A Tale of Two Cities by Dave Mckay, Charles Dickens (sight word books TXT) 📕

The time would come when the thin scarecrows living in that part of Paris would have watched the lantern-lighter so long that they would have started to think of pulling bodies up on those ropes and putting fire to them. But the time was not yet. For now, the scarecrows would shake in the wind while the birds in their beautiful feathers would go on singing their beautiful songs without any interest in the warnings.

The wine shop was a corner shop, better than most, both in its size and in its looks. Its owner had stood outside in his yellow top and green pants, watching as the people raced for the wine.

"It's not my problem," he had said, lifting and dropping his shoulders to show how little interest he had in it all. "The people from the market dropped it, so they'll just have to bring me another."

Then he saw the tall joker writing his word on the wall. He called out to him from across the street, "Say there, what do you think you're doing?"

The man pointed to his joke, proud of what he had written, as is often the way with his kind. But the joke missed its mark and did not bring a laugh. That too is often the way with his kind.

"What now? Do you want to be locked away as crazy?” asked the wine shop owner as he crossed the road. He picked up mud in his hand on the way, and rubbed it over the word. "Why do you write here on the wall? Is there... listen to me... is there no other place where you can write words like this?"

In saying this, he dropped his clean hand (maybe by accident and maybe not) on the foolish man's heart. The joker pushed it away and jumped high in the air only to come down in a dancing movement, with one shoe pulled off and in his hand. He reached out to the wine shop owner with his shoe.

"Put it on. Put it on. You should call wine wine and leave it at that.” With that, he rubbed his dirty hand on the clothes (if you can call them that) that the joker was wearing, as if to say that he was the reason that the hand had become dirty in the first place. Then he returned across the road and into the wine shop.

This owner was a strong man of thirty, with a thick neck. One could understand him being angry, because it was very cold out and he did not have a coat on (but he carried one over his shoulder). Even the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, leaving his brown arms with no covering to the elbows. He did not wear a hat either, to cover his short dark hair. He was a dark man all over, with good eyes and a good distance between them. On the whole he was friendly, but he was not the kind of person one would want to argue with, or to meet on a narrow road with water on each side.

Madam Defarge, his wife, was sitting in the shop behind the counter, when he came in. She was a heavy woman of about his age with an eye that looked at nothing and everything at the same time. She had a few heavy rings on her fingers, an interesting face, and a quiet spirit. She had an air of confidence about her that would make one think she was not often wrong in anything she did. Not liking the cold, Madam Defarge was covered in animal skins, with a big scarf turned around her head, but not enough to cover the big rings hanging from her ears. She had been knitting, but she had stopped to pick at her teeth with a match stick. She was so busy doing this, with her left hand holding up her right elbow, that she said nothing when her husband came in. She just made a very little cough and lifted her eyebrow by the smallest distance, as if to say that he needed to look around the shop and see if there were any new people who had come in while he was out.

He looked around to see if there was anyone new in the shop, and he saw an older man together with a young woman, both seated in a corner. There were also two people playing cards, two playing dominoes, and three people at the counter talking. As he walked over to the counter, he heard the older man in the corner say to the young woman, "There's our man."

"What the devil do I have to do with him?” Mr. Defarge asked himself. "I don't know him."

He did not show any interest in the new people, but started talking to the three men at the counter instead.

"How is it, Jack?” said one of the three to Mr. Defarge. "Did they drink all of the wine?"

"Every drop, Jack," answered Mr. Defarge.

At this point, Madam Defarge coughed another little cough, and lifted her eyebrows a little more than she did the first time.

"It is not often," said the second of the three to Mr. Defarge, "that many of these poor animals know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Isn't that true, Jack?"

"That's true, Jack," Mr. Defarge returned.

At this, Madam Defarge, still quietly using her match stick to clean her teeth, gave another little cough, and lifted her eyebrows a little higher than she had just done.

The last of the three put down his cup, rubbed his lips together and had his say: "Ah, so much the worse for them! Now they will always have that bitter taste in their mouths. The poor cows do live a hard life, do they not, Jack?"

"You're so right, Jack," Mr. Defarge answered.

This is when Madam Defarge put down her match stick, holding her eyebrows up, and moved a little in her seat.

"Stay there!" whispered her husband. "Men... my wife!"

The three men took off their hats to Madam Defarge, and she answered back by bowing her head and giving them a little look. Then she looked quietly around the wine shop, picked up her needles with what looked like a happy spirit, and turned her whole mind to knitting.

