Читать книгу Forgive Us Our Trespasses - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 26

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Ten minutes later, Angela, with very red cheeks, went to the melodeon and continued where she had left off at the third verse of "That Will Be Glory For Me," hoping that Ferdinand's stubbornness meant he was too dumb to understand, or, having understood, would not unintentionally give her away.

The front doorbell rang loudly, and Angela, still scarlet and shaky, answered it. Mr. Trask had brought a telegram for Ferdinand. Whatever was Ferdinand doing with telegrams?

She rushed upstairs with it. He was standing at the window, drumming absently on the pane with his knuckles. He did not turn.

"Look what you got!" Angela hoped the message would be pleasant, at least diverting.

He clumsily opened the envelope and mystifiedly read the telegram several times before its meaning became quite clear. It was signed by the Winnetka Stock Farm.

WE HAVE BRUMMS WIRED PROPOSAL TO RESELL TO US PONY AND EQUIPMENT DELIVERED YOU TODAY STOP IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WIRE IMMEDIATELY COLLECT

"What is it?" Angela was bursting with curiosity.

Ferdinand crumpled the message in his first, and shuffled past her toward the stairway. There he paused, his face working, his eyes brimming with angry tears.

"You're all a lot o' cheaters!" he screamed.

Angela stood in open-mouthed amazement.... So unlike Ferdinand to explode like that!

He clumped down the stairs, savagely shouting: "I hate all of you! Do you hear me? I hate everybody in th' whole damn world!"

Angela brightened.

"He won't tell, then," she reflected.

Ferdinand flung himself out of the house, banged the front gate, pulled his cap far down over his red nose, dug his fists deep into the pockets of his pants (cut down from a pair of his uncle's), and stamped sullenly up the road toward the railroad track, only three hundred yards away. The east-bound Erie Flyer was just due. It always stopped at Zanesdale for water.

Sometimes Ferdinand strolled down to the station and stood close beside the dripping water-tank when, at exactly three-thirty-six, the huge locomotive paused, gasping rhythmically, while the torrent poured into the capacious tender, the fireman on the coal-pile, holding the rope, calmly smoking his pipe, unmindful of his happy privilege.

Most of the fast trains thundered through Zanesdale with a terrifying racket. Ferdinand never failed to experience a surge of hot indignation over this arrogant contempt for his town. He knew it wasn't much of a town; had contempt for it himself; but it was annoying to have the utter insignificance of Zanesdale thrust upon him nine times a day.

He would not have time to run down to the station, now, even if he had been in a mood for running: besides, he didn't care to answer any questions that Mr. Trask might ask, so that he might be able to tell Mrs. Trask the sequel to the pony story which she would promptly explain to the town.

He climbed on top of the gate-post at the corner of Harsh's melon-patch—his favourite vantage when watching the long, black, proud Pullmans flick by, each adding its own little "Psst!" of disdain; and watched Number Nine (he knew all the trains that way) slow to a screeching stop. There was a long hiss of escaping air from the brakes; an acrid smell of greasy, hot metal. The diner was directly in front of him. Little tables with candles on them. A man and a woman, with a black waiter hovering over them. Too late for dinner, too early for supper: this must be "tea." People in stories were always having "tea." Ferdinand drew down the corners of his mouth and hated the man and the woman, though he knew she was a pretty woman. He hated the obsequious waiter, and mumbled, audibly, "Damn nigger!"

The train moved slowly on, so slowly that the locomotive was exasperated by the sluggishness of the heavy Pullmans, and barked a staccato of short, angry demands that it had better get to business, now, or we'd be late again pulling into Washington. Ferdinand climbed down from the post, made a detour around the rear of the melon-patch, and entered the barn through the back door. The pony looked around over its shoulder, stopped munching its mouthful of hay, and blew a long breath that made its soft nostrils flutter.

He advanced slowly and laid a hand on the pony's flank which twitched as if the light touch had tickled; moved forward another step and took a wisp of tawny mane in his fingers; was about to pat the friendly pet on the nose.

On sudden impulse he drew back and muttered, "No—I tell you—No!"

Retracing his steps through the back door, half-blinded by tears, he stood for a long time gazing abstractedly into the muddy water of the miasmic, green-scummed little pond that belonged to Flook's Tile Factory; amblingly circled the barn, and moved toward his little workbench behind the woodhouse.

He took the new knife from his pocket, turned it over several times, opened it, closed it with a sharp click; and, deliberately drawing his long arm back to full torsion, he sighted carefully—his lower lip pinioned by a row of uncommonly straight teeth—and threw the knife all of forty yards with such velocity and precision that it landed with a mighty splash exactly when he had intended.

Ferdinand grinned. It was an ugly grin that did something to him on the inside—a brand-new sensation which defied his childish analysis, but seemed to be made up of such ingredients as, "Damn them all!"... "I haven't a friend left in the world!"... "I've got to go it alone!"... "I can go it alone!"... "I will go it alone!"... "You see if I don't!... Damn you all!"