Bedtime stories are calm, kind. There are no clashes, strife in them. They are cozy and conducive to sleep. A calm, sound sleep is worth a lot. Good dream - good health. A good story promotes good sleep.
Listen to a fairy tale (3 min 21 sec)
Fairy tale "Hedgehog work"
Once upon a time there was a hedgehog Kolyuchik. The hedgehog learned to cut and sew. He went to sewing school not in his own forest, but in a distant overseas one. Yes, and I brought fabrics from somewhere far away - beautiful, unusual. I met a hedgehog somehow on the road of a hare, and he says to him:
- Let me sew you, my friend, a new sheepskin coat - blue as the sky, with golden buttons like stars.
- No, thank you, master, - said the hare, - in such a sheepskin coat, the fox will quickly notice me. And in my gray rascal I'm not so conspicuous.
- Let me sew you, fox Alice, a new robe. It will be bright yellow.
- What am I, a chicken? No, Prickly, I'm used to my red clothes. They say redheads are happy,” the fox explained.
- Aren't you bored, Soroka Sorokovna, walking in a black and white outfit? Let me sew a green sundress for you, you will be completely invisible in the grass.
- I teach children to compose fairy tales and invent stories at the Forest School. I need a strict outfit,” said Soroka Sorokovna.
The hedgehog was saddened, no one needs his new outfits. A sad man walks, and a chipmunk meets him.
- I heard that you took up sewing, Kolyuchik, that's right, you have a lot of needles. Can you sew new curtains for my bedroom? The room where I see sweet dreams should be very beautiful!
The hedgehog agreed. And then he made beautiful curtains for a sloth, a squirrel and a marten. Most of all, Kolyuchik liked to sew curtains for those rooms where his friends sleep sweetly.
Good night!
Questions and tasks for the fairy tale
To whom did the hedgehog Kolyuchik decide to sew a blue sheepskin coat?
Why did the fox refuse the robe offered by the hedgehog?
Where did Soroka Sorokovna work?
For what reason was Kolyuchik saddened?
Who asked the hedgehog to sew the curtains?
Which of the friends did Kolyuchik make curtains for?
The main meaning of the tale is that if you failed to do one type of activity (a hedgehog to sew outfits), then you need to be ready to work in another direction (sew curtains). A craftsman will find use for his laboring hands. The main thing is to have a craft and a desire to work.
What proverbs fit the story?
Do not take on your own business, but do not be lazy about your own.
With folded hands, you can't sew a shirt.
For children, a fairy tale is an amazing but fictional story about magic items, monsters and heroes. However, if you look deeper, it becomes clear that a fairy tale is a unique encyclopedia that reflects the life and moral principles of any people.
For several hundred years, people have come up with a huge number of fairy tales. Our ancestors passed them from mouth to mouth. They changed, disappeared and returned again. And they can be completely different characters. Most often Russian heroes folk tales- animals, and in European literature the main characters are often princesses and children.
Fairy tale and its meaning for the people
A fairy tale is a narrative story about fictional events that did not actually take place with the participation of fictional heroes and magical characters. Tales composed by the people and being a creation folk traditions exist in every country. Residents of Russia are closer to Russian folk tales about animals, kings and Ivan the Fool, residents of England - about leprechauns, gnomes, cats, etc.
Fairy tales have a powerful educational power. A child from the cradle listens to fairy tales, associates himself with the characters, puts himself in their place. Thanks to this, a certain model of behavior is developed in him. Folk tales about animals teach respect for our smaller brothers.
It is also worth noting that Russian fairy tales of an everyday nature include such words as "master", "muzhik". This awakens curiosity in the child. With the help of fairy tales, you can interest the child in history.
Everything that is invested in a child in childhood remains with him forever. A child properly brought up on fairy tales will grow up to be a decent and sympathetic person.
Composition
Most fairy tales are written according to the same system. It is the following diagram:
1) Zachin. This describes the place where the events will take place. If about animals, then in the beginning the description will begin with a forest. Here the reader or listener gets acquainted with the main characters.
2) tie. At this stage of the tale, the main intrigue occurs, which turns into the beginning of the plot. Suppose the hero has a problem and he must solve it.
3) climax. It is also called the pinnacle of a fairy tale. Most often this is the middle of the work. The situation is heating up, the most responsible actions are taking place.
4) denouement. At this moment main character solves his problem. All characters live happily ever after (as a rule, folk tales have a good, kind ending).
Most of the stories follow this pattern. It can also be found in author's works, only with significant additions.
Russian folk tales
They represent a huge block of folklore works. Russian fairy tales are varied. Their plots, actions and characters are somewhat similar, but, nevertheless, each is unique in its own way. Sometimes the same folk tales about animals come across, but their names are different.
All Russian folk tales can be classified as follows:
1) Folk tales about animals, plants and inanimate nature ("Terem-Teremok", "Rock-Rock Hen", etc.)
2) Magic ("Self-assembly tablecloth", "Flying ship").
3) "Vanya was riding a horse...")
4) ("About white bull"," The priest had a dog ").
5) Household ("The master and the dog", "Kind pop", "Good and bad", "Pot").
There are quite a few classifications, but we considered the one proposed by V. Ya. Propp, one of the outstanding researchers of the Russian fairy tale.
animal images
Every person who grew up in Russia can list the main animals that are characters in Russian fairy tales. Bear, wolf, fox, hare - these are the heroes of Russian fairy tales. Animals live in the forest. Each of them has its own image, in literary criticism called an allegory. For example, the wolf that we meet in Russian fairy tales is always hungry and angry. It's always Because of his anger or greed, he often gets into trouble.
The bear is the master of the forest, the king. He is usually depicted in fairy tales as a just and wise ruler.
The fox is an allegory of cunning. If this animal is present in a fairy tale, then one of the other heroes will definitely be deceived. The hare is an image of cowardice. He is usually the eternal victim of a fox and a wolf intent on eating him.
So, it is precisely such heroes that Russian folk tales about animals present to us. Let's see how they behave.
Examples
Consider some folk tales about animals. The list is huge, we will try to analyze only a few. For example, let's take the tale "The Fox and the Crane". She tells about the Fox, who called the Crane to her dinner. She cooked porridge, smeared it on a plate. And the Crane is uncomfortable to eat, so he didn’t get porridge. Such was the trick of the frugal Fox. The crane invited the Fox to dinner, boiled okroshka and offered to eat from a jug with a high neck. But Lisa never got to the okroshka. Moral of the tale: as it comes around, so, unfortunately, it will respond.
An interesting tale about Kotofey Ivanovich. One man brought a cat to the forest and left it there. A fox found him and married him. She began to tell all the animals how strong and furious he was. The wolf and the bear decided to come and see him. The fox warned that it was better for them to hide. They climbed a tree, and under it they put the meat of a bull. A cat with a fox came, the cat pounced on the meat, began to say: "Meow, meow ...". And it seems to the wolf and the bear: "Not enough! Not enough!". They marveled and wanted to take a closer look at Kotofei Ivanovich. The leaves stirred, and the cat thought it was a mouse, and grabbed their muzzles with its claws. The wolf and the fox ran away.
These are Russian folk tales about animals. As you can see, the fox circles everyone around the finger.
Animals in English fairy tales
Good characters in English fairy tales are a hen and a rooster, a cat and a cat, a bear. Fox and wolf are always negative characters. It is noteworthy that, according to the research of philologists, the cat in English fairy tales has never been a negative character.
Like Russians, English folk tales about animals divide characters into good and evil. Good always triumphs over evil. Also, the works have a didactic purpose, that is, at the end there are always moral conclusions for readers.
Examples of English fairy tales about animals
Interesting work "Cat King". It tells about two brothers who lived in the forest with a dog and a black cat. One brother was once late hunting. Upon his return, he began to tell miracles. He says he saw the funeral. Many cats carried a coffin with a pictured crown and scepter. Suddenly, the black cat lying at his feet raised his head and cried out: "Old Peter is dead! I am the cat king!" Then he jumped into the fireplace. Nobody saw him again.
Let's take the comical tale "Willy and the Piglet" as an example. One master entrusted his stupid servant to carry a pig to his friend. However, Willy's friends persuaded him to go to a tavern, and while he was drinking, they jokingly replaced the pig with a dog. Willie thought it was the devil's joke.
Animals in other genres of literature (fables)
It is worth noting that Russian literature includes not only Russian folk tales about animals. It is also rich in fables. Animals in these works have such qualities of people as cowardice, kindness, stupidity, envy. I. A. Krylov especially liked to use animals as characters. His fables "The Crow and the Fox", "The Monkey and Glasses" are known to all.
Thus, we can conclude that the use of animals in fairy tales and fables gives literature a special charm and style. Moreover, in English and Russian literature, the heroes are the same animals. Only their stories and characteristics are completely different.
- 1. Grandmother and bear
- 2. Tale about black grouse
- 3. Bean seed
- 4. Bull, ram, goose, rooster and wolf
- 5. The wolf is a fool
- 8. Wolf, Quail and Twitch
- 9. Crow
- 10 Crow And Cancer
- 11. Where was the goat?
- 12. Stupid wolf
- 14. For a lapotok - a chicken, for a chicken - a goose
- 16. Hares and frogs
- 17. Animals in the pit
- 19. Golden Horse
- 20. Golden cockerel
- 21. How the wolf became a bird
- 23. How the fox sewed a fur coat for the wolf
- 24. Goat
- 25. Goat Tarata
- 28. Cat and Fox
- 29. Cat, Rooster and Fox
- 30. Kochet and chicken
- 31. Crooked duck
- 32. Kuzma rich
- 33. Hen, mouse and black grouse
- 34. Lion, pike and man
- 35. Fox - wanderer
- 36. Fox and thrush
- 38. Fox and goat
- 40. Fox and bast shoes
- 41. Fox and Cancer
- 42. Fox and black grouse
- 44. Fox Confessor
- 45. Midwife Fox
- 46. Fox Maiden and Kotofey Ivanovich
- 48. Masha and the Bear
- 49. Bear - fake leg
- 50. Bear and fox
- 51. Bear and dog
- 52. A man and a bear (Tops and roots)
- 53. A man, a bear and a fox
- 54. Mouse and Sparrow
- 55. Scared Wolves
- 56. Frightened bear and wolves
- 57. Wrong Judgment of the Birds
- 58. No goat with nuts
- 59. About Vaska - Muska
- 60. About toothy pike
- 61. Sheep, fox and wolf
- 62. Rooster and bean
- 63. Rooster and hen
- 64. Cockerel
- 66. By pike command
- 67. Promised
- 68. About a toothy mouse and about a rich sparrow
- 69. About the old woman and the bull
- 71. Mitten
- 72. Tale of Ersh Ershovich, son of Shchetinnikov
- 73. The Tale of Ivan the Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf
- 74. Resin goby
- 75. The old man and the wolf
- 77. Three bears
- 79. Sly goat
Animal Tales read / Name of Animal Tales
Animal tales read useful for all children from the smallest return to the oldest. Name of fairy tales about animals says about the main character of the tale: a wolf, a fox, a rooster, a hen, a pockmark, a crow, a hare. Russian fairy tales about animals are a kind of fairy tale genre. In animals, animals, and birds, and fish, and in some, plants also act. So, to read fairy tales about animals, includes fairy tales about a fox that steals fish from a sleigh, and about a wolf at an ice-hole; about a fox that got into a pot of sour cream; well-known folk tales about animals: a beaten unbeaten one is lucky (a fox and a wolf), a midwife fox, animals in a pit, a fox and a crane (inviting each other, to visit), a confessor fox, peace among animals. All these stories fill the soul of a child with kindness, love not only for people, but also for animals and animals. The animal characters of Russian folk tales include: a wolf visiting a dog, an old dog and a wolf, a cat and wild animals (animals are afraid of a cat), a wolf and goats, and others ...
