Konstantin Paustovsky
The lake near the shores was covered with heaps of yellow leaves. There were so many of them that we couldn't fish. The fishing lines lay on the leaves and did not sink.
We had to take an old boat out to the middle of the lake, where the water lilies were blooming and the blue water seemed black as tar. There we caught colorful perches, pulled out tin roach and ruff with eyes like two small moons. The pikes flashed their teeth, small as needles, at us.
It was autumn in the sun and fogs. Through the fallen forests, distant clouds and thick blue air were visible.
At night, in the thickets around us, low stars moved and trembled.
There was a fire burning in our parking lot. We burned it all day and night to drive away the wolves - they howled quietly along the far shores of the lake. They were disturbed by the smoke of the fire and cheerful human cries.
We were sure that fire frightens animals, but one evening in the grass, near the fire, some animal began to snort angrily. He was not visible. He ran around us anxiously, rustling the tall grass, snorting and getting angry, but didn’t even stick his ears out of the grass. Potatoes were being fried in a frying pan, a sharp, tasty smell emanated from them, and the animal obviously came running to this smell.
A boy came to the lake with us. He was only nine years old, but he tolerated spending the night in the forest and the cold of autumn dawns well. Much better than us adults, he noticed and told everything. He was an inventor, this boy, but we adults really loved his inventions. We couldn’t, and didn’t want to, prove to him that he was telling a lie. Every day he came up with something new: either he heard the fish whispering, or he saw how the ants made a ferry across the stream from pine bark and cobwebs and crossed in the light of the night, an unprecedented rainbow. We pretended to believe him.
Everything that surrounded us seemed extraordinary: the late moon shining over the black lakes, and high clouds like mountains of pink snow, and even the familiar sea noise of tall pines.
The boy was the first to hear the animal’s snort and hissed at us to keep quiet. We became silent. We tried not to even breathe, although our hand involuntarily reached for the double-barreled gun - who knows what kind of animal it could be!
Half an hour later, the animal stuck out a wet black nose from the grass, similar to a pig’s snout. The nose sniffed the air for a long time and trembled with greed. Then a sharp muzzle with black piercing eyes appeared from the grass. Finally the striped skin appeared. A small badger crawled out of the thickets. He pressed his paw and looked at me carefully. Then he snorted in disgust and took a step towards the potatoes.
It fried and hissed, splashing boiling lard. I wanted to shout to the animal that it would get burned, but I was too late: the badger jumped to the frying pan and stuck his nose into it...
It smelled like burnt leather. The badger squealed and rushed back into the grass with a desperate cry. He ran and screamed throughout the forest, broke bushes and spat in indignation and pain.
Confusion began on the lake and in the forest: frightened frogs screamed without time, birds became alarmed, and a pike worth a pound struck right at the shore like a cannon shot.
In the morning the boy woke me up and told me that he himself had just seen a badger treating its burnt nose.
I didn't believe it. I sat by the fire and listened sleepily to the morning voices of the birds. In the distance, white-tailed sandpipers whistled, ducks quacked, cranes cooed in the dry moss swamps, and turtle doves cooed quietly. I didn't want to move.
The boy pulled me by the hand. He was offended. He wanted to prove to me that he didn't lie. He called me to go see how the badger was being treated. I reluctantly agreed. We carefully made our way into the thicket, and among the thickets of heather I saw a rotten pine stump. He smelled of mushrooms and iodine.
A badger stood near a stump, with its back to us. He picked up the stump and stuck his burnt nose into the middle of the stump, into the wet and cold dust. He stood motionless and cooled his unfortunate nose, while another little badger ran and snorted around him. He was worried and pushed our badger in the stomach with his nose. Our badger growled at him and kicked with his furry hind paws.
Then he sat down and cried. He looked at us with round and wet eyes, moaned and licked his sore nose with his rough tongue. It was as if he was asking for help, but we could do nothing to help him.
Since then, the lake - it was previously called Nameless - we have nicknamed the Lake of the Stupid Badger.
And a year later I met a badger with a scar on its nose on the shores of this lake. He sat by the water and tried to catch the dragonflies rattling like tin with his paw. I waved my hand at him, but he sneezed angrily in my direction and hid in the lingonberry bushes.
Since then I haven't seen him again.
Belkin fly agaric
N.I. Sladkov
Winter is a harsh time for animals. Everyone is preparing for it. The bear and badger fatten up fat, the chipmunk stores pine nuts, the squirrel stores mushrooms. And everything, it would seem, is clear and simple here: lard, mushrooms, and nuts will come in handy in winter!
Just not at all, but not with everyone!
Here, for example, is a squirrel. She dries mushrooms on twigs in the fall: russula, honey mushrooms, moss mushrooms. The mushrooms are all good and edible. But among the good and edible ones you suddenly find... fly agaric! Stumbled upon a twig - red, speckled with white. Why does the squirrel need the poisonous fly agaric?
Maybe young squirrels unknowingly dry fly agarics? Maybe when they grow wiser they won’t eat them? Maybe dry fly agaric becomes non-poisonous? Or maybe dried fly agaric is something like medicine for them?
There are many different assumptions, but there is no exact answer. I wish I could find out and check everything!
White-fronted
Chekhov A.P.
The hungry wolf got up to go hunting. Her cubs, all three of them, were fast asleep, huddled together, warming each other. She licked them and walked away.
It was already the spring month of March, but at night the trees crackled with cold, like in December, and as soon as you stuck out your tongue, it began to sting strongly. The wolf was in poor health and suspicious; She shuddered at the slightest noise and kept thinking about how at home without her no one would offend the wolf cubs. The smell of human and horse tracks, tree stumps, stacked firewood and the dark, manure-laden road frightened her; It seemed to her as if people were standing behind the trees in the darkness and dogs were howling somewhere beyond the forest.
She was no longer young and her instincts had weakened, so that it happened that she mistook a fox’s track for a dog’s and sometimes even, deceived by her instincts, lost her way, which had never happened to her in her youth. Due to poor health, she no longer hunted calves and large rams, as before, and already walked far around horses with foals, and ate only carrion; She had to eat fresh meat very rarely, only in the spring, when she, having come across a hare, took her children away from her or climbed into the men's barn where the lambs were.
About four versts from her lair, near the post road, there was a winter hut. Here lived the watchman Ignat, an old man of about seventy, who kept coughing and talking to himself; He usually slept at night, and during the day he wandered through the forest with a single-barreled gun and whistled at the hares. He must have served as a mechanic before, because every time before stopping he shouted to himself: “Stop, car!” and, before going any further: “Full speed ahead!” With him was a huge black dog of an unknown breed, named Arapka. When she ran far ahead, he shouted to her: “Reverse!” Sometimes he sang and at the same time staggered greatly and often fell (the wolf thought it was from the wind) and shouted: “He went off the rails!”
The wolf remembered that in the summer and autumn a sheep and two lambs grazed near the winter hut, and when she ran past not so long ago, she thought she heard something bleating in the barn. And now, approaching the winter quarters, she realized that it was already March and, judging by the time, there must certainly be lambs in the barn. She was tormented by hunger, she thought about how greedily she would eat the lamb, and from such thoughts her teeth clicked and her eyes shone in the darkness like two lights.
Ignat's hut, his barn, stable and well were surrounded by high snowdrifts. It was quiet. The little black must have been sleeping under the barn.
The wolf climbed up the snowdrift to the barn and began raking the thatched roof with her paws and muzzle. The straw was rotten and loose, so that the wolf almost fell through; Suddenly a warm smell of steam, the smell of manure and sheep's milk hit her right in the face. Below, feeling the cold, the lamb gently bleated. Jumping into the hole, the she-wolf fell with her front paws and chest on something soft and warm, probably on a ram, and at that time something in the barn suddenly squealed, barked and burst into a thin, howling voice, the sheep shied towards the wall, and The wolf, frightened, grabbed the first thing she caught in her teeth and rushed out...
She ran, straining her strength, and at this time Arapka, who had already sensed the wolf, howled furiously, disturbed chickens clucked in the winter hut, and Ignat, going out onto the porch, shouted:
Full speed ahead! Let's go to the whistle!
And it whistled like a car, and then - go-go-go-go!.. And all this noise was repeated by the forest echo.
When little by little all this calmed down, the wolf calmed down a little and began to notice that her prey, which she held in her teeth and dragged through the snow, was heavier and seemed to be harder than lambs usually are at this time, and it smelled as if differently, and some strange sounds were heard... The wolf stopped and put her burden on the snow to rest and start eating, and suddenly jumped back in disgust. It was not a lamb, but a puppy, black, with a large head and high legs, a large breed, with the same white spot all over its forehead, like Arapka’s. Judging by his manners, he was an ignoramus, a simple mongrel. He licked his bruised, wounded back and, as if nothing had happened, waved his tail and barked at the wolf. She growled like a dog and ran away from him. He's behind her. She looked back and clicked her teeth; he stopped in bewilderment and, probably deciding that it was she who was playing with him, stretched his muzzle towards the winter hut and burst into a loud, joyful bark, as if inviting his mother Arapka to play with him and the wolf.
It was already dawn, and when the wolf made her way to her place through the dense aspen forest, every aspen tree was clearly visible, and the black grouse were already waking up and beautiful roosters often fluttered up, disturbed by the careless jumping and barking of the puppy.
“Why is he running after me? - thought the wolf with annoyance. “He must want me to eat him.”
She lived with the wolf cubs in a shallow hole; three years ago, during a strong storm, a tall old pine tree was uprooted, which is why this hole was formed. Now at the bottom there were old leaves and moss, and there were bones and bull horns with which the wolf cubs played. They had already woken up and all three, very similar to each other, stood side by side on the edge of their hole and, looking at the returning mother, wagged their tails. Seeing them, the puppy stopped at a distance and looked at them for a long time; noticing that they were also looking at him attentively, he began to bark angrily at them, as if they were strangers.
It was already dawn and the sun had risen, the snow was sparkling all around, and he still stood at a distance and barked. The wolf cubs suckled their mother, pushing her with their paws into her skinny belly, and at that time she was gnawing on a horse bone, white and dry; she was tormented by hunger, her head ached from the dog’s barking, and she wanted to rush at the uninvited guest and tear him apart.
Finally the puppy became tired and hoarse; Seeing that they were not afraid of him and did not even pay attention, he began to timidly, now crouching, now jumping, approach the wolf cubs. Now, in daylight, it was easy to see him... His white forehead was large, and on his forehead there was a bump, such as happens to very stupid dogs; the eyes were small, blue, dull, and the expression of the entire muzzle was extremely stupid. Approaching the wolf cubs, he stretched his wide paws forward, put his muzzle on them and began:
Me, me... nga-nga-nga!..
The wolf cubs did not understand anything, but waved their tails. Then the puppy hit one of the wolf cubs on the big head with his paw. The wolf cub also hit him on the head with his paw. The puppy stood sideways to him and looked at him sideways, wagging its tail, then suddenly rushed away and made several circles on the crust. The wolf cubs chased him, he fell on his back and lifted his legs up, and the three of them attacked him and, squealing with delight, began to bite him, but not painfully, but as a joke. The crows sat on a tall pine tree and looked down at their struggle, and were very worried. It became noisy and fun. The sun was already hot like spring; and the roosters, constantly flying over the pine tree fallen by the storm, seemed emerald in the brilliance of the sun.
Usually she-wolves accustom their children to hunting by letting them play with prey; and now, watching how the wolf cubs chased the puppy on the crust and fought with it, the wolf thought:
“Let them get used to it.”
Having played enough, the cubs went into the hole and went to bed. The puppy howled a little with hunger, then also stretched out in the sun. And when they woke up, they started playing again.
All day and evening the wolf remembered how last night the lamb bleated in the barn and how it smelled of sheep's milk, and she clicked her teeth with appetite for everything and did not stop gnawing greedily on an old bone, imagining to herself that it was a lamb. The wolf cubs suckled, and the puppy, who was hungry, ran around and sniffed the snow.
“Let’s eat him...” the wolf decided.
She came up to him, and he licked her face and whined, thinking that she wanted to play with him. In the past, she ate dogs, but the puppy smelled strongly of dog, and, due to poor health, she no longer tolerated this smell; she felt disgusted and walked away...
By night it got colder. The puppy got bored and went home.
When the wolf cubs were fast asleep, the wolf went hunting again. Like the previous night, she was alarmed by the slightest noise, and she was frightened by stumps, firewood, dark, lonely juniper bushes that looked like people in the distance. She ran away from the road, along the crust. Suddenly something dark flashed on the road far ahead... She strained her eyes and ears: in fact, something was walking ahead, and even measured steps could be heard. Isn't it a badger? She carefully, barely breathing, taking everything to the side, overtook the dark spot, looked back at it and recognized it. It was a puppy with a white forehead who was returning to his winter hut, slowly and step by step.
“I hope he doesn’t bother me again,” the wolf thought and quickly ran forward.
But the winter hut was already close. She again climbed up the snowdrift into the barn. Yesterday's hole had already been filled with spring straw, and two new strips stretched across the roof. The wolf began to quickly work with her legs and muzzle, looking around to see if the puppy was coming, but as soon as the warm steam and the smell of manure hit her, a joyful, liquid bark was heard from behind. It's the puppy back. He jumped onto the wolf's roof, then into a hole and, feeling at home, in the warmth, recognizing his sheep, barked even louder... Arapka woke up under the barn and, sensing the wolf, howled, the chickens cackled, and when Ignat appeared on the porch with with her single-barreled gun, the frightened wolf was already far from her winter hut.
Fut! - Ignat whistled. - Fut! Drive at full speed!
He pulled the trigger - the gun misfired; he fired again - again it misfired; he lowered it a third time - and a huge sheaf of fire flew out of the trunk and a deafening “boo” was heard! boo!". There was a strong blow to his shoulder; and, taking a gun in one hand and an ax in the other, he went to see what was causing the noise...
A little later he returned to the hut.
