Читать книгу The Kind Cow. New fairy tales and fairy stories - Andrew Budhi - Страница 3

Peter’s grandmother had melons in her garden, a whole patch of them. One melon was called Melany, and the others had no names. Every day a worm crawled past the patch of melons. The worm’s name was Semyon Semyonitch. In the morning Semyon Semyonitch crawled from the fence into the depths of the garden and said: «What nice melons! When you grow up I’ll eat you.» In the evening he crawled back and said in his manner: «Well? Have you grown up? I’ll eat you!»

All the melons were afraid of this worm, they trembled, everything inside them shrank, and only when the worm crawls away, the melons sighed with relief: «Whew…»

Only Melany wasn’t afraid of the worm: she looked through him at the next patch, where the pumpkins grew, and thought about something of her own.

At the end of the summer, Peter’s grandmother began to harvest. «Well, melon, smooth back, round sides, will you give us some sugar?» she said at the melon patch and put some melons in the bag, including Melany.

Petya with his grandmother and guests began to try melons: one was hard, the other was hard and sour, the third was also tasteless, and only Melany was soft, juicy and sweet from the middle to the crust.

Peter ate a melon and praised: «What a melon! Yummy!» And the other melons were given to the pigs: the pigs will eat everything.