Read short stories about nature with the author. A story about nature, actually. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “Turtle”
Mikhail Prishvin (1873 - 1954) was in love with nature. He admired its greatness and beauty, studied the habits of forest animals and knew how to write about it in a fascinating and very kind way. Prishvin's short stories for children have been written in simple language, understandable even to kindergarteners. For parents who want to awaken in their children good relations to all living things and to teach them to notice the beauty of the world around them, it is worth reading Prishvin’s stories more often to both kids and older children. Children love this kind of reading, and then they return to it several times.
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Prishvin's stories about nature
The writer loved to observe the life of the forest. “I had to find something in nature that I had not yet seen, and perhaps no one else had encountered in their life,” he wrote. In Prishvin's children's stories about nature, the rustling of leaves, the murmur of a stream, the blowing of a breeze, and forest smells are so accurately and reliably described that any little reader is involuntarily transported in his imagination to where the author has been and begins to acutely and vividly feel all the beauty of the forest world.
Prishvin's stories about animals
Since childhood, Misha Prishvin treated birds and animals with warmth and love. He made friends with them, tried to learn to understand their language, studied their lives, trying not to disturb them. Prishvin's stories about animals convey entertaining stories about the author’s encounters with various animals. There are funny episodes that make the children's audience laugh and be amazed at the intelligence and intelligence of our little brothers. Is there sad stories about animals in trouble, evoking a feeling of empathy and a desire to help in the children.
In any case, all these stories are imbued with kindness and, as a rule, have a happy ending. It is especially useful for our children, growing up in dusty and noisy cities, to read Prishvin’s stories more often. So let's get started quickly and dive into the magical world of nature with them!
Option 1. Unique and indescribably beautiful nature in autumn. Despite the fact that rain and fog are quite common, there are also clear, quiet days for a walk in the nearest forest. Sit down and admire golden robe of the forest, listen to the singing of birds, watch the birds fly away. Somewhere in the distance thunder roared. Drop by drop it began to rain. Hiding under a tree, he looked around. How beautiful it is all around I like it autumn nature . The air is so fresh! I don't want to go home at all.
Option 2. Human and nature are closely related to each other. Nature creates all the conditions for human life, which is why it is so important to live in harmony with it. Beautiful landscapes of nature fill a person’s soul with delight, only this beauty is truly mesmerizing. Man's interest in nature is limitless; how many secrets and mysteries the forests and seas contain. There's a lot we don't know yet about nature. To enjoy the beauty of nature, you don’t need to travel far, just go to a park or forest. Nature is especially beautiful in the fall, when you want to sit on benches and absorb all its beauty and enjoy it. It is then that you feel how your soul is filled with new colors, how it is saturated with the beauty of the world around you. At these moments you realize how closely people are connected with nature.
The tree, with its upper whorl, like a palm, took up the falling snow, and from this a lump grew so large that the top of the birch began to bend. And it happened that during the thaw the snow fell again and stuck to the lump, and the top branch with the lump bent the whole tree like an arch, until, finally, the top with that lump a huge lump did not sink into the snow on the ground and was thus not secured until spring. Animals and people, occasionally on skis, passed under this arch all winter. Nearby, proud spruces looked down at the bent birch tree, as people born to command look at their subordinates.
In the spring the birch returned to those spruce trees, and if this especially snowy winter she had not bent, then both in winter and in summer she would have remained among the fir trees, but since she had bent, now with the slightest snow she bent and in the end, every year, she would certainly bend over the path in an arch.
It can be scary to enter a young forest in a snowy winter: indeed, it is impossible to enter. Where in the summer I walked along a wide path, now bent trees lie across this path, and so low that only a hare could run under them...
Fox bread
One day I walked in the forest all day and in the evening I returned home with rich booty. He took the heavy bag off his shoulders and began to lay out his belongings on the table.
What kind of bird is this? - Zinochka asked.
Terenty,” I answered.
And he told her about the black grouse: how it lives in the forest, how it mutters in the spring, how it pecks at birch buds, collects berries in the swamps in the fall, and warms itself from the wind under the snow in winter. He also told her about the hazel grouse, showed her that it was gray with a tuft, and whistled into the pipe in the hazel grouse style and let her whistle. I also poured a lot of porcini mushrooms, both red and black, onto the table. I also had a bloody boneberry in my pocket, and a blue blueberry, and a red lingonberry. I also brought with me a fragrant lump of pine resin, gave it to the girl to smell and said that trees are treated with this resin.
Who treats them there? - Zinochka asked.
They are treating themselves,” I answered. “Sometimes a hunter comes and wants to rest, he’ll stick an ax into a tree and hang his bag on the ax, and lie down under the tree.” He'll sleep and rest. He takes an ax out of the tree, puts on a bag, and leaves. And from the wound from the wood ax this fragrant resin will run and heal the wound.
Also on purpose for Zinochka, I brought various wonderful herbs, one leaf at a time, a root at a time, a flower at a time: cuckoo’s tears, valerian, Peter’s cross, hare’s cabbage. And just under the hare cabbage I had a piece of black bread: it always happens to me that when I don’t take bread into the forest, I’m hungry, but if I take it, I forget to eat it and bring it back. And Zinochka, when she saw black bread under my hare cabbage, was stunned:
Where did the bread come from in the forest?
What's surprising here? After all, there is cabbage there!
Hare...
And the bread is chanterelle bread. Taste it. I tasted it carefully and started eating:
Good chanterelle bread!
And she ate all my black bread clean. And so it went with us: Zinochka, such a copula, often won’t even take white bread, but when I bring fox bread from the forest, she will always eat it all and praise it:
Chanterelle bread is much better than ours!
Blue shadows
Silence resumed, frosty and bright. Yesterday's powder lies on the crust like powder with sparkling sparkles. The crust does not collapse anywhere and holds up even better on the field in the sun than in the shade. Every bush of old wormwood, burdock, blade of grass, blade of grass, as if in a mirror, looks into this sparkling powder and sees itself blue and beautiful.
Quiet snow
They say about silence: “Quiet than water, lower than the grass...” But what could be quieter than falling snow! Yesterday snow fell all day, and it was as if it brought silence from heaven... And every sound only intensified it: a rooster crowed, a crow called, a woodpecker drummed, a jay sang with all its voices, but the silence grew from all this. What silence, what grace.
Transparent ice
It’s good to look at that transparent ice, where the frost did not create flowers and did not cover the water with them. You can see how the stream is underneath the thinnest ice drives a huge herd of bubbles, and drives them out from under the ice onto open water, and rushes them with great speed, as if he really needs them somewhere and needs to have time to drive them all to one place.
Zhurka
Once we had it - we caught a young crane and gave it a frog. He swallowed it. They gave me another - I swallowed it. The third, fourth, fifth, and then we didn’t have any more frogs at hand.
Good girl! - my wife said and asked me; - How many of them can he eat? Ten maybe?
Ten, I say, maybe.
What if twenty?
Twenty, I say, hardly...
We clipped the wings of this crane, and he began to follow his wife everywhere. She milks the cow - and Zhurka is with her, she goes to the garden - and Zhurka needs to be there... The wife is used to him... and without him she is already bored, she can’t go anywhere without him. But only if it happens - he is not there, only one thing will shout: “Fru-fru!”, and he runs to her. So smart!
This is how the crane lives with us, and its clipped wings keep growing and growing.
Once the wife went down to the swamp to fetch water, and Zhurka followed her. A small frog sat by the well and jumped from Zhurka into the swamp. The frog is behind him, and the water is deep, and you can’t reach the frog from the shore. Zhurk flapped his wings and suddenly flew away. The wife gasped - and followed him. He swings his arms, but he can’t get up. And in tears, and to us: “Oh, oh, what grief! Ahah!" We all ran to the well. We see Zhurka sitting far away, in the middle of our swamp.
Fru-fru! - I shout.
And all the guys behind me also shout:
Fru-fru!
And so smart! As soon as he heard our “fru-fru”, he immediately flapped his wings and flew in. At this point the wife can’t remember herself with joy and tells the kids to run quickly after the frogs. This year there were a lot of frogs, the guys soon collected two caps. The guys brought frogs and began giving and counting. They gave me five - I swallowed them, they gave me ten - I swallowed them, twenty and thirty - and so I swallowed forty-three frogs at one time.
Squirrel Memory
Today, looking at the tracks of animals and birds in the snow, this is what I read from these tracks: a squirrel made its way through the snow into the moss, took out two nuts hidden there since the fall, ate them right away - I found the shells. Then she ran ten meters away, dived again, again left a shell on the snow and after a few meters made a third climb.
What kind of miracle? It’s impossible to think that she could smell the nut through a thick layer of snow and ice. This means that since the fall I remembered about my nuts and the exact distance between them.
But the most amazing thing is that she could not measure centimeters like we did, but directly by eye she determined with precision, dived and reached. Well, how could one not envy the squirrel’s memory and ingenuity!
