)

Grandma returned from the neighbors and told me that the Levontiev children were going to the strawberry harvest, and told me to go with them.

You'll get some trouble. I will take my berries to the city, I will also sell yours and buy you gingerbread.

A horse, grandma?

Horse, horse.

Gingerbread horse! This is the dream of all village kids. He is white, white, this horse. And his mane is pink, his tail is pink, his eyes are pink, his hooves are also pink. Grandmother never allowed us to carry around with pieces of bread. Eat at the table, otherwise it will be bad. But gingerbread is a completely different matter. You can stick the gingerbread under your shirt, run around and hear the horse kicking its hooves on its bare belly. Cold with horror - lost, - grab your shirt and be convinced with happiness - here he is, here is the horse-fire!

With such a horse, I immediately appreciate how much attention! The Levontief guys fawn over you this way and that, and let you hit the first one in the siskin, and shoot with a slingshot, so that only they are then allowed to bite off the horse or lick it. When you give Levontyev’s Sanka or Tanka a bite, you must hold with your fingers the place where you are supposed to bite, and hold it tightly, otherwise Tanka or Sanka will bite so hard that the horse’s tail and mane will remain.

Levontiy, our neighbor, worked on the badogs together with Mishka Korshukov. Levontii harvested timber for badogi, sawed it, chopped it and delivered it to the lime plant, which was opposite the village, on the other side of the Yenisei. Once every ten days, or maybe fifteen, I don’t remember exactly, Levontius received money, and then in the next house, where there were only children and nothing else, a feast began. Some kind of restlessness, a fever, or something, gripped not only the Levontiev house, but also all the neighbors. Early in the morning, Aunt Vasenya, Uncle Levontiy’s wife, ran into grandma’s, out of breath, exhausted, with rubles clutched in her fist.

Stop, you freak! - her grandmother called out to her. - You have to count.

Aunt Vasenya obediently returned, and while grandma was counting the money, she walked with her bare feet, like a hot horse, ready to take off as soon as the reins were let go.

Grandmother counted carefully and for a long time, smoothing out each ruble. As far as I remember, my grandmother never gave Levontikha more than seven or ten rubles from her “reserve” for a rainy day, because this entire “reserve” consisted, it seems, of ten. But even with such a small amount, the alarmed Vasenya managed to shortchange by a ruble, sometimes even by a whole triple.

How do you handle money, you eyeless scarecrow! the grandmother attacked the neighbor. - A ruble for me, a ruble for another! What will happen? But Vasenya again threw up a whirlwind with her skirt and rolled away.

She did!

For a long time my grandmother reviled Levontiikha, Levontii himself, who, in her opinion, was not worth bread, but ate wine, beat herself on the thighs with her hands, spat, I sat down by the window and looked longingly at the neighbor’s house.

He stood by himself, in the open space, and nothing prevented him from looking at the white light through the somehow glazed windows - no fence, no gate, no frames, no shutters. Uncle Levontius didn’t even have a bathhouse, and they, the Levont’evites, washed in their neighbors, most often with us, after fetching water and ferrying firewood from the lime factory.

One good day, perhaps evening, Uncle Levontius rocked a ripple and, having forgotten himself, began to sing the song of sea wanderers, heard on voyages - he was once a sailor.

A sailor sailed down the Akiyan from Africa, He brought a baby mupe in a box...

The family fell silent, listening to the voice of the parent, absorbing a very coherent and pitiful song. Our village, in addition to the streets, towns and alleys, was also structured and composed in song - every family, every surname had “its own”, signature song, which deeper and more fully expressed the feelings of this and no other relatives. To this day, whenever I remember the song “The Monk Fell in Love with a Beauty,” I still see Bobrovsky Lane and all the Bobrovskys, and goosebumps spread across my skin from shock. My heart trembles and contracts from the song of the “Chess Knee”: “I was sitting by the window, my God, and the rain was dripping on me.” And how can we forget Fokine’s, soul-tearing: “In vain I broke the bars, in vain I escaped from prison, my dear, dear little wife is lying on another’s chest,” or my beloved uncle: “Once upon a time in a cozy room,” or in memory of my late mother , which is still sung: “Tell me, sister...” But where can you remember everything and everyone? The village was large, the people were vocal, daring, and the family was deep and wide.

But all our songs flew glidingly over the roof of the settler Uncle Levontius - not one of them could disturb the petrified soul of the fighting family, and here on you, Levontiev’s eagles trembled, there must have been a drop or two of sailor, vagabond blood tangled in the veins of the children, and it - their resilience was washed away, and when the children were well-fed, did not fight and did not destroy anything, one could hear a friendly chorus spilling out through the broken windows and open doors:

She sits and yearns all night long and sings this song about her homeland: “In the warm, warm south, in my homeland, friends live and grow and there are no people at all...”

Uncle Levontiy drilled the song with his bass, added rumble to it, and therefore the song, and the guys, and he himself seemed to change in appearance, became more beautiful and more united, and then the river of life in this house flowed in a calm, even bed. Aunt Vasenya, a person of unbearable sensitivity, wetted her face and chest with tears, howled into her old burnt apron, spoke out about human irresponsibility - some drunken lout grabbed a piece of shit, dragged it away from his homeland for who knows why and why? And here she is, poor thing, sitting and yearning all night long... And, jumping up, she suddenly fixed her wet eyes on her husband - but wasn’t it he, wandering around the world, who did this dirty deed?! Wasn't he the one who whistled the monkey? He's drunk and doesn't know what he's doing!

Uncle Levontius, repentantly accepting all the sins that can be pinned on a drunken person, wrinkled his brow, trying to understand: when and why did he take a monkey from Africa? And if he took away and abducted the animal, where did it subsequently go?

In the spring, the Levontiev family picked up the ground around the house a little, erected a fence from poles, twigs, and old boards. But in winter, all this gradually disappeared in the womb of the Russian stove, which lay open in the middle of the hut.

Tanka Levontyevskaya used to say this, making noise with her toothless mouth, about their whole establishment:

But when the guy snoops at us, you run and don’t get stuck.

Uncle Levontius himself went out on warm evenings wearing trousers held on by a single copper button with two eagles, and a calico shirt with no buttons at all. He would sit on an ax-marked log representing a porch, smoke, look, and if my grandmother reproached him through the window for idleness, listing the work that, in her opinion, he should have done in the house and around the house, Uncle Levontius scratched himself complacently.

I, Petrovna, love freedom! - and moved his hand around himself:

Fine! Like the sea! Nothing depresses the eyes!

Uncle Levontius loved the sea, and I loved it. The main goal of my life was to break into Levontius’s house after his payday, listen to the song about the little monkey and, if necessary, join in with the mighty choir. It's not that easy to sneak out. Grandma knows all my habits in advance.

There’s no point in peeking out,” she thundered. “There’s no point in eating these proletarians, they themselves have a louse on a lasso in their pocket.”

But if I managed to sneak out of the house and get to the Levontievskys, that’s it, here I was surrounded by rare attention, here I was completely happy.

Get out of here! - the drunken Uncle Levontius sternly ordered one of his boys. And while one of them reluctantly crawled out from behind the table, he explained to the children his strict action in an already limp voice: “He is an orphan, and you are still with your parents!” - And, looking at me pitifully, he roared: - Do you even remember your mother? I nodded affirmatively. Uncle Levontius sadly leaned on his arm, rubbing tears down his face with his fist, remembering; - Badogs have been injecting her for one year each! - And completely bursting into tears: - Whenever you come... night-midnight... lost... your lost head, Levontius, will say and... make you hangover...

Aunt Vasenya, Uncle Levontiy’s children and I, together with them, burst into roars, and it became so pitiful in the hut, and such kindness swept over the people that everything, everything spilled out and fell out on the table and everyone vying with each other treated me and ate themselves through the force, then they started singing, and tears flowed like a river, and after that I dreamed about the miserable monkey for a long time.

Late in the evening or completely at night, Uncle Levontius asked the same question: “What is life?!” After which I grabbed gingerbread cookies, sweets, the Levontiev children also grabbed whatever they could get their hands on and ran away in all directions.

Vasenya made the last move, and my grandmother greeted her until the morning. Levontii broke the remaining glass in the windows, cursed, thundered, and cried.

The next morning, he used shards of glass on the windows, repaired the benches and table, and, full of darkness and remorse, went to work. Aunt Vasenya, after three or four days, again went to the neighbors and no longer threw up a whirlwind with her skirt, again borrowing money, flour, potatoes - whatever was necessary - until she was paid.

It was with Uncle Levontius’s eagles that I set off to hunt for strawberries in order to earn gingerbread with my labor. The children carried glasses with broken edges, old ones, half torn for kindling, birch bark tueskas, krinkas tied around the neck with twine, some of them had ladles without handles. The boys played freely, fought, threw dishes at each other, tripped each other, started fighting twice, cried, teased. On the way, they dropped into someone's garden, and since nothing was ripe there yet, they piled on a bunch of onions, ate until they salivated green, and threw away the rest. They left a few feathers for the whistles. They squealed in their bitten feathers, danced, we walked merrily to the music, and we soon came to a rocky ridge. Then everyone stopped playing around, scattered through the forest and began to take strawberries, just ripening, white-sided, rare and therefore especially joyful and expensive.

I took it diligently and soon covered the bottom of a neat little glass by two or three.

Grandmother said: the main thing in berries is to close the bottom of the vessel. I breathed a sigh of relief and began to pick strawberries faster, and I found more and more of them higher up the hill.

The Levontiev children walked quietly at first. Only the lid, tied to the copper teapot, jingled. The older boy had this kettle, and he rattled it so that we could hear that the elder was here, nearby, and we had nothing and no need to be afraid.

Suddenly the lid of the kettle rattled nervously and a fuss was heard.

