That good woman snatched up her heavy milk can and leaped onto the porch with a shriek and the goat ran into the wall of the house and came to a stop.
Everybody noticed, then, that a board had been fastened to the animal's horns. On it was written:
I am a goat—beware! A goat of note—take care! Who Annie would beat Vengeance I'll wreak!
Meanwhile, at the corner beyond the fence, the boys, feeling very pleased with themselves, were laughing fit to split their sides.
Sima Simakov drove a stick into the ground and went galumphing round it in a wild dance, chanting proudly:
We are not a gang of roughs Nor a rabble band. We are disciplined and tough And our pranks are planned. Pioneers all are we! Pioneers are we!
Then the boys darted off noiselessly like a flock of martins.
There was still plenty of work to do, but the chief thing now as to draw up an ultimatum and to send it to Misha Kvakin.
Nobody knew how to draw up an ultimatum, so Timur asked his uncle.
His uncle explained that each country had its own way of drawing up ultimatums but that courtesy obliged you to wind them up with the following words:
"Please accept, Mr. Minister, the assurance of my highest esteem."
After this the ultimatum should be tendered to the head of the hostile country by an accredited ambassador.
But this did not appeal to Timur or to any of the others.
First of all, they had no intention of conveying any kind of esteem to that hoodlum Kvakin; secondly, they had neither a permanent ambassador nor even an envoy accredited to Kvakin's gang.
After discussing the point they decided to send a simpler ultimatum, like the one the Zaporozhye Cossacks sent the Turkish sultan. They had all seen the picture of the Cossacks writing their ultimatum and they had read about how the brave fellows fought the Turks, the Tatars and the Poles.
Behind the grey gate with the black-bordered red star in the shady garden of the house opposite the house where Olga and Jenny were living, a fair-haired little girl was making her way down the gravel walk.
Her mother, a young and pretty woman but tired and sad-looking, was sitting in a rocking chair near the window; on the sill stood a huge bouquet of wild flowers.
Before her lay a pile of open telegrams and letters— from relatives and friends, acquaintances and strangers.
The letters and telegrams were full of warm sympathy.
They seemed to speak to her from a distance, like a forest echo, which calls nowhere and promises nothing, yet comforts the traveller with the knowledge that there are people close by and that he is not alone in the dark woods.
The fair-haired little girl stopped by the fence, holding her doll upside down so that its wooden arms and hempen braids trailed over the ground.
A painted rabbit cut out in ply-board was dangling from the top of the fence.
The expression on its face was droll and rather sad. It was jerking one of its paws strumming a little balalaika.
Thrilled by this miraculous occurrence, which naturally seemed to her strange and wonderful beyond compare, the little girl dropped her doll and ran up to the fence. The rabbit, apparently eager to please, dropped right into her hands!
Jenny's smiling face popped up from behind the fence.
The little girl looked up at Jenny.
"Are you playing with me?" she asked.
"Yes.
Would you like me to jump down?"
"There's some nettles here," the little girl warned her after thinking it over. "I stung my hand yesterday."
"That's all right," said Jenny, jumping down. "I'm not afraid of it.
Show me the nettle that stung your hand yesterday.
This one?
Well, just watch: I'll pull it up, and throw it down, and stamp on it and spit on it. All right?
Now let's play. You have the hare and I'll have the doll."
From the porch Olga had noticed that Jenny was hanging about near their neighbour's fence, but she did not want to interfere with her sister. There had been enough tears for one morning.
But when Jenny climbed over the fence into the neighbour's garden Olga began to worry. She left the house, crossed over to the gate and opened it.
Jenny and the little girl were now standing at the window beside the woman, who was smiling as her daughter showed her how the funny, sad-looking rabbit played the balalaika.
Noting Jenny's perturbed expression when her sister entered the garden, the woman guessed that Olga was displeased.
"Please don't be angry with her," she said quietly to Olga. "She's only playing with my little girl.
This is a sad time for us. . .." The woman fell silent. "I've been crying my eyes out, while she"—the woman pointed to her tiny daughter and added almost in a whisper—"she doesn't even know that her father was killed at the frontier not long ago."
It was now Olga's turn to feel abashed, while Jenny watched her from some way off with an expression of bitter reproach.
"And I'm all alone," the woman continued. "My mother lives far, far away in the taiga. My brothers are in the Army and I have no sisters."
The young woman put a hand on Jenny's shoulder and pointed to the window.
"Was it you who put this bunch of flowers on my porch last night?" she asked.
"No," replied Jenny without stopping to think. "It wasn't me.
But I expect it was one of our. . . ."
"One of our what?" Olga gave Jenny a puzzled look.
"I don't know." Jenny was frightened. "It wasn't me.
I don't know anything about it.