"Avram Davidson - The House the Blakeneys Built" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

The hours passed, and the days. There seemed no government, no rules, only was
and habits and practices. Those who felt so inclined, worked. Those who didn't
тАж didn't. No one suggested the newcomers do anything, no one prevented from
doing anything. It was perhaps a week later that Robert and Ezra invited
themselves on a trip along the shore of the bay. Two healthy horses pulled a
rickety wagon.

The driver's name was Young Little Bob. "Gots to fix a floorwalk," he said.
"In the, a hey, in the sickroom. Need boards. Lots at the riverwater."

The sun was warm. The House now and again vanished behind trees or hills, now
and again, as the road curved with the bay, came into view, looming over
everything.

"We've got to find something for ourselves to do," Ezra said. "These people
may be all one big happy family, they better be, the only family on the whole
planet all this time. But if I spend any much more time with them I think I'll
become as dippy as they are."

Robert said, deprecatingly, that the Blakeneys weren't very dippy. "Besides,"
he pointed out, "sooner or later our children are going to have to intermarry
with them, andтАФ"

"Our children can intermarry with each otherтАФ"

"Our grandchildren, then. I'm afraid we haven't the ancient skills necessary
to be pioneers, otherwise we might go тАж just anywhere. There is, after all,
lots of room. But in a few hundred years, perhaps less, our descendants would
be just as inbred and, well, odd. This way, at least, there's a chance. Hybrid
vigor, and all that."

They forded the river at a point just directly opposite The House. A thin
plume of smoke rose from one of its great, gaunt chimneys. The wagon turned up
an overgrown path which followed up the river. "Lots of boards," said Young
Little Bob. "Mum mum mum."

There were lot of boards, just as he said, weathered a silver gray. They were
piled under the roof of a great open shed. At the edge of it a huge wheel
turned and turned in the water. It, like the roof, was made of some dull and
unrusted metal. But only the wheel turned. The other machinery was dusty.

"Millstones," Ezra said. "And saws. Lathes. And тАж all sorts of things. Why do
theyтАФBob? Young Little Bob, I meanтАФwhy do you grind your grain by hand?"

The driver shrugged. "Have's to make flour, a hey. Bread."

Obviously, none of the machinery was in running order. It was soon obvious
that no living Blakeney knew how to mend this, although (said Young Little
Bob) there were those who could remember when things were otherwise: Old Big
Mary, Old Little Mary, Old Whitey BillтАФ