The story has an autobiographical character and is based on the author’s memories of his own childhood. The narration is from a third party.
In winter, Nikita made a bench for skiing from the mountain, and in the morning the boy wanted to run away to the steep river banks, but he was caught by teacher Arkady Ivanovich, a “surprisingly quick and cunning” man. Nikita had to wash, have breakfast and do arithmetic first, then calligraphy.
During calligraphy, Nikita was lucky - they brought mail. Arkady Ivanovich, who was waiting for the letter, was distracted, and the boy slipped away. Approaching the Chagra River, Nikita saw his friends - the boys from "our end" of the village of Sosnovka. A little further their enemies could be seen, the “Konchansky” guys from the far end of the village.
Nikita didn’t manage to roll far - Arkady Ivanovich quickly overtook him and announced that a letter had arrived from his father from Samara. He promised to send Nikita a gift so large that he would need a separate supply, and on Christmas, his mother’s girlfriend Anna Apollosovna Babkina would come with children. Arkady Ivanovich also received a letter from his bride, a Samara teacher.
Nikita tried to find out about the gift from his friend from the people. Bear Koryashonok did not know anything, but he announced the upcoming battle between “ours” and “Konchansky”. Nikita promised to participate.
At night, Nikita dreamed that the cat wants to stop the pendulum of the big clock hanging in the hall on the summer half of the house. The boy knew: if the pendulum stops, “everything will crack, crack, ring and, like dust, disappear,” but he could not move. Suddenly Nikita made a desperate effort of will and took off. He saw that there was a bronze vase on the watch case, and he wanted to take what was lying there, but the evil old woman from the portrait grabbed him with thin hands, and the angry old man from the next painting hit him on the back with a long smoking pipe.
Nikita fell and woke up - he was awakened by Arkady Ivanovich and said that Christmas holidays begin today.
Fourteen of his own days fell on Nikita - do what you want.
On the same day, a battle took place between “ours” and “Konchansky”. Under the pressure of the “Konchansky” “ours” faltered and ran. Nikita felt insulted, and with all his might he hit the leader of the “Konchansky” Styopka Karnaushkin, who, according to Mishka, had an enchanted fist.
This turned the tide of the battle - "ours" rushed to the "Konchansky" and drove them five yards. Styopka was so respectful to Nikita that he invited him to "make friends", and the former enemies exchanged valuable gifts.
It was boring in the evening. The wind howled in the attic. Nikita imagined the Wind, "shaggy, covered in dust and cobwebs, sitting quietly" and howling with boredom. Anna Apollosovna’s arrival was interrupted by her son with her son Viktor, a second-year student of the gymnasium, and her unusually pretty nine-year-old daughter Lily.
Nikita was fascinated by the beauty of Lily. When the bull Buyan attacked the boys walking in the yard in the morning, Victor fell to the ground with fear, and Nikita stopped the ferocious animal. Lily watched this feat through the window, which made the boy very happy.
A day later, a wagon train arrived in the estate, in which there was a gift promised to Nikita - a two-row boat. A few evenings before Christmas, children glued Christmas tree decorations from colored paper. Then they put a huge tree up to the ceiling in the living room and decorated it with stars, gingerbread, apples and candles.
In the evening, Nikita, Victor, Lilya and the children from Sosnovka were allowed into the living room to the Christmas tree.
She stood like a tree of fire, sparkling with gold, sparks, long rays. The light from her came thick, warm, smelling of needles, wax, tangerines, honey gingerbread.
The children took the presents apart and the celebration began.Nikitina's mother, Aleksandra Leontyevna, played the piano, and Arkady Ivanovich drove round dances with the children around the Christmas tree. During this bustle, Nikita managed to stay alone with Lily and kiss her. After tea, Nikita went to accompany satisfied and tired guests. His soul was easy and happy.
Nikita preferred to stay at home with Lily, while Viktor became friends with Mishka Koryashonk. They built a snow fortress on a ditch behind a pond and called the "Konchansky" to the battle. Walls of snow did not help: the "Konchansky" went on the attack, and soon "the defenders of the fortress ran through the reeds along the ice of the pond."
