"Шервуд Андерсен. Марширующие люди (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

climbing the hill. The tall woman walked beside him and held her
skirts out of the deep dust of the road. Even on this her Sunday gown
there was a faint black mark along the seams--the mark of Coal Creek.

As McGregor walked his embarrassment left him. He thought it fine that
he should be thus alone with a woman. When she had tired from the
climb he sat with her on a log beside the road and talked of the
black-haired boy. "He has your ring on his finger," he said, looking
at her and laughing.

She held her hand pressed tightly against her side and closed her
eyes. "The climbing hurts me," she said.

Tenderness took hold of Beaut. When they went on again he walked
behind her, his hand upon her back pushing her up the hill. The desire
to tease her about the black-haired boy had passed and he wished he
had said nothing about the ring. He remembered the story the black-
haired boy had told him of his conquest of the woman. "More than
likely a mess of lies," he thought.

Over the crest of the hill they stopped and rested, leaning against a
worn rail fence by the woods. Below them in a wagon a party of men
went down the hill. The men sat upon boards laid across the box of a
wagon and sang a song. One of them stood in the seat beside the driver
and waved a bottle. He seemed to be making a speech. The others
shouted and clapped their hands. The sounds came faint and sharp up
the hill.

In the woods beside the fence rank grass grew. Hawks floated in the
sky over the valley below. A squirrel running along the fence stopped
and chattered at them. McGregor thought he had never had so delightful
a companion. He got a feeling of complete, good fellowship and
friendliness with this woman. Without knowing how the thing had been
done he felt a certain pride in it. "Don't mind what I said about the
ring," he urged, "I was only trying to tease you."

The woman beside McGregor was the daughter of an undertaker who lived
upstairs over his shop near the bakery. He had seen her in the evening
standing in the stairway by the shop door. After the story told him by
the black-haired boy he had been embarrassed about her. When he passed
her standing in the stairway he went hurriedly along and looked into
the gutter.

They went down the hill and sat on the log upon the hillside. A clump
of elders had grown about the log since his visits there with Cracked
McGregor so that the place was closed and shaded like a room. The
woman took off her hat and laid it beside her on the log. A faint
colour mounted to her pale cheeks and a flash of anger gleamed in her
eyes. "He probably lied to you about me," she said, "I didn't give him
that ring to wear. I don't know why I gave it to him. He wanted it. He