"Judith Merril - Shadow on the Hearth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

ONE

Gladys Mitchell left the phone, and could not repress a small sigh. In the dining
room Ginny was clamoring for break-fast. Upstairs Jon was loudly demanding some
clean socks. Veda, she reflected, was a good worker and a fine person; but she did
have her ailments, and there was no way out of it.
"
Barbie," Gladys called over the noise, "see what Ginny wants, will you?" She
passed the hall mirror and frowned into it; there ought to be some way to turn the
thing off in the morning. She called up to Jon and told him where to find the socks,
then listened
to his footsteps as he followed her instructions. Ginny had stopped yelling, but
that was not necessarily good. Gladys walked swiftly into the dining room and found
the five-year-old contentedly stuff-ing herself with hot oatmeal.
Barbara came through the swinging door from the kitchen. She set down her own
oatmeal and gave Gladys a cup of steaming cof-fee. "Everything was ready on the
stove, so I just dished it out." She was defiant about it. At fifteen, she knew she
ought to hate housework.
Touched, Gladys squeezed her daughter's arm and sipped grate-fully from the hot
cup. She thought of Veda, alone in the dark little boardinghouse room, and she
looked from her two daughters to Tom's picture on the lowboyтАФa freckle-faced
boy grinning out of an open-necked khaki shirt, his R.O.T.C. cap pushed back on
his head, the world in his hands. He had sent it home from school two months
before, proud testimonial to his homemade photo enlarger. Her eyes wandered on to
the window and the big maple tree outside. Then Jon came in and dropped a kiss on
the top of her head before he crossed to the other end of the table.
He surveyed the uneven edges of his grapefruit and asked with the first mouthful,
"Veda out again?" He picked up his paper. "Maybe you ought to get someone else,
Glad? "
He hid his smile behind the raised newspaper as three feminine voices answered
immediately and firmly. He knew how they felt about Veda.
"
I ought to do the wash, " Gladys was thinking out loud, "but there's that luncheon
today . . ."
"Oh, Mother! Isn't the laundry done yet? I've got to have those things for tonight."
Gladys surveyed her older daughter absently. "What's to-night? "
"The class! I don't see how you can forget it every time. And I gave you the
jackets a week ago . . ."
"You gave them to me Monday night," Gladys pointed out. "We only do laundry
once a week around here, you know."
"1 can iron 'em myself when I get back from school," Barbie pleaded, "but
they've got to be starched and everythingтАФthey have to be washed this morning,
Mom. "
She still calls me "Mom" when she wants something, Gladys noted with amused
satisfaction. "Mother" had come into use some months back as part of Barbara 's
campaign to convince the whole family, and primarily herself, that she was now fully
mature.
"Are we taking in wash now?" Jon looked up from his paper.
"Oh, Daddy, I told you all about it. It's the white jackets for the baby sitters, and I