. . .did too, and there’s no use your denying it no you don’t, you march yourself right straight out of the house. . .never in my life heard of such . . . never had nobody talk to me like. . .walk in the ways of sin and nastiness. . .leave your clothes here, and heaven knows that’s more than you deserve. . .any of your lip or I’ll call the policeman.”
The voice of the other interlocutor Carol did not catch, nor, though Mrs. Bogart was proclaiming that he was her confidant and present assistant, did she catch the voice of Mrs. Bogart’s God.
“Another row with Cy,” Carol inferred.
She trundled the go-cart down the back steps and tentatively wheeled it across the yard, proud of her repairs. She heard steps on the sidewalk. She saw not Cy Bogart but Fern Mullins, carrying a suit-case, hurrying up the street with her head low. The widow, standing3 on the porch with buttery arms akimbo, yammered after the fleeing girl:
“And don’t you dare show your face on this block again. You can send the drayman for your trunk. My house has been contaminated long enough. Why the Lord should afflict4 me ——”
Fern was gone. The righteous widow glared, banged into the house, came out poking5 at her bonnet6, marched away. By this time Carol was staring in a manner not visibly to be distinguished7 from the window-peeping of the rest of Gopher Prairie. She saw Mrs. Bogart enter the Howland house, then the Casses’. Not till suppertime did she reach the Kennicotts. The doctor answered her ring, and greeted her, “Well, well? how’s the good neighbor?”
The good neighbor charged into the living-room, waving the most unctuous8 of black kid gloves and delightedly sputtering9:
“You may well ask how I am! I really do wonder how I could go through the awful scenes of this day — and the impudence11 I took from that woman’s tongue, that ought to be cut out ——”
“Whoa! Whoa! Hold up!” roared Kennicott. “Who’s the hussy, Sister Bogart? Sit down and take it cool and tell us about it.”
“I can’t sit down, I must hurry home, but I couldn’t devote myself to my own selfish cares till I’d warned you, and heaven knows I don’t expect any thanks for trying to warn the town against her, there’s always so much evil in the world that folks simply won’t see or appreciate your trying to safeguard them —— And forcing herself in here to get in with you and Carrie, many ‘s the time I’ve seen her doing it, and, thank heaven, she was found out in time before she could do any more harm, it simply breaks my heart and prostrates12 me to think what she may have done already, even if some of us that understand and know about things ——”
“Whoa-up! Who are you talking about?”
“She’s talking about Fern Mullins,” Carol put in, not pleasantly.
“Huh?”
Kennicott was incredulous.
“I certainly am!” flourished Mrs. Bogart, “and good and thankful you may be that I found her out in time, before she could get YOU into something, Carol, because even if you are my neighbor and Will’s wife and a cultured lady, let me tell you right now, Carol Kennicott, that you ain’t always as respectful to — you ain’t as reverent13 — you don’t stick by the good old ways like they was laid down for us by God in the Bible, and while of course there ain’t a bit of harm in having a good laugh, and I know there ain’t any real wickedness in you, yet just the same you don’t fear God and hate the transgressors of his commandments like you ought to, and you may be thankful I found out this serpent I nourished in my bosom14 — and oh yes! oh yes indeed! my lady must have two eggs every morning for breakfast, and eggs sixty cents a dozen, and wa’n’t satisfied with one, like most folks — what did she care how much they cost or if a person couldn’t make hardly nothing on her board and room, in fact I just took her in out of charity and I might have known from the kind of stockings and clothes that she sneaked15 into my house in her trunk ——”
Before they got her story she had five more minutes of obscene wallowing. The gutter16 comedy turned into high tragedy, with Nemesis17 in black kid gloves. The actual story was simple, depressing, and unimportant. As to details Mrs. Bogart was indefinite, and angry that she should be questioned.
Fern Mullins and Cy had, the evening before, driven alone to a barn-dance in the country. (Carol brought out the admission that Fern had tried to get a chaperon.) At the dance Cy had kissed Fern — she confessed that. Cy had obtained a pint18 of whisky; he said that he didn’t remember where he had got it; Mrs. Bogart implied that Fern had given it to him; Fern herself insisted that he had stolen it from a farmer’s overcoat — which, Mrs. Bogart raged, was obviously a lie. He had become soggily drunk. Fern had driven him home; deposited him, retching and wabbling, on the Bogart porch.
Never before had her boy been drunk, shrieked19 Mrs. Bogart. When Kennicott grunted20, she owned, “Well, maybe once or twice I’ve smelled licker on his breath.” She also, with an air of being only too scrupulously21 exact, granted that sometimes he did not come home till morning. But he couldn’t ever have been drunk, for he always had the best excuses: the other boys had tempted22 him to go down the lake spearing pickerel by torchlight, or he had been out in a “machine that ran out of gas.” Anyway, never before had her boy fallen into the hands of a “designing woman.”
“What do you suppose Miss Mullins could design to do with him?” insisted Carol.
Mrs. Bogart was puzzled, gave it up, went on. This morning, when she had faced both of them, Cy had manfully confessed that all of the blame was on Fern, because the teacher — his own teacher — had dared him to take a drink. Fern had tried to deny it.
“Then,” gabbled Mrs. Bogart, “then that woman had the impudence to say to me, ‘What purpose could I have in wanting the filthy23 pup to get drunk?’ That’s just what she called him — pup. ‘I’ll have no such nasty language in my house,’ I says, ‘and you pretending and pulling the wool over people’s eyes and making them think you’re educated and fit to be a teacher and look out for young people’s morals — you’re worse ‘n any street-walker!’ I says. I let her have it good. I wa’n’t going to flinch24 from my bounden duty and let her think that decent folks had to stand for her vile25 talk. ‘Purpose?’ I says, ‘Purpose? I’ll tell you what purpose you had! Ain’t I seen you making up to everything in pants that’d waste time and pay attention to your impert’nence? Ain’t I seen you showing off your legs with them short skirts of yours, trying to make out like you was so girlish and la-de-da, running along the street?’ ”
Carol was very sick at this version of Fern’s eager youth, but she was sicker as Mrs. Bogart hinted that no one could tell what had happened between Fern and Cy before the drive home. Without exactly describing the scene, by her power of lustful26 imagination the woman suggested dark country places apart from the lanterns and rude fiddling27 and banging dance-steps in the barn, then madness and harsh hateful conquest. Carol was too sick to interrupt. It was Kennicott who cried, “Oh, for God’s sake quit it! You haven’t any idea what happened. You haven’t given us a single proof yet that Fern is anything but a rattle-brained youngster.”
“I haven’t, eh? Well, what do you say to this? I come straight out and I says to her, ‘Did you or did you not taste the whisky Cy had?’ and she says, ‘I think I did take one sip28 — Cy made me,’ she said. She owned up to that much, so you can imagine ——”
“Does that prove her a prostitute?” asked Carol.
“Carrie! Don’t you never use a word like that again!” wailed29 the outraged30 Puritan.
“Well, does it prove her to be a bad woman, that she took a taste of whisky? I’ve done it myself!”
“That’s different. Not that I approve your doing it. What do the Scriptures31 tell us? ‘Strong drink is a mocker’! But that’s entirely32 different from a teacher drinking with one of her own pupils.”
“Yes, it does sound bad. Fern was silly, undoubtedly33. But as a matter of fact she’s only a year or two older than Cy and probably a good many years younger in experience of vice34.”
“That’s — not — true! She is plenty old enough to corrupt35 him!
“The job of corrupting36 Cy was done by your sinless town, five years ago!”
Mrs. Bogart did not rage in return. Suddenly she was hopeless. Her head drooped37. She patted her black kid gloves, picked at a thread of her faded brown skirt, and sighed, “He’s a good boy, and awful affectionate if you treat him right. Some thinks he’s terrible wild, but that’s because he’s young. And he’s so brave and truthful38 — why, he was one of the first in town that wanted to enlist39 for the war, and I had to speak real sharp to him to keep him from running away. I didn’t want him to get into no bad influences round these camps — and then,” Mrs. Bogart rose from her pitifulness, recovered her pace, “then I go and bring into my own house a woman that’s worse, when all’s said and done, than any bad woman he could have met. You say this Mullins woman is too young and inexperienced to corrupt Cy. Well then, she’s too young and inexperienced to teach him, too, one or t’other, you can’t have your cake and eat it! So it don’t make no difference which reason they fire her for, and that’s practically almost what I said to the school-board.”
