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

each of us grew taller and began to feel new and wonderful yearnings, we
used the outdoors for courting - тАЪsparkingтАЩ, we called it.
Our family was forever celebrating special days - eleven birthdays, our
parentsтАЩ wedding anniversary, Christmas, New YearтАЩs Eve and New YearтАЩs
Day, WashingtonтАЩs birthday, Easter, ValentineтАЩs Day, the Fourth of July (a
double celebration, it being my birthday), and Admission Day on the tenth of
August. Best of all was the county fair - тАЪbestтАЩ because Father drove in the
harness races (and warned his patients not to get sick that week - or see Dr
Chadwick, his exchange). We sat in the stands and cheered ourselves
hoarse... although Father seldom finished in the money. Then came
Halloween and Thanksgiving, which brings us up to Christmas again.
ThatтАЩs a full month of special days, every one of them celebrated with noisy
enthusiasm.
And there were non-special days when we sat around the dining table and
picked the meats from walnuts as fast as Father and Edward could crack
them, while Mother or Audrey read aloud from the Leatherstocking Tales or
Ivanhoe or Dickens - or we made popcorn, or popcorn balls (sticky all over
everything!), or fudge, or we gathered around the piano and sang while
Mother played, and that was best of all.
There were winters when we had a spell-down every night because Audrey
was going for it seriously. She walked around with McGuffeyтАЩs speller under
one arm and WebsterтАЩs American Spelling Book under the other, her lips
moving and her eyes blank. She always won the family drills; we expected
that; family competition was usually between Edward and me for second
place.
Audrey made it: first place in Thebes Consolidated Grammar and High
School when she was in Sixth Grade, then the following year she went all the
way to Joplin for the regional - only to lose to a nasty little boy from Rich Hill.
But in her freshman year in high school she won the regional and went on to
Jefferson City and won the gold medal for top speller in Missouri. Mother and
Audrey went together to the state capital for the finals and the presentation -
by stage coach to Butler, by railroad train to Kansas City, then again by train
to Jefferson City. I could have been jealous - of AudreyтАЩs travel, not of her
gold medal - had it not been that by then I was about to go to Chicago (but
thatтАЩs another story).
Audrey was welcomed back with a brass band, the one that played at the
county fair, specially activated off-season to honour тАЪThebesтАЩ Favourite
DaughterтАЩ (so it said on a big banner), тАЪAudrey Adele JohnsonтАЩ, Audrey cried.
So did I.
I remember especially one hot July afternoon - тАЪCyclone weather,тАЩ Father
decided, and, sure enough, three twisters did touch down that day, one quite
close to our house.
We were safe; Father had ordered us into the storm cellar as soon as the sky
darkened, and bad helped Mother down the steps most carefully - she was
carrying again... my little sister Beth it must have been. We sat down there
for three hours, by the light of a barn lantern, and drank lemonade and ate
MotherтАЩs sugar cookies, thick and floury and filling.
Father stood at the top of the steps with the slant door open, until a piece of
the Ritters barn came by.
At which point, Mother was shrill with him (for the only time that I know of in