The Road to Oz / Путешествие в Страну Оз. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Pretty soon Dorothy came out of the house with her sun-bonnet, and she called out:

“Come on, Shaggy Man, if you want me to show you the road to Butterfield.” She climbed the fence into the ten-acre lot and he followed her, walking slowly and stumbling over the little hillocks in the pasture as if he was thinking of something else and did not notice them.

“My, but you’re clumsy!” said the little girl. “Are your feet tired?”

“No, miss; it’s my whiskers; they tire very easily in this warm weather,” said he.

“’course not, Shaggy Man,” replied Dorothy, giving him a severe look. “If it snowed in August it would spoil the corn and the oats and the wheat; and then Uncle Henry wouldn’t have any crops; and that would make him poor; and —”

“Never mind,” said the shaggy man. “It won’t snow, I guess. Is this the lane?”

“Yes,” replied Dorothy, climbing another fence; “I’ll go as far as the highway with you.

“Thankee, miss; you’re very kind for your size, I’m sure,” said he gratefully.

“It isn’t everyone who knows the road to Butterfield,” Dorothy remarked as she tripped along the lane; “but I’ve driven there many a time with Uncle Henry, and so I b’lieve I could find it blindfolded[2 - I could find it blindfolded – (разг.) я могу найти дорогу с закрытыми глазами].”

“Don’t do that, miss,” said the shaggy man earnestly; “you might make a mistake.

“I won’t,” she answered, laughing. “Here’s the highway. Now it’s the second – no, the third turn to the left – or else it’s the fourth. Let’s see. The first one is by the elm tree, and the second is by the gopher holes; and then —”

“Then what?” he inquired, putting his hands in his coat pockets. Toto grabbed a finger and bit it; the shaggy man took his hand out of that pocket quickly, and said “Oh!”

Dorothy did not notice.

“Come on,” she commanded. “It’s only a little way farther, so I may as well show you.”

After a while, they came to the place where five roads branched in different directions; Dorothy pointed to one, and said:

“That’s it, Shaggy Man.”

“I’m much obliged, miss,” he said, and started along another road.