"Avram Davidson - The Woman who Thought she Could Read" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

"When I was a kid," he said, "we used to make lemonade with brown sugar and sell it in the streets.
We used to call out
Brown lemonade Mixed in the shade Stirred by an old maid.
"People used to think that was pretty funny."
Mrs. Grummick called out: "Hoo-hoo! Mister! Hoo-hoo!"
"Guess she wants me," my father said. He went across the lawn.
"Yes ma'am ... " he was saying. "Yes ma'am." She asked, "You buy coal yed, mister?" "Coal?
Why, no-o-o ... not yet. Looks like a pretty mild winter ahead, wouldn't you say?" She pressed her lips
together, closed her eyes and shook her head.
"No! Bedder you buy soon coal. Lots coal. Comes very soon bad wedder. Bad!"
My father scratched his head. "Why, you sound pretty certain, Mrs. Grummick, butтАФuhтАФ"
"I know, mister. If I say id, if I tell you, I know."
Then I piped up and asked, "Did you read it in the beans, Mrs. Grummick?"
"Hey!" She looked at me, surprised. "How you know, liddle boy?"
My father said, "You mean you can tell a bad winter is coming from the beans?"
"Iss true. I know. I read id."
"Well, now, that's very interesting. Where I come from, used to be a manтАФa weather prophet, they
called himтАФhe used to predict the weather by studying skunk stripes. Said his grandfather'd learned it
from the Indians. How wide this year, how wide last year. Never failed. So you use beans?"
So I pushed my oar in and I said, "I guess you don't have the kind of beans that the man gave Jack
for the cow and he planted them and they were all different colors. Well, a beanstalk grew way way up
and he climbedтАФ"
Father said, "Now don't bother Mrs. Grummick, sonny," but she leaned over the fence and picked
me up and set me down on her side of it.
"You, liddle boy, come in house and tell me. You, mister: buy coal."
Mrs. Grummick gave me a glass of milk from the nanny goat who lived in one of the sheds, and a
piece of gingerbread, and I told her the story of Jack and the beanstalk. Here's a funny thingтАФshe
believed it. I'm sure she did. It wasn't even what the kids call Making Believe, it was just a pure and
simple belief. Then she told me a story. This happened on the other side, in some backwoods section of
Europe where she came from. In this place they used to teach the boys to read, but not the girls. They
figured, what did they need it for? So one day there was this little girl, her brothers were all off in school
and she was left at home sorting beans. She was supposed to pick out all the bad beans and the worms,
and when she thought about it and about everything, she began to cry.
Suddenly the little girl looked up and there was this old woman.
She asked the kid how come she was crying. Because all the boys can learn to read, but not me. Is
that all? the old lady asked.
Don't cry, she said. I'll teach you how to read, only not in books, the old lady said. Let the men
read books, books are new things, people could read before there were books. Books tell you what
was, but you'll be able to tell you what's going to be. And this old lady taught the little girl how to read
the beans instead of the books. And I kind of have a notion that Mrs. Grummick said something about
how they once used to read bones, but maybe it was just her accent and she meant beans ...
And you know, it's a funny thing, but, now, if you look at dried beans, you'll notice how each one is
maybe a little different shape or maybe the wrinkles are a little different. But I was thinking that, after all,
an "A" is an "A" even if it's big or small or twisted or ...
But that was the story Mrs. Grummick told me. So it isn't remarkable, if she could believe that
story, she could easily believe the Jack and the Beanstalk one. But the funny thing was, all that hot
weather just vanished one day suddenly, and from October until almost April we had what you might call
an ironbound winter. Terrible blizzards one right after another. The rivers were frozen and the canals
were frozen and even the railroads weren't running and the roads were blocked more than they were
open. And coal? Why, you just couldn't get coal. People were freezing to death right and left. But Mrs.