SCREW-HEADS.

I'm in an awful situation that a boy by the name of Bellew got me into. He is one of the boys that writes stories and makes pictures for Harper's Young People, and I think people ought to know what kind of a boy he is. A little while ago he had a story in the Young People about imitation screw-heads, and how he used to make them, and what fun he had pasting them on his aunt's bureau. I thought it was a very nice story, and I got some tin-foil and made a whole lot of screw-heads, and last Saturday I thought I'd have some fun with them.

Father has a dreadfully ugly old chair in his study, that General Washington brought over with him in the Mayflower, and Mr. Travers says it is stiffer and uglier than any of the Pilgrim fathers. But father thinks everything of that chair, and never lets anybody sit in it except the minister. I took a piece of soap, just as that Bellew used to, and if his name is Billy why don't he learn how to spell it that's what I'd like to know, and made what looked like[Pg 68] a tremendous crack in the chair. Then I pasted the screw-heads on the chair, and it looked exactly as if somebody had broken it and tried to mend it.

I couldn't help laughing all day when I thought how astonished[Pg 69] father would be when he saw his chair all full of screws, and how he would laugh when he found out it was all a joke. As soon as he came home I asked him to please come into the study, and showed him the chair and said[Pg 70] "Father I cannot tell a lie I did it but I won't do it any more."

Father looked as if he had seen some disgusting ghosts, and I was really frightened, so I hurried up and said, "It's all right father, it's only a joke look here they all come off," and rubbed off the screw-heads and the soap with my handkerchief, and expected to see him burst out laughing, just as Bellew's aunt used to burst, but instead of laughing he said, "My son this trifling¹ with sacred things must be stopped," with which remark he took off his slipper², and then— But I haven't the heart to say what he did. Mr. Travers has made some pictures about it, and perhaps people will understand what I have suffered.

I think that boy Bellew ought to be punished for getting people into scrapes. I'd just like to have him come out behind our barn with me for a few minutes. That is, I would, only I never expect to take any interest in anything any more. My heart is broken and a new chocolate cigar that was in my pocket during the awful scene.

I've got an elegant wasps³' nest with young wasps in it that will hatch out in the spring, and I'll change it for a bull-terrier or a shot-gun or a rattlesnake in a cage that rattles⁴ good with any boy that will send me one.

1 trifling   

adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的

参考例句：

• They quarreled over a trifling matter.他们为这种微不足道的事情争吵。
• So far Europe has no doubt, gained a real conveniency,though surely a very trifling one.直到现在为止,欧洲无疑地已经获得了实在的便利，不过那确是一种微不足道的便利。

2 slipper   

n.拖鞋

参考例句：

• I rescued the remains of my slipper from the dog.我从那狗的口中夺回了我拖鞋的残留部分。
• The puppy chewed a hole in the slipper.小狗在拖鞋上啃了一个洞。

3 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中

4 rattles   

（使）发出格格的响声， （使）作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 )； 喋喋不休地说话； 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动，堕下或走动； 使紧张，使恐惧

参考例句：

• It rattles the windowpane and sends the dog scratching to get under the bed. 它把窗玻璃震得格格作响，把狗吓得往床底下钻。
• How thin it is, and how dainty and frail; and how it rattles. 你看它够多么薄，多么精致，多么不结实；还老那么哗楞哗楞地响。