Stories about nature. Composition on the theme “Nature. G. Skrebitsky "In the forest clearing"

Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He also noticed me, curled up and mumbled: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was moving in the distance. I touched him with the tip of my boot - he snorted terribly and pushed his needles into the boot.

- Oh, how are you with me! I said, and with the tip of my boot shoved him into the stream.

Instantly, the hedgehog turned around in the water and swam to the shore like a small pig, only instead of bristles on its back there were needles. I took a stick, rolled the hedgehog into my hat and carried it home. I had a lot of mice, I heard that the hedgehog catches them, and I decided: let him live with me and catch mice.

So I put this prickly lump in the middle of the floor and sat down to write, while I myself looked at the hedgehog out of the corner of my eye. He did not lie motionless for a long time: as soon as I calmed down at the table, the hedgehog turned around, looked around, tried to go there, here and finally chose a place under the bed and there it completely calmed down.

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 it was the moon that had risen in the forest: in the moonlight, hedgehogs like to run through the forest clearings. And so he started running around the room, imagining that it was a forest clearing.

I picked up the pipe, lit a cigarette and let a cloud near the moon. It became just like in the forest: the moon and the clouds, and my legs were like tree trunks and, probably, the hedgehog really liked it, he 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 hear some rustling in my room. He struck a match, lit a 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 I don’t sleep myself, thinking: “Why did the hedgehog need a newspaper?” Soon my tenant ran out from under the bed - and straight to the newspaper, spun around near it, made noise, noise, and finally managed: he somehow put a corner of the newspaper on the thorns and dragged it, huge, into the corner.

Then I understood him: the newspaper was like dry leaves in the forest, he dragged it for himself for a nest, and it turned out, it’s true: soon the hedgehog all turned into a newspaper and made a real nest out of it. Having finished this important business, he went out of his dwelling and stood opposite the bed, looking at the candle - the moon.

I let the clouds in and I ask:

– What else do you need?

The hedgehog was not afraid.

- Do you want to drink?

I wake up. The hedgehog does not run.

I took a plate, put it on the floor, brought a bucket of water, and now I pour water into the plate, then pour it into the bucket again, and I make such a noise as if it were a stream splashing.

“Well, go, go…” I say. “You see, I arranged for you the moon and the clouds, and here’s water for you ...

I look like I'm moving forward. And I also moved my lake a little towards it. He will move - and I will move, and so they agreed.

“Drink,” I say finally.

He began to cry.

And I so lightly ran my hand over the thorns, as if stroking, and I keep saying:

- You're good, you're good!

The hedgehog got drunk, I say:

- Let's sleep.

Lie down and blow out the candle.

I don’t know how much I slept, I hear: again I have work in my room.

I light a candle - and what do you think? The hedgehog runs around the room, and he has an apple on his thorns.

He ran to the nest, put it there and after another runs into the corner, and in the corner there was a bag of apples and collapsed. Here the hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and runs again - on the thorns he drags another apple into the nest.

And so the hedgehog got a job with me. And now, like drinking tea, I will certainly put it on my table and either I will pour milk into a saucer for him - he will drink it, then I will eat the ladies' buns.

I am surprised at crayfish - how much, it seems, they have too much messed up: how many legs, what mustaches, what claws, and they walk with their tail forward, and the tail is called the neck. But what amazed me most in childhood was that when the crayfish were collected in a bucket, they began to whisper among themselves. Here they are whispering, here they are whispering, but you won’t understand what.

And when they say: “Crayfish whispered,” it means that they died, and all their crayfish life went into a whisper.

In our river Vertushinka earlier, in my time, there were more crayfish than fish. And then one day Grandma Domna Ivanovna and her granddaughter Zinochka came to visit us at Vertushinka for crayfish. Grandmother and granddaughter came to us in the evening, rested a little - and went to the river. There they placed their crayfish nets. These crayfish nets do everything ourselves: a willow twig is bent in a circle, the circle is covered with a net from an old net, a piece of meat or something is placed on the net, and best of all, a piece of a frog fried and steamed for crayfish. Nets are lowered to the bottom. Smelling the smell of a fried frog, the crayfish crawl out of the coastal caves and crawl onto the nets.

From time to time, the nets are pulled up by the ropes, the crayfish are removed and lowered again.

It's simple stuff. All night the grandmother and granddaughter pulled out crayfish, caught a whole large basket and in the morning gathered back, ten miles away to their village. The sun has risen, the grandmother and granddaughter are walking, steamed up, exhausted. They are no longer up to crayfish, just to get home.

“Crayfish would not have whispered,” said grandmother.

Zinochka listened.

The crayfish in the basket whispered behind Grandma's back.

What are they whispering about? Zinochka asked.

- Before death, granddaughter, they say goodbye to each other.

And the crayfish at this time did not whisper at all. They only rubbed against each other with rough bone barrels, claws, antennae, necks, and from this it seemed to people that a whisper was coming from them. The crayfish were not going to die, but they wanted to live. Each crayfish put all its legs into action in order to find a hole at least somewhere, and the hole was found in the basket, just to large cancer climb through. One big crayfish crawled out, after it the smaller ones jokingly got out, and it went, and it went: from the basket - to my grandmother's katsaveyka, from the katsaveyka - to the skirt, from the skirt - to the path, from the path - into the grass, and from the grass a river is within easy reach.

The sun burns and burns. Grandmother and granddaughter go and go, and the crayfish crawl and crawl.

Domna Ivanovna and Zinochka come up to the village. Suddenly, the grandmother stopped, listened to what was happening in the basket at the crayfish, and did not hear anything. And that the basket had become light, she didn’t even know: without sleeping the night, the old woman left so much that she couldn’t even feel her shoulders.

“Crayfish, granddaughter,” said the grandmother, “they must have been whispering.

- Are you dead? the girl asked.

“They fell asleep,” answered the grandmother, “they don’t whisper anymore.”

They came to the hut, the grandmother took off the basket, picked up the rag:

- Fathers, dear ones, but where are the crabs?

Zinochka looked in - the basket was empty.

The grandmother looked at her granddaughter - and only spread her hands.

“Here they are, crayfish,” she said, “whispering!” I thought - they are with each other before death, and they said goodbye to us, fools.

To portray the vibrant world of nature for the youngest readers, many writers turned to such a genre of literature as a fairy tale. Even in many folk tales the main characters are natural phenomena, forest, frost, snow, water, plants. These Russian fairy tales about nature are very fascinating and informative, they talk about the change of seasons, the sun, the moon, various animals. It is worth recalling the most famous of them: "The winter hut of animals", "Sister Chanterelle and Gray wolf", "Mitten", "Teremok", "Kolobok". Tales about nature were also composed by many Russians and it is worth noting such authors as K. Paustovsky, K. Ushinsky, V. Bianki, D. Mamin-Sibiryak, M. Prishvin, N. Sladkov, I. Sokolov-Mikitov, E. Permyak Fairy tales about nature teach children to love the world around them, to be attentive and observant.

The magic of the surrounding world in the fairy tales of D. Ushinsky

The Russian writer D. Ushinsky, like a talented artist, wrote fairy tales about natural phenomena, different seasons. Children from these small works will learn about how the stream rustles, clouds float and birds sing. The most famous tales of the writer: "The Raven and the Magpie", "Woodpecker", "Goose and Crane", "Horse", "Bishka", "Wind and Sun", as well as a huge number of stories. Ushinsky skillfully uses animals and nature to reveal to young readers such concepts as greed, nobility, betrayal, stubbornness, cunning. These fairy tales are very kind, they are recommended to be read to children before going to bed. Ushinsky's books are very well illustrated.

Creations by D. Mamin-Sibiryak for children

Man and nature are very actual problem For modern world. Mamin-Sibiryak devoted many works to this topic, but the collection "Alyonushka's Tales" should be especially singled out. The writer himself raised and cared for a sick daughter, and this interesting collection was intended for her. In these fairy tales, children will get acquainted with Komar Komarovich, Ersh Ershovich, Shaggy Misha, Brave Hare. From these entertaining works, children learn about the life of animals, insects, birds, fish, plants. Since childhood, almost everyone has been familiar with a very touching cartoon filmed based on the fairy tale of the same name by Mamin-Sibiryak "The Gray Neck".

M. Prishvin and nature

Short tales about the nature of Prishvin are very kind and fascinating, they tell about the habits of forest inhabitants, about the grandeur and beauty of their native places. Little readers will learn about the rustle of leaves, forest smells, the murmur of a stream. All these stories end well, evoke in readers a feeling of empathy for the smaller brothers and a desire to help them. The most famous stories: "Pantry of the sun", "Khromka", "Hedgehog".

Tales of V. Bianchi

Russian fairy tales and stories about plants and animals are presented by another wonderful writer - Vitaly Bianchi. His fairy tales teach children to unravel the mysteries of the life of birds and animals. Many of them are intended for the youngest readers: "The Fox and the Mouse", "Cuckoo", "Golden Heart", "Orange Neck", "First Hunt" and many others. Bianchi knew how to observe the life of nature through the eyes of children. Some of his tales about nature are endowed with tragedy or humor, they contain lyrical meditation and poetry.

Forest fairy tales by Nikolai Sladkov

Nikolai Ivanovich Sladkov wrote more than 60, he was also the author of the radio program "News from the Forest". The heroes of his books are kind, funny little animals. Each story is very sweet and kind, tells about funny habits and Little readers will learn from them that animals can also worry and grieve, as they store food for the winter. Sladkov's favorite fairy tales: "Forest Rustles", "Badger and Bear", "Polite Jackdaw", "Hare Dance", "Desperate Hare".

Pantry of fairy tales by E. Permyak

Fairy tales about nature were composed by the famous playwright and writer Yevgeny Andreevich Permyak. They are representatives of the golden fund. These small works teach children to be hardworking, honest, responsible, to believe in themselves and their strengths. It is necessary to highlight the most famous tales of Evgeny Andreevich: " Birch Grove", "Smorodinka", "How Fire Married Water", "The First Fish", "About a Hasty Tit and a Patient Tit", "Ugly Christmas Tree". Permyak's books were very colorfully illustrated by the most famous Russian artists.

M.M. Prishvin

Mikhail Prishvin did not at all think of purposefully writing works for children. He just lived in the village and was surrounded by all this natural beauty, something constantly happened around him and these events formed the basis of his stories about nature, about animals, about children and their relationship with the outside world. The stories are small and easy to read despite the fact that the author is far from our contemporary. On this page of our library you can read the stories of M. Prishvin. We read Prishvin online.

M.M. Prishvin

Stories about animals, about nature

Hedgehog

Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He also noticed me, curled up and mumbled: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was moving in the distance. I touched him with the tip of my boot - he snorted terribly and pushed his needles into the boot.

Ah, you are so with me! - I said and pushed him into the stream with the tip of my boot.

Instantly, the hedgehog turned around in the water and swam to the shore like a small pig, only instead of bristles on its back there were needles. I took a stick, rolled the hedgehog into my hat and carried it home.

