The lark landed on the arable land. He wanted to chat with someone before going to bed about this and that. He didn't have a girlfriend.

He decided: "I'll fly to the neighbors - partridges." But then he remembered that in the morning they flew away.

He felt sad again. He sighed heavily and began to go to bed in a hole between the lumps of earth that had dried up during the day.

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak!

“Oh, but it’s Podkovkin! - the Lark was delighted. “So, not all partridges flew away.”

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak! - rushed from rye greens.

“Weird! thought Skylark. “Found one worm and screams for the whole world.”

He knew that partridges eat grains of bread and seeds of various herbs. The worm for them is like a sweet for dinner. Lark himself knew how to find any number of small worms in the grass, and every day he ate his fill of them. It was funny to him that a neighbor was so happy about some worm.

"Well, now I'll have someone to chat with," thought Skylark and flew off to look for a neighbor.

It turned out to be very easy to find him: the cockerel sat openly on a tussock, among the low green grass, and every now and then gave a voice.

Hello, Podkovkin! - Shouted, flying up to him, Skylark. Did you stay all summer?

The rooster nodded his head amiably.

Yes Yes. So decided Orange Neck, my wife. Are you familiar with her? A very smart chicken. You'll see, she's sure to lead the Big Herd this winter.

Having said this, the cockerel wheeled out a blue chest with a horseshoe pattern of delicious chocolate color. Then he stretched out his neck and shouted loudly three times:

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak!

Where is the worm? - Lark was surprised. - Did you eat it?

Podkovkin was offended:

Who do you take me for? I would be a good cockerel if I ate worms myself! I took it to Orange Neck, of course.

And she ate it?

I ate it and said it was delicious.

And so it ends! Why are you shouting: “Worm! Worm!"?

You do not understand anything! - Podkovkin was completely angry. - Firstly, I don’t scream at all, but I sing beautifully. Secondly, what is there to sing about, if not about delicious worms?

The little gray Lark could tell a lot about what and how to sing. After all, he was from a famous family of singers, glorified by all poets. But there was no pride in him. And he did not at all want to offend Podkovkin, his good neighbor.

The lark hurried to say something pleasant to him.

I know Orange Neck. She is so beautiful and gentle. How is her health?

Podkovkin immediately forgot the offense. He puffed out his chest, blurted out loudly three times: “Ferr-vyak!” - and only then importantly answered:

Thank you! Orange Neck feels great. Come visit us.

When can you arrive? asked Skylark.

Right now, you see, I'm very busy, - said Podkovkin. - In the afternoon I look for food for the Orange Neck, I keep guards so that the Fox or the Hawk will not attack her. In the evenings I sing songs to her. And then you have to fight...

Podkovkin did not finish, stretched out on his legs and began to peer into the greenery.

Wait a minute! Is he again?

The cockerel took off and flew like an arrow to where something was moving in the greenery.

Immediately, the noise of a fight was heard from there: the sound of beak on beak, the flapping of wings, the rustle of rye. The fluff flew up to the sky.

A few minutes later the mottled back of a strange cockerel flashed over the greenery, and Podkovkin returned, all disheveled, with sparkling eyes. A broken feather protruded from its left wing.

Wow! .. Great, I hit him! - he said, dropping onto the hillock. Will know now...

Who are you with? asked Skylark timidly. He himself never fought with anyone and did not know how to fight.

And with a neighbor, with Brovkin. Here nearby, on Kostyanichnaya Hill, he lives. Silly chick. I'll show him!

Lark also knew Brovkin. All partridges have red eyebrows - and not only above the eyes, but even under the eyes. At Brovkin they were especially large and red.

Why are you fighting? asked Skylark. - In the Big Herd, you were friends with Brovkin.

In the Big Herd, it's a different matter. And now he will run to us in the field, then I will inadvertently end up on Kostyanichnaya Hill. This is where we can't help but fight. After all, we are roosters.

The lark did not understand: why fight when friends?

He asked again:

When is it to come?

Bianchi orange neck

What Lark saw when he returned to his homeland

Already the Wolf washed, and Kochetok sang. It started to get light.
In a field between clods of cold earth, Lark woke up.
He jumped to his feet, shook himself, looked around and flew up.
It flew and sang. And the higher he rose into the sky, the more joyful and louder his song flowed and shimmered.
Everything that he saw under him seemed to him unusually wonderful, beautiful and sweet. Still: after all, it was his homeland, and he had not seen her for a long, very long time!
He was born here last summer. And in the fall, with other migratory birds, he flew to distant countries. There he spent the whole winter in warmth - for five whole months. And that's a long time when you're only ten months old.
And it's been three days since he finally returned home.

The first days he rested from the road, and today he set to work. And his job was to sing.
The lark sang:
“Snow fields below me. They have black and green spots on them.
Black spots are arable land. Green spots are sprouts of rye and wheat.
I remember: people sowed this rye and wheat in autumn. Soon young, cheerful greenery sprouted from the ground. Then snow began to fall on them, and I flew off to foreign lands.
The greenery did not freeze under the cold snow. Here they appeared again, cheerfully and amicably reaching upwards.
On the hills among the fields are villages. This is our collective farm "Red Iskra". The collective farmers have not yet woken up, the streets are still empty.
The fields are also empty: the animals and birds of the field are still sleeping.
Beyond the distant black forest I see the golden edge of the sun.
Wake up, wake up, get up everyone!
Morning begins! Spring is starting!"
The lark fell silent: he saw some kind of gray spot on the white field. The spot moved.
The lark flew down to see what was there.
Above the spot, he stopped in the air, fluttering his wings.
“Eh, it’s the Big Herd!” I see my good neighbors have a general meeting.
And indeed: it was a Big Flock of gray partridges - beautiful field cockerels and hens. They sat in a tight group. There were a lot of them: a hundred birds, or maybe a thousand. The lark couldn't count.
They were here in the snow and spent the night: they were still shaking off the snow that was grainy from the night frost from the wings.
And one Hen - apparently their eldest - was sitting in the middle on a hummock and loudly spoke a speech.
"What is she talking about?" thought Skylark, and went down even lower.
The Elder Hen said:
- Today our little friend Lark woke us up with his song. So, yes, spring has begun. The most difficult and hungry time has passed. We'll have to think about nests soon.
The time has come for us all to part.
- It's time, it's time! All the hens cackled at once. Who goes where, who goes where, who goes where?
- We're in the woods! We are for the river! We are at Red Creek! We are on Kostyanichnaya Hill! There, there, there, there!
When the clucking stopped, the older Hen spoke again.
– Happy summer and good chicks to all of you! Take them out more and raise them better. Remember: the hen who brings in the most young partridges in the fall will be greatly honored: this hen will lead the Big Herd all winter. And everyone should listen to her. Goodbye, goodbye, until autumn!
The Elder Hen suddenly jumped high into the air, flapped her wings with a crack, and rushed away.
And at the same moment all the other partridges, how many of them there were - a hundred or a thousand - split into pairs and with a crackle, noise, chirping splashed in all directions and disappeared from sight.
The lark was upset: such good, affectionate neighbors flew away! When he returned, how they rejoiced at him! How fun it was in their close-knit family!
But he immediately caught on. After all, he needs to wake up all the other birds and animals of the field, and all people as soon as possible! He quickly began to earn wings and sang even louder than before:
"The Sun is rising! Wake up, wake up everyone, get to work merrily."
And, rising to the clouds, he saw how thieves hares scatter from the villages, climbing into the gardens at night to devour the bark from apple trees. I saw how a noisy gang, croaking, flocks of black rooks flock to the arable land - to pick out worms from the thawed earth with their noses; how people leave their houses.
People threw back their heads and, squinting from the bright sun, tried to make out the little singer in the sky. But he disappeared into the cloud. Only his song remained above the fields, so sonorous and joyful that people felt light in their souls, and they cheerfully set to work.

Bianchi orange neck

What the Lark was talking about with the Field Cockerel

The Lark worked all day: he flew in the sky and sang. He sang so that everyone knew that everything was fine and calm and that no evil hawk was flying nearby. He sang to make the birds and beasts of the field rejoice. He sang to make people work more cheerfully.
Sang, sang - and tired.
It was already evening. Sunset. All the animals and birds hid somewhere.
The lark landed on the arable land. He wanted to chat with someone before going to bed about this and that. He didn't have a girlfriend.
He decided: "I'll fly to the neighbors - partridges." But then he remembered that in the morning they flew away.
He felt sad again. He sighed heavily and began to go to bed in a hole between the lumps of earth that had dried up during the day.
Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice. The voice was like the creaking of an unoiled gate or the chirping of a cricket, only stronger, louder. Someone loudly and joyfully pronounces all one word:
- Cherr vyak! Cherr wow!
“Oh, but it’s Podkovkin! - Skylark rejoiced. “So, not all partridges flew away.”
- Cherr vyak! Cherr wow! - rushed from rye greens.
“Weird! thought Skylark. “Found one worm and screams to the whole world.”
He knew that partridges eat grains of bread and seeds of various herbs. The worm for them is like a sweet for dinner. Lark himself knew how to find any number of small worms in the grass, and every day he ate his fill of them. It was funny to him that a neighbor was so happy about some kind of worm.
“Well, now I’ll have someone to chat with,” thought Skylark, and flew off to look for a neighbor.
It turned out to be very easy to find him: the Cockerel was sitting openly on a hummock, among the low green grass, and now and then gave a voice.
- Hello, Podkovkin! - Shouted, flying up to him, Lark. Did you stay all summer?
The rooster nodded his head amiably.
- Yes Yes. So decided Orange Neck, my wife. Are you familiar with her? A very smart chicken.
You'll see: this winter she will certainly lead the Big Herd.
Having said this, the Cockerel wheeled out a blue chest with a horseshoe pattern of delicious chocolate color. Then he stretched out his neck and shouted three times:
- Cherr vyak! Cherr wow! Cherr wow!
- Where is the worm? - Lark was surprised. - Did you eat it?
Podkovkin was offended:
Who do you take me for? I would be a good Cockerel if I ate worms myself! I took it to Orange Neck, of course.
And she ate it?
I ate it and said it was delicious.
- So that's the end of it! Why are you shouting: “Worm! Worm!"?
- You do not understand anything! - Podkovkin was completely angry. - Firstly, I don’t scream at all, but I sing beautifully. Secondly, what is there to sing about, if not about tasty worms?
The little gray Lark could tell a lot about what and how to sing. After all, he was from a famous family of singers, glorified by all poets. But there was no pride in him.
And he did not at all want to offend Podkovkin, his good neighbor. The lark hurried to say something pleasant to him:
“I know Orange Neck. She is so beautiful and gentle. How is her health?
Podkovkin immediately forgot the offense. He puffed out his chest, blurted out loudly three times; "Cherr Vyak!" - and only then importantly answered:
- Thank you! Orange Neck feels great. Come visit us.
– When can you arrive? asked Skylark.
“Right now, you see, I’m very busy,” said Podkovkin. “In the afternoon I look for food for the Orange Neck, I keep a guard so that it will not be attacked by the Fox or the Hawk. In the evenings I sing songs to her. And then you have to fight...
Podkovkin did not finish, stretched out on his legs and began to peer into the greenery.
- Hold on! Is he again?
The cockerel took off and flew like an arrow to where something was stirring in the greenery.
Immediately, the sound of battle was heard from there: the sound of beak on beak, the flapping of wings, the rustle of rye. The fluff flew up to the sky.
A few minutes later the motley back of a strange cockerel flashed over the greenery, and Podkovkin returned, all disheveled, with sparkling eyes. A broken feather protruded from its left wing.
- Wow! .. Great, I hit him! – he said, dropping down on a bump. Will know now...
- Who are you with? asked Skylark timidly. He himself never fought with anyone and did not know how to fight.
- And with a neighbor, with Brovkin. He lives nearby, on Kostyanichnaya Hill. Silly chick. I'll show him!
Lark also knew Brovkin. All partridges have red eyebrows - and not only above the eyes, but even under the eyes. At Brovkin they were especially large and red.
- Why are you fighting? asked Skylark. - In the Big Herd, you were friends with Brovkin.
“In the Big Herd, it’s different. And now he will run to us in the field, then I will inadvertently end up on Kostyanichnaya Hill. This is where we can't help but fight. After all, we are roosters.
The lark did not understand: why fight when friends? He asked again:
- When is it to come?
- That's when the Orange Neck sits down to hatch the children. Then maybe I can breathe easier.
- And soon you think to curl a nest?
- Orange-throated says: “When the snowy fields appear thawed and the Skylark sings in the sky, the Big Herd will break into pairs and scatter in all directions. When people finish sowing and the winter rye grows up to the knee of a person, it will be time to build a nest.
Just look what a cozy nest the Orange Neck will arrange for itself - a feast for the eyes! Remember? When people stop sowing, and rye grows up to a man's knee.
“I already remember,” said Lightsong. - I'll definitely come. Well, good night!
And he flew off to sleep.

Bianchi orange neck

What did people do when the snow fell from the fields, and what kind of nest did the Orange Neck curl

And so Lark began to wait for the people to start and finish sowing, and the rye would grow up to the knee of a man.
Every morning he rose to the clouds and sang there about everything that he saw under him.
He saw how day by day the snow melted in the fields, how every morning the sun warmed more cheerfully and hotter. I saw icebreaker wagtails fly in - thin birds with shaking tails - and how the next morning the river broke the ice. And as soon as the snow melted, people drove out on a tractor into the field.
“Now they will start sowing!” thought Skylark.
But he was wrong! People have not left yet to sow, but only to prepare the land plowed since autumn for sowing.
With the steel scallops of the hasty ploughs, they broke up the caked clods and loosened the earth.
So several days passed.

Then the collective farmers harnessed their horses to narrow long boxes with two large wheels on the sides and drove to the fields.
Collective farmers sowed for several days.
Flax was sown first. Flax was sown in order to later make linseed oil from its seeds, and ropes, canvas and linen from its stems.
And Skylark thought: flax is sown so that it is convenient for the birds to hide in it.
After flax, the collective farmers sowed oats. Oats were sown to feed horses and make oatmeal for children from its seeds.
After oats, wheat was sown. Wheat was sown in order to make white flour from it, and from white flour to bake delicious white rolls.
After wheat, barley was sown. Barley was sown to make barley cakes, pearl barley soup and barley porridge.
After barley, buckwheat was sown. Buckwheat was sown, then to make buckwheat porridge out of it.
And Skylark thought that people sow oats, and wheat, and barley, and buckwheat, so that partridges would have grains to eat.
Collective farmers sowed buckwheat, left the field.
Well, thought Lightsong, this is the end of the sowing! No more people will go out into the field."
And again he was mistaken: the next morning the collective farmers again went out into the field and began to plant potatoes on long, even ridges.
And why they planted potatoes, everyone knows; Lark alone could not guess.
By that time, killer whale swallows had arrived, and it became warm, and winter rye had grown to the knee of a man. Lark saw this, was delighted and flew off to look for his friend, Podkovkin the cockerel.
Now it was not as easy to find it as it had been a month ago: the rye had grown all around, the hummocks were not even visible, Podkovkin's Lark found it with difficulty.
- Is the nest ready? he asked immediately.
“It’s ready, it’s ready,” Podkovkin answered cheerfully, “and even the eggs are all laid.” Do you know how much?
“But I can’t count,” said Lightsong.
“I must admit, I can’t go beyond two,” Podkovkin sighed. - Yes, there was a hunter. He looked into the nest, counted the eggs and said:
“Wow,” he says, “twenty-four, two dozen! More, - he says, - and there are no eggs in gray partridges.
- Oh, oh, oh, it's bad! - Frightened the Lark. - The hunter will take all the eggs and make himself scrambled eggs from them.
- What are you, what are you - scrambled eggs! Podkovkin waved his wings at him. - Orange Neck says: “It's good that this is a hunter. As long as it's not a boy." She says: “The hunter will still guard our nest: he needs our chicks to grow up and become fat. Then watch out for him! Then he will come with the dog yes ... bang! bang! ..” Well, let's go, I'll take you to the Orange Neck.
Podkovkin jumped off the hummock and ran so fast through the rye that Skylark had to catch up with him on wings.
The nest of partridges was placed among the rye, in a depression between two tussocks. On the nest, fluffy feathers, sat Orange Neck.
Seeing the guest, she left the nest, smoothed her feathers and said affably:
– Please! Please! Admire our nest. Is it really cozy?
There was nothing special in her nest: like a basket with eggs. The edges are lined with partridge down and feathers. The lark has seen more cunning nests.
Still, out of courtesy, he said:
- A very cute nest.
- And the eggs? asked Orange Neck. - Really, wonderful testicles?
The eggs were really good: like chicken, only small, beautiful even yellow-green color. There were a lot of them - a complete basket. And they all lay with their sharp ends inward, otherwise, perhaps, they would not fit in the nest.
- Lovely eggs! - Lightsong said heartily. – So clean, smooth, neat!
- And how do you like nests around? asked Orange Neck. - Beautiful?
The lark looked around. The flexible stalks of young rye hung like a green tent over the nest.
"Beautiful," Lightsong agreed. “Only here…” he stammered.
- What do you want to say? Podkovkin was alarmed. “Or is our nest poorly hidden?”
“Now it’s well hidden, even the Hawk can’t see it.” Why, people will soon harvest rye. And your nest will remain in the open.
- Harvest rye? - Podkovkin even fluttered his wings. – You probably know that?
- I heard the collective farmers said that they would reap rye.
- What a horror! gasped Podkovkin. - What do we do?
But Orange Neck only winked merrily at her husband:
- Don't worry, don't worry. This is the safest place. No one will come here until our chicks are out of their eggs. Hack it on your nose: partridge chicks hatch when the rye blossoms.
- And when will people come to reap it?
- And people will wait until the rye grows, spikes, blooms, fades, fills up and ripens.
- What did I tell you! shouted the overjoyed Podkovkin. You see how smart my wife is! She knows ahead of time.
"I'm not the smart one," said Orange Neck modestly. – This is our partridge calendar. Each of our chickens knows it by heart.
Then she turned to Skylark, praised his songs and invited him to come and see how her chicks would come out of the eggs.
Here the Quail cried out loudly from the rye:
- Time to sleep! Time to sleep!
The lark said goodbye to his friends and flew home.
Before going to sleep, he kept trying to remember: “What did she say? First, the rye will grow, then it will go up… no, it will go up… it will go out…”
But he could not pronounce this tricky word in any way, he waved his paw and fell asleep.

Bianchi orange neck

How the fox came and what kind of children the Podkovkins had

The lark was impatient to see how the little Podkovkins would come out of the eggs. Every morning now, before ascending into the clouds, he carefully examined the rye.
The rye rose quickly and soon became the height of the tallest man.
Then the ends of its stems began to thicken and swell. Then a mustache grew out of them.
“These are the spikelets,” Skylark said to himself. - This is what is called vyklolo ... no - vykolo ... no - you eared.
This morning he sang especially well: he was glad that the rye would soon bloom and that the Podkovkins would hatch chicks.
He looked down and saw that crops had already risen in all the fields: barley, and oats, and flax, and wheat, and buckwheat, and potato leaves on even ridges.
In the bushes near the field where the Podkovkins' nest was in the high rye, he noticed a bright red stripe. He went down lower and saw: it was the Fox. She emerged from the bushes and crept across the mowed meadow towards the field of partridges.
The lark's heart thumped hard. He was not afraid for himself: the Fox could not do anything to him in the air. But the terrible beast could find his friends nest, catch Orange Neck, ruin her nest.
Lark descended even lower and shouted with all his strength:
- Podkovkin! Podkovkin! The fox is coming, save yourself!
The fox raised its head and gnashed its teeth terribly. The lark was frightened, but continued to shout with all his might:
– Orange Neck! Fly away, fly away!
The fox went straight to the nest.
Suddenly Podkovkin jumped out of the rye. He had a terrible appearance: all feathers were ruffled, one wing was dragging on the ground.
"Trouble! thought Skylark. “That’s right, the boys hit him with a stone. Now he's gone too." And shouted:
- Podkovkin, run, hide!
But it was too late: the Fox noticed the poor cockerel and rushed to him.
Podkovkin, limping and bouncing, ran away from her. But where could he escape from the swift-footed beast!
In three jumps, the Fox was near him, and - curse! - her teeth clanged at the very tail of the cockerel.
Podkovkin gathered all his strength and managed to take off in front of the beast's nose. But he flew very badly, desperately tweeted and soon fell to the ground, jumped up, hobbled on. The fox ran after him.
Skylark saw how poor Podkovkin, now running, now taking off into the air, with difficulty reached Kostyanichnaya Hill and disappeared into the bushes. The fox pursued him relentlessly.
“Well, now the poor fellow is finished! thought Skylark. “The fox drove him into the bushes and there he will catch him alive.”
The lark could do nothing more to help his friend. He did not want to hear how the cockerel bones crackle on the fox's teeth, and quickly flew away.
A few days passed - and the rye was already in bloom. The lark did not fly these days over the field where the Podkovkins lived. He was sad about his dead friend and did not even want to look at the place where the bloody feathers of the cockerel lay.
Once Lark was sitting in his field and eating worms.
Suddenly he heard the crackle of wings and saw Podkovkin, alive and cheerful. Podkovkin sank down beside him.
- Where did you disappear to? - shouted the Cockerel, not greeting. - The rye is already in bloom. I'm looking for you, I'm looking for! .. Let's fly quickly to us: the Orange Neck says that now our chicks will hatch from eggs.
The lark stared at him.
“After all, the Fox ate you,” he said. “I myself saw how she drove you into the bushes.
- A fox? me?! shouted Podkovkin. “Why, it was I who took her away from our nest. He pretended to be sick on purpose in order to deceive her. So entangled in the bushes that she forgot the way to our field! And thank you for the warning. If not for you, we would not see our chicks.
“Well, I… I just shouted,” Lightsong said, embarrassed. - You're smart! He even deceived me.
And friends flew to the Orange Neck.
- Shh! Hush hush! - Orange Neck met them. - Don't stop me from listening.
She was very preoccupied, stood over the nest and, bowing her head to the eggs, listened attentively. Skylark and Podkovkin stood side by side, barely breathing.
Suddenly Orange-throat quickly but carefully pecked one of the eggs with her beak. A piece of the shell flew off, and immediately two black pin eyes flashed out of the hole and a wet, disheveled head of a chicken appeared.
The mother poked her beak again - and now the whole chick jumped out of the collapsed shell.
- Out, out! shouted Podkovkin and jumped for joy.
- Do not shout! said Orange Neck sternly. - Take the shells as soon as possible and take them away from the nest.
Podkovkin grabbed half of the shell with his beak and rushed headlong into the rye with it.

He returned for the second half very soon, but a whole pile of broken shells had already accumulated in the nest. Skylark saw the chicks emerging one after the other. While Orange Neck was helping one, the other was already breaking the shell and climbing out of it.
Soon all twenty-four eggs were broken, all twenty-four chicks came out into the light, funny, wet, disheveled!
Orange Neck quickly kicked out all the broken shells from the nest with her feet and beak and ordered Podkovkin to remove it. Then she turned to the chickens, in a gentle voice she said to them: “Ko ko ko! Koko!”, all fluffed up, spread her wings and sat on the nest. And all the chickens immediately disappeared under it, as if under a hat.
Lark began to help Podkovkin carry the shell. But his beak was small, weak, and he could carry only the lightest shells.
So they worked for a long time together with Podkovkin. They took the shell away to the bushes.
It was impossible to leave it near the nest: people or animals could notice the shells and find a nest from them.
At last the work was finished and they could rest.
They sat down next to the nest and watched as curious noses protruded here and there from under the wings of the Orange Neck, quick eyes flickered.
“It’s amazing how!” said Lightsong. - Just born, and already so smart.
And their eyes are open, and the little body is all in thick fluff.
“They already have small feathers,” said Orange Neck proudly. - On wings.
- Tell me please! - Lark was surprised. - And with us, among songbirds, when the chicks come out of the eggs, they are blind, naked ...
They can only raise their heads a little and open their mouths.
"Oh, you're not going to see that now!" said Orange Neck cheerfully. “Just let me warm them up a little more with my warmth to dry them well ... and we will immediately open the playground.”

What kind of playground did the Porshkovs have and what did they do

They chatted some more, then Orange Neck asks:
- Podkovkin, where can you find small green caterpillars and soft snails nearby now?
“Here, right here,” Podkovkin hurried, “two steps away, in our own field. I've looked.
“Our children,” said Orange Neck, “need the most tender food in the early days. They will learn to eat grains later. Well, Podkovkin, show the way, we will follow you.
- And the chicks? - Lark was alarmed. "Are you going to leave the little ones alone?"
"The crumbs will come with us," Orange-throated said calmly. - Here, look.
She carefully stepped down from the nest and called in a gentle voice:
- Ko ko! Coco coco!
And all twenty-four chicks jumped up on their legs, jumped out of the nest of the basket and rolled after their mother in cheerful spools.
Podkovkin went in front, followed by Orange Neck with chickens, and behind everyone - Lark. The chicks pecked, the mother said “ko kko”, and Podkovkin himself was silent and walked, sticking out his blue chest with a chocolate horseshoe and proudly looking around.
A minute later they came to a place where rye was rare and tussocks rose between its stems.
- Great place! Orange Neck approved. We'll set up a playground here.
And she immediately set to work with Podkovkin to look for green caterpillars and soft snails for her chicks.
The lark also wanted to feed the chickens. He found four caterpillars and called:
“Chick chick chick, run here!”
The chicks ate what their parents had given them and rode off to Skylark. They look, but there are no caterpillars! The lark was embarrassed and probably would have blushed if he hadn’t had feathers on his face: after all, while he was waiting for the chickens, he imperceptibly somehow put all four caterpillars into his mouth. On the other hand, Orange Neck and Podkovkin did not swallow a single caterpillar, but took each one in its beak and deftly sent one of the chickens into the open mouth - all in turn.
"Now let's get to learning," Orange-throated said when the chickens had eaten. - Kkok!
All twenty-four chickens stopped, who was where, and looked at their mother.
- Kkok means attention! Orange Neck explained to Skylark. - Now I'll call them after me - and look! .. Ko kko! Ko ko ko! .. - she called in her most gentle voice and went to the bumps.
All twenty-four chickens followed her.
Orange Neck jumped over the bumps and, without stopping, went on.
The chickens ran to the bumps - and stop! They did not know what to do: after all, the bumps in front of them were like high steep mountains or like three-story houses.
The chickens tried to climb the steep slope, but they fell and rolled down. At the same time, they peeped so pitifully that the good Lark's heart sank.
- Ko ko! Coco coco! - again persistently called the Orange Neck from the other side of the bumps. “Here, here, follow me!”
And suddenly all twenty-four chicks at once waved their tiny wings, fluttered and flew away. They rose not high above the ground, but all the same, the hummocks flew over, fell right on their legs and rolled without a break after the Orange Neck.
The lark even opened its beak in surprise. How so? Just born into the world, and how they know how!
- Oh, what capable children you have! he said to Podkovkin and Orange Neck. - It's just a miracle: they already fly!
“Only a little bit,” said Orange Neck. - They can't go far. Just flutter up and sit down. That's what hunters call our children: po r sh k i.
“With us songbirds,” said Skylark, “the chicks sit in the nest until they grow wings. The nest is so well hidden in the grass that not even a hawk's eye can see it. And where will you hide your pistons if the Falcon suddenly arrives?
- Then I'll do this, - said Podkovkin and shouted loudly: - Chirr vik!
All twenty-four pistons at once tightened their legs and ... as if they fell through the ground!
The lark turned his head in all directions, trying to see at least one chick: after all, he knew that they were hiding here; before him on the ground. I looked and looked and saw no one.
“Focus pocus chirvirocus!” Podkovkin winked merrily at him, and suddenly shouted: “One, two, three, chir vir ri!”
All twenty-four pistons jumped up at once and became visible again.
The lark gasped: this is clever!
And when evening came and the Podkovkins led the children to put them to bed, Orange Neck said to Skylark:
- Until people finish haymaking, you can always find us either in the nest or on the playground. And when the rye is poured and people come to reap it, look for us where the flax grows. There we will open a primary school for our children.

How the Hawk flew into the fields and what a misfortune befell on Kostyanichnaya Hill

It's the middle of summer. All the animals and birds brought out the children. And predators began to visit the fields every day.
The lark still rose in the morning under the clouds and sang there. But now he often had to interrupt the singing and fly to warn his acquaintances of the danger.
And his fields were full of friends and acquaintances: Lark lived in peace with everyone, and everyone loved him. He himself loved his friends Podkovkins most of all. I tried to fly more and more over the field where the nest of the Orange Neck was.
It flies in the sky, and he vigilantly watches if a predator appears somewhere.
Now the sun has risen, and from the distant fields, from across the river, the bluish-white Lun is already approaching. His face is round like a cat's, his nose is hooked.
He flies low low over the green rye and looks, looks out: if a chick or a mouse flashes somewhere? Suddenly it stops in mid-flight and, like a butterfly, raising its wings above its back, hangs in the air: it peers into one place.
There now the Little Mouse darted away from him into a hole. Lun is waiting for the Mouse to stick his nose out of the mink. If he sticks it out, Lun will fold its wings at once, fall down like a stone - and the Mouse's claws are in its claws!
But Lark is already rushing from a height and, shouting to Podkovkin on the fly: “The harrier has arrived!”, Hastens to the mink, shouting to the Mouse:
- Don't stick your nose out! Do not stick your nose out of the mink!
Podkovkin commands his pistons:
– Chirr vik!
And the powders tighten their legs, become invisible.
The little mouse hears the Lark and, trembling with fear, hides deeper into the hole.
And Lun flies on without catching anyone.
Every day a black kite with a notch on its long tail and a brown Mouser Buzzard flew in from a distant forest. They circled over the fields, looking for prey. Their claws are always ready to grab a careless mouse or powder. But from morning until noon, and again an hour later, the Skylark watches in the sky, and all the birds and animals of the field are calm: they have a good watchman.
And at noon, predators fly to the river - to a watering place. Then Lark also descends to the ground to eat and take a nap for half an hour after dinner, and in the fields comes the “dead hour”, the hour of rest and sleep.
And maybe everything would have turned out well, all the animal cubs would have been intact and the partridges' powders would have grown calmly, yes, unfortunately, the Gray Hawk flew into the fields.
Terrible to small animals and birds and Lun, and Kite, and Buzzard Mouser. Even more terrible is the small Gray Hawk Sparrowhawk - a cat bird. His pitiless yellow eyes are the hardest to hide from. Neither quick legs nor dexterous wings can save him from him.
But his wife, Yastrebiha, is the worst of all. She is bigger and stronger than the Hawk. To catch an adult partridge is a trifle for her.
The hawk didn't circle the fields in plain sight like the Harrier or the Buzzard. She just swept over the rye and somewhere behind the Kostyanichnaya Hill suddenly disappeared.
The lark shouted from above:
- A hawk! Save yourself! - and shut up.
He himself did not know where the Hawk had gone: he did not have time to notice.
Thick bushes grow on Kostyanichnaya Hill, and above them two tall aspens rise into the sky. One is dry. The other is like a green round tower. Kite and Buzzard Mouser used to fly and fly and sit down on a dry aspen: from here they can clearly see what is happening around in the fields.
They can see, but they can be seen. And while the predator sits on a dry aspen, not a single mouse sticks its nose out of its mink, not a single bird appears from the bushes or from the bread.
But the Hawk rushed over their heads - and she is gone. Nobody sits on a dry aspen. No one is circling over the fields. The lark again quietly sang in the air.
And the wild animals crawl out of their minks: from inconspicuous little holes under bushes, in bread, between tussocks.

The lark sees from a height: here the Hare rolled out from under the bush, stood up in a column, looked around, turned his ears in all directions. Nothing, take it easy. He sank down on his front short paws and began to pluck the grass.
Mice darting between bumps.
Podkovkin with the Orange Neck led his pistons to Kostyanichnaya Hill itself.
What are they doing there? Why, they teach children to peck grains! Podkovkin will poke his nose into the ground several times, say something, and all twenty-four pistons run at full speed towards him, funny poking their short noses into the ground.
And over there, on the very hill, by two aspens, the neighbors of the Podkovkins, the Brovkin family: Brovkin himself and his hen, Blue Nose, and their children, crumbs of powder.
The Lark sees all this, and someone else sees it: the one who hid in a tall green aspen, like in a tower. And who is hiding there, neither the Lark, nor any of the field animals and birds can be seen.
“Now,” thinks Skylark, “again Podkovkin will fight with Brovkin. So, they saw each other, both fluffed up, fluffed up ... No, nothing, they don’t fight. It looks like the time for fighting is over. Only Orange Neck turned back into the rye: she was taking her children away. And Blue Nose too… Ow!”
A gray lightning flashed from above, from a green aspen, Hawk. And the Blue Nose hen huddled in her claws - fluff flew over the bushes.
– Chirr vik! Podkovkin shouted desperately.
So he saw the hawk too. The entire Podkovkin family disappeared in the rye. And Brovkin was completely taken aback. He should also shout “chirr vik!” Yes, to escape with the pistons into the bushes, and he, out of fright, chirped and flew off, like Podkovkin from the Fox, pretending to be knocked down.
Oh, stupid, stupid cockerel! A hawk is not a Fox! How can short partridge wings save from it!
The hawk left the dead chicken - and after him! She hit Brovkin in the back, and fell into the bushes with him.
And the crumbs of Brovkin's pistons remained orphans - without a father, without a mother.

Bianchi orange neck

What did the pistons learn at the first stage school

The hawk was eaten on the spot by Brovkin's cockerel, and the Blue Nose hen was taken into the forest - to her gluttonous hawks for dinner.
The lark flew to the Podkovkins.
- Have you seen? - met him with a question Orange Neck. - Horror, horror! Poor little Brovkins, bitter orphans... let's go and find them.
And she ran so fast that the pistons had to flutter every minute to keep up with her.
On Kostyanichnaya Hill she stopped and called loudly:
- Ko ko! Coco coco!
Nobody answered her.
“Oh, poor, oh, poor babies! said Orange Neck. “They are so frightened that they don’t even dare to jump up on their feet.”
She called a second time.
And again no one answered.
She called for the third time - and suddenly all around, from all sides, as if from under the ground, little Brovkins grew up and rolled towards her with a squeak.
Orange Neck fluffed out her feathers and took all her babies and all the Brovkins under her wings.
So many pistons could not fit under her wings. They climbed on top of each other, pushed, kicked, shoved, and then one or the other of them flew out head over heels. Orange Neck was now pushing him gently back into the warmth.
“Let ka, now,” she called out defiantly, “let someone dare to say that these are not my children!”
The lark thought to himself, "That's right! All the crumbs are like two drops of water similar to each other. Let them fry me in a frying pan if I can figure out which are the Brovkins, which are the Podkovkins. I think Orange Neck herself - and she will not understand.
And said aloud:
Do you really want to adopt them? You and yours have...
- Shut up, shut up! Podkovkin interrupted him. “If Orange Neck said it, then so be it. Orphans should not disappear without a guardian!
Then, for some reason, Lark suddenly had a tickling tickle in his throat, and his eyes became wet, although birds do not know how to cry. He felt so ashamed of this that he imperceptibly darted behind a bush, flew away from his friends and for a long time did not show himself to their eyes.

One morning, having risen to the heights, Lark suddenly saw that the collective farmers had left for the fields in a yellow car. The machine on the right side had four wooden wings with teeth like a rake, and at the bottom there was a platform like half a plate.
A man was sitting on the left side and driving the car.
He drove the car into a rye field, the same field where the Podkovkins lived. The machine flapped its wings, and Skylark thought, “Now it will rise and fly.”
But the car did not rise and did not fly, but from its right side high rye began to fall onto the plate, slipped off the plate and lay on the ground in even rows. Collective farmers followed the car and tied the fallen rye into sheaves.
And then Lightsong guessed: “Aha, this machine is a reaper! Collective farmers began to harvest rye. Now, it means that the Porches are studying at the first stage school. We need to see what they are taught there.”
As Orange Neck said, he now found the Podkovkins in linen. They were just about to give the kids a lesson. Skylark was surprised at how the powders had grown during those days. Their soft down has been replaced by feathers.
Podkovkin himself climbed a bump, and forty-four pistons, under the supervision of Orange Neck, were placed below in a semicircle.
- Kkok! Podkovkin said. - Attention!
And he began to talk to the Russians about the benefits of education for partridges.
“With an education,” he said, “a young partridge will not disappear anywhere.
Podkovkin spoke for a long time, and Skylark saw how the pistons, one after another, closed their eyes and fell asleep.
- How to protect yourself from enemies, - said Podkovkin, - from hunters, boys, from predatory animals and birds, - that is the question! In the first grade school you will learn how to behave on the ground, and in the second grade school you will learn how to behave in the air. We partridges are ground birds and take off only when the enemy steps on our tail.
Here Podkovkin turned to examples:
“Let's say a man is approaching us… a boy, let's say. What do we do first?
No one answered his question: all forty-four pistons were fast asleep.
Podkovkin did not notice this and continued:
- First of all, I or Orange Neck quietly command: “Kkok! Attention!" You already know that at this word, you all turn to us and see what we are doing.
“He didn’t have to say that,” thought Skylark, because as soon as Podkovkin said “kkok!” All forty-four of the heavily sleeping pistons woke up at once and turned their noses towards him.
“I say “kkok!”, continued Podkovkin, “and I hide, that is, I press my legs and press myself firmly to the ground. Like this.
He tucked his legs in, and all forty-four Porches did the same.
- So ... We are lying, hiding, and all the time we are vigilantly watching what the boy is doing. The boy is walking towards us. Then I command almost inaudibly: "Turk!" We are all jumping on our feet...
Here Podkovkin, and after him all forty-four pistons jumped up.
- ...stretch like this ...
Podkovkin stretched his neck forward and upward, his whole body also stretched out, and he became like a long bottle with thin legs. And the pistons, no matter how stretched out, remained like bubbles on short legs.
“...and we run away, hiding behind the grass,” finished Podkovkin.
The bottle suddenly ran quickly from the bump into the flax and disappeared into it. Forty-four bubbles rolled after her - and all the flax around began to stir.
Podkovkin immediately fluttered out of the flax and again sat down on his tussock. The pistons are back too.
- It doesn't fit anywhere! Podkovkin said. - Is that how they get away? All the flax swayed where you ran. The boy will immediately grab a stick or a stone and throw it at you. We must learn to run in the grass so as not to touch a single spikelet. Look here...
He again turned into a bottle on legs and rolled into flax. Thick green flax closed behind him like water over a diver, and nowhere else did a single stalk move.
- Amazing! said Skylark aloud. “It will take a long time for you, children, to study in order to run so deftly!”
Podkovkin returned from a completely different direction than he had gone, and said:
- Remember one more thing: you need to run away not directly, but by all means in corners, in zigzags - to the right, to the left; left, right and forward. Let's repeat, Skylark got hungry and did not look further, how the pistons would learn to run.
"I'll be here for a minute," he said to Orange Neck, and flew off to look for the caterpillars.
In uncompressed rye, he found a lot of them, and so tasty that he forgot about everything in the world.
He returned to the Podkovkins only in the evening. The quails in the rye were already shouting: “It’s time to sleep! It's time for bed!" and Orange Neck put the children to bed.
“You are already big,” she said to the pistons, “and now you will not sleep under my wing. Starting today, learn to spend the night like adult partridges sleep.
Orange Neck lay down on the ground, and the pistons told her to gather in a circle around her.
The powders lay down, all forty-four spouts inward, towards the Orange Neck, tails out.
- Not like that, not like that! Podkovkin said. - Is it possible to fall asleep with your tail to the enemy? You must always be in front of the enemy. Enemies are all around us. Lie down all the way around: tails inside the circle, noses out. Like this. Now, from which side the enemy approaches us, one of you will certainly notice him.
Skylark bade everyone goodnight and got up. From above, he glanced once more at the Podkovkins. And it seemed to him that on the ground among the green flax lies a large motley many many many pointed star.

How a hunter with a big red dog came to the fields and how it ended

Before parting, Orange Neck said to Skylark:
“When people have harvested the rye and uprooted all the flax, look for us in the barley. When they start harvesting barley, we'll move on to wheat. When they take up wheat, we will turn into oats, and from oats - into buckwheat. Remember this and you will always find us.
But there was a lot of rye in the fields, and not so soon it was removed. Collective farmers tied the ears into sheaves, from the sheaves they made wort grandmothers. Soon the rye fields looked like chessboards, on which pawns were arranged in regular rows. While some collective farmers were harvesting rye, others were knitting flax behind a flax puller.
Birds of prey flew into the fields: harriers, buzzards, small falcons - kestrels and falcons. They sat down to rest on grandmothers, looked out for chicks, mice, lizards and grasshoppers.

