"VOLODYA'S come!" someone shouted
in the yard.
"Master Volodya's here!" yelled Natalya the cook, running into the dining-room. "Oh, my!"
The whole Korolyov family, who had been expecting their Volodya from hour to hour, rushed to the windows. At the front door stood a wide sled, with three white horses. The sled was empty, for Volodya was already in the hall, untying his hood with red and cold fingers. His school coat, his cap, his snowboots, and the hair on his head were all white with frost, and his whole figure from head to foot had a pleasant, fresh smell of the snow that the sight of him made one want to say "brrr!"
His mother and aunt ran to kiss and hug him. Natalya bent down at his feet and began to pull off his snowboots, his sisters yelled with delight, the doors banged, and Volodya's father, in informal clothes, ran out into the hall with scissors in his hand, and cried out in alarm:
"We were expecting you all yesterday? Did you come all right? Had a good journey? you might let him say 'how are you' to his father! I am his father after all!"
"Bow-wow!" barked the big black dog, Milord, in a deep bass, hitting his tail on the walls and furniture.
For two minutes there was nothing but a general noise of joy. After the first burst of joy was over the Korolyovs noticed that there was, besides their Volodya, another small person in the hall, in scarves white with frost. He was standing perfectly still in a corner, in the shadow of a big coat.
"Volodya darling, who is it?" asked his mother.
"Oh!" cried Volodya." This is -- let me introduce my friend Lentilov, a schoolmate in the second class. . . . I have brought him to stay with us."
"Delighted to hear it! You are very welcome," the father said in a friendly voice. "Excuse me, I've been at work without my coat. . . . Please come in! Natalya, help Mr. Lentilov with his things. Excuse us, do put that dog outside!"
A few minutes later, Volodya and his friend Lentilov, somewhat dazed by their noisy welcome, and still red from the outside cold, were sitting down to tea. The winter sun, coming through the snow and the frozen glass of the window, shined on the big Russian teapot. The room was warm, and the boys felt a strange sensation of both the warmth and the cold in their bodies.
"Well, Christmas will soon be here," the father said in a pleasant voice, rolling a cigarette of dark tobacco. "It doesn't seem long since the summer, when mamma was crying at your going . . . and here you are back again. . . . Time flies, my boy. Before you have time to cry out, old age is upon you. Mr. Lentilov, take some more, please help yourself! We don't care too much for formality here!"
Volodya's three sisters, Katya, Sonya, and Masha (the eldest was eleven), sat at the table and never took their eyes off the newcomer.
Lentilov was of the same height and age as Volodya, but not as round-faced and light-skinned. He was thin, dark, and freckled; his hair stood up, his eyes were small, and his lips were thick. He was, in fact, ugly, and if he had not been wearing the school uniform, he might have been taken for the son of a cook. He seemed gloomy, did not speak, and never once smiled. The little girls, staring at him, immediately came to the conclusion that he must be a very clever and educated person. He seemed to be thinking about something all the time, and was so engaged in his own thoughts, that, whenever he was spoken to, he started, threw his head back, and asked to have the question repeated.
The little girls noticed that Volodya, who had always been so merry and talkative, also said very little, did not smile at all, and hardly seemed to be glad to be home. All the time they were at tea he only once addressed his sisters, and then he said something so strange. He pointed to the teapot and said:
"In California they don't drink tea, but gin."
He, too, seemed busy with his own thoughts, and, to judge by the looks that passed between him and his friend Lentilov, their thoughts were the same.
After tea, they all went into the playroom. The girls and their father continued the work that had been interrupted by the arrival of the boys. They were making flowers and decorations for the Christmas tree out of paper of different colours. It was an attractive and noisy activity. Every fresh flower was greeted by the little girls with cries of delight, as though the flower had dropped from heaven; their father was delighted too, and every now and then he threw the scissors on the floor, in annoyance at their bluntness. Their mother kept running into the nursery with an anxious face, asking:
"Who has taken my scissors? Ivan Nikolaitch, have you taken my scissors again?"
"My God! I'm not even allowed scissors!" their father would respond in a tearful voice, and, throwing himself back in his chair, he would pretend to be a deeply hurt man; but a minute later, he would be delighted again.
On his former holidays Volodya, too, had taken part in the preparations for the Christmas tree, or had been running in the yard to look at the snow mountain that the watchman and the others were building. But this time Volodya and Lentilov did not care about the coloured paper, and did not once go into the yard. They sat in the window and began whispering to one another; then they opened an atlas and looked carefully at a map.
