But his friends suffered more on his account than he did. He was a cork9 that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time.
“It’s all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little while. There’s $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again: Harry11 seems to be having some difficulty, but that’s to be expected—you can’t move these big operations to the tune12 of Fisher’s Hornpipe, you know. But Harry will get it started along presently, and then you’ll see! I expect the news every day now.”
“But Beriah, you’ve been expecting it every day, all along, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes; yes—I don’t know but I have. But anyway, the longer it’s delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start—same as every day you live brings you nearer to—nearer—”
“The grave?”
“Well, no—not that exactly; but you can’t understand these things, Polly dear—women haven’t much head for business, you know. You make yourself perfectly13 comfortable, old lady, and you’ll see how we’ll trot14 this right along. Why bless you, let the appropriation15 lag, if it wants to—that’s no great matter—there’s a bigger thing than that.”
“Bigger than $200,000, Beriah?”
“Bigger, child?—why, what’s $200,000? Pocket money! Mere16 pocket money! Look at the railroad! Did you forget the railroad? It ain’t many months till spring; it will be coming right along, and the railroad swimming right along behind it. Where’ll it be by the middle of summer? Just stop and fancy a moment—just think a little—don’t anything suggest itself? Bless your heart, you dear women live right in the present all the time—but a man, why a man lives——
“In the future, Beriah? But don’t we live in the future most too much, Beriah? We do somehow seem to manage to live on next year’s crop of corn and potatoes as a general thing while this year is still dragging along, but sometimes it’s not a robust17 diet,—Beriah. But don’t look that way, dear—don’t mind what I say. I don’t mean to fret18, I don’t mean to worry; and I don’t, once a month, do I, dear? But when I get a little low and feel bad, I get a bit troubled and worrisome, but it don’t mean anything in the world. It passes right away. I know you’re doing all you can, and I don’t want to seem repining and ungrateful—for I’m not, Beriah—you know I’m not, don’t you?”
“Lord bless you, child, I know you are the very best little woman that ever lived—that ever lived on the whole face of the Earth! And I know that I would be a dog not to work for you and think for you and scheme for you with all my might. And I’ll bring things all right yet, honey—cheer up and don’t you fear. The railroad——”
“Oh, I had forgotten the railroad, dear, but when a body gets blue, a body forgets everything. Yes, the railroad—tell me about the railroad.”
“Aha, my girl, don’t you see? Things ain’t so dark, are they? Now I didn’t forget the railroad. Now just think for a moment—just figure up a little on the future dead moral certainties. For instance, call this waiter St. Louis.
“And we’ll lay this fork (representing the railroad) from St. Louis to this potato, which is Slouchburg:
“Then with this carving19 knife we’ll continue the railroad from Slouchburg to Doodleville, shown by the black pepper:
“Then we run along the—yes—the comb—to the tumbler that’s Brimstone:
“Thence by the pipe to Belshazzar, which is the salt-cellar:
“Thence to Hail Columbia—snuffers, Polly, please move that cup and saucer close up, that’s Hail Columbia:
“Then—let me open my knife—to Hark-from-the-Tomb, where we’ll put the candle-stick—only a little distance from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the-Tomb—down-grade all the way.
“And there we strike Columbus River—pass me two or three skeins of thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and the rat trap for Stone’s Landing—Napoleon, I mean—and you can see how much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your railroad complete, and showing its continuation to Hallelujah and thence to Corruptionville.
