"Robert A. Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

On Sundays, dinner was at one because everyone but Father went to
Sunday School and everyone including Father went to morning church.
Father stayed out of the kitchen. Mother never entered the clinic and surgery
even to clean. That cleaning was done by a hired girl, or by one of my sisters,
or (once I was old enough) by me.
By unwritten rules, never broken, my parents lived in peace. I think their
friends thought of them as an ideal couple and of their offspring as тАЪthose
nice Johnson childrenтАЩ.
Indeed I think we were a happy family, all nine of us children and our parents.
DonтАЩt think for a minute that we lived under such strict discipline that we did
not Nave fun. We had loads of fun, both at home and away.
But we made our own fun, mostly. I recall a time, many years later, when
American children seemed to be unable to amuse themselves without a
fortune in electrical and electronic equipment. We had no fancy equipment
and did not miss it. By then, i89o more or less, Mr Edison had invented the
electric light and Professor Bell had invented the telephone but these modern
miracles had not reached Thebes, in Lyle County, Missouri. As for electronic
toys the word тАЪelectronтАЩ had yet to be coined. But my brothers had sleds and
wagons and we girls had dolls and toy sewing machines and we had many
indoor games in joint tenancy-dominoes and draughts and chess and
jackstraws and lotto and pigs-in-clover and anagrams...
We played outdoor games that required no equipment, or not much. We had
a variation of baseball called тАЪscrubтАЩ which could be played by three to
eighteen players plus the volunteer efforts of dogs, cats, and one goat.
We had other livestock: from one to four horses, depending on the year; a
Guernsey cow named Clytemnestra; chickens (usually Rhode Island Reds);
guinea fowl, ducks (white domestic), rabbits from time to time, and (one
season only) a sow named Gumdrop. Father sold Gumdrop when it
developed that we were unwilling to eat pigs we had helped raise. Not that
we needed to raise pigs; Father was more likely to receive fees in smoked
ham or a side of bacon than he was to be paid in money.
We all fished and the boys hunted. As soon as each boy was old enough
(ten, as I recallтАЩ) to handle a rifle, Father taught him to shoot, a .22 at first. He
taught them to hunt, too, but I did not see it; girls were not included. I did not
mind that (I refused to have anything to do with skinning and gutting bunny
rabbits, that being their usual game) but I did want to learn to shoot... and
made the mistake of saying so in MotherтАЩs hearing. She exploded.
Father told me quietly, тАЪWeтАЩll discuss it later.тАЩ
And we did. About a year later, when it was established that I sometimes
drove Father on country calls, unbeknownst to Mother he started taking along
in the back of his buggy under gunny sacks a little single-shot .22... and
Maureen was taught to shoot... and especially how not to get shot, all the
rules of firearm safety. Father was a patient teacher who demanded
perfection.
Weeks later he said, тАЪMaureen, if you will remember what we taught you, it
may cause you to live longer. I hope so. We wonтАЩt tackle pistol this year; your
hands arenтАЩt yet big enough.тАЩ
We young folks owned the whole outdoors as our playground. We picked
wild blackberries and went nutting for black walnuts and searched for
pawpaws and persimmons. We went on hikes and picnics. Eventually, as