Forest Doctor
We wandered in the forest in the spring and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly, in the direction where we had previously planned interesting tree, we heard the sound of a saw. It was, as we were told, the collection of firewood from dead wood for a glass factory. We were afraid for our tree, we hurried towards the sound of the saw, but it was too late: our aspen lay, and there were many empty trees around its stump. fir cones. The woodpecker peeled all this off over the long winter, collected it, carried it to this aspen tree, laid it between two branches of his workshop and hammered it. Near the stump, on our cut aspen, two boys were doing nothing but cutting down the wood.
Oh you pranksters! - we said and pointed them to the cut aspen. - You were ordered to remove dead trees, but what did you do?
“The woodpecker made a hole,” the guys answered. - We looked and, of course, cut it down. It will still be lost.
Everyone began to examine the tree together. It was completely fresh, and only in a small space, no more than a meter in length, did a worm pass inside the trunk. The woodpecker obviously listened to the aspen like a doctor: he tapped it with his beak, realized the emptiness left by the worm, and began the operation of extracting the worm. And the second time, and the third, and the fourth... The thin trunk of the aspen looked like a pipe with valves. The “surgeon” made seven holes and only on the eighth he caught the worm, pulled out and saved the aspen.
We cut this piece out as a wonderful exhibit for a museum.
You see, we told the guys, the woodpecker is a forest doctor, he saved the aspen, and it would live and live, and you cut it down.
The boys were amazed.
White necklace
I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I admit, I didn’t believe it. But he assured me that in the old days this case was even published in a Siberian magazine under the title: “A man with a bear against wolves.”
There lived a watchman on the shore of Lake Baikal, he caught fish and shot squirrels. And then once this watchman seems to see it through the window - he runs straight to the hut A big bear, and a pack of wolves is chasing him. That would be the end of the bear. He, this bear, don’t be bad, is in the hallway, the door closed behind him, and he still leaned on it with his paw. The old man, realizing this matter, took the rifle off the wall and said:
- Misha, Misha, hold it!
The wolves climb on the door, and the old man aims the wolf at the window and repeats:
- Misha, Misha, hold it!
So he killed one wolf, and another, and a third, all the time saying:
- Misha, Misha, hold it!
After the third, the pack scattered, and the bear remained in the hut to spend the winter under the guard of the old man. In the spring, when the bears come out of their dens, the old man allegedly put a white necklace on this bear and ordered all the hunters not to shoot this bear with the white necklace: this bear is his friend.
Belyak
All night long in the forest, straight wet snow pressed on the twigs, broke off, fell, rustled.
The rustle drove the white hare out of the forest, and he probably realized that by morning the black field would turn white and he, completely white, could lie peacefully. And he lay down on a field not far from the forest, and not far from him, also like a hare, lay weathered over the summer and whitened sun rays horse skull.
By dawn the whole field was covered, and both the white hare and the white skull had disappeared into the white immensity.
We were a little late, and by the time we released the hound, the tracks had already begun to blur.
When Osman began to disassemble the fat, it was still difficult to distinguish the shape of the hare's paw from the hare's: he was walking along the hare. But before Osman had time to straighten the trail, everything completely melted away on the white path, and then there was neither sight nor smell left on the black one.
We gave up on hunting and began to return home at the edge of the forest.
“Look through binoculars,” I said to my friend, “that it’s white there on the black field and so bright.”
“Horse skull, head,” he answered.
I took the binoculars from him and also saw the skull.
“There’s something still white there,” said the comrade, “look further to the left.”
I looked there, and there, also like a skull, bright white, lay a hare, and through prismatic binoculars you could even see black eyes on the white. He was in a desperate situation: lying down meant being in full view of everyone, running meant leaving a print on the soft wet ground for the dog. We stopped his hesitation: we lifted him up, and at the same moment Osman, having seen him again, set off with a wild roar towards the sighted man.
Swamp
I know that few people sat in the swamps in early spring waiting for the grouse current, and I have few words to even hint at all the splendor of the bird concert in the swamps before sunrise. I have often noticed that the first note in this concert, far before the very first hint of light, is taken by a curlew. This is a very thin trill, completely different from the well-known whistle. Afterwards, when the white partridges cry, the black grouse begin to chuff, and the lek, sometimes right next to the hut, begins its muttering, there is no time for the curlew, but then at sunrise, at the most solemn moment, you will certainly pay attention to the new song of the curlew, very cheerful and similar to dance: this dance is as necessary for meeting the sun as the cry of a crane.
Once I saw from the hut how, among the black mass of cocks, a gray curlew, a female, settled on a hummock; The male flew to her and, supporting himself in the air with the flapping of his large wings, touched the female’s back with his feet and sang his dance song. Here, of course, the whole air trembled with the singing of all the marsh birds, and I remember that the puddle, in complete calm, was all agitated by the many insects that had awakened in it.
The sight of a very long and crooked beak of a curlew always transports my imagination to a time long past, when there was no man on earth. And everything in the swamps is so strange, the swamps have been little studied, they have not been touched at all by artists, in them you always feel as if man has not yet begun on earth.
One evening I went out into the swamps to wash the dogs. It was very steamy after the rain before the new rain. The dogs, sticking out their tongues, ran and from time to time lay down, like pigs, on their bellies in the swamp puddles. Apparently, the young people had not yet hatched and got out of the supports into the open, and in our places, overflowing with swamp game, now the dogs could not smell anything and, when idle, were even worried about flying crows. Suddenly a large bird appeared, began to scream anxiously and describe large circles around us. Another curlew flew in and also began to circle around screaming, the third, obviously from another family, crossed the circle of these two, calmed down and disappeared. I needed to get a curlew egg for my collection, and, counting that the circles of birds would certainly decrease if I approached the nest, and increase if I moved away, I began to wander through the swamp, as if in a game blindfolded. So little by little, when the low sun became huge and red in the warm, abundant swamp vapors, I felt the proximity of the nest: the birds screamed unbearably and rushed so close to me that in the red sun I clearly saw their long, crooked, open for constant alarm screaming noses. Finally, both dogs, grabbing with their upper instincts, made a stance. I walked in the direction of their eyes and noses and saw two big eggs. Having told the dogs to lie down, I looked around me with joy; the mosquitoes bit me hard, but I got used to them.
How good it was for me in the inaccessible swamps and how distant the earth's terms wafted from these big birds with long crooked noses, on curved wings crossing the disk of the red sun!
I was about to bend down to the ground to take one of these large beautiful eggs for myself, when I suddenly noticed that in the distance, across the swamp, a man was walking straight towards me. He had neither a gun, nor a dog, nor even a stick in his hand, there was no way for anyone to go anywhere from here, and I did not know people like me who, like me, could happily wander through the swamp under a swarm of mosquitoes. I felt as unpleasant as if, while combing my hair in front of the mirror and making some special face at the same time, I suddenly noticed someone else’s examining eye in the mirror. I even moved away from the nest and did not take the eggs, so that this man would not frighten me with his questions, I felt it, an expensive moment of my life. I told the dogs to stand up and led them to the hump. There I sat down on a gray stone, so covered with yellow lichens on top that it was not cold. The birds, as soon as I walked away, increased their circles, but I could no longer watch them with joy. Anxiety was born in my soul from approaching stranger. I could already see him: an elderly man, very thin, walking slowly, carefully watching the flight of the birds. I felt better when I noticed that he changed direction and went to another hill, where he sat down on a stone and also turned to stone. I even felt pleased that someone like me was sitting there, reverently listening to the evening. It seemed that without any words we understood each other perfectly, and there were no words for this. I watched with redoubled attention as the birds crossed the red disk of the sun; At the same time, my thoughts about the timing of the earth and such a short story humanity; How, however, everything soon passed.
The sun has set. I looked back at my friend, but he was no longer there. The birds calmed down, apparently sat on their nests. Then, ordering the dogs to go back stealthily, I began to approach the nest with silent steps: would it be possible, I thought, to see closely? interesting birds. From the bush I knew exactly where the nest was, and I was very surprised how close the birds would let me. Finally, I got to the bush itself and froze in surprise: behind the bush everything was empty. I touched the moss with my palm: it was still warm from the warm eggs lying on it.
I just looked at the eggs, and the birds, afraid of the human eye, hastened to hide them away.
Verkhoplavka
A golden network of sunbeams trembles on the water. Dark blue dragonflies in reeds and horsetail trees. And each dragonfly has its own horsetail tree or reed: it flies off and will certainly return to it.
The crazy crows brought out the chicks and are now sitting and resting.
The leaf, the smallest one, went down to the river on a spider’s web and is spinning, spinning.
So I ride quietly down the river in my boat, and my boat is a little heavier than this leaf, made of fifty-two sticks and covered with canvas. There is only one paddle for it - a long stick, and at the ends there is a spatula. Dip each spatula alternately from one side to the other. The boat is so light that no effort is needed: you touch the water with a spatula, and the boat floats, and it floats so silently that the fish are not at all afraid.
What, what can you see when you quietly ride on such a boat along the river!
