Back of the barn and encroaching on the edge of the hay field was a grove10 of sweet clover whose white feathery tips fairly bent11 under the assaults of the bees, while banks of aromatic12 mint and thyme drank in the sunshine and sent it out again into the summer air, warm, and deliciously odorous.
The hollyhocks were Miss Sawyer's pride, and they grew in a stately line beneath the four kitchen windows, their tapering13 tips set thickly with gay satin circlets of pink or lavender or crimson14.
“They grow something like steeples,” thought little Rebecca Randall, who was weeding the bed, “and the flat, round flowers are like rosettes; but steeples wouldn't be studded with rosettes, so if you were writing about them in a composition you'd have to give up one or the other, and I think I'll give up the steeples:—
Gay little hollyhock
Lifting your head,
Sweetly rosetted
Out from your bed.
It's a pity the hollyhock isn't really little, instead of steepling up to the window top, but I can't say, 'Gay TALL hollyhock.'... I might have it 'Lines to a Hollyhock in May,' for then it would be small; but oh, no! I forgot; in May it wouldn't be blooming, and it's so pretty to say that its head is 'sweetly rosetted'... I wish the teacher wasn't away; she would like 'sweetly rosetted,' and she would like to hear me recite 'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!' that I learned out of Aunt Jane's Byron; the rolls come booming out of it just like the waves at the beach.... I could make nice compositions now, everything is blooming so, and it's so warm and sunny and happy outdoors. Miss Dearborn told me to write something in my thought book every single day, and I'll begin this very night when I go to bed.”
Rebecca Rowena Randall, the little niece of the brick-house ladies, and at present sojourning there for purposes of board, lodging15, education, and incidentally such discipline and chastening as might ultimately produce moral excellence,—Rebecca Randall had a passion for the rhyme and rhythm of poetry. From her earliest childhood words had always been to her what dolls and toys are to other children, and now at twelve she amused herself with phrases and sentences and images as her schoolmates played with the pieces of their dissected16 puzzles. If the heroine of a story took a “cursory glance” about her “apartment,” Rebecca would shortly ask her Aunt Jane to take a “cursory glance” at her oversewing or hemming17; if the villain18 “aided and abetted” someone in committing a crime, she would before long request the pleasure of “aiding and abetting19” in dishwashing or bedmaking. Sometimes she used the borrowed phrases unconsciously; sometimes she brought them into the conversation with an intense sense of pleasure in their harmony or appropriateness; for a beautiful word or sentence had the same effect upon her imagination as a fragrant nosegay, a strain of music, or a brilliant sunset.
“How are you gettin' on, Rebecca Rowena?” called a peremptory20 voice from within.
“Pretty good, Aunt Miranda; only I wish flowers would ever come up as thick as this pigweed and plantain and sorrel. What MAKES weeds be thick and flowers be thin?—I just happened to be stopping to think a minute when you looked out.”
“You think considerable more than you weed, I guess, by appearances. How many times have you peeked21 into that humming bird's nest? Why don't you work all to once and play all to once, like other folks?”
“I don't know,” the child answered, confounded by the question, and still more by the apparent logic22 back of it. “I don't know, Aunt Miranda, but when I'm working outdoors such a Saturday morning as this, the whole creation just screams to me to stop it and come and play.”
“Well, you needn't go if it does!” responded her aunt sharply. “It don't scream to me when I'm rollin' out these doughnuts, and it wouldn't to you if your mind was on your duty.”
Rebecca's little brown hands flew in and out among the weeds as she
thought rebelliously23: “Creation WOULDN'T scream to Aunt Miranda; it
would know she wouldn't come.”
Scream on, thou bright and gay creation, scream!
'Tis not Miranda that will hear thy cry!
Oh, such funny, nice things come into my head out here by myself, I do
wish I could run up and put them down in my thought book before I forget
them, but Aunt Miranda wouldn't like me to leave off weeding:—
Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed
When wonderful thoughts came into her head.
Her aunt was occupied with the rolling pin
And the thoughts of her mind were common and thin.
That wouldn't do because it's mean to Aunt Miranda, and anyway it isn't good. I MUST crawl under the syringa shade a minute, it's so hot, and anybody has to stop working once in a while, just to get their breath, even if they weren't making poetry.
Rebecca was weeding the hollyhock bed When marvelous thoughts came into her head. Miranda was wielding24 the rolling pin And thoughts at such times seemed to her as a sin.
How pretty the hollyhock rosettes look from down here on the sweet, smelly ground!
“Let me see what would go with rosetting. AIDING AND ABETTING, PETTING, HEN-SETTING, FRETTING25,—there's nothing very nice, but I can make fretting' do.