I have had many mice. I heard - the hedgehog catches them, and 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 myself looked at the hedgehog out of the corner of my eye. He did not lie motionless for a long time: as soon as I calmed down at the table, the hedgehog turned around, looked around, tried to go there, here, finally chose a place for himself under the bed and there it completely calmed down.

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 it was the moon that had risen in the forest: in the moonlight, hedgehogs like to run through the forest clearings.

And so he started running around the room, imagining that it was a forest clearing.

I picked up the pipe, lit a cigarette and let a cloud near the moon. It became just like in the forest: both the moon and the cloud, and my legs were like tree trunks and, probably, the hedgehog really liked it: he darted between them, sniffing and scratching the backs of my boots with needles.

After reading the newspaper, I dropped it on the floor, went to bed and fell asleep.

I always sleep very lightly. I hear some rustling in my room. He struck a match, lit a 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 I myself do not sleep, thinking:

Why did the hedgehog need a newspaper?

Soon my tenant ran out from under the bed - and straight to the newspaper; he whirled around beside her, made a noise, and made a noise, finally contrived: somehow he put a corner of the newspaper on the thorns and dragged it, huge, into the corner.

Then I understood him: the newspaper was like dry leaves in the forest, he dragged it to himself for a nest. And it turned out to be true: soon the hedgehog all turned into a newspaper and made a real nest out of it. Having finished this important business, he went out of his dwelling and stood opposite the bed, looking at the candle-moon.

I let the clouds in and I ask:

What else do you need? The hedgehog was not afraid.

Do you want to drink?

I wake up. The hedgehog does not 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 were a brook splashing.

Come on, come on, I say. - You see, I arranged the moon for you, and let the clouds go, and here is water for you ...

I look like I'm moving forward. And I also moved my lake a little towards it. He will move, and I will move, and so they agreed.

Drink, - I say finally. He began to cry. And I so lightly ran my hand over the thorns, as if stroking, and I keep saying:

You are good, little one!

The hedgehog got drunk, I say:

Let's sleep. Lie down and blow out the candle.

I don’t know how much I slept, I hear: again I have work in my room.

I light a candle and what do you think? The hedgehog runs around the room, and he has an apple on his thorns. He ran to the nest, put it there and after another runs into the corner, and in the corner there was a bag of apples and collapsed. Here the hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and runs again, on the thorns he drags another apple into the nest.

And so the hedgehog got a job with me. And now I, like drinking tea, will certainly put it on my table and either I will pour milk into a saucer for him - he will drink it, then I will eat the ladies' buns.

birch bark tube

I found an amazing birch bark tube. When a person cuts a piece of birch bark for himself on a birch, the rest of the birch bark near the cut begins to curl up into a tube. The tube will dry out, 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, stuck so tightly that I could hardly push it out with a stick. There was no hazel around the birch. How did he get there?

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

But later I guessed that it was not a squirrel, but a nutlet bird stuck a nut, maybe stealing from a squirrel's nest.

Looking at my birch bark tube, I made another discovery: I settled under the cover of a nut - who would have thought! - the spider and the entire inside of the tube tightened with its cobweb.

Chanterelle bread

Once I walked in the forest all day and returned home in the evening with rich booty. He took off his heavy bag from his shoulders and began to spread his belongings on the table.

What is this bird? - asked Zinochka.

Terenty, I replied.

And he told her about the black grouse: how he lives in the forest, how he mumbles in the spring, how he pecks at birch buds, picks berries in the swamps in autumn, warms himself from the wind under the snow in winter. He also told her about the hazel grouse, showed her that he was grey, with a tuft, and whistled into a pipe in a hazel grouse and let her whistle. I also poured a lot of white mushrooms on the table, both red and black. I also had a bloody boneberry in my pocket, and blueberries, and red lingonberries. I also brought with me a fragrant lump of pine resin, gave the girl a sniff and said that trees are treated with this resin.

Who is treating them? - asked Zinochka.

Healing himself, I replied. - It happens that a hunter will come, he wants to rest, he will stick an ax into a tree and hang a bag on an ax, and he will lie down under a tree. Sleep, rest. He will take out an ax from a tree, put on a bag, and leave. And from the wound from the ax made of wood, this fragrant tar will run and this wound will be tightened.

Also on purpose for Zinochka, I brought various wonderful herbs by leaf, by root, by flower: cuckoo's tears, valerian, Peter's cross, hare cabbage. And just under hare cabbage I had a piece of black bread lying with me: 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 is surprising here? After all, there is cabbage there!

Hare…

And the bread is chanterelle. Taste. Carefully tasted and began to eat:

Good fox bread!

And ate all my black bread clean. And so it went with us: Zinochka, such a copula, often doesn’t even take white bread, but when I bring fox bread from the forest, she always eats it all and praises:

Chanterelle's bread is much better than ours!

Guys and ducks

A little wild duck, the whistling teal, finally decided to transfer 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 be found only three miles away, on a hummock, in a swamp forest. And when the water subsided, I had to travel all three miles to the lake.

In places open to the eyes of a man, a fox and a hawk, the mother walked behind, so as not to let the ducklings out of sight even for a minute. And near the forge, when crossing the road, she, of course, let them go ahead. Here the guys saw them and threw their hats. All the while they were catching the ducklings, the mother ran after them with her beak open or flew several steps in different directions in the greatest excitement. The guys were just about to throw their hats on their mother and catch her like ducklings, but then I approached.

What will you do with ducklings? I asked the guys sternly.

They got scared and answered:

That's something "let's go"! I said very angrily. Why did you have to catch them? Where is mother now?

And there he sits! - the guys answered in unison.

And they pointed me to a close mound of a fallow field, where the duck really sat with its mouth open from excitement.

Quickly, - I ordered the guys, - go and return all the ducklings to her!

They even seemed to rejoice at my order, and ran straight up the hill with the ducklings. The mother flew off a little and, when the guys left, she rushed to save her sons and daughters. In her own way, she said something quickly to them and ran to the oat field. Ducklings ran after her - five pieces. And so through the oat field, bypassing the village, the family continued their journey to the lake.

Joyfully, I took off my hat and, waving it, shouted:

Happy travels, ducklings!

The guys laughed at me.

What are you laughing at, fools? - I said to the guys. - Do you think it's so easy for ducklings to get into the lake? Quickly take off all your hats, shout "goodbye"!

And the same hats, dusty on the road while catching ducklings, rose into the air, the guys all shouted at once:

Goodbye, ducklings!

forest doctor

We wandered in the spring in the forest 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, we were told, cutting firewood from deadwood for a glass factory. We were afraid for our tree, hurried to the sound of the saw, but it was too late: our aspen lay, and around its stump there were many empty fir cones. All this woodpecker peeled off during the long winter, collected, wore on this aspen, laid between two branches of his workshop and hollowed. Near the stump, on our cut aspen, two boys were resting. These two boys were only engaged in sawing the forest.

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

The woodpecker made holes, - the guys answered. - We looked and, of course, sawed off. It will still disappear.

They all began to examine the tree together. It was quite fresh, and only in a small space, no more than a meter in length, did a worm pass through the trunk. The woodpecker, obviously, listened to the aspen like a doctor: he tapped it with his beak, understood the void left by the worm, and proceeded with 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 flute with valves. Seven holes were made by the “surgeon” and only on the eighth he captured the worm, pulled out and saved the aspen.

We carved this piece as a wonderful exhibit for the museum.

You see, - we told the guys, - a woodpecker is a forest doctor, he saved the aspen, and she would live and live, and you cut her off.

The boys marveled.

golden meadow

My brother and I, when dandelions ripen, had constant fun with them. We used to go somewhere to our trade - he was ahead, I was in the heel.

Seryozha! - I will call him busily. He'll look back, and I'll blow a dandelion right in his face. For this, he begins to watch for me and, as you gape, he also fuknet. And so we plucked these uninteresting flowers just for fun. But once I managed to make a discovery.

We lived in the village, in front of the window we had a meadow, all golden from many blooming dandelions. It was very beautiful. Everyone said: Very beautiful! The meadow is golden.

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 he squeezed his petals, as if your fingers were yellow on the side of your palm and, clenched into a fist, we would close the yellow. In the morning, when the sun rose, I saw dandelions open their palms, and from this the meadow became golden again.

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

The earth appeared

Comp. part of the chapter "Spring" of the book "Calendar of Nature"

For three days there was no frost, and the fog worked invisibly over the snow. Petya said:

Come out, dad, look, listen how nicely the oatmeal sings.

I went out and listened - really, really well - and the breeze is so gentle. The road became quite red and humpbacked.

It seemed as if someone was running after the spring for a long time, catching up and, finally, touched her, and she stopped and thought ... Cocks crowed from all sides. Blue forests began to appear from the fog.

Petya peered into the thinning fog and, noticing something dark in the field, shouted:

Look, the earth has appeared!

He ran into the house, and I could hear him shouting there:

Lyova, go and look quickly, the earth has appeared!

The mother could not stand it either, she went out, shielding her eyes from the light with her palm:

Where did the land appear?

Petya stood in front and pointed to the snowy distance, like Columbus in the sea, and repeated:

Earth, earth!

Upstart

Our hunting dog, Laika, came to us from the banks of the Biya, and in honor of this Siberian river we named it the Biya. But soon this Biya for some reason turned into Biyushka, everyone began to call Biyushka Vyushka.

We did not hunt much with her, but she served us well as a watchman. You will go hunting, and be sure: Vyushka will not let someone else in.

This Vyushka is a cheerful dog, everyone likes it: ears like horns, a tail with a ring, white teeth like garlic. She got two bones from dinner. Receiving a gift, Vyushka unfolded the ring of her tail and lowered it down with a log. This for her meant anxiety and the beginning of the vigilance necessary for protection - it is known that in nature there are many hunters on bones. With her tail down, Vyushka went out onto the grass-ant and took up one bone, while she put the other next to her.

Then, out of nowhere, magpies: lope, lope! - and to the very nose of the dog. When Vyushka turned her head to one - grab it! Another magpie on the other side grab! - and took away the bone.

It was late autumn, and the magpies hatching this summer were quite mature. They stayed here with the whole brood, in seven pieces, and from their parents they learned all the secrets of theft. Very quickly they pecked at the stolen bone and, without thinking twice, were going to take the second one from the dog.

They say that the family has its black sheep, the same happened in the magpie family. Of the seven, forty-one came out not exactly stupid, but somehow with a leap and with pollen in her head. Now it was the same: all six magpies launched a correct attack, in a large semicircle, looking at each other, and only one Upstart galloped foolishly.

Tra-ta-ta-ta-ta! - all the magpies chirped.

This meant to them:

Jump back, jump as it should, as the entire magpie society needs!

Tra-la-la-la-la! - answered the Upstart.

This meant to her:

Download as it should, and I - as I myself want.

So, at her own peril and risk, Upstart jumped up to Vyushka herself in the expectation that Vyushka, stupid, would rush at her, throw away the bone, but she would contrive and take the bone away.