“Have you been telling this story to the members of the school-board?”
“I certainly have! Every one of ’em! And their wives I says to them, ‘ ‘Tain’t my affair to decide what you should or should not do with your teachers,’ I says, ‘and I ain’t presuming to dictate40 in any way, shape, manner, or form. I just want to know,’ I says, ‘whether you’re going to go on record as keeping here in our schools, among a lot of innocent boys and girls, a woman that drinks, smokes, curses, uses bad language, and does such dreadful things as I wouldn’t lay tongue to but you know what I mean,’ I says, ‘and if so, I’ll just see to it that the town learns about it.’ And that’s what I told Professor Mott, too, being superintendent41 — and he’s a righteous man, not going autoing42 on the Sabbath like the school-board members. And the professor as much as admitted he was suspicious of the Mullins woman himself.”
II
Kennicott was less shocked and much less frightened than Carol, and more articulate in his description of Mrs. Bogart, when she had gone.
Maud Dyer telephoned to Carol and, after a rather improbable question about cooking lima beans with bacon, de- manded, “Have you heard the scandal about this Miss Mullins and Cy Bogart?”
“I’m sure it’s a lie.”
“Oh, probably is.” Maud’s manner indicated that the falsity of the story was an insignificant43 flaw in its general delightfulness44.
Carol crept to her room, sat with hands curled tight together as she listened to a plague of voices. She could hear the town yelping45 with it, every soul of them, gleeful at new details, panting to win importance by having details of their own to add. How well they would make up for what they had been afraid to do by imagining it in another! They who had not been entirely afraid (but merely careful and sneaky), all the barber-shop roues and millinery-parlor mondaines, how archly they were giggling46 (this second — she could hear them at it); with what self-commendation they were cackling their suavest47 wit: “You can’t tell ME she ain’t a gay bird; I’m wise!”
And not one man in town to carry out their pioneer tradition of superb and contemptuous cursing, not one to verify the myth that their “rough chivalry” and “rugged virtues” were more generous than the petty scandal-picking of older lands, not one dramatic frontiersman to thunder, with fantastic and fictional48 oaths, “What are you hinting at? What are you snickering at? What facts have you? What are these unheard- of sins you condemn49 so much — and like so well?”
No one to say it. Not Kennicott nor Guy Pollock nor Champ Perry.
Erik? Possibly. He would sputter10 uneasy protest.
She suddenly wondered what subterranean50 connection her interest in Erik had with this affair. Wasn’t it because they had been prevented by her caste from bounding on her own trail that they were howling at Fern?
III
Before supper she found, by half a dozen telephone calls, that Fern had fled to the Minniemashie House. She hastened there, trying not to be self-conscious about the people who looked at her on the street. The clerk said indifferently that he “guessed” Miss Mullins was up in Room 37, and left Carol to find the way. She hunted along the stale-smelling corridors with their wallpaper of cerise daisies and poison-green rosettes, streaked51 in white spots from spilled water, their frayed52 red and yellow matting, and rows of pine doors painted a sickly blue. She could not find the number. In the darkness at the end of a corridor she had to feel the aluminum53 figures on the door-panels. She was startled once by a man’s voice: “Yep? Whadyuh want?” and fled. When she reached the right door she stood listening. She made out a long sobbing54. There was no answer till her third knock; then an alarmed “Who is it? Go away!”
Her hatred55 of the town turned resolute56 as she pushed open the door.
Yesterday she had seen Fern Mullins in boots and tweed skirt and canary-yellow sweater, fleet and self-possessed. Now she lay across the bed, in crumpled57 lavender cotton and shabby pumps, very feminine, utterly58 cowed. She lifted her head in stupid terror. Her hair was in tousled strings59 and her face was sallow, creased60. Her eyes were a blur61 from weeping.