The lark rose into the clouds less and less now, and sang less and less. All the larks - his relatives - had chicks growing up. It was necessary to help relatives teach the chicks to fly, look for worms, and hide from predators. It was no longer up to the songs.
Finally, the collective farmers squeezed all the rye and pulled out the flax. All rye and linen fields have become like chessboards.
Often now Lightsong heard loud shots now across the river, now across the lake: the Hunter was wandering there with a big red dog, shooting black grouse and other game. His gun rattled so terribly that Skylark hurried to fly away.
And once Lark saw the Hunter go to the fields. He walked through the compressed rye, and the red dog scurried in front of him from right to left, left to right, until he reached the barley field. Here he immediately stopped as if rooted to the spot - the tail is a feather, one front paw is bent. The hunter walked towards him.
- Fathers of light! gasped Skylark. - Why, there, in the barley, the Podkovkins now live! After all, the rye is all compressed and the flax is all pulled out!
And he rushed to the barley field.
The hunter approached the red dog. The dog, as it stood, stood motionless, only slightly squinting one eye at the owner.
“Nice stance,” said the Hunter, taking off his double-barreled shotgun and cocking both hammers. "Signal, go ahead!"
The red dog carefully, on one fingers, went forward - quietly quietly.
Skylark was already above the Hunter and stopped in the air, unable to scream out of fear.
Red Signal walked forward cautiously. The hunter followed him.
The lark thought: "Now, now the Podkovkins will jump out and ..."
But the Signal kept going forward, turning now to the right, now to the left, but the partridges did not fly out.
“Probably black grouse in barley,” said the Hunter. - An old rooster. They often get away from the dog on foot. Go Signal!
The signal went a few more steps and stood again, stretching out its tail and tucking one paw. The hunter raised his gun and ordered:
- Well, go ahead!
"Now, now!" thought Skylark, and his heart sank.
- Forward, Signal! Hunter shouted.
The red dog leaned forward - and suddenly, with a crackle and chirping, the entire large Podkovkin family splashed out of the barley.
The hunter tossed his gun to his shoulder and...
The lark closed his eyes in fear.
But there were no shots.
The lark opened his eyes. The hunter was already slung his gun over his shoulder.
- Partridges! he said loudly. - It's good that I resisted. I still can’t forget how it was there, beyond the lake, do you remember, Signalka? - I shot the chicken. Probably the whole brood died: one cockerel cannot save the pistons. Signal back!
The signal looked at the owner with surprise. The dog found the game, made a stand, raised the game on the orders of the owner, but the owner did not shoot, and now he is calling him back!
But the Hunter had already turned and walked away from the barley field. And Signal ran after him. Skylark saw how the Podkovkins landed at the other end of the field, and quickly sought them out there.
- Here is happiness! he shouted to Orange Neck. “I saw everything and I was so afraid, so afraid!
- What do you! said Orange Neck in surprise. “And I wasn’t afraid at all. After all, the hunting law allows us, gray partridges, to be shot only when all the grain fields are empty and the collective farmers begin to dig potatoes.
This hunter now goes only for black grouse and ducks, but so far he does not touch us.
“He said himself,” Lightsong argued heatedly, “that he killed a hen across the lake the other day.”
Poor pigs, now they will all die with one cockerel!
- Oh, you've had enough! interrupted Podkovkin. “It’s as if they’re going to die right away!” Here, meet, please: cockerel Zaozerkin.
It was only then that Skylark noticed that another adult cockerel was sitting next to Orange Neck and Podkovkin.
The cockerel nodded his head and said:
“It would be really hard for me to save little children alone after my wife died. So I brought them here and asked their good neighbors, the Podkovkins. They accepted me with all my family. Now the three of us take care of the children. See how many we have?
And he pointed with his beak at a whole herd of powders in barley.
Skylark immediately recognized among them the new adopted children of Orange Neck: the Zaozer kiyay pistons were small, much smaller than the Podkovkins and Brovkins.
“Why are your children,” he asked in surprise, “so ... small?”
“Ah,” replied Zaozerkin, “we have so many misfortunes this year! At the beginning of the summer, my wife built a nest, laid eggs, and for several days sat, hatched them. Suddenly the boys came and ruined our nest. All eggs are dead...
- Oh, what a grief! Skylark sighed.
- Yes. My wife had to make a new nest, lay new eggs and sit and hatch again.
The kids came out late. Here are some more small ones.
Nothing, grow up! - Orange Neck said in a kind voice. - We'll get everyone up.
And Lark's throat tickled again, as it had when Orange's Neck gave shelter to the Brovkin orphans.

What trick did the Orange Neck come up with when the grain fields were empty and the collective farmers began to dig potatoes

The rye dried up in the wort grandmothers, and the collective farmers piled it into large heaps, like at home.
The flax grandmothers were brought to the threshing floor, where they threshed the seed from them and again took them to the fields, spread them out there in damp hollows. How the logs were covered with golden rugs. With each passing day, the fields are now rapidly emptying. Podkovkins now and then moved from place to place.
Collective farmers squeezed barley - Podkovkins switched to wheat. They squeezed wheat - the Podkovkins ran into oats. They squeezed the oats - the Podkovkins flew into buckwheat.
The hunter never came to the fields again, and Lightsong stopped thinking about him.
The lark now had even more to do. Autumn was approaching, many migratory birds were already preparing for a journey to distant lands. Gathered on the road and all the relatives of the Lark. They flew in flocks in the compressed fields, fed together, flew from place to place together: they taught their children to long flights, to high flights.
The lark now lived in a flock.
More and more cold winds blew, more and more rain poured.
Collective farmers and buckwheat were removed.
The Podkovkins moved to the river, to the potato fields. Skylark saw them running between the long high beds, as in narrow streets. I saw how the grown up youth learns to fly. At the command of Podkovkin, the whole herd immediately took off and rushed forward. A new command was heard - the whole herd turned sharply in the air, flew back, then suddenly stopped flapping its wings and smoothly descended into the bushes or potatoes.
Turning back sharply during the whole flight was considered by partridges to be the most difficult task.
Early one morning the Lark was flying in his flock over the village.
The hunter came out of the extreme hut.
The lark became worried, separated from the flock and descended lower.
The hunter spoke loudly to himself:
Well, it's the fifteenth of September. Today - the opening of the hunt for gray partridges. It turns out that we must go to the fields.
Red Signal was glad that he was going hunting. He danced in front of the owner on his hind legs, waving his tail and barking loudly.
Skylark could not lose sight of his flock. Sad, he flew to catch up with her.
He thought: “When I see the Podkovkins now, they won’t have such a herd. The Hunter will kill half.
Thoughts about friends haunted him.
The flock flew high up and went down again. She flew far beyond the forest, made a big circle and returned to her native fields in the evening.
Hastily swallowing a few worms, Lark flew off to the river, into the potato field.
Bonfires were burning in the potato field and collective farmers were working with whole families. In their hands were white, freshly planed spatulas that looked like small oars. Collective farmers used them to dig potatoes out of the beds and put them in bags. Coal-smeared children baked potatoes in the ashes of fires and ate them right there.
There were no Podkovkins in the potato field.
From the other side of the river, the Hunter sailed in a boat to this one. Sitting next to him was Signal. The hunter landed, pulled the boat ashore and sat down to rest.
Skylark flew up to him and heard the Hunter talking to himself.
- Exhausted! .. - he said. - What am I to them, hired a hundred times from coast to coast to travel? No, you're kidding! Chase them, who cares. And we'd better look for another herd, which is simpler. Am I right, Signalushka?
The red dog wagged his tail.
The sun was already setting. The hunter wearily wandered towards the village.
Skylark saw that he did not have a game, and realized that the Podkovkins had somehow managed to outwit the Hunter. "Where are they?" thought Skylark.
And as if in response to him from the other side, the voice of Podkovkin himself was heard:
- Worm! Worm! Worm!
And from different sides, thin voices answered him:
- Chichire! Chichire! Chichire! Chichire!
It was the response of young partridges scattered in all directions.
A minute later, Lark was among them, and Podkovkin told him how Orange Neck had deceived Hunter.
- I told you that you will not find a chicken anywhere smarter than Orange Neck! After all, what did you come up with! The Hunter comes out of the house, and she already knows.
How can she know this? asked Skylark. - You can't see it from the bushes.
- It's very simple: when the Hunter goes hunting, does his red dog bark?
- Is that a signal? That's right, barks!
- Yes, how loud! Here Orange Neck heard and, without saying a word, march march across the river! Of course, we are all behind her.
- Across the river? That's clever!
- The red dog is looking for us on this side: he can smell our tracks, but we are not! Well, Hunter, that cunning one, soon guessed where we hid.
Got a boat, moved to the other side. And we are back on the beach.
- I understand, I understand! - Skylark rejoiced. - He is there, and you are here; He is here and you are there! He rode, rode, and said: “We are completely exhausted! I’d rather go after other partridges, which are not so cunning.”
“Well, yes,” said Podkovkin. - It takes him a long time to move on a boat, and we flutter! - and on the other side!
The sun had already set, and the friends could not part for a long time: everyone rejoiced at how deftly Orange Neck managed to trick the Hunter.

How Lark said goodbye to his friends and what he sang about when he left his homeland

Collective farmers have long plowed empty fields and again sowed rye and wheat.
The flax spread in logs has long been soaked in fogs and dews; from golden to brown. Collective farmers gathered it, put it in sharp piles. And it began to seem that a countless army of invisible little men had set up camp in the logs, pitching their pointed huts in equal rows.
High in the sky, now gathering at an angle, now stretching out like a rein, flocks of wild geese flew.
The fields are empty. The loosened wet arable lands turned black where tall rye rustled in summer.
But where there was no rye, silky greenery had already sprouted and gleamed merrily.
The entire numerous family of the Podkovkins now fed on the sweet green grass. The Podkovkins spent the night in the bushes.
Leaf blowers plucked the last leaves from bushes and trees.
The time has come for the Lark to fly away to distant warm countries. And he found the Iodkovkins in the greenery to say goodbye to them.
A whole flock, a whole Big Flock of field cockerels and hens surrounded him with a cheerful cry. There were a hundred or maybe a thousand partridges in the herd. Lark did not immediately find Orange Neck and Podkovkin among them: all the young partridges were already the size of their parents, all were smartly dressed. All of them had horseshoes of delicious chocolate color on their chests. All the cheeks and throats became orange, the eyebrows were red, the breasts were blue, the tails were red. And just looking closer, Lark saw that the legs of young partridges are greenish, while those of adults are yellowish.
- What did I tell you! shouted Podkovkin, running up to Skylark. - Here the Big Herd is gathering, and who is the eldest hen in it? Of course, Orange Neck!
But Orange Neck immediately interrupted him. She asked:
- Are you flying away from us to distant lands? Oh, how it is there, right, beautiful, how warm, good!
The lark shook his head sadly.
- Not very good. It's warm there, that's right. But none of us, songbirds of passage, will take it into his head to sing there, none of us will curl a nest there, or bring out chicks. And it's scary there!
- Why is it scary? said Orange Neck in surprise.
“There, in those foreign lands, even us larks are considered game. They are hunting us with dogs and guns. They catch us with nets. There they fry us in frying pans - a lot of larks are needed for one frying pan. We are fried in pans and eaten.
- Oh, what a horror! - in one word shouted Orange Neck and Podkovkin. So stay here for the winter.
- And I would be glad, but it's snowing here, it's cold. All worms and caterpillars will hide. I'm surprised at you: what do you eat here in winter?
“It’s very simple,” Podkovkin answered. “Do you see how much greenery the collective farmers have sown for us? We have enough food for a hundred winters.
- Why, snow will soon cover the greenery!
- And we are his paws, paws! Behind the bushes, in the wind, there are such places - all winter there is a little bit of snow. You scratch with your paws, you look: green grass.
- And they say, - asked Skylark, - in winter there is a terrible sleet and all the snow is covered with ice?
“Then,” said Orange-throat, “Hunter will help us.” The hunting law forbids shooting and catching us in the winter. The hunter knows that we can die in icy conditions. He will put fir-tree huts in the snow, and pour grain for us into the huts - barley and oats.
– Good here! said the Lark. - Oh, how good it is in our homeland. If it's spring soon, I'll be back here again. Well, goodbye!
- Goodbye! said Orange Neck.
- Goodbye! Podkovkin said.
- Goodbye! - shouted all the old and young cockerels and hens, a hundred, a thousand voices at once.
And Lark flew to his flock.
It was still morning, but a heavy gray cloud hid the sky, and everything on earth seemed gray and dull.
Suddenly, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. It immediately became bright and cheerful, like spring.
And Lark began to rise higher and higher, and suddenly he himself did not know how - he began to sing!
He sang about how good it was in his native fields. He sang about how people sowed bread, and lived in bread, brought out children and various birds and animals hid from enemies. He sang about how the evil hawk flew into the fields, killed the cockerel and the hen at once, how crumbs of powder remained orphans after them; how another hen came and did not let other people's little children die. He sang about how the wise field hen, the Orange Neck, would lead the Big Herd in winter, and the Hunter would put up huts in the snow and pour grain into them so that partridges would have something to peck at in severe frost. He sang about how he would fly back to his native fields and with a ringing song would tell everyone that spring had begun.
And below, on the ground, surprised people stopped.
It was so strange and so pleasant for them that it was autumn, and Lark began to sing again.
People threw back their heads and, covering their eyes from the sun, tried in vain to make out the little singer in the sky: there, in the height, tiny white stars of snowflakes curled and sparkled. And, before reaching the ground, they melted.

Page 3 of 6

Orange Neck

In the bushes near the field where the Podkovkins' nest was in the tall rye, he noticed a bright red stripe. He went down lower and saw: it was the Fox. She emerged from the bushes and crept across the mowed meadow towards the field of partridges.
The lark's heart thumped hard. He was not afraid for himself: the Fox could not do anything to him in the air. But the terrible beast could find his friends nest, catch Orange Neck, ruin her nest.
Lark descended even lower and shouted with all his strength:
- Podkovkin, Podkovkin! Fox is coming, save yourself!
The fox raised its head and gnashed its teeth terribly. The lark was frightened, but continued to shout with all his might:
- Orange Neck! Fly away, fly away!
The fox went straight to the nest.
Suddenly Podkovkin jumped out of the rye. He had a terrible appearance: all feathers were ruffled, one wing was dragging on the ground.
“Trouble!” thought Skylark.
And shouted:
- Podkovkin, run, hide!
But it was too late: the Fox noticed the poor cockerel and rushed to him.
Podkovkin, limping and bouncing, ran away from her. But where could he escape from the swift-footed beast!
In three jumps, the Fox was near him, and - slander! - her teeth clanged at the very tail of the cockerel.
Podkovkin gathered all his strength and managed to take off in front of the beast's nose.
But he flew very badly, desperately tweeted and soon fell to the ground, jumped up, hobbled on. The fox ran after him.
Skylark saw how poor Podkovkin either running or taking off into the air with difficulty reached Kostyanichnaya Hill and disappeared into the bushes. The fox pursued him relentlessly.
“Well, now the poor fellow is finished!” thought Skylark. “The fox has driven him into the bushes and will catch him there.”
The lark could do nothing more to help his friend. He didn't want to hear the cockerel's bones crackle on Fox's teeth, and flew away as soon as possible.
A few days passed - and the rye was already in bloom. The lark did not fly these days over the field where the Podkovkins lived. He was sad about the dead friend and did not even want to look at the place where the bloody feathers of the cockerel lay.
Once Lark was sitting in his field and eating worms. Suddenly he heard the crackle of wings and saw Podkovkin, alive and cheerful. Podkovkin sank down beside him.
- Where did you disappear to? - shouted the cockerel, not greeting. - After all, the rye is already blooming. I'm looking for you, I'm looking for! .. Let's fly quickly to us: the Orange Neck says that now our chicks will hatch from eggs.
The lark rolled his eyes at him.
“After all, the Fox ate you,” he said. - I myself saw how she drove you into the bushes.
- A fox? me! shouted Podkovkin. - Why, it was I who took her away from our nest. He pretended to be sick on purpose in order to deceive her. So entangled in the bushes that she forgot the way to our field! And thank you for the warning. If not for you, we would not see our chicks.
- Well, I ... I just shouted, - Skylark was embarrassed. - You're smart! He even deceived me.
And friends flew to the Orange Neck.
- Shhh! Hush hush! - Met them Orange Neck. - Don't stop me from listening.
She was very preoccupied, stood over the nest and, bowing her head to the eggs, listened attentively. Lark and Podkovkin stood side by side, barely breathing.
Suddenly Orange-throat quickly but carefully pecked one of the eggs with her beak. A piece of the shell flew off, and immediately two black pin eyes flashed out of the hole and a wet, disheveled head of a chicken appeared. The mother poked her beak again, and now the whole chick jumped out of the collapsed shell.
- Out, out! shouted Podkovkin and jumped for joy.
- Do not shout! said Orange Neck sternly. - Take the shells as soon as possible and take them away from the nest.
Podkovkin grabbed half of the shell with his beak, rushed headlong into the rye with it.
He returned for the second half very soon, but a whole pile of broken shells had already accumulated in the nest. Skylark saw the chicks emerging one after the other. While Orange Neck was helping one, the other was already breaking the shell and climbing out of it.
Soon all twenty-four eggs were broken, all twenty-four chicks came out - funny, wet, disheveled!
Orange Neck quickly kicked out all the broken shells from the nest with her feet and beak and ordered Podkovkin to remove it. Then she turned to the chickens, in a gentle voice she said to them: "Ko-ko-ko! Ko-ko!" - all fluffed up, spread her wings and sat on the nest. And all the chickens immediately disappeared under it, as if under a hat.
Lark began to help Podkovkin carry the shell. But his beak was small, weak, and he could carry only the lightest shells.
So they worked for a long time together with Podkovkin. They carried the shell away to the bushes. It was impossible to leave it near the nest: people or animals could notice the shells and find a nest from them. At last the work was finished and they could rest.
They sat down next to the nest and watched as curious little noses protruded here and there from under the wings of the Orange Neck, quick eyes flickered.
- It's amazing how ... - said the Lark. - They were just born, and they are so smart. And their eyes are open, and the little body is all in thick fluff.
“They already have small feathers,” said Orange Neck proudly. - On wings.
- Tell me please! - Lark was surprised. - And here, among songbirds, when the chicks leave the nest, they are blind, naked ... They can only raise their heads a little and open their mouths.
- Oh, you will not see it now! said Orange Neck cheerfully. - Let me just warm them up a little more with my warmth to dry them well ... and we will immediately open the playground.

What kind of playground did the pistons have and what did they do there

They chatted some more, then Orange Neck asks:
- Podkovkin, where you can now find small green caterpillars and soft snails nearby.
- Here, here nearby, - Podkovkin hurried, - two steps away, in our own field. I've already looked.
“Our children,” said Orange Neck, “in their first days need the most tender food. They will learn to eat grains later. Well, Podkovkin, show the way, we will follow you.
- And the chicks? - Lark was alarmed. - Do you really leave the crumbs alone?
"The crumbs will come with us," said Orange Neck calmly. - Here, look.
She carefully stepped down from the nest and called in a gentle voice:
- Ko-ko! Ko-ko-ko!
And all twenty-four chicks jumped up on their legs, jumped out of the nest-basket and rolled after their mother in cheerful spools.
Podkovkin went in front, followed by Orange Neck with chickens, and behind everyone - Lark.
The chickens peeked, the mother said "ko-kko", and Podkovkin himself was silent and walked, sticking out his blue chest with a chocolate shoe, and proudly looked around. A minute later they came to a place where rye was rare and tussocks rose between its stems.
- Great place! - approved Orange Neck. We'll set up a playground here.
And she immediately set to work with Podkovkin to look for green caterpillars and soft snails for her chicks.
The lark also wanted to feed the chickens. He found four caterpillars and called:
- Chick-chick-chick, run here!
The chicks ate what their parents had given them and rode off to Skylark. They look, but there are no caterpillars! The lark was embarrassed and probably would have blushed if he had not had feathers on his face: after all, while he was waiting for the chickens, he imperceptibly somehow himself put all four caterpillars into his mouth.
On the other hand, Orange Neck and Podkovkin did not swallow a single caterpillar, but took each one in its beak and deftly sent one of the chickens into the open mouth - all in turn.
"Now let's get to learning," said Orange-throated when the chickens had eaten. - Kkok!
All twenty-four chickens stopped, who was where, and looked at their mother.
- Kkok! - it means: attention! explained Orange Neck to Skylark. - Now I'll call them after me - and look! .. Ko-kko! Ko-ko-ko! .. - she called in her most gentle voice and went to the bumps.
All twenty-four chickens followed her. Orange Neck jumped over the bumps and, without stopping, went on.
The chickens ran to the bumps - and stop! They did not know what to do: after all, the bumps in front of them were like high steep mountains or like three-story houses.
The chickens tried to climb the steep slope, but they fell and rolled down. At the same time, they peeped so pitifully that the good Lark's heart sank.
- Ko-ko! Ko-ko-ko! - again persistently called the Orange Neck from the other side of the bumps. - Here, here, follow me!
And suddenly all twenty-four chicks at once waved their tiny wings, fluttered and flew away. They rose not high above the ground, but nevertheless the hummocks flew over, fell right on their legs and rolled without respite after the Orange Neck.
The lark even opened its beak in surprise. How can it be: just born into the world, and how they know how!
- Oh, what capable children you have! he said to Podkovkin and Orange Neck. - It's just a miracle: they already fly!
“Just a little,” said Orange Neck. - They can't go far. Just flutter up and sit down. That's what hunters call our children: porches.
“With us songbirds,” said Skylark, “chicks sit in the nest until their wings grow. The nest is so well hidden in the grass that not even a hawk's eye can see it. And where will you hide your pistons if a falcon suddenly arrives?
“Then I’ll do it this way,” said Podkovkin and shouted loudly: “Chirr-vik!”
All twenty-four pistons at once tightened their legs and ... as if they fell through the ground!
The lark turned his head in all directions, trying to see at least one chick: after all, he knew that they were hiding here in front of him, on the ground. I looked and looked and saw no one.
- Focus-pocus-chirvirokus! Podkovkin winked merrily at him, but suddenly he shouted: - One, two, three, vir-vir-ri!
All twenty-four pistons jumped up at once and became visible again.
The lark gasped: this is clever!
And when evening came and the Podkovkins led the children to put them to bed, Orange Neck said to Skylark:
- Until people finish haymaking, you can always find us either in the nest or on the playground. And when the bread is ripe and the machines come to harvest it, look for us where the flax grows. We will open a primary school there for our children.

