Our house in Sitkino stood on the high bank of a broad swift river. It made your head swim to look down over the brink, and you seemed to be floating away and away with the stream. And only a few paces off was the forest. And what a forest it was! Huge cedars, so tall that you could not see their tops even if you bent over backwards; and bushy fir trees, spruces and larches so thick that under the shade of their broad, spreading branches it was like being in a dark mysterious cave. And the tinkling stillness all round! Just a twig snapping under your foot and sometimes the cry of a startled bird—and again falls the deep, unbroken quiet of a sleepy fairyland.
I remember our first walk in the forest. All four of us went, and we soon found ourselves in a dense thicket. Shura stopped under a huge thick cedar. We had gone on further, and called to him. He did not reply. We turned round. Our little lad was still standing there, under the cedar, so small and lonely. His eyes were wide open, and he seemed to be listening to the whispering of the forest. He had fallen under the spell of the forest, and no wonder: never before in his short life had he seen so many trees. In Aspen Woods he could have counted them all on the fingers of his hands. Somehow we managed to bring him back to life. But even afterwards, when wandering with us through the forest, he remained unusually quiet and subdued: the forest seemed to have bewitched him.
Before he went to sleep that night, Shura stood for a long time gazing through the window.
"What's up, Shura? Why don't you go to bed?" his father asked him.
"I was saying good-night to the trees," Shura murmured in reply.
Zoya too came to love the forest. Walking and playing in it became her greatest joy. Taking a basket for berries, she would run off happily down the house steps.
"Don't go far," I would call after her. "You heard what the neighbours said? There are wolves and bears in the forest."
And indeed, it was not altogether safe to go gathering raspberries: an encounter with a bear who has a sweet tooth is highly probable in a thick raspberry bush. But the raspberries were big and juicy, and sweet like honey. People used to go gathering them with buckets, in a big crowd, and usually one of the men would carry a gun, in case they came across a bear. The Siberian folk used to gather bilberries and bird cherries, and would store up mushrooms for the whole winter—there was great plenty in the forest, and Zoya would always return proudly from her wanderings with a full basket.
She and Shura would also go to the river for water— Zoya loved that too. Very neatly and deliberately, she would draw the water in a little bucket, and then stand on the bank and look at the bright, fast-flowing waves. And afterwards she would stand on the steps or at the window, still looking thoughtfully down towards the river.
Once Anatoly Petrovich decided to teach Zoya to swim. Taking her with him he swam away from the bank and then suddenly let her go. Zoya went under, popped up again and again went under.
Standing there on the bank I hardly knew if I were dead or alive. True, Anatoly Petrovich, an excellent swimmer, was swimming alongside, and of course there was no fear of the girl's drowning, but, for all that, it was frightening to watch her gasping for air and going under the water time and again. But I remember that she did not cry out once—in silence she splashed and struggled for all she was worth. Then her father caught hold of her and towed her back to the bank.
"Good girl! She'll swim in two more tries," he said confidently.
"Were you frightened?" I asked, rubbing her dry.
"Yes," she admitted.
"Shall we try again?" asked her father slyly.
"Let's!" said Zoya firmly.
Next: Winter