Eat, right? Eat, right? What about home? What about home? - the elder asked and gave someone a slap after each question.

A-ha-ga-gaaa! - Tanka sang. - Shanka was wandering around, no big deal...

Sanka got it too. He got angry, threw the vessel and fell into the grass. The eldest took and took berries and began to think: he is trying for the house, and those parasites over there are eating the berries or even lying on the grass. The elder jumped up and kicked Sanka again. Sanka howled and rushed at the elder. The kettle rang and berries splashed out. The heroic brothers fight, roll on the ground, and crush all the strawberries.

After the fight, the elder man gave up too. He began to collect the spilled, crushed berries - and put them in his mouth, in his mouth.

That means you can, but that means I can’t! You can, but that means I can’t? - he asked ominously until he had eaten everything he had managed to collect.

Soon the brothers somehow quietly made peace, stopped calling each other names and decided to go down to the Fokinskaya River and splash around.

I also wanted to go to the river, I would also like to splash around, but I did not dare to leave the ridge because I had not yet filled the vessel full.

Grandma Petrovna was scared! Oh you! - Sanka grimaced and called me a nasty word. He knew a lot of such words. I also knew, I learned to say them from the Levontiev guys, but I was afraid, maybe embarrassed to use obscenity and timidly declared:

But my grandmother will buy me a gingerbread horse!

Maybe a mare? - Sanka grinned, spat at his feet and immediately realized something; - Tell me better - you’re afraid of her and you’re also greedy!

Do you want to eat all the berries? - I said this and immediately repented, I realized that I had fallen for the bait. Scratched, with bumps on his head from fights and various other reasons, with pimples on his arms and legs, with red, bloody eyes, Sanka was more harmful and angrier than all the Levontiev boys.

Weak! - he said.

I'm weak! - I swaggered, looking sideways into the tuesok. There were berries already above the middle. - Am I weak?! - I repeated in a fading voice and, so as not to give up, not to be afraid, not to disgrace myself, I decisively shook the berries onto the grass: - Here! Eat with me!

The Levontiev horde fell, the berries instantly disappeared. I only got a few tiny, bent berries with greenery. It's a pity for the berries. Sad. There is longing in the heart - it anticipates a meeting with grandmother, a report and a reckoning. But I assumed despair, gave up on everything - now it doesn’t matter. I rushed along with the Levontiev children down the mountain, to the river, and boasted:

I’ll steal grandma’s kalach!

The guys encouraged me to act, they say, and bring more than one roll, grab a shaneg or a pie - nothing will be superfluous.

We ran along a shallow river, splashed with cold water, overturned slabs and caught the sculpin with our hands. Sanka grabbed this disgusting-looking fish, compared it to a shame, and we tore the pika to pieces on the shore for its ugly appearance. Then they fired stones at the flying birds, knocking out the white-bellied one. We soldered the swallow with water, but it bled into the river, could not swallow the water and died, dropping its head. We buried a little white, flower-like bird on the shore, in the pebbles, and soon forgot about it, because we got busy with an exciting, creepy business: we ran into the mouth of a cold cave, where evil spirits lived (they knew this for certain in the village). Sanka ran the farthest into the cave - even the evil spirits did not take him!

This is even more! - Sanka boasted, returning from the cave. - I would run further, I would run into the block, but I’m barefoot, there are snakes dying there.

Zhmeev?! - Tanka retreated from the mouth of the cave and, just in case, pulled up her falling panties.

I saw the brownie and the brownie,” Sanka continued to tell.

Clapper! Brownies live in the attic and under the stove! - the eldest cut off Sanka.

Sanka was confused, but immediately challenged the elder:

What kind of brownie is that? Home. And here is the cave one. He's all covered in moss, gray and trembling - he's cold. And the housekeeper, for better or worse, looks pitifully and groans. You can’t lure me, just come and grab me and eat me up. I hit her in the eye with a rock!..

Maybe Sanka was lying about the brownies, but it was still scary to listen to, it seemed like someone was moaning and groaning very close in the cave. Tanka was the first to pull away from the bad spot, followed by her and the rest of the guys fell down the mountain. Sanka whistled and yelled stupidly, giving us heat.

We spent the whole day so interesting and fun, and I completely forgot about the berries, but it was time to return home. We sorted out the dishes hidden under the tree.

Katerina Petrovna will ask you! He'll ask! - Sanka neighed. We ate the berries! Ha ha! They ate it on purpose! Ha ha! We're fine! Ha ha! And you are ho-ho!..

I myself knew that to them, the Levontievskys, “ha-ha!”, and to me, “ho-ho!” My grandmother, Katerina Petrovna, is not Aunt Vasenya; you can’t get rid of her with lies, tears and various excuses.

I quietly trudged after the Levontiev boys out of the forest. They ran ahead of me in a crowd, pushing a ladle without a handle along the road. The ladle clanked, bounced on the stones, and the remains of the enamel bounced off it.

You know what? - After talking with the brothers, Sanka returned to me. - You push the herbs into the bowl, add berries on top - and you're done! Oh, my child! - Sanka began to accurately imitate my grandmother. - I helped you, orphan, I helped you. And the demon Sanka winked at me and rushed further, down the ridge, home.

And I stayed.

The voices of the children under the ridge, behind the vegetable gardens, died down, it became eerie. True, you can hear the village here, but still there is a taiga, a cave not far away, in it there is a housewife and a brownie, and snakes are swarming with them. I sighed, sighed, almost cried, but I had to listen to the forest, the grass, and whether the brownies were creeping out of the cave. There's no time to whine here. Keep your ears open here. I tore up a handful of grass and looked around. I stuffed the tuesk tightly with grass, on a bull so that I could see the house closer to the light, I collected several handfuls of berries, laid them on the grass - it turned out to be strawberries even with a shock.

You are my child! - my grandmother began to cry when I, frozen with fear, handed her the vessel. - God help you, God help you! I’ll buy you a gingerbread, the biggest one. And I won’t pour your berries into mine, I’ll take them right away in this little bag...

It relieved a little.

I thought that now my grandmother would discover my fraud, give me what I was due, and was already prepared for punishment for the crime I had committed. But it worked out. Everything worked out fine. Grandmother took the tuesok to the basement, praised me again, gave me something to eat, and I thought that I had nothing to be afraid of yet and life was not so bad.

I ate, went outside to play, and there I felt the urge to tell Sanka about everything.

And I’ll tell Petrovna! And I'll tell you!..

No need, Sanka!

Bring the roll, then I won’t tell you.

I secretly snuck into the pantry, took the kalach out of the chest and brought it to Sanka, under my shirt. Then he brought another, then another, until Sanka got drunk.

“I fooled my grandmother. Kalachi stole! What will happen? - I was tormented at night, tossing and turning on the bed. Sleep did not take me, the “Andelsky” peace did not descend on my life, on my Varna soul, although my grandmother, having made the sign of the cross at night, wished me not just any, but the most “Andelsky”, quiet sleep.

Why are you messing around there? - Grandma asked hoarsely from the darkness. - Probably wandered in the river again? Are your legs hurting again?

No, I responded. - I had a dream...

Sleep with God! Sleep, don't be afraid. Life is worse than dreams, father...

“What if you get out of bed, crawl under the blanket with your grandmother and tell everything?”

I listened. The labored breathing of an old man could be heard from below. It's a pity to wake up, grandma is tired. She has to get up early. No, it’s better that I don’t sleep until the morning, I’ll watch over my grandmother, I’ll tell her about everything: about the little girls, and about the housewife and the brownie, and about the rolls, and about everything, about everything...

This decision made me feel better, and I didn’t notice how my eyes closed. Sanka’s unwashed face appeared, then the forest, grass, strawberries flashed, she covered Sanka, and everything that I saw during the day.

On the floors there was a smell of pine forest, a cold mysterious cave, the river gurgled at our very feet and fell silent...

Grandfather was at the village, about five kilometers from the village, at the mouth of the Mana River. There we have sown a strip of rye, a strip of oats and buckwheat, and a large paddock of potatoes. Talk about collective farms was just beginning at that time, and our villagers were still living alone. I loved visiting my grandfather’s farm. It’s calm there, in detail, no oppression or supervision, run around even until the night. Grandfather never made any noise at anyone, he worked leisurely, but very steadily and pliantly.

Oh, if only the settlement were closer! I would have left, hidden. But five kilometers was an insurmountable distance for me then. And Alyoshka is not there to go with him. Recently, Aunt Augusta came and took Alyoshka with her to the forest plot, where she went to work.

I wandered around, wandered around the empty hut and could not think of anything else but to go to the Levontyevskys.

Petrovna has sailed away! - Sanka grinned and snorted saliva into the hole between his front teeth. He could fit another tooth in this hole, and we were crazy about this Sanka hole. How he drooled at her!

Sanka was getting ready to go fishing and was unraveling the fishing line. His little brothers and sisters jostled around, wandered around the benches, crawled, hobbled on bowed legs.

Sanka gave slaps left and right - the little ones got under his arm and tangled the fishing line.

“There’s no hook,” he muttered angrily, “he must have swallowed something.”

Nishta-ak! - Sanka reassured me. - They'll digest it. You have a lot of hooks, give me one. I'll take you with me.

I rushed home, grabbed the fishing rods, put some bread in my pocket, and we went to the stone bullheads, behind the cattle, which went straight down into the Yenisei behind the log.

There was no older house. His father took him with him “to the badogi”, and Sanka commanded recklessly. Since he was the eldest today and felt great responsibility, he did not get cocky in vain and, moreover, pacified the “people” if they started a fight.

Sanka set up fishing rods near the bullheads, baited worms, bit on them and threw the fishing line “by hand” so that it would cast further - everyone knows: the further and deeper, the more fish and she's bigger.

