A rook sank in the grass. It fell from the tree into the grass, and so it sank in the grass, even choked on it a little.
The rook got frightened. It sat in the grass. It stared with its eyes, but, besides the grass, it saw nothing. So it sat there for a long time, and then it put out its head from the grass - oho! All around it were the woods. Trees were hairy and shaggy, prickly and dense.
Here rook decided to hide back in the grass.
The rook sat, sat, and again it looked out. The forest didn"t go anywhere, it stared back at the rook. And the rook hid again.
And so it went between them. The rook would peek out - the forest would stand there; the rook would hide, and forest would look on, and the grass all around rustled, with the small blades of grass squeaking, and the dry ones crackling.
The rook went through the grass on foot, parting the grass stalks with its beak, shaking from fear all that time.
Suddenly the grass ended, and the rook saw a field, and in the field two bull calves were mooing at the rook. And both were white-headed! How terrible - they were white-headed! Both of them! And the rook retreated back into the grass.
And then earth itself began to tremble! Footfalls were being heard, crashing ones!
A man rode on a mare on the road! A man! In a hat!
It's not enough that he was on a mare, he also had his hat on! The rook flapped its wings from fear - and off it flew! For the first time in its life the rook flew.