"Starman Jones" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Max did not say anything, he was unsurprised. But she was not content to leave it. "You didn't fix any dessert, Max? But this is a _special_ occasion."

Montgomery took his cigar out of his mouth. "Stow it, my dear," he said kindly. "I'm not much for sweets, I'm a meat-and-potatoes man--sticks to the ribs. Let's talk of pleasanter things." He turned to Max. "Max, what can you do besides farm?"

Max was startled. "Huh? I've never done anything else. Why?"

Montgomery touched the ash of the cigar to his plate. "Because you are all through farming."

For the second time in two hours Max had more change than he could grasp. "Why? What do you mean?"

"Because we've sold the farm."

Max felt as if he had had a rug jerked out from under him. But he could tell from Maw's face that it was true. She looked the way she always did when she had put one over on him--triumphant and slightly apprehensive.

"Dad wouldn't like that," he said to her harshly. "This land has been in our family for four hundred years."

"Now, Maxie! I've told you I don't know how many times that I wasn't cut out for a farm. I was city raised."

"Clyde's Corners! Some city!"

"It wasn't a farm. And I was just a young girl when your father brought me here--you were already a big boy. I've still got my life before me. I can't live it buried on a farm."

Max raised his voice. "But you promised Dad you'd . . ."

"Stow it," Montgomery said firmly. "And keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to your mother--and to me."

Max shut up.

"The land is sold and that's that. How much do you figure this parcel is worth?"

"Why, I've never thought about it."

"Whatever you thought, I got more." He gave Max a wink. "Yes, sir! It was a lucky day for your mother and you when she set her cap for me. I'm a man with his ear to the ground. I knew why an agent was around buying up these worn-out, worthless pieces of property. I . . ."

"I use government fertilizers."

"Worthless I said and worthless I meant. For farming, that is." He put his finger along his nose, looked sly, and explained. It seemed that some big government power project was afoot for which this area had been selected--Montgomery was mysterious about it, from which Max concluded that he didn't know very much. A syndicate was quietly buying up land in anticipation of government purchase. "So we held 'em up for five times what they expected to pay. Pretty good, huh?"

Maw put in, "You see, Maxie? If your father had known that we would ever get . . ."

"Quiet, Nellie!"

"But I was just going to tell him how much . . ."

"'Quiet!' I said."

She shut up. Montgomery pushed his chair back, stuck his cigar in his mouth, and got up. Max put water on to heat for the dishes, scraped the plates and took the leavings out to the chickens. He stayed out quite a spell, looking at the stars and trying to think. The idea of having Biff Montgomery in the family shook him to his bones. He wondered just what rights a stepfather had, or, rather a step-stepfather, a man who had married his stepmother. He didn't know.

Presently he decided that he had to go back inside, much as he hated to. He found Montgomery standing at the bookshelf he had built over the stereo receiver; the man was pawing at the books and had piled several on the receiver. He looked around. "You back? Stick around, I want you to tell me about the live stock."