I make my way through the streets, drinking in the glorious air, breathing the perfume of the countless2 fruit stands and the fragrances3 that floated out from the open doors of the little flower stores in every block, till I left all that was pleasant behind me and turned into Anna Street.
I soon found Number 32, a dirty, tumble-down, one-story hovel, the blinds tied together with selvedges of red flannel4, and a rickety bell that gave a certain style to the door, though it had long ceased to ring.
A knock brought a black-haired, beetle-browed person to the window.
"Does Mrs. Kennett live here?"
"No, she don't. I live here."
"Oh! then you are not Mrs. Kennett?"
"Wall, I ruther guess not!" This in a tone of such royal superiority and disdain5 that I saw in an instant I had mistaken blue blood for red.
"I must have been misinformed, then. This is Number 32?"
"Can't yer see it on the door?"
"What made yer think Mis' Kennett lived here?"
"A little girl brought me her name written on a card,—Mrs. Kennett, 32 Anna Street."
"There!" triumphantly7, "I might 'a knowed that woman 'd play some common trick like that! Now do you want ter know where Mis' Kennett re'ly doos live? Wall, she lives in the rear! Her number's 32-1/2, 'n I vow8 she gits more credit o' livin' in the front house 'n I do, 'n I pay four dollars more rent! Ever see her? I thought not! I guess 'f you hed you wouldn't think of her livin' in a house like this!"
"Excuse me. I didn't expect to make any trouble"—
"Oh, I've nothin' agin you, but just let me ketch her puttin' on airs 'n pertendin' to live like her betters, that's all! She's done it before, but I couldn't never ketch her at it. The idee of her keepin' up a house like this!" and with a superb sniff9 like that of a battle-horse, she disappeared from the front window of her ancestral mansion10 and sought one at the back which might command a view of my meeting with her rival.
I slid meekly through a side gate, every picket11 of which was decorated with a small child, stumbled up a dark narrow passage, and found myself in a square sort of court out of which rose the rear houses so objectionable to my Duchess in the front row.
It was not plain sailing, by any means, owing to the collection of tin cans and bottles through which I had to pick my way, but I climbed some frail12 wooden steps, and stood at length on the landing of Number 32-1/2.
The door was open, and there sat Patsy, "minding" the Kennett baby, a dull little lump of humanity, whose brain registered impressions so slowly that it would play all day long with an old shoe without exhausting its possibilities.
Patsy himself was dirtier than ever, and much more sullen13 and gloomy. The traces of tears on his cheeks made my heart leap into my throat. "Oh, Patsy," I exclaimed, "I am so glad to find you! We expected you all day, and were afraid you weren't well."
Not a word of response.
"We have a chair all ready for you; it is standing14 right under one of the plant-shelves, and there are three roses in bloom to-day!"
Still not a word.
"And I had to tell the dog story without you!"
The effect of this simple statement was very different from what I had anticipated. I thought I knew what a child was likely to do under every conceivable set of circumstances, but Patsy was destined15 to be more than once a revelation to me.
He dashed a book of colored advertisements that he held into the farthest corner of the room, threw himself on the floor at full length and beat it with his hands, while he burst into a passion of tears. "There! there!" he cried between his sobs16, "I told 'em you'd tell it! I told 'em you'd tell it! I told 'em you'd—but oh, I thought maybe you wouldn't!" His wails17 brought Mrs. Kennett from a back piazza18 where she was washing.
"Are you the teacher o' the Kids Guards, 'm?"
"Yes." It did not strike me at the time, in my anxiety, what a sympathetic rendering19 of the German word this was; but we afterwards found that "Kindergarten" was thus translated in Anna Street.
"Patsy couldn't go to-day, 'm, on account of him hevin' no good boots, 'm, Jim not bein' paid off till Wednesday, 'n me hevin' no notice he hed no clean shirt, 'm, this not bein' his clean-shirt week, 'm. He takes it awful hard about that there story, 'm. I told him as how you'd be after tellin' another one next week, but it seems nothin' will comfort him."
"Ev'rybuddy's allers lyin' to me," he moaned; "there warn't another dog picture like that in the hull20 room!"
"Don't take no notice of him, 'm, an' he'll git over it; he's subjick to these spells of takin' on like. Set up, Pat, an' act decent! Tell the lady you'll come when you git your boots."
"Patsy, boy, stop crying a minute and listen to me," I said. "If Mrs. Kennett is willing, I have some things that will fit you; you shall come right back with me now,—all the children have gone,—and you and I will be alone with the sunshine and the birds and the fishes, as we were the other day, and I will tell you the dog story just as I told it to the other children this morning."
He got up slowly, rubbed his tattered21 sleeve across his wet cheek, and looked at me searchingly to see if I might be trusted; then he limped to the sink, treated his face and hands to a hasty but energetic scrub, seized his fragment of a hat, gave his brief trousers a hitch22 which had the air of being the last exquisite23 touch to a faultless toilet, and sat down on the landing to mend his twine24 shoe-lace.
"Who is your neighbor in Number 32, Mrs. Kennett?" I asked as I rose to go. "I went there to find you."
"Did you indeed, 'm? Well, I hope she treated you civil, 'm, though it don't be much in her line. She's a Mis' Mooney, 'm. I know her, but she don't know me anny more sence she's riz in the wurrld. She moved out of this house whin I moved into it, but none of us ladies here is good enough for her to 'sociate with now, 'm! You see her husband was in the rag, sack, and bottle business, 'm, 'n a wealthy gintleman friend set him up in a fish-cart, an' it's kind of onsettled her, 'm! Some folks can't stan' prosperity. If 't bed bin25 gradjooal like, she might have took it more natcheral; but it come all of a suddent, an' she's that purse-proud now, 'm, that she'll be movin' up on Nob Hill ef she don't hev no stroke o' bad luck to show 'er her place! Good day, 'm!"
I carved my way through the tin cans and bottles again under the haughty26 eye of my Duchess of the fish-cart, and in a few minutes Patsy and I were again in Silver Street.
When we entered the room he looked about with an expression of entire content. "It's all here!" he said with a sigh, as if he had feared to find it a dream.
The chair with its red cushion pleased him greatly; then, after a few moments' talk to make him feel a little at home, we drew up to the picture, and I took his cleanest hand in mine, and told him the story of Victor, the brave St. Bernard dog.
It was an experience never to be repeated and never to be forgotten!
"The Story of Victor"
"The Story of Victor"
As you sit at twilight27 in the "sweet safe corner of the household fire," the sound of the raindrops on the window-pane mingling28 with the laughing treble of childish voices in some distant room, you see certain pictures in the dying flame,—pictures unspeakably precious to every one who has lived, or loved, or suffered.
I have my memory-pictures, too; and from the fairest frame of all shines Patsy's radiant face as it looked into mine long ago when I told him the story of Victor.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
haughtiness
|
|
| n.傲慢；傲气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
countless
|
|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
fragrances
|
|
| n.芳香，香味( fragrance的名词复数 )；香水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
flannel
|
|
| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
disdain
|
|
| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
meekly
|
|
| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
triumphantly
|
|
| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
vow
|
|
| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
sniff
|
|
| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
mansion
|
|
| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
picket
|
|
| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
frail
|
|
| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
destined
|
|
| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
sobs
|
|
| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
wails
|
|
| 痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
piazza
|
|
| n.广场；走廊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
rendering
|
|
| n.表现，描写 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
hull
|
|
| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
tattered
|
|
| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
hitch
|
|
| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
twine
|
|
| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
bin
|
|
| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
haughty
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
mingling
|
|
| adj.混合的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |