A TRAGIC SMELL IN MARATHON

 Marathon, Pa., April 2.

 

This is a very embarrassing time of year for us. Every morning when we get on the 8:13 train at Marathon Bill Stites or Fred Myers or Hank Harris or some other groundsel philosopher on the Cinder¹ and Bloodshot begins to chivvy us about our garden. "Have you planted anything yet?" they say. "Have you put litmus paper in the soil to test it for lime, potash and phosphorus? Have you got a harrow?"

 

That sort of thing bothers us, because our ideas of cultivation² are very primitive³. We did go to the newsstand at the Reading Terminal and try to buy a Litmus paper, but the agent didn't have any. He says he doesn't carry the Jersey⁴ papers. So we buried some old copies of the Philistine⁵ in the garden, thinking that would strengthen up the soil a bit. This business of nourishing the soil seems grotesque⁶. It's hard enough to feed the family, let alone throwing away good money on feeding the land. Our idea about soil is that it ought to feed itself.

 

Our garden ought to be lusty enough to raise the few beans and beets⁷ and blisters⁸ we aspire⁹ to. We have been out looking at the soil. It looks fairly potent¹⁰ and certainly it goes a long way down. There are quite a lot of broken magnesia bottles and old shinbones scattered¹¹ through it, and they ought to help along. The topsoil and the humus may be a little mixed, but we are not going to sort them out by hand.

 

Our method is to go out at twilight¹² the first Sunday in April, about the time the cutworms go to roost, and take a sharp-pointed stick. We draw lines in the ground with this stick, preferably in a pleasant geometrical pattern that will confuse the birds and other observers. It is important not to do this until twilight, so that no robins¹³ or insects can watch you. Then we go back in the house and put on our old trousers, the pair that has holes in each pocket. We fill the pockets with the seed, we want to plant and loiter slowly along the grooves¹⁴ we have made in the earth. The seed sifts¹⁵ down the trousers legs and spreads itself in the furrow¹⁶ far better than any mechanical drill could do it. The secret of gardening is to stick to nature's old appointed ways. Then we read a chapter of Bernard Shaw aloud, by candle light or lantern light. As soon as they hear the voice of Shaw all the vegetables dig themselves in. This saves going all along the rows with a shingle¹⁷ to pat down the topsoil or the humus or the magnesia bottles or whatever else is uppermost.

 

Fred says that certain vegetables—kohl-rabi and colanders¹⁸, we think—extract nitrogen from the air and give it back to the soil. It may be so, but what has that to do with us? If our soil can't keep itself supplied with nitrogen, that's its lookout¹⁹. We don't need the nitrogen in the air. The baby isn't old enough to have warts²⁰ yet.

 

 

Man hoeing a garden

 

 

Hank says it's no use watering the garden from above. He says that watering from above lures²¹ the roots toward the surface and next day the hot sun kills them. The answer to that is that the rain comes from above, doesn't it? Roots have learned certain habits in the past million years and we haven't time to teach them to duck when it rains. Hank has some irrigation plan which involves sinking tomato cans in the ground and filling them with water.

 

Bill says it's dangerous to put arsenic²² on the plants, because it may kill the cook. He says nicotine²³ or tobacco dust is far better. The answer to that is that we never put fertilizers on our garden, anyway. If we want to kill the cook there is a more direct method, and we reserve the tobacco for ourself. No cutworm shall get a blighty one from our cherished baccy pouch²⁴.

 

Fred says we ought to have a wheel-barrow; Hank swears by a mulching iron; Bill is all for cold frames. All three say that hellebore is the best thing for sucking insects. We echo the expletive, with a different application.

 

You see, we have no instinct for gardening. Some fellows, like Bill Stites, have a divinely implanted zest²⁵ for the propagation of chard and rhubarb and self-blanching celery and kohl-rabi; they are kohl-rabid, we might say. They know, just what to do when they see a weed; they can assassinate²⁶ a weevil by just looking at it. But weevils and cabbage worms are unterrified by us. We can't tell a weed from a young onion. We never mulched anything in our life; we wouldn't know how to begin.

