They sent me from the city to my aunt's village for the weekend. It's summer. It's hot. I want to swim, but my aunt told me not to go to the lake behind the gardens. The water is ice-cold and almost knee-deep near the shore, you can drown in the distance, it's deep, in short. He also said that there are devils there. I'm not a kid, but I don't believe in devils. But a ban is a ban. I didn't go. My aunt was doing something around the house and looked out into the yard, where I was. And she sent me to the garden, whether for carrots or cucumbers, I don't remember. So I went.
I went out into the garden, and there was the lake as far as the eye could see. I saw two boys with a boat going to the lake. They threw the boat on the water, jumped in. They swam away from the shore. Got their fishing rods. And, like in a fairy tale, one fish after another. Yes, not small, decent ones. It took them 10 minutes to catch and we decided to row to shore. They put down their rods, took out their oars, and began to row. They swam a little, nothing left to the shore, and the boat smoothly as the nose turns and swims along the shore, goes to shore. How the boys were not rowing, but the boat was not sailing ashore. They decided to moor to the other shore. There was not much left to the shore, but the boat was swimming along the other bank again. If it was a river, I would have thought the current was strong, but there was a lake, and this side (only 3 meters to the shore) the boat was going to the left, but the opposite side was going to the right. The lake is oval. The boys were frightened, but they were still trying to reach some other shore, the one that was closer to them. The boat is paddling in circles along the shore, but is not approaching the dry land. So they couldn't reach land on either side. They swim along the shore, in a circle (or rather an oval, the lake is oval), but they cannot reach the shore, they are only a couple of meters away. So they swam one lap, trying in vain to get closer to the land.
An aunt came out into the garden to ask me what was taking me so long. I told her about the boys. She must have seen them herself. She rushed to the neighbors. People came out on the shore. The men tied a rope into one to make it longer, and went around the lake. One end of the rope one man held near us, other end of the rope other man carried around the lake to the opposite shore. The other end of the rope was carried around the lake to the opposite side, so as not to touch the water (or so the devils would get hold of it and pull it to the bottom, and there would be nothing to save the guys), and the guys would be able to catch hold of the "saving thread" somewhere in the middle.
When the boat and the rope intersected, the boys caught hold of the rope, stepped into the boat with their feet, grabbed the rope with their hands and pulled their raft to the shore with force. Three meters from the shore the boat tipped over. The boys, holding on to the rope, were hanging on the water, but they were being swept away as if by a strong current. Some fellows, standing on the bank, rushed to save the fellows, having tied other ropes around their waists, so that they could be pulled out by people on the bank, if they could not swim out on their own. They pulled them out, just barely, but all ended well and they were all alive. And only the old, gnarled, toothless grandmother next door, who was muttering, cursing and swearing something during the rescue mission, suddenly whispered: "The devils stir the broth in the cup, which makes the water along the shore 'twist. And they took away the catch from the boys. And then she mumbled something else, but I couldn't hear any more, my aunt dragged me home.
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