childhood, on earth, my university

Chapter 20 My University (4)
Izot found me, looking more robust and lovely in the night.

"Are you here again?" he asked, sitting next to me.

After a while, he said again full of fantasy:
"After I have learned the culture and read all kinds of books, I will roam the rivers and rivers of the motherland, and I will know everything! I can also talk to people freely, which is wonderful!" However, more often, Izot sat silently, thinking, and occasionally sighed.He raised his eyes to look at the hazy distance, sighed and said:
"How wonderful life is!"

I catered to a sentence:
"Yes, not bad!"

In the distance, the sun over the meadow pierced through the pink clouds and revealed its face. The sun is as beautiful as a peacock spreading its tail!
Every weekend, there are always many people gathered in our small shop, including old man Suslov, Barinov, blacksmith Korotov, and Migon is never absent.Sometimes some drunkards would come to mess around, and the most frequent one was the veteran Kostin.Once, he rolled up his sleeves, waved his fists, walked to the small shop with the steps of a fighting cock, and shouted at the top of his voice:
"Antonov, you cultist! Traitor to humanity! Say, who are you?"

He yelled and rushed forward to fight.But people caught him, laughed and pushed him into the ditch.He rolled upside down along the slope, howling desperately:

"Help! Someone is dying..."

When he climbed up, he asked Romas for a glass of vodka.

"why?"

"Because I amuse you," Kostin said.

The farmers were amused and laughed.

4
One holiday morning, Aksinya, the cook, lit the stove and went out into the yard.I am in a small shop.Suddenly, there was a loud explosion in the kitchen.The whole store shook violently, tin cans fell from the shelves to the ground, and shattered glass also fell to the ground.I jumped up and rushed to the kitchen, and Romas grabbed me and said:

"Don't go in..."

Then he rushed into the smoke and shouted out:

"Bring some water!"

I took a bucket of water and poured it over the smoke, doused the fire on the ground, and threw the wood back into the stove.

"Shut up! Be careful, it might explode..." Romas told me.Then he squatted down to examine the round pile of brown wood carefully, and dragged out the firewood I had thrown into the stove.

"Look!" He handed me the log that had been blown up into a strange shape.I saw round logs drilled into the inside and blackened.

"See clearly? They filled it with gunpowder! Well, but what can a pound of gunpowder blow up?" He put the piece of wood aside. "It's a good thing Aksinya is out. Otherwise it would hurt her." of……"

At this moment, children were running in the street, shouting:

"Hohol's house is on fire! The village is on fire!"

A Junyang people surrounded him, and someone screamed angrily:
"Get them out! What a bad thing they've done!"

Romas took the firewood to the steps outside the shop and said to the crowd:
"Someone drilled a hole in this log, filled it with gunpowder, and mixed it with our pile. But the charge was less, and nothing was blown up..."

"Don't listen to him! Get him out of here, cultist!" cried the drunk veteran Kostin hysterically.

But most of the people were silent, staring at Romas and listening to him incredulously.Then, people seemed to be dissatisfied and slowly dispersed, as if they were still regretting something.

We sat down to tea, and Aksinya looked at Romas sympathetically and said:

"You always don't tell them, so they dare to mess around."

"Aren't you angry?" I asked him.

"There's no time to be mad at every stupid act," he said quietly.Then he told me that he was going to Kazan soon, asked me what books to bring, and told me what I should do and how to do it when he was away.

Here comes Pankov.He looked at the stove, frowned and asked:
"Aren't you freaked out?"

"No. What's so scary?"

"This is a declaration of war!" said Pankov.

Kukushkin came in with a pail of slime for bricking the hearth, and said:
"Antonov, you should do less this time, be careful that someone will set fire to your boat. Now you are doing this again, be careful of disaster!"

By "this matter" Kukushkin refers to the organization of orchard cooperatives.With the help of Pankov, Suslov, and two or three other sensible peasants in the village, Romas had almost organized the co-operative, much to the chagrin of the kulaks in the village.However, the attitude of most farmers towards Romas began to improve significantly, and the number of people who came to the store to buy things increased significantly. Even the "inconspicuous" Barinov and Migon tried their best to help Romas' cause.

I adore Migoon and his melancholic, sweet singing voice.He often greets me softly at night:

"Come to the Volga."

The black river flowed quietly by us, and the river was very quiet.The waves carefully washed the gravel on the shore, washed my feet, and seemed to wash me into the boundless darkness.