How the Hawk flew into the fields and what a misfortune befell on Kostyanichnaya Hill

It's the middle of summer. All the animals and birds brought out the children. And predators began to visit the fields every day.
The lark still rose in the morning under the clouds and sang there. But now he often had to interrupt the singing and fly to warn his acquaintances of the danger.
And his fields were full of friends and acquaintances: Lark lived in peace with everyone, and everyone loved him. He himself loved his friends Podkovkins most of all. I tried to fly more and more over the field where the nest of the Orange Neck was.
It flies in the sky, and he vigilantly watches if a predator appears somewhere.
Now the sun has risen, and from the distant fields, from behind the river, the bluish-white Lun is already approaching. His face is round like a cat's, his nose is hooked. He flies low, low over the green rye and looks, looks out: won't a chick or a mouse flash somewhere? Suddenly it stops in mid-flight and, like a butterfly, raising its wings above its back, hangs in the air: it peers into one place.
There now a little mouse scurried away from him into a hole. The harrier is waiting for the mouse to stick its nose out of the mink. If he sticks it out, Lun will fold its wings at once, fall down like a stone - and the claw of the mouse in its claws!

Information for parents: Orange Neck is a long story written by children's author Vitaliy Bianchi. An orange neck is the name of a partridge, which, together with her husband Podkovkin, decides to build her own nest. The same place was looked after by the Brovkin family. Podkovkin does not want to share his place with a neighbor. The instructive tale "Orange Neck" can be read to children from 6 to 10 years old. Enjoy reading.

Read the story Orange Neck

What Lark saw when he returned to his homeland

Between heaven and earth

The song is distributed

Non-original jet

Louder, louder pouring.

Puppeteer

Already the Wolf washed, and Kochetok sang. It started to get light.

In a field between clods of cold earth, Lark woke up. He jumped to his feet, shook himself, looked around and flew up.

It flew and sang. And the higher he rose into the sky, the more joyful and louder his song flowed and shimmered.

Everything that he saw below him seemed to him unusually wonderful, beautiful and sweet. Still: after all, it was his homeland, and he had not seen her for a long, very long time!

He was born here last summer. And in the fall, with other migratory birds, he flew to distant countries. There he spent the whole winter in warmth - for five whole months. And that's a long time when you're only ten months old. And it's been three days since he finally returned home. The first days he rested from the road, and today he set to work. And his job was to sing. The lark sang:

“Snow fields below me. They have black and green spots on them.

Black spots - arable land. Green spots - shoots of rye and wheat.

I remember: people sowed this rye and wheat in autumn. Soon young, cheerful greenery sprouted from the ground. Then snow began to fall on them - and I flew off to foreign lands.

The greenery did not freeze under the cold snow. Here they appeared again, cheerfully and amicably reaching upwards.

On the hills among the fields - villages. This is the Krasnaya Iskra collective farm. The collective farmers have not yet woken up, the streets are still empty. The fields are also empty: the animals and birds of the field are still sleeping.

Beyond the distant black forest I see the golden edge of the sun.

Wake up, wake up, get up everyone!

Morning begins! Spring is starting!

The lark fell silent: he saw some kind of gray spot on the white field. The spot moved. The lark flew down to see what was there.

Above the spot, he stopped in the air, fluttering his wings.

Eh, it's a Big Herd! I see my good neighbors have a general meeting.

And indeed: it was a Big Flock of blue partridges - beautiful field cockerels and hens. They sat in a tight group. There were a lot of them: a hundred birds, or maybe a thousand. The lark couldn't count.

They were here in the snow and spent the night: some of them were still shaking off the snow that was grainy from the night frost from the wings.

And one hen - apparently their eldest - sat in the middle on a hummock and spoke loudly.

"What is she talking about?" - thought Skylark and went down even lower.

The older hen said:

Today our little friend Lark woke us up with his song. So, yes, spring has begun. The most difficult and hungry time has passed. We'll have to think about nests soon.

The time has come for us all to part.

It's time, it's time! - all the hens cackled at once. Who goes where, who goes where, who goes where!

We are in the forest! We are for the river! We are at Red Creek! We are on Kostyanichnaya Hill! There, there, there, there!

When the clucking stopped, the older hen spoke again:

Happy summer and happy chicks to all of you! Take them out more and raise them better. Remember, the hen who brings in the most young partridges in the fall will have a great honor: this hen will lead the Big Herd all winter. And everyone should listen to her. Goodbye, goodbye, until autumn!

The older hen suddenly jumped high into the air, flapped her wings with a crack, and rushed away. And at the same moment all the other partridges, how many of them there were - a hundred or a thousand - fell into pairs and with a crash, noise, chirping, splashed in all directions and disappeared from sight. Lark was upset: such good, affectionate neighbors flew away! When he returned, how they rejoiced at him! How fun it was in their close-knit family!

But he immediately caught himself: after all, he must quickly wake up all the other birds and animals of the field and all people! He quickly, quickly earned his wings and sang even louder than before:

The Sun is rising! Wake up, wake up everyone, have fun getting to work!

And, rising to the clouds, he saw how thieves-hares scatter from the villages, climbing into the gardens at night to devour the bark from apple trees. I saw how a noisy gang, croaking, flocks of black rooks flock to the arable land - to pick out worms from the thawed earth with their noses; how people leave their houses.

People threw back their heads and, squinting from the bright sun, tried to make out the little singer in the sky. But he disappeared into the cloud. Only his song remained above the fields, so sonorous and joyful that people felt light in their souls and they cheerfully set to work.

What the Lark was talking about with a field cockerel

The Lark worked all day: he flew in the sky and sang. He sang so that everyone knew that everything was fine and calm and that no evil hawk was flying nearby. He sang to make the birds and beasts of the field rejoice. He sang to make people work more cheerfully. Sang, sang - and tired. It was already evening. Sunset. All the animals and birds hid somewhere.

The lark landed on the arable land. He wanted to chat with someone before going to bed about this and that. He didn't have a girlfriend.

He decided: "I'll fly to the neighbors - partridges." But then he remembered that in the morning they flew away.

He felt sad again. He sighed heavily and began to go to bed in a hole between lumps of earth that had dried up during the day.

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak!

“Oh, but it’s Podkovkin! - the Lark was delighted. “So, not all partridges flew away.”

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak! - rushed from rye greens.

“Weird! thought Skylark. “Found one worm and screams for the whole world.”

He knew that partridges eat grains of bread and seeds of various herbs. The worm for them is like a sweet for dinner. Lark himself knew how to find any number of small worms in the grass, and every day he ate his fill of them. It was funny to him that a neighbor was so happy about some worm.

"Well, now I'll have someone to chat with," thought Skylark and flew off to look for a neighbor.

It turned out to be very easy to find him: the cockerel sat openly on a tussock, among the low green grass, and every now and then gave a voice.

Hello, Podkovkin! - Shouted, flying up to him, Skylark. Did you stay all summer?

The rooster nodded his head amiably.

Yes Yes. So decided Orange Neck, my wife. Are you familiar with her? A very smart chicken. You'll see, she's sure to lead the Big Herd this winter.

Having said this, the cockerel wheeled out a blue chest with a horseshoe pattern of delicious chocolate color. Then he stretched out his neck and shouted loudly three times:

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak!

Where is the worm? - Lark was surprised. - Did you eat it?

Podkovkin was offended:

Who do you take me for? I would be a good cockerel if I ate worms myself! I took it to Orange Neck, of course.

And she ate it?

I ate it and said it was delicious.

Yes, and that's the end of it! Why are you shouting: “Worm! Worm!"?

You do not understand anything! - Podkovkin was completely angry. - Firstly, I don’t scream at all, but I sing beautifully. Secondly, what is there to sing about, if not about delicious worms?

The little gray Lark could tell a lot about what and how to sing. After all, he was from a famous family of singers, glorified by all poets. But there was no pride in him. And he did not at all want to offend Podkovkin, his good neighbor.

The lark hurried to say something pleasant to him.

I know Orange Neck. She is so beautiful and gentle. How is her health?

Podkovkin immediately forgot the offense. He puffed out his chest, blurted out loudly three times: “Ferr-vyak!” - and only then importantly answered:

Thank you! Orange Neck feels great. Come visit us.

When can you arrive? asked Skylark.

Right now, you see, I'm very busy, - said Podkovkin. - In the afternoon I look for food for the Orange Neck, I keep guards so that the Fox or the Hawk will not attack her. In the evenings I sing songs to her. And then you have to fight...

Podkovkin did not finish, stretched out on his legs and began to peer into the greenery.

Wait a minute! Is he again?

The cockerel took off and flew like an arrow to where something was moving in the greenery.

Immediately, the noise of a fight was heard from there: the sound of beak on beak, the flapping of wings, the rustle of rye. The fluff flew up to the sky.

A few minutes later the mottled back of a strange cockerel flashed over the greenery, and Podkovkin returned, all disheveled, with sparkling eyes. A broken feather protruded from its left wing.

Wow! .. Great, I hit him! - he said, dropping onto the hillock. Will know now...

Who are you with? asked Skylark timidly. He himself never fought with anyone and did not know how to fight.

And with a neighbor, with Brovkin. Here nearby, on Kostyanichnaya Hill, he lives. Silly chick. I'll show him!

Lark also knew Brovkin. All partridges have red eyebrows - and not only above the eyes, but even under the eyes. At Brovkin they were especially large and red.

Why are you fighting? asked Skylark. - In the Big Herd, you were friends with Brovkin.

In the Big Herd, it's a different matter. And now he will run to us in the field, then I will inadvertently end up on Kostyanichnaya Hill. This is where we can't help but fight. After all, we are roosters.

The lark did not understand: why fight when friends?

He asked again:

When is it to come?

That's unless when the Orange Neck sits down to hatch the children. Then maybe I can breathe easier.

Are you thinking of making a nest soon?

Orange-throated says: “When the snowy fields appear thawed and the Skylark sings in the sky, the Great Flock will break into pairs and scatter in all directions. When people finish sowing and the winter rye grows knee-deep, it will be time to make a nest.” You'll see what a cozy nest the Orange Neck will arrange for itself - a feast for the eyes! Remember? When people stop sowing, and rye grows up to a man's knee.

I already remember, - said Skylark. - I'll definitely come. Well, good night!

And he flew off to sleep.

What did people do when the snow fell from the fields, and what kind of nest did the Orange Neck make?

And so Lark began to wait for the people to start and finish sowing, and the rye would grow up to the knee of a man.

Every morning he rose to the clouds and sang there about everything that he saw under him.

He saw how day by day the snow melted in the fields, how every morning the sun warmed more cheerfully and hotter. I saw how ice breakers flew in - wagtails - thin birds with shaking tails - and how the next morning the river broke the ice. And as soon as the snow melted, people drove out on a tractor into the field.

“Now they will start sowing!” thought Skylark.

But he was mistaken: people had not yet left to sow, but only to prepare the land plowed since autumn for sowing.

Rumbling and snorting, a tractor crawled out into the field. He dragged behind him a long iron bar with two wheels at the edges. Under the beam, wide, sharp steel paws cut and turned over the damp earth, loosened it, and broke the caked clods.

So several days passed. Then people arrived on a caterpillar tractor, behind which were hitched two long narrow boxes on wheels. Collective farmers stood on the board behind. They opened the boxes, filled them with grain, and at the end of the field, when the tractor turned and turned the planters behind them, they controlled the levers and did not let the seed fall onto the road.

The first step was to sow oats. Oats were sown to feed horses and make oatmeal, very useful for children, from its seeds.

After oats, flax was sown. Flax was sown in order to later make linseed oil from its seeds, and ropes, canvas and linen from its stems.

And Lark thought - flax is sown so that it is convenient for the birds to hide in it.

Wheat was sown after flax. Wheat was sown in order to make white flour from it, and from white flour to bake delicious white rolls.

Then they sowed rye, from which black bread would be made. Then barley - to make barley cakes from it, soup with pearl barley and barley porridge. And finally, I buckwheat - cook buckwheat porridge from it - the very one that praises itself.

And Skylark thought that people sow oats, and wheat, and rye, and barley, and millet, from which millet porridge is boiled, and buckwheat - everything, just so that the birds have different grains for food.

Collective farmers sowed buckwheat and left the field.

Well, thought Skylark, this is the end of the sowing! No more people will go out into the field.”

And again he was mistaken: the next morning, tractors with cunning potato planters rustled again in the field - and they planted potatoes in the ground. And why people planted potatoes - everyone knows. Lark alone could not guess.

By that time the swallows had arrived, and it became warm, and the winter rye had grown knee-deep. Lark saw this, was delighted and flew off to look for his friend - Podkovkin's cockerel.

Now it was not as easy to find it as it had been a month ago: the rye had grown all around; the bumps didn’t even become visible, forcibly, forcibly, Lark Podkovkina found.

Is the nest ready? he asked at once.

Done, done! Podkovkin answered cheerfully. - And even the eggs are all laid. Do you know how much?

Frankly, I can’t go beyond two, ”Podkovkin sighed. - Yes, here the Hunter passed. He looked into the nest, counted the eggs and said: “Wow,” he says, “twenty-four, two dozen! More, - he says, - and there are no eggs in gray partridges.

Oh-oh-oh, that's bad! - Frightened Lark. - The hunter will take all the eggs and make scrambled eggs from them.

What are you, what are you - scrambled eggs! Podkovkin waved his wings at him. - Orange Neck says: “It's good that this is a Hunter. As long as it's not a boy." She says: “The hunter will still guard our nest: he needs our chicks to grow up and become fat. Then beware! Then he will come with a dog and bang-bang! ..” Well, let's go, I'll take you to the Orange Neck.

Podkovkin jumped off the hummock and ran through the rye so fast that Skylark had to catch up with him on wings.

The nest of partridges was placed among the rye, in a depression between two tussocks. On the nest, fluffy feathers, sat Orange Neck.

Seeing the guest, she left the nest, smoothed her feathers and said affably:

Please, please! Admire our nest. Is it really cozy?

There was nothing special in her nest: like a basket with eggs. The edges are lined with partridge down and feathers.

The lark has seen more cunning nests.

Still, out of courtesy, he said:

A very cute nest.

What about eggs? asked Orange Neck. - Really, wonderful testicles?

The eggs were really good: like chicken, only small, beautiful even yellow-green color. There were a lot of them - a complete basket. And they all lay with their sharp ends inward, otherwise, perhaps, they would not fit in the nest.

What a beauty eggs! said Skylark heartily. - So clean, smooth, neat!

And around the nest, how do you like it? asked Orange Neck. - Beautiful?

The lark looked around. The flexible stalks of young rye hung like a green tent over the nest.

Beautiful, - agreed the Lark. - Only now ... - and stammered.

What do you want to say? Podkovkin was alarmed. - Or is our nest poorly hidden?

Now it is well hidden, not even a hawk can see. Why, people will soon harvest rye. And your nest will remain in the open.

Harvest rye? - Podkovkin even fluttered his wings. - You probably know this?

I heard the collective farmers said that they would reap rye.

Here is the horror! gasped Podkovkin. - What do we do?

But Orange Neck only winked merrily at her husband:

Don't worry, don't worry. This is the safest place. No one will come here until our chicks are out of their eggs. Hack it on your nose: partridge chicks hatch when the rye blossoms.

And when will people come to reap it?

And people will wait until the rye grows, spikes, blossoms, fades, fills up and ripens.

What did I tell you? shouted the overjoyed Podkovkin. - You see, what a smart wife I have! She knows ahead of time.

I'm not the smart one," Orange Neck said modestly. - This is our partridge calendar. Each of our chickens knows it by heart.

Then she turned to Skylark, praised his songs and invited him to come and see how her chicks would come out of the eggs.

Here the quail cried out loudly from the rye:

Time to sleep! Time to sleep!

The lark said goodbye to his friends and flew home.

Before going to sleep, he kept trying to remember: how did she say that? First, the rye will grow, then, then it will go up... no - it will go up... it will go out...

But he could not pronounce this tricky word in any way, he waved his paw and fell asleep.

How the Fox came and what kind of children the Podkovkins had

The lark was impatient to see how the little Podkovkins would come out of the eggs. Every morning now, before ascending into the clouds, he carefully examined the rye.

The rye rose quickly and soon became the height of the tallest man. Then the ends of its stems began to thicken and swell. Then a mustache grew out of them.

That's what the spikelets are, said Skylark to himself. - This is what is called vyklolo ... no - vykolo ... no - you-ko-lo-si-las.

This morning he sang especially well: he was glad that the rye would soon bloom and that the Podkovkins would hatch chicks.

He looked down and saw that crops had already risen in all the fields: barley, and oats, and flax, and wheat, and buckwheat, and potato leaves on even ridges.

In the bushes near the field where the Podkovkins' nest was in the tall rye, he noticed a bright red stripe. He went down lower and saw: it was the Fox. She emerged from the bushes and crept across the mowed meadow towards the field of partridges.

The lark's heart thumped hard. He was not afraid for himself: the Fox could not do anything to him in the air. But the terrible beast could find his friends nest, catch Orange Neck, ruin her nest.

Lark descended even lower and shouted with all his strength:

Podkovkin, Podkovkin! Fox is coming, save yourself!

The fox raised its head and gnashed its teeth terribly. The lark was frightened, but continued to shout with all his might:

Orange Neck! Fly away, fly away!

The fox went straight to the nest.

Suddenly Podkovkin jumped out of the rye. He had a terrible appearance: all feathers were ruffled, one wing was dragging on the ground.

"Trouble! thought Skylark. - That's right, the boys hit him with a stone. Now he's gone too."

And shouted:

Podkovkin, run and hide!

But it was too late: the Fox noticed the poor cockerel and rushed to him.

Podkovkin, limping and bouncing, ran away from her. But where could he escape from the swift-footed beast!

In three jumps, the Fox was near him, and - slander! - her teeth clanged at the very tail of the cockerel.

Podkovkin gathered all his strength and managed to take off in front of the beast's nose.

But he flew very badly, desperately tweeted and soon fell to the ground, jumped up, hobbled on. The fox ran after him.

Skylark saw how poor Podkovkin either running or taking off into the air, with difficulty reached Kostyanichnaya Hill and disappeared into the bushes. The fox pursued him relentlessly.

“Well, now the poor fellow is finished! thought Skylark. “The fox drove him into the bushes and there he will catch him alive.”

The lark could do nothing more to help his friend. He didn't want to hear the cockerel's bones crackle on Fox's teeth, and flew away as soon as possible.

A few days passed - and the rye was already in bloom. The lark did not fly these days over the field where the Podkovkins lived. He was sad about his dead friend and did not even want to look at the place where the bloody feathers of the cockerel lay.

Once Lark was sitting in his field and eating worms. Suddenly he heard the crackle of wings and saw Podkovkin, alive and cheerful. Podkovkin sank down beside him.

Where did you disappear to?! - shouted the cockerel without greeting. - After all, the rye is already blooming. I'm looking for you, I'm looking for! .. Let's fly quickly to us: the Orange Neck says that now our chicks will hatch from eggs.

