"Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer Abroad (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

and everything at the other end, but we thought we'd ruther take the rain
than go meddling back there.


Chapter V. LAND


WE tried to make some plans, but we couldn't come to no agreement. Me
and Jim was for turning around and going back home, but Tom allowed that
by the time daylight come, so we could see our way, we would be so far
toward England that we might as well go there, and come back in a ship,
and have the glory of saying we done it.
About midnight the storm quit and the moon come out and lit up the
ocean, and we begun to feel comfortable and drowsy; so we stretched out on
the lockers and went to sleep, and never woke up again till sun-up. The
sea was sparkling like di'monds, and it was nice weather, and pretty soon
our things was all dry again.
We went aft to find some breakfast, and the first thing we noticed was
that there was a dim light burning in a compass back there under a hood.
Then Tom was disturbed. He says:
"You know what that means, easy enough. It means that somebody has got
to stay on watch and steer this thing the same as he would a ship, or
she'll wander around and go wherever the wind wants her to."
"Well," I says, "what's she been doing since-er-since we had the
accident?"
"Wandering," he says, kinder troubled-" wandering, without any doubt.
She's in a wind now that's blowing her south of east. We don't know how
long that's been going on, either."
So then he p'inted her east, and said he would hold her there till we
rousted out the breakfast. The professor had laid in everything a body
could want; he couldn't 'a' been better fixed. There wasn't no milk for
the coffee, but there was water, and everything else you could want, and a
charcoal stove and the fixings for it, and pipes and cigars and matches;
and wine and liquor, which warn't in our line; and books, and maps, and
charts, and an accordion; and furs, and blankets, and no end of rubbish,
like brass beads and brass jewelry, which Tom said was a sure sign that he
had an idea of visiting among savages. There was money, too. Yes, the
professor was well enough fixed.
After breakfast Tom learned me and Jim how to steer, and divided us all
up into four-hour watches, turn and turn about; and when his watch was out
I took his place, and he got out the professor's papers and pens and wrote
a letter home to his aunt Polly, telling her everything that had happened
to us, and dated it "IN THE WELKIN, APPROACHING ENGLAND," and folded it
together and stuck it fast with a red wafer, and directed it, and wrote
above the direction, in big writing, "FROM TOM SAWYER, THE ERRONORT," and
said it would stump old Nat Parsons, the postmaster, when it come along in
the mail. I says:
"Tom Sawyer, this ain't no welkin, it's a balloon."
"Well, now, who SAID it was a welkin, smarty?"
"You've wrote it on the letter, anyway."