“I didn’t! I didn’t!” was all she would say at first, and she repeated it while Carol kissed her cheek, stroked her hair, bathed her forehead. She rested then, while Carol looked about the room — the welcome to strangers, the sanctuary62 of hospitable63 Main Street, the lucrative64 property of Kennicott’s friend, Jackson Elder. It smelled of old linen65 and decaying carpet and ancient tobacco smoke. The bed was rickety, with a thin knotty66 mattress67; the sand-colored walls were scratched and gouged68; in every corner, under everything, were fluffy69 dust and cigar ashes; on the tilted70 wash-stand was a nicked and squatty pitcher71; the only chair was a grim straight object of spotty varnish72; but there was an altogether splendid gilt73 and rose cuspidor.
She did not try to draw out Fern’s story; Fern insisted on telling it.
She had gone to the party, not quite liking74 Cy but willing to endure him for the sake of dancing, of escaping from Mrs. Bogart’s flow of moral comments, of relaxing after the first strained weeks of teaching. Cy “promised to be good.” He was, on the way out. There were a few workmen from Gopher Prairie at the dance, with many young farm-people. Half a dozen squatters from a degenerate75 colony in a brush-hidden hollow, planters of potatoes, suspected thieves, came in noisily drunk. They all pounded the floor of the barn in old-fashioned square dances, swinging their partners, skipping, laughing, under the incantations of Del Snafflin the barber, who fiddled76 and called the figures. Cy had two drinks from pocket-flasks. Fern saw him fumbling77 among the overcoats piled on the feedbox at the far end of the barn; soon after she heard a farmer declaring that some one had stolen his bottle. She taxed Cy with the theft; he chuckled78, “Oh, it’s just a joke; I’m going to give it back.” He demanded that she take a drink. Unless she did, he wouldn’t return the bottle.
“I just brushed my lips with it, and gave it back to him,” moaned Fern. She sat up, glared at Carol. “Did you ever take a drink?”
“I have. A few. I’d love to have one right now! This contact with righteousness has about done me up!”
Fern could laugh then. “So would I! I don’t suppose I’ve had five drinks in my life, but if I meet just one more Bogart and Son —— Well, I didn’t really touch that bottle — horrible raw whisky — though I’d have loved some wine. I felt so jolly. The barn was almost like a stage scene — the high rafters, and the dark stalls, and tin lanterns swinging, and a silage-cutter up at the end like some mysterious kind of machine. And I’d been having lots of fun dancing with the nicest young farmer, so strong and nice, and awfully79 intelligent. But I got uneasy when I saw how Cy was. So I doubt if I touched two drops of the beastly stuff. Do you suppose God is punishing me for even wanting wine?”
“My dear, Mrs. Bogart’s god may be — Main Street’s god. But all the courageous80 intelligent people are fighting him . . . though he slay81 us.”
Fern danced again with the young farmer; she forgot Cy while she was talking with a girl who had taken the University agricultural course. Cy could not have returned the bottle; he came staggering toward her — taking time to make himself offensive to every girl on the way and to dance a jig82. She insisted on their returning. Cy went with her, chuckling83 and jigging84. He kissed her, outside the door. . . . “And to think I used to think it was interesting to have men kiss you at a dance!” . . . She ignored the kiss, in the need of getting him home before he started a fight. A farmer helped her harness the buggy, while Cy snored in the seat. He awoke before they set out; all the way home he alternately slept and tried to make love to her.
“I’m almost as strong as he is. I managed to keep him away while I drove — such a rickety buggy. I didn’t feel like a girl; I felt like a scrubwoman — no, I guess I was too scared to have any feelings at all. It was terribly dark. I got home, somehow. But it was hard, the time I had to get out, and it was quite muddy, to read a sign-post — I lit matches that I took from Cy’s coat pocket, and he followed me — he fell off the buggy step into the mud, and got up and tried to make love to me, and —— I was scared. But I hit him. Quite hard. And got in, and so he ran after the buggy, crying like a baby, and I let him in again, and right away again he was trying —— But no matter. I got him home. Up on the porch. Mrs. Bogart was waiting up . . . .
