"Mary Stewart - Ludo and the Star Horse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

 But still Ludo whittled and whittled, and wished that he could be allowed to help his father with
something really useful, like tables and chairs; but he was as clumsy with a plane or a chisel as he could
be, and after he had cut himself a few times, and spoiled some good pieces of wood, he was forbidden
to do any more. Myself, I think this clumsiness must only have been because he was too eager, and tried
to do work which was beyond him, but Herr Spiegl would shake his head impatiently, and wonder aloud
what he had done to be saddled with a clumsy son like Ludo, and Frau Spiegl would purse her mouth up
over her neat sewing and say that it wasn't everyone who was born with clever hands, but that even Ludo
was a bit of a help sometimes. Then poor Ludo would hang his head and wish with all his heart that he
could do something, even the smallest thing, really well, so that he could be a help to his parents, and
perhaps one day hear people in the village saying, "There goes that clever boy of the Spiegls'," the way
they did about Emil the baker's son, and Hans from the smithy, and even Rudi his friend, who had once
earned a silver coin for showing the King's huntsman which way the stag had gone. But nobody was ever
going to say that about Ludo Spiegl, who had never been to school, and who did nothing well except
carry wood and fetch water, feed the animals and clean their stalls, mend the harness, sharpen his father's
tools and mix the glue and clean the brushes and sort the nails and sweep up the shavings. . . . So he
would carve away at some tough old pine root (for of course the best pieces had to be kept for his
father) and dream of one day being a real wood-carver and making things so beautiful that they were fit
for nothing less than the King's own castle.

Now, the part of his work that Ludo liked best (apart from the wood carving, which was really play)
was feeding the animals. Not the cow so much, because she was rather a stupid creature, or even the
goats, which were clever, but would take advantage of kindness, and give you a nip or pull loose from
their collars and give endless trouble before they could be caught again. But he loved the old horse Renti,
whom he had known all his life. Indeed, Renti was older than Ludo, being now seventeen years old,
which for a working horse is a very good age indeed. And a working horse he certainly was; he did
everything, the ploughing of Herr Spiegl's tiny field, the dragging of the logs down the mountainside to be
sawn up, the carting of the cut timber and then the finished furniture, and a dozen other tasks. For
fourteen years he had done this, and for the last three or four it could be seen that he was getting slower
and slower; then one day a rolling log caught one of his forelegs and hurt it. By good luck the leg had not
broken, but ever since that day Renti had gone stiffly and a good deal more slowly. So soon, perhaps this
next summer, said Herr Spiegl, they would have to get another horse. Neither Ludo's mother nor father
said a word about what would happen to Renti, but Ludo knew that his father could not afford to feed
two horses, so he knew that Renti would be taken away and killed. So every day, when he had finished
feeding the other animals, he took Renti his feed and then sat by him, talking to him for company.

"Because I can talk to you" said Ludo, "and even though I can't hear you, I'm sure you're talking
back to me."

And old Renti would blow gustily into the chopped hay and snuffle with his nostrils at Ludo's chest,
and the two of them understood one another very well.



CHAPTER II
The Lost Horse
One night, when the wind whined high among the white crags, and the snow swirled thick and ever
thicker around the cottage, Ludo sat there, quite alone but for the little gnomes that hung on the walls. His
father and mother had gone out, down to the village, because his mother's sister was taken ill and needed
help, and Herr Spiegl would not let his wife journey alone down the valley.
 "It will be a bad journey down," he said, "and a worse journey back. But Ludo will stay here and