During the flood I fell ill with malaria, or, as it is called in Siberia, a freckle. My grandmother whispered a prayer for all sorrows and ailments, splashed me with holy water, used herbs before she started tearing me, powder came from the city-it did not help. Then my grandmother led me up the Fokine river, to the dry rosso, found a thick aspen there, bowed to her and began to pray, and I repeated three times the memorandum from her: “Aspen, aspen, take my shaker – bog, give me a leg” , – and bandaged the aspen with his belt. Everything was in vain, the disease did not leave me. And then my youngest grandmother’s daughter, my aunt Augusta, recklessly declared. that she would cure me without any divination, crept up behind me and lashed a bucket of spring water at my collar to “push out” the fever. After that, I did not let go at night, but before rolling in the morning before sunrise and in the evening after sunset. Grandmother called my aunt
a fool and began to give me china. I was deaf and began to live as if in itself, became thoughtful and all was looking for something. From the courtyard I was not allowed to go anywhere, especially to the river, since this damn damned “came out on the water.” Each boy has his secret corner in the hut or yard, whether this hut or yard, at least with a palm size. There was such a corner and I have. I found it where there used to be a bunch of old carts and sleighs, behind a hayloft, in the corner of the garden. Here, the wall was hemp, quinoa and nettles. Once it took iron, and my grandfather took all the old stuff to the village smithy for gutting. In place of the carts and sleighs, a brown earth with a cobweb, mouse mink and mushrooms toadstools with thin necks. And then the grass slider went. The toadstools shriveled, They winced, their hats dropped. The mink stuck the roots of hemp and nettles, immediately crawling to the unoccupied land. I “mowed” a piece of grass with a knife and a “metal stack” on the edge of the garden, cut the sleigh and arcs from the willow rods, harnessed the
Kazanka dames and drove them to the shed. For the night I unharnessed the “stallions” and put them to the haystack. So in solitude and business, I almost overcame the sickness, but I still did not distinguish sounds and all looked-looked, trying not only to see the eyes, but also to hear. Sometimes in a hemp there was a small bird a flytrap. She busily plucked, looked at me friendly, jumped on the cannabis, as if on a huge tree, pecked flies and locusts, opened her beak and silently chirilas for me. In the rain, she was sitting under a burdock leaf. She was very lonely without chicks. She had a nest under the burdock sheet. There, even the chicks started to move, but the cat got to them and devoured them all. The flycatcher was dozing quietly under the mug. Drops rolled from the sheet and rolled. The bird’s eyes tightened blind film. Looking at the bird, and I was starting to yawn, chills chilled me, my lips trembled. I fell asleep under a quiet, silent rain and thought that it would be good to plant a tree on “my land”. It would have grown larger, bigger, and the bird would have set up a nest on it. I would bury the fruit of the spiken under the tree: – the spiken is the khan’s tree, the dress on it is shamanic, the flowers are angelic, the claws are devilish – try hanging, cat! On one hot, sunny day, when my illness subsided and I was even warm, I went for a bath and found there a sprout with a brown stalk and two shiny sheets. I decided that this boyarka, dug up and planted behind the shed. I got care and work. I used to carry a bucket from the tub and watered the seedling. He held himself well, found strength to recoil from the shadow of the hayloft to the light. “Where are you dragging the water?” – Grandmother loomed to me. “I will not tell you! The secret!” – I loomed her hands, as if she was deaf. For hours I looked at the spruce seedling. He began to seem to me a big sharp-pointed boyar. All of it was thickly powdered with flowers, embroidered with foliage, then on it the berries with a stone, strong, that pebble, lit up with corners. Not only the flycatcher flew to the boyar, but also goldfinches, oatmeal, and finches, and bullfinches, and all sorts of other birds. All here is enough space! The tree will grow and grow. Of course, a boyarka does not exist high, she can not reach the sky. But above the hayloft, she probably wiggles. I like how to water it! However, my seedling did not go skyward, but in breadth, let out more leaves, from leaves – antennae. On the antennae with poppy seeds, grains appeared, pinkish flowers turned out of them. By this time, I had already begun to hear a little, came to my grandmother and shouted: “Bab, I planted a blade of wood, and something grew.” Grandma went with me to the hayloft, looked around my farm. “So where are you hiding!” – she said and bent over the seedling, shook it from side to side, rubbed the flowers in her fingers, sniffed and looked at me pitifully. – Ma-atushka. – I turned away. Grandmother stroked my head and shouted in my ear: “You’ll land in autumn.” And I realized that this is not a tree. Seedling, my grandmother concluded, was a wild buckwheat. It offended me to become. I even left the hayloft for a hayloft, and my illness was on the wane, and I was already allowed to run and play outside with the guys of our neighbor – Uncle Levonti. In the autumn, my grandmother returned from the forest with a large round basket. This dish was riddled with various vegetation along the rim – my grandmother liked to repeat that whoever eats a meadow, God will save from eternal torment, and dragged that “meadow” home a lot. From under the grass and roots of juicy fish caviar blush red and in the very sight of exhibited boletus, about which such a folding puzzle is: small, remote, passed through the earth, reddened his cap found! I loved rummaging in my grandmother’s basket. There, mint, St. John’s wort, and sage, and nine-chash, and purple brushes, a crib of red bilberry, a forest gift, and even a crimson leaf with a sturdy rod-the eyrarka fell into the lake, he did not drown himself, and did not drown waved, and even this autumn fashionista, that under the tier – a tier hangs like a zipun with a red garus – rosette rosette. In the basket, as in the case of Uncle Yakov – to the merchandise of everyone, and about every plant there is a suggestion or a riddle, folding, right. In the basket, something was discovered, a kerchief tied in a grandmother’s handkerchief. I gently untied his ends. The paw of a small larch stuck out. The tree was from a chicken as large as a yellow jerk of needles. It seemed that it was just about to begin to clean up and run. We went to the shed, dug up the hemp, nettles and made a big hole for the small larch. In the pit I brought manure and black earth in the old basket. We lowered larch together with a lump into the pit, buried it so that only a yellow sock remained above. “Well,” said my aunt, “you see, a larch will take up, it’s true, it’s badly accepted from the seedling, but we carefully planted it, did not disturb the spine. And again I began to see in dreams a tall, tall tree. And again there were many birds on this tree, and appeared on it zelenenkaya, and in the autumn yellow needles. But still I had some doubts about the seedling. And as soon as my grandmother started to work quietly, she sat down to spin a curtain, I pestered her with the same questions: “Bab, does it grow big?” “Who?” – Yes, my tree is mine? “Ah, a tree, then?” And how. Certainly great. Larchs do not grow small. Only the trees, father, grow for all, every pine in the forest is red, all its boron and noisy. “And to all the birds?” – And birds, and people, and the sun, and the river. Now here it has fallen asleep until the spring, but in the spring it will start to grow quickly and quickly and will overtake you. Grandmother said it again and again. In her hands, the spindle was spinning and spinning. My eyelids were glued together, I was still weak after the illness, and I slept, I slept, And I dreamed of a warm spring, green trees. And behind the shed,