 

But the deuce of it is, public opinion says that we must raise a garden. It is no use to hire a man to do it for us. However badly we may do it, patriotism²⁷ demands that we monkey around with a garden of our own. We may get bitten by a snapping bean or routed by a rutabaga or infected by a parsnip. But with Bill and those fellows at our heels we have just got to face it. Hellebore!

 

What we want to know is, How do you ever find out all these things about vegetables? We bought an ounce of tomato seeds in desperation, and now Fred says "one ounce of tomato seeds will produce 3,000 plants. You should have bought two dozen plants instead of the seed." How does he know those things? Hank says beans are very delicate and must not be handled while they are wet or they may get rusty²⁸. Again we ask, how does he know? Where do they learn these matters? Bill says that stones draw out the moisture from the soil and every stone in the garden should be removed by hand before we plant. We offered him twenty cents an hour to do it.

 

The most tragic²⁹ odor in the world hangs over Marathon these days; the smell of freshly spaded earth. It is extolled³⁰ by the poets and all those happy sons of the pavement who know nothing about it. But here are we, who hardly know a loam³¹ from a lentil, breaking our back over seed catalogues. Public opinion may compel us to raise vegetables, but we are going to go about it our own way. If the stones are going to act like werewolves and suck the moisture from our soil, let them do so. We don't believe in thwarting³² nature. Maybe it will be a very wet summer and we shall have the laugh on Bill, who has carted away all his stones.

 

And we should just like to see Bill Stites write a poem. We bet it wouldn't look as much like a poem as our beans look like beans. And as for Hank and Fred, they wouldn't even know how to begin to plant a poem!

1 cinder   

n.余烬，矿渣

参考例句：

• The new technology for the preparation of superfine ferric oxide from pyrite cinder is studied.研究了用硫铁矿烧渣为原料，制取超细氧化铁红的新工艺。
• The cinder contains useful iron,down from producing sulphuric acid by contact process.接触法制硫酸的矿渣中含有铁矿。

2 cultivation   

n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成

参考例句：

• The cultivation in good taste is our main objective.培养高雅情趣是我们的主要目标。
• The land is not fertile enough to repay cultivation.这块土地不够肥沃，不值得耕种。

3 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

4 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

5 philistine   

n.庸俗的人；adj.市侩的，庸俗的

参考例句：

• I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine.我相信，他真的认为我是个不可救药的庸人。
• Do you know what a philistine is,jim?吉姆，知道什么是庸俗吗?

6 grotesque   

adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物）

参考例句：

• His face has a grotesque appearance.他的面部表情十分怪。
• Her account of the incident was a grotesque distortion of the truth.她对这件事的陈述是荒诞地歪曲了事实。

7 beets   

甜菜( beet的名词复数 )； 甜菜根； （因愤怒、难堪或觉得热而）脸红

参考例句：

• Beets are Hank's favorite vegetable. 甜菜根是汉克最爱吃的蔬菜。
• In this enlargement, barley, alfalfa, and sugar beets can be differentiated. 在这张放大的照片上，大麦，苜蓿和甜菜都能被区分开。

8 blisters   

n.水疱( blister的名词复数 )；水肿；气泡

参考例句：

• My new shoes have made blisters on my heels. 我的新鞋把我的脚跟磨起泡了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• His new shoes raised blisters on his feet. 他的新鞋把他的脚磨起了水疱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 aspire   

vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于

参考例句：

• Living together with you is what I aspire toward in my life.和你一起生活是我一生最大的愿望。
• I aspire to be an innovator not a follower.我迫切希望能变成个开创者而不是跟随者。

10 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

11 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

12 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

13 robins   

n.知更鸟，鸫( robin的名词复数 )；（签名者不分先后，以避免受责的）圆形签名抗议书（或请愿书）

参考例句：

• The robins occupied their former nest. 那些知更鸟占了它们的老窝。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Benjamin Robins then entered the fray with articles and a book. 而后，Benjamin Robins以他的几篇专论和一本书参加争论。 来自辞典例句

