Prishvin Mikhail Mikhailovich - (Native Land). Pantry of the sun

In one village, near the Bludov swamp, near the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky, two children were orphaned. Their mother died of illness, their father died in the Patriotic War.
We lived in this village just one house away from the children. And, of course, we, along with other neighbors, tried to help them as best we could. They were very nice. Nastya was like a golden chicken on high legs. Her hair, neither dark nor light, shimmered with gold, the freckles all over her face were large, like gold coins, and frequent, and they were cramped, and they climbed in all directions. Only one nose was clean and looked up.
Mitrasha was two years younger than his sister. He was only about ten years old. He was short, but very dense, with a broad forehead and a wide nape. He was a stubborn and strong boy.
“The little man in the bag,” the teachers at school called him smiling among themselves.
The little man in the bag, like Nastya, was covered in golden freckles, and his nose, clean, like his sister’s, looked up.
After their parents, their entire peasant farm went to their children: the five-walled hut, the cow Zorka, the heifer Dochka, the goat Dereza. Nameless sheep, chickens, golden rooster Petya and piglet Horseradish. Pantry of the sun
Along with this wealth, however, the poor children also received great care for all living beings. But did our children cope with such a misfortune during the difficult years of the Patriotic War! At first, as we have already said, their distant relatives and all of us neighbors came to help the children. But very soon the smart and friendly guys learned everything themselves and began to live well.
And what smart kids they were! Whenever possible, they joined in social work. Their noses could be seen on collective farm fields, in meadows, in barnyards, at meetings, in anti-tank ditches: their noses were so perky.
In this village, although we were newcomers, we knew well the life of every house. And now we can say: there was not a single house where they lived and worked as friendly as our favorites lived.
Just like her late mother, Nastya got up far before the sun, in the predawn hour, along the shepherd's chimney. With a twig in her hand, she drove out her beloved herd and rolled back to the hut. Without going to bed again, she lit the stove, peeled potatoes, made dinner, and so busied herself with the housework until nightfall.
Mitrasha learned from his father how to make wooden utensils: barrels, gangs, tubs. He has a jointer that is more than twice his height. And with this ladle he adjusts the planks one to another, folds them and supports them with iron or wooden hoops.
With a cow, there was no such need for two children to sell wooden utensils at the market, but kind people ask those who need a gang for the washbasin, those who need a barrel for dripping, those who need a tub of pickles for cucumbers or mushrooms, or even a simple vessel with cloves - to plant a home flower .
He will do it, and then he will also be repaid with kindness. But, besides cooperage, he is responsible for all the men's farming and social affairs. He attends all meetings, tries to understand public concerns and, probably, realizes something.
It is very good that Nastya is two years older than her brother, otherwise he would certainly become arrogant and in their friendship they would not have the wonderful equality they have now. It happens that now Mitrasha will remember how his father taught his mother, and, imitating his father, will also decide to teach his sister Nastya. But my sister doesn’t listen much, she stands and smiles. Then the “little guy in the bag” begins to get angry and swagger and always says with his nose in the air:
- Here's another!
- Why are you showing off? - my sister objects.
- Here's another! - brother is angry. - You, Nastya, swagger yourself.
- No, it's you! Pantry of the sun
- Here's another!
So, having tormented her obstinate brother, Nastya strokes him on the back of his head. And as soon as the sister’s little hand touches the wide back of his brother’s head, his father’s enthusiasm leaves the owner.
- Let's weed together! - the sister will say.
And the brother also begins to weed the cucumbers, or hoe the beets, or hill up the potatoes.
Yes, it was very, very difficult for everyone during the Patriotic War, so difficult that, probably, it has never happened in the whole world. So the children had to endure a lot of all sorts of worries, failures, and disappointments. But their friendship overcame everything, they lived well. And again we can firmly say: in the entire village no one had such friendship as Mitrash and Nastya Veselkin lived with each other. And we think, perhaps, it was this grief for their parents that united the orphans so closely.

II
The sour and very healthy cranberry berry grows in swamps in the summer and is harvested in late autumn. But not everyone knows that the best cranberries, the sweetest ones, as we say, happen when they have spent the winter under the snow. These spring dark red cranberries float in our pots along with beets and drink tea with them as with sugar. Those who don’t have sugar beets drink tea with just cranberries. We tried it ourselves - and it’s okay, you can drink it: sour replaces sweet and is very good on hot days. And what a wonderful jelly made from sweet cranberries, what a fruit drink! And among our people, this cranberry is considered a healing medicine for all diseases.
This spring, there was still snow in the dense spruce forests at the end of April, but in the swamps it is always much warmer: there was no snow there at that time at all. Having learned about this from people, Mitrasha and Nastya began to gather for cranberries. Even before daylight, Nastya gave food to all her animals. Mitrash took his father’s double-barreled Tulka shotgun, decoys for hazel grouse, and did not forget the compass. It used to be that his father, heading into the forest, would never forget this compass. More than once Mitrash asked his father:
“You’ve been walking through the forest all your life, and you know the whole forest like the palm of your hand.” Why else do you need this arrow?
“You see, Dmitry Pavlovich,” answered the father, “in the forest this arrow is kinder to you than your mother: sometimes the sky will be covered with clouds, and you cannot decide by the sun in the forest; if you go at random, you will make a mistake, you will get lost, you will go hungry.” Then just look at the arrow and it will show you where your home is. You go straight home along the arrow, and they will feed you there. This arrow is more faithful to you than a friend: sometimes your friend will cheat on you, but the arrow invariably always, no matter how you turn it, always looks north.
Having examined the wonderful thing, Mitrash locked the compass so that the needle would not tremble in vain along the way. He carefully, like a father, wrapped footcloths around his feet, tucked them into his boots, and put on a cap so old that its visor split in two: the upper crust rode up above the sun, and the lower one went down almost to the very nose. Mitrash dressed in his father’s old jacket, or rather in a collar connecting stripes of once good homespun fabric. The boy tied these stripes on his tummy with a sash, and his father’s jacket sat on him like a coat, right down to the ground. The hunter’s son also tucked an ax into his belt, hung a bag with a compass on his right shoulder, a double-barreled Tulka on his left, and thus became terribly scary for all birds and animals.
Nastya, starting to get ready, hung a large basket over her shoulder on a towel.
- Why do you need a towel? - asked Mitrasha.
“But what about,” Nastya answered, “don’t you remember how your mother went to pick mushrooms?”
- For mushrooms! You understand a lot: there are a lot of mushrooms, so it hurts your shoulder.
- And maybe we’ll have even more cranberries.
And just when Mitrash wanted to say his “here’s another”, he remembered what his father had said about cranberries, back when they were preparing him for war.
“You remember this,” Mitrasha said to his sister, “how my father told us about cranberries, that there is a Palestinian in the forest...
“I remember,” Nastya answered, “he said about cranberries that he knew a place and the cranberries there were crumbling, but I don’t know what he said about some Palestinian woman.” I also remember talking about the terrible place Blind Elan.
“There, near Yelani, there is a Palestinian,” said Mitrasha. “Father said: go to the High Mane and after that keep to the north, and when you cross the Zvonkaya Borina, keep everything straight to the north and you will see - there a Palestinian woman will come to you, all red as blood, from just cranberries. No one has ever been to this Palestinian land!
Mitrasha said this already at the door. During the story, Nastya remembered: she had a whole, untouched pot of boiled potatoes left from yesterday. Forgetting about the Palestinian woman, she quietly snuck over to the rack and dumped the entire cast iron into the basket.
“Maybe we’ll get lost,” she thought. “We have enough bread, we have a bottle of milk, and maybe some potatoes will come in handy too.”
And at that time the brother, thinking that his sister was still standing behind him, told her about the wonderful Palestinian woman and that, indeed, on the way to her was the Blind Elan, where many people, cows, and horses died.
- Well, what kind of Palestinian is this? - asked Nastya.
- So you didn’t hear anything?! - he grabbed.
And he patiently repeated to her, as he walked, everything that he had heard from his father about a Palestinian land unknown to anyone, where sweet cranberries grow.