The lark rolled his eyes at him.

After all, the Fox ate you, ”he said. - I myself saw how she drove you into the bushes.

A fox? me! shouted Podkovkin. - Why, it was I who took her away from our nest. He pretended to be sick on purpose in order to deceive her. So entangled in the bushes that she forgot the way to our field! And thank you for the warning. If not for you, we would not see our chicks.

Well, I… I just shouted, - Skylark was embarrassed. - You're smart! He even deceived me.

And friends flew to the Orange Neck.

Shhh! Hush hush! - Met them Orange Neck. - Don't stop me from listening.

She was very preoccupied, stood over the nest and, bowing her head to the eggs, listened attentively. Lark and Podkovkin stood side by side, barely breathing.

Suddenly Orange-throat quickly but carefully pecked one of the eggs with her beak. A piece of the shell flew off, and immediately two black pin eyes flashed out of the hole and a wet, disheveled head of a chicken appeared. The mother poked her beak again, and now the whole chick jumped out of the collapsed shell.

Out, out! shouted Podkovkin and jumped for joy.

Do not shout! said Orange Neck sternly. - Take the shells as soon as possible and take them away from the nest.

Podkovkin grabbed half of the shell with his beak, rushed headlong into the rye with it.

He returned for the second half very soon, but a whole pile of broken shells had already accumulated in the nest. Skylark saw the chicks emerging one after the other. While Orange Neck was helping one, the other was already breaking the shell and climbing out of it.

Soon all twenty-four eggs were broken, all twenty-four chicks came out - funny, wet, disheveled!

Orange Neck quickly kicked out all the broken shells from the nest with her feet and beak and ordered Podkovkin to remove it. Then she turned to the chickens, in a gentle voice she said to them: “Ko-ko-ko! Ko-ko! - all fluffed up, spread her wings and sat on the nest. And all the chickens immediately disappeared under it, as if under a hat.

Lark began to help Podkovkin carry the shell. But his beak was small, weak, and he could carry only the lightest shells.

So they worked for a long time together with Podkovkin. They carried the shell away to the bushes. It was impossible to leave it near the nest: people or animals could notice the shells and find a nest from them. Finally the work was done and they could rest.

They sat down next to the nest and watched as curious little noses protruded here and there from under the wings of the Orange Neck, quick eyes flickered.

It's amazing how ... - said the Lark. - They were just born, and they are so smart. And their eyes are open, and the little body is all in thick fluff.

They already have small feathers, ”Orange Neck proudly said. - On wings.

Tell me please! - Lark was surprised. - And here, among songbirds, when the chicks leave the nest, they are blind, naked ... They can only raise their heads a little and open their mouths.

Oh, you won't see it now! said Orange Neck cheerfully. - Let me just warm them up a little more with my warmth to dry them well ... and we will immediately open the playground.

What kind of playground did the pistons have and what did they do there

They chatted some more, then Orange Neck asks:

Podkovkin, where small green caterpillars and soft snails can now be found nearby.

Right here, nearby, - Podkovkin hurried, - two steps away, in our own field. I've already looked.

Our children, said Orange Neck, need the most tender food in the early days. They will learn to eat grains later. Well, Podkovkin, show the way, we will follow you.

And the chicks? - Lark was alarmed. - Do you really leave the crumbs alone?

The crumbs will come with us,” Orange-throated said calmly. - Here, look.

She carefully stepped down from the nest and called in a gentle voice:

Co-co! Ko-ko-ko!

And all twenty-four chicks jumped up on their legs, jumped out of the nest-basket and rolled after their mother in cheerful spools.

Podkovkin went in front, followed by Orange Neck with chickens, and behind everyone - Lark.

The chicks peeked, the mother said "ko-kko", and Podkovkin himself was silent and walked, sticking out his blue chest with a chocolate shoe, and proudly looked around. A minute later they came to a place where rye was rare and tussocks rose between its stems.

Great place! - approved Orange Neck. We'll set up a playground here.

And she immediately set to work with Podkovkin to look for green caterpillars and soft snails for her chicks.

The lark also wanted to feed the chickens. He found four caterpillars and called:

Chick-chick-chick, run here!

The chicks ate what their parents had given them and rode off to Skylark. They look, but there are no caterpillars! The lark was embarrassed and probably would have blushed if he had not had feathers on his face: after all, while he was waiting for the chickens, he imperceptibly somehow himself put all four caterpillars into his mouth.

On the other hand, Orange Neck and Podkovkin did not swallow a single caterpillar, but took each one in its beak and deftly sent one of the chickens into the open mouth - all in turn.

Now let's study," said Orange-throat, when the chickens had eaten. - Kkok!

All twenty-four chickens stopped, who was where, and looked at their mother.

Kkok! - it means: attention! explained Orange Neck to Skylark. - Now I'll call them after me - and look! .. Ko-kko! Ko-ko-ko! .. - she called in her most gentle voice and went to the bumps.

All twenty-four chickens followed her. Orange Neck jumped over the bumps and, without stopping, went on.

The chickens ran to the bumps - and stop! They did not know what to do: after all, the bumps in front of them were like high steep mountains or like three-story houses.

The chickens tried to climb the steep slope, but they fell and rolled down. At the same time, they peeped so pitifully that the good Lark's heart sank.

Co-co! Ko-ko-ko! - again persistently called the Orange Neck from the other side of the bumps. - Here, here, follow me!

And suddenly all twenty-four chicks at once waved their tiny wings, fluttered and flew away. They rose not high above the ground, but nevertheless the hummocks flew over, fell right on their legs and rolled without respite after the Orange Neck.

The lark even opened its beak in surprise. How can it be: just born into the world, and how they know how!

Oh, what capable children you have! he said to Podkovkin and Orange Neck. - It's just a miracle: they already fly!

Just a little, said Orange Neck. - They can't go far. Just flutter up and sit down. That's what hunters call our children: porches.

We songbirds, said Skylark, have nestlings in the nest until their wings grow. The nest is so well hidden in the grass that not even a hawk's eye can see it. And where will you hide your pistons if a falcon suddenly arrives?

Then I'll do this, - said Podkovkin and shouted loudly: "Chirr-vik!"

All twenty-four pistons at once tightened their legs and ... as if they fell through the ground!

The lark turned his head in all directions, trying to see at least one chick: after all, he knew that they were hiding here in front of him, on the ground. I looked and looked and saw no one.

Focus-pocus-chirvirocus! Podkovkin winked merrily at him, but suddenly he shouted: - One, two, three, vir-vir-ri!

All twenty-four pistons jumped up at once and became visible again.

The lark gasped: this is clever!

And when evening came and the Podkovkins led the children to put them to bed, Orange Neck said to Skylark:

Until people finish haymaking, you can always find us either in the nest or on the playground. And when the bread is ripe and the machines come to harvest it, look for us where the flax grows. We will open a primary school there for our children.

How the Hawk flew into the fields and what a misfortune befell on Kostyanichnaya Hill

It's the middle of summer. All the animals and birds brought out the children. And predators began to visit the fields every day.

The lark still rose in the morning under the clouds and sang there. But now he often had to interrupt the singing and fly to warn his acquaintances of the danger.

And his fields were full of friends and acquaintances: Lark lived in peace with everyone, and everyone loved him. He himself loved his friends Podkovkins most of all. I tried to fly more and more over the field where the nest of the Orange Neck was.

It flies in the sky, and he vigilantly watches if a predator appears somewhere.

Now the sun has risen, and from the distant fields, from behind the river, the bluish-white Lun is already approaching. His face is round like a cat's, his nose is hooked. He flies low, low over the green rye and looks, looks out: won't a chick or a mouse flash somewhere? Suddenly it will stop on the fly and, like a butterfly, raising its wings above its back, will hang in the air: it peers into one place.

There now a little mouse scurried away from him into a hole. The harrier is waiting for the mouse to stick its nose out of the mink. If he sticks it out, Lun will fold its wings at once, fall down like a stone - and the claw of the mouse in its claws!

But Lark is already rushing from a height and, shouting to Podkovkin on the fly: “The harrier has arrived!”, He hurries to the mink, shouts to the little mouse:

Don't stick your nose out! Do not stick your nose out of the mink!

Podkovkin commands his pistons:

Chirr-vik!

And the powders tighten their legs, become invisible.

The little mouse hears the Lark and, trembling with fear, hides deeper into the hole.

Every day a Black Kite with a notch on its long tail and a Brown Mouser flew in from a distant forest. They circled over the fields, looking for prey. Their claws are always ready to grab a careless mouse or powder. But from morning until noon, and again an hour later, the Skylark watches in the sky, and all the birds and animals of the field are calm: they have a good watchman. And at noon, predators fly to the river to drink. Then Lark descends to the ground to eat and take a nap for half an hour after dinner, and in the fields comes the "dead hour" - the hour of rest and sleep.

And maybe everything would have turned out well, all the animal cubs would have been intact and the partridges' powders would have grown calmly, but unfortunately, the Gray Hawk flew into the field.

Terrible to small animals and birds are the Lun, and the Kite, and the Buzzard-Myshelov.

But the most terrible of all is Buzzard's wife, Yastrebiha. She is bigger and stronger than the Hawk: it is a trifle to catch an adult partridge.

Until then, all the food for her and their chicks was brought by the Hawk - her husband. But yesterday he was shot by a hunter. The hawk was starving for the second day and therefore was especially angry and ruthless.

The hawk did not circle over the fields in full view, like Lun ...

The lark shouted from above:

Hawk! Save yourself! - and shut up.

He himself did not know where the Hawk had gone: he did not have time to notice.

Thick bushes grow on Kostyanichnaya Hill, and above them two tall aspens rise into the sky. One is dry. The other is like a green round tower. The kite and the Mouser Buzzard used to fly and fly and sit down on a dry aspen: from here they can clearly see what is happening around in the fields.

They can see, but they can be seen. And while the predator sits on a dry aspen, not a single mouse sticks its nose out of its mink, not a single bird appears from the bushes or from the bread.

But the Hawk rushed over their heads - and she was gone. Nobody sits on a dry aspen. No one is circling over the fields. The lark again quietly sang in the air.

And the field beast crawls out of minks, from inconspicuous little holes under the bushes, in the loaves, between the tussocks.

The lark sees from a height: here the hare rolled out from under the bush, stood up in a column, looked around, turned his ears in all directions. Nothing, take it easy. He sank down on his short front paws and began to pluck the grass. Mice darted between the bumps. Podkovkin with the Orange Neck led his pistons to Kostyanichnaya Hill itself.

What are they doing there? Why, they teach children to peck grains! Podkovkin will poke his nose into the ground several times, say something, and all twenty-four pistons will run towards him at full speed, poking their short noses funny into the ground.

And over there, on the very hill, by two aspens, are the neighbors of the Podkovkins, the Brovkin family: Brovkin himself, and his hen, Blue Nose, and their little powder babies.

Skylark sees all this, and someone else sees it: the one who hid in a tall green aspen, like in a tower. And whoever is hiding there, neither the Lark nor any of the field animals and birds can be seen.

“Now,” thinks Skylark, “again Podkovkin will fight with Brovkin. They saw each other, both fluffed up, fluffed up ... No, nothing, they don’t fight. It looks like the time for fighting is over. Only Orange Neck turned back into the rye: she was taking her children away. And Blue Nose too… Ow!”

A gray lightning flashed from above, from a green aspen, Hawk. And the Blue Nose hen huddled in her claws - fluff flew over the bushes.

Chirr-vik! shouted Podkovkin desperately.

So he saw the Hawk. The entire Podkovkin family disappeared in the rye. And Brovkin was completely taken aback. He should also shout “chirr-vik!” Yes, to escape with the pistons into the bushes, and out of fright he chirped and flew off, like Podkovkin from the Fox, pretending to be knocked down.

Oh, stupid, stupid cockerel! A hawk is not a Fox! How can short partridge wings save from it!

The hawk threw a dead chicken - and after him! She hit Brovkin in the back, and fell into the bushes with him.

And the crumbs-powders of Brovkin remained orphans - without a father, without a mother.

What did the pistons learn at the first stage school

The hawk was eaten on the spot by Brovkin's cockerel, and the Blue Nose hen was carried away into the forest - to her gluttonous hawks for dinner.

The lark flew to the Podkovkins.

Have you seen? - met him with a question Orange Neck. - Horror, horror! Poor little Brovkins, bitter orphans... Come on, let's find them.

And she ran so fast that the pistons had to flutter every minute to keep up with her.

On Kostyanichnaya Hill she stopped and called loudly:

Ko-ko! Ko-ko-ko!

Nobody answered her.

Oh, poor, oh, poor babies! said Orange Neck. - They were so frightened that they did not dare to jump up on their legs.

She called a second time.

And again no one answered.

She called for the third time - and suddenly all around, from all sides, as if from under the ground, little Brovkins grew up and rolled towards her with a squeak.

Orange Neck fluffed out her feathers and took all her babies and all the Brovkins under her wings.

So many pistons could not fit under her wings. They climbed on top of each other, pushed, kicked, shoved, and then one or the other of them flew out head over heels. Orange Neck was now pushing him gently back into the warmth.

Let now, - she shouted defiantly, - let someone dare to say that these are not my children!

The lark thought to himself, "That's right! All the crumbs are like two drops of water similar to each other. Let them fry me in a frying pan if I can figure out which are the Brovkins, which are the Podkovkins. I think Orange Neck herself - and she will not understand.

And said aloud:

Do you want to adopt them? You and yours...

Shut up, shut up! Podkovkin interrupted him. - Since Orange Neck said, then so be it. Orphans should not disappear without a guardian!

At this point, for some reason, Lark's throat suddenly tickled and tickled, and his eyes became wet, even though birds don't know how to cry. He felt so ashamed of this that he imperceptibly darted behind a bush, flew away from his friends and for a long time did not show himself to their eyes.

One morning, rising to the heights, Lark suddenly saw: it was as if a blue ship was sailing out from behind the edge of a vast collective farm field; Lark flew across the sea last autumn and remembered what kind of ships they were.

Only this ship seemed very strange to Skylark in front of the ship, gleaming in the rays of the sun, something like a wheel made of long narrow boards was rapidly turning; the flag did not fly like that of sea ships: on a high mast - this ship had no masts at all - but on the side; and right there on the side under a white umbrella sat the captain and steered the ship or steamer - what to call it? Behind him, dust swirled like smoke.

The field-ship was approaching, and Skylark could see how he was raking the wheat in front of him with his wooden wheel; how she disappears into him; like a collective farmer standing on the bridge on the other side of the ship from time to time rearranges the lever - and behind the ship heaps of golden wheat straw fall onto the short-cut and smoothly mowed field.

Up close, the field ship ceased to look like sea ships. Going lower, Skylark heard that people call it a "harvester" and that this big machine removes grain on the move, threshing it, collecting grain in a box, and leaving straw - it remains only to dump it on a harvested field.

“We must tell Podkovkin everything about this,” thought Skylark, “and, by the way, and see what they teach their pistons at the first stage school.” And he flew off to look for friends.

As Orange Neck said, he now found the Podkovkins in linen. They were just about to give the kids a lesson. Skylark was surprised at how the powders had grown during those days. Their soft down has been replaced by feathers.

Podkovkin himself climbed a bump, and forty-four pistons, under the supervision of Orange Neck, were placed below in a semicircle.

Kkok! Podkovkin said. - Attention!

And he began to talk to the Russians about the benefits of education for partridges.

With education, - he said, - a young partridge will not disappear anywhere.

Podkovkin spoke for a long time, and Skylark saw how the pistons, one after another, closed their eyes and fell asleep.

How to protect yourself from enemies, - said Podkovkin, - from hunters, boys, from predatory animals and birds, - that is the question! In the first level school you will learn how to behave on the ground, and in the second level school you will learn how to behave in the air. We partridges are ground birds and take off from the ground only when the enemy steps on our tail.

Here Podkovkin turned to examples:

Let's say a man is approaching us... a boy, let's say. What do we do first?

No one answered his question: all forty-four pistons were fast asleep.

Podkovkin did not notice this and continued:

First of all, I or Orange Neck quietly command: “Kkok! Attention!" You already know that at this word, you all turn to us and see what we are doing.

“He didn’t have to say that,” thought Skylark, because as soon as Podkovkin said “kkok!”, all forty-four heavily sleeping pistons woke up and turned their noses towards him.

I say - "kkok!", - continued Podkovkin, - and I hide, that is, I draw in my legs and press firmly to the ground. Like this.

He tucked his legs in, and all forty-four Porches did the same.

So ... We lie, hiding, and all the time we vigilantly watch what the boy is doing. The boy is walking towards us. Then I command almost inaudibly: "Turk!" We all jump on our feet...

Here Podkovkin, and after him all forty-four pistons jumped up.

-...stretch like this...

Podkovkin stretched his neck forward and upward, his whole body also stretched out, and he became like a long bottle with thin legs. And the pistons, no matter how stretched out, remained like bubbles on short legs.

- ... and we run away, hiding behind the grass, - finished Podkovkin.

The bottle suddenly ran quickly from the bump into the flax and disappeared into it. Forty-four bubbles rolled after her - and all the flax stirred around.

Podkovkin immediately fluttered out of the flax and again sat down on his tussock. The pistons are back too.

Doesn't fit anywhere! Podkovkin said. - Is that how they get away? All the flax swayed where you ran. The boy will immediately grab a stick or a stone and throw it at you. We must learn to run in the grass so as not to touch a single spikelet. Look here...

He again turned into a bottle on legs and rolled into flax. Thick green flax closed behind him like water over a diver, and nowhere else did a single stalk move.

Amazing! said Skylark aloud. - You children will have to study for a long time in order to run so deftly!

Podkovkin returned from a completely different direction than he had gone, and said:

Remember one more thing: you need to run away not directly, but by all means in corners, in zigzags - to the right, to the left; right and forward. Let's repeat. The lark got hungry and did not look further, how the pistons would learn to run.

I'll be here for a minute,” he said to Orange Neck and flew off to look for the caterpillars.

In uncompressed rye, he found a lot of them, and so tasty that he forgot about everything in the world.

He returned to the Podkovkins only in the evening. The quails in the rye were already shouting: “It’s time to sleep! It's time for bed!" and Orange Neck put the children to bed.

You are already big, - she said to the pistons, - and now you will not sleep under my wing. Starting today, learn to spend the night like adult partridges sleep.

Orange Neck lay down on the ground and ordered the pistons to gather in a circle around her.

The powders lay down, all forty-four spouts inward, towards the Orange Neck, tails out.

Not like that, not like that! Podkovkin said. - Is it possible to fall asleep with the tail to the enemy? You must always be in front of the enemy. Enemies are all around us. Lie down all the way around: tails inside the circle, noses out. Like this. Now from which side the enemy approaches us, one of you will certainly notice him.

Skylark bade everyone goodnight and got up. From above, he glanced once more at the Podkovkins. And it seemed to him that on the ground among green flax lies a large, motley, many, many, many-pointed star.

How the Hunter came to the fields with a big Red Dog and how it ended

Before parting, Orange Neck said to Skylark:

When people harvest all the rye and winter wheat and pull out all the flax, look for us in the barley. When they turn to barley, we will move on to spring wheat. When they take up spring wheat, we will turn into oats, and from oats - into buckwheat. Remember this, and you will always find us easily.

After the combine, he poured the entire collective farm into the field. Collective farmers and collective farmers raked dried rye and wheat straw and threw it into large haystacks. And where the flax grew, the tractor appeared again. But this time he was carrying a different car; people called it "flax harvester". He pulled it out of the ground, pulled the flax, threshed the grain from its ripe heads in his box, and knitted the stems into sheaves and covered the smoothly compressed field with them in even rows.

Birds of prey flew into the fields: harriers and mouse buzzards, small falcons - kestrels and falcons. They sat down on haystacks, looked out from there for mice, chicks, lizards, grasshoppers, and, breaking loose, picked them up in their claws and carried them into the forest.

The lark rose into the clouds less and less now, and sang less and less. All the larks - his relatives - had chicks growing up. It was necessary to help relatives teach the chicks to fly, look for food, and hide from predators. There was no time for songs.

Often now Lightsong heard loud shots now across the river, now across the lake: there the Hunter wandered with a big Red Dog, shooting black grouse and other game. His gun rattled so terribly that Skylark hurried to fly away.

And once Lark saw the Hunter go to the fields. He walked through the compressed rye, and the Red Dog scurried in front of him from right to left, left to right, until he reached the barley field.

Then he stopped at once as if rooted to the spot - a tail with a feather, one front paw bent. The hunter walked towards him.