“You know, it was funny; all the time she was — oh, talking to me — and Cy was being terribly sick — I just kept thinking, ‘I’ve still got to drive the buggy down to the livery stable. I wonder if the livery man will be awake?’ But I got through somehow. I took the buggy down to the stable, and got to my room. I locked my door, but Mrs. Bogart kept saying things, outside the door. Stood out there saying things about me, dreadful things, and rattling85 the knob. And all the while I could hear Cy in the back yard-being sick. I don’t think I’ll ever marry any man. And then today ——
“She drove me right out of the house. She wouldn’t listen to me, all morning. Just to Cy. I suppose he’s over his headache now. Even at breakfast he thought the whole thing was a grand joke. I suppose right this minute he’s going around town boasting about his ‘conquest.’ You understand — oh, DON’T you understand? I DID keep him away! But I don’t see how I can face my school. They say country towns are fine for bringing up boys in, but —— I can’t believe this is me, lying here and saying this. I don’t BELIEVE what happened last night.
“Oh. This was curious: When I took off my dress last night — it was a darling dress, I loved it so, but of course the mud had spoiled it. I cried over it and —— No matter. But my white silk stockings were all torn, and the strange thing is, I don’t know whether I caught my legs in the briers when I got out to look at the sign-post, or whether Cy scratched me when I was fighting him off.”
IV
Sam Clark was president of the school-board. When Carol told him Fern’s story Sam looked sympathetic and neighborly, and Mrs. Clark sat by cooing, “Oh, isn’t that too bad.” Carol was interrupted only when Mrs. Clark begged, “Dear, don’t speak so bitter about ‘pious’ people. There’s lots of sincere practising Christians87 that are real tolerant. Like the Champ Perrys.”
“Yes. I know. Unfortunately there are enough kindly88 people in the churches to keep them going.”
When Carol had finished, Mrs. Clark breathed, “Poor girl; I don’t doubt her story a bit,” and Sam rumbled89, “Yuh, sure. Miss Mullins is young and reckless, but everybody in town, except Ma Bogart, knows what Cy is. But Miss Mullins was a fool to go with him.”
“But not wicked enough to pay for it with disgrace?”
“N-no, but ——” Sam avoided verdicts, clung to the entrancing horrors of the story. “Ma Bogart cussed her out all morning, did she? Jumped her neck, eh? Ma certainly is one hell-cat.”
“Yes, you know how she is; so vicious.”
“Oh no, her best style ain’t her viciousness. What she pulls in our store is to come in smiling with Christian86 Fortitude90 and keep a clerk busy for one hour while she picks out half a dozen fourpenny nails. I remember one time ——”
“Sam!” Carol was uneasy. “You’ll fight for Fern, won’t you? When Mrs. Bogart came to see you did she make definite charges?”
“Well, yes, you might say she did.”
“But the school-board won’t act on them?”
“Guess we’ll more or less have to.”
“But you’ll exonerate91 Fern?”
“I’ll do what I can for the girl personally, but you know what the board is. There’s Reverend Zitterel; Sister Bogart about half runs his church, so of course he’ll take her say-so; and Ezra Stowbody, as a banker he has to be all hell for morality and purity. Might ‘s well admit it, Carrie; I’m afraid there’ll be a majority of the board against her. Not that any of us would believe a word Cy said, not if he swore it on a stack of Bibles, but Still, after all this gossip, Miss Mullins wouldn’t hardly be the party to chaperon our basket-ball team when it went out of town to play other high schools, would she!”
“Perhaps not, but couldn’t some one else?”
“Why, that’s one of the things she was hired for.” Sam sounded stubborn.
“Do you realize that this isn’t just a matter of a job, and hiring and firing; that it’s actually sending a splendid girl out with a beastly stain on her, giving all the other Bogarts in the world a chance at her? That’s what will happen if you discharge her.”
Sam moved uncomfortably, looked at his wife, scratched his head, sighed, said nothing.
“Won’t you fight for her on the board? If you lose, won’t you, and whoever agrees with you, make a minority report?”
