In the north, where the Nenets live, even in the spring, when the snow has melted everywhere, there are still frosts and there are strong snowstorms.
Once in the spring, a Nenets postman had to carry mail from one Nenets village to another. Not far - only thirty kilometers.
The Nenets have very light sleds - sledges. They harness reindeer to them. The deer rush like a whirlwind, faster than any horses.
The postman went out in the morning, looked at the sky, crushed the snow with his hand and thought: “There will be a snowstorm from noon. And now I’ll harness it and have time to get through before the snowstorm.”
He harnessed four of his best reindeer, put on a malitsa - a fur robe with a hood, fur boots and picked up a long stick. With this stick he will drive the deer so that they run faster.
The postman tied the mail tightly to the sledge, jumped onto the sleigh, sat sideways and let the reindeer go at full speed.
He was already leaving the village, when suddenly his sister came towards him. She waved her hands and shouted:
The postman got angry, but still stopped. The sister began to ask the postman to take her daughter with him to her grandmother. The postman shouted:
- Hurry! Otherwise there will be a snowstorm.
But the sister fussed for a long time while she fed and collected the girl. The postman sat the girl in front of him, and the deer rushed off. And the postman was still urging them on to get through before the snowstorm.
Halfway there the wind began to blow - straight towards us. It was sunny and the snow was glistening, and then suddenly it got dark, the snow began to swirl, and the front deer couldn’t even be seen.
The deer began to get stuck in the snow and stopped.
The postman unharnessed the reindeer, stood the sleigh upright, tied his long stick to it, and tied the girl’s pioneer tie to the end of the stick. And he stomped around the place near the sleigh, put the mail there, laid out the reindeer, lay down and snuggled up to them with the girl. They were soon covered with snow, and the postman dug out a cave under the snow, and it turned out to be a snow house. It was quiet and warm there.
Boris Zhitkov
In the north, where the Nenets live, even in the spring, when the snow has melted everywhere, there are still frosts and there are strong snowstorms.
Once in the spring, a Nenets postman had to carry mail from one Nenets village to another. Not far - only thirty kilometers.
The Nenets have very light sleds - sledges. They harness reindeer to them. The deer rush like a whirlwind, faster than any horses.
The postman went out in the morning, looked at the sky, crushed the snow with his hand and thought: “There will be a snowstorm from noon. And now I’ll harness it and have time to get through before the snowstorm.”
He harnessed four of his best reindeer, put on a malitsa - a fur robe with a hood, fur boots and picked up a long stick. With this stick he will drive the deer so that they run faster.
The postman tied the mail tightly to the sledge, jumped onto the sleigh, sat sideways and let the reindeer go at full speed.
He was already leaving the village, when suddenly his sister came towards him. She waved her hands and shouted:
The postman got angry, but still stopped. The sister began to ask the postman to take her daughter with him to her grandmother. The postman shouted:
- Hurry! Otherwise there will be a snowstorm.
But the sister fussed for a long time while she fed and collected the girl. The postman sat the girl in front of him, and the deer rushed off. And the postman was still urging them on to get through before the snowstorm.
Halfway there the wind began to blow - straight towards us. It was sunny and the snow was glistening, and then suddenly it got dark, the snow began to swirl, and the front deer couldn’t even be seen.
The deer began to get stuck in the snow and stopped.
The postman unharnessed the reindeer, stood the sleigh upright, tied his long stick to it, and tied the girl’s pioneer tie to the end of the stick. And he stomped around the place near the sleigh, put the mail there, laid out the reindeer, lay down and snuggled up to them with the girl. They were soon covered with snow, and the postman dug out a cave under the snow, and it turned out to be a snow house. It was quiet and warm there.
And in the village where the postman was going, they saw that there was a snowstorm, but he was not there, and they asked on the phone if he had left. And everyone realized that the postman was captured by a snowstorm. We waited for the snowstorm to pass.
The next day the snowstorm did not subside, but the snow was flying lower. It was impossible to ride on reindeer to look for the postman; only snowmobiles could travel. They are like a house on runners, and they run forward because they have a motor. The motor turns a propeller, like that of an airplane.
A doctor, a driver and two men with shovels got into the snowmobile. And the snowmobile ran along the road where the postman was driving.
Suddenly, above a low snowstorm, as if a flag was made of water, they saw a stick with a pioneer tie.
The snowmobile drove up and stopped. Now they have dug up the postman, the girl and the deer. The postman immediately asked:
— Did they bring food? The girl is crying.
“Even hot,” said the doctor and carried the girl into the snowmobile.
While the postman and the girl were warming up, a snowstorm passed.
Source
Evgeniy Charushin - The Amazing Postman: A Story
The boy Vasya and his dad went to the dacha. But Vasya’s mother stayed in the city: she needed to buy something else. Mom wanted to come with shopping in the evening.
Here comes the train. Vasya sits on a bench in the carriage next to his dad and looks out the window. And in the window there are trees, and fences, and different houses.
A boy is also sitting on a bench opposite Vasya, with a watch on his left hand. He is carrying some kind of basket. This boy is already big; he is probably fifteen years old. As the train approaches the station, the boy will look at his watch, write something down in his notebook with a pencil, bend over his basket, pull something out of it and run out of the car. And then he comes again and sits, looking out the window.
Vasya sat and sat, looked and looked at the boy with the basket, and suddenly he started crying at the top of his voice! He remembered that he had forgotten his bicycle at home.
- How can I live without a bicycle? - cries. “I spent the whole winter thinking about how I would ride through the forests on it.”
“Well, well, don’t cry,” said his dad. - Mom will go and bring you a bicycle.
