The old raspberry orchard

 When I was in school, I spent all my holidays with my grandmother. At that time, she had an old raspberry orchard growing on her property. He occupied almost a quarter of the five-hundred-acre plot. No one was doing it, and only a few buckets of manure were thrown every autumn. Raspberries grew tall, strong and sweet, no one in the village had such a thing. So, in order for grandma to let her go to the club in the evening, it was necessary to do some kind deed. That day, in the late afternoon, she gave me a canister and said, "Raspberries against disco!"

I must say, I can't stand picking raspberries. My hands felt like they were beating a hundred kittens after that. I put on an old coat and climbed deep into the raspberry patch. Everything was robbed on the sides, no one wanted to go into the center — there are impenetrable wilds and nettles up to the throat, but the berries are large, and there are a lot of them. "I'm going to pick up quickly and go to the girls!" — I thought. I got in, I'm sitting, I'm collecting... It turned out to be an almost full can. And then I see a tall branch half a meter away from me, all covered with berries. "Here's the last twig, and go home and get dressed," I rejoiced. She squeezed through to that branch and held out her hand. I look — and from the other side, a hand is also reaching for this branch.

My mouth dropped open in surprise. I haven't heard anyone in the raspberry garden but me messing around. Complete silence, no wind. The branches are swinging only those that I touched myself. And no one could get in: there was a high solid fence around, and it was not customary in the village to steal. I gasped for air for about twenty seconds, until I realized that there was no way a PERSON could be next to me. And the hand picked a berry and disappeared into the foliage.

Then I got so upset that I only came to my senses in the house. My heart is beating like crazy, sweat is running off my face, my hands are shaking, and my mouth feels like it's full of cotton wool... I couldn't say anything intelligible to my grandmother right away. Of course, I didn't go to the club that night, and I didn't show up on the street for several days, because when I broke through the raspberry patch, I skinned my whole face on the branches. Grandma believed me then, she went to the raspberry garden that evening. Apart from the branches I had broken and crushed, she found no signs of someone else's presence.

And the raspberries were almost all cut down in the same autumn.