“Mother,” he said one morning when he had an opportunity to speak to her alone, “I wish you would let me quit the Temple, and go to the State University.”
She looked up from the mass of dough3 she was kneading.
“But why, Claude?”
“Well, I could learn more, for one thing. The professors at the Temple aren’t much good. Most of them are just preachers who couldn’t make a living at preaching.”
The look of pain that always disarmed4 Claude came instantly into his mother’s face. “Son, don’t say such things. I can’t believe but teachers are more interested in their students when they are concerned for their spiritual development, as well as the mental. Brother Weldon said many of the professors at the State University are not Christian5 men; they even boast of it, in some cases.”
“Oh, I guess most of them are good men, all right; at any rate they know their subjects. These little pin-headed preachers like Weldon do a lot of harm, running about the country talking. He’s sent around to pull in students for his own school. If he didn’t get them he’d lose his job. I wish he’d never got me. Most of the fellows who flunk6 out at the State come to us, just as he did.”
“But how can there be any serious study where they give so much time to athletics7 and frivolity9? They pay their football coach a larger salary than their President. And those fraternity houses are places where boys learn all sorts of evil. I’ve heard that dreadful things go on in them sometimes. Besides, it would take more money, and you couldn’t live as cheaply as you do at the Chapins’.”
Claude made no reply. He stood before her frowning and pulling at a calloused11 spot on the inside of his palm. Mrs. Wheeler looked at him wistfully. “I’m sure you must be able to study better in a quiet, serious atmosphere,” she said.
He sighed and turned away. If his mother had been the least bit unctuous12, like Brother Weldon, he could have told her many enlightening facts. But she was so trusting and childlike, so faithful by nature and so ignorant of life as he knew it, that it was hopeless to argue with her. He could shock her and make her fear the world even more than she did, but he could never make her understand.
His mother was old-fashioned. She thought dancing and card-playing dangerous pastimes — only rough people did such things when she was a girl in Vermont — and “worldliness” only another word for wickedness. According to her conception of education, one should learn, not think; and above all, one must not enquire13. The history of the human race, as it lay behind one, was already explained; and so was its destiny, which lay before. The mind should remain obediently within the theological concept of history.
Nat Wheeler didn’t care where his son went to school, but he, too, took it for granted that the religious institution was cheaper than the State University; and that because the students there looked shabbier they were less likely to become too knowing, and to be offensively intelligent at home. However, he referred the matter to Bayliss one day when he was in town.
“Claude’s got some notion he wants to go to the State University this winter.”
Bayliss at once assumed that wise, better-beprepared-for-the-worst expression which had made him seem shrewd and seasoned from boyhood. “I don’t see any point in changing unless he’s got good reasons.”
“Well, he thinks that bunch of parsons at the Temple don’t make first-rate teachers.”
“I expect they can teach Claude quite a bit yet. If he gets in with that fast football crowd at the State, there’ll be no holding him.” For some reason Bayliss detested14 football. “This athletic8 business is a good deal over-done. If Claude wants exercise, he might put in the fall wheat.”
That night Mr. Wheeler brought the subject up at supper, questioned Claude, and tried to get at the cause of his discontent. His manner was jocular, as usual, and Claude hated any public discussion of his personal affairs. He was afraid of his father’s humour when it got too near him.
Claude might have enjoyed the large and somewhat gross cartoons with which Mr. Wheeler enlivened daily life, had they been of any other authorship. But he unreasonably15 wanted his father to be the most dignified16, as he was certainly the handsomest and most intelligent, man in the community. Moreover, Claude couldn’t bear ridicule17 very well. He squirmed before he was hit; saw it coming, invited it. Mr. Wheeler had observed this trait in him when he was a little chap, called it false pride, and often purposely outraged18 his feelings to harden him, as he had hardened Claude’s mother, who was afraid of everything but schoolbooks and prayer-meetings when he first married her. She was still more or less bewildered, but she had long ago got over any fear of him and any dread10 of living with him. She accepted everything about her husband as part of his rugged19 masculinity, and of that she was proud, in her quiet way.
