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CHAPTER IX. THE NEW HOME.
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 “You can tell Tim Bolton,” said Dodger1, “that I don’t intend to come back at all.”
 
“You don’t mean it, Dodger?” said Ben Holt, incredulously.
 
“Yes, I do. I’m going to set up for myself.”
 
“Oh, Dodger,” said Florence, “I’m afraid you will get into trouble for my sake!”
 
“Don’t worry about that, Miss Florence. I’m old enough to take care of myself, and I’ve got tired of livin’ with Tim.”
 
“But he may beat you!”
 
“He’ll have to get hold of me first.”
 
They had reached a four-story tenement2 of shabby brick, which was evidently well filled up by a miscellaneous crowd of tenants3; shop girls, mechanics, laborers5 and widows, living by their daily toil6.
 
Florence had never visited this part of the city, and her heart sank within her as she followed Mrs. O’Keefe through a dirty hallway, up a rickety staircase, to the second floor.
 
“One more flight of stairs, my dear,” said Mrs. O’Keefe, encouragingly. “I’ve got four rooms upstairs; one of them is for you, and one for Dodger.”
 
Florence did not reply. She began to understand at what cost she had secured her freedom from a distasteful marriage.
 
In her Madison Avenue home all the rooms were light, clean and luxuriously7 furnished. Here—— But words were inadequate8 to describe the contrast.
 
Mrs. O’Keefe threw open the door of a back room about twelve feet square, furnished in the plainest manner, uncarpeted, except for a strip that was laid, like a rug, beside the bedstead.
 
There was a washstand, with a mirror, twelve by fifteen inches, placed above it, a pine bureau, a couple of wooden chairs, and a cane-seated rocking-chair.
 
“There, my dear, what do you say to that?” asked Mrs. O’Keefe, complacently9. “All nice and comfortable as you would wish to see.”
 
“It is—very nice,” said Florence, faintly, sacrificing truth to politeness.
 
“And who do you think used to live here?” asked the apple-woman.
 
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
 
“The bearded woman in the dime10 museum,” answered Mrs. O’Keefe, nodding her head. “She lived with me three months, and she furnished the room herself. When she went away she was hard up, and I bought the furniture of her cheap. You remember Madam Berger, don’t you, Dodger?”
 
“Oh, yes, I seen her often.”
 
“She got twenty-five dollars a week, and she’d ought to have saved money, but she had a good-for-nothin’ husband that drank up all her hard earnin’s.”
 
“I hope she didn’t drink herself,” said Florence, who shuddered11 at the idea of succeeding a drunken tenant4.
 
“Not a drop. She was a good, sober lady, if she did work in a dime museum. She only left here two weeks ago. It isn’t every one I’d be willin’ to take in her place, but I see you’re a real leddy, let alone that Dodger recommends you. I hope you’ll like the room, and I’ll do all I can to make things pleasant. You can go into my room any hour, my dear, and do your little cookin’ on my stove. I s’pose you’ll do your own cookin’?”
 
“Well, not just at present,” faltered12 Florence. “I am afraid I don’t know much about cooking.”
 
“You’ll find it a deal cheaper, and it’s more quiet and gentale than goin’ to the eatin’-houses. I’ll help you all I can, and glad to.”
 
“Thank you, Mrs. O’Keefe, you are very kind,” said Florence, gratefully. “Perhaps just at first you wouldn’t object to taking me as a boarder, and letting me take my meals with you. I don’t think I would like to go to the eating-houses alone.”
 
“To be sure, my dear, if you wish it, and I’ll be glad of your company. I’ll make the terms satisfactory.”
 
“I have no doubt of that,” said Florence, feeling very much relieved.
 
“If I might be so bold, what kind of work are you going to do?”
 
“I hardly know. It has come upon me so suddenly. I shall have to do something, for I haven’t got much money. What I should like best would be to write——”
 
“Is it for the papers you mean?”
 
“Oh, no; I mean for some author or lawyer.”
 
“I don’t know much about that,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “In fact, I don’t mind tellin’ you, my dear, that I can’t write myself, but I earn a good livin’ all the same by my apple-stand. I tell you, my dear,” she continued in a confidential13 tone, “there is a good dale of profit in sellin’ apples. It’s better than sewin’ or writin’. Of course, a young leddy like you wouldn’t like to go into the business.”
 
