A PILLOW FIGHT.

We've been staying at the sea-shore for a week, and having a beautiful time. I love the sea-shore, only it would be a great deal nicer if there wasn't any sea; then you wouldn't have to go in bathing. I don't like to go in bathing, for you get so awfully¹ wet, and the water chokes you. Then there are ticks on the sea-shore in the grass. A tick is an insect that begins and bites you, and never stops till you're all ettup, and then you die, and the tick keeps on growing bigger all the time.

There was once a boy and a tick got on him and bit him, and kept on biting for three or four days, and it ettup the boy till the tick was almost as big as the boy had been, and the boy wasn't any bigger than a marble, and he died, and his folks felt dreadfully about it. I never saw a tick, but I know that there are lots of them on the sea-shore, and that's reason enough not to like it.

We stayed at a boarding-house while we were at the sea-shore. A boarding-house is a place where they give you pure country air and a few vegetables and a little meat,[Pg 191] and I say give me a jail where they feed you if they do keep you shut up in the dark. There were a good many people in our boarding-house, and I slept up-stairs on the third story with three other boys, and there were two more boys on the second story, and that's the way all the trouble happened.

There is nothing that is better fun than a pillow fight; that is, when you're home and have got your own pillows, and know they're not loaded, as Mr. Travers says. He was real good about it, too, and I sha'n't forget it, for 'most any man would have been awfully mad, but he just made as if he didn't care, only Sue² went on about it as if I was the worst boy that ever lived.

You see, we four boys on the third story thought it would be fun to have a pillow fight with the two boys on the second story. We waited till everybody had gone to bed, and then we took our pillows and went out into the hall just as quiet as could be, only Charley Thompson he fell over a trunk in the hall and made a tremendous noise. One of the boarders opened his door and said who's there, but we didn't answer, and presently he said "I suppose it's that cat people ought to be ashamed of themselves to keep such animals," and shut his door again.

After a little while Charley was able to walk, though his legs were dreadfully rough where he'd scraped them[Pg 192] against the trunk. So we crept down-stairs and went into the boys' room, and began to pound them with the pillows.

They knew what was the matter, and jumped right up and got their pillows, and went at us so fierce that they drove us out into the hall. Of course this made a good deal of noise, for we knocked over the wash-stand in the room, and upset a lot of lamps that were on the table in the hall, and every time I hit one of the boys he would say "Ouch!" so loud that anybody that was awake could hear him. We fought all over the hall, and as we began to get excited we made so much noise that Mr. Travers got up and came out to make us keep quiet.

It was pretty dark in the hall, and though I knew Mr. Travers, I thought he couldn't tell me from the other boys, and I thought I would just give him one good whack³ on the head, and then we'd all run up-stairs. He wouldn't know who hit him, and, besides, who ever heard of a fellow being hurt with a pillow?

So I stood close up by the wall till he came near me, and then I gave him a splendid bang over the head. It sounded as if you had hit a fellow[Pg 193] with a club, and Mr. Travers dropped to the floor with an awful crash, and never spoke⁴ a word.
I NEVER WAS SO FRIGHTENED IN MY LIFE.

I never was so frightened in my life, for I thought Mr. Travers was killed. I called murder help fire, and every[Pg 194] body ran out of their rooms, and fell over trunks, and there was the most awful time you ever dreamed of. At last somebody got a lamp, and somebody else got some water and picked Mr. Travers up and carried him into his room, and then he came to and said, "Where am I Susan what is the matter O now I know."

He was all right, only he had a big bump⁵ on one side of his head, and he said that it was all an accident, and that he wouldn't have Sue scold me, and that it served him right for not remembering that boarding-house pillows are apt⁶ to be loaded.

The next morning he made me bring him my pillow, and then he found out how it came to hurt him. All the chicken bones, and the gravel-stones, and the chunks⁷ of wood that were in the pillow had got down into one end of it while we were having the fight, and when I hit Mr. Travers they  happened to strike him on his head where it was thin, and knocked him senseless. Nobody can tell how glad I am that he wasn't killed, and it's a warning to me never to have pillow fights except with pillows that I know are not loaded with chicken bones and things.

I forgot to say that after that night my mother and all the boys' mothers took all the pillows away from us, for they said they were too dangerous to be left where boys could get at them.

1 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。

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 whack   

v.敲击，重打，瓜分；n.重击，重打，尝试，一份

参考例句：

• After years of dieting,Carol's metabolism was completely out of whack.经过数年的节食，卡罗尔的新陈代谢完全紊乱了。
• He gave me a whack on the back to wake me up.他为把我弄醒，在我背上猛拍一下。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 bump   

v.（against,into）碰，颠簸；n.碰撞，隆起物

参考例句：

• I heard a bump in the next room.我听到隔壁房间传来“砰”的一声。
• He got a bad bump on his forehead.他碰得前额隆起一个大包。

6 apt   

adj.易于，有...倾向，恰当的，聪明的

参考例句：

• Beginners are too apt to make mistakes in grammar.初学者极易犯语法错误。
• He is the most apt of all pupils.他是所有学生中最聪明的一个。

7 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？