Claude had never quite forgiven his father for some of his practical jokes. One warm spring day, when he was a boisterous20 little boy of five, playing in and out of the house, he heard his mother entreating21 Mr. Wheeler to go down to the orchard22 and pick the cherries from a tree that hung loaded. Claude remembered that she persisted rather complainingly, saying that the cherries were too high for her to reach, and that even if she had a ladder it would hurt her back. Mr. Wheeler was always annoyed if his wife referred to any physical weakness, especially if she complained about her back. He got up and went out. After a while he returned. “All right now, Evangeline,” he called cheerily as he passed through the kitchen. “Cherries won’t give you any trouble. You and Claude can run along and pick ’em as easy as can be.”
Mrs. Wheeler trustfully put on her sunbonnet, gave Claude a little pail and took a big one herself, and they went down the pasture hill to the orchard, fenced in on the low land by the creek23. The ground had been ploughed that spring to make it hold moisture, and Claude was running happily along in one of the furrows24, when he looked up and beheld25 a sight he could never forget. The beautiful, round-topped cherry tree, full of green leaves and red fruit, — his father had sawed it through! It lay on the ground beside its bleeding stump26. With one scream Claude became a little demon27. He threw away his tin pail, jumped about howling and kicking the loose earth with his copper-toed shoes, until his mother was much more concerned for him than for the tree.
“Son, son,” she cried, “it’s your father’s tree. He has a perfect right to cut it down if he wants to. He’s often said the trees were too thick in here. Maybe it will be better for the others.”
“‘Tain’t so! He’s a damn fool, damn fool!” Claude bellowed28, still hopping29 and kicking, almost choking with rage and hate.
His mother dropped on her knees beside him. “Claude, stop! I’d rather have the whole orchard cut down than hear you say such things.”
After she got him quieted they picked the cherries and went back to the house. Claude had promised her that he would say nothing, but his father must have noticed the little boy’s angry eyes fixed30 upon him all through dinner, and his expression of scorn. Even then his flexible lips were only too well adapted to hold the picture of that feeling. For days afterward31 Claude went down to the orchard and watched the tree grow sicker, wilt32 and wither33 away. God would surely punish a man who could do that, he thought.
A violent temper and physical restlessness were the most conspicuous34 things about Claude when he was a little boy. Ralph was docile35, and had a precocious36 sagacity for keeping out of trouble. Quiet in manner, he was fertile in devising mischief37, and easily persuaded his older brother, who was always looking for something to do, to execute his plans. It was usually Claude who was caught red-handed. Sitting mild and contemplative on his quilt on the floor, Ralph would whisper to Claude that it might be amusing to climb up and take the clock from the shelf, or to operate the sewing-machine. When they were older, and played out of doors, he had only to insinuate38 that Claude was afraid, to make him try a frosted axe39 with his tongue, or jump from the shed roof.
The usual hardships of country boyhood were not enough for Claude; he imposed physical tests and penances40 upon himself. Whenever he burned his finger, he followed Mahailey’s advice and held his hand close to the stove to “draw out the fire.” One year he went to school all winter in his jacket, to make himself tough. His mother would button him up in his overcoat and put his dinner-pail in his hand and start him off. As soon as he got out of sight of the house, he pulled off his coat, rolled it under his arm, and scudded41 along the edge of the frozen fields, arriving at the frame schoolhouse panting and shivering, but very well pleased with himself.
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1
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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disarmed
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| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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flunk
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| v.(考试)不及格(=fail) | |
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athletics
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| n.运动，体育，田径运动 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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calloused
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| adj.粗糙的，粗硬的，起老茧的v.（使）硬结，（使）起茧( callous的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）冷酷无情 | |
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unctuous
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| adj.油腔滑调的，大胆的 | |
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enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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entreating
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的现在分词 ) | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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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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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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33
wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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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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docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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insinuate
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| vt.含沙射影地说，暗示 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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40
penances
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| n.（赎罪的）苦行，苦修( penance的名词复数 ) | |
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41
scudded
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| v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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