"Sorensen, Virginia - Plain Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sorensen Virginia)

"Look! There are some of those Plain People!" In town, Father was often the only man in sight who wore a wide-brimmed hat and had no buttons on his coat.
Mother was the only woman in a long dress with a black apron and a black prayer-cap. Would the children look at her, too, and nudge each other, she wondered,
and whisper behind their hands?

She began to wish she did not have to go to school, after all. For Father to be arrested, as the strange man said-what did it mean? Perhaps it meant that
he would have to hire a lawyer and stand up in a court,

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the way he had to do before, about Dan and the school- law. She heard Father coming in from the barn at last; he said only "Good night," and came up the
stairs. Then Mother came with Ruth.

Ruth came into the room quietly, thinking that Esther was asleep long since. She undressed with the tiniest rustlings in the dark and knelt to say her prayers.
Then she lay down in her-bed on the other side of the room.

Across the hall in the room he shared with Mother, Father began to talk. Now that he thought everybody was asleep, he could speak as he wished to Mother
alone. He talked on and on, Mother making only her low little "Yes" and her low little "No, no!" Once Esther heard the word "school," so she knew for sure
they were talking about her, and about the strange men, and about the law.

She could not remember the trouble about Dan and the* school, for she had not even been a baby then, at the very beginning. She had still been in heaven.
But she knew they had postponed Dan's going until there was a lot of trouble and until he was the biggest boy in the room. She knew, too, that Father and
Mother believed the things Dan learned had made him go away.

But they did not need to be afraid about her, Esther

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thought, filled with love as she heard their familiar voices in the night. Never in the world would she go away from home, from Father and Mother who were
always kind and always worked so hard from morning until night to make life good here on the farm. This was her own place, this room in this house with
wide fields and the beautiful woodlands around it. Fire burning in the stove and the good smells of baking meat and Sunday pies. The huge barn and all
the pleasant animals. The music and talk of meetings and sings, and young people laughing together. All the long row of yellow-topped buggies, winding
along the road to church on Sunday morning, or to a wedding perhaps in November, or to a funeral. The People were always alike, wherever they went, in
their simple clothes. She knew every single one of them here, by name and by face and by all their special ways. From behind, of course, one couldn't be
told from another. But by their faces she knew every single one.

She must tell Father she would never think of going away. Never, never as long as she lived. Where would she go? The idea of going anywhere alone filled
her with terror; she shivered and drew the covers tight against her chin.

"The first day of school, when he is taking me there

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in the buggy," she thought, "I will tell Father I will never go away."

At last there was silence everywhere. She fell asleep.

Then, suddenly, she was stark awake again. The moon was shining brightly into the room, onto the wall. But no. No, it was not the moon! It was not a soft
radiance over everything, like moonlight, but a direct beam that made a single spot on the clean white wall.

Ruth was sitting up, gazing at the light. "Oh, God bless us, God bless us, Esther!" she whispered, as if she had begun to say her prayers all over again.