Brief retelling of Plato's dry bread. Platonov andrey dry bread. I. Organizational moment

23.11.2019

Platonov's language is called "clumsy", "primitive", "self-made". This writer had an original manner of writing. His works are replete with grammatical and lexical errors, but this is what makes the dialogues alive, real. The article will discuss the story "Dry Bread", which reflects the life of rural residents.

The heroes of Platonov are ordinary people, as a rule, uneducated. They cannot imagine their life without hard physical labor.

The key motive in the work of Andrei Platonov is the theme of death and its overcoming. The writer expressed a deep philosophical thought in the story "Dry Bread". However, here the theme of death is revealed through the prism of children's perception.

Rogachevka

The writer often visited this village in the Voronezh region. It is here that the events of the story "Dry Bread" by Platonov take place, a summary of which is presented below.

Rogachevka is located 30 km from Voronezh. In 1924, a power station was built in the village, in which Andrei Platonov, who at that time held the position of provincial reclamator, was directly involved.

Heroes of the story

The main character of the book "Dry Bread" is Mitya Klimov. The author does not name his age, but at the end of the work he says: "Mother promised to send him to school in the fall." So the boy is seven years old. The action of the story "Dry Bread" by Platonov takes place in the summer.

The boy lives in the village with his mother. His father died during the war. Grandfather Mitya does not remember at all. However, he remembers a deaf sad voice and the warmth that emanated from this person. In the work "Dry Bread" Platonov surprisingly managed to convey the inner world of the child.

Other heroes of the work are Mitina's mother, teacher Elena Petrovna. There are only three characters in Platonov's story.

Death Theme

The boy is just beginning to explore this world. And every subject arouses interest in him. And he often thinks about death. What she is, Mitya does not know, because he has never seen her.

He asks his mother: "Does Grandpa sleep in the ground?" She answers in the affirmative. The boy now thinks that grandfather is sleeping because he is tired. He tries in every possible way to help his mother in order to save her strength. After all, if she gets tired, she will also fall asleep, disappear ...

Drought

In the story "Dry Bread" Platonov depicted village life. Mitina's mother works in the field. Platonov, in his characteristic bright, lively style, paints a picture of village life: "A hot wind blows from morning to evening, it blows fire from the sun and carries it along the earth."

"Dry Bread" is a work that is written in a very poetic language, however, like other stories and novels by Andrei Platonov. In addition, there are optimistic notes in Dry Bread. The boy sees how hard his mother is and tries to help her. She explains to him in a simple, rustic language why drought is dangerous. If there is no rain, there will be no bread.

Platonov was inspired to create the work "Dry Bread" by the tragic events of the post-war years.

In 1946, a famine began in the country. Its occurrence was influenced by several factors, including drought. The harvest has declined drastically. The newspapers later wrote that the lack of rain was to blame. Modern researchers argue that the cause of the famine was not so much in the drought as in the policy of the authorities. But of course, nothing is said about this in the work "Dry Bread". Events are shown through the eyes of a child. Yes, and there is no talk of hunger in the story - only about the scorching hot sun and hard peasant labor, which in such conditions becomes completely overwhelming.

Mother

The heroine of the story "Dry Bread" is a classic image of a Russian village woman. She works hard, not sparing herself. Labor is the basis of her life. The main task of this woman is to raise her son.

Mitya's mother appears big and strong. Nevertheless, he often asks: "Won't you get tired?" (i.e. get tired and die). And she replies: "No, I'm healthy, not old, I still have to raise you."

Get big

Mitya wants to work, but her mother doesn't allow it. He says that he is still small and cannot work on a par with her. Then the boy decides to become big at all costs. How to do it? You need to eat a lot of bread. So Mitya thinks and begins to absorb the bread pulp, washing it down with water. He eats almost the whole carpet, and the next day he suffers from his stomach.

The boy goes to the arable land to his mother, and on the way he looks around. But none of the passers-by notice the change in him. He remained a little boy who is still too early to work. "Come and your time to plow!" his mother tells him.

The boy was angry - he does not want to be small. He got angry at everyone who is bigger and stronger than him. Even to the mother. But she smiled, and all around suddenly became kind: the gray earth, and the hot wind, and the blade of grass.

old barn

The experiences of a little boy, the hero of the work "Dry Bread", Platonov conveys by describing various objects and Mitya's attitude towards them.

He has no one but his mother. Mitya doesn't go to school yet. His social circle is very narrow. He hardly remembers his dead relatives. But in their yard there is an old barn, and there are many interesting items in it. These items for Mitya serve as a kind of connection with his father and grandfather.

In the shed, which the author calls the "old man's shed", lies an ax that belonged to Mitya's grandfather. There is a wooden tackle, a wheel from a spinning wheel. The barn also contains old tools that his father used. One day the boy finds an oak chopper and realizes that with the help of this item he will finally be able to help his mother.

Field

Why did Platonov call his work "Dry Bread"? Every day the boy comes to the field where his mother works. Here he sees a picture that brings melancholy to any villager. The author describes the dry grain field so colorfully that the reader, who has never been to the village, is also imbued with the experiences of the hero of the story.

"The rye dies, little blades of grass occasionally stand alive" - such is the picture that Mitya sees every day. The mother explains to the boy that he cannot live without moisture either. Mitya understands that without rain the field will fall asleep. Just like his father and grandfather fell asleep. He takes a wooden chopper and begins to loosen the earth. Mitya believes that if he does this every day, then the dew that collects in the morning will penetrate deep into the earth.

teacher

Mitya works for a long time, selflessly. He sees nothing but dormant blades of grass. And suddenly he hears a voice. This is a teacher who knows every village boy. She was in the war, she lost her arm there.

