chapter 8

When the spring opened we broke up the sod on a more fertile part of the island, and planted a garden there beside our field of corn. We planted long rows of sweet-potatoes, and a splendid profusion¹ of melons, which duly came up with their empty seed-shells fitted like helmets over their heads, and were mostly laid low the next day by the cut-worms which swarmed² in the upturned sod. I have no recollection of really enjoying any of the visionary red-cores and white-cores which had furnished us a Barmecide feast when we planted their seed, and so I suppose none of them grew.

But the sweet-potatoes had better luck. Better luck I did not think it then; their rows seemed interminable to a boy set to clear their slopes of purslane with his hoe; though I do not now imagine they were necessarily a day’s journey in length.[Pg 32] Neither could the cornfield beside them have been very vast; but again reluctant boyhood has a different scale for the measurement of such things, and perhaps if I were now set to hill it up I might think differently about its size.

I dare say it was not well cared for, but an inexhaustible wealth of ears came into the milk just at the right moment for our enjoyment³. We had then begun to build our new house. The frame had been raised, as the custom of that country still was, in a frolic of the neighbors, to whom unlimited⁴ coffee and a boiled ham had been served in requital⁵ of their civility, and now we were kiln⁶-drying the green oak flooring-boards. To do this we had built a long skeleton hut, and had set the boards upright all around it and roofed it with them, and in the middle of it we had set a huge old cast-iron stove, in which we kept a roaring fire.

This fire had to be watched night and day, and it never took less than three or four boys, and often all the boys of the neighborhood, to watch it, and to turn and change the boards. The summer of[Pg 33] Southern Ohio is surely no joke, and it must have been cruelly hot in that kiln; but I remember nothing of that; I remember only the luxury of the green corn, whose ears we spitted on the points of long sticks and roasted in the red-hot stove; we must almost have roasted our own heads at the same time.

But I suppose that if the heat within the kiln or without ever became intolerable, we escaped from it and from our light summer clothing, reduced almost to a Greek simplicity⁷, in a delicious plunge⁸ in the river. In those days one went in swimming (we did not say bathing) four or five times a day with advantage and refreshment⁹; anything more than that was, perhaps, thought unwholesome.

We had our choice of the shallows, where the long ripple¹⁰ was warmed through and through by the sun in which it sparkled, or the swimming-hole, whose depths were almost as tepid¹¹, but were here and there interwoven with mysterious cool under-currents.

We believed that there were snapping-turtles and water-snakes in our swimming[Pg 34] holes, though we never saw any. There were some fish in the river, chiefly suckers and catfish¹² in the spring, when the water was high and turbid¹³, and in summer the bream that we call sunfish in the West, and there was a superstition¹⁴, never verified by me, of bass¹⁵. The truth is, we did not care much for fishing, though of course that had its turn in the pleasures of our rolling year.

There were crawfish, both hard shell and soft, to be had at small risk, and mussels in plenty. Their shells furnished us the material for many rings zealously¹⁶, begun, never finished; we did not see why they did not produce pearls; but perhaps they were all eaten up, before the pearl-disease could attack them, by the muskrats¹⁷, before whose holes their shells were heaped. Sometimes we saw a muskrat¹⁸ smoothly¹⁹ swimming to or from his hole, and making a long straight line through the water, and lusted²⁰ for his blood; but he always chose the times for these excursions when we had not our trusty smooth-bore with us, and we stoned him in vain.

I have spoken of the freshets which[Pg 35] sometimes inundated²¹ our island; but these were never very serious. They fertilized²² it with the loam²³ they brought down from richer lands above, and they strewed²⁴ its low shores with stranded²⁵ drift. But there were so many dams on the river that no freshet could gather furious head upon it; at the worst, it could back up upon us the slack water from the mill-dam below us. Once this took place in such degree that our wheels stood still in their flooded tubs. This was a truly tremendous time. The event appears in the retrospect²⁶ to have covered many days; I dare say it covered a half-day at most.

Of skating on the river I think we had none. The winter often passes in that latitude²⁷ without making ice enough for that sport, and there could not have been much sledding either. We read, enviously²⁸ enough, in Peter Parley’s First Book of History, of the coasting on Boston Common, and we made some weak-kneed sleds (whose imbecile runners flattened²⁹ hopelessly under them) when the light snows began to come; but we never had any real coasting, as our elders never[Pg 36] had any real sleighing in the jumpers they made by splitting a hickory sapling for runners, and mounting any sort of rude box upon them. They might often have used sleighs in the mud, however; that was a foot deep on most of the roads, and lasted all winter.

There were not many boys in our neighborhood, and we brothers had to make the most of one another’s company. For a little while in the winter some of us went two miles away through the woods to school; but there was not much to be taught a reading family like ours in that log-hut, and I suppose it was not thought worth while to keep us at it. No impression of it remains³⁰ to me, except the wild, lonesome cooing of the turtle-doves when they began to nest in the neighboring oaks.

