The story of the white steamer summary. Chingiz Aitmatov

Chingiz Torekulovich Aitmatov

White steamer

The action takes place in a remote forest cordon, high in the mountains, far from inhabited places. A seven-year-old boy, the granddaughter of old Momun, lives alone among adults, without friends, without a mother and father; he is "abandoned". Only his grandfather Momun loves and pity him - kind, but weak-willed, weak-willed. But a drunkard, a fighter and a despot of the entire village of Orozkul hates and despises a defenseless kid. He mocks both his grandfather and his wife ...

Chingiz Aitmatov

White steamboat

He had two fairy tales. One of his own, about which no one knew. Another one that my grandfather told. Then not one was left. This is what we are talking about.

That year he was seven years old, he was in the eighth. First, a portfolio was bought. Black leatherette briefcase with shiny metal snap closure that slips under the brace. With a patch pocket for small items. In a word, an extraordinary ordinary school bag. Perhaps this is how it all started.

Grandfather bought it at a visiting shop. The caravan, driving around with the goods of the pastoralists in the mountains, sometimes dropped in to see them at the forest cordon, in the San-Tash pad '.

From here, from the cordon, along the gorges and slopes, a reserved mountain forest ascended to the upper reaches. There are only three families in the cordon. But still, from time to time, the shop came to visit the foresters.

The only boy in all three courtyards, he was always the first to notice the shop.

- Rides! He shouted, running to the doors and windows. - The shop car is going!

The wheel road made its way here from the coast of Issyk-Kul, all the time along the gorge, along the river bank, all the time over stones and bumps. It was not very easy to drive on such a road. When she reached Karaulnaya Gora, she climbed from the bottom of the gorge to the slope and from there descended for a long time along the steep and bare slope to the foresters' yards. The Guard Mountain is very close - in the summer, almost every day the boy ran there to look at the lake with binoculars. And there, on the road, everything is always visible at a glance - both on foot, and on horseback, and, of course, a car.

That time - and this happened in a hot summer - the boy was swimming in his dam and from here he saw the car get dusty on the slope. The dam was on the edge of a river bank, on pebbles. It was built by my grandfather from stones. If not for this dam, who knows, maybe the boy would have been dead for a long time. And, as the grandmother said, the river would have washed his bones long ago and carried them straight to Issyk-Kul, and fish and all kinds of water creatures would look at them there. And no one would look for him and kill him - because there is nothing to get into the water and because it doesn't hurt who needs him. So far, this has not happened. And if it happened, who knows, the grandmother might really not have rushed to save. He would also be her family, otherwise, she says, a stranger. And a stranger is always a stranger, no matter how much you feed him, no matter how much you follow him. A stranger ... What if he doesn't want to be a stranger? And why exactly should he be considered a stranger? Maybe not he, but the grandmother herself is a stranger?

But more about this later, and about grandfather's dam also later ...

So, then, he saw a caravan, it was going down the mountain, and behind it along the road the dust was swirling behind it. And so he was delighted, he knew for sure that a portfolio would be bought for him. He immediately jumped out of the water, quickly pulled on his trousers over his skinny thighs and, himself still wet, turning blue — the water in the river is cold — ran along the path to the courtyard to be the first to announce the arrival of the caravan. The boy ran quickly, jumping over the bushes and running around the boulders, if he was not able to jump them, he did not linger anywhere for a second - neither near tall grasses, nor near stones, although he knew that they were not at all simple. They could be offended and even substitute their legs. “The shop car has arrived. I’ll come later, ”he threw to“ Lying Camel ”as he walked. This is what he called the red, humpbacked granite that sank into the ground up to his chest. Usually the boy did not pass by without patting his "Camel" on the hump. He clapped him in a businesslike way, like the grandfather of his bobtail gelding - so, casually, casually: you, they say, wait, and I will be absent here on business. He had a boulder called "Saddle" - half white, half black, piebald stone with a saddle, where you could sit astride a horse. There was also a stone "Wolf" - very similar to a wolf, brown, with gray hair, with a powerful nape and a heavy forehead. He crawled up to him and took aim. But the most beloved stone is "Tank", an indestructible block near the river on a washed-out bank. So wait, "Tank" will rush from the bank and go, and the river will gurgle, boil with white breakers. Tanks go to the cinema this way: from the shore into the water - and went ... The boy rarely saw films and therefore remembered what he saw. The grandfather sometimes took his grandson to the cinema on the state farm pedigree farm in the neighboring tract behind the mountain. That is why “Tank” appeared on the bank, always ready to rush across the river. There were also others - "harmful" or "good" stones, and even "cunning" and "stupid".

