Chapter II--Good-byes

 The next few weeks were so crowded that the events which came in them have a kaleidoscopic² flavour. Everyone called on me, and everyone gave me advice. The calls, the advice, the shrill³ of the locusts⁴, the way the sunlight looked in the garden, and the braid which Mrs. Bradly insisted must be put on my new dresses, all tangled⁵. I can’t think of one thing without having something else, that came in that time, creep in. I suppose it was because I was so hurried that nothing was sorted. It all simply sunk in my mind together as I rushed; and, of course, there was no calm between, in which one’s consciousness builds fences, or tethers a thought in its proper pasture. My going away acted like a big egg-beater on everything that happened then; everything was too well mixed and--flavoured with tears.

Mrs. Bradly wept over everything, including my favourite things to eat, which she cooked for every meal.

“Corn fritters,” she’d say, and then begin to catch her breath. “Won’t be so long now that I can make ’em for you. . . . Thought you’d relish⁶ ’em. . . .” And then she’d go out in the wood-shed, pretending that she needed a little kindling⁷ to hurry the fire. But I knew she didn’t. And it made me feel awfully⁸. I think I was never quite so unhappy as then, when everyone was so kind to me. But I didn’t cry, because that isn’t the way I show unhappiness. Hurts make a hard, heavy load which roosts on my heart and does something to my lungs. They want to take long breaths, but feel squeezed. Sometimes I think this sort of misery⁹ is really more uncomfortable than tears, but at least no one can see whether your heart has a red nose, and of course outside tears leave traces. There are advantages.

Willy Jepson seemed to understand how I felt, more than anyone else, which was surprising. He sat with me a good deal in the garden, while I sewed on braid. I was not interested in the braid, nor sewing it on, but Mrs. Bradly made me put yards on everything. She said: “Yuh gotta look swell¹⁰ in New York. Take this here and put three rows above the hem¹.” And--for the first time in my life, I sewed. We put narrow ribbon velvet¹¹ on my thin things, and lace wherever it could be attached. When I had to rip it off, I did almost cry; and not because of the work, but because dear Bradly thought it was so fine. I can’t quite explain, and I haven’t time here. But when people whom you love think things are beautiful, you don’t like to destroy them.

“Whatcha doing that for?” Willy asked one afternoon. We were sitting in the arbour. I told him Mrs. Bradly thought you had to be trimmed a lot in New York.

“Well, it is,” he said, looking at my skirt a little doubtfully, “and it doesn’t look like you.”

That annoyed me because I’d pricked¹² my fingers a lot.

“It’s got to,” I said. “I’m going to wear it.”

“You’ll have it ripped off in two days,” he replied. “I know you. You’ll shin up something, or slide down something, and that stuff’ll trail behind you for blocks.”

“What’ll I slide down in New York?” I asked resentfully.

“Oh,” he answered, “there are fire-escapes.” I sniffed¹³ at that. I never dreamed I ever would--but of course that time I didn’t know what was coming. After that we were quiet. I sewed hard, and Willy looked at me. I felt him, as you do, and wondered whether I was losing my petticoat or anything. When he spoke¹⁴ he did something noble, which I shall never forget.

“Look here, Nat,” he said, after a cough.

“I can’t,” I answered. “I have nine more yards of this stuff to lam on. It goes around the sleeves too.”

“Well,” he said, and his voice was very gruff, “it’s this way; if you get too darned homesick you can always come back and marry me.”

I appreciated that. I really did, although it was not my idea of a romantic proposal. My reading taste most closely embraces Alger, but I have read a few love stories, and Willy didn’t act at all like the man in “The Rosary.” But Evelyn says that men never do act like books. She has had several proposals. She says they look sort of scared, and as if they wished they hadn’t begun it, and usually stutter a little, beside gulping¹⁵. But, as I said, before criticizing Willy’s technique, I was grateful, for I thought if nothing else turned up I could marry Willy before I became an old maid. No woman really wants to be one; she only says so after SHE IS.

“Don’t you tell any of the fellows!” said Willy, after a few moments.

I said I wouldn’t. Then I thanked him and said I might call his bluff¹⁶ when I was about twenty-two or so. . . . That memory is closely wrapped in braid and a blue-and-pink plaid dress. Aunt Penelope gave that one to the janitor’s daughter.

Willy’s offer was a help, for Uncle Frank had told me that I must try to stay in New York with Aunt Penelope for the three years, anyway. He explained about the locusts and how they went through stages, and he thought it would take about three years for my country shell to slip off and be replaced by the new one, which New York would grow underneath¹⁷. It seemed Aunt Penelope has a country place, but uncle was afraid it was not very wild (it is at Southampton), and she wants me to go there with her. When I heard that I wasn’t to come home at all, I almost expired.

“But anyone needs a vacation,” I said, sort of shakily. “If I can’t climb trees or go bare-foot at least once a summer, I shall die. . . .” But Uncle Frank had forgotten me, and got up to hunt a picture of a variety of the praying mantis¹⁸, which he found climbing a tree. It did not cheer me.

I said: “I wish I was one!”

And he said, “Rare specimen¹⁹, rare specimen, ho hum!” and again went to poring over his books.

Those weeks passed. In them I found that I cared a lot about many people whom I had almost avoided before I knew I was to go away. Even old Mr. Diggs, who growls²⁰ and used to complain of me so often (I occasionally broke a window in his house; it stands near the diamond which is nearest school), stopped me and gave me a mouth-organ he had had when he was a boy. I appreciated it, for I knew it meant lots to him, if it wasn’t exactly useful to me. When I showed it to Mrs. Bradly, she said, “Swell thing to play on in New York!” and really laughed. . . . But afterward²¹ she went to the wood-shed--to get kindling, and I knew she was thinking of the New York part of her joke. Aunt Hetty James knitted me a bridge jacket, and she used to come regularly to talk with uncle about my ways. And five other women, whom I hadn’t thought liked me much, made me bridge jackets too, but they were all different colours--I mean the jackets, not the women. I had seventeen pin-cushions given me, and nine boudoir caps. Jim Hooker, who is the town disgrace (but with whom I often fished, meeting him a little way out, on the Chanceford Pike; he can cast better than anyone I ever saw), gave me a collection of flies that were wonderful. And Willy Jepson gave me a box of lavender correspondence cards, which I thought beautiful before I had become acclimatized to New York. They had pink edges and gold N’s on them.

To be brief, everyone was kind to me, and it made my throat feel stuffy²². It was honestly a relief to go, for I knew it had to come, and the feeling of its coming was like that pressure that going to the dentist’s to-morrow lays on your spirit. And at last the day did come, and I went.

The morning of that day, I went out in the garden and looked at it carefully. I thought that perhaps I could pack the way it looked in my heart, as I had Uncle Frank’s face, and Bradly-dear’s fat figure, just dimly indented²³ at the waistline with her starchy, blue-checked apron²⁴. . . . And so I walked around a little while. August had made it sag²⁵, but it was lovely; grass was sprouting²⁶ between the red bricks of the walk, the picket²⁷ fence was leaning and, being grayed from sun and the rain, made a lovely background for the late flowers and the dusty foliage²⁸.

Across the fence was the spot where Willy Jepson taught me to pitch, and on the small platform outside the back door was the hook where they used to tie me when I was a tiny girl and ran away so much. . . . Everything was familiar, and because of that very dear. . . . And because I knew it and had lived in that house, loved, and been loved by the people of that house, it was home.

Willy Jepson got up early that morning. He came out in the back yard carrying a cruller in one hand and four plums in the other.

“Heavy rain last night,” he said. “Breakfast isn’t ready yet. Thought I’d take a bite to carry me on till Liza gets up. Got packed?”

I said I had.

“Send me a line sometimes,” he said, between bites. “And what I said about marrying me goes. I’ll let you, if you can’t stand it in New York, although a woman hampers²⁹ a man.”

I didn’t think that was a happy manner of putting it, and said so.

“Oh, shucks!” he replied. “Don’t expect slush from me. I’m not anxious to get married. I say so frankly³⁰. A woman hurts a man’s career, but considering your drop curves and sense, I’m willing to help you out if you need, really need, helping³¹.” Then he went on eating his plums. “I like you,” he continued after several chews; “it isn’t as if I didn’t.” And he didn’t look at me, so I knew he wasn’t as averse³² to marrying me as he seemed. I’ve known Willy for a long time and so I understood quite a lot he didn’t say.

“I don’t think I shall trouble you,” I said, “although I am grateful, and it is nice to think that there is somewhere where you can go, if your family won’t receive you before your education is finished.”

Willy nodded and went on chewing.

And then Bradly-dear called, and I knew that breakfast was ready.

“Good-bye, Willy,” I said.

“Coming down to the station,” he said, and very gruffly.

I said, “All right,” and went toward the house. When I reached the porch I looked back, and I knew that Willy felt badly, for Willy wasn’t chewing.

