A Treatise on Shelling Beans Read Free

Honey’s good for everything. It’ll keep you from catching cold. When I was young and I worked on building sites, one time we roomed at the house of this one beekeeper and he taught me all that. But back then who gave a thought to drinking honey? There was never the time. And if you were going to drink anything it would be vodka. In those days vodka was the best for everything, not honey.
    What kind do you prefer, heather or honey-dew? The honey-dew is from conifers, not deciduous trees, it’s virtually black, it’s much better. In that case I’ll give you a jar of each. My favorite is buckwheat honey. There used to be a guy here grew a lot of buckwheat. Three days ago I repainted his nameplate. The buckwheat hadn’t even begun to flower and already he’d be putting up hives in it. I used to go watch him collecting honey from those hives of his. He’d be wearing a hood with a net over his face, and I’d just be there. And you won’t believe it, but I never got stung by a bee. They’d land on me, but they never did a thing. He couldn’t get over it. You’re a strange kid, that you are. I’m the beekeeper here … Go bring a pot. And he’d pour me some honey straight from the hive.
    These days, who’d grow buckwheat around here, and where? You saw for yourself, there’s the lake they made, the cabins around the lake, and the woods. The woods were always there. They’re the only thing that was there then and is here now. Except that the woods were mostly on this side. Now they’ve spread to the other side, where the fields used to be. If you don’t hold woods back they’ll grow everywhere, into your yard. They overgrew where the farmyards used to be. When I say the other side, I mean the other side of the Rutka. The Rutka?That was the river that used to run through here, I told you how it split the village in two. How could they have made an artificial lake if there hadn’t been a river? The name comes from
ruta
, rue, not from
ruda
, iron ore. Do you know what rue is? You’re not the only one. Here in the cabins hardly anyone knows anything about herbs. At most mint, chamomile. They don’t know their trees, can’t tell an oak from a beech. Not to even mention hornbeams, sycamores. They can’t tell rye from wheat, wheat from barley. They call it all grain. I wonder if they’d even recognize millet. I don’t see many people growing millet these days.
    Rue was used to treat different illnesses, on its own or with other herbs. They used it for eyes, for nerves, cuts and bruises, to prevent infection. You could drink it or make a compress. It could break spells. And most important of all, young women wove their garlands out of rue. It was like a magnet for young men. A lot of it grew around here, maybe that’s where the Rutka got its name? You can’t imagine what that river was like. It wasn’t especially big, rivers that run through villages never are. It came down a broad valley where there were meadows, then after the valley the fields began. It was wider at some points, narrower in others. In some places, when it hadn’t rained for a long time you could get across by stepping from one rock to another. When you stood at the edge of the valley and the sun would come out from behind the clouds, it looked like the Rutka was flowing across the entire width of the valley. Course, there were times it actually was that wide, when the ice melted, or when it just kept raining and raining. At those times you wouldn’t believe it was the same Rutka, it was so wild. It didn’t just cover the valley, the fields flooded as well. Anyone that lived close to the river had to move to higher ground. At those times people swore revenge on the Rutka, they wept over it. But then the waters would fall and it’d go back to being calm and good-natured. It would flow in its leisurely way. You could throw a stick into the water and walk alongside on the bank to see who was faster, you or the Rutka. Even if you only