Among the plants there are also “beloved”, “brave”, “fearful”, “evil” and all sorts of others. A prickly thug, for example, is the main enemy. The boy hacked him dozens of times a day. But the end of this war was not in sight - the thug grew and multiplied. But field bindweed, although they are also weeds, are the smartest and funniest flowers. They are best greeted by the sun in the morning. Other herbs do not understand anything - that morning, that evening, they do not care. And the bindweed, just warm the rays, open their eyes, laugh. First, one eye, then the second, and then one by one all the swirls of flowers bloom on the bindweed. White, light blue, lilac, different ... And if you sit next to them completely quietly, it seems that they, waking up, are whispering inaudibly about something. Ants - and they know it. In the morning they run through the bindweed, squint in the sun and listen to what the flowers are talking about among themselves. Maybe dreams are told?

During the day, usually at noon, the boy liked to climb into thickets of stalked shiraljins. Shiraljins are tall, there are no flowers on them, but fragrant, they grow in islands, gather in a heap, not allowing other herbs to come close. The Shiraljins are loyal friends. Especially if there is some kind of insult and you want to cry so that no one sees, it is best to hide in shiraljins. They smell like a pine forest at the edge. Hot and quiet in the shiraljins. And most importantly, they do not obscure the sky. You have to lie on your back and look at the sky. At first, through tears, almost nothing is discerned. And then the clouds will come and will make up everything that you conceive above. The clouds know that you are not very good, that you want to go somewhere or fly away so that no one finds you and that everyone then sighs and gasps - the boy disappears, they say, where will we find him now? .. And so that this does not it happened so that you did not disappear anywhere, so that you lay still and admire the clouds, the clouds will turn into whatever you want. The same clouds make all sorts of things. You just need to be able to find out what the clouds represent.

And in the shiraljins it is quiet, and they do not obscure the sky. This is how they are, the Shiraljins, smelling of hot pines ...

And he also knew different differences about herbs. He treated the silvery feather grass that grew in the floodplain meadow with condescension. They are weirdos - feather grass! Windy heads. Their soft, silky panicles cannot live without wind. They just wait - wherever it blows, there they lean. And everyone bows as one, the whole meadow, as if on command. And if it starts raining or a thunderstorm starts, they don’t know the feather-grass where to stick to. They rush, fall, cuddle to the ground. If there were legs, they would probably run away wherever their eyes look ... But they are pretending to be. The thunderstorm will subside, and again frivolous feathers in the wind - wherever the wind goes, there they too ...

Alone, without friends, the boy lived in the circle of those simple things that surrounded him, and unless the shop could make him forget about everything and run headlong towards her. What can I say, the shop is not stones or herbs. What is not there, in the shop!

When the boy reached the house, the caravan was already approaching the yard, behind the houses. The houses on the cordon faced the river, the courtyard turned into a gentle slope straight to the bank, and on the other side of the river, immediately from the washed-out ravine, the forest rose steeply up the mountains, so that there was only one approach to the cordon - behind the houses. If the boy had not reached in time, no one would have known that the caravan was already here.

There were no men at that hour, everyone had left in the morning. The women were doing household chores. But then he shouted shrilly, running to the open doors:

- Has arrived! The shop car has arrived!

The women were alarmed. We rushed to look for the hidden money. And they jumped out, overtaking one another. Grandma - and she praised him:

- Here we have what big-eyed!

