OUR BULL-FIGHT.

I'm going to stop improving my mind. It gets me into trouble all the time. Grown-up folks can improve their minds without doing any harm, for nobody ever tells them that their conduct is such, and that there isn't the least excuse in the world for them; but just as sure as a boy tries to improve his mind, especially with animals, he gets into dreadful¹ difficulties.

There was a man came to our town to lecture a while ago. He had been a great traveller, and knew all about Rome and Niagara Falls and the North Pole, and such places, and father said, "Now, Jimmy, here's an opportunity for you to learn something and improve your mind go and take your mother and do take an interest in something besides games."

Well, I went to the lecture. The man told all about the Australian savages² and their boomerangs. He showed us a boomerang, which is a stick with two legs, and an Australian will throw it at a man, and it will go and hit him, and come back of its own accord⁴. Then he told us about the way the Zulus throw their assegais—that's the right[Pg 144] way to spell it—and spear an Englishman that is mornten rods away from them. Then he showed a long string with a heavy lead ball on each end, and said the South Americans would throw it at a wild horse, and it would wind around the horse's legs, and tie itself into a bow-knot, and then the South Americans would catch the horse. But the best of all was the account of a bull⁵-fight which he saw in Spain, with the Queen sitting on a throne, and giving a crown of evergreens⁶ to the chief bull-fighter. He said that bull-fighting was awfully⁸ cruel, and that he told us about it so that we might be thankful that we are so much better than those dreadful Spanish people, who will watch a bull-fight all day, and think it real fun.

The next day I told Mr. Travers about the boomerang, and he said it was all true. Once there was an Australian savage³ in a circus, and he got angry, and he threw his boomerang at a man who was in the third story of a hotel. The boomerang went down one street and up another, and into the hotel door, and up-stairs, and knocked the man on the head, and came back the same way right into the Australian savage's hand.

I was so anxious to show father that I had listened to the lecture that I made a boomerang just like the one the lecturer had. When it was done, I went out into the back yard, and slung⁹ it at a cat on the roof of our house. It[Pg 145] never touched the cat, but it went right through the dining-room window, and gave Mr. Travers an awful blow in the eye, besides hitting Sue¹⁰ on the nose. It stopped right there in the dining-room, and never came back to me at all, and I don't believe a word the lecturer said about it. I don't feel courage to tell what father said about it.

Then I tried to catch Mr. Thompson's dog, that lives next door to us, with two lead balls tied on the ends of a long string. I didn't hit the dog any more than I did the cat, but I didn't do any harm except to Mrs. Thompson's cook, and she ought to be thankful that it was only her arm, for the doctor said that if the balls had hit her on the head they would have broken it, and the consequences might have been serious.

It was a good while before I could find anything to make an assegai out of; but after hunting all over the house, I came across a lovely piece of bamboo about ten feet long, and just as light as a feather. Then I got a big knife-blade that hadn't any handle to it, and that had been lying in father's tool-chest for ever so long, and fastened it on the end of the bamboo. You wouldn't believe how splendidly I could throw that assegai, only the wind would take it, and you couldn't tell when you threw it where it would bring up. I don't see how the Zulus ever manage to hit an Englishman; but Mr. Travers says that the Englishmen are all[Pg 146] so made that you can't very well miss them. And then perhaps the Zulus, when they want to hit them, aim at something else. One day I was practising with the assegai at our barn-door, making believe that it was an Englishman, when Mr. Carruthers, the butcher, drove by, and the assegai came down and went through his foot, and pinned it to the wagon¹¹. But he didn't see me, and I guess he got it out after a while, though I never saw it again.

But what the lecturer taught us about bull-fights was worse than anything else. Tom McGinnis's father has a terrible bull in the pasture¹², and Tom and I agreed that we'd have a bull-fight, only, of course, we wouldn't hurt the bull. All we wanted to do was to show our parents how much we had learned about the geography and habits of the Spaniards.

Tom McGinnis's sister Jane, who is twelve years old, and thinks she[Pg 147] knows everything, said she'd be the Queen of Spain, and give Tom and me evergreen⁷ wreaths. I got an old red curtain out of the dining-room, and divided it with Tom, so that we could wave it in the bull's face. When a bull runs after a bull-fighter, the other bull-fighter just waves his red rag, and the bull goes for him and lets the first bull-fighter escape. The lecturer said that there wasn't any danger so long as one fellow would always wave a red rag when the bull ran after the other fellow.

[Pg 148]

Pretty nearly all the school came down to the pasture to see our bull-fight. The Queen of Spain sat on the fence, because there wasn't any other throne, and the rest of the fellows and girls stood behind the fence. The bull was pretty savage; but Tom and I had our red rags, and we weren't afraid of him.

As soon as we went into the pasture the bull came for me, with his head down, and bellowing¹³ as if he was out of his mind. Tom rushed up and waved his red rag, and the bull stopped running after me, and went after[Pg 149] Tom, just as the lecturer said he would.
HE WENT TWENTY FEET RIGHT UP INTO THE AIR.

I know I ought to have waved my red rag, so as to rescue Tom, but I was so interested that I forgot all about it, and the bull caught up with Tom. I should think he went twenty feet right up into the air, and as he came down he hit the Queen of Spain, and knocked her about six feet right against Mr. McGinnis, who had come down to the pasture to stop the fight.

The doctor says they'll all get well, though Tom's legs are all broke, and his sister's shoulder is out of joint¹⁴, and Mr. McGinnis has got to get a new set of teeth. Father didn't do a thing to me—that is, with anything—but he talked to me till I made up my mind that I'd never try to learn anything from a lecturer again, not even if he lectures about Indians and scalping-knives.

1 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。

2 savages   

未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There're some savages living in the forest. 森林里居住着一些野人。
• That's an island inhabited by savages. 那是一个野蛮人居住的岛屿。

3 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

4 accord   

vt.给予（欢迎、称颂等） vi./n.符合，一致

参考例句：

• Most people are in accord with their desire for peace.在渴望和平这一点上，大多数人都是一致的。
• The hearts of our people accord with those of yours.我们两国人民心心相印。

5 bull   

n.公牛，买进证券投机图利者，看涨的人

参考例句：

• It's only a hair off a bull's back to them.这对他们来说，不过九牛一毛。
• Many dogs closed around the bull.很多狗渐渐地把那只牛围了起来。

6 evergreens   

n.常青树，常绿植物，万年青( evergreen的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The leaves of evergreens are often shaped like needles. 常绿植物的叶常是针形的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The pine, cedar and spruce are evergreens. 松树、雪松、云杉都是常绿的树。 来自辞典例句

7 evergreen   

n.常青树；adj.四季常青的

参考例句：

• Some trees are evergreen;they are called evergreen.有的树是常青的，被叫做常青树。
• There is a small evergreen shrub on the hillside.山腰上有一小块常绿灌木丛。

8 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

9 slung   

抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往

参考例句：

• He slung the bag over his shoulder. 他把包一甩，挎在肩上。
• He stood up and slung his gun over his shoulder. 他站起来把枪往肩上一背。

10 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。

11 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

12 pasture   

n.牧场，牲畜饲养

参考例句：

• This is the place where they used to pasture.这就是他们过去经常放牧的地方。
• The boy got up very early every morning to pasture cattle.这男孩每天起得很早去放牛。

13 bellowing   

v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫

参考例句：

• We could hear he was bellowing commands to his troops. 我们听见他正向他的兵士大声发布命令。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He disguised these feelings under an enormous bellowing and hurraying. 他用大声吼叫和喝采掩饰着这些感情。 来自辞典例句

14 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。