⏱ ~4 min reading
In the warm autumn season, when the fields were golden with ripe ears of corn, and the wind carried the smell of dry leaves and apple juice over the grass, there lived a little hamster. His name was Zhmunya. He was round, with reddish fur, small black beady eyes, and two cheeks that could stretch so wide that they could hold half a bushel of nuts at once.
Zhmunya loved to stock up. It was his greatest talent and greatest joy. Every morning, as soon as the sun peeked over the hill, he would run along the path with his short legs. He would find a kernel - and put it in his cheek. He would find another - and put it in his cheek again. One, two, three nuts at once, and even a kernel of corn on top.
"Everything will come in handy in the winter," he muttered to himself. "Everything will come in handy in the winter.".
He was proud of his hole. It was neat, with a soft litter of dry grass, with three little rooms for grain and one for sleeping. Zhmunya lay down in his warm corner in the evening and thought: "I am the most careful hamster in this field."«
One morning, Zhmunya ran to the edge of the field and gasped. Right in front of him lay a whole hill of corn kernels. Someone must have lost them while carrying a basket. Yellow, plump, smooth, like little suns.
"Oh-oh-oh!" squeaked Zhmunya. "That's a whole fortune!"
He began to stuff his cheeks like never before. One grain on the right. The second on the left. The third on the right again, so that it wouldn't be crooked. Zhmunya eagerly stuffed and stuffed until his cheeks were like two small balloons. His eyes narrowed from the strain.
When not a single grain was growing, Zhmunya swam, like a pot-bellied boat, to his hole.
The way home seemed longer than usual. His paws stepped cautiously, for his cheeks dragged his head toward the ground. But at last he reached a small entrance under the old willow root.
Zhmunya stuck his head into the hole. And... got stuck.
The entrance was too narrow. They wouldn't let him in. Zhmunya pushed forward - nothing. He pushed back - and it didn't really work out. He stood there like a pumpkin that someone had forgotten on the doorstep, and he didn't know what to do.
At that moment a small gray shadow passed him. It was a field mouse—thin, with a thin tail and clear black eyes. It stopped, tilted its head to the side, and looked at the hamster.
“What's wrong with you, friend?” the mouse asked in a quiet voice.
Zhmunya wanted to answer, but he couldn't. His mouth was covered with grains. He just nodded his swollen cheeks and muttered quietly:
— Mhm-mhm…
The mouse smiled.
"I see, I see. You've gathered enough grains, but you can't get into the hole?"
Zhmunya nodded sadly.
"You know," the mouse sat down on his hind legs, "I have an idea. Share half with me and you'll definitely fit in. I'll help you carry it to the hole if you want. And my hole is right next to it, behind a stone. I want to eat in the winter too.".
Zhmunya thought. His heart beat a little faster. There really is little food in winter. Every grain is worth its weight in gold. And the mouse was so small, so thin, that he probably hadn't even filled his hole completely yet.
Zhmunya looked at the mouse again. The mouse didn't argue, didn't demand, didn't push. It just stood there and waited.
And then Zhmunya exhaled. Half of the grains fell to the ground - a small golden rain.
"Thank you, friend!" squeaked the mouse and carefully gathered them into his little cheeks. "Thank you-thank you-thank you.".
Now Zhmunya easily entered the hole. His cheeks became smaller, but not empty. Inside it smelled of dry grass and a warm earthen house. Zhmunya put the grains in a closet and sat down to think.
It was strange. He gave half of it away, and his heart felt not lighter, but warmer. As if a little sun had come into the hole with him.
All winter, when the wind whistled over the field and the snow covered the ground white, Zhmunya and the mouse lived side by side. Every few days they met in the snow between the burrows - and shared a grain. Sometimes the mouse brought a nut, sometimes Zhmunya - a seed. Neither of them went hungry.
And one evening, when a blizzard was raging outside, Zhmunya sat in his warm hole, gnawing a corn kernel and thinking. He remembered how delicious the kernels are when you eat them with a friend. How quietly the cookies crackle in the pantry. How good it is to know that your neighbor is full.
And Zhmunya smiled softly into his mustache. Because now he knew one small but important secret: a supply is a good thing. But the sweetest is the one that is shared. Because grain with a friend is always tastier than a full hole alone.
✨ The sweetest grain is the one shared with a friend ✨