“No reports made in a case like this. Our rule is to just decide the thing and announce the final decision, whether it’s unanimous or not.”
“Rules! Against a girl’s future! Dear God! Rules of a school-board! Sam! Won’t you stand by Fern, and threaten to resign from the board if they try to discharge her?”
Rather testy92, tired of so many subtleties93, he complained, “Well, I’ll do what I can, but I’ll have to wait till the board meets.”
And “I’ll do what I can,” together with the secret admission “Of course you and I know what Ma Bogart is,” was all Carol could get from Superintendent George Edwin Mott, Ezra Stowbody, the Reverend Mr. Zitterel or any other member of the school-board.
Afterward94 she wondered whether Mr. Zitterel could have been referring to herself when he observed, “There’s too much license95 in high places in this town, though, and the wages of sin is death — or anyway, bein’ fired.” The holy leer with which the priest said it remained in her mind.
She was at the hotel before eight next morning. Fern longed to go to school, to face the tittering, but she was too shaky. Carol read to her all day and, by reassuring96 her, convinced her own self that the school-board would be just. She was less sure of it that evening when, at the motion pictures, she heard Mrs. Gougerling exclaim to Mrs. Howland, “She may be so innocent and all, and I suppose she probably is, but still, if she drank a whole bottle of whisky at that dance, the way everybody says she did, she may have forgotten she was so innocent! Hee, hee, hee!” Maud Dyer, leaning back from her seat, put in, “That’s what I’ve said all along. I don’t want to roast anybody, but have you noticed the way she looks at men?”
“When will they have me on the scaffold?” Carol speculated.
Nat Hicks stopped the Kennicotts on their way home. Carol hated him for his manner of assuming that they two had a mysterious understanding. Without quite winking97 he seemed to wink98 at her as he gurgled, “What do you folks think about this Mullins woman? I’m not strait-laced, but I tell you we got to have decent women in our schools. D’ you know what I heard? They say whatever she may of done afterwards, this Mullins dame99 took two quarts of whisky to the dance with her, and got stewed100 before Cy did! Some tank, that wren101! Ha, ha. ha!”
“Rats, I don’t believe it,” Kennicott muttered.
He got Carol away before she was able to speak.
She saw Erik passing the house, late, alone, and she stared after him, longing102 for the lively bitterness of the things he would say about the town. Kennicott had nothing for her but “Oh, course, ev’body likes a juicy story, but they don’t intend to be mean.”
She went up to bed proving to herself that the members of the school-board were superior men.
It was Tuesday afternoon before she learned that the board had met at ten in the morning and voted to “accept Miss Fern Mullins’s resignation.” Sam Clark telephoned the news to her. “We’re not making any charges. We’re just letting her resign. Would you like to drop over to the hotel and ask her to write the resignation, now we’ve accepted it? Glad I could get the board to put it that way. It’s thanks to you.”
“But can’t you see that the town will take this as proof of the charges?”
“We’re — not — making — no — charges — whatever!” Sam was obviously finding it hard to be patient.
Fern left town that evening.
Carol went with her to the train. The two girls elbowed through a silent lip-licking crowd. Carol tried to stare them down but in face of the impishness of the boys and the bovine103 gaping104 of the men, she was embarrassed. Fern did not glance at them. Carol felt her arm tremble, though she was tearless, listless, plodding105. She squeezed Carol’s hand, said something unintelligible106, stumbled up into the vestibule.
Carol remembered that Miles Bjornstam had also taken a train. What would be the scene at the station when she herself took departure?
She walked up-town behind two strangers.
One of them was giggling, “See that good-looking wench that got on here? The swell107 kid with the small black hat? She’s some charmer! I was here yesterday, before my jump to Ojibway Falls, and I heard all about her. Seems she was a teacher, but she certainly was a high-roller — O boy! — high, wide, and fancy! Her and couple of other skirts bought a whole case of whisky and went on a tear, and one night, darned if this bunch of cradle-robbers didn’t get hold of some young kids, just small boys, and they all got lit up like a White Way, and went out to a roughneck dance, and they say ——”
The narrator turned, saw a woman near and, not being a common person nor a coarse workman but a clever salesman and a householder, lowered his voice for the rest of the tale. During it the other man laughed hoarsely108.