First to Perm . . . " Lentilov said, quietly, "from there to Tiumen, then Tomsk . . . then . . . then . . . Kamchatka. There the Samoyedes people take one over the Berring's Straits in boats . . . . And then we are in America. . . . There are lots of furry animals there. . . ."
"And California?" asked Volodya.
"California is lower down. . . . We've only to get to America and California is not far off. . . . And one can get a living by hunting and stealing."
All day long Lentilov avoided the little girls, and seemed to look at them with suspicion. In the evening he happened to be left alone with them for five minutes or so. It was uncomfortable to be silent.
He cleared his throat, rubbed his left hand against his right, looked unhappily at Katya and asked:
"Have you read Mayne Reid?"
"No, I haven't. . . . can you skate?"
Busy with his own reflections, Lentilov made no reply to this question; he simply pushed out his cheeks, and gave a long sigh as if he were very hot. He looked up at Katya once more and said:
"When a herd of bison runs across the prairie the earth shakes, and the scared wild horses kick and cry."
He smiled and added:
"And the Indians attack the trains, too. But worst of all are the mosquitoes and the termites."
"Why, what's that?"
"They're something like ants, but with wings. They have a horrible bite. Do you know who I am?"
"Mr. Lentilov."
"No, I am Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw, Chief of the Always Victorious."
Masha, the youngest, looked at him, then into the darkness out of window and said, wondering:
"And we had beans for supper yesterday."
Lentilov's strange statements, and the way he was always whispering with Volodya, and the way Volodya seemed now to be always thinking about something instead of playing . . . all this was strange and mysterious. And the two elder girls, Katya and Sonya, began to keep a sharp watch on the boys. At night, when the boys had gone to bed, the girls went quietly to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were saying. Ah, what they discovered! The boys were planning to run away to America to dig for gold: they had everything ready for the journey, a pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve instead of matches, a compass, and a little cash. They learned that the boys would have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight tigers and wild people on the road: then they would get gold, kill their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and finally marry beautiful girls, and build great houses.
The boys interrupted each other in their excitement. Throughout the conversation, Lentilov called himself "Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw," and Volodya was "my pale-face brother!"
"Don't tell mamma," said Katya, as they went back to bed. "Volodya will bring us gold from America, but if you tell mamma he won't be allowed to go."
The day before Christmas Eve, Lentilov spent the whole day looking over the map of Asia and making notes, while Volodya, with a lazy face, walked about the rooms and ate nothing. And once he stood still before the holy image in the playroom, crossed himself, and said:
"Lord, forgive me; Lord, have pity on my poor unhappy mamma!"
In the evening he started crying. On saying goodnight he gave his father a long hug, and then hugged his mother and sisters. Katya and Sonya knew what was the matter, but little Masha was did not understand. Every time she looked at Lentilov she became thoughtful.
Early in the morning of Christmas Eve, Katya and Sonya got quietly out of bed, and went to find out how the boys meant to run away to America. They quietly walk to their door.
"Then you don't want to go?" Lentilov was saying angrily. "Speak out: aren't you going?"
"Oh dear," Volodya cried softly. "How can I go? I feel so unhappy about mamma."
"My pale-face brother, I beg you, let us set off. You stated you were going, you pushed me on, and now the time comes, you will destroy it!"
"I . . . I . . . I'm not destroying it, but I . . . I . . . I'm sorry for mamma."
"Say once and for all, are you going or are you not?"
"I am going, only . . . wait a little . . . I want to be at home a little."
"In that case I will go by myself," Lentilov declared. "I can get on without you. And you wanted to hunt tigers and fight! Since that's how it is, give me back my bullets!"
At this Volodya cried so bitterly that his sisters could not help crying too. Silence followed.
"So you are not coming?" Lentilov began again.
"I . . . I . . . I am coming!"
"Well, put on your things, then."
And Lentilov tried to cheer Volodya up by talking about all the great things in America, making sounds like a tiger and a steam boat, and promising to give him all the gold and lions' and tigers' skins.
And this thin, dark boy, with his freckles and his mess of hair, impressed the little girls as an extraordinary person. He was a hero, a determined character, who knew no fear, and he growled so wildly, that, standing at the door, they really imagined there was a tiger or lion inside. When the little girls went back to their room and dressed, Katya's eyes were full of tears, and she said:
"Oh, I feel so scared!"
Everything was as usual till two o'clock, when they sat down to dinner. Then it appeared that the boys were not in the house. They checked the servants' rooms, the other rooms, the neighbors. They could not be found. They sent servants into the village -- they were not there.
At tea, too, the boys were still absent, and by dinner Volodya's mother was extremely uneasy, and even started to cry.