Here a rook, flying over the river, dropped a drop into the water, and this lime-white drop, hitting the water, immediately attracted the attention of small topwater fish. In an instant, a real market of high-flying boats gathered around the rook drop. Noticing this gathering, large predator- a shelesper fish - swam up and smacked its tail through the water with such force that the stunned top swimmers turned upside down. They would have come to life in a minute, but the shelesper is not some kind of fool, he knows that it doesn’t happen very often that a rook will drop a drop and so many fools will gather around one drop: grab one, grab another - he ate a lot, and some managed to get away , from now on they will live like scientists, and if something good drops on them from above, they will keep their eyes open to see if anything bad comes to them from below.
Talking rook
I’ll tell you an incident that happened to me during the hungry year. A young yellow-throated rook got into the habit of flying onto my windowsill. Apparently he was an orphan. And at that time I had a whole bag of buckwheat stored. I ate buckwheat porridge all the time. It used to be that a little rook would fly in, I would sprinkle cereals on it and ask:
Do you want some porridge, fool?
It will bite and fly away. And so every day, all month. I want to ensure that in response to my question: “Do you want some porridge, fool?”, he would say: “I want it.”
And he only opens his yellow nose and shows his red tongue.
“Okay,” I got angry and abandoned my studies.
By autumn, trouble happened to me. I reached into the chest for some cereal, but there was nothing there. This is how the thieves cleaned it: half a cucumber was on the plate, and they took it away. I went to bed hungry. Spun all night. In the morning I looked in the mirror, my face was all green.
"Knock, knock!" - someone is in the window.
On the windowsill, a rook is hammering at the glass.
"Here comes the meat!" - a thought appeared to me.
I open the window - and grab it! And he jumped from me onto a tree. I'm through the window behind him to the knot. He's taller. I'm climbing. He is taller and to the very top of his head. I can't go there; very swaying. He, the scoundrel, looks at me from above and says:
Do you want, kash-ki, do-rush-ka?
Hedgehog
Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He noticed me too, curled up and started tapping: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was walking in the distance. I touched him with the tip of my boot - he snorted terribly and pushed his needles into the boot.
Oh, you're like that with me! - I said and pushed him into the stream with the tip of my boot.
Instantly, the hedgehog turned around in the water and swam to the shore, like a small pig, only instead of bristles there were needles on its back. I took a stick, rolled the hedgehog into my hat and took it home.
I had a lot of mice. I heard that the hedgehog catches them, and I decided: let him live with me and catch mice.
So I put this prickly lump in the middle of the floor and sat down to write, while I kept looking at the hedgehog out of the corner of my eye. He did not lie motionless for long: as soon as I quieted down at the table, the hedgehog turned around, looked around, tried to go this way, that way, finally chose a place under the bed and became completely quiet there.
When it got dark, I lit the lamp, and - hello! - the hedgehog ran out from under the bed. He, of course, thought to the lamp that the moon had risen in the forest: when there is a moon, hedgehogs love to run through forest clearings.
And so he started running around the room, imagining that it was a forest clearing.
I took the pipe, lit a cigarette and blew a cloud near the moon. It became just like in the forest: both the moon and the cloud, and my legs were like tree trunks and, probably, the hedgehog really liked them: he darted between them, sniffing and scratching the backs of my boots with needles.
After reading the newspaper, I dropped it on the floor, went to bed and fell asleep.
I always sleep very lightly. I hear some rustling in my room. He struck a match, lit the candle and only noticed how the hedgehog flashed under the bed. And the newspaper was no longer lying near the table, but in the middle of the room. So I left the candle burning and I myself did 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 spun around near it, made noise, made noise, and finally managed to: somehow put a corner of the newspaper on his thorns and dragged it, huge, into corner.
That’s when I understood him: the newspaper was like dry leaves in the forest to him, he was dragging it for his nest. And it turned out to be true: soon the hedgehog wrapped himself in newspaper and made himself a real nest out of it. Having finished this important task, he left his home and stood opposite the bed, looking at the moon candle.
I let the clouds in and ask:
What else do you need? The hedgehog was not afraid.
Do you want to drink?
I wake up. The hedgehog doesn't run.
I took a plate, put it on the floor, brought a bucket of water and then poured water into the plate, then poured it into the bucket again, and made such a noise as if it was a stream splashing.
Well, go, go, I say. - You see, I made the moon for you, and sent the clouds, and here is water for you...
I look: it’s like he’s moved forward. And I also moved my lake a little towards it. He will move, and I will move, and that’s how we agreed.
Drink, I say finally. He began to cry. And I ran my hand over the thorns so lightly, as if I was stroking them, and I kept saying:
You're a good guy, you're a good guy! The hedgehog got drunk, I say:
Let's sleep. He lay down and blew out the candle.
I don’t know how long I slept, but I hear: I have work in my room again.
I light a candle, and what do you think? A hedgehog is running around the room, and there is an apple on its thorns. He ran to the nest, put it there and ran into the corner after another, and in the corner there was a bag of apples and it fell over. The hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and ran again, dragging another apple on the thorns into the nest.
So the hedgehog settled down to live with me. And now, when drinking tea, I will certainly bring it to my table and either pour milk into a saucer for him to drink, or give him some buns for him to eat.
Golden Meadow
My brother and I always had fun with them when dandelions ripened. It used to be that we would go somewhere on our business - he was ahead, I was at the heel.
Seryozha! - I’ll call him in a businesslike manner. He will look back, and I will blow a dandelion right in his face. For this, he begins to watch for me and, like a gape, he also makes a fuss. And so we picked these uninteresting flowers just for fun. But once I managed to make a discovery.
We lived in a village, in front of our window there was a meadow, all golden with many blooming dandelions. It was very beautiful. Everyone said: Very beautiful! The meadow is golden.
One day I got up early to fish and noticed that the meadow was not golden, but green. When I returned home around noon, the meadow was again all golden. I began to observe. By evening the meadow turned green again. Then I went and found a dandelion, and it turned out that he squeezed his petals, as if your fingers on the side of your palm were yellow and, clenching into a fist, we would close the yellow one. In the morning, when the sun rose, I saw the dandelions opening their palms, and this made the meadow turn golden again.
Since then, dandelion has become one of the most interesting colors, because dandelions went to bed with us children, and got up with us.
Blue bast shoe
Through our big forest highways are constructed with separate paths for cars, trucks, carts and pedestrians. Now, for this highway, only the forest has been cut down as a corridor. It’s good to look along the clearing: two green walls of the forest and the sky at the end. When the forest was cut down, then big trees They were taken away somewhere, and small brushwood - rookery - was collected in huge piles. They wanted to take away the rookery to heat the factory, but they couldn’t manage it, and the heaps throughout the wide clearing were left to spend the winter.
In the fall, hunters complained that the hares had disappeared somewhere, and some associated this disappearance of the hares with deforestation: they chopped, knocked, made noise and scared them away. When the powder flew in and all the hare’s tricks could be unraveled from the tracks, the tracker Rodionich came and said:
- The blue bast shoe all lies under the heaps of the Rook.
Rodionich, unlike all hunters, did not call the hare “slash,” but always “blue bast shoe”; there is nothing to be surprised here: after all, a hare is no more like a devil than a bast shoe, and if they say that there are no blue bast shoes in the world, then I will say that there are no slanting devils either.
The rumor about the hares under the heaps instantly spread throughout our town, and on the day off, hunters led by Rodionich began to flock to me.
Early in the morning, at dawn, we went hunting without dogs: Rodionich was such a skill that he could drive a hare to a hunter better than any hound. As soon as it became visible enough that it was possible to distinguish the tracks of a fox from a hare, we took hare trail, we followed it, and, of course, it led us to one heap of rookery, high as our wooden house with a mezzanine. There was supposed to be a hare lying under this heap, and we, having prepared our guns, stood in a circle.
“Come on,” we said to Rodionich.
- Get out, blue bast shoe! - he shouted and stuck a long stick under the pile.
The hare did not jump out. Rodionich was dumbfounded. And, after thinking, with a very serious face, looking at every little thing in the snow, he walked around the whole pile and walked around again in a large circle: there was no exit trail anywhere.
“He’s here,” Rodionich said confidently. - Take your seats, guys, he’s here. Ready?
- Let's! - we shouted.
- Get out, blue bast shoe! - Rodionich shouted and stabbed three times under the rookery with such a long stick that the end of it on the other side almost knocked one young hunter off his feet.
And now - no, the hare did not jump out!
Such embarrassment had never happened to our oldest tracker in his life: even his face seemed to have fallen a little. We started to get into a fuss, everyone began to guess about something in their own way, stick their nose into everything, walk back and forth in the snow and so, erasing all traces, taking away any opportunity to unravel the clever hare’s trick.
And so, I see, Rodionich suddenly beamed, sat down, contentedly, on a stump at a distance from the hunters, rolled himself a cigarette and blinked, so he blinked at me and beckoned me to him. Having realized the matter, I approach Rodionich unnoticed by everyone, and he points me up, to the very top of a high pile of rookery covered with snow.
“Look,” he whispers, “the blue bast shoe is playing a trick with us.”
It took me a while to see two black dots on the white snow—the hare’s eyes and two more small dots—the black tips of long white ears. It was the head that stuck out from under the rookery and turned in different directions after the hunters: where they went, there the head went.
As soon as I raised my gun, the life of the smart hare would have ended in an instant. But I felt sorry: you never know how many of them, stupid ones, are lying under the heaps!..
