"Madeliene E Robins - Somewhere In Dreamland Tonight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robins Madeleine E)

would purse her lips at the price.

On Saturday, early, she donned the dress, pinned her hair up under a small,
flirtatious straw hat, and told Aunt Min she was going on a picnic with a friend
from the 17th Street Methodist Church choir. Then Ruth was gone, gone to meet
her best friend Leda, Leda's brother Jonah, and Jonah's fiancee Pearline, to
catch the train to Coney.

Going to Coney. It was forbidden fruit; Aunt Min read the Police Gazette with as
much fervor as her Bible, and knew chapter and verse about the vice and
depravity practiced at Coney: men and women clinging to each other on the great
wheel, five-cent beers, freak shows. If Min had known where Ruth really intended
to spend the day she would have locked her in her room and read temperance
lectures to her through the keyhole.

The train ride felt endless. In the heat Ruth's hair began to come down in rosy
wisps, sticking to her cheeks and neck. She dabbed ineffectively at the beads of
perspiration on upper lip and brow with a handkerchief, stealing a glance at the
other women in the ear. All of them were flushed and moist, languorous in the
heat. Leda and Pearline giggled and poked at each other and at Ruth; Jonah slept
through their mirth with his boater drawn down over his eyes, the tips of his
waxed mustache gleaming in the sunlight.

When they got off the train it was all spread before them. Steeplechase and
Dreamland, Luna Park, the grand old resort hotels down the coast, the Boardwalk.
Revitalized by the freshening breeze from the water, Leda and Ruth immediately
wanted to run ahead. But Pearline wanted a lemonade, and to sit in the shade
with Jonah. So Ruth and Leda sipped lemonade and tried not to listen while Jonah
and Pearline whispered to each other on their side of the table. Ruth was
astonished at their shamelessness, but no one else seemed to notice or care.
Leda caught a man staring at her, and when she frowned he tipped his hat and
smiled, and Leda giggled nervously into Ruth's shoulder. At last, with lemonade
still sticky on their lips, they left the stand for the parks, Ruth looked back
over her shoulder to make sure the man had not followed after them.

For hours they rode the rides, squealing at every bump and whirl and
breathtaking turn. Pearline nestled against Jonah, shrieking until he tightened
the arm that circled her waist; Leda and Ruth clung to each other in delicious
terror. Under the grinning supervision of Tilyou's great clown they gorged
themselves on up and down and sideways motion. Then they went down Surf Avenue
to Luna Park to watch the Great Naval Spectacular, arguing which park was the
best. Leda and Jonah liked Steeplechase; Pearline preferred Luna's uplifting
spectacles. Then, at dusk, they came to Dreamland, and Ruth knew which park was
her favorite.

The clock downstairs strikes five o'clock. Ruth starts, looks up, remembers that
Peg is gone and that Peg's father won't be home from the lodge until late. She
has the house to herself tonight, big and empty.

They have done well, they own the house outright, even have a broker and stocks;