Carol turned off on a side-street.
She passed Cy Bogart. He was humorously narrating109 some achievement to a group which included Nat Hicks, Del Snafflin, Bert Tybee the bartender, and A. Tennyson O’Hearn the shyster lawyer. They were men far older than Cy but they accepted him as one of their own, and encouraged him to go on.
It was a week before she received from Fern a letter of which this was a part:
. . .& of course my family did not really believe the story but as they were sure I must have done something wrong they just lectured me generally, in fact jawed110 me till I have gone to live at a boarding house. The teachers’ agencies must know the story, man at one almost slammed the door in my face when I went to ask about a job, & at another the woman in charge was beastly. Don’t know what I will do. Don’t seem to feel very well. May marry a fellow that’s in love with me but he’s so stupid that he makes me SCREAM.
Dear Mrs. Kennicott you were the only one that believed me. I guess it’s a joke on me, I was such a simp, I felt quite heroic while I was driving the buggy back that night & keeping Cy away from me. I guess I expected the people in Gopher Prairie to admire me. I did use to be admired for my athletics111 at the U. — just five months ago.
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tightening
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screeching
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standing
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afflict
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poking
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bonnet
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distinguished
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impudence
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prostrates
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| v.使俯伏，使拜倒( prostrate的第三人称单数 )；（指疾病、天气等）使某人无能为力 | |
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reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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sneaked
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| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
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16
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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17
nemesis
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| n.给以报应者，复仇者，难以对付的敌手 | |
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18
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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19
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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21
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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22
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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23
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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24
flinch
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| v.畏缩，退缩 | |
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25
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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26
lustful
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| a.贪婪的；渴望的 | |
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27
fiddling
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| 微小的 | |
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28
sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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29
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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31
scriptures
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| 经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典 | |
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32
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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34
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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35
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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36
corrupting
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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37
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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39
enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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41
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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42
autoing
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| vi.乘汽车（auto的现在分词形式） | |
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43
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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44
delightfulness
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| n.delightful（令人高兴的，使人愉快的，给人快乐的，讨人喜欢的）的变形 | |
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45
yelping
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| v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的现在分词 ) | |
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46
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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suavest
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| adj.平滑的( suave的最高级 )；有礼貌的；老于世故的 | |
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48
fictional
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| adj.小说的，虚构的 | |
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49
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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50
subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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51
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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52
frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
aluminum
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| n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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54
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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55
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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56
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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57
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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58
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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59
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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60
creased
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
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61
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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63
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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64
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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65
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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66
knotty
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| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
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67
mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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68
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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69
fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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70
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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71
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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72
varnish
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| n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰 | |
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73
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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74
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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75
degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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76
fiddled
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| v.伪造( fiddle的过去式和过去分词 )；篡改；骗取；修理或稍作改动 | |
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77
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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78
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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80
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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81
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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82
jig
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| n.快步舞（曲）；v.上下晃动；用夹具辅助加工；蹦蹦跳跳 | |
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83
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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84
jigging
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| n.跳汰选，簸选v.（使）上下急动( jig的现在分词 ) | |
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85
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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86
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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87
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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88
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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89
rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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90
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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91
exonerate
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| v.免除责任，确定无罪 | |
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92
testy
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| adj.易怒的；暴躁的 | |
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93
subtleties
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| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
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94
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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95
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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96
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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97
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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98
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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99
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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100
stewed
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| adj.焦虑不安的，烂醉的v.炖( stew的过去式和过去分词 )；煨；思考；担忧 | |
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101
wren
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| n.鹪鹩；英国皇家海军女子服务队成员 | |
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102
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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103
bovine
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| adj.牛的；n.牛 | |
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104
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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105
plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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106
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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107
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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108
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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109
narrating
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| v.故事( narrate的现在分词 ) | |
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110
jawed
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| adj.有颌的有颚的 | |
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111
athletics
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| n.运动，体育，田径运动 | |
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