Holy Fathers! gasped Skylark. - Why, there, in the barley, the Podkovkins now live! After all, the rye is all compressed and the flax is all pulled out!

And he rushed to the barley field.

The hunter approached the Red Dog already. The dog, as it stood, stood motionless, only slightly squinting one eye at the owner.

Beautiful stance, - said the Hunter, took off the double-barreled shotgun from his shoulder and cocked both triggers. - Signal, go ahead!

The Red Dog shuddered, but did not budge.

Go Signal! repeated the Hunter sternly.

The Red Dog carefully, on only fingers, went forward - quietly, quietly.

Skylark was already above the Hunter and stopped in the air, unable to scream out of fear.

Red Signal walked forward cautiously. The hunter followed him.

The lark thought: "Now, now the Podkovkins will jump out and ..."

But the Signal kept going forward, turning now to the right, now to the left, but the partridges did not fly out.

Probably black grouse in barley, - said the Hunter. - An old rooster. They often get away from the dog on foot. Go Signal!

The signal went a few more steps and stood again, stretching out its tail and tucking one paw.

The hunter raised his gun and ordered:

Well, go ahead!

"Now, now!" thought Skylark, and his heart sank.

Go Signal! shouted the Hunter.

The Red Dog leaned forward - and suddenly, with a crackle and chirping, the entire large Podkovkin family splashed out of the barley.

The hunter tossed his gun to his shoulder and...

The lark closed his eyes in fear.

But there was no shot.

The lark opened his eyes. The hunter was already slung his gun over his shoulder.

Partridges! he said loudly. - It's good that I resisted. I still can’t forget how it was there, beyond the lake, do you remember, Signalka? - I shot the chicken. Probably the whole brood died: one cockerel cannot save the pistons. Signal back!

The signal looked at the owner with surprise. The dog found the game, made a stand, raised the game on the orders of the owner, but the owner did not shoot, and now he is calling him back!

But the Hunter had already turned and walked away from the barley field.

And Signal ran after him.

Skylark saw how the Podkovkins landed at the other end of the field, and quickly sought them out there.

Here is happiness! he shouted to Orange Neck. - I saw everything and was so afraid, so afraid!

What do you! - Orange Neck was surprised. - And I was not afraid at all. After all, the hunting law allows us, gray partridges, to be shot only when all the grain fields are empty and the collective farmers begin to dig potatoes. This Hunter now goes only for black grouse and ducks, but so far he does not touch us.

He said himself,” Skylark argued heatedly, “that the other day he killed a hen across the lake. Poor pigs, now they will all die with one cockerel!

Oh you got it! interrupted Podkovkin. “It’s as if they’re going to die right away!” Here, meet, please: cockerel Zaozyorkin.

It was only then that Skylark noticed that another adult cockerel was sitting next to Orange Neck and Podkovkin.

The cockerel nodded his head and said:

It would be really difficult for me to save small children alone, after my wife died. So I brought them here and asked their good neighbors, the Podkovkins. They accepted me with all my family. Now the three of us take care of the children. See how many we have?

And he pointed with his beak at a whole herd of powders in barley. Lark immediately recognized among them the new adopted children of Orange Neck: Zaozyorkin's pistons were small, much smaller than the Podkovkins and Brovkins.

Why are your children, - he asked in surprise, - so ... small?

Ah, - answered Zaozyorkin, - we have so many misfortunes this year! At the beginning of the summer, my wife built a nest, laid eggs, and for several days sat, hatched them. Suddenly the boys came and ruined our nest. All eggs are dead...

Oh, what grief! Lark sighed.

Yes. My wife had to make a new nest, lay new eggs and sit again - incubate. The kids came out late. Here are some more small ones.

And Lark's throat tickled again, as it had when Orange's Neck gave shelter to the Brovkin orphans.

What trick did the Orange Neck come up with when the grain fields were empty and the collective farmers started eating potatoes

With each passing day, the fields are now rapidly emptying. Podkovkins now and then moved from place to place. Collective farmers squeezed barley - Podkovkins switched to spring wheat. They squeezed the wheat - the Podkovkins ran into oats. They squeezed the oats - the Podkovkins flew into buckwheat.

The hunter never came to the fields again, and Lightsong stopped thinking about him.

The lark now had even more to do. Autumn was coming; many migratory birds were already preparing for a journey to distant lands. All the Lark's relatives were also preparing for the journey. They flew in flocks in the compressed fields, fed together, flew from place to place together: they taught their children to long flights, to high flights. The lark now lived in a flock.

More and more cold winds blew, more and more rain poured.

Collective farmers and buckwheat were removed.

The Podkovkins moved to the river, to the potato fields. Skylark saw them running between the long high beds, as in narrow streets. I saw how the grown up youth learns to fly. At the command of Podkovkin, the whole herd immediately took off and rushed forward. A new command was heard - the whole herd turned sharply in the air, flew back, then suddenly stopped flapping its wings and smoothly descended into the bushes or potatoes.

Turning back sharply during the whole flight was considered by partridges to be the most difficult task.

Early one morning, Skylark was flying in his flock over the village.

The hunter came out of the extreme hut.

The lark became worried, separated from the flock and descended lower.

The hunter spoke loudly to himself:

Well, here is the fifteenth of September. Today - the opening of the hunt for gray partridges. It turns out that we must go to the fields.

Red Signal was glad that he was going hunting. He danced in front of the owner on his hind legs, waving his tail and barking loudly.

Skylark could not lose sight of his flock. Sad, he flew to catch up with her.

He thought: “When I see the Podkovkins now, they won’t have such a herd. The Hunter will kill half.

Thoughts about friends haunted him.

The flock flew high up and went down again. She flew far beyond the forest, made a big circle and returned to her native fields in the evening.

Hastily swallowing a few worms, Lark flew off to the river, into the potato field.

In a potato field, a tractor plowed tubers out of the ground with plows - dug up the entire field. Collective farmers and collective farmers collected potatoes in large sacks and loaded them into trucks. Cars were transporting potatoes to the village.

Bonfires burned along the sides of the field. The children, smeared with coal, baked potatoes in the ashes and immediately ate them, sprinkled with salt. And some dug real ovens in the sandy banks of the ditches and baked potatoes in them.

There were no Podkovkins in the potato field. From the other side of the river, the Hunter sailed in a boat to this one. Sitting next to him was Signal.

The hunter landed, pulled the boat ashore and sat down to rest.

Skylark flew up to him and heard the Hunter talking to himself.

Exhausted! .. - he said. - What am I to them, hired a hundred times from coast to coast to travel? No, you're kidding! Chase them, who cares. And we'd better look for another herd, which is simpler. Am I right, Signalushka?

Red Dog wagged his tail.

The sun was already setting. The hunter wearily wandered towards the village.

Skylark saw that he had no game, and realized that the Podkovkins had somehow managed to outwit the Hunter.

"Where are they?" thought Skylark.

And as if in answer to him, the voice of Podkovkin himself was heard from the other side:

Worm! Worm! Worm!

And from different sides, thin voices answered him:

Chichire! Chichire! Chichire! Chichire!

It was the response of young partridges scattered in all directions.

A minute later, Lark was among them, and Podkovkin told him how Orange Neck had deceived Hunter.

I told you that you will not find a chicken anywhere smarter than Orange Neck! After all, what did you come up with! The Hunter comes out of the house, and she already knows.

How can she know this? asked Skylark. - You can't see it from the bushes.

And it's very simple: when the Hunter goes hunting, does his Red Dog bark?

Is it a signal? That's right, barks!

Yes, how loud! Here Orange Neck heard and, without saying a word, march-march across the river! Of course, we are all behind her.

Across the river? That's clever!

The Red Dog is looking for us on this side: he can smell our tracks, but we are not! Well, Hunter, the cunning one, soon guessed where we hid. Got a boat, moved to this shore.

I understand, I understand! - the Lark was delighted. - He is there, and you are here; He is here and you are there! He rode, rode, and said: “We are completely exhausted! I’d rather go after other partridges, which are not so cunning.”

Well, yes, - said Podkovkin. - It takes him a long time to move on a boat, and we flutter! - and on the other side.

The sun had already set, and the friends could not part for a long time: everyone rejoiced at how deftly Orange Neck managed to trick the Hunter.

How Lark said goodbye to his friends and what he sang about when he left his homeland

Tractor drivers have long plowed the empty fields, and the collective farmers again sowed rye and wheat.

High in the sky, now gathering at an angle, now stretching out like a rein, flocks of wild geese flew.

The fields are empty. The loosened wet arable lands turned black where tall rye rustled in summer.

But where there was no rye, silky greenery had already sprouted and gleamed merrily.

The entire numerous family of the Podkovkins now fed on the sweet green grass. The Podkovkins spent the night in the bushes.

Wind blowers - leaf growers plucked the last leaves from bushes and trees.

The time has come for the Lark to fly away to distant warm countries. And he found the Podkovkins in the greenery to say goodbye to them.

A whole flock, a whole Big Flock of field cockerels and hens surrounded him with a cheerful cry. There were a hundred or maybe a thousand partridges in the herd. Lark did not immediately find Orange Neck and Podkovkin among them: all the young partridges were already the size of their parents, all were smartly dressed. All of them had horseshoes of delicious chocolate color on their chests. All the cheeks and throats became orange, the eyebrows were red, the breasts were blue, the tails were red. And just looking closer, Lark saw that the legs of young partridges are greenish, while those of adults are yellowish.

What did I tell you! shouted Podkovkin, running up to Lark. - Here the Big Herd is going, and who is the eldest hen in it? Of course, Orange Neck!

But Orange Neck immediately interrupted him.

She asked:

Are you flying away from us to distant lands? Oh, how it is there, right, beautiful, how warm, good!

The lark shook his head sadly.

Not very good. It's warm there, that's right. But none of us, songbirds of passage, will take it into his head to sing there, none of us will curl a nest there, or bring out chicks. And it's scary there!

Why is it scary? - Orange Neck was surprised.

There, in those foreign lands, even we larks are considered game. They are hunting us with dogs and guns. They catch us with nets. There they fry us in frying pans - many, many larks are needed for one frying pan. We are fried in pans and eaten!

Ah, what a horror! shouted Orange Neck and Podkovkin in one word. So stay here for the winter.

And I would be glad, but here it is snowing, cold. All worms and caterpillars will hide. I'm surprised at you: what do you eat here in winter?

And very simply - answered Podkovkin. - Do you see how much greenery the collective farmers have sown for us? We have enough food for a hundred winters.

Yes, the snow will soon cover the greenery!

And we are his paws, paws! Behind the bushes, in the wind, there are such places - all winter there is a little bit of snow. You will scratch with your paws, you will scratch, you look - green grass!

And they say, - asked Lark, - in winter there is a terrible black ice and all the snow is covered with ice?

And then,” said Orange Neck, “Hunter will help us.” The hunting law forbids shooting and catching us in the winter. The hunter knows that we can die in icy conditions. He will put huts from Christmas trees in the snow, and pour grain for us into the huts - barley and oats.

Okay here! - said the Lark. - Oh, how good it is in our homeland! If only it were spring, and I would come back here again. Well, goodbye!

Goodbye! said Orange Neck.

Goodbye! Podkovkin said.

Goodbye! - shouted all the old and young cockerels and hens a hundred, a thousand voices at once.

And Lark flew to his flock.

It was still morning, but a heavy gray cloud hid the sky, and everything on earth seemed gray and dull.

Suddenly, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. It immediately became bright and cheerful, like spring.

And Lark began to rise higher and higher, and suddenly - he did not know how - began to sing!

He sang about how good it was in his native fields. He sang about how people sowed bread, and lived in bread, brought out children and various birds and animals hid from enemies. He sang about how the evil hawk flew into the fields, killed the cockerel and the hen at once, how the crumbs of powder remained orphans after them, how another hen came and did not let other people's little children die. He sang about how the wise field hen Orange Neck would lead the Big Herd in winter, and the Hunter would put huts on the snow and pour grain into them so that there would be something to peck at partridges in severe frost. He sang about how he would fly back to his native fields and with a ringing song would tell everyone that spring had begun.

And below, on the ground, surprised people stopped.

It was so strange and so pleasant for them that it was autumn, and Lark began to sing again.

People threw back their heads and, covering their eyes from the sun, tried in vain to make out the little singer in the sky: there, in the height, tiny white stars-snowflakes twisted and sparkled and, having reached the ground, melted.

What Lark saw when he returned to his homeland

Already the Wolf washed, and Kochetok sang. It started to get light.

In a field between clods of cold earth, Lark woke up.

He jumped to his feet, shook himself, looked around and flew up.

It flew and sang. And the higher he rose into the sky, the more joyful and louder his song flowed and shimmered.

Everything that he saw under him seemed to him unusually wonderful, beautiful and sweet. Still: after all, it was his homeland, and he had not seen her for a long, very long time!

He was born here last summer. And in the fall, with other migratory birds, he flew to distant countries. There he spent the whole winter in warmth - for five whole months. And that's a long time when you're only ten months old.

And it's been three days since he finally returned home.

The first days he rested from the road, and today he set to work. And his job was to sing.

The lark sang:

“Snow fields below me. They have black and green spots on them.

Black spots - arable land. Green spots - shoots of rye and wheat.

I remember: people sowed this rye and wheat in autumn. Soon young, cheerful greenery sprouted from the ground. Then snow began to fall on them, and I flew off to foreign lands.

The greenery did not freeze under the cold snow. Here they appeared again, cheerfully and amicably reaching upwards.

On the hills among the fields - villages. This is our collective farm "Red Iskra". The collective farmers have not yet woken up, the streets are still empty.

The fields are also empty: the animals and birds of the field are still sleeping.

Beyond the distant black forest I see the golden edge of the sun.

Wake up, wake up, get up everyone!

Morning begins! Spring is starting!"

The lark fell silent: he saw some kind of gray spot on the white field. The spot moved.

The lark flew down to see what was there.

Above the spot, he stopped in the air, fluttering his wings.

Eh, it's a Big Herd! I see my good neighbors have a general meeting.

And in fact: it was a Big Herd of gray partridges - beautiful field cockerels and hens. They sat in a tight group. There were a lot of them: a hundred birds, or maybe a thousand. The lark couldn't count.

They were here in the snow and spent the night: they were still shaking off the snow that was grainy from the night frost from the wings.

And one Hen - apparently their eldest - was sitting in the middle on a hummock and loudly spoke a speech.

"What is she talking about?" - thought Skylark and went down even lower.

The Elder Hen said:

Today our little friend Lark woke us up with his song. So, yes, spring has begun. The most difficult and hungry time has passed. We'll have to think about nests soon.

The time has come for us all to part.

It's time, it's time! - all the hens cackled at once. Who goes where, who goes where, who goes where?

We are in the forest! We are for the river! We are at Red Creek! We are on Kostyanichnaya Hill! There, there, there, there!

When the clucking stopped, the older Hen spoke again.

Happy summer and happy chicks to all of you! Take them out more and raise them better. Remember: the hen who brings in the most young partridges in the fall will be greatly honored: this hen will lead the Big Herd all winter. And everyone should listen to her. Goodbye, goodbye, until autumn!

The Elder Hen suddenly jumped high into the air, flapped her wings with a crack, and rushed away.

And at the same moment all the other partridges, how many of them there were - a hundred or a thousand - split into pairs and with a crash, noise, chirping, splashed in all directions and disappeared from sight.

The lark was upset: such good, affectionate neighbors flew away! When he returned, how they rejoiced at him! How fun it was in their close-knit family!

But he immediately caught on. After all, he needs to wake up all the other birds and animals of the field, and all people as soon as possible! He quickly, quickly earned his wings and sang even louder than before:

"The Sun is rising! Wake up, wake up everyone, get to work merrily."

And, rising to the clouds, he saw how thieves-hares scatter from the villages, climbing into the gardens at night to devour the bark from apple trees. I saw how a noisy gang, croaking, flocks of black rooks flock to the arable land - to pick out worms from the thawed earth with their noses; how people leave their houses.

People threw back their heads and, squinting from the bright sun, tried to make out the little singer in the sky. But he disappeared into the cloud. Only his song remained above the fields, so sonorous and joyful that people felt light in their souls, and they cheerfully set to work.

What the Lark was talking about with the Field Cockerel

The Lark worked all day: he flew in the sky and sang. He sang so that everyone knew that everything was fine and calm and that no evil hawk was flying nearby. He sang to make the birds and beasts of the field rejoice. He sang to make people work more cheerfully.

Sang, sang - and tired.

It was already evening. Sunset. All the animals and birds hid somewhere.

The lark landed on the arable land. He wanted to chat with someone before going to bed about this and that. He didn't have a girlfriend.

He decided: "I'll fly to the neighbors - partridges." But then he remembered that in the morning they flew away.

He felt sad again. He sighed heavily and began to go to bed in a hole between the lumps of earth that had dried up during the day.

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak!

“Oh, but it’s Podkovkin! - the Lark was delighted. “So, not all partridges flew away.”

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak! - rushed from rye greens.

“Weird! thought Skylark. “Found one worm and screams for the whole world.”

He knew that partridges eat grains of bread and seeds of various herbs. The worm for them is like a sweet for dinner. Lark himself knew how to find any number of small worms in the grass, and every day he ate his fill of them. It was funny to him that a neighbor was so happy about some worm.

"Well, now I'll have someone to chat with," thought Skylark and flew off to look for a neighbor.

It turned out to be very easy to find him: the Cockerel was sitting openly on a hummock, among the low green grass, and now and then gave a voice.

Hello, Podkovkin! - Shouted, flying up to him, Skylark. Did you stay all summer?

The rooster nodded his head amiably.

Yes Yes. So decided Orange Neck, my wife. Are you familiar with her? A very smart chicken.

You'll see: this winter she will certainly lead the Big Herd.

Having said this, the Cockerel wheeled out a blue chest with a horseshoe pattern of delicious chocolate color. Then he stretched out his neck and shouted three times:

Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak! Cherr-vyak!

Where is the worm? - Lark was surprised. - Did you eat it?

Podkovkin was offended:

Who do you take me for? I would be a good Cockerel if I ate worms myself! I took it to Orange Neck, of course.

And she ate it?

I ate it and said it was delicious.

And so it ends! Why are you shouting: “Worm! Worm!"?

You do not understand anything! - Podkovkin was completely angry. - Firstly, I don’t scream at all, but I sing beautifully. Secondly, what is there to sing about, if not about tasty worms?

The little gray Lark could tell a lot about what and how to sing. After all, he was from a famous family of singers, glorified by all poets. But there was no pride in him.

And he did not at all want to offend Podkovkin, his good neighbor. The lark hurried to say something pleasant to him:

I know Orange Neck. She is so beautiful and gentle. How is her health?

Podkovkin immediately forgot the offense. He puffed out his chest, blurted out loudly three times; "Cherr-vyak!" - and only then importantly answered:

Thank you! Orange Neck feels great. Come visit us.

When can you arrive? asked Skylark.

Right now, you see, I'm very busy, - said Podkovkin. - In the afternoon I look for food for the Orange Neck, I keep guards so that the Fox or the Hawk will not attack her. In the evenings I sing songs to her. And then you have to fight...

Podkovkin did not finish, stretched out on his legs and began to peer into the greenery.

Wait a minute! Is he again?

The cockerel took off and flew like an arrow to where something was moving in the greenery.

Immediately, the sound of battle was heard from there: the sound of beak on beak, the flapping of wings, the rustle of rye. The fluff flew up to the sky.

A few minutes later the motley back of a strange cockerel flashed over the greenery, and Podkovkin returned, all disheveled, with sparkling eyes. A broken feather protruded from its left wing.

Wow! .. Great, I hit him! - he said, dropping onto the hillock. Will know now...

Who are you with? asked Skylark timidly. He himself never fought with anyone and did not know how to fight.

And with a neighbor, with Brovkin. He lives nearby, on Kostyanichnaya Hill. Silly chick. I'll show him!

Lark also knew Brovkin. All partridges have red eyebrows - and not only above the eyes, but even under the eyes. At Brovkin they were especially large and red.

Why are you fighting? asked Skylark. - In the Big Herd, you were friends with Brovkin.

In the Big Herd, it's a different matter. And now he will run to us in the field, then I will inadvertently end up on Kostyanichnaya Hill. This is where we can't help but fight. After all, we are roosters.

The lark did not understand: why fight when friends? He asked again:

When is it to come?

Maybe when the Orange Neck sits down to nurse the children. Then maybe I can breathe easier.

Are you thinking of making a nest soon?

Orange-throated says: “When the snowy fields appear thawed and the Skylark sings in the sky, the Great Flock will break into pairs and scatter in all directions. When people finish sowing and winter rye grows knee-deep, it will be time to build a nest.

