"Шервуд Андерсен. Белый бедняк (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

an almost human quality of warmth out of the red trees that lined its
shores. Hugh had spent hours and days sitting or lying in the grass beside
the river. The fishing shack in which he had lived with his father until he
was fourteen years old was within a half dozen long strides of the river's
edge, and the boy had often been left there alone for a week at a time.
When his father had gone for a trip on a lumber raft or to work for a few
days on some farm in the country back from the river, the boy, left often
without money and with but a few loaves of bread, went fishing when he was
hungry and when he was not did nothing but idle the days away in the grass
on the river bank. Boys from the town came sometimes to spend an hour with
him, but in their presence he was embarrassed and a little annoyed. He
wanted to be left alone with his dreams. One of the boys, a sickly, pale,
undeveloped lad of ten, often stayed with him through an entire summer
afternoon. He was the son of a merchant in the town and grew quickly tired
when he tried to follow other boys about. On the river bank he lay beside
Hugh in silence. The two got into Hugh's boat and went fishing and the
merchant's son grew animated and talked. He taught Hugh to write his own
name and to read a few words. The shyness that kept them apart had begun to
break down, when the merchant's son caught some childhood disease and died.

In the darkness above the cliff that night in Burlington Hugh remembered
things concerning his boyhood that had not come back to his mind in years.
The very thoughts that had passed through his mind during those long days
of idling on the river bank came streaming back.

After his fourteenth year when he went to work at the railroad station Hugh
had stayed away from the river. With his work at the station, and in the
garden back of Sarah Shepard's house, and the lessons in the afternoons,
he had little idle time. On Sundays however things were different. Sarah
Shepard did not go to church after she came to Mudcat Landing, but she
would have no work done on Sundays. On Sunday afternoons in the summer she
and her husband sat in chairs beneath a tree beside the house and went to
sleep. Hugh got into the habit of going off by himself. He wanted to sleep
also, but did not dare. He went along the river bank by the road that ran
south from the town, and when he had followed it two or three miles, turned
into a grove of trees and lay down in the shade.

The long summer Sunday afternoons had been delightful times for Hugh, so
delightful that he finally gave them up, fearing they might lead him to
take up again his old sleepy way of life. Now as he sat in the darkness
above the same river he had gazed on through the long Sunday afternoons, a
spasm of something like loneliness swept over him. For the first time he
thought about leaving the river country and going into a new land with a
keen feeling of regret.

On the Sunday afternoons in the woods south of Mudcat Landing Hugh had lain
perfectly still in the grass for hours. The smell of dead fish that had
always been present about the shack where he spent his boyhood, was gone
and there were no swarms of flies. Above his head a breeze played through
the branches of the trees, and insects sang in the grass. Everything about