1 hem   

n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制

参考例句：

• The hem on her skirt needs sewing.她裙子上的褶边需要缝一缝。
• The hem of your dress needs to be let down an inch.你衣服的折边有必要放长1英寸。

2 kaleidoscopic   

adj.千变万化的

参考例句：

• London is a kaleidoscopic world.伦敦是个天花筒般的世界。
• The transfer of administrative personnel in that colony was so frequent as to create kaleidoscopic effect.在那个殖民地，官员调动频繁，就象走马灯似的。

3 shrill   

adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫

参考例句：

• Whistles began to shrill outside the barn.哨声开始在谷仓外面尖叫。
• The shrill ringing of a bell broke up the card game on the cutter.刺耳的铃声打散了小汽艇的牌局。

4 locusts   

n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 )；贪吃的人；破坏者；槐树

参考例句：

• a swarm of locusts 一大群蝗虫
• In no time the locusts came down and started eating everything. 很快蝗虫就飞落下来开始吃东西，什么都吃。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

6 relish   

n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味

参考例句：

• I have no relish for pop music.我对流行音乐不感兴趣。
• I relish the challenge of doing jobs that others turn down.我喜欢挑战别人拒绝做的工作。

7 kindling   

n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• There were neat piles of kindling wood against the wall. 墙边整齐地放着几堆引火柴。
• "Coal and kindling all in the shed in the backyard." “煤，劈柴，都在后院小屋里。” 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

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 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

10 swell   

vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强

参考例句：

• The waves had taken on a deep swell.海浪汹涌。
• His injured wrist began to swell.他那受伤的手腕开始肿了。

11 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

• This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
• The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。

12 pricked   

刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry. 厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• He was pricked by his conscience. 他受到良心的谴责。

13 sniffed   

v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• When Jenney had stopped crying she sniffed and dried her eyes. 珍妮停止了哭泣，吸了吸鼻子，擦干了眼泪。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dog sniffed suspiciously at the stranger. 狗疑惑地嗅着那个陌生人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 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。

15 gulping   

v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的现在分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住

参考例句：

• She crawled onto the river bank and lay there gulping in air. 她爬上河岸，躺在那里喘着粗气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• And you'll even feel excited gulping down a glass. 你甚至可以感觉到激动下一杯。 来自互联网

16 bluff   

v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗

参考例句：

• His threats are merely bluff.他的威胁仅仅是虚张声势。
• John is a deep card.No one can bluff him easily.约翰是个机灵鬼。谁也不容易欺骗他。

17 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

18 mantis   

n.螳螂

参考例句：

• Praying mantis has two powerful claws like sharp knives.螳螂有一对强壮的爪子，它们像锋利的刀。
• In her mind,it was a female mantis,devouring her mates.她的意识中，是一只雌螳螂正吞咽她的配偶。

19 specimen   

n.样本，标本

参考例句：

• You'll need tweezers to hold up the specimen.你要用镊子来夹这标本。
• This specimen is richly variegated in colour.这件标本上有很多颜色。

20 growls   

v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的第三人称单数 )；低声咆哮着说

参考例句：

• The dog growls at me. 狗向我狂吠。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The loudest growls have echoed around emerging markets and commodities. 熊嚎之声响彻新兴的市场与商品。 来自互联网

21 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

22 stuffy   

adj.不透气的，闷热的

参考例句：

• It's really hot and stuffy in here.这里实在太热太闷了。
• It was so stuffy in the tent that we could sense the air was heavy with moisture.帐篷里很闷热，我们感到空气都是潮的。

23 indented   

adj.锯齿状的，高低不平的；缩进排版

参考例句：

• His voyage was down Chile's indented coastline.他的航行沿智利参差曲折的海岸线行进。
• Each paragraph of the body is usually indented five blocks.正文每段开始，一般缩进五个英文字母。

24 apron   

n.围裙；工作裙

参考例句：

• We were waited on by a pretty girl in a pink apron.招待我们的是一位穿粉红色围裙的漂亮姑娘。
• She stitched a pocket on the new apron.她在新围裙上缝上一只口袋。

25 sag   

v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流

参考例句：

• The shelf was beginning to sag beneath the weight of the books upon it.书架在书的重压下渐渐下弯。
• We need to do something about the sag.我们须把下沉的地方修整一下。

26 sprouting   

v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出

参考例句：

• new leaves sprouting from the trees 树上长出的新叶
• They were putting fresh earth around sprouting potato stalks. 他们在往绽出新芽的土豆秧周围培新土。 来自名作英译部分

27 picket   

n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫

参考例句：

• They marched to the factory and formed a picket.他们向工厂前进,并组成了纠察队。
• Some of the union members did not want to picket.工会的一些会员不想担任罢工纠察员。

28 foliage   

n.叶子，树叶，簇叶

参考例句：

• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage.小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。
• Dark foliage clothes the hills.浓密的树叶覆盖着群山。

29 hampers   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Prejudice sometimes hampers a person from doing the right thing. 有时候，偏见会妨碍人正确行事。
• This behavior is the opposite of modeless feedback, and it hampers flow. 这个行为有悖于非模态的反馈，它阻碍了流。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

30 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

31 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

32 averse   

adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的

参考例句：

• I don't smoke cigarettes,but I'm not averse to the occasional cigar.我不吸烟，但我不反对偶尔抽一支雪茄。
• We are averse to such noisy surroundings.我们不喜欢这么吵闹的环境。