The boy felt flattered, as if he had brought the shop himself. He was happy that he brought them the news, because he rushed with them into the backyard, because he was jostling with them at the open door of the van. But here the women immediately forgot about him. They had no time for him. The goods are different - the eyes ran up. There were only three women: a grandmother, aunt Bekey - the sister of his mother, the wife of the most important man in the cordon, the patrolman Orozkul - and the wife of an auxiliary worker Seidakhmat - young Guldzhamal with her girl in her arms. Only three women. But they fussed about so much, sorted out and stirred up the goods so that the shop assistant had to demand that they keep to the queue and not chatter all at once.

However, his words had little effect on women. At first they grabbed everything, then they began to choose, then return what they had taken away. They put off, tried on, argued, doubted, asked dozens of times about the same thing. One thing they didn’t like, the other was expensive, the third had the wrong color ... The boy stood aside. He got bored. The expectation of something extraordinary disappeared, the joy that he experienced when he saw a car shop on the mountain disappeared. The shop suddenly turned into an ordinary car, filled with a bunch of various rubbish.

The seller frowned: it was not evident that these women were going to buy anything. Why did he go here, so far, over the mountains?

And so it happened. The women began to retreat, their ardor was tempered, they seemed to be even tired. For some reason, they began to make excuses - either to each other, or to the seller. The grandma was the first to complain that there was no money. And if you don't have money in your hands, you won't take the goods. Aunt Bekey did not dare to make a major purchase without her husband. Aunt Bekey is the most unhappy among all women in the world, because she has no children, for this Orozkul beats her intoxicated, that's why grandfather suffers, because Aunt Bekey is his grandfather's daughter. Aunt Bekey took a little something and two bottles of vodka. And in vain and in vain - the very same will be worse. The grandmother could not resist.

- Why are you calling trouble on your own head? She hissed so that the seller would not hear her.

“I know myself,” Aunt Bekey cut shortly.

“What a fool,” the grandmother whispered even more quietly, but gloatingly. If it weren't for the salesperson, she'd be scolding Aunt Bekey right now. Wow, they swear! ..

Young Guljamal helped out. She began to explain to the seller that her Seidakhmat was going to the city soon, the money would be needed in the city, so she could not fork out.

So they knocked about near the shop, bought goods "for a penny", as the seller said, and went home. Well, is this trade? After spitting after the women who had left, the seller began to collect the tousled goods in order to get behind the wheel and drive away. Then he noticed the boy.

- What are you, big-eared? - he asked. The boy had protruding ears, a slender neck, and a large, round head. - Do you want to buy? So hurry up, or I'll close it. Do you have money?

The seller asked so, just because there was nothing to do, but the boy replied respectfully:

- No, uncle, no money, - and shook his head.

“And I think there is,” the seller drawled with mock disbelief. “You’re all rich here, just pretend to be poor. Do you have money in your pocket?

“No, uncle,” the boy answered, still sincerely and seriously, and turned out his tattered pocket. (The second pocket was sewn up tightly.)

- So your money was waking up. Look where you ran. You will find it.

They were silent.

- Whose will you be? - the seller began to ask again. - Old man Momun, or what?

The boy nodded back.

- Are you a grandson?

- Yes. The boy nodded again.

“Where’s your mother?”

The boy said nothing. He didn't want to talk about it.

“She’s not giving news of herself at all, your mother. You don't know yourself, or what?

- I do not know.

- And the father? Don't you know too?

The author immerses the reader in the outskirts of Kyrgyzstan and immediately introduces the main character - a boy without a name and a past, with a dubious future, lives on a jaeger cordon, near the shores of a forest lake. With him live his own aunt with her husband, the gamekeeper Orozkul. They are not at all involved in raising the boy, thereby leaving him to himself. The only person who at least somehow participates in the fate of the guy is grandfather Momun, the assistant huntsman.

The story shows us, through comparisons of fictional life in fairy tales and its real side, that good does not always prevail over evil. The eternal struggle between white and black, justice over unfairness, as a result, may end with a not fabulous cliché: "they lived happily ever after."

