• Пожаловаться

Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume VII

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume VII» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. категория: Альтернативная история / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

libcat.ru: книга без обложки

Grantville Gazette.Volume VII: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Grantville Gazette.Volume VII»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Eric Flint: другие книги автора


Кто написал Grantville Gazette.Volume VII? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Grantville Gazette.Volume VII — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Grantville Gazette.Volume VII», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Both men looked up toward the temporary platform at one end of the city council meeting room. Minnie certainly sounded like she belonged to Grantville. She was up there, singing "Bury Me Beneath the Willow," to Benny Pierce's accompaniment in a voice that could have come out of any one of the hollows that ran off of Buffalo Creek.

Henry had heard that she hadn't sounded so nice the day that Benny, coming back to winter in Grantville toward the end of October, told her she'd have to go to school.

Minnie was about fourteen or fifteen, they figured. More or less. Most likely more than less, since Doc Adams guessed that she had been badly undernourished when she was little. She was a foundling. Somehow, every master to whom her home village had ever bound her out had managed to avoid the obligation to send her to school. How many men wanted to pay school fees for a foundling not yet old enough to earn her keep? Henry realized that you couldn't work up a general answer from one example, but it was clear that in this case, the answer was none. Minnie had a seventeenth century small town's equivalent of street smarts, but she did not have any education.

She didn't want any, either.

Benny hadn't had much luck taking her to school.

Eventually Benny and his sister Betty, Betty's daughter Louise, Betty's daughter-in-law Doreen, Simon and Mary Ellen Jones who were the ministers from the Methodist church, Enoch and his wife Inez, Henry's wife Ronnie, and Henry himself had taken Minnie to school. Fussin' and fightin' it all the way.

Benny switched the tune to "John Brown's Body." Minnie really got into the spirit of it.

That girl is going to make some man a real obstreperous wife, one day, Henry thought.


***

Joe Pallavicino, director of Grantville's ESOL program, still wasn't sure what to do with Minnie Hugelmair. Yeah, she had to go to school. But the intake program and classes had been set up to teach English, first to refugees and then to other immigrants, who already had at least some experience with going to school in German, then to funnel the kids into regular classes. The Germans had spoken fifteen or twenty nearly incompatible dialects, but least three-fourths of the refugee kids who came into Grantville the first year already had basic literacy and numeracy under their belts when they showed up at the schools. Most of those who didn't, had not been German. So he hadn't felt the least embarrassment about resolutely tabling all suggestions about bilingual education programs. The illiterate ones had been from six dozen different places on the map of Europe, attached some way to the mercenaries, and there wasn't anyone in Grantville who could educate them bilingually, even if the Emergency Committee had been so inclined. Which it wasn't. Almost all of the immigrants who had come since then, since Thuringia and central Germany settled down, were looking for jobs. Both the adults and their kids just needed to learn English, just as the Grantvillers who showed up needed to learn some kind of standardized, homogenized basic German that the speakers of fifteen or twenty different dialects would have a shot at understanding.

Whatever else Minnie might need, she didn't need to learn English. During her months of wandering around Thuringia with Benny Pierce, she had learned English thoroughly. With a fine West Virginia twang. A little archaic, perhaps, since a lot of it came from folk songs, but perfectly functional English. It actually helped her talk to some of the down-time English people who came through town now and then, translating into modern American for them.

Temporarily, he had set her to spending her mornings with Ceci Jones and afternoons with Tina Sebastian. Not because their sections were better suited to her needs than any of the others, but because their families were both important in the Methodist church that Benny Pierce attended, so they felt obliged to put up with her.

Minnie needed to learn to read and write. She needed to learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. It didn't matter much to Joe whether she learned them in English or German; at the moment, she didn't know how in either language.

Minnie was not about to go to first grade. Joe sighed. Unfortunately, he could see her point. On the other hand, Minnie certainly didn't belong in special education.

Benny's fiddle switched again, to "The Mule 'Round the World."

"I was born about four thousand years ago; there is nothing in this world I do not know." Minnie grinned impudently, looking down at the teachers in the audience, and made her way to the verse about Adam, Eve, and the apple, "I can prove that I'm the man who ate the core."

She isn't a man, Joe thought, but that's a good song for her. Whatever else, Minnie has attitude.


***

What bothered Benny most about the whole deal was that he was eighty-two years old. Not that he didn't intend to live to see Minnie grown up, now that he'd taken her on, but it was always possible that he'd get to the point where he was beyond making the markets and fairs, even in the summer months. Then where would the money to keep them come from? Renting out part of the house brought in some, but not really enough. For that matter, what would become of her when he couldn't busk any more? She was the best fiddler he had ever taught, but a girl really couldn't go out doing that on her own. It was too dangerous. He couldn't see her settling down, though.

For all that they'd finally gotten her here, Minnie really didn't want to keep on coming to the school. She had only agreed to attend the reception in her own honor on condition that she could sing instead of socialize after the speeches. They had compromised. First, she would sing. Then she would go around the room, with Doreen next to her, and say one single polite thing to every person there. Something like, "Thank you for coming."

The compromise was possible because he'd figured out one thing that worked. Weeks that she didn't make too much trouble in school, Wynne Nisbet would give her a hammer dulcimer lesson on Saturday morning. Defining "too much trouble" could be a bit touchy, sometimes. There was always at least some trouble. Trouble followed Minnie around. But you had to grant that she picked her targets.

Benny grinned and shifted over to Mother Maybelle. No matter what else he played in a set, he tried to finish up with a Mother Maybelle Carter piece. This reception was really for Minnie and the other kids, though, for all that Henry and Enoch and Reverend Jones, Benny's family, and several of the teachers were here. Kids weren't crazy about ballads. They liked something livelier.

He rolled into "Worried Man Blues."


***

The steps up to the temporary platform didn't have a rail. Minnie didn't jump and run-she stayed right there, carefully handing Benny down. Joe Pallavicino, watching, thought that one thing was sure in life. Anybody who offered, or even seemed to offer, a threat to Benny Pierce would have to deal with Minnie.

Anybody who offered, or even seemed to offer, a threat to anyone whom Benny cared about would have to deal with Minnie.

Joe would put his money on Minnie, any day.

Benny went over and sat down next to Louise on one of the metal folding chairs. She had a plate of crackers and a root beer for him. Minnie and Doreen started to circulate. Out of the corner of his eye, Joe spotted someone who shouldn't be here, given that she wasn't in the ESOL program and the noon bell dismissing the kids for Thanksgiving hadn't rung yet. He started across the room, drawing in his breath, prepared to start a sentence with, "Denise." Behind him, a voice said, "Cool it, Joe. Princess Baby was determined to come, so I wrote her an excuse and took her out of class. Her and Minnie have gotten to be best friends."

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Grantville Gazette.Volume VII»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Grantville Gazette.Volume VII» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Grantville Gazette.Volume VII»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Grantville Gazette.Volume VII» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.