"John Dalmas - Farside 2 - The Bavarian Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

but the yard oak, bare as February, showed no sign yet of wakening. The driver

pulled into the driveway and stopped. "My thanks," Macurdy said, and taking the

coin purse from his pocket, removed a fifty-cent piece.

The man waved it off. "That's half a day's pay, and this ain't been more'n a

couple miles out of my way."

Macurdy nodded, put the coin back, and shook the man's hand. "Thanks," he said.

"I'm obliged to you. " Taking his suitcase from the seat, he got out, slammed

the door, and waved as the driver left. Then he walked to the house. Place needs

paint, he told himself. Hard times.

He opened the back door without knocking, took off his jacket and hung it on one

of the back hall hooks. "Charley?" his mother's voice called.

"Nope." He stepped into the kitchen. The rawboned woman had turned from the big

black kitchen stove. Seeing him, her eyes widened, her mouth half opening. For a

moment he thought she might fall down, or worse, weep, but she recovered

herself.

"Curtis!" she cried. "Blessed Jesus! It's you!" They embraced, then talked, she

asking how he was, how long he planned to stay, her questioning marked more by

what she didn't ask than what she did, as if fearing what he might tell her. His

answers were brief. He had no plans yet, he said. If needed, he might stay the

summer, and maybe through harvest.

His own questions were simply to catch up on the state of the family. Nothing

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had greatly changed, she told him, except that the price of everything had