"Cather, Willa - O Pioneers!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cather Willa Sibert)

smacked their lips after each pull at the flask.
Their volubility drowned every other noise in
the place, and the overheated store sounded of
their spirited language as it reeked of pipe
smoke, damp woolens, and kerosene.

Carl came in, wearing his overcoat and carry-
ing a wooden box with a brass handle. "Come,"
he said, "I've fed and watered your team, and
the wagon is ready." He carried Emil out and
tucked him down in the straw in the wagon-
box. The heat had made the little boy sleepy,
but he still clung to his kitten.

"You were awful good to climb so high and
get my kitten, Carl. When I get big I'll climb
and get little boys' kittens for them," he mur-
mured drowsily. Before the horses were over
the first hill, Emil and his cat were both fast
asleep.

Although it was only four o'clock, the winter
day was fading. The road led southwest, toward
the streak of pale, watery light that glimmered
in the leaden sky. The light fell upon the two
sad young faces that were turned mutely toward
it: upon the eyes of the girl, who seemed to be
looking with such anguished perplexity into
the future; upon the sombre eyes of the boy,
who seemed already to be looking into the past.
The little town behind them had vanished as if
it had never been, had fallen behind the swell
of the prairie, and the stern frozen country
received them into its bosom. The homesteads
were few and far apart; here and there a wind-
mill gaunt against the sky, a sod house crouch-
ing in a hollow. But the great fact was the land
itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little
beginnings of human society that struggled in
its sombre wastes. It was from facing this vast
hardness that the boy's mouth had become so
bitter; because he felt that men were too weak
to make any mark here, that the land wanted
to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce
strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty,
its uninterrupted mournfulness.

The wagon jolted along over the frozen road.
The two friends had less to say to each other
than usual, as if the cold had somehow pene-