The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Lyman Frank Baum

Great Oz could help her get to Kansas again, so she bravely resolved not to turn back.

      She bade her friends good-bye |Она попрощалась с друзьями|, and again started along the road of yellow brick. When she had gone several miles she thought she would stop to rest, and so climbed to the top of the fence beside the road and sat down. There was a great cornfield beyond the fence, and not far away she saw a Scarecrow, placed high on a pole |на палке| to keep the birds from the ripe corn.

      Dorothy leaned |облокотила| her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully |внимательно посмотрела| at the Scarecrow. Its head was a small sack stuffed with straw |мешок, набитый соломой|, with eyes, nose, and mouth painted on it to represent a face. An old, pointed |заостренная| blue hat, that had belonged to some Munchkin, was perched |была насажена| on his head, and the rest of the figure was a blue suit of clothes, worn and faded, which had also been stuffed with straw. On the feet were some old boots with blue tops, such as every man wore in this country, and the figure was raised above the stalks of corn by means of the pole stuck up its back |стебли кукурузы из-за шеста, втыкались ему в спину|.

      While Dorothy was looking earnestly |серьезно| into the queer, painted face of the Scarecrow, she was surprised to see one of the eyes slowly wink at her |подмигнул ей|. She thought she must have been mistaken |должно быть ошиблась| at first, for none of the scarecrows in Kansas ever wink; but presently the figure nodded its head to her in a friendly way. Then she climbed down from the fence and walked up to it, while Toto ran around the pole and barked.

      “Good day,” said the Scarecrow, in a rather husky |хриплым| voice.

      “Did you speak?” asked the girl, in wonder.

      “Certainly,” answered the Scarecrow. “How do you do?”

      “I’m pretty well, thank you,” replied Dorothy politely. “How do you do?”

      “I’m not feeling well,” said the Scarecrow, with a smile, “for it is very tedious being perched up here |утомительно сидеть здесь наверху| night and day to scare away crows.”

      “Can’t you get down?” asked Dorothy.

      “No, for this pole is stuck up my back. If you will please take away the pole I shall be greatly obliged |буду неимоверно обязан| to you.”

      Dorothy reached up both arms and lifted the figure off the pole, for, being stuffed with straw, it was quite light.

      “Thank you very much,” said the Scarecrow, when he had been set down on the ground. “I feel like a new man.”

      Dorothy was puzzled at this, for it sounded queer to hear a stuffed man speak, and to see him bow and walk along beside her.

      “Who are you?” asked the Scarecrow when he had stretched himself and yawned. “And where are you going?”

      “My name is Dorothy,” said the girl, “and I am going to the Emerald City, to ask the Great Oz to send me back to Kansas.”

      “Where is the Emerald City?” he inquired. “And who is Oz?”

      “Why, don’t you know?” she returned, in surprise.

      “No, indeed. I don’t know anything. You see, I am stuffed, so I have no brains at all,” he answered sadly.

      “Oh,” said Dorothy, “I’m awfully sorry for you.”

      “Do you think,” he asked, “if I go to the Emerald City with you, that Oz would give me some brains?”

      “I cannot tell,” she returned, “but you may come with me, if you like. If Oz will not give you any brains you will be no worse off |хуже не будет| than you are now.”

      “That is true,” said the Scarecrow. “You see,” he continued confidentially, “I don’t mind my legs and arms and body being stuffed, because I cannot get hurt. If anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin |воткнет булавку| into me, it doesn’t matter, for I can’t feel it. But I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?”

      “I understand how you feel,” said the little girl, who was truly sorry for him. “If you will come with me I’ll ask Oz to do all he can for you.”

      “Thank you,” he answered gratefully.

      They walked back to the road. Dorothy helped him over the fence, and they started along the path of yellow brick for the Emerald City.

      Toto did not like this addition to the party at first. He smelled around the stuffed man as if he suspected there might be a nest of rats in the straw, and he often growled in an unfriendly way at the Scarecrow.

      “Don’t mind |Не обращай внимания на| Toto,” said Dorothy to her new friend. “He never bites.”

      “Oh, I’m not afraid,” replied the Scarecrow. “He can’t hurt the straw. Do let me carry that basket for you. I shall not mind it, for I can’t get tired. I’ll tell you a secret,” he continued, as he walked along. “There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of.”

      “What is that?” asked Dorothy; “the Munchkin farmer who made you?”

      “No,” answered the Scarecrow; “it’s a lighted match |зажженная спичка|.”

4. The Road Through the Forest

      After a few hours the road began to be rough, and the walking grew |здесь – стало| so difficult that the Scarecrow often stumbled over the yellow bricks, which were here very uneven |неровные|. Sometimes, indeed, they were broken or missing altogether, leaving holes that Toto jumped across and Dorothy walked around. As for the Scarecrow, having no brains, he walked straight ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell at full length on the hard bricks. It never hurt him, however, and Dorothy would pick him up and set him upon his feet again, while he joined her in laughing merrily at his own mishap |неудачей|.

      The farms were not nearly so well cared for here as they were farther back. There were fewer houses and fewer fruit trees, and the farther they went the more dismal |становились угрюмее| and lonesome the country became.

      At noon they sat down by the roadside, near a little brook, and Dorothy opened her basket and got out some bread. She offered a piece to the Scarecrow, but he refused.

      “I am never hungry,” he said, “and it is a lucky thing I am not, for my mouth is only painted, and if I should cut a hole in it so I could eat, the straw I am stuffed with would come out |выпадет|, and that would spoil the shape of my head.”

      Dorothy saw at once that this was true, so she only nodded and went on eating her bread.

      “Tell me something about yourself and the country you came from,” said the Scarecrow, when she had finished her dinner. So she told him all about Kansas, and how gray everything was there, and how the cyclone had carried her to this queer Land of Oz.

      The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, “I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas.”

      “That is because you have no brains” answered