Rodionich understood me without words. He crushed a dense lump of snow for himself, waited until the hunters were crowded on the other side of the heap, and, having outlined himself well, launched this lump at the hare.
I never thought that our ordinary white hare, if he suddenly stood on a heap, and even jumped two arshins up, and appeared against the sky - that our hare could seem like a giant on a huge rock!
What happened to the hunters? The hare fell straight from the sky towards them. In an instant, everyone grabbed their guns - it was very easy to kill. But each hunter wanted to kill before the other, and each, of course, grabbed it without aiming at all, and the lively hare set off into the bushes.
- Here's a blue bast shoe! - Rodionich said after him admiringly.
The hunters once again managed to hit the bushes.
- Killed! - shouted one, young, hot.
But suddenly, as if in response to “killed,” a tail flashed in the distant bushes; For some reason, hunters always call this tail a flower.
The blue bast shoe only waved its “flower” to the hunters from the distant bushes.
G. Skrebitsky “Winter is Coming”
I love wandering through the forest in late autumn, just before the arrival of winter. Everything in him somehow fell silent, as if waiting for something. The bushes and trees have long shed their leaves, they stand completely bare, darkened by autumn rains. Fallen leaves do not rustle underfoot, as at the very beginning of autumn. Now it is firmly nailed to the ground, lying in a brown, moldy mass. Throughout the forest she smells so nicely of rustic cold kvass.
And how quiet it is in the forest! Only somewhere in the tops of pines and spruces are titmice and kinglets squeaking. They flutter from branch to branch, swarm among the branches, looking for bugs there.
Occasionally, a hazel grouse will whistle thinly and drawn out in the spruce forest, and again everything will fall silent.
You walk along the wet ground completely silently, you walk and look around, you want to remember the forest just like this - gloomy, frowning. After all, very soon, maybe in a day, in two, he will become completely different: he will lighten up all over, dress in a white snow headdress, and immediately transform, like in a fairy tale. And I don’t recognize the very bushes and trees that I’m looking at now.
Issues for discussion
What kind of autumn is mentioned in G. Skrebitsky’s story “Winter is Coming” - early or late? What signs of late autumn did you learn about from this story? Why does the author call the forest in late autumn gloomy and frowning? What do the trees and grass look like in such a forest? What sounds can you hear at this time? Why do you think everything went silent in the forest? Where have the forest inhabitants gone? And how will the forest be transformed from the first snow, what will it become?
Listen to G. Skrebitsky's story again. Try to talk about the autumn forest in such a way that it is clear that you admire it. I will start the sentence, and you will finish it:
1. I love to wander...
2. Everything in him fell silent, as if...
3. Bushes and trees... foliage...
4. She smells nice...
5. There is silence in the forest, only...
6. Do you want to remember the forest...
7. After all, very soon he will become...
8. And you won’t know...
Now try to tell about the autumn forest yourself.
Winter
Winter. forest clearing covered with white fluffy snow. Now it is quiet and empty, not like in the summer. It seems that no one lives in the clearing in winter. But that's just how it seems.
Near the bush, an old, rotten stump sticks out from under the snow. This is not just a stump, but a real mansion. There are many cozy winter apartments for various forest inhabitants.
Small insects hid under the bark from the cold, and a tired woodcutter beetle immediately settled down for the winter. And in a hole between the roots, curled up in a tight ring, a nimble lizard lay down. Everyone climbed into the old stump, each took a tiny bedroom in it, and slept in it for the whole long winter.
At the very edge of the clearing, in a ditch, under fallen leaves, under the snow, as if under a thick blanket, frogs are sleeping. They sleep and don’t know that right there, nearby, under a pile of brushwood, curled up in a ball, their worst enemy, the hedgehog, fell asleep.
Quiet and empty in winter in a forest clearing. Only occasionally will a flock of goldfinches or tits fly over it, or a woodpecker, sitting on a tree, will begin to knock out tasty seeds from the cone with its beak.
And sometimes a white one will jump out into the clearing fluffy hare. He will jump out, stand in a column, listen to see if everything is calm around him, look, and then run further into the forest.
Issues for discussion
Do you know how forest dwellers spend the winter? Listen to how G. Skrebitsky tells us about this. What were you listening to now - a story, a fairy tale or a poem? Why do you think so? Does this work talk about any miracles? Can we say that this work is melodic, melodious, that there is rhyme in it? What unfamiliar words and expressions did you encounter in the story? (“Rotten stump”, “pile of brushwood”, “knock out with beak”). What new did you learn from this story? Why do you think the author calls an ordinary stump a tower for various forest inhabitants? Tell us what kind of “cozy winter apartments” they found for themselves in a rotten stump. What new things did you learn from this story?
I. Bunin “Frost”
Morning. I look out the piece of window not covered in frost, and I don’t recognize the forest. What splendor and tranquility!
Above the deep, fresh and fluffy snow that has filled up the thicket of fir trees is a blue, huge and surprisingly gentle sky... The sun is still behind the forest, a clearing in the blue shadow. In the ruts of the sled track, cut in a bold and clear semicircle from the road to the house, the shadow is completely blue. And on the tops of the pines, on their lush green crowns, golden sunlight is already playing...
Two jackdaws loudly and joyfully said something to each other. One of them landed on the very top branch of a dense green, slender spruce, swayed, almost losing its balance, and rainbow snow dust fell thickly and slowly began to fall. The jackdaw laughed with pleasure, but immediately fell silent... The sun rises, and the clearing becomes quieter and quieter...
M. Prishvin “Golden Meadow”
My brother and I always had fun with them when dandelions ripened. It used to be that we were going somewhere to do our fishing - he was in front, I was in the heel.
“Seryozha!” - I’ll call him in a businesslike manner. He will look back, and I will blow a dandelion right in his face. For this, he begins to watch for me and, like a gape, he also makes a fuss. And so we picked these uninteresting flowers just for fun. But once I managed to make a discovery.
We lived in a village, in front of our window there was a meadow, all golden with many blooming dandelions. It was very beautiful. Everyone said: “Very beautiful! The meadow is golden." One day I got up early to fish and noticed that the meadow was not golden, but green. When I returned home around noon, the meadow was again all golden. I began to observe. By evening the meadow turned green again. Then I went and found a dandelion, and it turned out that it had squeezed its petals, just as if our fingers on the palm side were yellow and, clenching it into a fist, we would close the yellow one. In the morning, when the sun rose, I saw the dandelions opening their palms, and this made the meadow turn golden again.
Since then, dandelion has become one of the most interesting flowers for us, because dandelions went to bed with us children and got up with us.
M. Prishvin “Conversation of trees”
The buds open, chocolate, with green tails, and on each green beak hangs a large transparent drop.
You take one bud, rub it between your fingers, and then for a long time everything smells like the fragrant resin of birch, poplar or bird cherry.
You sniff a bird cherry bud and immediately remember how you used to climb up a tree to pick up shiny, black-colored berries. I ate handfuls of them right with the seeds, but nothing but good came from it.
The evening is warm, and there is such silence, as if something should happen in such silence. And then the trees begin to whisper among themselves: a white birch with another white birch call to each other from afar, a young aspen came out into the clearing like a green candle, and called the same green aspen candle to itself, waving a twig; The bird cherry gives the bird cherry a branch with open buds.
If you compare with us, we echo sounds, but they have aroma.
Issues for discussion
What plant is mentioned in M. Prishvin’s story “The Golden Meadow”? What do you know about dandelion? Why did the guys at first think the dandelion was an uninteresting flower? How did they feel about this plant? How did you understand the expression “golden meadow”? How did you imagine him? What discovery did the author of the story once make? What beautiful image did he come up with to tell us about the green and golden meadow? Why has dandelion become the most interesting flower for children now?
Was it interesting for you to listen to M. Prishvin’s story “Conversation of Trees”? What especially surprised you about this work? What new did you learn from the story? How can trees talk to each other? Why do you think the author calls the buds on trees chocolate? Are they made of chocolate? Tell me how you imagined the opening buds. What does the author compare the young aspen tree to? How is aspen similar to a thin green candle? What sounds do you think can be heard in this story? (Rustling of trees.) What smells can you smell? (Aroma from resin different trees.) Do you think the trees in the story are similar to people? How did the author achieve this similarity?
L. N. Tolstoy “The Lion and the Dog”
In London they showed wild animals and for viewing they took money or dogs and cats to feed the wild animals.
One person wanted to see the animals; he grabbed a little dog on the street and brought it to the menagerie. They let him in to watch, but they took the little dog and threw him into a cage with a lion to be eaten.
The dog tucked its tail and pressed itself into the corner of the cage. The lion came up to her and smelled her.
The dog lay down on its back, raised its paws and began wagging its tail.
The lion touched it with his paw and turned it over.
The dog jumped up and stood on its hind legs in front of the lion.
The lion looked at the dog, turned his head from side to side and did not touch it.
When the owner threw meat to the lion, the lion tore off a piece and left it for the dog.
In the evening, when the lion went to bed, the dog lay down next to him and put her head on his paw.
Since then, the dog lived in the same cage with the lion. The lion did not touch her, ate food, slept with her, and sometimes played with her.
