The region of the northern forests is rather great. There firry and piny massives are, as they say, very extensive. For such big expanses always it will be unknown, where by all of them the beginning, where the ending. Exactly there are special density, sleepy green peace here even in some sunny day. If you will look around, at once gloomy quietude will persuade you to sleep, though the night will come not soon.
Maybe, somebody was affording to dream all day long on the village's hill, but certainly was not Maria, the girl, who labored in timber industry as the constant cook for the local loggers. You are to understand: she had plenty of the different worries.
So, she had habitude to go early in the morning into the forest. To dream was not any possibility, because each day it was needed for her to cook a tasty soup and a porridge. Be diligent, the girl Maria! Feed all these successful loggers in woods without superfluous conversations. Here she took pains not to be tired up to the evening rest.
Once here as well, assiduously not getting fatigue, she regaled the loggers with the soup, and when all of them, as one, finished their dinner, Maria became to gather empty soup plates.
Suddenly out of nowhere in front of the girl appears... who? Some grandmother does. What can this old woman herein search? She gazes into the one side, then into the second, into the third.
It seems, here something was both interesting, and enjoyable for her.
The grandma took and began to laugh:
- I like it. But why? It is impossible not to see, that the work in woods looks wholly fine. All logs, which were sawed down, today are gathered accurately by diligent hands of lumbermen and calmly lie without superfluous boughs. Herewith all thin perches, these long tops of trees, are also in one heap, forasmuch as they must get the regular use. It is to my liking, that the local workers are attentive and today revere our timber opulence really.
For the girl these words were, of course, acceptable. Because in them she saw and felt just serious praise into the address of loggers with their very clever, economical mastership. Also what did Maria want immediately to undertake? To stand onto the table in front of the guest the soup plate of the fine porridge.
However the old woman has no desire to lunch, to sit here near Maria's porridge, she is not stretching her hand for the spoon. The grandmother invites the girl nearer to the river: “It is necessary to show, that I am just indispensable for the cook of the lumbermen, forasmuch as you are the dear soul for me.”
Plenty of thoughts appeared in the head of the sedulous cook Maria. One of them was rather long. What special thing is there, around the water? also what did I see near the river never? also what did I not hear from the people about?
It is true, in the forest closer to the small slow stream everyone could espy the bushes of willows. And at a distance along the river's coasts - see! - there were regular dense planting of young pine trees there. The picture for the lumbermen, as they say, was just usual. When the grandma and Maria came to the willows, when the dark stream of the river became by visible very good to them, the old woman again took for her own way - began to smile, as if she was today happy up to complete treat.
There was some perplexity at the girl. Now it is necessary to tell, the discomposure did not go away anywhere, did not pass by some magic way. If the strange visitor would eat my soup - the new idea came into the head of Maria - then the old woman would stand here calmly, not taking an all round view, and would not want to laugh near this empty water.
- Maybe, the accidental old lady, time for us to come back? I shall give you the soup plate, where will be a lot of bouillon with vermicelli and mushrooms. Our lumbermen said to me, that my cooking always is turned out very tasty.
- You are not right, my kind-hearted girl. That is very interesting place, where you need to stand without fail. Because you have deal with the grandmother by name Willow. Since ancient times I am the inhabitant of local forests. It is no wonder, that at dense bushes of willows I like to live, to have a walk each day. Please, understand! The old lady gets the mirth, when she can see the right order here throughout. Earlier there were the bald spots after diligent work of the loggers on the coasts along the river. Now all wastelands are occupied by young pine plantations. Is not it good?
- Let me figure out. You are talking about a young forest with greater satisfaction. Of course, all we think about the future concerning our village, the fir and pine groves. On the wastelands along the river the small pines are planted in order that to keep the woods from dying. Our groves need to stay alive. Also the river in the distance do.
- We understand each other. The river and all around will be alive well - the grandmother, who is called, as you know, Willow, will be to thrive too. Therefore I wish to thank the masters of local forestry.
