"Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer Abroad (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

the best he could; and at a disadvantage, too, for Tom didn't set still as
he'd orter done, to be fair, but always got up and sauntered around and
worked his limp while Nat was painting up the adventure that HE had in
Washington; for Tom never let go that limp when his leg got well, but
practiced it nights at home, and kept it good as new right along.
Nat's adventure was like this; I don't know how true it is; maybe he
got it out of a paper, or somewhere, but I will say this for him, that he
DID know how to tell it. He could make anybody's flesh crawl, and he'd
turn pale and hold his breath when he told it, and sometimes women and
girls got so faint they couldn't stick it out. Well, it was this way, as
near as I can remember:
He come a-loping into Washington, and put up his horse and shoved out
to the President's house with his letter, and they told him the President
was up to the Capitol, and just going to start for Philadelphia-not a
minute to lose if he wanted to catch him. Nat 'most dropped, it made him
so sick. His horse was put up, and he didn't know what to do. But just
then along comes a darky driving an old ramshackly hack, and he see his
chance. He rushes out and shouts: "A half a dollar if you git me to the
Capitol in half an hour, and a quarter extra if you do it in twenty
minutes!"
"Done!" says the darky.
Nat he jumped in and slammed the door, and away they went a-ripping and
a-tearing over the roughest road a body ever see, and the racket of it was
something awful. Nat passed his arms through the loops and hung on for
life and death, but pretty soon the hack hit a rock and flew up in the
air, and the bottom fell out, and when it come down Nat's feet was on the
ground, and he see he was in the most desperate danger if he couldn't keep
up with the hack. He was horrible scared, but he laid into his work for
all he was worth, and hung tight to the arm-loops and made his legs fairly
fly. He yelled and shouted to the driver to stop, and so did the crowds
along the street, for they could see his legs spinning along under the
coach, and his head and shoulders bobbing inside through the windows, and
he was in awful danger; but the more they all shouted the more the nigger
whooped and yelled and lashed the horses and shouted, "Don't you fret,
I'se gwine to git you dah in time, boss; I's gwine to do it, sho'!" for
you see he thought they were all hurrying him up, and, of course, he
couldn't hear anything for the racket he was making. And so they went
ripping along, and everybody just petrified to see it; and when they got
to the Capitol at last it was the quickest trip that ever was made, and
everybody said so. The horses laid down, and Nat dropped, all tuckered
out, and he was all dust and rags and barefooted; but he was in time and
just in time, and caught the President and give him the letter, and
everything was all right, and the President give him a free pardon on the
spot, and Nat give the nigger two extra quarters instead of one, because
he could see that if he hadn't had the hack he wouldn't'a' got there in
time, nor anywhere near it.
It WAS a powerful good adventure, and Tom Sawyer had to work his
bullet-wound mighty lively to hold his own against it.
Well, by and by Tom's glory got to paling down gradu'ly, on account of
other things turning up for the people to talk about-first a horse-race,