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

we takes a' axe or two, jist you en me en Huck, en slips acrost de river
to-night arter de moon's gone down, en kills dat sick fam'ly dat's over on
the Sny, en burns dey house down, en-"
"Oh, you make me tired!" says Tom. "I don't want to argue any more with
people like you and Huck Finn, that's always wandering from the subject,
and ain't got any more sense than to try to reason out a thing that's pure
theology by the laws that protect real estate!"
Now that's just where Tom Sawyer warn't fair. Jim didn't mean no harm,
and I didn't mean no harm. We knowed well enough that he was right and we
was wrong, and all we was after was to get at the HOW of it, and that was
all; and the only reason he couldn't explain it so we could understand it
was because we was ignorant-yes, and pretty dull, too, I ain't denying
that; but, land! that ain't no crime, I should think.
But he wouldn't hear no more about it-just said if we had tackled the
thing in the proper spirit, he would 'a' raised a couple of thousand
knights and put them in steel armor from head to heel, and made me a
lieutenant and Jim a sutler, and took the command himself and brushed the
whole paynim outfit into the sea like flies and come back across the world
in a glory like sunset. But he said we didn't know enough to take the
chance when we had it, and he wouldn't ever offer it again. And he didn't.
When he once got set, you couldn't budge him.
But I didn't care much. I am peaceable, and don't get up rows with
people that ain't doing nothing to me. I allowed if the paynim was
satisfied I was, and we would let it stand at that.
Now Tom he got all that notion out of Walter Scott's book, which he was
always reading. And it WAS a wild notion, because in my opinion he never
could've raised the men, and if he did, as like as not he would've got
licked. I took the book and read all about it, and as near as I could make
it out, most of the folks that shook farming to go crusading had a mighty
rocky time of it.


Chapter II. THE BALLOON ASCENSION


WELL, Tom got up one thing after another, but they all had tender spots
about 'em somewheres, and he had to shove 'em aside. So at last he was
about in despair. Then the St. Louis papers begun to talk a good deal
about the balloon that was going to sail to Europe, and Tom sort of
thought he wanted to go down and see what it looked like, but couldn't
make up his mind. But the papers went on talking, and so he allowed that
maybe if he didn't go he mightn't ever have another chance to see a
balloon; and next, he found out that Nat Parsons was going down to see it,
and that decided him, of course. He wasn't going to have Nat Parsons
coming back bragging about seeing the balloon, and him having to listen to
it and keep quiet. So he wanted me and Jim to go too, and we went.
It was a noble big balloon, and had wings and fans and all sorts of
things, and wasn't like any balloon you see in pictures. It was away out
toward the edge of town, in a vacant lot, corner of Twelfth street; and
there was a big crowd around it, making fun of it, and making fun of the