III
The Bludovo swamp, where we ourselves wandered more than once, began, as a large swamp almost always begins, with an impenetrable thicket of willow, alder and other shrubs. The first man walked through this swamp with an ax in his hand and cut a passage for other people. The hummocks settled under human feet, and the path became a groove along which water flowed. The children crossed this marshland in the pre-dawn darkness without much difficulty. And when the bushes stopped obscuring the view ahead, at the first morning light the swamp opened up to them, like the sea. And yet, it was the same, this Bludovo swamp, the bottom of the ancient sea. And just as there, in the real sea, there are islands, just as there are oases in deserts, so there are hills in swamps. In the Bludov swamp, these sandy hills, covered with high forest, are called borins. After walking a little through the swamp, the children climbed the first hill, known as the High Mane. From here, from a high bald spot in the gray haze of the first dawn, Borina Zvonkaya could be barely visible.
Even before reaching Zvonkaya Borina, almost right next to the path, individual blood-red berries began to appear. Cranberry hunters initially put these berries in their mouths. Anyone who has never tasted autumn cranberries in their life and would have immediately had enough of spring ones would have taken their breath away from the acid. But the village orphans knew well what autumn cranberries were, and that’s why when they ate spring cranberries now, they repeated:
- So sweet!
Borina Zvonkaya willingly opened up her wide clearing to the children, which even now, in April, was covered with dark green lingonberry grass. Among this greenery of last year, here and there new flowers of white snowdrop and purple, small and fragrant flowers of wolf's bast could be seen. Pantry of the sun
“They smell good, try picking a wolf’s bast flower,” said Mitrasha.
Nastya tried to break the twig of the stem and could not do it.
- Why is this bast called a wolf’s? - she asked.
“Father said,” the brother answered, “the wolves weave baskets out of it.”
And he laughed.
-Are there still wolves here?
- Well, of course! Father said there is a terrible wolf here, the Gray Landowner.
- I remember: the same one who slaughtered our herd before the war.
- My father said: he lives on the Sukhaya River, in the rubble.
- He won’t touch you and me?
- Let him try! - answered the hunter with a double visor.
While the children were talking like this and the morning was moving closer and closer to dawn, Borina Zvonkaya was filled with bird songs, the howls, moans and cries of animals. Not all of them were here, on Borina, but from the swamp, damp, deaf, all the sounds gathered here. Borina with the forest, pine and sonorous on dry land, responded to everything.
But the poor birds and little animals, how they all suffered, trying to pronounce some common, one beautiful word! And even children, as simple as Nastya and Mitrasha, understood their effort. They all wanted to say just one beautiful word.
You can see how the bird sings on the branch, and every feather trembles with effort. But still, they cannot say words like we do, and they have to sing, shout, and tap.
- Tek-tek! - the huge bird Capercaillie taps barely audibly in the dark forest.
- Shvark-shwark! - The Wild Drake flew in the air over the river.
- Quack-quack! - wild duck Mallard on the lake.
- Gu-gu-gu! - beautiful bird Bullfinch on a birch tree.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin

Pantry of the sun. Fairy tale and stories

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet or corporate networks, for private or public use without the written permission of the copyright owner.

About Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin

Along the streets of Moscow, still wet and shiny from watering, having had a good rest during the night from cars and pedestrians, a small blue Moskvich slowly drives at a very early hour. Behind the wheel sits an old chauffeur with glasses, his hat pushed back on his head, revealing a high forehead and steep curls of gray hair.

The eyes look both cheerfully and concentratedly, and somehow in a double way: both at you, a passer-by, dear, still unfamiliar comrade and friend, and inside themselves, at what is occupying the writer’s attention.

Nearby, to the right of the driver, sits a young, but also gray-haired hunting dog - a gray long-haired setter Zhalka and, imitating the owner, carefully looks ahead at the windshield.

The writer Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin was the oldest driver in Moscow. Until he was over eighty years old, he drove the car himself, inspected and washed it himself, and asked for help in this matter only in extreme cases. Mikhail Mikhailovich treated his car almost like a living creature and called it affectionately: “Masha.”

He needed the car solely for his writing work. After all, with the growth of cities, untouched nature became increasingly distant, and he, an old hunter and walker, was no longer able to walk for many kilometers to meet with it, as in his youth. That’s why Mikhail Mikhailovich called his car key “the key of happiness and freedom.” He always carried it in his pocket on a metal chain, took it out, jingled it and told us:

- What a great happiness it is to be able to feel the key in your pocket at any hour, go up to the garage, get behind the wheel yourself and drive off somewhere into the forest and there, with a pencil in a book, mark the course of your thoughts.

In the summer the car was parked at the dacha, in the village of Dunino near Moscow. Mikhail Mikhailovich got up very early, often at sunrise, and immediately sat down with fresh energy to work. When life began in the house, he, in his words, having already “signed off”, went out into the garden, started his Moskvich there, Zhalka sat next to him, and a large basket for mushrooms was placed. Three conventional beeps: “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!” - and the car rolls into the forests, many kilometers away from our Dunin in the direction opposite to Moscow. She'll be back by lunchtime.