Nothing... - Ignat answered. - It's an empty matter. Our White-fronted one got into the habit of sleeping with the sheep, in the warmth. Only there is no such thing as a door, but everything seems to be going through the roof. The other night he tore up the roof and went for a walk, the scoundrel, and now he’s returned and tore up the roof again. Silly.
Yes, the spring in the brain burst. I don't like death, stupid people! - Ignat sighed, climbing onto the stove. - Well, man of God, it’s too early to get up, let’s go to sleep at full speed...
And in the morning he called White-fronted to him, tore him painfully by the ears and then, punishing him with a twig, kept saying:
Walk through the door! Walk through the door! Walk through the door!
Faithful Troy
Evgeny Charushin
A friend and I agreed to go skiing. I went to pick him up in the morning. He lives in a big house - on Pestel Street.
I entered the yard. And he saw me from the window and waved his hand from the fourth floor.
Wait, I'll come out now.
So I’m waiting in the yard, at the door. Suddenly someone from above thunders down the stairs.
Knock! Thunder! Tra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta! Something wooden is knocking and cracking on the steps, like some kind of ratchet.
“Is it really possible,” I think, “that my friend with skis and poles fell and is counting the steps?”
I came closer to the door. What is there rolling down the stairs? I am waiting.
And then I saw a spotted dog, a bulldog, coming out of the door. Bulldog on wheels.
His torso is bandaged to a toy car - a gas truck.
And the bulldog steps on the ground with its front paws - it runs and rolls itself.
The muzzle is snub-nosed and wrinkled. The paws are thick, widely spaced. He drove out of the door and looked around angrily. And then a ginger cat crossed the yard. Like a bulldog rushing after a cat - only the wheels are bouncing on the rocks and ice. He drove the cat into the basement window, and he drives around the yard, sniffing the corners.
Then I pulled out a pencil and a notebook, sat down on the step and let’s draw it.
My friend came out with skis, saw that I was drawing a dog, and said:
Draw him, draw him - this is not an ordinary dog. Because of his bravery, he became crippled.
How so? - I ask.
My friend stroked the bulldog along the folds on the scruff of the neck, gave him candy in his teeth and said to me:
Let's go, I'll tell you the whole story along the way. A wonderful story, you really won't believe it.
So,” said the friend when we went out the gate, “listen.
His name is Troy. In our opinion, this means faithful.
And it was right to call him that.
One day we all left for work. Everyone in our apartment serves: one is a teacher at school, another is a telegraph operator at the post office, the wives also serve, and the children study. Well, we all left, and Troy was left alone to guard the apartment.
Some thief found out that our apartment was empty, turned the lock on the door and started running our house.
He had a huge bag with him. He grabs everything he can find and puts it in a bag, grabs it and sticks it. My gun ended up in the bag, new boots, a teacher’s watch, Zeiss binoculars, and children’s felt boots.
He pulled on about six jackets, French jackets, and all sorts of jackets: there was obviously no room in the bag.
And Troy lies by the stove, is silent - the thief does not see him.
This is Troy’s habit: he’ll let anyone in, but he won’t let anyone out.
Well, the thief has robbed us all clean. I took the most expensive, the best. It's time for him to leave. He leaned towards the door...
And Troy is standing at the door.
He stands and is silent.
And what kind of face does Troy have?
And looking for a pile!
Troy is standing, frowning, his eyes are bloodshot, and a fang is sticking out of his mouth.
The thief was rooted to the floor. Try to leave!
And Troy grinned, leaned forward and began to advance sideways.
He approaches quietly. He always intimidates the enemy like this - whether a dog or a person.
The thief, apparently out of fear, was completely stunned, rushing around
he began to no avail, and Troy jumped on his back and bit through all six jackets on him at once.
You know how bulldogs have a death grip?
They will close their eyes, their jaws will slam shut, and they will never open their teeth, even if they were killed here.
The thief rushes about, rubbing his back against the walls. Flowers in pots, vases, books are thrown off the shelves. Nothing helps. Troy hangs on it like some kind of weight.
Well, the thief finally guessed, he somehow wriggled out of his six jackets and the whole sack, along with the bulldog, was out the window!
This is from the fourth floor!
The bulldog flew headfirst into the yard.
Slurry splashed to the sides, rotten potatoes, herring heads, all sorts of rubbish.
Troy and all our jackets ended up right in the trash heap. Our garbage dump was filled to the brim that day.
After all, what happiness! If he had hit the rocks, he would have broken all his bones and not made a sound. He would die immediately.
And here it’s as if someone deliberately set him up for a trash heap - still, it’s easier to fall.
Troy emerged from the trash heap and climbed out as if completely intact. And just think, he still managed to intercept the thief on the stairs.
He grabbed him again, this time in the leg.
Then the thief gave himself away, screamed and howled.
Residents came running to howl from all the apartments, from the third, and from the fifth, and from the sixth floor, from the entire back staircase.
Keep the dog. Ooh! I'll go to the police myself. Just tear off the damned devil.
It's easy to say - tear it off.
Two people pulled the bulldog, and he only waved his stumpy tail and clamped his jaw even tighter.
The residents brought a poker from the first floor and stuck Troy between his teeth. It was only in this manner that they unclenched his jaws.
The thief came out into the street - pale, disheveled. He's shaking all over, holding on to the policeman.
What a dog,” he says. - What a dog!
They took the thief to the police. There he told how it happened.
I come home from work in the evening. I see the lock on the door is turned inside out. There is a bag of our goods lying around in the apartment.
And in the corner, in his place, Troy lies. All dirty and smelly.
I called Troy.
And he can’t even come close. Crawling and squealing.
His back legs were paralyzed.
Well, now we take turns taking him out for walks with the whole apartment. I fitted him with wheels. He rolls down the stairs on his wheels himself, but can no longer climb back. Someone needs to lift the car from behind. Troy himself steps over with his front paws.
This is how the dog on wheels lives now.
Evening
Boris Zhitkov
The cow Masha goes to look for her son, the calf Alyosha. Can't see him anywhere. Where did he go? It's time to go home.
And the calf Alyoshka ran around, got tired, and lay down in the grass. The grass is tall - Alyosha is nowhere to be seen.
The cow Masha was afraid that her son Alyoshka had disappeared, and she started mooing with all her strength:
At home, Masha was milked and a whole bucket of fresh milk was milked. They poured it into Alyosha’s bowl:
Here, drink, Alyoshka.
Alyoshka was delighted - he had been wanting milk for a long time - he drank it all to the bottom and licked the bowl with his tongue.
Alyoshka got drunk and wanted to run around the yard. As soon as he started running, suddenly a puppy jumped out of the booth and started barking at Alyoshka. Alyoshka was frightened: it must be a terrible beast, if it barks so loudly. And he started to run.
Alyoshka ran away, and the puppy did not bark anymore. It became quiet all around. Alyoshka looked - there was no one, everyone had gone to bed. And I wanted to sleep myself. He lay down and fell asleep in the yard.
The cow Masha also fell asleep on the soft grass.
The puppy also fell asleep at his kennel - he was tired, he barked all day.
The boy Petya also fell asleep in his crib - he was tired, he had been running around all day.
And the bird has long since fallen asleep.
She fell asleep on a branch and hid her head under her wing to make it warmer to sleep. I'm tired too. I flew all day, catching midges.
Everyone has fallen asleep, everyone is sleeping.
Only the night wind does not sleep.
He rustles in the grass and rustles in the bushes
Volchishko
Evgeny Charushin
A little wolf lived in the forest with his mother.
One day my mother went hunting.
And a man caught the wolf, put it in a bag and brought it to the city. He placed the bag in the middle of the room.
The bag did not move for a long time. Then the little wolf wallowed in it and got out. He looked in one direction and got scared: a man was sitting, looking at him.
I looked in the other direction - the black cat was snorting, puffing up, twice his size, barely standing. And next to him the dog bares his teeth.
The little wolf was completely afraid. I reached back into the bag, but I couldn’t fit in - the empty bag lay on the floor like a rag.
And the cat puffed up, puffed up and hissed! He jumped on the table and knocked over the saucer. The saucer broke.
The dog barked.
The man shouted loudly: “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The little wolf hid under a chair and began to live and tremble there.
There is a chair in the middle of the room.
The cat looks down from the back of the chair.
The dog is running around the chair.
A man sits in a chair and smokes.
And the little wolf is barely alive under the chair.
At night the man fell asleep, and the dog fell asleep, and the cat closed his eyes.
Cats - they don't sleep, they only doze.
The little wolf came out to look around.
He walked around, walked around, sniffed, and then sat down and howled.
The dog barked.
The cat jumped on the table.
The man on the bed sat up. He waved his arms and shouted. And the little wolf crawled under the chair again. I began to live there quietly.
In the morning the man left. He poured milk into a bowl. The cat and dog began to lap up milk.
The little wolf crawled out from under the chair, crawled to the door, and the door was open!
From the door to the stairs, from the stairs to the street, from the street across the bridge, from the bridge to the garden, from the garden to the field.
And behind the field there is a forest.
And in the forest there is a mother wolf.
And now the little wolf has become a wolf.
Thief
Georgy Skrebitsky
One day we were given a young squirrel. She very soon became completely tame, ran around all the rooms, climbed on cabinets, shelves, and so deftly - she would never drop or break anything.
In my father’s office, huge deer antlers were nailed above the sofa. The squirrel often climbed on them: it used to climb onto the horn and sit on it, like on a tree branch.
She knew us guys well. As soon as you enter the room, a squirrel jumps from somewhere from the closet right onto your shoulder. This means she asks for sugar or candy. She loved sweets very much.
There were sweets and sugar in our dining room, in the buffet. They were never locked up because we children didn’t take anything without asking.
But then one day my mother calls us all into the dining room and shows us an empty vase:
Who took the candy from here?
We look at each other and are silent - we don’t know which of us did it. Mom shook her head and said nothing. And the next day the sugar disappeared from the cupboard and again no one admitted that they had taken it. At this point my father got angry and said that now he would lock everything up and wouldn’t give us any sweets all week.
And the squirrel, along with us, was left without sweets. He used to jump onto his shoulder, rub his muzzle against his cheek, pull his ear with his teeth, and ask for sugar. Where can I get it?
One afternoon I sat quietly on the sofa in the dining room and read. Suddenly I see: a squirrel jumped onto the table, grabbed a crust of bread in its teeth - and onto the floor, and from there onto the cabinet. A minute later, I look, she climbed onto the table again, grabbed the second crust - and again onto the cabinet.
“Wait,” I think, “where does she take all the bread?” I pulled up a chair and looked at the closet. I see my mother’s old hat lying there. I lifted it up - here you go! There’s just something under there: sugar, candy, bread, and various bones...
I go straight to my father and show him: “That’s who our thief is!”
And the father laughed and said:
How could I not have guessed this before! After all, it is our squirrel who makes supplies for the winter. Now it’s autumn, all the squirrels in the wild are stocking up on food, and ours is not lagging behind, it’s also stocking up.
After this incident, they stopped keeping sweets away from us, they just attached a hook to the sideboard so that the squirrel couldn’t get into it. But the squirrel did not calm down and continued to prepare supplies for the winter. If he finds a crust of bread, a nut or a seed, he will immediately grab it, run away and hide it somewhere.
We once went into the forest to pick mushrooms. We arrived late in the evening, tired, ate, and quickly went to bed. They left a bag of mushrooms on the window: it’s cool there, they won’t spoil until the morning.
We get up in the morning - the whole basket is empty. Where did the mushrooms go? Suddenly my father shouts from the office and calls us. We ran to him and saw that all the deer antlers above the sofa were covered with mushrooms. There are mushrooms everywhere on the towel hook, behind the mirror, and behind the painting. The squirrel did this early in the morning: he hung mushrooms for himself to dry for the winter.
In the forest, squirrels always dry mushrooms on branches in the fall. So ours hurried. Apparently she sensed winter.
Soon the cold really set in. The squirrel kept trying to get into some corner where it would be warmer, and one day she completely disappeared. They looked and looked for her - she was nowhere to be found. She probably ran into the garden, and from there into the forest.
We felt sorry for the squirrels, but there was nothing we could do.
We got ready to light the stove, closed the vent, piled on some wood, and set it on fire. Suddenly something moves in the stove and rustles! We quickly opened the vent, and from there the squirrel jumped out like a bullet - straight onto the closet.
And the smoke from the stove just pours into the room, it doesn’t go down the chimney. What's happened? The brother made a hook out of thick wire and stuck it through the vent into the pipe to see if there was anything there.
We look - he is dragging a tie from the pipe, his mother’s glove, he even found his grandmother’s holiday scarf there.
Our squirrel dragged all this into the chimney for its nest. That's what it is! Even though he lives in the house, he doesn’t abandon his forest habits. Such is, apparently, their squirrel nature.
Caring mom
Georgy Skrebitsky
One day the shepherds caught a fox cub and brought it to us. We put the animal in an empty barn.
The little fox was still small, all gray, his muzzle was dark, and his tail was white at the end. The animal hid in the far corner of the barn and looked around in fear. Out of fear, he didn’t even bite when we stroked him, but only pressed his ears back and trembled all over.
Mom poured milk into a bowl for him and placed it right next to him. But the frightened animal did not drink milk.
Then dad said that the little fox should be left alone - let him look around and get used to the new place.
I really didn’t want to leave, but dad locked the door and we went home. It was already evening, and soon everyone went to bed.
At night I woke up. I hear a puppy yapping and whining somewhere very close by. Where do I think he came from? Looked out the window. It was already light outside. From the window you could see the barn where the little fox was. It turns out that he was whining like a puppy.
The forest began right behind the barn.
Suddenly I saw a fox jump out of the bushes, stop, listen and stealthily run up to the barn. Immediately the yapping stopped, and a joyful squeal was heard instead.
I slowly woke up mom and dad, and we all started looking out the window together.
The fox ran around the barn and tried to dig up the ground underneath it. But there was a strong stone foundation there, and the fox could not do anything. Soon she ran away into the bushes, and the little fox again began to whine loudly and pitifully.
I wanted to watch the fox all night, but dad said that she wouldn’t come again and told me to go to bed.