Sha! - Sanka widened his eyes, and we obediently froze. It didn't bite for a long time. We got tired of waiting, started pushing, giggling, teasing. Sanka endured, endured, and drove us out to look for sorrel, coastal garlic, wild radish, otherwise, they say, he can’t vouch for himself, otherwise he’ll screw us all. The Levontief boys knew how to get their fill from the earth, ate everything that God sent them, did not disdain anything, and that is why they were red-faced, strong, and dexterous, especially at the table.

Without us, Sanka really got stuck. While we were collecting greens suitable for food, he pulled out two ruffs, a gudgeon and a white-eyed spruce. They lit a fire on the shore. Sanka put the fish on sticks and prepared them to fry; the children surrounded the fire and did not take their eyes off the frying. “Sa-an! - they soon whined. - It’s already cooked! Sa-an!..”

W-well, breakthrough! W-well, breakthrough! Can’t you see that the ruff is gaping with its gills? Just want to gobble it up quickly. Well, how does your stomach feel, did you have diarrhea?..

Vitka Katerinin has diarrhea. We don't have it.

What did I say?!

The fighting eagles fell silent. With Sanka it’s not painful to separate the turuses, he just stumbles into something. The little ones endure, they toss their noses at each other; They strive to make the fire hotter. However, patience does not last long.

Well, Sa-an, there’s coal right there...

Choke!

The guys grabbed sticks with fried fish, tore them on the fly, and on the fly, groaning from the hotness, they ate them almost raw, without salt or bread, ate them and looked around in bewilderment: already?! We waited so long, endured so much, and only licked our lips. The kids also quietly threshed my bread and got busy doing whatever they could: they pulled the banks out of their holes, “flailed” stone tiles on the water, tried to swim, but the water was still cold, and quickly ran out of the river to warm up by the fire. We warmed up and fell into the still low grass, so as not to see Sanka frying fish, now for himself, now it’s his turn, and here, don’t ask, it’s a grave. He won’t, because he loves to eat himself more than anyone else.

It was a clear summer day. It was hot from above. Near the cattle, speckled cuckoo shoes were leaning towards the ground. Blue bells dangled from side to side on long, crisp stems, and probably only the bees heard them ring. Near the anthill, striped gramophone flowers lay on the warmed ground, and bumblebees poked their heads into their blue horns. They froze for a long time, sticking out their shaggy bottoms; they must have been listening to the music. The birch leaves glittered, the aspen tree grew dim from the heat, and the pine trees along the ridges were covered in blue smoke. The sun shimmered over the Yenisei. Through this flickering, the red vents of the lime kilns blazing on the other side of the river were barely visible. The shadows of the rocks lay motionless on the water, and the light tore them apart and tore them to shreds, like old rags. The railway bridge in the city, visible from our village in clear weather, swayed with thin lace, and if you looked at it for a long time, the lace thinned and tore.

From there, from behind the bridge, the grandmother should swim. What will happen! And why did I do this? Why did you listen to the Levontievskys? It was so good to live. Walk, run, play and don't think about anything. Now what? There is nothing to hope for now. Unless for some unexpected deliverance. Maybe the boat will capsize and grandma will drown? No, it’s better not to tip over. Mom drowned. What good? I'm an orphan now. Unhappy man. And there is no one to feel sorry for me. Levontius only feels sorry for him when he’s drunk, and even his grandfather - and that’s all, the grandmother just screams, no, no, but she’ll give in - she won’t last long. The main thing is that there is no grandfather. Grandfather is in charge. He wouldn't hurt me. The grandmother shouts at him: “Potatchik! I’ve been spoiling mine all my life, now this!..” “Grandfather, you’re a grandfather, if only you’d come to the bathhouse to wash, if only you’d just come and take me with you!”

Why are you whining? - Sanka leaned towards me with a concerned look.

Nishta-ak! - Sanka consoled me. - Don't go home, that's all! Bury yourself in the hay and hide. Petrovna saw your mother’s eye slightly open when she was buried. He is afraid that you will drown too. Here she starts to cry: “My little child is drowning, he threw me off, little orphan,” and then you’ll get out!..

I won't do that! - I protested. - And I won’t listen to you!..

Well, the leshak is with you! They are trying to take care of you. In! Got it! You're hooked!

I fell from the ravine, alarming the shorebirds in the holes, and pulled the fishing rod. I caught a perch. Then the ruff. The fish approached and the bite began. We baited worms and cast them.

Don't step over the rod! - Sanka superstitiously yelled at the kids, completely crazy with delight, and dragged and dragged the fish. The boys put them on a willow rod, lowered them into the water and shouted at each other: “Who was told - don’t cross the fishing line?!”

Suddenly, behind the nearest stone bullock, forged poles clicked on the bottom, and a boat appeared from behind the cape. Three men threw poles out of the water at once. With their polished tips flashing, the poles fell into the water at once, and the boat, burying its sides in the river, rushed forward, throwing waves to the sides. A swing of the poles, an exchange of arms, a push - the boat jumped up with its nose and moved forward quickly. She's closer, closer. Now the stern one moved his pole, and the boat nodded away from our fishing rods. And then I saw another person sitting on the gazebo. A half shawl is on the head, its ends are passed under the arms and crosswise tied on the back. Under the short shawl is a burgundy-dyed jacket. This jacket was taken out of the chest on major holidays and on the occasion of a trip to the city.

I rushed from the fishing rods to the hole, jumped, grabbed the grass, and stuck my big toe into the hole. A shorebird flew up, hit me on the head, I was frightened and fell onto lumps of clay, jumped up and ran along the shore, away from the boat.

Where are you going! Stop! Stop, I say! - the grandmother shouted.

I ran at full speed.

I-a-avishsha, I-a-avishsha home, swindler!

The men turned up the heat.

Hold him! - they shouted from the boat, and I didn’t notice how I ended up at the upper end of the village, where the shortness of breath, which always tormented me, disappeared! I rested for a long time and soon discovered that evening was approaching - willy-nilly I had to return home. But I didn’t want to go home and, just in case, I went to my cousin Kesha, Uncle Vanya’s son, who lived here, on the upper edge of the village.

I'm lucky. They were playing lapta near Uncle Vanya's house. I got involved in the game and ran until dark. Aunt Fenya, Keshka’s mother, appeared and asked me:

Why don't you go home? Grandma will lose you.

“Nope,” I answered as nonchalantly as possible. - She sailed to the city. Maybe he spends the night there.

Aunt Fenya offered me something to eat, and I gladly ground everything she gave me, thin-necked Kesha drank boiled milk, and his mother said to him reproachfully:

Everything is milky and milky. Look how the boy eats, that’s why he’s as strong as a boletus mushroom. “Aunt Fenina’s praise caught my eye, and I began to quietly hope that she would leave me to spend the night.

But Aunt Fenya asked me questions, asked me about everything, after which she took me by the hand and took me home.

There was no longer any light in our hut. Aunt Fenya knocked on the window. “Not locked!” - Grandma shouted. We entered a dark and quiet house, where the only sounds we could hear were the multi-winged tapping of butterflies and the buzzing of flies beating against the glass.

Aunt Fenya pushed me into the hallway and pushed me into the storage room attached to the hallway. There was a bed made of rugs and an old saddle in the heads - in case someone was overwhelmed by the heat during the day and wanted to rest in the cold.

I buried myself in the rug, became silent, listening.

Aunt Fenya and grandmother were talking about something in the hut, but it was impossible to make out what. The closet smelled of bran, dust and dry grass stuck in all the cracks and under the ceiling. This grass kept clicking and crackling. It was sad in the pantry. The darkness was thick, rough, filled with smells and secret life. Under the floor, a mouse was scratching alone and timidly, starving because of the cat. And everyone crackled dry herbs and flowers under the ceiling, opened boxes, scattered seeds into the darkness, two or three got entangled in my stripes, but I didn’t pull them out, afraid to move.

Silence, coolness and night life established themselves in the village. The dogs, killed by the daytime heat, came to their senses, crawled out from under the canopy, porches, and out of the kennels and tried their voices. Near the bridge that spans the Fokino River, an accordion was playing. Young people gather on the bridge, dance, sing, and scare the late kids and shy girls.

Uncle Levontius was hastily chopping wood. The owner must have brought something for the brew. Did someone's Levontiev poles get "gotten off"? Most likely ours. They have time to hunt for firewood at such a time...

Aunt Fenya left and closed the door tightly. The cat sneaked stealthily towards the porch. The mouse died down under the floor. It became completely dark and lonely. The floorboards did not creak in the hut, and the grandmother did not walk. Tired. Not a short way to the city! Eighteen miles, and with a knapsack. It seemed to me that if I felt sorry for my grandmother and thought well of her, she would guess about it and forgive me everything. He will come and forgive. Well, it just clicks once, so what a problem! For such a thing, you can do it more than once...

However, the grandmother did not come. I felt cold. I curled up and breathed on my chest, thinking about my grandmother and all the pitiful things.

When my mother drowned, my grandmother did not leave the shore; they could neither carry her away nor persuade her with the whole world. She kept calling and calling her mother, throwing crumbs of bread, silver pieces, and shreds into the river, tearing hair out of her head, tying it around her finger and letting it go with the flow, hoping to appease the river and appease the Lord.

Only on the sixth day was the grandmother, her body in disarray, almost dragged home. She, as if drunk, muttered something deliriously, her hands and head almost reached the ground, the hair on her head unraveled, hung over her face, clung to everything and remained in tatters on the weeds. on poles and on rafts.

The grandmother fell in the middle of the hut on the bare floor, with her arms outstretched, and so she slept, naked, in scrambled supports, as if she was floating somewhere, without making a rustle or sound, and could not swim. In the house they spoke in whispers, walked on tiptoe, fearfully leaned over their grandmother, thinking that she had died. But from the depths of the grandmother’s insides, through clenched teeth, there came a continuous groan, as if something or someone there, in the grandmother, was being crushed, and it was suffering from unrelenting, burning pain.

The grandmother woke up from sleep immediately, looked around as if after fainting, and began to pick up her hair, braid it, holding a rag for tying the braid in her teeth. She didn’t say it in a matter-of-fact and simple manner, but instead breathed out of herself: “No, don’t call me on Lidenka, don’t call me. The river does not give it up. Close somewhere, very close, but doesn’t give away and doesn’t show...”

And mom was close. She was pulled under the rafting boom against Vassa Vakhrameevna’s hut, her scythe caught on the boom’s sling and tossed and dangled there until her hair became unstuck and the braid was torn off. So they suffered: mother in the water, grandmother on the shore, they suffered terrible torment for someone unknown whose grave sins...

My grandmother found out and told me when I was growing up that eight desperate Ovsyansk women were crammed into a small dugout boat and one man at the stern - our Kolcha Jr. The women were all bargaining, mostly with berries - strawberries, and when the boat capsized, a bright red stripe rushed across the water, and the raftsmen from the boat, who were saving people, shouted: “Blood! Blood! It smashed someone against a boom...” But strawberries floated down the river. Mom also had a strawberry cup, and like a scarlet stream it merged with the red stripe. Maybe my mother’s blood from hitting her head on the boom was there, flowing and swirling along with the strawberries in the water, but who will know, who will distinguish red from red in panic, in the bustle and screams?

I woke up from a ray of sunlight filtering through the dim window of the pantry and poking into my eyes. Dust flickered in the beam like a midge. From somewhere it was applied by borrowing, arable land. I looked around, and my heart jumped joyfully: my grandfather’s old sheepskin coat was thrown over me. Grandfather arrived at night. Beauty! In the kitchen, grandma was telling someone in detail:

-...Cultural lady, in a hat. “I’ll buy all these berries.” Please, I beg your mercy. The berries, I say, were picked by the poor orphan...

Then I fell through the ground along with my grandmother and could no longer and did not want to understand what she was saying next, because I covered myself with a sheepskin coat and huddled in it in order to die as soon as possible. But it became hot, deaf, I couldn’t breathe, and I opened up.

He always spoiled his own! - the grandmother thundered. - Now this! And he's already cheating! What will come of it later? Zhigan will be there! Eternal prisoner! I’ll take the Levontiev ones, stain them, and I’ll take them into circulation! This is their certificate!..

The grandfather went into the yard, out of harm’s way, baling something under the canopy. Grandma can’t be alone for long, she needs to tell someone about the incident or smash the swindler, and therefore me, to smithereens, and she quietly walked along the hallway and slightly opened the door to the pantry. I barely had time to close my eyes tightly.

You're not sleeping, you're not sleeping! I see everything!

But I didn't give up. Aunt Avdotya ran into the house and asked how “theta” swam to the city. The grandmother said that she “sailed, thank you, Lord, and sold the berries,” and immediately began to narrate:

Mine! Little one! What have you done!.. Listen, listen, girl!

That morning many people came to us, and my grandmother detained everyone to say: “And mine! Little one!” And this did not in the least prevent her from doing household chores - she rushed back and forth, milked the cow, drove her out to the shepherd, shook out the rugs, did her various chores, and every time she ran past the pantry doors, she did not forget to remind:

You're not sleeping, you're not sleeping! I see everything!

Grandfather turned into the closet, pulled the leather reins out from under me and winked:

“It’s okay, they say, be patient and don’t be shy!”, and he even patted me on the head. I sniffled and the tears that had been accumulating for so long, like berries, large strawberries, stained them, poured out of my eyes, and there was no way for them to stop them.

Well, what are you, what are you? - Grandfather reassured me, wiping away the tears from my face with his big hand. - Why are you lying there hungry? Ask for some help... Go, go,” my grandfather gently pushed me in the back.

Holding my pants with one hand and pressing the other to my eyes with my elbow, I stepped into the hut and began:

I’m more... I’m more... I’m more... - and couldn’t say anything further.

Okay, wash your face and sit down to chat! - still irreconcilably, but without a thunderstorm, without thunder, my grandmother cut me off. I obediently washed my face, rubbed my face with a damp rag for a long time, and remembered that lazy people, according to my grandmother, always wipe themselves with a damp one, because they wake up later than everyone else. I had to move to the table, sit down, look at people. Oh my God! Yes, I wish I could cheat at least once again! Yes I…

Shaking from the still lingering sobs, I clung to the table. Grandfather was busy in the kitchen, wrapping an old rope around his hand, which, I realized, was completely unnecessary to him, took something out of the floor, took an ax out from under the chicken coop, and tried the edge with his finger. He looks for and finds a solution, so as not to leave his miserable grandson alone with the “general” - that’s what he calls his grandmother in his heart or in mockery. Feeling the invisible but reliable support of my grandfather, I took the crust from the table and began to eat it dry. Grandma poured out the milk in one fell swoop, placed the bowl in front of me with a knock, and put her hands on her hips:

My belly hurts, I'm staring at the edges! Ash is so humble! Ash is so quiet! And he won’t ask for milk!..

Grandfather winked at me - be patient. I knew even without him: God forbid I should contradict my grandmother now, doing something not at her discretion. She must unwind and must express everything that has accumulated in her heart, she must release her soul and calm it down. And my grandmother put me to shame! And she denounced it! Only now, having fully understood into what a bottomless abyss cheating had plunged me and what “crooked path” it would lead me to, if I had taken up the ball game so early, if I was drawn to robbery after the dashing people, I began to roar, not just repenting, but afraid that he was lost, that there was no forgiveness, no return...

Even my grandfather could not stand my grandmother’s speeches and my complete repentance. Gone. He left, disappeared, puffing on a cigarette, saying, I can’t help or cope with this, God help you, granddaughter...

Grandma was tired, exhausted, and maybe she sensed that she was trashing me too much.

It was calm in the hut, but it was still hard. Not knowing what to do, how to continue living, I smoothed out the patch on my pants and pulled out the threads from it. And when he raised his head, he saw in front of him...

I closed my eyes and opened my eyes again. He closed his eyes again and opened them again. On pink hooves, he galloped along the scraped kitchen table, as if across a huge land, with arable lands, meadows and roads. White horse with a pink mane.

Take it, take it, what are you looking at? You look, but even when you fool your grandmother...

How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed? My grandfather is no longer alive, my grandmother is no longer alive, and my life is coming to an end, but I still can’t forget my grandmother’s gingerbread - that marvelous horse with a pink mane.

Read another story by V.P. Astafiev - “A Horse with a Pink Mane.” What people does the writer continue to talk about, introducing us to their life, habits and characteristics of their characters?

Horse with a pink mane

Grandmother returned from the neighbors and told me that the Levontiev children were going to Uval 1 for strawberries, and told me to go with them.

You will dial 2 points. I will take my berries to the city, I will also sell yours and buy you gingerbread.

A horse, grandma?

Horse, horse.

Gingerbread horse! This is the dream of all village kids. He is white, white, this horse. And his mane is pink, his tail is pink, his eyes are pink, his hooves are also pink.

Grandmother never allowed us to carry around with pieces of bread. Eat at the table, otherwise it will be bad. But gingerbread is a completely different matter.

You can tuck a gingerbread under your shirt, run around and hear the horse kicking its hooves on its bare belly. Cold with horror - lost! - grab your shirt and be happy to see that there he is, the fire horse!..

1 Uval is a gentle hill of considerable length.

2 Tuesok - a birch bark basket with a tight lid.

With such a horse, you will immediately appreciate how much attention! The Levontiev guys fawn over you this way and that, and let the first one hit the siskin, and shoot with a slingshot, so that only they will then be allowed to bite off the horse or lick it.

When you give Levontyev’s Sanka or Tanka a bite, you must hold with your fingers the place where you are supposed to bite and hold it tightly, otherwise Tanka or Sanka will bite so hard that the horse’s tail and mane will remain.

Levontiy, our neighbor, worked at Badog 3 together with Mishka Korshunov. Levontii harvested timber for badog, sawed it, chopped it and delivered it to the lime plant, which was opposite the village on the other side of the Yenisei.

Once every ten days - or maybe fifteen, I don’t remember exactly - Levontii received money, and then in the Levontevs’ house, where there were only children and nothing else, a huge feast began.

Some kind of restlessness, a fever or something, then gripped not only the Levontiev house, but also all the neighbors. Early in the morning, Levontikha and Aunt Vasenya ran to see my grandmother, out of breath, exhausted, with rubles clutched in a fistful.

Wait, you crazy one! - her grandmother called out to her. - You have to count!

Aunt Vasenya obediently returned, and while grandma was counting the money, she shuffled her bare feet like a hot horse, ready to take off as soon as the reins were let go.

3 Badoga - long logs.

Grandmother counted carefully and for a long time, looking at every ruble. As far as I remember, my grandmother never gave Levontikha more than seven or ten rubles from her “reserve” for a rainy day, because this entire “reserve” seemed to consist of ten. But even with such a small amount, the crazy 4 Vasenya managed to shortchange by a ruble, or even three.

How do you treat money, you eyeless scarecrow! - the grandmother attacked the neighbor. - I’ll give you a ruble! Another ruble! What will happen?

But Vasenya again whipped up her skirt like a whirlwind and rolled away:

She did!

Grandma spent a long time blaspheming Levontiikha, Levontii himself, hitting herself on the thighs with her hands, spitting, and I sat down by the window and looked longingly at the neighbor’s house.

He stood by himself, in the open space, and nothing prevented him from looking at the white light through the somehow glazed windows - no fence, no gate, no porch, no frames, no shutters.

In the spring, the Levontiev family picked up the ground around the house a little, erected a fence from poles, twigs, and old boards. But in winter, all this gradually disappeared in the womb of the Russian stove, sprawled in the middle of the hut.

Tanka Levontyevskaya used to say this, making noise with her toothless mouth, about their whole establishment:

But when dad snoops at us, you run and don’t miss it! Uncle Levontius himself went out on warm evenings wearing pants held on by a single copper button with two eagles, and a calico shirt without buttons at all. He would sit on an ax-marked log representing a porch, smoke, look, and if my grandmother reproached him through the window for idleness and listed the work that, in her opinion, he should have done in the house and around the house, Uncle Levontius would only scratch himself complacently:

I, Petrovna, love freedom! - and moved his hand around himself. - Fine! Like the sea! Nothing depresses the eyes!

4 Zapoloshnaya - fussy.

Uncle Levontius once sailed the seas, loved the sea, and I loved it. The main goal of my life was to break into Levontius’s house after his payday. This is not so easy to do. Grandma knows all my habits.

There's no point in peeking out! - she thundered. “There’s no point in eating these proletarians, they themselves have a louse on a lasso in their pocket.”

But if I manage to sneak out of the house and get to the Levontievskys, then that’s it: here I am surrounded by rare attention, here I have a complete holiday.

Get out of here! - the drunken Uncle Levontius sternly ordered one of his boys. And while one of them reluctantly crawled out from behind the table, he explained this action to the children in an already limp voice: “He is an orphan, and you are still with your parents!” - And, looking pitifully at me, he immediately roared: - Do you even remember your mother? - I nodded my head affirmatively, and then Uncle Levontius sadly leaned on his arm, rubbed the tears down his face with his fist, and remembered: - Badoga was injected with her for one year! - And completely bursting into tears: - Whenever you come... night, midnight... “Propagation... you are a lost head, Levontius!” -he will say and... get hangover-and-it...

Here Aunt Vasenya, Uncle Levontius’s children and I, together with them, burst into a roar, and it became so pitiful in the hut, and such kindness overwhelmed the people that everything, everything spilled out and fell out on the table, and everyone vied with each other to treat me and ate it themselves. strength.

Late in the evening or completely at night, Uncle Levontius asked the same question: “What is life?!” - after which I grabbed gingerbread cookies, sweets, the Levon Tyev children also grabbed whatever they could get their hands on and ran away in all directions. Vasenya asked the last move. And my grandmother “welcomed” her until the morning. Levontii smashed the remaining glass in the windows, cursed, thundered, and cried.

The next morning he glassed the windows, repaired the benches and table, then, full of darkness and remorse, went to work. Aunt Vasenya, after three or four days, was again walking around the neighbors and no longer throwing up a whirlwind in her skirt. She again borrowed money, flour, potatoes - whatever she had to...

So, with Uncle Levontius’s children, I went to the strawberry market to earn gingerbread with my labor. The kids carried glasses with broken edges, old birch bark tueski, half torn for kindling, and one boy had a ladle without a handle. The Levontief eagles threw dishes at each other, floundered, began to fight once or twice, cried, and teased. On the way, they dropped into someone's garden and, since nothing was ripe there yet, they piled on a bunch of onions, ate until they salivated green, and threw away the half-eaten one. They left only a few feathers for the whistles. They squeaked into their bitten feathers all the way, and to the music we soon arrived in the forest, on a rocky ridge.

Then everyone stopped squeaking, scattered around the ridge and began to take strawberries, just ripening, white-sided, rare and therefore especially joyful and expensive.

I took it diligently and soon covered the bottom of a neat little glass by two or three. Grandma used to say: the main thing with berries is to close the bottom of the vessel. I breathed a sigh of relief and began to pick berries faster, and I came across more and more of them higher up the ridge.

The Levontiev children walked quietly at first. Only the lid, tied to the copper teapot, jingled. The older boy had this kettle, and he rattled it so that we could hear that the elder was here, nearby, and we had nothing and no need to be afraid.

Suddenly the lid of the kettle rattled nervously and a fuss was heard.

Eat, right? Eat, right? What about home? - the elder asked and gave someone a kick after each question.

A-ha-a-a-a! - Tanka sang. - Sanka ate it too, so it’s okay...

Sanka got it too. He got angry, threw the vessel and fell into the grass. The eldest took and took berries, and apparently he felt offended. He, the eldest, takes berries and tries to do them for the house, but they eat the berries or even lie on the grass. The elder jumped up and kicked Sanka again. Sanka howled and rushed at the elder. The kettle rang and berries splashed out. The Levontiev brothers are fighting, rolling on the ground, crushing all the strawberries.

After the fight, the elder man gave up. He began to collect the spilled, crushed berries - and into his mouth, into his mouth.

So, you can, but it means I can’t? You can, but that means I can’t? - he asked ominously until he had eaten everything he had managed to collect.

Soon the Levontiev brothers somehow quietly made peace, stopped calling them names and decided to go to the Malaya Rechka to splash around.

I also wanted to splash, but I did not dare to leave the ridge, because I had not yet filled the full container.

Grandma Petrovna was scared! Oh you! - Sanka grimaced.

But my grandmother will buy me a gingerbread horse!

Maybe a mare? - Sanka grinned. He spat at his feet and quickly realized something: “Better tell me, you’re afraid of her, and you’re also greedy!”

Do you want to eat all the berries? - I said this and immediately repented: I realized that I was in trouble.

Scratched, with bumps on his head from fights and various other reasons, with pimples on his arms and legs, with red, bloody eyes, Sanka was more harmful and angrier than all the Levontiev boys.

Weak! - he said.

Am I weak? - I swaggered, looking sideways into the tuesok. There were berries already above the middle. - Am I weak? - I repeated in a fading voice and, so as not to give up, not to be afraid, not to disgrace myself, I decisively shook the berries into the grass: - Here! Eat with me!

The Levontiev horde fell, and the berries instantly disappeared. I only got a few tiny berries. It's a pity for the berries. Sad. But I assumed despair and gave up on everything. It’s all the same now! I rushed along with the Levontiev children to the river and boasted:

I’ll also steal grandma’s kalach!

The guys encouraged me: they say, act, and bring more than one loaf of bread. Maybe you can grab 5 more shanegs or a pie.

We splashed cold water from the river, wandered along it and caught a sculpin with our hands. Sanka grabbed this disgusting-looking fish, and we tore it to pieces on the shore for its ugly appearance. Then they fired stones at flying birds and hit a swift. We fed the swift with water from the river, but it bled into the river, but could not swallow the water, and died, dropping its head. We buried the swift on the shore, in the pebbles, and soon forgot about it, because we got busy with an exciting, creepy business: we ran into the mouth of a cold cave, where evil spirits lived (they knew this for certain in the village). Sanka ran the furthest into the cave. Even evil spirits didn’t take him!

This is something else! - Sanka boasted, returning from the cave. “I would run further, run deep into the depths, but I’m barefoot, and there the snakes die.”

Zhmeev? - Tanka retreated from the mouth of the cave and, just in case, pulled up her falling panties.

I saw the brownie and the brownie,” Sanka continued to tell.

Clapper! - the eldest cut off Sanka. - Brownies live in the attic and under the stove.

1 Shanga - this is what they call cheesecake in the North and Siberia - a bun with cottage cheese.

Sanka was confused, but immediately challenged the elder:

What kind of brownie is that? Home. And here is a cave one. Covered in moss, he's all gray and trembling - he's cold. And the housewife is thin, looks pitifully and moans. You can’t lure me, just come up and he’ll grab it and eat it. I hit her in the eye with a rock!..

Maybe Sanka was lying about the brownies, but it was still scary to listen to, and it seemed to me that someone in the cave kept moaning and moaning. Tanka was the first to pull away from this bad place, and after her all the guys fell from the mountain. Sanka whistled and yelled, giving us heat...

We spent the whole day so interesting and fun, and I completely forgot about the berries. But the time has come to return home. We sorted out the dishes hidden under the tree.

Katerina Petrovna will ask you! He'll ask! - Sanka neighed. - We ate the berries... Ha ha! They ate it on purpose! Ha ha! We're fine! Ha ha! And you are ho-ho!..

I myself knew that to them, the Levontievskys, “ha-ha,” and to me, “ho-ho.” My grandmother, Katerina Petrovna, is not Aunt Vasenya.

I quietly followed the Levontiev guys out of the forest. They ran ahead of me in a crowd and drove a ladle without a handle along the road. The ladle clanked as it bounced on the stones, and the remains of the enamel bounced off it.

You know what? - After talking with the brothers, Sanka returned to me. - You push herbs into the bowl, and berries on top - and you're done! “Oh, my child! - Sanka began to accurately imitate my grandmother. “I helped you to recover, orphan, I helped you...” And the demon Sanka winked at me and rushed on, down the ridge.

I sighed and sighed, almost cried, and began to tear up the grass. The narwhal pushed it into the container, then picked up some berries, laid them on the grass, and it even turned out to be wild strawberries.

You are my child! - my grandmother began to cry when I, frozen with fear, handed her my vessel. - The Lord has helped you, orphan!.. I’ll buy you a gingerbread, and a huge one. And I won’t pour your berries into mine, but I’ll take them right away in this little bag...

It relieved a little.

I thought that now my grandmother would discover my fraud, give me what I was due, and was already prepared for punishment for the crime I had committed.

But it worked out. Everything worked out fine. Grandmother took the tuesok to the basement, praised me again, gave me something to eat, and I thought that I had nothing to be afraid of yet and life was not so bad.

I ate and went outside to play, and there I felt the urge to tell Sanka about everything.

