Читать книгу Plowing On Sunday - Sterling North - Страница 6

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On the broad kitchen stoop Brailsford scraped the black dirt from his shoes, then, whistling, went in to wash. Sarah hurried to prime the cistern pump which wheezed and creaked as it gushed forth a clear stream of clean-smelling rain water. He scrubbed face and hands with a coarse yellow soap, dried himself vigorously on the crash roller-towel, ran the family comb through his curls, and hesitated for a second to look at himself in the uneven glass of the old walnut-framed mirror.

What he saw evidently pleased him: clear blue eyes which could laugh or be very angry, wrinkles at the outer corners more from smiling than from squinting into the sun, a two-days' growth of heavy black stubble over cheeks both ruddy and tan, a good, straight English nose which went oddly but well with the slightly spoiled, pouting mouth; good teeth, a high forehead which bulged at the temples, but was in no way out of proportion to the leonine head with its mass of graying curls. He pulled at his jowls tentatively. No use shaving until Sunday morning.

"Thought you rang the dinner bell, Sarah," he said smilingly as the hot, somewhat harassed woman shuttled back and forth from the roaring cook stove to the kitchen table. "Guess we'll have time for a tune."

He crossed the wide, low-ceilinged room to the graphophone on the big desk under the north window, pushed aside mail-order catalogues, the ten-pound family Bible and back numbers of farm magazines, gave the little crank a dozen turns, and from a homemade box studded with big wooden pegs drew a heavy cylinder record.

"Edison record," the huge tin horn painted like a tiger lily bragged in a cracked barytone. "For I Picked a Lemon in the Garden of Love Where They Say Only Peaches Grow...."

"You play that just to tease me," the woman said. She spoke softly and indulgently as a mother might speak to a mischievous child.

Early Ann came in with an armload of smoothly split oak and hickory which she dumped into the wood box. Her strong round arms looked very capable for the task and there was something delightful about the disarray of her blond curls and the little beads of perspiration on her forehead. Her movements were effortless and unstudied.

Stanley found himself perplexed. Where had he seen the girl before, years ago? There was a momentary flash of moonlight and willow trees, but the vision evaded him. He gave up the puzzling problem as Gus, the hired man, came in from the barns.

"It's hawg cholera this time all right," announced the excruciatingly ugly man. "I don't doubt every one of them Poland Chinas'll be dead by next Sunday."

"That ain't hog cholera, and you know it," said Stud.

"Well, if it ain't it ought to be," said Gus, slouching into his chair at the table. "I'm plumb sick of them hawgs."

"They're good hogs," Stud said. "What's the matter with 'em?"

"Matter!" said Gus. "There's plenty the matter. You treat 'em better than you treat your hired help, that's what's the matter. I'll probably be sittin' up all night with that sow holding a hoof and takin' her temperature."

"It's better company than you usually keep nights," said Stud.

"There you go again," Gus complained, "always accusing me of being out nights. You know as well as I do that I ain't courted a girl in twenty years."

"And with all the girls from Brailsford Junction to the Fort raring around like mares in heat every time they get sight of you."

"Hush, Stanley," said Sarah, "don't forget Early Ann."

"She'll just have to get used to us, Sarah," Stanley said. "She'll have to get used to the way we talk around here."

"Ain't we going to eat sometime today?" Gus asked. "I thought I heard the dinner bell."

"There, the duck's just done," said Sarah. She slipped it deftly onto the willow-ware platter.

"Duck on a Saturday?" asked Stud with mild surprise. He viewed the sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, the great bowl of gravy, baked apples, bread-and-butter pickles, the pile of hot homemade bread in thick slices, the apple and gooseberry pies and large graniteware pot of coffee with something like lust.

"Duck on a week-day?"

"You know Peter came home today. He.... Oh, Stanley, he's quit school! He said he couldn't stand it another day."

"And so we kill the fatted calf," said Stanley quietly. "Well, why doesn't he come to dinner? What's keeping him?"

"He's upstairs changing into his overalls. You might as well begin."

She stopped half way between the stove and table as Stud began the blessing. She cast her eyes down as the words ran on.... "God is great and God is good, and we thank Him for this food...." She saw the wide pine boards of the kitchen, worn white and smooth from years of scrubbing. Then she shut her eyes and said a little prayer of her own for Peter and for Stanley Brailsford.