I woke up late and, having dressed, first of all hurried to visit the little fox. What is it?.. On the threshold right next to the door lay a dead bunny. I quickly ran to my dad and brought him with me.
That's the thing! - Dad said when he saw the bunny. - This means that the mother fox once again came to the little fox and brought him food. She couldn't get inside, so she left it outside. What a caring mother!
All day I hung around the barn, looked into the cracks and went with my mother twice to feed the little fox. And in the evening I couldn’t fall asleep, I kept jumping out of bed and looking out the window to see if the fox had come.
Finally, mom got angry and covered the window with a dark curtain.
But in the morning I got up before the light and immediately ran to the barn. This time, it was no longer a bunny lying on the doorstep, but a strangled neighbor’s chicken. Apparently, the fox came again at night to visit the fox cub. She failed to catch prey for him in the forest, so she climbed into her neighbors’ chicken coop, strangled the chicken and brought it to her cub.
Dad had to pay for the chicken, and besides, he got a lot from the neighbors.
Take the little fox wherever you want,” they shouted, “or else the fox will take all the birds with us!”
There was nothing to do, dad had to put the little fox in a bag and take it back to the forest, to the fox holes.
Since then, the fox never came to the village.
Hedgehog
MM. Prishvin
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 the newspaper?
Soon my tenant ran out from under the bed - and straight to the newspaper; he spun around around her, made noise, made noise, and finally managed to: somehow put a corner of a newspaper on his thorns and dragged it, huge, into the corner.
Then 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. So the hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and ran again, dragging another apple into the nest on the thorns.
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.
Hare's feet
Konstantin Paustovsky
Vanya Malyavin came to the veterinarian in our village from Lake Urzhenskoe and brought a small warm hare wrapped in a torn cotton jacket. The hare was crying and blinking his eyes red from tears often...
Are you crazy? - the veterinarian shouted. “Soon you’ll be bringing mice to me, you fool!”
“Don’t bark, this is a special hare,” Vanya said in a hoarse whisper. - His grandfather sent him and ordered him to be treated.
What to treat for?
His paws are burned.
The veterinarian turned Vanya to face the door,
pushed him in the back and shouted after him:
Go ahead, go ahead! I don't know how to treat them. Fry it with onions and grandpa will have a snack.
Vanya didn’t answer. He went out into the hallway, blinked his eyes, sniffed and buried himself in the log wall. Tears flowed down the wall. The hare quietly trembled under his greasy jacket.
What are you doing, little one? - the compassionate grandmother Anisya asked Vanya; she took her only goat to the vet. - Why are you two shedding tears, dear ones? Oh what happened?
“He’s burned, grandfather’s hare,” Vanya said quietly. - On forest fire He burned his paws and can't run. Look, he's about to die.
“Don’t die, darling,” Anisya mumbled. - Tell your grandfather, if he really wants the hare to go out, let him take him to the city to Karl Petrovich.
Vanya wiped his tears and walked home through the forests, to Lake Urzhenskoe. He did not walk, but ran barefoot along the hot sandy road. The recent forest fire passed away, to the north, near the lake itself. It smelled of burning and dry cloves. She large islands grew up in the meadows.
The hare moaned.
Vanya found fluffy leaves covered with soft silver hair along the way, tore them out, put them under a pine tree and turned the hare around. The hare looked at the leaves, buried his head in them and fell silent.
What are you doing, gray? - Vanya asked quietly. - You should eat.
The hare was silent.
The hare moved his ragged ear and closed his eyes.
Vanya took him in his arms and ran straight through the forest - he had to quickly let the hare drink from the lake.
There was unheard-of heat over the forests that summer. In the morning, strings of dense white clouds floated in. At noon, the clouds quickly rushed upward, towards the zenith, and before our eyes they were carried away and disappeared somewhere beyond the boundaries of the sky. The hot hurricane had been blowing for two weeks without a break. The resin flowing down the pine trunks turned into amber stone.
The next morning the grandfather put on clean boots and new bast shoes, took a staff and a piece of bread and wandered into the city. Vanya carried the hare from behind.
The hare became completely silent, only occasionally shuddering with his whole body and sighing convulsively.
The dry wind blew up a cloud of dust over the city, soft as flour. Chicken fluff, dry leaves and straw were flying in it. From a distance it seemed as if a quiet fire was smoking over the city.
The market square was very empty and hot; The carriage horses were dozing near the water shed, and they had straw hats on their heads. Grandfather crossed himself.
Either a horse or a bride - the jester will sort them out! - he said and spat.
They asked passersby for a long time about Karl Petrovich, but no one really answered anything. We went to the pharmacy. Thick an old man wearing pince-nez and a short white robe, he shrugged his shoulders angrily and said:
I like it! Quite a strange question! Karl Petrovich Korsh, a specialist in childhood diseases, has stopped seeing patients for three years now. Why do you need it?
The grandfather, stuttering from respect for the pharmacist and from timidity, told about the hare.
I like it! - said the pharmacist. - There are some interesting patients in our city! I like this great!
He nervously took off his pince-nez, wiped it, put it back on his nose and stared at his grandfather. Grandfather was silent and stomped around. The pharmacist was also silent. The silence became painful.
Poshtovaya street, three! - the pharmacist suddenly shouted in anger and slammed some disheveled thick book. - Three!
Grandfather and Vanya reached Pochtovaya Street just in time - a high thunderstorm was setting in from behind the Oka River. Lazy thunder stretched beyond the horizon, like a sleepy strongman straightening his shoulders, and reluctantly shaking the earth. Gray ripples went down the river. Silent lightning surreptitiously, but swiftly and strongly struck the meadows; far beyond the Glades, a haystack that they had lit was already burning. Large drops of rain fell on the dusty road, and soon it became like the surface of the moon: each drop left a small crater in the dust.
Karl Petrovich was playing something sad and melodic on the piano when his grandfather’s disheveled beard appeared in the window.
A minute later Karl Petrovich was already angry.
“I’m not a veterinarian,” he said and slammed the lid of the piano. Immediately thunder roared in the meadows. - All my life I have been treating children, not hares.
“A child, a hare, it’s all the same,” the grandfather muttered stubbornly. - It’s all the same! Heal, show mercy! Our veterinarian has no jurisdiction over such matters. He horse-rided for us. This hare, one might say, is my savior: I owe him my life, I must show gratitude, but you say - quit!
A minute later, Karl Petrovich, an old man with gray ruffled eyebrows, worriedly listened to his grandfather’s stumbling story.
Karl Petrovich eventually agreed to treat the hare. The next morning, the grandfather went to the lake, and left Vanya with Karl Petrovich to go after the hare.
A day later, the entire Pochtovaya Street, overgrown with goose grass, already knew that Karl Petrovich was treating a hare that had been burned in a terrible forest fire and had saved some old man. Two days later the whole small town already knew about this, and on the third day a long young man in a felt hat came to Karl Petrovich, introduced himself as an employee of a Moscow newspaper and asked for a conversation about the hare.
The hare was cured. Vanya wrapped him in a cotton rag and took him home. Soon the story about the hare was forgotten, and only some Moscow professor spent a long time trying to get his grandfather to sell him the hare. He even sent letters with stamps in response. But the grandfather did not give up. Under his dictation, Vanya wrote a letter to the professor:
“The hare is not corrupt, he is a living soul, let him live in freedom. With this I remain Larion Malyavin.”
This fall I spent the night with Grandfather Larion on Lake Urzhenskoye. Constellations, cold as grains of ice, floated in the water. The dry reeds rustled. The ducks shivered in the thickets and quacked pitifully all night.
Grandfather couldn't sleep. He sat by the stove and mended a torn fishing net. Then he set the samovar - it immediately fogged up the windows in the hut, and the stars turned from fiery points into cloudy balls. Murzik was barking in the yard. He jumped into the darkness, clattered his teeth and bounced away - he fought with the impenetrable October night. The hare slept in the hallway and occasionally in his sleep loudly clapped his hind paw on the rotten floorboard.
We drank tea at night, waiting for the distant and hesitant dawn, and over tea my grandfather finally told me the story about the hare.
In August, my grandfather went hunting on the northern shore of the lake. The forests were as dry as gunpowder. Grandfather came across a little hare with a torn left ear. The grandfather shot at him with an old gun tied with wire, but missed. The hare ran away.
The grandfather realized that a forest fire had started and the fire was coming straight towards him. The wind turned into a hurricane. The fire raced across the ground at an unheard of speed. According to the grandfather, even a train could not escape such a fire. Grandfather was right: during the hurricane, the fire moved at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour.
Grandfather ran over the bumps, stumbled, fell, the smoke ate his eyes, and behind him a wide roar and crackle of flames could already be heard.
Death overtook the grandfather, grabbed him by the shoulders, and at that time a hare jumped out from under the grandfather’s feet. He ran slowly and dragged his hind legs. Then only the grandfather noticed that the hare’s hair was burnt.
The grandfather was delighted with the hare, as if it were his own. As an old forest dweller, grandfather knew that animals are much more better than man they sense where the fire is coming from and are always saved. They die only in those rare cases when fire surrounds them.
Grandfather ran after the hare. He ran, cried with fear and shouted: “Wait, honey, don’t run so fast!”
The hare brought the grandfather out of the fire. When they ran out of the forest to the lake, the hare and grandfather both fell from fatigue. Grandfather picked up the hare and took it home.
The hare's hind legs and stomach were singed. Then his grandfather cured him and kept him with him.
Yes,” said the grandfather, looking at the samovar so angrily, as if the samovar was to blame for everything, “yes, but before that hare, it turns out that I was very guilty, dear man.”
What have you done wrong?
And you go out, look at the hare, at my savior, then you will know. Take a flashlight!
I took the lantern from the table and went out into the hallway. The hare was sleeping. I bent over him with a flashlight and noticed that the hare’s left ear was torn. Then I understood everything.
How an elephant saved its owner from a tiger
Boris Zhitkov
The Hindus have tame elephants. One Hindu went with an elephant into the forest to collect firewood. 
The forest was deaf and wild. The elephant trampled the owner's path and helped to cut down trees, and the owner loaded them onto the elephant.
Suddenly the elephant stopped obeying its owner, began to look around, shake its ears, and then raised its trunk and roared.
The owner also looked around, but did not notice anything.
He became angry with the elephant and hit its ears with a branch.
And the elephant bent its trunk with a hook to lift its owner onto its back. The owner thought: “I’ll sit on his neck - this way it will be even more convenient for me to rule over him.”
He sat on the elephant and began to whip the elephant on the ears with a branch. And the elephant backed away, trampled and twirled its trunk. Then he froze and became wary.
The owner raised a branch to hit the elephant with all his might, but suddenly a huge tiger jumped out of the bushes. He wanted to attack the elephant from behind and jump on its back.
But he got his paws on the firewood, and the firewood fell down. The tiger wanted to jump another time, but the elephant had already turned, grabbed the tiger across the stomach with its trunk, and squeezed it like a thick rope. The tiger opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue and shook his paws.
And the elephant had already lifted him up, then slammed him to the ground and began to trample him with his feet.
And the elephant's legs are like pillars. And the elephant trampled the tiger into a cake. When the owner recovered from his fear, he said:
What a fool I was for beating an elephant! And he saved my life.
The owner took the bread he had prepared for himself from his bag and gave it all to the elephant.
Cat
MM. Prishvin
When I see from the window how Vaska is making his way in the garden, I shout to him in the most gentle voice:
Wow!
And in response, I know, he also screams at me, but my ear is a little tight and I don’t hear, but only see how, after my scream, a pink mouth opens on his white muzzle.
Wow! - I shout to him.
And I guess - he shouts to me:
I'm coming now!
And with a firm, straight tiger step he heads into the house.
In the morning, when the light from the dining room through the half-open door is still only visible as a pale crack, I know that Vaska the cat is sitting right by the door in the dark, waiting for me. He knows that the dining room is empty without me, and he is afraid: in another place he might doze off my entrance to the dining room. He has been sitting here for a long time and, as soon as I bring the kettle in, he rushes towards me with a kind cry.
When I sit down for tea, he sits on my left knee and watches everything: how I crush sugar with tweezers, how I cut bread, how I spread butter. I know that salted butter he doesn't eat, but only takes a small piece of bread if he hasn't caught a mouse at night.
When he is sure that there is nothing tasty on the table - a crust of cheese or a piece of sausage, he sits down on my knee, tramples a little and falls asleep.
After tea, when I get up, he wakes up and goes to the window. There he turns his head in all directions, up and down, counting the dense flocks of jackdaws and crows flying by at this early morning hour. Of everything complex world In the life of a big city, he chooses only birds for himself and rushes entirely towards them.
During the day - birds, and at night - mice, and so he has the whole world: during the day, in the light, the black narrow slits of his eyes, crossing a cloudy green circle, see only birds; at night, his entire black luminous eye opens and sees only mice.
Today the radiators are warm, and that’s why the window fogged up a lot, and the cat had a very bad time counting ticks. So what do you think my cat! He stood up on his hind legs, his front legs on the glass and, well, wipe, well, wipe! When he rubbed it and it became clearer, he again sat down calmly, like porcelain, and again, counting the jackdaws, began to move his head up, down, and to the sides.
During the day - birds, at night - mice, and this is Vaska's whole world.
Cat Thief
Konstantin Paustovsky
We were in despair. We didn't know how to catch this red cat. He stole from us every night. He hid so cleverly that none of us really saw him. Only a week later it was finally possible to establish that the cat’s ear was torn and a piece of his dirty tail was cut off.
It was a cat who had lost all conscience, a cat - a tramp and a bandit. Behind his back they called him Thief.
He stole everything: fish, meat, sour cream and bread. One day he even dug up a tin can of worms in the closet. He didn’t eat them, but the chickens came running to the opened jar and pecked our entire supply of worms.
The overfed chickens lay in the sun and moaned. We walked around them and argued, but fishing was still disrupted.
We spent almost a month tracking down the ginger cat. The village boys helped us with this. One day they rushed in and, out of breath, said that at dawn a cat had rushed, crouching, through the vegetable gardens and dragged a kukan with perches in its teeth.
