We were all three busily engaged in breakfasting among the tall stems of a rye-field, near a village, when we observed several human children playing about in an adjoining belt of pasture-land. There were no grown men present, so far as we were aware, and we determined to amuse ourselves, and at the same time to piously observe the injunctions of our dear mother deceased, by doing our best to frighten the brats out of their wits, and, if possible, injure them besides; we were too small, as yet, to do them any very serious harm; in fact, they were rather bigger, I think, than we.
So we crept towards them, hidden from view by the beautiful thick rye-stalks, until we were close to the edge of the pasture-field. Then, at a signal from Natasha, we all three pounced out upon them, growling and open-mouthed. Oh dear, oh dear! it was a funny sight to see those children! The silly creatures were too startled to move until we were upon them. They stood staring and shrieking, with eyes and mouth open, and turned to run only when it was too late. How we laughed as we rolled them over and over in the grass and scratched their faces, and tore their dresses off their backs! and how they screamed! The whole population of the village rushed out to see what all the noise was about, big men and women with axes and long things called scythes, and then we thought it was time to retire among our rye-stalks. There we hid ourselves and laughed, and ate the delicious cool, juicy grasses, and the luscious rye-grains, until we could eat and laugh no more, and determined to make a move into the woods, in order to have a good drink in a moss pool we knew of and then lie down a bit and sleep off the excitement. But to our horror we found that those mean wretches, the humans belonging to the village, were waiting for us outside the cover. They had sneaked up and surrounded us, and were sitting silently all along the edge of the field, armed with their axes and scythes and nets; luckily they had no fire-sticks!
Well, Vainka was, as it happened, the first to step out from among the rye-stalks, and he was immediately confronted by two women and a man who ran after him--one getting in front and one on each side. While they were busy with him, however, Natasha and I escaped unnoticed and were able to watch the pursuit of poor Vainka from a position of safety. One of the women had a crawfish net with a long wooden handle. This creature kept calling to the others, "Don't kill him, don't kill him! we'll take him alive!" The others seemed to agree, for they closed in upon poor little Vainka and placed the crawfish net tightly over his head and face, so that, though he fought fiercely and bravely for liberty, he was quite powerless to hurt them. Then they led him away to the village and we saw him no more.