Vyushka, however, understood the Upstart’s plan well and not only did not rush at her, but, noticing the Upstart with a slanting eye, she freed the bone and looked in the opposite direction, where six smart magpies were advancing in a regular semicircle, as if unwillingly - lope and think.

That moment, when View turned her head away, Upstart took advantage of her attack. She grabbed the bone and even managed to turn in the other direction, managed to hit the ground with her wings, raise dust from under the grass-ant. And if only one more moment to rise into the air, if only one moment! That's just, if only the magpie would rise, as Vyushka grabbed her by the tail and the bone fell out ...

The upstart escaped, but the entire rainbow long magpie tail remained in Vyushka's teeth and stuck out of her mouth like a long sharp dagger.

Has anyone seen a magpie without a tail? It is hard to even imagine what this brilliant, motley and agile egg thief turns into if her tail is cut off.

It happens that mischievous village boys will catch a horsefly, stick a long straw in his ass and let this large strong fly fly with such long tail- Terrible crap! Well, so, this is a fly with a tail, and here - a magpie without a tail; whoever was surprised at a fly with a tail will be even more surprised at a magpie without a tail. Then nothing of the magpie remains in this bird, and you will never recognize in it not only a magpie, but also some kind of bird: it is just a motley ball with a head.

Tailless Upstart sat down on the nearest tree, all the other six magpies flew towards her. And it was evident from all the chirping of the magpie, all the fuss, that there is no greater shame in the magpie's life than to lose a magpie's tail.

Chicken on poles

In the spring, the neighbors gave us four goose eggs, and we planted them in the nest of our black hen, called the Queen of Spades. Gone due days for incubation, and the Queen of Spades brought out four yellow geese. They squeaked and whistled in a completely different way than chickens, but the Queen of Spades, important, ruffled, did not want to notice anything and treated the goslings with the same motherly care as to chickens.

Spring passed, summer came, dandelions appeared everywhere. Young geese, if their necks are extended, become almost taller than their mother, but still follow her. Sometimes, however, the mother digs up the ground with her paws and calls the geese, and they take care of the dandelions, poke their noses and let the fluffs fly into the wind. Then the Queen of Spades begins to glance in their direction, as it seems to us, with some degree of suspicion. Sometimes, fluffy for hours, with a cluck, she digs, and at least they have something: they just whistle and peck at the green grass. It happens that the dog wants to go somewhere past her - where is it! He will throw himself at the dog and drive him away. And then he looks at the geese, sometimes he looks thoughtfully ...

We began to follow the chicken and wait for such an event - after which she would finally realize that her children did not even look like chickens at all and it was not worth it because of them, risking their lives, to rush to the dogs.

And then one day in our yard an event happened. A sunny June day, saturated with the aroma of flowers, has come. Suddenly the sun went dark and the rooster crowed.

Whoosh, whoosh! - the hen answered the rooster, calling her goslings under a canopy.

Fathers, what a cloud it finds! - shouted the housewives and rushed to save the hanging linen. Thunder roared, lightning flashed.

Whoosh, whoosh! - insisted the hen Queen of Spades.

And the young geese, lifting their necks high like four pillars, followed the hen under the shed. It was amazing for us to watch how, at the order of the hen, four decent, tall, like the hen itself, caterpillars formed into small things, crawled under the hen, and she, fluffing her feathers, spreading her wings over them, covered them and warmed them with her motherly warmth.

But the storm was short-lived. The cloud broke, went away, and the sun shone again over our little garden.

When it stopped pouring from the roofs and various birds began to sing, the goslings under the chicken heard this, and they, the young ones, of course, wanted to be free.

Free, free! they whistled.

Whoosh, whoosh! - answered the chicken. And that meant:

Sit for a while, it's still very fresh.

Here's another! - the goslings whistled. - Free, free! And suddenly they got up on their feet and lifted their necks, and the chicken rose, as if on four pillars, and swayed in the air high from the ground. It was from this time that everything ended for the Queen of Spades with the geese: she began to walk separately, and the geese separately; it was evident that only then did she understand everything, and for the second time she no longer wanted to get on the poles.

Inventor

In one swamp, on a hummock under a willow, wild mallard ducklings hatched. Shortly thereafter, their mother led them to the lake along a cow trail. I noticed them from afar, hid behind a tree, and the ducklings came up to my very feet. I took three of them for my upbringing, the remaining sixteen went on down the cow path.
I kept these black ducklings with me, and soon they all turned gray. After one of the gray ones came out a handsome multi-colored drake and two ducks, Dusya and Musya. We clipped their wings so that they would not fly away, and they lived in our yard with poultry: we had chickens and geese.

With the onset of a new spring, we made hummocks for our savages from all sorts of rubbish in the basement, as in a swamp, and nests on them. Dusya put sixteen eggs in her nest and began to hatch ducklings. Musya put fourteen, but did not 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 their eggs, and took care of them.

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

Swish-swish! - ducklings in the pond.

Quack-quack! - the duck answers them.

Swish-swish! - ducklings in the garden.

Quoh-quoh! - the chicken answers them.

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

"Swiss-swiss" - this means: "ours to ours."

And “quack-quack” means: “you are ducks, you are mallards, swim quickly!”

And they, of course, look over there to the pond.

Yours to yours!

Swim, swim!

And they float.

Quoh-quoh! - rests an important chicken on the shore.

They all swim and swim. They whistled, swam, joyfully accepted them into her family Dusya; according to Musa, they were her own nephews.

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

Rubbish, rubbish! answered the mallard.

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, black, with large duck noses; no one even looked at such a mother.

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

In the morning, when we were still sleeping, Dusya got out of the basket, walked around on the floor, screamed, called the ducklings to her. In thirty voices, whistlers answered her cry. To the duck cry of the wall of our house, made of sonorous pine forest responded in their own way. And yet, in this commotion, we separately heard the voice of one duckling.

Do you hear? I asked my guys. They listened.

We hear! they shouted.

And we went to the kitchen.

It turned out that Dusya was not alone on the floor. One duckling ran next to her, was very worried and whistled 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 began to guess about it, and then a new question arose: did the duckling itself come up with some way to get out of the basket after its mother, or did she accidentally touch it somehow with its wing and throw it away? I tied this duckling's leg with a ribbon and put it into the common herd.

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

On the floor, along with Dusya, a duckling with a bandaged paw was running.

All the ducklings, enclosed in the basket, whistled, rushed to freedom and could not do anything. This one got out. I said:

He came up with something.

He is an inventor! Leva shouted.

Then I decided to see how this “inventor” solves the most difficult task: to climb a sheer wall on his webbed duck feet. I got up the next morning before light, when both my children and ducklings were sleeping soundly. In the kitchen, I sat down near the light switch so that I could turn on the light immediately, when necessary, and examine the events in the back of the basket.

And then the window turned white. It began to get light.

Quack-quack! Dusya said.

Swish-swish! - answered the only duckling. And everything froze. The boys were sleeping, the ducklings were sleeping. The factory horn blew. The world has increased.

Quack-quack! Dusya repeated.

No one answered. I understood: the "inventor" now has no time - now, probably, he is solving his most difficult task. And I turned on the light.

Well, that's what I knew! The duck had not yet risen, 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, like bricks, climbed up on the mother's feathers, onto her back. When Dusya got up, she lifted him high, to the level with the edge of the basket.

A duckling, like a mouse, ran along her back to the edge - and somersault down! Following him, his mother also fell out on the floor, and the usual morning commotion began: screaming, whistling for the whole house.

Two days later, in the morning, three ducklings appeared on the floor at once, then five, and it went and went: as soon as Dusya grunts in the morning, all the ducklings on her back and then fall down.

And the first duck that paved the way for others, my children called the Inventor.

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; thrushes - even higher, on bushes; hollow birds - woodpecker, titmouse, owls - even higher; at different heights along the tree trunk and at the very top, predators settle: hawks and eagles.

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

Once, while hunting, we came to a clearing with dead birches. It often happens that birches grow to a certain age and dry up.

Another tree, having dried up, drops its bark on the ground, and therefore the uncovered wood soon rots and the whole tree falls; the bark of a birch does not fall; this resinous, white bark on the outside - birch bark - is an impenetrable case for a tree, and a dead tree stands for a long time, like a living one.

Even when the tree rots and the wood turns into dust, weighed down by moisture, in appearance White birch stands as if alive. But it is worth, however, to give such a tree a good push, when suddenly it will all break into heavy pieces and fall. Cutting down such trees is a very fun activity, but also dangerous: with a piece of wood, if you don’t dodge it, it can really hit you 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 high birch. Falling, in the air it broke into several pieces, and in one of them there was a hollow with a nest of a Gadget. Little chicks were not injured when the tree fell, only fell out of the hollow together with their nest. Naked chicks, covered with chicks, opened 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 bite to eat; they ate, swallowed and squeaked again.

Very soon parents arrived, titmouse, with white chubby cheeks and with worms in their mouths they sat on nearby trees.
- Hello, dear ones, - we told them, - a misfortune happened: we did not want this.

The Gadgets could not answer us, but, most importantly, they could not understand what had happened, where the tree had gone, where their children had disappeared.
They were not at all afraid of us, fluttering from branch to branch in great alarm.

Yes, here they are! We showed them the nest on the ground. - Here they are, listen how they squeak, what your name is!

Gadgets did not listen to anything, fussed, worried and did not want to go downstairs 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 squeaked, the parents squeaked, fluttered, but did not go down.

We guessed then that the birds are not like ours in skyscrapers, they cannot change floors: now it just seems to them that the whole floor with their chicks has disappeared.

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

It became a pity and funny: they are 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 the neighboring birch and placed our piece with the nest on it just at the same height as the destroyed floor. We did not have to wait long in ambush: in a few minutes, happy parents met their chicks.

Queen of Spades

A hen is invincible when she, neglecting danger, rushes to protect her chick. My Trumpeter had only to lightly press his jaws to destroy it, but the huge messenger, who knows how to stand up for himself in the fight against wolves, with his tail between his legs, runs into his kennel from an ordinary chicken.

We call our black mother hen for her extraordinary parental malice in protecting children, for her beak - a pike on her head - the Queen of Spades. Every spring we put her on the eggs of wild ducks (hunting), and she hatches and nurses ducklings for us instead of chickens. This year, it happened, we overlooked: the hatched ducklings prematurely fell into the cold dew, wet their navels and died, except for the only one. All of us noticed that this year the Queen of Spades was a hundred times angrier than usual.

How to understand it?

I don't think a chicken can be offended by the fact that ducklings turned out instead of chickens. And since the hen has sat on the eggs, overlooking it, then she has to sit, and she has to sit out, and then she has to nurse the chicks, she has to be protected from enemies, and she has to bring everything to the end. So she leads them and does not allow herself to even look at them with doubt: “Are these chickens?”

No, I think this spring the Queen of Spades was annoyed not by the deceit, but by the death of ducklings, and especially her concern for the life of the only duckling is understandable: everywhere parents worry about the child more when he is the only one ...

But my poor, poor Grashka!

This is a rook. With a broken wing, he came to my garden and began to get used to this wingless life on earth, terrible for a bird, and already began to run up to my call “Grashka”, when suddenly one day, in my absence, the Queen of Spades suspected him of an attempt on her duckling and drove him away. the limits of my garden, and he did not come to me after that.

What a rook! Good-natured, already elderly now, my cop Lada looks out of the door for hours, chooses a place where she could safely go from chicken to wind. And the Trumpeter, who knows how to fight wolves! He will never leave the kennel without checking with his sharp eye whether the path is free, whether there is a terrible black hen somewhere nearby.

But what can I say about dogs - I'm good myself! The other day I took my six-month-old puppy Travka out of the house for a walk and, as soon as I turned behind the barn, I looked: a duckling was standing in front of me. There was no chicken nearby, but I imagined her, and in horror that she would peck out Grass's most beautiful eye, I rushed to run, and how I rejoiced later - just think! - I was glad that I was saved from the chicken!

There was also a wonderful incident last year with this angry hen. At a time when we began to mow hay in the meadows on cool, light-twilight nights, I took it into my head to wash my Trumpeter a little and let him drive a fox or a hare in the forest. In a dense spruce forest, at the crossroads of two green paths, I gave free rein to the Trumpeter, and he immediately poked into the bush, drove the young hare out and, with a terrible roar, drove him along the green path. At this time, hares must not be killed, I was without a gun and was preparing for several hours to surrender to the enjoyment of music, the kindest for a hunter. But suddenly, somewhere near the village, the dog broke off, the rut stopped, and very soon the Trumpeter returned, very embarrassed, with his tail down, and there was blood on his bright spots (he is yellow-piebald in rouge).

Everyone knows that a wolf will not touch a dog when it is possible to pick up a sheep everywhere in the field. And if not a wolf, then why is the Trumpeter covered in blood and in such extraordinary embarrassment?

A funny thought came to my mind. It seemed to me that of all the hares, so timid everywhere, there was the only real and really brave one in the world who was ashamed to run away from the dog. "I'd rather die!" - thought my hare. And, turning himself right in the heel, he rushed at the Trumpeter. And when the huge dog saw that the hare was running at him, he rushed back in horror and ran, beside himself, more often and stripped his back to blood. So the hare drove Trumpeter to me.

Is it possible?

No! This could happen to a person.

Rabbits don't do that.

Along the same green path where the hare ran from the Trumpeter, I went down from the forest to the meadow and then I saw that the mowers, laughing, were talking animatedly and, seeing me, began to call more quickly to themselves, as all people call when the soul is full and you want ease it.

Gee!

Yes, what are those things?

Oh oh oh!

Gee! Gee!

And here are the things that came out. A young hare, flying out of the forest, rolled along the road to the barns, and after him the Trumpeter flew out and rushed at a stretch. It happened that in a clean place the Trumpeter caught up with our old hare, but it was very easy for him to catch up with the young one. Rusaks like to hide from the hounds near the villages, in the straw, in the barns. And the trumpeter overtook the hare near the barn. Queen of Spades Prishvin read The mowers saw how, at the turn to the barn, the Trumpeter had already opened his mouth to grab the bunny ...

The trumpeter would only have enough, but suddenly a large black chicken flies out of the barn at him - and right into his eyes. And he turns back and runs. And the Queen of Spades is on his back - and pecks and pecks him with her pike.

Gee!

And that's why the yellow-piebald in rouge on light spots had blood: the messenger was pecked by an ordinary hen.

sip of milk

Lada is sick. A cup of milk stood near her nose, she turned away. They called me.

Lada, - I said, - you need to eat.

She raised her head and beat with a rod. I petted her. From caress life played in her eyes.

Eat, Lada, - I repeated and moved the saucer closer.

She put her nose to the milk and began to bark.

So, through my caress, her strength increased. Maybe it was those few sips of milk that saved her life.

This stories about late autumn about the onset of winter. Stories about the last autumn days and the first winter days. Stories about the first snow, about the winter forest.

Air track. Author: N. I. Sladkov

The river froze over at night. And as if nothing had changed: as it was quiet and black, it remained quiet and black. Even the domestic ducks were deceived: with a quack they ran downhill, rushed on the run and rolled on the ice on their stomachs!

I walked along the shore and looked at the black ice. And in one place I noticed an incomprehensible white stripe- from the coast to the middle. How Milky Way in the night sky - from white dots-bubbles. When I pressed on the ice, the bubbles crawled under it, stirred, began to overflow. But why did the air bubbles run in such a narrow and long path?

The answer didn't come right away. Only on the third day, and in a completely different place, did I see an animal swimming under the ice: air bubbles marked its path! The air path was immediately explained. There was a muskrat hole under the shore; while diving, the muskrat “breathed” its amazing trail from the air!

It's time to sleep.

Grunting angrily, a fat badger hobbled into his hole. He is dissatisfied: damp in the forest, dirty. It's time to go deeper underground - to a dry, clean sandy lair. Time to fall asleep.

Little disheveled forest crows - kukshas - fought in the thicket. Flicker with a wet feather the color of coffee grounds. Shouting with sharp crow voices.

An old raven croaked muffledly from the top: he saw carrion in the distance. It flew, shining with the varnish of blue-black wings.

Quiet in the forest. Gray snow falls heavily on the blackened trees, on the brown earth. A leaf rots on the ground.

The snow is thicker, thicker. It went in big flakes, covered the black branches of trees, covered the ground ...

Whisper of snow. Author: I. D. Poluyanov

Snow is falling on the brown thickets of meadowsweet and green juniper with a bluish blue. Snow rustles, rustles, as if whispering, colliding in slow flight with tree branches. A rustle in the forest. The rustle of snowflakes. It merges into an incessant whisper, quiet and a little sad.

Each tree has its own way of meeting snow. Having smelled the needles like fur coats, the spruces stretch out towards the snowflakes the very tips of their heavy furry paws. Well, hello, hello ... Fly past! They make it clear: we are fine without you, snow, in winter!

Absent-mindedly, in detached thoughtfulness, the pines take on the snow, and it accumulates between the smoky needles. The mountain ash, from which the thrushes did not peck all the berries in autumn, shows a crimson frozen bunch: please, fall asleep, there is a snowball, one is left ... The birches lowered their flexible branches. Dry, sharp snow flies, barely touching them, and accumulates in the forks of branches. Snow falls and falls. And the birches do not move, the branches have dropped. They let us down, prompting: here ... here more rashes, cover our legs. Chill, cover them warmer!

And the young Christmas tree exposes all its paws to the snow. Like snow again. Surrenders, she looks at his spiky crystals. Snow whispers, and she whispers: good-sh-sho ... good!

Snowfall in the forest. Whispers in the forest. What do white snowflakes want to tell the world?

Les is listening. The fields are frozen and listening. In a lonely hut on a hillock, windows flashed - as if eyes were opened on a forest, on a field with hedges, stacks of straw. The hut is listening, her eyes are wide open; she will understand, old, with a rickety porch, what the snows whisper about!

Whisper, whisper... Snowflakes fall gently, gently on the fields and trees, on the blades of grass and on the roof of the hut. They go down and whisper. And I think I understand this whisper: if you touch the trees, grasses and the white roof of the hut, then you need to touch it as carefully as snowflakes in a soft winter snowfall.

Georgy Skrebitsky "Forest Echo"

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

Once my mother went to the forest for 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 that day, although more than fifty years have passed since then. It was summery and sunny and hot. But as soon as we approached the forest, a blue cloud suddenly ran up and a frequent heavy rain. And the sun kept on shining. 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 reflected and played in every drop.

No sooner had my mother and I stood under the tree than the sunny rain had already ended.

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

I looked. A rainbow stretched across the sky in a multicolored arc. One end of it rested on our village, and the other went far into the meadows beyond the river.

- Wow, great! - I said. - Just like a bridge. Here's a run through it!

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

We wandered through the glades near the tussocks and stumps and everywhere we found large ripe berries.

From the earth warmed by the sun after the rain there was a light steam. The air smelled of flowers, honey and strawberries. You will sniff this wonderful smell with your nose - as if you are taking a sip of some fragrant, sweet drink. And to make it even more like the truth, I plucked strawberries and put them not in a basket, but directly in my mouth.

I ran through the bushes, shaking off the last rain drops. Mom wandered right there nearby, and therefore I was not at all afraid to get lost in the forest.

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

Out of breath, I stopped and looked around. "Where is mom?" She was nowhere to be seen.

- Ay! 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 reply was heard: “Ay!”

I even shuddered. Am I really that far away from my mother? Where is she? How to find it? The whole forest, which used to be so cheerful, now seemed mysterious and terrible to me.

- Mom! .. Mom! .. - I yelled with all my strength, already ready to burst into tears.

"A-ma-ma-ma-ma-a-a-a!" - as if someone was mimicking me in the distance. And at the same second, my mother ran out from behind the neighboring bushes.

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

I thought you were far away! Reassured immediately, I replied. There is someone teasing in the forest.

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

- Don't know. I scream and so does he. Here listen! - and I again, but already bravely shouted: - Ay! Ay!

“Ay! Av! Ay! - responded from the forest distance.

- It's an echo! Mom said.

- Echo? What is it doing there?

I listened incredulously to my mother. “How is it so? My own voice answers me, and even when I myself am silent!”

I tried again to shout:

- Come here!

"Here-ah-ah-ah!" - responded in the forest.

“Mom, maybe there is still someone teasing?” I asked hesitantly. - Let's go and see.

- What a stupid one! Mom laughed. - Well, let's go if you want, but we won't find anyone.

Just in case, I took my mother by the hand: “Who knows what kind of echo it is!” - and we went along the path into the depths of the forest. Occasionally I shouted:

- Are you here?

"Here-e-e-s!" answered ahead.

We crossed a forest ravine and went out 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 sat on a stump with its back to me. Everything is gray, in a gray shaggy hat, like a goblin from a picture from fairy tales. I screamed and rushed back to my mother:

- Mom, mom, there is an echo on a stump!

- Why are you talking nonsense! Mom got angry.

She took my hand and bravely walked forward.

"Won't it touch us?" I asked.

"Don't be stupid, please," Mom said.

We went out to the clearing.

— Get out, get out! I whispered.

- Yes, this is grandfather Kuzma grazing cows!

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

- Echo? he was surprised, lowering the pitiful wooden pipe, which he was carving with a knife. “Echo is, dear, not a person. This is a forest voice.

— And so. You will shout in the forest, and he will respond to you. Every tree, every bush gives an echo. Listen to how we talk to them.

Grandfather raised his pity-pipe and played softly, drawlingly. He played like he was humming some sad song. And somewhere far, far away in the forest, another voice echoed him.

Mom came up and sat on a nearby stump. Grandpa finished playing and the echo stopped too.

- Here, son, have you heard now how I call to the forest? said the old man. “Echo is the very soul of the forest. That a bird whistles, that an animal screams - it will convey everything to you, it will not hide anything.

