Ideal by Ayn Rand

heard a voice, a soft muffled voice whispering hoarsely:
    â€œPa . . . You asleep, Pa-a?”
    â€œNo.”
    The woman sighed. Then she whispered:
    â€œPa, it’s day after tomorrow . . . the mortgage is . . .”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œIt’s seven hundred dollars, it is.”
    â€œYeah.”
    The bed creaked as someone turned over.
    â€œPa-a . . .”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œThey’ll take the house.”
    â€œThey sure will.”
    The bird screamed far away, in the silence.
    â€œPa-a, think she’s asleep?”
    â€œMust be.”
    â€œIt’s murder she’s done, Pa. . . .”
    â€œYeah.”
    They were silent again.
    â€œIt’s a rich feller what she’s killed, Pa.”
    â€œThe richest.”
    â€œReckon his family, they’d like to know where she’s at.”
    â€œWhat’re ye talkin’ about, woman?”
    â€œOh, I was just thinkin’ . . .”
    There was a silence.
    â€œPa, if they was told, his family, where she’s at, it’ud be worth somethin’ to them, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œYe old . . . what’re ye trying to—”
    â€œReckon they’d be glad to pay a reward. A thousand dollars, maybe.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œA thousand dollars, maybe . . .”
    â€œYe old hag! Ye shut yer mouth before I choke ye!”
    There was a long silence.
    â€œMa . . .”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œThink they’d . . . they’d hand over a . . . a thousand?”
    â€œSure they would. Them’s folks with plenty of money.”
    â€œAw, shut yer old face!”
    A moth beat furiously against the window screen.
    â€œIt’s the poorhouse for us, Pa. For the rest of our days.”
    â€œYeah . . .”
    â€œThey pay more’n that for bank robbers and such, they do.”
    â€œYe got no fear of God in ye, ye don’t!”
    â€œFifty years, Pa. Fifty years in this house and now thrown out in the street in our old age. . . .”
    â€œYeah . . .”
    â€œThe children were born here, too . . . right in this room, Pa . . . all of them . . .”
    â€œYeah . . .”
    â€œWith a thousand, why, we’d have the house to the end of our days . . .”
    He did not answer.
    â€œAnd we could even build that new chicken coop we need so bad . . .”
    There was a long silence.
    â€œMa . . .”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œHow . . . how’d we go about it?”
    â€œWhy, easy. We just slip out while she’s asleep. She won’t hear a thing. We go to the sheriff’s station. Come back with the cops. Easy.”
    â€œWhat if she hears?”
    â€œShe won’t. Only we gotta hurry.”
    â€œThe old truck rattles pretty bad starting.”
    â€œThat’s so.”
    â€œI’ll tell ye what. We’ll just push it out, the two of us, down to the road and down the road a ways, till we’re far enough from the house. Ye just hold that board down that’s loose in the back.”
    They dressed hurriedly, without a sound. There was only a faint creaking as the door opened and closed again. There was only a soft rumble down the driveway, a faint grating like a sigh lost in the grass.
    They came back in a glistening car that skidded up to the door and stopped short, brakes screaming. Two blinding white headlights stretched far ahead, slashing the darkness. Two men in dark uniforms, their buttons sparkling, jumped out, and Jeremiah Sliney scrambled out after them, his coat hanging open at his bare throat.
    When they entered the spare room, they found it empty. Only a strange, faint perfume still lingered in theair.

4
Dwight Langley
    â€œDear Miss Gonda,
    You do not know me. Yet you are the only person whom I really know in the world.