Again the conversationalist affords to laugh, also the supposition appears suddenly by her: the intelligent lumbermen now have the special merit. They have the right to eat not only soup and porridge. Let to potatoes and to green cucumbers be on the table every day as the enjoyable celebration for those, who are cutting woods always very providently.
At once the question resounds on the part of Maria:
- To take care, to feed the workers of our forest business? It will be made with all my responsibility. The potatos may be found somewhere. But where to take these cucumbers for the necessary gift? To eat cucumbers, to crackle by fresh green vegetables, probably, will be into enjoyment for everyone. However I can not discover the cucumbers in dense woods, can I ?
There is the circumspect allegation by the old lady too.
She did not invite the girl, this kind-hearted forest culinary master, to leave for the big city in order that to buy any cucumbers there. She offers Maria to create a couple of vegetable beds on the coast of the river and to cherish here green cucumbers.
Nothing will happen the bad, if to do the ground more crumbly and to fertilize, the grandma gives the prompting. Then the local soil in the bottomland of the river will be very useful for any vegetables. Cucumbers will grow, they will become by the delicious gift for all people here. Incidentally cucumbers like to have a lot of the water, they are always ready to say "thanks", sitting on the vegetables beds closer to the river. "Thanks" to you, the clever girl Maria! Also therewith they will not be tired to grow and to remain to be the gift for the masters of forestry.
- You, the nice cook, have to think rather dexterously in order that to consider during a day all forest conditions. Then take your spade, it must dig on the coast of the river without lassitude. I have no doubt, the rural loggers will search words of respect for the work of their cook. In that case, Maria, it will be such thing, that you will want to remember the old grandmother by name Willow. All will be correct. I can admit here, there is desire by me: you must not forget Willow and her kind-hearted advice.
It is clear, that olericulture on the wood-cutting area is not the biggest need. Simultaneously there was a great deal of truth in what the old lady said. Therefore Maria thought a little, thereupon dug up the vegetable bed.
Then she asked some of those, who travelled on the timber carrying vessels, to try to take part in her business and to search seeds there, where it was possible. And did go the work concerning the cucumbers by her? This work did not go really - only there were difficulties by the cook.
The seeds did not hasten to give though small sprouts. Let the soil be very fertile near the water, but the nights in woods were more cold, than in any clean field. Yes, afterwards the sprouts appeared, however they did not hurry in order that to rise to the sky.
To tell the brief, they lie down on the ground all the same and diligently begin to waste away.
When the such unhoped misfortune on the vegetable bed has become suddenly visible, Maria has decided to go along the coast of the river to the bushes of the willows.
Why? That's why: she believed to the old lady. This clever Willow did not want to joke. There was no meaninglessness in her words. Is it correctly?
Of course, in the head of the kind-hearted cook all was right. Therefore the grandma appeared immediately, she was able to solace the poor girl:
- What can I see in my bushes!? It seems, in front of me the cook Maria is standing. The girl wants to hear my word again. Herewith I may say, that she does not feel any joy. Yes! It is impossible to confirm, that she treads upon air. That advice, which I gave earlier here, was exclusively right. Be sure! There was not any error in my words!
The old lady, this inhabitant of the willow thickets, wanted to tell still something. It was necessary, because in northern woods the different interesting events were many centuries ago. The cook has to understand all cunning things concerning though turnip, though cabbage. Though cucumbers.
During long times here the local settlement has been interested in those gifts of nature, which were in the kitchen gardens at different lands. The forest dwellers were not rich, they sold fish, venison, furs, and what did they buy there? Yes, turnip was bought by them, also cabbage.
One inhabitant of this northern forest settlement went to trade year after year to the far lands, and then he took and planted near his home just cabbage in order that not to bring vegetables from distant places.
Neighbours liked his employment, and soon there were unjoky kitchen gardens everywhere in villages of all northern forest land.
