Shornik Ilya, nicknamed Cricket, works with Vasily at the landowner Roemer. They live in an old wing, where workers, a cook and poultry hibernate along with saddlers.

Roemer and his young wife recently moved to the grandfather's estate. The couple settled in the only living room of the boarded up house. They are bored, therefore, every evening, Roemer brings his pregnant wife to the outhouse, where the couple sit for a long time and listen to the conversations of Sverchka and Vasily.

That evening, the Remers come again. Shorniki work hard. The hero Vasily belongs to the elderly Cricket, so nicknamed for his thinness and unpretentiousness, condescendingly, often jokes, and even openly scoffs at him.

The cricket, small and, despite visible vigor, all broken, like all yard people, is afraid of Vasily, who was never afraid of anyone.

Usually Cricket does not take offense and eagerly jokes in response, but today he is telling an extraordinarily serious story from his life. Ignoring the tricks of Vasily, Cricket refers only to the "mistress" Roemer.

Now Cricket is lonely, but once he had a son, Maxim. It was rumored that the child was not his, but Cricket the boy was "more than ten." As an adult, Maxim accompanied his father everywhere. Five or six years ago, they worked with one master.After finishing work, they were about to leave, but were late, getting ready.

December stood in the yard, it was getting dark, and Cricket suggested that his son wait until the morning. Twenty-four-year-old Maxim, a tall and powerful handsome man, refused to wait, but Cricket did not argue - he did not want to offend the guy.

Coming out of his shelter - the old bathhouse - the cricket saw that the garden was covered in ice fog. Maxim, however, did not yield, and soon the son and father left the village.

The master's windows on that side and the title was gone. One word - the night is fierce, the most wolfish ...

Cricket and Maxim were surrounded by an icy haze. Having departed not far from the village, they got lost. Both father and son were dressed poorly, in old worn undercoats, and soon began to freeze.

Having discovered that they had lost the road and are marching on the virgin lands, Cricket was frightened - "everyone, of course, has his own stomach." Maxim, too, was frightened, started to rush about, look for the road, got even more lost and even seemed to go crazy.

About two hours Cricket and Maxim kneading snow, then stumbled upon a familiar oak shrub and realized that they were far from the village, "empty in the steppe." Cricket thought that at first he would come to an end, but the first son became weak, sat on the snow, said goodbye to his father and fell silent.

The cricket shook him for a long time, persuaded him to go a little longer, but Maxim never got up.

And when it was already over, completely shut off, became heavy, icy, I piled him, a man of a sort, on locks, grabbed him under his feet - and stomped on the whole.

All hoped Cricket to bring Maxim to the village, where he thaws and comes to himself, but in vain.He brought his son Cricket only to the railway, tripped on the rails, fell and could no longer get up. Until dawn, he sat in the steppe "and watched his dead son snow in the snow." In the morning, a frozen and half dead Cricket was picked up by the conductors of a freight train.

After listening to a sad story and wiping away tears, the cook asks Cricket, how did he not freeze himself? “Not before, mother,” says Cricket.