Elena Petrovna never felt sorry for herself. She smiled kindly at everyone, despite the fact that she was a cripple. Approaching the boy, the teacher asked what he was doing. Mitya answered: "I help the bread so that it survives."

Elena Petrovna was touched by this industrious, serious boy beyond his years. The next day she was to go on a field trip with her students. Mitya was also invited. But the boy refused. "Bread is dying, we have no time" - that was his answer.

Elena Petrovna began to help Mitya, although she had only one arm, and it was very difficult for her to work. The next day she came to the field with her students. They didn't go on the tour. They took narrow choppers from the collective farm, and Elena Petrovna showed them how to work in order to grow dry bread. That day it seemed to Mitya that the blades of grass were coming to life.

This is the content of Platonov's story "Dry Bread". The main idea of the work is as follows: only love, understanding, caring for each other can save from trouble. The protagonist of the story, despite his young age, shows responsibility, which not every adult is capable of. His serious views on life amaze the teacher. And he himself serves as an example for other children.

It is worth saying that the drought in 1946 was so severe that no collective work could save the country from starvation. In addition, a lot of grain was exported that year. The work of A.P. Platonov is not devoid of romanticism and faith in communist ideals.

The writer's worldview was formed in his youth, but later he lost faith in the Soviet ideology. His fate was tragic. It is worth citing some facts from the biography of this remarkable writer.

About the author of the story "Dry bread"

A.P. Platonov was born into a simple working-class family. His father was a locomotive engineer. The family had ten children. The future writer, as a senior, actively helped his parents. From an early age he was accustomed to work. He worked as a day laborer, assistant driver, foundry worker.

During the years of the Civil War, Platonov served as a front-line correspondent, and at the same time was engaged in literary work. He wrote his most significant works in the late twenties.

In 1931, Platonov published the work "For the future", which caused an angry reaction from critics. From that moment on, serious problems began in the life of the writer, which subsided for a while only during the Great Patriotic War. Andrei Platonov wrote truthful works that could not arouse approval from Soviet censors.

Here is the e-book dry bread author Platonov Andrey Platonovich. In the library site you can download the book Dry Bread for free in TXT (RTF) format, or in FB2 (EPUB) format, or read the online e-book Andrey Platonovich Platonov - Dry Bread without registration and without SMS.

