"Lester Del Rey - The Pipes of Pan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

funny that way—temperamental, you might call it. Easy, there, Nelly. Tried any other places?"

"All the other farms along the road; they're not hiring hands."

"Hm-m-m. Wouldn't be, of course. Bunch of city men. Think they can come out and live in the country
and do a little farming on the side. If I had the money, I'd sell out and move somewhere where people
knew what the earth was made for. You won't find any work around here." He slapped a horse on the
withers and watched as it stretched out and rolled in the short grass. "Stay for lunch?"

"No." He wasn't hungry enough to need food yet, and the delay might cost him a job elsewhere. "Any
sheepherding done around here?" As the god of the shepherds, it should come natural to him, and it was
work that would be more pleasant than the tight closeness of the city.

"Not around here. Out West they have, but the Mexicans do all that. If you're a sheep man, though, that's
why the horses didn't take to you; they hate the smell of sheep."

Again the limitations of a human life imposed themselves; instead of transporting himself to the
sheepherding country in a night, he'd have to walk there slowly, or ride. "How much would it cost to go
out West?"

"Blamed if I know. Seventy dollars, maybe more."

So that was out. It would have to be the city, after all, where the fetid stench of close-packed humans
tainted the air, and their meaningless yammering beat incessantly in one's ears. "I guess I'll have to go on
into town," he said ruefully.

"Might be best. Nowadays, the country ain't what it used to be. Every fool that fails in town thinks he
can fall back on the country, and every boy we have that amounts to anything goes to the city.
Machinery's cutting down the number of men we need, and prices are shot haywire, even when a
mortgage doesn't eat up all we make. You traveling on Shank's Mare?"

Pan nodded, and the other studied him again. "Uh-huh. Well, down the road a piece you'll see a brick
house set away back from the road. Go in there and tell Hank Sherman I said you was a friend of mine.
He's going into the city, and you might as well ride. Better hurry, though."

Pan made his thanks hastily, and left. If memory served him right, the friendliness of the farmer was the
last he'd see. In the cities, even in the old days, men were too busy with their own importance and
superiority to bother with others. But beggars made ill choosers.

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The god clumped down the hot sidewalk, avoiding the press of the one o'clock rush, and surveyed the
signs thoughtfully. Food should come first, he guessed, but the prices were discouraging. One read:

BUSINESS MAN'S LUNCH Blue plate special, 750

He cut away from the large street into an older part of the city, and found that the prices dropped