Oliver turned to answer the first question, meaning to reply with a relieved "yes," but his square, sunburned face hardened at the second.
"Oh, I am just going down the road—a little way," he replied stiffly, shook his head at the repeated offer of a lift, and tramped on in the dust.
The next man he met seemed also to feel a curiosity as to his errand, for he stopped a very old, shambling horse to lean from his seat and ask point-blank: "Where may you be going in such a hurry on such a hot day?"
Oliver, looking up at the person who addressed him and gauging5 his close-set, hard gray eyes and his narrow, dark face, conceived an instant dislike and distrust of the stranger. He replied shortly, as he had before, but with less good temper:
"I am going down the road a little way. And, as you say, I am rather in a hurry."
"Oh, are you indeed?" returned the man, measuring the boy up and down with a disagreeable, inquisitive6 glance. "In too much of a hurry to have your manners with you, even!" He shot him a look of keen and hostile penetration7. "It almost looks as though you were running away from something."
He stopped for no further comment but went jingling8 off in his rattletrap cart, the cloud of dust raised by his old horse's clumsy feet hanging long in the air behind him. Oliver plodded9 forward, muttering dark threats against the disagreeable stranger, and wishing that he had been sufficiently10 quick of speech to contradict him.
Yet the random11 guess was a correct one, and running away was just what Oliver was doing. He had not really meant to when he came out through the pillared gateway12 of his cousin's place; he had only thought that he would walk down the road toward the station—and see the train come in. Yet the resolve had grown within him as he thought of all that had passed in the last few days, and as he looked forward to what was still to come. As he walked down the road, rattling13 the money in his pockets, turning over his wrongs in his mind, the thought had come swiftly to him that he need no longer endure things as they were. It was three miles to the railroad station; but, once there, he could be whisked away from all the troubles that had begun to seem unendurable. The inviting14 whistle of a train seemed to settle the matter finally.
"It isn't as though I were afraid of anything," he reflected, looking back uneasily. "If I thought I were afraid I would never go away and leave Janet behind like this. No, I am only going because I will not be made to do what I hate."
He told himself this several times by way of reassurance15, but seemed always to find it necessary to say it again. There were some strange things about the place where he and his younger sister Janet had come to make a visit, things that made him feel, even on the first day, that the whole house was haunted by some vague disquiet16 of which no one would tell him the cause. His Cousin Jasper had changed greatly since they had last seen him. He had always been a man of quick, brilliant mind but of mild and silent manners, yet now he was nervous, irritable17, and impatient, in no sense a genial host.
Janet, Oliver's sister, had already begun to love the place, nor did she seem to notice the uneasiness that appeared to fill the house. She did not remember her cousin as well as did her brother and was thus less conscious of a change. So far, she had been spending her time very happily, being shown by Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper18, through the whole of Cousin Jasper's great mansion19 and inspecting all the treasures that it contained. It was a new house, built only a year ago.
"And a real calamity20 it was when the work came to an end so soon," Mrs. Brown had said, "for it kept Mr. Peyton interested and happy all the time it was going on. We had hoped the south wing would be building these three months more."
Janet thought the great rooms were very beautiful, but Oliver did not like their vast silence in which the slightest sound seemed so disconcertingly loud. He was not used to such a quiet house, for their own home was a cozy21, shabby dwelling22, full of the stir and bustle23 and laughter of happy living. Here the boy found that noises would burst from him in the most unexpected and involuntary manner, noises that the long rooms and passageways seemed to take up and echo and magnify a hundred times. Mrs. Brown was constantly urging him "not to disturb poor Mr. Peyton," and Hotchkiss, the butler, who went about with silent footsteps, always looked pained when Oliver slammed a door or made a clatter24 on the stairs. He had never seen a butler before, except in the movies, so that he found the presence of Hotchkiss somewhat oppressive.
It was the change in his host, however, that had really spoiled the visit. Jasper Peyton was a cousin of his mother's, younger than she and very fond of her and her children. At their house he was always a much-desired guest, for he had "the fairy-godfather gift," as their mother put it, and was constantly doing delightful25 things for them. He was tall and spare, with a thin, sensitive face that, so it seemed to Oliver, was always smiling then, but that never smiled now.
The boy had noted26 a difference on the evening of their arrival, even as they drove up to the house through the warm darkness and the drifting fragrance27 of the June night.
"I can hardly remember how Cousin Jasper looks, but I think I will like his garden," Janet had observed, sniffing28 vigorously.
Oliver nodded, but he was not listening. He was looking up at the lighted house where the door stood open, with Hotchkiss waiting, and where he could see, through the long windows facing the terrace, that Cousin Jasper was hurrying through the library to meet them in the hall. Even at that distance their cousin did not look the same; he walked slower, he had lost his erect29 carriage and his old energy of action. He seemed a thin, high-shouldered ghost of his former self, with all spirit and cheerfulness gone out of him.
Janet and Oliver were paying their first visit without their mother, and, to guests of thirteen and fifteen respectively, such an occasion was no small cause for excitement. For that reason they were very slow to admit that they were not enjoying themselves, but the truth at last could not be denied. Cousin Jasper, preoccupied30 and anxious, left them almost completely to their own devices, neglected to provide any amusement for them, and seemed, at times, to forget even that they were there.
"You are a great comfort to him, my dears. He seems worried and distracted-like lately," Mrs. Brown had told them. "He does not like to be in this great house alone."
To Oliver it seemed that their presence meant very little, a fact which caused him to puzzle, to chafe31 and, finally, as was fairly natural, to grow irritated. After he and Janet had explored the house and garden, there seemed nothing left to do for Oliver but to stroll up and down the drive, stare through the tall gates at the motors going by, or to spend hours in the garage, sitting on a box and watching Jennings, the chauffeur32, tinker with the big car that was so seldom used. Janet was able to amuse herself better, but her brother, by the third day, had reached a state of disappointed boredom33 that was almost ready, at any small thing, to flare34 out into open revolt. The very small thing required was the case of Cousin Eleanor.
They were all walking up and down the terrace on the third evening, directly after dinner, the boy and girl trying to accommodate their quick steps to Cousin Jasper's slower and less vigorous ones. Their host was talking little; Janet, with an effort, was attending politely to what he said, but Oliver was allowing his wits to go frankly35 woolgathering. It was still light enough to look across the slopes of the green valley and to see the shining silver river and the roofs of one or two big houses like their own, set each in its group of clustering trees. Beyond the stream, with its borders of yellow-green willows36, there rose a smooth, round hill, bare of woods, or houses, with only one huge tree at the very top and with what seemed like a tiny cottage clinging to the slope just below the summit.
"Where that river bends at the foot of the hill, there ought to be rapids and good fishing," the boy was thinking. "Perhaps I might get over there to see, some day."
He was suddenly conscious, with a flush of guilt37, that Cousin Jasper was asking him a question, but had stopped in the middle of a sentence, realizing that Oliver was not listening.
"So," he interrupted himself, "an old man's talk does not interest you, eh?"
"You were looking at that big stone house beyond the stream," he said, "and I suppose you were wondering who lives there."
He seemed to be making an effort to turn the conversation into more interesting channels, so that Oliver immediately gave him his full, but tardy39 attention.
"A cousin of mine owns the house. We are really all cousins or are related more or less, we who own the land in Medford Valley. But Tom Brighton is of closer kin4 to me than the others and I am very fond of him. We have both been too busy, just lately, to exchange as many visits as we used to do, but he has a daughter, Eleanor, just about your age, Oliver, a thoroughly40 nice girl, who would make a good playmate for both of you. I am neglecting your pleasure, I must have you meet her. You should see each other every day."
The suggestion seemed to afford Janet great delight; but, for some reason, it had the opposite effect upon Oliver. Perhaps Cousin Jasper did not know a great deal about younger people, perhaps he had not been taking sufficient note of the ways and feelings of this particular two, for it was quite certain that he had made a mistake. Oliver cared very little for girls, and to have this one thrust upon him unawares as a daily companion was not to his liking41.
"It will be very nice for Janet," he remarked ungraciously, "but I—I don't have much to do with girls."
