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

and to do definite things, but for all his stupidity the boy had a great
store of patience, a heritage perhaps from his mother. In his new place the
station master's wife, Sarah Shepard, a sharp-tongued, good-natured woman,
who hated the town and the people among whom fate had thrown her, scolded
at him all day long. She treated him like a child of six, told him how
to sit at table, how to hold his fork when he ate, how to address people
who came to the house or to the station. The mother in her was aroused by
Hugh's helplessness and, having no children of her own, she began to take
the tall awkward boy to her heart. She was a small woman and when she stood
in the house scolding the great stupid boy who stared down at her with
his small perplexed eyes, the two made a picture that afforded endless
amusement to her husband, a short fat bald-headed man who went about clad
in blue overalls and a blue cotton shirt. Coming to the back door of his
house, that was within a stone's throw of the station, Henry Shepard stood
with his hand on the door-jamb and watched the woman and the boy. Above
the scolding voice of the woman his own voice arose. "Look out, Hugh," he
called. "Be on the jump, lad! Perk yourself up. She'll be biting you if you
don't go mighty careful in there."

Hugh got little money for his work at the railroad station but for the
first time in his life he began to fare well. Henry Shepard bought the
boy clothes, and his wife, Sarah, who was a master of the art of cooking,
loaded the table with good things to eat. Hugh ate until both the man and
woman declared he would burst if he did not stop. Then when they were not
looking he went into the station yard and crawling under a bush went to
sleep. The station master came to look for him. He cut a switch from the
bush and began to beat the boy's bare feet. Hugh awoke and was overcome
with confusion. He got to his feet and stood trembling, half afraid he was
to be driven away from his new home. The man and the confused blushing boy
confronted each other for a moment and then the man adopted the method
of his wife and began to scold. He was annoyed at what he thought the
boy's indolence and found a hundred little tasks for him to do. He devoted
himself to finding tasks for Hugh, and when he could think of no new ones,
invented them. "We will have to keep the big lazy fellow on the jump.
That's the secret of things," he said to his wife.

The boy learned to keep his naturally indolent body moving and his clouded
sleepy mind fixed on definite things. For hours he plodded straight ahead,
doing over and over some appointed task. He forgot the purpose of the job
he had been given to do and did it because it was a job and would keep him
awake. One morning he was told to sweep the station platform and as his
employer had gone away without giving him additional tasks and as he was
afraid that if he sat down he would fall into the odd detached kind of
stupor in which he had spent so large a part of his life, he continued
to sweep for two or three hours. The station platform was built of rough
boards and Hugh's arms were very powerful. The broom he was using began to
go to pieces. Bits of it flew about and after an hour's work the platform
looked more uncleanly than when he began. Sarah Shepard came to the door of
her house and stood watching. She was about to call to him and to scold him
again for his stupidity when a new impulse came to her. She saw the serious