I liked being alone and playing by myself. I would sprinkle salt on my wet hand and hold it out to the sheep, and they would all run after my hand and lick it, because of the salt. Sheep love salt. Then I would put my hand back into my pocket, give them some more from my palm, and they would follow me.
That was how I would lead them into the Mrežnica, to a place where the river would usually dry up, leaving something like a deep pool. I would wade into the water up to my waist, and the sheep would follow me in and bathe there.
When they had had a good bath, they would come out, shake out their fleeces and look around contentedly, all beautiful and clean. And then I would start talking to them as if we were having a conversation.
I would look at how beautifully clean their legs were, at their pretty little shoes, and how some of them seemed to be wearing little socks. I would gaze at my sheep, at their legs and their eyes, at the markings around them. One had one white eye and one black eye — I even noticed things like that.
Then in the evening, when it was already time to take the livestock home, the lambs would suddenly separate themselves from the sheep and gather together as if they were discussing something among themselves. I would watch them, wondering what they were going to do.
And then the game would begin.
The meadows there were undulating. We called those uneven, overhanging slopes brinje. That was where they would start playing. One lamb would follow another, prancing on their little legs, always along exactly the same path.
They might play like that for half an hour, and I would wait until their game was over. No other child would stand there with their lambs and wait for them to finish playing.
But once they had eaten their fill, suckled and grazed, they wanted a change. So I let them play, and we would get home when they were ready to go.
That was how I was different. I never liked mixing my flock with the flocks of the other shepherd children.