Read a summary of the stories of Aitmatov White steamer

Nobody and nothing pleases the boy. He has no friends and those with whom he can spend time in conversation. His constant companions and interlocutors are the stones surrounding the place where he lives, binoculars from the time of the war, in which he examined the horizons of the lake and a briefcase donated by grandfather Momun. In order to get away from real life misfortunes, the boy creates two fictional stories around him, in which he begins to faithfully believe and play with them.

The first story is that his father, whom the boy never knew, is a sailor and he serves on a large white steamer, and from time to time the ship appears and gracefully sways on the surface of the lake. The boy plays up all this in his imagination, often peers through binoculars in search of a steamer. Imagine how he becomes a small fish, dives into the lake and swims to meet the ship. And climbed aboard, he hugs and greets his father.

The second story in which the boy believes is the tale of the mother deer. Belief says that in the past, many years ago, a tribe lived near the banks of the river, which was attacked by enemies and killed all but two children, a boy and a girl. The leader of the attacking tribe handed the children over to the old woman and ordered to get rid of them. She led them to the river bank, and when she was ready to obey the order of the leader, the mother deer came up to them. She began to ask not to kill the children and give them back. To which the old woman said: “These are young people, you cannot cope with them, and when they grow up, they will want to kill your deer. After all, people are very cruel creatures and they kill not only animals, but also each other. " The deer mother insisted that the children stay with her anyway.

At the time of the boy, red deer become the target of poachers. The huntsman contributes to the development of poaching on a huge scale. First, for a generous reward, Orozkul allows the cutting of relict pines. Further developments take on a cruel color. One cool evening, the insidious Orozkul, with no less insidious plans, decides to gain the support of the wise grandfather Momun. Having failed to achieve a result in the negotiations, he decides to give his grandfather vodka to drink and, for greater effect, threatens him with dismissal. Thus, he achieves what he wants and makes Momun go to kill the female deer.

It was a dark evening, white fire smoke and the sweet smell of grilled meat. A company of three people by the fire: Orozkul, Momun and a visiting guest. Deer meat was fried over the fire. The boy did not want to believe in the cruelty of people and in the fact that it was in fact a killed deer, until he saw the remains of a poor animal behind the barn. The boy lost hope in a second, disappointment sagged his legs and weakness pressed his chest. Tears flowed in a stream, he did not want to accept the cruelty of reality, the cruelty of those people who surround him.

Deciding to escape this sight, he runs to the lake. A place that always fueled hope in him when he looked at the horizon through binoculars and saw the outlines of a white steamer.

The tragic end of the story makes the reader truly feel the pain of a boy who has lived all his life by faith in good and light. And at one point this faith is taken away from him. The boy again imagines, closing his eyes, that he is a small fish that jumps into the water and swims away to the far ends of the lake in search of his father, a sailor.

The fire is burning, the meat is roasting, the three men are still sitting in the same positions. They did not hear the splash of water and they did not notice the quiet disappearance of the boy.

Picture or drawing White steamer

Other retellings for the reader's diary

• Summary of Oseeva Sons

  Three neighbors stood at the well and took water. An old man was sitting next to him, listening to the conversation that began between them. The women discussed their sons. The first one praised her son,

Chingiz AITMATOVWHITE STEAMER(after the tale)

He had two fairy tales. One of his own, about which no one knew. Another one that my grandfather told. Then not one was left. This is what we are talking about.

That year he was seven years old, he was in the eighth.

First, a portfolio was bought. Black leatherette briefcase with shiny metal snap closure that slips under the bracket. With a patch pocket for small items. In a word, an extraordinary ordinary school bag. Perhaps this is how it all started.

Grandfather bought it at a visiting shop. The caravan, driving around with the goods of the pastoralists in the mountains, sometimes dropped in to see them at the forest cordon, in the San-Tash pad '.

From here, from the cordon, along the gorges and slopes, a reserved mountain forest ascended to the upper reaches. There are only three families in the cordon. But still, from time to time, the shop came to visit the foresters.

The only boy in all three courtyards, he was always the first to notice the shop.

