cook… but I can rustle my grub for a couple of days without starving.’
‘I’m sure you can. Staying here was the next possibility that I was about to
mention. I can find someone to come stay with you so that you won’t have to be
alone. Your sister Margaret, for example.’
‘Peggy’s a pill!’
‘Priscilla, there is no excuse for your calling Margaret by a derogatory slang name.
Is there someone you would like to have here to keep you company?’
‘I don’t need any company. I don’t need any help. Feed the cat and bring in the Star
– what’s hard about that?’
‘Have you stayed alone in a house before?’
‘Oh, sure, dozens of times!’
‘Really? What were the occasions?’
‘Oh, all sorts. Papa and Aunt Marian would take the whole family somewhere, and I
would decide not to go. Family outings are a bore.’
‘Overnight trips?’
‘Sure. Or more. Nobody in the house but me and Granny Bearpaw.’
‘Oh. Mrs Bearpaw is live-in help?’
Page 205
Heinlein, Robert A – To Sail Beyond the Sunset.txt
‘I just got through saying so.’
‘That isn’t quite what you said and your manner is not as polite as it could be.
Staying with Mrs Bearpaw in the house is not the same as staying alone… and I have
gathered an impression that Granny with a frying-pan could intimidate an intruder.’
‘She wouldn’t use a frying pan; she’s got a shot-gun:
‘I see. But I can’t get her to stay with you… and apparently you have never stayed
alone before. Priscilla, I can arrange for a couple to stay here – strangers to you
but reliable.’
‘Mother, why can’t I simply stay here by myself? You act like I’m a child!’
‘Very well, dear, if that is what you prefer.’ (But I’m not going to leave it
entirely up to your good judgement. I’m going to hire the Argus Patrol to do more
than cruise slowly past three times a night – I’ll place the next thing to a
stakeout on this house. I shan’t leave you vulnerable to some night prowler just
because you think you are grown up.)
‘That’s what I prefer!’
‘Very well. Everyone has to learn adult responsibility at some time; I simply was
reluctant to thrust it on you if you did not want it. I’ll be leaving at ten o’clock
Monday morning, the sixth, for Colorado -‘
‘Colorado! Why didn’t you say so? Take me along!’
‘No, this is a business trip:
‘I won’t be any trouble. Can I take the train up to the top of Pikes Peak?’
‘You aren’t going; you’re going to stay here and go to school.’
‘I think that’s mean.’
I was gone two days and I had a wonderful time. Being a director was a bit dazzling
the first time, but when it came time to vote, I simply voted the way George did,
for the nonce – later I would have opinions.
At lunch Mr Harriman had me placed at his right. I didn’t touch the wine and I
noticed that he didn’t, either. He had been all business at the meeting but was most
charming at lunch – no business talk.
‘Mrs Johnson, Mr Strong tells me that you and I share an enthusiasm – space travel.’
‘Oh, yes!’ We talked about nothing else then and were last to leave the table; the
waiters were clearing it around us.
George and I spent the night at a guesthouse half way between Denver and Colorado
Springs, on the inner road, not the highway. We discussed envelope number three in
bed:
‘The Douglas-Martin Sunpower Screens will cause the greatest change in the American
countryside since the first transcontinental railroad. Moving roadways will be built
all over the country, powered by D-M screens. These will follow in general the
network of Federal highways now in existence – Highway One down the East Coast,
Route Sixty-Six from Chicago to LA, and so forth.
‘String cities will grow up along these moving roads and the big cities now in
existence will stop growing and even lose population.
‘The moving roads will dominate the rest of the twentieth century. Eventually they
will die out, like the railroads – but not until next century.’