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

than I can say," he declared. "It's the dream of my life to make the poor
afflicted soul happy. You see yourself that I provide her with every
comfort of life. Ours is an old family. I have it from an expert in such
matters that we are descendants of one Hunter, a courtier in the court of
Edward the Second of England. Our blood has perhaps become a little thin.
All the vitality of the family was centered in me. My sister does not
understand me and that has been the cause of much unhappiness and heart
burning, but I shall always do my duty by her."

In the late afternoon of the spring day that was also the most eventful day
of his life, Steve went quickly along the Wheeling Station platform to the
door of the telegraph office. It was a public place, but before going in
he stopped, again straightened his tie and brushed his clothes, and then
knocked at the door. As there was no response he opened the door softly
and looked in. Hugh was at his desk but did not look up. Steve went in and
closed the door. By chance the moment of his entrance was also a big moment
in the life of the man he had come to see. The mind of the young inventor,
that had for so long been dreamy and uncertain, had suddenly become
extraordinarily clear and free. One of the inspired moments that come to
intense natures, working intensely, had come to him. The mechanical problem
he was trying so hard to work out became clear. It was one of the moments
that Hugh afterwards thought of as justifying his existence, and in later
life he came to live for such moments. With a nod of his head to Steve he
arose and hurried out to the building that was used by the Wheeling as
a freight warehouse. The jeweler's son ran at his heels. On an elevated
platform before the freight warehouse sat an odd looking agricultural
implement, a machine for rooting potatoes out of the ground that had been
received on the day before and was now awaiting delivery to some farmer.
Hugh dropped to his knees beside the machine and examined it closely.
Muttered exclamations broke from his lips. For the first time in his life
he was not embarrassed in the presence of another person. The two men,
the one almost grotesquely tall, the other short of stature and already
inclined toward corpulency, stared at each other. "What is it you're
inventing? I came to see you about that," Steve said timidly.

Hugh did not answer the question directly. He stepped across the narrow
platform to the freight warehouse and began to make a rude drawing on the
side of the building. Then he tried to explain his plant-setting machine.
He spoke of it as a thing already achieved. At the moment he thought of it
in that way. "I had not thought of the use of a large wheel with the arms
attached at regular intervals," he said absent-mindedly. "I will have to
find money now. That'll be the next step. It will be necessary to make a
working model of the machine now. I must find out what changes I'll have to
make in my calculations."

The two men returned to the telegraph office and while Hugh listened Steve
made his proposal. Even then he did not understand what the machine that
was to be made was to do. It was enough for him that a machine was to be
made and he wanted to share in its ownership at once. As the two men walked
back from the freight warehouse, his mind took hold of Hugh's remark about