I promised you boots

The elder brother Vladimir dedicated.

My brother Volka, sixteen years old, already half a year worked as an apprentice in a shoe shop. In the workshop Volka preparing cords to repair shoes, Strong pulled it melted and processed fragrant with pitch. Dark Var not immediately washed off, so his hands were always black stripes.

In the spring he began to bring work home. Volka took out a prepared wooden plate, cut one side slope special cobbler's knife and cut into thin wooden nails the whole plate. Throughout the spring, in the evenings, I was always with him, watching his work and tried to help him, setting tools or finished folding wooden studs into the box.

Then he began to bring the bent iron nails of different sizes, and some evenings taught me to straighten them. We laid out the nails on the iron plate, and Will gave me a small hammer.

 - Maintain a firm grip with the left hand for a nail hat, and always turns - he taught me.
-Dzin! - I replied my hammer.
I, seven-year old girl who tried very hard. Sometimes getting a hammer on one hand, but still, I learned to straighten them! At last all the nails straightened.

-When Something when I learn, then you'll make boots ... - thoughtfully promised Volka, thinking thus to praise me.
I smiled back.

In early summer, I became very ill. She lay there with a rash and a temperature of 40 degrees. It began nonsense. Mama called the doctor.
 - Scarlet fever - said the old doctor examined me.
-This Is a serious, contagious disease. Urgent need to the hospital - he continued, turning to his mother.

I was taken to the hospital. The hospital said that I stay there 40 days, and ten days of them I'll be in quarantine, all alone in the box.
At the front desk I was shorn heads, removed from me at all my clothes and dressed in shirt with purple ink stamp at the bottom.

I began to cry. I was led into a tiny separate room adjacent to the chamber. The room - a painful white closed space without windows, swallowed a bed, a bedside table and a pot ....

In the evening, returning from work Volka learned that I was taken to the hospital ... He was very upset.
- What to do? And suddenly she's dying, and I sit here? ... - He jerked all issues.
In the morning he asked for leave from work, and his old, creaky bike went to the regional hospital to look for me.

He found a box chamber and asked me. Some of the kids said I was boxing and I can not come. Scared Volka rushed to the doctors.
- She is alive, alive. A shot and gave the drug, the temperature is slightly decreased. She's on bed rest, - he explained the doctor.
And he went a little calmer.

Volka, my dear Volka! He traveled almost every day after work to see me in the hospital, to the window chamber.
-How There Alya? - He asked the children.
They knocked on my door and said that his brother has come, but I could not see him.
-I Got better, tell him - I asked through the wall.

A week later, I was really better. I've already started to get up, there was no nausea, no head was spinning, his legs are not shaking. It turns out that if you stand on the bed, you can look through the glass into the next room. Finally, I dared, stood on tiptoe to the bed, holding her back, and peered through the glass into the next chamber.

What I saw shocked me: in the neighboring ward of funny kids laughing, talking, and even somersault on the beds! The room was total - boys and girls 5-8 years. I so wanted this room. And just to tumble!
I already decided to try to make a somersault, but one thing did not give me to do it ...

And then came the day when I was transferred from the box into the chamber. I immediately made friends with the girls and was very happy. On the window in the room it was stretched thin mesh on the fly, and I often went to the window to look outside. It was a hot summer, the window was opened, only interfered with mesh.
Volka morning came, stood at a distance with the bike, I saw it immediately. He came to the window and said nothing. And I am silent. He did not recognize me, did not know what I am now ...
-lysaya
-Vol, It's me - finally I said, and pressed her forehead to the grid.
He also pressed his forehead to the net and a few seconds we stood in silence.
 - Alka my Alka alive! And I did not recognize you! -vraspev He said, stumbling a bit at the end.
He glanced at my shaved head, which ten days ago had pigtails.

How did you lost weight, only her eyes were ... How are you here? - He added quickly.
I rolled and tears dripped onto the shirt.
-Now Good and bad in the box was - sniff, I said.
 - What do you bring? You need to get better in the first class to go soon ... bring gingerbread? - He asked.

Hesitated, I decided.
-Prinesi Me some shorts - embarrassed, I replied.
- Underpants? -peresprosil He marveled. I nodded.
-Prinesu, Bring the evening - reassured me Volka.
I stared at his retreating figure on the bike, lifted by a pillar of the summer dust.

In the evening, the whole family came to visit me, Shura just was not. Volka all led him to the familiar window. All we are talking excitedly. Pitied me and said that gave me goodies, told me to eat, and recovering, and that speed in school.

I nodded and waited. Volka went to the grid.
- I brought you panties and a shirt - he said in a whisper.
 - Thank you, Wohl - also in a whisper I said gratefully.
The next day I could somersault with all ...

Time passed quickly in the House, in early August, I was discharged home. And here we are-home, we went into the room with the Wolke.
At the center of the room, lit by the midday August sun, directly on the table stood ... little boots!

-I Promised you boots. Here, I sewed! Take! - The brother said, and laughed.
I hugged her boots, and stopped me from overflowing happiness.
Boots were unusual: the head chrome, black leather, and tops - gray canvas combined. But they looked very nice, the more I go to school. For the post-war period, they were just fine!

I wore them - just right! Intra- flannel lining, soft and warm. In them I went to the first class. I wore through the autumn, before the boots.
Over time, I suspect that the boots were sewn seems the whole team a workshop, where everyone knew how worried my brother. But I never nobody expressed his assumptions. Let it be so, as my dear brother!
© Alla Kurmaeva





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