14 grooves   

n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏

参考例句：

• Wheels leave grooves in a dirt road. 车轮在泥路上留下了凹痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Sliding doors move in grooves. 滑动门在槽沟中移动。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 sifts   

v.筛( sift的第三人称单数 )；筛滤；细查；详审

参考例句：

• He sifts you to free you from your husks. 他将你们筛选，使你们摆脱麸糠。 来自互联网
• The sunshine sifts through the cloud. 阳光透过云层照射下来。 来自互联网

16 furrow   

n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹

参考例句：

• The tractor has make deep furrow in the loose sand.拖拉机在松软的沙土上留下了深深的车辙。
• Mei did not weep.She only bit her lips,and the furrow in her brow deepened.梅埋下头，她咬了咬嘴唇皮，额上的皱纹显得更深了。

17 shingle   

n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短

参考例句：

• He scraped away the dirt,and exposed a pine shingle.他刨去泥土，下面露出一块松木瓦块。
• He hung out his grandfather's shingle.他挂出了祖父的行医招牌。

18 colanders   

n.滤锅，漏勺( colander的名词复数 )

参考例句：

19 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

20 warts   

n.疣( wart的名词复数 )；肉赘；树瘤；缺点

参考例句：

• You agreed to marry me, warts and all! 是你同意和我结婚的，我又没掩饰缺陷。 来自辞典例句
• Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame fool way as that! 用那样糊涂蛋的方法还谈什么仙水治疣子！ 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

21 lures   

吸引力，魅力（lure的复数形式）

参考例句：

• He left home because of the lures of life in the city. 他离家是由于都市生活的诱惑。
• Perhaps it is the desire for solitude or the chance of making an unexpected discovery that lures men down to the depths of the earth. 可能正是寻觅幽静的去处，或者找个猎奇的机会的欲望引诱着人们进入地球的深处。

22 arsenic   

n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的

参考例句：

• His wife poisoned him with arsenic.他的妻子用砒霜把他毒死了。
• Arsenic is a poison.砒霜是毒药。

23 nicotine   

n.(化)尼古丁，烟碱

参考例句：

• Many smokers who are chemically addicted to nicotine cannot cut down easily.许多有尼古丁瘾的抽烟人不容易把烟戒掉。
• Many smokers who are chemically addicted to nicotine cannot cut down easily.许多有尼古丁瘾的抽烟人不容易把烟戒掉。

24 pouch   

n.小袋，小包，囊状袋；vt.装...入袋中，用袋运输；vi.用袋送信件

参考例句：

• He was going to make a tobacco pouch out of them. 他要用它们缝制一个烟草袋。
• The old man is always carrying a tobacco pouch with him.这老汉总是随身带着烟袋。

25 zest   

n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣

参考例句：

• He dived into his new job with great zest.他充满热情地投入了新的工作。
• He wrote his novel about his trip to Asia with zest.他兴趣浓厚的写了一本关于他亚洲之行的小说。

26 assassinate   

vt.暗杀，行刺，中伤

参考例句：

• The police exposed a criminal plot to assassinate the president.警方侦破了一个行刺总统的阴谋。
• A plot to assassinate the banker has been uncovered by the police.暗杀银行家的密谋被警方侦破了。

27 patriotism   

n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• They obtained money under the false pretenses of patriotism.他们以虚伪的爱国主义为借口获得金钱。

28 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

29 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

30 extolled   

v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school. 他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Tessenow decried the metropolis and extolled the peasant virtues. 特森诺夫痛诋大都市，颂扬农民的美德。 来自辞典例句

31 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。

32 thwarting   

阻挠( thwart的现在分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The republicans are trying to embarrass the president by thwarting his economic program. 共和党人企图通过阻挠总统的经济计划使其难堪。
• There were too many men resisting his authority thwarting him. 下边对他这个长官心怀不服的，故意作对的，可多着哩。