So I did not understand then what an echo is. But on the other hand, he fell in love with him for the rest of his life, fell in love, like the mysterious voice of the forest, the song of a pity, like an old children's fairy tale.

And now, after many, many years, 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 fabulous grandfather-goblin.

He sits on a stump, whittles a maple fife, a pity. And then he will play it in the quiet evening hour, when the trees, grass and flowers fall asleep and the horned month slowly emerges from behind the forest and the summer night comes.

Georgy Skrebitsky "Cat Ivanych"

There lived in our house a huge fat cat - Ivanych: lazy, clumsy. He ate or slept all day long. It happened that he would climb onto a warm couch, curl up in a ball and fall asleep. In a dream, it will spread its paws, stretch itself out, and its tail will hang down. Because of this tail, Ivanych often got hit by our yard puppy Bobka. He was a very mischievous puppy. As soon as the door to the house is opened, he will dash into the rooms directly to Ivanych. She grabs him by the tail with his teeth, drags him to the floor and carries him like a bag. The floor is smooth, slippery, Ivanych will roll on it, as if on ice. Wake up and not immediately understand what's the matter. Then he will come to his senses, jump up, give Bobka a paw in the face, and he will go back to sleep on the couch.

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

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

Ivanych was so lazy that he didn't even catch mice. Sometimes a mouse scratches somewhere nearby, but he does not pay attention to it.

Somehow my mother calls me into the kitchen: - Look what your cat is doing! I look - Ivanovich is stretched out on the floor and is basking in the sun, and next to him a whole brood of mice is walking: very tiny, they run around the floor, collecting bread crumbs, and Ivanovich seems to be grazing them - he glances and closes his eyes from the sun. Mom even threw up her hands:

- What is this being done!

And I say:

- Like what? Don't you see? Ivanych guards mice. Probably, the mother mouse asked to look after the guys, otherwise you never know what could happen without her.

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

We are sitting by the window, suddenly we see Ivanovich running around the yard, and a huge rat in his mouth. He jumped out the window - straight to his mother's room. He lay down in the middle of the floor, let out a rat, he looks at his mother: “Here, they say, what a hunter I am!”

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

Since then, there has been no life from Ivanych. In the morning he will get up, wash his muzzle with his paw, have breakfast and go to the barn to hunt. A minute will not pass, but he hurries home, dragging a rat. Bring it into the room and let it out. Then we got used to it so much: how he goes hunting - now we lock all the doors and windows. Ivanych scolds, scolds the rat around the yard and let it go, and she will run back to the barn. Or, it happened, he would strangle a rat and let's play with it: he throws it up, catches it with his paws, otherwise he puts it in front of him and admires it.

Once he played like this - suddenly, out of nowhere, two crows. They sat down nearby, began to jump around Ivanych, dance. They want to take the rat away from him - and it's scary. They galloped and galloped, then one of them grabbed Ivanych from behind with his beak by the tail! That one turned over head over heels and after a crow, and the second picked up a rat - and goodbye! So Ivanych was left with nothing.

However, although Ivanovich sometimes caught rats, he never ate them. But he was very fond of eating fresh fish. As soon as I come back from fishing in the summer, I just put the bucket on the bench, and he is right there. He sits next to him, sticks his paw into the bucket, right into the water, and fumbles there. He will hook the fish with his paw, throw it on the bench and eat it.

Ivanych even got into the habit of dragging fish from the aquarium. Once I put the aquarium on the floor to change the water, and I myself went to the kitchen for water. I come back, I look and I can’t believe my eyes: at the aquarium Ivanych - he stood up on his hind legs, and launched his front paws into the water and catches fish, as if from a bucket. I missed three fish.

From that day on, Ivanych was simply in trouble: he never left the aquarium. I had to cover it with glass. And if you forget, now he will pull out two or three fish. We didn't know how to get him out of it.

But only, fortunately for us, Ivanovich himself very soon unlearned.

I once brought from the river instead of fish in a bucket of crayfish, put, as always, on the bench. Ivanych immediately ran - and right into the bucket with his paw. Yes, suddenly how to scream. We look - the crayfish grabbed its paw with claws, and behind it - the second, and behind the second - the third.,. Everyone drags themselves from the bucket behind the paw, moves their whiskers, clicks their claws. Here Ivanych's eyes widened in fear, the hair stood on end: "What kind of fish is this?" He shook his paw, and so all the crayfish fell to the floor, and Ivanovich himself tail with a pipe - and march out the window. After that, he didn’t even come close to the bucket and stopped climbing into the aquarium. That's how scared!

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

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. Ivanych became very interested in the animal. Friendly approached him and wanted to sniff. But the hedgehog, apparently, did not understand Ivanovich's good intentions, he spread out the thorns, jumped up and painfully pricked Ivanovich in the nose.

After that, Ivanovich began to stubbornly avoid the hedgehog. As soon as he crawled out from under the closet, Ivanovich would hurriedly jump up onto a chair or at the window and did not want to go downstairs.

But one day, after dinner, my mother poured Ivanovich soup into a saucer and put it on the rug. The cat sat down near the saucer more comfortably, began to lap. Suddenly we see a hedgehog crawling out from under the closet. He got out, pulled his spout and went straight to the saucer. He came and started eating too. But Ivanych does not run away - apparently, he is hungry, looks askance at the hedgehog, but he himself is in a hurry, drinking. So together they drank the whole saucer.

From that day on, mother began to feed them together every time. And how well they got used to it! One has only to knock mother with a ladle on a saucer, and they are already running. They sit side by side and eat. The hedgehog will stretch its muzzle, attach thorns, such a smooth one. Ivanych completely ceased to be afraid of him, and so they became friends.

For Ivanych's good disposition, everyone loved him very much. It seemed to us that in his character and mind 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, mom goes to the store - and he runs after her. And we return in the evening from the river or from the city garden - Ivanych is already sitting on a bench near the house, as if waiting for us. As soon as he sees me or Seryozha, he will immediately run up, start purring, rub against his legs and hurry home after us.

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, on the same street.

When moving, we were very afraid that Ivanych would not get along in a new apartment and would run away to his old place. But our fears were completely unfounded. Once in an unfamiliar room, Ivanovich began to examine everything, sniff, 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, Ivanych instantly rushed to the table and sat down, as usual, next to his mother. On the same day, he examined the new yard and garden, even sat on a bench in front of the house. But he never left the old apartment. So, it is not always true when they say that a dog is faithful to people, and a cat is faithful to the house. Here Ivanych turned out quite the opposite.

Konstantin Paustovsky "My house"

The little house where I live in Meshchera deserves a description. This is a former bathhouse, a log hut, lined with gray timber. The house stands in a dense garden, but for some reason it is fenced off from the garden by a high palisade. This palisade is a trap for village cats who love fish. Every time I come back from fishing, cats of all colors - red, black, gray and white and tan - take the house under siege. They snoop around, sit on the fence, on the roofs, on the old apple trees, howl at each other and wait for the evening. They all look, without looking up, 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 with their front legs they make swift and deft strokes, trying to hook the kukan. From a distance it seems that the cats are playing volleyball. Then some arrogant cat jumps up, clings to the hook with a stranglehold, hangs on it, swings and tries to tear off the fish. The rest of the cats beat each other on the mustachioed muzzles out of annoyance. It ends with me leaving the bathhouse with a lantern. Cats, taken by surprise, rush to the palisade, but do not have time to climb over it, but squeeze between the stakes and get stuck. Then they flatten their ears, close their eyes and start screaming desperately, asking for mercy.

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

Furnaces are crackling, it smells of apples, cleanly washed floors. Tits sit on branches, pour glass balls in their throats, ring, crackle and look at the windowsill, where there is a slice of black bread.

I rarely sleep at home. I spend most of my nights on the lakes, and when I stay at home, I sleep in an old gazebo at the back of the garden. It is overgrown with wild grapes. In the morning the sun hits it through the purple, purple, green and lemon foliage, and it always seems to me that I wake up inside a lit Christmas tree. Sparrows peer into the gazebo with surprise. They are mortally occupied by hours. They tick on a round table dug into the ground. Sparrows get close to them, listen to the ticking with one or the other ear, and then peck the watch strongly on the dial.

Especially good in the gazebo in the quiet autumn nights when in the garden the unhurried sheer rain rustles in an undertone.

Cool air barely shakes the tongue of the candle. Angled shadows from grape leaves lie on the ceiling of the gazebo. Moth, resembling a lump of gray raw silk, sits on an open book and leaves the finest shiny dust on the page. It smells of rain, a gentle yet pungent smell of moisture, damp garden paths.

At dawn I wake up. Fog rustles in the garden. Leaves fall in the mist. I pull a bucket of water from the well. A frog jumps out of the bucket. I douse myself with well water and listen to the shepherd's horn - he still sings far away, at the very outskirts.

I go to an empty bathhouse, boil tea. A cricket starts its song on the stove. He sings very loudly and pays no attention to my steps or the clinking of cups.

It's getting light. I take the oars and go to the river. Chained dog Marvelous sleeps at the gate. He beats his tail on the ground, 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 rosy. The smell of the smoke of rural stoves is no longer heard. There remains only the silence of the water, thickets of centuries-old willows.

Ahead is a deserted September day. Ahead - confusion in this wide world fragrant foliage, grasses, autumn wilt, calm waters, clouds, low sky. And I always feel this loss as happiness.

Konstantin Paustovsky "Farewell to Summer"

For several days he poured without ceasing, cold rain. A damp wind blew in the garden. At four o'clock in the afternoon we were already lighting kerosene lamps, and it involuntarily seemed that the summer was over forever and the earth was moving farther and farther into dense fogs, into uncomfortable darkness and cold.

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

The roads were washed out. A yellowish foam, like a downed squirrel, was carried along the river. The last birds hid under the eaves, and for more than a week no one has visited us: neither grandfather Mitriy, nor Vanya Malyavin, nor the forester.

The best time was in the evenings. We fired up the stoves. The fire roared, 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, putting down the book, thinking about what he had read and listening to the hum of rain on the boarded roof.

The lamps burned brightly, and the invalid copper samovar sang and sang its simple song. As soon as it was brought into the room, it immediately became comfortable in it - perhaps because the glasses were fogged up and one could not see the lone birch branch that knocked on the window day and night.

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

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

One night I woke up with a strange sensation. I thought I went deaf in my sleep. I lay with eyes closed, listened for a long time and finally realized that I was not deaf, but simply an unusual silence came outside the walls of the house. Such silence is called "dead". The rain died, the wind died, the noisy, restless garden died. All you could hear was the cat snoring in his sleep.

I opened my eyes. White and even light filled the room. I got up and went to the window - behind the panes everything was snowy and silent. In the foggy sky, a lone 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 bright that the arrows were clearly black. They showed two hours.

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

Through the window, I saw a large gray bird perched on a maple branch in the garden. The branch swayed, snow fell from it. The bird slowly got up and flew away, and the snow continued to fall like glass rain falling from a Christmas tree. Then everything was quiet again.