One day the master came to the menagerie and recognized his dog; he said that the dog was his own, and asked the owner of the menagerie to give it to him. The owner wanted to give it back, but as soon as they began to call the dog to take it from the cage, the lion bristled and growled.
So the lion and the dog lived for a whole year in the same cage.
A year later the dog got sick and died. The lion stopped eating, but kept sniffing, licking the dog and touching it with his paw.
When he realized that she was dead, he suddenly jumped up, bristled, began to whip his tail on the sides, rushed to the wall of the cage and began to gnaw at the bolts and the floor.
The whole day he fought, rushed around the cage and roared, then he lay down next to the dead dog and fell silent. The owner wanted to take away the dead dog, but the lion would not let anyone near it.
The owner thought that the lion would forget his grief if he was given another dog, and let a live dog into his cage; but the lion immediately tore it into pieces. Then he hugged the dead dog with his paws and lay there for five days.
On the sixth day the lion died.
S. T. Aksakov “Marmot”
Once, sitting on the window (from that moment on I remember everything firmly), I heard some kind of plaintive squealing in the garden; my mother heard him too, and when I began to ask to be sent to see who was crying, that “it’s true, someone is hurt,” my mother sent a girl, and a few minutes later she brought in her handfuls a tiny, still blind puppy, who, trembling all over and leaning unsteadily on his crooked paws, poking his head in all directions, squealing pitifully, or bored, as my nanny put it. I felt so sorry for him that I took this puppy and wrapped him in my dress.
The mother ordered warm milk to be brought in a saucer and after many attempts, pushing the blind kitten into the milk with her snout, she taught him to lap it.
From then on, the puppy did not leave me for hours at a time; feeding him several times a day became my favorite pastime; they called him Surka; he then became a small mongrel and lived with us for seventeen years - of course, no longer in the room, but in the yard, always maintaining an extraordinary affection for me and my mother.
Issues for discussion
L. N. Tolstoy’s story “The Lion and the Dog” can be read down to the words: “...they took the dog and threw it into the lion’s cage to be eaten. The dog tucked its tail and pressed itself into the corner of the cage...”
Then stop reading and offer to answer the question: “What do you think will happen to the dog? After listening to several answer options, you need to continue reading to the end in order to check the assumptions made. After this, you can offer your child questions to work on the text.
Did you like L. N. Tolstoy’s story “The Lion and the Dog”? What surprised you in this story told by L.N. Tolstoy? How did you imagine the lion and the dog when you listened to the story? Which of them did you like better? Why? Remember how the dog behaved when a huge, menacing lion approached her. Was she scared of the lion? Why do you think the lion didn't touch the dog? Tell me how a lion and a dog lived in the same cage. How did the lion treat the dog? Why did he growl when the owner of the menagerie tried to take the dog? What happened when the dog died? How do you think the lion felt at that moment? Remember what words in the story help the author convey the state of the lion after his death little friend, (“... he suddenly jumped up, bristled, began to whip his tail on the sides, rushed to the wall of the cage and began to gnaw at the bolts and the floor...”) How did the story end? What did the author help you understand?
G. Snegirev “Swallow”
When swallows fly home from overseas, they immediately begin to build nests.
Swallows make their nest from river clay and just out of dirt. From dawn to evening, swallows fly chirping, carry clay in their beaks and sculpt, sculpt, and build a nest. Now the clay ball under the roof of the barn is ready - a swallow's nest. The inside is lined by a swallow with soft blades of grass, horsehair, feathers.
As soon as the chicks hatch, from morning to evening the swallow flies over the river and over the field, catches insects, feeds the chicks.
The young swallows will grow up and leave the nest; soon it will be time to get ready for a long journey, across the seas, to warm countries.
I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov “Nest”
The blackbird placed the first bunch of dry grass in the fork of the birch tree. He put it down, straightened it with his beak and thought about it.
Here it is - a solemn moment, when everything is behind and everything is ahead. The winter in strangers is behind us southern forests, a difficult long flight. There is a nest ahead, chicks, work and worries.
The fork of a birch tree and a bunch of grass are like the beginning of a new life.
Every day, the nest is higher and wider. One day a blackbird sat in it and remained sitting. She was completely drowned in the nest, her nose and tail were sticking out.
But the blackbird saw and heard everything.
Stretched along blue sky clouds, and green earth their shadows crawled. An elk walked on stilt legs. The hare hobbled awkwardly. The willow warbler, fluffy like a willow lamb, sings and sings about spring.
A birch tree cradles a bird's house. And on guard are his tail and nose. They stick out like two sentries. If they stick out, it means everything is fine. So it's quiet in the forest. So, everything is ahead!
Issues for discussion
What do most birds usually build their nests from? How did you understand the expression from the story “The Nest” by I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov: “The fork of a birch tree and a bunch of grass are like the beginning of a new life”? Do you know why a bird must constantly sit in the nest until the chicks hatch? What did the author compare the tail and nose of a thrush sitting in a nest with? Do you think this is a fair comparison?
When you listened to G. Snegirev’s story, you probably imagined how it all happened. Tell me how a swallow builds its nest. Where is the nest located? What material do swallows build it from? What shape is it, what is it lined with on the inside? What is unusual about the nest that swallows build?
G. Snegirev “Beetle”
I have a sister, Galya, she is a year younger than me, and such a crybaby, I definitely have to give up everything to her. Mom will give me something tasty, Galya will eat hers and ask me for more. If you don't give it, he starts to roar. She only thought about herself, but I weaned her off that.
One day I went for water. Mom was at work, I had to fetch some water myself. I scooped up half a bucket. It was slippery around the well, the whole ground was frozen, I could barely drag the bucket home. I put it on the bench, I looked, and there was a swimming beetle swimming in it, a big one, with furry legs. I took the bucket into the yard, poured the water into a snowdrift, and caught the beetle and put it in a jar of water. The beetle is spinning around in the jar and can’t get used to it.
I went to bring water again, I brought it clean water, nothing came across this time. I undressed and wanted to look at the beetle, but there was no can on the window.
I ask Galya:
- Galya, did you take the beetle?
“Yes,” he says, “I, let him live in my room.”
“Why,” I say, “in yours, let there be a common beetle!”
I take a jar from her room and put it on the window: I also want to look at the beetle.
Galya cried and said:
“I’ll tell mom everything about how you took the beetle from me!”
She ran to the window, grabbed a can, even threw water on the floor
spilled it and put it back in her room.
I got angry.
“No,” I say, “my bug, I caught it!” “I took it and put the can back on the window.” As soon as Galya began to roar, she began to get dressed.
“I,” he says, “will go to the steppe and freeze there because of you.”
“Well,” I think, “let it go!” It’s always like this: if you don’t give me something, you immediately start to worry that you’ll freeze in the steppe.
She slammed the door and left. I look from the window to see what she will do, and she goes straight into the steppe, only quietly, quietly, waiting for me to run after her. “No,” I think, “you can’t wait, that’s enough, I ran after you!”
She’s walking, the snow is up to her knees, and she’s holding her face with her hands: she’s roaring, that means. He goes further and further from home into the steppe. “And what,” I think, “will really freeze?” I felt sorry for her. “Maybe we should go after her and bring her back? And I don’t need the beetle, let him take it for good. Only it will always make a roar again. No, I’d rather wait, come what may!”
Galya has gone far, only a small dot is visible. I wanted to get dressed and go after her - I saw that the dot was getting bigger: she was coming back. She walked up to the house, kept her hands in her pockets, and looked at her feet. She’s afraid to raise her eyes: she knows that I’m looking at her from the window.
I came home, undressed silently and went to my room. She sat there for a long time, and then went to the window and said:
- What a good bug, we need to feed it!
We began to look after the beetle together.
When my mother came home from work, Galya didn’t tell her anything, and neither did I.
N. Sladkov “House Butterfly”
At night, the box suddenly rustled. And something mustachioed and furry crawled out of their boxes. And on the back there is a folded fan of yellow paper.
But how happy I was about this freak!
I sat him on the lampshade, and he hung motionless with his back down. The fan folded like an accordion began to sag and straighten.
Before my eyes, an ugly furry worm was turning into a beautiful butterfly. This is probably how the frog turned into a princess!
All winter the pupae lay dead and motionless, like pebbles. They waited patiently for spring, just as the seeds wait in the ground. But the room heat deceived: “the seeds have sprouted” ahead of schedule. And then a butterfly crawls across the window. And it's winter outside. And there are ice flowers on the window. A living butterfly crawls on dead flowers.
She flutters around the room. He sits down on a print with poppies. Unfolding the spiral of its thin proboscis, it drinks sweet water from a spoon. He sits on the lampshade again, exposing his wings to the hot “sun”.
I look at her and think: why not keep butterflies at home, like we keep songbirds? They will delight you with color. And if these are not harmful butterflies, in the spring they can be released into the field like birds.
There are also singing insects: crickets and cicadas. Cicadas sing in a matchbox and even in a loosely clenched fist. And the desert crickets sing just like birds.
I would like to have beautiful beetles at home: bronze beetles, ground beetles, deer and rhinoceroses. And how many wild plants can be tamed!
