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

"I will indeed," I said, and thought: Thank you very much, mortal man, for this opportunity. The moment the door closed behind them I had the device out of my pocket. It looked rather like a big old-fashioned watch. I held it out to the boy.

"Here you go, Donal, here’s a grand timepiece for you to play with."

He took it gladly. "There’s a train on it!" he cried. I turned to Ella.

"And what can I do for you, darling?"

She looked at me with considering eyes. "You can read me the funny papers." She pointed to a neatly stacked bundle by the stove.

"With pleasure." I seized them up and we settled back in my chair, pulling a lamp close. The baby slept fitfully, I read to Ella about Sambo and Tommy Pip and Herr Spiegleburger, and all the while Donal pressed buttons and thumbed levers on the diagnostic toy. It flashed pretty lights for him, it played little tunes his sister was incapable of hearing; and then, as I had known it would, it bit him.

"Ow!" He dropped it and began to cry, holding out his tiny bleeding finger.

"O, dear, now, what’s that? Did it stick you?" I put his sister down and got up to take the device back. "Tsk! Look at that, the stem’s broken." It vanished into my pocket. "What a shame. O, I’m sorry, Donal Og, here’s the old hankie. Let’s bandage it up, shall we? There, there. Doesn’t hurt now, does it?"

"No," he sniffled. "I want another chocolate."

"And so you’ll have one, for being a brave boy." I snapped off another square and gave it to him. "Ella, let’s give you another as well, shall we? What have you found there?"

"It’s a picture about Mother Goose." She had spread out the Children’s Page on the oilcloth. "Isn’t it? That says Mother Goose right there."

I looked over her shoulder. "Pictures from Mother Goose," I read out, "Hot Cross Buns. Paint the Seller of Hot Cross Buns. Looks like it’s a contest, darling. They’re asking the kiddies to paint in the picture and send it off to the paper to judge who’s done the best one."

"Is there prize money?" She had an idea.

"Two dollars for the best one," I read, pulling at my lower lip uneasily. "And paintboxes for everyone else who enters."

She thought that over. Dismay came into her face. "But I haven’t got a paintbox to color it with at all! O, that’s stupid! Giving paintboxes out to kids that’s got them already. O, that’s not fair!" She shook with stifled anger.

"What’s not fair?" Her mother backed through the door, holding it open for O’Neil with the washpan.

"Only this Mother Goose thing here," I said.

"You’re never on about going to that show again, are you?" said Mary sharply, coming and taking her daughter by the shoulders. "Are you? Have you been wheedling at Mr. Kelly?"

"I have not!" the little girl cried in a trembling voice.

"She hasn’t, Mrs. O’Neil, only it’s this contest in the kids’ paper," I hastened to explain. "You have to have a set of paints to enter it, see."

Mary looked down at the paper. Ella began to cry quietly. Her mother gathered her up and sat with her on the edge of the bed, rocking her back and forth.

"O, I’m so sorry, Ella dear, Mummy’s so sorry. But you see, now, don’t you, the harm in wanting such things? You see how unhappy it’s made you? Look how hard Mummy and Daddy work to feed you and clothe you. Do you know how unhappy it makes us when you want shows and paintboxes and who knows what, and we can’t give them to you? It makes us despair. That’s a Mortal Sin, despair is."

"I want to see the fairies," wept the little girl.

"Dearest dear, there aren’t any fairies! But surely it was the Devil himself you met out in the street, that gave you that wicked piece of paper and made you long after vain things. Do you understand me? Do you see why it’s wicked, wanting things? It kills the soul, Ella."

After a long gasping moment the child responded, "I see, Mummy." She kept her face hidden in her mother’s shoulder. Donal watched them uncertainly, twisting the big knot of handkerchief on his finger. O’Neil sat at the table and put his head in his hands. After a moment he swept up the newspaper and put it in the stove. He reached into the slatwood cabinet and pulled a bottle of Wilson’s Whiskey up on the table, and got a couple of clean tumblers out of the washpan.