"Valentin Katayev. Rainbow-Flower (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Valentin Katayev.

Rainbow-Flower


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Translated by F. Glagoleva
Цветик-Семицветик
PROGRESS PUBLISHERS, Moscow
OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/ б http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/
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HERE WAS ONCE A GIRL NAMED ZHENYA.
ONE DAY HER MOTHER SENT HER TO THE BAKERY FOR SOME BREAD-RINGS. ZHENYA
BOUGHT SEVEN BREAD-RINGS: TWO with caraway-seeds for her father, two with
poppy-seeds for her mother, two with sugar coating for herself, and a
little pink one for her brother Pavlik. The bread-rings were on a string,
just like beads. Zhenya started back for home with the string of
bread-rings. She walked along, looking up and down, reading the signs on
the way, just passing the time of day. Meanwhile, a strange dog came up to
her from behind and began eating the bread-rings. First it ate the ones
for her father with caraway-seeds, then the ones for her mother with
poppy-seeds, then her own two that had sugar coating on them.


Zhenya suddenly felt that the string of bread-rings was very light. She
turned around, but it was too late. There was nothing but the string left
in her hand, and the dog was just swallowing the last piece of Pavlik's
little pink bread-ring and licking its chops.
"Oh, you horrid dog!" Zhenya cried and ran after it. She ran and
ran, but couldn't catch it.

Finally, she got lost. When she stopped, she saw that she was in a
strange place. There were no big houses there, just very little ones.
Zhenya began to cry. Suddenly, an old woman appeared.
"Why are you crying, little girl?" she asked. And so Zhenya told the
old woman what had happened.
The old woman was sorry for Zhenya. She led her to her little garden
and said: "Don't cry. I will help you. I don't have any bread-rings, and I
don't have any money either, but there is a very special flower growing in
my garden. It is a rainbow-flower and it can do anything you ask it to. I
can see that you are a good girl, even though you are absent-minded. I
will give you the rainbow-flower and it will help you."


With these words the old woman picked a very pretty flower from one
of the flower-beds. It looked like a daisy. It had seven thin petals and