1 profusion   

n.挥霍；丰富

参考例句：

• He is liberal to profusion.他挥霍无度。
• The leaves are falling in profusion.落叶纷纷。

2 swarmed   

密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• When the bell rang, the children swarmed out of the school. 铃声一响，孩子们蜂拥而出离开了学校。
• When the rain started the crowd swarmed back into the hotel. 雨一开始下，人群就蜂拥回了旅社。

3 enjoyment   

n.乐趣；享有；享用

参考例句：

• Your company adds to the enjoyment of our visit. 有您的陪同，我们这次访问更加愉快了。
• After each joke the old man cackled his enjoyment.每逢讲完一个笑话，这老人就呵呵笑着表示他的高兴。

4 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

5 requital   

n.酬劳；报复

参考例句：

• We received food and lodging in requital for our services.我们得到食宿作为我们服务的报酬。
• He gave her in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me.他把她给了我是为了补偿你们从我手中夺走的一切。

6 kiln   

n.（砖、石灰等）窑，炉；v.烧窑

参考例句：

• That morning we fired our first kiln of charcoal.那天上午，我们烧了我们的第一窑木炭。
• Bricks are baked in a kiln.砖是在窑里烧成的。

7 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

8 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

9 refreshment   

n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点

参考例句：

• He needs to stop fairly often for refreshment.他须时不时地停下来喘口气。
• A hot bath is a great refreshment after a day's work.在一天工作之后洗个热水澡真是舒畅。

10 ripple   

n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进

参考例句：

• The pebble made a ripple on the surface of the lake.石子在湖面上激起一个涟漪。
• The small ripple split upon the beach.小小的涟漪卷来，碎在沙滩上。

11 tepid   

adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的

参考例句：

• She bent her mouth to the tap and drank the tepid water.她把嘴伸到水龙头底下去喝那微温的水。
• Her feet firmly planted on the tepid rough brick of the floor.她一双脚稳固地立在微温而粗糙的砖地上。

12 catfish   

n.鲶鱼

参考例句：

• Huge catfish are skinned and dressed by hand.用手剥去巨鲇的皮并剖洗干净。
• We gigged for catfish off the pier.我们在码头以鱼叉叉鲶鱼。

13 turbid   

adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的

参考例句：

• He found himself content to watch idly the sluggish flow of the turbid stream.他心安理得地懒洋洋地望着混浊的河水缓缓流着。
• The lake's water is turbid.这个湖里的水混浊。

14 superstition   

n.迷信，迷信行为

参考例句：

• It's a common superstition that black cats are unlucky.认为黑猫不吉祥是一种很普遍的迷信。
• Superstition results from ignorance.迷信产生于无知。

15 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

16 zealously   

adv.热心地；热情地；积极地；狂热地

参考例句：

• Of course the more unpleasant a duty was, the more zealously Miss Glover performed it. 格洛弗小姐越是对她的职责不满意，她越是去积极执行它。 来自辞典例句
• A lawyer should represent a client zealously within the bounds of the law. 律师应在法律范围内热忱为当事人代理。 来自口语例句

17 muskrats   

n.麝鼠（产于北美，毛皮珍贵）( muskrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

18 muskrat   

n.麝香鼠

参考例句：

• Muskrat fur almost equals beaver fur in quality.麝鼠皮在质量上几乎和海獭皮不相上下。
• I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice.我看到一只麝鼠从冰里面钻出来。

19 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

20 lusted   

贪求（lust的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He had even lusted for Halina, already woven a net in readiness to ensnare her. 他甚至贪恋海莉娜，已经编织了一个罗网，在引诱她落进去。
• Men feared him and women lusted after the handsome warrior. 男人们害怕他，女人们纷纷追求这个英俊的勇士。

21 inundated   

v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付

参考例句：

• We have been inundated with offers of help. 主动援助多得使我们应接不暇。
• We have been inundated with every bit of information imaginable. 凡是想得到的各种各样的信息潮水般地向我们涌来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 Fertilized   

v.施肥( fertilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of psychology has recently been widely cross-fertilized by new discoveries in genetics. 心理学研究最近从遗传学的新发现中受益匪浅。
• Flowers are often fertilized by bees as they gather nectar. 花常在蜜蜂采蜜时受粉。

23 loam   

n.沃土

参考例句：

• Plant the seeds in good loam.把种子种在好的壤土里。
• One occupies relatively dry sandy loam soils.一个则占据较干旱的沙壤土。

24 strewed   

v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满

参考例句：

• Papers strewed the floor. 文件扔了一地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Autumn leaves strewed the lawn. 草地上撒满了秋叶。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

25 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。

26 retrospect   

n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯

参考例句：

• One's school life seems happier in retrospect than in reality.学校生活回忆起来显得比实际上要快乐。
• In retrospect,it's easy to see why we were wrong.回顾过去就很容易明白我们的错处了。

27 latitude   

n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区

参考例句：

• The latitude of the island is 20 degrees south.该岛的纬度是南纬20度。
• The two cities are at approximately the same latitude.这两个城市差不多位于同一纬度上。

28 enviously   

adv.满怀嫉妒地

参考例句：

• Yet again, they were looking for their way home blindly, enviously. 然而，它们又一次盲目地、忌妒地寻找着归途。 来自辞典例句
• Tanya thought enviously, he must go a long way south. 坦妮亚歆羡不置，心里在想，他准是去那遥远的南方的。 来自辞典例句

29 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。

30 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。