Lovely Short Story Collection

When I was ten, I spent the whole winter in the village.
I ran through the woods, stalking birds and learned various interesting details of their lives. This was my favorite pastime, and I really missed when something hurt my walks.

But February frosts hit. There arose a great storm.
The father did not let me for a long time out of the house. Time dragged terribly slow.
Finally, a few days later I woke up in the morning, he saw through the window a clear blue sky.

I immediately asked permission from his father, dressed and ran out into the yard.
Outside it was freezing, but quiet. The sun shone brightly. His eyes were hurting from the glitter of white snow.

The forest had nothing to think his way. There are piled drifts of loose snow that I continually sank up to his waist.
I had to go down the river. With it, on the contrary, the wind safely almost all the snow, so that in some places it could see the bluish ice.

The birds did not have anywhere else. Before me stretched a long white strip of the river. Right and left her on the steep banks stood silently snowbound forest. Even squeak tits were not heard in it.
I thought, "That's right, the birds feel bad after such a long snowstorm."

Soon I saw a black spot in the snow.
It turned out that it was a dead crow. She was lying with his head in the snow, whipped by the wind flattened wings.

I picked it up and examined from all sides. She had already numb. Nowhere on the entire body, it was not a trace of a wound or injury.
I realized that I had killed a crow frost.

I was very sorry for this big strong bird, the frozen here in the middle of snowdrifts. I consoled myself with the thought that not all birds killed in these days. Perhaps I will be able to catch more today some half dead bird. I carried her home, heating, feed, and will keep until spring.
As if in answer to my thoughts, not far heard quiet chatter.
I looked up. Ahead was a hole. On the edge of it, at the water, jumping white-breasted bird. She jerked a short tail and fill in all ways the most fun song.


"This is crazy! - I thought. - How can she be happy in such a cold? "
White-breasted bird was not paying any attention to me. I wanted a closer look at it. But as soon as I took a few steps toward her, like a bird with a sweep rushed into the hole headfirst. One moment, I still saw her rapidly moving wings as if flying in the water. Then she disappeared under the ice.

So I stood with bulging eyes and mouth open.
"Utopia!" - Suddenly flashed me a terrible idea. I rushed to the hole. Small water flowed very quickly here. Drowned nowhere to be seen.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I ran home to her father, a dead crow in his hands and with an amazing story about the white-breasted birds drowned.

Crow's father told me to throw now and over the long laughed my story. I do not understand what's so funny, and very angry at his father.
- Fool! - he said. - Because it was a dipper. She was not drowned, and now once again jumping on the ice and was glad that deceived you.

- Not true! - Hot me. - She went mad and drowned. I saw how it utyanulo under the ice. The course there is a quick ...

- Well, that's - stopped me father - run a minute back to a place where you saw it. She'll be there. And if it's not there, so far from the first hole has a second. Through it dipper and jumped, dived under the ice from you.

Again, I ran to the river. My father loved and well-known birds. If he says that Dipper rushed into the hole on purpose - so there is still hope that my white-breasted bird alive.

In the hole there was no dipper. But then on the river, I saw a second hole, he went up to her and suddenly noticed my drowned on a steep bank of the river. She was alive and well, running on snow and softly sang his song, similar to the splash and murmur of the brook.

I ran to her. She flew to the hole, rocked on thin legs, as if bowing to me, and as I approached, flopped into the water like a frog in a swamp.

Standing over the hole, I saw how she rowed under water wings, like a swimmer hand. Then she ran along the bottom, curved claws for clinging to all its irregularities. At one point she even stayed a little bit, my eyes turned stone beak and pulled out from under him water beetle.

And half a minute later she had already jumped out of another hole. I could hardly believe my eyes. I do want to consider it more closely. Several times in a row, I forced her to throw into the water.
I was very surprised that the water it shines like a silver fish. I did not know back then that dipper feathers smeared with a thin layer of fat. When the bird is immersed in water, air bubbles on its fatty feathers and glitters.

Finally, she was tired of diving. She rose into the air, flew over the river just like on a thread, and in a moment disappeared from my eyes.

* * *
It has been almost two months since my first meeting with Dipper. During this time I was very fond of her. In good weather, I went to the river to watch her. She always had time to whisk me into the hole. And always with the view of her she was so funny, as if we were playing "cat and mouse".
The whole village knew this funny little bird. The villagers called her sparrow water.

* * *
At the end of the winter frost crackled again, even stronger February. These days my Dipper is not singing any more.
Now I had to look for it for a long time before I found it somewhere under the ice canopy coast. Then she sat hunched. View she was sad and unhappy.

When I approached her, she silently shot and fly somewhere far away, always in the same direction.
And then, finally, the day came when she departed from this place: the hole froze. The ice prevented dipper dive into the water for the beetles.

I am very worried about her friend Whitechest.
"Maybe - I thought - it now rests somewhere in the snow, like the crow, which I found on the river after a blizzard."

At home my father said to me:
- Most likely, your dipper hit the nails to some predators. But all right, it just went to look for a different place on the river where the water does not freeze even in the toughest frosts.
The next morning, the sun came out again, and I went in search Dipper.

Passing the familiar hole, I climbed the steep bank and walked along the river.
Soon I blocked the path of a small river. She quickly rushed to the mound and steeply from the shore, on which I was walking in the great river.
It was a real waterfall. River wide jet gushing from the cliff and foamed down steeply into a turbulent maelstrom. At this point, a large river was wide polynya.

I've never seen a waterfall. With delight and fear I looked at a furious stream, ready to crush under itself all who inadvertently approached him.

Suddenly I saw two birds flying straight to the waterfall. Ahead rushing, gleaming white chest, my Dipper. Behind quickly overtook her gray hawk.
Before I knew it, a crazy bird disappeared into the swift stream of the waterfall.

The hawk soared up steeply in front of a wall of falling water for a moment hung in the air, turned and slowly flew away. Production slipped from his clutches.

Hawk did not know what had become of the Dipper. But I've seen how she raced headlong through the wall of the waterfall, and made a small semicircle as if nothing had happened perched on a rock under a cliff from which water falls.
Through the noise of the waterfall could not hear her voice. But her movements, I realized that she sings a merry song.

I was returning home from a walk skipped. Now I was sure that my brave little friend is not afraid of no claws of a hawk, nor cold, nor hunger winter.

Yes, winter was too long torturing birds. The day was warm in spring. The sun was hot, and around me with a slight ringing collapsing snow. It was the end of February. Soon we were to result in frost.
With such a cheerful thought, I ran home, at a friend's hole I suddenly occurred to me: it is good to try, if very cold water, which is so fond of swimming Dipper.

Without thinking, I ran to the hole and strongly stamped on thin ice.

I just wanted to break the ice then to try the water by hand. But a thin crust of ice, drawn-out hole has already melted. He easily broke under my stroke, I swung and flew into the hole, first with one foot, and then do not keep balance, and the entire body.

Fortunately, the water in this place was just me on the knee.
As scalded, I jumped on the ice, and his teeth chattering from the cold, headlong raced home. The water in which to bathe Dipper loved so much, was very cold.

On the same day I slёg bed in a strong heat. I was sick for two months. When recovered, I still got it from his father for what I bathed in the hole.
- Only crazy - said the father, - deliberately get into the water in the winter ...
- A Dipper? - I interrupted.
Father laughed and did not become a scold me.