However, it also happened that hours passed after hours, and still there was no Moskvich. Neighbors and friends converge at our gate, alarming assumptions begin, and now a whole team is about to go in search and rescue... But then a familiar short beep is heard: “Hello!” And the car rolls up.

Mikhail Mikhailovich comes out tired, there are traces of earth on him, apparently he had to lie somewhere on the road. The face is sweaty and dusty. Mikhail Mikhailovich carries a basket of mushrooms on a strap over his shoulder, pretending that it is very difficult for him - it is so full. His invariably serious greenish-gray eyes gleam slyly from under his glasses. On top, covering everything, lies a huge boletus in a basket. We gasp: “White!” We are now ready to rejoice at everything from the bottom of our hearts, reassured by the fact that Mikhail Mikhailovich has returned and everything ended well.

Mikhail Mikhailovich sits down with us on the bench, takes off his hat, wipes his forehead and generously admits that there is only one porcini mushroom, and under it there are all sorts of insignificant little things like russula - and it’s not worth looking at, but look what kind of mushroom he was lucky enough to meet! But without a white one, at least one, could he return? In addition, it turns out that the car sat on a stump on a sticky forest road, and I had to lie down and saw out this stump under the bottom of the car, but this is not quick and not easy. And not just sawing and sawing - in between he sat on tree stumps and wrote down thoughts that came to him in a book.

Pity, apparently, shared all the experiences of her owner; she looked satisfied, but still tired and somehow rumpled. She herself cannot tell anything, but Mikhail Mikhailovich tells us for her:

“I locked the car and left only the window for Zhalka.” I wanted her to rest. But as soon as I was out of sight, Zhalka began to howl and suffer terribly. What to do? While I was thinking what to do, Zhalka came up with something of her own. And suddenly he appears with an apology, revealing his white teeth with a smile. With her whole wrinkled appearance and especially this smile - her whole nose is on the side and all her lips are rags, and her teeth are in sight - she seemed to be saying: “It was hard!” - "And what?" – I asked. Again she has all her rags on one side and her teeth in plain sight. I understood: she climbed out the window.

This is how we lived in the summer. And in winter the car was parked in a cold Moscow garage. Mikhail Mikhailovich did not use it, preferring ordinary city transport. She, along with her owner, patiently waited through the winter in order to return to the forests and fields as early as possible in the spring.

Our greatest joy was to go somewhere far away with Mikhail Mikhailovich, but always together. The third would be a hindrance, because we had an agreement: to remain silent along the way and only occasionally exchange a word.

Mikhail Mikhailovich constantly looks around, thinks about something, sits down from time to time, and quickly writes in a pocket book with a pencil. Then he gets up, flashes his cheerful and attentive eye - and again we walk side by side along the road.

When at home he reads to you what he has written down, you are amazed: you yourself walked past all this and seeing - did not see and hearing - did not hear! It turned out as if Mikhail Mikhailovich was following you, collecting what was lost due to your inattention, and now bringing it to you as a gift.

We always returned from our walks loaded with such gifts.

I’ll tell you about one trip, and we had a lot of them in our life with Mikhail Mikhailovich.

The Great Patriotic War was going on. It was a difficult time. We left Moscow for remote places in the Yaroslavl region, where Mikhail Mikhailovich often hunted in previous years and where we had many friends.

We, like all the people around us, lived on what the earth gave us: what we grew in our garden, what we collected in the forest. Sometimes Mikhail Mikhailovich managed to shoot a game. But even under these conditions, he invariably took up pencil and paper from early morning.

That morning we gathered on one errand in the distant village of Khmelniki, ten kilometers from ours. We had to leave at dawn in order to return home before dark.

I woke up from his cheerful words:

- Look what's happening in the forest! The forester is doing laundry.

- In the morning for fairy tales! – I answered dissatisfied: I didn’t want to get up yet.

“Look,” repeated Mikhail Mikhailovich.

Our window looked straight out into the forest. The sun had not yet peeked out from behind the edge of the sky, but the dawn was visible through the transparent fog in which the trees floated. On their green branches were hung numerous light white canvases. It seemed like there was really a big wash going on in the forest, someone was drying all their sheets and towels.