We rushed to the cellar and discovered that the kukan was missing; on it were ten fat perches caught on Prorva.
This was no longer theft, but robbery in broad daylight. We vowed to catch the cat and beat him up for gangster tricks.
The cat was caught that same evening. He stole a piece of liverwurst from the table and climbed up a birch tree with it.
We started shaking the birch tree. The cat dropped the sausage and it fell on Reuben's head. The cat looked at us from above with wild eyes and howled menacingly.
But there was no salvation, and the cat decided on a desperate act. With a terrifying howl, he fell from the birch tree, fell to the ground, bounced up like a soccer ball, and rushed under the house.
The house was small. He stood in a remote, abandoned garden. Every night we were awakened by the sound of wild apples falling from the branches onto his plank roof.
The house was littered with fishing rods, shot, apples and dry leaves. We only spent the night in it. All days, from dawn to dark,
We spent time on the banks of countless streams and lakes. There we fished and made fires in the coastal thickets.
To get to the shores of the lakes, one had to trample down narrow paths in the fragrant tall grasses. Their corollas swayed above their heads and showered their shoulders with yellow flower dust.
We returned in the evening, scratched by rose hips, tired, burned by the sun, with bundles of silvery fish, and each time we were greeted with stories about the new tramp antics of the red cat.
But finally the cat was caught. He crawled under the house into the only narrow hole. There was no way out.
We blocked the hole with an old net and began to wait. But the cat didn't come out. He howled disgustingly, like an underground spirit, howled continuously and without any fatigue. An hour passed, two, three... It was time to go to bed, but the cat howled and cursed under the house, and it got on our nerves.
Then Lenka, the son of the village shoemaker, was called. Lenka was famous for his fearlessness and agility. He was tasked with getting the cat out from under the house.
Lenka took a silk fishing line, tied a fish caught during the day to it by the tail, and threw it through the hole into the underground.
The howling stopped. We heard a crunch and a predatory click as the cat grabbed the fish’s head with its teeth. He grabbed with a death grip. Lenka pulled the fishing line. The cat desperately resisted, but Lenka was stronger, and, besides, the cat did not want to release the tasty fish.
A minute later, the cat’s head with flesh clamped in its teeth appeared in the hole of the manhole.
Lenka grabbed the cat by the collar and lifted him off the ground. We took a good look at it for the first time.
The cat closed his eyes and laid back his ears. He tucked his tail under himself just in case. It turned out to be a skinny, despite the constant theft, fiery red stray cat with white markings on his stomach.
What should we do with it?
Rip it out! - I said.
It won’t help,” said Lenka. - He has had this character since childhood. Try to feed him properly.
The cat waited, closing his eyes.
We followed this advice, dragged the cat into the closet and gave him a wonderful dinner: fried pork, perch aspic, cottage cheese and sour cream.
The cat ate for more than an hour. He came out of the closet staggering, sat down on the threshold and washed himself, looking at us and at the low stars with green, impudent eyes.
After washing, he snorted for a long time and rubbed his head on the floor. This was obviously supposed to mean fun. We were afraid that he would rub the fur on the back of his head.
Then the cat rolled over onto his back, caught his tail, chewed it, spat it out, stretched out by the stove and snored peacefully.
From that day on, he settled in with us and stopped stealing.
The next morning he even performed a noble and unexpected act.
The chickens climbed onto the table in the garden and, pushing each other and quarreling, began to peck buckwheat porridge from the plates.
The cat, trembling with indignation, crept up to the chickens and jumped onto the table with a short cry of victory.
The chickens took off with a desperate cry. They overturned the jug of milk and rushed, losing their feathers, to run away from the garden.
A long-legged fool rooster, nicknamed “Gorlach,” rushed ahead, hiccupping.
The cat rushed after him on three legs, and with its fourth, front paw it hit the rooster on the back. Dust and fluff flew from the rooster. Inside him, with each blow, something thumped and hummed, as if a cat was hitting a rubber ball.
After this, the rooster lay in a fit for several minutes, his eyes rolled back, and moaned quietly. They poured cold water on him and he walked away.
Since then, chickens have been afraid to steal. Seeing the cat, they hid under the house, squeaking and jostling.
The cat walked around the house and garden like a master and watchman. He rubbed his head against our legs. He demanded gratitude, leaving tufts of red fur on our trousers.
We renamed him from Thief to Policeman. Although Reuben argued that this was not entirely convenient, we were sure that the police would not be offended by us for this.
Mug under the Christmas tree
Boris Zhitkov
The boy took a net - a wicker net - and went to the lake to catch fish.
He was the first to catch a blue fish. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the fish’s tail is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.
The boy took a mug, a small mug made of thin glass. He scooped some water from the lake into a mug, put the fish in the mug - let it swim for now.
The fish gets angry, fights, breaks out, and the boy quickly grabs it - bang!
The boy quietly took the fish by the tail, threw it into the mug - it was completely out of sight. He ran on himself.
“Here,” he thinks, “wait, I’ll catch a fish, a big crucian carp.”
The first one to catch a fish will be a great guy. Just don’t grab it right away, don’t swallow it: there are prickly fish - ruff, for example. Bring it, show it. I myself will tell you which fish to eat and which to spit out.
The ducklings flew and swam in all directions. And one swam the farthest. He climbed out onto the shore, shook himself off and began to waddle. What if there are fish on the shore? He sees that there is a mug under the Christmas tree. There is water in a mug. “Let me take a look.”
The fish are rushing about in the water, splashing, poking, there is nowhere to get out - there is glass everywhere. The duckling came up and saw - oh, yes, fish! He took the biggest one and picked it up. And hurry to your mother.
“I’m probably the first. I was the first to catch the fish, and I’m great.”
The fish is red, white feathers, two antennae hanging from its mouth, dark stripes on the sides, and a spot on its comb like a black eye.
The duckling flapped its wings and flew along the shore - straight to its mother.
The boy sees a duck flying, flying low, right above his head, holding a fish in its beak, a red fish as long as a finger. The boy shouted at the top of his lungs:
This is my fish! Thief duck, give it back now!
He waved his arms, threw stones, and screamed so terribly that he scared away all the fish.
The duckling got scared and screamed:
Quack quack!
He shouted “quack-quack” and lost the fish.
The fish swam into the lake, into deep water, waved its feathers, and swam home.
“How can you return to your mother with an empty beak?” - thought the duckling, turned back and flew under the Christmas tree.
He sees that there is a mug under the Christmas tree. A small mug, in the mug there is water, and in the water there are fish.
The duckling ran up and quickly grabbed the fish. A blue fish with a golden tail. Blue, shiny, with red feathers, with round eyes. The eyes are like buttons. And the fish’s tail is just like silk: blue, thin, golden hairs.
The duckling flew higher and closer to its mother.
“Well, now I won’t scream, I won’t open my beak. Once I was already gaping."
Here you can see mom. It's already very close. And mom shouted:
Quack, what are you talking about?
Quack, this is a fish, blue, gold, - there is a glass mug under the Christmas tree.
So again the beak opened, and the fish splashed into the water! A blue fish with a golden tail. She shook her tail, whined and walked, walked, walked deeper.
The duckling turned back, flew under the tree, looked into the mug, and in the mug there was a small, small fish, no bigger than a mosquito, you could barely see the fish. The duckling pecked into the water and flew back home with all his might.
Where's your fish? - asked the duck. - I can not see anything.
But the duckling is silent and does not open its beak. He thinks: “I’m cunning! Wow, how cunning I am! Cunningest of all! I’ll be silent, otherwise I’ll open my beak and miss the fish. Dropped it twice."
And the fish in its beak beats like a thin mosquito and crawls into the throat. The duckling got scared: “Oh, I think I’ll swallow it now!” Oh, I think I swallowed it!”
The brothers arrived. Everyone has a fish. Everyone swam up to mom and poked their beaks. And the duck shouts to the duckling:
Well, now show me what you brought! The duckling opened its beak, but there was no fish.
Mitya's friends
Georgy Skrebitsky
In winter, in the December cold, a moose cow and her calf spent the night in a dense aspen forest. It's starting to get light. The sky turned pink, and the forest, covered with snow, stood all white, silent. Fine shiny frost settled on the branches and on the backs of the moose. The moose were dozing.
Suddenly, somewhere very close, the crunch of snow was heard. The moose became wary. Something gray flashed among the snow-covered trees. One moment - and the moose were already rushing away, breaking the icy crust of the crust and getting stuck knee-deep in deep snow. The wolves were chasing them. They were lighter than moose and galloped across the crust without falling through. With every second the animals are getting closer and closer.
The moose could no longer run. The elk calf stayed close to its mother. A little more - and the gray robbers will catch up and tear both of them apart.
Ahead is a clearing, a fence near the forest guardhouse, and a wide open gate.
The moose stopped: where to go? But behind, very close, the crunch of snow was heard - the wolves were overtaking. Then the moose cow, gathering the rest of her strength, rushed straight into the gate, the calf following her.
The forester's son Mitya was shoveling snow in the yard. He barely jumped to the side - the moose almost knocked him down.
Moose!.. What's wrong with them, where are they from?
Mitya ran up to the gate and involuntarily stepped back: there were wolves right at the gate.
A shiver ran down the boy’s back, but he immediately swung his shovel and shouted:
Here I am!
The animals scurried away.
Atu, atu!.. - Mitya shouted after them, jumping out of the gate.
Having driven away the wolves, the boy looked into the yard. A moose cow and a calf stood huddled in the far corner of the barn.
Look how scared they were, everything is trembling... - Mitya said affectionately. - Do not be afraid. Now it won't be touched.
And he, carefully moving away from the gate, ran home - to tell what guests had rushed into their yard.
And the moose stood in the yard, recovered from their fright and went back into the forest. Since then, they stayed in the forest near the lodge all winter.
In the morning, walking on the way to school, Mitya often saw moose from afar on the forest edge.
Having noticed the boy, they did not rush away, but only watched him closely, pricking up their huge ears.
Mitya cheerfully nodded his head at them, like old friends, and ran further into the village.
On an unknown path
N.I. Sladkov
I had to walk on different paths: bear, boar, wolf. I walked along rabbit paths and even bird paths. But this was the first time I had walked such a path. This path was cleared and trampled by ants.
On animal trails I unraveled animal secrets. Will I see anything on this trail?
I did not walk along the path itself, but nearby. The path is too narrow - like a ribbon. But for the ants it was, of course, not a ribbon, but a wide highway. And many, many Muravyov ran along the highway. They dragged flies, mosquitoes, horseflies. The transparent wings of the insects glittered. It seemed that a trickle of water was pouring between the blades of grass along the slope.
I walk along the ant trail and count my steps: sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five steps... Wow! These are my big ones, but how many ants are there?! Only at the seventieth step did the trickle disappear under the stone. Serious trail.
I sat down on a stone to rest. I sit and watch the living vein beat under my feet. The wind blows - ripples along a living stream. The sun will shine and the stream will sparkle.
Suddenly, it was as if a wave rushed along the ant road. The snake swerved along it and - dive! - under the stone on which I was sitting. I even pulled my leg back - it was probably a harmful viper. Well, rightly so - now the ants will neutralize it.
I knew that ants boldly attack snakes. They will stick around the snake and all that will remain is scales and bones. I even decided to take the skeleton of this snake and show it to the guys.
I'm sitting, waiting. A living stream beats and beats underfoot. Well, now it's time! I carefully lift the stone so as not to damage the snake skeleton. There is a snake under the stone. But not dead, but alive and not at all like a skeleton! On the contrary, she became even thicker! The snake, which was supposed to be eaten by the ants, calmly and slowly ate the Ants itself. She pressed them with her muzzle and pulled them into her mouth with her tongue. This snake was not a viper. I have never seen such snakes before. The scales are like sandpaper, fine, the top and bottom are the same. Looks more like a worm than a snake.
An amazing snake: it raised its blunt tail up, moved it from side to side, like its head, and suddenly crawled forward with its tail! But the eyes are not visible. Either a snake with two heads, or without a head at all! And it eats something - ants!
The skeleton didn't come out, so I took the snake. At home I looked at it in detail and determined the name. I found her eyes: small, with pin head, under the scales. That's why they call it the blind snake. She lives in burrows underground. She doesn't need eyes there. But crawling either with your head or your tail forward is convenient. And she can dig the ground.
This is the unprecedented beast that the unknown path led me to.
What can I say! Every path leads somewhere. Just don’t be lazy to go.
Autumn is on the doorstep
N.I. Sladkov
Forest dwellers! - the wise Raven shouted one morning. - Autumn is at the threshold of the forest, is everyone ready for its arrival?
Ready, ready, ready...
But we'll check it now! - Raven croaked. - First of all, autumn will let the cold into the forest - what will you do?
The animals responded:
We, squirrels, hares, foxes, will change into winter coats!
We, badgers, raccoons, will hide in warm holes!
We, hedgehogs, bats, will fall into a deep sleep!
The birds responded:
We, the migratory ones, will fly away to warmer lands!
We, sedentary people, will put on down padded jackets!
Secondly, - the Raven shouts, - autumn will begin to rip off the leaves from the trees!
Let him rip it off! - the birds responded. - The berries will be more visible!
Let him rip it off! - the animals responded. - It will become quieter in the forest!
The third thing, - the Raven does not let up, - autumn will click the last insects with frost!
The birds responded:
And we, blackbirds, will fall on the rowan tree!
And we, woodpeckers, will begin to peel the cones!
And we, goldfinches, will get to the weeds!
The animals responded:
And we will sleep more peacefully without mosquito flies!
The fourth thing,” the Raven buzzes, “autumn will become boring!” He will catch up with dark clouds, let down tedious rains, and incite dreary winds. The day will be shortened, the sun will be hidden in your bosom!
Let him pester himself! - the birds and animals responded in unison. - You won’t keep us bored! What do we care about rain and wind when we
in fur coats and down jackets! Let's be well-fed - we won't get bored!
The wise Raven wanted to ask something else, but he waved his wing and took off.
He flies, and under him is a forest, multi-colored, motley - autumn.
