Читать книгу Life of an American Workman онлайн

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You can bet my father's skin was tough! It had to be to withstand that kind of homemade soap, along with Kansas sun and wind and blizzards. But if his skin was like bristly leather, his heart was gentle. We two boys, his sons, were a pair of fighting chore-dodging cubs, unruly and frequently in need of taming; yet he never laid a hand on us in anger. He would reason with us and get obedience, but his mighty arms and calloused hands were never used against us. In many of the visions of him that recur to me, there is a paintbrush in his hand, or a hammer or a saw. Always he was trying to make life better for his family. Our first Ellis house—the first of three—was of the plainest kind. It was badly put together and, in winter, through its cracks, the snow intruded. It had a little porch, though, and two bedrooms beside the combination kitchen-dining-living room. A railroad shanty? Oh, no. It was Hank Chrysler's home, a house to swell my mother's heart with pride as she showed it off to neighbors who still were living half buried in the prairie earth in houses made of sod.