And a wolf's bast, a bear's ear, a raven's eye! Why not grow beautiful fly agaric mushrooms, huge umbrella mushrooms or clusters of honey mushrooms in pots?
It will be winter outside, and summer on your windowsill. The ferns will stick out their green fists from the ground. Lilies of the valley will hang out wax bells. The miracle flower of the white water lily will open. And the first butterfly flutters. And the first cricket will sing.
And what can you come up with when looking at a butterfly drinking tea with jam from a spoon!
Issues for discussion
Where do butterflies disappear in winter? Listen to the story about one winter butterfly, which N. Sladkov told us (“House Butterfly”). Why did this butterfly wake up ahead of schedule? What did she look like when she crawled out of the box she was in? Why was the author so happy about this “freak”? Tell me what the butterfly was doing in the apartment. What mood do the lines of the story evoke in you: “A living butterfly crawls on dead flowers” - joy, surprise, sadness, regret? Why? What illustration would you draw for this work?
G. Skrebitsky “In a forest clearing”
The spring sun has warmed up. The winter apartments in the old stump were empty. A long-tailed newt crawled out of the dust. I woke up, climbed out of the hole onto a tree stump, and bask in the sun.
Warmth and bright sunlight are necessary for the lizard to become mobile. The lizard will warm up and start hunting. It is very voracious and destroys many slugs, as well as flies and various small insects that harm plants.
Lizards are useful animals. Take care of them!
We have a live-bearing lizard with a lemon-yellow belly. She does not lay eggs in the ground, but gives birth to live cubs. Second, sand lizard, With beautiful design on the body, with a green spring color, lays eggs in loose soil, often into earthen heaps of black ants.
The tree, with its upper whorl, like a palm, took up the falling snow, and from this a lump grew so large that the top of the birch began to bend. And it happened that during the thaw, snow fell again and stuck to the lump, and the upper branch with the lump bent the entire tree like an arch, until, finally, the top with that huge lump was plunged into the snow on the ground and was thus secured until spring. Animals and people, occasionally on skis, passed under this arch all winter. Nearby, proud spruces looked down at the bent birch tree, as people born to command look at their subordinates.
In the spring, the birch returned to those spruce trees, and if it had not bent over during this especially snowy winter, then both winter and summer it would have remained among the spruce trees, but since it had bent, now with the slightest snow it bent and in the end, without fail, every for a year it bent like an arch over the path.
It can be scary to enter a young forest in a snowy winter: indeed, it is impossible to enter. Where in the summer I walked along a wide path, now bent trees lie across this path, and so low that only a hare could run under them...
Fox bread
One day I walked in the forest all day and in the evening I returned home with rich booty. He took the heavy bag off his shoulders and began to lay out his belongings on the table.
What kind of bird is this? - Zinochka asked.
Terenty,” I answered.
And he told her about the black grouse: how it lives in the forest, how it mutters in the spring, how it pecks at birch buds, collects berries in the swamps in the fall, and warms itself from the wind under the snow in winter. He also told her about the hazel grouse, showed her that it was gray with a tuft, and whistled into the pipe in the hazel grouse style and let her whistle. I also poured a lot of porcini mushrooms, both red and black, onto the table. I also had a bloody boneberry in my pocket, and a blue blueberry, and a red lingonberry. I also brought with me a fragrant lump of pine resin, gave it to the girl to smell and said that trees are treated with this resin.
Who treats them there? - Zinochka asked.
They are treating themselves,” I answered. “Sometimes a hunter comes and wants to rest, he’ll stick an ax into a tree and hang his bag on the ax, and lie down under the tree.” He'll sleep and rest. He takes an ax out of the tree, puts on a bag, and leaves. And from the wound from the wood ax this fragrant resin will run and heal the wound.
Also on purpose for Zinochka, I brought various wonderful herbs, one leaf at a time, a root at a time, a flower at a time: cuckoo’s tears, valerian, Peter’s cross, hare’s cabbage. And just under the hare cabbage I had a piece of black bread: it always happens to me that when I don’t take bread into the forest, I’m hungry, but if I take it, I forget to eat it and bring it back. And Zinochka, when she saw black bread under my hare cabbage, was stunned:
Where did the bread come from in the forest?
What's surprising here? After all, there is cabbage there!
Hare...
And the bread is chanterelle bread. Taste it. I tasted it carefully and started eating:
Good chanterelle bread!
And she ate all my black bread clean. And so it went with us: Zinochka, such a copula, often won’t even take white bread, but when I bring fox bread from the forest, she will always eat it all and praise it:
Chanterelle bread is much better than ours!
Blue shadows
Silence resumed, frosty and bright. Yesterday's powder lies on the crust like powder with sparkling sparkles. The crust does not collapse anywhere and holds up even better on the field in the sun than in the shade. Every bush of old wormwood, burdock, blade of grass, blade of grass, as if in a mirror, looks into this sparkling powder and sees itself blue and beautiful.
Quiet snow
They say about silence: “Quiet than water, lower than the grass...” But what could be quieter than falling snow! Yesterday snow fell all day, and it was as if it brought silence from heaven... And every sound only intensified it: a rooster crowed, a crow called, a woodpecker drummed, a jay sang with all its voices, but the silence grew from all this. What silence, what grace.
Transparent ice
It’s good to look at that transparent ice, where the frost did not create flowers and did not cover the water with them. You can see how the stream under this thin ice drives a huge herd of bubbles, and drives them out from under the ice into open water, and rushes them with great speed, as if it really needs them somewhere and needs to have time to drive them all to one place.
Zhurka
Once we had it - we caught a young crane and gave it a frog. He swallowed it. They gave me another - I swallowed it. The third, fourth, fifth, and then we didn’t have any more frogs at hand.
Good girl! - my wife said and asked me; - How many of them can he eat? Ten maybe?
Ten, I say, maybe.
What if twenty?
Twenty, I say, hardly...
We clipped the wings of this crane, and he began to follow his wife everywhere. She milks the cow - and Zhurka is with her, she goes to the garden - and Zhurka needs to be there... The wife is used to him... and without him she is already bored, she can’t go anywhere without him. But only if it happens - he is not there, only one thing will shout: “Fru-fru!”, and he runs to her. So smart!
This is how the crane lives with us, and its clipped wings keep growing and growing.
Once the wife went down to the swamp to fetch water, and Zhurka followed her. A small frog sat by the well and jumped from Zhurka into the swamp. The frog is behind him, and the water is deep, and you can’t reach the frog from the shore. Zhurk flapped his wings and suddenly flew away. The wife gasped - and followed him. He swings his arms, but he can’t get up. And in tears, and to us: “Oh, oh, what grief! Ahah!" We all ran to the well. We see Zhurka sitting far away, in the middle of our swamp.
Fru-fru! - I shout.
And all the guys behind me also shout:
Fru-fru!
And so smart! As soon as he heard our “fru-fru”, he immediately flapped his wings and flew in. At this point the wife can’t remember herself with joy and tells the kids to run quickly after the frogs. This year there were a lot of frogs, the guys soon collected two caps. The guys brought frogs and began giving and counting. They gave me five - I swallowed them, they gave me ten - I swallowed them, twenty and thirty - and so I swallowed forty-three frogs at one time.
Squirrel Memory
Today, looking at the tracks of animals and birds in the snow, this is what I read from these tracks: a squirrel made its way through the snow into the moss, took out two nuts hidden there since the fall, ate them right away - I found the shells. Then she ran ten meters away, dived again, again left a shell on the snow and after a few meters made a third climb.
What kind of miracle? It’s impossible to think that she could smell the nut through a thick layer of snow and ice. This means that since the fall I remembered about my nuts and the exact distance between them.
But the most amazing thing is that she could not measure centimeters like we did, but directly by eye she determined with precision, dived and reached. Well, how could one not envy the squirrel’s memory and ingenuity!
Forest Doctor
We wandered in the forest in the spring and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly, in the direction where we had previously identified an interesting tree, we heard the sound of a saw. It was, as we were told, the collection of firewood from dead wood for a glass factory. We were afraid for our tree, hurried to the sound of the saw, but it was too late: our aspen lay, and there were many empty fir cones around its stump. The woodpecker peeled all this off over the long winter, collected it, carried it to this aspen tree, laid it between two branches of his workshop and hammered it. Near the stump, on our cut aspen, two boys were doing nothing but cutting down the wood.
Oh you pranksters! - we said and pointed them to the cut aspen. - You were ordered to remove dead trees, but what did you do?
“The woodpecker made a hole,” the guys answered. - We looked and, of course, cut it down. It will still be lost.
Everyone began to examine the tree together. It was completely fresh, and only in a small space, no more than a meter in length, did a worm pass inside the trunk. The woodpecker obviously listened to the aspen like a doctor: he tapped it with his beak, realized the emptiness left by the worm, and began the operation of extracting the worm. And the second time, and the third, and the fourth... The thin trunk of the aspen looked like a pipe with valves. The “surgeon” made seven holes and only on the eighth he caught the worm, pulled out and saved the aspen.
We cut this piece out as a wonderful exhibit for a museum.
