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

excitement took hold of the minds of the people. Every one declared himself
either for or against it. Something like a revolution took place. Parties
were formed. Men who had no interest in the success of the invention, and
in the nature of things could not have, were ready to fight any one who
dared to doubt its success. Among the farmers who drove into town to see
the new wonder were many who said the machine would not, could not, work.
"It isn't practical," they said. Going off by themselves and forming
groups, they whispered warnings. A hundred objections sprang to their lips.
"See all the little wheels and cogs the thing has," they said. "You see
it won't work. You take now in a field where there are stones and old
tree roots, maybe, sticking in the ground. There you'll see. Fools'll buy
the machine, yes. They'll spend their money. They'll put in plants. The
plants'll die. The money'll be wasted. There'll be no crop." Old men, who
had been cabbage farmers in the country north of Bidwell all their lives,
and whose bodies were all twisted out of shape by the terrible labor of
the cabbage fields, came hobbling into town to look at the model of the
new machine. Their opinions were anxiously sought by the merchant, the
carpenter, the artisan, the doctor--by all the townspeople. Almost without
exception, they shook their heads in doubt. Standing on the sidewalk before
the jeweler's window, they stared at the machine and then, turning to the
crowd that had gathered about, they shook their heads in doubt. "Huh," they
exclaimed, "a thing of wheels and cogs, eh? Well, so young Hunter expects
that thing to take the place of a man. He's a fool. I always said that boy
was a fool." The merchants and townspeople, their ardor a little dampened
by the adverse decision of the men who knew plant-setting, went off by
themselves. They went into Birdie Spinks' drugstore, but did not listen
to the talk of Judge Hanby. "If the machine works, the town'll wake up,"
some one declared. "It means factories, new people coming in, houses to
be built, goods to be bought." Visions of suddenly acquired wealth began
to float in their minds. Young Ed Hall, apprentice to Ben Peeler the
carpenter, grew angry. "Hell," he exclaimed, "why listen to a lot of damned
old calamity howlers? It's the town's duty to get out and plug for that
machine. We got to wake up here. We got to forget what we used to think
about Steve Hunter. Anyway, he saw a chance, didn't he? and he took it.
I wish I was him. I only wish I was him. And what about that fellow we
thought was maybe just a telegraph operator? He fooled us all slick, now
didn't he? I tell you we ought to be proud to have such men as him and
Steve Hunter living in Bidwell. That's what I say. I tell you it's the
town's duty to get out and plug for them and for that machine. If we don't,
I know what'll happen. Steve Hunter's a live one. I been thinking maybe he
was. He'll take that invention and that inventor of his to some other town
or to a city. That's what he'll do. Damn it, I tell you we got to get out
and back them fellows up. That's what I say."

On the whole the town of Bidwell agreed with young Hall. The excitement
did not die, but grew every day more intense. Steve Hunter had a carpenter
come to his father's store and build in the show window facing Main
Street, a long shallow box formed in the shape of a field. This he filled
with pulverized earth and then by an arrangement of strings and pulleys
connected with a clockwork device the machine was pulled across the field.