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Platonov Andrey
dry bread
Andrey Planonov
DRY BREAD
1
There lived a boy, Mitya Klimov, seven years old in the village of Rogachevka. He did not have a father, his father died in the war from an illness, now he has only one mother left. Mitya Klimov also had a grandfather, but he died of old age before the war, and Mitya did not remember his face; he remembered only the kind warmth at his grandfather's chest, which warmed and delighted Mitya, he remembered the sad, muffled voice that called him. And now that warmth is gone and that voice is silent. "Where did grandpa go?" thought Mitya. He did not understand death, because he did not see it anywhere. He thought that the logs in their hut and the stone at the threshold were also alive, like people, like horses and cows, only they were sleeping.
- Where is grandpa? Mitya asked his mother. Does he sleep in the ground?
"He's sleeping," said his mother.
- Is he tired? asked Mitya.
"I'm tired," replied the mother. “He plowed the land all his life, and in the winter he worked as a carpenter, in the winter he made sledges for cooperatives and wove bast shoes; All his life he had no time to sleep.
- Mom, wake him up! Mitya asked.
-- It is forbidden. He gets angry.
"Does papa sleep too?"
And dad is sleeping.
Are they at night?
“They have a night, son.
“Mom, will you never get tired?” asked Mitya, looking fearfully into his mother's face.
- No, what do I need, son, I will never die. I am healthy, I am not old ... I will raise you for a long time, otherwise you are small with me.
And Mitya was afraid that his mother would get tired, get tired of working and also fall asleep, as her grandfather and father fell asleep.
Mother now walked around the field all day behind the plow. Two oxen dragged the plow, and the mother held the handles of the plow and shouted at the oxen to go, and not stop and doze off. Mother was big, strong, under her hands the plowshare turned the earth. Mitya followed the plow and also shouted at the oxen so as not to be bored without his mother.
The summer was dry that year. A hot wind blew in the fields from morning to evening, and tongues of black flame flew in this wind, as if the wind was blowing fire from the sun and carrying it across the earth. At noon the whole sky was covered with darkness; the fiery heat scorched the earth and turned it into dead dust, and the wind raised that dust aloft, and it blotted out the sun. At that time one could look at the sun with one's eyes as at the moon floating in a fog.
Mitya's mother plowed the fallow field. Mitya went after his mother and from time to time carried water from the well to the arable land so that his mother would not suffer from thirst. He brought half a bucket each time; the mother poured water into a bucket that stood on the arable land, and when the bucket was full, she watered the oxen so that they would not get tired and plow. Mitya saw how hard it was for his mother, how she rested against the plow in front of her when the oxen weakened. And Mitya wanted to become big and strong as soon as possible in order to plow the land instead of his mother, and let his mother rest in the hut.
Thinking so, Mitya went home. Mother baked bread at night and left it on the bench, covering it from flies with a clean towel. Mitya cut off half of the rug and began to eat. He did not want to eat, but he had to: he wanted to grow big as soon as possible, to become strong and plow the land as soon as possible. Mitya thought that he would grow faster from bread, only he had to eat a lot of it. And he ate bread pulp and bread crust; at first he ate in the hunt, and then he began to choke from satiety; the bread from his mouth wanted to come back, and he stuffed it with his fingers and chewed patiently. Soon his mouth got tired of chewing, his jaws in his cheeks ached from work, and Mitya wanted to sleep. But he didn't need to sleep. He needs to eat a lot and grow big. He drank a mug of water, ate another cabbage stump, and again began to eat bread. Having finished half the carpet, Mitya drank water again and began to eat baked potatoes from the pot, dipping them in salt. He ate only one potato, and took the second in his hand, dipped it in salt and fell asleep.
In the evening mother came back from plowing. She sees her son sleeping on a bench, his head laid on a carpet of fresh bread and snoring like a big man. The mother undressed Mitya, examined him - did anyone bite him, looking - his stomach is like a drum.
All night Mitya snored, kicked and muttered in his sleep.
And in the morning he woke up, lived all day without eating, he did not want anything, he drank only water.
In the morning, Mitya walked around the village, then went to the arable land to his mother and all the time looked at the people he met and passers-by: did they notice that he had grown up. No one looked at Mitya with surprise and said nothing to him. Then he looked at his shadow, whether it had become longer. His shadow seemed to have become larger than yesterday, but only a little, just a little.
- Mom, - said Mitya, - let me plow, I have to go!
The mother answered him:
-- Wait! Your time to plow will come! And now your time has not come, you are a minor, you are still weak, you still need to grow and feed, and I will feed you!
Mitya was angry at his mother and at all people that he was smaller than them.
"I don't want to feed, I want to feed you!"
The mother smiled at him, and from her, from the mother, everything suddenly became good around: snuffling sweaty oxen, gray earth, a blade of grass trembling in the hot wind, and an unfamiliar old man wandering along the boundary. Mitya looked around, and it seemed to him that kind, loving eyes were looking at him from everywhere, and his heart shuddered with joy.
-- Mother! exclaimed Mitya. - What should I do? And then I love you.
- What are you going to do! said the mother. - Live, here's a job for you. Think of your grandfather, think of your father, and think of me.
"Do you think of me too?"
"I'm thinking of you too - you're the only one with me," replied the mother. -- Oh, goblin! What have become? she said to the oxen. - Well, go ahead! If we don't eat, shall we live?
2
