Where it hung, and where it collapsed, and steam curled from the dark holes. But it’s not the fish that sing there with bird voices, is it? Maybe there really is a stream there? Or maybe icicles born from steam are ringing?

And the song rings. She is alive and clean; Neither the stream, nor the fish, nor the icicles can sing like this. Only one creature in the world can sing like this - a bird...

I hit the ice with my ski and the song stopped. I stood quietly - the song began to ring again.

Then I hit the ice with my ski as hard as I could. And now a miracle bird flew out of the dark basement. She sat down on the edge of the hole and bowed to me three times.

- Hello, ice songster!

The bird nodded again and sang an under-ice song in plain sight.

- But I know you! - I said. - You are a dipper - a water sparrow!

Dipper did not answer: he only knew how to bow and curtsy politely. Again he slipped under the ice, and his song thundered from there. So what if it's winter? There is no wind or frost under the ice. Under the ice black water and a mysterious green twilight. There, if you whistle louder, everything will ring: the echo will rush, hitting the icy ceiling, hung with ringing icicles. Why shouldn't the dipper sing?

Why shouldn’t we listen to him!

Valentin Dmitrievich Berestov “Honest caterpillar”

The caterpillar considered itself very beautiful and did not let a single drop of dew pass without looking at it.

- How good I am! - the Caterpillar rejoiced, looking with pleasure at its flat face and arching its furry back to see two golden stripes on it. “It’s a pity that no one, no one notices this.”

But one day she got lucky. A girl walked through the meadow and picked flowers. The caterpillar climbed to the very top beautiful flower and began to wait. And the girl saw her and said:

- That's disgusting! It's disgusting to even look at you!

- Ah well! - the Caterpillar got angry. “Then I give my honest caterpillar word that no one will ever, anywhere, for anything, under any circumstances, under any circumstances, see me again!”

You gave your word - you need to keep it, even if you are a Caterpillar.

And the Caterpillar crawled up the tree. From trunk to branch, from branch to branch, from branch to branch, from branch to twig, from twig to leaf. She took out a silk thread from her abdomen and began to wrap herself around it.

She worked for a long time and finally made a cocoon.

- Phew, how tired I am! - the Caterpillar sighed. - I'm completely exhausted.

It was warm and dark in the cocoon, there was nothing more to do, and the Caterpillar fell asleep.

She woke up because her back was itching terribly. Then the Caterpillar began to rub against the walls of the cocoon. She rubbed and rubbed, rubbed right through them and fell out. But she fell somehow strangely - not down, but up.

And then the Caterpillar saw the same girl in the same meadow.

"Horrible! - thought the Caterpillar. “I may not be beautiful, it’s not my fault, but now everyone will know that I’m also a liar.” I gave an honest assurance that no one would see me, and I didn’t keep it. A shame!"

And the Caterpillar fell into the grass.

And the girl saw her and said:

- Such a beauty!

“So trust people,” grumbled the Caterpillar. “Today they say one thing, and tomorrow they say something completely different.”

Just in case, she looked into the dew drop. What's happened? In front of her is an unfamiliar face with a long, very long mustache. The caterpillar tried to arch its back and saw that large multi-colored wings appeared on its back.

- Oh, that's it! - she guessed. - A miracle happened to me. The most ordinary miracle: I became a Butterfly! This happens.

And she merrily circled over the meadow, because she did not give the butterfly’s honest word that no one would ever see her.