Autumn has already crossed the threshold. But it didn’t scare anyone at all.
Hunting for a butterfly
MM. Prishvin
Zhulka, my young marbled blue hunting dog, runs like crazy after birds, after butterflies, even after large flies until the hot breath throws her tongue out of her mouth. But that doesn't stop her either.
Today there was such a story in front of everyone.
The yellow cabbage butterfly caught my eye. Giselle rushed after her, jumped and missed. The butterfly continued to move. The crook is behind her - hap! At least there’s something for the butterfly: it flies, flutters, as if laughing.
Hap! - past. Hap, hap! - past and past.
Hap, hap, hap - and there is no butterfly in the air.
Where is our butterfly? There was excitement among the children. "Ahah!" - that was all I could hear.
The butterfly is not in the air, the cabbage plant has disappeared. Giselle herself stands motionless, like wax, turning her head up, down, and sideways in surprise.
Where is our butterfly?
At this time, hot steam began to press inside Zhulka’s mouth - dogs don’t have sweat glands. The mouth opened, the tongue fell out, steam escaped, and along with the steam a butterfly flew out and, as if nothing had happened to it at all, fluttered about over the meadow.
Zhulka was so exhausted with this butterfly, it was probably so difficult for her to hold her breath with the butterfly in her mouth, that now, having seen the butterfly, she suddenly gave up. With her long, pink tongue hanging out, she stood and looked at the flying butterfly with eyes that immediately became small and stupid.
The children pestered us with the question:
Well, why doesn’t a dog have sweat glands?
We didn't know what to tell them.
Schoolboy Vasya Veselkin answered them:
If dogs had glands and they didn’t have to laugh, they would have caught and eaten all the butterflies a long time ago.
Under the snow
N.I. Sladkov
Snow poured out and covered the ground. The various small fry were happy that no one would find them under the snow now. One animal even boasted:
Guess who I am? Looks like a mouse, not a mouse. The size of a rat, not a rat. I live in the forest, and I’m called Vole. I am a water vole, or simply a water rat. Even though I am a merman, I am not sitting in the water, but under the snow. Because in winter all the water froze. I’m not the only one sitting under the snow now; many have become snowdrops for the winter. We've waited for carefree days. Now I’ll run to my pantry and pick out the biggest potato...
Here, from above, a black beak pokes through the snow: in front, behind, on the side! Vole bit her tongue, shrank and closed her eyes.
It was the Raven who heard the Vole and began to poke his beak into the snow. He walked above, poked, and listened.
Did you hear it, or what? - muttered. And he flew away.
The vole took a breath and whispered to herself:
Phew, how nice it smells like mouse meat!
Vole rushed backwards with all her short legs. I barely escaped. I caught my breath and thought: “I’ll be silent - the Raven won’t find me. What about Lisa? Maybe roll out in the grass dust to fight off the mouse spirit? I will do so. And I’ll live in peace, no one will find me.”
And from the snorkel - Laska!
“I found you,” he says. He says this affectionately, and her eyes shoot out green sparkles. And the little white teeth shine. - I found you, Vole!
A vole in a hole - Weasel follows it. Vole in the snow - and Weasel in the snow, Vole in the snow - and Weasel in the snow. I barely escaped.
Only in the evening - without breathing! - Vole crept into her pantry and there - with a look around, listening and sniffing! - I chewed a potato from the edge. And I was glad about that. And she no longer boasted that her life under the snow was carefree. And keep your ears open under the snow, and there they will hear and smell you.
About the elephant
Boris Zhidkov
We were approaching India by boat. They were supposed to come in the morning. I changed my shift, was tired and couldn’t fall asleep: I kept thinking about how it would be there. It’s like if, as a child, they brought me a whole box of toys and only tomorrow I can uncork it. I kept thinking - in the morning, I’ll immediately open my eyes - and Indians, black, will come around, muttering incomprehensibly, not like in the picture. Bananas right on the bush
the city is new - everything will move and play. And elephants! The main thing is that I wanted to see the elephants. I still couldn’t believe that they weren’t there like in the zoological department, but were simply walking around and carrying things around: suddenly such a huge mass was rushing down the street!
I couldn’t sleep; my legs were itching with impatience. After all, you know, when you travel by land, it’s not at all the same: you see how everything gradually changes. And then for two weeks there was the ocean - water and water - and immediately a new country. It's like the curtain has been raised in a theater.
The next morning they stamped on the deck and began to buzz. I rushed to the porthole, to the window - it was ready: the white city stood on the shore; port, ships, near the side of the boat: they are black in white turbans - their teeth are shining, they are shouting something; the sun is shining with all its might, pressing, it seems, pressing with light. Then I went crazy, I literally suffocated: as if I was not me and it was all a fairy tale. I haven't wanted to eat anything since the morning. Dear comrades, I will stand two watches at sea for you - let me go ashore as soon as possible.
The two of them jumped out onto the shore. In the port, in the city, everything is seething, boiling, people are milling around, and we are like crazy and don’t know what to look at, and we don’t walk, as if something is carrying us (and even after the sea it’s always strange to walk along the shore). We look - a tram. We got on the tram, we didn’t really know why we were going, just to keep going – we went crazy. The tram rushes us along, we stare around and don’t notice that we have reached the outskirts. It doesn't go any further. We got out. Road. Let's go along the road. Let's come somewhere!
Here we calmed down a little and noticed that it was very hot. The sun is above the crown itself; the shadow does not fall from you, but the whole shadow is under you: you walk and trample on your shadow.
We've already walked quite a distance, there are no more people to meet, we look - an elephant is approaching. There are four guys with him, running along the road. I couldn’t believe my eyes: I hadn’t seen one in the city, but here it was just walking along the road. It seemed to me that I had escaped from the zoological. The elephant saw us and stopped. We felt terrified: there was no one big with him, the guys were alone. Who knows what's on his mind. Moves its trunk once - and it's done.
And the elephant probably thought this about us: some extraordinary, unknown people are coming - who knows? And so he did. Now he bent his trunk with a hook, the older boy stood on this hook, like on a step, holding the trunk with his hand, and the elephant carefully sent it onto his head. He sat there between his ears, as if on a table.
Then the elephant, in the same order, sent two more at once, and the third was small, probably about four years old - he was only wearing a short shirt, like a bra. The elephant offers its trunk to him - go, sit down. And he does all sorts of tricks, laughs, runs away. The elder shouts to him from above, and he jumps and teases - you won’t take it, they say. The elephant did not wait, lowered his trunk and walked away - pretending that he did not want to look at his tricks. He walks, sways his trunk rhythmically, and the boy curls around his legs and makes faces. And just when he was not expecting anything, the elephant suddenly grabbed his trunk! Yes, so clever! He caught him by the back of his shirt and lifted him up carefully. With his arms and legs, like a bug. No way! None for you. The elephant picked it up, carefully lowered it onto its head, and there the guys accepted it. He was there, on an elephant, still trying to fight.
We caught up, walking along the side of the road, and the elephant was on the other side, looking at us carefully and cautiously. And the guys also stare at us and whisper among themselves. They sit, as if at home, on the roof.
This, I think, is great: they have nothing to fear there. Even if a tiger were to come across, the elephant would catch the tiger, grab it across the stomach with its trunk, squeeze it, throw it higher than a tree, and, if it didn’t catch it with its tusks, it would still trample it with its feet until it was trampled into a cake.
And then he picked up the boy like a booger, with two fingers: carefully and carefully.
An elephant passed us: we looked, it turned off the road and ran into the bushes. The bushes are dense, prickly, and grow like walls. And he - through them, like through weeds - only the branches crunch - climbed over and went to the forest. He stopped near a tree, took a branch with his trunk and bent it down to the guys. They immediately jumped to their feet, grabbed a branch and robbed something from it. And the little one jumps up, tries to grab it for himself, fidgets as if he were not on an elephant, but standing on the ground. The elephant let go of a branch and bent another one. Same story again. Here the little one, apparently, has stepped into the role: he completely climbed onto this branch so that he too would get it, and he works. Everyone finished, the elephant let go of the branch, and the little one, lo and behold, flew off with the branch. Well, we think he disappeared - now he flew like a bullet into the forest. We rushed there. No, where is it going? Do not get through the bushes: prickly, and dense, and tangled. We look, an elephant is rummaging through the leaves with its trunk. I felt for this little one - he was apparently clinging on there like a monkey - took him out and put him in his place. Then the elephant walked onto the road in front of us and walked back. We're behind him. He walks and from time to time looks around, looks sideways at us: why, they say, are some people walking behind us? So we came to the house to get the elephant. There is a fence around. The elephant opened the gate with its trunk and carefully poked its head into the yard; there he lowered the guys to the ground. In the yard, a Hindu woman started shouting something at him. She didn't notice us right away. And we stand, looking through the fence.
The Hindu woman yells at the elephant, - the elephant reluctantly turned and went to the well. There are two pillars dug in at the well, and a view between them; there is a rope wound on it and a handle on the side. We look, the elephant took the handle with its trunk and began to twirl it: it twirled it as if it was empty, and pulled it out - there was a whole tub there on a rope, ten buckets. The elephant rested the root of its trunk on the handle to prevent it from spinning, bent its trunk, picked up the tub and, like a mug of water, placed it on the side of the well. The woman fetched water and made the boys carry it too - she was just doing the laundry. The elephant lowered the tub again and twisted the full one up.
The hostess began to scold him again. The elephant put the tub into the well, shook his ears and walked away - he didn’t get any more water, he went under the canopy. And there, in the corner of the yard, a canopy was built on flimsy posts - just enough for an elephant to crawl under it. There are reeds and some long leaves thrown on top.
Here it’s just an Indian, the owner himself. He saw us. We say - we came to see the elephant. The owner knew a little English and asked who we were; everything points to my Russian cap. I say Russians. And he didn’t even know what Russians were.
Not the British?
No, I say, not the British.
He was happy, laughed, and immediately became different: he called to him.
But Indians cannot stand the British: the British conquered their country long ago, rule there and keep the Indians under their thumb.
I'm asking:
Why doesn't the elephant come out?
And he, he says, was offended, and that means it was not in vain. Now he won’t work for anything until he leaves.
We look, the elephant came out from under the canopy, through the gate - and away from the yard. We think it will go away completely now. And the Indian laughs. The elephant went to the tree, leaned on its side and, well, rubbed. The tree is healthy - everything is just shaking. He itches like a pig against a fence.
He scratched himself, collected dust in his trunk and, wherever he scratched, dust and earth as he blew! Once, and again, and again! He cleans this so that nothing gets stuck in the folds: all his skin is hard, like a sole, and in the folds it is thinner, and in the southern countries there are a lot of all kinds of biting insects.
After all, look at him: he doesn’t itch on the posts in the barn, so as not to fall apart, he even carefully makes his way there, but goes to the tree to itch. I say to the Hindu:
How smart he is!
And he laughs.
Well,” he says, “if I had lived for one and a half hundred years, I would have learned the wrong thing.” And he,” he points to the elephant, “baby-sat my grandfather.”
I looked at the elephant - it seemed to me that it was not the Hindu who was the master here, but the elephant, the elephant was the most important one here.
I speak:
Is it your old one?
No,” he says, “he’s one hundred and fifty years old, he’s just in time!” I have a little elephant over there, his son, he’s twenty years old, just a child. By the age of forty, one begins to gain strength. Just wait, the elephant will come, you will see: he is small.
A mother elephant came, and with her a baby elephant - the size of a horse, without tusks; he followed his mother like a foal.
The Hindu boys rushed to help their mother, began jumping and getting ready somewhere. The elephant also went; the elephant and the baby elephant are with them. The Hindu explains that he is on the river. We are also with the guys.
They didn't shy away from us. Everyone tried to speak - they in their own way, we in Russian - and laughed all the way. The little one pestered us the most - he kept putting on my cap and shouting something funny - maybe about us.
The air in the forest is fragrant, spicy, thick. We walked through the forest. We came to the river.
Not a river, but a stream - fast, it rushes, it gnaws at the shore. To the water there is a cut off a yard long. The elephants entered the water and took the baby elephant with them. They put him where the water was up to his chest, and the two of them began to wash him. They will collect sand and water from the bottom into the trunk and, as if from a gut, water it. It's great - only the splashes fly.
And the guys are afraid to get into the water - the current is too fast and will carry them away. They jump on the shore and throw stones at the elephant. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t even pay attention - he keeps washing his baby elephant. Then, I look, he took some water into his trunk and suddenly he turned towards the boys and blew a stream straight into the belly of one - he sat down. He laughs and bursts out.
The elephant washes his own again. And the guys pester him even more with pebbles. The elephant just shakes his ears: don’t pester me, you see, there’s no time to play around! And just when the boys weren’t waiting, they thought he would blow water on the baby elephant, he immediately turned his trunk towards them.
They are happy and tumble.
The elephant came ashore; The baby elephant extended its trunk to him like a hand. The elephant intertwined its trunk with his and helped him climb out onto the cliff.
Everyone went home: three elephants and four children.
The next day I asked where I could see elephants at work.
At the edge of the forest, near the river, a whole city of hewn logs is fenced in: the stacks stand, each as high as a hut. There was one elephant standing right there. And it was immediately clear that he was quite an old man - his skin was completely sagging and stiff, and his trunk was dangling like a rag. The ears are kind of chewed off. I see from walking through the forest another elephant. A log is swinging in its trunk - a huge hewn beam. There must be a hundred pounds. The porter waddles heavily and approaches the old elephant. The old man picks up the log from one end, and the porter lowers the log and moves his trunk to the other end. I look: what are they going to do? And the elephants together, as if on command, lifted the log up on their trunks and carefully placed it on the stack. Yes, so smoothly and correctly - like a carpenter on a construction site.
And not a single person around them.
I later found out that this old elephant is the main worker of the artel: he has already grown old in this work.
The porter walked slowly into the forest, and the old man hung up his trunk, turned his back to the stack and began to look at the river, as if he wanted to say: “I’m tired of this, and I wouldn’t look.”
And the third elephant with a log is already coming out of the forest. We are going to where the elephants came from.
