"Children's Books - Steinbeck, John - The Red Pony" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

hands, inspecting his fingers and nails. It did little good
to start him clean to school for too many things could
6
The Red Pony
happen on the way. She sighed over the black cracks on
his fingers, and then gave him his books and his lunch
and started him on the mile walk to school. She noticed
that his mouth was working a good deal this morning.
Jody started his journey. He filled his pockets with
little pieces of white quartz that lay in the road, and
every so often he took a shot at a bird or at some rabbit
that had stayed sunning itself in the road too long. At
the crossroads over the bridge he met two friends and the
three of them walked to school together, making ridicu-
lous strides and being rather silly. School had just opened
two weeks before. There was still a spirit of revolt among
the pupils.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when Jody topped
the hill and looked down on the ranch again. He looked
for the saddle horses, but the corral was empty. His
father was not back yet. He went slowly, then, toward
the afternoon chores. At the ranch house, he found his
mother sitting on the porch, mending socks.
"There's two doughnuts in the kitchen for you," she
said. Jody slid to the kitchen, and returned with half of
one of the doughnuts already eaten and his mouth full.
His mother asked him what he had learned in school
that day, but she didn't listen to his doughnut-muffled
answer. She interrupted, "Jody, tonight see you fill the
wood-box clear full. Last night you crossed the sticks and
it wasn't only about half full. Lay the sticks flat tonight.
And Jody, some of the hens are hiding eggs, or else the
dogs are eating them. Look about in the grass and see if
you can find any nests"
': Jody, still eating, went out and did his chores. He saw
the quail come down to eat with the chickens when he
threw out the grain. For some reason his father was
proud to have them come. He never allowed any shoot-
ing near the house for fear the quail might go away.
7
John Steinbeck
When the wood-box was full, Jody took his twenty-two
rifle up to the cold spring at the brush line. He drank
again and then aimed the gun at all manner of things,
at rocks, at birds on the wing, at the big black pig kettle
under the cypress tree, but he didn't shoot for he had no
cartridges and wouldn't have until he was twelve. If his
father had seen him aim the rifle in the direction of the
house he would have put the cartridges off another year.
Jody remembered this and did not point the rifle down