THE END OF MY MONKEY.

I haven't any monkey now, and I don't care what becomes of me. His loss was an awful blow, and I never expect to recover from it. I am a crushed boy, and when the grown folks find what their conduct has done to me, they will wish they had done differently.

It was on a Tuesday that I got the monkey, and by Thursday everybody began to treat him coldly. It began with my littlest sister. Jocko took her doll away, and climbed up to the top of the door with it, where he sat and pulled it to pieces, and tried its clothes on, only they wouldn't fit him, while sister, who is nothing but a little girl, stood and howled as if she was being killed. This made mother begin to dislike the monkey, and she said that if his conduct was such, he couldn't stay in her house. I call this unkind, for the monkey was invited into the house, and I've been told we must bear with visitors.

A little while afterwards, while mother was talking to Susan on the front piazza¹, she heard the sewing-machine up-stairs, and said, "Well I never that cook has the impudence  to be sewing on my machine without ever asking leave." So she ran up-stairs, and found that Jocko was working the machine like mad. He'd taken Sue²'s gown and father's black coat and a lot of stockings, and shoved³ them all under the needle, and was sewing them all together. Mother boxed his ears and then she and Sue sat down and worked all the morning trying to unsew the things with the scissors.

They had to give it up after a while, and the things are sewed  together yet, like a man and wife, which no man can put asunder⁴. All this made my mother more cool towards the monkey than ever, and I heard her call him a nasty⁵ little beast.

The next day was Sunday, and as Sue was sitting in the hall waiting for mother to go to church with her, Jocko gets up on her chair, and pulls the feathers out of her bonnet⁶. He thought he was doing right, for he had seen the cook pulling the feathers off of the chickens, but Sue called him dreadful⁷ names, and either she or that monkey would leave the house.

Father came home early Monday, and seemed quite pleased with the monkey. He said it was an interesting study, and he told Susan that he hoped that she would be contented⁸ with fewer beaux, now that there was a monkey constantly in the house. In a little while father caught Jocko lathering⁹ himself with the mucilage brush, and with a kitchen knife all ready to shave himself. He just laughed at the monkey, and told me to take good care of him, and not let him hurt himself. Of course I was dreadfully pleased to find that father liked Jocko, and I knew it was because he was a man, and had more sense than girls. But I was only deceiving myself and leaning on a broken weed. That very evening when father went into his study after supper he found Jocko on his desk. He had torn all his papers to pieces, except a splendid new map, and that he was covering with ink, and making believe that he was writing a President's Message about the Panama Canal. Father was just raging. He took Jocko by the scruff of the neck, locked him in the closet, and sent him away by express the next morning to a man in the city, with orders to sell him.

The expressman afterwards told Mr. Travers that the monkey pretty nearly killed everybody on the train, for he got hold of the signal-cord and pulled it, and the engineer thought it was the conductor, and stopped the train, and another train just behind it came within an inch of running into it and smashing¹⁰ it to pieces. Jocko did the same thing three times before they found out what was the matter, and tied him up so that he couldn't reach the cord. Oh, he was just beautiful! But I shall never see him again, and Mr. Travers says that it's all right, and that I'm monkey enough for one house. That's because Sue has been saying things against the monkey to him; but never mind.

First my dog went, and now my monkey has gone. It  seems as if everything that is beautiful must disappear. Very likely I shall go next, and when I am gone, let them find the dog and the monkey, and bury us together.

1 piazza   

n.广场；走廊

参考例句：

• Siena's main piazza was one of the sights of Italy.锡耶纳的主要广场是意大利的名胜之一。
• They walked out of the cafeteria,and across the piazzadj.他们走出自助餐厅,穿过广场。

2 sue   

vt.控告，起诉；vi.请求，追求，起诉

参考例句：

• If you don't pay me the money,I'll sue you.如果你不付给我钱，我就告你。
• The war criminals sue for peace.战犯求和。

3 shoved   

推，猛推，乱推( shove的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱放； 随便放； 胡乱丢

参考例句：

• The people shoved to get on the bus. 人们你推我挤争着上公共汽车。
• He shoved me roughly aside. 他粗暴地把我推到了一边。

4 asunder   

adj.分离的，化为碎片

参考例句：

• The curtains had been drawn asunder.窗帘被拉向两边。
• Your conscience,conviction,integrity,and loyalties were torn asunder.你的良心、信念、正直和忠诚都被扯得粉碎了。

5 nasty   

adj.令人讨厌的，困难的，恶劣的，下流的

参考例句：

• She got a nasty knock on the head when she fell.她跌倒时头部受到严重碰撞。
• When this material burns，it flings off a nasty smell.这种物质燃烧时发出一股难闻的气味。

6 bonnet   

n.无边女帽；童帽

参考例句：

• The baby's bonnet keeps the sun out of her eyes.婴孩的帽子遮住阳光，使之不刺眼。
• She wore a faded black bonnet garnished with faded artificial flowers.她戴着一顶褪了色的黑色无边帽，帽上缀着褪了色的假花。

7 dreadful   

adj.糟透了的，极端的，可怕的，令人畏惧的

参考例句：

• I cannot imagine what to do in this dreadful situation.我不能想像在这么糟的情况下该怎么办。
• I must apologize for the dreadful mistake I made.我为我所犯的严重错误深表歉意。

8 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。

9 lathering   

n.痛打，怒骂v.（指肥皂）形成泡沫( lather的现在分词 )；用皂沫覆盖；狠狠地打

参考例句：

• After this my skin is really illuminous and clean even though there was no lathering. 在这以后即使我不使用泡沬之类的，皮肤也特别光滑干净。 来自互联网
• And yet Carl is standing there lathering his face and not a single detail is altered. 可是卡尔却站在那儿往脸上抹肥皂，全然不动声色。 来自互联网

10 smashing   

adj.极好的；粉碎的；惨重的；活泼的adv.极好地v.打碎；捣毁；重击；撞毁（车辆）

参考例句：

• We had a smashing time. 我们过得非常愉快。
• While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the table-cloth off the table. smashing half your best crockery and cutting himself in the process. 你接电话时小孩把桌布扯了下来，把你最好的陶器打碎了一半，同时他还把自己磕破了。 来自《用法词典》