You'll see what a cozy nest the Orange Neck will arrange for itself - a feast for the eyes! Remember? When people stop sowing, and rye grows up to a man's knee.

I already remember, - said Skylark. - I'll definitely come. Well, good night!

And he flew off to sleep.

What did people do when the snow fell from the fields, and what kind of nest did the Orange Neck curl

And so Lark began to wait for the people to start and finish sowing, and the rye would grow up to the knee of a man.

Every morning he rose to the clouds and sang there about everything that he saw under him.

He saw how day by day the snow melted in the fields, how every morning the sun warmed more cheerfully and hotter. I saw the wagtail icebreakers fly in - thin birds with shaking tails - and how the next morning the river broke the ice. And as soon as the snow melted, people drove out on a tractor into the field.

“Now they will start sowing!” thought Skylark.

But he was wrong! People have not left yet to sow, but only to prepare the land plowed since autumn for sowing.

With the steel scallops of the hasty ploughs, they broke up the caked clods and loosened the earth.

So several days passed.

Then the collective farmers harnessed their horses to narrow long boxes with two large wheels on the sides and drove to the fields.

Collective farmers sowed for several days.

Flax was sown first. Flax was sown in order to later make linseed oil from its seeds, and ropes, canvas and linen from its stems.

And Skylark thought: flax is sown so that it is convenient for the birds to hide in it.

After flax, the collective farmers sowed oats. Oats were sown to feed horses and make oatmeal for children from its seeds.

After oats, wheat was sown. Wheat was sown in order to make white flour from it, and from white flour to bake delicious white rolls.

After wheat, barley was sown. Barley was sown to make barley cakes, pearl barley soup and barley porridge.

After barley, buckwheat was sown. Buckwheat was sown, then to make buckwheat porridge out of it.

And Skylark thought that people sow oats, and wheat, and barley, and buckwheat, so that partridges would have grains to eat.

Collective farmers sowed buckwheat, left the field.

Well, thought Skylark, this is the end of the sowing! No more people will go out into the field."

And again he was mistaken: the next morning the collective farmers again went out into the field and began to plant potatoes on long, even ridges.

And why they planted potatoes, everyone knows; Lark alone could not guess.

By that time, killer whales had arrived, and it became warm, and winter rye grew up to a man's knee. Lark saw this, was delighted and flew off to look for his friend - Podkovkin's cockerel.

Now it was not as easy to find it as it had been a month ago: the rye grew all around, the tussocks were not visible, Podkovkin's Lark found it by force.

Is the nest ready? he asked at once.

Done, ready, - Podkovkin answered cheerfully, - and even the eggs are all laid. Do you know how much?

“Wow,” he says, “twenty-four, two dozen! More, - he says, - and there are no eggs in gray partridges.

Oh-oh-oh, that's bad! - Frightened Lark. - The hunter will take all the eggs and make scrambled eggs from them.

What are you, what are you - scrambled eggs! Podkovkin waved his wings at him. - Orange Neck says: “It's good that this is a hunter. As long as it's not a boy." She says: “The hunter will still guard our nest: he needs our chicks to grow up and become fat. Then watch out for him! Then he will come with the dog yes ... bang! bang! ..” Well, let's go, I'll take you to the Orange Neck.

Podkovkin jumped off the hummock and ran so fast through the rye that Skylark had to catch up with him on wings.

The nest of partridges was placed among the rye, in a depression between two tussocks. On the nest, fluffy feathers, sat Orange Neck.

Seeing the guest, she left the nest, smoothed her feathers and said affably:

Please! Please! Admire our nest. Is it really cozy?

There was nothing special in her nest: like a basket with eggs. The edges are lined with partridge down and feathers. The lark has seen more cunning nests.

Still, out of courtesy, he said:

A very cute nest.

What about eggs? asked Orange Neck. - Really, wonderful testicles?

The eggs were really good: like chicken, only small, beautiful even yellow-green color. There were a lot of them - a complete basket. And they all lay with their sharp ends inward, otherwise, perhaps, they would not fit in the nest.

What a beauty eggs! said Skylark heartily. - So clean, smooth, neat!

And around the nest, how do you like it? asked Orange Neck. - Beautiful?

The lark looked around. The flexible stalks of young rye hung like a green tent over the nest.

Beautiful, - agreed the Lark. - Only now ... - and stammered.

What do you want to say? Podkovkin was alarmed. - Or is our nest poorly hidden?

Now it's well hidden, even the hawk can't see. Why, people will soon harvest rye. And your nest will remain in the open.

Harvest rye? - Podkovkin even fluttered his wings. - You probably know that?

I heard the collective farmers said that they would reap rye.

Here is the horror! gasped Podkovkin. - What do we do?

But Orange Neck only winked merrily at her husband:

Don't worry, don't worry. This is the safest place. No one will come here until our chicks are out of their eggs. Hack it on your nose: partridge chicks hatch when the rye blossoms.

And when will people come to reap it?

And people will wait until the rye grows, spikes, blossoms, fades, fills up and ripens.

What did I tell you! shouted the overjoyed Podkovkin. - You see, what a smart wife I have! She knows ahead of time.

I'm not the smart one," Orange Neck said modestly. - This is our partridge calendar. Each of our chickens knows it by heart.

Then she turned to Skylark, praised his songs and invited him to come and see how her chicks would come out of the eggs.

Here the Quail cried out loudly from the rye:

Time to sleep! Time to sleep!

The lark said goodbye to his friends and flew home.

Before going to sleep, he kept trying to remember: “What did she say? First, the rye will grow, then it will go up ... no - it will grow high ... it will go out ... "

But he could not pronounce this tricky word in any way, he waved his paw and fell asleep.

How the fox came and what kind of children the Podkovkins had

The lark was impatient to see how the little Podkovkins would come out of the eggs. Every morning now, before ascending into the clouds, he carefully examined the rye.

The rye rose quickly and soon became the height of the tallest man.

Then the ends of its stems began to thicken and swell. Then a mustache grew out of them.

“That’s what spikelets are,” Skylark said to himself. - This is what is called vyklolo ... no - vykolo ... no - you-ko-lo-si-las.

This morning he sang especially well: he was glad that the rye would soon bloom and that the Podkovkins would hatch chicks.

He looked down and saw that crops had already risen in all the fields: barley, and oats, and flax, and wheat, and buckwheat, and potato leaves on even ridges.

In the bushes near the field where the Podkovkins' nest was in the tall rye, he noticed a bright red stripe. He went down lower and saw: it was the Fox. She emerged from the bushes and crept across the mowed meadow towards the field of partridges.

The lark's heart thumped hard. He was not afraid for himself: the Fox could not do anything to him in the air. But the terrible beast could find his friends nest, catch Orange Neck, ruin her nest.

Lark descended even lower and shouted with all his strength:

Podkovkin! Podkovkin! The fox is coming, save yourself!

The fox raised its head and gnashed its teeth terribly. The lark was frightened, but continued to shout with all his might:

Orange Neck! Fly away, fly away!

The fox went straight to the nest.

Suddenly Podkovkin jumped out of the rye. He had a terrible appearance: all feathers were ruffled, one wing was dragging on the ground.

"Trouble! thought Skylark. - That's right, the boys hit him with a stone. Now he's gone too." And shouted:

Podkovkin, run, hide!

But it was too late: the Fox noticed the poor cockerel and rushed to him.

Podkovkin, limping and bouncing, ran away from her. But where could he escape from the swift-footed beast!

In three jumps, the Fox was near him, and - slander! - her teeth clanged at the very tail of the cockerel.

Podkovkin gathered all his strength and managed to take off in front of the beast's nose. But he flew very badly, desperately tweeted and soon fell to the ground, jumped up, hobbled on. The fox ran after him.

Skylark saw how poor Podkovkin, now running, now taking off into the air, with difficulty reached Kostyanichnaya Hill and disappeared into the bushes. The fox pursued him relentlessly.

“Well, now the poor fellow is finished! thought Skylark. “The fox drove him into the bushes and there he will catch him alive.”

The lark could do nothing more to help his friend. He did not want to hear how the cockerel bones crackle on the fox's teeth, and quickly flew away.

A few days passed - and the rye was already in bloom. The lark did not fly these days over the field where the Podkovkins lived. He was sad about his dead friend and did not even want to look at the place where the bloody feathers of the cockerel lay.

Once Lark was sitting in his field and eating worms.

Suddenly he heard the crackle of wings and saw Podkovkin, alive and cheerful. Podkovkin sank down beside him.

Where did you disappear to?! - shouted the Cockerel, not greeting. - After all, the rye is already blooming. I'm looking for you, I'm looking for! .. Let's fly quickly to us: the Orange Neck says that now our chicks will hatch from eggs.

The lark stared at him.

After all, the Fox ate you, ”he said. - I myself saw how she drove you into the bushes.

A fox? me?! shouted Podkovkin. - Why, it was I who took her away from our nest. He pretended to be sick on purpose in order to deceive her. So entangled in the bushes that she forgot the way to our field! And thank you for the warning. If not for you, we would not see our chicks.

Well, I… I just shouted, - Skylark was embarrassed. - You're smart! He even deceived me.

And friends flew to the Orange Neck.

Shhh! Hush hush! - Met them Orange Neck. - Don't stop me from listening.

She was very preoccupied, stood over the nest and, bowing her head to the eggs, listened attentively. Skylark and Podkovkin stood side by side, barely breathing.

Suddenly Orange-throat quickly but carefully pecked one of the eggs with her beak. A piece of the shell flew off, and immediately two black pin eyes flashed out of the hole and a wet, disheveled head of a chicken appeared.

The mother poked her beak again - and now the whole chick jumped out of the collapsed shell.

Out, out! shouted Podkovkin and jumped for joy.

Do not shout! said Orange Neck sternly. - Take the shells as soon as possible and take them away from the nest.

Podkovkin grabbed half of the shell with his beak and rushed headlong into the rye with it.

He returned for the second half very soon, but a whole pile of broken shells had already accumulated in the nest. Skylark saw the chicks emerging one after the other. While Orange Neck was helping one, the other was already breaking the shell and climbing out of it.

Soon all twenty-four eggs were broken, all twenty-four chicks came out into the light, funny, wet, disheveled!

Orange Neck quickly kicked out all the broken shells from the nest with her feet and beak and ordered Podkovkin to remove it. Then she turned to the chickens, in a gentle voice she said to them: “Ko-ko-ko! Ko-ko! ”, all fluffed up, spread her wings and sat on the nest. And all the chickens immediately disappeared under it, as if under a hat.

Lark began to help Podkovkin carry the shell. But his beak was small, weak, and he could carry only the lightest shells.

So they worked for a long time together with Podkovkin. They took the shell away to the bushes.

It was impossible to leave it near the nest: people or animals could notice the shells and find a nest from them.

At last the work was finished and they could rest.

They sat down next to the nest and watched as curious little noses protruded here and there from under the wings of the Orange Neck, quick eyes flickered.

It's amazing how! .. - said the Lark. - They were just born, and they are so smart.

And their eyes are open, and the little body is all in thick fluff.

They already have small feathers, ”Orange Neck proudly said. - On wings.

Tell me please! - Lark was surprised. - And with us, among songbirds, when the chicks come out of the eggs, they are blind, naked ...

They can only raise their heads a little and open their mouths.

Oh, you won't see it now! said Orange Neck cheerfully. - Let me just warm them up a little more with my warmth to dry them well ... and we will immediately open the playground.

What kind of playground did the Porshkovs have and what did they do

They chatted some more, then Orange Neck asks:

Podkovkin, where can you find small green caterpillars and soft snails nearby now?

Right here, nearby, - Podkovkin hurried, - two steps away, in our own field. I've looked.

Our children, said Orange Neck, need the most tender food in the early days. They will learn to eat grains later. Well, Podkovkin, show the way, we will follow you.

And the chicks? - Lark was alarmed. - Do you really leave the crumbs alone?

The crumbs will come with us,” Orange-throated said calmly. - Here, look.

She carefully stepped down from the nest and called in a gentle voice:

Co-co! Ko-ko-ko!

And all twenty-four chicks jumped up on their legs, jumped out of the nest-basket and rolled after their mother in cheerful spools.

Podkovkin went in front, followed by Orange Neck with chickens, and behind everyone - Lark. The chicks peek-peaked, the mother said “ko-kko”, and Podkovkin himself was silent and walked, sticking out his blue chest with a chocolate horseshoe and proudly looking around.

A minute later they came to a place where rye was rare and tussocks rose between its stems.

Great place! - approved Orange Neck. We'll set up a playground here.

And she immediately set to work with Podkovkin to look for green caterpillars and soft snails for her chicks.

The lark also wanted to feed the chickens. He found four caterpillars and called:

Chick-chick-chick, run here!

The chicks ate what their parents had given them and rode off to Skylark. They look, but there are no caterpillars! The lark was embarrassed and probably would have blushed if he had not had feathers on his face: after all, while he was waiting for the chickens, he imperceptibly somehow himself put all four caterpillars into his mouth. On the other hand, Orange Neck and Podkovkin did not swallow a single caterpillar, but took each one in its beak and deftly sent one of the chickens into the open mouth - all in turn.

Now let's study," said Orange-throat, when the chickens had eaten. - Kkok!

All twenty-four chickens stopped, who was where, and looked at their mother.

Kkok means attention! explained Orange Neck to Skylark. - Now I'll call them after me - and look! .. Ko-kko! Ko-ko-ko! .. - she called in her most gentle voice and went to the bumps.

All twenty-four chickens followed her.

Orange Neck jumped over the bumps and, without stopping, went on.

The chickens ran to the bumps - and stop! They did not know what to do: after all, the bumps in front of them were like high steep mountains or like three-story houses.

The chickens tried to climb the steep slope, but they fell and rolled down. At the same time, they peeped so pitifully that the good Lark's heart sank.

Co-co! Ko-ko-ko! - again persistently called the Orange Neck from the other side of the bumps. - Here, here, follow me!

And suddenly all twenty-four chicks at once waved their tiny wings, fluttered and flew away. They rose not high above the ground, but nevertheless the hummocks flew over, fell right on their legs and rolled without respite after the Orange Neck.

The lark even opened its beak in surprise. How so? Just born into the world, and how they know how!

Oh, what capable children you have! he said to Podkovkin and Orange Neck. - It's just a miracle: they already fly!

Just a little, said Orange Neck. - They can't go far. Just flutter up and sit down. That's what hunters call our children: po r sh k i.

We songbirds, said Skylark, have nestlings in the nest until their wings grow. The nest is so well hidden in the grass that not even a hawk's eye can see it. And where will you hide your pistons if the Falcon suddenly arrives?

Then I'll do this, - said Podkovkin and shouted loudly: - Chirr-vik!

All twenty-four pistons at once tightened their legs and ... as if they fell through the ground!

The lark turned his head in all directions, trying to see at least one chick: after all, he knew that they were hiding here; before him on the ground. I looked and looked and saw no one.

Focus-pocus-chirvirocus! - Podkovkin winked at him merrily, and then suddenly shouted: - One, two, three, chir-vir-ri!

All twenty-four pistons jumped up at once and became visible again.

The lark gasped: this is clever!

And when evening came and the Podkovkins led the children to put them to bed, Orange Neck said to Skylark:

Until people finish haymaking, you can always find us either in the nest or on the playground. And when the rye is poured and people come to reap it, look for us where the flax grows. There we will open a primary school for our children.

How the Hawk flew into the fields and what a misfortune befell on Kostyanichnaya Hill

It's the middle of summer. All the animals and birds brought out the children. And predators began to visit the fields every day.

The lark still rose in the morning under the clouds and sang there. But now he often had to interrupt the singing and fly to warn his acquaintances of the danger.

And his fields were full of friends and acquaintances: Lark lived in peace with everyone, and everyone loved him. He himself loved his friends Podkovkins most of all. I tried to fly more and more over the field where the nest of the Orange Neck was.

It flies in the sky, and he vigilantly watches if a predator appears somewhere.

Now the sun has risen, and from the distant fields, from behind the river, the bluish-white Lun is already approaching. His face is round like a cat's, his nose is hooked.

He flies low, low over the green rye and looks, looks out: won't a chick or a mouse flash somewhere? Suddenly it stops in mid-flight and, like a butterfly, raising its wings above its back, hangs in the air: it peers into one place.

There now the Little Mouse darted away from him into a hole. Lun is waiting for the Mouse to stick his nose out of the mink. If he sticks it out, Lun will fold its wings at once, fall down like a stone - and the Mouse's claws will be clawed!

But Lark is already rushing from a height and, shouting to Podkovkin on the fly: “The harrier has arrived!”, Hastens to the mink, shouting to the Mouse:

Don't stick your nose out! Do not stick your nose out of the mink!

Podkovkin commands his pistons:

Chirr-vik!

And the powders tighten their legs, become invisible.

The little mouse hears the Lark and, trembling with fear, hides deeper into the hole.

Every day a black kite with a notch on its long tail and a brown Mouser Buzzard flew in from a distant forest. They circled over the fields, looking for prey. Their claws are always ready to grab a careless mouse or powder. But from morning until noon, and again an hour later, the Skylark watches in the sky, and all the birds and animals of the field are calm: they have a good watchman.

And at noon, predators fly to the river - to a watering place. Then Lark also descends to the ground to eat and take a nap for half an hour after dinner, and in the fields comes the "dead hour" - the hour of rest and sleep.

And maybe everything would have turned out well, all the animal cubs would have been intact and the partridges' powders would have grown calmly, yes, unfortunately, the Gray Hawk flew into the fields.

Terrible to small animals and birds are the Lun, and the Kite, and the Buzzard-Myshelov. Even more terrible is the small Gray Sparrowhawk - a cat bird. His pitiless yellow eyes are the hardest to hide from. Neither quick legs nor dexterous wings can save him from him.

But his wife, Yastrebiha, is the worst of all. She is bigger and stronger than the Hawk. To catch an adult partridge is a trifle for her.

The hawk didn't circle the fields in plain sight like the Harrier or the Buzzard. She just swept over the rye and somewhere behind the Kostyanichnaya Hill suddenly disappeared.

The lark shouted from above:

Hawk! Save yourself! - and shut up.

He himself did not know where the Hawk had gone: he did not have time to notice.

Thick bushes grow on Kostyanichnaya Hill, and above them two tall aspens rise into the sky. One is dry. The other is like a green round tower. The kite and the Mouser Buzzard used to fly and fly and sit down on a dry aspen: from here they can clearly see what is happening around in the fields.

They can see, but they can be seen. And while the predator sits on a dry aspen, not a single mouse sticks its nose out of its mink, not a single bird appears from the bushes or from the bread.

But the Hawk rushed over their heads - and she was gone. Nobody sits on a dry aspen. No one is circling over the fields. The lark again quietly sang in the air.

And the wild animals crawl out of their minks: from inconspicuous little holes under bushes, in bread, between tussocks.

The lark sees from a height: here the Hare rolled out from under the bush, stood up in a column, looked around, turned his ears in all directions. Nothing, take it easy. He sank down on his front short paws and began to pluck the grass.

Mice darting between bumps.

Podkovkin with the Orange Neck led his pistons to Kostyanichnaya Hill itself.

What are they doing there? Why, they teach children to peck grains! Podkovkin will poke his nose into the ground several times, say something, and all twenty-four pistons will run towards him at full speed, poking their short noses funny into the ground.

And over there, on the very hill, by two aspens, are the neighbors of the Podkovkins, the Brovkin family: Brovkin himself and his hen, Blue Nose, and their children, powder crumbs.

Skylark sees all this, and someone else sees it: the one who hid in a tall green aspen, like in a tower. And who is hiding there, neither the Lark, nor any of the field animals and birds can be seen.

“Now,” thinks Skylark, “again Podkovkin will fight with Brovkin. So, they saw each other, both fluffed up, fluffed up ... No, nothing, they don’t fight. It looks like the time for fighting is over. Only Orange Neck turned back into the rye: she was taking her children away. And Blue Nose too… Ow!”

A gray lightning flashed from above, from a green aspen, Hawk. And the Blue Nose hen huddled in her claws - fluff flew over the bushes.

Chirr-vik! shouted Podkovkin desperately.

So he saw the hawk too. The entire Podkovkin family disappeared in the rye. And Brovkin was completely taken aback. He should also shout “chirr-vik!” Yes, to escape with the pistons into the bushes, and he, out of fright, chirped and flew off, like Podkovkin from the Fox, pretending to be knocked down.

Oh, stupid, stupid cockerel! A hawk is not a Fox! How can short partridge wings save from it!

The hawk threw a dead chicken - and after him! She hit Brovkin in the back, and fell into the bushes with him.

And the crumbs-powders of Brovkin remained orphans - without a father, without a mother.