- Rides! He shouted, running to the doors and windows. - The shop car is going!

The wheel road made its way here from the coast of Issyk-Kul, all the time along the gorge, along the river bank, all the time over stones and bumps. It was not very easy to drive on such a road. When she reached Karaulnaya Gora, she climbed from the bottom of the gorge to the slope and from there descended for a long time along the steep and bare slope to the foresters' yards. The Guard Mountain is very close - in the summer, almost every day the boy ran there to look at the lake with binoculars. And there, on the road, everything is always visible at a glance - both on foot, and on horseback, and, of course, a car.

That time - and this happened in a hot summer - the boy was swimming in his dam and from here he saw the car get dusty on the slope. The dam was on the edge of a river bank, on pebbles. It was built by my grandfather from stones. If not for this dam, who knows, maybe the boy would have been dead for a long time. And, as the grandmother said, the river would have washed his bones long ago and carried them straight to Issyk-Kul, and fish and all kinds of water creatures would look at them there. And no one would look for him and kill him - because there is nothing to get into the water and because it doesn't hurt who needs him. So far, this has not happened. And if it happened, who knows, the grandmother might really not have rushed to save. He would also be her family, otherwise, she says, a stranger. And a stranger is always a stranger, no matter how much you feed him, no matter how much you follow him. A stranger ... What if he doesn't want to be a stranger? And why exactly should he be considered a stranger? Maybe not he, but the grandmother herself is a stranger?

But more about this later, and about grandfather's dam also later ...

So, then, he saw a caravan, it was going down the mountain, and behind it along the road the dust was swirling behind it. And so he was delighted, he knew for sure that a portfolio would be bought for him. He immediately jumped out of the water, quickly pulled on his trousers over his skinny thighs and, himself still wet, turning blue — the water in the river is cold — ran along the path to the courtyard to be the first to announce the arrival of the caravan.

The boy ran quickly, jumping over the bushes and running around the boulders, if he was not able to jump them, and did not linger anywhere for a second - neither near tall grasses, nor near stones, although he knew that they were not at all simple. They could be offended and even substitute their legs. "The shop car has arrived. I will come later," he threw on the move to "Lying Camel" - as he called the red hunchbacked granite that sank into the ground up to his chest. Usually the boy did not pass by without patting his "Camel" on the hump. He clapped him in a businesslike way, like the grandfather of his bobtail gelding - so, casually, walking; You, they say, wait, and I will be absent here on business. He had a boulder "Saddle" - half white, half black, piebald stone with a saddle, where you could sit astride a horse. There was also a stone "Wolf" - very similar to a wolf, brown, with gray hair, with a powerful nape and a heavy forehead. He crawled up to him and took aim. But the most beloved stone is "Tank", an indestructible block near the river on a washed-out bank. So wait, "Tank" will rush from the bank and go, and the river will gurgle, boil with white breakers. Tanks go to the cinema this way: from the shore into the water - and went ... The boy rarely saw films and therefore remembered what he saw. The grandfather sometimes took his grandson to the cinema on the state farm pedigree farm in the neighboring tract behind the mountain. That is why "Tank" appeared on the bank, always ready to rush across the river. There were also others - "harmful" or "good" stones, and even "cunning" and "stupid".

Among the plants there are also "loved ones", "brave", "fearful", "evil" and all sorts of others. A prickly thug, for example, is the main enemy. The boy hacked him dozens of times a day. But the end of this war was not in sight - the thug grew and multiplied. But field bindweed, although they are also weeds, are the smartest and funniest flowers. They are best greeted by the sun in the morning. Other herbs do not understand anything - that morning, that evening, they do not care. And the bindweed, just warm the rays, open their eyes, laugh. First, one eye, then the second, and then one by one all the swirls of flowers bloom on the bindweed. White, light blue, lilac, different ... And if you sit next to them completely quietly, it seems that they, waking up, are whispering inaudibly about something. Ants - and they know it. In the morning they run through the bindweed, squint in the sun and listen to what the flowers are talking about among themselves. Maybe dreams are told?

