"Avram Davidson - Blunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

"There's your naval stores," Mr. Swanson said; "your turpentine and rosin.
There's your citrus fruit. There's your lumber. There's your real estate. And I
must add," he added, "last but not by any means least, there's your Sunshine and
your Clean, Fresh Air."

Wilma had gone to Cataline College and graduated. She had majored in Domestic
Science, that being what the aptitude test had suggested for her.

Somehow, no young man from a lovely family had ever offered to provide Wilma
with the domesticity. Mr. Snyder, to be sure. Mr. Snyder, a fine Christian
gentleman, had once hinted to Mr. & Mrs. Swanson that...but then, Mr. Snyder was
getting on in years, he had low blood pressure and a married daughter .... No.
Wilma could do better than Mr. Snyder, lovely man though he was. There was no
hurry. Mrs. Swanson had been much older than Wilma when she married Mr. Swanson.
Wilma was a lovely cook and had such a warm personality, and, really, when she
took off her glasses, you could see that she had lovely gray eyes. Only she
seldom took them off because she couldn't see very well without them. So Wilma
stayed at home. Then, when the war started, she had so much wanted to Do
Something, and it was really very fortunate in its way that Miss Olauson, who
was Dr. Wondermaker's nurse, had joined the Army. Of course, Wilma wasn't really
a nurse, but she had her Red Cross card in first aid, she made even the most
nervous patients feel at ease; and besides, there just weren't any nurses
available for Dr. Wondermaker. But Wilma learned very quickly and Mrs.
Wondermaker said she real1y didn't know what Doctor would do without her,
because she (Mrs. Wondermaker) simply had her hands full with the children.

And there was no end to the shock of the Swanson family when Dr. Wondermaker
tried to kiss Wilma one day, in his office. Of course, she couldn't stay after
that. Dr. Wondermaker insisted it was all a misunderstanding, he regarded Wilma
almost as one of his own daughters; but of course, she couldn't stay after that.
Fortunately, in addition to the Domestic Science courses at Cataline College,
Wilma had studied typing. She couldn't take dictation, but she could type; she
had typed all of Dr. Wondermaker's records for him. Wilma got a job in the
office of the Dispensary at the Naval Air Station. Mrs. Swanson said that some
of the sailor boys were really just lovely, if you got to know them, came from
very fine families, really. Besides, Chief Shillitoe worked in that office, and
he was a very fine man, really lovely...

At first only Ribacheck showed any interest in the new office girl. The nurses
responded to her very openly expressed admiration for nurses, 'but only
Ribacheck {at first) showed any interest in her as a woman. Ribacheck belonged
notoriously to the Lowest Common Denominator school of venery, and was therefore
interested in all women as women. The other Corpsmen claimed to find a lack of
niceness in this. Ribacheck's taste, they said, was All in His Mouth. Of course,
Wilma was very polite to all the men, and when Ribacheck smiled at her, she
smiled back. In fact, as his smiles grew warmer, she allowed herself to look
into his record book in the files. She had never heard of Poynkers Mills, New
Jersey, 'listed as his home town. And, heavens! she couldn't even pronounce his
mother's first name. Lutherans were all right, although not perhaps quite so
much as Methodists or Presbyterians, but what on earth could a Slovak Lutheran