In the fairy tale "Tiny-Havroshechka" a wonderful apple tree grows from the bones of a cow: it helps a girl to get married. Anthropomorphism in fairy tales is expressed in the fact that animals speak and act like people. short tales about animals "Bear - fake leg." With the development of human ideas about nature, with the accumulation of observations, fairy tales include stories about the victory of man over animals and about domestic animals, which was the result of their domestication.
In the fairy tale "The Fox Confessor", the fox, before eating the rooster, convinces him to confess his sins; at the same time, the hypocrisy of the clergy is wittily ridiculed. The fox addresses the rooster: “Oh, my dear child, the rooster!” She tells him a biblical parable about the publican and the Pharisee. Tales about animals, creating images of characters in which the features of an animal and a person are combined, naturally convey a lot of things that are characteristic of people's psychology.
We find the name of fairy tales about animals: “once there was a godfather with a godfather - a wolf with a fox”, “once there were a wolf and a fox”, “once there were a fox and a hare”. In fairy tales about animals, dialogism is developed much more than in fairy tales of another type: it moves the action, reveals situations, and shows the state of the characters. Songs are widely introduced into fairy tales: a fox lures a rooster with a song, a wolf deceives kids with a song, a gingerbread man runs and sings a song: “I’m scraped in the box, I’m swept in the bottom of the barrel ...” Fairy tales about animals are characterized by bright optimism: the weak always get out of difficult situations. It is supported by the comedy of many situations and humor. Funny stories about animals. The genre was formed for a long time, enriched with plots, types of characters, developing certain structural features.
Fairy tale for younger children preschool age"In the village".
Author: Nurtdinova Aisylu, 7 years old, pupil of MDOBU kindergarten No. 1 "Joy" of the urban district of the city of Neftekamsk, the Republic of Bashkortostan.Head: Safargulova Irina Sergeevna, teacher of MDOBU kindergarten No. 1 of the city district of Neftekamsk, Republic of Bashkortostan.
Material Description: This fairy tale is designed to introduce young children to the most popular pets - cow, horse, sheep and chicken and their benefits to humans.
Target: introduce children to pets.
Tasks: introduce some pets, talk about the benefits they bring to humans, develop cognitive interest.
Once upon a time there were two friends Petya and Roma. Petya lived in the city, and Roma lived in the countryside. And Petya decided to go to Roma to visit the village.
When Petya arrived, Roma decided to show him the farm. They went to a clearing and saw a cow there.
-Who is this? Petya was surprised.
-It's a cow. It gives tasty and healthy milk. And from milk they make sour cream, and cottage cheese, and even delicious ice cream. And the cow has very tasty meat.
“Who is this?” Petya asks again.
- It's a horse. It helps to carry heavy loads and gives a delicious milk called koumiss.
After walking a little, the boys saw lambs that were nibbling grass.
- And these are sheep, - Roma explained. - They have very warm wool, from which mittens and socks are knitted.
The boys came to the yard and saw the hens.
“And what kind of birds are these?” Petya asks.
- They're chickens. They lay eggs. And chicken soup is the most delicious and healthy soup in the world.
Petya looked around and saw a dog.
-I know that. This is a doggy. She guards the house.
"That's right," Roma said.
And the boys went home. Roma's mother fed Petya delicious chicken soup and warm milk.
Petya liked the village very much.
Konstantin Paustovsky
The lake near the shores was covered with heaps of yellow leaves. There were so many of them that we couldn't fish. The fishing lines lay on the leaves and did not sink.
I had to go on an old canoe to the middle of the lake, where water lilies were blooming and the blue water seemed black as tar. There we caught multi-colored perches, pulled out tin roach and ruff with eyes like two small moons. The pikes caressed at us with their teeth as small as needles.
It was autumn in the sun and fog. Distant clouds and thick blue air were visible through the circled forests.
At night, low stars stirred and trembled in the thickets around us.
We had a fire in the parking lot. We burned it all day and night long to drive away the wolves - they howled softly along the far shores of the lake. They were disturbed by the smoke of the fire and cheerful human cries.
We were sure that the fire frightened the animals, but one evening in the grass, by the fire, some animal began to sniff angrily. He was not visible. He was anxiously running around us, rustling through the tall grass, snorting and getting angry, but he did not even stick his ears out of the grass. Potatoes were fried in a frying pan, there was a sharp tasty smell coming from it, and the beast, obviously, ran to this smell.
A boy came to the lake with us. He was only nine years old, but he tolerated spending the night in the forest and the cold of autumn dawns well. Much better than us adults, he noticed and told everything. He was an inventor, this boy, but we adults were very fond of his inventions. We could not, and did not want to prove to him that he was telling a lie. Every day he came up with something new: now he heard the whispering of fish, then he saw how the ants made themselves a ferry across the stream of pine bark and cobwebs and crossed in the light of the night, an unprecedented rainbow. We pretended to believe him.
Everything that surrounded us seemed unusual: the late moon shining over the black lakes, and high clouds, like mountains of pink snow, and even the habitual sea noise of tall pines.
The boy was the first to hear the snort of the beast and hissed at us to keep us quiet. We quieted down. We tried not even to breathe, although our hand involuntarily reached for the double-barreled shotgun - who knows what kind of animal it could be!
Half an hour later, the beast stuck out a wet black nose, resembling a pig's snout, out of the grass. The nose sniffed the air for a long time and trembled with greed. Then a sharp muzzle with black piercing eyes appeared from the grass. Finally, a striped skin appeared. A small badger crawled out of the thickets. He folded his paw and looked at me carefully. Then he snorted in disgust and took a step towards the potatoes.
She fried and hissed, splashing boiling lard. I wanted to shout to the animal that he would burn himself, but I was too late: the badger jumped to the pan and stuck his nose into it ...
It smelled like burnt leather. The badger squealed and, with a desperate yell, threw himself back into the grass. He ran and shouted throughout the forest, broke bushes and spat out of indignation and pain.
Confusion began on the lake and in the forest: frightened frogs screamed without time, birds were alarmed, and near the shore, like a cannon shot, a pood pike struck.
In the morning the boy woke me up and told me that he himself had just seen a badger treating his burnt nose.
I didn't believe. I sat down by the fire and half-awake listened to the morning voices of the birds. White-tailed waders whistled in the distance, ducks quacked, cranes cooed in dry marshes - msharas, turtledoves cooed softly. I didn't want to move.
The boy pulled my hand. He was offended. He wanted to prove to me that he wasn't lying. He called me to go see how the badger is being treated. I reluctantly agreed. We carefully made our way into the thicket, and among the thickets of heather I saw a rotten pine stump. He smelled of mushrooms and iodine.
Near the stump, with its back to us, stood a badger. He opened the stump and stuck his burnt nose into the middle of the stump, into the wet and cold dust. He stood motionless and cooled his unfortunate nose, while another little badger ran around and snorted. He was worried and pushed our badger with his nose in the stomach. Our badger growled at him and kicked with his furry hind legs.
Then he sat down and wept. He looked at us with round and wet eyes, groaned and licked his sore nose with his rough tongue. He seemed to be asking for help, but there was nothing we could do to help him.
Since then, the lake - it used to be called Nameless - we called the Lake of the Silly Badger.
And a year later I met a badger with a scar on its nose on the shores of this lake. He sat by the water and tried to catch the dragonflies rattling like tin with his paw. I waved to him, but he sneezed angrily in my direction and hid in the lingonberry bushes.
Since then I have not seen him again.
Belkin fly agaric
N.I. Sladkov
Winter is a harsh time for animals. Everyone is preparing for it. A bear and a badger fatten up fat, a chipmunk stores pine nuts, a squirrel - mushrooms. And everything, it would seem, is clear and simple here: lard, mushrooms, and nuts, oh, how useful in winter!
Just absolutely, but not with everyone!
Here is an example of a squirrel. She dries mushrooms on knots in autumn: russula, mushrooms, mushrooms. Mushrooms are all good and edible. But among the good and edible you suddenly find ... fly agaric! Stumbled upon a knot - red, speckled with white. Why is fly agaric squirrel poisonous?
Maybe young squirrels unknowingly dry fly agarics? Maybe when they grow wiser, they don't eat them? Maybe dry fly agaric becomes non-poisonous? Or maybe dried fly agaric is something like a medicine for them?
There are many different assumptions, but there is no exact answer. That would be all to find out and check!
white-fronted
Chekhov A.P.
The hungry wolf got up to go hunting. Her wolf cubs, all three of them, were fast asleep, huddled together, and warmed each other. She licked them and went.
It was already the spring month of March, but at night the trees cracked from the cold, as in December, and as soon as you stick out your tongue, it begins to pinch strongly. The she-wolf was in poor health, suspicious; she shuddered at the slightest noise and kept thinking about how someone at home without her would offend the wolf cubs. The smell of human and horse tracks, stumps, piled firewood and a dark manured road frightened her; it seemed to her as if people were standing behind the trees in the darkness, and somewhere behind the forest dogs were howling.
She was no longer young and her instincts had weakened, so that it happened that she mistook a fox's track for a dog's and sometimes even, deceived by her instincts, lost her way, which had never happened to her in her youth. Due to poor health, she no longer hunted calves and large rams, as before, and already far bypassed horses with foals, and ate only carrion; she had to eat fresh meat very rarely, only in the spring, when, having come across a hare, she took away her children or climbed into the barn where the lambs were with the peasants.
Four versts from her lair, by the postal road, there was a winter hut. Here lived the watchman Ignat, an old man of about seventy, who kept coughing and talking to himself; he usually slept at night, and during the day he wandered through the forest with a single-barreled gun and whistled at hares. He must have been a mechanic before, because every time he stopped, he shouted to himself: “Stop, car!” and, before going any further: "Full speed!" With him was a huge black dog of an unknown breed, named Arapka. When she ran far ahead, he shouted to her: "Reverse!" Sometimes he sang, and at the same time he staggered strongly and often fell (the wolf thought it was from the wind) and shouted: “I went off the rails!”
The she-wolf remembered that in summer and autumn a ram and two ewes grazed near the winter hut, and when she ran past not so long ago, she thought she heard bleating in the barn. And now, approaching the winter hut, she realized that it was already March and, judging by the time, there must certainly be lambs in the barn. She was tormented by hunger, she thought about how greedily she would eat the lamb, and from such thoughts her teeth clicked and her eyes shone in the darkness like two lights.
Ignat's hut, his barn, barn and well were surrounded by high snowdrifts. It was quiet. The arapka must have been sleeping under the barn.
Through the snowdrift, the wolf climbed onto the barn and began to rake the thatched roof with her paws and muzzle. The straw was rotten and loose, so that the she-wolf almost fell through; she suddenly smelled warm steam right in her face, the smell of manure and sheep's milk. Down below, feeling cold, a lamb bleated softly. Jumping into the hole, the she-wolf fell with her front paws and chest on something soft and warm, probably on a ram, and at that moment something suddenly squealed in the stable, barked and burst into a thin, howling voice, the sheep shied against the wall, and the she-wolf, frightened, grabbed the first thing that caught her in the teeth, and rushed out ...
She ran, straining her strength, and at that time Arapka, who had already sensed the wolf, howled furiously, disturbed chickens clucked in the winter hut, and Ignat, going out onto the porch, shouted:
Full move! Went to the whistle!
And he whistled like a machine, and then - ho-ho-ho-ho! .. And all this noise was repeated by the forest echo.
When, little by little, all this calmed down, the wolf calmed down a little and began to notice that her prey, which she held in her teeth and dragged through the snow, was heavier and, as it were, harder than lambs usually are at this time, and it seemed to smell differently, and some strange sounds were heard... The she-wolf stopped and put her burden on the snow to rest and start eating, and suddenly jumped back in disgust. It was not a lamb, but a puppy, black, with a large head and high legs, of a large breed, with the same white spot all over his forehead, like Arapka's. Judging by his manners, he was an ignoramus, a simple mongrel. He licked his rumpled, wounded back and, as if nothing had happened, waved his tail and barked at the wolf. She growled like a dog and ran away from him. He is behind her. She looked back and clicked her teeth; he stopped in bewilderment and, probably deciding that she was playing with him, stretched out his muzzle in the direction of the winter quarters and burst into ringing joyful barking, as if inviting his mother Arapka to play with him and with the she-wolf.
It was already dawn, and when the she-wolf made her way to her thick aspen forest, each aspen tree was clearly visible, and the black grouse was already waking up and beautiful roosters often fluttered, disturbed by the careless jumps and barking of the puppy.
"Why is he running after me? thought the wolf with annoyance. "He must want me to eat him."
She lived with wolf cubs in a shallow hole; three years ago during strong storm uprooted a tall old pine tree, which is why this hole was formed. Now at the bottom of it were old leaves and moss, bones and bull horns, which the wolf cubs used to play, lay right there. They had already woken up and all three, very similar to each other, stood side by side on the edge of their pit and, looking at the returning mother, wagged their tails. Seeing them, the puppy stopped at a distance and looked at them for a long time; noticing that they, too, were looking at him attentively, he began to bark at them angrily, as if they were strangers.
It was already dawn and the sun had risen, the snow was sparkling all around, but he still stood at a distance and barked. The cubs sucked their mother, shoving her with their paws into her thin stomach, while she gnawed at the horse bone, white and dry; she was tormented by hunger, her head ached from the barking of dogs, and she wanted to rush at the uninvited guest and tear him apart.
Finally the puppy got tired and hoarse; seeing that they were not afraid of him and did not even pay attention, he began to timidly, now squatting, now jumping up, approach the cubs. Now, in daylight, it was already easy to see him ... His white forehead was large, and on his forehead a bump, which happens in very stupid dogs; the eyes were small, blue, dull, and the expression of the whole muzzle was extremely stupid. Approaching the cubs, he stretched out his broad paws, put his muzzle on them and began:
Me, me... nga-nga-nga!..
The cubs did not understand anything, but they waved their tails. Then the puppy hit one wolf cub on the big head with its paw. The wolf cub also hit him on the head with his paw. The puppy stood sideways to him and looked askance at him, wagging his tail, then suddenly rushed from his place and made several circles on the crust. The cubs chased him, he fell on his back and lifted his legs up, and the three of them attacked him and, squealing with delight, began to bite him, but not painfully, but as a joke. The crows sat on a tall pine tree, and looked down on their struggle, and were very worried. It got noisy and fun. The sun was already hot in the spring; and the roosters, now and then flying over a pine tree that had been felled by a storm, seemed emerald green in the glare of the sun.
Usually, she-wolves teach their children to hunt, letting them play with prey; and now, looking at how the cubs were chasing the puppy across the crust and wrestling with him, the she-wolf thought:
"Let them get used to it."
Having played enough, the cubs went into the pit and went to bed. The puppy howled a little with hunger, then also stretched out in the sun. When they woke up, they started playing again.
All day and evening the she-wolf remembered how the last night the lamb bleated in the barn and how it smelled of sheep's milk, and from appetite she snapped her teeth at everything and did not stop nibbling greedily on the old bone, imagining to herself that it was a lamb. The cubs suckled, and the puppy, which wanted to eat, ran around and sniffed the snow.
"Take it off..." - decided the wolf.
She approached him and he licked her face and whined, thinking she wanted to play with him. In the old days, she ate dogs, but the puppy smelled strongly of dog, and, due to poor health, she no longer tolerated this smell; she became disgusted, and she moved away ...
By night it got colder. The puppy got bored and went home.
When the cubs were sound asleep, the she-wolf again went hunting. As on the previous night, she was alarmed by the slightest noise, and she was frightened by stumps, firewood, dark, lonely juniper bushes, looking like people in the distance. She ran away from the road, along the crust. Suddenly, far ahead, something dark flashed on the road ... She strained her eyesight and hearing: in fact, something was moving ahead, and measured steps were even audible. Isn't it a badger? She carefully, breathing a little, taking everything aside, overtook the dark spot, looked back at him and recognized him. This, slowly, step by step, was returning to his winter hut a puppy with a white forehead.
“No matter how he doesn’t interfere with me again,” the wolf thought and quickly ran forward.
But the winter hut was already close. She again climbed onto the barn through a snowdrift. Yesterday's hole had already been patched up with spring straw, and two new slabs were stretched across the roof. The she-wolf began to quickly work her legs and muzzle, looking around to see if the puppy was coming, but as soon as she smelled warm steam and the smell of manure, a joyful, flooded bark was heard from behind. It's the puppy back. He jumped to the wolf on the roof, then into the hole and, feeling at home, warm, recognizing his sheep, barked even louder... with her single-barreled gun, the frightened wolf was already far from the winter hut.
Fuyt! whistled Ignat. - Fuyt! Drive at full speed!
He pulled the trigger - the gun misfired; he lowered again - again a misfire; he lowered it for the third time - and a huge sheaf of fire flew out of the barrel and there was a deafening “boo! boo!". He was strongly given in the shoulder; and, taking a gun in one hand and an ax in the other, he went to see what was causing the noise ...
A little later he returned to the hut.
Nothing ... - answered Ignat. - An empty case. Our White-fronted with sheep got into the habit of sleeping in warmth. Only there is no such thing as to the door, but strives for everything, as it were, into the roof. The other night, he took apart the roof and went for a walk, the scoundrel, and now he has returned and again ripped open the roof. Silly.
Yes, the spring in the brain burst. Death does not like stupid people! Ignat sighed, climbing onto the stove. - Well, God's man, it's still early to get up, let's sleep at full speed ...
And in the morning he called White-fronted to him, patted him painfully by the ears, and then, punishing him with a twig, kept saying:
Go to the door! Go to the door! Go to the door!
Faithful troy
Evgeny Charushin
We agreed with a friend to go skiing. I followed him in the morning. He lives in a big house - on Pestel Street.
I entered the yard. And he saw me from the window and waves his hand from the fourth floor.
Wait, I'll go out now.
So I'm waiting in the yard, at the door. Suddenly, someone from above rumbles up the stairs.
Knock! Thunder! Tra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta! Something wooden knocks and cracks on the steps, like a ratchet.
“Really,” I think, “is my friend with skis and sticks fallen down, counting the steps?”
I got closer to the door. What's rolling down the stairs? I am waiting.
And now I look: a spotted dog - a bulldog - leaves the door. Bulldog on wheels.
His torso is bandaged to a toy car - such a truck, "gas".
And with its front paws, the bulldog steps on the ground - it runs and rolls itself.
The muzzle is snub-nosed, wrinkled. Paws are thick, widely spaced. He rode out the door, looked angrily around. And then the ginger cat crossed the yard. How a bulldog rushes after a cat - only the wheels bounce on stones and ice. He drove the cat into the basement window, and he drives around the yard - he sniffs the corners.
Then I pulled out a pencil and a notebook, sat down on the step and let's draw it.
My friend came out with skis, saw that I was drawing a dog, and said:
Draw it, draw it, it's not a simple dog. He became a cripple because of his courage.
How so? - I ask.
My friend stroked the folds on the neck of the bulldog, gave him candy in the teeth and said to me:
Come on, I'll tell you the whole story on the way. Great story, you won't believe it.
So, - said a friend, when we went out the gate, - listen.
His name is Troy. In our opinion, this means - faithful.
And that's exactly what they called it.
We all left for work. In our apartment, everyone serves: one is a teacher at school, the other is a telegraph operator at the post office, wives also serve, and children study. Well, we all left, and Troy alone remained - to guard the apartment.
Some thief-thief tracked down that we had an empty apartment, turned the lock out of the door and let's take care of us.
He had a huge bag with him. He grabs everything that is horrible, and puts it in a bag, grabs and puts it. My gun got into a bag, new boots, a teacher's watch, Zeiss binoculars, children's felt boots.
Six pieces of jackets, and jackets, and all sorts of jackets he pulled on himself: there was already no room in the bag, apparently.
And Troy is lying by the stove, silent - the thief does not see him.
Troy has such a habit: he will let anyone in, but he won’t let him out.
Well, the thief robbed us all clean. The most expensive, the best took. It's time for him to leave. He leaned towards the door...
Troy is at the door.
It stands and is silent.
And Troy's muzzle - did you see what?
And looking for breasts!
Troy is standing, frowning, his eyes bloodshot, and a fang sticking out of his mouth.
The thief is rooted to the floor. Try to leave!
And Troy grinned, got sideways and began to advance sideways.
Slightly rises. He always intimidates the enemy in such a way - whether a dog or a person.
The thief, apparently from fear, was completely stunned, rushing about
chal to no avail, and Troy jumped on his back and bit through all six jackets on him at once.
Do you know how bulldogs grab with a stranglehold?
They will close their eyes, their jaws will slam shut, as if on a castle, and they will not open their teeth, at least kill them here.
The thief rushes about, rubbing his back against the walls. Flowers in pots, vases, books off the shelves. Nothing helps. Troy hangs on it like a weight.
Well, the thief finally guessed, somehow he got out of his six jackets and all this sack, together with the bulldog, once out the window!
It's from the fourth floor!
The bulldog flew head first into the yard.
Slurry splashed to the sides, rotten potatoes, herring heads, all sorts of rubbish.
Troy landed with all our jackets right in the garbage pit. Our dump was filled to the brim that day.
After all, what happiness! If he had blurted out on the stones, he would have broken all the bones and would not have uttered a peep. He would immediately die.
And then it’s as if someone deliberately set up a garbage dump for him - it’s still softer to fall.
Troy emerged from the garbage heap, climbed out - as if completely intact. And just think, he managed to intercept the thief on the stairs.
He clung to him again, this time in the leg.
Then the thief gave himself away, yelled, howled.
Tenants came running to the howl from all apartments, and from the third, and from the fifth, and from the sixth floor, from all the back stairs.
Keep the dog. Oh-oh-oh! I'll go to the police myself. Tear off only the traits of the damned.
Easy to say - tear off.
Two people pulled the bulldog, and he only waved his tail-stump and clamped his jaw even more tightly.
The tenants brought a poker from the first floor, put Troy between their teeth. Only in this manner and unclenched his jaws.
The thief went out into the street - pale, disheveled. Shaking all over, holding on to a policeman.
Well, the dog, he says. - Well, a dog!
They took the thief to the police. There he told how it happened.
I come home from work in the evening. I see the lock on the door turned out. In the apartment, a bag with our good is lying around.
And in the corner, in its place, Troy lies. All dirty and smelly.
I called Troy.
And he can't even come close. Creeps, squeals.
He lost his hind legs.
Well, now we take him out for a walk with the whole apartment in turn. I gave him wheels. He himself rolls down the stairs on wheels, but he can no longer climb back. Someone needs to lift the car from behind. Troy steps over with his front paws.
So now the dog lives on wheels.
Evening
Boris Zhitkov
The cow Masha goes to look for her son, the calf Alyoshka. Don't see him anywhere. Where did he disappear to? It's time to go home.
And the calf Alyoshka ran, got tired, lay down in the grass. The grass is tall - you can't see Alyoshka.
The cow Masha was frightened that her son Alyoshka was gone, and how she hums with all her strength:
Masha was milked at home, a whole bucket of fresh milk was milked. They poured Alyoshka into a bowl:
Here, drink, Alyoshka.
Alyoshka was delighted - he had wanted milk for a long time - he drank everything to the bottom and licked the bowl with his tongue.
