"Wentworth-AsYouSow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth K D)

with which she did everything. "I suppose you took the marketplace by storm."

Ungern sighed. It was a nuisance to be named after a famous pirate. When people
heard your name, they always thought you were full of pepper and nails when just
the opposite was true. He could still see the disappointment in Sonya's dark
eyes whenever she looked at him; eight: years ago she had thought him to be
someone else, someone bigger and wider, taller inside. But he wasn't. He was
just Ungem the farmer, and not such a good farmer at that.

Sonya dried her large, capable hands on her apron. "You did get my seeds, didn't
you~"

"Of course, dear, actually more than last year." He pulled the burlap sack out
of his shirt and set it in the middle of the freshly scrubbed table.

She clucked her tongue. "That is a lot, too much, in fact. What's the matter--
is something wrong with it? Did you let that disgusting old peddler cheat you~"

"No, no." Ungern opened the sack and poured out the seeds, suddenly aware that
POeg had never exactly said what sort of seeds these were. "See? They're nice
and dry, not a bit of mold or rot."

"Are you sure these are nightingales?" She poked at them with her finger.
"They're much larger than any songbird seeds I've ever seen."

A knot the size of a foot swelled in Ungern's throat. He brushed the seeds into
a heap, then back into the bag. The peddler had said they were special, he told
himself, and what was the use of upsetting Sonya until he knew for sure? "I'll
plant them this evening when I come home."

"I suppose that will have to do." Sonya rapped a wooden spoon against the side
of the soup pot, then bent down to scoop up a handful of kindling for the fire.
"But don't be late. The sooner they're in the ground, the sooner I'll have my
birds."

A week later, the pale-green shoots pushed their rounded heads out of the
ground. Ungern studied them nervously, but could tell no difference from the
vines of previous years when they'd sown skylarks and warblers.

As they grew, the tiny plants straightened their bowed heads and stretched for
the sky, adding pointed leaves along their stems. In two weeks, they reached the
height of his knees and were visibly bigger each morning, twining and looping
across the garden.

The rapid rate of growth troubled him. He couldn't remember any previously
purchased variety growing so fast. He knelt in the rich black soil and tugged at
an insistent weed. Of course, on the other hand, he told himself, the added
height might be a sign of superiority. No doubt the best songbirds always came
from the tallest vines.