So it turned out, that the honourable glory wanted to go along all forest North, saying to people about these woods, this river and the willows, which grew on stream's shores. As to the man, who has been the first, having decided to grow cabbages and turnips, it has been happened so: he has loved to sit on the bench beside his house, to play the fife.
One day some evil-minded people came, trampled his vegetable beds. Then they took his cheerful small whistle in his greengrocery near the kitchen garden and threw it into a dark forest lake. But there the fife continued to sing. What about? The fife sang: "Headstrong people, listen to me! It is better to grow cabbage, than to kill pretty forest creatures and to trade venison."
The girl was glad to hear the story about the founder of northern olericulture, and she asked:
- What was his name?
- You may guess now yourself.
- If I am not mistaken, his name was Kitchen Garden.
Her conversationalist has told, having laughed:
- Let it be so.
- It means, I have to agree here with you. However it is difficult to me at once to take
and to believe fully concerning the fife, though you are very old, very clever without any doubts. No conversations were among our rural inhabitants about the fife, which could sing in some dark forest lake.
In this case the venerable greyheaded woman by name Willow did not become to laugh, she said simply:
- As to me, I have no desire to be persuading too strongly. If you did not want to
believe to me, please, you may do it without any objections from my side. However there is my request here. Wait a little! Soon the warm rains will come, then it will be possibility to make the planting of your small sensitive cucumbers. All-in-all I should give else one good prompting. The ancient inhabitants of woods have been not foolish, when they have swum on the local rivers. When they have builded forest settlements, having loved their mother, their northern land.
Is the need here in the good weather, in fast appearance of the warm days? Why can not the girl wait a little?
All right, the cook of the remarkable lumbermen is now in wait for the summer warmth. However these nice days were in no hurry to run nearer to the northern river.
Tomorrow the cold wind blows, the next day the drizzle falls onto the willows beside the river. A well-known fact: in the forest North often the sky frowns, herewith the sun is not in a hurry to caress here thickets of spruces and pines.
The weather is always weather, to point out to the rain clouds, how to swim in the sky, will be an awkward business for people. But, may be, did the longtime masters of the garden affairs know some cunnings in order that the soil became fertile?
If the ideas appeared by Maria, where the solid bunch of questions was, then why not to seek the recent interlocutor? She went back to the venerable old lady: sorry, but immediately I need to find out the ancient secret of hearty vegetable beds!
The sight of the decent cook was too serious in order that Willow did not pay any attention: simultaneously the girl was today reverent and anxious.
- Be sure, it was made rightly, when you decided to come here, - the grandmother
announced kindly. - Also you speaks correct things.
It seems, the inhabitant of the willow thickets had a special reason to love ancient times! She, standing close to the river with dark water, was ready to laud all these forest places, where there was a lot of blueberries and cranberries in the marshy depressions. Where in vague ageold days the fife sang its clever ballad about forest deer.
Of course, now it was perspicuously for Maria: the northern people used to walk onto the shore of the local river not for entertainments. Oh, they knew the price of not only furs and fish! Also it was known to them, how to work, to plow the soil in the floodplain and to wait the gifts of the harvest.
This tenderhearted Willow was able to screw an explanatory word. Thus her clever step was sufficient in order that to hint about something not superfluous in woods. About gifts of the northern kitchen garden? Oh, she has hinted here just it: the cucumber cares can be for you not very arduous! Deft people were at this land, and they managed to grow even sweet melons under the local modest sun.
To trust today unreservedly? If to remember all of a sudden history about the singing fife in the dark water of the lake, it was very difficult, but it will be much more awkward for the unquiet mistress of soups and porridge to believe into sweet melons near the cold river water.
- Were these fruits of the south land really sweet? When they were grown in the our northern villages? - Maria was surprised.
- There will be no error, when it will be said by me: veritable honey! - the hoary occupant of the coastal thickets reported. - Justifiably I did not go myself for the sweet fruits to the forest villages in those ageold days. But you know after all, that the rumors is flying quickly. Also I have some knowledge regarding our forest wonders, this moneybox of the grandmother Willow is big. Herewith you have to mean, that it is full-full.
