No Socks for Young Men
The Legend of Beet Feet
Once upon a time, in Southern Kamchatka, there was a little boy who lived in a little village. The village was so small that there were only four children his age in his class at school. Only one of those was a girl, and he had a huge crush on her. He was a tall and gangly lad, but one day he talked his crush into coming over to visit.
When she came over, he took off his boots. That’s when things went horribly, horribly wrong. His footcloths smelled terrible, as there was not much water for washing that wasn’t frozen. He saw her nose curl. While she remained polite for her visit, she was obviously eager to leave.
Bereft, he had to find a solution. That night, his poor mother had boiled some beets for dinner, and he threw his footcloths into the boiling water to deal with the stench. It worked like a charm… but the beet water stained his footcloths beet-color!
The next day at school, the other boys noticed purplish footcloths sticking out of the top of his boots and teased him horribly. Out in the frozen playground, they surrounded him and mocked him. The girl felt bad for him, realizing that it was for her he had washed his footcloths in beet broth.
The next morning, the young girl brought him an extra pair of footcloths that was not beet dyed, but the teasing of the boys in the schoolyard continued. He wrapped the new cloth around his fists and said to the other boys, “these I will dye with your blood!”
