childhood, on earth, my university

Chapter 7 Childhood (6)
One night, my mother didn't know where she went and left me at home to take care of the children.I boredly flipped through my stepfather's Dumas's "Doctor's Notes", and there were two banknotes in it, one for ten rubles and one for one ruble.It occurred to me that for one ruble I could buy not only a copy of the "Hagiography" but probably a book by Robinson Crusoe.When I was telling fairy tales to everyone at school, a kid said that Robinson Crusoe was the real story, and I was annoyed that they didn't like my grandmother's fairy tales, so I decided to read this book to refute them.

The next day I bought the Lives of the Saints, two battered volumes of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and Robinson Robinson, and some food, and took them to school.During lunch breaks, I share bread and sausages with the children and read wonderful Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales together.When I got home, my mother was frying eggs, and she asked restrainedly:
"You took a ruble?"

"Take it, look, I bought a few books..."

Before I could finish, my mother beat me hard with a frying pan handle and snatched away Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale and hid it forever, which hurt me more than the beating.

I didn't go to school for a few days.The stepfather publicized this matter everywhere, and it naturally spread to the school.When I went to school again, they called me a "thief." So I went home and told my mother that I was never going to school again.

My mother was pregnant again, wearing gray clothes, and while feeding my younger brother, she looked at me with dull and painful eyes.Little brother Sasha was lying on his mother's lap, watching everything around with his beautiful blue eyes, smiling quietly, as if waiting for something.He is very weak.One night, as the bell was ringing for vespers, he died suddenly.

My mother did her part to get me back on track in school.One day, while drinking evening tea, I heard my mother's hoarse cry and my stepfather beating my mother, so I ran into the room and saw my stepfather kicking my mother. Stabbed towards the stepfather's waist.The mother pushed the stepfather away, and the knife brushed past his waist, cutting a big hole in the uniform and only scratching his skin a little.My stepfather ran out of the room with an ouch, and my mother lifted me and threw me to the floor.

In the evening, when my stepfather left the house, my mother came to my bed, put her arms around me carefully, kissed me, and cried:
"Forgive me, it's my fault! Oh, but how can you use a knife like this?" I told her that I was going to kill my stepfather with the knife before committing suicide.I thought, I'll do this, and I'll give it a try anyway.

13
I lived with my grandfather again.Grandfather and grandmother have separated.My grandfather knocked on the table and said to me:
"Now I won't support you anymore, let your grandmother support you."

Grandma sat under the window, weaving lace quickly, and the pillows densely pinned with copper needles shone in the sun, and grandma was also like cast copper-no change at all.My grandfather was getting thinner and thinner, his brown hair turned gray, and his green eyes were full of suspicion.He picked up all the valuables in the house, sold them for seven hundred rubles, and gave the money to others for business.He also visited old acquaintances who used to work together in the guild, curry favor with wealthy businessmen, and begged for their alms.

Everything in the family is strictly divided: the grandmother pays for food for one lunch, and the food for the second lunch is bought by the grandfather.When he pays, lunch is always worse.Tea and sugar are kept separately for each person, but tea is boiled in a teapot.Every time I make tea, my grandfather always asks anxiously:

"Wait, how much tea did you put in?"

Then he put the tea leaves on his palm, counted them carefully, and said:
"Your tea leaves are smaller per leaf than mine, that is - I should put less, mine are larger and stronger in flavor."

As soon as I saw these tricks of my grandfather, I felt both funny and disgusting, and my grandmother also thought it was funny.

I started earning money.Every holiday, early in the morning, I carry a bag,
Go to the yards and streets to pick up ox bones, rags, waste paper, and nails.I usually do this job after school.I gave the money I earned to my grandmother.

Once, I saw her on the sly, looking at the few five kopecks I had earned in the palm of her hand, and weeping silently.

One of the more lucrative things to do than scavenge was to steal firewood and veneers from the woodyards on the banks of the Oka or on Piski Island.Every year during the market, people hastily set up some temporary booths on Piski Island to do business.After the market, the sheds were dismantled and the poles and planks were stacked.One would pay ten kopecks for a good veneer.However, if you don't want to go back empty-handed, you must do it while the watchman is hiding on a rainy day.

We formed a small group to act collectively.Among them were Vyahir, the son of Mordovan, a beggar, Kostroma, who was unaccompanied, Harbi, the Tatar Hercules, 12 years old, and the eight-year-old son of the grave watcher and gravedigger. Yaz, and Grisha Chulka, the widow's tailor's son, was the oldest.

In this town, stealing is not considered a crime, but a custom, and is almost the only source of livelihood for the half-starved petty bourgeois.But we'd rather haul planks and poles to Piski Island than steal from the streets of town.We've figured out a whole way to make the job easier.Every time, Viahir and Yaz came to the island along the ice, trying to attract the attention of the guards, while the four of us sneaked over one by one, each picking "prey", and took advantage of the two of them to provoke the guards. At that time, we used hooks and ropes to drag the planks and poles back.When we had sold our "prey," we divided the money into six parts, five or seven kopecks each.Vyahir had to bring home some wine for his mother every time, or she would beat him; Kostroma wanted to save money for pigeons, Churka wanted to save money for his mother's doctor's treatment, and Harpy the Tatar was going to save money. He got the money and went back to his hometown.

