"Louis L'amour - sackett05 - Ride The River" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

have several ways of talkin' or writin'. Take you, for example, you bein' a
lawyer. You have a set of law words you'd use in court but not over supper like
this. And when a body writes a letter, he often uses words he wouldn't use in
conversation.
"Down to the store, the men set about talking of politics, planting, the wars,
Injuns and suchlike, and most of them can argue the Bible up one side an' down
the other. Because a man doesn't speak good English doesn't mean he doesn't have
ideas.
"Our atheist, he's a book-learned man. Nothing folks like better than to get him
and the preacher talking history and religion. They'll argue sundown to sunup,
and folks settin' about listenin'. There's old Mr. Fothergill, he was in the
army as a boy and went upon the sea a time or two. He can't read nor write but
he's bright, an' he can argue down both of them when he wants.
"Some folks think that being smart in the books is the only kind of smart, but
that just isn't so. Men learn a lot by doin', and they learn by listenin' to
what others say, but when a man is workin' on a farm or walkin' in the woods or
ridin' across country, he can do a lot of thinking. Many a man who reads a lot
just repeats what he's read, and not what he thinks.
"It seems to me," I added, "that a body may have a dozen sets of words he uses
on occasion. Anyway, lots of men who work at hand labor have read a good bit and
can talk of things far from their work."
Given a chance, I changed the subject, because this was about as good a chance
as I would get to learn more about grandfather.
"Yes," Mr. Chantry replied when asked, "you are right in what you say. Daubeny
Sackett was such a man. He was the finest woodsman I ever knew, and a fantastic
shot with a rifle, but when the occasion demanded, he could discuss government
or philosophy with the best. He had read few books, I believe, but had read them
several times. But that was the way of it in those days.
"He was at the Battle of King's Mountain and at Cowpens also. I last saw him at
the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
"He knew them all, you know. Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason
... He was quite a man, your grandfather."
He ordered more coffee and I glanced over at the table where the three young men
had been. Other folks sat there now.
"Echo? What are your plans? You could stay here, you know. There are several
very fine schools for young ladies, and from the attention you are attracting
from the young men, I cannot imagine you would be lonely."
"No, sir. I shall head for the hills again when morning comes. The folks back
home will wonder how I am faring."
"You could stay, you know. I have a very large, very empty house, and Mary
BrennanЧshe's my housekeeperЧwould love to have you to fuss over. I am afraid I
demand too little of her time."
"Thank you, sir. I'm a-longing for the smell of the pines, and I want to see the
clouds gatherin' over Clingman's Dome.
"You should come a-callin' sometime when the leaves are falling and it gets on
to storytellin' time. Most of our young-uns learn their history from stories
told by the fireside. It isn't the history you folks know, but it's the story of
people we know or our grandfolks knew.
"Wars aren't far-off things to us. Pa fit in the War of 1812. He was with the
Kentucky riflemen who stood behind the bales of cotton at New Orleans. When