It’s downright embarrassing to tell you what we saw here. Elephants from the forest workings carried these logs to the river. In one place near the road there are two trees on the sides, so much so that an elephant with a log cannot pass. The elephant will reach this place, lower the log to the ground, tuck his knees, tuck his trunk, and with his very nose, the very root of his trunk, pushes the log forward. The earth and stones fly, the log rubs and plows the earth, and the elephant crawls and kicks. You can see how difficult it is for him to crawl on his knees. Then he gets up, catches his breath and doesn’t immediately take up the log. Again he will turn him across the road, again on his knees. He puts his trunk on the ground and rolls the log onto the trunk with his knees. How can the trunk not crush! Look, he's already up and running again. The log on its trunk swings like a heavy pendulum.
There were eight of them - all elephant porters - and each had to push the log with his nose: people did not want to cut down the two trees that stood on the road.
It became unpleasant for us to watch the old man straining at the stack, and we felt sorry for the elephants that were crawling on their knees. We stayed for a short time and left.
Fluff
Georgy Skrebitsky
There was a hedgehog living in our house; he was tame. When they stroked him, he pressed the thorns to his back and became completely soft. For this we nicknamed him Fluff.
If Fluffy was hungry, he would chase me like a dog. At the same time, the hedgehog puffed, snorted and bit my legs, demanding food.
In the summer I took Pushka for a walk in the garden. He ran along the paths, caught frogs, beetles, snails and ate them with appetite.
When winter came, I stopped taking Fluffy for walks and kept him at home. We now fed Cannon with milk, soup, and soaked bread. Sometimes a hedgehog would eat enough, climb behind the stove, curl up in a ball and sleep. And in the evening he will get out and start running around the rooms. He runs around all night, stomps his paws, and disturbs everyone's sleep. So he lived in our house for more than half the winter and never went outside.
But one day I was getting ready to sled down the mountain, but there were no comrades in the yard. I decided to take Cannon with me. He took out a box, laid it with hay and put the hedgehog in it, and to make it warmer, he also covered it with hay on top. He put the box in the sled and ran to the pond where we always slid down the mountain.
I ran at full speed, imagining myself as a horse, and was carrying Pushka in a sled.
It was very good: the sun was shining, the frost stung my ears and nose. But the wind had completely died down, so that the smoke from the village chimneys did not billow, but rose into the sky in straight columns.
I looked at these pillars, and it seemed to me that this was not smoke at all, but thick blue ropes were coming down from the sky and small toy houses were tied to them by pipes below.
I rode my fill from the mountain and took the sled with the hedgehog home.
As I was driving, suddenly I met some guys: they were running to the village to look at the dead wolf. The hunters had just brought him there.
I quickly put the sled in the barn and also rushed to the village after the guys. We stayed there until the evening. They watched how the skin was removed from the wolf and how it was straightened out on a wooden spear.
I only remembered about Pushka the next day. I was very scared that he had run away somewhere. He immediately rushed into the barn, to the sled. I look - my Fluff lies curled up in a box and does not move. No matter how much I shook or shook him, he didn’t even move. During the night, apparently, he completely froze and died.
I ran to the guys and told them about my misfortune. We all grieved together, but there was nothing to do, and decided to bury Pushka in the garden, burying him in the snow in the very box in which he died.
For a whole week we all grieved for poor Fluffy. And then they gave me a live owl - he was caught in our barn. He was wild. We began to tame him and forgot about Cannon.
But spring has come, and how warm it is! One morning I went to the garden: it’s especially nice there in the spring - the finches are singing, the sun is shining, there are huge puddles all around, like lakes. I make my way carefully along the path so as not to scoop mud into my galoshes. Suddenly, ahead, in a pile of last year’s leaves, something moved. I stopped. Who is this animal? Which? A familiar face appeared from under the dark leaves, and black eyes looked straight at me.
Without remembering myself, I rushed to the animal. A second later I was already holding Fluffy in my hands, and he sniffed my fingers, snorted and poked my palm with his cold nose, demanding food.
Right there on the ground lay a thawed box of hay, in which Fluff had happily slept all winter. I picked up the box, put the hedgehog in it and brought it home in triumph.
Guys and ducklings
MM. Prishvin
A small wild teal duck finally decided to move her ducklings from the forest, bypassing the village, into the lake to freedom. In the spring, this lake overflowed far and a solid place for a nest could only be found about three miles away, on a hummock, in a swampy forest. And when the water subsided, we had to travel all three miles to the lake.
In places open to the eyes of man, fox and hawk, the mother walked behind so as not to let the ducklings out of sight for a minute. And near the forge, when crossing the road, she, of course, let them go ahead. That’s where the guys saw it and threw their hats at me. All the time while they were catching the ducklings, the mother ran after them with an open beak or flew several steps in different directions in the greatest excitement. The guys were just about to throw hats at their mother and catch her like ducklings, but then I approached.
What will you do with the ducklings? - I asked the guys sternly.
They chickened out and replied:
Let's go.
Let's "let it go"! - I said very angrily. - Why did you need to catch them? Where is mother now?
And there he sits! - the guys answered in unison. And they pointed me to a nearby hillock of a fallow field, where the duck was actually sitting with her mouth open in excitement.
Quickly,” I ordered the guys, “go and return all the ducklings to her!”
They even seemed to be delighted at my order and ran straight up the hill with the ducklings. The mother flew away a little and, when the guys left, rushed to save her sons and daughters. In her own way, she quickly said something to them and ran to the oat field. Five ducklings ran after her, and so through the oat field, bypassing the village, the family continued its journey to the lake.
I joyfully took off my hat and, waving it, shouted:
Bon voyage, ducklings!
The guys laughed at me.
Why are you laughing, you fools? - I told the guys. - Do you think it’s so easy for ducklings to get into the lake? Quickly take off all your hats and shout “goodbye”!
And the same hats, dusty on the road while catching ducklings, rose into the air, and the guys all shouted at once:
Goodbye, ducklings!
Blue bast shoe
MM. Prishvin
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 seen in the tracks, the ranger 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 the hare's trail, followed it, and, of course, it led us to one heap of rookery, high as ours. wooden house with 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 started guessing about something in their own way, poking their nose into everything, walking 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 waved only its “flower” to the hunters from the distant bushes.
Brave duckling
Boris Zhitkov
Every morning the housewife brought out a full plate of chopped eggs for the ducklings. She put the plate near the bush and left.
As soon as the ducklings ran up to the plate, suddenly a large dragonfly flew out of the garden and began to circle above them.
She chirped so terribly that the frightened ducklings ran away and hid in the grass. They were afraid that the dragonfly would bite them all.
And the evil dragonfly sat on the plate, tasted the food and then flew away. After this, the ducklings did not come to the plate for the whole day. They were afraid that the dragonfly would fly again. In the evening, the hostess removed the plate and said: “Our ducklings must be sick, for some reason they are not eating anything.” Little did she know that the ducklings went to bed hungry every night.
One day their neighbor came to visit the ducklings, little duckling Alyosha. When the ducklings told him about the dragonfly, he began to laugh.
What brave men! - he said. - I alone will drive away this dragonfly. You'll see tomorrow.
“You are bragging,” said the ducklings, “tomorrow you will be the first to get scared and run.”
The next morning, the hostess, as always, put a plate of chopped eggs on the ground and left.
Well, look, - said the brave Alyosha, - now I will fight with your dragonfly.
As soon as he said this, a dragonfly began to buzz. It flew straight from above onto the plate.
The ducklings wanted to run away, but Alyosha was not afraid. Before the dragonfly had time to sit on the plate, Alyosha grabbed its wing with his beak. She forcibly escaped and flew away with a broken wing.
Since then, she never flew into the garden, and the ducklings ate their fill every day. They not only ate themselves, but also treated the brave Alyosha for saving them from the dragonfly.
Even Basil the Great defined the purpose of animals this way: “One was created to serve people, and another so that he could contemplate the wonders of creation, while another is scary for us, in order to admonish our negligence.” There are many stories about devotion, caring, selflessness and others. spiritual qualities our smaller brothers, who do not think about what to do when their loved ones - children, parents or even owners - need help, but immediately try to provide it. Animals cannot distinguish good from evil, understand who is right and who is wrong, make the right or wrong choice: they act according to instincts passed on by their relatives. But it often turns out that the actions of unreasonable animals touch the heart and make a person endowed with reason think.
The series of books “Reading for the Soul” are collections of stories about the good feelings of animals, their concern for their fellow creatures and devotion to their owners. The author-compiler of the collections, zoopsychologist and writer Tatyana Zhdanova, is sure: studying the behavior of animals is not just interesting, but also very important, because this is another confirmation of how incredibly and wisely everything is thought out in the miracles of Divine creation.
“By their example,” says Tatyana Zhdanova, “animals teach us unaccountable maternal care, devotion, selflessness (and needless to say that the basis modern technology– airplanes, helicopters, tanks – these are the “mechanisms” of the animal world!). And undoubtedly, all those qualities that are inherent in animals only at the level of instinct must be increased in humans.”
Books in the “Reading for the Soul” series accompany good illustrations artists L.B. Petrova and N.A. Gavritskova.
We present to your attention a small selection of stories from the “Reading for the Soul” collections, which we recommend reading with your children. We also recommend visiting the website Smart+Kind, where you can purchase books from the “Reading for the Soul”, “Learning Kind Words” and “Talking Nature” series.
Kitten rescue
There are many facts about how dogs help each other or people in trouble. Much less known are stories of dogs rescuing some other helpless animal. But nevertheless, this is also not uncommon.
Listen to the story of an eyewitness. It is about a dog who, out of compassion, brought back to life a kitten that was drowning in a river.
Having pulled the baby out of the water, she brought him to a man standing on the shore. However, he turned out to be the owner of a kitten who came here with the intention of drowning the poor thing in the river.
The cruel man tried again. And the dog saved the kitten again, but no longer dragged the rescued one to him.
She swam with the unfortunate cub in her teeth to the other shore - to her home. The dog was carried away by the fast current, she was choking - after all, clenching her teeth too much could strangle the kitten.
But the fearless animal managed to overcome the dangerous river.
With the baby in its mouth, the dog came into the kitchen of its owner’s house and placed the wet lump near the warm stove. Since then, the animals have become inseparable.
We are learning more and more about the selfless actions of a variety of dogs - both purebred and mongrel. And it hurts to realize how many of these homeless wonderful animals wander the streets in search of our care and love.
Friendship between animals
Sometimes animals are capable of true friendship.
An interesting story by a naturalist about the friendship of a beautiful young dog and a goose with a broken wing. They never separated. It turned out that while still a puppy, the dog bit the bird’s wing in a game. Since then, they noticed that her attitude towards the crippled gosling became especially favorable. She took him under her wing and protected him from the healthy geese.
Wherever the dog went, the goose followed, and vice versa. With their extraordinary friendship, the friends earned the nickname “lovebirds.”
Feed and protect
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that animals are able to help each other and empathize not only in difficult times, but also in everyday life.
It is not uncommon for dogs to steal food from home to “treat” friends. Here is a funny story about the friendship that united a dog and a horse.
One day the owner noticed that carrots were suspiciously disappearing from a basket full of vegetables. He decided to track down the thief. Imagine his surprise when it turned out that the yard dog was carrying the carrots. Moreover, he did this not in his own interests, but for one of the horses. She invariably met friendly dog joyful grateful neighing.
Or here's a story about an unusual friendship between a cat and its owner's canary. The cat willingly allowed the bird to sit on its back and even play with itself.
But one day the owners saw how their cat, grabbing a canary in its teeth, climbed onto the cabinet with a dissatisfied rumbling. The family members became alarmed and started shouting. But then they discovered that someone else’s cat had climbed into the room, and they appreciated the actions of their own purr. She was able to assess the danger and protect her friend from the stranger.
Stork Law
Even the ancient Greeks noticed that storks are particularly diligent in caring for the weak birds in their flock. They feed them and do not allow their parents to need anything. Moreover, if a stork’s feathers have faded from old age, then the young birds, surrounding their father, warm him with their wings.
Storks do not leave their elderly relatives even when they have a long flight to warmer climes. In flight, the young people support their exhausted parents with their wings on both sides.
That’s why in the distant past, instead of the expression “to repay for good deeds,” they said “to otbuselit” - a stork was then called a busel in Rus'. And the duty of children to take care of their elderly parents was even called the law of storks. And violation of this law was considered an indelible shame and a great sin.
Wise custom among elephants
Young animals can touchingly care for their helpless relatives, showing kindness to their aged parents.
Thus, it is customary among elephants that one day the day comes when the oldest of them leave the herd. They do this, feeling that they are no longer able to keep up with the young people. After all, an elephant herd usually makes quick and long transitions from one pasture to another.
Elephants are by nature not indifferent to the fate of their elderly relatives and surround them with special attention. Therefore, if in his declining years an elephant decides to stop his wanderings and switch to a sedentary lifestyle, assistants remain with him - one or two young elephants.
In case of danger, young animals warn their ward and hide in a shelter. And they themselves boldly rush towards the enemy.
Often elephants accompany an old man until his very last breath. And what is important to note is that the elderly elephant, as if in gratitude for the care, also provides assistance to these young bodyguards. He gradually teaches them the ancient wisdom of elephants.
This is the custom that exists among such large, strong and beautiful animals as elephants.
It may be hard for you to believe that wolves are capable of creating wonderful families, often for life. And at the same time, wolf spouses are very gentle parents. But in the minds of many, wolves are just ferocious predators.
The mother wolf prepares in advance in a remote place a soft and comfortable bed for her future children. Babies are born, like puppies, blind and helpless. Therefore, the she-wolf constantly nurses them and caresses each wolf cub, preventing shocks and falls.
While the wolf cubs are small, the loving mother does not leave them alone for a minute. And then the father becomes the sole breadwinner of a large family. Usually there are up to eight wolf cubs in it. Even if in summer it is possible to successfully hunt near the den, the father wolf goes further away for prey. He knows from birth that there is no need to attract the attention of other animals to his home.
