THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein

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СКАЧАТЬ His Martha worked hard with him to keep him moving. She had to tell it to him very often that now there was no other way for him to be doing. Now they were started they just had to keep going.

      Yes it was very hard to keep him moving. It was hard to start him but it was even harder to keep him going. But now it was all done and they were all of them ready to do the last beginning. They were all already to leave the next morning. All the things they had kept had been put in a wagon, the littlest children were to ride on top of them, the rest were to walk beside them until they came to the city by the water where they would find the ship that was to take them to that new world where they were all to make a fortune.

      They started very well the next morning, with all the people to say good-by to them and with all the things they needed piled in the wagon, the littlest children set on top of them, the rest of them to walk beside them. The mother was like a great mountain, good and firm and directing, and as always able to uphold around her, her man, her children, and everybody who needed directing, and he was feeling it once more good inside him to be important as if it were in religion, and all the talking and moving and everybody so excited about him. It was very pleasant just then for him, and then the wagon began moving, and some went a little way with them and then they all left them and then it was only the family and the driver of the wagon who were with him and all the pleasant feeling left him.

      They went on and on and then suddenly they missed him, the father was not there any longer with them. The mother went back patiently to find him. He was sitting at the first turning, looking at the village below him, at all the things he was leaving, and he simply could not endure it in him.

      His wife called to him. He sighed and she came to him. "Don't you want to be going David," she said to him. "If you don't really want to be going you've just got to say David what you want to be doing. I'll never be a woman to make you do anything you are not really wanting. You just say David what it is you are really wanting. I'll do it if you want me really badly to do it. You know I never want you not to do everything just like you really need it. The children, they are all waiting there just for you to say it. David I say you just say it what you want and I do it." He sighed and he looked a little sullen.

      "Of course Martha you know I do what I got to do for you and the children. You know I always do what is right for me to do for you and the children. I don't ever think what I am needing, I only just want to do the best I can for you and the children. Can't you see Martha I just came back here to see it. That ain't got nothing to do with what I made up my mind was the right way to do it. I just came here to see I don't forget it. Yes I come now Martha. Sure I always will do it what is right for me to do so you and the children can have it. I never do any other way in it. I go on with you now I got another look to see I don't forget it. I just stopped here to see it. Its just I wanted to see what way it looked so I would get it right not to forget it. Alright Martha I come, you go on, I be with you in a minute. I just look to see I got it fixed right so I don't forget it. Alright Martha I come now. I got it fixed now I can't forget it. Alright we go on now I done what I needed. I came back just to do it. Now we go on to the children and we go on to do it like we said we would do it." And he sighed and he got up and he looked back as he went away from it and she talked about how much the children were going to like it and he began to forget it.

      All, the wagon and the driver and the horses and the children, had waited for them to come up to it. Now they went on again, slowly and creaking, as is the way always when a whole family do it. Moving through a country is never done very quickly when a whole family do it.

      They had not gone very far yet. They had not been going many hours. They were all having now just coming in them their first tired, the first hot sense of being very tired. This is the hardest time in a day's walking to press through and get over being tired until it comes to the last tired, that last dead tired sense that is so tired. Then you cannot press through to a new strength and to get another tired, you just keep on, that is you keep on when you have learned how you can do it, then you just get hardened to it and know there is no pressing through it, there is no way to win out beyond it, it is just a dreary dull dead tired, and you must learn to know it, and it is always and you must learn to bear it, the dull drag of being almost dead with being tired.

      In between these first and last are many little times of tired, many ways of being very tired, but never any like the first hot tired when you begin to learn how to press through it and never any like the last dead tired with no beyond ever to it.

      It was this first hot tired they all had in them now just in its beginning, and they were all in their various ways trying to press themselves to go through it, and they were mostly very good about it and not impatient or complaining. They were all now beginning with the dull tired sense of hot trudging when every step has its conscious meaning and all the movement is as if one were lifting each muscle and every part of the skin as a separate action. All the springiness had left them, it was a weary conscious moving the way it always is before one presses through it to the time of steady walking that comes when one does not any longer do it with a conscious sense with each movement. It is not until one has settled to it, the steady walk where one is not conscious of the movement, that you have become really strong to do it, and the whole family were now just coming to it, they were just pressing through their first hot tired.

      And now once more the father had done it. The father was no longer with them, once more he had slipped back and they had lost him.

      The mother said to the children. "Well you go on, I go back to get him." She felt no anger in her toward him. She just went patiently back to find him.

      She told the children to keep on slowly as they were going and she would go back and find him. She walked back looking patiently everywhere for him. She found him before she had gotten back to where she had the last time found him. He had not gotten back yet to where be could see all he was going to leave behind him. She had walked faster than he and had caught him.

      She had no impatient feeling in her against him. It was a way he had, she knew it, it was right for him to have it, the kind of a feeling he had about leaving. It was a way he had, she was not impatient with him, he was right to have that kind of a feeling in him. It was right for him to act that way to see about not forgetting. It was only that she knew he would like it and it would be so good for the children that made her want to urge him not to give up now they had made their beginning.

      But she was not in any way impatient to him, she had no impatient feeling in her against him. It was just his way and now she would coax him and he would come back with her to the wagon. It was only a way he always had had whenever he had to do a new thing. And so she walked a little with him and began to talk about the children and how nice it would be when they would all get rich and how the children would like it to work and help him, and they sat down and after they had been resting, when they got up again she did not do any discussing, she just started him back toward the wagon, and always she was telling about how good he was to do what was best for her and the children. Soon they came up with the wagon which was still very slowly moving.

      It was so hot doing so much walking, she said then to him, he looked a little sick, she thought he ought not to do any more walking, perhaps it would be better if he would get into the wagon and ride a little with the little children. It would be awful if he got sick and nobody to take care of them for he was the only one that could do their talking. And so she coaxed him into the wagon with the children.

      They went on and soon it was too far, there was not now any more going back for him. And then he was content, and he had the new city and the ship, and then he was content with the new world around him.

      They had, for a little while, a hard time beginning, but on the whole things went very well with them. The sons made money for them, the daughters worked and then got married to men whom they found making money around them. Some did very well then and some not so well, and they all had their troubles as all people have them, and some died, and СКАЧАТЬ