Gaidar's distant countries exposition. Arkady Petrovich Gaidar "Far countries

Information for parents: Far countries - the work of Arkady Gaidar. The work tells about a small station into which Socialism entered. And the first ones who were excited by the new construction were, of course, the boys. They only dreamed of visiting distant countries. And they had an extraordinary opportunity to witness the great events that took place in the village. The story "Distant Countries" will be of interest to children aged 10 to 12 years.

Read the fairy tale Far countries

Chapter 1

It's very boring in winter. The exit is small. All around the forest. It will sweep in the winter, cover it with snow - and there is nowhere to stick out.
Only one entertainment - to ride from the mountain. But again, not all day to ride from the mountain. Well, I rolled it once, well, I rolled another, well, I rolled it twenty times, and then I’ll get bored and tired. If only they, the sled, rolled up the mountain themselves. And then they roll down the mountain, but not up the mountain.

There are few guys at the junction: the watchman at the crossing is Vaska, the driver's is Petka, the telegraph operator is Seryozha. The rest of the guys are not at all small: one is three years old, the other is four. What kind of comrades are they?
Petka and Vaska were friends. And Seryozha was harmful. He loved to fight.
He will call Petka:
- Come here, Petka. I'll show you an American trick.
But Petka is not coming. Fears:
- You also said last time - a trick. And he hit him on the neck twice.
- Well, that’s a simple trick, and this is American, without knocking. Go quickly, watch how it jumps at me.
Petka sees, really something in Seryozhka's hand is jumping. How not to come!
And Seryozha is a master. Wrap a thread, an elastic band on a stick. So he has some sort of contraption jumping on his palm, either a pig or a fish.
- Good trick?
- Good.
- Now I'll show you even better. Turn your back. As soon as Petka turns, and Seryozhka will jerk him from behind with his knee, so Petka will immediately head into a snowdrift. So much for an American ...
Vaska got in too. However, when Vaska and Petka played together, Seryozhka did not touch them. Wow! Only touch! Together, they themselves are brave.
Vaska's throat once ached, and they did not allow him to go out into the street.
Mother went to a neighbor, father - to move, to meet the fast train. Quiet at home.

Vaska sits and thinks: what would it be so interesting to do? Or some kind of trick? Or some kind of contraption too? He walked, walked from corner to corner - there is nothing interesting.
He put a chair over to the closet. Opened the door. He looked at the top shelf, where there was a tied jar of honey, and poked it with his finger.
Of course, it would be nice to untie the jar and scoop up the honey with a tablespoon ...
However, he sighed and wept, because he already knew in advance that his mother would not like such a trick. He sat down by the window and began to wait for the fast train to rush by. The only pity is that you never have time to see what is going on there, inside the ambulance.
Will roar, scattering sparks. It will rumble so that the walls will tremble and the dishes on the shelves will rattle. Will sparkle with bright lights. Like shadows, someone's faces flashed through the windows, flowers on the white tables of a large carriage of the restaurant. Heavy yellow hands, multi-colored glasses glisten with gold. The white chef's hat will fly by. Here you have nothing. The signal light behind the last carriage is barely visible.
And the ambulance never stopped at their little junction. Always in a hurry, rushing to some very distant country - Siberia.
And rushes to Siberia and rushes from Siberia. A very, very hectic life on this fast train.
Vaska sits by the window and suddenly sees that Petka is walking along the road, somehow unusually important, and under his arm he is dragging some kind of bundle. Well, a real technician or a road craftsman with a briefcase.
Vaska was very surprised. I wanted to shout through the window: “Where are you, Petka, going? And what's wrapped in your paper? "
But as soon as he opened the window, his mother came and swore why he was climbing into the frosty air with a sore throat.
Here, with a roar and a crash, the ambulance rushed by. Then they sat down to dinner, and Vaska forgot about Petkino's strange walking.
However, the next day he sees that again, like yesterday, Petka is walking along the road and carrying something wrapped in a newspaper. And the face is so important, well, just like the attendant at a large station.
Vaska drummed his fist on the frame, but his mother shouted.
So, Petka passed by, on his way.
Vaska became curious: what happened to Petka? It used to happen that he chases the dogs all day, or commands the little ones, or flies away from Seryozhka, and here comes an important person, and the face is something very proud.
Vaska slowly cleared his throat and said in a calm voice:
- And my throat, mom, stopped hurting.
- Well, it's good that it stopped.
- It has completely stopped. Well, it doesn't even hurt at all. Soon it will be possible for me to walk too.
- Soon you can, but sit today, - answered the mother, - you were wheezing in the morning.
“So, that morning, and now it’s evening,” Vaska objected, thinking of how to get out into the street.
He walked around in silence, drank water and softly sang a song. He sang the one that he had heard in the summer from visiting Komsomol members, about how a detachment of Communards fought very heroically under the frequent explosions of rattling grenades. Actually, he did not want to sing, and he sang with the secret thought that his mother, hearing him singing, would believe that his throat no longer hurt and would let him go outside.
But since his mother, busy in the kitchen, did not pay attention to him, he began to sing louder about how the Communards were captured by the evil general and what torments he was preparing for them.
When this did not help, he sang at the top of his voice about how the Communards, not afraid of the promised torment, began to dig a deep grave.
He sang not that very well, but very loudly, and since his mother was silent, Vaska decided that she liked the singing and, probably, she would immediately let him go out into the street.
But as soon as he approached the most solemn moment, when the communards, who had finished their work, began to unanimously denounce the accursed general, when the mother stopped clattering dishes and thrust an angry and surprised face through the door.
- And what are you, an idol, broke up? She screamed. - I'm listening, listening ... I think, or is he crazy? Screams like Maryin's goat when he gets lost!
Vaska felt offended, and he fell silent. And it’s not that a shame that his mother compared him to Marya's goat, but the fact that he was only trying in vain and he wouldn’t be allowed out into the street anyway.
Frowning, he climbed onto the warm stove. He put a sheepskin sheepskin coat under his head and, under the even purr of Ivan Ivanovich's ginger cat, pondered over his sad fate.
Boring! There is no school. There are no pioneers. The fast train doesn't stop. The winter does not pass. Boring! If only summer would come soon! In summer - fish, raspberries, mushrooms, nuts.
And Vaska remembered how one summer, to everyone's surprise, he caught a hefty perch on the line.
It was towards nightfall, and he put the perch in the hallway to give it to his mother in the morning. And during the night the worthless Ivan Ivanovich crept into the passage and ate the perch, leaving only his head and tail.
Remembering this, Vaska poked Ivan Ivanovich with his fist in annoyance and said angrily:
- Another time for such things I will turn my head! The ginger cat jumped up in fright, meowed angrily and lazily jumped off the stove. And Vaska lay down, lay down and fell asleep.
The next day, the throat went away, and Vaska was released into the street. A thaw set in overnight. Thick, sharp icicles hung from the rooftops. A damp, soft wind blew. Spring was not far away.
Vaska wanted to run to look for Petka, but Petka himself goes to meet him.
- And where are you, Petka, go? - asked Vaska. - And why did you, Petka, never come to see me? When you got a stomach ache, then I went to you, and when I have a throat, then you didn’t come.
- I went in, - Petka answered. - I went up to the house and remembered that you and I recently drowned your bucket in the well. Well, I think Vaska's mother will start scolding me now. He stood for a while, and even thought about stopping by.
- Oh you! Yes, she scolded for a long time and forgot, and the bucket dad took it out of the well the day before yesterday. Be sure to come ahead ... What is this thing you have wrapped in your newspaper?
- It's not a contraption. These are books. One book to read, another book is arithmetic. For the third day now I have been going with them to Ivan Mikhailovich. I can read, but I can't write and no arithmetic. So he teaches me. Do you want me to give you arithmetic now? Well, we were fishing with you. I caught ten fish and you caught three fish. How many have we caught together?
- What did I catch so little? - Vaska was offended. “You’re ten, and I’m three. Do you remember what kind of perch I fished out last summer? You can't fish that out.
- So, this is arithmetic, Vaska!
- Well, what about arithmetic? It's still not enough. I am three, and he is ten! I have a real float on my rod, but you have a cork, and your rod is crooked ...
- Crooked? That's what he said! Why is it crooked? I just grimaced a little, so I straightened it a long time ago. Okay, I caught ten fish, and you caught seven.
- Why is it me seven?
- How why? Well, it doesn't bite anymore, that's all.
- I do not bite, but for some reason you bite? Some very stupid arithmetic.
- What you are, really! - Petka sighed. - Well, let me catch ten fish and you ten. How much will there be?
- And perhaps there will be a lot, - Vaska answered, thinking.
- "Many"! Do they think so? Twenty will be, that's how many. Now I will go to Ivan Mikhailovich every day, he will teach me arithmetic and teach me how to write. But the fact that! There is no school, so an ignorant fool to sit, or what ...
Vaska was offended.
- When you, Petka, climbed for pears and fell and lost your hand, I brought you fresh nuts from the forest, and two iron nuts, and a live hedgehog. And when my throat hurt, then you quickly settled down to Ivan Mikhailovich without me! You, then, will be a scientist, and I just like that? And also a comrade ...
Petka felt that Vaska was telling the truth, both about nuts and about a hedgehog. He blushed, turned away and fell silent.
So, they paused, stood. And they wanted to break up by quarreling. But the evening was already very good, warm. And spring was close, and along the streets little children danced together next to a loose snow woman ...
“Let's make a train for the kids from the sledges,” Petka unexpectedly suggested. - I will be a locomotive, you will be a machinist, and they will be passengers. And tomorrow we will go together to Ivan Mikhailovich and ask him. He is kind, he will teach you too. Okay, Vaska?
- That would be bad!
So, the guys did not quarrel, but made friends even stronger. We played and skated with the little ones all evening. And in the morning we went to the kind man, to Ivan Mikhailovich.

Chapter 2

Vaska and Petka went to the lesson. Harmful Seryozhka jumped out from behind the gate and yelled:
- Hey, Vaska! Count it up. First, I'll hit you three times on the neck, and then five more times, how much will it be?
- Let's go, Petka, we'll beat him up, - Vaska, offended, suggested. - You will knock once, but I will once. Together we can handle it. We'll knock once, and let's go.
- And then he will catch us one by one and blow us up, - answered the more cautious Petka.
- And we will not be alone, we will always be together. You are together and I am together. Come on, Petka, let's knock once, and let's go.
- Don't, - Petka refused. - And then during a fight, books can be torn. Summer will be, then we will ask him. And so that he would not be teased, and so that he would not pull fish out of our dive.
- All the same will pull out! - Vaska sighed.
- Will not. We'll dive into such a place that he can't find it.
“It will,” Vaska objected sadly. - He is cunning, and his "cat" is cunning, sharp.
- Well, that sly. We are cunning ourselves now! You are already eight years old and I am eight - so how old are we together?
- Sixteen, - Vaska counted.
- Well, we are sixteen, and he is nine. It means that we are more cunning.
- Why is sixteen more cunning than nine? - Vaska was surprised.
- Necessarily more cunning. The older a person is, the more cunning he is. Take Pavlik Pryprygin. He is four years old - what kind of cunning does he have? You can beg or steal anything from him. And take Danila Yegorovich from the farm. He is fifty years old, and you will not find him more cunning. They imposed a tax on him two hundred pounds, and he delivered vodka to the peasants, they got him drunk and signed some paper. He went with this paper to the district, he was one and a half hundred poods and they knocked him off.
“But people don't say that,” interrupted Vaska. - People say that he is cunning not because he is old, but because he is a fist. What do you think, Petka, what is this fist? Why is one person like a person and another person like a fist?
- Rich, here is the fist. You are poor, so you are not a fist. And Danila Yegorovich is a fist.
- Why am I poor? - Vaska was surprised. - Our dad gets one hundred and twelve rubles. We have a piglet, a goat, and four chickens. What are we poor? Our father is a working man, and not some kind of lost Epiphanes, who begs for Christ's sake.
- Well, don't be poor. So, your father himself works, and for me himself, and for everyone himself. And Danila Yegorovich had four girls working in the garden in the summer, and even some nephew came, and even some kind of brother-in-law, and the drunken Yermolai hired to guard the garden. Do you remember how Yermolai got rid of you with nettles when we were climbing for apples? Wow, you yelled then! And I sit in the bushes and think: how great Vaska is yelling - just like Yermolai bugs him with nettles.
- You're good! - Vaska frowned. - He ran away, but left me.
- Really wait? - Petka answered coolly. - I, brother, jumped over the fence like a tiger. He, Yermolai, only had time to stretch me two times with a twig across my back. And you dug like a turkey, so you got it.

... For a long time, Ivan Mikhailovich was a machinist. Before the revolution, he was a machinist on a simple steam locomotive. And when the revolution came and the Civil War began, Ivan Mikhailovich switched from a simple steam locomotive to an armored one.
Petka and Vaska saw many different locomotives. They also knew a steam locomotive of the "C" system - tall, light, fast, the one that rushes with a fast train to a distant country - Siberia. They also saw huge three-cylinder locomotives "M", those that could pull heavy, long trains on steep climbs, and awkward shunting "O", which have all the way only from the input semaphore to the output. The guys saw all kinds of locomotives. But they have never seen such a locomotive as in Ivan Mikhailovich's photograph. And we haven’t seen such a locomotive, nor have we seen any carriages.
There is no pipe. The wheels are not visible. The heavy steel windows of the locomotive are tightly closed. Instead of windows, there are narrow longitudinal slots, from which machine guns stick out. Roofs are pet. Instead of a roof, there are low round towers, and from those towers heavy vents of artillery guns protruded.
And nothing shines on the armored train: there are no polished yellow handles, no bright colors, no light glasses. The entire armored train, heavy, wide, as if pressed against the rails, is painted gray-green.
And no one was visible: neither the driver, nor the conductors with lanterns, nor the chief with a whistle.
Somewhere there, inside, behind the shield, behind the steel casing, near the massive levers, near the machine guns, near the guns, the Red Army men lurked, alert, but everything is closed, everything is hidden, everything is silent.
Silent for the time being. But now the armored train will sneak without beeps, without whistles, to where the enemy is close, or it will break out onto the field, where there is a heavy battle between the reds and whites. Ah, how deadly machine guns will cut from the dark cracks then! Wow, how then a volley of awakened mighty guns will crash from the turning towers!
And then one day, in battle, a very heavy shell hit an armored train at close range. The shell tore through the casing and tore off the arm of the military engineer Ivan Mikhailovich with shrapnel.
Since then, Ivan Mikhailovich is no longer a machinist. He receives a pension and lives in the city with his eldest son, a turner in locomotive workshops. And on the road, he comes to visit his sister. There are people who say that Ivan Mikhailovich was not only torn off his arm, but also hit his head with a shell, and that this made him a little ... well, how to say, not only sick, but somehow strange.
However, neither Petka nor Vaska believed in such malicious people at all, because Ivan Mikhailovich was a very good person. Only one thing: Ivan Mikhailovich smoked a lot, and his thick eyebrows quivered a little when he told something interesting about previous years, about difficult wars, about how their whites began and how the reds ended them.
And spring broke through somehow at once. Every night there is a warm rain, every day there is a bright sun. The snow melted quickly, like lumps of butter in a frying pan.
Streams gushed, broke the ice on the Quiet River, willow fluffed, rooks and starlings flew in. And all this at once. It was only the tenth day when spring came, and there was no snow at all, and the mud on the road had dried up.
Once after the lesson, when the guys wanted to run to the river to see if the water slept much, Ivan Mikhailovich asked:
- Why, guys, aren't you running away to Alyoshin? I would have to hand over a note to Yegor Mikhailovich. Give him the power of attorney with a note. He will receive a pension for me in the city and will bring me here.
“We're running away,” Vaska answered briskly. “We run very quickly, just like the cavalry.
“We know Yegor,” Petka confirmed. - Is this the Yegor who is the chairman? He has guys: Pashka and Masha. We collected raspberries in the forest last year with his guys. We scored a whole basket, and they are a little on the bottom, because they are still small and will not keep up with us in any way.
“Run to him,” said Ivan Mikhailovich. - We are old friends. When I was a machinist on an armored car, he, Yegor, was still a young boy at that time, worked for me as a fireman. When the shell burst through the shell and cut off my arm with a splinter, we were together. After the explosion, I remained in my memory for another minute or two. Well, I think the case is gone. The boy is still not smart, he almost does not know the car. One was left on the locomotive. He will break and destroy the entire armored car. I moved in order to back up and take the car out of the battle. And at this time the signal from the commander: "Full speed ahead!" Yegor pushed me into the corner on a pile of cleaning tow, and he himself rushes to the lever: "There is a full drive forward!" Then I closed my eyes and thought: "Well, the armored car is gone." I woke up, I hear - quietly. The fight is over. He looked - my arm was tied with a shirt. And Yegorka himself is half-naked ... He is all wet, his lips are parched, and there are burns on his body. He stands and staggers - is about to fall. For two whole hours one drove the car in battle. And for the stoker, and for the machinist, and fiddled with me for the doctor ...
Ivan Mikhailovich's eyebrows quivered, he fell silent and shook his head, either thinking about something, or remembering something. And the children stood silently, waiting for Ivan Mikhailovich to tell something else, and were very surprised that Pashkin and Mashkin's father, Yegor, turned out to be such a hero, because he did not at all look like those heroes that the guys saw in the pictures, hanging in the red corner at the junction. Those heroes are tall, and their faces are proud, and in their hands they carry red banners or sparkling sabers. And Pashkin and Mashkin's father was short, his face was freckled, his eyes narrow, narrowed. He wore a simple black shirt and a gray checkered cap. Only one thing was that he was stubborn and if he did something, he would not lag behind until he achieved his goal.
The guys in Alyoshin heard about this from the peasants, and they heard it at the crossing too.
Ivan Mikhailovich wrote a note, gave the guys a cake, so that they would not get hungry on the road. And Vaska and Petka, breaking a whip from the broom that had filled with juice, whipping themselves on the legs, rushed down the hill in a friendly gallop.

