"E. E. Doc Smith - Skylark 1 - Skylark of Space " - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

will. Can you let it go -this time?'

`Dick . . . oh, Dick !'

There was more - much more - but eventually Seaton mounted his motorcycle and
Dorothy walked beside him down to the street. A final kiss and the man drove away.
After the last faint glimmer of red tail-light had disappeared in the darkness Dorothy
made her way to her room, breathing a long and slightly tremulous, but supremely happy
sigh.




-6-
Chapter Three

Seaton's childhood had been spent in the mountains of northern Idaho, a region not much
out of the pioneer stage and offering few inducements to intellectual effort. He could only
dimly remember his mother, a sweet, gentle woman with a great love for books; but his
father, `Big Fred' Seaton, a man of but one love, almost filled the vacant place. Fred
owned a quarter-section of virgin white-pine timber, and in that splendid grove he estab-
lished a home for himself and his motherless boy.

In front of the cabin lay a level strip of meadow, beyond which rose a magnificent, snow-
crowned peak that caught the earliest rays of the sun.
This mountain, dominating the entire countryside, was to the boy a challenge, a question,
and a secret. He accepted the challenge, scaling its steep sides, hunting its forests, and
fishing its streams. He toughened his sturdy young body by days and nights upon its
slopes. He puzzled over the question of its origin as he lay upon the needles under some
monster pine. He put staggering questions to his father; and when in books he found
some partial answers his joy was complete. He discovered some of the mountain's
secrets then - some of the laws that govern the world of matter, some of the beginnings
man's mind has made toward understanding the hidden mechanism of Nature's great
simplicity.
Each taste of knowledge whetted his appetite for more. Books! Books! More and more
he devoured them; finding in them meat for the hunger that filled him, answers to the
questions that haunted him.
After Big Fred lost his life in the forest fire that destroyed his property, Seaton turned his
back upon the woods forever. He worked his way through high school and won a
scholarship at college. Study was a pleasure to his keen mind; and he had ample time for
athletics, for which his backwoods life had fitted him outstandingly. He went out for
everything, and excelled in football and tennis.

In spite of the fact that he had to work his way he was popular with his college mates,
and his popularity was not lessened by an almost professional knowledge of sleight-of-
hand. His long, strong fingers could move faster than the eye could follow, and many a
lively college party watched in vain to see how he did what he did.

After graduating with the highest honors as a physical chemist, he was appointed
research fellow in a great university, where he won his Ph.D. by brilliant research upon