Alyoshka got drunk, he wanted to run around the yard. As soon as he ran, suddenly a puppy jumped out of the booth - and bark at Alyoshka. Alyoshka was frightened: it must be a terrible beast, if it barks so loudly. And he started to run.
Alyoshka ran away, and the puppy did not bark anymore. Quiet became a circle. Alyoshka looked - there was no one, everyone went to sleep. And I wanted to sleep. I lay down and fell asleep in the yard.
The cow Masha also fell asleep on the soft grass.
The puppy also fell asleep at his booth - he was tired, he barked all day.
The boy Petya also fell asleep in his bed - he was tired, he ran all day.
The bird has long since fallen asleep.
She fell asleep on a branch and hid her head under the wing so that it would be warmer to sleep. Also tired. She flew all day, catching midges.
Everyone is asleep, everyone is sleeping.
Only the night wind does not sleep.
He rustles in the grass and rustles in the bushes
Volchishko
Evgeny Charushin
A little wolf lived in the forest with his mother.
One day, my mother went hunting.
And the man caught the little wolf, put it in a bag and brought it to the city. He put the bag in the middle of the room.
The bag did not move for a long time. Then the little wolf floundered in it and got out. He looked in one direction - he was frightened: a man is sitting, looking at him.
He looked in the other direction - the black cat snorts, puffs up, he is twice as thick as himself, barely standing. And next to it, the dog bares its teeth.
I was completely afraid of the wolf. I climbed back into the bag, but I couldn’t get in - the empty bag was lying on the floor like a rag.
And the cat puffed up, puffed up, and how it would hiss! He jumped on the table, knocked over the saucer. The saucer broke.
The dog barked.
The man shouted loudly: “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The little wolf hid under the armchair and there began to live and tremble.
The chair is in the middle of the room.
The cat looks down from the back of the chair.
The dog runs around the chair.
A man sits in an armchair - smokes.
And the little wolf is barely alive under the armchair.
At night, the man fell asleep, and the dog fell asleep, and the cat closed his eyes.
Cats - they do not sleep, but only doze.
The little wolf came out to look around.
He walked, walked, sniffed, and then sat down and howled.
The dog barked.
The cat jumped on the table.
The man sat up on the bed. He waved his hands and screamed. And the little wolf crawled under the chair again. I began to live quietly there.
The man left in the morning. He poured milk into a bowl. A cat and a dog began to lap up milk.
A little wolf crawled out from under the chair, crawled to the door, and the door was open!
From the door to the stairs, from the stairs to the street, from the street along the bridge, from the bridge to the garden, from the garden to the field.
And behind the field is a forest.
And in the forest mother-wolf.
And now the little wolf has become a wolf.
thief
Georgy Skrebitsky
Once we were given a young squirrel. She very soon became completely tame, ran around all the rooms, climbed on cabinets, whatnots, and so deftly - she would never drop anything, she would not break anything.
In my father's study, huge deer antlers were nailed over the sofa. The squirrel often climbed them: it used to climb onto the horn and sit on it, like on a tree knot.
She knew us guys well. As soon as you enter the room, the squirrel jumps from somewhere from the closet right onto your shoulder. This means - she asks for sugar or candy. I really liked sweets.
Sweets and sugar in our dining room, in the buffet, lay. They were never locked up, because we children did not take anything without asking.
But somehow mom calls us all to the dining room and shows an empty vase:
Who took this candy from here?
We look at each other and are silent - we do not know which of us did this. Mom shook her head and said nothing. And the next day, the sugar from the buffet disappeared and again no one confessed that he had taken it. At this point, my father got angry, said that now everything will be locked up, and he won’t give us sweets all week.
And the squirrel, along with us, was left without sweets. He used to jump up on his shoulder, rub his muzzle on his cheek, pull his teeth behind his ear - he asks for sugar. And where to get it?
Once after dinner I sat quietly on the sofa in the dining room and read. Suddenly I see: the squirrel jumped up on the table, grabbed a crust of bread in its teeth - and on the floor, and from there to the closet. A minute later, I look, I climbed onto the table again, grabbed the second crust - and again on the cabinet.
“Wait,” I think, “where is she carrying all the bread?” I set up a chair, looked at the closet. I see - my mother's old hat is lying. I lifted it - here you go! There is nothing under it: sugar, and sweets, and bread, and various bones ...
I - straight to my father, showing: "That's who our thief is!"
The father laughed and said:
How did I not think of this before! After all, it is our squirrel that makes reserves for the winter. Now it's autumn, in the wild all the squirrels are storing food, and ours is not far behind, it is also stocking up.
After such an incident, they stopped locking sweets from us, only they attached a hook to the sideboard so that the squirrel could not climb there. But the squirrel did not calm down on this, everything continued to prepare supplies for the winter. If he finds a crust of bread, a nut or a bone, he will grab it, run away and hide it somewhere.
And then we went somehow to the forest for mushrooms. They came late in the evening tired, ate - and rather sleep. They left a purse with mushrooms on the window: it’s cool there, they won’t go bad until morning.
We get up in the morning - the whole basket is empty. Where did the mushrooms go? Suddenly, the father screams from the office, calling us. We ran to him, we look - all the deer antlers above the sofa are hung with mushrooms. And on the towel hook, and behind the mirror, and behind the picture - mushrooms everywhere. This squirrel tried hard early in the morning: she hung mushrooms for herself to dry for the winter.
In the forest, squirrels always dry mushrooms on branches in autumn. So ours hastened. It looks like it's winter.
The cold really came soon. The squirrel kept trying to get somewhere in a corner, where it would be warmer, but once it disappeared altogether. Searched, searched for her - nowhere. Probably ran into the garden, and from there into the forest.
We felt sorry for the squirrels, but nothing can be done.
They gathered to heat the stove, closed the air vent, laid firewood, set it on fire. Suddenly, something is being brought in the stove, it will rustle! We quickly opened the air vent, and from there a squirrel jumped out like a bullet - and right on the cabinet.
And the smoke from the stove pours into the room, it doesn’t go up the chimney. What's happened? The brother made a hook out of thick wire and put it through the vent into the pipe to see if there was anything there.
We look - he drags a tie from the pipe, his mother's glove, even found his grandmother's festive scarf there.
All this our squirrel dragged into the pipe for its nest. That's what it is! Although he lives in the house, he does not leave forest habits. Such, apparently, is their squirrel nature.
caring mother
Georgy Skrebitsky
Once the shepherds caught a fox cub and brought it to us. We put the animal in an empty barn.
The cub was still small, all gray, the muzzle was dark, and the tail was white at the end. The animal huddled in the far corner of the barn and looked around frightened. From fear, he did not even bite when we stroked him, but only pressed his ears and trembled all over.
Mom poured milk into a bowl for him and put it right next to him. But the frightened animal did not drink milk.
Then dad said that the fox should be left alone - let him look around, get comfortable in a new place.
I really didn't want to leave, but dad locked the door and we went home. It was already evening, and soon everyone went to bed.
I woke up at night. I hear a puppy yelping and whining somewhere very close by. Where do you think he came from? Looked out the window. It was already light outside. From the window I could see the barn where the fox was. It turns out that he was whining like a puppy.
Right behind the barn, the forest began.
Suddenly I saw a fox jump out of the bushes, stop, listen, and stealthily run up to the barn. Immediately, the yelping in it stopped, and a joyful squeal was heard instead.
I slowly woke my mom and dad, and we all started looking out the window together.
The fox was running around the barn, trying to dig the ground under it. But there was a strong stone foundation, and the fox could not do anything. Soon she ran away into the bushes, and the fox cub again began to whine loudly and plaintively.
I wanted to watch the fox all night, but dad said that she would not come again, and ordered me to go to bed.
I woke up late and, having dressed, first of all I hurried to visit the little fox. What is it? .. On the threshold near the door lay a dead hare. I ran to my dad and brought him with me.
That's the thing! - said dad, seeing the hare. - This means that the mother fox once again came to the fox and brought him food. She could not get inside, so she left it outside. What a caring mother!
All day I hovered around the barn, looked into the cracks, and twice went with my mother to feed the fox. And in the evening I could not fall asleep in any way, I kept jumping out of bed and looking out the window to see if the fox had come.
Finally, my mother got angry and covered the window with a dark curtain.
But in the morning I got up like light and immediately ran to the barn. This time, it was no longer a hare lying on the threshold, but a strangled neighbor's chicken. It can be seen that the fox again came to visit the fox cub at night. She failed to catch prey in the forest for him, so she climbed into the neighbors' chicken coop, strangled the chicken and brought it to her cub.
Dad had to pay for the chicken, and besides, he got a lot from the neighbors.
Take the fox away wherever you want, they shouted, otherwise the fox will transfer the whole bird with us!
There was nothing to do, dad had to put the fox in a bag and take it back to the forest, to the fox holes.
Since then, the fox has not returned to the village.
Hedgehog
MM. Prishvin
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: 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 for you the moon and 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 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.
hare paws
Konstantin Paustovsky
Vanya Malyavin came to the veterinarian in our village from Lake Urzhensky and brought a small warm hare wrapped in a torn wadded jacket. The hare was crying and often blinking his red eyes from tears...
What, are you crazy? shouted the vet. - Soon you'll be dragging mice to me, bald!
And you don’t bark, this is a special hare, ”Vanya said in a hoarse whisper. - His grandfather sent, ordered to treat.
From what to treat something?
His paws are burned.
The veterinarian turned Vanya to face the door,
pushed in the back and shouted after:
Get on, get on! I can't heal them. Fry it with onions - grandfather will have a snack.
Vanya did not answer. He went out into the passage, blinked his eyes, pulled his nose and bumped into a log wall. Tears ran down the wall. The hare shivered quietly under the greasy jacket.
What are you, little one? - the compassionate grandmother Anisya asked Vanya; she brought her only goat to the vet. Why are you, my dear ones, shedding tears together? Ay what happened?
He is burned, grandfather hare, - Vanya said quietly. - He burned his paws in a forest fire, he cannot run. Here, look, die.
Don't die, little one, - muttered Anisya. - Tell your grandfather, if he has a great desire to go out a hare, let him carry him to the city to Karl Petrovich.
Vanya wiped away his tears and went home through the woods to Lake Urzhenskoye. He did not walk, but ran barefoot on a hot sandy road. A recent forest fire passed by, to the north, near the lake itself. There was a smell of burning and dry cloves. It grew in large islands in glades.
The hare moaned.
Vanya found fluffy leaves covered with soft silver hair on the way, pulled them out, put them under a pine tree and turned the hare around. The hare looked at the leaves, buried his head in them and fell silent.
What are you gray? Vanya asked quietly. - You should eat.
The hare was silent.
The hare moved his torn ear and closed his eyes.
Vanya took him in his arms and ran straight through the forest - he had to quickly give the hare a drink from the lake.
Unheard-of heat stood that summer over the forests. In the morning, strings of dense white clouds floated up. At noon, the clouds were rapidly rushing up to the zenith, and before our eyes they were carried away and disappeared somewhere beyond the boundaries of the sky. The hot hurricane had been blowing for two weeks without a break. The resin flowing down the pine trunks turned into an amber stone.
The next morning, grandfather put on clean shoes and new bast shoes, took a staff and a piece of bread and wandered into the city. Vanya carried the hare from behind.
The hare was completely quiet, only occasionally shuddered all over and sighed convulsively.
Dry wind blew a cloud of dust over the city, soft as flour. Chicken fluff, dry leaves and straw flew in it. From a distance it seemed that a quiet fire was smoking over the city.
The market square was very empty, sultry; the cab horses dozed near the water booth, and they wore straw hats on their heads. Grandfather crossed himself.
Not the horse, not the bride - the jester will sort them out! he said and spat.
Passers-by were asked for a long time about Karl Petrovich, but no one really answered anything. We went to the pharmacy. A fat old man in pince-nez and in a short white coat shrugged his shoulders angrily and said:
I like it! Pretty weird question! Karl Petrovich Korsh, a specialist in childhood diseases, has stopped seeing patients for three years. Why do you need him?
Grandfather, stuttering from respect for the pharmacist and from timidity, told about the hare.
I like it! said the pharmacist. - Interesting patients wound up in our city! I like this wonderful!
He nervously took off his pince-nez, wiped it, put it back on his nose and stared at his grandfather. Grandfather was silent and stomped. The pharmacist was also silent. The silence was becoming painful.
Post street, three! - suddenly the pharmacist shouted in his hearts and slammed some disheveled thick book. - Three!
Grandfather and Vanya made it to Postal Street just in time - a high thunderstorm was setting in from behind the Oka. Lazy thunder stretched over the horizon, as a sleepy strongman straightened his shoulders, and reluctantly shook the ground. Gray ripples went along the river. Noiseless lightnings surreptitiously, but swiftly and strongly struck the meadows; far beyond the Glades, a haystack, lit by them, was already burning. Large drops of rain fell on the dusty road, and soon it became like the surface of the moon: each drop left a small crater in the dust.
Karl Petrovich was playing something sad and melodic on the piano when his grandfather's disheveled beard appeared in the window.
A minute later Karl Petrovich was already angry.
I'm not a veterinarian," he said, and slammed the lid of the piano shut. Immediately thunder rumbled in the meadows. - All my life I have treated children, not hares.
What a child, what a hare - all the same, - stubbornly muttered the grandfather. - All the same! Lie down, show mercy! Our veterinarian has no jurisdiction over such matters. He horse-drawn for us. This hare, one might say, is my savior: I owe him my life, I must show gratitude, and you say - quit!
A minute later, Karl Petrovich, an old man with gray, tousled eyebrows, was anxiously listening to his grandfather's stumbling story.
Karl Petrovich finally agreed to treat the hare. The next morning, grandfather went to the lake, and left Vanya with Karl Petrovich to follow the hare.
A day later, the entire Pochtovaya Street, overgrown with goose grass, already knew that Karl Petrovich was treating a hare that had been burned in a terrible forest fire and had saved some old man. Two days later, the whole small town already knew about this, and on the third day a long young man in a felt hat came to Karl Petrovich, introduced himself as an employee of a Moscow newspaper and asked for a conversation about a hare.
The hare was cured. Vanya wrapped him in a cotton rag and carried him home. Soon the story of the hare was forgotten, and only some Moscow professor tried for a long time to get his grandfather to sell him the hare. He even sent letters with stamps to answer. But my grandfather did not give up. Under his dictation, Vanya wrote a letter to the professor:
“The hare is not corrupt, a living soul, let him live in the wild. At the same time, I remain Larion Malyavin.
This autumn I spent the night with my grandfather Larion on Lake Urzhenskoe. The constellations, cold as grains of ice, floated in the water. Noisy dry reeds. The ducks shivered in the thickets and plaintively quacked all night.
Grandpa couldn't sleep. He sat by the stove and repaired a torn fishing net. Then he put the samovar on - the windows in the hut immediately fogged up from it, and the stars turned from fiery points into muddy balls. Murzik was barking in the yard. He jumped into the darkness, clanged his teeth and bounced off - he fought with the impenetrable October night. The hare slept in the passage and occasionally in his sleep he loudly pounded with his hind paw on a rotten floorboard.
We drank tea at night, waiting for the distant and indecisive dawn, and over tea my grandfather finally told me the story of the hare.
In August, my grandfather went hunting on the northern shore of the lake. The forests were dry as gunpowder. Grandfather got a hare with a torn left ear. Grandfather shot him with an old, wire-bound gun, but missed. The hare got away.
Grandfather realized that a forest fire had started and the fire was coming right at him. The wind turned into a hurricane. Fire drove across the ground at an unheard of speed. According to my grandfather, even a train could not escape such a fire. Grandfather was right: during the hurricane, the fire went at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour.
Grandfather ran over the bumps, stumbled, fell, the smoke was eating away at his eyes, and behind him a wide rumble and crackle of the flame was already audible.
Death overtook the grandfather, grabbed him by the shoulders, and at that time a hare jumped out from under the grandfather's feet. He ran slowly and dragged his hind legs. Then only the grandfather noticed that they were burned by the hare.
Grandfather was delighted with the hare, as if it were his own. Like an old forest dweller, grandfather knew that animals were much better than a man they smell where the fire comes from, and they always save themselves. They die only in those rare cases when the fire surrounds them.
The grandfather ran after the rabbit. He ran, crying with fear and shouting: “Wait, dear, don’t run so fast!”
The hare brought grandfather out of the fire. When they ran out of the forest to the lake, the hare and grandfather both fell down from fatigue. Grandfather picked up the hare and carried it home.
The hare had scorched hind legs and belly. Then his grandfather cured him and left him.
Yes, - said the grandfather, looking at the samovar so angrily, as if the samovar was to blame for everything, - yes, but in front of that hare, it turns out that I was very guilty, dear man.
What did you do wrong?
And you go out, look at the hare, at my savior, then you will know. Get a flashlight!
I took a lantern from the table and went out into the vestibule. The hare was sleeping. I bent over him with a lantern and noticed that the left ear of the hare was torn. Then I understood everything.
How an elephant saved its owner from a tiger
Boris Zhitkov
Hindus have tame elephants. One Hindu went with an elephant to the forest for firewood. 
The forest was deaf and wild. The elephant paved the way for the owner and helped to fell the trees, and the owner loaded them onto the elephant.
Suddenly, the elephant stopped obeying the owner, began to look around, shake his ears, and then raised his trunk and roared.
The owner also looked around, but did not notice anything.
He became angry with the elephant and beat him on the ears with a branch.
And the elephant bent the trunk with a hook to lift the owner on his back. The owner thought: "I will sit on his neck - so it will be even more convenient for me to rule him."
He sat on the elephant and began to whip the elephant on the ears with a branch. And the elephant backed away, stomped and twirled its trunk. Then he froze and became worried.
The owner raised a branch to hit the elephant with all his might, but suddenly a huge tiger jumped out of the bushes. He wanted to attack the elephant from behind and jump on its back.
But he hit the firewood with his paws, the firewood fell down. The tiger wanted to jump another time, but the elephant had already turned around, grabbed the tiger across the stomach with its trunk, and squeezed it like a thick rope. The tiger opened its mouth, stuck out its tongue and shook its paws.
And the elephant already lifted him up, then slammed to the ground and began to stomp his feet.
And the elephant's legs are like pillars. And the elephant trampled the tiger into a cake. When the owner came to his senses from fear, he said:
What a fool I am for beating an elephant! And he saved my life.
The owner took out the bread that he had prepared for himself from the bag and gave it all to the elephant.
Cat
MM. Prishvin
When I see from the window how Vaska makes his way in the garden, I shout to him in the most tender voice:
Wa-sen-ka!
And in response, I know, he also screams at me, but I’m a little tight in my ear and can’t hear, but only see how, after my cry, a pink mouth opens on his white muzzle.
Wa-sen-ka! I shout to him.
And I guess - he shouts to me:
Now I'm going!
And with a firm straight tiger step he goes to the house.
In the morning, when the light from the dining room through the half-open door is still only a pale slit, I know that the cat Vaska is sitting in the darkness at the very door and waiting for me. He knows that the dining room is empty without me, and he is afraid: in another place he may doze off my entrance to the dining room. He has been sitting here for a long time and, as soon as I bring in the kettle, he rushes to me with a kind cry.
When I sit down for tea, he sits on my left knee and watches everything: how I prick sugar with tweezers, how I cut bread, how I spread butter. I know that he does not eat salted butter, but takes only a small piece of bread if he does not catch a mouse at night.
When he is sure that there is nothing tasty on the table - a crust of cheese or a piece of sausage, then he falls on my knee, tramples a little and falls asleep.
After tea, when I get up, he wakes up and goes to the window. There he turns his head in all directions, up and down, considering the passing flocks of jackdaws and crows in this early morning hour. From all the complex world of life big city he chooses for himself only the birds and rushes wholly only to them.
During the day - birds, and at night - mice, and so the whole world is with him: in the daytime, in the light, the black narrow slits of his eyes, crossing a muddy green circle, see only birds, at night, the whole black luminous eye opens and sees only mice.
Today, the radiators are warm, and because of this, the window is very fogged up, and the cat has become very bad at counting jackdaws. So what do you think my cat! He got up on his hind legs, his front paws on the glass and, well, wipe, well, wipe! When he rubbed it and it became clearer, he again calmly sat down, like porcelain, and again, counting the jackdaws, began to move his head up, down, and to the sides.
During the day - birds, at night - mice, and this is the whole Vaska's world.
Cat Thief
Konstantin Paustovsky
We are in despair. We didn't know how to catch this ginger cat. He robbed us every night. He hid so cleverly that none of us really saw him. Only a week later it was finally possible to establish that the cat's ear was torn off and a piece of dirty tail was cut off.
It was a cat that had lost all conscience, a cat - a tramp and a bandit. They called him behind the eyes Thief.
He stole everything: fish, meat, sour cream and bread. Once he even tore open a tin can of worms in a closet. He did not eat them, but chickens came running to the open jar and pecked at our entire supply of worms.
Overfed chickens lay in the sun and moaned. We walked around them and swore, but the fishing was still disrupted.
We spent almost a month tracking down the ginger cat. The village boys helped us with this. One day they rushed in and, out of breath, told that at dawn the cat swept, crouching, through the gardens and dragged a kukan with perches in its teeth.
We rushed to the cellar and found the kukan missing; it had ten fat perches caught on Prorva.
It was no longer theft, but robbery in broad daylight. We swore to catch the cat and blow it up for gangster antics.
The cat was caught that evening. He stole a piece of liverwurst from the table and climbed up the birch with it.
We started shaking the birch. The cat dropped the sausage, it fell on Reuben's head. The cat looked at us from above with wild eyes and howled menacingly.
But there was no salvation, and the cat decided on a desperate act. With a terrifying howl, he fell off the birch, fell to the ground, bounced like a soccer ball, and rushed under the house.
The house was small. He stood in a deaf, abandoned garden. Every night we were awakened by the sound of wild apples falling from the branches onto its boarded roof.
The house was littered with fishing rods, shot, apples and dry leaves. We only slept in it. All days, from dawn to dark,
we spent on the banks of countless channels and lakes. There we fished and made fires in the coastal thickets.
To get to the shore of the lakes, one had to trample down narrow paths in fragrant tall grasses. Their corollas swung over their heads and showered their shoulders with yellow flower dust.
We returned in the evening, scratched by the wild rose, tired, burned by the sun, with bundles of silvery fish, and each time we were greeted with stories about the red cat's new tramp antics.
But, finally, the cat got caught. He crawled under the house through the only narrow hole. There was no way out.
We covered the hole with an old net and began to wait. But the cat didn't come out. He howled disgustingly, like an underground spirit, howling continuously and without any fatigue. An hour passed, two, three ... It was time to go to bed, but the cat was howling and cursing under the house, and it got on our nerves.
Then Lyonka, the son of a village shoemaker, was called. Lenka was famous for his fearlessness and dexterity. He was instructed to pull the cat out from under the house.
Lenka took a silk fishing line, tied to it by the tail a raft caught during the day and threw it through a hole into the underground.
The howl stopped. We heard a crunch and a predatory click - the cat bit into the head of a fish. He grabbed it with a death grip. Lenka pulled the line. The cat resisted desperately, but Lenka was stronger, and besides, the cat did not want to release the tasty fish.
A minute later the head of a cat with a raft clamped between its teeth appeared in the opening of the manhole.
Lyonka grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck and lifted it above the ground. We took a good look at it for the first time.