Cheered by Rowena's petting,
The flowers are rosetting,
But Aunt Miranda's fretting
Doth somewhat cloud the day.”
Suddenly the sound of wagon26 wheels broke the silence and then a voice called out—a voice that could not wait until the feet that belonged to it reached the spot: “Miss Saw-YER! Father's got to drive over to North Riverboro on an errand, and please can Rebecca go, too, as it's Saturday morning and vacation besides?”
Rebecca sprang out from under the syringa bush, eyes flashing with delight as only Rebecca's eyes COULD flash, her face one luminous27 circle of joyous28 anticipation29. She clapped her grubby hands, and dancing up and down, cried: “May I, Aunt Miranda—can I, Aunt Jane—can I, Aunt Miranda-Jane? I'm more than half through the bed.”
“If you finish your weeding tonight before sundown I s'pose you can go, so long as Mr. Perkins has been good enough to ask you,” responded Miss Sawyer reluctantly. “Take off that gingham apron30 and wash your hands clean at the pump. You ain't be'n out o' bed but two hours an' your head looks as rough as if you'd slep' in it. That comes from layin' on the ground same as a caterpillar31. Smooth your hair down with your hands an' p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road. Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon out o' your upper drawer and put on your shade hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain—jewelry ain't appropriate in the morning. How long do you cal'late to be gone, Emma Jane?”
“I don't know. Father's just been sent for to see about a sick woman over to North Riverboro. She's got to go to the poor farm.”
This fragment of news speedily brought Miss Sawyer, and her sister Jane as well, to the door, which commanded a view of Mr. Perkins and his wagon. Mr. Perkins, the father of Rebecca's bosom32 friend, was primarily a blacksmith, and secondarily a selectman and an overseer of the poor, a man therefore possessed33 of wide and varied34 information.
“Who is it that's sick?” inquired Miranda.
“A woman over to North Riverboro.”
“What's the trouble?”
“Can't say.”
“Stranger?'
“Yes, and no; she's that wild daughter of old Nate Perry that used to live up towards Moderation. You remember she ran away to work in the factory at Milltown and married a do—nothin' fellow by the name o' John Winslow?”
“Yes; well, where is he? Why don't he take care of her?”
“They ain't worked well in double harness. They've been rovin' round the country, livin' a month here and a month there wherever they could get work and house-room. They quarreled a couple o' weeks ago and he left her. She and the little boy kind o' camped out in an old loggin' cabin back in the woods and she took in washin' for a spell; then she got terrible sick and ain't expected to live.”
“Who's been nursing her?” inquired Miss Jane.
“Lizy Ann Dennett, that lives nearest neighbor to the cabin; but I guess she's tired out bein' good Samaritan. Anyways, she sent word this mornin' that nobody can't seem to find John Winslow; that there ain't no relations, and the town's got to be responsible, so I'm goin' over to see how the land lays. Climb in, Rebecca. You an' Emmy Jane crowd back on the cushion an' I'll set forrard. That's the trick! Now we're off!”
“Dear, dear!” sighed Jane Sawyer as the sisters walked back into the brick house. “I remember once seeing Sally Perry at meeting. She was a handsome girl, and I'm sorry she's come to grief.”
“If she'd kep' on goin' to meetin' an' hadn't looked at the men folks she might a' be'n earnin' an honest livin' this minute,” said Miranda. “Men folks are at the bottom of everything wrong in this world,” she continued, unconsciously reversing the verdict of history.
“Then we ought to be a happy and contented35 community here in Riverboro,” replied Jane, “as there's six women to one man.”
“If 't was sixteen to one we'd be all the safer,” responded Miranda grimly, putting the doughnuts in a brown crock in the cellar-way and slamming the door.
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1
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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spouts
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| n.管口( spout的名词复数 )；（喷出的）水柱；（容器的）嘴；在困难中v.（指液体）喷出( spout的第三人称单数 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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6
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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variegated
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| adj.斑驳的，杂色的 | |
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triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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9
clove
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| n.丁香味 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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11
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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14
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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15
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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16
dissected
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| adj.切开的，分割的，（叶子）多裂的v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的过去式和过去分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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17
hemming
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| 卷边 | |
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18
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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19
abetting
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| v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的现在分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持 | |
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20
peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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21
peeked
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| v.很快地看( peek的过去式和过去分词 )；偷看；窥视；微露出 | |
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22
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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23
rebelliously
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| adv.造反地，难以控制地 | |
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24
wielding
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的现在分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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25
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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26
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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27
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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28
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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29
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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30
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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31
caterpillar
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| n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫 | |
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32
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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33
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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34
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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35
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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