Читать книгу Lantern Marsh онлайн

78 страница из 92

“Where’d you get the money?” Bard demanded, in accordance with Mauney’s expectations.

“Found it,” he replied, just as he had planned to do.

There was no more questioning, although Mauney knew his father did not believe him. With queer pride, Bard scorned to read the big daily, although the woman found back numbers useful for lining pantry shelves.

“We don’t worry none about what’s goin’ on over in Europe, Bill,” remarked the father one evening while Mauney sat nearby reading the paper. “If they want to put on a war over there, why, let ’em sail to it. ’Taint none o’ our business.”

“Guess we got ’bout enough to do, running this here farm, Dad,” William agreed, “without wastin’ any time with that kind o’ truck.”

The annual harvest dance at Ras Livermore’s was a long-standing event of great local interest, for, since most people could remember, it had been as faithful in its appearance as the harvest itself. Men of fifty recalled gala nights spent there in their exuberant twenties. Livermore was benevolent and kindly, well over seventy, and had developed hospitality to a degree where he required it now as a social tonic. No invitations were sent out because rumour of the event invariably preceded the event itself, thus fixing the date, and, as to the personnel of the guests, Livermore’s slogan of “Everybody come” was sufficient, for he knew that the ultra-religious of Beulah would never appear and that the best recommendation for the qualities of a guest was the very spontaneity that impelled him or her to be present.