There are dozens of such barrels in any ethnographic museum. But the blackened sides of this particular barrel reflected a tragic story from the distant past, in which it played a role. Perhaps not the main one, but not the last one either. As you, our readers, will see now. The twenties and early thirties of the last century left their mark on the history of the emigrant movement. During this period, the flow of Belarusians who fled abroad intensified. In addition to the political reason, there was also an economic one-people went to work, getting not only to European countries, but also to Argentina and the United States, Canada. Some of them left alone or in small groups, and somewhere whole artels were created. So in this village, young and strong men decided to go abroad with a whole construction team. Among them was a young man who already had a wife and three small children. His parents promised to help his daughter-in-law and grandchildren, to support them in any way they could. We said goodbye here and parted. It's been two long years of waiting. And then one day, after harvesting, on Sunday, the man's parents gathered for a holiday fair in a nearby place, which was about ten versts from the village. My daughter-in-law was also offered to go. She happily agreed, leaving the children in the care of their grandmother. "I got a little stuck on the road and arrived already in the midst of bidding. They laid out their home-made products for sale, and suddenly a rumble swept through the fair. "They're coming! They're coming! Ours are coming back." Indeed, from the direction of the bolshoy highway, I drove through the streets of the town and a series of wagons with travelers drove right into the Market Square. Among them was the cart of the man with whom I had come to the bazaar, which was full of all sorts of goods. Distraught with joy, his relatives rushed to hug him, and his wife burst into tears of happiness. They immediately offered him to go home. But the man refused, and that's why. The emigrant workers returned not only with pockets full of money, but also with a lot of goods, ranging from furniture and clothes to tools and various mechanisms. It was dangerous to drive alone on the roads, so they joined together in the wagons, so it was easier to defend themselves from unkind people who earned money by robbery. < p>we agreed to accompany each train driver home together, for safety. And our hero was chosen as the eldest in the wagon train, and his duties included delivering his comrades safely to their place of residence. The man reassured his wife and parents and told them that he had all his countrymen in the wagon train, local people from nearby villages. He assured me that he would come home at night and hug the children. They said goodbye, hoping for a short separation. Before leaving, the man put an oak barrel with various goodies in his parents' cart, they say, let the children eat. After returning from the fair, the adults opened the gift in front of the children. The barrel was filled to the brim with sweets, chocolate bars and colored marmalade. But the man did not return until nightfall or the next morning... A gendarme arrived in a britzka with terrible news. When many of the wagons were going home, a gang raided the remaining ones, and only corpses of people remained on the side of the road. Someone had to go, identify a loved one among the dead and bring them home.

...For a long time, the barrel at the table stood instead of a stool, then it was thrown into the attic, where over the years it got lost among various things. And only the great-grandchildren, having accidentally found the barrel, remembered the story about it that they had once heard from their grandmother.