What did the pistons learn at the first stage school

The hawk was eaten on the spot by Brovkin's cockerel, and the Blue Nose hen was carried away into the forest - to her gluttonous hawks for dinner.

The lark flew to the Podkovkins.

Have you seen? - met him with a question Orange Neck. - Horror, horror! Poor little Brovkins, bitter orphans... let's go and find them.

And she ran so fast that the pistons had to flutter every minute to keep up with her.

On Kostyanichnaya Hill she stopped and called loudly:

Co-co! Ko-ko-ko!

Nobody answered her.

Oh, poor, oh, poor babies! said Orange Neck. - They were so frightened that they did not dare to jump up on their legs.

She called a second time.

And again no one answered.

She called for the third time - and suddenly all around, from all sides, as if from under the ground, little Brovkins grew up and rolled towards her with a squeak.

Orange Neck fluffed out her feathers and took all her babies and all the Brovkins under her wings.

So many pistons could not fit under her wings. They climbed on top of each other, pushed, kicked, shoved, and then one or the other of them flew out head over heels. Orange Neck was now pushing him gently back into the warmth.

Let now, - she shouted defiantly, - let someone dare to say that these are not my children!

The lark thought to himself, "That's right! All the crumbs are like two drops of water similar to each other. Let them fry me in a frying pan if I can figure out which are the Brovkins, which are the Podkovkins. I think Orange Neck herself - and she will not understand.

And said aloud:

Do you want to adopt them? You and yours...

Shut up, shut up! Podkovkin interrupted him. - Since Orange Neck said, then so be it. Orphans should not disappear without a guardian!

At that moment, for some reason, Lark suddenly had a tickle-tickle in his throat, and his eyes became wet, even though birds don't know how to cry. He felt so ashamed of this that he imperceptibly darted behind a bush, flew away from his friends and for a long time did not show himself to their eyes.

* * *

One morning, having risen to the heights, Lark suddenly saw that the collective farmers had left for the fields in a yellow car. The machine on the right side had four wooden wings with teeth like a rake, and at the bottom there was a platform like half a plate.

A man was sitting on the left side and driving the car.

He drove the car into a rye field, the same field where the Podkovkins lived. The machine flapped its wings, and Skylark thought, “Now it will rise and fly.”

But the car did not rise and did not fly, but from its right side high rye began to fall onto the plate, slipped off the plate and lay on the ground in even rows. Collective farmers followed the car and tied the fallen rye into sheaves.

And then Lightsong guessed: “Aha, this machine is a reaper! Collective farmers began to harvest rye. Now, it means that the Porches are studying at the first stage school. We need to see what they are taught there.”

As Orange Neck said, he now found the Podkovkins in linen. They were just about to give the kids a lesson. Skylark was surprised at how the powders had grown during those days. Their soft down has been replaced by feathers.

Podkovkin himself climbed a bump, and forty-four pistons, under the supervision of Orange Neck, were placed below in a semicircle.

Kkok! Podkovkin said. - Attention!

And he began to talk to the Russians about the benefits of education for partridges.

With education, - he said, - a young partridge will not disappear anywhere.

Podkovkin spoke for a long time, and Skylark saw how the pistons, one after another, closed their eyes and fell asleep.

How to protect yourself from enemies, - said Podkovkin, - from hunters, boys, from predatory animals and birds, - that is the question! In the first level school you will learn how to behave on the ground, and in the second level school you will learn how to behave in the air. We partridges are ground birds and take off only when the enemy steps on our tail.

Here Podkovkin turned to examples:

Let's say a man is approaching us... a boy, let's say. What do we do first?

No one answered his question: all forty-four pistons were fast asleep.

Podkovkin did not notice this and continued:

First of all, I or Orange Neck quietly command: “Kkok! Attention!" You already know that at this word, you all turn to us and see what we are doing.

“He didn’t have to say that,” thought Skylark, because as soon as Podkovkin said “kkok!” All forty-four of the heavily sleeping pistons woke up at once and turned their noses towards him.

I say “kkok!” Podkovkin continued, “and I hide, that is, I press my legs and press myself firmly to the ground. Like this.

He tucked his legs in, and all forty-four Porches did the same.

So ... We lie, hiding, and all the time we vigilantly watch what the boy is doing. The boy is walking towards us. Then I command almost inaudibly: "Turk!" We all jump on our feet...

Here Podkovkin, and after him all forty-four pistons jumped up.

- ...stretch like this ...

Podkovkin stretched his neck forward and upward, his whole body also stretched out, and he became like a long bottle with thin legs. And the pistons, no matter how stretched out, remained like bubbles on short legs.

- ... and we run away, hiding behind the grass, - finished Podkovkin.

The bottle suddenly ran quickly from the bump into the flax and disappeared into it. Forty-four bubbles rolled after her - and all the flax stirred around.

Podkovkin immediately fluttered out of the flax and again sat down on his tussock. The pistons are back too.

Doesn't fit anywhere! Podkovkin said. - Is that how they get away? All the flax swayed where you ran. The boy will immediately grab a stick or a stone and throw it at you. We must learn to run in the grass so as not to touch a single spikelet. Look here...

He again turned into a bottle on legs and rolled into flax. Thick green flax closed behind him like water over a diver, and nowhere else did a single stalk move.

Amazing! said Skylark aloud. - You children will have to study for a long time in order to run so deftly!

Podkovkin returned from a completely different direction than he had gone, and said:

Remember one more thing: you need to run away not directly, but by all means in corners, in zigzags - to the right, to the left; left, right and forward. Let's repeat, Skylark got hungry and did not look further, how the pistons would learn to run.

I'll be here for a minute,” he said to Orange Neck and flew off to look for the caterpillars.

In uncompressed rye, he found a lot of them, and so tasty that he forgot about everything in the world.

He returned to the Podkovkins only in the evening. The quails in the rye were already shouting: “It’s time to sleep! It's time for bed!" and Orange Neck put the children to bed.

You are already big, - she said to the pistons, - and now you will not sleep under my wing. Starting today, learn to spend the night like adult partridges sleep.

Orange Neck lay down on the ground, and ordered the Porsh-Kam to gather in a circle around her.

The powders lay down, all forty-four spouts inward, towards the Orange Neck, tails out.

Not like that, not like that! Podkovkin said. - Is it possible to fall asleep with the tail to the enemy? You must always be in front of the enemy. Enemies are all around us. Lie down all the way around: tails inside the circle, noses out. Like this. Now, from which side the enemy approaches us, one of you will certainly notice him.

Skylark bade everyone goodnight and got up. From above, he glanced once more at the Podkovkins. And it seemed to him that on the ground among green flax lies a large, motley, many, many, many-pointed star.

How a hunter with a big red dog came to the fields and how it ended

Before parting, Orange Neck said to Skylark:

When people have harvested the rye and uprooted all the flax, look for us in the barley. When they start harvesting barley, we'll move on to wheat. When they take up wheat, we will turn into oats, and from oats - into buckwheat. Remember this and you will always find us.

But there was a lot of rye in the fields, and it was not so soon removed. The collective farmers knitted the ears into sheaves, from the sheaves they made wort grandmothers. Soon the rye fields looked like chessboards, on which pawns were arranged in regular rows. While some collective farmers were harvesting rye, others were knitting flax behind a flax puller.

Birds of prey flew into the fields: harriers, buzzards, small falcons - kestrels and falcons. They sat down to rest on grandmothers, looked out for chicks, mice, lizards and grasshoppers.

The lark rose into the clouds less and less now, and sang less and less. All the larks - his relatives - had chicks growing up. It was necessary to help relatives teach the chicks to fly, look for worms, and hide from predators. It was no longer up to the songs.

Finally, the collective farmers squeezed all the rye and pulled out the flax. All rye and linen fields have become like chessboards.

Often now Lightsong heard loud shots now across the river, now across the lake: the Hunter was wandering there with a big red dog, shooting black grouse and other game. His gun rattled so terribly that Skylark hurried to fly away.

And once Lark saw the Hunter go to the fields. He walked through the compressed rye, and the red dog scurried in front of him from right to left, left to right, until he reached the barley field. Then he stopped at once as if rooted to the spot - a tail with a feather, one front paw bent. The hunter walked towards him.

Holy Fathers! gasped Skylark. - Why, there, in the barley, the Podkovkins now live! After all, the rye is all compressed and the flax is all pulled out!

And he rushed to the barley field.

The hunter approached the red dog. The dog, as it stood, stood motionless, only slightly squinting one eye at the owner.

Beautiful stance, - said the Hunter, took off the double-barreled shotgun from his shoulder and cocked both triggers. - Signal, go ahead!

The red dog cautiously, on one fingers, went forward - quietly, quietly.

Skylark was already above the Hunter and stopped in the air, unable to scream out of fear.

Red Signal walked forward cautiously. The hunter followed him.

The lark thought: "Now, now the Podkovkins will jump out and ..."

But the Signal kept going forward, turning now to the right, now to the left, but the partridges did not fly out.

Probably Grouse-Kosach in barley, - said the Hunter. - An old rooster. They often get away from the dog on foot. Go Signal!

The signal went a few more steps and stood again, stretching out its tail and tucking one paw. The hunter raised his gun and ordered:

Well, go ahead!

"Now, now!" thought Skylark, and his heart sank.

Go Signal! shouted the Hunter.

The red dog leaned forward - and suddenly, with a crackle and chirping, the entire large Podkovkin family splashed out of the barley.

The hunter tossed his gun to his shoulder and...

The lark closed his eyes in fear.

But there were no shots.

The lark opened his eyes. The hunter was already slung his gun over his shoulder.

Partridges! he said loudly. - It's good that I resisted. I still can’t forget how it was there, beyond the lake, do you remember, Signalka? - I shot the chicken. Probably the whole brood died: one cockerel cannot save the pistons. Signal back!

The signal looked at the owner with surprise. The dog found the game, made a stand, raised the game on the orders of the owner, but the owner did not shoot, and now he is calling him back!

But the Hunter had already turned and walked away from the barley field. And Signal ran after him.

Skylark saw how the Podkovkins landed at the other end of the field, and quickly sought them out there.

Here is happiness! he shouted to Orange Neck. - I saw everything and was so afraid, so afraid!

What do you! - Orange Neck was surprised. - And I was not afraid at all. After all, the hunting law allows us, gray partridges, to be shot only when all the grain fields are empty and the collective farmers begin to dig potatoes.

This hunter now goes only for black grouse and ducks, but so far he does not touch us.

He said himself,” Skylark argued heatedly, “that the other day he killed a hen across the lake.

Poor pigs, now they will all die with one cockerel!

Oh you got it! interrupted Podkovkin. “It’s as if they’re going to die right away!” Here, meet, please: cockerel Zaozerkin.

It was only then that Skylark noticed that another adult cockerel was sitting next to Orange Neck and Podkovkin.

The cockerel nodded his head and said:

It would be really difficult for me to save small children alone, after my wife died. So I brought them here and asked their good neighbors, the Podkovkins. They accepted me with all my family. Now the three of us take care of the children. See how many we have?

And he pointed with his beak at a whole herd of powders in barley.

Lark immediately recognized among them the new adopted children of the Orange Neck: the Zaozer-kiyay pistons were small, much smaller than the Podkovkins and Brovkins.

Why are your children, - he asked in surprise, - so ... small?

Ah, - answered Zaozerkin, - we have so many misfortunes this year! At the beginning of the summer, my wife built a nest, laid eggs, and for several days sat, hatched them. Suddenly the boys came and ruined our nest. All eggs are dead...

Oh, what grief! Lark sighed.

Yes. My wife had to make a new nest, lay new eggs and sit and hatch again.

The kids came out late. Here are some more small ones.

And Lark's throat tickled again, as it had when Orange's Neck gave shelter to the Brovkin orphans.

What trick did the Orange Neck come up with when the grain fields were empty and the collective farmers began to dig potatoes

The rye dried up in the wort grandmothers, and the collective farmers piled it into large piles, like at home.

The flax grandmothers were brought to the threshing floor, where they threshed the seed from them and again took them to the fields, spread them out there in damp hollows. How the logs were covered with golden rugs. With each passing day, the fields are now rapidly emptying. Podkovkins now and then moved from place to place.

Collective farmers squeezed barley - Podkovkins switched to wheat. They squeezed the wheat - the Podkovkins ran into oats. They squeezed the oats - the Podkovkins flew into buckwheat.

The hunter never came to the fields again, and Lightsong stopped thinking about him.

The lark now had even more to do. Autumn was approaching, many migratory birds were already preparing for a journey to distant lands. Gathered on the road and all the relatives of the Lark. They flew in flocks in the compressed fields, fed together, flew from place to place together: they taught their children to long flights, to high flights.

The lark now lived in a flock.

More and more cold winds blew, more and more rain poured.

Collective farmers and buckwheat were removed.

The Podkovkins moved to the river, to the potato fields. Skylark saw them running between the long high beds, as in narrow streets. I saw how the grown up youth learns to fly. At the command of Podkovkin, the whole herd immediately took off and rushed forward. A new command was heard - the whole herd turned sharply in the air, flew back, then suddenly stopped flapping its wings and smoothly descended into the bushes or potatoes.

Turning back sharply during the whole flight was considered by partridges to be the most difficult task.

Early one morning, Skylark was flying in his flock over the village.

The hunter came out of the extreme hut.

The lark became worried, separated from the flock and descended lower.

The hunter spoke loudly to himself:

Well, that's the fifteenth of September. Today - the opening of the hunt for gray partridges. It turns out that we must go to the fields.

Red Signal was glad that he was going hunting. He danced in front of the owner on his hind legs, waving his tail and barking loudly.

Skylark could not lose sight of his flock. Sad, he flew to catch up with her.

He thought: “When I see the Podkovkins now, they won’t have such a herd. The Hunter will kill half.

Thoughts about friends haunted him.

The flock flew high up and went down again. She flew far beyond the forest, made a big circle and returned to her native fields in the evening.

Hastily swallowing a few worms, Lark flew off to the river, into the potato field.

Bonfires were burning in the potato field and collective farmers were working with whole families. In their hands were white, freshly planed spatulas that looked like small oars. Collective farmers used them to dig potatoes out of the beds and put them in bags. Coal-smeared children baked potatoes in the ashes of fires and ate them right there.

There were no Podkovkins in the potato field.

From the other side of the river, the Hunter sailed in a boat to this one. Sitting next to him was Signal. The hunter landed, pulled the boat ashore and sat down to rest.

Skylark flew up to him and heard the Hunter talking to himself.

Exhausted! .. - he said. - What am I to them, hired a hundred times from coast to coast to travel? No, you're kidding! Chase them, who cares. And we'd better look for another herd, which is simpler. Am I right, Signalushka?

The red dog wagged his tail.

The sun was already setting. The hunter wearily wandered towards the village.

Skylark saw that he did not have a game, and realized that the Podkovkins had somehow managed to outwit the Hunter. "Where are they?" thought Skylark.

And as if in response to him from the other side, the voice of Podkovkin himself was heard:

Worm! Worm! Worm!

And from different sides, thin voices answered him:

Chichire! Chichire! Chichire! Chichire!

It was the response of young partridges scattered in all directions.

A minute later, Lark was among them, and Podkovkin told him how Orange Neck had deceived Hunter.

I told you that you will not find a chicken anywhere smarter than Orange Neck! After all, what did you come up with! The Hunter comes out of the house, and she already knows.

How can she know this? asked Skylark. - You can't see it from the bushes.

And it's very simple: when the Hunter goes hunting, does his red dog bark?

Is it a signal? That's right, barks!

Yes, how loud! Here Orange Neck heard and, without saying a word, march-march across the river! Of course, we are all behind her.

Across the river? That's clever!

A red dog is looking for us on this side: he can smell our tracks, but we are not! Well, Hunter, that one is cunning, - he soon guessed where we hid.

Got a boat, moved to the other side. And we are back on the beach.

I understand, I understand! - the Lark was delighted. - He is there, and you are here; He is here and you are there! He rode, rode, and said: “We are completely exhausted! I’d rather go after other partridges, which are not so cunning.”

Well, yes, - said Podkovkin. - It takes him a long time to move on a boat, and we flutter! - and on the other side!

The sun had already set, and the friends could not part for a long time: everyone rejoiced at how deftly Orange Neck managed to trick the Hunter.

How Lark said goodbye to his friends and what he sang about when he left his homeland

Collective farmers have long plowed empty fields and again sowed rye and wheat.

The flax spread in logs has long been soaked in fogs and dews; from golden to brown. Collective farmers gathered it, put it in sharp piles. And it began to seem that a countless army of invisible little men had set up camp in the logs, pitching their pointed huts in equal rows.

High in the sky, now gathering at an angle, now stretching out like a rein, flocks of wild geese flew.

The fields are empty. The loosened wet arable lands turned black where tall rye rustled in summer.

But where there was no rye, silky greenery had already sprouted and gleamed merrily.

The entire numerous family of the Podkovkins now fed on the sweet green grass. The Podkovkins spent the night in the bushes.

Leaf blowers plucked the last leaves from bushes and trees.

The time has come for the Lark to fly away to distant warm countries. And he found the Iodkovkins in the greenery to say goodbye to them.

A whole flock, a whole Big Flock of field cockerels and hens surrounded him with a cheerful cry. There were a hundred or maybe a thousand partridges in the herd. Lark did not immediately find Orange Neck and Podkovkin among them: all the young partridges were already the size of their parents, all were smartly dressed. All of them had horseshoes of delicious chocolate color on their chests. All the cheeks and throats became orange, the eyebrows were red, the breasts were blue, the tails were red. And just looking closer, Lark saw that the legs of young partridges are greenish, while those of adults are yellowish.

What did I tell you! shouted Podkovkin, running up to Lark. - Here the Big Herd is going, and who is the eldest hen in it? Of course, Orange Neck!

But Orange Neck immediately interrupted him. She asked:

Are you flying away from us to distant lands? Oh, how it is there, right, beautiful, how warm, good!

The lark shook his head sadly.

Not very good. It's warm there, that's right. But none of us, songbirds of passage, will take it into his head to sing there, none of us will curl a nest there, or bring out chicks. And it's scary there!

Why is it scary? - Orange Neck was surprised.

There, in those foreign lands, even us larks are considered game. They are hunting us with dogs and guns. They catch us with nets. There they fry us in frying pans - many, many larks are needed for one frying pan. We are fried in pans and eaten.

Ah, what a horror! shouted Orange Neck and Podkovkin in one word. So stay here for the winter.

And I would be glad, but here it is snowing, cold. All worms and caterpillars will hide. I'm surprised at you: what do you eat here in winter?

And it’s very simple,” answered Podkovkin. - Do you see how much greenery the collective farmers have sown for us? We have enough food for a hundred winters.

Yes, the snow will soon cover the greenery!

And we are his paws, paws! Behind the bushes, in the winds, there are such places - there is a little bit of snow there all winter. You scratch with your paws, you scratch - you look: green grass.

And they say, - asked Lark, - in winter there is a terrible black ice and all the snow is covered with ice?

And then,” said Orange Neck, “Hunter will help us.” The hunting law forbids shooting and catching us in the winter. The hunter knows that we can die in icy conditions. He will put huts from Christmas trees in the snow, and pour grain for us into the huts - barley and oats.

Okay here! - said the Lark. - Oh, how good it is in our homeland. If it's spring soon, I'll be back here again. Well, goodbye!

Goodbye! said Orange Neck.

Goodbye! Podkovkin said.

Goodbye! - shouted all the old and young cockerels and hens, a hundred, a thousand voices at once.

And Lark flew to his flock.

It was still morning, but a heavy gray cloud hid the sky, and everything on earth seemed gray and dull.

Suddenly, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. It immediately became bright and cheerful, like spring.

And Lark began to rise higher and higher, and suddenly he did not know how - he began to sing!

He sang about how good it was in his native fields. He sang about how people sowed bread, and lived in bread, brought out children and various birds and animals hid from enemies. He sang about how the evil hawk flew into the fields, killed the cockerel and the hen at once, how the powder crumbs remained orphans after them; how another hen came and did not let other people's little children die. He sang about how the wise field hen, the Orange Neck, would lead the Big Herd in winter, and the Hunter would put up huts in the snow and pour grain into them so that there would be something to peck at partridges in severe frost. He sang about how he would fly back to his native fields and with a ringing song would tell everyone that spring had begun.

And below, on the ground, surprised people stopped.

It was so strange and so pleasant for them that it was autumn, and Lark began to sing again.

People threw back their heads and, shielding their eyes from the sun, tried in vain to make out the little singer in the sky: there, in the height, tiny white snowflake stars curled and sparkled. And, before reaching the ground, they melted.