Читать книгу Look Homeward, Angel. A Story of the Buried Life онлайн

64 страница из 175

Accordingly he trotted heavily up the hill, turned ponderously into the alley ruts and advanced heavily until, feeling the great circle of his right forefoot obstructed by some foreign particle, he looked down and slowly removed his hoof from what had recently been the face of a little boy.

Then, with his legs carefully straddled, he moved on, drawing the wagon beyond Eugene's body, and stopping. Both negroes awoke simultaneously; there were cries within the house, and Eliza and Gant rushed out of doors. The frightened negro lifted Eugene, who was quite unconscious of his sudden return to the stage, into the burly arms of Doctor McGuire, who cursed the driver eloquently. His thick sensitive fingers moved swiftly around the bloody little face and found no fracture.

He nodded briefly at their desperate faces: "He's being saved for Congress," said he. "You have bad luck and hard heads, W.O."

"You Goddamned black scoundrel," yelled the master, turning with violent relief upon the driver. "I'll put you behind the bars for this." He thrust his great length of hands through the fence and choked the negro, who mumbled prayers and had no idea what was happening to him, save that he was the centre of a wild commotion.