During the day, usually at noon, the boy liked to climb into thickets of stalked shiraljins. Shiraljins are tall, there are no flowers on them, but fragrant, they grow in islands, gather in a heap, not allowing other herbs to come close. The Shiraljins are loyal friends. Especially if there is some kind of insult and you want to cry so that no one sees, it is best to hide in shiraljins. They smell like a pine forest at the edge. Hot and quiet in the shiraljins. And most importantly, they do not obscure the sky. You have to lie on your back and look at the sky. At first, through tears, almost nothing is discerned. And then the clouds will come and will make up everything that you conceive above. The clouds know that you are not very good, that you want to leave somewhere, go fly away so that no one finds you and that everyone then sighs and gasps - the boy disappears, they say, where will we find him now? .. And so that this does not it happened that you would not disappear anywhere, that you would lie still and admire the clouds, the clouds will turn into whatever you want. The same clouds make all sorts of things. You just need to be able to find out what the clouds represent.

And in the shiraljins it is quiet, and they do not obscure the sky. This is how they are, the Shiraljins, smelling of hot pines ...

And he also knew different differences about herbs. He treated the silvery feather grass that grew in the floodplain meadow with condescension. They are weirdos - feather grass! Windy heads. Eid soft, silky panicles cannot live without wind. They just wait - wherever it blows, there they lean. And everyone bows as one, the whole meadow, as if on command. And if it starts raining or a thunderstorm starts, they don’t know the feather-grass where to stick to. They rush, fall, cuddle to the ground. If there were legs, they would probably run away wherever their eyes look ... But they are pretending to be. The thunderstorm will subside, and again frivolous feathers in the wind - wherever the wind goes, there they too ...

Alone, without friends, the boy lived in the circle of those simple things that surrounded him, and unless the shop could make him forget about everything and run headlong towards her. What can I say, the shop is not stones or herbs. What is not there, in the shop!

When the boy reached the house, the caravan was already approaching the yard, behind the houses. The houses on the cordon faced the river, the courtyard turned into a gentle slope straight to the bank, and on the other side of the river, immediately from the washed-out ravine, the forest rose steeply up the mountains, so that there was only one approach to the cordon - behind the houses. If the boy had not reached in time, no one would have known that the caravan was already here.

There were no men at that hour, everyone had left in the morning. The women were doing household chores. But then he shouted shrilly, running to the open doors:

- Has arrived! The shop car has arrived! The women were alarmed. We rushed to look for the hidden money. And they jumped out, overtaking one another. Grandma and she praised him:

- Here we have what big-eyed!

The boy felt flattered, as if he had brought the shop himself. He was happy that he brought them the news, because he rushed with them into the backyard, because he was jostling with them at the open door of the van. But here the women immediately forgot about him. They had no time for him. The goods are different - the eyes ran up. There were only three women: a grandmother, aunt Bekey - the sister of his mother, the wife of the most important man in the cordon, the patrolman Orozkul - and the wife of an auxiliary worker Seidakhmat - young Guldzhamal with her girl in her arms. Only three women. But they fussed about so much, sorted out and stirred up the goods so that the shop assistant had to demand that they keep to the queue and not chatter all at once.

However, his words had little effect on women. At first they grabbed everything, then they began to choose, then return what they had taken away. They put off, tried on, argued, doubted, asked dozens of times about the same thing. One thing they didn’t like, the other was expensive, the third had the wrong color ... The boy stood aside. He got bored. The expectation of something extraordinary disappeared, the joy that he experienced when he saw a car shop on the mountain disappeared. The shop suddenly turned into an ordinary car, filled with a bunch of various rubbish.

There should be a place for a fairy tale in the life of every child. A fairy tale educates moral qualities in a person, shows the beauty of the world and gives faith in the best. So what if many fairy tales are too naive and do not reflect the real problems of life at all. Everyone should come to this realization on their own, at the right time. After all, if all the troubles of real life fall upon you in an instant, then when you are not yet ready for this, it will be very difficult. It was just as hard for the protagonist of Chingiz Aitmatov's story "The White Steamer". This story is somewhat reminiscent of a parable, it makes you think about important things, and while reading you feel a lump in your throat.