There was no limit for the young cook again and again to be surprised:
- But how could these honey melons grow happily? When near the river all cucumbers begin to suffer because of a cold, to be ill, to fade?! There are no possibilities for them to be healthy in our places and to rise normally.
The old lady prepared her clever answer, you see, previously. What thing did become known for Maria this time?
Oh, the inhabitant of the willow thickets did not faltered, there was the true conception by her in the deals of the past days. At once she went to expound. The prompting was on-the-fly: you was not in the world then, but a century ago the northern people had the guess to put special wooden boxes on the ground.
In what was the whole point here? They took pains to install the wooden boxes accurately, then began to carry good soil, to fill their construction. Further all top had to be covered with glass in order that the warmth was in the box. That warmth, which will allow to any sweet melons, when plenty of moisture will be, to grow and to thrive.
Though there will be a severe frost in the morning, though there will be a push of an ice cold wind, the tiny sprouts will not hasten to fade.
The such thing happened here. It came to the girl's mind: the grandmother by name Willow decided with passion to esteem, to honor just those greenhouses, which now were for many inhabitants of the northern settlements in commonness. What does the steam from the warm soil make there in fact ? It is driving away all prickly cold.
The interesting history is packaged, if all was a century ago, even two centuries ago. All may have the place in order that to eat sweet fruits, when you take plates of glass and begin to use those northern box-shaped buildings just for rich harvest. Of course, it was useful to apply your hands to nursing of various melons-cucumbers.
That's right, with wariness the girl is trying to give her voice, but the wonderful fife, which in the old days sang in the dark forest lake, praised the northern people in those long years not for some greenhouses.
At once the old lady decided to smile politically:
- Let’s will not multiply all kind of chit-chat. You, my ready-witted girl, knows already
well, that I have not any desire to be sedulous in some argumentations. It is necessary just to ask: did not you hear earlier about pearls of the south seas? So, you must understand! Our northern people have mined freshwater pearls regularly much more earlier, than have gotten pearl gifts from the South. Also long ago white light has been allowed for the local inhabitants, for their transparently covered windows in the rural houses. Yes, without any glass all windows were assiduously covered, herewith they were transparent.
- How can it be? - Maria did not believe.
To the cook of the lumbermen it was not difficult to notice: by the grandmother Willow there is such habit - to keep gentle smiles in conversation. Most likely she did it owing to her all-knowing age.
Here again she speaks gently. She is smiling approvingly and is not abandoning to give prompting by the quiet voice. Maria is interested in the art of agriculture, in this ancient art, which was known to the inhabitants of the northern lands. And therefore it can not be obnoxious for the softhearted old lady. After all in earlier years local people managed to think very well, drudgingly concerning vegetable beds.
It will be not bad - the dweller of the willow bushes, she afforded to laugh, to wink with the goodnatured cunning - even it will be very useful to keep these things in your mind, dear cook Maria.
In south lands there were people, which guessed to cover the windows of their houses with help of bubbles of fishes. But inhabitants of our Northland knew something more interesting, than bubbles. Forasmuch as they have unveiled, have unveiled tirelessly, have taken pains to learn day by day the secrets of their forests and fields.
For example, they go along some river, roam on shallows. Whether was it possible not to see there mother-of-pearl spherules? Here they gather for themselves river pearls, petty, but very beautiful. What do they make after that? If they may sell all their finds, why not to trade?
Another case may happen. They dig some hill, suddenly see... what thing? Let will be in front of them not a glass plate, but just a bit of mica.
These experienced diggers were capable to offer their remarkable finds to owners of rural houses. There were window-panes nowhere in northern woods. However there was a mica, which could be transparent for white light, was not it?
Maria was not foolish, she understood all from the first word up to the last word, but something was especially interesting for her, of course:
- How much transparent mica was in our dense firry hursts?