"Good men," said her husband, "the room that you had been asking to see is on the fifth floor. The steps leading up to it start in the little closed yard to my left here, close to the shop window. But now, as I remember, one of you has been there already, and so he can show you all the way. You may go, my friends!"

They paid for their wine and left. Mr. Defarge's eyes were studying his wife at her knitting when the old man came from his corner and asked to have a word with him.

"I would be happy to do that," said Mr. Defarge as he walked quietly with him to the door.

Their talk was very short, but very clear. Almost at the first word Mr. Defarge showed serious interest in what he was hearing. In less than a minute, he showed agreement and stepped outside. The old man showed with his hand that he wanted the young woman to follow him, and she too went out the door. Madam Defarge was so busy knitting that she saw nothing.

Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette left the wine shop to join Mr. Defarge at the foot of the steps that he had just pointed out to the other men. The closed yard was dark and full of bad smells. It was the front yard for many floors of rooms holding many more people. At the foot of the steps, Mr. Defarge went down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a humble action, but it marked a change in his spirit. Far from being happy and friendly, he became angry, in a dangerous and secret way.

"It's a long climb. It's a little difficult. Better to start slowly.” Mr. Defarge said this to Mr. Lorry like it was an important rule, as they started climbing the steps.

"Is he alone?” Mr. Lorry whispered.

"Alone? God help him, who should be with him?” said the other in the same low voice.

"Is he always alone, then?”

"Yes."

"Because he wants to be?"

"Because he needs to be. He is now as he was when I first saw him, after they found him and asked if I would take him. They made it clear that I would be in danger if I was not very careful."

"Had he changed much?"

"Changed?!" The owner of the wine shop stopped to hit the wall with his hand and say some very rough words. The answer was clear. Mr. Lorry's spirit grew heavier and heavier as the three of them climbed higher and higher.

Such steps today would be hard enough in the older and poorer parts of Paris; but it was much worse then, for any who were not used to being in such a place. Every room in that great nest of rooms that was one tall building, left their rubbish by these steps; that is, if they did not just throw it out of their windows to land in the yard. The three people were now climbing up through a dark tower filled with this awful smell. Giving in to his own worries, and to those of his young friend, whose worries were growing as they climbed, Mr. Jarvis Lorry stopped two times on the way to have a rest.

Each stop was beside an opening with bars, where light could come in. Because other buildings were so close beside them, it seemed that the openings were taking the best air out of that dark tower and bringing the worst air in. One could almost taste the life in the other awful buildings near this one, and the closest sign of healthy air and high hopes, even up here, were the two tall towers of Notre Dame far off in the distance.

At last they reached the top of the steps, where they rested for the third time. But there was one more narrow ladder up to the room in the roof that they were trying to reach. The shop owner, who had been leading them, and keeping to Mr. Lorry's side of the steps as if afraid the young woman would ask him a question, turned around here and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key

"The door is locked?” asked Mr. Lorry in surprise.

"Oh, yes," Mr. Defarge answered quite seriously.

"You think you need to keep the poor man away from others?"

Mr. Defarge leaned down to whisper into Mr. Lorry's ear. "I think that I need to be in control."

"Why?"

"Why? Because he has lived so long that way, that he would be afraid... go crazy... die... Who knows what would happen if his door was left open?"

"Is that possible?” Mr. Lorry said with surprise.

"Is it possible!" Defarge whispered bitterly. "Yes. And what a world we live in when it is, and when many other things like it are... not only possible, but done. Done, see you! Under that sky there every day. The devil is real and alive. Now let us go on."

These words had been said so softly that not one had reached the young woman's ears. But by now she was shaking under such emotion, and her face showed so much worry and fear, that Mr. Lorry believed he should speak a word or two to encourage her.

"Do not be afraid, Miss! Be brave! Business, remember? The worst will be over in a minute. It's just a question of opening the door, and the worst will be over. Then all the good, the love, and the happiness you bring to him will start to work. Let our good friend help you up the steps. Thank you, friend Defarge. Come now. Business, business!"

They went up slowly and softly. It was only a short distance and they were at the top. There, on turning the corner, they saw three men bending over, with their heads close together by the door. They were busy looking into the room through some small holes in the wall. On hearing the others, they stood and turned to face them, showing themselves to be the three men with the same name who had been drinking in the wine shop.

"I had forgotten them in the surprise of your visit," Mr. Defarge said. "Leave us, boys; we have business here."

The men squeezed by and climbed quietly down the ladder.

There being no other door on that floor, Mr. Lorry asked the owner in a whisper, and with some anger, "Do you make a show of Mr. Manette?"

"I show him