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

— The first snow is very befitting the earth.

The earth was ornate, like a shy bride.

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

Grandfather Mitriy came to tea and congratulated me on the first trip.

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

— Where did you get that, Mitriy, such words? Reuben asked.

- Is there something wrong? grandfather chuckled. - 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 withered. It was before Tsar Peter, my dear, when robbers ruined merchants through the local forests.

It was hard to stay at home on the first winter day. We went to the forest lakes, grandfather accompanied us to the edge. He also wanted to visit the lakes, but "did not let the bones ache."

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, walked around familiar places. Flocks of bullfinches sat, ruffled, on snow-covered mountain ash.

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

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

A glass strip of ice has grown along the coast. The ice was so transparent that even up close it was hard to see. I saw a flock of boats 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, rushed into the depths, and a white granular trace from 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 the fingers.

Here and there in the clearings birds flew and squeaked plaintively, the sky above was very bright, white, and towards the horizon it thickened, and its color resembled lead, from there came slow, snow clouds.

In the forests it grew darker and quieter, and finally a thick snow began to fall. He melted into black water lakes, tickled his face, powdered the gray smoke of the forest.

Winter began to take over the land, but we knew that under 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 to spend the winter, and the winter seemed to us as beautiful as the summer.

Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak "Emelya the hunter"

Far, far away, in the northern part Ural mountains, in the impassable wilderness, the village of Tychki hid. There are only eleven yards in it, actually ten, because the eleventh hut stands quite separately, but near the forest itself. Around the village, an evergreen tree rises like a crenellated wall. coniferous forest. From behind the tops of the fir and fir trees one can see several mountains, which, as if on purpose, bypassed Tychki on all sides with huge bluish-gray ramparts. The hunchbacked Stream Mountain stands closer than the others to Tychki, with a gray hairy peak, which in cloudy weather completely hides in muddy, gray clouds. Many springs and streams run down from the Brook Mountain. One such brook merrily rolls to Poking and winter and summer all drink cold, clear as a tear, water.

The huts in Tychki were built without any plan, as anyone wanted. Two huts stand above the river itself, one is on a steep mountainside, and the rest are scattered along the shore like sheep. There is not even a street in Tychky, and a beaten path travels between the huts. Yes, Tychkov’s peasants don’t even need the street at all, because there’s nothing to ride along it: in Tychki, no one has a single cart. In summer, this village is surrounded by impenetrable swamps, swamps and forest slums, so that it can hardly be reached on foot only along narrow forest paths, and even then not always. In bad weather, mountain rivers play strongly, and it often happens that Tychkov’s hunters wait three days for the water to subside from them.

All Tychkov's men are memorabilia hunters. In summer and winter, they almost never leave the forest, since it is within easy reach. Every season brings with it certain prey: in winter they beat bears, martens, wolves, foxes; autumn - squirrel; in spring - wild goats; in the summer - every bird. In a word, all year round hard and often dangerous work.

In that hut, which stands near the forest, the old hunter Emelya lives with his little granddaughter 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 was rotten long ago, only collapsed bricks remained from the chimney. There was no fence, no gate, no barn - there was nothing at Yemelya's hut. Only under the porch of unhewn logs, the hungry Lysko howls at night - one of the best hunting dogs in Tychki. Before each hunt, Emelya spends three days starving the unfortunate Lysk, so that he would better search for game and track down any animal.

“Grandfather... and grandfather!..” little Grishutka asked with difficulty one evening. - Now deer with calves go?

“With calves, Grishuk,” Emelya answered, finishing off new bast shoes.

- That would be, grandfather, to get a calf ... Eh?

“Wait, we’ll get it… The heat has come, the deer and calves will often hide from the gadflies, then I’ll get you a calf too, Grishuk!”

The boy did not answer, but only sighed heavily. Grishutka was only six years old, and now he was 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 swarthy little face grew pale and stretched out, his eyes became larger, his nose sharpened. Emelya saw how his granddaughter was melting by leaps and bounds, but did not know how to help grief. He gave some grass to drink, twice took it to the bath - the patient did not get better. The boy didn't eat anything. He chews a crust of black bread - and nothing more. Salted goat meat remained from spring; but Grishuk couldn't even look at her.

“Look what you want: a calf ...” thought old Emelya, picking his bast shoes. “You have to get…”

Emelya was seventy years old: gray-haired, hunched, thin, with long arms. Emelya's fingers could hardly unbend, as if they were wooden branches. But he still walked briskly and obtained something by hunting. Only now the eyes began to strongly change the old man, especially in winter, when the snow sparkles and glistens all around with diamond dust. Because of Emelin's eyes, the chimney collapsed, 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 rest, to a warm stove, and there’s no one to replace him, and then here’s Grishutka in his arms, he needs to be taken care of ... Grishutka’s father died three years ago from a fever, his mother was eaten by wolves when she and little Grishutka on a winter evening returned from the village to her hut. The child was saved by some miracle. The mother, while the wolves gnawed at her legs, covered the child with her body, and Grishutka remained alive.

The old grandfather had to raise a granddaughter, and then another illness happened. Misfortune never comes alone...

stood last days June is the hottest time in Tychky. There were only old and small houses left. Hunters have long dispersed through the forest for deer. In Yemelya's hut, poor Lysko had been howling from hunger for three days already, like a wolf in winter.

“It seems that Emelya is going hunting,” the women said in the village.

It was true. Indeed, Emelya soon came out of his hut with a flintlock rifle in his hand, untied Lysk and headed for the forest. He was wearing new bast shoes, a knapsack with bread over his shoulders, a tattered caftan and a warm reindeer hat on his head. The old man had not worn a hat for a long time, and in winter and summer he went in his deerskin 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 at parting. “Old woman Malanya will look after you while I go for the calf.

- Will you bring a calf, grandfather?

- I'll take it, he said.

- Yellow?

- Yellow...

- Well, I'll be waiting for you ... Look, don't miss when you shoot ...

Emelya had long been going after deer, but he still regretted leaving his grandson alone, but now he seemed to be better, and the old man decided to try his luck. Yes, 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. Yes, and how could he not know this forest, when he wandered through it all his life 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 blooming flowers, there was a wonderful aroma of fragrant herbs in the air, and from the sky the gentle summer sun looked, pouring bright light on the forest, and the grass, and the river murmuring in the sedge, 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. A large forest was cut down, and young birch trees, honeysuckle bushes huddled near the road, and rowan trees spread out like a green tent. Here and there there were dense copses of young spruce forest, which stood up along the sides of the road with a green brush and merrily bristled with its lobed and shaggy branches. In one place, from half of the mountain, a wide view of the distant mountains and Tychki opened up. The village was completely hidden at the bottom of a deep mountain hollow, and the peasant huts looked 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…” Emelya was saying when they went down the mountain and turned off the path into a continuous dense spruce forest.

Lysk did not need to repeat the order. He clearly knew his business and, sticking his sharp muzzle into the ground, disappeared into the dense green thicket. Only for a while his back with yellow spots flashed.

The hunt has begun.

Huge firs rose high to the sky with their sharp peaks. Shaggy branches intertwined with each other, forming an impenetrable dark vault above the hunter's head, through which only in some places a ray of sunshine would gleefully glance and burn yellowish moss or a wide leaf of fern with a golden spot. Grass does not grow in such a forest, and Emelya walked on soft yellowish moss, as if on a carpet.

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

It was a deer. A real ten-horned deer, the noblest of the 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 he was too far from him: a bullet could not reach him. Lysko lies in the thicket and does not dare to breathe in anticipation of a shot; he hears the deer, smells it... Then a shot rang out, and the deer, like an arrow, rushed forward. Emelya missed, and Lysko howled from the hunger that was taking him away. The poor dog has already smelled the smell of fried venison, has seen the appetizing bone that the owner will throw at him, and instead he has to go to bed with a hungry belly. Very bad story...

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

The dog only wagged its tail plaintively, putting its sharp muzzle between its front paws. Today, one dry crust fell on her share, which Emelya threw to her.

For three days Emelya wandered through the forest with Lysk, and all in vain: he did not 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 was also depressed and completely emaciated, although he managed to intercept a couple of young hares.

I had to spend the night in the forest by the fire for the third night. But even in a dream, old Emelya kept seeing the yellow calf that Grishuk asked him about; the old man tracked his prey for a long time, took aim, but each time the deer ran away from him 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 accidentally attacked the trail of a deer with a calf. It was in a dense spruce thicket on a mountain slope. First of all, Lysko found the place where the deer had spent the night, and then sniffed out the tangled trail in the grass.

“A mother 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 sultry. The sun beat down mercilessly. The dog sniffed the bushes and grass with its tongue hanging out; Emelya could barely move his legs. But here is a familiar crack and rustle... Lysko fell on the grass and didn't move. In the ears of Emelya are the words of the granddaughter: "Grandfather, get a calf ... And by all means, so that it is yellow." There and the uterus ... It was a magnificent female deer. He stood at the edge of the forest and timidly looked straight at Emelya. A bunch of buzzing insects circled over the deer and made him flinch.

"No, you won't deceive me..." thought Emelya, crawling out of his ambush.

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

“This uterus 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 cautiously ran a few sazhens further and stopped again. Emelya again crawled up with his rifle. Again a slow creep, and again the deer disappeared as soon as Emelya wanted to shoot.

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

This struggle between man and animal continued until evening. The noble animal risked his life ten times, trying to lead the hunter away from the hidden deer; old Emelya was both angry and surprised at the courage of his victim. After all, all the same, she will not leave him ... How many times did he have to kill a mother who sacrificed herself in this way. Lysko, like a shadow, crawled after his master, and when he completely lost sight of the deer, he carefully poked him with his hot nose. The old man looked up and sat down. Ten sazhens from him, under a honeysuckle bush, stood the same yellow calf, after which he wandered for three whole days. It was a very pretty fawn, only a few weeks old, with yellow down and thin legs, a beautiful head thrown back, and he stretched his thin neck forward when he tried to grab a twig higher. The hunter with a beating heart cocked the trigger of his rifle and aimed at the head of a small, defenseless animal...

Another moment, and the little deer would roll on the grass with a plaintive death cry; but it was at that moment that the old hunter remembered how heroically his mother had defended the calf, remembered how his mother Grishutka had saved her son from the wolves with her life. Exactly what broke in the chest of old Emelya, and he lowered the gun. The fawn was still walking near the bush, plucking the leaves and listening to the slightest rustle. Emelya quickly got up and whistled - the small animal disappeared into the bushes with the speed of lightning.

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

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 a calf? Grisha met him, who had been waiting impatiently for the old man.

— No, Grishuk... saw him...

- Yellow?

- Yellow himself, and the muzzle is black. Standing under a bush and pinching leaves... I took aim...

- And missed?

- No, Grishuk: I took pity on the little beast... I took pity on the mother... As I whistle, and he, the calf, as if goading into the thicket, - I only saw him. He ran away, shot a sort of ...