Late in the evening they went to the village again, they searched everywhere, and walked along the river bank with lights. My God! What a fuss there was!
The next day the police officer came. Their mother cried. . . .
All of a sudden a sled stopped at the door, with three white horses.
"Volodya's come," someone shouted in the yard.
"Master Volodya's here!" yelled Natalya, running into the dining-room. And Milord barked his deep bass, "bow-wow."
It seemed that the boys had been stopped in the marketplace, where they had gone from shop to shop asking where they could get bullets.
Volodya started to cry as soon as he came into the hall, and hugged his mother's neck. The little girls, shaking, wondered with terror what would happen next. They saw their father take Volodya and Lentilov into his office, and there he talked to them a long while.
"Is this a proper thing to do?" their father said to them. "I only pray they won't hear of it at school, you would both be expelled. You should be ashamed, Mr. Lentilov, really. It's not at all the thing to do! You began it, and I hope you will be punished by your parents. How could you? Where did you spend the night?"
"At the train station," Lentilov answered proudly.
Then Volodya went to bed.
A message was sent, and next day a lady, Lentilov's mother, came and took away her son.
Lentilov looked unhappy and proud to the end, and he did not say a single word when departing from the little girls. But he took Katya's book and wrote in it as a souvenir: "Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw, Chief of the Always Victorious."
"Master Volodya's here!" yelled Natalya the cook, running into the dining-room. "Oh, my!"
The whole Korolyov family, who had been expecting their Volodya from hour to hour, rushed to the windows. At the front door stood a wide sled, with three white horses. The sled was empty, for Volodya was already in the hall, untying his hood with red and cold fingers. His school coat, his cap, his snowboots, and the hair on his head were all white with frost, and his whole figure from head to foot had a pleasant, fresh smell of the snow that the sight of him made one want to say "brrr!"
His mother and aunt ran to kiss and hug him. Natalya bent down at his feet and began to pull off his snowboots, his sisters yelled with delight, the doors banged, and Volodya's father, in informal clothes, ran out into the hall with scissors in his hand, and cried out in alarm:
"We were expecting you all yesterday? Did you come all right? Had a good journey? you might let him say 'how are you' to his father! I am his father after all!"
"Bow-wow!" barked the big black dog, Milord, in a deep bass, hitting his tail on the walls and furniture.
For two minutes there was nothing but a general noise of joy. After the first burst of joy was over the Korolyovs noticed that there was, besides their Volodya, another small person in the hall, in scarves white with frost. He was standing perfectly still in a corner, in the shadow of a big coat.
"Volodya darling, who is it?" asked his mother.
"Oh!" cried Volodya." This is -- let me introduce my friend Lentilov, a schoolmate in the second class. . . . I have brought him to stay with us."
"Delighted to hear it! You are very welcome," the father said in a friendly voice. "Excuse me, I've been at work without my coat. . . . Please come in! Natalya, help Mr. Lentilov with his things. Excuse us, do put that dog outside!"
A few minutes later, Volodya and his friend Lentilov, somewhat dazed by their noisy welcome, and still red from the outside cold, were sitting down to tea. The winter sun, coming through the snow and the frozen glass of the window, shined on the big Russian teapot. The room was warm, and the boys felt a strange sensation of both the warmth and the cold in their bodies.
"Well, Christmas will soon be here," the father said in a pleasant voice, rolling a cigarette of dark tobacco. "It doesn't seem long since the summer, when mamma was crying at your going . . . and here you are back again. . . . Time flies, my boy. Before you have time to cry out, old age is upon you. Mr. Lentilov, take some more, please help yourself! We don't care too much for formality here!"
Volodya's three sisters, Katya, Sonya, and Masha (the eldest was eleven), sat at the table and never took their eyes off the newcomer.
Lentilov was of the same height and age as Volodya, but not as round-faced and light-skinned. He was thin, dark, and freckled; his hair stood up, his eyes were small, and his lips were thick. He was, in fact, ugly, and if he had not been wearing the school uniform, he might have been taken for the son of a cook. He seemed gloomy, did not speak, and never once smiled. The little girls, staring at him, immediately came to the conclusion that he must be a very clever and educated person. He seemed to be thinking about something all the time, and was so engaged in his own thoughts, that, whenever he was spoken to, he started, threw his head back, and asked to have the question repeated.
The little girls noticed that Volodya, who had always been so merry and talkative, also said very little, did not smile at all, and hardly seemed to be glad to be home. All the time they were at tea he only once addressed his sisters, and then he said something so strange. He pointed to the teapot and said:
"In California they don't drink tea, but gin."
