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

dinner. We was going to leave the next day, but couldn't, it was too
lovely.
The day after, when we rose up toward the sky and sailed off eastward,
we looked back and watched that place till it warn't nothing but just a
speck in the Desert, and I tell you it was like saying good-bye to a
friend that you ain't ever going to see any more.
Jim was thinking to himself, and at last he says:
"Mars Tom, we's mos' to de end er de Desert now, I speck."
"Why?"
"Well, hit stan' to reason we is. You knows how long we's been
a-skimmin' over it. Mus' be mos' out o' san'. Hit's a wonder to me dat
it's hilt out as long as it has."
"Shucks, there's plenty sand, you needn't worry."
"Oh, I ain't a-worryin', Mars Tom, only wonderin', dat's all. De Lord's
got plenty san', I ain't doubtin' dat; but nemmine, He ain't gwyne to
WAS'E it jist on dat account; en I allows dat dis Desert's plenty big
enough now, jist de way she is, en you can't spread her out no mo' 'dout
was'in' san'."
"Oh, go 'long! we ain't much more than fairly STARTED across this
Desert yet. The United States is a pretty big country, ain't it? Ain't it,
Huck?"
"Yes," I says, "there ain't no bigger one, I don't reckon."
"Well," he says, "this Desert is about the shape of the United States,
and if you was to lay it down on top of the United States, it would cover
the land of the free out of sight like a blanket. There'd be a little
corner sticking out, up at Maine and away up northwest, and Florida
sticking out like a turtle's tail, and that's all. We've took California
away from the Mexicans two or three years ago, so that part of the Pacific
coast is ours now, and if you laid the Great Sahara down with her edge on
the Pacific, she would cover the United States and stick out past New York
six hundred miles into the Atlantic ocean."
I say:
"Good land! have you got the documents for that, Tom Sawyer?"
"Yes, and they're right here, and I've been studying them. You can look
for yourself. From New York to the Pacific is 2,600 miles. From one end of
the Great Desert to the other is 3,200. The United States contains
3,600,000 square miles, the Desert contains 4,162,000. With the Desert's
bulk you could cover up every last inch of the United States, and in under
where the edges projected out, you could tuck England, Scotland, Ireland,
France, Denmark, and all Germany. Yes, sir, you could hide the home of the
brave and all of them countries clean out of sight under the Great Sahara,
and you would still have 2,000 square miles of sand left."
"Well," I says, "it clean beats me. Why, Tom, it shows that the Lord
took as much pains makin' this Desert as makin' the United States and all
them other countries."
Jim says: "Huck, dat don' stan' to reason. I reckon dis Desert wa'n't
made at all. Now you take en look at it like dis-you look at it, and see
ef I's right. What's a desert good for? 'Taint good for nuthin'. Dey ain't
no way to make it pay. Hain't dat so, Huck?"
"Yes, I reckon."