In the parental yard, where Mitya Klimov lived, there was an old barn. The barn was covered with boards, and the boards were old from time to time, green moss had long been growing on them. And the barn itself went halfway into the ground on one side and looked like a bent over old man. In a dark corner of that barn lay old, ancient things. There the father put what he needed, and there the grandfather kept what was dear to him alone and no one needed anymore. Mitya liked to go into that dark corner of the old man's barn and touch unnecessary things there. He took an ax, all serrated, rusty and unusable, looked at it and thought: "His grandfather held in his hands and I hold." He saw there a wooden tackle that looked like driftwood, and did not know what it was. Mother then said to Mitya: it was a plow, with which grandfather plowed the ground. Mitya also found a wheel from a homemade spinning wheel there... There was also a kochedyk lying around: grandfather needed it when he wove bast shoes for himself and his children. There was still a lot of good stuff there, and Mitya touched with his hands forgotten objects, now sleeping in the twilight of the shed; the boy thought about them, he thought about how they lived long ago in the old days; Mitya was not yet in the world then, and everyone was bored that he was gone.
Today Mitya found a hard oak stick in the shed: at one end it had a root, bent down and sharp, and the other end was smooth. Mitya didn't know what it was. Maybe grandfather loosened the ground like a chopper with this sharp oak root or something else. His mother said he always worked and was not afraid of anything. Mitya took this grandfather's oak chopper and carried it to the hut. Maybe she will suit him: grandfather worked for her and he will.
3
The collective-farm field approached the very spindle of Klimov's yard. The field was sown with rye in rows. Every day Mitya went to his mother through this grain field and saw how the rye was scorching with heat and dying: small blades of rye only occasionally stood alive, and many had already drooped dead to the ground, from where they had come out into the light. Mitya tried to raise the withered blades of bread so that they would live again, but they could not live and leaned like sleepy on the caked, hot earth.
“Mom,” he said, “does the rye die from the heat?”
- It sucks, son. After all, there was no rain, and now there is none, but the bread is not made of iron, it is alive.
- And there is dew! Mitya said. - She comes in the morning.
- Why dew! replied the mother. - The dew dries quickly; the earth was all baked on top, dew does not penetrate deep into.
“Mom, what can you do without bread?”
“I don’t know how to be ... There must be help then, we live in a state.”
“But it’s better to let bread grow on the collective farm, let the dew pass into the ground.
- It would be better that way, but bread is not born without rain.
"He won't grow big, he sleeps small!" said Mitya; he missed those who sleep.
He went home alone, and his mother remained on the arable land. At home, Mitya took grandfather's wooden chopper, stroked it with his hand - grandfather must have stroked it too - put the chopper on his shoulder and went to the collective farm winter field, which was behind the spinner.
There he began to loosen the caked earth between the rows of dormant rye blades with a chopper. Mitya understood that the bread would breathe more freely when the earth became loose. And he also wanted the night and morning dew to pass from above between the lumps of earth to the very depths, to each root of a rye spikelet. Then the dew will moisten the soil there, the roots will feed from the earth, and the blade of bread will wake up and live.
Mitya accidentally struck with a chopper near the very stalk of bread, and that stalk broke and drooped.
-- It is forbidden! cried Mitya to himself. -- What are you doing!
He straightened the stalk, set it in the ground, and now began to dig the ground only in the middle of the aisle, so as not to injure the grain roots. Then he put down the chopper and began to dig with his hands and loosen the earth at the very roots of the bread. The roots were withered, weak, mother said about them that they were cowardly, and Mitya carefully felt with his fingers and loosened the soil around each rye root so as not to hurt him and so that the dew would give him a drink.
Mitya worked for a long time and saw nothing but the earth near the weakened, dormant blades of grass.
He came to his senses when he was called. Mitya saw the teacher. He did not go to school, his mother told him that in the fall she would send him to school, but Mitya knew the teacher. She was at war, and she had one right hand intact; however, the teacher Elena Petrovna did not grieve that she was a cripple; she was always cheerful, she knew all the children in the village and was kind to everyone.
- Mitya! What are you doing here? asked the teacher.
Let the bread grow! Mitya said. - I help the bread so that it lives.
- How do you help? Well, tell me, Mitya! Tell me quickly, because the land is worth it!
"He'll drink the dew!"
The teacher approached Mitya and looked at his work.
"You should play, don't you get bored of working alone?"
"It's not boring," said Mitya.
“Why aren’t you bored? Come to my school tomorrow, we’ll go on an excursion with the guys from there to the forest, and you’ll go ... Mitya didn’t know what to say, then he remembered:
- I love my mother all the time, it’s not boring for me to work. Bread is dying, we have no time.
The teacher Elena Petrovna leaned over to Mitya, hugged him with one arm and pressed him to her:
- Oh, my dear! What a heart you have - small, but big! .. You know what? You will hoe with a chopper, and I will dig at the roots with my fingers, otherwise I have only one hand!
And Mitya began to hoe the earth with his grandfather's chopper, and the teacher, squatting down, began to dig the soil with her fingers at the very roots of bread.
The next day the teacher did not come to the collective farm field alone; with her came seven children, pupils of the first and second grades. Mitya was already working alone as a chopper. He went out early today and examined all the blades of bread, near which he loosened the earth yesterday.
The sun had risen, the dew had already gone, and the wind was blowing with fire on the earth. However, those rye spikelets that Mitya cultivated seem to have cheered up now.
- They're waking up! Mitya said happily to the teacher. - They wake up!
“Of course they will wake up,” agreed the teacher. We'll wake them up!
She took the students with her, and Mitya was left alone.
"Mom plows, and I help the bread grow," thought Mitya. "The teacher has only one hand, otherwise she would work too."
The teacher Elena Petrovna took small narrow choppers from the collective farm and returned with all the boys and girls back. She showed the children how Mitya works, how to do it so that dry bread grows - she herself began to work with one hand, and all the children bowed to the rye blades of grass to help them live and grow.
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Platonov Andrey

