THE CABLE

I says to myself: "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

I crushed the magazine down on my knee, and sat there rocking with it between my hands.

It was just a story about a little fellow with a brick. They met him, a little boy six years old, somewhere in Europe, going along up toward one of the milk stations, at sunrise. They wondered why he carried a brick, and they asked him: "Why do you have the brick?" "You see," he says, "it's so wet. I can get up on this." And he stood on his brick in the mud before the milk station for five hours, waiting for his supplies that was a pint¹ of milk to take home to his mother.

Mebbe it was queer that this struck me all of a heap, when the big war I'd got used to. But you can't get used to the things that hurt a child.

And then I kept thinking about Bennie. Supposing it had been Bennie, with the brick? Bennie was the little boy that his young father had gone back to the old country, and Bennie hadn't any mother. So I had him.

Because I had to do something, I went out on the[Pg 257] porch and called him. He came running from his swing—his coat was too big for him and his ears stuck out, but he was an awful sweet little boy. The kind you want to have around.

"Bennie," I says, "I know little boys hate it. But could you leave me hug you?"

He kind of saw I was feeling bad—like a child can—and he came right up to me and he says:

"I got one hug left. Here it is!"

And he hugged me grand.

Then he ran back down the path, throwing his legs out sideways, kind of like a little calf², the way he does. And I set down on the side stoop, and I cried.

"Oh, blessed God," I says, "supposing Bennie was running round Europe with a brick, waiting five hours in the mud for milk for his ma, that he ain't got none?"

When I feel like that, I can't sit still. I have to walk. So I opened the side gate and left Bennie run through into Mis' Holcomb's yard, that was ironing on her back porch, and I says to her to please keep an eye on him. And then I headed down the street, towards nothing; and my heart just filled out ready to blow up.

As I went, I heard a bell strike. It was a strange bell, and I wondered. Then I remembered.

"The new Town Hall's new bell," I thought. "It's come and it's up. They're trying it."

[Pg 258]

And it seemed like the voice of the town, saying something.

In the door of the newspaper office sat the editor, Luke Norris, his red face and black hair buried behind a tore newspaper.

"Hello, Luke," I says, sheer out of wanting human looks and words from somebody.

He laid down his newspaper, and he took his breath quick and he says: "I wish't Europe wasn't so far off. I'd like to go over there—with a basket."

I overtook little Nuzie Cook, going along home,—little thin thing she was, with such high eye-brows that her face looked like its windows were up.

"Nuzie," I says, "how's your ma?" And that was a brighter subject, because Mis' Cook has only got the rheumatism³ and the shingles⁴.

"Ma's in bed," says Nuzie. "She's worried about her folks in the old country—she ain't heard and she can't sleep."

I went to a house where I knew there was a baby, and I played with that. Then I went to call on Mis' Perkins, that ain't got sense enough to talk about anything that is anything, so she kind of rested me. But into Mis' Hunter's was a little young rabbit, that her husband had plowed⁶ into its ma's nest, and he'd brought it in with its leg cut by the plow⁵, and they was trying to decide what best to do. And I begun hurting inside again, and thinking:

[Pg 259]

"Nothing but a rabbit—a baby rabbit—and over there...."

I didn't say anything. Pretty soon I turned back home. And then I ran into the McVicars—three of them.

The McVicars—three of them—had Spring hats trimmed with cherries and I guess raisins⁷ and other edibles⁸; the McVicars—mother and two offspring, sprung quite a while back—are new-come to the village, and stylish⁹. They hadn't been in town in two months when they'd been invited twice to drive to the cemetery¹⁰ in the closed carriages, though they hadn't known either corpse¹¹, personally. They impressed people.

"Oh, Mis' Marsh," says Mis' McVicar, "we wanted to see you. We're getting up a relief fund...."

I went down in my pocket for a quarter, automatic. I heard their thanks, and I went on. And it came to me how, all over the country, the whole 100,000,000 of us, more or less, had been met up with to contribute something to relief, and we'd all done it. And it had gone over there to this country and to that. But our hearts had ached, individual and silent, the way mine was aching that day—and there wasn't any means of cabling that ache over to Europe. If there was, if that great ache that was in all of us for the folks over there, could just be gathered up and got over to them in one[Pg 260] mass, I thought it would do as much as food and clothes and money to help them.

