Read Online Ideal by Ayn Rand - Free Book Online Page A

Junior would be ready for high school; and he had always thought of that college where Junior would wear a black robe and a funny square cap. The woman had a smile that hurt him. Rosie cooked the best corn fritters, just as he liked them. The assistant treasurer had always envied him, had always wanted to be assistant manager, and now he had beat him to it. That golf club had the best links in town, and only the best of members, solid, respectable members; not with their fingerprints in the police files and pictures in all the papers as accessories after the fact of murder. The woman had spoken of a dark, lonely street where he would want to scream . . .scream . . . scream. . . . Rosie had been a good wife to him, hard-working, and patient, and faithful. He had twenty years to live yet, maybe thirty, no more. After all, life was over.
    He turned to the woman in black.
    â€œI’m sorry, Miss Gonda,” he said, and his voice was efficient, like the voice of an assistant manager addressing a secretary, “but under the circumstances—”
    â€œI understand,” said Kay Gonda.
    She walked to the dresser and put her hat on, pulling it down over one eye. She put on her gloves and picked up her bag from the bed.
    They walked silently down the stairs, the three of them, and George S. Perkins opened the door. Kay Gonda turned to Mrs. Perkins.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “I had the wrong address.”
    They stood and watched her walking away down the street, a slender black figure with golden hair that flashed once in the light of a lamppost.
    Then George S. Perkins put his arm around his wife’s waist.
    â€œIs Mother asleep?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know. Why?”
    â€œI thought I’d go in and talk to her. Make up, sort of. She knows all about buying Frigidaires.”

3
Jeremiah Sliney
    â€œDear Miss Gonda,
    I think you are the greatest moving pichur star ever lived. I think yur moving pichurs is swell. I want to thank you from the bottom of my hart for the joy you giv us in our old age. There is plenty of other pichur stars onlie it aint the same thing. There aint none like you and never was. My wife and me just wait for evry pictur of yurs and we set thru all the shows and come back the nex day. It aint like if we just liked you. It is like goin to church goin to your picturs that’s wat its like, onlie beter. I aint never understan it myself on akount of you act bad womin and such but what you mak me think of is a statoo of the Saint Mother of God what I see once onlie I dont no how that is. Yur what we’d like a doter of ours to hav bin onlie neverhad. We hav three children my wife and me, too girls of them onlie it aint the same. We are onlie old folks, Miss Gonda, an yur all we got. We want to thank you onlie I don’t no how to say it on akount of I never rote no letter to a swell lady like you. And if ever we cood do sumthin to show how grateful we are to you we’d just die happie on akount of we aint got much longer to go.
    Resspecfully yurs,
    Jeremiah Sliney
    Ventura Boulevard
    Los Angeles, California”
    O n the evening of May 5th, Jeremiah Sliney celebrated his golden wedding anniversary.
    The table was set in the middle of the living room. Mrs. Sliney had taken out the best set of silverware, and polished it all morning, and laid it out carefully under the light of a hanging brass oil lamp.
    â€œAre we gonna have turkey?” she had asked that morning.
    â€œSure,” Jeremiah Sliney had answered.
    â€œIt’s the last one left, Pa. I was just thinkin’ maybe if we took it to town we could get maybe—”
    â€œAw, Ma, there’s only one golden anniversary in the whole of yer life.”
    She had sighed and shuffled into the backyard to catch the turkey.
    The table was set for nine. The children had gathered to celebrate. After the lemon chiffon pie was served, Jeremiah Sliney winked