"Baker, Kage - Son Observe the Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baker Kage)

"There now, didn’t I tell you she’d spot him?" O’Neil cried triumphantly. "Welcome to this house, Jimmy Kelly."

"God save all here." I removed my hat. "Good evening, Mrs. O’Neil."

"Good evening to you, Mr. Kelly." Mary O’Neil turned from the stove, bouncing a fretful infant against one shoulder. "Would you care for a cup of tea, now?" She was like Ella, if years could be granted Ella to grow tall and slender and wear her hair up like a soft thundercloud. But there was no welcoming smile for me in the grey eyes, for on the previous occasion we’d met I’d been disgracefully intoxicated–at least, doing my best to appear so. I looked down as if abashed.

"I’d bless you for a cup of tea, my dear, I would," I replied. "And won’t you allow me to apologize for the condition I was in last Tuesday week? I’d no excuse at all."

"Least said, soonest mended." She softened somewhat at my obvious sobriety. Setting the baby down to whimper in its apple-box cradle, she poured and served my tea. "Pray seat yourself."

"Here." Ella pulled out a chair for me. I thanked her and sat down to scan the room they lived in. Only one room, with one window that probably looked out on an alley wall but was presently frosted opaque from the steam of the saucepan wherein their supper cooked. Indeed, there was a fine layer of condensation on everything: it trickled down the walls, it lay in a damp film on the oilcloth cover of the table and the blankets on the bed against the far wall. The unhappy infant’s hair was moist and curling with it.

Had there been any ventilation it would have been a pleasant enough room. The table was set with good china, someone’s treasured inheritance no doubt. The tiny potbellied stove must have been awkward to cook upon, but O’Neil had built a cabinet of slatwood and sheet tin next to it to serve as the rest of a kitchen. The children’s trundle was stored tidily under the parents’ bed. Next to the painted washbasin on the trunk, a decorous screen gave privacy to one corner. Slatwood shelves displayed the family’s few valuables: a sewing-basket, a music box with a painted scene on its lid, a cheap mirror whose frame was decorated with glued-on seashells, a china dog. On the wall was a painted crucifix with a palm frond stuck behind it.

O’Neil came and sat down across from me.

"You look grand, Jimmy." He thumped his fist on the table approvingly. "Combed your hair, too, didn’t you? That’s the boy. You’ll make a gentleman yet."

"Daddy?" Ella climbed into his lap. "There was a soldier came and gave us this in the street. Will you ever read me what it says? There’s more words than I know, see." She thrust the handbill at him. He took it and held it out before him, blinking at it through the steamy air.

Here I present the printed text he read aloud, without his many pauses as he attempted to decipher it (for he was an intelligent man, but of little education):

CHILDREN!
Come see the Grand Fairy Extravaganza BABES IN TOYLAND
Music by Victor Herbert
Book by Glen MacDonough
Staged by Julian Mitchell
Ignacio Martinetti and 100 Others! Coming by Special Train of Eight Cars!
Biggest Musical Production San Francisco Has Seen In Years!

An Invitation from Mother Goose Herself:

MY dear little Boys and Girls,

I DO hope you will behave nicely so that your Mammas and Papas will treat you to a performance of Mr. Herbert’s lovely play Babes in Toyland at the Columbia Theater, opening Monday, the 16th of April. Why, my dears, it’s one of the biggest successes of the season and has already played for ever so many nights in such far-away cities as New York, Chicago, and Boston. Yes, you really must be good little children, and then your dear parents will see that you deserve an outing to visit me. For, make no mistake, I myself, the only true and original MOTHER GOOSE, shall be there upon the stage of the Columbia Theater. And so shall so many of your other friends from my delightful rhymes such as Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son, Bo Peep, Contrary Mary, and Red Riding Hood. The curtain will rise upon Mr. Mitchell’s splendid production, with its many novel effects, at eight o’clock sharp.

OF course, if you are very little folks you are apt to be sleepyheads if kept up so late, but that need not concern your careful parents, for there will be a matinee on Saturday at two o’clock in the afternoon.

WON’T you please come to see me? Your affectionate friend, Mother Goose.

"Oh, dear," sighed Mary.

"Daddy, can we go?" Ella’s eyes were alight with anticipation. Donal chimed in:

"See Mother Goose, Daddy!"

"We can’t afford it, children." Mary’s mouth was a set line. She took the saucepan off the stove and began to ladle a savory dish of sausage, onions, potatoes and bacon onto the plates. "We’ve got a roof over our heads and food for the table. Let’s be thankful for that."

Ella closed her little mouth tight like her mother’s, but Donal burst into tears. "I wanna go see Mother Goose!" he howled.