"They're going to kill Antonov, and maybe you," Migon murmured to me once.Then he sang softly, sadly and forlornly.

Among my acquaintances, Barinoff was a bohemian.He and Kukushkin have many similarities.He had lived in Moscow, and at the mention of Moscow he spit at once.He had gone to the Caspian Sea to catch fish twice, and the sea was full of hype by him.The people of the village despised him, but listened to his stories as much as they listened to Migon's songs.Many times I have found his stories to be unusual, fanciful, and sometimes incongruous.

After the bombing in the kitchen, many people still came to our place to gather and read at night.I have learned a lot of knowledge from them, and at the same time, I have also absorbed a lot of useful knowledge from books. I feel that I have grown up and I am more confident in speaking.

From time to time Romas would be approached by surreptitious people, and he would climb up to my attic with them and stay there for hours.In the middle of the night, Izot and Pankov took the mysterious visitors by boat to passing ships or to the pier to Lobeshki.I watched the lanterns on the boats on the river flicker, and felt that I was also a participant in this great and mysterious enterprise.

In mid-July, Izot disappeared.Two days later his boat was found on a grassy beach on the bank of the river, seven versts below the village.The bottom and sides of the boat were smashed.The next evening, children swimming in the river found his body in a wrecked wooden boat.He was shot from behind.At this time, Romas was still in Kazan.

People in the village gathered on the bank of the river upon hearing the news.There was an uproar and quarrel on the shore.Barinov muttered:

"I should get out of here."

Two days later, Romas returned.He looked very happy.But when I told him that Izot was killed, he was so surprised that he could hardly speak:
"What, what?"

He clenched his teeth, his cheekbones suddenly protruded, and his beard trembled:

"That's true. I reminded him."

I went to the kitchen to light the samovar.

Over tea, Romas said:

"These people are so pitiful. They killed their best people! It can be said that these people are afraid of people like Izot."

He picked up his teacup and went on to say:
"People don't want someone to oppose the life they've worked so hard to create and get used to. So they can't tolerate such a person. But it turns out: it is such a person who can make life better."

After a long silence, he said in a low voice:

"Okay, let's sleep..."

I go back to the attic.After a while, heavy footsteps were heard on the stairs, and Romas stooped into my room, sat on my little bed, looked at me seriously, and said:
"You know, I'm getting married. I'm going to marry Masha? Delenkova. And it's hard for a woman to stay here..."

"Soon?" I asked.

"In autumn, wait until the apples are harvested."

After speaking, he walked out of the room.I lay in bed thinking maybe it would be right for me to get out of here in the fall.

In early August, Romas returned from Kazan with a full ship and heavy boxes.In the morning, he just woke up, finished washing, and was about to drink tea. Suddenly, he sniffled and asked worriedly:

"Why does it smell like burnt?"

At this moment, Aksinya's cry sounded in the yard:

"It's on fire!"

We rushed to the yard, the wall of the wooden house on the other side of the vegetable field was already on fire, where we piled kerosene, asphalt and cooking oil.In just a few seconds, the fire jumped to the eaves.Romes said aloud:

"Quick, get the oil barrel out!"

I quickly rolled the tar barrel out into the yard and out into the street.Women and children ran around screaming and wailing in the streets.Romas and Aksinya carried things out of the store.

When I ran into the wooden house again, there was already thick smoke billowing inside, and there were crackling and cracking sounds everywhere.The smoke choked me so hard I couldn't breathe and couldn't open my eyes.I managed to hold on to the oil drum, and just rolled to the door when I got stuck.At that moment a fire fell on me from the roof, and I yelled for help, and Romas ran up, grabbed my hand, and pushed me into the yard, saying:

"Run away, this place is about to explode..."

Then he ran into the outhouse, and I followed, for there were still many of my books in the attic.I ran up to the attic and threw the book out the window.Suddenly there was a "boom", and I understood that it was the explosion of the kerosene barrel.The roof above was on fire, and red tongues of flame came in through the windows.I rushed to the stairs, and the thick smoke rushed towards me, and the red fire dragon rushed up the stairs step by step.I stood bewildered for a few seconds, but my instinct for survival gave me the edge: I wrapped Romans' sheepskin around my head, then jumped out of the window with my mattress, pillows and a large bundle of lime bark in my arms.

(End of this chapter)