dry bread

Andrey Planonov

DRY BREAD

There lived a boy, Mitya Klimov, seven years old in the village of Rogachevka. He did not have a father, his father died in the war from an illness, now he has only one mother left. Mitya Klimov also had a grandfather, but he died of old age before the war, and Mitya did not remember his face; he remembered only the kind warmth at his grandfather's chest, which warmed and delighted Mitya, he remembered the sad, muffled voice that called him. And now that warmth is gone and that voice is silent. "Where did grandpa go?" thought Mitya. He did not understand death, because he did not see it anywhere. He thought that the logs in their hut and the stone at the threshold were also alive, like people, like horses and cows, only they were sleeping.

Where is grandfather? Mitya asked his mother. Does he sleep in the ground?

He is sleeping, said his mother.

Is he tired? asked Mitya.

Tired, - answered the mother. “He plowed the land all his life, and in the winter he worked as a carpenter, in the winter he made sledges for cooperatives and wove bast shoes; All his life he had no time to sleep.

Mom, wake him up! Mitya asked.

It is forbidden. He gets angry.

Is dad sleeping too?

And dad is sleeping.

Do they have a night?

They're having the night, son.

Mom, will you never get tired? asked Mitya, looking fearfully into his mother's face.

No, what do I need, son, I will never die. I am healthy, I am not old ... I will raise you for a long time, otherwise you are small with me.

And Mitya was afraid that his mother would get tired, get tired of working and also fall asleep, as her grandfather and father fell asleep.

Mother now walked around the field all day behind the plow. Two oxen dragged the plow, and the mother held the handles of the plow and shouted at the oxen to go, and not stop and doze off. Mother was big, strong, under her hands the plowshare turned the earth. Mitya followed the plow and also shouted at the oxen so as not to be bored without his mother.

The summer was dry that year. A hot wind blew in the fields from morning to evening, and tongues of black flame flew in this wind, as if the wind was blowing fire from the sun and carrying it across the earth. At noon the whole sky was covered with darkness; the fiery heat scorched the earth and turned it into dead dust, and the wind raised that dust aloft, and it blotted out the sun. At that time one could look at the sun with one's eyes as at the moon floating in a fog.

Mitya's mother plowed the fallow field. Mitya went after his mother and from time to time carried water from the well to the arable land so that his mother would not suffer from thirst. He brought half a bucket each time; the mother poured water into a bucket that stood on the arable land, and when the bucket was full, she watered the oxen so that they would not get tired and plow. Mitya saw how hard it was for his mother, how she rested against the plow in front of her when the oxen weakened. And Mitya wanted to become big and strong as soon as possible in order to plow the land instead of his mother, and let his mother rest in the hut.

