"Шервуд Андерсен. Марширующие люди (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

the streets. Into the bakery they came to get bread and told Nance to
write the debt down against them. Beaut McGregor was disturbed. He saw
his father's money being spent for flour which when baked into loaves
went out of the shop under the arms of the miners who shuffled as they
walked. One night a man whose name appeared on their books followed by
a long record of charged loaves came reeling past the bakery. McGregor
went to his mother and protested. "They have money to get drunk," he
said, "let them pay for their loaves."

Nance McGregor went on trusting the miners. She thought of the women
and children in the houses on the hill and when she heard of the plans
of the mining company to evict the miners from their houses she
shuddered. "I was the wife of a miner and I will stick to them," she
thought.

One day the mine manager came into the bakery. He leaned over the
showcase and talked to Nance. The son went and stood by his mother's
side to listen. "It has got to be stopped," the manager was saying. "I
will not see you ruin yourself for these cattle. I want you to close
this place till the strike is over. If you won't close it I will. The
building belongs to us. They did not appreciate what your husband did
and why should you ruin yourself for them?"

The woman looked at him and answered in a low tone full of resolution.
"They thought he was crazy and he was," she said; "but what made him
so--the rotten timbers in the mine that broke and crushed him. You and
not they are responsible for my man and what he was."

Beaut McGregor interrupted. "Well I think he is right," he declared,
leaning over the counter beside his mother and looking into her face.
"The miners don't want better things for their families, they want
more money to get drunk. We will close the doors here. We will put no
more money into bread to go into their gullets. They hated father and
he hated them and now I hate them also."

Beaut walked around the end of the counter and went with the mine
manager to the door. He locked it and put the key into his pocket.
Then he walked to the rear of the bake shop where his mother sat on a
box weeping. "It is time a man took charge here," he said.

Nance McGregor and her son sat in the bakery and looked at each other.
Miners came along the street, tried the door and went away grumbling.
Word ran from lip to lip up the hillside. "The mine manager has closed
Nance McGregor's shop," said the women leaning over back fences.
Children sprawling on the floors of the houses put up their heads and
howled. Their lives were a succession of new terrors. When a day
passed that a new terror did not shake them they went to bed happy.
When the miner and his woman stood by the door talking in low tones
they cried, expecting to be put to bed hungry. When guarded talk did
not go on by the door the miner came home drunk and beat the mother