Some pure perversity42 made him picture his Cousin Eleanor as a prim43 young person, with sharp elbows and a pinched nose and stringy hair. She would be lifeless and oppressively good-mannered, he felt certain. All the ill success of the last three days seemed to be behind his sudden determination to have none of her. But Cousin Jasper, having once conceived the idea, was not to be gainsaid44.
"No, I haven't been doing the proper thing for you. We will have Eleanor over to lunch to-morrow and you two shall go with Jennings in the car to fetch her. Don't protest, it won't be any trouble."
Later, as they went upstairs, Janet pleaded and argued with a thunderously rebellious45 Oliver who vowed46 and insisted that he would have no unknown female cousin thrust upon him.
"It is all right for you, Janet," he insisted, "but I won't have Cousin Jasper arranging any such thing for me. When I told him I didn't like girls, he should have listened. No, I don't care if it is wrong, I am going to tell him, to-morrow, just what I think."
Janet shook her brown, curly head in despair.
"I believe you will have to do what he says, in the end," she declared.
The next morning, at breakfast time, Oliver had not relented, for a night haunted by visions of this unknown cousin had in no way added to his peace of mind.
"I have been thinking about that girl you spoke47 about," he began, looking across the table and over the wide bowl of sweet peas to fix his cousin with a glance of firm determination, "and I don't really care to meet her. Janet can go to fetch her, but—you mustn't expect—I don't know how——"
"Stuff and nonsense," he said. "If you are afraid of girls it is time you got over it. I have telephoned Eleanor already, but she couldn't come." Oliver brightened, but relapsed, the next moment, into deeper gloom than ever. "She said that she would be at home later in the afternoon, so you and Janet are to go over and call on her. I have ordered the motor for three o'clock."
It was Janet's suppressed giggle49 that added the last spark to Oliver's kindling50 anger. He was fond of his Cousin Jasper, he was troubled concerning him, and disturbed by the haunting feeling that something was wrong in the big house. Yet baffled anxiety often leads to irritation51, and irritation, in Oliver's case, was being tactlessly pushed into rage. He said little, for he was a boy of few words, nor, so he told himself, could he really be rude to Cousin Jasper no matter how foolishly obstinate52 he was.
"But I'll get out of it somehow," he reflected stormily as he gulped53 down his breakfast and strode out into the garden. "I'll think of a way."
Cudgel his brains as he might, however, he could think of no plausible54 escape from the difficulty. He had found no excuse by lunch time, and was relieved that Cousin Jasper did not appear, being deep in some task in his study. At half past two Janet went upstairs to dress and Hotchkiss came to Oliver in the library to say:
"The car was to be ready at three o'clock, sir. Is that correct?"
To which Oliver replied desperately55:
"Tell Jennings to make it half past three. I am going for a walk."
So he had plunged56 out through the gates and, once away down the dusty road, he became more and more of a rebel and finally a fugitive57.
"I won't go back," he kept saying to himself. "I won't go back."
There was enough money in his pocket to take him home, and there was a train from the junction58 at three. He could telephone from there, very briefly59, that he was going and that Hotchkiss was to send his things. He was beginning to discover some use for a butler, after all.
He trudged on, growing very hot, but feeling more and more relieved at the thought of escape. The way, however, was longer than he had imagined, and three o'clock came, with the station not yet in sight. There was another train at five, he remembered, but thought that it would be better not to spend the intervening time waiting openly on the platform. He would be missed long before then and Jennings and Janet, or perhaps even Cousin Jasper himself, would come to look for him. It would be better for him to cross the nearest meadow and spend the two hours in the woods, or he might settle the question over which he had been wondering, whether there were really fish in that sharp bend of the river.
He climbed a stone wall and dropped knee-deep into a field of hay and daisies. Toward the right, a quarter of a mile away, he could see the house of gray stone standing60 in the midst of wide, green gardens and approached by an elm-bordered drive. At that very moment he should have been rolling up to the door in Cousin Jasper's big car, to inquire for the much-detested Eleanor Brighton. He made a wry61 face at the thought and went hurrying down the slope of the hayfield, passed through a grove62 of oak and maple63 trees, and reached the river. It was a busy, swift little stream, talking to itself among the tall grasses as the current swept down toward the sea. A rough bridge spanned it just below the bend, and here he could stand and see the fish; for they were there, as he had thought. In the absence of fishing tackle, he could only watch them, but the sound of a car, passing on a road near by, made him hurry on.