- Indeed, the forester is doing laundry! - I exclaimed, and all my sleep fled. I immediately guessed: it was an abundant cobweb, covered with tiny drops of fog that had not yet turned into dew.

Nastya And Mitrash- brother and sister, orphans. They do their own farming. They had a division of labor: the girl took care of the housework, and the boy did “men’s” things.

What is the “pantry of the sun”

The author says that wealth is hidden in every swamp. All plants, small blades of grass are nourished by the sun, giving them its warmth and affection. When plants die, they do not rot as if they were growing in the ground. The swamp protects its wards, accumulates rich peat layers that are saturated with solar energy.

Such a wealth of swamps is called the “pantry of the sun.” Geologists are looking for them. The story that is described in this story took place at the end of the war, in a village that was located near the Bludov swamp, whose location was in the Pereslavl-Zalessky region.

Meet the “golden hen” and the “little guy in a bag”

A brother and sister lived in this village. The girl was 12 years old, her name was Nastya, and her 10-year-old brother's name was Mitrash. They lived alone because their mother died of illness and their father died in the war.

The children were nicknamed “The Golden Hen” and “The Little Man in the Bag.” Nastya was given this nickname because of her face, which was strewn with golden freckles. The boy was short, stocky, strong and had a stubborn character.

At first, neighbors helped the brother and sister manage the household, but soon they were able to cope on their own. Nastenka kept order in the house and looked after domestic animals - a cow, a heifer, a goat, sheep, chickens, a golden cockerel and a piglet.

And Mitrasha took on all the “male” responsibilities around the house. The children were cute, understanding and agreement reigned between them.

Cranberry picking

In the spring, the children wanted to go for cranberries. Usually this berry was collected in the autumn, but if it sits through the winter, it becomes even tastier. The boy took his father’s gun and compass, and Nastenka took a large basket of food. The children remembered how their father once told them that in the Bludovy swamp, which was located next to the Blind Elanya, there was a treasured clearing in which there was a lot of this berry.

The children left the hut before dawn, when even the birds were not singing. They heard a long howl - it was the most ferocious wolf in the area, who was called the Gray Landowner. The brother and sister reached the place where the path forked, when the sun was already illuminating the ground. A dispute broke out between Nastya and Mitrasha. The boy believed that he needed to go north because his father said so. But this path was barely visible. Nastya wanted to take a different path. Without coming to an agreement, they each went their own path.

Dangerous swamp swamp

In the vicinity there lived a dog, Travka, who belonged to a forester. But the forester himself died, and his faithful assistant remained to live in the remains of the house. The dog was sad without its owner and it let out a sad howl, which was heard by the wolf. In the spring, his main food was dogs. However, Grass stopped howling because she chased the hare. While hunting, she smelled the smell of bread that the little people were carrying. The dog rushed along this trail.

Following the compass, Mitrash reached Blind Elani. The path the boy was following made a detour, so he decided to take a shortcut and go straight. On the way he came across a small clearing, which was a disastrous swamp. When he was halfway through, he began to be sucked in and the child fell waist-deep. Mitrash had only one thing to do: lie on the gun and not move. He heard his sister scream, but his sister did not hear his response.

Happy Rescue

Nastya followed the path that led around the dangerous swamp. Having reached the end, the girl saw that same treasured clearing with cranberries. She, forgetting about everything in the world, rushed to pick berries. Only in the evening did Nastya remember about her brother: Mitrasha was hungry, because she had all the food supplies.

Grass ran up to Nastenka and smelled the bread. The girl recognized the dog and, out of concern for her brother, began to cry. The grass tried to calm her down, so she howled. The wolf heard her howl. Soon, the dog smelled the hare again and chased after him. On the way she came across another little man.

Mitrashka noticed the dog and, realizing that this was his chance for salvation, began to call Travka to him in a gentle voice. When the dog came closer, he grabbed its hind legs, and thus he was able to get out of the swamp. Mitrasha was very hungry and decided to shoot the hare that the dog was hunting for. But the boy saw the wolf in time and shot almost point-blank. So the Gray Landowner disappeared from the forest.