The writer very vividly and in detail shows the worldview of the child. The main character is a seven-year-old boy. He is so lonely ... He lives without a mother and without a father, he has no friends at all. Only a grandfather, who, although kind, is too weak-willed and ready to follow the lead of someone who can deal with him by force. The inhabitants of their village as if on purpose do not notice the boy and do not give answers to his naive questions. But the boy has friends - stones, binoculars, a briefcase. Every now and then he thinks about life, does not understand why there are good and evil people, why everyone is afraid of some, but not others. And the boy also loves fairy tales ... but at some point his fairy tales and belief in the best were treated too cruelly, and he realizes that he wants to leave ... It would be nice to become a fish to swim away from these places ...

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He had two fairy tales. One of his own, about which no one knew. Another one that my grandfather told. Then not one was left. This is what we are talking about.

That year he was seven years old, he was in the eighth. First, a portfolio was bought. Black leatherette briefcase with shiny metal snap closure that slips under the brace. With a patch pocket for small items. In a word, an extraordinary ordinary school bag. Perhaps this is how it all started.

Grandfather bought it at a visiting shop. The caravan, driving around with the goods of the pastoralists in the mountains, sometimes dropped in to see them at the forest cordon, in the San-Tash pad '.

From here, from the cordon, along the gorges and slopes, a reserved mountain forest ascended to the upper reaches. There are only three families in the cordon. But still, from time to time, the shop came to visit the foresters.

The only boy in all three courtyards, he was always the first to notice the shop.

- Rides! He shouted, running to the doors and windows. - The shop car is going!

The wheel road made its way here from the coast of Issyk-Kul, all the time along the gorge, along the river bank, all the time over stones and bumps. It was not very easy to drive on such a road. When she reached Karaulnaya Gora, she climbed from the bottom of the gorge to the slope and from there descended for a long time along the steep and bare slope to the foresters' yards. The Guard Mountain is very close - in the summer, almost every day the boy ran there to look at the lake with binoculars. And there, on the road, everything is always visible at a glance - both on foot, and on horseback, and, of course, a car.

That time - and this happened in a hot summer - the boy was swimming in his dam and from here he saw the car get dusty on the slope. The dam was on the edge of a river bank, on pebbles. It was built by my grandfather from stones. If not for this dam, who knows, maybe the boy would have been dead for a long time. And, as the grandmother said, the river would have washed his bones long ago and carried them straight to Issyk-Kul, and fish and all kinds of water creatures would look at them there. And no one would look for him and kill him - because there is nothing to get into the water and because it doesn't hurt who needs him. So far, this has not happened. And if it happened, who knows, the grandmother might really not have rushed to save. He would also be her family, otherwise, she says, a stranger. And a stranger is always a stranger, no matter how much you feed him, no matter how much you follow him. A stranger ... What if he doesn't want to be a stranger? And why exactly should he be considered a stranger? Maybe not he, but the grandmother herself is a stranger?

But more about this later, and about grandfather's dam also later ...

So, then, he saw a caravan, it was going down the mountain, and behind it along the road the dust was swirling behind it. And so he was delighted, he knew for sure that a portfolio would be bought for him. He immediately jumped out of the water, quickly pulled on his trousers over his skinny thighs and, himself still wet, turning blue — the water in the river is cold — ran along the path to the courtyard to be the first to announce the arrival of the caravan. The boy ran quickly, jumping over the bushes and running around the boulders, if he was not able to jump them, he did not linger anywhere for a second - neither near tall grasses, nor near stones, although he knew that they were not at all simple. They could be offended and even substitute their legs. “The shop car has arrived. I’ll come later, ”he threw to“ Lying Camel ”as he walked. This is what he called the red, humpbacked granite that sank into the ground up to his chest. Usually the boy did not pass by without patting his "Camel" on the hump. He clapped him in a businesslike way, like the grandfather of his bobtail gelding - so, casually, casually: you, they say, wait, and I will be absent here on business. He had a boulder called "Saddle" - half white, half black, piebald stone with a saddle, where you could sit astride a horse. There was also a stone "Wolf" - very similar to a wolf, brown, with gray hair, with a powerful nape and a heavy forehead. He crawled up to him and took aim. But the most beloved stone is "Tank", an indestructible block near the river on a washed-out bank. So wait, "Tank" will rush from the bank and go, and the river will gurgle, boil with white breakers. Tanks go to the cinema this way: from the shore into the water - and went ... The boy rarely saw films and therefore remembered what he saw. The grandfather sometimes took his grandson to the cinema on the state farm pedigree farm in the neighboring tract behind the mountain. That is why “Tank” appeared on the bank, always ready to rush across the river. There were also others - "harmful" or "good" stones, and even "cunning" and "stupid".

