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

naughtily and opened a gallon jug of his best hard cider.
    â€œWell,” he said, chuckling, “fur the occasion.”
    â€œYou know very well,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, the oldest daughter, “that I never touch the stuff.”
    â€œI’ll take Maudie’s,” said Mrs. Chuck Fink, the youngest.
    â€œNow, now,” said Chuck Fink, beaming, “everybody’s gotta drink for the happy event. Can’t hurt nobody! A little glass a day keeps the doctor away.”
    â€œI’m sure I won’t let Melissa have any,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey. “I don’t know how some people do, but I bring my daughter up as a lady should be brung up.”
    Jeremiah Sliney filled eight glasses. Melissa Hennessey, the only grandchild old enough to be present, threw a dark glance at her mother, but said nothing. Melissa Hennessey spoke seldom. She was twenty, although her mother insisted that she was eighteen. She had faded brown hair in tight ringlets of an unsuccessful permanent wave around a face dotted with perpetual pimples. She wore a long green dress of dotted swiss with stylish ruffles, high and stiff on her shoulders, flat brown oxfords with fringed tongues, and a brand-new wristwatch on a leather band.
    â€œVeter santee, as they say in society,” said Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant Sliney haughtily, raising her glass.
    â€œAw, can the fancy stuff, Angelina,” said Ulysses S. Grant Sliney gloomily. He had a long nose and a collar too wide for his thin neck, and he always looked gloomy.
    Angelina Sliney shrugged. Her big celluloid earrings tinkled against her neck and the five celluloid bracelets tinkled against the knob of her wrist bone.
    â€œA toast!” roared Chuck Fink. “Gotta have a toast.”
    â€œAw, now,” said Jeremiah Sliney, standing helplessly, hunched, embarrassed, spreading wide his two hands with a short stump in the place of his left forefinger. “Well, now, I never in my life . . . I wouldn’t know how to . . . I . . .”
    â€œI’ll make it for you,” said Chuck Fink, bouncing up. He was notvery tall when he stood up; his vest was stretched over a round stomach; his smile was stretched over a round face with a short nose with wide nostrils.
    â€œTo the best little parents that ever breathed God’s sunshine,” said Chuck Fink, beaming. “Many happy returns to one happy family. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like the good old farm.”
    Mrs. Eustace Hennessey nudged her husband. Eustace Hennessey had gone to sleep, his long face nodding over his pie plate. He jerked, one hand fumbling for his glass, the other one for his mustache, twisting it mechanically up into a sharp, thin needle of a glossy, waxed black.
    Then they all drank but Melissa.
    Mrs. Jeremiah Sliney sat silently in the shadows at the head of the table, her little hands folded in her lap, her white lips smiling in a gentle, wordless blessing. She had the serene face of a wrinkled cherub and glossy white hair, well brushed, combed tightly to a yellow knob on the back of her head. She wore her best dress of patched purple taffeta and a little shawl of yellow lace held by her best pin of tarnished gold.
    â€œWell,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, “the good old farm and all that is all very well, but I do think you oughta do something about that road, Pa. Honest, it’s enough to shake a body’s guts out to drive up here.”
    â€œWell,” said Angelina Sliney, “you can stand a bit once in a while. God knows, you don’t do it often.”
    â€œWhen I need telling to,” said Mrs. Eustace Hennessey, “I’ll choose the people to do the telling.”
    â€œAw, now, Maudie,” said Eustace Hennessey, yawning, “the road ain’t so bad. You oughta see some of the roads a fellow’s gotta travel in this here country.”
    Eustace Hennessey was a