In the absence of a protective father, the she-wolf diligently guards her babies. To do this, her memory stores all the necessary skills and caution. The she-wolf will always notice suspicious tracks in the area in time or smell the dangerous smell of a person. After all, she has a very sensitive sense of smell. Mom knows well that the smell of a hunter can bring trouble to a family. Therefore, she will immediately take the children doggy style by the scruff of the neck and, one by one, drag them to another, safer place. And at the same time, this method of “transportation” does not cause them pain.
When the wolf cubs reach two months of age, their parents begin to teach them hunting techniques. They leave the den with their children and often never return to it.
Grateful seagull
The next story is about the amazing act of a seagull.
One elderly woman loved to walk along the seashore. She happily fed the sea gulls, who were waiting for her in the same place at certain times of her daily walks.
And then one day, while walking, the woman stumbled and fell from a high slope and was badly injured.
Soon the sea gull that always accompanied her to her home sat down next to the victim.
After some time she flew away. It turned out that the seagull headed towards a familiar house, sat down on the windowsill and began desperately beating its beak and wings against the window panes.
This unusual behavior of the seagull attracted the attention of the sister of the injured woman. She realized that the seagull was clearly calling her somewhere. The sister quickly got dressed and followed the bird, which led to the scene of the tragedy. And then the injured woman was saved.
So a grateful seagull responded kindly to a person’s kindness.
Bear training
Since ancient times, people have been well aware of the amazing abilities of bears. And large bazaars and fairs were not complete without performances by gypsies with these trained animals.
The most common act is a dancing bear, which was held by a chain from a ring inserted into its nostrils. At the slightest tension on the chain, the animal experienced pain and submitted.
The preparation of the room was harsh. The captured little cubs were fed and taught to dance. At first they were forced to stand for a long time hind legs, and then, by pulling the pain ring in the nose, they forced me to walk. And every step the baby took was rewarded with food.
The next stage of training was even more ruthless. They heated a sheet of iron, covered it with a thin rug, and led the future artist onto it. The iron burned the bear’s heels, and he involuntarily shifted from foot to foot. And for this he received honey. When he remembered that on this rug he should raise his legs one by one, the number with the dancing bear was ready.
Now there are no such fair performances, and bears are trained as circus performers using the method of the famous Russian trainers the Durov brothers. They created their own school, where they do not hurt animals, but teach them the necessary movements with affection and love.
It is with such training that man and beast understand each other best. To this we must add the natural intelligence of bears. Then the artists quickly learn to perform particularly complex actions.
As a result of this good union of people and animals, you joyfully watch bears in the circus arena. Grateful for human care and love, they show us the most amazing tricks!
Section “About courage and love”
Test work No. 3 Option 1
Main part
Read an excerpt from the text.
One winter, in the snow, I went to Lydia for milk and heard the hostess swearing in the house.
It turns out that Lydia scolded Malka for bringing two puppies. The fry looked into the owner's eyes with bewilderment, guiltily shook her tail and did not understand why she was being scolded so much. I looked under the bench: there, in an old hat with earflaps, two tiny kittens were floundering helplessly.
Lydia scolded Malka for two days, and on the third she said:
Okay, let them live.
Then I heard that one puppy was taken by a tractor driver who often passed through the village. Lydia carried the second one across the river to neighboring village.
One day I saw Malka running along the path from a neighboring village across the river. Alone, alone. He runs home busily, without looking back at anything. Crooked legs just flicker on the white snow. The next day - again. I was surprised: where is she running? Yesevery day and always at the same time. I asked Lydia:
- Where does Malka run every day?
- Yes, feed! - Lydia explained cheerfully. - It runs like this every day, nothing can stop it. I scolded her and locked her in the hut, all in vain. As soon as you turn away, the job is done. Yes, yes, no, she ran to feed her baby.
That's it, I think, Malka! How faithful my mother turned out to be. Every day he runs two kilometers to a strange village, despite any dangers, to feed his son. Not everyone can do this.
(textbook 3rd grade, part 1, p. 93)
- V. I. Belov. Faithful and Malka
- L. N. Tolstoy. Bounce
- V. I. Belov. The fry has done something wrong
- How to say it correctly? This is an excerpt from:
- poems, 2) fairy tales, 3) stories.
- Which phrase describes Malka’s behavior after owner Lydia took one of her puppies to the neighboring village? Tell V the correct answer.
- “... she looked into the owner’s eyes with bewilderment, guiltily shook her tail and did not understand why she was being scolded so much,”
- “...he will always bark at the guest, or even pull him on the leg,”
- “...runs home busily, doesn’t look back at anything. Crooked legs just flicker on the white snow.”
- How does the author feel about Malka’s action? Write briefly about it and explain why you decided this.
- Explain the meaning of the word “wasted.” Find synonyms for it.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Additional part
7. How to say it correctly? This:
1) prose text,
2) poetic text.
9.What can you say about Malka’s character after reading this text? Write about it briefly________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 10. What other stories about Malka have you read? Indicate their name.________________________________________________________________
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Work N2 3 Option 2
Main part
Read the text.
I was returning from hunting and walking along the garden alley. The dog ran ahead of me.
Suddenly she slowed down her steps and began to sneak around, as if sensing game in front of her.
I looked along the alley and saw a young sparrow with yellowness around its beak and down on its head. He fell from the nest (the wind strongly shook the birch trees of the alley) and sat motionless, helplessly spreading his barely sprouted wings.
My dog was slowly approaching him, when suddenly, falling from a nearby tree, an old black-breasted sparrow fell like a stone in front of her muzzle - and all disheveled, distorted, with a desperate and pitiful squeak, he jumped a couple of times in the direction of the toothy open mouth.
He rushed to save, he shielded his brainchild... but his whole small body trembled with horror, his voice grew wild and hoarse, he froze, he sacrificed himself!
What a huge monster the dog must have seemed to him! And yet he could not sit on a high, safe branch... A force stronger than his will threw him out of there.
My Trezor stopped, backed away... Apparently, he recognized this power. I hastened to call the embarrassed dog away and left in awe.
Yes, don't laugh. I was in awe of that small, heroic bird, of its loving impulse.
Love, I thought, is stronger than death and the fear of death. Only by her, only by love does life hold and move.
(textbook 3rd grade, part 1, p. 97)
- Indicate the title and author of the text. Place V next to the selected number.
- V. P. Astafiev. Belogrudka
- L. N. Tolstoy. Bounce
- I. S. Turgenev. Sparrow
- What is the text talking about? Write about it briefly.
- How to say it correctly? This:
- folklore work,
- author's text.
Briefly explain why you decided this way.
- What phrases describe the behavior of an old black-breasted sparrow that fell from a tree right in front of the dog’s face? Tell V the correct answer.
- “... sat motionless, helplessly spreading his barely sprouted wings,”
- “... all disheveled, distorted, with a desperate and pitiful squeak, he jumped a couple of times in the direction of the toothy open mouth,”
- "...embarrassed,...withdrew in awe."
- How does the author feel about the action of the old black-breasted sparrow? Write briefly about this and explain why you think so.
- Explain the meaning of the expression: TRILLED WITH HORROR.
6. ).
- Creation, Universe, God (7.).
LOVE TO THE ANIMALS
February 24 - St. Day Vlasiya(patron of animals). Blasius, Bishop of Sebastia, Hieromartyr. They ask him for the healing of throat diseases and in fear of strangulation with a bone, for help in everyday affairs, for the blessing of God over the house, for the preservation and well-being of livestock, for the abundance of the fruits of the earth. Cm. .According to the initial plan of the Higher Powers, the Earth was intended specifically for the animal kingdom, that is, for many monads who came here with their shelts in order to begin a great creative act: the enlightenment of the materiality of the three-dimensional world. The intervention of Satan distorted this plan, complicated the paths, disfigured destinies, and horribly extended the deadlines. This was achieved mainly because from the very beginning of the organic life of the Earth it was subject to the law of mutual devouring.
Love for animals in the system of life values should come after love for one’s neighbor (woman/man, children...). First, a person must love himself, then his neighbor, and then love can be extended to animals.
The counterbalance to the principle of the spiritual value of love for animals can be called principle of moral duty. Starting from the level of man, the duty of a being towards those below it increases as he ascends further levels. Primitive man already had a duty towards tamed animals. And it did not consist in the fact that a person had to feed and protect them: it was still a simple exchange, a debt in a lower, material, and not in an ethical sense, because for food and shelter a person took from a domestic animal either its labor or milk and wool, or even his life (in the latter case, he, of course, had already violated the natural proportion of metabolism). The ethical duty of primitive man was that he had to love the animal that he tamed and used. The ancient rider who had deep feelings for his horse, the shepherd who showed not only care but also affection for his cattle, the peasant and the hunter who loved his cow or dog - they all fulfilled their ethical duty.
Nurturing animal consciousness is a task entrusted by Nature to one or another human family or individual. Animals in their entirety must be regarded by humanity as students or apprentices of life. Love and compassion are necessary not only for people, but also for animals.
This elementary duty has remained a universal human norm to this day. True, separate high souls, those whom we call the righteous, and the Hindus call with a more precise word - mahatma, high in spirit - understood a new, much higher level of duty, which naturally flowed precisely from their spiritual greatness. The lives of saints are full of stories about the friendship of monks and hermits with bears, wolves, and lions. In other cases, these may be legends, but in others, facts of this kind are recorded historically accurately, for example, in testimonies about the life of St. Francis of Assisi or St. .
Of course, such a level of duty towards animals is characteristic only of the stage of holiness: it cannot be the lot of the majority of humanity in the same way as it was three thousand years ago. But three thousand years is a long time. And there is no justification for the thesis that we are still doomed to remain at the same level of primitive duty as our distant ancestors. If a person, wandering in a cramped and murky animistic world, could already love his horse or dog, for us this, at least, is not enough. Doesn’t the colossal path we have traveled since then oblige us to do more? Are we not able to love those animals from which we do not directly benefit - wild animals, at least those that do not harm us?
Why are the babies of almost all animals so adorable and cute?
Why, not to mention wolf cubs and lion cubs, even piglets and little hyenas do not evoke in us anything other than a kind and touching feeling?
Because the manifestation of the demonic principle in an animal begins only from the minute when it has to enter into the struggle for life, that is, to fall under the law of mutual devouring. The little animals of the Earth resemble those images of animals that they possessed in the adjacent world, from where they first came to our world. Even the snakes in that layer were lovely creatures, cheerful, very playful. They danced, praising God. And they should have become even more beautiful, more intelligent and wiser in this world, if not for Satan.
Today, people show care in a completely different way than before: hairdressers, hotels and even dog and cat studios appear in abundance around, making their lives similar to human ones. The owners happily play this game, without thinking - do the animals themselves need all this? Does such humanization benefit them? When an owner feeds a dog or cat what he eats himself, dresses him up in clothes and puts him to bed, he seems to be replacing his failed relationship with another person.
By forcing their dog or parrot to live an almost human life, people care not so much about his true desires as about their own needs, which for some reason they cannot satisfy. They try, for example, to make up for a lack of tenderness or a lack of self-confidence.
“Discussing the smallest details of their life, character and habits often masks our narcissistic need to be the center of attention,” says psychoanalyst Anna Skavitina, “and is often found in people who find it difficult to talk about themselves.”
The Holy Scripture says: blessed is he who has mercy on livestock (Proverbs 12:10).
One girl went to the lake to get water. The puppy followed her. It was late autumn, the lake was covered with thin ice, and it was dusted with snow. The dog ran across the snow and fell through. He wants to get out, but the ice breaks off. The girl says:
“I wanted to reach her with a rocker, but she got scared and swam further away from me. I had to throw myself into the cold water to catch her and pull her out. I pulled her out, and she rushes towards me with such joy. She runs around, shakes, barks for joy, she jumps and is happy that she saved her. The next day I have a dream. I see the same puppy and he comes up to me and says in a human voice:
"Matronushka! I pray to God for you!"
Global love for animals It is very rare; most often, love for animals is expressed as a person’s preference for one or another animal.
Most of us are capable of experiencing a kind of sympathy, either real affection or aesthetic admiration, for one or another species or individual. In addition, many still have a general compassionate sympathy for animals: the animal world partly owes this sympathy to the fact that in many countries there is even legislation on their protection and a functioning network of voluntary societies that specifically devote themselves to this protection. Combined with such a powerful ally as the utilitarian concern that commercially valuable species are not completely exterminated, this emotional attitude made the establishment of nature reserves possible. And as an exception, some reserves do not have a utilitarian meaning at all - for example, feeding stations for pigeons that exist in many places.
Brahmanism has long prohibited the eating of various types of meat, reduced actual human nutrition to dairy and plant foods, declared the processing of leather and fur to be a sinful and unclean activity, and proclaimed the cow and some other species as sacred animals. And he did great.
The psychological basis of the cow cult was well explained by Gandhi. He pointed out that the cow was in this case is the personification of all living things that are lower than man; humble admiration for her, service to her in the form of disinterested care for her, affection and decoration expresses the religious idea and ethical sense of our duty to this world of living beings, the idea of patronage and help to everything that is weak, inferior, everything that has not yet had time to develop to higher forms; moreover: this is also an expression of an irrational feeling of deep universal human guilt before the animal kingdom, for man stood out from this kingdom at the cost of lagging behind and degrading the weaker. He stood out - and, having stood out, he aggravated his guilt by mercilessly exploiting the weakest; Over the course of centuries, this universal human guilt grew like a snowball, and finally reached immense, incomprehensible proportions.
Glory to the people who managed to rise to such an understanding, not in the minds of a few, but in the conscience of the many!
Animal lovers are a special breed of people with a noble soul, empathic, perhaps a little prone to sentimentality, but with a pure and sympathetic heart.
Russian psychologist Boris LEONIDOV, as a result of many years of observation of people, came to strange conclusions at first glance about the relationship between a person’s preference for one or another animal and his own character.
According to B. Leonidov’s classification, the one who loves DOGS for their loyalty, as a rule, is himself reliable and devoted.
The dog is ready to fulfill a certain role in the family. For example, a watchman or a nanny.
