"Вуди Гасри. Bound for glory (engl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

I'd seen a thousand kids just like them. They seem to come from homes
somewhere that they've run away from. They seem to come to take the place of
the old stiffs that slip on a wet board, miss a ladder, fail out a door, or
just dry up and shrivel away riding the mean freights; the old souls that
groan somewhere in the darkest corner of a boxcar, moan about a twisted life
half lived and nine tenths wasted, cry as their souls hit the highball for
heaven, die and pass out of this world like the echo of a foggy whistle.
"Evenin', gentulmen, evenin'." The Negro boy raised up to a sitting
position. "You gents is a little shade yo'ng t' be out siftin' th' cinders,
ain't you?"
"C'n we help how old we are?" The biggest kid spit away into the wind
without even looking where it would land.
"Me ole man's fault. Oughtta been bornt sooner," the little runt piped
up.
The big one didn't change the expression on his face, because if he'd
of looked any tougher, something would have busted. "Pipe down, squoit!" He
turned toward us. "Yez hittin' fer de slaughter-house er Wall Street?"
"I don't git ya." I looked over at him.
"Chi? Er N'Yok?"
I tried to keep from busting out laughing in the kid's face. And I
could see the colored boy turning his head the other way to hide a snicker.
"Me," I answered the kid, "me, I'm headed fer Wall Street, I reckin." Then I
thought for a minute and asked him, " 'Bouts you boys goin'?"
"Chi."
"On da fly."
"Kin ya really beat it out on dat jitter box dere, mister?"
"I make a rattlin' noise."
"Sing on toppa dat?"
"No. Not on top of it. I stand up and hold it with this leather strap
around my shoulder, or else I set down and play it in my lap like this,
see?"
"Make anyt'ing wid it?"
"I've come purty close ta starvin' a couple of times, boys, but never
faded plumb out of th' picture yet so far."
"Yeah?"
"Dat's bad."
I come down on some running notes and threw in a few sliding blues
notes, and the kids stuck their ears almost down to the sound-hole,
listening.
"Say ya hit da boog on dere, don'tcha?"
"Better boog all yez wants, sarg," the older kid said. "I dunno how dat
box'll sound fulla wadder, but we gon'ta be swimmin' on toppa dis train here
in about a minnit."
The Negro boy turned his head around toward the engine and whiffed of
the damp air. "About one minnit's right!"
"Will it wreck dat music box?" The biggest kid stood up and threw his
pack on his back. The coal dust had covered his face over in the days when
this railroad was first laid, and a few drops of the spit and moisture from
the lower streets of a lot of towns had been smeared like brushmarks in
every direction around his mouth, nose and eyes. Water and sweat had run