"Robert F. Young - Little Red Schoolhouse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

His legs were stronger now than they had been when he had first stepped off
the stork train and his dizzy spells were becoming less and less frequent. The
sun no longer bothered his eyes and he could look for long moments at the blue
sky and the bright land with no painful after-images.
Toward evening he heard a high-pitched whistle and his heart began to
pound. He knew at last that he had the right tracks and that he couldnтАЩt be
very far from the valley, for the whistle was the shrill lullaby of a stork
train.
Ronnie hid in the weeds that lined the embankment and watched the train
pass. He saw the children reclining on their chairbeds, staring curiously
through the little windows, and he remembered how he had stared, too, on his
trip to the city, how surprisedтАФand frightenedтАФhe had been, upon awakening, to
see the strange new land unrolling before his aching eyes.
He wondered if his face had been as white as those he was seeing now, as
white and as peaked and as sickly, and he guessed that it had been, that
living in the valley affected your complexion some way, made your eyes
sensitive to light and your legs weak.
But that couldnтАЩt be the answer. His legs had never been weak when he had
lived in the valley, he remembered, and his eyes had never bothered him. He
had never had trouble seeing the lessons on the blackboard in the little red
schoolhouse, and heтАЩd read all the printed words in the schoolbooks without
the slightest difficulty. In fact, heтАЩd done so well with his reading lessons
that Miss Smith had patted him on the back, more times than he could remember,
and told him that he was her star pupil.

SUDDENLY he realized how eager he was to see Miss Smith again, to walk into
the little classroom and have her say, тАЬGood morning, Ronnie,тАЭ and see her
sitting reassuringly behind her desk, her yellow hair parted neatly in the
middle and her round cheeks pink in the morning light. For the first time it
occurred to him that he was in love with Miss Smith, and he recognized his
real reason for returning to the valley.
The other reasons were still valid, though. He wanted to wade in the brook
again and feel the cool tree shadows all around him, and after that he wanted
to meander through the maples, picking a slow way homeward, and finally he
wanted to wander down the lazy village street to the house and have Nora scold
him for being late for supper.
The stork train was still passing. Ronnie couldnтАЩt get over how long it
was. Where did all the children come from? He didnтАЩt recognize a single one of
them, yet he had lived in the valley all his life. He hadnтАЩt recognized any of
the children on his own stork train, either, for that matter. He shook his
head. The whole thing was bewildering, far beyond his understanding.
When the last of the cars had passed, he climbed back up the embankment to
the tracks. Dusk was seeping in over the land and soon, he knew, the first
star would appear. If only he could find the valley before night came! He
wouldnтАЩt even pause to wade in the brook; he would run through the maples and
down the street to the house. Nora and Jim would be delighted to see him again
and Nora would fix a fine supper; and perhaps Miss Smith would come over
during the evening, as she sometimes did, and discuss his schoolwork, and he
would walk to the gate with her, when she was ready to go, and say good night,
and see the starlight on her face as she stood goddess-tall beside him.