You see, we told the guys, the woodpecker is a forest doctor, he saved the aspen, and it would live and live, and you cut it down.
The boys were amazed.
White necklace
I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I admit, I didn’t believe it. But he assured me that in the old days this case was even published in a Siberian magazine under the title: “A man with a bear against wolves.”
There lived a watchman on the shore of Lake Baikal, he caught fish and shot squirrels. And then one day the watchman seemed to see through the window - a big bear was running straight to the hut, and a pack of wolves was chasing him. That would be the end of the bear. He, this bear, don’t be bad, is in the hallway, the door closed behind him, and he still leaned on it with his paw. The old man, realizing this matter, took the rifle off the wall and said:
- Misha, Misha, hold it!
The wolves climb on the door, and the old man aims the wolf at the window and repeats:
- Misha, Misha, hold it!
So he killed one wolf, and another, and a third, all the time saying:
- Misha, Misha, hold it!
After the third, the pack scattered, and the bear remained in the hut to spend the winter under the guard of the old man. In the spring, when the bears come out of their dens, the old man allegedly put a white necklace on this bear and ordered all the hunters not to shoot this bear with the white necklace: this bear is his friend.
Belyak
All night long in the forest, straight wet snow pressed on the twigs, broke off, fell, rustled.
The rustle drove the white hare out of the forest, and he probably realized that by morning the black field would turn white and he, completely white, could lie peacefully. And he lay down in a field not far from the forest, and not far from him, also like a hare, lay the skull of a horse, weathered over the summer and whitened by the sun’s rays.
By dawn the whole field was covered, and both the white hare and the white skull had disappeared into the white immensity.
We were a little late, and by the time we released the hound, the tracks had already begun to blur.
When Osman began to disassemble the fat, it was still difficult to distinguish the shape of the hare's paw from the hare's: he was walking along the hare. But before Osman had time to straighten the trail, everything completely melted away on the white path, and then there was neither sight nor smell left on the black one.
We gave up on hunting and began to return home at the edge of the forest.
“Look through binoculars,” I said to my friend, “that it’s white there on the black field and so bright.”
“Horse skull, head,” he answered.
I took the binoculars from him and also saw the skull.
“There’s something still white there,” said the comrade, “look further to the left.”
I looked there, and there, also like a skull, bright white, lay a hare, and through prismatic binoculars you could even see black eyes on the white. He was in a desperate situation: lying down meant being in full view of everyone, running meant leaving a print on the soft wet ground for the dog. We stopped his hesitation: we lifted him up, and at the same moment Osman, having seen him again, set off with a wild roar towards the sighted man.
Swamp
I know that few people sat in the swamps in early spring waiting for the grouse current, and I have few words to even hint at all the splendor of the bird concert in the swamps before sunrise. I have often noticed that the first note in this concert, far before the very first hint of light, is taken by a curlew. This is a very thin trill, completely different from the well-known whistle. Afterwards, when the white partridges cry, the black grouse begin to chuff, and the lek, sometimes right next to the hut, begins its muttering, there is no time for the curlew, but then at sunrise, at the most solemn moment, you will certainly pay attention to the new song of the curlew, very cheerful and similar to dance: this dance is as necessary for meeting the sun as the cry of a crane.
Once I saw from the hut how, among the black mass of cocks, a gray curlew, a female, settled on a hummock; The male flew to her and, supporting himself in the air with the flapping of his large wings, touched the female’s back with his feet and sang his dance song. Here, of course, the whole air trembled with the singing of all the marsh birds, and I remember that the puddle, in complete calm, was all agitated by the many insects that had awakened in it.
The sight of a very long and crooked beak of a curlew always transports my imagination to a time long past, when there was no man on earth. And everything in the swamps is so strange, the swamps have been little studied, they have not been touched at all by artists, in them you always feel as if man has not yet begun on earth.
One evening I went out into the swamps to wash the dogs. It was very steamy after the rain before the new rain. The dogs, sticking out their tongues, ran and from time to time lay down, like pigs, on their bellies in the swamp puddles. Apparently, the young people had not yet hatched and got out of the supports into the open, and in our places, overflowing with swamp game, now the dogs could not smell anything and, when idle, were even worried about flying crows. Suddenly a large bird appeared, began to scream anxiously and describe large circles around us. Another curlew flew in and also began to circle around screaming, the third, obviously from another family, crossed the circle of these two, calmed down and disappeared. I needed to get a curlew egg for my collection, and, counting that the circles of birds would certainly decrease if I approached the nest, and increase if I moved away, I began to wander through the swamp, as if in a game blindfolded. So little by little, when the low sun became huge and red in the warm, abundant swamp vapors, I felt the proximity of the nest: the birds screamed unbearably and rushed so close to me that in the red sun I clearly saw their long, crooked, open for constant alarm screaming noses. Finally, both dogs, grabbing with their upper instincts, made a stance. I walked in the direction of their eyes and noses and saw two large eggs lying right on a yellow dry strip of moss, near a tiny bush, without any devices or cover. Having told the dogs to lie down, I looked around me with joy; the mosquitoes bit me hard, but I got used to them.
How good it was for me in the inaccessible swamps and how far away the earth was from these large birds with long crooked noses, crossing the disk of the red sun on curved wings!
I was about to bend down to the ground to take one of these large beautiful eggs for myself, when I suddenly noticed that in the distance, across the swamp, a man was walking straight towards me. He had neither a gun, nor a dog, nor even a stick in his hand, there was no way for anyone to go anywhere from here, and I did not know people like me who, like me, could happily wander through the swamp under a swarm of mosquitoes. I felt as unpleasant as if, while combing my hair in front of the mirror and making some special face at the same time, I suddenly noticed someone else’s examining eye in the mirror. I even moved away from the nest and did not take the eggs, so that this man would not frighten me with his questions, I felt it, an expensive moment of my life. I told the dogs to stand up and led them to the hump. There I sat down on a gray stone, so covered with yellow lichens on top that it was not cold. The birds, as soon as I walked away, increased their circles, but I could no longer watch them with joy. Anxiety was born in my soul at the approach of a stranger. I could already see him: an elderly man, very thin, walking slowly, carefully watching the flight of the birds. I felt better when I noticed that he changed direction and went to another hill, where he sat down on a stone and also turned to stone. I even felt pleased that someone like me was sitting there, reverently listening to the evening. It seemed that without any words we understood each other perfectly, and there were no words for this. I watched with redoubled attention as the birds crossed the red disk of the sun; At the same time, my thoughts were strange about the timing of the earth and about such a short history of mankind; How, however, everything soon passed.
The sun has set. I looked back at my friend, but he was no longer there. The birds calmed down, apparently sat on their nests. Then, ordering the dogs to go back and stealthily, I began to approach the nest with silent steps: whether, I thought, I might be able to see interesting birds up close. From the bush I knew exactly where the nest was, and I was very surprised how close the birds would let me. Finally, I got to the bush itself and froze in surprise: behind the bush everything was empty. I touched the moss with my palm: it was still warm from the warm eggs lying on it.
I just looked at the eggs, and the birds, afraid of the human eye, hastened to hide them away.
Verkhoplavka
A golden network of sunbeams trembles on the water. Dark blue dragonflies in reeds and horsetail trees. And each dragonfly has its own horsetail tree or reed: it flies off and will certainly return to it.
The crazy crows brought out the chicks and are now sitting and resting.
The leaf, the smallest one, went down to the river on a spider’s web and is spinning, spinning.
So I ride quietly down the river in my boat, and my boat is a little heavier than this leaf, made of fifty-two sticks and covered with canvas. There is only one paddle for it - a long stick, and at the ends there is a spatula. Dip each spatula alternately from one side to the other. The boat is so light that no effort is needed: you touch the water with a spatula, and the boat floats, and it floats so silently that the fish are not at all afraid.
What, what can you see when you quietly ride on such a boat along the river!
Here a rook, flying over the river, dropped a drop into the water, and this lime-white drop, hitting the water, immediately attracted the attention of small topwater fish. In an instant, a real market of high-flying boats gathered around the rook drop. Noticing this gathering, a large predator - a shelesper fish - swam up and smacked its tail across the water with such force that the stunned top swimmers turned upside down. They would have come to life in a minute, but the shelesper is not some kind of fool, he knows that it doesn’t happen very often that a rook will drop a drop and so many fools will gather around one drop: grab one, grab another - he ate a lot, and some managed to get away , from now on they will live like scientists, and if something good drops on them from above, they will keep their eyes open to see if anything bad comes to them from below.
Talking rook
I’ll tell you an incident that happened to me during the hungry year. A young yellow-throated rook got into the habit of flying onto my windowsill. Apparently he was an orphan. And at that time I had a whole bag of buckwheat stored. I ate buckwheat porridge all the time. It used to be that a little rook would fly in, I would sprinkle cereals on it and ask:
Do you want some porridge, fool?
It will bite and fly away. And so every day, all month. I want to ensure that in response to my question: “Do you want some porridge, fool?”, he would say: “I want it.”
And he only opens his yellow nose and shows his red tongue.
“Okay,” I got angry and abandoned my studies.
