English for everyone

Маленький Клаус и Большой Клаус
In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I’ll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
The whole week through, Little Claus had to plow for Big Claus and lend him his only horse. In return, Big Claus lent him all four of his horses, but only for one day a week and that had to be Sunday.
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Огниво

The Tinder Box
There came a soldier marching down the high road-one, two! one, two! He had his knapsack on his back and his sword at his side as he came home from the wars. On the road he met a witch, an ugly old witch, a witch whose lower lip dangled right down on her chest.
«Good evening, soldier,» she said. «What a fine sword you’ve got there, and what a big knapsack. Aren’t you every inch a soldier! And now you shall have money, as much as you please.»
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Жаворонок и две чечетки
Shore Lark and Two Redpolls
A friend of mine said to me, «Why don’t you go to the game club on Saturday afternoon. They will have a great trapshoot with live birds.»
I didn’t know what a trapshoot was, but the words «live birds» interested me very much, and I went to the club the next Saturday afternoon. I found a small crowd of men there, each with a shot-gun. A wagon stood near, and in it there were a lot of cages containing small birds. Each cage had a door which opened out flat when the man, the bird-catcher who owned the birds, pulled the string attached to each door.
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История о кролике
Raggylug, the Story of a Cottontail Rabbit
Raggylug, or Rag, was the name of a young cottontail rabbit. Ho got this name because he had a torn and ragged ear, the result of his first adventure. He lived with his mother in Mr. Olifant’s swamp, where I became acquainted with them and learned their life and ways. Perhaps, when you read this story, you will think that I have made the animals too much like human beings. But those who have lived near them and studied their ways and their minds will not think so. Of course, rabbits cannot speak as we do, but they have a system of sounds, signs, scents and movements, by means of which they understand each other. In this story I translate from the rabbit language into the English language, and I do not say anything that they did not say.
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Читаем следы.
Reading the Trails
In the middle of November there was about six inches of snow on the ground. When there is snow on the ground it is easy to find the tracks of animals. So I went into the woods to read the story of the trail. Very soon I found a fresh fox trail.
A fox track is easy to recognize when there are clear foot-marks in dirt, soft ground or in a thin layer of snow. In deep snow you will see only a row of dimples instead of toe marks.
A small dog’s trail is very much like that of a fox, but each has it characteristics.
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Гадкий утенок
It was so beautiful out on the country, it was summer- the wheat fields were golden, the oats were green, and down among the green meadows the hay was stacked. There the stork minced about on his red legs, clacking away in Egyptian, which was the language his mother had taught him. Round about the field and meadow lands rose vast forests, in which deep lakes lay hidden. Yes, it was indeed lovely out there in the country.
In the midst of the sunshine there stood an old manor house that had a deep moat around it. From the walls of the manor right down to the water’s edge great burdock leaves grew, and there were some so tall that little children could stand upright beneath the biggest of them. In this wilderness of leaves, which was as dense as the forests itself, a duck sat on her nest, hatching her ducklings. She was becoming somewhat weary, because sitting is such a dull business and scarcely anyone came to see her. The other ducks would much rather swim in the moat than waddle out and squat under the burdock leaf to gossip with her.
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Курица несущая золотые яйца
Tina was a little chubby girl. She belonged to a poor family. Though she was very poor, yet she was very charitable. She would give away even her bread to anybody who needed it. A magician was very pleased with her goodness. He gave her a fat hen. Tina was very happy to have the hen. She could now get an egg every day to eat.
She waited for the next day excitedly. Early in the morning, she went to the hen to get egg. The hen had laid an egg. But to Tina’s surprise, it was not an ordinary egg. It was made of gold. Tina picked up the egg and gave to her mother. She was also thrilled at the sight of a golden egg. They sold the egg to the jeweller.
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