"Anatoly Rybakov. The dirk (Кортик, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

fire-wood. The saw rang merrily while a carpet of yellow sawdust was rapidly
covering the ground round the saw-horse.
Misha sat on the log near the kennel and studied the wood-cutters. The
older man looked about forty; he was of medium height, stocky, had a swarthy
face and his curly hair stuck to his perspiring forehead. The second man was
a young, fair-haired fellow with a freckled face and bleached brows, and
somehow he looked slack and clumsy.
Misha stealthily slipped his hand under the kennel and felt for the
package. Should he take it out? He looked at the wood-cutters out of the
corner of his eye. They had stopped sawing and were resting on the
fire-wood. The older man rolled a scrap of paper into a small bent cone,
filled it with tobacco from his palm, and lit it. While he smoked, the
second man dozed.
"Whew! I'm sleepy!" he said, opening his eyes and yawning.
"When you're sleepy even a harrow's a good bed," the older man replied.
The men fell silent. All was quiet in the yard. Only the hens pecked a
rapid tattoo on a wooden trough. They were drinking water, comically
throwing back their small red-combed heads after every gulp.
When the wood-cutters rose and began splitting the fire-wood again,
Misha carefully pulled out the package and opened it. He turned the blade in
his hand and noticed a hardly perceptible engraving of a wolf on one side.
On the second side was a scorpion, on the third a lily.
Wolf, scorpion, and lily. What could they signify?
Misha's thoughts were rudely disturbed by a log falling near him. He
pressed the dirk to his breast in alarm, covering it with his hand.
"Move off, kiddy, or you'll get hurt," the swarthy man said.
"I'm not a kid," Misha retorted.
"Oho! You've got a sharp tongue!" the man laughed. "Who are you? The
commissar's son?"
"What commissar?"
"Polevoy," the man said and for some reason threw a look at the house.
"No. He only lives with us."
"Is he at home?" the man asked, dropping the axe and looking intently
at Misha.
"No. He usually comes in at dinner-time. Do you want him?"
"No. Thought I'd ask, that's all."
When they had split all the wood, Grandmother brought the woodcutters a
plate of pork, bread, and some vodka. The man with the fair hair drank his
vodka silently, but the older man made a ceremony of it.
"Well, here's how!" he said, and emptied his glass.
He wrinkled his face, sniffed at the bread, and cleared his throat
noisily.
"Ah, that was good!" he said with a wink at Misha.
They ate the meal slowly: sliced the pork into neat pieces, chewed and
sucked the skin. Before going off each drank a ladle of water.
Grandmother, however, remained in the yard. She stood a large brass pan
with a long wooden handle on a tripod, heaped kindlings under it, and made a
wind-break of bricks. That meant she was going to cook jam and stay there
for some time. Misha saw it was no use trying to return the dirk to its
hiding place, so he put it in his sleeve and went into the house.