Nikita did not understand why he was bored playing with the boys. Looking at Lilya, he felt happy, "as if somewhere inside, he was spinning, playing a gentle and fun musical box."
The boy told Lily his dream, and the girl wanted to find out if there really is a bronze vase on the watch, and what lies in it. On the mahogany clock in the grandfather’s office there really was a vase in which Nikita found “a thin ring with a little blue stone”. The boy immediately put this ring on Lily's finger.
The guests were about to leave. Lily promised to write, and it seemed to Nikita “that everything was over”, and he would never again see the shadow of the huge Lilia bow on the wall of the room.
After the departure of the Babkin, Nikita's vacation was over. Arkady Ivanovich introduced a new subject - algebra, which turned out to be more boring and drier than arithmetic. The boy’s father, Vasily Nikitievich, who was waiting for the inheritance in Samara, wrote that the case was being delayed, he would have to “go to Moscow to work hard” and at home he would only be in Lent.
The letter upset Alexander Leontyevna. Vasily Nikitievich was not at home for a long time, and she was afraid that Nikita would completely forget her father. Nikita knew that he would always remember this cheerful, red-cheeked man, a little careless and frivolous. Carried away, Vasily Nikitievich could spend his last money on a completely unnecessary thing, which sometimes brought his wife to tears.
Severe frosts hit. Nikita was rarely allowed into the yard. The boy walked boring and remembered Lila. Noticing this, Alexandra Leontyevna decided that her son was sick. Nikita canceled classes in algebra, began to give castor and sent to bed early. Nikita cheered after three weeks, when a strong damp wind blew from the south.
Following the wind, rooks flew to the old nests, and spring began. Nikita walked sleepy, stupefied by the wind and the scream of rooks, he was tormented by ominous forebodings. Once, having climbed into a plugar booth, Nikita began to ask God that everything would be fine, and that it would become easy again. The prayer helped: mother looked at him not strictly, as in recent days, but gently and kindly, as before.
A heavy rain fell at night, and the next morning the spring flood began. In the afternoon, Nikita was frightened by the news that Vasily Nikitievich was drowning in a ravine filled with meltwater.
In the evening, Vasily Nikitievich happily rescued, drank tea at home and told how he got to the house on the just bought thoroughbred stallion, could not get over the ravine filled with water and really nearly drowned, and the men arrived in time to pull him and his horse out. Alexandra Leontyevna was so happy that she did not even become angry with her husband for a completely unnecessary purchase.
For three days Vasily Nikitievich had a fever, but there was no time to get sick for a long time - he had to prepare for sowing. Alexandra Leontyevna started a big spring cleaning in the house. Then eggs were painted in the estate and cakes were baked. For a week, Nikita's parents were so tired that they did not go to stand the great matins, and Arkady Ivanovich, who did not receive a letter from the bride, was in a gloomy mood.
Nikita was released to the morning in Kolokoltsevo alone, ordering him to stay with his old father's friend Pyotr Petrovich Devyatov. Nikita quickly became acquainted with the six sons and daughter of Peter Petrovich. The brothers vied with Nikita to complain to Anna's sister, a terrible sneak.
After the matins and Easter treats, Anna went on the heels of Nikita. The boy was uncomfortable and ashamed, and the Devyatov brothers began to chuckle at him. Finally, Nikita understood: Anna felt the same for him as he did for Lila, but still rejected the girl’s friendship.
With no one, only with one Lily could he have those strange words, special looks and smiles. And with the other girl - that was treason and shame.
Spring came, blackbirds ran between the trees, and a cuckoo crowed in the forest. Once Vasily Nikitievich asked his son which horse from the herd he liked more. Nikita pointed to the meek, dark-red gelding of Klopik and thought that this conversation was not without reason.
On Nikita's birthday, May 11, a new boat was launched into the water of the pond. Then Vasily Nikitievich proclaimed Nikita “the frog admiral” and raised the admiral’s standard on the flagpole with the image of a frog standing on its hind legs.
