Отслеживание прогресса доступно только для участников Premium!
Присоединяйтесь к RushENGL Premium и двигайтесь к своим целям без ограничений!
Присоединиться к

При сохранении произошла ошибка, попробуйте снова.
Если ошибка повториться, пожалуйста, напишите нам об этом в обратной связи - Написать сообщение!

The Cherry-Tree by Alfred Coppard

star 4.9

Part I

It was the middle of the day in a small English town and there was a great noise in one of the back yards.

“It’s that boy, Johnny Flynn, again! Killing rats!” shouted Mrs. Knatchbole. She lived in the house next to the Flynns.

“You wait, my boy, till your mother comes home, you only wait!” she shouted.

Johnny was looking at the big rat that the dogs of his friend George had killed. The dogs had made all that noise when they were fighting with the rat. But when Johnny heard Mrs. Knatchbole's words, he looked at her and put his fingers to his nose.

“Look at that eight-year-old boy, look at him! I'll—,” Mrs. Knatchbole could not finish. She began to sneeze.

But when she met Johnny’s mother that night as Mrs. Flynn was coming home from her day at the factory, where she worked for long hours, Mrs. Knatchbole told her about Johnny.

“Oh, Mrs. Knatchbole, he is going away from me in a week to his uncle in London, so soon he won’t make any noise. I’m sorry, but he isn’t a bad boy,” said Mrs. Flynn.

When she got home, she talked to Johnny. He was sorry. He wanted to do something great for his mother, but he did not say anything.

“Why do you make people angry, Johnny?” asked Mrs. Flynn. “Why can’t you be like Pomona?” Johnny’s sister was a year younger than he. Her name was Mona, but Johnny didn’t like it, so one day he changed her name to Pomona.

The Flynns sat down to supper. “Don’t think about all that, Mum,” said the boy and kissed her as he went to his place, “talk to us about the cherry-tree.”

The beautiful cherry-tree was from Mother’s young days, when she lived on her father’s farm and was happy. She loved to talk about it to her children.

Part II

Soon Johnny went away to London to live with his uncle, who was a bus driver. But he often talked to Johnny about his little garden. This Johnny could not understand. He thought that a big bus was the greatest thing in the world. His uncle took him one day on his bus and Johnny saw how interesting his uncle’s work was.

After two months in London, Johnny came back on his mother’s birthday. Pomona met him at the station. She kissed Johnny and said:

“Mother will be home with us at dinner-time. Then we shall celebrate her birthday. And you have come home. We'll celebrate that too.”

Johnny told his sister that he had a plan for his mother’s birthday. When they got home, he showed her what he had brought from London for his mother.

Then the children went into their little back yard. Nothing grew there, only an evergreen bush, as tall as Johnny, covered with thick green leaves. The children were in the yard till dinner-time. Then they ran into the kitchen and Pomona quickly laid the table. In the middle of the table Johnny put a bottle of beer from London.

The children went to meet their mother and they all three came home together. Pomona took the bottle of beer and poured some of it into a glass. Johnny gave the glass to his mother, saying:

“Many happy returns of the day, Mrs. Flynn!”

“Oh,” said his mother, “you drink some of it too.”

“Excuse me, no, Mrs. Flynn,” said her son, “many happy returns of the day to you.”

When the beer was drunk, Pomona and Johnny looked at each other.

“Come on, Mum, into the garden, you’ll see something wonderful there!” said Johnny and they all went out. At that moment the sun was shining brightly, and Mrs. Flynn saw that the evergreen bush had no leaves on it; it was covered with cherries. On its branches the two children had hung cherries, red and black cherries.

“What do you think of it, Mum?” they cried. Then they took cherries off the bush and put them into her hands.

“What do you think of it?”

“Beautiful,” said Mrs. Flynn with tears in her eyes. The children were happy, but their mother turned, went into the kitchen and cried.

Поделиться:
Оценить:
4.9
(Оценок: 27)
Сообщить об ошибке!