Chapter 3

The carriageway to Alyoshino is nine kilometers, and the straight path is only five.
A dense forest begins near the Quiet River. This forest endlessly stretches somewhere very far. In that forest there are lakes in which there are large, shiny, like polished copper, crucian carp, but the guys do not go there: it is far away, and it is not difficult to get lost in the swamp. There are a lot of raspberries, mushrooms, hazel trees in that forest. In the steep ravines, along the channel of which the Tikhaya River runs from the swamp, swallows are found in burrows along straight slopes of bright red clay. Hedgehogs, hares and other harmless animals are hiding in the bushes. But further, beyond the lakes, in the upper reaches of the Sinyavka River, where the peasants leave in winter to cut timber for rafting, lumberjacks met wolves and once stumbled upon an old, shabby bear.
What a wonderful forest spreads widely in those parts where Petka and Vaska lived!
And on this, now through the cheerful, now through the gloomy, forest from hillock to hillock, through hollows, through perches across streams, the guys sent to Alyoshin cheerfully ran along the near path.
Where the trail went out onto the road, one kilometer from Alyoshin, there was a farm of a rich peasant Danila Yegorovich.
Here the out of breath children stopped at a well to drink.
Danila Yegorovich, who immediately watered two well-fed horses, asked the guys where they came from and why they were running to Alyoshin. And the guys willingly told him who they were and what business they had in Alyoshin with the chairman Yegor Mikhailovich.
They would have talked to Danila Yegorovich even longer, because they were curious to look at such a person about whom people say that he is a fist, but then they saw that three Alyosha peasants were coming out of the yard to Danila Yegorovich, and behind them was a gloomy and angry, probably with a hangover, Yermolai. Noticing Yermolai, the same one who once wiped out Vaska with nettles, the guys started trotting away from the well and soon found themselves in Alyoshin, in the square where people gathered for some kind of rally.
But the guys, without stopping, ran on to the outskirts, deciding on the way back from Yegor Mikhailovich to find out why the people and what this interesting thing is being started.
However, at Egor's house, they found only his children - Pashka and Masha. They were six-year-old twins, very friendly with each other and very similar to each other.
As always, they played together. Pashka planed some chocks and slats, and Masha made from them on the sand, as it seemed to the guys, it was either a house or a well.
However, Masha explained to them that this was not a house and not a well, but at first there was a tractor, now there will be an airplane.
- Eh you! - said Vaska, unceremoniously poking at the airplane with a whip. - Oh, you stupid people! Do they make airplanes from splinters? They are made from something completely different. Where is your father?
“Father went to the meeting,” Pashka, who was not at all offended, answered with a good-natured smile.
“He went to the meeting,” Masha confirmed, raising blue, slightly surprised eyes at the guys.
- He went, and at home only the grandmother lies on the stove and swears, - added Pashka.
- And the grandmother lies and swears, - explained Masha. - And when daddy left, she also cursed. That, he says, you fell through the ground with your collective farm.
And Masha looked worriedly in the direction where the hut stood and where the unkind grandmother lay, who wanted her father to sink into the ground.
- He will not fail, - Vaska reassured her. - Where will he fail? Well, stamp your feet on the ground yourself, and you, Pashka, stamp it too. Yes, stomp harder! Well, haven't you failed? Well, stomp even harder.
And, forcing the unintelligent Pashka and Mashka to stomp diligently until they were out of breath, satisfied with their mischievous invention, the children went to the square, where a restless meeting had already begun long ago.
- That's how it is! - said Petka, after they knocked together among the assembled people.
“Interesting things,” Vaska agreed, sitting down on the edge of a thick log that smelled of tar and taking out a piece of cake from his bosom.
- Where have you disappeared, Vaska?
I ran to get drunk. And why are the men so dispersed? You can only hear: a collective farm and a collective farm. Some scold the collective farm, others say that it is impossible without the collective farm. The boys even get caught up. Do you know Fedka Galkin? Well, such a pockmarked one.
- I know.
- And so. I ran around to drink and saw how he just got into a fight with some redhead. The red-haired one jumped out and sang: "Fedka collective farm - a pig's nose." And Fedka got angry at such singing, and a fight broke out between them. I really wanted to shout at you, so you could watch them fight. Yes, here some hunchbacked grandmother was driving the geese and hit both boys with twigs - well, they scattered.
Vaska looked at the sun and became worried:
- Come on, Petka, we will return the note. Until we reach home, it will be evening. No matter how it gets home.
Pushing through the crowd, the dodgy guys reached a pile of logs, near which Egor Mikhailov was sitting at the table.
While the visiting man, climbing onto the logs, explained to the peasants what was the benefit of going to the collective farm, Yegor quietly but persistently convinced two members of the village council who were leaning towards him. They shook their heads, and Yegor, apparently angry with them for their indecision, even more persistently proved something to them in an undertone, shamed them.
When the concerned members of the village council moved away from Yegor, Petka silently shoved him a power of attorney and a note.
Yegor opened the piece of paper, but did not have time to read it, because a new person climbed onto the dumped logs, and in this person the guys recognized one of those men whom they met at the well on the farm of Danila Yegorovich. The peasant said that the collective farm is, of course, a new business and that there is no need for everyone to go to the collective farm at once. Ten farms have signed up for the collective farm, so let them work. If things go well for them, then it will not be too late for others to join, and if things do not go well, then it means that there is no way to go to the collective farm and you need to work in the old way.
He spoke for a long time, and while he spoke, Yegor Mikhailov still held the unfolded note without reading it. He screwed up his narrow, angry eyes and, alert, peered attentively into the faces of the listening peasants.
- Podkulachnik! He said with hatred, fingering the note that had been thrust into him.
Then Vaska, fearing that Yegor might inadvertently crumple Ivan Mikhailovich's power of attorney, quietly pulled the chairman by the sleeve:
- Uncle Yegor, please read it. Otherwise we have to run home.
Egor quickly read the note and told the guys that he would do everything, that he would go to the city just in a week, and until then he would definitely go to Ivan Mikhailovich himself. He wanted to add something else, but then the man finished his speech, and Yegor, clutching his checkered cap in his hand, jumped on the logs and began to speak quickly and sharply.
And the guys, getting out of the crowd, rushed along the road to the siding.
Running past the farm, they did not notice either Yermolai, or brother-in-law, or nephew, or mistress - they must have all been at the meeting. But Danila Yegorovich himself was at home. He was sitting on the porch, smoking an old, crooked pipe, on which someone's laughing face was carved, and it seemed that he was the only person in Alyoshin, who was not embarrassed, pleased or touched by the new word - collective farm. Running along the bank of the Quiet River through the bushes, the guys heard a splash, as if someone had thrown a heavy stone into the water.
Carefully crept up, they saw Seryozhka, who was standing on the shore and looking towards where even circles were spreading across the water.
- I threw a dive, - the guys guessed and, slyly glancing at each other, quietly crawled back, memorizing this place on the go.
They got out onto the trail and, delighted with their extraordinary luck, hurried up to the house even faster, especially since they could hear the echo of the fast train rumble through the forest: it meant it was already five o'clock. This means that Vaska's father, having rolled up the green flag, was already entering the house, and Vaska's mother was already taking out a hot dinner pot from the oven.
At home we also started talking about the collective farm. And the conversation began with the fact that the mother, who had been saving money for the purchase of a cow for a whole year, had looked after Danila Yegorovich's one-year-old heifer since winter and hoped to buy it out and put it into the herd by summer. Now, hearing about the fact that the collective farm will only accept those who, before joining, will not cut or sell cattle to the side, the mother worried that, joining the collective farm, Danila Yegorovich would take a heifer there, and then look for another, and where can you find her like that?
But my father was an intelligent man, he read the railway newspaper "Gudok" every day and understood what was going on.
He laughed at his mother and explained to her that Danila Yegorovich was not supposed to be allowed to approach the collective farm with or without a heifer, a hundred steps, because he was a fist. And collective farms - they are created for that, so that you can live without kulaks. And that when the whole village enters the collective farm, then Danila Yegorovich, miller Petunin, and Semyon Zagrebin will get a cover, that is, all their kulak farms will collapse.
However, the mother recalled how a hundred and a half poods of tax had been written off from Danila Yegorovich last year, how the peasants were afraid of him, and how, for some reason, everything turned out the way he needed. And she strongly doubted that Danila Yegorovich's economy was collapsing, and even, on the contrary, expressed concern that the collective farm itself would not collapse, because Alyoshino is a deaf village, surrounded by forests and swamps. There is no one to learn how to work on a collective farm, and there is nothing to expect help from neighbors. The father blushed and said that tax is a dark matter and Danila Yegorovich has lost his glasses to someone and cheated on someone, but it will not work for him every time, and that for such cases it will not take long to get where he should. But at the same time he cursed those fools from the village council, whom Danila Yegorovich twisted his head to, and said that if this happened now, when Yegor Mikhailov was chairman, then such an outrage would not have happened with him.

While father and mother were arguing, Vaska ate two pieces of meat, a plate of cabbage soup and, as if by accident, stuffed into his mouth a large piece of sugar from a sugar bowl, which his mother had put on the table, because father immediately after dinner liked to drink another glass of tea.
However, his mother, not believing that he had done it accidentally, kicked him from the table, and he, whimpering more as usual than out of resentment, climbed onto the warm stove to see the red cat Ivan Ivanovich and, as usual, very soon dozed off ...
Either he dreamed it, or he really heard through the drowsiness, but only it seemed to him that his father was talking about some new plant, about some buildings, about some people who walk and look for something in the ravines and through the forest, and as if the mother was still amazed, still did not believe, all gasped and groaned.
Then, when his mother pulled him from the stove, undressed him and put him to sleep on a couch, he had a real dream: as if a lot of lights were burning in the forest, as if a large steamer was sailing along the Quiet River, as if he and his comrade Petka are sailing off on a steamer to very distant and very beautiful countries ...

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The nights were still cool, but Vaska, taking the old wadded blanket and the remnants of a sheepskin coat, went to sleep in the hayloft.
Even in the evening, he agreed with Petka that he would wake him up early and they would go to catch roach on the worm.
But when he woke up, it was already late - about nine o'clock, and Petka was not there. Obviously, Petka overslept himself.
Vaska had breakfast with fried potatoes and onions, slipped a piece of bread, sprinkled with sugar, into his pocket, and ran to Petka, intending to curse him with a sonul and a bum.
However, Petka was not at home. Vaska went into the woodshed - the rods were here. But Vaska was very surprised that they did not stand in the corner, on the spot, but, as if hastily abandoned, somehow, were lying in the middle of the shed. Then Vaska went out into the street to ask the little children if they had seen Petka. On the street, he met only one four-year-old Pavlik Pryprygin, who stubbornly tried to get astride a large red dog. But as soon as he puffed and puffed up his legs to saddle her, Kudlakha turned over and, lying belly up, lazily wagging his tail, pushed Pavlik away with her wide, clumsy paws.
Pavlik Pryprygin said that he had not seen Petka, and asked Vaska to help him climb Kudlakh.
But Vaska was not up to it. Pondering where Petka could have gone, he went on and soon bumped into Ivan Mikhailovich, sitting on the heap, reading a newspaper.
Ivan Mikhailovich did not see Petka either. Vaska was upset and sat down next to him.
- What are you reading about, Ivan Mikhailovich? He asked, looking over his shoulder. - You read, and you yourself smile. Any story or something?
- I read about our places. Here, brother Vaska, it is written that they are going to build a plant near our crossing. A huge factory. Aluminum - such a metal - will be mined from clay. Rich, they write, the place we have about this aluminum. And we live - clay, we think. So much for the clay!
And as soon as Vaska heard about this, he immediately jumped off the blockage in order to run to Petka and be the first to tell him this amazing news. But, remembering that Petka had disappeared somewhere, he sat down again, asking Ivan Mikhailovich about how they would build, where and whether the plant would have high pipes.
Where they would build, Ivan Mikhailovich himself did not know yet, but as for the pipes, he explained that there would be no pipes at all, because the plant would be powered by electricity. To do this, they want to build a dam across the Quiet River. They will install such turbines that will spin from the pressure of water and turn the dynamo of the machine, and from these dynamos will go through the wires an electric current.
Hearing that they were also going to block the Quiet River, the astonished Vaska jumped up again, but, remembering again that Petka was not there, he became seriously angry with him.
- And what a fool! Here is such a thing, and he hangs around.
At the end of the street, he noticed a nimble little girl, Valka Sharapova, who had already been jumping on one leg around the well log for several minutes. He wanted to go to her and ask if she had seen Petka, but Ivan Mikhailovich detained him:
- When did you guys run in Alyoshino? Saturday or Friday?
- On Saturday, - Vaska remembered. - On Saturday, because our bathhouse was heated that evening.
- On Saturday. So, already a week has passed. Why is it Yegor Mikhailovich not coming to see me?
- Yegor? Yes, he, Ivan Mikhailovich, seems to have left for the city yesterday. In the evening, Uncle Seraphim from Alyosha drank tea and said that Yegor had already left.
- Why didn't he come in? - Ivan Mikhailovich said with annoyance. - He promised to come and did not come. And I wanted to ask him to buy me a pipe in the city.
Ivan Mikhailovich folded the newspaper and went into the house, and Vaska went to Valka to ask about Petka.
But he completely forgot that only yesterday he had slapped her for something, and therefore he was very surprised when, seeing him, the brisk Valka stuck out her tongue at him and rushed to the house as fast as she could.
Meanwhile, Petka was not far away.
While Vaska wandered, pondering where his comrade had disappeared, Petka sat in the bushes, behind the vegetable gardens, and waited impatiently for Vaska to go into his yard.
He did not want to meet with Vaska now, because a strange and, perhaps, even unpleasant incident happened to him that morning.
Waking up early, as agreed, he took the rods and went to wake Vaska. But as soon as he leaned out of the gate, he saw Seryozhka.
There was no doubt that Seryozhka was heading to the river to inspect the dives. Not suspecting that Petka was spying on him, he walked past the vegetable gardens to the path, folding the string from the iron "cat" on the way.
Petka returned to the yard, threw the rods on the floor of the barn and ran after Seryozhka, who had already disappeared into the bushes.
Seryozhka walked, whistling merrily on a homemade wooden pipe.
And this was very into the hands of Petka, because he could follow at some distance, without risking being noticed and beaten.
The morning was sunny and humorous. Kidneys burst everywhere.
Fresh grass was breaking out of the ground. It smelled of dew, birch sap, and on the yellow clusters of flowering willows the bees that flew out after the prey were buzzing in unison.
Because the morning was so good, and because he so successfully tracked down Seryozha, Petka was cheerful, and he easily and carefully made his way along the curved narrow path.
So, about half an hour passed, and they were approaching the place where the Quiet River, making a sharp turn, went into the ravines.
"He's going far ... cunning," thought Petka, already triumphant in advance at the thought of how, having captured the "cat", they would run with Vaska to the river, catch both their own and Serezhkina's dives and throw them to a place where Seryozhka had already and never to be found.
The whistle of the wooden pipe suddenly died away.
Petka quickened his pace. Several minutes passed - quiet again.
Then, worried, trying not to stomp, he ran and, finding himself at the turn, stuck his head out of the bushes: Seryozhka was not there.
Then Petka remembered that a little earlier a small path left to the side, which led to the place where the Filkin brook flowed into the Quiet River. He returned to the mouth of the stream, but Seryozha was not there either.
Scolding himself for blatant behavior and wondering where Seryozhka could have hidden himself, he also remembered that there was a small pond a little upstream of the Filkin brook. And although he had never heard of fishing in that pond, he decided to run there, because who knows him, Seryozhka! He is so cunning that he found something there too.
Contrary to his assumptions, the pond was not so close.
He was very small, all bloomed with mud, and, except for frogs, nothing good could be found in him.
Earrings were not even here.
Discouraged, Petka went to Filkin's stream, drank water so cold that it was impossible to take more than one sip without a break, and wanted to go back.
Vaska, of course, is already awake. If you don't tell Vaska why he didn't wake him up, then Vaska will get angry. And if you say it, Vaska will scoff: “Oh, you didn't keep track! Here I would ... That would be from me ... "and so on.
And suddenly Petka saw something that made him immediately forget about Seryozhka, and about diving, and about Vaska.
To the right, no further than a hundred meters, the sharp tower of a tarpaulin tent peeped out from behind the bushes. And a narrow transparent strip rose above it - smoke from a fire.

