Читать книгу The Boy in the Bush онлайн

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A servant had brought in the tea-tray. The child was sitting on a foot-stool. The lady seemed not to be listening. There was a dark cake.

"My mother said I wasn't never to ask for cake, but if somebody was to offer me some, I needn't say No fank you."

"Yes, you shall have some cake," said the lady. "So you are one of the Wandering Grants, and you don't know where you were born?"

"But I think. I was born in my mother's bed."

"I suppose you were—And how old are you?"

"I'm four. How old are you?"

"A great deal older than that.—But tell me, what were you doing in my garden."

"I don't know. Well, I comed by mistake."

"How was that?"

"'Cause I wouldn't say I was sorry I told a lie. Well, I wasn't sorry. But I wasn't wandrin' in your garden. I was only walkin'. I was walkin' out of the meadow where they put me——"

——"And I says, she may have been born in a 'all, but she'll die in a wooden shack."

"Who? Who will?"

"I was tellin' you about my old woman.—Look! There's a joey runnin' there along the track."