"Valentin Katayev. A White Sail Gleams (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

The sharp odour of sedge mingled with the sweet and nutty smell of the
headache shrubs, which actually did make your head ache.
The shrubs were sharp-leafed and covered with blackish-green bolls with
fleshy prickles and long smelly flowers that were remarkably delicate and
remarkably white. Beside them grew nightshade, henbane, and the mysterious
sleeping-grass.
On the path sat a big frog, its eyes closed as though it were
bewitched. Petya tried with all his might to keep from looking at the frog:
he was afraid he might see a little golden crown on its head.
For that matter, the whole place seemed bewitched, like the forests in
fairy-tales.
Surely somewhere nearby wandered the slender, large-eyed Alyonushka,
weeping bitterly over her brother Ivanushka. . ..
And if a little white lamb had suddenly run out from the thicket and
bleated in a thin baby voice, Petya certainly would have been frightened out
of his wits.
The boy decided not to think about the little lamb. But the more he
tried not to, the more he did. And the more he did, the more he was afraid
to be alone in the black greenness of this bewitched place.
He screwed up his eyes as tight as he could, to keep from crying out,
and fled from the poisonous thicket. He did not stop running until he found
himself at the backyard of a small farm.
Behind the wattle fence, on the stakes of which hung a whole collection
of clay pitchers, Petya saw a pleasant little garman, its small arena
covered with wheat fresh from the fields. In the middle of it stood a girl
of about eleven in a long gathered skirt, a short print blouse with puffed
sleeves, and a kerchief that came down to her eyes.
She stood there shielding her eyes against the sun with her elbow and
shifting her bare feet as she drove round the circle, by a long rope, two
horses harnessed one ahead of the other. Scattering the straw lightly with
their hoofs, the horses pulled a ribbed stone roller over the thick layer of
shining wheat. The roller bounced heavily but noiselessly.
A wide board, bent upward in front like a ski, dragged behind the
roller.
Petya knew that the bottom of the board was fitted with a lot of sharp
yellow flints which did an especially good job of knocking the grain out of
the ears.
The board slid along quickly. On it stood a lad of Petya's age, in a
faded shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and a cap with the peak over one ear;
he had a hard time keeping his balance, but he did it with a dashing air, as
though he were sliding downhill standing up on a toboggan.
At his feet a tiny fair-haired girl sat on her haunches, like a mouse;
with both her hands she kept a convulsive grip on one of her brother's
trouser-legs.
Round the circle ran an old man, stirring the wheat with a wooden
pitchfork and throwing it under the horses' feet. The circle kept spreading
out, and an old woman was shaping it with a long paddle.
A short distance away, near the rick, a woman with a face black from
the sun and with arms as veined as a man's was labouring away at the handle
of the winnower, as if it were a hurdy-gurdy. Red blades flashed in the