Chapter 6

At first Petka was simply frightened. He quickly bent down and dropped to one knee, looking around warily.
It was very quiet. So, quietly, that one could clearly hear the cheerful gurgling of the cold Filkin brook and the buzzing of bees that stuck to the hollow of an old birch covered with moss.
And because it was so quiet, and because the forest was welcoming and illuminated with spots of warm sunlight... Petka calmed down and carefully, but not out of fear, but simply out of a cunning boyish habit, hiding behind the bushes, began to get to the tent.
“Hunters? He wondered. - No, not hunters ... Why would they come with a tent? Anglers? No, not fishermen - far from the coast. But if not hunters or fishermen, then who? "
"What if the robbers?" - he thought and remembered that in one old book he saw a picture: there was also a tent in the forest; near that tent, ferocious people are sitting and feasting, and next to them sits a very thin and very sad beauty and sings a song to them, fingering the long strings of some intricate instrument.
This thought made Petka uneasy. His lips trembled, he blinked and was about to move back. But then, in the gap between the bushes, he saw a stretched rope, and on that rope hung, apparently still wet after washing, the most ordinary underpants and two pairs of blue patched socks.
And these damp underpants and patched socks dangling in the wind somehow immediately reassured him, and the thought of the robbers seemed ridiculous and stupid to him. He moved closer. Now he could see that there was no one near the tent or in the tent itself.
He made out two mattresses stuffed with dry leaves and a large gray blanket. In the middle of the tent, on a spread-out tarpaulin, lay some blue and white papers, several pieces of clay and stones, such as are often found on the banks of the Quiet River; there and then lay some dimly glittering objects unfamiliar to Petka.
The fire smoked faintly. A large tin kettle, stained with soot, stood by the fire. On the crumpled grass lay a large white bone, apparently gnawed by a dog.
Emboldened Petka crept up to the tent itself. First of all, he was interested in unfamiliar metal objects. One - tripod, like a stand for a photographer who stopped by last year. The other is round, large, with some numbers and a thread stretched across the circle. The third one is also round, but smaller, similar to a wristwatch, with a sharp arrow.
He raised this item. The arrow wavered, hesitated, and again fell into place.
"Compass", - Petka guessed, remembering that he had read about such a thing in a book.
To test this, he turned around.
A thin sharp arrow also turned and, swaying several times, pointed its black end in the direction where an old spreading pine tree stood at the edge of the tree. Petka liked it. He walked around the tent, wrapped it behind a bush, wrapped it after another and twisted in place ten times, hoping to deceive and confuse the arrow. But as soon as he stopped, the lazily swinging arrow with the same persistence and persistence showed Petka with its blackened point that no matter how much you twirl around, you can’t deceive her anyway. "How alive" - ​​thought admiring Petka, regretting that he does not have such a wonderful piece. He sighed and wondered whether to put the compass in place or not (perhaps he would). But at that very moment a huge shaggy dog ​​separated from the opposite edge and rushed towards him with loud barking.
Frightened Petka yelped and rushed to run ahead through the bushes. The dog with furious barking rushed after him and, of course, would have caught up with him, if not for the Filkin stream, through which Petka crossed knee-deep in water.
Having reached the brook, which was wide in this place, the dog darted along the bank, looking for where it could jump over.
And Petka, without waiting for this to happen, rushed forward, jumping over stumps, over snags and bumps, like a hare pursued by hounds.
He stopped to rest only when he found himself on the bank of the Quiet River.
Licking his dry lips, he went to the river, got drunk and, breathing quickly, walked quietly to the house, feeling not very well.
Of course, he wouldn't have taken a compass if it hadn't been for the dog.
Still, it was a dog or not a dog, but it turned out that he stole the compass.
And he knew that his father would warm him up for such things, Ivan Mikhailovich would not praise him and, perhaps, Vaska would not approve.
But since the deed was already done, and he was both scared and ashamed to go back with a compass, he consoled himself that, firstly, he was not to blame, and secondly, except for the dog, no one had seen him, and in the third , the compass can be hidden away, and someday later, by autumn or winter, when there is no more tent, say what you have found and keep it for yourself.
This is what Petya's thoughts were, and that is why he sat in the bushes outside the gardens and did not go out to Vaska, who was looking for him with vexation from the very early morning.

Chapter 7

But, hiding the compass in the attic of the wood shed, Petka did not run to look for Vaska, but went into the garden and there wondered what it would be better to lie.
In general, he was a master to lie on occasion, but today, as luck would have it, he could not come up with anything plausible. Of course, he could only talk about how he unsuccessfully tracked down Seryozha, and not mention either the tent or the compass.
But he felt that he did not have the patience to remain silent about the tent. If you keep quiet, then Vaska himself can somehow find out and then he will boast and be arrogant: “Oh, you, you don't know anything! I am always the first to know everything ... "
And Petka thought that if it were not for the compass and this damned dog, then everything would be more interesting and better. Then a very simple and very good idea came to him: what if you go to Vaska and tell him about the tent and about the compass? After all, he hadn't actually stolen the compass. After all, only the dog is to blame. They will take a compass with Vaska, run to the tent and put it in place. And the dog? So what about the dog? Firstly, you can take bread or a meat bone with you and throw it to it so that it does not bark. Secondly, you can take sticks with you. Thirdly, the two are not so scary at all.
He decided to do so and wanted to run to Vaska at once, but then he was called to dinner, and he went eagerly, because during his adventures he was very hungry. After lunch, I also failed to see Vaska. His mother went to rinse the clothes and made him watch his little sister Elenka at home.
As a rule, when his mother left and left him with Elena, he slipped her various rags and chocks and, while she was busy with them, calmly ran out into the street and only when he saw his mother, he returned to Elena, as if he did not leave her.
But today Yelenka was a little unhealthy and capricious. And when, having thrust her a quill pen and a potato round as a ball, he went to the door, Yelenka raised such a roar that a neighbor passing by looked through the window and shook her finger at Petka, suggesting that he had arranged some trick for his sister.
Petka sighed, sat down next to Elena on a thick blanket spread on the floor, and in a sad voice began to sing merry songs to her.
When his mother returned, it was already getting dark, and at last, freed up, Petka jumped out of the door and began to whistle, calling for Vaska.
- Oh you! - Vaska shouted reproachfully from afar. - Eh, Petka! And where are you, Petka, walked all day? And why, Petka, I have been looking for you all day and haven’t found you?
And, without waiting for Petka to answer something, Vaska quickly posted all the news he had collected during the day. And Vaska had a lot of news.
First, a plant will be built near the crossing. Secondly, there is a tent in the forest, and very many people live in that tent. good people with whom he, Vaska, has already met. Thirdly, Seryozhka's father tore out Seryozhka today, and Seryozhka howled all over the street.
But neither the plant, nor the dam, nor what Seryozhka got from his father - nothing surprised and embarrassed Petka so much as the fact that Vaska somehow found out about the existence of the tent and was the first to tell him about it, Petka.
- How do you know about the tent? - asked the offended Petka. - I, brother, I know everything myself, today the story happened to me ...
- "History, history"! - Vaska interrupted him. - What's your story? You have an uninteresting story, but mine is an interesting one. When you disappeared, I was looking for you for a long time. And here I looked, and there I looked, and I looked everywhere. I'm tired of looking. So I had lunch and went into the bushes to cut the whip. Suddenly a man comes towards me. Tall, a leather bag on the side, the same as that of the Red Army commanders. Boots are like those of a hunter, but not a military man and not a hunter. He saw me and said: "Come here, boy." Do you think I'm scared? Not at all. So I came up, and he looked at me and asked: "You, boy, did you fish today?" “No,” I say, “I didn’t. This fool Petka did not come after me. He promised to come, but he himself disappeared somewhere. " “Yes,” he says, “I can see for myself that it’s not you. Do you have another boy like that, a little taller than you and reddish hair? " “There is,” I say, “we have one, but it's not me, but Seryozha, who stole our dive.” “Here, here,” he says, “he was throwing a net into the pond near our tent. Where does he live? " “Come on,” I answer. "I will show you, uncle, where he lives."
We were walking, and I thought: “And why did he need Seryozhka? It would be better if Petka and I were needed. "
As we walked, he told me everything. There are two of them in the tent. And the tent is higher than the Filkin Creek. They, these two, these people are geologists. The earth is examined, stones, clay are looked for and everything is written down, where are the stones, where is the sand, where is the clay. So I said to him: “What if Petka and I come to you? We will also search. We know everything here. We found such a red stone last year, which is amazing how red it is. And to Seryozha, - I tell him, - you, uncle, it would be better not to go. He is harmful, this Seryozha. If only he could fight and carry other people's dives. " Well, we came. He entered the house, and I stayed on the street. I watched Seryozha's mother run out and shout: “Seryozha! Earring! Have you seen, Vaska, Seryozhka? " And I answer: “No, I haven't. I saw it, only not now, but now I have not seen it. " Then that man - the technician - came out, I accompanied him to the forest, and he allowed us to come to them. Here Seryozhka returned. His father asks: "Did you take some thing in the tent?" And Seryozhka refuses. Only the father, of course, did not believe and tore him out. And Seryozhka howled! It serves him right. Right, Petka?
However, Petka was not at all happy with such a story. Petka's face was gloomy and sad. After he found out that Seryozhka had already been ripped out for the compass he had stolen, he felt very uncomfortable. Now it was too late to tell Vaska how it was. And, taken by surprise, he stood sad, confused and did not know what he would say now and how he would now explain his absence to Vaska.
But Vaska himself helped him out.
Proud of his discovery, he wanted to be generous.
- What are you frowning about? Are you offended that you were not there? You wouldn't run away, Petka. Once we have agreed, then we have agreed. Well, nothing, we'll go together tomorrow, but I told them: I will come, and my friend Petka will come. You probably ran to your aunt on the cordon? I look: Petka is gone, the rods are in the barn. Well, I think, probably, he ran to his aunt. Have you been there?
But Petka did not answer. He paused, sighed and asked, looking somewhere past Vaska:
- And did father beat Seryozhka really well?
- It must be great, since Seryozhka howled so that you could hear it on the street.
- Is it possible to beat? - Petka said gloomily. - Now is not the old time to beat. And you "beat and beat". I was delighted! If your father beat you, would you be happy?
- So, after all, not me, but Seryozhka, - answered Vaska, a little embarrassed by Petka's words. - And then, after all, not for nothing, but for the cause: why did he climb into someone else's tent? People work, and he steals their tool. And what are you, Petka, some kind of wonderful today. Now you staggered all day, then you get angry all evening.
- I'm not angry, - Petka answered quietly. - I just had a toothache at first, and now it stops.
- Will it stop soon? - Vaska asked sympathetically.
- Soon. I, Vaska, I'd better run home. I’ll lie down, lie down at home - he will stop.

Chapter 8

Soon the guys made friends with the inhabitants of the canvas tent.
There were two of them. With them was a strong shaggy dog ​​named "Faithful". This Faithful willingly made the acquaintance of Vaska, but he growled angrily at Petka. And Petka, who knew why the dog was angry with him, quickly hid behind the high back of the geologist, rejoicing that Verny can only growl, but cannot tell what he knows.
Now the guys disappeared in the forest for days on end. Together with geologists, they searched the banks of the Tikhaya River.
We went to the swamp and even once went to the distant Blue Lakes, where they had never dared to climb together.
When they were asked at home where they disappeared and what they were looking for, they proudly answered:
- We are looking for clay.
Now they already knew that clay is not a clay. There are skinny clays, there are fatty ones, such which in their raw state can be cut with a knife, like chunks of thick butter. There is a lot of loam along the lower reaches of the Tikhaya River, that is, loose clay mixed with sand. In the upper reaches, near the lakes, one comes across clay with lime, or marl, and close to the siding, thick layers of red-brown clay ocher lie.
All this was very interesting, especially because before all the clay seemed to the guys the same. In dry weather, these were just shriveled lumps, and in wet weather - ordinary thick and sticky mud. Now they knew that clay is not just dirt, but a raw material from which aluminum would be mined, and they willingly helped geologists find the necessary clay rocks, pointed out the intricate paths and tributaries of the Tikhaya River.
Soon, three freight cars were uncoupled at the junction, and some unfamiliar workers began to throw boxes, logs and boards onto the embankment.
That night, the agitated children could not fall asleep for a long time, satisfied that the patrol was beginning to live a new life, not like the old one.
However, the new life was not in a hurry to come. The workers built a shed out of planks, dumped tools there, left the watchman and, to the great chagrin of the guys, every one of them drove back.

Once in the afternoon, Petka was sitting near the tent. Senior geologist Vasily Ivanovich was mending the ripped elbow of his shirt, and the other - the one who looked like a Red Army commander - measured something according to the plan with a compass.
Vaska was not there. Vaska was left at home to plant cucumbers, and he promised to come later.
“That’s the problem,” said the tall one, pushing aside the plan. - Without a compass - as without hands. Neither take the picture, nor navigate the map. Wait now, while another is sent from the city.
He lit a cigarette and asked Petka:
- And is this Seryozhka always such a crook?
- Always, - Petka answered.
He blushed and to hide it, bent over the extinguished fire, fanning the coals covered with ash.
- Petka! - Vasily Ivanovich shouted at him. - He blew all the ashes on me! Why are you inflating? - I thought ... maybe a kettle, - Petka answered uncertainly.
- Such a heat, and he is a kettle, - the tall one was surprised and again began about the same: - And why did he need this compass? And most importantly, he refuses, he says - he did not take it. You would have told him, Petka, in a comradely manner: “Give it back, Seryozhka. If you're afraid to take it down yourself, let me take it down. " We will not be angry and we will not complain. You tell him, Petka.
“I’ll tell you,” Petka answered, turning his face away from the tall one. But, turning away, he met the eyes of the Faithful. The Faithful lay with his paws outstretched, his tongue sticking out, and, breathing quickly, stared at Petka, as if saying: “And you're lying, brother! You won't say anything to Seryozha ”.
- Is it true that Seryozhka stole the compass? - asked Vasily Ivanovich, having finished sewing and sticking a needle into the lining of his cap. - Maybe we put it somewhere ourselves and in vain are we thinking only of the boy?
- And you would look, - quickly suggested Petka. - And you look, and we will look with Vaska. And we'll look everywhere in the grass.
- What to look for? - the tall one was surprised. - I asked you for a compass, and you, Vasily Ivanovich, said yourself that you forgot to take it from the tent. What should we look for now?
- And now it begins to seem to me that I have captured him. I don’t remember well, but it was as if I had captured it, ”Vasily Ivanovich said with a sly smile. - Remember when we were sitting on a dumped tree on the shore of Blue Lake? Such a huge tree. Did I drop the compass there?
- Something wonderful, Vasily Ivanovich, - said the tall man, - You said that you did not take it from the tent, but now this is what ...
“Nothing is wonderful,” Petka intervened fervently. - It happens too. Very often it happens: you think - did not take, but it turns out - took. And Vaska and I had it. Once we went fishing. So on the way I ask: "You, Vaska, have you forgotten the small hooks?" “Oh,” he says, “I forgot.” We ran back. We are looking, we are looking for nothing. Then I looked at his sleeve, and they were pinned to his sleeve. And you, uncle, say - wonderful. Nothing is wonderful.
And Petka told another case, how the scythe Gennady was looking for an ax all day, and the ax was behind a broom. He spoke convincingly, and the tall one exchanged glances with Vasily Ivanovich.
- Hm ... And perhaps it will be possible to go and look. You guys would run away and look for it yourself.
“We’ll look,” Petka agreed willingly. “If he's there, we'll find him. He will not go anywhere from us. Then we will, once and again, here and there, and we will definitely find it.
After this conversation, without waiting for Vaska, Petka got up and, saying that he remembered the necessary business, said goodbye and, for some reason very cheerful, ran to the path, dexterously jumping over green, moss-covered hummocks, over streams and ant heaps.
Running out onto the trail, he saw a group of Alyosha peasants returning from the patrol.
They were somewhat agitated, very angry and cursed loudly, waving their arms and interrupting each other. Uncle Seraphim was walking behind. His face was gloomy, even more despondent than when the collapsed roof of the barn crushed a piglet and a gander on him.
And from the face of Uncle Seraphim, Petka realized that some kind of trouble had again hit him.