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

“And I brought you a capercaillie, Grishuk,” Emelya added, finishing the story. “The wolves would have eaten it anyway.”

The capercaillie was plucked, and then got into the pot. The sick boy ate capercaillie stew with pleasure and, falling asleep, asked the old man several times:

- So he ran away, deer?

- Run away, Grishuk...

- Yellow?

- All yellow, only a black muzzle and hooves.

The boy fell asleep like that, and all night he saw a little yellow deer, who was walking merrily through the forest with his mother; and the old man slept on the stove and also smiled in his sleep.

Viktor Astafiev "Grandma with Raspberries"

At the hundred and first kilometer, a crowd of berry growers stormed the Komarihinskaya-Teplayaya Gora train. The train stops here for one minute. And there are a lot of berry growers, and everyone has dishes: pots, buckets, baskets, cans. And all the dishes are full. Raspberries in the Urals - you can't take it.

Noise, people worry, dishes rattle and crack - the train stops for only a minute.

But if the train had stopped for half an hour, there would still have been a crush and panic. This is how our passengers are arranged - everyone wants to get into the car faster and grumble there: “And what is it worth? What is waiting? Work-o-tnichki!

There is especially a lot of hubbub and fuss in one carriage. About thirty children are trying to climb into the narrow door of the vestibule, and among them an old woman is swarming. She “cuts the masses” with a sharp shoulder, reaches the steps, clinging to it. One of the guys grabs her under the armpits, trying to drag her upstairs. The grandmother bounces like a cockerel, climbs on the bandwagon, and at this time an accident occurs. Yes, there is an accident - a tragedy! The real tragedy. The birch-bark tues, tied on the chest with a handkerchief, topples over, and raspberries spill out of it - all, to a single berry.

Tues hangs on his chest, but already upside down. The berries rolled over the gravel, along the rails, along the footboard. Grandmother froze, clutching her heart. The driver, who had already delayed the parking by three minutes, honked, and the train started moving. The last berry-pickers jumped on the bandwagon, touching the grandmother with dishes. She looked in shock at the floating red spot of raspberries, splashed on the white gravel, and, starting up, shouted:

- Stop! Family, wait! I will collect!..

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 ... You, grandmother, would go to the car, and not hang on the footboard.

So, with a tuess dangling on her chest, the grandmother appeared in the car. The shock still didn't leave her face. Dry, wrinkled lips trembled and trembled, the hands that worked so hard and nimbly that day, the hands of the old peasant woman and buttocks, also shook.

She was hastily vacated a place - and not a place, but the whole bench - hushed schoolchildren, apparently with the whole class going out for berries. Grandmother silently sat down, noticed the empty hutch, tore off the vessel along with the old handkerchief over her head and angrily stuffed it with her heel under the seat.

The grandmother sits alone on the whole bench and stares motionlessly at the empty lantern bouncing on the wall. The lantern door opens and closes. There are no candles in the lantern. And the lantern is useless. This train has long been illuminated by electricity, and they simply forgot to remove the lantern, and so it was left an orphan, and its door dangles. Empty in the lantern. Empty in tuesa. Grandma's soul is empty. A. After all, just an hour ago, she was completely happy. For once, she went for berries, climbed through the thicket and forest rubble with her strength, quickly, with dexterity, picked raspberries and boasted to the children who met in the forest:

“I used to be agile! Oh, nimble! She collected two buckets of raspberries a day, and scooped up blueberries or lingonberries, but with a scoop, and more. I can’t see the white light if I’m lying, ”the grandmother assured the amazed children. And - one-time, imperceptibly so, under the saying, she plucked raspberries from the bushes. Her case was arguing, and the convenient old vessel was quickly filled.

The grandma is clever and surprisingly talkative. She managed to tell the guys that she was not a lonely person, she survived the whole birth. She shed a tear, remembering her grandson Yurochka, who died in the war, because he was a dashing guy and rushed at the tank, and immediately, brushing away the tears from her sparse eyelashes with a handkerchief, dragged on:

Raspberry in the garden

Under the y-y-y-shelter grew-a-a ...

She even waved her hand. There must have been a sociable grandmother once. Walked, sang in her lifetime ...

And now it is silent, closed. Grandma's grief. The schoolchildren offered her help - they wanted to take the tues and bring it into the car - they did not give it. “I’m on my own, little ones, somehow, blessing myself, I’m still agile, wow, agile!”

Here you are agile! Here's to you! There were raspberries - and there are no raspberries.

At the Kommuna-Kryazh junction, three fishermen tumble into the car. They attach bundles of fishing rods with landing nets in the corner, hang duffel bags on ancient cast-iron hooks and sit down near the headstock, since there are free places only near it.

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 the Warm Mountain!..

These fishermen themselves composed a song from the names of the local stations, and, apparently, they liked the song. They repeated it over and over. Grandmother looked angrily at the fishermen. A young fisherman in a tattered straw hat called out to his grandmother:

- Pull up, grandma!

Grandmother spat with a heart, 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 with the same aloofness and without interest: - How did it manage you, grandmother ?! How awkward you are!

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

- Awkward?! You are painfully smart! I used to know what it was! I’m wounded ...” She shook her withered fist in front of the fisherman and drooped just as suddenly as she ruffled.

The fisherman cleared his throat awkwardly. His companions also cleared their throats and no longer sang. The one in the hat thought, thought, and, thinking something over, slapped his forehead, as if he had killed a mosquito, moved along the car, looking into the dishes for the guys:

- Come on, show me the trophies! Whoa, well done! I picked up a bunch of raspberries, well done! .. - he praised the freckled girl in ski pants. - And you with a mop! .. And you! .. Well done! Well done! You know what, guys, - the fisherman screwed up his eyes cunningly, with significance, - move closer, and I will tell you something very interesting in your ear.

Schoolchildren reached out to the fisherman. He whispered something to them, winking in the direction of the grandmother, and the children's faces lit up.

Everything in the car came alive at once. The students were fussing and talking. Babkin's tues was taken out from under the bench. The fisherman put him at his feet and gave the command:

- Come on! Rash each handful. Do not impoverish, but the grandmother will be happy!

And the raspberries flowed into the tues, handfuls, two at a time. A girl in ski pants took a mop from her bucket.

Grandma protested.

I won't take someone else's! Never used someone else's!

- Shut up, grandma! - the fisherman reasoned with her. - What is this alien? Guys, these are all your grandchildren. Good guys. Only their guess is still weak. Rash, lads, rash, don't be shy!

And when the tues was filled to the top, the fisherman solemnly placed it on his grandmother's knees.

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

- Yes, dear, yes, dear! .. But why is this? Where do I need so much? Yes, you are mine! ..

Tues was full, even with a "shock". The fishermen struck up the song again. The students picked it up too.

Eh, Kalino, Lyamino, Levshino!

Komarikha and the Warm Mountain!..

The train flew towards the city. The electric locomotive roared mischievously, as if shouting: “Get out, people! I’m taking a grandmother with raspberries!” The wheels of the wagons agreed: “Grandma! grandmother! With raspberries! With raspberries! I'm taking you! I'm taking it!"

And the grandmother was sitting, clutching a box of berries to her chest, listening to a foolish song and shaking her head with a smile:

- And they will come up with the same! Come up with the same, goblin! And what an Eastern-speaking people went! ..

Victor Astafiev "Belogrudka"

The village of Vereino stands on a mountain. There are two lakes under the mountain, and on their banks, an echo of a large village, huddles a small village with three houses - Zuyaty.

Between Zuyatami and Vereino there is a huge steep slope, visible for many tens of miles as a dark humpbacked island. This whole hillside is so overgrown with dense forest that people almost never go there. Yes, and how do you get on? It is worth moving a few steps away from the clover field, which is on the mountain, - and you will immediately roll head over heels down, you will fall into the deadwood lying crosswise, covered with moss, elderberry and raspberry.

Deaf on the slope, damp and twilight. Spruce and fir lining reliably buries from the thin eye and grabbing hands of its residents - birds, badgers, squirrels, ermines. The hazel grouse and capercaillie, very cunning and cautious, keep here.

And once settled in the thicket of the slope, perhaps one of the most secretive animals - the white-breasted marten. For two or three summers she lived alone, occasionally appearing at the edge of the forest. The white-breasted twitched with sensitive nostrils, caught the nasty smells of the village, and if a man approached, it pierced like a bullet into the wilderness of the forest.

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

But somehow the Verinsky boys tracked down Belogrudka, went down the slope behind her, hid. The white-breasted duck meandered through the forest for a long time, waving from tree to tree, then decided that the people had already left - after all, they often pass by the slope, and returned to the nest.

Several human eyes followed her. White-breasted did not feel them, because she trembled all over, clinging to the kittens, and could not pay attention to anything. The white-breasted licked each of the cubs in the muzzle: they say, I am now, in a moment, and swung out of the nest.

Finding food was getting harder and harder 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 the 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 loose blue wing.

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

There were no kittens. If Belogrudka knew how to scream, she would scream.

The kittens are gone.

The white-breasted woman examined everything in order and found that people were trampling around the spruce and a man was awkwardly climbing the tree, peeling off the bark, breaking off the knots, leaving a pungent smell of sweat and dirt in the folds of the bark.

By evening, Belogrudka accurately tracked down that her cubs had been taken to the village. At night, she also found the house to which they had been taken.

Until dawn, she rushed about near the house: from the roof to the fence, from the fence to the roof. For hours she sat on the bird cherry tree, under the window, listening to the kittens squeak.

But in the yard a chain rattled and a dog barked hoarsely. The owner went out of the house several times, angrily shouted at her. The white-breasted clump clung to the bird cherry.

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

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

Why are you torturing the animals? Take it to the nest. Will be lost.

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

- Uh, one of them died ...

The boy took the kitten by the paw and threw it to the dog. The fold-eared yard dog, who spent his whole life on a chain and got used to eating what they give, sniffed the kitten, turned it over with his paw and began to slowly devour it from the head.

On the same night, many chickens and hens were strangled in the village, and an old dog who had eaten a kitten was crushed on a high raft. White-breasted ran along the fence and teased the stupid mongrel so much that he rushed after her, jumped over the fence, fell off and hung.

Ducklings, goslings were found crushed in the 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 crack down on everything that was within her power. The women gasped, the old women crossed themselves, the men cursed:

- It's Satan! Called to attack!

Belogrudka was on the lookout, knocked down with shot from a poplar 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 the house where she seemed to be dragged on a leash.

White-breasted did not yet know that the boy who took the kunyat 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, left the kunyat in a ravine near the forest and left. Here they were found and killed by a fox.

White-breasted was orphaned. She began to recklessly crush pigeons, ducklings, not only on the mountain, in Vereino, but also in Zuyat.

She got in the cellar. Having opened the trap of the cellar, the hostess of the last hut in Zuyaty saw Belogrudka.

So there you are, Satan! she threw up her hands and rushed to catch the marten.

All jars, pots, cups were overturned and beaten before the woman grabbed the marten.

