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

Eden, told him by his mother. He dreamed that he and his mother went
over the hill and down toward the valley but that his father, wearing
a long white robe and with his red hair blowing in the wind, stood
upon the hillside swinging a long sword blazing with fire and drove
them back.

When the boy went again over the hill it was October and a cold wind
blew down the hill into his face. In the woods golden brown leaves ran
about like frightened little animals and golden-brown were the leaves
on the trees about the farmhouses and golden-brown the corn standing
shocked in the fields. The scene saddened the boy. A lump came into
his throat and he wanted back the green shining beauty of the spring.
He wished to hear the birds singing in the air and in the grass on the
hillside.

Cracked McGregor was in another mood. He seemed more satisfied than on
the first visit and ran up and down on the little eminence rubbing his
hands together and on the legs of his trousers. Through the long
afternoon he sat on the log muttering and smiling.

On the road home through the darkened woods the restless hurrying
leaves frightened the boy so that, with his weariness from walking
against the wind, his hunger from being all day without food, and with
the cold nipping at his body, he began to cry. The father took the boy
in his arms and holding him across his breast like a babe went down
the hill to their home.

It was on a Tuesday morning that Cracked McGregor died. His death
fixed itself as something fine in the mind of the boy and the scene
and the circumstance stayed with him through life, filling him with
secret pride like a knowledge of good blood. "It means something that
I am the son of such a man," he thought.

It was past ten in the morning when the cry of "Fire in the mine" ran
up the hill to the houses of the miners. A panic seized the women. In
their minds they saw the men hurrying down old cuts, crouching in
hidden corridors, pursued by death. Cracked McGregor, one of the night
shift, slept in his house. The boy's mother, threw a shawl about her
head, took his hand and ran down the hill to the mouth of the mine.
Cold winds spitting snow blew in their faces. They ran along the
tracks of the railroad, stumbling over the ties, and stood on the
railroad embankment that overlooked the runway to the mine.

About the runway and along the embankment stood the silent miners,
their hands in their trousers pockets, staring stolidly at the closed
door of the mine. Among them was no impulse toward concerted action.
Like animals at the door of a slaughter-house they stood as though
waiting their turn to be driven in at the door. An old crone with bent
back and a huge stick in her hand went from one to another of the
miners gesticulating and talking. "Get my boy--my Steve! Get him out