“Now then—there you are! It’s a beautiful road, beautiful. Jeff Thompson can out-engineer any civil engineer that ever sighted through an aneroid, or a theodolite, or whatever they call it—he calls it sometimes one and sometimes the other just whichever levels off his sentence neatest, I reckon. But ain’t it a ripping road, though? I tell you, it’ll make a stir when it gets along. Just see what a country it goes through. There’s your onions at Slouchburg—noblest onion country that graces God’s footstool; and there’s your turnip23 country all around Doodleville—bless my life, what fortunes are going to be made there when they get that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips—if there’s any in them; and I reckon there is, because Congress has made an appropriation of money to test the thing, and they wouldn’t have done that just on conjecture24, of course. And now we come to the Brimstone region—cattle raised there till you can’t rest—and corn, and all that sort of thing. Then you’ve got a little stretch along through Belshazzar that don’t produce anything now—at least nothing but rocks—but irrigation will fetch it. Then from Catfish to Babylon it’s a little swampy25, but there’s dead loads of peat down under there somewhere. Next is the Bloody Run and Hail Columbia country—tobacco enough can be raised there to support two such railroads. Next is the sassparilla region. I reckon there’s enough of that truck along in there on the line of the pocket-knife, from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the Tomb to fat up all the consumptives in all the hospitals from Halifax to the Holy Land. It just grows like weeds! I’ve got a little belt of sassparilla land in there just tucked away unobstrusively waiting for my little Universal Expectorant to get into shape in my head. And I’ll fix that, you know. One of these days I’ll have all the nations of the earth expecto—”
“But Beriah, dear—”
“Don’t interrupt me; Polly—I don’t want you to lose the run of the map—well, take your toy-horse, James Fitz-James, if you must have it—and run along with you. Here, now—the soap will do for Babylon. Let me see—where was I? Oh yes—now we run down to Stone’s Lan—Napoleon—now we run down to Napoleon. Beautiful road. Look at that, now. Perfectly straight line-straight as the way to the grave.
And see where it leaves Hawkeye-clear out in the cold, my dear, clear out in the cold. That town’s as bound to die as—well if I owned it I’d get its obituary26 ready, now, and notify the mourners. Polly, mark my words—in three years from this, Hawkeye’ll be a howling wilderness27. You’ll see. And just look at that river—noblest stream that meanders28 over the thirsty earth!—calmest, gentlest artery29 that refreshes her weary bosom30! Railroad goes all over it and all through it—wades right along on stilts31. Seventeen bridges in three miles and a half—forty-nine bridges from Hark-from-the-Tomb to Stone’s Landing altogether—forty nine bridges, and culverts enough to culvert creation itself! Hadn’t skeins of thread enough to represent them all—but you get an idea—perfect trestle-work of bridges for seventy two miles: Jeff Thompson and I fixed32 all that, you know; he’s to get the contracts and I’m to put them through on the divide. Just oceans of money in those bridges. It’s the only part of the railroad I’m interested in,—down along the line—and it’s all I want, too. It’s enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon. Good enough country plenty good enough—all it wants is population. That’s all right—that will come. And it’s no bad country now for calmness and solitude33, I can tell you—though there’s no money in that, of course. No money, but a man wants rest, a man wants peace—a man don’t want to rip and tear around all the time. And here we go, now, just as straight as a string for Hallelujah—it’s a beautiful angle—handsome up grade all the way—and then away you go to Corruptionville, the gaudiest34 country for early carrots and cauliflowers that ever—good missionary35 field, too. There ain’t such another missionary field outside the jungles of Central Africa. And patriotic36?—why they named it after Congress itself. Oh, I warn you, my dear, there’s a good time coming, and it’ll be right along before you know what you’re about, too. That railroad’s fetching it. You see what it is as far as I’ve got, and if I had enough bottles and soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it along to where it joins onto the union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles from here, I should exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a spectacle of inconceivable sublimity37. So, don’t you see? We’ve got the rail road to fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying about that $200,000 appropriation for? That’s all right. I’d be willing to bet anything that the very next letter that comes from Harry will—”
“Things do look bright, after all, Beriah. I’m sorry I was blue, but it did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open the letter—open it quick, and let’s know all about it before we stir out of our places. I am all in a fidget to know what it says.”
The letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay.
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收听单词发音
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1
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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2
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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3
humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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4
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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5
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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6
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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7
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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8
tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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9
cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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10
bolster
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| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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11
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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12
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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13
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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14
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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15
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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16
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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17
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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18
fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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19
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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20
catfish
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| n.鲶鱼 | |
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21
shears
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| n.大剪刀 | |
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22
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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23
turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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24
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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25
swampy
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| adj.沼泽的，湿地的 | |
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26
obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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27
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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28
meanders
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| 曲径( meander的名词复数 )； 迂回曲折的旅程 | |
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29
artery
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| n.干线，要道；动脉 | |
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30
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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31
stilts
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| n.（支撑建筑物高出地面或水面的）桩子，支柱( stilt的名词复数 )；高跷 | |
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32
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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33
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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34
gaudiest
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| adj.花哨的，俗气的( gaudy的最高级 ) | |
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35
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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36
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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37
sublimity
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| 崇高，庄严，气质高尚 | |
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38
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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