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

dresses, arranged a physical alliance with a girl named Louise Trucker
whose father was a farm laborer, and that left his mind free for other
things. He intended to become a manufacturer, the first one in Bidwell,
to make himself a leader in the new movement that was sweeping over the
country. He had thought out what he wanted to do and it only remained to
find something for him to manufacture to put his plans through. First of
all he had selected with great care certain men he intended to ask to go in
with him. There was John Clark the banker, his own father, E. H. Hunter the
town jeweler, Thomas Butterworth the rich farmer, and young Gordon Hart,
who had a job as assistant cashier in the bank. For a month he had been
dropping hints to these men of something mysterious and important about
to happen. With the exception of his father who had infinite faith in the
shrewdness and ability of his son, the men he wanted to impress were only
amused. One day Thomas Butterworth went into the bank and stood talking the
matter over with John Clark. "The young squirt was always a Smart-Aleck
and a blow-hard," he said. "What's he up to now? What's he nudging and
whispering about?"

As he walked in the main street of Bidwell, Steve began to acquire that
air of superiority that later made him so respected and feared. He hurried
along with a peculiarly intense absorbed look in his eyes. He saw his
fellow townsmen as through a haze, and sometimes did not see them at all.
As he went along he took papers from his pocket, read them hurriedly, and
then quickly put them away again. When he did speak--perhaps to a man who
had known him from boyhood--there was in his manner something gracious to
the edge of condescension. One morning in March he met Zebe Wilson the town
shoemaker on the sidewalk before the post-office. Steve stopped and smiled.
"Well, good morning, Mr. Wilson," he said, "and how is the quality of
leather you are getting from the tanneries now?"

Word regarding this strange salutation ran about among the merchants and
artisans. "What's he up to now?" they asked each other. "Mr. Wilson,
indeed! Now what's wrong between that young squirt and Zebe Wilson?"

In the afternoon, four clerks from the Main Street stores and Ed Hall the
carpenter's apprentice, who had a half day off because of rain, decided to
investigate. One by one they went along Hamilton Street to Zebe Wilson's
shop and stepped inside to repeat Steve Hunter's salutation. "Well, good
afternoon, Mr. Wilson," they said, "and how is the quality of leather you
are getting from the tanneries now?" Ed Hall, the last of the five who went
into the shop to repeat the formal and polite inquiry, barely escaped with
his life. Zebe Wilson threw a shoemaker's hammer at him and it went through
the glass in the upper part of the shop door.

Once when Tom Butterworth and John Clark the banker were talking of the new
air of importance he was assuming, and half indignantly speculated on what
he meant by his whispered suggestion of something significant about to
happen, Steve came along Main Street past the front door of the bank. John
Clark called him in. The three men confronted each other and the jeweler's
son sensed the fact that the banker and the rich farmer were amused by