And I’ll tell Petrovna! And I'll tell you!..

No need, Sanka!

Bring the roll, then I won’t tell you.

I secretly snuck into the pantry, took the kalach out of the chest and brought it to Sanka under my shirt. Then he brought more, then more, until Sanka got drunk.

“I fooled my grandmother. Kalachi stole. What will happen? - I was tormented at night, tossing and turning on the bed. Sleep did not take me as a completely confused criminal.

Why are you messing around there? - Grandma asked hoarsely from the darkness. - Probably wandered in the river again? Are your legs hurting again?

No,” I responded, “I had a dream...

Sleep with God! Sleep, don't be afraid. Life is worse than dreams, father...

“What if I wake her up and tell her everything?”

I listened. Difficult breathing could be heard from below

grandmothers. It’s a pity to wake her up: she’s tired, it’s too early for her to get up.

No, it’s better that I don’t sleep until the morning, I’ll keep watch over my grandmother, I’ll tell her about everything: about the little girls, and about the housewife and the brownie, and about the rolls, and about everything, about everything...

This decision made me feel better, and I didn’t notice how my eyes closed. Sanka’s unwashed face appeared, and then strawberries flashed, they overwhelmed Sanka, and everything in this world.

The floors smelled of pine, a cold, mysterious cave...

Grandfather was at Zaimka 6, about five kilometers from the village, at the mouth of the Mana River. There we sown a strip of rye, a strip of oats and a strip of potatoes.

Talk about collective farms was just beginning at that time, and our villagers were still living alone. I loved visiting my grandfather’s farm. He’s calm there, somehow thorough. Maybe because grandfather never made noise and even worked leisurely, but very quickly and pliably. Oh, if only the settlement were closer! I would leave, hide. But five kilometers was a huge, insurmountable distance for me then. And Alyosha, my brother, is gone. Recently, Aunt Augusta came and took Alyoshka with her to the forest plot where she worked.

I wandered around, wandered around the empty hut and could not think of anything else how to go to the Levontyevskys.

Did Petrovna swim away? - Sanka grinned and snorted saliva into the hole between his front teeth. He could fit another tooth in this hole, and we were terribly envious of this Sanka hole. How he spat at her!

Sanka was getting ready to go fishing and was unraveling the fishing line. The little Levontievskys walked near the benches, crawled, hobbled on their crooked legs. Sanka gave out slaps left and right because the little ones were getting under the arm and tangling the fishing line.

“There’s no hook,” he said angrily. - He must have swallowed something.

6 Zaimka - a plot of land far from the village, developed (ploughed) by its owner.

“Nice,” Sanka reassured me. - You have a lot of hooks, I would give them. I'd like to take you fishing.

I was delighted and rushed home; I grabbed fishing rods and bread, and we went to the stone bulls, behind the cattle 7, which went straight down into the Yenisei below the village.

Senior Levontievsky was not there today. His father took him with him “to the badogi”, and Sanka commanded recklessly. Since he was the eldest today and felt great responsibility, he almost didn’t get cocky anymore and even pacified the “people” if they started to fight.

Sanka set up fishing rods near the bullheads, baited worms, spat on them and cast out the fishing lines.

Sha! - Sanka said, and we froze.

It didn't bite for a long time. We were tired of waiting, and Sanka sent us off to look for sorrel, coastal garlic and wild radish.

The Levontief guys knew how to feed themselves “from the earth” - they ate everything that God sent, they did not disdain anything and that is why they were red-skinned, strong, dexterous, especially at the table.

While we were collecting greens suitable for food, Sanka pulled out two ruffs, one gudgeon and a white-eyed dace.

They lit a fire on the shore. Sanka put the fish on sticks and began to fry them.

The fish were eaten almost raw, without salt. The kids had already threshed my bread and were busy doing what they could: pulling swifts out of their holes, throwing stone tiles in the water, trying to swim, but the water was still cold, and we quickly jumped out of the river to warm up by the fire. We warmed up and fell into the still low grass.

It was a clear summer day. It was hot from above. Near the cattle, the pockmarked cuckoo's tears were drooping towards the ground.

7 Cattle - pasture, pasture.

Blue bells dangled from side to side on long, crisp stems, and probably only the bees heard them ring. Near the anthill, on the warmed ground, lay striped gramophone flowers, and bumblebees poked their heads into their blue horns. They froze for a long time, exposing their shaggy crops - they must have been listening to the music. The birch leaves glistened, the aspen tree grew drowsy from the heat. The boyarka flowered and littered the water. The pine forest was covered in blue smoke. There was a slight flicker over the Yenisei. Through this flickering, the red vents of the lime kilns blazing on the other side of the river were barely visible. The forests on the rocks stood motionless, and the railway bridge in the city, visible from our village in clear weather, swayed with thin lace - and if you looked at it for a long time, it became thinner and the lace was torn.

From there, from behind the bridge, the grandmother should swim. What will happen?! And why did I do this? Why did you listen to the Levontievskys?

How good it was to live! Walk, run and don't think about anything. And now? Maybe the boat will capsize and grandma will drown? No, it’s better not to tip over. My mother drowned. What good? I'm an orphan now. Unhappy man. And there is no one to feel sorry for me. Levontius only feels sorry when he’s drunk, that’s all. But grandma just screams no, no, and gives in - she won’t last long. And there is no grandfather. He's in custody, grandpa. He wouldn't hurt me. The grandmother shouts at him: “Potatchik! I’ve indulged my own all my life, now this!..”

“Grandfather, grandfather, if only you could come to the bathhouse to wash and take me with you!”

Why are you whining? - Sanka leaned towards me with a concerned look.

Nice! - Sanka consoled me. - Don’t go home, that’s all! Bury yourself in the hay and hide. Petrovna is afraid that you might drown. Here she starts to cry: “Uto-o-o-ul my child, he threw me off, little orphan...” - and then you’ll get out!

I won't do that! And I won’t listen to you!..

Well, the leshak is with you! They're trying to take care of you... Wow! Got it! You're hooked!

I fell from the hole 1, alarming the swifts in the holes, and pulled the fishing rod. I caught a perch. Then the ruff. The fish came and the bite began. We baited worms and cast them.

Don't step over the rod! - Sanka superstitiously yelled at the kids, completely crazy with delight, and dragged and dragged the little fish.

The kids put them on a willow rod and lowered them into the water.

Suddenly, behind the nearest stone bull, forged poles clicked along the bottom, and a boat appeared from behind the cape. Three men threw poles out of the water at once. Flashing with polished tips, the poles fell into the water at once, and the boat, burying itself up to its very edges in the river, rushed forward, throwing waves to the sides.

A swing of the poles, an exchange of arms, a push - the boat jumped up with its nose and moved forward quickly. She is closer, closer... The stern one pressed with his pole, and the boat nodded away from our fishing rods. And then I saw another person sitting on the gazebo. A half shawl is on the head, the ends are passed under the arms, and tied crosswise on the back. Under the short shawl is a burgundy-dyed jacket. This jacket was taken out of the chest only on the occasion of a trip to the city or on major holidays.

Yes, it's grandma!

I rushed from the fishing rods straight to the ravine, jumped up, grabbed the grass, and stuck my big toe into the swiftlet's hole. A swift flew up, hit me on the head, and I fell onto lumps of clay. He jumped off and started running along the shore, away from the boat.

8 Yar - here: the steep edge of the ravine.

Where are you going?! Stop! Stop, I say! - Grandma shouted. I ran at full speed.

I'm-a-a-a-coming, I-a-a-going home, you scammer! - Grandmother’s voice rushed after me.

And then the men stepped up.

Hold him! - they shouted, and I didn’t notice how I ended up at the upper end of the village.

Now I just discovered that it was already evening and, willy-nilly, I had to return home. But I didn’t want to go home and, just in case, I went to my cousin Keshka, Uncle Vanya’s son, who lived here, on the upper edge of the village.

I'm lucky. They were playing lapta near Uncle Vanya's house. I got involved in the game and ran until dark. Aunt Fenya, Keshka’s mother, appeared and asked me:

Why don't you go home? Grandma will lose you!

“Nope,” I answered as cheerfully and carelessly as possible. “She sailed off to the city.” Maybe he spends the night there.

Aunt Fenya offered me something to eat, and I happily ate everything she gave me.

And the thin-necked, silent Keshka drank boiled milk, and his mother said to him:

Everything is milky and milky. Look how the boy eats, and that’s why he’s strong.

I was already hoping that Aunt Fenya would leave me to spend the night. But she asked around, asked me about everything, after which she took my hand and took me home.

There was no longer any light in the house. Aunt Fenya knocked on the window. Grandma shouted: “It’s not locked!” We entered a dark and quiet house, where the only sounds we could hear were the multi-winged tapping of butterflies and the buzzing of flies beating against the glass.

Aunt Fenya pushed me into the hallway and pushed me into the storage room attached to the hallway. There was a bed made of rugs and an old saddle in the heads - in case someone was overwhelmed by the heat during the day and wanted to rest in the cold.

I buried myself in the rug, became silent, listening.

Aunt Fenya and grandmother were talking about something in the hut. The closet smelled of bran, dust and dry grass stuck in all the cracks and under the ceiling. This grass kept clicking and crackling. It was sad in the pantry. The darkness was thick and rough, all filled with smell and secret life.

Under the floor, a mouse was scratching alone and timidly, starving because of the cat. And all the dry herbs and flowers crackled under the ceiling, boxes were opened and seeds were scattered into the darkness.

Silence, coolness and night life established themselves in the village. The dogs, killed by the daytime heat, came to their senses, crawled out from under the canopy, porches, and from their kennels and tried their voices. Near the bridge that runs across the Malaya River, an accordion was playing. Young people gather on the bridge, dance and sing there.

