Sometimes in spring, when the big river flooded its banks and made
lakes of the meadows, and the little rivers flowed deep, old Peter
spent a few days netting fish. Also in summer he set night-lines in
the little river not far from where it left the forest. And so it
happened that one day he sat in the warm sunshine outside his hut,
mending his nets and making floats for them; not cork floats like
ours, but little rolls of the silver bark of the birch tree.
And while he sat there Vanya and Maroosia watched him, and sometimes
even helped, holding a piece of the net between them, while old Peter
fastened on the little glistening rolls of bark that were to keep it
up in the water. And all the time old Peter worked he smoked, and told
them stories about fish.
First he told them what happened when the first pike was born, and how
it is that all the little fish are not eaten by the great pike with
his huge greedy mouth and his sharp teeth.
* * * * *
On the night of Ivanov's Day (that is the day of Saint John, which is
Midsummer) there was born the pike, a huge fish, with such teeth as
never were. And when the pike was born the waters of the river foamed
and raged, so that the ships in the river were all but swamped, and
the pretty young girls who were playing on the banks ran away as fast
as they could, frightened, they were, by the roaring of the waves, and
the black wind and the white foam on the water. Terrible was the birth
of the sharp-toothed pike.
And when the pike was born he did not grow up by months or by days,
but by hours. Every day it was two inches longer than the day before.
In a month it was two yards long; in two months it was twelve feet
long; in three months it was raging up and down the river like a
tempest, eating the bream and the perch, and all the small fish that
came in its way. There was a bream or a perch swimming lazily in the
stream. The pike saw it as it raged by, caught it in its great white
mouth, and instantly the bream or the perch was gone, torn to pieces
by the pike's teeth, and swallowed as you would swallow a sunflower
seed. And bream and perch are big fish. It was worse for the little
ones.
[Illustration: "Head in air and tail in sea,
Fish, fish, listen to me"]
What was to be done? The bream and the perch put their heads together
in a quiet pool. It was clear enough that the great pike would eat
everyone of them. So they called a meeting of all the little fish,
and set to thinking what could be done by way of dealing with the
great pike, which had such sharp teeth and was making so free with
their lives.
They all came to the meeting--bream, and perch, and roach, and dace,
and gudgeon; yes, and the little ersh with his spiny back.