Thinking so, Mitya went home. Mother baked bread at night and left it on the bench, covering it from flies with a clean towel. Mitya cut off half of the rug and began to eat. He did not want to eat, but he had to: he wanted to grow big as soon as possible, to become strong and plow the land as soon as possible. Mitya thought that he would grow faster from bread, only he had to eat a lot of it. And he ate bread pulp and bread crust; at first he ate in the hunt, and then he began to choke from satiety; the bread from his mouth wanted to come back, and he stuffed it with his fingers and chewed patiently. Soon his mouth got tired of chewing, his jaws in his cheeks ached from work, and Mitya wanted to sleep. But he didn't need to sleep. He needs to eat a lot and grow big. He drank a mug of water, ate another cabbage stump, and again began to eat bread. Having finished half the carpet, Mitya drank water again and began to eat baked potatoes from the pot, dipping them in salt. He ate only one potato, and took the second in his hand, dipped it in salt and fell asleep.

In the evening mother came back from plowing. She sees her son sleeping on a bench, his head laid on a carpet of fresh bread and snoring like a big man. The mother undressed Mitya, examined him - did anyone bite him, looking - his stomach is like a drum.

All night Mitya snored, kicked and muttered in his sleep.

And in the morning he woke up, lived all day without eating, he did not want anything, he drank only water.

In the morning, Mitya walked around the village, then went to the arable land to his mother and all the time looked at the people he met and passers-by: did they notice that he had grown up. No one looked at Mitya with surprise and said nothing to him. Then he looked at his shadow, whether it had become longer. His shadow seemed to have become larger than yesterday, but only a little, just a little.

Mom, - said Mitya, - let me plow, I have to go!

The mother answered him:

Wait! Your time to plow will come! And now your time has not come, you are a minor, you are still weak, you still need to grow and feed, and I will feed you!

Mitya was angry at his mother and at all people that he was smaller than them.

I don't want to feed, I want to feed you!

The mother smiled at him, and from her, from the mother, everything suddenly became good around: snuffling sweaty oxen, gray earth, a blade of grass trembling in the hot wind, and an unfamiliar old man wandering along the boundary. Mitya looked around, and it seemed to him that kind, loving eyes were looking at him from everywhere, and his heart shuddered with joy.

Mother! exclaimed Mitya. - What should I do? And then I love you.

And what do you do! said the mother. - Live, here's a job for you. Think of your grandfather, think of your father, and think of me.

Do you think of me too?

I also think about you - you are the only one with me, - answered the mother. -- Oh, goblin! What have become? she said to the oxen. - Well, go ahead! If we don't eat, shall we live?

In the parental yard, where Mitya Klimov lived, there was an old barn. The barn was covered with boards, and the boards were old from time to time, green moss had long been growing on them. And the barn itself went halfway into the ground on one side and looked like a bent over old man. In a dark corner of that barn lay old, ancient things. There the father put what he needed, and there the grandfather kept what was dear to him alone and no one needed anymore. Mitya liked to go into that dark corner of the old man's barn and touch unnecessary things there. He took an ax, all serrated, rusty and unusable, looked at it and thought: "His grandfather held in his hands and I hold." He saw there a wooden tackle that looked like driftwood, and did not know what it was. Mother then said to Mitya: it was a plow, with which grandfather plowed the ground. Mitya also found a wheel from a homemade spinning wheel there... There was also a kochedyk lying around: grandfather needed it when he wove bast shoes for himself and his children. There was still a lot of good stuff there, and Mitya touched with his hands forgotten objects, now sleeping in the twilight of the shed; the boy thought about them, he thought about how they lived long ago in the old days; Mitya was not yet in the world then, and everyone was bored that he was gone.

Today Mitya found a hard oak stick in the shed: at one end it had a root, bent down and sharp, and the other end was smooth. Mitya didn't know what it was. Maybe grandfather loosened the ground like a chopper with this sharp oak root or something else. His mother said he always worked and was not afraid of anything. Mitya took this grandfather's oak chopper and carried it to the hut. Maybe she will suit him: grandfather worked for her and he will.

The collective-farm field approached the very spindle of Klimov's yard. The field was sown with rye in rows. Every day Mitya went to his mother through this grain field and saw how the rye was scorching with heat and dying: small blades of rye only occasionally stood alive, and many had already drooped dead to the ground, from where they had come out into the light. Mitya tried to raise the withered blades of bread so that they would live again, but they could not live and leaned like sleepy on the caked, hot earth.

Mom, - he said, - does the rye die from the heat?

It's fading, son. After all, there was no rain, and now there is none, but the bread is not made of iron, it is alive.

And there is dew! Mitya said. - She comes in the morning.

Why dew! replied the mother. - The dew dries quickly; the earth was all baked on top, dew does not penetrate deep into.

Mom, what about without bread?

We don't know what to do... There must be help then, we live in a state.

And it is better to let the bread grow on the collective farm, let the dew pass into the ground.

So it would be better, but bread is not born without rain.

He won't grow big, he sleeps small! said Mitya; he missed those who sleep.

Where is grandfather? Mitya asked his mother. - Does he sleep in the ground?

He is sleeping, said his mother.

Is he tired? - asked Mitya.

Tired, - answered the mother. - He plowed the land all his life, and in winter he worked as a carpenter, in winter he made sleighs in cooperation and weaved bast shoes; All his life he had no time to sleep.

Mom, wake him up! asked Mitya.

It is forbidden. He gets angry.

Is dad sleeping too?

And dad is sleeping.

Do they have a night?

They're having the night, son.

Mom, will you never get tired? - Mitya asked and looked fearfully into his mother's face.

