Deniska was the first to wake up.  Something must have bitten him, for he jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said: 

“Plague take you, cursed idolater!”

Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed.  His splashing and puffing roused Yegorushka from his lethargy.  The boy looked at his wet face with drops of water and big freckles which made it look like marble, and asked: 

“Shall we soon be going?”

Deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered: 

“I expect so.”

He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very serious face, hopped on one leg.

“I say, which of us will get to the sedge first?” he said.

Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced off after him all the same.  Deniska was in his twentieth year, was a coachman and going to be married, but he had not left off being a boy.  He was very fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing knuckle-bones, running races, and always took part in children’s games and disputes.  No sooner had his master turned his back or gone to sleep than Deniska would begin doing something such as hopping on one leg or throwing stones.  It was hard for any grown-up person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he frolicked about in the society of children, to resist saying, “What a baby!” Children, on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of their domain by the big coachman.  “Let him play,” they thought, “as long as he doesn’t fight!” In the same way little dogs see nothing strange in it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited and begins playing with them.

Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased at having done so.  He winked at him, and to show that he could hop on one leg any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that he should hop with him along the road and from there, without resting, back to the chaise.  Yegorushka declined this suggestion, for he was very much out of breath and exhausted.

All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick; listening intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression of sternness and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in people who hear heretical talk.  He fixed his eyes on one spot, raised his hand curved into a hollow, and suddenly fell on his stomach on the ground and slapped the hollow of his hand down upon the grass.

“Caught!” he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big grasshopper to Yegorushka’s eyes.

The two boys stroked the grasshopper’s broad green back with their fingers and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please the creature.  Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking blood and offered it to the grasshopper.  The latter moved his huge jaws, that were like the visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern, as though he had been long acquainted with Deniska, and bit off the fly’s stomach.  They let him go.  With a flash of the pink lining of his wings, he flew down into the grass and at once began his churring notes again.  They let the fly go, too.  It preened its wings, and without its stomach flew off to the horses.