By autumn, trouble happened to me. I reached into the chest for some cereal, but there was nothing there. This is how the thieves cleaned it: half a cucumber was on the plate, and they took it away. I went to bed hungry. Spun all night. In the morning I looked in the mirror, my face was all green.
"Knock, knock!" - someone is in the window.
On the windowsill, a rook is hammering at the glass.
"Here comes the meat!" - a thought appeared to me.
I open the window - and grab it! And he jumped from me onto a tree. I'm through the window behind him to the knot. He's taller. I'm climbing. He is taller and to the very top of his head. I can't go there; very swaying. He, the scoundrel, looks at me from above and says:
Do you want, kash-ki, do-rush-ka?
Hedgehog
Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He noticed me too, curled up and started tapping: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was walking in the distance. I touched him with the tip of my boot - he snorted terribly and pushed his needles into the boot.
Oh, you're like that with me! - I said and pushed him into the stream with the tip of my boot.
Instantly, the hedgehog turned around in the water and swam to the shore, like a small pig, only instead of bristles there were needles on its back. I took a stick, rolled the hedgehog into my hat and took it home.
I had a lot of mice. I heard that the hedgehog catches them, and I decided: let him live with me and catch mice.
So I put this prickly lump in the middle of the floor and sat down to write, while I kept looking at the hedgehog out of the corner of my eye. He did not lie motionless for long: as soon as I quieted down at the table, the hedgehog turned around, looked around, tried to go this way, that way, finally chose a place under the bed and became completely quiet there.
When it got dark, I lit the lamp, and - hello! - the hedgehog ran out from under the bed. He, of course, thought to the lamp that the moon had risen in the forest: when there is a moon, hedgehogs love to run through forest clearings.
And so he started running around the room, imagining that it was a forest clearing.
I took the pipe, lit a cigarette and blew a cloud near the moon. It became just like in the forest: both the moon and the cloud, and my legs were like tree trunks and, probably, the hedgehog really liked them: he darted between them, sniffing and scratching the backs of my boots with needles.
After reading the newspaper, I dropped it on the floor, went to bed and fell asleep.
I always sleep very lightly. I hear some rustling in my room. He struck a match, lit the candle and only noticed how the hedgehog flashed under the bed. And the newspaper was no longer lying near the table, but in the middle of the room. So I left the candle burning and I myself did 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 spun around near it, made noise, made noise, and finally managed to: somehow put a corner of the newspaper on his thorns and dragged it, huge, into corner.
That’s when I understood him: the newspaper was like dry leaves in the forest to him, he was dragging it for his nest. And it turned out to be true: soon the hedgehog wrapped himself in newspaper and made himself a real nest out of it. Having finished this important task, he left his home and stood opposite the bed, looking at the moon candle.
I let the clouds in and ask:
What else do you need? The hedgehog was not afraid.
Do you want to drink?
I wake up. The hedgehog doesn't run.
I took a plate, put it on the floor, brought a bucket of water and then poured water into the plate, then poured it into the bucket again, and made such a noise as if it was a stream splashing.
Well, go, go, I say. - You see, I made the moon for you, and sent the clouds, and here is water for you...
I look: it’s like he’s moved forward. And I also moved my lake a little towards it. He will move, and I will move, and that’s how we agreed.
Drink, I say finally. He began to cry. And I ran my hand over the thorns so lightly, as if I was stroking them, and I kept saying:
You're a good guy, you're a good guy! The hedgehog got drunk, I say:
Let's sleep. He lay down and blew out the candle.
I don’t know how long I slept, but I hear: I have work in my room again.
I light a candle, and what do you think? A hedgehog is running around the room, and there is an apple on its thorns. He ran to the nest, put it there and ran into the corner after another, and in the corner there was a bag of apples and it fell over. The hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and ran again, dragging another apple on the thorns into the nest.
So the hedgehog settled down to live with me. And now, when drinking tea, I will certainly bring it to my table and either pour milk into a saucer for him to drink, or give him some buns for him to eat.
Golden Meadow
My brother and I always had fun with them when dandelions ripened. It used to be that we would go somewhere on our business - he was ahead, I was at the heel.
Seryozha! - I’ll call him in a businesslike manner. He will look back, and I will blow a dandelion right in his face. For this, he begins to watch for me and, like a gape, he also makes a fuss. And so we picked these uninteresting flowers just for fun. But once I managed to make a discovery.
We lived in a village, in front of our window there was a meadow, all golden with many blooming dandelions. It was very beautiful. Everyone said: Very beautiful! The meadow is golden.
One day I got up early to fish and noticed that the meadow was not golden, but green. When I returned home around noon, the meadow was again all golden. I began to observe. By evening the meadow turned green again. Then I went and found a dandelion, and it turned out that he squeezed his petals, as if your fingers on the side of your palm were yellow and, clenching into a fist, we would close the yellow one. In the morning, when the sun rose, I saw the dandelions opening their palms, and this made the meadow turn golden again.
Since then, dandelion has become one of the most interesting flowers for us, because dandelions went to bed with us children and got up with us.
Blue bast shoe
There are highways through our large forest with separate paths for cars, trucks, carts and pedestrians. Now, for this highway, only the forest has been cut down as a corridor. It’s good to look along the clearing: two green walls of the forest and the sky at the end. When the forest was cut down, the large trees were taken away somewhere, while small brushwood - rookery - was collected in huge piles. They wanted to take away the rookery to heat the factory, but they couldn’t manage it, and the heaps throughout the wide clearing were left to spend the winter.
In the fall, hunters complained that the hares had disappeared somewhere, and some associated this disappearance of the hares with deforestation: they chopped, knocked, made noise and scared them away. When the powder flew in and all the hare’s tricks could be unraveled from the tracks, the tracker Rodionich came and said:
- The blue bast shoe all lies under the heaps of the Rook.
Rodionich, unlike all hunters, did not call the hare “slash,” but always “blue bast shoe”; there is nothing to be surprised here: after all, a hare is no more like a devil than a bast shoe, and if they say that there are no blue bast shoes in the world, then I will say that there are no slanting devils either.
The rumor about the hares under the heaps instantly spread throughout our town, and on the day off, hunters led by Rodionich began to flock to me.
Early in the morning, at dawn, we went hunting without dogs: Rodionich was such a skill that he could drive a hare to a hunter better than any hound. As soon as it became visible enough that it was possible to distinguish fox tracks from hare tracks, we took the hare track, followed it, and, of course, it led us to one heap of rookery, as high as our wooden house with a mezzanine. There was supposed to be a hare lying under this heap, and we, having prepared our guns, stood in a circle.
“Come on,” we said to Rodionich.
- Get out, blue bast shoe! - he shouted and stuck a long stick under the pile.
The hare did not jump out. Rodionich was dumbfounded. And, after thinking, with a very serious face, looking at every little thing in the snow, he walked around the whole pile and walked around again in a large circle: there was no exit trail anywhere.
“He’s here,” Rodionich said confidently. - Take your seats, guys, he’s here. Ready?
- Let's! - we shouted.
- Get out, blue bast shoe! - Rodionich shouted and stabbed three times under the rookery with such a long stick that the end of it on the other side almost knocked one young hunter off his feet.
And now - no, the hare did not jump out!
Such embarrassment had never happened to our oldest tracker in his life: even his face seemed to have fallen a little. We started to get into a fuss, everyone began to guess about something in their own way, stick their nose into everything, walk back and forth in the snow and so, erasing all traces, taking away any opportunity to unravel the clever hare’s trick.
And so, I see, Rodionich suddenly beamed, sat down, contentedly, on a stump at a distance from the hunters, rolled himself a cigarette and blinked, so he blinked at me and beckoned me to him. Having realized the matter, I approach Rodionich unnoticed by everyone, and he points me up, to the very top of a high pile of rookery covered with snow.
“Look,” he whispers, “the blue bast shoe is playing a trick with us.”
It took me a while to see two black dots on the white snow—the hare’s eyes and two more small dots—the black tips of long white ears. It was the head that stuck out from under the rookery and turned in different directions after the hunters: where they went, there the head went.
As soon as I raised my gun, the life of the smart hare would have ended in an instant. But I felt sorry: you never know how many of them, stupid ones, are lying under the heaps!..
Rodionich understood me without words. He crushed a dense lump of snow for himself, waited until the hunters were crowded on the other side of the heap, and, having outlined himself well, launched this lump at the hare.
I never thought that our ordinary white hare, if he suddenly stood on a heap, and even jumped two arshins up, and appeared against the sky - that our hare could seem like a giant on a huge rock!
What happened to the hunters? The hare fell straight from the sky towards them. In an instant, everyone grabbed their guns - it was very easy to kill. But each hunter wanted to kill before the other, and each, of course, grabbed it without aiming at all, and the lively hare set off into the bushes.
- Here's a blue bast shoe! - Rodionich said after him admiringly.
The hunters once again managed to hit the bushes.
- Killed! - shouted one, young, hot.
But suddenly, as if in response to “killed,” a tail flashed in the distant bushes; For some reason, hunters always call this tail a flower.
The blue bast shoe only waved its “flower” to the hunters from the distant bushes.