When I was a child I worked as a servant.

Some rich Yakuts lived by the lake Ottur-Kol.

Comment:
The word monut is here a postposition.

I worked there as a servent for a rich man.

I gave food and water to cows, but I didn't ride a horse, I rode a reindeer.

Comment:
The idea behind this sentence is that Yakuts traditionally traveled on horses and Yukaghirs by reindeer.

There I walked between the houses, and carried wood and hay. When I worked there my masters liked me very much.

When I worked there, their wives used to gather together, smoke tobacco and say the following to me.

There weren't any matches as there are now.

They used to kindle a pipe by the fire place and smoke it.

They would say to me: "Kindle my pipe and give it to me."

I kindled a pipe, gave it to them and they all smoked it.

They praised me.

Comment:
The verb 'to praise' here has the intransitive agreement affix, although it takes a direct object in the Accusative.

So I learned.

Later they told me: "You should smoke tobacco and be a smoker."

They made a pipe and gave it to me.

They also gave me a tobacco-pouch.

Comment:
Maqorka is a cheap Russian sort of tobacco.

At that time there wasn't any real tobacco or cigarettes.

They used to bring leaf tobacco and smoke it.

Once in spring at the time of the snow crust they told me: "Go to Kiri.

Comment:
Apparently Kiri is a Yakut proper name.

Stay for a night there and come back."

They told me: "Take some tobacco for the road.

You know the place where you have to go.

Comment:
The Different-Subject Converb forms a relative clause.

On the way you will feed your reindeer.

You will also eat and drink tea."

So I left.

I left. My reindeer were running.

I was sitting and driving where they went and came to one place.

Comment:
The verb qonuji: is not inflected for subject agreement.

I traveled like that and came to a lake.

There I looked around, let my reindeer graze by the lake, and drank tea.

It was in spring, the time of the snow crust was approaching.

Comment:
The word l'Ejme: is uninflected.

I met an old man there.

He was hollowing out the ice.

After he hollowed out the ice, he set up a fish trap there for lake crucian carps or minnows.

Comment:
Mo:rtE from the Russian dialectal morda is the same as OgO, see (33-2).

I approached his camp either to look at it or to set it up traps. I came to the place at the bank of the lake where reindeer were grazing.

Comment:
LegitEs'pE is apparently a deverbal noun which was formed by conversion, i.e. without any special morphological marking. It functions as a relative clause.

I took down the straps of the reindeer and tied them together.

They started eating and I boiled tea on the ground, like a grown man. We ate reindeer meat then, so I cooked it.

There were dairy products, we ate them too.

There was no flour at that time.

Comment:
The staple food of the Kolyma Yukaghirs until the second half of the 20th century was fish. Reindeer or elk meat was also eaten, while dairy products were borrowed from the Yakuts. Flour, called i:-legul literally 'smoke food', was occasionally obtained from Russian traders, but used to be very expensive.

Only a little tea.

So that old man came.

I invited him and he drank tea and ate with me.

He was a wonderful old man.

When that old man ate, I saw that his pipe had no chibouk.

He had smoked all his chibouk.

I saw that he was holding his pipe, and my own tobacco and my pipe came to my mind.

Comment:
The word aNa remains uninflected.

I took it out and started smoking.

When I smoked the tobacco, he saw it and said: "Freind, what are you doing there?

What are you smoking?" he said.

Then I said: "I am smoking tobacco."

"Oh, give me a little bit."

I thought that he would smoke it too, and gave him some.

I thought that he wanted to smoke and gave some to him.

Comment:
The word monut functions as a complementizer.

He filled his pipe and breathed in deeply.

He inhaled two or three times.

Then I saw that the old man started shaking and his face became red. I was afraid because I thought that he would die lying there.

Comment:
The word monut functions as a complementizer.

I cried and ran to my reindeer.

I took one of my reindeer and led it to the sledge.

I hadn't reached the second reindeer yet when he said to me: "Boy, don't be afraid, don't be afraid.

I was intoxicated.

I was intoxicated by tobacco and that's why I became like that.

I became like that because I haven't smoked for a long time."

He was alive and was holding tobacco in his hand.

When I saw that he was alive and said "I was intoxicated", I felt better.

Comment:
The word monut functions as a complementizer.

I gave him some more tobacco and he smoked it.

I drank tea and ate.

When I finished, I prepared to leave

That old man remained there.

I don't remember how I reached those people.

I don't remember, I was very small.

I was ten or eleven at the time.

You see: that's what tobacco does to a man. It is very bad to smoke tobacco.

It is frightening.

That's the end.