The house of Peter is with a wooden horse on a sloping roof. Windows have neat frames. And everything would be fine, but only it is too old, this house. The corners sank a little, they, it seems, wanted to go into the ground. But is it enough to worry too much?
The village of the boy Peter is also enough not bad, it is spacious located on a hill. Around there is enough land for cloudberries and for other berries. You can also get a lot of oleoresin on the pine hill, and it is not bad thing for supporting the local forest industry and for strengthening your home well-being.
Live, as they say , and ... listen to your own mother. What is she talking about?
It was said in the morning, before the boy decided to run off into the woods:
- Our village is quiet at all. And the weather is day by day always intelligibly peaceful and pleasant. Why are then our village guys, all of them, such desperate? You, my dear Peter, keep in mind. You don't have to go out into woods for hunting with rural men every day.
- I'll try, - was said by the brisk boy.
But after a while it was made by Peter: he grabbed a piece of bread and, how it was wanted, very quickly got out of the house.
The mother is sitting at the window with platbands, where wooden small fishes and cockerels were cut out by the rural master. She looks at the forest. It is possible for her to see in this side the distant sharp-toothed comb of spruces. She sighs simply, doesn't talk about anything else. It seems, the jauntly boy didn't want to listen to the motherly word.
Meantime, behind the brick stove, a sly little brownie is rustling. The same brownie, which has lived sufficiently prolonged years here, in the wooden hut. He usually wanders around at night on groaning floorboards and affords to squeak, as if he is any cracked plank.
He usually wears a rumpled felt hat and battered old boots. For him it is better to sit just quietly now. He takes off his hat, scratches his head, and thinks so: "Our weather is known what. The mother didn't tell undue words to Peter. But he's really mischievous one . The boy roams all the time in the far woods, where there are just hare paths. As if he doesn't want to notice that we live here, in the same village house, with the stove, with the fishes and cockerels on the platbands. "
At this time Peter and others rural men with shotguns were chasing a wolf in gray-green alder hills. And when they took their indispensable prey and carried it home along the forest, the perky boy went off from those contented cheerful pedestrians. He had desire to settle in bushes to look at the scurry of thoughtless hares on their path in the distance.
Cautiously having turned around, he got the possibility to behold suddenly: on the edge of the forest, among bushes of buckthorn, a huge old tree was standing proudly and independently. It was not at all embarrassed by the persistent aspiration of undersized scrub to move into the height. Gnaried branches of the powerful giant stretched widely above the ground.
Nearby, all the soil is dug up. It was as if wild pigs had ploughed this lawn day by day.
Peter began to think diligently. Boars are running around and stomping here not in vain -there is a lot sweet roots there, near the tree. Oh, to them, to those powerful animals it's worth plowing the loose forest bedding beside thick trunks, because there is something delicious to eat!
Since then, the brisk young man had visited the interesting place more than once. When it was some felicitous case to see traces of a boar's feast, this tireless traveller grined usually - you live here joyfully! there are many of wild pigs in our green grove! I look you can plow and trample the lawn in reality very strongly!
It is the truth, they converged here, all wild boars from near coppices and remote woods, as the appetizing place for them was here.
Such walks, when it is puzzler for legs, when some work for hunting is not present at all, were interesting to the nosy fellow. The reason for overseeing was simple. To take if the appetizing lawns in the birchen forest, there you could usually meet any local inhabitants: though an elk, though a hare. Always it was interesting to look at them.
For this nosy pedestrian it is not harmful to learn, where the nimble inhabitants of the grove are attracted. Where they go with pleasure, there it can be specifically a favorite forest place of animals, which for them is both very vigorous and very lively as usual.
When a little more fully you will be able to recognize the northern attractions, then it is easier for you, the hunter, to walk in the woods, to live here, near the cold sea. It would be right even for a simple rural dweller, whose all local living dictates: from a young age you should not be lazy. Yes, always each has here to be resistant to unexpected attacks of strict northern nature.
Peter understands, what the mother has in her mind, when she begins to speak about hunting in the pinery together with old shooters: any wolf is not awful for them! but the boy is not the old sharp-shooter at all ! Well, she can be right, though various interesting things in the forest can be too right also, if day by day all they invite Peter to come immediatelly.
The restless guy had such strong craving to be among dear birchen groves and copses of small gentle spruces, that he simply needed to take his feet in his hands and run away from home as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile the nimble brownie knocks louder and louder at night.