- All was sufficiently: as much as it would be desirable for them, therefore inhabitants of
villages did not live in misery. Yes, they were not very poor. If someone wished to look from the window of the house to the side of the red sun, it was possible to admire by the sky, though in the morning, though in the evening on the sunset. But it is necessary to consider to you, the girl: these mica treasures have been unveiled on dependable hills - just in places, free from great dampness. In bogs, even very big and deep, the seemly treasures were never.
What did it turn out for the cook Maria? There were many advices from the grandmother Willow, also it was added a lot of wishes to continue the employment concerning the cucumbers for the sedulous loggers.
With help of her fosterlings the dexterous girl has recieved everything, that has been necessary. Soon the capacious box stood on coast of the river, this wooden building was covered by the plates of enduring glass. Did the cucumbers grow under the transparent plates? All was good, if to mean the hard glass erection, however again it was far up to well-being for the vegetables.
If now the summer is here in woods already and all sprouts have no desire to blossom, then it means: bad harvest will be. What a misfortune! There is no flowers on these cultural vegetables, and most likely there will be no cucumbers in the glass box.
Certainly, the sprouts can rise in due course. They will be more strong and will blossom in a month or in two months, but it will be too late. It will be a pity, if the green crackling gifts, that the cook Maria prepares now, will not have time to get to a table of the woodcutters before, than snows will come.
Where to go on this case? Without doubts you, the diligent girl, have to step to the bushes near the river and to call again the grandmother Willow, to ask the help. Perhaps, she knows some interesting secret in order that to waken great desire in the sprouts to blossom in the wooden box.
Whether was the secret of the old lady here as something actually?
Be assured, something is necessary to know in order that to nurse the cucumbers happily. The northern olericulture is to you not simple employment. Yes, it is a very little thing for luck to make thrusting the sprouts into the vegetable beds without serious cogitating.
That skilful man, whose fife has sung in the forest lake, has understood: special care is necessary here for cucumbers, therefore each owner of green plantings must glance more heedfully to the side of clouds with their cold winds, also to the side of the river coasts with their constant clay. Herewith it will be useful not to forget about dark lakes among firry woods. The appeared grandmother Willow began to speak just about it. She edified Maria, which was the nice girl - esteemed as the stubborn indefatigable owner of the kitchen garden:
- To me it is pleasant, that you are not going to recede. I respect with your
persistence. I wish to add something concerning the fife, which sang in our forest land. All, that was grown near the northern lake, has been very tasty. As they say, you should not lose time. Take the cucumber more soon and bite, and crackle by the cucumber with pleasure, herewith speak good words about the skilful owner of the kitchen garden! This northern vegetable was peculiar. It was just for such reason, that each cucumber was grown not on the argillaceous meagre ground, but on the soil, flavoured by black laky silt.
Here the cook of the loggers became to understand, that the conversation about the forest lake and the river clay had the absolute right to be not adventitious, not empty.
- Well, if it is necessary some fertilizer, lime and compost, for my glass box, - Maria has started to think audibly, - then…
- No! - the grandmother Willow has smiled tenderly. - My reasonable girl! I shall not tell about compost with lime of anything bad, but these things do not go to comparison with our ancient way to grow the vegetables. You should find the dark forest lake in our woods in order that to gather there silt. Be sure, it is stronger, than different fertilizers. This black laky silt will be very useful for the cucumbers, and there will be a lot of flowers in the your glass box. Such admirable taste will be given to yours vegetables, that the loggers, these skilful masters of axes and saws, will estimate your gifts at once!
Has this laky campaign turned out happy, if Maria has gone immediately there, where it has been said ? She has found a lot of silt, has been not too lazy, and special force has been given to the plants in her box. When the cucumbers have received solid furtherance, then they has begun to blossom, to fructify, to thank the loggers for fairdealing veneration of the green woods.
Maria did not disturb the old lady in the further. But then she did not forget to recollect Willow often, though did not speak to anybody about the inhabitant of woods. Who will take and believe unreservedly into the fable concerning the old woman, capable to live in the dense bushes on the coast of the river.