"Ward Moore & Avram Davidson - Joyleg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore Ward)

"No," stated Weathernox firmly. "I think investigation will disclose it's in Chinquapin and yours. Must be
pleasant to represent a one-party district where you can mislay a section and never miss it."

The chairman murmured hopelessly, "Prosthetic dental work…"

"Eleven dollars a month," interrupted Weathernox measuredly, "is not a pension. It's an insult. Who can
live on eleven dollars a month?"

"Pensions—except for total disability, obviously not the case here—are not meant to be lived on. They
merely make up the difference to full earning power lost by reason of service. If this pensioner cannot live
on eleven dollars a month—others have done it without whining—let him apply to local charity."

"Really," gasped Weathernox. "Really… I know that the Gentlewoman merely states the brutal
philosophy of her political party, but I never thought to hear it so harshly from the lips of a lady. A lady
from Tennessee," he added, as though this were the last straw.

"I'm sorry to upset the Gentleman from Tennessee," retorted Lucinda tartly. "The fact remains that this
Joyleg appears to be feeding from the public trough. I agree that eleven dollars a month is an outrage—I
see no reason for any payment at all."

"You certainly go in for straight backbones and straitened pocketbooks," Weathernox said angrily.
"Nothing serves a veteran so well, I'm sure, as a little judicious starvation. Why not end pensions
altogether, and put our legless, armless men—yes, our basket cases—on the sidewalk with tin cups to
appeal to the generosity of executives and stockholders?"

Lucinda clenched her fists. "Whenever I hear speeches like that," she said, stiffening herself against the
angry tremble she knew was coming, "I think of a veteran of World War One who lived in Chinquapin
County. On the basis of a minor flesh wound which bothered him only when he went for his periodic
checkup, he received a pension of twenty dollars a month. That was money back home in the Twenties
and Thirties—it would have gone a long way to help support his family. But because he didn't have to
work for it it seemed like a windfall, a gift, stage money, gravy. He spent it all on sugar moon liquor,
never holding a job, and his family went hungry." She had kept her voice level, but now it rose. "Why
should a man be softened and corrupted with free money? Because he was in a war? It was only his
duty. A veteran, absolutely helpless from a war-connected disability is one thing, but—"

Weathernox was stern. "Is this hearsay, this tale of the veteran who drank his pension? Or did you know
him— personally?"

The tremble had begun, but Lucinda rode it down. "Oh, I knew him—personally," she said, matching her
spacing to her tormentor's. "He was my father."
Three subcommittee members coughed in unison. Weathernox turned red. The chairman said, "Uh—let's
take a coffee-break, uh?"

While the others stood up, stretched, walked out, Weathernox hesitated. Lucinda evaded his apology—if
that were his intention—and he went after them awkwardly. She slumped over the table. The tremble
was gone; she was no longer the younger daughter of Sugar Moon Harve Smith (she couldn't remember
the time he was Sergeant Harvey Smith, AEF, with a medal) the bootleggers' friend. She was the
candidate who had beaten her opponent in a vicious contest and gone triumphantly to Washington on her
merits. She had come a long way from her bitter girlhood, unhelped by family and background as men