Khon Yush. Way From the Ob - страница 8

«They gave us a newborn child, from people abandoned yesterday on the shore. The exiles. The young Tatar gave birth and left for another world right away. It needs milk. Feed it, dear.»

«My milk is gone,» Khutline howled.

«That's fine. Put the orphan to your chest, and the goddess Kaltashch will help. Milk will appear. For some reason, the Mother of Heavenly Child gave us other blood, maybe we can grow it? You must help me with breast milk. Its hands and legs will get stronger, and it will run. And your daughter is also silent from hunger. Feed her too».

«I can't. I have no strength!» The hostess said, leaning her head back from the overwhelming grief, without tears, with dry sore eyes, slowly swaying.

«Take it, take it, and I'll put things in order here.»

Levne handed the baby into woman's hands, rose from her knee, went to the fire and fanned it with dry birch bark and slivers. She hung the kettle over the fire, and looked out of the house, carefully glancing toward the river. A fisherman approached the shore.

«Son, run to the boats,» she turned to the eldest son of Khutline, «it seems like Uncle Yuhur came from fishing. Tell him Aunt Levne is asking for some fish,» and hung a boiler with water over the fire. Khutline stared blankly at the strange child. Then, realizing what was required of her, she tried to feed the newborn.

«Looks like milk has appeared!» She soon said.

«Have our gods ever left an orphan?»

Khutline's son returned to the house, with a large whitefish hooked in his fingers. Silently glancing at his mother, he laid the fish on the mat. Following him, Yuhur came in and dumped his catch from the bag at the entrance to the same grassy mat.

«It's fresh. I caught it this morning, so you can make a narkhul. The whitefish rises to spawn, it's full of roe. I should go. My family has already woken up and kindled a fire in the hearth. I can see smoke rising from my house.»

«They're waiting with hot tea. You've got a good soulmate, khilyem!»

They heard the hostess weeping in the house.

«So now everyone is going to help me?» Cried Khutline.

«That's fine. We used to support the destitute since ancient times. If the husband returns, he will feed his children himself, but for now we will live like that,» answered Levne, taking up the neighbor's catch.

The little Khutline's daughter started crying. Levne went to the children. The boys carefully shook the crib with his little sister by the rope. She untied the cradle with a crying child from the perch and handed it over to her mother.

«Don't you cry. Feed your daughter, she's hungry since yesterday. Think of your little kids, this is what the goddess Kaltashch Anki bequeathed. Only empty-headed cuckoos sing for the whole forest, forgetting about their children. Spirits will quickly punish you for weakness. Remember the ancient covenants of our gods. Yesterday you rejoiced at every baby, but today you mourn a living husband, you keep the kids in a cold nest. Not good at all!»

Khutline, who got thinner in one night, mechanically took her daughter from the neighbor's insistent hands.

Recently, when she was proposed and brought to the village, no one could pass by indifferently. Young girls looked enviously at the beautiful bride, even the guys were ready to look under several layers of obscure scarves. From this day on, her face was covered from all adult male relatives in the village. Khutline was brought from a neighboring village, on the other side of the Ob. She went ashore near the village, covering her face with three wedding scarves, surrounded by matchmakers and many women, pretty like a fine large Ob nelma, which every year only gets filled with juice. The happy bride herself even tried to peek out from under silk shawls and take a look at the villagers. She wanted to see people living in a new place. The curious girl even managed to see her future husband: from the wood house, where she was hidden after the matchmakers had arrived in the village. She immediately fell in love with a stranger whom she saw among the guests, although she could not even guess who he was. According to custom, matchmakers come without a groom, but that time the groom turned out to be wayward.