He, too, seemed busy with his own thoughts, and, to judge by the looks that passed between him and his friend Lentilov, their thoughts were the same.
After tea, they all went into the playroom. The girls and their father continued the work that had been interrupted by the arrival of the boys. They were making flowers and decorations for the Christmas tree out of paper of different colours. It was an attractive and noisy activity. Every fresh flower was greeted by the little girls with cries of delight, as though the flower had dropped from heaven; their father was delighted too, and every now and then he threw the scissors on the floor, in annoyance at their bluntness. Their mother kept running into the nursery with an anxious face, asking:
"Who has taken my scissors? Ivan Nikolaitch, have you taken my scissors again?"
"My God! I'm not even allowed scissors!" their father would respond in a tearful voice, and, throwing himself back in his chair, he would pretend to be a deeply hurt man; but a minute later, he would be delighted again.
On his former holidays Volodya, too, had taken part in the preparations for the Christmas tree, or had been running in the yard to look at the snow mountain that the watchman and the others were building. But this time Volodya and Lentilov did not care about the coloured paper, and did not once go into the yard. They sat in the window and began whispering to one another; then they opened an atlas and looked carefully at a map.
First to Perm . . . " Lentilov said, quietly, "from there to Tiumen, then Tomsk . . . then . . . then . . . Kamchatka. There the Samoyedes people take one over the Berring's Straits in boats . . . . And then we are in America. . . . There are lots of furry animals there. . . ."
"And California?" asked Volodya.
"California is lower down. . . . We've only to get to America and California is not far off. . . . And one can get a living by hunting and stealing."
All day long Lentilov avoided the little girls, and seemed to look at them with suspicion. In the evening he happened to be left alone with them for five minutes or so. It was uncomfortable to be silent.
He cleared his throat, rubbed his left hand against his right, looked unhappily at Katya and asked:
"Have you read Mayne Reid?"
"No, I haven't. . . . can you skate?"
Busy with his own reflections, Lentilov made no reply to this question; he simply pushed out his cheeks, and gave a long sigh as if he were very hot. He looked up at Katya once more and said:
"When a herd of bison runs across the prairie the earth shakes, and the scared wild horses kick and cry."
He smiled and added:
"And the Indians attack the trains, too. But worst of all are the mosquitoes and the termites."
"Why, what's that?"
"They're something like ants, but with wings. They have a horrible bite. Do you know who I am?"
"Mr. Lentilov."
"No, I am Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw, Chief of the Always Victorious."
Masha, the youngest, looked at him, then into the darkness out of window and said, wondering:
"And we had beans for supper yesterday."
Lentilov's strange statements, and the way he was always whispering with Volodya, and the way Volodya seemed now to be always thinking about something instead of playing . . . all this was strange and mysterious. And the two elder girls, Katya and Sonya, began to keep a sharp watch on the boys. At night, when the boys had gone to bed, the girls went quietly to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were saying. Ah, what they discovered! The boys were planning to run away to America to dig for gold: they had everything ready for the journey, a pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve instead of matches, a compass, and a little cash. They learned that the boys would have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight tigers and wild people on the road: then they would get gold, kill their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and finally marry beautiful girls, and build great houses.
The boys interrupted each other in their excitement. Throughout the conversation, Lentilov called himself "Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw," and Volodya was "my pale-face brother!"
"Don't tell mamma," said Katya, as they went back to bed. "Volodya will bring us gold from America, but if you tell mamma he won't be allowed to go."
The day before Christmas Eve, Lentilov spent the whole day looking over the map of Asia and making notes, while Volodya, with a lazy face, walked about the rooms and ate nothing. And once he stood still before the holy image in the playroom, crossed himself, and said:
"Lord, forgive me; Lord, have pity on my poor unhappy mamma!"
In the evening he started crying. On saying goodnight he gave his father a long hug, and then hugged his mother and sisters. Katya and Sonya knew what was the matter, but little Masha was did not understand. Every time she looked at Lentilov she became thoughtful.
Early in the morning of Christmas Eve, Katya and Sonya got quietly out of bed, and went to find out how the boys meant to run away to America. They quietly walk to their door.
"Then you don't want to go?" Lentilov was saying angrily. "Speak out: aren't you going?"
"Oh dear," Volodya cried softly. "How can I go? I feel so unhappy about mamma."
"My pale-face brother, I beg you, let us set off. You stated you were going, you pushed me on, and now the time comes, you will destroy it!"
"I . . . I . . . I'm not destroying it, but I . . . I . . . I'm sorry for mamma."
"Say once and for all, are you going or are you not?"
"I am going, only . . . wait a little . . . I want to be at home a little."
