"Alger Jr, Horatio - Ragged Dick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Alger Horatio Jr)

"Didn't you like it?"

"No, I had to get up too early. It was on a farm, and I had to
get up at five to take care of the cows. I like New York best."

"Didn't they give you enough to eat?"

"Oh, yes, plenty."

"And you had a good bed?"

"Yes."

"Then you'd better have stayed. You don't get either of them here.
Where'd you sleep last night?"

"Up an alley in an old wagon."

"You had a better bed than that in the country, didn't you?"

"Yes, it was as soft as--as cotton."

Johnny had once slept on a bale of cotton, the recollection
supplying him with a comparison.

"Why didn't you stay?"

"I felt lonely," said Johnny.

Johnny could not exactly explain his feelings, but it is
often the case that the young vagabond of the streets, though
his food is uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or
barrel that he is lucky enough to find unoccupied when night
sets in, gets so attached to his precarious but independent
mode of life, that he feels discontented in any other. He is
accustomed to the noise and bustle and ever-varied life of
the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the country misses
the excitement in the midst of which he has always dwelt.

Johnny had but one tie to bind him to the city. He had a
father living, but he might as well have been without one.
Mr. Nolan was a confirmed drunkard, and spent the greater
part of his wages for liquor. His potations made him ugly, and
inflamed a temper never very sweet, working him up sometimes
to such a pitch of rage that Johnny's life was in danger.
Some months before, he had thrown a flat-iron at his son's
head with such terrific force that unless Johnny had dodged
he would not have lived long enough to obtain a place in our
story. He fled the house, and from that time had not dared
to re-enter it. Somebody had given him a brush and box of