"Шервуд Андерсен. Сын Винди МакФерсон (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

the increase he demanded. When a man did not rise, he shouted at him and
the man answered back an amount.

Suddenly in the hall a diversion arose. Windy McPherson emerged from the
crowd at the back of the hall and walked down the centre aisle to the
platform. He walked unsteadily straightening his shoulders and thrusting
out his chin. When he got to the front of the hall he took a roll of bills
from his pocket and threw it on the platform at the chairman's feet. "From
one of the boys of '61," he announced in a loud voice.

The crowd shouted and clapped its hands with delight as Telfer picked up
the bills and ran his finger over them. "Seventeen dollars from our hero,
the mighty McPherson," he shouted while the bank clerk wrote the name and
the amount in the book and the crowd continued to make merry over the
title given the drunken soldier by the chairman.

The boy on the window ledge slipped to the floor and stood with burning
cheeks behind the mass of men. He knew that at home his mother was doing a
family washing for Lesley, the shoe merchant, who had given five dollars
to the Fourth-of-July fund, and the resentment he had felt on seeing his
father talking to the crowd before the jewelry store blazed up anew.

After the taking of subscriptions, men in various parts of the hall began
making suggestions for added features for the great day. To some of the
speakers the crowd listened respectfully, at others they hooted. An old
man with a grey beard told a long rambling story of a Fourth-of-July
celebration of his boyhood. When voices interrupted he protested and shook
his fist in the air, pale with indignation.

"Oh, sit down, old daddy," shouted Freedom Smith and a murmur of applause
greeted this sensible suggestion.

Another man got up and began to talk. He had an idea. "We will have," he
said, "a bugler mounted on a white horse who will ride through the town at
dawn blowing the reveille. At midnight he will stand on the steps of the
town hall and blow taps to end the day."

The crowd applauded. The idea had caught their fancy and had instantly
taken a place in their minds as one of the real events of the day.

Again Windy McPherson emerged from the crowd at the back of the hall.
Raising his hand for silence he told the crowd that he was a bugler, that
he had been a regimental bugler for two years during the Civil War. He
said that he would gladly volunteer for the place.

The crowd shouted and John Telfer waved his hand. "The white horse for
you, McPherson," he said.

Sam McPherson wriggled along the wall and out at the now unbolted door. He
was filled with astonishment at his father's folly, and was still more