"In that case I will go by myself," Lentilov declared. "I can get on without you. And you wanted to hunt tigers and fight! Since that's how it is, give me back my bullets!"
At this Volodya cried so bitterly that his sisters could not help crying too. Silence followed.
"So you are not coming?" Lentilov began again.
"I . . . I . . . I am coming!"
"Well, put on your things, then."
And Lentilov tried to cheer Volodya up by talking about all the great things in America, making sounds like a tiger and a steam boat, and promising to give him all the gold and lions' and tigers' skins.
And this thin, dark boy, with his freckles and his mess of hair, impressed the little girls as an extraordinary person. He was a hero, a determined character, who knew no fear, and he growled so wildly, that, standing at the door, they really imagined there was a tiger or lion inside. When the little girls went back to their room and dressed, Katya's eyes were full of tears, and she said:
"Oh, I feel so scared!"
Everything was as usual till two o'clock, when they sat down to dinner. Then it appeared that the boys were not in the house. They checked the servants' rooms, the other rooms, the neighbors. They could not be found. They sent servants into the village -- they were not there.
At tea, too, the boys were still absent, and by dinner Volodya's mother was extremely uneasy, and even started to cry.
Late in the evening they went to the village again, they searched everywhere, and walked along the river bank with lights. My God! What a fuss there was!
The next day the police officer came. Their mother cried. . . .
All of a sudden a sled stopped at the door, with three white horses.
"Volodya's come," someone shouted in the yard.
"Master Volodya's here!" yelled Natalya, running into the dining-room. And Milord barked his deep bass, "bow-wow."
It seemed that the boys had been stopped in the marketplace, where they had gone from shop to shop asking where they could get bullets.
Volodya started to cry as soon as he came into the hall, and hugged his mother's neck. The little girls, shaking, wondered with terror what would happen next. They saw their father take Volodya and Lentilov into his office, and there he talked to them a long while.
"Is this a proper thing to do?" their father said to them. "I only pray they won't hear of it at school, you would both be expelled. You should be ashamed, Mr. Lentilov, really. It's not at all the thing to do! You began it, and I hope you will be punished by your parents. How could you? Where did you spend the night?"
"At the train station," Lentilov answered proudly.
Then Volodya went to bed.
A message was sent, and next day a lady, Lentilov's mother, came and took away her son.
Lentilov looked unhappy and proud to the end, and he did not say a single word when departing from the little girls. But he took Katya's book and wrote in it as a souvenir: "Montehomo, the Hawk's Claw, Chief of the Always Victorious."
Vocabulary: To help learners fully understand the audio and transcript, most vocabulary that might be unknown for this lesson’s level is provided. Vocab in bold is more useful for learners at the lesson’s target level. Try to choose 8 to 10 new words to learn from the story (in general, it’s best to try to learn no more than 8-10 new words a day).
Definitions are written with the help of various sources including Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary
Yard:
an outdoor area that is
next to a house.
To rush: to move or do something very quickly or in a way that shows you are in a hurry.
Sled: a
small vehicle that has a flat bottom or long, narrow strips of metal or wood on
the bottom and that is used for moving over snow or ice. See picture
Bent:
past tense of to bend.
Delight:
a strong feeling of happiness: great pleasure or satisfaction.
Scissors:
a tool used for cutting paper, cloth, etc., that has two blades joined together
in the middle so that the sharp edges slide against each other. See picture
Dazed: not
able to think or act normally because you have been surprised, injured, etc.
Freckled:
To have many freckles: small, brownish
spots on someone's skin.
Gloomy:
somewhat dark or sad.
Engaged:
busy with some activity.
To
start: to surprise.
Decorations:
something that is added to something else to make it more attractive.
Nursery:
old-fashioned : a room where children sleep, play, and are sometimes taught.
Suspicion:
a feeling that someone is possibly guilty of a crime or of doing something
wrong; or a feeling of doubt.
Mosquitos:
a small flying insect that bites the skin of people and animals and sucks their
blood.
Claw:
a sharp curved part on the
toe of an animal (such as a cat or bird).
Victorious:
having won a victory or having ended in a victory.
Compass:
Pale: Light in color.
To
expel: to officially force (someone) to leave a place or organization.
Questions:
1. What
are some common ways that boys and girls play when they are young?
2. Did
you dream of traveling and having adventures in other places when you were
young?
3. Do
you think young boys and girls have different ways of playing and socializing?
4. Do
you think that young boys and girls are different in personalities? If so, is
this difference because of nature or nurture or both?
5. What
are some funny or perhaps dangerous things you did as a child?
