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

He lived with his mother in a tumble-down house at the edge of town on
Medina Road. Beside being a half-wit he had something the matter with his
legs. They were trembling and weak and he could only move them with great
difficulty. On summer afternoons when the streets were deserted, he hobbled
along Main Street with his lower jaw hanging down. Allie carried a large
club, partly for the support of his weak legs and partly to scare off dogs
and mischievous boys. He liked to sit in the shade with his back against a
building and whittle, and he liked to be near people and have his talent as
a whittler appreciated. He made fans out of pieces of pine, long chains of
wooden beads, and he once achieved a singular mechanical triumph that won
him wide renown. He made a ship that would float in a beer bottle half
filled with water and laid on its side. The ship had sails and three tiny
wooden sailors who stood at attention with their hands to their caps in
salute. After it was constructed and put into the bottle it was too large
to be taken out through the neck. How Allie got it in no one ever knew. The
clerks and merchants who crowded about to watch him at work discussed the
matter for days. It became a never-ending wonder among them. In the evening
they spoke of the matter to the berry pickers who came into the stores,
and in the eyes of the people of Bidwell Allie Mulberry became a hero. The
bottle, half-filled with water and securely corked, was laid on a cushion
in the window of Hunter's Jewelry Store. As it floated about on its own
little ocean crowds gathered to look at it. Over the bottle was a sign with
the words--"Carved by Allie Mulberry of Bidwell"--prominently displayed.
Below these words a query had been printed. "How Did He Get It Into The
Bottle?" was the question asked. The bottle stayed in the window for months
and merchants took the traveling men who visited them, to see it. Then they
escorted their guests to where Allie, with his back against the wall of a
building and his club beside him, was at work on some new creation of the
whittler's art. The travelers were impressed and told the tale abroad.
Allie's fame spread to other towns. "He has a good brain," the citizen of
Bidwell said, shaking his head. "He don't appear to know very much, but
look what he does! He must be carrying all sorts of notions around inside
of his head."

Jane Orange, widow of a lawyer, and with the single exception of Thomas
Butterworth, a farmer who owned over a thousand acres of land and lived
with his daughter on a farm a mile south of town, the richest person in
town, was known to every one in Bidwell, but was not liked. She was called
stingy and it was said that she and her husband had cheated every one with
whom they had dealings in order to get their start in life. The town ached
for the privilege of doing what they called "bringing them down a peg."
Jane's husband had once been the Bidwell town attorney and later had
charge of the settlement of an estate belonging to Ed Lucas, a farmer who
died leaving two hundred acres of land and two daughters. The farmer's
daughters, every one said, "came out at the small end of the horn," and
John Orange began to grow rich. It was said he was worth fifty thousand
dollars. All during the latter part of his life the lawyer went to the city
of Cleveland on business every week, and when he was at home and even in
the hottest weather he went about dressed in a long black coat. When she
went to the stores to buy supplies for her house Jane Orange was watched