"Ward Moore - The Fellow who Married the Maxill Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore Ward)

The Fellow who Married the Maxill Girl
by Ward Moore

After a couple of weeks Nan began to understand him a little. Nan was the third-oldest Maxill girl. The
wild one, they called her in Henryton, not forgetting they had said the same of Gladys and later Muriel;
Gladys now high in the Eastern Star, and Muriel, married to Henryton's leading hardware and furniture
dealer—Muriel, mother of the sweetest twins in Evarts County. But they said it of Nan with more
assurance.

Everyone knew Maxill had bought the old Jameson place, eighty of the most worthless acres ever to
break a farmer's heart, the year after Cal Coolidge became President, because he—Malcolm Maxill that
is, not Mr. Coolidge—wanted an out-of-the-way location for a still. Naturally they looked for his six
kids, all girls, to run wild with such a background. Not that Henryton, or Evarts County either, for that
matter, upheld Prohibition or admired Andrew Volstead. But buying a so-called half-pint now and then
(striking a blow for liberty, the more robust males called it, a trifle shamefacedly) was one thing, and
condoning moonshining and bootlegging in their midst was something else again.

Of course moonshining was in the past now. Prohibition had been dead for two years, and people
wondered more how Maxill was going to make a living from his worthless land than over his morals. But
Nan had been seen necking in automobiles (a Velie and a Rickenbacker) with different boys, and
heavens knew on how many unobserved occasions she'd done the same, and honestly, commented
Henryton—not to say Evarts County—maybe the juvenile authorities should be notified, because Nan
was still underage. Besides, she had a mean, sullen look, defiant and rebellious, that showed she needed
a strong hand.

No one thought of going to her father. Everybody knew he kept a loaded shotgun handy (gossips said
that was how Muriel—empty chatter—those lovely twins) and had run more than one nosy character off
his place. Henryton people tended to mind their own business—they had plenty to think about with the
Depression—so talk of the authorities remained just talk. Still, it isolated Nan Maxill more than ever and
encouraged her wildness.

He—the fellow; they hadn't any other name for him for a long time; all the Maxills knew who was meant
when one of them used the pronoun—was found by Josey in the south pasture, which hadn't been a
pasture for years and years, just a hummocky, lumpy expanse of weeds and obstinate brush. Josey was
eleven and shy, a birthmark down the left side of her face was complicated from time to time by almost
every possible affliction of the skin, so that she had begun hiding from strangers at the age of seven and
never found reason to break the pattern.

She hadn't hidden from him. All her natural childish curiosity about people, long suppressed,
overwhelmed by their greedy inquisitiveness over her blemishes, seemed stirred by the sight of him.
Though, as everyone said afterward, he didn't really look different. He was oddly dressed, but Henryton
had seen boys from Spokane or San Francisco who dressed even more oddly, and his complexion had a
peculiar vitality and sheen and at the same time a delicacy which contrasted with those of the farmers
accustomed to sun all day, or those who hid in shadowed stores or offices to earn dollars.

"Who're you?" asked Josey. "My dad don't like fellers snooping around. What's your name? Maybe you
better get out; he's got a gun and believe me he can use it. What's that stuff you're wearing? Looks like it
was your skin, only blue, not something sewed at all. I can sew real good myself; it relaxes me, so I'll
probably never be a delinquent. You're not deaf and dumb, are you, Mister? There's a man in Henryton's
deaf, dumb and blind. People buy pencils from him and drop pennies and nickels in his hat. Say, why