Chapter 9

But the trouble was not only over Uncle Seraphim. A disaster struck over the whole of Alyoshin and, most importantly, over the Alyosha collective farm.
Taking with him three thousand peasant money, the very ones that were collected for the Traktorotsentr shares, the main organizer of the collective farm, the chairman of the village council Yegor Mikhailov, disappeared into the unknown.
He had to stay in the city for two, well, at most three days. A week later they sent him a telegram, then they got worried - they sent another, then a messenger was sent after. And, having returned today, the courier brought the news that Yegor had not come to the district collective farm union and had not handed over money to the bank.
Alyoshino got agitated and rustled. Every day, the meeting. An investigator came from the city. And although everything Alyoshino long before this incident said that Yegor has a bride in the city, and although many details were passed from one to another - and who she is, and what she is, and what character she is, but now it turned out as something so that no one knew anything. And it was impossible to find out in any way: who had seen this Egorov's bride and how, in general, did they find out that she really existed?
Since matters were now confused, none of the members of the village council wanted to replace the chairman.
A new person was sent from the district, but the Alyosha men treated him coldly. There was talk that, they say, Yegor also came from the region, and three thousand peasants' money had gone.
And in the midst of these events, the collective farm that had just been organized, left without a leader, and most importantly, not yet fully strengthened, began to fall apart.
First, one filed an application for withdrawal, then another, then immediately it just burst through - they began to leave in dozens, without any statements, especially since they sat down and everyone rushed to their own lane. Only fifteen courtyards, despite the misfortune that had fallen, held on and did not want to go out.
Among them was the household of Uncle Seraphim.
This peasant, generally frightened by misfortunes and crushed by troubles, walked around the courtyards with a kind of fierce stubbornness completely incomprehensible to his neighbors and, even more gloomy than always, said the same thing everywhere: what to hold on, what if now to leave the collective farm , then there is already nowhere to go at all, all that remains is to abandon the ground and go wherever they look, because the old life is not life.
He was supported by the Shmakov brothers, multi-family peasants, old comrades in the partisan detachment, who were flogged on the same day with Uncle Seraphim by the battalion of Colonel Martsinovsky. He was supported by a member of the village council Igoshkin, a young boy who had recently separated from his father. And, finally, Pavel Matveyevich unexpectedly took the side of the collective farm, who now, when the exits began, as if to spite everyone, applied for his admission to the collective farm. So, fifteen households have amassed. They left for the sowing into the field, not very cheerful, but persistent in their firm intention not to deviate from the path they had begun.
During all these events, Petka and Vaska forgot about the tent for several days. They ran to Alyoshino. They, too, were indignant at Yegor, marveled at the stubbornness of the quiet Uncle Seraphim, and were very sorry for Ivan Mikhailovich.
- It also happens, kids. People are changing, - said Ivan Mikhailovich, inhaling a cigarette, which was heavily smoked, rolled up from newsprint. - It happens ... change. But who would say about Yegor that he will change? He was a tough man. I remember once ... Evening ... We drove into a station. The arrows were shot down, the crosspieces were raised, the track at the back was dismantled and the bridge was burned. Not a soul at the station; all around the forest. Ahead somewhere there was a front and fronts on the sides, and around there were gangs. And it seemed that there was no end to these bands and fronts, and there would never be.
Ivan Mikhailovich fell silent and looked absent-mindedly out the window, towards where heavy thunderclouds were slowly and persistently advancing along the reddish sunset.
The cigar was smoldering, and clouds of smoke, slowly unfolding, stretched up the wall, on which hung a faded photograph of an old combat armored train.
- Uncle Ivan! - Petka called out to him.
- What do you want?
“Well, there are gangs all around, and there is no end to these fronts and gangs,” Petka repeated word for word.
- Yes ... A siding in the woods. Quiet. Spring. These birds are chirping. Egorka and I got out dirty, oily, sweaty. We sat down on the grass. What to do? So Yegor says: “Uncle Ivan, in front of us the crosspieces are raised and the arrows are broken, behind the bridge is burned. And for the third day we are wandering back and forth through these gangster forests. And the front is front and the sides are fronts. Still, we will win, not someone else. " “Of course,” I tell him, “we are. Nobody argues about this. But our team with an armored car is unlikely to get out of this trap. " And he replies: “Well, we won't get out. So what? Our 16th will disappear - the 28th will remain on the line, the 39th. They will finalize ". He broke a sprig of red rose hips, sniffed it, and stuck it into the buttonhole of his charcoal blouse. He smiled - as if there was no and was not happier than his man in the world, took a wrench, an oil can and crawled under the locomotive. Ivan Mikhailovich fell silent again, and Petka and Vaska never had to hear how the armored car got out of the trap, because Ivan Mikhailovich quickly went into the next room.
- But what about Yegor's kids? - a little later the old man asked from behind the partition. - He has two of them.
- Two, Ivan Mikhailovich, Pashka and Masha. They stayed with their grandmother, but their grandmother is old. And he sits on the stove - swears, and gets off the stove - swears. So, all day long - either prays or swears.
- We ought to go and have a look. I ought to think of something. I’m sorry for the kids, ”said Ivan Mikhailovich. And he could hear his smoky tobacco cigarette puffing behind the partition.
In the morning Vaska and Ivan Mikhailovich went to Alyoshino. They called Petka with them, but he refused - he said that there was no time.
Vaska was surprised: why did Petka suddenly have no time? But Petka, without waiting for questions, ran away.
In Alyoshin, they went to the new chairman, but they did not find him. He went across the river to the meadow.
This meadow was now a fierce struggle. Previously, the meadow was divided between several courtyards, with a larger plot belonging to the miller Petunin. Then, when the collective farm was organized, Yegor Mikhailov made sure that this meadow was completely assigned to the collective farm. Now that the collective farm has collapsed, the former owners demanded the previous plots and referred to the fact that after the theft of state money, the mowing machines promised from the area would still not be given to the collective farm and it would not be able to handle haymaking.
But the fifteen households that remained on the collective farm never wanted to break up the meadow and, most importantly, to concede the former plot to Petunin. The chairman sided with the collective farm, but many peasants, embittered by the latest events, stood up for Petunin.
And Petunia walked calmly, arguing that the truth was on his side and that at least he would go to Moscow, but he would achieve his goal.
Uncle Seraphim and young Igoshkin sat in the boardroom and wrote some kind of paper.
- We are writing! - Uncle Seraphim said angrily, greeting Ivan Mikhailovich. - They sent their paper to the region, and we will send ours. Read it, Igoshkin, did we write all right. He is an outsider, and he knows better.
While Igoshkin was reading and while they were discussing, Vaska ran out into the street and met Fedka Galkin, that pockmarked little boy who recently had a fight with "Red" because he teased: "Fedka collective farm is a pig's nose."
Fedka told Vaska a lot of interesting things. He told that Semyon Zagrebin's bathhouse had recently burned down and Semyon walked around and swore that it was set on fire. And that from this bath the fire almost spread to the collective farm shed, where the trire stood and the refined grain lay.
He also said that at night the collective farm now dresses up its watchmen in turn. And that when, in turn, Fed'ka's father was late to return from the patrol, he, Fedka, himself went around, and then his mother replaced him, who took a mallet and went to guard.
- All Egor, - finished Fedka. - He is to blame, and we are all scolded. All of you, they say, are masters at someone else's.
- But he used to be a hero, - said Vaska.
- He was not before, but always as a hero. Our peasants still don’t understand in any way - why is he. He only looks so inconspicuous, but as he takes up something, his eyes squint, shine. He will tell you how he will chop it off. How he turned the matter over with the meadow! We will, he says, mow together, and winter crops, he says, we will sow together.
- Why did he do such a bad thing? - asked Vaska. - Or do people say that it is from love?
- Because of love, a wedding is celebrated, and not money is stolen, - Fedka was indignant. - If everyone stole money out of love, then what would happen? No, it’s not out of love, but I don’t know why ... And I don’t know, and no one knows. And we have such a lame Sidor. Old already. So, he does, if you start talking about Yegor, he doesn't want to listen: "Nope, he says, nothing of this." And he doesn't listen, he turns away and hobbles to the side. And all is muttering something, muttering, and at the very tears are rolling, rolling. Such a blissful old man. He used to work at Danila Yegorovich's apiary. Yes, he calculated for something, and Yegor stood up.
- Fedka, - asked Vaska, - why can't you see Yermolai? Or will he not be guarding Danila Yegorovich's garden this year?
- Will. Yesterday I saw him, he was walking out of the forest. Drunk. He's always like that. Until the apples are ripe, he drinks. And as soon as the time is right, Danila Yegorovich no longer gives him money for vodka, and then he is on guard, sober and cunning. Do you remember, Vaska, how he once brought you nettles? ...
- I remember, I remember, - Vaska answered quickly, trying to hush up these unpleasant memories... - Why is it, Fedka, Yermolai does not go to work, does not plow the land? After all, he is so healthy.
“I don’t know,” answered Fedka. - I heard that a long time ago he, Yermolai, deserted from the Reds. Then he was in jail for a while. And since then he has always been like that. Either he leaves Alyoshin somewhere, then he comes back for the summer. I, Vaska, do not like Yermolai. He is only kind to dogs, and even then when drunk.
The kids talked for a long time. Vaska also told Fedka about what was going on around the crossing. He told me about the tent, about the factory, about Seryozha, about the compass.
- And you come to us, - Vaska suggested. - We run to you, and you run to us. And you, and Kolka Zipunov, and someone else. Can you read, Fedka?
- A little.
- And Petka and I are a little too.
- There is no school. When Yegor was there, he tried very hard to have a school. Now I don’t know how. The men got embittered - not up to school.
“They will start building the plant, and the school will be built,” Vaska consoled him. - Maybe some boards will remain, logs, nails ... How much is needed for the school? We will ask the workers, and they will build it. Yes, we ourselves will help. You come running to us, Fedka, and you, and Kolka, and Alyoshka. Let's get together in a bunch, think of something interesting.
- Okay, - agreed Fedka. - As soon as we manage the potatoes, we'll come running.
Returning to the board of the collective farm, Vaska did not find Ivan Mikhailovich. He found Ivan Mikhailovich at Egorova's hut, near Pashka and Mashka.
Pashka and Masha gnawed the gingerbread they had brought and, interrupting and complementing each other, trustingly told the old man about their life and about the angry grandmother.

Chapter 10

- Guyda, guy! Gop-gop! It's good to live! The sun is shining - gop, good! Clink, clink! The streams are ringing. The birds are singing. Gaida, cavalry!
So, the brave and cheerful cavalryman Petka rode through the forest on foot, keeping his way to the distant shores of the Blue Lake. In his right hand he gripped a whip, which replaced him either a flexible whip or a sharp saber, in his left - a cap with a compass hidden in it, which had to be hidden today, and tomorrow, by all means, to find with Vaska by that felled tree, where the once forgetful Vasily Ivanovich rested.
- Guyda, guy! Gop-gop! It's good to live! Vasily Ivanovich - good! The tent is good! The plant is good! Things are good! Stop!
And Petka, he is a horse, he is also a rider, stretched out on the grass from its full swing, catching his foot on the protruding root.
- Oh, damn, you stumble! - Petka the horse rider scolded Petka. - As soon as I warm up with a whip, so you will not stumble.
He got up, wiped his hand in the puddle and looked around.
The forest was thick and high. Huge, calm old birches gleamed on top of bright fresh greenery. It was cool and gloomy below. Wild bees with a monotonous hum whirled near the hollow of a half-rotten, covered with outgrowths of aspen. It smelled of mushrooms, rotten foliage and the dampness of a swamp spreading nearby.
- Guyda, guy! - Petka shouted angrily the horse rider on Petka. - I drove in the wrong place!
And, pulling the left reins, he galloped to the side, on the rise.
“It's good to live,” the brave horseman Petka thought at a gallop. - And now it's good. And if I grow up, it will be even better. When I grow up, I'll sit on a real horse, let it race. When I grow up, I'll sit on an airplane, let it fly. When I grow up, I’ll stand in front of the car, let it bang. All distant countries I will skip and fly around. I will be the first commander in the war. I will be the first pilot on the air. I will be the first driver of the car. Guyda, guy! Gop-gop! Stop!"
A narrow wet glade sparkled with bright yellow water lilies right under my feet. Puzzled Petka remembered that there should not be such a clearing on his way, and decided that, obviously, the damned horse again brought him to the wrong place.
He rounded the swamp and, worried, walked at a pace, carefully looking around and guessing where he had got to.
However, the further he went, the clearer it became to him that he was lost. And from this, with every step, life began to seem to him more and more sad and gloomy.
After spinning a little more, he stopped, not knowing at all where to go next, but then he remembered that just with the help of a compass, sailors and travelers always find the right path. He took a compass out of his cap, pressed a button on the side, and the free arrow pointed with a blackened point in the direction in which Petka was least of all going to go. He shook the compass, but the arrow stubbornly pointed in the same direction.
Then Petka went, arguing that the compass knew better, but soon he ran into such a thick of overgrown aspen forest that it was in no way possible to break through it without tearing his shirt.
He went around and looked at the compass again. But no matter how much he turned, the arrow with senseless stubbornness pushed him either into the swamp, or into the thick, or somewhere else in the most uncomfortable, difficult-to-pass place.
Then, angry and frightened, Petka stuck the compass into his cap and walked on just by sight, strongly suspecting that all sailors and travelers would have died long ago if they always kept their way to where the blackened arrowhead shows.
He walked for a long time and was about to resort to the last resort, that is, to cry loudly, but then in the clearing of the trees he saw a low sun sinking towards sunset.
And suddenly the whole forest seemed to turn to him in a different, more familiar side. Obviously, this happened because he remembered how the cross and the dome of the Alyosha church were always vividly outlined against the background of the setting sun.
Now he realized that Alyoshino was not to his left, as he thought, but to his right, and that the Blue Lake was no longer in front of him, but behind.
And as soon as this happened, the forest seemed familiar to him, since all the confused glades, swamps and ravines in the usual sequence settled down firmly and obediently into place.
Soon he guessed where he was. It was quite far from the siding, but not so far from the path that led from Alyoshin to the siding. He perked up, jumped on an imaginary horse and suddenly became quiet and pricked up his ears.
Not far away, he heard a song. It was some kind of strange song, meaningless, deaf and heavy. And Petka did not like this song. And Petka hid, looking around and waiting for a convenient moment to give the horse a spur and rush as soon as possible from the twilight, from the inhospitable forest, from a strange song to a familiar path, to a siding home.

Chapter 11

Even before reaching the crossing, Ivan Mikhailovich and Vaska, returning from Alyoshin, heard a noise and a crash.
Rising from the hollow, they saw that the entire impasse was occupied by boxcars and platforms. A little further away there is a whole village of gray tents. Bonfires were burning, a camp kitchen was smoking, cauldrons grumbled over the fires. The horses whinnied. Workers fussed about, throwing logs, boards, boxes and, pulling the carts from the platform, harness and sacks.
Huddling among the workers, looking at the horses, glancing into the carriages and tents and even into the firebox of the camp kitchen, Vaska ran to look for Petka to ask him when the workers arrived, how it was and why Seryozhka is spinning around the tents, pulling brushwood for fires, and no one he does not scold or drive away.
But Petkina's mother, who met on the way, angrily answered him that "this idol" had failed somewhere else since midday and had not come home to dinner.
This completely surprised and angered Vaska.
“What is this with Petka being done? He thought. - Last time he disappeared somewhere, today he also disappeared again. And how cunning this Petka is! The quiet one is quiet, but he himself is doing something on the sly. "
Pondering over Petkin’s behavior and very disapproving of him, Vaska unexpectedly came across the following thought: what if it’s not Seryozhka, but Petka himself, so as not to share the catch, took and threw a dive and now secretly chooses a fish?
This suspicion was strengthened even more by Vaska after he remembered that the last time Petka lied to him as if he was running to his aunt. In fact, he was not there.
And now, almost convinced of his suspicion, Vaska firmly decided to inflict a strict interrogation on Petka and, if something happens, beat him up so that it would be discouraging to do so forward.
He went home and from the entrance he heard his father and mother arguing loudly about something.
Fearing that, in the heat of the moment, he might get hit for something, he stopped and listened.
- But how is it so? - said the mother, and from her voice Vaska understood that she was excited about something. - If only they gave it to their senses. I planted two measures of potatoes, three beds of cucumbers. And now it’s all gone?
- What are you, really! - the father was indignant. - Will they really wait? Let's wait, they say, until Katerina's cucumbers ripen. There is nowhere to unload the carriages, and she has cucumbers. And what are you, Katya, what a weird one? She used to swear: the stove in the booth was bad, and cramped, and low, but now she felt sorry for the booth. Yes, let them break it. Damn it!
“Why are the cucumbers gone? What wagons? Who will break the booth? " - Vaska was taken aback and, suspecting something unkind, entered the room.
And what he learned stunned him even more than the first news of the construction of the plant. Their booth will be broken. Along the section on which it stands, siding for wagons with construction cargo will be laid.
The move will be moved to another place and a new house will be built for them.
- You must understand, Katerina, - the father argued, - will they build such a booth for us? This is not the old time now to build some kind of dog kennels for the watchmen. They will build a bright and spacious one for us. You should be happy, and you ... cucumbers, cucumbers!
Mother silently turned away.
If all this had been prepared little by little, if all this had not piled up all at once, she herself would have been content to leave the old, dilapidated and cramped kennel. But now she is frightened by the fact that everything around was decided, done and moved somehow very quickly. It was frightening that events with unprecedented, unusual haste arose one after another. The crossing lived quietly. Alyoshino lived quietly. And suddenly, as if some kind of wave, finally reaching here from afar, swept over the crossing and Alyoshin. A collective farm, a factory, a dam, a new house ... All this was embarrassing and further frightening with its novelty, uniqueness and, most importantly, its swiftness.
- Is it true, Grigory, which will be better? She asked, upset and confused. - Whether it is bad or good, but we lived and lived. What if it gets worse?
“Enough for you,” her father objected. - Completely fence, Katya ... It's a shame! You talk about, you don't know what. Is it then we do everything to make it worse? You better look at Vaska's face. There he is, rogue, and mouth to ear. What is still small, and even then he understands that it will be better. So, what, Vaska?
But Vaska did not even find what to answer, and only silently nodded his head.
Many new thoughts, new questions occupied his restless head. Like his mother, he was amazed at how quickly events followed. But this speed did not frighten him - it carried away, like the swift course of a high-speed train rushing to distant countries.
He went to the hayloft and climbed under a warm sheepskin coat. But he couldn't sleep.
From afar, the incessant clatter of boards being thrown could be heard. The shunting locomotive puffed. Colliding buffers clanged, and the switchman's signal horn sounded alarmingly.
Through the broken plank of the roof Vaska saw a piece of the clear black-blue sky and three bright radiant stars.
Looking at these stars twinkling in unison, Vaska remembered how confidently his father had said that life would be good. He wrapped himself even more tightly in a sheepskin coat, closed his eyes and thought: "What good will she be?" - and for some reason I remembered the poster that hung in the red corner. A large, brave Red Army soldier stands at the post and, clutching a wonderful rifle, looks ahead vigilantly. Behind him are green fields, where thick, tall rye turns yellow, large, unfenced gardens bloom and where beautiful and so unlike wretched Alyoshin spacious and free villages are stretched.
And further, beyond the fields, under the direct wide rays of the bright sun, the chimneys of mighty factories proudly rise. Wheels, lights, cars are visible through the sparkling windows.
And everywhere people are cheerful, cheerful. Everyone is busy with their own business - in the fields, and in the villages, and at the cars. Some are working, others have already worked and are resting.
Some little boy, a little like Pavlik Pryprygin, but not so smeared, his head lifted up, curiously scrutinizes the sky, along which a long swift airship is smoothly rushing.
Vaska was always a little jealous that this laughing little boy looked like Pavlik Pryprygin, and not like him, Vaska.
But in the other corner of the poster - very far away, in the direction where the Red Army soldier guarding this distant country was peering vigilantly - something was drawn that always aroused in Vaska a feeling of vague and vague alarm.
Black, diffuse shadows loomed there. There were outlines of embittered, bad faces. And it was as if someone was looking from there with intent, unkind eyes and waited for the Red Army soldier to leave or when the Red Army soldier turned away.
And Vaska was very glad that the smart and calm Red Army soldier did not go anywhere, did not turn away, but looked exactly where he needed to. And he saw everything and understood everything.
Vaska was already completely asleep when he heard the gate slam: someone had entered their booth.
A minute later, his mother called out to him:
- Vasya ... Vaska! Are you sleeping or what?
- No, Mom, I'm not sleeping.
- Have you seen Petka today?
- I saw it, but only in the morning, but I never saw it again. And what is he to you?
- And the fact that now his mother came. He disappeared, he says, even before dinner, and to this day, not and not.
When his mother left, Vaska was alarmed. He knew that Petka was not very brave to walk at night, and therefore he could not understand in any way where his unlucky comrade had gone.
Petka returned late. He returned without his cap. His eyes were red, tear-stained, but already dry. It was evident that he was very tired, and therefore he somehow indifferently listened to all the reproaches of his mother, refused to eat and silently climbed under the covers.
He soon fell asleep, but slept uneasily: tossed and turned, groaned and muttered something.
He told his mother that he was just lost, and his mother believed him. He said the same to Vaska, but Vaska did not really believe it. In order to get lost, you need to go somewhere or look for something. And where and why he went, this Petka did not say or carried something awkward, awkward, and Vaska could immediately see that he was lying.
But when Vaska tried to expose him in a lie, the usually cunning Petka did not even begin to make excuses. He just blinked hard and turned away.
Convinced that you would not get anything from Petka anyway, Vaska stopped questioning, remaining, however, in a strong suspicion that Petka was some kind of strange, secretive and cunning comrade. By this time, the geological tent had been removed from its place in order to advance further to the upper reaches of the Sinyavka River.
Vaska and Petka helped load things onto the loaded horses. And when was everything ready to set off, Vasily Ivanovich and the other? - high - warmly said goodbye to the guys with whom they wandered so much in the woods. They were supposed to return to the siding only by the end of the summer.
- And what, guys, - asked Vasily Ivanovich at last, - you never ran to look for a compass?
- It's all because of Petka, - Vaska answered. - At first he himself suggested: let's go, let's go ... And when I agreed, he stubbornly rested and does not go. I called once - it does not go. Another time it doesn't work. So, and did not go.
- What are you? - Vasily Ivanovich was surprised, who remembered how passionately Petka had volunteered to go in search.
It is not known what the embarrassed and subdued Petka would have answered and how the embarrassed and hushed Petka would have twisted, but then one of the loaded horses, untied from the tree, ran along the path. Everyone rushed to catch up with her, because she could go to Alyoshino.
Just after the blow of the whip, Petka rushed after her right through the bushes, through the wet meadow. He splashed himself all over, tore off the hem of his shirt and, jumping out across the path, grabbed the reins tightly just before the path.
And when he silently led the stubborn horse to the out of breath and lagging behind Vasily Ivanovich, he breathed faster, his eyes glittered, and it was evident that he was incredibly proud and happy that he had managed to render a service to these good people who were going on a long journey.