Various reasons lead to people getting a dog. Those who decide to take this step may be open, emotional or reserved people, but they are all united by an increased need for warm, emotional relationships. Dog owners especially value in their pets their ability to be faithful, not dependent on any external circumstances.
What do dogs teach us? Be aware of the situation before starting a relationship. The dog is an attentive observer, surprisingly sensitive to the most varied emotions and intentions of people. Once in a new team, the dog needs some time to understand how the roles are distributed here, who is the leader, who is the breadwinner, who will play and walk with it. And only after being oriented in the system of relations between people, the dog establishes its own special relationship with each member of the team individually. Her tact and ability to connect with people based on their individual characteristics and preferences is truly something to learn from.
If only men could love like dogs, the world would be a paradise." - James Douglas
Considered a symbol of independence, CATS are preferred by those who also strive for maximum independence, and even emphasize that they do not need anyone.
The cat is unobtrusive in communication, she carefully doses the signs of her love and decides for herself what to do.
The common stereotype that attributes the characteristics of a loner dreamer to a cat lover is not so far from the truth. To live in harmony with her, the owner must respect her territory and the rhythm of life, and this presupposes in him a tendency to think rather than to act.
What do cats teach us? Live and let live. The cat knows what it wants and unerringly chooses what really suits it best. That is why many tend to consider her cold and selfish. But this is not true: a cat is a very sensitive creature, and its attachment to its owner, although not as obvious as that of a dog, makes it a loyal friend, ready to support and reassure - mainly through gentle touches. Thus, the cat gives us an excellent lesson in how we can maintain a balance between our own interests and the needs of others.
The Egyptians considered the cat to be the embodiment of the Sun god on earth, erected monuments to it and buried it in a separate cemetery with all honors and appropriate expensive attributes. They attributed extraordinary magical properties to it and believed that the cat protected living people from the souls of the dead.
And nowadays it is believed that cats bring happiness to the house, especially tri-colored ones. You just have to pet such a cat - and all your dreams will come true. During the Middle Ages, cats fell out of favor. Probably because they really were mysterious creatures. The inquisitors were especially embarrassed by the cat's eyes phosphorescent in the dark. They were called devilish. Cm.
Man and cat...
Scotch Whiskey
Lonely man and his lonely cat
Getting up in the morning, stretching, as in principle it always was...
And then these two sat laughing at the window...
We couldn’t share a croissant between two people, that’s the problem...
And they sat, sharing the window sill, some on the right, some on the left...
Presenting two different faces to the rising sun...
On one of them, the hairiest one, read “I am still a queen”...
The second one, slightly unshaven, had sparkling eyes...
And having finished the cappuccino, and the cat - a plate of cream,
Looking at each other, they said with their eyes: IT’S TIME!
He left for work, pouring olives into her cup...
This strange cat lived with a man...
And she waited for him, her green eyes gliding along the path,
Because one day he suddenly approached the frozen woman...
And he said: “Sorry, I’ve been dreaming about a cat for a long time...
Maybe you'll be mine? What if I found you not by chance?..
And she agreed. Well, how could the cat answer?..
"He's as lonely as me... and his eyes are nothing...
And it smells nice, like cookies, like only children smell...
This one won’t offend...” - thinking. And she began to...
Since then, lonely, strange people have lived side by side...
Sometimes he reads poetry for the cat until the morning...
And when he falls asleep, a cat with a green and mysterious look
Protects him...
revealing two white wings...
©Copyright: Scotch Whiskey, 2009
Anyone who is fascinated by the flight of the EAGLE is distinguished by his speed of reaction and the ability to instantly navigate in any environment. He is not afraid to make decisions and likes to keep others in line. In short, a born leader.
Many people love penguins, who are clumsy on land but move beautifully in the water. This duality is also characteristic of people, who distinguish penguins from all other animals: they are sociable, but at the same time they are often secretive.
LION lovers are powerful people, which manifests itself both at work and in partnerships. Like the king of beasts, they strive for recognition and honor.
The fish are closed and calm in their sealed aquarium, they show us peace of mind, which is worth learning.
The one who keeps fish is rather contemplative and reserved. Fish that do not require emotions from their owner or active participation in their life will become ideal companions for such a person. In addition, fish are often kept by people who are accustomed to controlling everything.
What do aquarium fish teach us? Relax. It has long been noted that aquarium fish are an excellent object for meditation. In the harsh conditions of a big city, many of us have simply lost the ability to rest our soul and body, while an aquarium helps us restore this invaluable skill. In addition, it allows us to organically combine admiration for unpredictability and beauty wildlife with a natural desire for peace, comfort and safety: the aquarium is a real ocean in miniature, but there is never a tsunami or storm on this ocean.
The main trait of rats is curiosity. In search of food and new experiences, this little creature is ready to explore the most remote corners of human habitation. Rats are easy to train, distinguish people by smell and unmistakably recognize the owner among them.
Rats have original natures: as a rule, they like the fact that these rodents do not require special care, and due to their inquisitive nature, they adapt well to any situation. These qualities make the rat an excellent companion: you can constantly carry it with you, take it on trips and show it to others. In addition, rats are often chosen by people who lack tactile sensations in everyday life: their miniature pets not only love to crawl on the arms, shoulders and head of the owner, but also get great pleasure from it.
What do rats teach us? Acceptance of a loved one despite the resistance of others: ancient stereotypes that attribute a lot of negative qualities to rats are still quite strong, and a person who dares to have this animal will have to affirm his feelings for him, despite the condemnation and misunderstanding of others. In addition, despite a certain unpretentiousness, the rat still needs to comply with certain norms (for example, its cage should always be clean), which teaches a person to be responsible and respectful in respecting the interests of others - however, in a rather mild and unburdensome form.
By observing animals, we learn to understand without words, develop our intuition and powers of observation - I think, first of all, this is the positive effect of communicating with them.
Since ancient times, people have had an ambivalent attitude towards animals: on the one hand, many of them are a constant object of hunting, on the other hand, human society is interested in replenishing their population, and, therefore, it is necessary to establish relationships with them, and to atone for one’s guilt before them, - says anthropologist Artem Kozmin. - That is why today, as in ancient times, good hunters “talk” to those who should become their prey; in many tribes that live by hunting, the bones of killed and eaten animals are buried with honor... Perhaps our love for domestic animals, in part, continues the tradition. By providing care and attention to cats, dogs, and horses, we unconsciously atone for the massacre of cows, pigs, and sheep."
In other words, attachment to domestic animals allows a person to relieve himself of the guilt for the extermination of animals whose meat we eat every day, whose fur and skin we dress in.
When communicating with pets, we are attracted by their uncritical attitude towards us, unconditional emotional acceptance and attentiveness to our actions and emotional states. Many of the skills we learn by living around them help us communicate with others and gain a deeper understanding of ourselves.
Animals teach us to accept and give our love, and not to be afraid to express our feelings. In other words, our relationships with pets do not replace or imitate human relationships - they only serve as a useful and enriching addition to them.
TOTEMS
A totem is defined as a living being that is conscious and capable of movement.
A totem can be described as a source of energizing force in the form of an animal, driven by the mind.
A totem is an energy diagram that gives the shaman the properties and attributes that he possesses. These properties, attributes belong not to an individual animal, but to the ideal “group soul” of one or another species of animal, whose “echo” is contained in the human energy system, since it is an aspect of his own animal nature.
It is the Life Force in the form of an Archetype that can find expression in terms of human consciousness. Therefore, although the totem has all the qualities of its earthly counterpart, it provides physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy that can be absorbed by a person. By connecting with this source of power, a person can use its special properties. Cm.
“I feel sorry for the women who still buy real fur. They don’t know what it is to be a woman—to have a heart and a soul.” Jane Meadows, actress. 
“Don’t deprive your child of the joy of interacting with animals. After all, no one can teach a little man compassion and responsibility as masterfully as four-legged friends do. No amount of stories or moral teachings will make your child’s heart become responsive to the grief of others. If only men could love like dogs, the world would be a paradise." James Douglas 
I'm ready to dive into his skin
And drink away all his troubles
You will shout to me “stupid!”
When I beg the sky... 
Don't abandon animals and don't treat them like things! THEY ARE ALIVE AND FEEL MUCH MORE THAN SOME PEOPLE!!! 
I just wish... that animals weren't thrown away like old toys... 
“For animals, man is God.
Just as we ask God for help, they ask man for help.”
Paisiy Svyatogorets
Through the emanation of love, kindness, gratitude and joy, all Nature will eventually return to the pristine state of Eden, where “the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the ox shall be together, and a little child shall lead them..." (Isaiah 11:6)
Bibliography:
12. Daniil Andreev. Rose of the world. M. 2001.
CATALOGUE OF ARTICLES
Society has repeatedly faced and, unfortunately, continues to face the problem of cruelty and violence against animals. An example of this is the recent terrible events in the Russian city of Khabarovsk, which caused shock and loud horror among all compassionate people. Unfortunately, such stories are just a drop in the ocean of constant cruelty for fun and entertainment. And what’s even worse: the authors of such massacres may actually be children.
You can talk a lot and loudly about the costs of education, unfavorable conditions, and so on, but how children's writer, and in the past a child for whom other children's authors wrote their works, I want to talk about those books that one way or another instill compassion and love for our smaller brothers. I have compiled my own small selection of works.
Grigory Pocheptsov "Bureau of Good Offices"
I already mentioned this book in the post “What I’m reading. Children's books". This fairy tale contains what every animal volunteer dreams of: a real light to which all disadvantaged and defenseless animals can come. Once upon a time, a street and no one's kitten fell into the hands of a kind wizard, who, fortunately for the fluffy one, noticed him and invited him to live in his apartment. And then, as a grown-up kitten, he thought that not all animals might be as lucky as he was, and he decided to propose to his owner to build a Bureau of Good Offices. Only, as often happens, there are nasty and evil witches who don’t really like the deeds of good wizards. I recommend this story to all children and adults. After reading it, you will immediately want to become, if not a wizard, then definitely better, kinder and more merciful.
Boris Zakhoder Poems and tales about animals
It is important to instill a love for animals from early childhood. Boris Zakhoder, the author of many poems and fairy tales about animals, will be happy to help you with this. This is “The Furry Alphabet”, and “Bird School”, and my favorite poem “Muzzle, Tail and Four Legs”. All these funny characters are so cute that they cannot leave any kind child indifferent. The prose of Boris Zakhoder has also gained well-deserved popularity: the book of fairy tales “The Monkey’s Tomorrow”, “The Good Rhinoceros”, “Once Upon a Time Fip”, the fairy tales “The Gray Star”, “The Little Mermaid”, “The Hermit and the Rose”, “The Story of the Caterpillar”, “Why Fish are silent”, “Ma-Tari-Kari”, “A Tale about Everyone in the World” and many others.
Eric Knight "Lassie"
This book so immerses the reader in the world of one single dog that throughout the story you can’t help but wonder: “What does it mean to be Lassie?” What does it mean to feel lonely like a dog? What does a person mean to a dog, and only one obligation to him, which is constantly spinning in his head: “Be near the school at exactly four o’clock”? What does devotion and love mean? What do other people mean? And besides how Lassie stubbornly, step by step, returns back to her native Yorkshire from a foreign Scotland, the reader finds answers to his questions. I first read this book at the age of 12, and it was quite difficult for me mentally. However, such stories force us to ask the very question that I raised above: “What does it mean to be another being?” This question is much more important than it might seem. After all, we don’t know what it’s like to feel something specific like another person, much less a creature of a different species. Of course, this work is just a reflection, first of all, of the author’s attitude towards dogs, his knowledge of them and observations of them, and his own collie dog Tootsie served as a kind of prototype for Lassie. I recommend this book to all children and teenagers, because it contains the most important thing: compassion, understanding of other people's pain, be it from wounds, cold, hunger or loneliness. By the way, fun fact: “Lassie is a fictional dog who was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”
Alexander Kuprin Story “White Poodle”
Beautiful lyrical work about a traveling troupe consisting of twelve-year-old acrobat Sergei, his faithful poodle Artaud, trained in all sorts of tricks, and the oldest member of the team - grandfather Martyn Lodyzhkin. Traveling along the rich dachas on the Crimean coast, the artists earned simple money by performing in front of the residents of these very dachas. But then one day, during one such street performance, one very capricious boy Nikolai wanted Artaud for himself. Well, so that capricious Nikolai would no longer throw hysterics and get what he wanted, his mother decided that the easiest way would be to buy the dog from stray artists. Taking into account only the material side of the world, she and the rest of the family of the capricious Nikolai ceased to understand that a dog, first of all, is not a thing or an accessory, like a bag, hat or new toy. It's a friend. For Sergei and grandfather Martyn, the poodle Artaud was a full member not only of their team, but also a faithful companion in their difficult, often hungry and poor life. But friends cannot be sold. Therefore, when the poodle is brazenly stolen, Sergei, no matter what, returns to the rich people's dacha to rescue his shaggy friend from captivity. I read this story from Kuprin as an adult, and I honestly don’t understand why we studied his “Garnet Bracelet” and “Olesya” at school, which touch on not yet very clear topics and questions for teenagers of thirteen or fourteen years old, but these beautiful things about the friendship of a boy and a dog - no.
Cesar Petrescu "Fram the Polar Bear"
The story is about a circus bear named Fram, who returned to his native Arctic. One day, the famous Fram, who ended up in the famous Strutsky circus as a bear cub, stopped performing tricks and fell into a real “bearish” depression. As it turned out, he simply missed his white snowy homeland - the Arctic, which he only vaguely remembers. This story is about how an animal, tamed and used by people for their own purposes, again learned to be what it really is - a polar bear. Touching and bright, tragic and full of empathy, it shows that the world of wild nature is a completely different world. Yes, he is often cruel, but not for the sake of profit, whim or fun, as happens with people. I recommend it for family reading, followed by a discussion of the differences between the wild world and the human jungle.
I have compiled a selection of only 5 points. But if you are interested, I will definitely write about other works that I remember as stories that instill a kind attitude towards animals.