I stood still by a picket¹² fence I happened to be passing, and I looked down the little street. It had a brick sidewalk and a dirt road and little houses, and the fences hadn't been taken down yet. And all the places looked still and kind of dear.

"They all feel bad," I thought, "just as bad as I do, for folks that's starved. But they can't say so—they can't say so. Only in little dabs¹³ of money, sent off separate."

Bennie was swinging on Mis' Holcomb's gate, looking for me. He came running to meet me.

"I found a blue beetle," he says to me. "And that lady's kitty's home, with a bell on. And I got a new nail. An—an—an—"

And I thought: "He ain't no different from them—over there. The little tikes, with no pas and no suppers and nothing to play with, only mebbe a brick to lug¹⁴."

And there I was, right back to where I started from. And I went out to get supper, with my heart hanging around my neck like a pail of rock.

1 pint   

n.品脱

参考例句：

• I'll have a pint of beer and a packet of crisps, please.我要一品脱啤酒和一袋炸马铃薯片。
• In the old days you could get a pint of beer for a shilling.从前，花一先令就可以买到一品脱啤酒。

2 calf   

n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮

参考例句：

• The cow slinked its calf.那头母牛早产了一头小牛犊。
• The calf blared for its mother.牛犊哞哞地高声叫喊找妈妈。

3 rheumatism   

n.风湿病

参考例句：

• The damp weather plays the very devil with my rheumatism.潮湿的天气加重了我的风湿病。
• The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。

4 shingles   

n.带状疱疹；（布满海边的）小圆石( shingle的名词复数 )；屋顶板；木瓦（板）；墙面板

参考例句：

• Shingles are often dipped in creosote. 屋顶板常浸涂木焦油。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The roofs had shingles missing. 一些屋顶板不见了。 来自辞典例句

5 plow   

n.犁，耕地，犁过的地；v.犁，费力地前进[英]plough

参考例句：

• At this time of the year farmers plow their fields.每年这个时候农民们都在耕地。
• We will plow the field soon after the last frost.最后一场霜过后，我们将马上耕田。

6 plowed   

v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• They plowed nearly 100,000 acres of virgin moorland. 他们犁了将近10万英亩未开垦的高沼地。 来自辞典例句
• He plowed the land and then sowed the seeds. 他先翻土，然后播种。 来自辞典例句

7 raisins   

n.葡萄干( raisin的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These raisins come from Xinjiang,they taste delicious. 这些葡萄干产自新疆，味道很甜。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mother put some raisins in the cake. 母亲在糕饼中放了一些葡萄干。 来自辞典例句

8 edibles   

可以吃的，可食用的( edible的名词复数 )； 食物

参考例句：

• They freely offered for sale what edibles they had. 他们很自愿地把他们的一点点可吃的东西卖给我们。
• Our edibles the wild vegetable. 我们只能吃野菜。

9 stylish   

adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的

参考例句：

• He's a stylish dresser.他是个穿着很有格调的人。
• What stylish women are wearing in Paris will be worn by women all over the world.巴黎女性时装往往会引导世界时装潮流。

10 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

11 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

12 picket   

n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫

参考例句：

• They marched to the factory and formed a picket.他们向工厂前进,并组成了纠察队。
• Some of the union members did not want to picket.工会的一些会员不想担任罢工纠察员。

13 dabs   

少许( dab的名词复数 )； 是…能手； 做某事很在行； 在某方面技术熟练

参考例句：

• Each of us had two dabs of butter. 我们每人吃了两小块黄油。
• He made a few dabs at the fence with the paint but didn't really paint it. 他用颜料轻刷栅栏，但一点也没刷上。

14 lug   

n.柄，突出部，螺帽；(英）耳朵；（俚）笨蛋；vt.拖，拉，用力拖动

参考例句：

• Nobody wants to lug around huge suitcases full of clothes.谁都不想拖着个装满衣服的大箱子到处走。
• Do I have to lug those suitcases all the way to the station?难道非要我把那些手提箱一直拉到车站去吗？