No, what do I need, son, I will never die. I am healthy, I am not old ... I will raise you for a long time, otherwise you are small with me.

And Mitya was afraid that his mother would get tired, get tired of working and also fall asleep, as her grandfather and father fell asleep.

In the evening mother came back from plowing. She sees her son sleeping on a bench, his head laid on a carpet of fresh bread and snoring like a big man. Mother undressed Mitya, examined him - did anyone bite him, looking - his stomach is like a drum.

All night Mitya snored, kicked and muttered in his sleep.

And in the morning he woke up, lived all day without eating, he did not want anything, he drank only water.

Mom, - said Mitya, - let me plow, I have to go!

The mother answered him:

Wait! Your time to plow will come! And now your time has not come, you are a minor, you are still weak, you still need to grow and feed, and I will feed you!

Mitya was angry at his mother and at all people that he was smaller than them.

I don't want to feed, I want to feed you!

Mother! Mitya exclaimed. - What should I do? And then I love you.

And what do you do! - said the mother. - Live, here's your job. Think of your grandfather, think of your father, and think of me.

Do you think of me too?

I also think about you - you are the only one with me, - answered the mother. - Oh, goblin! What have become? she said to the oxen. - Well, go ahead! If we don't eat, shall we live?

Mom, - he said, - does the rye die from the heat?

It's fading, son. After all, there was no rain, and now there is none, but the bread is not made of iron, it is alive.

And there is dew! Mitya said. - She comes in the morning.

Why dew! - answered the mother. - Dew dries soon; the earth was all baked on top, dew does not penetrate deep into.

Mom, what about without bread?

We don't know what to do... There must be help then, we live in a state.

And it is better to let the bread grow on the collective farm, let the dew pass into the ground.

So it would be better, but bread is not born without rain.

He won't grow big, he sleeps small! - said Mitya; he missed those who sleep.

He went home alone, and his mother remained on the arable land. At home, Mitya took grandfather's wooden chopper, stroked it with his hand - grandfather must have stroked it too - put the chopper on his shoulder and went to the collective farm winter field, which was behind the spinner.

There he began to loosen the caked earth between the rows of dormant rye blades with a chopper. Mitya understood that the bread would breathe more freely when the earth became loose. And he also wanted the night and morning dew to pass from above between the lumps of earth to the very depths, to each root of a rye spikelet. Then the dew will moisten the soil there, the roots will feed from the earth, and the blade of bread will wake up and live.

Mitya accidentally struck with a chopper near the very stalk of bread, and that stalk broke and drooped.

It is forbidden! cried Mitya to himself. - What are you doing!

He straightened the stalk, set it in the ground, and now began to dig the ground only in the middle of the aisle, so as not to injure the grain roots. Then he put down the chopper and began to dig with his hands and loosen the earth at the very roots of the bread. The roots were withered, weak, mother said about them that they were cowardly, and Mitya carefully felt with his fingers and loosened the soil around each rye root so as not to hurt him and so that the dew would give him a drink.

Mitya worked for a long time and saw nothing but the earth near the weakened, dormant blades of grass.

He came to his senses when he was called. Mitya saw the teacher. He did not go to school, his mother told him that in the fall she would send him to school, but Mitya knew the teacher. She was at war, and she had one right hand intact; however, the teacher Elena Petrovna did not grieve that she was a cripple; she was always cheerful, she knew all the children in the village and was kind to everyone.

Mitya! What are you doing here? the teacher asked.

Let the bread grow! Mitya said. - I help the bread so that it lives.

How are you helping? Well, tell me, Mitya! Tell me quickly, because the land is worth it!

He will drink the dew!

The teacher approached Mitya and looked at his work.

You should play, are you not bored of working alone?

Not boring, - said Mitya.

And why aren’t you bored?.. Come to my school tomorrow, we’ll go on an excursion with the guys from there to the forest, and you’ll go ... Mitya didn’t know what to say, then he remembered:

I love my mother all the time, it’s not boring for me to work. Bread is dying, we have no time.

The teacher Elena Petrovna leaned over to Mitya, hugged him with one arm and pressed him to her:

Oh, my dear! What a heart you have - small, but big! .. You know what? You will hoe with a chopper, and I will dig at the roots with my fingers, otherwise I have only one hand!

And Mitya began to hoe the earth with his grandfather's chopper, and the teacher, squatting down, began to dig the soil with her fingers at the very roots of bread.

The next day the teacher did not come to the collective farm field alone; with her came seven children, pupils of the first and second grades. Mitya was already working alone as a chopper. He went out early today and examined all the blades of bread, near which he loosened the earth yesterday.

The sun had risen, the dew had already gone, and the wind was blowing with fire on the earth. However, those rye spikelets that Mitya cultivated seem to have cheered up now.

They are waking up! Mitya said happily to the teacher. - They wake up!

Of course, they will wake up, - the teacher agreed. We'll wake them up!

She took the students with her, and Mitya was left alone.

“Mom plows, and I help the bread grow,” thought Mitya. “The teacher has only one hand, otherwise she would also work.”

The teacher Elena Petrovna took small narrow choppers from the collective farm and returned with all the boys and girls back. She showed the children how Mitya works, how to do it so that dry bread grows - she herself began to work with one hand, and all the children bowed to the rye blades of grass to help them live and grow.