The damned small grandfather sneezes very much. He coughs behind the brick stove and rattles at the house with old pots, as if all here has become too cramped for them. It is supposed, the uninvited dweller of the house takes pains to prove, that he is the greatest expert of all northern habitudes, both rural and other green dense forest. There is a clatter and thunder all over the house, but as to the nimble brownie, the boy does not have desire to care about this resident all the same.
At night the small inhabitant likes to walk freely here and there, necessarily not to sleep. However now the brownie blusters in the middle of a clear day, despite the fact, that he is supposed to rest according to the schedule of the twenty-four hours. He affords to create solid hubbub. At this time what does the boy make? Just it is: the brisk guy slams the door! And there is not cheerful one in the house.
What interesting place, you may ask, has he thought speedy scampering to?
Along the path, moist darkened after the recent rain, he rushes to the country way. To the one, that leads into the next village. In the woods, at the intersection of the byroads, there is a modest - to an outsider's eye - bush of shadberry.
It's all covered with berries. Well! Why not to visit the tempting place, this sweet crossroad? Why not to take advantage of the high solstice and not to get some gifts from the country roads today after the rain?
They - you should see sweet fruits with glad exhilaration! - they hang closely pressed friend to friend by inky sides, like small grapes, that have absorbed with treat the hot fire of the sun. No one else in these woodlands can boast of such attractive magnificent sunburn. It will be correctly, even if you will take pains to watch around and to walk to the estuary, to that outlying northern river, which flows into the cold sea.
If you look closely, these berries or small grapes are rather different on color. There are some also there, which give off redness, and there are some by the by, which are completely white or whitish, like old washcloths, laundered very well and usually hung on the fences of the rural households.
As for the whitish milky beads of the shadberry, the immaturity is just here, it is necessary to understand, but always pleasant, delicious fruits are, no doubt, of such kind: stubbornly black, clearly fedup - as they say, rich - color. These are not others, they, be sure, just the glorious ones on the branches: both juicy to the point of improbability and very sweet to the point of amazement. In no way they cede even to a known product, even to a sugar syrup.
However, if they happen to be overripe, their color is going dim in an instant. These black beads afford to wither quickly and obediently, as though any happiness is not for them here to be very beautiful during long time on the green branches of the shadberry.
If they need something else besides the hot sun for the long-term pleasure of life, then you can take and guess it. Let's say you can't guess right away, but only a lot of dried black berries fall to Peter into hands along with ripe delicious ones.
The favorite shadberry is remarkable tall, this bush, as they say, leggy. Three times his height, if the active boy has nothing to do with the any giant. But has not Peter at his young years too long legs? No, he is the normal guy in the native forest human settlement!
You can be quite sure, that the brisk wanderer near the shadberry is quite suitable to his little years. Therefore, it is more capablely for a watchful northern gatherer to pick those black beads, which are located just below, there, under the drooping branches of a dark green bush.
The boy notes: in the lower ones there is less of transparent molasses, than in those, which are on the top of the shadberry.
It can be seen, that the upper ones get more precious heat. That's why they are larger, more pleasant to the taste. All of them ripen herewith earlier. Needless say, they come to full maturity without a long time of reflections. That is without any delay.
A hawthorn was thorny, but not brave, therefore it nestled carefully to the shadberry, and simultaneously a lush viburnum ventured to settle on the other side of the tall, dark green bush with these delicious beads. The shadberry is pulling upwards in a half-drowsy calm and is happy, forasmuch the sun tries to light, do warm all upper leaves on the top. Anyway it is good for delightful northern fruit here.
The forest plant, being very generous, willingly gives its juicy beads to the lad and others, who want to receive them. Is the bird flying? Let it certainly descend here to peck. If some wayfarer goes, then it will be simply well to stop, as he may reward himself by gifts of black color. Let someone think about these berries: oh, beautiful African shirt on them!
Nearby, all the grass is flattened. Here it is not some difficulty to guess: there is just it there, very lively place in the middle of the woods. This soft warm land with abundance of grass is nice for all animals, is attracting them, that is why can entice the boy in the order to learn the secrets of the green thicket . Well, what may happen then? No doubt, the shadberry is magnificent, however let just not one the clever brownie be a fancier - or an expert, more precisely! - of northern attractions, which there are many in the pine forests there.
In the village each, both young one and old one, in the wooded here ravines and the lawns, as usual, aims an eye tirelessly, tries to notice in diligence special features of thickets. Is not such principle here in order that life would go on in a necessary way from time immemorial? That's what yet additional school knowledges are imbibed by the brisk guy. And you say, why on earth should he knock down shoes often? Along and across his native forest?