Nastya hurried to the sound of the shot and saw her brother. The children spent the night in the swamp, and in the morning they returned home with a basket full of cranberries and told about their trip. Residents found the body of a wolf in Yelan and brought it back. After this, Mitrashka began to be considered a hero. By the end of the war, no one called him “a little man in a bag” anymore, because after this adventure, the boy became more mature. Nastya was ashamed of her greed, so she gave all the collected berries to the children who were evacuated from Leningrad. Children became more attentive not only to people, but also began to treat nature even more carefully.

Prishvin wrote the fairy tale “The Pantry of the Sun” in 1945. In the work, the author reveals classic themes of nature and love for the motherland for Russian literature. Using the artistic technique of personification, the author “revitalizes” the swamp, trees, wind, etc. for the reader. Nature seems to act as a separate hero of the fairy tale, warning children about danger and helping them. Through descriptions of the landscape, Prishvin conveys the internal state of the characters and the change of mood in the story.

Main characters

Nastya Veselkina- a 12-year-old girl, Mitrasha’s sister, “was like a golden hen on high legs.”

Mitrasha Veselkin– a boy of about 10 years old, Nastya’s brother; he was jokingly called “the little man in the bag.”

Grass- the dog of the deceased forester Antipych, “big red, with a black strap on the back.”

Wolf Old landowner

Chapter 1

In the village “near the Bludov swamp, in the area of the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky, two children were orphaned” - Nastya and Mitrasha. “Their mother died of illness, their father died in the Patriotic War.” The children were left with the hut and the farm. At first, neighbors helped the children manage the farm, but soon they learned everything themselves.

The children lived very friendly. Nastya got up early and “busted about the housework until the night.” Mitrasha was engaged in “male farming”, making barrels, tubs, and wooden utensils, which he sold.

Chapter 2

In the village in the spring they collected cranberries that had lain under the snow all winter; they were tastier and healthier than those in the fall. At the end of April, the guys gathered to pick berries. Mitrash took with him his father’s double-barreled gun and a compass - his father explained that you can always find your way home using a compass. Nastya took a basket, bread, potatoes and milk. The children decided to go to Blind Elani - there, according to their father’s stories, there is a “Palestinian” on which a lot of cranberries grow.

Chapter 3

It was still dark and the guys went to the Bludovy swamp. Mitrasha said that a “terrible wolf, the Gray Landowner,” lives alone in the swamps. As confirmation of this, a wolf howl was heard in the distance.

Mitrasha led his sister along the compass to the north - to the desired clearing with cranberries.

Chapter 4

The children went to the "Lying Stone". From there there were two paths - one well-trodden, “dense”, and the second “weak”, but going north. Having quarreled, the guys went in different directions. Mitrasha went north, and Nastya followed the “common” path.

Chapter 5

In a potato pit, near the ruins of a forester’s house, there lived a hound dog, Travka. Her owner, the old hunter Antipych, died two years ago. Longing for its owner, the dog often climbed the hill and howled protractedly.

Chapter 6

Several years ago, not far from the Sukhaya River, a “whole team” of people exterminated wolves. They killed everyone except the cautious Gray landowner, whose left ear and half of his tail were only shot off. In the summer, the wolf killed cattle and dogs in the villages. Hunters came five times to catch Gray, but he managed to escape each time.

Chapter 7

Hearing the howl of the dog Travka, the wolf headed towards her. However, Grass smelled a hare's trail and followed it, and near the Lying Stone she smelled the smell of bread and potatoes, and ran at a trot after Nastya.

Chapter 8

Bludovo swamp with “huge reserves of flammable peat, there is a pantry of the sun.” “For thousands of years this goodness is preserved under water” and then “peat is inherited by man from the sun.”

Mitrash walked to the “Blind Elani” - a “disastrous place” where many people died in the quagmire. Gradually, the bumps under his feet “became semi-liquid.” To shorten the path, Mitrasha decided to go not along a safe path, but directly through the clearing.

From the first steps the boy began to drown in the swamp. Trying to escape from the swamp, he jerked sharply and found himself in the swamp up to his chest. To prevent the quagmire from completely sucking him in, he held onto his gun.

From afar came the cry of Nastya calling him. Mitrash answered, but the wind carried his cry in the other direction.

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

The grass, “sensing human misfortune,” raised its head high and howled. Gray hurried to the howl of the dog from the other side of the swamp. Grass heard that a fox was chasing a brown hare nearby and ran after the prey towards Blind Elani.