Andrey Planonov
DRY BREAD
1
There lived a boy, Mitya Klimov, seven years old in the village of Rogachevka. He did not have a father, his father died in the war from an illness, now he has only one mother left. Mitya Klimov also had a grandfather, but he died of old age before the war, and Mitya did not remember his face; he remembered only the kind warmth at his grandfather's chest, which warmed and delighted Mitya, he remembered the sad, muffled voice that called him. And now that warmth is gone and that voice is silent. "Where did grandpa go?" thought Mitya. He did not understand death, because he did not see it anywhere. He thought that the logs in their hut and the stone at the threshold were also alive, like people, like horses and cows, only they were sleeping.
- Where is grandpa? Mitya asked his mother. Does he sleep in the ground?
"He's sleeping," said his mother.
- Is he tired? asked Mitya.
"I'm tired," replied the mother. “He plowed the land all his life, and in the winter he worked as a carpenter, in the winter he made sledges for cooperatives and wove bast shoes; All his life he had no time to sleep.
- Mom, wake him up! Mitya asked.
-- It is forbidden. He gets angry.
"Does papa sleep too?"
And dad is sleeping.
Are they at night?
“They have a night, son.
“Mom, will you never get tired?” asked Mitya, looking fearfully into his mother's face.
- No, what do I need, son, I will never die. I am healthy, I am not old ... I will raise you for a long time, otherwise you are small with me.
And Mitya was afraid that his mother would get tired, get tired of working and also fall asleep, as her grandfather and father fell asleep.
Mother now walked around the field all day behind the plow. Two oxen dragged the plow, and the mother held the handles of the plow and shouted at the oxen to go, and not stop and doze off. Mother was big, strong, under her hands the plowshare turned the earth. Mitya followed the plow and also shouted at the oxen so as not to be bored without his mother.
The summer was dry that year. A hot wind blew in the fields from morning to evening, and tongues of black flame flew in this wind, as if the wind was blowing fire from the sun and carrying it across the earth. At noon the whole sky was covered with darkness; the fiery heat scorched the earth and turned it into dead dust, and the wind raised that dust aloft, and it blotted out the sun. At that time one could look at the sun with one's eyes as at the moon floating in a fog.
Mitya's mother plowed the fallow field. Mitya went after his mother and from time to time carried water from the well to the arable land so that his mother would not suffer from thirst. He brought half a bucket each time; the mother poured water into a bucket that stood on the arable land, and when the bucket was full, she watered the oxen so that they would not get tired and plow. Mitya saw how hard it was for his mother, how she rested against the plow in front of her when the oxen weakened. And Mitya wanted to become big and strong as soon as possible in order to plow the land instead of his mother, and let his mother rest in the hut.
Thinking so, Mitya went home. Mother baked bread at night and left it on the bench, covering it from flies with a clean towel. Mitya cut off half of the rug and began to eat. He did not want to eat, but he had to: he wanted to grow big as soon as possible, to become strong and plow the land as soon as possible. Mitya thought that he would grow faster from bread, only he had to eat a lot of it. And he ate bread pulp and bread crust; at first he ate in the hunt, and then he began to choke from satiety; the bread from his mouth wanted to come back, and he stuffed it with his fingers and chewed patiently. Soon his mouth got tired of chewing, his jaws in his cheeks ached from work, and Mitya wanted to sleep. But he didn't need to sleep. He needs to eat a lot and grow big. He drank a mug of water, ate another cabbage stump, and again began to eat bread. Having finished half the carpet, Mitya drank water again and began to eat baked potatoes from the pot, dipping them in salt. He ate only one potato, and took the second in his hand, dipped it in salt and fell asleep.
In the evening mother came back from plowing. She sees her son sleeping on a bench, his head laid on a carpet of fresh bread and snoring like a big man. The mother undressed Mitya, examined him - did anyone bite him, looking - his stomach is like a drum.
All night Mitya snored, kicked and muttered in his sleep.
And in the morning he woke up, lived all day without eating, he did not want anything, he drank only water.
In the morning, Mitya walked around the village, then went to the arable land to his mother and all the time looked at the people he met and passers-by: did they notice that he had grown up. No one looked at Mitya with surprise and said nothing to him. Then he looked at his shadow, whether it had become longer. His shadow seemed to have become larger than yesterday, but only a little, just a little.
- Mom, - said Mitya, - let me plow, I have to go!
The mother answered him:
-- Wait! Your time to plow will come! And now your time has not come, you are a minor, you are still weak, you still need to grow and feed, and I will feed you!
Mitya was angry at his mother and at all people that he was smaller than them.
"I don't want to feed, I want to feed you!"
The mother smiled at him, and from her, from the mother, everything suddenly became good around: snuffling sweaty oxen, gray earth, a blade of grass trembling in the hot wind, and an unfamiliar old man wandering along the boundary. Mitya looked around, and it seemed to him that kind, loving eyes were looking at him from everywhere, and his heart shuddered with joy.
-- Mother! exclaimed Mitya. - What should I do? And then I love you.
- What are you going to do! said the mother. - Live, here's a job for you. Think of your grandfather, think of your father, and think of me.
"Do you think of me too?"
"I'm thinking of you too - you're the only one with me," replied the mother. -- Oh, goblin! What have become? she said to the oxen. - Well, go ahead! If we don't eat, shall we live?
2
In the parental yard, where Mitya Klimov lived, there was an old barn. The barn was covered with boards, and the boards were old from time to time, green moss had long been growing on them. And the barn itself went halfway into the ground on one side and looked like a bent over old man. In a dark corner of that barn lay old, ancient things. There the father put what he needed, and there the grandfather kept what was dear to him alone and no one needed anymore. Mitya liked to go into that dark corner of the old man's barn and touch unnecessary things there. He took an ax, all serrated, rusty and unusable, looked at it and thought: "His grandfather held in his hands and I hold." He saw there a wooden tackle that looked like driftwood, and did not know what it was. Mother then said to Mitya: it was a plow, with which grandfather plowed the ground. Mitya also found a wheel from a homemade spinning wheel there... There was also a kochedyk lying around: grandfather needed it when he wove bast shoes for himself and his children. There was still a lot of good stuff there, and Mitya touched with his hands forgotten objects, now sleeping in the twilight of the shed; the boy thought about them, he thought about how they lived long ago in the old days; Mitya was not yet in the world then, and everyone was bored that he was gone.
Today Mitya found a hard oak stick in the shed: at one end it had a root, bent down and sharp, and the other end was smooth. Mitya didn't know what it was. Maybe grandfather loosened the ground like a chopper with this sharp oak root or something else. His mother said he always worked and was not afraid of anything. Mitya took this grandfather's oak chopper and carried it to the hut. Maybe she will suit him: grandfather worked for her and he will.
3
The collective-farm field approached the very spindle of Klimov's yard. The field was sown with rye in rows. Every day Mitya went to his mother through this grain field and saw how the rye was scorching with heat and dying: small blades of rye only occasionally stood alive, and many had already drooped dead to the ground, from where they had come out into the light. Mitya tried to raise the withered blades of bread so that they would live again, but they could not live and leaned like sleepy on the caked, hot earth.
“Mom,” he said, “does the rye die from the heat?”
- It sucks, son. After all, there was no rain, and now there is none, but the bread is not made of iron, it is alive.
- And there is dew! Mitya said. - She comes in the morning.
- Why dew! replied the mother. - The dew dries quickly; the earth was all baked on top, dew does not penetrate deep into.
“Mom, what can you do without bread?”
“I don’t know how to be ... There must be help then, we live in a state.”
“But it’s better to let bread grow on the collective farm, let the dew pass into the ground.
- It would be better that way, but bread is not born without rain.
"He won't grow big, he sleeps small!" said Mitya; he missed those who sleep.
He went home alone, and his mother remained on the arable land. At home, Mitya took grandfather's wooden chopper, stroked it with his hand - grandfather must have stroked it too - put the chopper on his shoulder and went to the collective farm winter field, which was behind the spinner.
There he began to loosen the caked earth between the rows of dormant rye blades with a chopper. Mitya understood that the bread would breathe more freely when the earth became loose. And he also wanted the night and morning dew to pass from above between the lumps of earth to the very depths, to each root of a rye spikelet. Then the dew will moisten the soil there, the roots will feed from the earth, and the blade of bread will wake up and live.
Mitya accidentally struck with a chopper near the very stalk of bread, and that stalk broke and drooped.
-- It is forbidden! cried Mitya to himself. -- What are you doing!
He straightened the stalk, set it in the ground, and now began to dig the ground only in the middle of the aisle, so as not to injure the grain roots. Then he put down the chopper and began to dig with his hands and loosen the earth at the very roots of the bread. The roots were withered, weak, mother said about them that they were cowardly, and Mitya carefully felt with his fingers and loosened the soil around each rye root so as not to hurt him and so that the dew would give him a drink.
Mitya worked for a long time and saw nothing but the earth near the weakened, dormant blades of grass.
He came to his senses when he was called. Mitya saw the teacher. He did not go to school, his mother told him that in the fall she would send him to school, but Mitya knew the teacher. She was at war, and she had one right hand intact; however, the teacher Elena Petrovna did not grieve that she was a cripple; she was always cheerful, she knew all the children in the village and was kind to everyone.
- Mitya! What are you doing here? asked the teacher.
Let the bread grow! Mitya said. - I help the bread so that it lives.
- How do you help? Well, tell me, Mitya! Tell me quickly, because the land is worth it!
"He'll drink the dew!"
The teacher approached Mitya and looked at his work.
"You should play, don't you get bored of working alone?"
"It's not boring," said Mitya.
“Why aren’t you bored? Come to my school tomorrow, we’ll go on an excursion with the guys from there to the forest, and you’ll go ... Mitya didn’t know what to say, then he remembered:
- I love my mother all the time, it’s not boring for me to work. Bread is dying, we have no time.
The teacher Elena Petrovna leaned over to Mitya, hugged him with one arm and pressed him to her:
- Oh, my dear! What a heart you have - small, but big! .. You know what? You will hoe with a chopper, and I will dig at the roots with my fingers, otherwise I have only one hand!
And Mitya began to hoe the earth with his grandfather's chopper, and the teacher, squatting down, began to dig the soil with her fingers at the very roots of bread.
The next day the teacher did not come to the collective farm field alone; with her came seven children, pupils of the first and second grades. Mitya was already working alone as a chopper. He went out early today and examined all the blades of bread, near which he loosened the earth yesterday.
The sun had risen, the dew had already gone, and the wind was blowing with fire on the earth. However, those rye spikelets that Mitya cultivated seem to have cheered up now.
- They're waking up! Mitya said happily to the teacher. - They wake up!
“Of course they will wake up,” agreed the teacher. We'll wake them up!
She took the students with her, and Mitya was left alone.
"Mom plows, and I help the bread grow," thought Mitya. "The teacher has only one hand, otherwise she would work too."
The teacher Elena Petrovna took small narrow choppers from the collective farm and returned with all the boys and girls back. She showed the children how Mitya works, how to do it so that dry bread grows - she herself began to work with one hand, and all the children bowed to the rye blades of grass to help them live and grow.