Uncle Levontius was hastily chopping wood. Uncle Levontius must have brought something for the brew. Someone's Levon Tiev "got off" a pole... Most likely, ours. Now they have time to hunt for firewood far away!..

Aunt Fenya left and tightly closed the door in the hallway. The cat scurried stealthily across the porch. The mouse died down under the floor. It became completely dark and lonely. The floorboards did not creak in the hut, and the grandmother did not walk. She must be tired. I felt cold. I curled up and began to breathe into my chest.

I woke up from a ray of sunlight breaking through the dim window of the pantry. Dust flickered in the beam like a midge. From somewhere it was applied by arable land. I looked around, and my heart jumped joyfully: my grandfather’s old sheepskin coat was thrown over me. Grandpa arrived at night! Beauty!

In the kitchen, grandma said loudly and indignantly:

A cultured lady in a hat. He says: “I’ll buy all these berries from you.” - “Please, I beg your mercy. “I say, the poor orphan was picking berries...”

Then I fell through the ground along with my grandmother and could no longer make out what she was saying next, because I covered myself with a sheepskin coat and huddled in it to die faster. But it became hot, deaf, it became unbearable to breathe, and I opened up.

He always spoiled his own! - the grandmother made noise. - Now to this! And he's already cheating! What will become of it later? There will be a convict! He will be an eternal prisoner! I’ll take some more Levontiev ones into circulation! This is their certificate!..

But I didn't give up. Grandma’s niece ran into the house and asked how grandma swam to the city. Grandmother said that thank God, and immediately began to tell:

My little one!.. What did he do!..

That morning many people came to us, and my grandmother said to everyone: “But my little one!”

The grandmother walked back and forth, watered the cow, drove her out to the shepherd, did her various things, and every time she ran past the pantry door, she shouted:

You're not sleeping, you're not sleeping! I see everything!

"A horse with a pink mane." Artist T. Mazurin

Grandfather turned into the closet, pulled out the leather reins from under me and winked: it’s okay, don’t be shy! I sniffled.

Grandfather stroked my head, and the tears that had accumulated for so long flowed uncontrollably from my eyes.

Well, what are you, what are you! - Grandfather reassured me, wiping away the tears from my face with his big, hard hand. - Why are you lying there hungry? Ask for forgiveness... Go, go,” my grandfather gently pushed me in the back.

Holding my pants with one hand, I brought the other to my eyes, stepping into the hut, and roared:

I’m more... I’m more... I’m more... - And I couldn’t say anything further.

Okay, wash your face and sit down and chat! - the grandmother said still irreconcilably, but without a thunderstorm.

I obediently washed my face, dried myself for a long time and very carefully with a towel, shuddering every now and then from the still lingering sobs, and sat down at the table. Grandfather was busy in the kitchen, winding the reins around his hand, and doing something else. Feeling his invisible and reliable support, I took the crust from the table and began to eat it dry. Grandma poured milk into a glass in one fell swoop and placed the vessel in front of me with a knock.

Look, how humble he is! Look how quiet he is! And he won’t ask for milk!..

Grandfather winked at me: be patient. Even without him, I knew: God forbid I should contradict my grandmother now or do something wrong, not at her discretion. She must unwind, must express everything that has accumulated in her, must vent her soul.

For a long time my grandmother denounced and shamed me. I roared repentantly again. She shouted at me again.

But then the grandmother spoke up. Grandfather left somewhere. I sat and smoothed out the patch on my pants, pulling the threads out of it. And when he raised his head, he saw in front of him...

I closed my eyes and opened my eyes again. He closed his eyes again and opened them again. A white horse with a pink mane galloped on pink hooves across the scraped kitchen table, as if across a vast land with arable fields, meadows and roads.

Take it, take it, what are you looking at? Look, but even when you deceive your grandmother...

How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed!.. And I still can’t forget my grandmother’s gingerbread - that marvelous horse with a pink mane.

V. P. Astafiev

Events take place in a village on the banks of the Yenisei.

The grandmother promised her grandson that if he picked a bunch of strawberries in the forest, she would sell them in the city and buy him a gingerbread - a white horse with a pink mane and tail.

“You can put a gingerbread under your shirt, run around and hear the horse kicking its hooves on its bare belly. Cold with horror - lost, - grab your shirt and be convinced with happiness - here he is, here is the horse-fire!

The owner of such a gingerbread is honored and respected by children. The boy tells (the narration is in the first person) about the “Levontievsky” children - the children of a neighbor-logger.

When the father brings money for the forest, there is a feast in the house. Levontia’s wife, Aunt Vasenya, is “enthusiastic” - when she pays off debts, she will always hand over a ruble, or even two. Doesn't like counting money.

Grandmother does not respect them: they are undignified people. They don’t even have a bathhouse—they wash in their neighbors’ bathhouse.

Levontius was once a sailor. I rocked the shaky boat with my youngest and sang a song:

Sailed along the Akiyan

Sailor from Africa

Little licker

He brought it in a box...

In the village, every family has “its own” signature song, which deeper and more fully expressed the feelings of this particular family and no other. “To this day, whenever I remember the song “The Monk Fell in Love with a Beauty,” I still see Bobrovsky Lane and all the Bobrovskys, and goosebumps spread across my skin from shock.”

The boy loves his neighbor, loves his song about the “monkey” and cry with everyone over her unfortunate fate, loves to feast among the children. Grandma gets angry: “There’s no point in eating these proletarians!”

However, Levontius loved to drink, and after drinking, “he would break the remaining glass in the windows, curse, thunder, and cry.

The next morning he used shards of glass on the windows, repaired the benches, the table and was full of remorse.”

With the children of Uncle Levontius, the hero went to pick strawberries. The boys were playing around, throwing disheveled birch bark tueskas at each other.

The older (on this trip) brother began to scold the younger ones, a girl and a boy, for eating berries and not picking them for the house. The brothers fought, the berries spilled out of the copper kettle where the eldest had collected them.

They crushed all the berries in the fight.

Then the eldest began to eat berries. “Scratched, with bumps on his head from fights and various other reasons, with pimples on his arms and legs, with red, bloody eyes, Sanka was more harmful and angrier than all the Levontiev boys.”

And then they knocked down the main character too, they took him “weakly”. Trying to prove that he was not greedy or a coward, the boy poured his almost full meal onto the grass: “Eat!”

“I only got a few tiny, bent berries with greenery. It's a pity for the berries. Sad.

There is longing in the heart - it anticipates a meeting with grandmother, a report and a reckoning. But I assumed despair, gave up on everything - now it doesn’t matter. I rushed along with the Levontiev children down the mountain, to the river, and boasted:

“I’ll steal grandma’s kalach!”

The boys’ hooliganism is cruel: they caught and tore apart a fish “for its ugly appearance”, and killed a swallow with a stone.

Sanka runs into a dark cave and assures that he saw evil spirits there - a “cave brownie.”

The Levontievsky guys mock the boy: “Oh, your grandmother will give you a hard time!” They taught him to fill the container with grass and place a layer of berries on top.

- You are my child! - my grandmother began to cry when I, frozen with fear, handed her the vessel. - God help you, God help you! I’ll buy you a gingerbread, the biggest one. And I won’t pour your berries into mine, I’ll take them right away in this little bag...

Sanka threatens to tell everything to his grandmother and the hero has to steal several rolls from his only teacher (he is an orphan) so that Sanka can “get drunk.”

The boy decides to tell his grandmother everything in the morning. But early in the morning she sailed to the city to sell berries.

The hero goes fishing with Sanka and the younger children; they catch fish and fry it over a fire. Eternally hungry children eat the poor catch almost raw.

The boy again thinks about his offense: “Why did you listen to the Levontievskys? It was so good to live... Maybe the boat will capsize and grandma will drown? No, it’s better not to tip over. Mom drowned. I'm an orphan now. Unhappy man. And there is no one to feel sorry for me.

Levontius only feels sorry for him when he’s drunk, and even his grandfather - and that’s all, the grandmother just screams, no, no, yes, she’ll give in - she won’t last long. The main thing is that there is no grandfather. Grandfather is in charge. He wouldn’t let me offend.”

Then the fish start biting again - and they bite well. At the height of the bite, a boat is heading to the fishing spot, where, among others, a grandmother is sitting. The boy takes to his heels and goes to “his cousin Kesha, Uncle Vanya’s son, who lived here, on the upper edge of the village.”

Aunt Fenya fed the boy, asked him about everything, took him by the hand and took him home.

She began to talk with her grandmother, and the boy hid in the closet.

Auntie left. “The floorboards didn’t creak in the hut, and grandma didn’t walk. Tired. Not a short way to the city! Eighteen miles, and with a knapsack. It seemed to me that if I felt sorry for my grandmother and thought well of her, she would guess about it and forgive me everything. He will come and forgive. Well, it just clicks once, so what a problem! For such a thing, you can do it more than once...”

The boy remembers how deeply grief-stricken his grandmother was when his mother drowned. For six days they could not take the sobbing old woman away from the shore. She kept hoping that the river would have mercy and return her daughter alive.

In the morning, the boy who had fallen asleep in the pantry heard his grandmother telling someone in the kitchen:

-...Cultural lady, in a hat. “I’ll buy all these berries.”

Please, I beg your mercy. The berries, I say, were picked by a poor orphan...

It turns out that grandfather came from the farm. Grandma scolds him for being too lenient: “Potachik!”

A lot of people come in and the grandmother tells everyone what her grandson “did.” This does not in the least prevent her from doing household chores: she rushed back and forth, milked the cow, drove her out to the shepherd, shook out the rugs, and did her various chores.

The grandfather consoles the boy and advises him to go and confess. The boy goes to ask for forgiveness.

