"Leo Frankowski - Stargard 6 - Conrad's Quest for Rubber" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

My older brother and I felt guilty about sitting in school while the rest of the family had to work
longer hours. We would have preferred working, but our father's word was law.
Every afternoon, when we all worked together after school, he always questioned us minutely
about everything that was said in class. At the time, we thought that he did this to assure himself that
we were not wasting the time spent there, but much later we realized that this was his method of
absorbing the new learning for himself and for his wife and daughters. Since we boys were
responsible for repeating to him every single word that was spoken in class, we did not dare be
inattentive.
Both Father Thomas and Sir Conrad praised our diligence. They should have praised our father.
As interesting as Sir Conrad was, his horse received even more attention, from us boys, at least.
Anna was a huge animal, even bigger than Count Lambert's favorite charger. But while Whitefoot
was dangerous to be near, ever eager to nip off an ear or to crush a rib cage, Anna was the most
gentle of creatures, provided that you treated her politely.
Well, she kicked Iwo's father when he whipped her to get her back into her stall after Anna left it to
relieve herself outside. Anna was very clean in her habits, and never soiled her stall.
He did not hit her hard, and with most animals of that size you have to hit them just to get their
attention. With Anna, on the other hand, all you had to do was ask her, and she was happy to do just
about anything for you. And to be fair, she didn't kick the man very hard, for he lived and was able to
go back to work in a few days.
Later, when we asked her about the incident, she said that she had objected to being sworn at as
much as being struck, and that in any event, it wasn't polite to interrupt a lady while she was attending
to private matters.
You see, we boys soon discovered that Anna could understand the language perfectly, and although
of course she couldn't speak it, she would nod or shake her head to answer yes or no to any question
asked her. It sometimes required a lot of questions to get the whole story out of her, but that was
generally our fault and not hers.
She was as intelligent as any of us boys, and we considered her to be much smarter than most of the
grown-ups around.
Also, like her owner, Anna seemed to positively like children. I think that much of it was because
grown-ups think they are much too busy to bother taking the time a conversation with Anna
necessarily took, assuming all the while that they were among the minority who believed what we
told them about her. We children were delighted that someone as big as her would take the time to
fully answer us.
And, perhaps, we really did have more spare time than the older people did.
We soon learned that she was a good friend to have. Whenever a grown-up was spanking a child, or
even shouting at one in public, Anna would walk over and stare at the adult doing the spanking or
shouting. She never made a sound or actually did anything. She just stood close by and stared at
them, and that was generally enough. Having this huge animal stare at you was very intimidating,
and any urge to chastise the less fortunate soon evaporated.
We boys speculated that if someone tried to do actual harm to one of the children of the town,
Anna's response would have been more active and indeed deadly. Since no one in memory had ever
been that evil, we were never able to confirm our suspicions.
Still, we were glad she was there.
Some of the peasants complained to Count Lambert about this habit of hers, saying it was unholy,
but Lambert just laughed at them. He said that everything with eyes has to look at something, and
that "something" is usually the last thing that moved. If being looked at troubled the peasants, the
cause of it must be their own guilty consciences. He said that they were well-advised to seek out the
priest and go to confession!
In all events, my parents were never forced to endure Anna's staring, since to my memory they
never had to severely chastise any of their children, and in turn, none of us ever wanted to displease