The cat closed his eyes and flattened his ears. He kept his tail just in case. It turned out to be a skinny, despite the constant theft, a fiery red stray cat with white marks on his stomach.
What are we to do with it?
Rip out! - I said.
It won't help, - said Lenka. - He has such a character since childhood. Try to feed him properly.
The cat waited with closed eyes.
We followed this advice, dragged the cat into the closet and gave him a wonderful dinner: fried pork, perch aspic, cottage cheese and sour cream.
The cat has been eating for over an hour. He staggered out of the closet, sat down on the threshold and washed, glancing at us and at the low stars with his impudent green eyes.
After washing, he snorted for a long time and rubbed his head on the floor. This was obviously meant to be fun. We were afraid that he would wipe his fur on the back of his head.
Then the cat rolled over on its back, caught its tail, chewed it, spat it out, stretched out by the stove and snored peacefully.
From that day on, he took root with us and stopped stealing.
The next morning, he even performed a noble and unexpected act.
The chickens climbed onto the table in the garden and, pushing each other and quarreling, began to peck buckwheat porridge from the plates.
The cat, trembling with indignation, crept up to the hens and, with a short triumphant cry, jumped onto the table.
The chickens took off with a desperate cry. They overturned the jug of milk and rushed, losing their feathers, to flee from the garden.
Ahead rushed, hiccuping, a rooster-fool, nicknamed "Hiller".
The cat rushed after him on three paws, and with the fourth, front paw, hit the rooster on the back. Dust and fluff flew from the rooster. Something buzzed and buzzed inside him from every blow, like a cat hitting a rubber ball.
After that, the rooster lay in a fit for several minutes, rolling his eyes, and groaning softly. He was doused cold water and he walked away.
Since then, chickens have been afraid to steal. Seeing the cat, they hid under the house with a squeak and hustle.
The cat walked around the house and garden, like a master and watchman. He rubbed his head against our legs. He demanded gratitude, leaving patches of red wool on our trousers.
We renamed him from Thief to Policeman. Although Reuben claimed that this was not entirely convenient, we were sure that the policemen would not be offended by us for this.
Mug under the tree
Boris Zhitkov
The boy took a net - a wicker net - and went to the lake to fish.
He caught the blue fish first. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the tail of the fish is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.
The boy took a mug, a small mug made of thin glass. He scooped water from the lake into a mug, put a fish in a mug - let him swim for now.
The fish gets angry, beats, breaks out, and the boy is more likely to put it in a mug - bang!
The boy quietly took the fish by the tail, threw it into a mug - not to be seen at all. I ran on myself.
“Here,” he thinks, “wait a minute, I’ll catch a fish, a big crucian.”
Whoever catches the fish, the first one to catch it, will do well. Just don’t grab it right away, don’t swallow it: there are prickly fish - ruff, for example. Bring, show. I myself will tell you what kind of fish to eat, what kind to spit out.
The ducklings flew and swam in all directions. And one swam the farthest. He climbed ashore, dusted himself off and went waddling. What if there are fish on the shore? He sees - there is a mug under the Christmas tree. There is water in a mug. "Let me take a look."
Fish in the water rush about, splash, poke, there is nowhere to get out - glass is everywhere. A duckling came up, sees - oh yes, fish! Picked up the biggest one. And more to my mother.
“I must be the first. I was the first fish I caught, and I did well.
The fish is red, the feathers are white, two antennae hanging from the mouth, dark stripes on the sides, a speck on the scallop, like a black eye.
The duckling waved its wings, flew along the shore - straight to its mother.
The boy sees - a duck is flying, flying low, above his head, holding a fish in his beak, a red fish with a finger length. The boy shouted at the top of his lungs:
This is my fish! Thief duck, give it back now!
He waved his arms, threw stones, screamed so terribly that he scared away all the fish.
The duckling was frightened and how it screams:
Quack quack!
He shouted "quack-quack" and missed the fish.
The fish swam into the lake, into deep water, waved its feathers, swam home.
“How can I return to my mother with an empty beak?” - the duckling thought, turned back, flew under the Christmas tree.
He sees - there is a mug under the Christmas tree. A small mug, water in the mug, and fish in the water.
A duck ran up, rather grabbed a fish. Blue fish with a golden tail. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the tail of the fish is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.
The duckling flew up higher and - rather to his mother.
“Well, now I won’t shout, I won’t open my beak. Once it was already open.
Here you can see mom. That's quite close. And my mother shouted:
Damn, what are you wearing?
Quack, this is a fish, blue, gold, - a glass mug stands under the Christmas tree.
Here again, the beak gaped, and the fish splashed into the water! Blue fish with a golden tail. She shook her tail, whined and went, went, went deeper.
The duckling turned back, flew under the tree, looked into the mug, and in the mug there was a small, small fish, no bigger than a mosquito, you could barely see the fish. The duckling pecked into the water and flew back home with all his strength.
Where are your fish? - asked the duck. - I can not see anything.
And the duckling is silent, its beak does not open. He thinks: "I'm cunning! Wow, I'm cunning! Trickier than everyone! I will be silent, otherwise I will open my beak - I will miss the fish. Dropped it twice."
And the fish in its beak beats with a thin mosquito, and climbs into the throat. The duckling was frightened: “Oh, it seems that I’ll swallow it now! Oh, it seems to have swallowed!
The brothers have arrived. Each one has a fish. Everyone swam up to mom and popped their beaks. And the duck calls to the duckling:
Well, now you show me what you brought! The duckling opened its beak, but the fish did not.
Mitina's friends
Georgy Skrebitsky
In winter, in the December cold, a moose cow and a calf spent the night in a dense aspen forest. Beginning to light up. The sky turned pink, and the forest, covered with snow, stood all white and hushed. Small, shiny frost settled on the branches, on the backs of the moose. The moose dozed off.
Suddenly, the crunch of snow was heard somewhere very close. Moose was worried. Something gray flickered among the snow-covered trees. One moment - and the moose were already rushing away, breaking the ice crust of the crust and bogged down knee-deep in deep snow. The wolves followed them. They were lighter than moose and jumped on the crust without falling through. With every second, the animals are getting closer and closer.
Elk could no longer run. The calf kept close to its mother. A little more - and the gray robbers will catch up, tear them both apart.
Ahead - a clearing, a wattle fence near a forest gatehouse, wide-open gates.
Moose stopped: where to go? But behind, very close, there was a crunch of snow - the wolves overtook. Then the moose cow, having gathered the rest of her strength, rushed straight into the gate, the calf followed her.
The forester's son Mitya was raking snow in the yard. He barely jumped to the side - the moose almost knocked him down.
Moose!.. What's wrong with them, where are they from?
Mitya ran to the gate and involuntarily recoiled: there were wolves at the very gate.
A shiver ran down the boy's back, but he immediately raised his shovel and shouted:
Here I am you!
The animals shied away.
Atu, atu! .. - Mitya shouted after them, jumping out of the gate.
Having driven away the wolves, the boy looked into the yard. An elk with a calf stood, huddled in the far corner, to the barn.
Look how frightened, everyone is trembling ... - Mitya said affectionately. - Do not be afraid. Now untouched.
And he, carefully moving away from the gate, ran home - to tell what guests had rushed to their yard.
And the moose stood in the yard, recovered from their fright and went back to the forest. Since then, they have stayed all winter in the forest near the gatehouse.
In the morning, walking along the road to school, Mitya often saw moose from a distance on the edge of the forest.
Noticing the boy, they did not rush away, but only carefully watched him, pricking up their huge ears.
Mitya nodded his head merrily to them, as to old friends, and ran on to the village.
On an unknown path
N.I. Sladkov
I got to walk different paths: bear, boar, wolf. I walked along hare paths and even bird paths. But this is the first time I've walked this path. This path was cleared and trampled by ants.
On animal paths I unraveled animal secrets. What can I see on this trail?
I did not walk along the path itself, but next to it. The path is too narrow - like a ribbon. But for the ants, of course, it was not a ribbon, but a wide highway. And Muravyov ran along the highway a lot, a lot. They dragged flies, mosquitoes, horseflies. The transparent wings of insects shone. It seemed that a trickle of water was pouring down the slope between the blades of grass.
I walk along the ant trail and count the steps: sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five steps... Wow! These are my big ones, but how many ant ones ?! Only at the seventieth step did the trickle disappear under the stone. Serious trail.
I sat down on a rock to rest. I sit and watch how a living vein beats under my feet. The wind blows - ripples along a living stream. The sun will shine - the stream will sparkle.
Suddenly, as if a wave surged along the ant road. The snake wagged along it and - dive! - under the rock on which I was sitting. I even jerked my leg away - probably this is a harmful viper. Well, rightly so - now the ants will neutralize it.
I knew that ants boldly attack snakes. They will stick around the snake - and only scales and bones will remain from it. I even thought of picking up the skeleton of this snake and showing it to the guys.
I sit, I wait. Underfoot beats and beats a living brook. Well, now it's time! I carefully lift the stone - not to damage the snake skeleton. Under the stone is a snake. But not dead, but alive and not at all like a skeleton! On the contrary, she became even thicker! The snake, which the ants were supposed to eat, calmly and slowly ate Ants herself. She pressed them with her muzzle and pulled them into her mouth with her tongue. This snake was not a viper. I have never seen such snakes before. The scale, like emery, is small, the same above and below. More like a worm than a snake.
An amazing snake: it lifted its blunt tail up, moved it from side to side, like a head, and suddenly crawled forward with its tail! And the eyes are not visible. Either a snake with two heads, or without a head at all! And it eats something - ants!
The skeleton did not come out, so I took the snake. At home, I looked at it in detail and determined the name. I found her eyes: small, the size of a pinhead, under the scales. That's why they call her - blind snake. She lives in burrows underground. She doesn't need eyes. But crawling either with your head or with your tail forward is convenient. And she can dig the ground.
This is what an unknown beast led me to an unknown path.
Yes, what to say! Every path leads somewhere. Just don't be lazy to go.
Autumn on the doorstep
N.I. Sladkov
Forest dwellers! - shouted once in the morning the wise Raven. - Autumn at the forest threshold, is everyone ready for its arrival?
Ready, ready, ready...
Now we'll check it out! - croaked Raven. - First of all, autumn will let the cold into the forest - what will you do?
Animals responded:
We, squirrels, hares, foxes, will change into winter coats!
We, badgers, raccoons, will hide in warm holes!
We, hedgehogs, bats, will sleep soundly!
Birds responded:
We, migratory, will fly away to warm lands!
We, settled down, put on padded jackets!
The second thing, - Raven screams, - autumn will begin to rip off the leaves from the trees!
Let it rip off! the birds responded. - The berries will be more visible!
Let it rip off! the animals responded. - It will become quieter in the forest!
The third thing, - the Raven does not let up, - the autumn of the last insects will snap with frost!
Birds responded:
And we, thrushes, will fall on the mountain ash!
And we, woodpeckers, will begin to peel the cones!
And we, goldfinches, will take on the weeds!
Animals responded:
And we will sleep better without mosquitoes!
The fourth thing, - the Raven buzzes, - autumn will begin to pester with boredom! It will overtake gloomy clouds, let in tedious rains, nauseka dreary winds. The day will shorten, the sun will hide in your bosom!
Let yourself pester! birds and animals responded in unison. - You won't get bored with us! What do we need rains and winds when we
in fur coats and down jackets! We will be full - we will not get bored!
The wise Raven wanted to ask something else, but waved his wing and took off.
It flies, and under it is a forest, multi-colored, motley - autumn.
Autumn has already crossed the threshold. But it didn't scare anyone.
Butterfly hunting
MM. Prishvin
Zhulka, my young marble-blue hunting dog, rushes like crazy after birds, after butterflies, even after large flies until her hot breath throws her tongue out of her mouth. But that doesn't stop her either.