“And my grandmother put me to shame! And she denounced it! Only now, having fully understood into what a bottomless abyss cheating had plunged me and what “crooked path” it would lead me to, if I had taken up the ball game so early, if I was drawn to robbery after the dashing people, I began to roar, not just repenting, but frightened that he was lost, that there was no forgiveness, no return...”

The boy is ashamed and scared. And suddenly...

His grandmother called him and he saw: “a white horse with a pink mane was galloping along the scraped kitchen table, as if across a huge land, with arable lands, meadows and roads, on pink hooves.

- Take it, take it, what are you looking at? Look, when you fool your grandmother...

How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed? My grandfather is no longer alive, my grandmother is no longer alive, and my life is coming to an end, but I still can’t forget my grandmother’s gingerbread - that marvelous horse with a pink mane.”

Viktor Petrovich Astafiev

Horse with a pink mane

Grandma returned from the neighbors and told me that the Levontiev children were going to the strawberry harvest, and told me to go with them.

You'll get some trouble. I will take my berries to the city, I will also sell yours and buy you gingerbread.

A horse, grandma?

Horse, horse.

Gingerbread horse! This is the dream of all village kids. He is white, white, this horse. And his mane is pink, his tail is pink, his eyes are pink, his hooves are also pink. Grandmother never allowed us to carry around with pieces of bread. Eat at the table, otherwise it will be bad. But gingerbread is a completely different matter. You can stick the gingerbread under your shirt, run around and hear the horse kicking its hooves on its bare belly. Cold with horror - lost, - grab your shirt and be convinced with happiness - here he is, here is the horse-fire!

With such a horse, I immediately appreciate how much attention! The Levontief guys fawn over you this way and that, and let you hit the first one in the siskin, and shoot with a slingshot, so that only they are then allowed to bite off the horse or lick it. When you give Levontyev’s Sanka or Tanka a bite, you must hold with your fingers the place where you are supposed to bite, and hold it tightly, otherwise Tanka or Sanka will bite so hard that the horse’s tail and mane will remain.

Levontiy, our neighbor, worked on the badogs together with Mishka Korshukov. Levontii harvested timber for badogi, sawed it, chopped it and delivered it to the lime plant, which was opposite the village, on the other side of the Yenisei. Once every ten days, or maybe fifteen, I don’t remember exactly, Levontius received money, and then in the next house, where there were only children and nothing else, a feast began. Some kind of restlessness, a fever, or something, gripped not only the Levontiev house, but also all the neighbors. Early in the morning, Aunt Vasenya, Uncle Levontiy’s wife, ran into grandma’s, out of breath, exhausted, with rubles clutched in her fist.

Stop, you freak! - her grandmother called out to her. - You have to count.

Aunt Vasenya obediently returned, and while grandma was counting the money, she walked with her bare feet, like a hot horse, ready to take off as soon as the reins were let go.

Grandmother counted carefully and for a long time, smoothing out each ruble. As far as I remember, my grandmother never gave Levontikha more than seven or ten rubles from her “reserve” for a rainy day, because this entire “reserve” consisted, it seems, of ten. But even with such a small amount, the alarmed Vasenya managed to shortchange by a ruble, sometimes even by a whole triple.

How do you handle money, you eyeless scarecrow! the grandmother attacked the neighbor. - A ruble for me, a ruble for another! What will happen? But Vasenya again threw up a whirlwind with her skirt and rolled away.

She did!

For a long time my grandmother reviled Levontiikha, Levontii himself, who, in her opinion, was not worth bread, but ate wine, beat herself on the thighs with her hands, spat, I sat down by the window and looked longingly at the neighbor’s house.

He stood by himself, in the open space, and nothing prevented him from looking at the white light through the somehow glazed windows - no fence, no gate, no frames, no shutters. Uncle Levontius didn’t even have a bathhouse, and they, the Levont’evites, washed in their neighbors, most often with us, after fetching water and ferrying firewood from the lime factory.

One good day, perhaps evening, Uncle Levontius rocked a ripple and, having forgotten himself, began to sing the song of sea wanderers, heard on voyages - he was once a sailor.

Sailed along the Akiyan
Sailor from Africa
Little licker
He brought it in a box...

The family fell silent, listening to the voice of the parent, absorbing a very coherent and pitiful song. Our village, in addition to the streets, towns and alleys, was also structured and composed in song - every family, every surname had “its own”, signature song, which deeper and more fully expressed the feelings of this and no other relatives. To this day, whenever I remember the song “The Monk Fell in Love with a Beauty,” I still see Bobrovsky Lane and all the Bobrovskys, and goosebumps spread across my skin from shock. My heart trembles and contracts from the song of the “Chess Knee”: “I was sitting by the window, my God, and the rain was dripping on me.” And how can we forget Fokine’s, soul-tearing: “In vain I broke the bars, in vain I escaped from prison, my dear, dear little wife is lying on another’s chest,” or my beloved uncle: “Once upon a time in a cozy room,” or in memory of my late mother , which is still sung: “Tell me, sister...” But where can you remember everything and everyone? The village was large, the people were vocal, daring, and the family was deep and wide.

But all our songs flew glidingly over the roof of the settler Uncle Levontius - not one of them could disturb the petrified soul of the fighting family, and here on you, Levontiev’s eagles trembled, there must have been a drop or two of sailor, vagabond blood tangled in the veins of the children, and it - their resilience was washed away, and when the children were well-fed, did not fight and did not destroy anything, one could hear a friendly chorus spilling out through the broken windows and open doors:

She sits, sad
All night long
And such a song
He sings about his homeland:

"In the warm, warm south,
In my homeland,
Friends live and grow
And there are no people at all..."

Uncle Levontiy drilled the song with his bass, added rumble to it, and therefore the song, and the guys, and he himself seemed to change in appearance, became more beautiful and more united, and then the river of life in this house flowed in a calm, even bed. Aunt Vasenya, a person of unbearable sensitivity, wetted her face and chest with tears, howled into her old burnt apron, spoke out about human irresponsibility - some drunken lout grabbed a piece of shit, dragged it away from his homeland for who knows why and why? And here she is, poor thing, sitting and yearning all night long... And, jumping up, she suddenly fixed her wet eyes on her husband - but wasn’t it he, wandering around the world, who did this dirty deed?! Wasn't he the one who whistled the monkey? He's drunk and doesn't know what he's doing!

Uncle Levontius, repentantly accepting all the sins that can be pinned on a drunken person, wrinkled his brow, trying to understand: when and why did he take a monkey from Africa? And if he took away and abducted the animal, where did it subsequently go?

In the spring, the Levontiev family picked up the ground around the house a little, erected a fence from poles, twigs, and old boards. But in winter, all this gradually disappeared in the womb of the Russian stove, which lay open in the middle of the hut.

Retelling plan

1. Gingerbread “horse” is the dream of all village kids.
2. The life of the family of Uncle Levontius and Aunt Vasenya.
3. The children go to pick strawberries.
4. Fight between the Levontiev brothers.
5. The boy and the Levontiev children eat strawberries.
6. Games on the Malaya River.
7. Deception. Theft of rolls.
8. A group of guys goes fishing.
9. Pangs of conscience.
10. Return of Grandma.
11. The boy, not wanting to return home, goes to his cousin Keshka.
12. Aunt Fenya takes the hero home and talks to his grandmother.
13. Night in the pantry.
14. Return of the grandfather. The grandmother forgives her grandson and gives him the treasured gingerbread.

Retelling

The hero of the work is an orphan, he lives with his grandparents. We learn that a horse with a pink mane is an extraordinary gingerbread, the dream of all village children. The hero’s grandmother promises to buy this gingerbread by selling the strawberries that the boy has to pick. This simple task becomes a real test for him, since he has to go with the neighboring children, the children of Uncle Levontius and Aunt Vasenya.

Uncle Levontius's family lives poorly, but brightly. When he receives his salary, not only they, but also all the neighbors are seized by some kind of “restlessness, fever.” Aunt Vasenya quickly pays off debts, and one day everyone is walking recklessly, and after a few days they have to borrow again. Their attitude towards

life is shown through the attitude towards the house, in which “there were only children and nothing else.” Their windows are glazed somehow (they are knocked out quite often by a drunken father), and in the middle of the hut there is a stove that has become “lost.” These details emphasize that Uncle Levontius’s family lives as they have to, without hesitation.

The hero of the story, being close to the Levontiev children, falls under their influence. He witnesses a fight between brothers. The elder is dissatisfied that the younger ones do not so much pick strawberries as eat them. As a result, everything collected is eaten. They bully, saying that the narrator is afraid of his grandmother and is greedy. Wanting to prove the opposite, the boy gives them all the collected berries. This is a turning point in his behavior, since then he does everything as they do, becoming one of the “Levontiev horde.” He is already stealing rolls for them, ruining someone else’s garden, deceiving them: on Sanka’s advice, he fills the roll with grass, and sprinkles strawberries on top of the grass.

Fear of punishment and pangs of conscience do not allow him to sleep. The boy does not tell the truth, and the grandmother leaves to sell berries. The pangs of conscience are becoming more and more strong, nothing pleases the hero anymore: neither the fishing trip he went on with the Levontievskys, nor the new ways to get out of the situation proposed by Sanka. It turns out that peace and tranquility in the soul are the best blessings in the world. The boy, who does not know how to make amends for his guilt, on the advice of his grandfather, asks his grandmother for forgiveness. And suddenly the very same gingerbread appears in front of him, which he had never hoped to receive: “How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed! And I still can’t forget my grandmother’s gingerbread - that marvelous horse with a pink mane.”

The boy receives a gift because his grandmother wishes him well, loves him, wants to support him, seeing his mental suffering. You cannot teach a person to be kind without giving him your kindness.