Still, we prefer picking up rags and bones to thin planks.In order not to be chased away by the spectators at the market, or to take our pockets, we had to give him two kopecks or give them half a day's bow.In short, it is not easy for us to earn money, but we get along very well. Although we sometimes quarrel, we have never fought.

Only two of our party could read - Churka and I, and Vyahir envied us very much.Later his mother Mordovia died.He lived in Chulka's house and learned to read with Chulka's mother.

Every Saturday, we play games happily.Every time we play a game, we have to prepare for a week, gather up the broken sandals on the street, and pile them up in a secluded corner.On Saturday nights, when groups of Tatar stevedores were coming home from the wharves, we took a place at the crossroads of the street and threw broken shoes at the Tatars.At first, they were very angry, chasing and scolding us.But before long, they too became fascinated by the game.When approaching the battlefield, they also armed themselves with many straw sandals.Not only that, but they stole our weapons more than once after they knew where we hid them.We therefore complain about them:
"This-is not a game."

So they divided the straw sandals equally, gave us half, and the battle began.They took up positions in the clearing, and we screamed and ran around them, throwing straw sandals as we went.They also howled.

These Tartars are no less lively than our little rascals, and we often go with them to the guild as soon as the battle is over, where they treat us to candied horsemeat and a special vegetable soup .After dinner, we ate sweet noodles and salty butter walnuts and drank strong brick tea.We like these big man opponents, they are all strong.

I really like this kind of independent life, life on the streets, and our partners.However, at school, I ran into trouble again.The classmates laughed at me, saying that I was a beggar picking up tatters, and reported to the teacher that I stink of garbage.I know this is a malicious fabrication, and I wash myself very carefully every morning and never wear the same clothes I wore when I picked up the rags.But I still remember how hurt it was to me.

I finally passed my third-grade exams and got my prize, a Gospel and Krylov's fables, a little book and a certificate.After I took these prizes home, my grandfather was very happy.Since my grandmother had been bedridden for several days due to illness, and she had no money, I took the book to a shop and sold it for 55 kopecks, and gave it to my grandmother.

After I left school, I started a street life again.Since it was the warmest part of spring, we made good money.But this kind of life didn't last long, and the stepfather was fired and gone to nowhere.Mother and little brother moved to grandfather again.My grandmother lived in a wealthy businessman's house in the city and embroidered the coffin cover for his hometown, so I acted as a nanny.

My mother was as thin as wood, she didn't say a word all day long, she could barely move her feet, and watched everything with a pair of terrible eyes.The little brother was so weak that he didn't even have the energy to cry aloud.

When eating at noon, my grandfather put his little brother on his lap, chewed potatoes and bread and stuffed them into his little mouth.After feeding a little, the grandfather lifted up the little brother's clothes a little, pressed his belly with his fingers, and murmured:

"You're full, aren't you?"

From the dark corner by the door came the mother's voice:
"You all saw that he was leaning over to grab the bread!"

"What does a child know! He can't know how much he should eat!"

As he said that, the grandfather fed a few mouthfuls of chewed food into the little brother's little mouth. "Okay, that's enough!" said the grandfather at last, "Here you are, and your mother."

Mother stood up facing me, stretched out her thin hands, her tall body was as slender as a fir tree with its branches bare.I felt that she was dying soon.

Mother died on a Sunday in August.My stepfather had found another job somewhere, and my grandmother and younger brother had moved in with him in a clean house near the station.They are preparing to take their mother in the near future.

On the day my mother died, she told me to find my stepfather quickly.When I went, my stepfather was saying Mass, and my grandmother asked me to buy snuff for her.When I returned to my grandfather's, my mother was sitting at the table, wearing a clean blue-violet dress, her hair was combed beautifully, and she was as dignified as ever.She looked at me terribly and said:
"Come here, where have you been hanging out, huh?"

Before I could answer, she grabbed my hair, picked up a long knife with the other hand, and hit me with the back of the knife. After hitting me a few times, the knife slipped from her hand.

She got up from the chair, walked slowly to the corner, and lay down on her bed:

"Give me some water..."

I took a bowl of water from the bucket, she raised her head slightly with difficulty, took a sip, then pushed me away with cold hands, sighed deeply, then looked at the icon in the corner, and then He turned his gaze to me, moved his lips, and the long eyelashes slowly covered his eyes.

I held the bowl and stood by her bed for an unknown amount of time, watching her face gradually become stiff and gray.

Grandfather came in, and I said to him:
"Mother is dead..."

Grandfather glanced at the bed:
"What are you talking about?"

He went to the stove, took out the big pie, and rattled the pot and the lid.I kept watching him, waiting for him to understand the fact.

The stepfather arrives, wearing a canvas blazer and white work cap.He picked up a chair and moved it to his mother's bed, when suddenly he yelled:
"Yeah, she's dead..."

Grandfather opened his eyes wide, like a blind man, stumbling towards the bed.

When people buried my mother's coffin with dry sand, my grandmother stumbled forward among many graves, bumped into the tip of a cross, and broke her face.After my grandmother washed my face, she told me to go home, and I didn't want to go back.I knew they were going to drink again at the funeral at home, and maybe fight again.

Mother was buried.A few days later, my grandfather said to me:
"Hey, Lexey, you are not a medal, and my neck is not where you hang, go out and make a living by yourself..."

So, I went to the world to fend for myself.

(End of this chapter)