Florence shook her head, with a smile.
 
“No, Mrs. O’Keefe,” she said. “I am afraid I haven’t a business turn, and I should hardly like so public an employment.”
 
“Lor’, miss, it’s nothin’ if you get used to it. There’s nothin’ dull about my business, unless it rains, and you get used to havin’ people look at you.”
 
“It isn’t all that are worth looking at like you, Mrs. O’Keefe,” said Dodger, slyly.
 
“Oh, go away wid your fun, Dodger,” said the apple-woman, good-naturedly. “I ain’t much to look at, I know.”
 
“I think there’s a good deal of you to look at, Mrs. O’Keefe. You must weigh near three hundred.”
 
“I’ve a good mind to box your ears, Dodger. I only weigh a hundred and ninety-five. But I can’t be bothered wid your jokes. Can you sew, Miss Florence?”
 
“Yes; but I would rather earn my living some other way, if possible.”
 
“Small blame to you for that. I had a girl in Dodger’s room last year who used to sew for a livin’. Early and late she worked, poor thing, and she couldn’t make but two dollars a week.”
 
“How could she live?” asked Florence, startled, for she knew very little of the starvation wages paid to toiling14 women.
 
“She didn’t live. She just faded away, and it’s my belief the poor thing didn’t get enough to eat. Every day or two I’d make an excuse to take her in something from my own table, a plate of meat, or a bit of toast and a cup of tay, makin’ belave she didn’t get a chance to cook for herself, but she got thinner and thinner, and her poor cheeks got hollow, and she died in the hospital at last.”
 
The warm-hearted apple-woman wiped away a tear with the corner of her apron15, as she thought of the poor girl whose sad fate she described.
 
“You won’t die of consumption, Mrs. O’Keefe,” said Dodger. “It’ll take a good while for you to fade away.”
 
“Hear him now,” said the apple-woman, laughing. “He will have his joke, Miss Florence, but he’s a good bye for all that, and I’m glad he’s goin’ to lave Tim Bolton, that ould thafe of the worruld.”
 
“Now, Mrs. O’Keefe, you know you’d marry Tim if he’d only ask you.”
 
“Marry him, is it? I’d lay my broom over his head if he had the impudence16 to ask me. When Maggie O’Keefe marries ag’in, she won’t marry a man wid a red nose.”
 
“Break it gently to him, Mrs. O’Keefe. Tim is just the man to break his heart for love of you.”
 
Mrs. O’Keefe aimed a blow at Dodger, but he proved true to his name, and skillfully evaded17 it.
 
“I must be goin’,” he said. “I’ve got to work, or I can’t pay room rent when the week comes round.”
 
“What are you going to do, Dodger?” asked Florence.
 
“It isn’t time for the evenin’ papers yet, so I shall go ’round to the piers18 and see if I can’t get a job at smashin’ baggage.”
 
“But I shouldn’t think any one would want to do that,” said Florence, puzzled.
 
“It’s what we boys call it. It’s just carryin’ valises and bundles. Sometimes I show strangers the way to Broadway. Last week an old man paid me a dollar to show him the way to the Cooper Institute. He was a gentleman, he was. I’d like to meet him ag’in. Good-by, Miss Florence; I’ll be back some time this afternoon.”
 
“And I must be goin’, too,” said Mrs. O’Keefe. “I can’t depend on that Kitty; she’s a wild slip of a girl, and just as like as not I’ll find a dozen apples stole when I get back. I hope you won’t feel lonely, my dear.”
 
“I think I will lie down a while,” said Florence. “I have a headache.”
 
She threw herself on the bed, and a feeling of loneliness and desolation came over her.
 
Her new friends were kind, but they could not make up to her for her uncle’s love, so strangely lost, and the home she had left behind.

