It was easy to find pieces of wood for the barrels in the pile of scraps near the summer shower. Then, we needed nails, and not just any nails, but a certain size. We knew perfectly well where to find them. We just needed to figure out how to get to them.
Nails, large and small, and special shoemaker’s nails were kept in Grandpa’s storage room in the yard, not far from the lavatory. We weren’t allowed to enter it. Yura, of course, had done so without permission more than once, more than twice. Since I was a visitor, I had entered the storage room with Grandpa in the past. We needed to sneak into the storage room quickly and remain unnoticed, but we couldn’t figure out how, for the storage room door was terribly squeaky.
“Last time I opened it, Jack was barking,” Yura remembered. “Let’s tease Jack.”
We jumped around Jack, making faces, but he lay calmly, glancing at us lazily from time to time. Perhaps he was thinking, “Who knows what you want?… Now don’t bark… Now bark suddenly…”
Yura picked up some small pebbles and began throwing them at Jack. One of the pebbles hit the kennel. Jack couldn’t take it any longer, jumped up and burst into loud deep barking. I wasted no time and darted into the storage room, leaving the door ajar.
The rays of light that penetrated the storage room through the crack lit the dark little shed with its low ceiling and earthen floor. The old cabinet was on the wall across from the door. It seemed to be looking sullenly at us, not expecting anything good from these uninvited visitors. It was a very old, unvarnished cabinet without a single scratch. Perhaps the darkness that always surrounded it protected it well.
Yura held back the door so that it wouldn’t squeak, and I flung open the door of the cabinet. What couldn’t you find in there! Everything you would need for starting a shoe factory right in our yard.
Rolled strips of leather that looked like scrolls of ancient parchment were on the upper shelves. They gave off a pleasant smell. The lower shelves were filled with paper bags full of heels, soles, taps, laces, and other small items used in shoe repair.
“Hurry up, you’re so slow! Look on the lower shelf!” My cousin pushed me.
But when I got to the bag of nails, I couldn’t find the ones we needed right away. Nails, like hedgehog’s quills, pricked all my fingers, and I moaned and yelped slightly while Yura hopped up and down impatiently at the door.
At last, the nails were in my pocket, but I didn’t feel like leaving this very interesting little shed. It was filled with boxes of old household utensils – kettles, basins, a beautiful copper pitcher with a long, thin, swan-like neck and a decorative lid. There were many other wonderful things there. “Oh, look,” we whispered, rummaging through boxes. Yura had propped the door open with a brick and joined me in this absorbing pastime. We felt like treasure hunters about to find a box of gold coins, a Damascus steel saber or at least an old pistol. Our finds were much more modest, of course, but a roll of insulation wire wasn’t a bad find. We could use it when we make slingshots.
We managed to make our sawed-off shotguns quite quickly. Now we needed to test them, and to practice.
The yard offered many targets. We could shoot at leaves or an old bucket near the duval, but we preferred a live, moving target, like Jack, for instance. At that moment, he was sniffing at something near his kennel.
That sniffing, it should be mentioned, wasn’t a random occupation or the result of finding something whose smell attracted Jack. No, it was a part of the special canine ritual Jack performed after he woke up. Since Jack took quite a few naps throughout the day, we witnessed the ritual often.
After waking up, he would sit with his rear paws wide apart and lick his groin and stomach clean. Jack was cleanly, and he did it without haste, conscientiously. Then, he would begin to stretch with great force until he turned into a kind of arrow. His fur, pressed to his body, became smooth and shiny. Even the tip of his shaggy tail became smooth. And what true delight his snout expressed! Jack’s ears were pressed to his head, he would squint blissfully, and he had a broad smile – there’s no other way to express what would happen to his snout.
No matter how many times I watched Jack stretching, it always seemed to me that he could stretch endlessly. If I tied his hind paws to something and stepped away from him with a tasty morsel in my hands, sausage, for example, Jack would begin to move his front paws as he advanced forward. One meter, two, three… he would move closer to me, and his body would stretch and stretch, becoming a thin tape about to break… Then I, of course, wouldn’t be able to resist any longer and would give him the sausage.
So far, I had performed such experiments only in my mind. And Jack, after stretching safely to his heart’s content, proceeded to sniffing. I think he was performing a test, and a thorough one at that, to see if everything was all right throughout the territory that belonged to him, Jack. Had anything unexpected happened there while he had been asleep? Had a treacherous, camouflaged enemy invaded his area? Had it been mined, to put it in military terms.
As far as I know, this is an ancient custom of dogs, inherited from their wild ancestors, just like the invariable rule of marking the border of their property by irrigating it… Taking into account Jack’s fellow yard dwellers, that rule was not superfluous. It took no effort on Yura’s part to sneak up on the poor dog while he was asleep and attach an empty tin can to his tail or play some other mean trick. It wasn’t Jack’s fault that Yura didn’t understand about his “marking” and didn’t obey “the laws of the jungle.”
Usually, when Jack inspected his property, he didn’t discover anything alarming. He may now and then have come across harmless border violators, ants or beetles. They were harmless all right, but they had to be punished. Jack did that with great pleasure. Bringing about the demise of a poor ant was a joyful, absorbing game for Jack. With his front legs bent and his chest near the ground, he would stand motionless, wagging his raised tail, then jump up and begin to frolic. That was something! It was a real dance. Even as Jack danced around his prey, he didn’t look blood thirsty. On the contrary, his snout would express sheer childlike joy. Jack would lean over an intruder and begin to sniff it, snorting and yelping slightly. His moist black nose twitched in all directions, his nostrils would expand and contract. Then he would put his nose down close to the insect, his eyes cocked… Woooop! His red tongue flashed at incredibly high speed, and the ant was gone. Sometimes, Jack, as a change of pace, would press some poor little thing into the ground.
As we searched for a target, Jack froze near his kennel, his tail erect, sniffing a beetle or ant. His beautiful fluffy tail was a perfect target. Yura was the first to shoot; I followed. The dog continued enjoying himself. We had missed! The second shot was successful. Jack jumped up, made himself comfortable and began chewing on his tail. Perhaps he thought he had been bitten by a flea.
We decided that Jack had had enough, and we switched to more complex moving targets: flies and gnats. It was great to shoot at gnats as they swarmed, a dense cloud in the air. When we shot at such a cloud, we could see how the “bullet” cut across it. The cherry pits hit the leaves on the trees and the walls of the outbuildings. The hissing of bullets and their clicking, so pleasant to a boy’s ear, filled the yard for several hours. We practiced to our hearts’ content.
It was time to go to the tower. We requested permission to go – we didn’t want to take off without it this time – and left the yard.
The heat was subsiding. The intensity of the sultry, desert-like air was lessening. It was growing milder, cooling off gradually. It was the asphalt that still emitted waves of hot air, releasing the daytime heat. Metal roofs, made red hot during the day, were now shrinking and “firing occasional shots” as if complaining about the trials they endured. Birds began to wake up after their day’s rest in secluded corners – sparrows were chirping, doves cooing.