City and town life -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Indiana -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction
"Yes, I've sensed that," said Peter. "Mickey pointed that out to me the
morning you jumped your job and headed for sunup. For years, just _half
your time and strength has been thrown away using old methods and
implements in your work, and having the kitchen unhandy and
inconvenient; and I'm the man who should have seen it, and got you
right tools for your job at the same time I bought a houseful for
myself and my work_. We must stir up this whole neighbourhood, and
build a big entertainment house, where we can have a library suitable
for country folks, and satisfying to their ways of life. It's got to
have music boxes in it, and a floor fit for dancing and skating, and a
stage for our own entertainments, and the folks we decide to bring here
to amuse us. We can put in a picture machine and a screen, that we can
pay for by charging a few cents admission the nights we run it, and
rent films once or twice a week from a good city show. We could fix up
a place like that, and get no end of fun and education out of it,
without going thirty miles and spending enough money in one night to
get better entertainment for a month at home, and in a cool,
comfortable hall, and where we can go from it to bed in a few minutes.
Once I am started, with Mickey and Junior to help me, I'm going to call
a meeting and talk these things over with my neighbours, and get them
to join in if I can. If I can't, I'll go on and put up the building and
start things as I think they should be, and charge enough admittance to
get back what I invest; and after that, just enough to pay running
expenses and for the talent we use. I'm so sure it can be done, I'm
going to do it. Will you help me, son?"
"Yes father, I'd think it was fine to help do that," said Junior.
"_Now_ may I say what I want to?"
"Why yes, you might son," said Peter, "but to tell the truth I can't
see that you have anything to say. If you have got the idea, Junior,
that you have wronged us any, and that it's your job to ask us to
forgive you for wanting to try the things we started and kept you
hankering after all your life so far, why you're mistaken. If I'd
trained you from your cradle to love your home, as I've trained you to
love Multiopolis, you never would have left us. So if there is
forgiving in the air, you please forgive me. And this includes your Ma
as well. I should ask her forgiveness too, for a whole lot of things
that I bungled about, when I thought I was loving her all I possibly
could. I've got a new idea of love so big and all-encompassing it
includes a fireless cooker and a dish-washing machine. I'm going to put
it in practice for a year; then if my family wants to change back,
we'll talk about it."
"But father----" began Junior.
"Go to bed son," said Peter. "You can tell us what happened when you
ain't as sleepy as you are right now."
Junior arose and followed his mother to the kitchen.
"Ain't he going to let me tell what a fool I've been at all?" he
demanded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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