Page:The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories.djvu/183

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

KASHTANKA

A STORY

I

misbehaviour

A young dog, a reddish mongrel, between a dachshund and a "yard-dog," very like a fox in face, was running up and down the pavement looking uneasily from side to side. From time to time she stopped and, whining and lifting first one chilled paw and then another, tried to make up her mind how it could have happened that she was lost.

She remembered very well how she had passed the day, and how, in the end, she had found herself on this unfamiliar pavement.

The day had begun by her master Luka Alexandritch's putting on his hat, taking something wooden under his arm wrapped up in a red handkerchief, and calling: "Kashtanka, come along!"

Hearing her name the mongrel had come out from under the work table, where she slept on the shavings, stretched herself voluptuously and run after her master. The people Luka Alexandritch