"I 'm going to America," he said out loud on the pier2; and in a great glow he took his passage and sent home the purchase money for the cattle.
He did not know at the time what the impulse was that sent him abroad, and he did not trouble to analyze3 it. Later he found a motive4, and it was a false one. He might have asked his father, who had gone in an ancient high moment to fight as a Papal Zouave against the onrush of the Neapolitan cohorts on Rome. He might have asked his red- and curly-headed brother Joe, who had once shipped from Newry to Iceland, and to Archangel, in Russia, and to Vladivostok, coming home by way of the China Seas. And, again, he might have asked the downy young of the barnacle goose, who wing their way down southward when the first black frost comes. All these could have told him.
He had very little difficulty in finding something to do in New York, for a stocky, healthy man, with honesty written all over a clean-cut face and looking unabashed from clear gray eyes, is an acquisition to any employer. They put him to work on a street-car, conducting and taking in the fares with assiduous honesty. The ten or twelve dollars a week he made, and what he got for them, compared very unfavorably with the healthful comfort and clean sea air of home. But the adventure of the New World held his attention until home became an affectionate and dull memory. And letters to and from Ireland were rare.
He stood, in his stocking feet, as fine a specimen5 of strength and health as there is outside the ranks of professional athletes; he was good-looking in an impersonal6 way; to doubt his honesty was impossible against the evidence of those gray eyes; but he had been allotted7 no more than the usual share of brains. Wherefore, it took three years for the New York idea to get home, which was to put money in his purse. He went about it in the way one should expect of him. He sought a position that gave reasonable promise of advancement8. A great chain of grocery stores gave him an assistantship in one of its shops.
"Hard work, and saving your money," he said to himself, "that's the way you get on in the world."
And he got on, with his dogged persistence9. Six years of that, with the money he had saved, and he had set himself up in business on his own account, in an out-of-the-way avenue, on the road to Coney Island—a squat10 two-story building with an apartment upstairs and his shop below. A long, bare street, newly bedded, with grayish-white apartment-houses on each hand, so new that the mortar11 still lay in ugly flecks12 about the sidewalk.
Opposite him a newly fitted chemist's shop showed garishly13 with its green and red lights. A valet's store was beside him, and here and there in the avenue gaps showed where the real-estate men had not yet found capitalists to erect14 stores or flats. It was very bleak15 and new, and somehow lonely; but in his own store he was happy and busy all day long. He had had his name put on the glass window—William J. Grant—in angular gold letters; and inside he and his assistant, a sallow Scotch16 boy, attended customers, a lean but constant string. They took loaves from the glass case on the counter, or dug butter from the cool, moist vat17, or ground coffee in the red mill that suggested a ceremonial vessel18 in a Hindu temple. He wished the people in Ireland could see him now.
"Ay!" he would say. "I think this would open their eyes."
He had heard much about Ireland and talked much about it since he came to America—a great deal more than he had ever heard or talked about it at home. And in his eyes now it had taken on a dim, distorted shape and spirit. The physical contours of it he had forgotten—the lush green hillsides, the fruitful orchards19, the kine heavy with fat, the dim, warm houses—all these were to him as though they had never been. Instead of them, he saw a frail20, worn country, with a vague spiritual light emanating21 from it, like the light from the face of a man who knows that death is near him and is resigned to it. The people about him mentioned it with sympathetic voices. They spoke22 of the poverty of it, with a sort of contemptuous affection. And little by little Grant came to think of it in that way, too, as one thinks of a poor but worthy23 relative.
"There 's no doubt to it," he would say to himself; "a man doesn't get a chance there. He has to come over here." And he would look about his store with proud satisfaction.
He began to think even of his own home as a place that the poisonous finger of poverty had touched; and for a year now, and more, he had thought of returning to see it. Maybe he could do something for the people at home. A few pounds would come in useful. And, apart from that, he could tell them some things that would help them along. He would make them "get a move on," as the New York phrase went. Perhaps he would take Joe, his brother, out and give him a chance to show what he had in him. Perhaps they might all come out with him—the father and mother too.
"Ay! Why not!" he would argue. "Why shouldn't they? What's there for them in Ireland?"
He ruminated24 over the idea every day as he came from work to the brown stone boarding-house where he lived, in Schermerhorn Street, a dingy25, unpalatable sort of place that had become a home to him. There were employees of department-stores there; and an occasional theatrical26 couple stayed a week in it, a week electric with criticism. In the summer evenings the boarders sat on the stoop, and in the winter they congregated27 inside to be played to in insufficient28 light on a tinkling29 piano. For Grant the place had a metropolitan30 quality that others sought in the great hotels.
And, with the same care he had used in mapping out his business career, he watched for somebody to marry.
He found her in the boarding-house—a trim and rather pale girl, who acted as though she were twenty and looked twenty-eight, but whom the Vital Statistics Bureau had registered as having been born thirty years before. Her hair was black and glossy31, and her eyes were big and black and lustrous32; her face, outside those features, was the face of a hundred others. But what captivated Grant about her was her chicness, her quality of being up-to-the-minute in dress and deed and word. Grant liked the flare33 of her wide skirts and the gray suede34 shoes lacing up the sides. He liked the faint powder on her face, and her carefully cultured eyebrows35. He liked her talk of skating and of the new theatrical pieces, and her ability to do the latest twirls in the one-step. Her name was Miss Levine—Ada Levine.
"It's not every man could have a wife like that!" he told himself; and he thought of the awe36 in which his people in Ireland would behold37 her.
She talked to him interestedly of his prospects38 and the trend of business in his direction; and that pleased him, for, what with that interest and with the training she received in the department-store where she worked, she would be exactly what he needed to get on in the world. He told her of his intention of going back home for a month, of putting the store in the care of a friend of his from the old business where he had worked.
"And when I come back," he said, "I 'd like to say something to you." She sat on the steps quietly and lowered her eyes demurely39. "That is," he continued, "if nobody gets there before me."
She looked up at him and smiled.
"That's a date," she agreed.
His heart expanded blithely40. Everything was settled now. Life showed in front of him like a straight line. A wife like that! And his thriving business! Now he would go back to Ireland and show them something!
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收听单词发音
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1
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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3
analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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4
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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7
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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10
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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flecks
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| n.斑点，小点( fleck的名词复数 )；癍 | |
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garishly
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| adv.鲜艳夺目地，俗不可耐地；华丽地 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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15
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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16
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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17
vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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emanating
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的现在分词 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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22
spoke
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| 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 | |
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23
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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24
ruminated
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| v.沉思( ruminate的过去式和过去分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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congregated
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| （使）集合，聚集( congregate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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31
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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32
lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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33
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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34
suede
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| n.表面粗糙的软皮革 | |
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35
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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36
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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37
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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40
blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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