On a holiday, the parents sent their little son to call guests: “Call such-and-such an uncle, such-and-such a grandfather, such-and-such a son-in-law...” - and they called him so many different names that he couldn’t remember right away.
The obedient boy ran out into the street and immediately forgot who he was told to invite to visit. He didn’t dare return home and ask again. And I came up with the idea: “I’ll call all my villagers from all the streets, maybe among them will be those whom I was told to call.” And he ran around with invitations to visit all the houses on both sides of the streets and alleys of the village. Everyone thanked for the invitation and promised to come. The boy returned home.
The guests began to gather. All the villagers have gathered one by one and are waiting for a treat. Father and mother were scared:
- What is this? Where can you get treats for so many people?
And the boy told his parents that he had forgotten who they were told to call, and therefore called the whole village.
Guests are waiting for refreshments. They collect all the supplies for their table, how much food there was in the house, and both the parents and the boy himself see that this is not enough.
“You ruined it yourself, fix it yourself!” the parents said to their boy with annoyance.
The boy began to cry because he had caused his parents such grief. With tears, he left the house and ran beyond the outskirts, and then into the forest. He sat down there on an old stump and grieved.
Suddenly he sees an old friend galloping towards him -
gray bunny. A kind boy raised this bunny at home because the bunny was an orphan, and then, when the bunny grew up, he released him into the forest. The bunny ran up to the boy and sat down at his feet.
The boy told the bunny about his grief. The bunny listened, moved his long ears, stood on his hind legs, took the boy by the hand with his front paws and said:
- Okay, don't worry, my friend! Go home - everything will be fine... Then the bunny jumped away from the boy and galloped into the forest. They only saw him!
The boy listened to the bunny and left the forest for home. And there the guests ate and drank all the food served that was found in the house. They wait and don’t leave. Some began to reproach the owners for inviting them to visit, but there were very few treats. There were also angry people among the guests, and they said:
“There was no point in inviting everyone if there was nothing to treat!” At that time someone looked out the window, got scared and
I called everyone over to have a look. At first everyone was also scared, and then they were surprised: what is this? The street is full of all kinds of animals, and everyone is going to the house, and each animal is dragging something.
Bears roll tubs of honey, wolves drag whole carcasses of meat, deer carefully carry buckets of milk on their antlers, jerboas and gophers drag bags of grain, squirrels and hares carry baskets full of various berries and nuts, foxes carry chickens and geese in their teeth. The bunny asked these forest friends to help the boy’s grief. The bunny told them how the boy raised him, the bunny, and released him into the wild. It became crowded in the yard when the animals laid out treats there. In the same way, in a crowd, the animals left the village back into the forest. The guests could not utter a word from amazement.
Father and mother did not know what to do with joy. But the boy was the most happy. For three days and three nights in a row, the hosts treated the guests. When all the guests went home, there was still a lot of food left.
This is how the bunny thanked the kind boy for raising him and releasing him into the wild. The bunny was also kind.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru