Beam's parents were thoroughbred Scottish setters with a long pedigree, but the puppy was born "defective." The correct setter "must be black, with a brilliant bluish tint - the color of the raven wing, and always with clearly delimited bright marks, red-red tan." Bim, on the other hand, was bluish-black with only one ear and hind leg, the rest of the hair was of a soft yellowish-red color. The breeder wanted to drown the unfortunate puppy, but Ivan Ivanovich took it for himself and fed it from the nipple.
The writer Ivan Ivanovich lived alone. His wife died long ago, and he often spoke with her portrait. For Bim, he was the most important person in the world - the master. The puppy grew up very smart and intelligent. The owner often took him out of town, to the meadow or to the forest. The first time Bim sensed a quail when he was one year old. “By the age of two, Bim had become an excellent hunting dog, trusting and honest. He already knew about a hundred words related to hunting and home. " He felt the mood of the owner and could determine by his eyes how he relates to the new person. Bim could growl at the enemy, but he never bit anyone.
Bim met his first enemy on the third fall of his life. She was an aunt of "short stature, shrill and fat." She spent whole days sitting on a bench at the entrance with other “free women”. Once a dog from "an excess of feelings‹ ... ›towards humanity" licked her hand. The aunt screeched all over the yard, frightening Bima, and wrote a complaint to the chairman of the house committee that the dog had bitten her. When the chairman came to Ivan Ivanovitch, he and Bim were going for the first hunt of the season. The owner showed all the commands that the dog was able to perform. Bim very elegantly gave the paw to the chairman, but refused to say hello to his aunt. At the sight of a "free Soviet woman" the dog hid in the farthest corner and did not obey the owner, which had never happened to her. The chairman realized that Bim was afraid of his aunt, and did not listen to her anymore. The aunt considered herself offended and became the enemy of Bim.
It was already the fourth year that Bimu started, when a splinter stirred under Ivan Ivanitch’s heart, which had been sitting under his heart since the war. One evening, a neighbor, old Stepanovna, called an ambulance and the owner was taken away. He left Bima in the care of a neighbor. While the owner’s illness lasted, the dog walked on his own, and when he returned home, he scratched the door with his paws. In the morning, in the absence of the owner, he refused to eat, and a neighbor released him with the words: “Go, look for something.” Bim understood this in his own way: go, look for the owner. The dog rushed along the trail, which led him directly to the emergency hospital. Bim culturally scratched the door, but was not allowed inside. Bim came to this door several times, but the owner still did not appear.
The dog began to simply walk the streets, hoping that sooner or later he would come across a beloved master. During this time, he realized that not all people are good, and learned to distinguish good people from evil. Once on the street Bima aunt saw and made a scandal. Some student and girl Dasha stood up for the dog, and the policeman found out the address of Bim by the number on the collar. So the dog, accompanied by Dasha, got home again.
Dasha met an old woman Stepanovna, who told the girl that Ivan Ivanovitch had been taken to Moscow to undergo a complicated operation. Dasha attached a brass plate to the dog’s collar with the inscription: “His name is Bim. He is waiting for the master. He knows his house well. Lives in an apartment. Do not offend him, people. " He refused to eat the dog.
The next day, Bima again pulled in search of the owner. During his wanderings around the city, the dog met a company of children, among whom was the boy Tolik, who managed to feed him. "Bim used to treat children especially, and now he has finally made sure that small people are all good and big ones are different."At this time, the uncle in gray clothes approached the children. He saw a sign on Beam’s collar and told the guys that he would take the dog home.
Gray turned out to be a collector of dog signs. He brought Bim to him and removed a brass tablet from his collar. Gray was afraid that the children would see the dog without a sign and guess everything, and decided to leave him for the night in his apartment. At night, Beam became sad in a strange dwelling, and the dog howled. Gray woke up, began to beat him with a stick, then opened the door to drive out. It was then that Bim first bit a man in his life.
The days passed. Every day Bim ran around the city along the same route - you could check the clock on it. Now people called him Black Ear. Once he smelled of Dasha, which led him to the station. Having made his way to the platform, Bim saw Dasha in one of the cars. The train started, the dog rushed after it and ran until it was left strength. Bim returned to the city late in the evening. He walked along the rails when someone turned the arrow, and the dog’s paw fell "in a mighty vice." The locomotive walking towards managed to stop right in front of him. One of the drivers freed Bim, but his forepaw suffered a lot. Lame, he barely made it to the house. Since then, Stepanovna did not let the dog go alone.
The rumor about a thin dog on three legs, the owner of which was taken for surgery to Moscow, spread to all schools in the city - the teachers liked that the children sympathize with the sick animal. We talked about Beam for three days in class. I heard about the dog and his new friend Tolik. He found the apartment in which Bim lived, and met Stepanovna and her granddaughter. Not finding a sign on the dog’s collar, Tolik realized that Gray had stolen it. Meeting him on the street, the boy accused the man of stealing a tablet. Gray was afraid that Tolik would bring policemen, and decided that the best defense was an attack. He wrote a statement to the city veterinary station, where he complained that he had been bitten by a “outbred setter with a black ear” running along the street, possibly furious.
Somehow, Gray met his aunt, Bim's first enemy. Finding out that the dog had bitten both of them, they decided to unite. As a result, an advertisement appeared in the regional newspaper warning about a rabid dog with a black ear. Learning about this, Tolik took Bim to the vet - he wanted to prove that the dog was healthy. The doctor gave the boy an ointment for a sick dog paw.
Through the efforts of Tolik and Stepanovna, Bim recovered by late fall. His paw was no longer sick, only became a little shorter, and Bim limped. The bruised head did not go away - from time to time she was dizzy. Tolik came every day to walk Bima. Once he did not come - he told his parents where he was going, and they did not let him in. The granddaughter of Stepanovna tried to walk the dog herself, but the boys offended her, and Bima again began to let go of one.
Once the familiar hauler called out to the dog - the owner took him to the forest on her tram. Bim decided that the owner was somewhere nearby, and entered the tram. There the driver and sold it to a stranger. So Bim, who was called Chernook, got into the village. His new owner Khrisan Andreyevich grazed sheep, and the dog soon learned to help him. Bim was especially fond of the owner’s son, Alyosha. The dog liked this free life. The shepherd, who doubted that the dog really belonged to the tram driver, found Bim’s house and agreed that the dog would live with him until the real owner returned.
Everything went well until neighbor Klim came to Khrisan Andreich. He asked to borrow Bim for one day - to hunt, because a hunting dog can die without a favorite job. We went hunting in the morning. Bim scared the hare away. Klim wounded him, and wanted the dog to catch up with the unfortunate animal and strangle him, but he was an intelligent dog, not trained to finish wounded animals. Realizing this, Klim became furious and "hit him with all his might with the toe of a huge boot into the chest from below." Bim collapsed to the ground, and Klim decided that he had killed the dog, and left, not wanting to pay "compensation" for the killed dog.
Bim, however, survived, although everything hurt inside him. The dog spent the night in a haystack, not daring to return to the village where Klim had gone. Home, to Hirsan Andreich, he made his way in the morning. He would have stayed with the shepherd if Klim had not passed by his house. After lying down a bit, Bim headed for the highway. He did not know that the shepherd with his son had been looking for him for a long time. Seeing the blood on Bim's rug, they guessed that Klim had beaten the dog, but could not find him.
Bim was hiding in the forest. He found a convenient refuge - a ravine, in which an armful of dry leaves accumulated, and lived in it for a week. All this time he was treated with herbs and roots, instinctively distinguishing medicinal from poisonous. He had to break yet another ban on hunting dogs - to eat caught game. After a bit of recollection, Bim went to the city - to Tolik, Luce and Stepanovna. Bypassing the block where Gray lived, the dog smelled of Tolik. A trace led him to the boy's house.
In order not to injure the child, Tolik's parents pretended to agree to keep Bima at home. In fact, they were not only against the dog, but also against Tolik’s friendship with Lyusya: the boy’s father held a high post and believed that the son should not communicate with “ordinary people”. Bim stayed in this house only one evening. Tolik's father took the dog far into the forest late at night, tied it with a rope to a tree, left some food and left. In the morning, Bim bit the rope, got out on the highway and headed for the city.
Having discovered Bim’s disappearance and deception, which his parents decided on, Tolik “became silent‹ ... ›closed, wary.” He firmly decided to find a dog. After school, the boy walked around the city and asked passers-by about Beam.
Meanwhile, the dog reached the city. On the way "to his native door", he again decided to bypass the quarter of Sery, and again got to Tolik's house. Here his father saw the boy. He decided to catch the dog and get rid of it completely, but Bim managed to escape. The dog spent the night in a strange entrance, and in the morning went home. At the house he met aunt. She got up earlier than anyone and watched the neighbors. Only Sunday and Monday were her days off - these days she resold products bought from collective farmers in the market. The aunt lived comfortably and called herself "a free Soviet woman." She did not let Bima out into the yard. Then a dog-cattle van drove up to them, and the aunt made sure that the dog was caught, locked and taken away.
Alyosha, meanwhile, also decided to look for Bim. During the search, he met Tolik. Realizing that they were looking for the same dog, the boys decided to unite. Near the station, they met a tall gray-haired man, who turned out to be Ivan Ivanovich, who returned home after the operation. They began to search for Bima together. Ivan Ivanovitch decided to look into the quarantine section, where the dogs captured in the city were kept. He persuaded the watchman to open the door of the van, and realized that he was late. Bim scratched at the door all night, but this time they didn’t open him. The owner buried his friend in a forest glade, where they once walked.
Bim left his mark - the friendship between the boys who would never have met without a dog. Father Tolik not only decided to organize a search for the dog, but also bought a boy a dog. Ivan Ivanovich did not tell his friends about the death of a friend, but he himself found out from the dog-catchers who gave them the dog. In the spring, the owner took a puppy, a Scottish setter named Bim.