Once Nikita found a yellow-and-yellow birdhouse that fell out of the nest and took him into the house. The boy called the chick Zheltukhin, made him a house, fed him worms and protected him from a domestic cat. At first, Zheltukhin was afraid of Nikita and thought that he would certainly eat it, then he got used to it, learned to fly and became a member of the family along with the cat Vasily Vasilich and the hedgehog Akhilka.
Zheltukhin lived with Nikita until the fall and learned to speak Russian. The starling flew all day in the garden, and in the evening returned to his house on the windowsill. In autumn, Zheltukhin was lured into a flock of migratory starlings.
Free days came between spring field work and mowing. Koryashonka’s bear was put in the mouth of the horses, and Nikita went to him for the whole day - he learned to ride a horse. Alexandra Leontyevna was afraid that her son would break his arms and legs, but Vasily Nikitievich did not want “some unfortunate Slyuntia Makaronych” to grow up from his son and give him Klopik. Nikita learned to take care of a horse and from that day he rode only on horseback.
When it was time for the bread to ripen, drought came to the estate. Nikita's parents walked with worried faces.
Another day of this damned hell, and - here you have a hungry winter, typhoid, cattle falls, children die ...
Arkady Ivanovich was also sad - his bride could not come to Sosnovka because of her mother’s illness and now she will only see her fiancé in autumn, in Samara.
After lunch, when Nikita's parents lay down to rest, Zheltukhin flew into the room. Nikita poured him water in a saucer, the starling got drunk, bathed, and then sat on the barometer and said in a gentle voice: "Burr." And then Nikita saw the barometer needle from the mark “very dry” moved to the inscription “storm”. In the evening, a terrible thunderstorm began with heavy rain. The crop was saved.
Nikita has a new duty - to ride Klopik in a neighboring village for mail. The evil postmaster drunkard never gave newspapers and magazines until he read them. He washed down six times a year, and then it was better not to enter the post office at all.
This time, Nikita only got letters again. One of them was from Lily. The girl wrote that she remembers Nikita and has not yet lost his ringlet. The boy smelled of memories of Christmas and his heart was beating happily.
For three days, Nikita's parents quarreled. Vasily Nikitievich wanted to go to the fair to sell a tentative mare, and Alexandra Leontyevna would not let her husband in - she was afraid that he would spend too much money. Finally, the spouses came to an agreement: Vasily Nikitievich promised his wife “not to spend crazy money at the fair”, for which he decided to sell a cart of apples there.
As a result, the apples remained unsold, I had to give them in addition to the mare. Vasily Nikitievich, hiding his eyes, informed Nikita that he had accidentally and "terribly inexpensively" bought a batch of camels, and tomorrow he would go see three gray horses, apples and apples — he would still get nuts at home.
August has come.Vasily Nikitievich and his son spent whole days on the thresher and he fed the sheaves into her “dusty bowels”. Nikita liked to return home on a cart full of fresh, golden straw.
The Milky Way has spread out in a luminous fog. On the cart, as if in a cradle, Nikita swam under the stars, looked calmly at distant worlds.
Autumn has come. Vasily Nikitievich again went to Samara and a week later said that "the inheritance business ... has not advanced a single step." He did not want to live the second winter apart, asked Alexander Leontyevna to move to the city and threatened to buy "two amazing Chinese vases."
Alexandra Leontyevna did not like the city, but the news of the purchase of useless vases prompted her to pack in three days. Arkady Ivanovich, on the contrary, was glad and was looking forward to meeting the bride.
Two Chinese vases and Anna Apollosovna were awaiting Alexander Leontyevna in a white one-story house, and angry Lily was waiting for Nikita. She demanded her letter back, and Nikita with horror remembered that he had not answered him. The boy began to make excuses, and Lily for the first time forgave him.
For Nikita, rural expanse ended and urban life began in seven uninhabited and cramped rooms. The boy felt like a captive - the same as Zheltuhinn in the early days. A week later, Nikita passed the exams and entered the second grade of the gymnasium.