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Lately, friendship with Petka has broken. Petka has become somehow different, wild.
Now everything is nothing - plays, talks, then suddenly frowns, becomes silent and does not show up all day, and everything is busy at home in the courtyard with Elena.
Once, returning from the carpentry workshop, where he and Seryozhka were putting hammers on the handles, Vaska decided to take a dip before dinner.
He turned to the path and saw Petka. Petka walked in front, often stopping and turning around, as if he was afraid that they would see him.
And Vaska decided to track down where this crazy and strange man sneaks.
A strong, hot wind was blowing. The forest was noisy. But, fearing the crunch of his steps, Vaska turned off the path and walked a little behind the bushes.
Petka made his way unevenly: then, as if having gained resolve, he started to run and ran quickly and for a long time, so that Vaska, who had to bend around the bushes and trees, could barely keep up with him, then he stopped, began to look anxiously around, and then walked quietly almost through force, as if someone was urging him on from behind, but he could not and did not want to walk.
"And where is he going?" - thought Vaska, to whom Petkino's excited state was beginning to be transmitted.
Suddenly Petka stopped. He stood for a long time; tears glistened in his eyes. Then he lowered his head dejectedly and quietly walked back. But after walking only a few steps, he stopped again, shook his head and, turning abruptly into the forest, rushed straight to Vaska.
Frightened and not expecting this, Vaska jumped back behind the bushes, but it was too late. Not seeing Vaska, Petka still heard the crackle of the bushes being pulled apart. He screamed and dashed toward the path.
When Vaska got out onto the path, there was no one else on it.
Despite the fact that it was already evening, despite the gusty wind, it was stuffy.
Heavy clouds floated across the sky, but, without getting lost in a thundercloud, they swept one by one, without covering or touching the sun.
Anxiety, vague, indistinct, seized Vaska more and more tightly, and the noisy, restless forest, the one that Petka was so afraid of for some reason, suddenly seemed to Vaska alien and hostile.
He quickened his pace and soon found himself on the bank of the Quiet River.
Among the blossoming bush bushes lay a red piece of smooth sandy shore. Previously, Vaska always swam here. The water here was calm, the bottom was firm and even.
But now, coming closer, he saw that the water rose and became cloudy.
Pieces of fresh wood chips, fragments of boards, fragments of sticks floated restlessly, collided, diverging and silently turning around sharp dangerous craters that appeared and disappeared on the foamy surface.
Obviously, below, at the construction of the dam, they began to put bridges.
He undressed, but did not flounder, as it happened before, and did not flounder, scaring away the silvery flocks of swift minnows with cheerful splashes.
Having carefully lowered himself near the shore, feeling with his foot the now unfamiliar bottom and holding his hands to the branches of a bush, he plunged several times, got out of the water and quietly walked home.
At home he was boring. He ate poorly, accidentally spilled a ladle of water, and a silent and angry man got up from the table.
He went to Seryozha, but Seryozha himself was angry, because he cut his finger with a chisel and he had just been smeared with iodine.
Vaska went to Ivan Mikhailovich, but did not find him at home; then he returned home and decided to go to bed early.
He lay down, but did not fall asleep. He remembered last year's summer. And, probably, because the day was so hectic, unlucky, last summer seemed warm and good to him.
Suddenly he felt sorry for the clearing that the excavator had dug up and turned around; and the Quiet River, the water in which was so light and clean; and Petka, with whom they spent their merry, mischievous days so well and amicably; and even the gluttonous ginger cat, Ivan Ivanovich, who, since the day their old booth was broken, became sad, bored and left the crossing to no one knows where. And also it is not known where that constant cuckoo, frightened by the blows of heavy sledgehammers, flew away, under the sonorous and sad crowing of which Vaska fell asleep in the hayloft and saw his beloved, familiar dreams.
Then he sighed, closed his eyes and began to slowly fall asleep.
A new, unfamiliar dream came. First, between the muddy clouds, a heavy and cloud-like sharp-toothed golden crucian carp swam. He swam straight to Vaska's dive, but the dive was so small, and the crucian carp was so big, and Vaska shouted in fright: "Boys! ... Boys! ... Dance a big net, or he will break the dive and leave." “Okay,” the boys said, “we’ll bring it in now, but only before we ring the big bells.”
And they began to call: don !, don !, don !, don! ... And while they were loudly ringing, behind the forest above Alyoshin a column of fire and smoke rose. And all the people spoke and shouted:
- Fire! This is a fire ... This is a very big fire. Then his mother said to Vaska:
- Get up, Vaska!
And since the mother's voice sounded something very loud and even angry, Vaska guessed that this was perhaps no longer a dream, but in fact.
He opened his eyes. It was dark. From somewhere in the distance, the ringing of the alarm bell was heard.
- Get up, Vaska, - repeated the mother. - Climb into the attic and take a look. It seems that Alyoshino is on fire.
Vaska quickly pulled on his pants and climbed up the steep stairs to the attic.
Clutching awkwardly in the dark on the ledges of the beams, he reached the dormer and leaned out to the waist.
It was a black, starry night. Near the factory site, near the warehouses, the lights of the night lamps flickered dimly, the red signals of the input and output semaphores glowed brightly to the right and left. Ahead, the water of the Quiet River gleamed faintly.
But there, in the dark, beyond the river, behind the invisibly rustling forest, where Alyoshino was located, there was no flaming flame, no sparks flying in the wind, no dying smoke glow. There lay a heavy band of dense, impenetrable darkness, from which the muffled bells of the church bell could be heard.

Chapter 15

A stack of fresh, fragrant hay. On the shady side, hiding so that he could not be seen from the path, lay a tired Petka.
He lay still, so that a lonely crow, large and careful, without noticing him, sat down heavily on a pole sticking out over the haystack.
She sat in plain sight, calmly adjusting her strong shiny feathers with her beak.
And Petka involuntarily thought how easy it would be to put a full charge of shot into her from here. But this accidental thought provoked another, one that he did not want and was afraid of. And he put his face in the palms of his hands.
The black crow turned its head warily and looked down. Unhurriedly spreading her wings, she flew from a pole to a high birch and stared curiously from there at a lonely crying little boy.
Petka raised his head. Uncle Seraphim was walking along the road from Alyoshin and leading the horse on a leash: it must be reforging. Then he saw Vaska, who was returning home along the path.
And then Petka quieted down, suppressed by an unexpected guess: it was Vaska that he came across in the bushes when he wanted to turn off the path into the forest. This means that Vaska already knows something or guesses about something, otherwise why would he hunt him down? So, hide, don't hide, but all the same, everything will be revealed.
But, instead of calling Vaska and telling him everything, Petka wiped his eyes dry and firmly decided not to say a word to anyone. Let them discover themselves, let them find out and let them do whatever they want with it.
With this thought, he got up, and he felt calmer and easier. With quiet hatred he looked to where the Alyosha forest was rustling, spat fiercely and swore.
- Petka! - he heard a shout behind him.
He cowered, turned around and saw Ivan Mikhailovich.
- Did anyone beat you? The old man asked. - No ... Well, anyone offended? Also no ... So, why are your eyes angry and wet?
- Boring, - Petka answered sharply and turned away.
- How is it so - boring? It was all fun, and then suddenly it became boring. Look at Vaska, at Seryozhka, at the other guys. They are always busy with something, they are always together. And you are all alone and alone. Inevitably it will be boring. At least you would come running to me. On Wednesday we will go catching quail with one person. Do you want us to take you with us?
Ivan Mikhailovich patted Petka on the shoulder and asked, imperceptibly looking over Petkino's thinner and haggard face:
- You, perhaps, are unwell? Maybe you have a pain? And the guys do not understand this, but they all complain to me: "Here Petka is so gloomy and boring! ..."
- I have a toothache, - Petka agreed willingly - Do they really understand? They, Ivan Mikhailovich, do not understand anything. Here and so it hurts, and they - why and why.
- You need to rip it out! - said Ivan Mikhailovich. - On the way back we will go to the paramedic, I will ask him, he will pull your tooth out at once.
- I have ... Ivan Mikhailovich, he no longer hurts very much, it was very yesterday, but today it is already passing, - Petka explained after a little pause. - Today I have not a tooth, but my head hurts.
- You see now! Involuntarily you will get bored. Let's go to the paramedic, he will give some kind of potion or powders.
“I had a great headache today,” Petka continued, carefully searching for words, who didn’t want at all to have his healthy teeth pulled out, to top it all off, and stuffed him with sour potions and bitter powders. - Well, I was sick! ... So, I was sick! ... It's only good that now it has already passed.
- You see, and the teeth do not hurt, and the head is gone. Quite good, 'replied Ivan Mikhailovich, chuckling softly through his yellowed gray mustache.
"Good! - Petka sighed to himself. “Okay, but not really.”
They walked along the path and sat down to rest on a thick blackened log.
Ivan Mikhailovich took out a pouch of tobacco, and Petka sat silently beside him.
Suddenly Ivan Mikhailovich felt that Petka quickly moved towards him and firmly grabbed him by the empty sleeve.
- What are you? - asked the old man, seeing how his face turned white and the boy's lips trembled.
Petka was silent.
Someone, approaching with uneven, heavy steps, sang a song.
It was a strange, heavy and meaningless song. A low, drunken voice said gloomily:

Ie-echo! And he drove, eh ha ha ...
So he drove like that, aha-ha ...
And he came ... Eh ha ha ...
Echo ha! D-yaha-ha ...

It was the same bad song that Petka heard that evening when he got lost on his way to the Blue Lake. And, clinging tightly to the cuff of his sleeve, he stared fearfully into the bushes.
Hitting the branches, staggering strongly, Yermolai came out from around the bend. He stopped, shook his disheveled head, for some reason shook his finger and silently moved on.
- Ek is drunk! - said Ivan Mikhailovich, angry that Yermolai had so frightened Petka. - And you, Petka, what? Well drunk and drunk. You never know we have such staggering.
Petka was silent.
His brows furrowed, his eyes sparkled, and his quivering lips pressed tightly together. And an unexpectedly harsh, evil smile fell on his face. As if, only now having understood something necessary and important, he made a firm and irrevocable decision.
“Ivan Mikhailovich,” he said loudly, looking the old man straight in the eyes, “but it was Yermolai who killed Yegor Mikhailovich ...
Towards nightfall, Uncle Seraphim galloped along the high road on a bareback horse with alarming news from the patrol to Alyoshin. Jumping into the street, he hit the window of the last hut with his whip and, shouting to young Igoshkin to run to the chairman as soon as possible, galloped on, often restraining his horse by other people's dark windows and calling his comrades.
He knocked loudly at the gates of the presidential house. Without waiting for it to be unlocked, he jumped over the fence, pushed the lock aside, sat down on his horse and himself tumbled into the hut, where people, alarmed by the knocking, were already twirling around, lighting the fire.
- What you? - asked his chairman, surprised by such a swift pressure of the usually calm Uncle Seraphim.
- Otherwise, - said Uncle Seraphim, throwing on the table a crumpled checkered cap, perforated with shot and stained with dark stains of dried blood, - but that you all die! After all, Yegor didn't run away anywhere, but he was killed in our forest.
The hut was filled with people. From one to the other, the news was transmitted that Yegor was killed when, leaving Alyoshin for the city, he walked along the forest path to the siding in order to see his friend Ivan Mikhailovich.
- He was killed by Yermolai and in the bushes he dropped the cap from the dead man, and then he kept walking through the forest, looking for it, but could not find it. And the boy Petka came across the cap of the drivers, who got lost and wandered in that direction.
And then like a bright flash of light flashed in front of the assembled men. And then a lot of things suddenly became clear and understandable. And only one thing was incomprehensible: how and where could the assumption arise that Yegor Mikhailov - this best and most reliable comrade - disgracedly disappeared, seizing state money?
But immediately, explaining this, from the crowd from the door was heard the torn, painful cry of the lame Sidor, the same one who always turned away and left when they began to talk to him about Yegor's escape.
- What Ermolai! He shouted. - Whose gun? Everything is set up. Death was not enough for them ... Give them shame ... Lucky money ... Bang it! And then he ran away ... Thief! The men will be furious: where is the money? There was a collective farm - there will be no ... Let's take the meadow back ... What Ermolai! Everything ... everything is rigged!
And then they began to speak even more sharply and louder. The hut was getting crowded. Through the open windows and doors, anger and fury burst into the street.
- This is Danilino's business! Someone shouted.
- This is their business! - angry voices were heard all around.
And suddenly the church bell rang out the alarm, and its thick rattling sounds thundered with hatred and pain.
This is lame Sidor, distraught with anger, to which was mingled joy for his not escaped, but killed Yegor, having arbitrarily climbed the bell tower, in fierce ecstasy sounded the alarm.
- Let it hit. Do not touch! - shouted Uncle Seraphim. - Let him raise everyone. It is high time!
Lights flashed, windows were thrown open, gates slammed, and everyone ran to the square - to find out what had happened, what the trouble was, why the noise, shouts, alarm bells.
Meanwhile, Petka, for the first time in many days, slept soundly and calmly. Everything heavy, so unexpectedly and tightly squeezing him, was knocked over, thrown off. He suffered a lot. The same little boy, like many others, a little brave, a little timid, sometimes sincere, sometimes secretive and cunning, he, out of fear for his little misfortune, hid a big deal for a long time.
He saw the cap lying around at the very moment when, frightened by a drunken song, he wanted to run home. He put his cap with a compass on the grass, raised his cap and recognized it: it was Yegor's checkered cap, all perforated and stained with dried blood.
He shuddered, dropped his cap and took off, forgot about his cap and the compass.
Many times he tried to get into the forest, pick up his cap and drown the damned compass in a river or in a swamp, and then talk about the find, but each time an inexplicable fear seized the boy, and he returned home empty-handed.
And to put it this way, while his cap with a stolen compass lay next to the shot through his cap, he did not have the courage. Because of this unfortunate compass, Seryozhka was already beaten, Vaska was deceived and he, Petka, how many times he scolded the uncaught thief in front of the guys. And suddenly it would turn out that the thief is himself. Ashamed! Even scary to think! Not to mention the fact that Seryozhka would have been a thrashing and from his father, too, would have hit him hard. And he sagged, fell silent and fell silent, hiding and concealing everything. And only last night, when he recognized Yermolai from the song and guessed that he was looking for Yermolai in the forest, he told Ivan Mikhailovich the whole truth, without hiding anything from the very beginning.

Chapter 16

Two days later, there was a holiday at the construction of the plant. From early in the morning, musicians arrived, a little later a delegation from factories from the city, a pioneer detachment and speakers were supposed to arrive.
On this day, the ceremonial laying of the main building was carried out.
All this promised to be very interesting, but on the same day in Alyoshin, the murdered chairman Yegor Mikhailovich was buried, whose body covered with branches was found at the bottom of a deep, dark ravine in the forest. And the guys hesitated and did not know where to go.
- Better in Alyoshino, - suggested Vaska. - The plant is just beginning. He will always be here, and Yegor will never be.
- You and Petka are running to Alyoshino, - Seryozhka suggested, - and I will stay here. Then you will tell me, and I will tell you.
- Okay, - agreed Vaska. - We, perhaps, ourselves will be in time by the end ... Petka, whips in hand! Gayda on horseback and ride.
After hot, dry winds, it rained at night. The morning flared up clear and cool.
Either because there was a lot of sun and elastic new flags fluttered cheerfully in its rays, or because the musicians playing out of tune in the meadow and people were reaching out to the factory site from everywhere, it was somehow extraordinarily cheerful. It's not so fun when you want to pamper, jump, laugh, but as it happens before setting off on a long, long journey, when you feel a little sorry for what is left behind, and deeply excites and pleases that new and unusual that should meet at the end of the planned paths.
On this day, Yegor was buried. On this day, the main building of the aluminum smelter was laid. And on the same day, the junction No. 216 was renamed the Wings of an Airplane station.
The children trotted along the path. They stopped at the bridge. The path here was narrow, with a swamp on either side. People were walking towards. Four policemen with revolvers in their hands - two in the back, two in front - were leading the three arrested. These were Yermolai, Danila Yegorovich and Petunias. The only thing missing was Zagrebin's cheerful fist, who, even that night, when the alarm started ringing, found out what was going on earlier than others, and, leaving the farm, disappeared into no one knows where.
Seeing this procession, the children backed away to the very edge of the path and silently stopped, letting the arrested go.
- Don't be afraid, Petka! - Vaska whispered, noticing how pale the face of his comrade.
- I'm not afraid, - Petka answered. - Do you think I was silent because I was afraid of them? - Petka added when the arrested passed by. - I was afraid of you fools.
And although Petka cursed for such hurtful words ought to have given him a jab, but he looked at Vaska so directly and so good-naturedly that Vaska smiled and commanded himself:
- At a gallop!
They buried Yegor Mikhailovich not in the cemetery, they buried him outside the village, on the high, steep bank of the Quiet River.
From here one could see the free, rye-filled fields, and the wide Zabelin meadow with a river, the very one near which such a fierce struggle broke out.
He was buried by the whole village. A workers' delegation came from the building. A speaker came from the city.
From the priest's garden, the women dug the largest, most spreading bush of terry rose hips in the evening, such that it burns with bright scarlet countless petals in the spring, and planted it at the head of the bed, near a deep damp hole.
- Let it bloom.
The guys picked up wildflowers and put heavy simple wreaths on the lid of a raw pine coffin. Then they lifted the coffin and carried it.
Old man Ivan Mikhailovich, a former driver of an armored train, who had come to the funeral in the evening, saw off his young stoker on his last journey.
The old man's step was heavy, and his eyes were moist and stern.
Climbing a hill higher, Petka and Vaska stood at the grave and listened.
A stranger from the city spoke. And although he was unfamiliar, he spoke as if he had known the murdered Yegor and the Alyosha peasants for a long time and well, their concerns, doubts and thoughts.
He talked about a five-year plan, about machines, about thousands and tens of thousands of tractors that are going out and will have to go out onto the endless collective farm fields.
And everyone listened to him.
And Vaska and Petka were listening too.
But he said that it’s impossible to create and build a new life so simply without hard, persistent efforts, without a stubborn, irreconcilable struggle, in which there may be individual defeats and sacrifices.
And over the not yet covered grave of the deceased Yegor, everyone believed him that without a struggle, without sacrifices, you could not build.
And Vaska and Petka believed too.
And although here, in Alyoshin, there was a funeral, the speaker's voice sounded cheerful and firm when he said that today is a holiday, because the building of a new giant plant is being laid nearby.
But although there was a holiday at the building, the other speaker, whom Seryozhka, who remained at the junction, listened to from the roof of the hut, said that the holiday was a holiday, but that the struggle was going on everywhere without interruption, both through weekdays and through holidays.
And at the mention of the murdered chairman of a neighboring collective farm, everyone stood up, took off their hats, and the music at the festival began to play a funeral march.
So, they said there, and so they said here, because the factories and collective farms are all parts of one whole.
And because an unfamiliar speaker from the city spoke as if he had known for a long time and well what everyone here was thinking, what else they doubted and what they should have done, Vaska, who stood on a hillock and watched the water seized by the dam seethe below suddenly, somehow, with a particularly keen sense, that after all, in fact, everything is one whole.
And patrol No. 216, which from today is no longer a patrol, but the Wings of an Airplane station, and Alyoshino, and the new plant, and these people who stand at the coffin, and together with them he and Petka are all part of the same a huge and strong whole, what is called the Soviet country.
And this thought, simple and clear, lay firmly in his excited head.
“Petka,” he said, seized for the first time by a strange and incomprehensible excitement, “it’s true, Petka, if you and I were killed too, or like Yegor, or on koine, then let it?… We don’t mind!
- No pity! - like an echo, repeated Petka, guessing Vaska's thoughts and mood. - Only you know, it is better we live a long, long time.
When they returned home, they heard music and friendly choral songs from afar. The holiday was in full swing.
With the usual roar and crash, an ambulance flew out from around the corner.
He rushed past, into distant Soviet Siberia. And the kids kindly waved their hands at him and shouted "Bon voyage" to his unfamiliar passengers.

Current page: 1 (total of the book has 6 pages)

Arkady Gaidar
Far countries

1

It's very boring in winter. The exit is small. All around the forest. It will sweep in the winter, cover it with snow - and there is nowhere to stick out.

Only one entertainment - to ride from the mountain. But again, not all day to ride from the mountain. Well, I rolled it once, well, I rolled another, well, I rolled it twenty times, and then I’ll get bored and tired. If only they, the sled, rolled up the mountain themselves. And then they roll down the mountain, but not up the mountain.

There are few guys at the junction: the watchman at the crossing is Vaska, the driver's is Petka, the telegraph operator is Seryozha. The rest of the guys are not at all small: one is three years old, the other is four. What kind of comrades are they?

Petka and Vaska were friends. And Seryozha was harmful. He loved to fight.

He will call Petka:

- Come here, Petka. I'll show you an American trick.

But Petka is not coming. Fears:

- You also said last time - a trick. And he hit him on the neck twice.

- Well, that's a simple trick, and this is American, without knocking. Go quickly, watch how it jumps at me.

Petka sees, really something in Seryozhka's hand is jumping. How not to come!

And Seryozha is a master. Wrap a thread, an elastic band on a stick. So he has some sort of contraption jumping on his palm, either a pig or a fish.

- Good trick?

- Good.

- Now I'll show you even better. Turn your back. As soon as Petka turns, and Seryozhka will jerk him from behind with his knee, so Petka will immediately head into a snowdrift. So much for an American ...

Vaska got in too. However, when Vaska and Petka played together, Seryozhka did not touch them. Wow! Only touch! Together, they are brave themselves.

Vaska's throat once ached, and they did not allow him to go out into the street.

Mother went to a neighbor, father - to move, to meet the fast train. Quiet at home.

Vaska sits and thinks: what would it be so interesting to do? Or some kind of trick? Or some kind of contraption too? He walked, walked from corner to corner - there is nothing interesting.

He put a chair over to the cupboard. Opened the door. He looked at the top shelf, where there was a tied jar of honey, and poked it with his finger.

Of course, it would be nice to untie the jar and scoop up the honey with a tablespoon ...

However, he sighed and wept, because he already knew in advance that his mother would not like such a trick. He sat down by the window and began to wait for the fast train to rush by. The only pity is that you never have time to see what is going on there, inside the ambulance.

Howls, scattering sparks. It will rumble so that the walls will tremble and the dishes on the shelves will rattle. Will sparkle with bright lights. Like shadows, faces flashed through the windows, flowers on the white tables of a large dining car. Heavy yellow hands, multi-colored glasses glisten with gold. The white chef's hat will fly by. Here you have nothing. The signal light behind the last carriage is barely visible.

And the ambulance never stopped at their little junction. Always in a hurry, rushing to some very distant country - Siberia.

And rushes to Siberia and rushes from Siberia. A very, very hectic life on this fast train.

Vaska is sitting by the window and suddenly sees that Petka is walking along the road, somehow unusually important, and under his arm he is dragging some kind of bundle. Well, a real technician or a road craftsman with a briefcase.

Vaska was very surprised. I wanted to shout through the window: “Where are you, Petka, going? And what's wrapped in your paper? "

But as soon as he opened the window, his mother came and swore why he was climbing into the frosty air with a sore throat.

Here, with a roar and a crash, the ambulance rushed by. Then they sat down to dinner, and Vaska forgot about Petkino's strange walking.

However, the next day he sees that again, like yesterday, Petka is walking along the road and carrying something wrapped in a newspaper. And the face is so important, well, just like the attendant at a large station.

Vaska drummed his fist on the frame, but his mother shouted.

And so Petka passed by, on his way.

Vaska became curious: what happened to Petka? It used to happen that he chases the dogs all day, or commands the little ones, or flies away from Seryozhka, and here comes an important person, and the face is something very proud.

Vaska slowly cleared his throat and said in a calm voice:

- And my throat, mom, stopped hurting.

- Well, it's good that it stopped.

- It has completely stopped. Well, it doesn't even hurt at all. Soon it will be possible for me to walk too.

- Soon you can, but sit today, - answered the mother, - you were wheezing in the morning.

- So that morning, and now it’s evening, - objected Vaska, thinking of how to get out into the street.

He walked around in silence, drank water and softly sang a song. He sang the one that he had heard in the summer from visiting Komsomol members, about how a detachment of Communards fought very heroically under the frequent explosions of rattling grenades. Actually, he did not want to sing, and he sang with the secret thought that his mother, hearing him singing, would believe that his throat no longer hurt and would let him go outside.

But since his mother, busy in the kitchen, did not pay attention to him, he began to sing louder about how the Communards were captured by the evil general and what torments he was preparing for them.

He sang not that very well, but very loudly, and since his mother was silent, Vaska decided that she liked the singing and, probably, she would immediately let him go out into the street.

But as soon as he approached the most solemn moment, when the communards, who had finished their work, began to unanimously denounce the accursed general, when the mother stopped clattering dishes and thrust an angry and surprised face through the door.

- And what are you, an idol, broke up? She screamed. - I'm listening, listening ... I think, or is he crazy? Screams like Maryin's goat when he gets lost!

Vaska felt offended, and he fell silent. And it’s not that a shame that his mother compared him to Marya's goat, but the fact that he was only trying in vain and he wouldn’t be allowed out into the street anyway.

Frowning, he climbed onto the warm stove. He put a sheepskin sheepskin coat under his head and, under the even purr of Ivan Ivanovich's ginger cat, pondered over his sad fate.

Boring! There is no school. There are no pioneers. The fast train doesn't stop. The winter does not pass. Boring! If only summer would come soon! In summer - fish, raspberries, mushrooms, nuts.

And Vaska remembered how one summer, to everyone's surprise, he caught a hefty perch on the line.

It was towards nightfall, and he put the perch in the hallway to give it to his mother in the morning. And during the night the worthless Ivan Ivanovich crept into the passage and ate the perch, leaving only his head and tail.

Remembering this, Vaska poked Ivan Ivanovich with his fist in annoyance and said angrily:

- Another time for such things I will turn my head! The ginger cat jumped up in fright, meowed angrily and lazily jumped off the stove. And Vaska lay down, lay down and fell asleep.

The next day, the throat went away, and Vaska was released into the street. A thaw set in overnight. Thick, sharp icicles hung from the rooftops. A damp, soft wind blew. Spring was not far away.

Vaska wanted to run to look for Petka, but Petka himself goes to meet him.

- And where are you, Petka, go? - asked Vaska. - And why did you, Petka, never come to see me? When you got a stomach ache, then I went to you, and when I have a throat, then you didn’t come.

- I went in, - Petka answered. - I went up to the house and remembered that you and I recently drowned your bucket in the well. Well, I think Vaska's mother will start scolding me now. He stood for a while, and even thought about stopping by.

- Oh you! Yes, she scolded for a long time and forgot, and the bucket dad took it out of the well the day before yesterday. Be sure to come ahead ... What is this thing you have wrapped in your newspaper?

- It's not a contraption. These are books. One book to read, another book is arithmetic. For the third day now I have been going with them to Ivan Mikhailovich. I can read, but I can't write and no arithmetic. So he teaches me. Do you want me to give you arithmetic now? Well, we were fishing with you. I caught ten fish and you caught three fish. How many have we caught together?

- What did I catch so little? - Vaska was offended. “You’re ten, and I’m three. Do you remember what kind of perch I fished out last summer? You can't fish that out.

- But this is arithmetic, Vaska!

- Well, what about arithmetic? It's still not enough. I am three, and he is ten! I have a real float on my rod, but you have a cork, and your rod is crooked ...

- Crooked? That's what he said! Why is it crooked? I just grimaced a little, so I straightened it a long time ago. Okay, I caught ten fish, and you caught seven.

- Why is it me seven?

- How why? Well, it doesn't bite anymore, that's all.

- I do not bite, but for some reason you bite? Some very stupid arithmetic.

- What you are, really! - Petka sighed. - Well, let me catch ten fish and you ten. How much will there be?

- And perhaps there will be a lot, - Vaska answered, thinking.

- "Many"! Do they think so? Twenty will be, that's how many. Now I will go to Ivan Mikhailovich every day, he will teach me arithmetic and teach me how to write. But the fact that! There is no school, so an ignorant fool to sit, or what ...

Vaska was offended.

- When you, Petka, climbed for pears and fell and lost your hand, I brought you fresh nuts from the forest, and two iron nuts, and a live hedgehog. And when my throat hurt, then you quickly settled down to Ivan Mikhailovich without me! You, then, will be a scientist, and I just like that? And also a comrade ...

Petka felt that Vaska was telling the truth, both about nuts and about a hedgehog. He blushed, turned away and fell silent.

So they were silent, stood. And they wanted to break up by quarreling. But the evening was already very good, warm. And spring was close, and along the streets little children danced together next to a loose snow woman ...

“Let's make a train for the kids from the sledges,” Petka unexpectedly suggested. - I will be a locomotive, you will be a machinist, and they will be passengers. And tomorrow we will go together to Ivan Mikhailovich and ask him. He is kind, he will teach you too. Okay, Vaska?

- That would be bad!

So the guys did not quarrel, and became even stronger friends. We played and skated with the little ones all evening. In the morning we went to see the kind man, Ivan Mikhailovich.

2

Vaska and Petka went to the lesson. Harmful Seryozhka jumped out from behind the gate and yelled:

- Hey, Vaska! Count it up. First, I'll hit you three times on the neck, and then five more times, how much will it be?

- Let's go, Petka, we'll beat him up, - Vaska, offended, suggested. - You will knock once, but I will once. Together we can handle it. We'll knock once, and let's go.

- And then he will catch us one by one and blow us up, - answered the more cautious Petka.

- And we will not be alone, we will always be together. You are together and I am together. Come on, Petka, let's knock once, and let's go.

- Don't, - Petka refused. - And then during a fight, books can be torn. Summer will be, then we will ask him. And so that he would not be teased, and so that he would not pull fish out of our dive.

- All the same will pull out! - Vaska sighed.

- Will not. We'll dive into such a place that he can't find it.

“It will,” Vaska objected sadly. - He is cunning, and his "cat" is cunning, sharp.

- Well, that sly. We are cunning ourselves now! You are already eight years old and I am eight - so how old are we together?

- Sixteen, - Vaska counted.

- Well, we are sixteen, and he is nine. It means that we are more cunning.

- Why is sixteen more cunning than nine? - Vaska was surprised.

- Necessarily more cunning. The older a person is, the more cunning he is. Take Pavlik Pryprygin. He is four years old - what kind of cunning does he have? You can beg or steal anything from him. And take Danila Yegorovich from the farm. He is fifty years old, and you will not find him more cunning. They imposed a tax on him two hundred poods, and he delivered vodka to the peasants, they got him drunk on some kind of paper and signed it. He went with this paper to the district, he was one and a half hundred poods and they knocked him off.

“But people don't say that,” interrupted Vaska. - People say that he is cunning not because he is old, but because he is a fist. What do you think, Petka, what is this fist? Why is one person like a person and another person like a fist?

- Rich, here is the fist. You are poor, so you are not a fist. And Danila Yegorovich is a fist.

- Why am I poor? - Vaska was surprised. - Our dad gets one hundred and twelve rubles. We have a piglet, a goat, and four chickens. What are we poor? Our father is a working man, and not some kind of lost Epiphanes, who begs for Christ's sake.

- Well, don't be poor. So your father works for you, and for me himself, and for everyone himself. And Danila Yegorovich had four girls working in the garden in the summer, and even some nephew came, and even some kind of brother-in-law, and the drunken Yermolai hired to guard the garden. Do you remember how Yermolai got rid of you with nettles when we were climbing for apples? Wow, and you yelled then! And I sit in the bushes and think: how great Vaska is yelling - just like Yermolai bugs him with nettles.

- You're good! - Vaska frowned. - He ran away, but left me.

- Really wait? - Petka answered coolly. - I, brother, jumped over the fence like a tiger. He, Yermolai, only had time to stretch me two times with a twig across my back. And you dug like a turkey, so you got it.

... For a long time, Ivan Mikhailovich was a machinist. Before the revolution, he was a machinist on a simple steam locomotive. And when the revolution came and began Civil War, then Ivan Mikhailovich switched from a simple steam locomotive to an armored one.

Petka and Vaska saw many different locomotives. They also knew a steam locomotive of the "C" system - tall, light, fast, the one that rushes with a fast train to a distant country - Siberia. They also saw huge three-cylinder locomotives "M", those that could pull heavy, long trains on steep climbs, and awkward shunting "O", which have all the way only from the input semaphore to the output. The guys saw all kinds of locomotives. But they have never seen such a locomotive as in Ivan Mikhailovich's photograph. And we haven’t seen such a locomotive, nor have we seen any carriages.

