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

round opening of the drum.
The wind carried a shining cloud of chaff out of the winnowing machine.
Like light, airy muslin it settled on the ground and on the tall weeds; it
floated to the vegetable garden where a scarecrow in a torn cap-it was a
nobleman's cap, with a red band-spread its rags over the dry leaves of ripe
yellow-red steppe tomatoes.
It was clear that the whole peasant family, with the exception of its
head, was at work on this small garman. The head of the family, of course,
was at the war in Manchuria, and quite likely at that very moment he was
crouching in a field of kaoliang while the Japanese were firing shimose at
him.
The people here were poor, and their threshing was on a small scale,
not at all like the rich, noisy, busy threshing Petya was accustomed to at
the other farm. But he found this simple scene fascinating too. He would
have liked very much, for one thing, to take a ride on the board with the
flints, or, at least, to turn the handle of the winnower. At any other time
he surely would have asked the boy to take him along on the board, but the
pity of it was that he had to hurry.
He went back.
Petya was never to forget the simple, touching details of that picture
of peasant labour: the glint of the new straw; the neatly whitewashed back
wall of the clay hut, and beside it the rag dolls and the little dried
gourds called tarakutski, the only toys of peasant children; and on the
ridge of the reed roof, a stork standing on one leg next to his large and
carelessly built nest.
Especially clear was the picture he carried away of the stork, with its
tight-fitting little jacket and pique vest, its red walking stick of a leg
(the other leg was bent under and not to be seen at all), and the long red
beak that made a wooden click, like a night watchman's rattle.
In front of a cottage with a blue notice board reading "Volost
Administration", three saddled cavalry horses were hitched to the porch
posts.
A soldier in dusty boots, with a sword between his knees, sat on the
steps in the shade smoking a cigarette made of coarse tobacco rolled in
newspaper.
"I say there, what are you doing here?" Petya asked him.
The soldier lazily surveyed the city boy from head to foot and ejected
a long stream of yellow spittle through his teeth. "Hunting down a sailor,"
he said indifferently.
What kind of mysterious and terrible man is this sailor who is hiding
somewhere in the steppe nearby, who sets fire to farms and whom soldiers are
hunting? Petya wondered as he walked down the hot, deserted street back to
the well. What if that dreadful highwayman attacked coaches?
Naturally, Petya did not mention his fears to Father and Pavlik. Why
make them worry? But he himself, naturally, would keep a lookout. And to be
on the safe side he shoved his collections farther back under the seat.
As soon as the coach started up the hill he glued his face to the
window and anxiously scanned the roadside, expecting to see the highwayman
pop out at every turn.
He was firmly resolved to stick to his post all the way to town, come