White-breasted was imprisoned in a box. She gnawed ferociously at the boards, crumbled wood chips.

The owner came, he was a hunter, and when his wife said 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 not appear in Zuyaty again.

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

In the garden near the greenhouse, he saw her one day, drove her into 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 snaked out of the nettle, grabbed the dog's throat and died.

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

To this day they remember Belogrudka in Vereino and Zuyaty. Until now, children are strictly punished here so that they do not dare to touch the cubs of animals and birds.

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

Boris Zakhoder "Grey Star"

“Well, then,” said Papa the Hedgehog, “this fairy tale is called “Grey Star”, but by the name you will never guess who this fairy tale is about. So listen carefully and don't interrupt. All questions later.

— Are there gray stars? asked the Hedgehog.

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

So, once upon a time there was a toad - clumsy, ugly, in addition, it smelled of garlic, and instead of thorns it had - you can 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 knew little 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 they love very, very much. But you won’t call someone you love very, very much a toad.

The hedgehog sniffled in agreement.

- Here you go. Trees, Bushes and Flowers were very fond of the toad and therefore they called her the most affectionate names. Especially Flowers.

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

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

- When the toad appeared in the garden, the Flowers asked her name, and when she answered that she did not 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 ... we will call you Anyuta?

“Better than a Marguerite,” said the Daisies. “This name is much prettier!”

Then the Roses intervened - they suggested calling her Beauty; The bells demanded that it be called Tinker Bell (it was single 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 looked at his father in fear, but the Hedgehog was not angry, because the Hedgehog snorted in time. He calmly continued:

“In a word, there would be no end to the disputes if it were not for the Asters. And if not for the Learned Starling.

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

“Or, even better. An asterisk, said the Learned Starling. “It means the same thing as Astra, only much clearer. In addition, she really resembles an asterisk - just look at her radiant eyes! And since it is gray, you can call it Gray Star - then there will be no confusion! Seems clear?

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

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

“Nothing to say, little star,” hissed the fat old Slug. He crawled onto a rose bush and crept up to the tender young leaves. - Nice star! After all, this is the most, most ordinary gray ... "

He wanted to say "toad", but he 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 Starlet,” said Rose, pale with fear. “You saved me from a terrible enemy!”

- And you need to know, - explained the Hedgehog, - that Flowers, Trees and Bushes, although they do no harm to anyone - on the contrary, one good! There are also enemies. A lot of them! It's good that these enemies are quite tasty!

“So Starlet ate that fat Slug?” asked the Hedgehog, licking his lips.

“Probably yes,” said the Hedgehog. “Really, you can’t vouch.

No one has seen Starlet eat Slugs, Gluttonous Beetles 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 Gray Star settled in the garden, Trees, Flowers and Bushes began to live much better. Especially Flowers. Because the Bushes and Trees protected the Birds from the enemies, and there was no one to protect the Flowers - for the Birds they are too short.

That's why the Flowers loved Gray Star so much. They bloomed with joy every morning when she came into the garden. All that was heard was: “Asterisk, to us!” “No, come to us first! To us!.."

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

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

"I don't know," said Gray Star, embarrassed. "I don't think so..."

“Well, Magpie! Well, empty! said the Learned Starling. - Not a stone, but confusion, and not in the Star's head, but in you! Gray Star has radiant eyes because she has a clear conscience - after all, she is doing a Useful Deed! Seems clear?

"Daddy, can I ask you 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 said, the Flowers knew that the Gray Star was kind, good and useful. The Birds knew it too. Of course, people also knew, especially Smart people. And only the enemies of the Flowers did not agree with this. "Vile, harmful scum!" they hissed, of course, when Star was not around. "Freak! Disgusting!" creaked the Voracious Beetles. "We have to deal with her! echoed the Caterpillars. “There is simply no life from her!”

True, no one paid attention to their scolding 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. In appearance, she was completely harmless and even pretty, but in fact, terribly harmful. It happens sometimes.

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

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

“Not at all, silly. Most likely because butterflies look like Flowers, and after all, Asterisk loved Flowers so much! And she probably did not know that Butterflies and Caterpillars are almost the same thing. After all, Caterpillars turn into Butterflies, and new Caterpillars are hatched from Butterflies ...

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

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

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

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

And the cunning Urticaria 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 flutter in front of his very nose and fly over to the next flower bed.

And so she lured the Very Stupid Boy into the very depths of the garden, just on the path where Gray Star sat and talked with the Learned Starling.

Urticaria was immediately punished for her mean act: the Learned Starling flew off the branch with lightning and grabbed it with its beak. But it was too late, because the Very Stupid Boy noticed the Gray Star.

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

At the same moment, a heavy stone slammed to the ground next to Gray Star. Luckily, Very Stupid Boy missed and Gray Star jumped aside. Flowers and Herbs hid her from view. But the Very Stupid Boy did not let up. He picked up a few more stones and kept throwing them where the grass and flowers were stirring.

"Toad! Poison frog! he shouted. - Beat the ugly!

“Fool-ra-chok! Fool-ra-chok! the Learned Starling called to him. What is the confusion 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 he thought, Gray Star was hiding.

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

— Urraa! shouted the Hedgehog.

- Yes, brother, thorns are a good thing! - continued the Hedgehog. “If Gray Star had thorns, then perhaps she wouldn’t have to cry so bitterly on this day. But, as you know, she did not have thorns, and therefore she sat under the roots of the Rose Bush and wept bitterly.

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

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

But Gray Star wept so loudly that she did not hear consolations. It always happens when you start comforting too soon. The flowers did not know, but the Learned Starling knew this very well. He let Gray Star cry to her heart's content, and then said:

"I won't console you, dear. I can only tell you one thing: it's not the name. And in any case, it doesn’t matter at all what some Silly Boy, who has one confusion in his head, will say about you! For all your friends, you were and will be a cute Gray Star. Seems clear?

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

Gray Star stopped crying.

"You're right, of course, Skvorushka," she said. “Of course, it’s not the name that matters… But still… still, I probably won’t come to the garden during the day anymore, so that… 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 ... The first question is: is it true that the Stars, that is, the toads, do not eat butterflies, or is it only in a fairy tale?

- Is it true.

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

- Nonsense! Of course, I do not advise you to take 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, daddy, you always tease.

- 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. It's just that she grabs them so fast with her tongue that no one can follow it, and it seems like they just disappear. And now I have a question, my fluffy one: isn't it time for us to sleep? After all, you and I are also useful and must also do our Useful Work at night, and now it’s already morning ...

Marina Moskvina "Magnifying glass"

There lived a magnifying glass. It lay to itself, lay in the forest - apparently, someone dropped it. And here's what came out of it...

A hedgehog was walking through this forest. Walked, walked, looks - there is a magnifying glass. The hedgehog has lived in the forest all his life and has never seen magnifying glasses. He didn't even know that a magnifying glass is called a magnifying glass, so he said to himself:

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

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

And much more became all sorts of things, which he had not noticed before. For example, small grains of sand, sticks, pits, dashes and boogers.

And then he saw an ant. Previously, he did not notice the Ants, because they were small. And now the ant was big, magnified with a magnifying glass, and he 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, as he dragged a heavy log. Yes, and he liked his face: the ant had a good face - kind and thoughtful.

And suddenly... the ant got into the spider's web. I yawned and - bam! - hit. I got confused right away, but the spider is right there, dragging an ant to itself, wants to eat it!

He 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 not like the ladies! There will be no wet place left from you, you are evil and such a greedy one!

The spider was afraid, because the hedgehog was much larger than him and much stronger. He released the ant, pretended that he had changed in better side and says:

- I won't do it again. Now I will eat only mushrooms and berries. Well I went...

And he thinks:

"What's with the hedgehog? In the good old days, I ate whole heaps of Muravyov - he never stood up for anyone. It's all the magnifying glass to blame! Well, I will take revenge on him, destroy him, smash him to smithereens! .. "

And the spider went imperceptibly behind the hedgehog. And the hedgehog does not notice him, he walks 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'm a centipede!

- I am a forest bug! ..

- Buddies! Countrymen! Bunny brothers!!! - the hedgehog is surprised. - There is no one in the world! .. Caterpillar, stop nibbling leaves!

- This is my own business! snarled the caterpillar.

- Yes! A spider popped out of the bushes. - Everyone's personal business - what and whom he eats.

No, public! - says the hedgehog. He turned around, but the spider was gone.

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

- I twisted my leg. As you can see, fracture.

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

Fortunately, the hedgehog without the glass did not make out which leg hurts the centipede - the thirty-third or thirty-fourth. Made it in time. And then look for fistula! ..

At every step danger lay in wait for the magnifying glass.

- Friends! - the hedgehog screams. - One-celled brothers! Midges, insects, infusoria shoes! I invite everyone to visit! I'll send you a feast!

He leaned the glass against a pine tree, left it unattended for a minute. Spider grab a shovel! And let's quickly dig a magnifying glass into the ground.

And through the glass the sun began to spit on the spider, the heat turned out to be increased! Like in Africa, in the Sahara desert. Only a tarantula or a scorpion endured such a thing. And this was our Central Russian spider. Barely took his legs, otherwise a sunstroke would be guaranteed.

The hedgehog is walking home, followed by an uncountable company that cannot be seen with the naked eye. They fly, they crawl, they swim, some people jump... Shu-shoo-shu! - What's the matter, they don't understand. The hedgehog never paid any attention to them, and then suddenly - a friend, a friend!

But the spider is not far behind.

“I won’t be me,” he thinks, “if I don’t hurt the hedgehog! I won't mess up! I will not destroy the magnifying glass!”

All in a crowd - into the house, and he is waiting on the street for the right moment.

The insects sat down at the table, prepared to help themselves, they hear - from under the table a hoarse bass:

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

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 long mustache. But that's not all. There, under the table lay musical instrument- saxophone.

— Who is this? the hedgehog asks.

"Oh, you," the creature said. “We have been living with you for a century in the same house, and you don’t even know that I am a cricket.

“Here the life of a cricket 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 into a street orchestra! .. Big band! .. And then the hedgehog, apparently, decided that any dunce can play jazz.

- Don't leave! - 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 one replaced the whole dance orchestra. He did not even expect that it could turn out so great. The forest bug sang, the rest - including a hedgehog and a centipede with a plastered leg - danced. The infusoria shoe famously beat off the tap dance! ..

And the caterpillar ate non-stop. I ate six buns with jam, Apple pie, four pie, drank two liters of milk and a pot of coffee.

It got dark outside the window. The stars lit up in the sky. Through a magnifying glass they looked huge and bright. And the spider is right there. Creeped up to the house under the cover of darkness with a big, big soccer ball, took aim at the magnifying glass and ka-ak gives!

“Aha! - thinks. “Now it is ding-ding and no!”

And it stands in the frame intact - and increases, as if nothing had happened. The spider beat him, beat him, beat him with a stick, shot with cones - he didn’t mess with anything.

It is very thick and strong - a magnifying glass.