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 dodger Ku9z0c     
n.躲避者;躲闪者;广告单
参考例句:
  • They are tax dodgers who hide their interest earnings.他们是隐瞒利息收入的逃税者。
  • Make sure she pays her share she's a bit of a dodger.她自己的一份一定要她付清--她可是有点能赖就赖。
2 tenement Egqzd5     
n.公寓;房屋
参考例句:
  • They live in a tenement.他们住在廉价公寓里。
  • She felt very smug in a tenement yard like this.就是在个这样的杂院里,她觉得很得意。
3 tenants 05662236fc7e630999509804dd634b69     
n.房客( tenant的名词复数 );佃户;占用者;占有者
参考例句:
  • A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
  • Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。
4 tenant 0pbwd     
n.承租人;房客;佃户;v.租借,租用
参考例句:
  • The tenant was dispossessed for not paying his rent.那名房客因未付房租而被赶走。
  • The tenant is responsible for all repairs to the building.租户负责对房屋的所有修理。
5 laborers c8c6422086151d6c0ae2a95777108e3c     
n.体力劳动者,工人( laborer的名词复数 );(熟练工人的)辅助工
参考例句:
  • Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言
6 toil WJezp     
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事
参考例句:
  • The wealth comes from the toil of the masses.财富来自大众的辛勤劳动。
  • Every single grain is the result of toil.每一粒粮食都来之不易。
7 luxuriously 547f4ef96080582212df7e47e01d0eaf     
adv.奢侈地,豪华地
参考例句:
  • She put her nose luxuriously buried in heliotrope and tea roses. 她把自己的鼻子惬意地埋在天芥菜和庚申蔷薇花簇中。 来自辞典例句
  • To be well dressed doesn't mean to be luxuriously dressed. 穿得好不一定衣着豪华。 来自辞典例句
8 inadequate 2kzyk     
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的
参考例句:
  • The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
  • She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。
9 complacently complacently     
adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地
参考例句:
  • He complacently lived out his life as a village school teacher. 他满足于一个乡村教师的生活。
  • "That was just something for evening wear," returned his wife complacently. “那套衣服是晚装,"他妻子心安理得地说道。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
10 dime SuQxv     
n.(指美国、加拿大的钱币)一角
参考例句:
  • A dime is a tenth of a dollar.一角银币是十分之一美元。
  • The liberty torch is on the back of the dime.自由火炬在一角硬币的反面。
11 shuddered 70137c95ff493fbfede89987ee46ab86     
v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动
参考例句:
  • He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车,车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
12 faltered d034d50ce5a8004ff403ab402f79ec8d     
(嗓音)颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 ); 支吾其词; 蹒跚; 摇晃
参考例句:
  • He faltered out a few words. 他支吾地说出了几句。
  • "Er - but he has such a longhead!" the man faltered. 他不好意思似的嚅嗫着:“这孩子脑袋真长。”
13 confidential MOKzA     
adj.秘(机)密的,表示信任的,担任机密工作的
参考例句:
  • He refused to allow his secretary to handle confidential letters.他不让秘书处理机密文件。
  • We have a confidential exchange of views.我们推心置腹地交换意见。
14 toiling 9e6f5a89c05478ce0b1205d063d361e5     
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉
参考例句:
  • The fiery orator contrasted the idle rich with the toiling working classes. 这位激昂的演说家把无所事事的富人同终日辛劳的工人阶级进行了对比。
  • She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She was filled with repulsion. 她觉得自己像只甲虫在地里挣扎,心中涌满愤恨。
15 apron Lvzzo     
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。
16 impudence K9Mxe     
n.厚颜无耻;冒失;无礼
参考例句:
  • His impudence provoked her into slapping his face.他的粗暴让她气愤地给了他一耳光。
  • What knocks me is his impudence.他的厚颜无耻使我感到吃惊。
17 evaded 4b636015da21a66943b43217559e0131     
逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 ); 避开; 回避; 想不出
参考例句:
  • For two weeks they evaded the press. 他们有两周一直避而不见记者。
  • The lion evaded the hunter. 那狮子躲开了猎人。
18 piers 97df53049c0dee20e54484371e5e225c     
n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 );(常设有娱乐场所的)突堤;柱子;墙墩
参考例句:
  • Most road bridges have piers rising out of the vally. 很多公路桥的桥墩是从河谷里建造起来的。 来自辞典例句
  • At these piers coasters and landing-craft would be able to discharge at all states of tide. 沿岸航行的海船和登陆艇,不论潮汐如何涨落,都能在这种码头上卸载。 来自辞典例句


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