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A Trap with a Triple Rehearsal IT HAPPENED IN the year 1919. The entire Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, and along with it our little town, was without yeast, matches, firewood, and sugar.1 In a word, everyone was suffering a crisis of provisions, and those citizens who had false teeth had nothing to use them on. Nevertheless, we were sometimes given small quantities of matches and sugar with ration cards, but as far as firewood was concerned—the district commissioner ordered that a parcel of the town forest be allotted, on which our townsfolk could cut down green little aspen trees for themselves. Although it was difficult, all the same the citizens could manage to get a little of this and that. Only one thing was impossible to get, namely: hunting supplies. Even if some hunters managed to dig out a little powder from the cartridge of a military rifle, they weren’t given a pat on the back for such things. “Vladim Sergev, let’s be politically conscious. It’s easier to destroy than to build. Let’s not dig around in a military cartridge!” Semion Semionych said to me, when I expressed the feeble impulse to get a little powder by this means. “Semion Semionych, I’ve gotten terribly sick of living without hunting. Besides, you can eat hares, and for a fox hide the speculators will give either a little flour or some kerosene.” “That’s correct, Vladim Sergev. You are saying official things, but to dig around in a military cartridge—that’s an uneducated attitude. You can catch hares with a rope trap and foxes with an iron trap.” “But we don’t have any traps, Semion Semionych!” “That’s not important. What’s important is social development. Don’t you think we can make a trap? Just wait, Vladim Sergev, let there be a little more snowfall, we’ll get us some foxes!” From that day we began manufacturing fox traps, and meanwhile the snow just kept heaping up. When winter had firmly settled in, wolves appeared right near our town. There were three of them, the most impudent gray beasts you can imagine. It was as though they sensed that in this difficult 21 time people didn’t have time for hunting. The three wolves became so brazen that once they got to the outskirts of town and killed a dog in the yard of one of the outlying houses. I personally saw their tracks in the vegetable gardens right near the town. They were constantly roaming around our town, and several of the townsfolk saw them directly. The wolves were making a nuisance of themselves. The rumors about their escapades, as always, were exaggerated , and it got to the point that many of our old-time residents no longer dared to go outside town in the evenings, while the hunters sat idle with no powder. All this induced Semion Semionych and me to occupy ourselves with the wolf question as well. My friend set to work perfecting the fox traps, and finally invented an intricate triple-action trap that weighed about fifty pounds. The construction of this device involved iron runners from a broken sled, an old oven fork, a poker, and a piece of rusty roof iron. The local blacksmith Gavrila Komarov (whose nickname was “Mr. Bronze”) helped us in this work with his forge and anvil. With his help we made devilishly strong springs and two terrible sharp-toothed clamps. When the device was completely finished, Semion Semionych looked it over lovingly and said: “Now there’s a trap! We made it first-class! Now if some gray one sets his foot here—he’s finished: he’ll never be able to get out, because the thing has turned out triple-action. One may say: it’s a beast-killing device with a triple rehearsal: all at the same time it grips the paw, and hits the head with the poker, and crushes the beast with a log from above. In a word—it’s a beast-killer, not a trap.” My friend’s invention was in fact most terrifying to look at. Everything was so arranged and fitted out that the wolf had only to barely touch a large round plate with its paw in order for it to immediately jump off its little hook and turn on a spindle. At the same time, the strong springs would straighten out with a crash, and the two sharp-toothed...

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