Here's a story that was in front of everyone.
The yellow cabbage butterfly attracted attention. Giselle rushed after her, jumped and missed. The butterfly moved on. Zhulka behind her - hap! Butterfly, at least something: flies, moths, as if laughing.
Hap! - by. Hup, hop! - past and past.
Hap, hap, hap - and there are no butterflies in the air.
Where is our butterfly? There was excitement among the children. "Ahah!" - was just heard.
Butterflies are not in the air, cabbage has disappeared. Giselle herself stands motionless, like wax, turning her head up, down, then sideways in surprise.
Where is our butterfly?
At this time, hot vapors began to press inside Zhulka's mouth - after all, dogs do not have sweat glands. The mouth opened, the tongue fell out, the steam escaped, and together with the steam a butterfly flew out and, as if nothing had happened to it at all, it was winding itself over the meadow.
Zhulka was so exhausted with this butterfly, before, probably, it was difficult for her to hold her breath with a butterfly in her mouth, that now, seeing the butterfly, she suddenly gave up. With her long, pink tongue hanging out, she stood and looked at the flying butterfly with her eyes, which at once became small and stupid.
Children pestered us with the question:
Well, why don't dogs have sweat glands?
We didn't know what to tell them.
Schoolboy Vasya Veselkin answered them:
If dogs had glands and they didn’t have to sigh, then they would have caught and ate all the butterflies a long time ago.
under the snow
N.I. Sladkov
Poured snow, covered the ground. Various small fry were delighted that no one would now find them under the snow. One animal even boasted:
Guess who am I? It looks like a mouse, not a mouse. As tall as a rat, not a rat. I live in the forest, and I am called Polevka. I am a water vole, but simply a water rat. Although I am a water person, I am not sitting in the water, but under the snow. Because in winter the water is frozen. I am not alone now sitting under the snow, many have become snowdrops for the winter. Have a carefree day. Now I’ll run to my pantry, I’ll choose the largest potato ...
Here, from above, a black beak sticks through the snow: in front, behind, on the side! Polevka bit her tongue, cringed and closed her eyes.
It was Raven who heard Polevka and began to poke his beak into the snow. Like from above, poked, listened.
Did you hear it, right? - growled. And flew away.
The vole took a breath, whispered to herself:
Wow, how nice it smells like mice!
Polevka rushed in the direction of the back - with all her short legs. Elle was saved. She caught her breath and thinks: “I will be silent - Raven will not find me. And what about Lisa? Maybe roll out in the dust of grass to beat off the spirit of the mouse? I will do so. And I will live in peace, no one will find me.
And from otnorka - Weasel!
I found you, he says. He says so affectionately, and his eyes are shooting with green sparks. And her white teeth are shining. - I found you, Polevka!
Vole in the hole - Weasel for her. Vole in the snow - and Weasel in the snow, Vole under the snow - and Weasel in the snow. Barely got away.
Only in the evening - do not breathe! - Polevka crept into her pantry and there - with an eye, listening and sniffing! - I crammed a potato from the edge. And that was glad. And she no longer boasted that her life under the snow was carefree. And keep your ears open under the snow, and there they hear and smell you.
About the elephant
Boris Zhidkov
We took a steamer to India. They were supposed to come in the morning. I changed from the watch, I was tired and could not fall asleep: I kept thinking how it would be there. It's like if they brought me a whole box of toys as a child, and only tomorrow you can open it. I kept thinking - in the morning, I will immediately open my eyes - and the Indians, black, come around, mumble incomprehensibly, not like in the picture. Bananas right on the bush
the city is new - everything will stir, play. And elephants! The main thing - I wanted to see elephants. Everyone could not believe that they were not there like in the zoological one, but simply walk around, carry: all of a sudden such a bulk is rushing down the street!
I couldn't sleep, my legs itched with impatience. After all, you know, when you travel by land, it’s not at all the same: you see how everything is gradually changing. And here for two weeks the ocean - water and water - and immediately new country. Like a theater curtain raised.
The next morning they stomped on the deck, buzzed. I rushed to the porthole, to the window - it's ready: the white city stands on the shore; port, ships, near the side of the boat: they are black in white turbans - teeth are shining, shouting something; the sun shines with all its might, presses, it seems, crushes with light. Then I went crazy, suffocated right: as if I were not me, and all this is a fairy tale. I didn't want to eat anything in the morning. Dear comrades, I will stand two watches at sea for you - let me go ashore as soon as possible.
The two of them jumped to the beach. In the port, in the city, everything is seething, boiling, people are crowding, and we are like frantic and do not know what to watch, and we do not go, but as if something is carrying us (and even after the sea it is always strange to walk along the coast). Let's see the tram. We got on the tram, we ourselves don’t really know why we are going, if only we go further - they went crazy right. The tram rushes us, we stare around and did not notice how we drove to the outskirts. It doesn't go further. Got out. Road. Let's go down the road. Let's go somewhere!
Here we calmed down a bit and noticed that it was cool hot. The sun is above the dome itself; the shadow does not fall from you, but the whole shadow is under you: you walk, and you trample your shadow.
Quite a few have already passed, people have not begun to meet, we look - towards the elephant. There are four guys with him - running side by side along the road. I couldn’t believe my eyes: they didn’t see a single one in the city, but here they easily walk along the road. It seemed to me that I had escaped from the zoological. The elephant saw us and stopped. It became terrifying for us: there were no big ones with him, the guys were alone. Who knows what's on his mind. Motanet once with a trunk - and you're done.
And the elephant, probably, thought so about us: some unusual, unknown ones are coming - who knows? And became. Now the trunk is bent with a hook, the older boy stands on the hook on this one, as if on a bandwagon, holds on to the trunk with his hand, and the elephant carefully put it on his head. He sat there between his ears, as if on a table.
Then the elephant sent two more at once in the same order, and the third was small, probably four years old - he was only wearing a short shirt, like a bra. The elephant puts his trunk to him - go, they say, sit down. And he does different tricks, laughs, runs away. The elder yells at him from above, and he jumps and teases - you won’t take it, they say. The elephant did not wait, lowered his trunk and went - pretended that he did not want to look at his tricks. He walks, swaying his trunk measuredly, and the boy curls around his legs, grimacing. And just when he was not expecting anything, the elephant suddenly had a snout with its trunk! Yes, so smart! He caught him by the back of his shirt and lifts him up carefully. The one with his hands, his feet, like a bug. No! None for you. He picked up the elephant, carefully lowered it on his head, and there the guys accepted him. He was there, on an elephant, still trying to fight.
We caught up, we go by the side of the road, and the elephant from the other side looks at us carefully and carefully. And the guys also stare at us and whisper among themselves. They sit like at home on the roof.
That, I think, is great: they have nothing to be afraid of there. If a tiger came across, the elephant would catch the tiger, grab it with its proboscis across the stomach, squeeze it, throw it higher than a tree, and if it didn’t catch it on its fangs, it would still trample it with its feet until it crushed it into a cake.
And then he took the boy, like a goat, with two fingers: carefully and carefully.
The elephant passed us: look, turns off the road and ran into the bushes. The bushes are dense, prickly, grow in a wall. And he - through them, as through weeds - only the branches crunch - climbed over and went to the forest. He stopped near a tree, took a branch with his trunk and bent down to the guys. They immediately jumped to their feet, grabbed a branch and robbed something from it. And the little one jumps up, tries to grab himself too, fusses, as if he is not on an elephant, but on the ground. The elephant launched a branch and bent another. Again the same story. At this point, the little one, apparently, has entered the role: he completely climbed onto this branch so that he also got it, and works. Everyone finished, the elephant launched a branch, and the little one, we look, flew off with a branch. Well, we think it disappeared - now it flew like a bullet into the forest. We rushed there. No, where is it! Do not climb through the bushes: prickly, and thick, and tangled. We look, the elephant fumbles with its trunk in the leaves. I groped for this little one - he apparently clung to it like a monkey - took him out and put him in his place. Then the elephant got out into the road ahead of us and started walking back. We are behind him. He walks and looks back from time to time, looks askance at us: why, they say, some kind of people are coming from behind? So we followed the elephant to the house. Wattle around. The elephant opened the gate with his trunk and cautiously stuck his head out into the yard; there he lowered the guys to the ground. In the yard, a Hindu woman began to shout something at him. She didn't see us right away. And we are standing, looking through the wattle fence.
The Hindu yells at the elephant, - the elephant reluctantly turned and went to the well. Two pillars are dug at the well, and a view is between them; it has a rope wound on it and a handle on the side. We look, the elephant took hold of the handle with his trunk and began to twirl: he twirls as if empty, pulled out - a whole tub there on a rope, ten buckets. The elephant rested the trunk root on the handle so that it would not spin, bent the trunk, picked up the tub and, like a mug of water, put it on board the well. Baba took water, she also forced the guys to carry it - she was just washing. The elephant again lowered the tub and unscrewed the full one up.
The hostess began to scold him again. The elephant put the bucket into the well, shook his ears and walked away - he didn’t get any more water, he went under the shed. And there, in the corner of the yard, on flimsy posts, a canopy was arranged - just for an elephant to crawl under it. On top of the reeds, some long leaves are thrown over.
Here is just an Indian, the owner himself. Saw us. We say - they came to see the elephant. The owner knew a little English, asked who we were; everything points to my Russian cap. I say Russians. And he did not know what the Russians were.
Not English?
No, I say, not the British.
He was delighted, laughed, immediately became different: he called to him.
And the Indians cannot stand the British: the British conquered their country long ago, they rule there and keep the Indians under their heel.
I'm asking:
Why is this elephant not coming out?
And this he, - he says, - was offended, and, therefore, not in vain. Now he won't work at all until he leaves.
We look, the elephant came out from under the shed, into the gate - and away from the yard. We think it's gone now. And the Indian laughs. The elephant went to the tree, leaned on its side and rubbed well. The tree is healthy - everything is shaking right. It itches like a pig against a fence.
He scratched himself, picked up dust in his trunk and where he scratched, dust, earth like a breath! Once, and again, and again! It is he who cleans it so that nothing starts in the folds: all his skin is hard, like a sole, and thinner in the folds, and in southern countries lots of biting insects.
After all, look what it is: it doesn’t itch on the posts in the barn, so as not to fall apart, even cautiously sneaks there, and goes to the tree to itch. I say to the Indian:
How smart is he!
And he wants to.
Well, - he says, - if I had lived a hundred and fifty years, I would not have learned the wrong thing. And he, - points to the elephant, - nursed my grandfather.
I looked at the elephant - it seemed to me that it was not the Hindu who was the master here, but the elephant, the elephant is the most important here.
I speak:
Do you have an old one?
No, - he says, - he is a hundred and fifty years old, he is at the very time! There I have a baby elephant, his son, he is twenty years old, just a child. By the age of forty, it only begins to enter into force. Just wait, the elephant will come, you will see: he is small.
An elephant came, and with her a baby elephant - the size of a horse, without fangs; he followed his mother like a foal.
The Hindu boys rushed to help their mother, began to jump, to gather somewhere. The elephant also went; the elephant and baby elephant are with them. Hindu explains that the river. We are with the guys too.
They didn't shy away from us. Everyone tried to speak - they in their own way, we in Russian - and laughed all the way. The little one pestered us most of all - he kept putting on my cap and shouting something funny - maybe about us.
The air in the forest is fragrant, spicy, thick. We walked through the forest. They came to the river.
Not a river, but a stream - fast, it rushes, so the shore gnaws. To the water, a break in arshin. Elephants entered the water, took a baby elephant with them. They put water up to his chest, and together they began to wash him. They will collect sand with water from the bottom into the trunk and, as if from an intestine, they water it. It's great so - only sprays fly.
And the guys are afraid to climb into the water - it hurts too fast, it will carry away. They jump on the shore and let's throw stones at the elephant. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t even pay attention - he washes everything of his baby elephant. Then, I look, he took water into his trunk and suddenly, as he turns to the boys, and one blows straight into the belly with a jet - he just sat down. Laughs, fills up.
Elephant wash his again. And the guys even more pester him with pebbles. The elephant only shakes its ears: do not pester, they say, you see, there is no time to indulge! And just when the boys were not waiting, they thought - he would blow water on the baby elephant, he immediately turned his trunk and into them.
They are happy, somersaulting.
The elephant went ashore; the baby elephant held out its trunk to him like a hand. The elephant plaited his trunk about his and helped him to get out on the cliff.
Everyone went home: three elephants and four guys.
The next day, I already asked where you can look at the elephants at work.
At the edge of the forest, by the river, a whole city of hewn logs is heaped up: stacks stand, each as high as a hut. There was one elephant there. And it was immediately clear that he was already quite an old man - the skin on him was completely sagging and hardened, and his trunk dangled like a rag. Ears are bitten. I see another elephant coming from the forest. A log sways in the trunk - a huge hewn beam. There must be a hundred poods. The porter waddles heavily, approaches the old elephant. The old one picks up the log from one end, and the porter lowers the log and moves with his trunk to the other end. I look: what are they going to do? And the elephants together, as if on command, lifted the log up on their trunks and carefully placed it on a stack. Yes, so smoothly and correctly - like a carpenter at a construction site.
And not a single person around them.
I later found out that this old elephant is the chief artel worker: he has already grown old in this work.
The porter walked slowly into the forest, and the old man hung up his trunk, turned his back to the pile and began to look at the river, as if he wanted to say: "I'm tired of this, and I wouldn't look."
And from the forest comes the third elephant with a log. We are where the elephants came from.
It's embarrassing to tell what we saw here. Elephants from forest workings dragged these logs to the river. In one place near the road - two trees on the sides, so much so that an elephant with a log cannot pass. The elephant will reach this place, lower the log to the ground, twist its knees, twist its trunk and push the log forward with the very nose, the very root of the trunk. The earth, the stones fly, the log rubs and plows the ground, and the elephant crawls and shoves. You can see how difficult it is for him to crawl on his knees. Then he gets up, catches his breath and does not immediately take the log. Again he will turn him across the road, again on his knees. He puts his trunk on the ground and rolls the log onto the trunk with his knees. How the trunk does not crush! Look, he has already risen and carries again. Swinging like a heavy pendulum, a log on the trunk.
There were eight of them - all the porter elephants - and each had to shove a log with his nose: people did not want to cut down those two trees that stood on the road.
It became unpleasant for us to watch the old man pushing at the stack, and it was a pity for the elephants that crawled on their knees. We stayed for a while and left.
fluff
Georgy Skrebitsky
A hedgehog lived in our house, it was tame. When he was stroked, he pressed the thorns to his back and became completely soft. That's why we called him Fluff.
If Fluffy was hungry, he would chase me like a dog. At the same time, the hedgehog puffed, snorted and bit my legs, demanding food.
In the summer I took Fluff with me for a walk in the garden. He ran along the paths, caught frogs, beetles, snails and ate them with appetite.
When winter came, I stopped taking Fluffy for walks and kept him at home. We now fed Fluff with milk, soup, and soaked bread. A hedgehog used to eat up, climb behind the stove, curl up in a ball and sleep. And in the evening he will come out and start running around the rooms. He runs all night, stomping his paws, disturbing everyone's sleep. So he lived in our house for more than half the winter and never went outside.
But here I was about to go sledding down the mountain, but there were no comrades in the yard. I decided to take Pushka with me. He took out a box, spread hay there and planted a hedgehog, and to keep him warm, he also covered it with hay on top. I put the box in the sled and ran to the pond, where we always rolled down the mountain.
I ran at full speed, imagining myself a horse, and carried Pushka in a sledge.
It was very good: the sun was shining, the frost pinched the ears and nose. On the other hand, the wind died down completely, so that the smoke from the village chimneys did not swirl, but rested in straight pillars against the sky.
I looked at these pillars, and it seemed to me that it was not smoke at all, but thick blue ropes descended from the sky and small toy houses were tied to them by pipes below.
I rolled my fill from the mountain, drove the sled with the hedgehog home.
I'm taking it - suddenly the guys are running towards the village to watch the dead wolf. The hunters had just brought him there.
I quickly put the sled in the barn and also rushed to the village after the guys. We stayed there until the evening. They watched how the skin was removed from the wolf, how it was straightened on a wooden horn.
I remembered Pushka only the next day. He was very scared that he had run away somewhere. I immediately rushed to the barn, to the sled. I look - my Fluff lies, curled up, in a box and does not move. No matter how much I shook him or shook him, he did not even move. During the night, apparently, he completely froze and died.
I ran to the guys, told about my misfortune. They all mourned together, but there was nothing to be done, and decided to bury Fluff in the garden, bury it in the snow in the very box in which he died.
For a whole week we all grieved for poor Pushka. And then they gave me a live owl - they caught it in our barn. He was wild. We began to tame him and forgot about Pushka.
But now spring has come, but what a warm one! Once in the morning I went to the garden: it is especially beautiful there in the spring - the finches sing, the sun is shining, there are huge puddles all around, like lakes. I make my way carefully along the path so as not to scoop up dirt in my galoshes. Suddenly ahead, in a pile of last year's leaves, something was brought in. I stopped. Who is this animal? Which? A familiar muzzle appeared from under the dark leaves, and black eyes looked straight at me.
Not remembering myself, I rushed to the animal. A second later I was already holding Fluffy in my hands, and he was sniffing my fingers, snorting and poking my palm with a cold nose, demanding food.
Right there on the ground lay a thawed box of hay, in which Fluffy slept safely all winter. I picked up the box, put the hedgehog in it, and triumphantly brought it home.
Guys and ducks
MM. Prishvin
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 marshy 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 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:
Let's go.
Here'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. Five ducklings ran after her, and so through the oat field, bypassing the village, the family continued its journey to the lake.
Joyfully, I took off my hat and, waving it, shouted:
Bon voyage, 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? 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!
blue bast shoes
MM. Prishvin
Through our big forest highways with separate paths for cars, trucks, carts and pedestrians. So far, for this highway, only the forest has been cut down by a corridor. It is good to look along the clearing: two green walls of the forest and the sky at the end. When the forest was cut down, large trees were taken away somewhere, while small brushwood - rookery - was collected in huge piles. They also wanted to take away the rookery for heating the factory, but they could not manage it, and the heaps all over the wide clearing remained for the winter.
In the fall, the hunters complained that the hares had disappeared somewhere, and some associated this disappearance of hares with deforestation: they chopped, knocked, chattered and scared away. When the powder came up and all the tricks of the hare could be seen in the tracks, the tracker Rodionich came and said:
- The blue bast shoe is all under the heaps of Grachevnik.
Rodionich, unlike all hunters, did not call the hare "slash", but always "blue bast shoes"; there is nothing to be surprised about: after all, a hare is no more like a devil than a bast shoe, and if they say that there are no blue bast shoes in the world, then I will say that there are no slash devils either.
The rumor about the hares under the heaps instantly ran around our entire town, and on the day off the hunters, led by Rodionich, began to flock to me.
Early in the morning, at the very dawn, we went hunting without dogs: Rodionich was such a master that he could catch a hare on a hunter better than any hound. As soon as it became so visible that it was possible to distinguish between fox and hare tracks, we took a hare track, followed it, and, of course, it led us to one heap of rookery, as high as our wooden house with a mezzanine. A hare was supposed to lie under this heap, and we, having prepared our guns, became all around.
“Come on,” we said to Rodionich.
"Get out, you blue bastard!" he shouted and thrust a long stick under the pile.
The hare didn't get out. Rodionich was taken aback. And, thinking, with a very serious face, looking at every little thing in the snow, he went around the whole pile and once again went around in a large circle: there was no exit trail anywhere.
“Here he is,” said Rodionich confidently. "Get in your seats, kids, he's here." Ready?
- Let's! we shouted.
"Get out, you blue bastard!" - Rodionich shouted and stabbed three times under the rookery with such a long stick that the end of it on the other side almost knocked one young hunter off his feet.
And now - no, the hare did not jump out!
There had never been such embarrassment with our oldest tracker in his life: even his face seemed to have fallen a little. With us, the fuss has gone, everyone began to guess something in his own way, stick his nose into everything, walk back and forth in the snow and so, erasing all traces, taking away any opportunity to unravel the trick of a clever hare.
And now, I see, Rodionich suddenly beamed, sat down, contented, on a stump at some distance from the hunters, rolled up a cigarette for himself and blinked, then winked at me and beckoned me to him. Having realized the matter, unnoticed by everyone I approach Rodionich, and he points me upstairs, to the very top of a high pile of rookery covered with snow.
“Look,” he whispers, “what a blue bast shoe is playing with us.”
Not immediately on the white snow I saw two black dots - the eyes of a hare and two more small dots - the black tips of long white ears. It was the head sticking out from under the rookery and turning in different directions after the hunters: where they are, the head goes there.
As soon as I raised my gun, the life of a smart hare would end in an instant. But I felt sorry: how many of them, stupid, lie under heaps! ..
Rodionich understood me without words. He crushed a dense lump of snow for himself, waited until the hunters crowded on the other side of the heap, and, having well outlined, let the hare go with this lump.
I never thought that our ordinary hare, if he suddenly stands on a heap, and even jumps two arshins up, and appears against the sky, that our hare might seem like a giant on a huge rock!
What happened to the hunters? The hare, after all, fell directly to them from the sky. In an instant, everyone grabbed their guns - it was very easy to kill. But each hunter wanted to kill the other before the other, and each, of course, had enough without aiming at all, and the lively hare set off into the bushes.
- Here is a blue bast shoe! - Rodionich said admiringly after him.
Hunters once again managed to grab the bushes.
- Killed! - shouted one, young, hot.
But suddenly, as if in response to the “killed”, a tail flashed in the distant bushes; for some reason hunters always call this tail a flower.
The blue bast shoe only waved its “flower” to hunters from distant bushes.
Brave duck
Boris Zhitkov
Every morning, the hostess brought the ducklings a full plate of chopped eggs. She put the plate near the bush, and she left.
As soon as the ducklings ran up to the plate, suddenly a large dragonfly flew out of the garden and began to circle above them.
She chirped so terribly that frightened ducklings ran away and hid in the grass. They were afraid that the dragonfly would bite them all.
And the evil dragonfly sat on the plate, tasted the food and then flew away. After that, the ducklings did not approach the plate for a whole day. They were afraid that the dragonfly would fly again. In the evening, the hostess cleaned the plate and said: “Our ducklings must be sick, they don’t eat anything.” She did not know that the ducklings went to bed hungry every night.
Once, their neighbor, a little duckling Alyosha, came to visit the ducklings. When the ducklings told him about the dragonfly, he began to laugh.
Well, the brave ones! - he said. - I alone will drive this dragonfly away. Here you will see tomorrow.
You boast, - said the ducklings, - tomorrow you will be the first to be scared and run.
The next morning the hostess, as always, put a plate of chopped eggs on the ground and left.
Well, look, - said the brave Alyosha, - now I will fight with your dragonfly.
As soon as he said this, a dragonfly suddenly buzzed. Right on top, she flew onto the plate.
The ducklings wanted to run away, but Alyosha was not afraid. No sooner had the dragonfly landed on the plate than Alyosha grabbed it by the wing with his beak. She pulled away with force and flew away with a broken wing.
Since then, she never flew into the garden, and the ducklings ate their fill every day. They not only ate themselves, but also treated the brave Alyosha for saving them from the dragonfly.
