The Barn

4

It just so happened that the smaller the town, the longer its name. This one was no exception. At first, they wanted to make up his name from the first letters of the names of the inhabitants, but no matter how rearranged them, a solid "A" came out with rare intersperses of consonants.

- It's a wail in the middle of the forest! The then priest said disapprovingly. This suggestion was approved.

Now there were ninety-two people in Wail-Among-the-Forest, and there was no reason to think that the population would ever surpass a hundred. The status of the city must have been dropped by a king or duke who was passing through here, when his horse stumbled over a point on the map. There was not even a town hall here. A church and a market square surrounded by three dozen houses - that's the whole city.

It was here that Yazep and Rita came for help. With them they had a skinny purse and carcasses of chickens. Rooster, his savior, Yazep also broke his neck. Human gratitude does not extend to birds when chicken broth comes in handy. The Romans did not disdain goose pate, although geese once saved their city.

Rita knocked on the door of the priest's house as she always did: Three times, pause, and three more times. At this knock, this door always opened - the Priest was Rita's father. By the way, the Reverend Allo was not pleased with the choice of his daughter, so the face that appeared in the open door first blossomed, then faded at the sight of Yazep.

The priest offered them a tea, told an anecdote:

- The husband goes on a trip, and the wife sees him off. The husband says: "Don't cry, I'll be back in a week." And the wife replies: "I'm not crying about that, just my feet are frozen!"

At the same time, Allo looked defiantly at his son-in-law. Then to the daughter.

- Did you bring him to confess or read the funeral to him?

- Dad!

- Okay, good to see you both! What did they come with?

Rita did not remember anything about the events of the last night, so Yazep told. When he reached the place where the devils promised to come for their daughter, Allo knocked his son-in-law off the stool with a blow of his fist.

- Here's the mean gut. I can see from the shape of her belly that Rita will have a boy. And you conceived a girl somewhere! But, thank God, my daughter is safe! And you go out! Now, I said!