There is no pipe. The wheels are not visible. The heavy steel windows of the locomotive are tightly closed. Instead of windows, there are narrow longitudinal slots, from which machine guns stick out. Roofs are pet. Instead of a roof, there are low round towers, and from those towers heavy vents of artillery guns protruded.

And nothing shines on the armored train: there are no polished yellow handles, no bright colors, no light glasses. The entire armored train, heavy, wide, as if pressed against the rails, is painted gray-green.

And no one was visible: neither the driver, nor the conductors with lanterns, nor the chief with a whistle.

Somewhere there, inside, behind the shield, behind the steel casing, near the massive levers, near the machine guns, near the guns, the Red Army men lurked, alert, but everything is closed, everything is hidden, everything is silent.

Silent for the time being. But now the armored train will sneak without beeps, without whistles, to where the enemy is close, or it will break out onto the field, where there is a heavy battle between the reds and whites. Ah, how deadly machine guns will cut from the dark cracks then! Wow, how then a volley of awakened mighty guns will crash from the turning towers!

And then one day, in battle, a very heavy shell hit an armored train at close range. The shell tore through the casing and tore off the arm of the military engineer Ivan Mikhailovich with shrapnel.

Since then, Ivan Mikhailovich is no longer a machinist. He receives a pension and lives in the city with his eldest son, a turner in locomotive workshops. And on the road, he comes to visit his sister. There are people who say that Ivan Mikhailovich was not only torn off his arm, but also hit his head with a shell, and that this made him a little ... well, how to say, not only sick, but somehow strange.

However, neither Petka nor Vaska believed in such malicious people at all, because Ivan Mikhailovich was a very good person. Only one thing: Ivan Mikhailovich smoked a lot, and his thick eyebrows quivered a little when he told something interesting about previous years, about difficult wars, about how their whites began and how the reds ended them.

And spring broke through somehow at once. Every night there is a warm rain, every day there is a bright sun. The snow melted quickly, like lumps of butter in a frying pan.

Streams gushed, broke the ice on the Quiet River, willow fluffed, rooks and starlings flew in. And all this at once. It was only the tenth day when spring came, and there was no snow at all, and the mud on the road had dried up.

Once after the lesson, when the guys wanted to run to the river to see if the water slept much, Ivan Mikhailovich asked:

- Why, guys, aren't you running away to Alyoshin? I would have to hand over a note to Yegor Mikhailovich. Give him the power of attorney with a note. He will receive a pension for me in the city and will bring me here.

“We're running away,” Vaska answered briskly. “We run very quickly, just like the cavalry.

“We know Yegor,” Petka confirmed. - Is this the Yegor who is the chairman? He has guys: Pashka and Masha. We collected raspberries in the forest last year with his guys. We scored a whole basket, and they are a little on the bottom, because they are still small and will not keep up with us in any way.

“Run to him,” said Ivan Mikhailovich. - We are old friends. When I was a machinist on an armored car, he, Yegor, was then a young boy, he worked for me as a fireman. When the shell burst through the shell and cut off my arm with a splinter, we were together. After the explosion, I remained in my memory for another minute or two. Well, I think the case is gone. The boy is still not smart, he almost does not know the car. One was left on the locomotive. He will break and destroy the entire armored car. I moved in order to back up and take the car out of the battle. And at this time the signal from the commander: "Full speed ahead!" Yegor pushed me into the corner on a pile of cleaning tow, and he himself rushes to the lever: "There is a full drive forward!" Then I closed my eyes and thought: "Well, the armored car is gone." I woke up, I hear - quietly. The fight is over. He looked - my arm was tied with a shirt. And Yegorka himself is half-naked ... He is all wet, his lips are parched, and there are burns on his body. He stands and staggers - is about to fall. For two whole hours one drove the car in battle. And for the stoker, and for the machinist, and fiddled with me for the doctor ...

Ivan Mikhailovich's eyebrows quivered, he fell silent and shook his head, either thinking about something, or remembering something. And the children stood silently, waiting for Ivan Mikhailovich to tell something else, and were very surprised that Pashkin and Mashkin's father, Yegor, turned out to be such a hero, because he did not at all look like those heroes that the guys saw in the pictures, hanging in the red corner at the junction. Those heroes are tall, and their faces are proud, and in their hands they carry red banners or sparkling sabers. And Pashkin and Mashkin's father was short, his face was freckled, his eyes narrow, narrowed. He wore a simple black shirt and a gray checkered cap. Only one thing was that he was stubborn and if he did something, he would not lag behind until he achieved his goal.

The guys in Alyoshin heard about this from the peasants, and they heard it at the crossing too.

Ivan Mikhailovich wrote a note, gave the guys a cake, so that they would not get hungry on the road. And Vaska and Petka, breaking a whip from the broom that had filled with juice, whipping themselves on the legs, rushed down the hill in a friendly gallop.

3

The carriageway to Alyoshino is nine kilometers, and the straight path is only five.

A dense forest begins near the Quiet River. This forest endlessly stretches somewhere very far. In that forest there are lakes in which there are large, shiny, like polished copper, crucian carp, but the guys do not go there: it is far away, and it is not difficult to get lost in the swamp. There are a lot of raspberries, mushrooms, hazel trees in that forest. In the steep ravines, along the channel of which the Tikhaya River runs from the swamp, swallows are found in burrows along straight slopes of bright red clay. Hedgehogs, hares and other harmless animals are hiding in the bushes. But further, beyond the lakes, in the upper reaches of the Sinyavka River, where the peasants leave in winter to cut timber for rafting, lumberjacks met wolves and once stumbled upon an old, shabby bear.

What a wonderful forest spreads widely in those parts where Petka and Vaska lived!

And on this, now through the cheerful, now through the gloomy, forest from hillock to hillock, through hollows, through perches across streams, the guys sent to Alyoshin cheerfully ran along the near path.

Where the trail went out onto the road, one kilometer from Alyoshin, there was a farm of a rich peasant Danila Yegorovich.

Here the out of breath children stopped at a well to drink.

Danila Yegorovich, who immediately watered two well-fed horses, asked the guys where they came from and why they were running to Alyoshin. And the guys willingly told him who they were and what business they had in Alyoshin with the chairman Yegor Mikhailovich.

They would have talked to Danila Yegorovich even longer, because they were curious to look at such a person about whom people say that he is a fist, but then they saw that three Alyosha peasants were coming out of the yard to Danila Yegorovich, and behind them was a gloomy and angry, probably with a hangover, Ermolai. Noticing Yermolai, the same one who once wiped out Vaska with nettles, the guys started trotting away from the well and soon found themselves in Alyoshin, in the square where people gathered for some kind of rally.

However, at Egor's house, they found only his children - Pashka and Masha. They were six-year-old twins, very friendly with each other and very similar to each other.

As always, they played together. Pashka planed some chocks and slats, and Masha made from them on the sand, as it seemed to the guys, it was either a house or a well.

However, Masha explained to them that this was not a house and not a well, but at first there was a tractor, now there will be an airplane.

- Eh, you! - said Vaska, unceremoniously poking at the airplane with a whip. - Eh, you stupid people! Do they make airplanes from splinters? They are made from something completely different. Where is your father?

“Father went to the meeting,” Pashka, who was not at all offended, answered with a good-natured smile.

“He went to the meeting,” Masha confirmed, raising blue, slightly surprised eyes at the guys.

- He went, and at home only the grandmother lies on the stove and swears, - added Pashka.

- And the grandmother lies and swears, - explained Masha. - And when daddy left, she also cursed. That, he says, you fell through the ground with your collective farm.

And Masha looked worriedly in the direction where the hut stood and where the unkind grandmother lay, who wanted her father to sink into the ground.

- He will not fail, - Vaska reassured her. - Where will he fail? Well, stamp your feet on the ground yourself, and you, Pashka, stamp too. Yes, stomp harder! Well, haven't you failed? Well, stomp even harder.

And, forcing the unintelligent Pashka and Mashka to stomp diligently until they were out of breath, satisfied with their mischievous invention, the children went to the square, where a restless meeting had already begun long ago.

- That's how it is! - said Petka, after they knocked together among the assembled people.

“Interesting things,” Vaska agreed, sitting down on the edge of a thick log that smelled of tar and taking out a piece of cake from his bosom.

- Where have you disappeared, Vaska?

I ran to get drunk. And why are the men so dispersed? You can only hear: a collective farm and a collective farm. Some scold the collective farm, others say that it is impossible without the collective farm. The boys even get caught up. Do you know Fedka Galkin? Well, such a pockmarked one.

- And so. I ran around to drink and saw how he just got into a fight with some redhead. The red-haired one jumped out and sang: "Fedka-collective farm - a pig's nose." And Fedka got angry at such singing, and a fight broke out between them. I really wanted to shout at you, so you could watch them fight. Yes, here some hunchbacked grandmother was driving the geese and hit both boys with twigs - well, they scattered.

Vaska looked at the sun and became worried:

- Come on, Petka, we will return the note. Until we reach home, it will be evening. No matter how it gets home.

Pushing through the crowd, the dodgy guys reached a pile of logs, near which Egor Mikhailov was sitting at the table.

While the visiting man, climbing onto the logs, explained to the peasants what was the benefit of going to the collective farm, Yegor quietly but persistently convinced two members of the village council who were leaning towards him. They shook their heads, and Yegor, apparently angry with them for their indecision, even more persistently proved something to them in an undertone, shamed them.

When the concerned members of the village council moved away from Yegor, Petka silently shoved him a power of attorney and a note.

Yegor opened the piece of paper, but did not have time to read it, because a new person climbed onto the dumped logs, and in this person the guys recognized one of those men whom they met at the well on the farm of Danila Yegorovich. The peasant said that the collective farm is, of course, a new business and that there is no need for everyone to go to the collective farm at once. Ten farms have signed up for the collective farm, so let them work. If things go well for them, then it will not be too late for others to join, and if things do not go well, then it means that there is no way to go to the collective farm and you need to work in the old way.

He spoke for a long time, and while he spoke, Yegor Mikhailov still held the unfolded note without reading it. He screwed up his narrow, angry eyes and, alert, peered attentively into the faces of the listening peasants.

- Podkulachnik! He said with hatred, fingering the note that had been thrust into him.

Then Vaska, fearing that Yegor might inadvertently crumple Ivan Mikhailovich's power of attorney, quietly pulled the chairman by the sleeve:

- Uncle Yegor, please read it. Otherwise we have to run home.

Egor quickly read the note and told the guys that he would do everything, that he would go to the city just in a week, and until then he would definitely go to Ivan Mikhailovich himself. He wanted to add something else, but then the man finished his speech, and Yegor, clutching his checkered cap in his hand, jumped on the logs and began to speak quickly and sharply.

And the guys, getting out of the crowd, rushed along the road to the siding.

Running past the farm, they did not notice either Yermolai, or brother-in-law, or nephew, or mistress - they must have all been at the meeting. But Danila Yegorovich himself was at home. He was sitting on the porch, smoking an old, crooked pipe, on which someone's laughing face was carved, and it seemed that he was the only person in Alyoshin who was not embarrassed, pleased or touched by the new word - collective farm. Running along the bank of the Quiet River through the bushes, the guys heard a splash, as if someone had thrown a heavy stone into the water.

Carefully crept up, they saw Seryozhka, who was standing on the shore and looking towards where even circles were spreading across the water.

- I threw a dive, - the guys guessed and, slyly glancing at each other, quietly crawled back, memorizing this place on the go.

They got out onto the trail and, delighted with their extraordinary luck, hurried up to the house even faster, especially since they could hear the echo of the fast train rumble through the forest: it meant it was already five o'clock. This means that Vaska's father, having rolled up the green flag, was already entering the house, and Vaska's mother was already taking out a hot dinner pot from the oven.

At home we also started talking about the collective farm. And the conversation began with the fact that the mother, who had been saving money for the purchase of a cow for a whole year, had looked after Danila Yegorovich's one-year-old heifer since winter and hoped to buy it out and put it into the herd by summer. Now, hearing about the fact that the collective farm will only accept those who, before joining, will not cut or sell cattle to the side, the mother worried that, joining the collective farm, Danila Yegorovich would take a heifer there, and then look for another, and where can you find her like that?

But my father was an intelligent man, he read the railway newspaper "Gudok" every day and understood what was going on.

He laughed at his mother and explained to her that Danila Yegorovich was not supposed to be allowed to approach the collective farm with or without a heifer, a hundred steps, because he was a fist. And collective farms - they are created for that, so that you can live without kulaks. And that when the whole village enters the collective farm, then Danila Yegorovich, miller Petunin, and Semyon Zagrebin will get a cover, that is, all their kulak farms will collapse.

However, the mother recalled how a hundred and fifty poods of tax had been written off from Danila Yegorovich last year, how the peasants were afraid of him, and how, for some reason, everything worked out the way he needed. And she strongly doubted that Danila Yegorovich's economy was collapsing, and even, on the contrary, expressed concern that the collective farm itself would not collapse, because Alyoshino is a deaf village, surrounded by forests and swamps. There is no one to learn to work like a collective farm, and there is nothing to expect help from neighbors. The father blushed and said that tax is a dark matter and nothing else than Danila Yegorovich has lost his glasses to someone and cheated on someone, but it will not work for him every time, and that for such matters it will not take long to get where he should. But at the same time he cursed those fools from the village council, whom Danila Yegorovich twisted his head to, and said that if this happened now, when Yegor Mikhailov was chairman, then such an outrage would not have happened with him.

While father and mother were arguing, Vaska ate two pieces of meat, a plate of cabbage soup and, as if by accident, stuffed into his mouth a large piece of sugar from a sugar bowl, which his mother had put on the table, because father immediately after dinner liked to drink a glass or two of tea.

However, his mother, not believing that he had done it accidentally, kicked him from the table, and he, whimpering more as usual than out of resentment, climbed onto the warm stove to see the red cat Ivan Ivanovich and, as usual, very soon dozed off ...

Either he dreamed it, or he really heard through the drowsiness, but only it seemed to him that his father was talking about some new plant, about some buildings, about some people who walk and look for something in the ravines and through the forest, and as if the mother was still amazed, still did not believe, all gasped and groaned.

Then, when his mother pulled him from the stove, undressed him and put him to sleep on a couch, he had a real dream: as if a lot of lights were burning in the forest, as if a large steamer was sailing along the Quiet River, as if he and his comrade Petka are sailing off on a steamer to very distant and very beautiful countries ...

Gaidar Arkady Petrovich

Far countries

Arkady Gaidar

Far countries

It's very boring in winter. The exit is small. All around the forest. It will sweep in the winter, cover it with snow - and there is nowhere to stick out.

Only one entertainment - to ride from the mountain. But again, isn't it all day to ride down the mountain? Well, I rolled it once, well, I rolled another, well, I rolled it twenty times, and then I’ll get bored and tired. If only they, the sled, rolled up the mountain themselves. And then they roll down the mountain, but not up the mountain.

There are few guys at the junction: at the crossing guard - Vaska, at the machinist Petka, at the telegraph operator - Seryozha. The rest of the guys are not at all small: one is three years old, the other is four. What kind of comrades are they?

Petka and Vaska were friends. And Seryozha was harmful. He loved to fight.

He will call Petka:

Come here, Petka. I'll show you an American trick.

But Petka does not go. Fears:

You also said last time - trick. And he hit him on the neck twice.

Well, that's a simple trick, and this is American, no knocking. Go quickly, watch how it jumps at me.

Petka sees that something is really jumping in Seryozhka's hand. How not to come!

And Seryozhka is a master. Wrap a thread, an elastic band on a stick. So he has some sort of contraption jumping on his palm - either a pig or a fish.

Good trick?

Good.

Now I'll show you even better. Turn your back.

As soon as Petka will turn, and Seryozhka will jerk him from behind with his knee, so Petka will immediately head into a snowdrift.

So much for the American one.

Vaska got in too. However, when Vaska and Petka played together, Seryozhka did not touch them. Wow! Only touch. Together, they are brave themselves.

Vaska's throat once ached, and they did not allow him to go out into the street.

Mother went to a neighbor, father - to move, to meet the fast train. Quiet at home.

Vaska sits and thinks: what would it be so interesting to do? Or some kind of trick? Or some kind of contraption too? He walked, walked from corner to corner - there is nothing interesting.

He put a chair over to the cupboard. Opened the door. He looked at the top shelf, where there was a tied jar of honey, and poked it with his finger. Of course, it would be nice to untie the jar and scoop up the honey with a tablespoon ...

However, he sighed and wept, because he already knew in advance that his mother would not like such a trick. He sat down by the window and began to wait for the fast train to rush by.

The only pity is that you never have time to see what is going on there, inside the ambulance.

Howls, scattering sparks. It will rumble so that the walls will tremble and the dishes on the shelves will rattle. Will sparkle with bright lights. Like shadows, faces flashed through the windows, flowers on the white tables of a large dining car. Heavy yellow handles and multi-colored glasses gleam with gold. The white chef's hat will fly by. Here you have nothing. The signal light behind the last carriage is barely visible.

And the ambulance never stopped at their little junction.

Always in a hurry, rushing to some very distant country - Siberia.

And rushes to Siberia and rushes from Siberia. A very, very hectic life on this fast train.

Vaska is sitting by the window and suddenly sees that Petka is walking along the road, somehow unusually important, and under his arm he is dragging some kind of bundle. Well, a real technician or a road craftsman with a briefcase.

Vaska was very surprised. I wanted to shout through the window: "Where are you, Petka, going? And what's wrapped in your paper?"

But as soon as he opened the window, his mother came and swore why he was climbing with a sore throat or the frosty air.

Here, with a roar and a crash, the ambulance rushed by. Then they sat down to dinner, and Vaska forgot about Petkino's strange walking.

However, the next day he sees that again, like yesterday, Petka is walking along the road and carrying something wrapped in a newspaper. And the face is so important, well, just like the attendant at a large station.

Vaska drummed his fist on the frame, but his mother shouted.

And so Petka passed by, on his way.

Vaska became curious: what happened to Petka? It used to happen that he chases the dogs all day, or commands the little ones, or flees away from Seryozha, and here comes an important one, and the face is something very proud.

Vaska slowly cleared his throat and said in a calm voice:

And my throat, mom, stopped hurting.

Well, it's good that it stopped.

It has completely stopped. Well, it doesn't even hurt at all. Soon it will be possible for me to walk too.

Soon you can, but sit down today, - answered the mother, - you were wheezing in the morning.

So that morning, and now it’s evening, - objected Vaska, thinking of how to get out into the street.

He walked around in silence, drank water and softly sang a song. He sang the one that he had heard in the summer from visiting Komsomol members, about how a detachment of Communards fought very heroically under the frequent explosions of rattling grenades. Actually, he did not want to sing, and he sang with the secret thought that his mother, hearing him singing, would believe that his throat no longer hurt and would let him go outside. But since the mother busy in the kitchen did not pay attention to him, he began to sing louder about how the communards were captured by the evil general and what torment he was preparing for them.

He sang not that very well, but very loudly, and since his mother was silent, Vaska decided that she liked the singing and, probably, she would immediately let him go out into the street.

But as soon as he approached the most solemn moment, when the Communards, who had finished their work, began to unanimously denounce the accursed general, when the mother stopped clattering dishes and thrust an angry and surprised face through the door.

And why are you, an idol, bursting out? she screamed. - I'm listening, listening ... I think, or is he crazy? Shouts like Maryin's goat when he gets lost.

Vaska felt offended, and he fell silent. And it’s not that offensive that his mother compared him to Marya's goat, but that he was only trying in vain and he would not be allowed out into the street today anyway.

Frowning, he climbed onto the warm stove. He put a sheepskin sheepskin coat under his head and, under the even purr of Ivan Ivanovich's ginger cat, pondered over his sad fate.

Boring! There is no school. There are no pioneers. The fast train doesn't stop. The winter does not pass. Boring! If only summer would come soon! In summer - fish, raspberries, mushrooms, nuts.

And Vaska remembered how one summer, to everyone's surprise, he caught a hefty perch on the line.

It was towards nightfall, and he put the perch in the hallway to give it to his mother in the morning. And during the night the worthless Ivan Ivanovich crept into the passage and ate the perch, leaving only his head and tail.

Remembering this, Vaska poked Ivan Ivanovich with his fist in annoyance, I said angrily:

Another time I’ll break my head for such things!

Arkady Gaidar

Far countries

It's very boring in winter. The exit is small. All around the forest. It will sweep in the winter, cover it with snow - and there is nowhere to stick out.

Only one entertainment - to ride from the mountain. But again, not all day to ride from the mountain. Well, I rolled it once, well, I rolled another, well, I rolled it twenty times, and then I’ll get bored and tired. If only they, the sled, rolled up the mountain themselves. And then they roll down the mountain, but not up the mountain.

There are few guys at the junction: the watchman at the crossing is Vaska, the driver's is Petka, the telegraph operator is Seryozha. The rest of the guys are not at all small: one is three years old, the other is four. What kind of comrades are they?

Petka and Vaska were friends. And Seryozha was harmful. He loved to fight.

He will call Petka:

Come here, Petka. I'll show you an American trick.

But Petka is not coming. Fears:

You also said last time - trick. And he hit him on the neck twice.

Well, that's a simple trick, and this is American, no knocking. Go quickly, watch how it jumps at me.

Petka sees, really something in Seryozhka's hand is jumping. How not to come!

And Seryozha is a master. Wrap a thread, an elastic band on a stick. So he has some sort of contraption jumping on his palm, either a pig or a fish.

Good trick?

Good.

Now I'll show you even better. Turn your back. As soon as Petka turns, and Seryozhka will jerk him from behind with his knee, so Petka will immediately head into a snowdrift. So much for an American ...

Vaska got in too. However, when Vaska and Petka played together, Seryozhka did not touch them. Wow! Only touch! Together, they are brave themselves.

Vaska's throat once ached, and they did not allow him to go out into the street.

Mother went to a neighbor, father - to move, to meet the fast train. Quiet at home.

Vaska sits and thinks: what would it be so interesting to do? Or some kind of trick? Or some kind of contraption too? He walked, walked from corner to corner - there is nothing interesting.

He put a chair over to the cupboard. Opened the door. He looked at the top shelf, where there was a tied jar of honey, and poked it with his finger.

Of course, it would be nice to untie the jar and scoop up the honey with a tablespoon ...

However, he sighed and wept, because he already knew in advance that his mother would not like such a trick. He sat down by the window and began to wait for the fast train to rush by. The only pity is that you never have time to see what is going on there, inside the ambulance.

Howls, scattering sparks. It will rumble so that the walls will tremble and the dishes on the shelves will rattle. Will sparkle with bright lights. Like shadows, faces flashed through the windows, flowers on the white tables of a large dining car. Heavy yellow hands, multi-colored glasses glisten with gold. The white chef's hat will fly by. Here you have nothing. The signal light behind the last carriage is barely visible.

And the ambulance never stopped at their little junction. Always in a hurry, rushing to some very distant country - Siberia.

And rushes to Siberia and rushes from Siberia. A very, very hectic life on this fast train.

Vaska is sitting by the window and suddenly sees that Petka is walking along the road, somehow unusually important, and under his arm he is dragging some kind of bundle. Well, a real technician or a road craftsman with a briefcase.

Vaska was very surprised. I wanted to shout through the window: “Where are you, Petka, going? And what's wrapped in your paper? "

But as soon as he opened the window, his mother came and swore why he was climbing into the frosty air with a sore throat.

Here, with a roar and a crash, the ambulance rushed by. Then they sat down to dinner, and Vaska forgot about Petkino's strange walking.

However, the next day he sees that again, like yesterday, Petka is walking along the road and carrying something wrapped in a newspaper. And the face is so important, well, just like the attendant at a large station.

Vaska drummed his fist on the frame, but his mother shouted.

And so Petka passed by, on his way.

Vaska became curious: what happened to Petka? It used to happen that he chases the dogs all day, or commands the little ones, or flies away from Seryozhka, and here comes an important person, and the face is something very proud.

Vaska slowly cleared his throat and said in a calm voice:

And my throat, mom, stopped hurting.

Well, it's good that it stopped.

It has completely stopped. Well, it doesn't even hurt at all. Soon it will be possible for me to walk too.

Soon you can, but sit today, - answered the mother, - you were wheezing in the morning.

So that morning, and now it’s evening, - objected Vaska, thinking of how to get out into the street.

He walked around in silence, drank water and softly sang a song. He sang the one that he had heard in the summer from visiting Komsomol members, about how a detachment of Communards fought very heroically under the frequent explosions of rattling grenades. Actually, he did not want to sing, and he sang with the secret thought that his mother, hearing him singing, would believe that his throat no longer hurt and would let him go outside.

But since his mother, busy in the kitchen, did not pay attention to him, he began to sing louder about how the Communards were captured by the evil general and what torments he was preparing for them.

He sang not that very well, but very loudly, and since his mother was silent, Vaska decided that she liked the singing and, probably, she would immediately let him go out into the street.

But as soon as he approached the most solemn moment, when the communards, who had finished their work, began to unanimously denounce the accursed general, when the mother stopped clattering dishes and thrust an angry and surprised face through the door.

And why are you, an idol, bursting out? she screamed. - I'm listening, listening ... I think, or is he crazy? Screams like Maryin's goat when he gets lost!

Vaska felt offended, and he fell silent. And it’s not that a shame that his mother compared him to Marya's goat, but the fact that he was only trying in vain and he wouldn’t be allowed out into the street anyway.

Frowning, he climbed onto the warm stove. He put a sheepskin sheepskin coat under his head and, under the even purr of Ivan Ivanovich's ginger cat, pondered over his sad fate.

Boring! There is no school. There are no pioneers. The fast train doesn't stop. The winter does not pass. Boring! If only summer would come soon! In summer - fish, raspberries, mushrooms, nuts.

And Vaska remembered how one summer, to everyone's surprise, he caught a hefty perch on the line.

It was towards nightfall, and he put the perch in the hallway to give it to his mother in the morning. And during the night the worthless Ivan Ivanovich crept into the passage and ate the perch, leaving only his head and tail.

The book includes the stories "On the ruins of the counts", "Distant countries", "Military secret", "Commandant of the snow fortress", stories "R. V. S "," The fourth dugout "," Chuk and Gek ". These wonderful works reflect the formation and maturation of the characters of the young patriots of the Motherland, the romance of their courageous deeds and everyday affairs.

It's very boring in winter. The exit is small. All around the forest. It will sweep in the winter, cover it with snow - and there is nowhere to stick out.

Only one entertainment - to ride from the mountain. But again, not all day to ride from the mountain. Well, I rolled it once, well, I rolled another, well, I rolled it twenty times, and then I’ll get bored and tired. If only they, the sled, rolled up the mountain themselves. And then they roll down the mountain, but not up the mountain.

There are few guys at the junction: the watchman at the crossing is Vaska, the driver's is Petka, the telegraph operator is Seryozha. The rest of the guys are not at all small: one is three years old, the other is four. What kind of comrades are they?

Petka and Vaska were friends. And Seryozha was harmful. He loved to fight.

He will call Petka:

Come here, Petka. I'll show you an American trick.

But Petka is not coming. Fears:

You also said last time - trick. And he hit him on the neck twice.

Well, that's a simple trick, and this is American, no knocking. Go quickly, watch how it jumps at me.

Petka sees, really something in Seryozhka's hand is jumping. How not to come!

And Seryozha is a master. Wrap a thread, an elastic band on a stick. So he has some sort of contraption jumping on his palm, either a pig or a fish.

Good trick?

Good.

Now I'll show you even better. Turn your back. As soon as Petka turns, and Seryozhka will jerk him from behind with his knee, so Petka will immediately head into a snowdrift. So much for an American ...

Vaska got in too. However, when Vaska and Petka played together, Seryozhka did not touch them. Wow! Only touch! Together, they are brave themselves.

Vaska's throat once ached, and they did not allow him to go out into the street.

Mother went to a neighbor, father - to move, to meet the fast train. Quiet at home.

Vaska sits and thinks: what would it be so interesting to do? Or some kind of trick? Or some kind of contraption too? He walked, walked from corner to corner - there is nothing interesting.

He put a chair over to the cupboard. Opened the door. He looked at the top shelf, where there was a tied jar of honey, and poked it with his finger.

Of course, it would be nice to untie the jar and scoop up the honey with a tablespoon ...

However, he sighed and wept, because he already knew in advance that his mother would not like such a trick. He sat down by the window and began to wait for the fast train to rush by. The only pity is that you never have time to see what is going on there, inside the ambulance.

Howls, scattering sparks. It will rumble so that the walls will tremble and the dishes on the shelves will rattle. Will sparkle with bright lights. Like shadows, faces flashed through the windows, flowers on the white tables of a large dining car. Heavy yellow hands, multi-colored glasses glisten with gold. The white chef's hat will fly by. Here you have nothing. The signal light behind the last carriage is barely visible.

And the ambulance never stopped at their little junction. Always in a hurry, rushing to some very distant country - Siberia.

And rushes to Siberia and rushes from Siberia. A very, very hectic life on this fast train.

Vaska is sitting by the window and suddenly sees that Petka is walking along the road, somehow unusually important, and under his arm he is dragging some kind of bundle. Well, a real technician or a road craftsman with a briefcase.

Vaska was very surprised. I wanted to shout through the window: “Where are you, Petka, going? And what's wrapped in your paper? "

But as soon as he opened the window, his mother came and swore why he was climbing into the frosty air with a sore throat.

Here, with a roar and a crash, the ambulance rushed by. Then they sat down to dinner, and Vaska forgot about Petkino's strange walking.

However, the next day he sees that again, like yesterday, Petka is walking along the road and carrying something wrapped in a newspaper. And the face is so important, well, just like the attendant at a large station.

Vaska drummed his fist on the frame, but his mother shouted.

And so Petka passed by, on his way.

Vaska became curious: what happened to Petka? It used to happen that he chases the dogs all day, or commands the little ones, or flies away from Seryozhka, and here comes an important person, and the face is something very proud.

Vaska slowly cleared his throat and said in a calm voice:

And my throat, mom, stopped hurting.

Well, it's good that it stopped.

It has completely stopped. Well, it doesn't even hurt at all. Soon it will be possible for me to walk too.

Soon you can, but sit today, - answered the mother, - you were wheezing in the morning.

So that morning, and now it’s evening, - objected Vaska, thinking of how to get out into the street.

He walked around in silence, drank water and softly sang a song. He sang the one that he had heard in the summer from visiting Komsomol members, about how a detachment of Communards fought very heroically under the frequent explosions of rattling grenades. Actually, he did not want to sing, and he sang with the secret thought that his mother, hearing him singing, would believe that his throat no longer hurt and would let him go outside.

But since his mother, busy in the kitchen, did not pay attention to him, he began to sing louder about how the Communards were captured by the evil general and what torments he was preparing for them.

He sang not that very well, but very loudly, and since his mother was silent, Vaska decided that she liked the singing and, probably, she would immediately let him go out into the street.

But as soon as he approached the most solemn moment, when the communards, who had finished their work, began to unanimously denounce the accursed general, when the mother stopped clattering dishes and thrust an angry and surprised face through the door.

And why are you, an idol, bursting out? she screamed. - I'm listening, listening ... I think, or is he crazy? Screams like Maryin's goat when he gets lost!

Vaska felt offended, and he fell silent. And it’s not that a shame that his mother compared him to Marya's goat, but the fact that he was only trying in vain and he wouldn’t be allowed out into the street anyway.

Frowning, he climbed onto the warm stove. He put a sheepskin sheepskin coat under his head and, under the even purr of Ivan Ivanovich's ginger cat, pondered over his sad fate.

Boring! There is no school. There are no pioneers. The fast train doesn't stop. The winter does not pass. Boring! If only summer would come soon! In summer - fish, raspberries, mushrooms, nuts.

And Vaska remembered how one summer, to everyone's surprise, he caught a hefty perch on the line.

It was towards nightfall, and he put the perch in the hallway to give it to his mother in the morning. And during the night the worthless Ivan Ivanovich crept into the passage and ate the perch, leaving only his head and tail.

Remembering this, Vaska poked Ivan Ivanovich with his fist in annoyance and said angrily:

Another time I’ll break my head for such things! The ginger cat jumped up in fright, meowed angrily and lazily jumped off the stove. And Vaska lay down, lay down and fell asleep.

The next day, the throat went away, and Vaska was released into the street. A thaw set in overnight. Thick, sharp icicles hung from the rooftops. A damp, soft wind blew. Spring was not far away.

Vaska wanted to run to look for Petka, but Petka himself goes to meet him.

And where are you, Petka, go? - asked Vaska. - And why did you, Petka, never come to see me? When you got a stomach ache, then I went to you, and when I have a throat, then you didn’t come.

I went in, - Petka answered. - I went up to the house and remembered that you and I recently drowned your bucket in the well. Well, I think Vaska's mother will start scolding me now. He stood for a while, and even thought about stopping by.

Oh you! Yes, she scolded for a long time and forgot, and the bucket dad took it out of the well the day before yesterday. Be sure to come ahead ... What is this thing you have wrapped in your newspaper?

This is not a contraption. These are books. One book to read, another book is arithmetic. For the third day now I have been going with them to Ivan Mikhailovich. I can read, but I can't write and no arithmetic. So he teaches me. Do you want me to give you arithmetic now? Well, we were fishing with you. I caught ten fish and you caught three fish. How many have we caught together?

What did I catch so little? - Vaska was offended. “You’re ten, and I’m three. Do you remember what kind of perch I fished out last summer? You can't fish that out.

But this is arithmetic, Vaska!

So what about arithmetic? It's still not enough. I am three, and he is ten! I have a real float on my rod, but you have a cork, and your rod is crooked ...

Crooked? That's what he said! Why is it crooked? I just grimaced a little, so I straightened it a long time ago. Okay, I caught ten fish, and you caught seven.

Why is it me seven?

How why? Well, it doesn't bite anymore, that's all.

I don't bite, but for some reason you bite? Some very stupid arithmetic.

What you are, really! - Petka sighed. - Well, let me catch ten fish and you ten. How much will there be?

A lot, perhaps, will be, - answered, thinking, Vaska.

- "Many"! Do they think so? Twenty will be, that's how many. Now I will go to Ivan Mikhailovich every day, he will teach me arithmetic and teach me how to write. But the fact that! There is no school, so an ignorant fool to sit, or what ...

Vaska was offended.

When you, Petka, climbed for pears and fell and lost your hand, I brought you fresh nuts from the forest, and two iron nuts, and a live hedgehog. And when my throat hurt, then you quickly settled down to Ivan Mikhailovich without me! You, then, will be a scientist, and I just like that? And also a comrade ...

Petka felt that Vaska was telling the truth, both about nuts and about a hedgehog. He blushed, turned away and fell silent.

So they were silent, stood. And they wanted to break up by quarreling. But the evening was already very good, warm. And spring was close, and along the streets little children danced together next to a loose snow woman ...

Let's make a train for the kids from the sledges, ”Petka unexpectedly suggested. - I will be a locomotive, you will be a machinist, and they will be passengers. And tomorrow we will go together to Ivan Mikhailovich and ask him. He is kind, he will teach you too. Okay, Vaska?

That would be bad!

So the guys did not quarrel, and became even stronger friends. We played and skated with the little ones all evening. In the morning we went to see the kind man, Ivan Mikhailovich.