"Kristenson, Agatha - The Rancher's Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kristenson Agatha)

the ravenous males, bunched over their plates. No matter how few she
thought she had for dinner, she always wound up with a full house.
Frank, the foreman usually ate with them, then the boys, Eric and
Angel, then there was the tractor salesman who'd conveniently stopped
by at supper time to see Frank. Old Joe showed up frequently too, an
Indian who still trapped up north when he could and who wandered all
through the ranch country for free meals. Usually he managed to do
some odd job of work before he left. Then there was Frank's no good
cousin who just happened by. In the country you fed whoever "happened
by." It was an unwritten law. Anything else would have been
inhospitable.

The men went out on the front lawn to smoke after supper and to swap
stories and belch. Gwen helped Kate clear the table and load the
dishwasher.

"You know, Kate, I really want to help children ... but sometimes I
think the whole thing was a mistake, especially after I had all that
trouble with the ghetto kids. They just didn't seem to care about
school. I guess maybe that's my fault ... but no matter what I tried
with them ... it just didn't seem to work."

Kate turned from the dishwasher to take the stack of plates from Gwen.
"Well, you have to remember they haven't had any contact with what you
and I think of as civilized things. All they know is the slum and its
values ... so nothing else means much to them.

"My folks tried to warn me ... I guess that's why I want to do well
here."

Suddenly there was music coming from the living room, gay guitar music,
Mexican music. Gwen and Kate went running in, drying their hands on
towels, to find Angel strumming and picking away on Cole's big golden
guitar. He held the instrument as though it were alive and sensuously
female.

"Angel ... that's wonderful!" Kate cried out appreciatively.

Immediately he stopped and looked up sullenly.

"Don't ... please."

He drew himself up and leaned the guitar against the piano in the
corner of the room. "It was for myself ... not for anglos." Without
another word he brushed past them and went outside.

"Oh, dear," Kate sighed in spite of herself.

"That's the kind of defensiveness I can't seem to get used to with the
children," Gwen retorted, somewhat angrily. They went back to the