She was the mistress of the local school, and had come to board with us a month. The parents of the score of more of youngsters attending the school had arranged to accommodate her, month about, and it was our turn. And didn’t Mother just load us up how we were to behave — particularly Joe.
Dad lumbered1 in the usual log for the fire, and we all helped him throw it on — all except the schoolmistress. Poor thing! She would have injured her long, miserable2, putty-looking fingers! Such a contrast between her and Sal! Then we sat down to supper — that old familiar repast, hot meat and pumpkin4.
Somehow we didn’t feel quite at home; but Dad got on well. He talked away learnedly to Miss Ribbone about everything. Told her, without swearing once, how, when at school in the old country, he fought the schoolmaster and leathered him well. A pure lie, but an old favourite of Dad’s, and one that never failed to make Joe laugh. He laughed now. And such a laugh! — a loud, mirthless, merciless noise. No one else joined in, though Miss Ribbone smiled a little. When Joe recovered he held out his plate.
“More pumpkin, Dad.”
“If — what, sir?” Dad was prompting him in manners.
“IF?” and Joe laughed again. “Who said ‘if’? — I never.”
Just then Miss Ribbone sprang to her feet, knocking over the box she had been sitting on, and stood for a time as though she had seen a ghost. We stared at her. “Oh,” she murmured at last, “it was the dog! It gave me such a fright!”
Mother sympathised with her and seated her again, and Dad fixed5 his eye on Joe.
“Didn’t I tell you,” he said, “to keep that useless damned mongrel of a dog outside the house altogether — eh? — didn’t I? Go this moment and tie the brute6 up, you vagabond!”
“I did tie him up, but he chewed the greenhide.”
“Be off with you, you —” (Dad coughed suddenly and scattered7 fragments of meat and munched8 pumpkin about the table) “at once, and do as I tell you, you ——”
“That’ll do, Father — that’ll do,” Mother said gently, and Joe took Stump9 out to the barn and kicked him, and hit him against the corn-sheller, and threatened to put him through it if he didn’t stop squealing10.
He was a small dog, a dog that was always on the watch — for meat; a shrewd, intelligent beast that never barked at anyone until he got inside and well under the bed. Anyway, he had taken a fancy to Miss Ribbone’s stocking, which had fallen down while he was lying under the table, and commenced to worry it. Then he discovered she had a calf11, and started to eat THAT. She didn’t tell US though — she told Mrs. Macpherson, who imparted the secret to mother. I suppose Stump didn’t understand stockings, because neither Mother nor Sal ever wore any, except to a picnic or somebody’s funeral; and that was very seldom. The Creek12 wasn’t much of a place for sport.
“I hope as you’ll be comfortable, my dear,” Mother observed as she showed the young lady the back-room where she was to sleep. “It ain’t s’ nice as we should like to have it f’ y’; we hadn’t enough spare bags to line it all with, but the cracks is pretty well stuffed up with husks an’ one thing an’ ’nother, and I don’t think you’ll find any wind kin3 get in. Here’s a bear-skin f’ your feet, an’ I’ve nailed a bag up so no one kin see-in in the morning. S’ now, I think you’ll be pretty snug13.”
The schoolmistress cast a distressed14 look at the waving bag-door and said:
“Th-h-ank you-very much.”
What a voice! I’ve heard kittens that hadn’t their eyes open make a fiercer noise.
Mother must have put all the blessed blankets in the house on the school-teacher’s bed. I don’t know what she had on her own, but we only had the old bag-quilt and a stack of old skirts, and other remnants of the family wardrobe, on ours. In the middle of the night, the whole confounded pile of them rolled off, and we nearly froze. Do what we boys would — tie ourselves in knots and coil into each other like ropes — we couldn’t get warm. We sat up in the bed in turns, and glared into the darkness towards the schoolmistress’s room, which wasn’t more than three yards away; then we would lie back again and shiver. We were having a time. But at last we heard a noise from the young lady’s room. We listened — all we knew. Miss Ribbone was up and dressing15. We could hear her teeth chattering16 and her knees knocking together. Then we heard her sneak17 back to bed again and felt disappointed and colder than ever, for we had hoped she was getting up early, and wouldn’t want the bed any longer that night. Then we too crawled out and dressed and tried it that way.
In answer to Mother at breakfast, next morning, Miss Ribbone said she had “slept very well indeed.”
We didn’t say anything.
She wasn’t much of an eater. School-teachers aren’t as a rule. They pick, and paw, and fiddle18 round a meal in a way that gives a healthy-appetited person the jim-jams. She didn’t touch the fried pumpkin. And the way she sat there at the table in her watch-chain and ribbons made poor old Dave, who sat opposite her in a ragged19 shirt without a shirt-button, feel quite miserable and awkward.
For a whole week she didn’t take anything but bread and tea — though there was always plenty good pumpkin and all that. Mother used to speak to Dad about it, and wonder if she ate the little pumpkin-tarts she put up for her lunch. Dad couldn’t understand anyone not eating pumpkin, and said HE’D tackle GRASS before he’d starve.
“And did ever y’ see such a object?” Mother went on. “The hands an’ arms on her! Dear me! Why, I do believe if our Sal was to give her one squeeze she’d kill her. Oh, but the finery and clothes! Y’ never see the like! Just look at her!” And Dad, the great oaf, with Joe at his heels, followed her into the young lady’s bedroom.
“Look at that!” said Mother, pointing to a couple of dresses hanging on a nail —“she wears THEM on week-days, no less; and here” (raising the lid of a trunk and exposing a pile of clean and neatly-folded clothing that might have been anything, and drawing the articles forth20 one by one)—“look at them! There’s that — and that — and this — and ——”
“I say, what’s this, Mother?” interrupted Joe, holding up something he had discovered.
“And that — an’——”
“Mother!”
“And this ——”
“Eh, Mother?”
“Don’t bother me, boy, it’s her tooth-brush,” and Mother pitched the clothes back into the trunk and glared round. Meanwhile, Joe was hard at his teeth with the brush.
“Oh, here!” and she dived at the bed and drew a night-gown from beneath the pillow, unfolded it, and held it up by the neck for inspection21.
Dad, with his huge, ungainly, hairy paws behind him, stood mute, like the great pitiful elephant he was, and looked at the tucks and the rest — stupidly. “Where before did y’ever see such tucks and frills and lace on a night-shirt? Why, you’d think ’t were for goin’ to picnics in, ’stead o’ goin’ to bed with. Here, too! here’s a pair of brand new stays, besides the ones she’s on her back. Clothes! — she’s nothin’ else but clothes.”
Then they came out, and Joe began to spit and said he thought there must have been something on that brush.
Miss Ribbone didn’t stay the full month — she left at the end of the second week; and Mother often used to wonder afterwards why the creature never came to see us.
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收听单词发音
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1
lumbered
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| 砍伐（lumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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2
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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3
kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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4
pumpkin
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| n.南瓜 | |
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5
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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6
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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7
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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8
munched
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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10
squealing
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 ) | |
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11
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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12
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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13
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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14
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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15
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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16
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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17
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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18
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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19
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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20
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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21
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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