The nearest medical aid station was a few kilometers away, and therefore, when one day in the rainy night is not known from where in the settlement wandered very tired young woman no one knew what to do in such cases. It was laid on a mattress in an abandoned hut, and while the men went for help, the woman was lying, face turned to the wall and eyes closed with fatigue. Code as the messengers returned, it was too late. The woman died, leaving behind a newborn crying girl with no indications of where she was directed to and what should happen to the child. The miners were in a quandary, not knowing what to do. Yet they have done everything and buried the woman not far from the river.
Someone suggested to send the baby to the nuns in the truck, but the truck was supposed to come only after three days. The girl did not stop crying. All stood helplessly around her, when suddenly from the crowd came an old Charlie and picked up the dirty little bundle.
-Leave it to me - he said abruptly .- I once had the same. You, Tom find a shepherd who grazes goats to pasture, and ask him to bring the milk to quickly, and you, Joe, go down to the shop and not come back without the baby bottle!
The attendees were very surprised. Charlie was the oldest of the inhabitants of the village, and his hut is probably the dirtiest of all. Very reserved, he rarely took part in fights and drinking bouts younger neighbors. Usually he was sitting with a pipe in his mouth for hours looking at the rough, pitted miners with shovels landscape. He was very talkative type do not, and nobody knew about his past, from which he fled, and what is. A strange, silent man was this Charlie, and nobody dared to contradict him.
Charlie brought the little girl home and put it on the blanket. For a moment he hesitated. A long time ago he had his little daughter, but his wife left him and took away the baby with you. He was not very sorry about his wife, because their relationship had nothing but hatred, but when the little Virginia had disappeared from his life, something in him died.
- I'll call her Virginia, he muttered - but my Virginia was pure as snow-white flower. Maybe Virginia should be washed?
He brooded over the fire and water with coarse soap bathed baby. But now it was impossible to wrap her in a dirty blanket. But he has a new linen shirt and a clean piece of terry cloth on the bottom of the chest. He wrapped her in all the cleaner and began pacing the room, trying to calm her hungry cry. Milk was brought, but wait for a bottle with a pacifier had no strength, and he tore off a piece of terry cloth, wet it in milk, and gave the girl to suck. Soon, she quietly fell asleep.
-She needs a bed, Charlie mumbled, clutching the little head. It awakened a love for this child.
Under the floorboards had kept a bit of gold, which is useful to him now than ever.
Very gently he put the girl on the blanket and went to the tavern keeper to consult. He invited him to an empty shipping box and dumb straw.
On health point he was given a lot of white pieces of cloth, and the shop he bought a small bottle with a pacifier and a certain amount of baby clothes and blankets.
By this time, all the villagers were interested in going on, and the child became the center of the old Charlie their attention.
Charlie admired her little daughter. Lying in her crib, she was the beautiful flower under a white blanket clean with beautiful frills around the cradle. But he drew attention to the dirty floor, against which the net cradle looks out of place. And Charlie for the first time began to scrape and wash the floor, and when he had finished, the floor was quite a different color.
But now it seemed gender does not fit anything else. The walls were blackened by the smoke, and the ceiling too. He did not notice it before.
-I pokormlyu her and assigned to the - he said to himself, - and then walked into the shop, I need a brush, lime and something else to kill insects.
For two whole days, he labored incessantly, and one or two miners to help him. And another look at Virginia, which was the unexpected cause of all these troubles.
On the second evening, Charlie has brought in new Virginia home. The girl inspected the white walls and ceiling are serious blue eyes, and then, without blinking, began to look at Charlie. The old man felt uncomfortable.
"What I probably dirty and not clean. - He sheepishly rubbed the palm of his big unshaven cheek. - Maybe I should look in the mirror?" , He mused. But such a subject in his house was not there. Charlie went to a small creek. Stooping down, he looked closely at his reflection and snorted
Indeed, I would have prihoroshitsya.
Barber clipped his hair and beard, the store he bought a new shirt and an old wash and put to work. But now he could not go to work, and how he was glad that he has a small piece of gold.
Little Virginia liked the new house. And when summer came, Charlie was often bear the crib into the yard, and she smiled at the blue sky and birds flying.
"But soon, she will sit, then walk - thought Charlie - and what she sees around her innocent blue eyes? Trampled dirt, stunted plants, and a bunch of garbage? No, that will not do."
And Charlie was dig your own piece of land. He bought in a store flower seeds and sowed them. Then he went into the woods, cut the branches and made a fence, and his daughter approvingly agukala.
Under the influence of the warm sun and mountain air seeds grew rapidly, and by that time, as head of curls again appeared in the yard, the yard became a place of verdure and beauty.
Hardened men in the village saw happening to Charlie and the changes have been infected by his love of order. Gradually, there were other little gardens, and some houses were whitewashed and cleaned up.
-Why do we have to live like a pigsty? - Asked the men to each other.
Yes, indeed, they had no reason to act like animals, but the real reason for their change was a new child's life, not fit for its cleanliness in their surroundings.
Author Patricia John
Yours
Angela Galstyan
October 7, 2011
Odessa
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