Pekashinsky peasant Stepan Andrejanovich Stavrov cut down a house on the side of a mountain in the cool dusk of a huge larch. Yes, not a house - a two-story mansion with a small side hut to boot.
There was a war. In Pekashin there were old people, children and women. Without a glance, the buildings dilapidated and collapsed before our eyes. But Stavrov’s house is solid, solid, for all time. The strong old man was knocked down by a funeral for his son. He stayed with the old woman and grandson Yegorsha.
The family of Anna Pryaslina did not pass the trouble: her husband Ivan, the only bread-winner, died. And Anna’s guys are a little less small - Mishka, Lizka, twins Petka and Grishka, Fedyushka and Tatyanka. In the village, the woman was called Anna-doll. She was small and thin, she was good from the face, and no worker. Two days have passed since we received the funeral and the eldest, Mishka, sat in the empty seat at the table of his father. Mother brushed away a tear from her face and nodded her head silently.
She herself could not stretch the guys. She, and so, in order to fulfill the norm, remained till a night till the night. One day when they were working with wives, they saw a stranger. Hand on a bandage. It turned out he was from the front. He sat and talked with the women about collective farm life, and they partedly asked how to call him, to dignify and from which village he was. “Lukashin,” he answered, “Ivan Dmitrievich. Sent from the district committee to you for sowing. ”
Sowing was oh and difficult. There are few people, but from the district committee it was ordered to increase the sown area: the front needs bread. Unexpectedly, Mishka Pryaslin turned out to be an indispensable employee. He didn’t do anything in his fourteen years. He worked for a grown man on a collective farm, and even for his family. His sister, twelve-year-old Lizka, had deeds and trouble, too, were full of hands. To heat the stove, to manage the cow, to feed the children, to remove in the hut, to wash the linen ...
At the sowing season - mowing, then harvesting ... The collective farm chairman Anfisa Minina returned to her empty hut late at night and, without undressing, fell to bed. And just a little light, she is already on her feet - milking a cow, and she herself with fear thinks that bread is running out in the collective farm pantry. And all the same - happy. Because I remembered how I spoke with Ivan Dmitrievich on the board.
Autumn is just around the corner. The guys will go to school soon, and Mishka Pryaslin will go to logging. You have to pull the family. Dunyasha, Inyakhina, decided to study at a technical school. She gave Misha goodbye to a lace handkerchief.
Reports from the front are all the more alarming. The Germans have already reached the Volga. And in the district committee, finally, they responded to Lukasin's relentless request - they released them to fight. He wanted to finally communicate with Anfisa, but it did not work out. The next morning, she herself purposely left for the Senopoint, and Varvara Inyakhina rushed to her there. She swore to everyone in the world that she had nothing with Lukashin. Anfisa rushed to the transfer, at the very water jumped from a horse to the wet sand. On the other side, the figure of Lukashin flashed and melted.
