"THE SONG OF THE LARK" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cather Willa Sibert)

acres in Nebraska,--but this she kept in her own name.
She had profound respect for her husband's erudition and
eloquence. She sat under his preaching with deep humility,
and was as much taken in by his stiff shirt and white neck-
ties as if she had not ironed them herself by lamplight the
night before they appeared correct and spotless in the pul-
pit. But for all this, she had no confidence in his adminis-
tration of worldly affairs. She looked to him for morning

prayers and grace at table; she expected him to name the
babies and to supply whatever parental sentiment there
was in the house, to remember birthdays and anniver-
saries, to point the children to moral and patriotic ideals.
It was her work to keep their bodies, their clothes, and
their conduct in some sort of order, and this she accom-
plished with a success that was a source of wonder to her
neighbors. As she used to remark, and her husband ad-
miringly to echo, she "had never lost one." With all his
flightiness, Peter Kronborg appreciated the matter-of-fact,
punctual way in which his wife got her children into the
world and along in it. He believed, and he was right in
believing, that the sovereign State of Colorado was much
indebted to Mrs. Kronborg and women like her.

Mrs. Kronborg believed that the size of every family was
decided in heaven. More modern views would not have
startled her; they would simply have seemed foolish--
thin chatter, like the boasts of the men who built the tower
of Babel, or like Axel's plan to breed ostriches in the chicken
yard. From what evidence Mrs. Kronborg formed her
opinions on this and other matters, it would have been
difficult to say, but once formed, they were unchangeable.
She would no more have questioned her convictions than
she would have questioned revelation. Calm and even-
tempered, naturally kind, she was capable of strong pre-
judices, and she never forgave.

When the doctor came in to see Thea, Mrs. Kronborg
was reflecting that the washing was a week behind, and de-
ciding what she had better do about it. The arrival of a
new baby meant a revision of her entire domestic schedule,
and as she drove her needle along she had been working out
new sleeping arrangements and cleaning days. The doctor
had entered the house without knocking, after making
noise enough in the hall to prepare his patients. Thea
was reading, her book propped up before her in the sun-
light.