"John D. Fitzgerald - The Great Brain ReformsUC - 5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fitzgerald John D)

trict were west of the railroad tracks.

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We walked up a block, out of the business district,
to our house. Uncle Mark and Aunt Cathie left us when
we reached the gate of our white picket ^ehce. "Every time
our house needed a new coat of painr, Papa .would spend
days deciding what color to use. I don't know why because
Mamma always had the house painted white with green
trim. We had a big front porch 'running the width of the

house, and Aunt Bertha was waiting there to meet us. She
was a big woman in her sixties with hands and feet as big
as a man's. She kissed Tom and Sweyn on the cheeks.

"Supper will be ready by the time you boys wash up,"
she said.

Tom patted his stomach. "Can't be too soon for me,"
he said.

"Or me," Sweyn said.

All I can say is that the food at the academy must
have been pretty bad. My brothers ate as if they were
- starvmg. They each had three helpings of fried chicken,

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mashed potatoes with cream gravy, and peas with carrots.

And they each topped this off with three pieces of black-
berrypie. ^

^Everything was nice and dull, just the way Papa
wanted It, p-s we all sat in the parlor after supper. Papa sat
in hiyocking chair smoking his after-dinner cigar. Mamma ^ >
sat'in i*er maple rocker with the light from the chandelier { te, '
shining on her golden hair. I was the spitting image of < ,Х
Papa with dark curly hair and dark eyes. Sweyn was a ^Jk ^ Х
blona like Mamma and named after our Danish maternal T

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grandfather. He was fourteen at the time. Tom didn't
look like Papa or "Mamma unless you sort of put them to-
gether. He "was the only one in the family who had freck-
les. He and Sweyn were sitting on the sofa with Aunt
Bertha. Frankie and I were sitting on the oriental rug in