Chapter 11

Catching up with the hare, Grass ran out to the place where Mitrash was pulled into the quagmire. The boy recognized the dog and called him to him. When Grass came closer, Mitrasha grabbed her by the hind legs. The dog “rushed with insane force” and the boy managed to get out of the swamp. Grass, deciding that in front of her was “the former wonderful Antipych,” joyfully rushed to Mitrasha.

Chapter 12

Remembering the hare, Grass ran after him further. Hungry Mitrash immediately realized “that all his salvation would be in this hare.” The boy hid in the juniper bushes. Grass drove the hare here, and Gray came running to the barking of the dog. Seeing the wolf five steps away from him, Mitrash shot at him and killed him.

Nastya, hearing the shot, screamed. Mitrasha called her, and the girl ran to the cry. The guys lit a fire and made themselves dinner from the hare caught by Grass.

After spending the night in the swamp, the children returned home in the morning. At first the village did not believe that the boy was able to kill the old wolf, but they soon became convinced of this themselves. Nastya gave the collected cranberries to the evacuated Leningrad children. Over the next two years of the war, Mitrash “stretched out” and matured.

This story was told by the “scouts of swamp riches”, who during the war years prepared the swamps – “storehouses of the sun” – for peat extraction.

Conclusion

In the work “Pantry of the Sun,” Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin touches on the issues of survival of people, in particular children, in difficult periods (in the story this is the time of the Patriotic War), shows the importance of mutual support and assistance. The “pantry of the sun” in the fairy tale is a collective symbol, denoting not only peat, but also all the wealth of nature and the people living on that land.

Fairy tale test

Check your memorization of the summary content with the test:

Retelling rating

Average rating: 4.7. Total ratings received: 2831.

We lived in this village just one house away from the children. And, of course, we, along with other neighbors, tried to help them as best we could. They were very nice. Nastya was like a golden hen on high legs. Her hair, neither dark nor light, shimmered with gold, the freckles all over her face were large, like gold coins, and frequent, and they were cramped, and they climbed in all directions. Only one nose was clean and looked up like a parrot.

Mitrasha was two years younger than his sister. He was only about ten years old. He was short, but very dense, with a broad forehead and a wide nape. He was a stubborn and strong boy.

“The little man in the bag,” the teachers at school called him smiling among themselves.

The little man in the bag, like Nastya, was covered in golden freckles, and his clean nose, like his sister’s, looked up like a parrot.

After their parents, their entire peasant farm went to their children: a five-walled hut, a cow Zorka, a heifer Dochka, a goat Dereza, nameless sheep, chickens, a golden rooster Petya and a piglet Horseradish.

Along with this wealth, however, the poor children also received great care for all these living beings. But did our children cope with such a misfortune during the difficult years of the Patriotic War! At first, as we have already said, their distant relatives and all of us neighbors came to help the children. But very soon the smart, friendly guys learned everything themselves and began to live well.

And what smart kids they were! Whenever possible, they joined in social work. Their noses could be seen on collective farm fields, in meadows, in barnyards, at meetings, in anti-tank ditches: their noses were so perky.

In this village, although we were newcomers, we knew well the life of every house. And now we can say: there was not a single house where they lived and worked as friendly as our favorites lived.

Just like her late mother, Nastya got up far before the sun, in the predawn hour, along the shepherd's chimney. With a twig in her hand, she drove out her beloved herd and rolled back to the hut. Without going to bed again, she lit the stove, peeled potatoes, made dinner, and so busied herself with the housework until nightfall.

Mitrasha learned from his father how to make wooden utensils, barrels, gangs, and basins. He has a jointer that is more than twice his height. And with this ladle he adjusts the planks one to another, folds them and supports them with iron or wooden hoops.

With a cow, there was no such need for two children to sell wooden utensils at the market, but good people ask for someone who needs a gang for the washbasin, who needs a barrel for dripping, who needs a tub of pickles for cucumbers or mushrooms, or even a simple vessel with scallops - homemade plant a flower.

He will do it, and then he will also be repaid with kindness. But, besides cooperage, he is responsible for all the men's farming and social affairs. He attends all meetings, tries to understand public concerns and, probably, realizes something.

It is very good that Nastya is two years older than her brother, otherwise he would certainly become arrogant and in their friendship they would not have the wonderful equality they have now. It happens that now Mitrasha will remember how his father taught his mother, and, imitating his father, will also decide to teach his sister Nastya. But my sister doesn’t listen much, she stands and smiles... Then the Little Man in the Bag begins to get angry and swagger and always says with his nose in the air:

- Here's another!

- Why are you showing off? - my sister objects.

- Here's another! - the brother is angry. – You, Nastya, swagger yourself.

- No, it's you!

- Here's another!

So, having tormented her obstinate brother, Nastya strokes him on the back of his head, and as soon as her sister’s small hand touches her brother’s wide back of his head, her father’s enthusiasm leaves the owner.

- Let's weed together! - the sister will say.

And the brother also begins to weed cucumbers, or hoe beets, or plant potatoes.

Yes, it was very, very difficult for everyone during the Patriotic War, so difficult that, probably, it has never happened in the whole world. So the children had to endure a lot of all sorts of worries, failures, and disappointments. But their friendship overcame everything, they lived well. And again we can firmly say: in the entire village no one had such friendship as Mitrash and Nastya Veselkin lived with each other. And we think, perhaps, it was this grief for their parents that united the orphans so closely.

The sour and very healthy cranberry berry grows in swamps in the summer and is harvested in late autumn. But not everyone knows that the best cranberry is sweet, as we say, it happens when it spends the winter under the snow. These spring dark red cranberries float in our pots along with beets and drink tea with them as with sugar. Those who don’t have sugar beets drink tea with just cranberries. We tried it ourselves - and it’s okay, you can drink it: sour replaces sweet and is very good on hot days. And what a wonderful jelly made from sweet cranberries, what a fruit drink! And among our people, this cranberry is considered a healing medicine for all diseases.

This spring, there was still snow in the dense spruce forests at the end of April, but in the swamps it is always much warmer - there was no snow there at that time at all. Having learned about this from people, Mitrasha and Nastya began to gather for cranberries. Even before daylight, Nastya gave food to all her animals. Mitrash took his father’s double-barreled Tulka shotgun, decoys for hazel grouse, and did not forget the compass. It used to be that his father, going into the forest, would never forget this compass. More than once Mitrash asked his father:

“You’ve been walking through the forest all your life, and you know the whole forest like the palm of your hand.” Why else do you need this arrow?

“You see, Dmitry Pavlovich,” answered the father, “in the forest this arrow is kinder to you than your mother: sometimes the sky will be covered with clouds, and you cannot decide by the sun in the forest; if you go at random, you will make a mistake, you will get lost, you will go hungry.” Then just look at the arrow and it will show you where your home is. You go straight home along the arrow, and they will feed you there. This arrow is more faithful to you than a friend: sometimes your friend will cheat on you, but the arrow invariably always, no matter how you turn it, always looks north.

Having examined the wonderful thing, Mitrash locked the compass so that the needle would not tremble in vain along the way. He carefully, like a father, wrapped footcloths around his feet, tucked them into his boots, and put on a cap so old that its visor split in two: the upper leather crust rode up above the sun, and the lower one went down almost to the very nose. Mitrash dressed in his father’s old jacket, or rather in a collar connecting stripes of once good homespun fabric. The boy tied these stripes on his tummy with a sash, and his father’s jacket sat on him like a coat, right down to the ground. The hunter’s son also tucked an ax into his belt, hung a bag with a compass on his right shoulder, and a double-barreled Tulka on his left, and thus became terribly scary for all birds and animals.

Nastya, starting to get ready, hung a large basket over her shoulder on a towel.

- Why do you need a towel? – asked Mitrasha.

“But what about,” Nastya answered, “don’t you remember how your mother went to pick mushrooms?”

- For mushrooms! You understand a lot: there are a lot of mushrooms, so it hurts your shoulder.

“And maybe we’ll have even more cranberries.”

And just when Mitrash wanted to say his “here’s another”, he remembered what his father had said about cranberries, back when they were preparing him for war.

“You remember this,” Mitrasha said to his sister, “how father told us about cranberries, that there is a Palestinian in the forest...

“I remember,” Nastya answered, “he said about cranberries that he knew a place and the cranberries there were crumbling, but I don’t know what he said about some Palestinian woman.” I also remember talking about the terrible place Blind Elan.

“There, near Yelani, there is a Palestinian,” said Mitrasha. “Father said: go to the High Mane and after that keep to the north, and when you cross the Zvonkaya Borina, keep everything straight to the north and you will see - there a Palestinian woman will come to you, all red as blood, from just cranberries. No one has ever been to this Palestinian land!