Make Believe by Vsevolod Garshin — Read

One beautiful June day -- and it was beautiful because there were twenty-eight degrees Réamur10 -- one beautiful June day it was hot everywhere, but on a little plot in the garden, where there stood a mound of recently-mown hay, it was still hotter, because this spot was screened from any breeze by a thick, extremely thick, cherry orchard. Almost everything was sleeping. The men and women, having had their midday fill, were lying on their sides busily engaged in that profound meditation which generally follows the noonday meal. The birds were silent; even numbers of the insects were hiding from the heat, and as regards the domestic animals, "it goes without the saying. " The cattle, large and small, were taking refuge under eaves. A dog which had dug a hole under a barn had betaken himself thither, and with half-closed eyes was stretched out, breathing spasmodically, and showing nearly half an arshin11 of crimson tongue. From time to time, no doubt from boredom caused by the stifling heat, he yawned to such an extent as to give little yelps. The pigs, mamma with thirteen children, had gone off to the river, and were lying embedded in greasy black ooze, showing only a row of sniffling, grunting snouts, long dirty backs, and huge flapping ears. Only the hens, fearless of the heat, were endeavouring to kill time by scratching up the dust opposite the kitchen door, in which there was not, as they well knew, even one single tiny grain, and things must have been going very badly with one of the cocks, because from time to time he assumed a ridiculous attitude, and at the top of his voice called out: "What a scandal!"

We had come out of this plot where it was hottest of all, but a whole company of non-slumbering individuals were sitting there. That is to say, not all were sitting. The old bay horse, for instance, who, from fear for his sides of the whip wielded by the coachman, Anton, had been raking up the hay, being a horse, was quite unable to sit down. A caterpillar, the grub of some kind of butterfly, was resting on its belly rather than sitting; however, it is not a matter of words. A small but very serious gathering had assembled under a cherry-tree -- a snail, a beetle, a lizard, and the caterpillar already mentioned. A grasshopper also hopped up, and near by stood the old bay listening to the speeches with one bay ear lined inside with dark grey hairs turned towards them. There were also two flies sitting on the bay horse.