"Thompson, Jim - Cropper's Cabin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

"Supposin' something happened to him, and I had to deal with her," he said, arguing with himself, convincing himself. "How you reckon she'd act after I'd low-downed her to her Daddy? Hey? You think I'd want her feelin' mean and stubborn toward me?"
It was a good argument. I hoped he remembered it. "You're dead right, Pa," I said. "You're a thousand percent right."
"Course I am," he nodded. "Anyone but that danged idjit could see it. Why, for all we know oI' Ontime might be dead right now. He mightn't even live the week out. An' what would a flighty girl want with runnin' a plantation?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Why, any number o' things could happen to him," he went on. "Someone might decide to take that uppitiness out of him, or he might tumble off one of them pranky horses, or. . ." He broke off, glaring at Mary as though she'd disputed him. "You tellin' me it couldn't happen? You think I don't know whaN'm talkin' about?"
"N-no, s-sir."
"Better not, either." He jutted his chin out. "Grab your sweater, Tom."
"Yes, sir," I said.

4
I'm nineteen, not a man yet according to the law. But I've got to go a long way back to remember when I wasn't one otherwise. A man in thinking, acting, working.
You grow up fast in cotton country, or you don't grow up. You stop being a child just about as soon as you're out of the cradle. You're concerned with cornbread not cookies, beds not bedtime stories. You're part of something that always has a little heavier load than it can carry, that always has to put out more than it can get back. So you hold up your end, or it falls on you. You don't drag your feet, or you get left behind.
We walked along silently, one of us on each side of the road where the walking was easiest, the brown-dry Bermuda grass rustling against our shoes. The first frost was in the air. Out in the fields the dead cotton plants drooped sleepily.
It didn't seem loyal to Pa to wish for the time when I'd be my own man. Because that was like wishing he was dead; he'd want me until then. So I didn't wish--not more'n a little when I thought about Donna; no more than I could keep from wishing--but I couldn't help thinking.
Pa wouldn't be able to turn his lease. But it wouldn't really change anything if he did. We'd eat better, dress better; I'd get to go to college. But there wouldn't be any real change. I'd still be Pa's man, doing what he liked, doing nothing that he didn't like.
I owed it to him.
I was so wrapped up in my thinking that I didn't hear him for a few seconds after he spoke. It took that long for the words to register.
"What?" I said. "Why, no, I wanted to come with you, Pa."
"You really did?"
"Sure, I did. Naturally."
"Well," he said, doubtfully. "Maybe I shouldn't've let you, though. I don't want nothin' but good for you, son. You're gonna be someone, and I can't let no trouble fall in your way."
"I'll be all right," I said.
"Me, I don't matter. The Lord put his curse on me long ago, and there ain't nothin' left but atonement. I lost my license to live. The Lord Jehovah took it away in His righteous wrath, an' I could no longer dwell in His image, and He gave me penance . . ."
He went on talking, mumbling, with me putting in a "Yes, sir," now and then, but not really listening. I'd heard the same talk, with variations, a thousand times before, from him and at the backwoods revival meetings I was dragged to. I never could cipher out how people with so much work to do and so little money could do so much sinning. But they all seemed to do a lot.
We came to the long grove of cottonwoods that led up to the plantation. We came out of it and paused, staring at the big white house with its columned portico; and I heard Pa swallow hard. We went on, our feet dragging a little, and the road began to branch off into graveled, cedar-lined drives, and Pa stopped again.
He looked at me, waiting, and I knew what he wanted me to say.
"Think we ought to go around to the back, Pa?"
"What for? Why'n't we march right up to the front?"
"Well, it's closer around to the back," I lied. "I don't see why we should put ourselves out any for him."
"Yeah. Well . . ."
"Anyway, he'll be making a late patrol before he turns in. We may be able to catch him out at the stables."
He gave in, like he'd intended to in the first place. We followed the drive around to the rear, and headed across the back lawn to the outbuildings. There was a passe! of them, all painted white, spread out along neat drives and walks like a little city. Dairy barn, hog sheds, chicken houses, smoke house, implement sheds, blacksmith shop, stables . . .
I hadn't actually believed we'd find him there. I'd meant to rouse up one of the hands and send him to the house with a message. But there he came, Matthew Ontime, I mean. We were a few paces short of the stable door when he came through it, leading one of his big bay riding horses.
He saw us and stopped. Then he dropped the reins of the horse and came toward us.
He was probably as old as Pa, but he looked twenty years younger. His shoulders seemed a yard broad under his suede jacket. His head was bared, and the thick barbered hair was as black as Donna's. And his teeth were as white and even. He spoke pleasantly, in a voice that was something like hers, slapping the riding crop against his corduroy trousers.
"Mr. Carver," he nodded to us. "Tom."
It was a big courtesy, his calling Pa mister, but he might not have meant it as such. Knowing what he did about Pa, he may have done it for his own sake. A man like him had to be mistered, and this was the only way he could swing it.
"Is this a social visit"--there was the faintest edge to the words--"or business? I don't want to hurry you, but I was just . . ."
"It's about the oil," said Pa.
"Oil? Coal oil, you mean? You need some kerosene for the house?"
"No, that ain't what I mean," said Pa. He knew he'd started off wrong, sounded foolish, and it got his dander up. "I'm talking about the oil under my land that I can't get out account of you."
"I see. Perhaps I'm in error, but I thought I'd explained my position on that matter."
"I had another offer today. Twenty-five hundred an acre. Twenty-five thousand in cash, against a eighth royalty."
"And?"
"And," said Pa. "That's all you can say, _and?_ I ain't fitten for field work much longer and I ain't got no way of helpin' Tom--help him to be somethin' aside what I been--I ain't got nothin' and I can't never get nothin' except this way. An' you stand there an' say _and!_"
Matthew Ontime had stopped swinging the riding crop. For the first time he sounded really friendly instead of put-on friendly. "Believe me, Mr. Carver," he said, "I can understand your feelings and sympathize with them. But I think there must be some solution to your problems, other than turning a five-thousand-acre plantation, with sixty families on it, into an oil field. Tom's an excellent scholar"--he smiled at me--"Yes, I know your reputation, Tom . . ."
"Thank you," I said.
"I'm sure he could get a scholarship and a student loan, and . . ."
"An' how about the farm? How'd I keep it goin' without him to help?"
"You're cropping forty for me now? Cut it down to twenty and I'll increase your share enough to make up for the cut."