Among the plants there are also “beloved”, “brave”, “fearful”, “evil” and all sorts of others. A prickly thug, for example, is the main enemy. The boy hacked him dozens of times a day. But the end of this war was not in sight - the thug grew and multiplied. But field bindweed, although they are also weeds, are the smartest and funniest flowers. They are best greeted by the sun in the morning. Other herbs do not understand anything - that morning, that evening, they do not care. And the bindweed, just warm the rays, open their eyes, laugh. First, one eye, then the second, and then one by one all the swirls of flowers bloom on the bindweed. White, light blue, lilac, different ... And if you sit next to them completely quietly, it seems that they, waking up, are whispering inaudibly about something. Ants - and they know it. In the morning they run through the bindweed, squint in the sun and listen to what the flowers are talking about among themselves. Maybe dreams are told?

During the day, usually at noon, the boy liked to climb into thickets of stalked shiraljins. Shiraljins are tall, there are no flowers on them, but fragrant, they grow in islands, gather in a heap, not allowing other herbs to come close. The Shiraljins are loyal friends. Especially if there is some kind of insult and you want to cry so that no one sees, it is best to hide in shiraljins. They smell like a pine forest at the edge. Hot and quiet in the shiraljins. And most importantly, they do not obscure the sky. You have to lie on your back and look at the sky. At first, through tears, almost nothing is discerned. And then the clouds will come and will make up everything that you conceive above. The clouds know that you are not very good, that you want to go somewhere or fly away so that no one finds you and that everyone then sighs and gasps - the boy disappears, they say, where will we find him now? .. And so that this does not it happened so that you did not disappear anywhere, so that you lay still and admire the clouds, the clouds will turn into whatever you want. The same clouds make all sorts of things. You just need to be able to find out what the clouds represent.

And in the shiraljins it is quiet, and they do not obscure the sky. This is how they are, the Shiraljins, smelling of hot pines ...

And he also knew different differences about herbs. He treated the silvery feather grass that grew in the floodplain meadow with condescension. They are weirdos - feather grass! Windy heads. Their soft, silky panicles cannot live without wind. They just wait - wherever it blows, there they lean. And everyone bows as one, the whole meadow, as if on command. And if it starts raining or a thunderstorm starts, they don’t know the feather-grass where to stick to. They rush, fall, cuddle to the ground. If there were legs, they would probably run away wherever their eyes look ... But they are pretending to be. The thunderstorm will subside, and again frivolous feathers in the wind - wherever the wind goes, there they too ...

Alone, without friends, the boy lived in the circle of those simple things that surrounded him, and unless the shop could make him forget about everything and run headlong towards her. What can I say, the shop is not stones or herbs. What is not there, in the shop!

When the boy reached the house, the caravan was already approaching the yard, behind the houses. The houses on the cordon faced the river, the courtyard turned into a gentle slope straight to the bank, and on the other side of the river, immediately from the washed-out ravine, the forest rose steeply up the mountains, so that there was only one approach to the cordon - behind the houses. If the boy had not reached in time, no one would have known that the caravan was already here.

There were no men at that hour, everyone had left in the morning. The women were doing household chores. But then he shouted shrilly, running to the open doors:

- Has arrived! The shop car has arrived!