Now, he felt, he was away from passers-by indeed! Another stone wall, patterned with lichen64, separated him from the briar-filled wilderness65 of an old, abandoned orchard66. Each one of the twisted apple trees looked at least a thousand years of age, so bent67, gnarled, and misshapen had it become. Through the straight rows he could look up the slope of the round hill that he had so often watched from Cousin Jasper's garden, he could make out the roof line of the tiny, dilapidated cottage, and could see that the big tree at the summit was an oak. The orchard was a deserted68 waste and the house seemed uninhabited. Yet just below the summit, the hill was dotted with small, boxlike structures, painted white, that might have been chicken houses, but seemed scarcely large enough. Filled with curiosity, he went forward to investigate, munching69, as he went, a yellow June apple that he had picked up in the grass.
A rough lane opened before him, that passed through the orchard and wound up the hill, with its high grass trodden a little as though, after all, people did sometimes pass that way. He had climbed only a little way when he heard voices.
The tumble-down cottage was not empty, as he had thought, for two people were standing in the doorway70. He stopped abruptly71. The man in worn overalls72 and the girl beside him, with her bobbed hair, bright eyes, and faded pink gingham apron73, did not look like a very forbidding pair. But Oliver's uneasy conscience made him feel that any person he met might guess his plans in some mysterious way and interfere74 with his escape. Very quietly he turned about and began to hurry down the hill. He had retreated too late, however, for the man had seen him and proceeded to call after him in what seemed a very peremptory75 tone:
"Stop!"
For a moment, Oliver hesitated, uncertain whether to obey or to take to his heels and seek safety in the wood below. Could the man have read his secret, or was the apple in his hand the cause of the summons? Before he could really decide, the girl's voice was raised also—pleading and urgent.
"We need you," she called. "You must help us. Oh, don't go away!"
He turned slowly and went toward them through the tall grass, uncertain, suspicious, afraid even yet that he might fall into some trap that would delay his flight. His uneasiness was not in any way quieted by his seeing that one of the white boxes stood, uncovered, before the two and that it was a beehive.
"You have come just in time," said the man, "if you are willing to help us. It is a difficult business, hiving a swarm76 of bees at this season, and Polly, here, is no use at all. This is her first day with the bees this year, and she jumps up and down when they sing around her head, and that stops everything."
"I do better usually," the girl confessed humbly77, "but I forget, over the winter, how to be quiet and calm when a million bees are buzzing in my ear."
She thrust into Oliver's hand the leather and metal bellows78 that blows wood smoke into the hive, and her father began giving him directions as unconcernedly as though his helping79 were a matter of course.
"Just stand beside me, stay very still, and keep blowing smoke; that is right. Don't move and never mind how close the bees come. There is no danger of your being stung."
The square white box was full of wooden frames, hanging one behind another, like the leaves of a book. One by one the man lifted them out, swept off the black curtain of bees that clung to them, and showed the clean, new, sweet-smelling honeycomb.
"When an old hive gets too crowded, and the bees begin to swarm," he explained, "we divide them and put some frames and bees into a new, empty hive. See them going to work already, and look at that piece of comb that has just been built; one would think that the fairies had made it."
Oliver had never seen anything so white and thin and delicate as the frail80 new cells ready for the fresh honey. He forgot any dread81 of the myriad82 creatures buzzing about his head, he forgot even his plan, and his impatience83 of delay. He bent to peer into the hive, to examine the young bees just hatching, the fat, black, and brown drones and the slim, alert queen bee. The girl, now that the responsibility of helping was off her hands, forgot her own nervousness and pressed forward also to look and ask questions. She must be about thirteen or fourteen years old, was Oliver's vague impression of her; she had dark hair and quick, brown eyes, her cheeks were very pink, and one of them was decorated with a black smudge from the smoke blower. He was too intent to notice her much or to remember his fearful dread of girls. And of course this little thing in the shabby apron was very different from the threatened Cousin Eleanor.
He could not see much of the man's face under the worn straw hat, as they bent over the hive, but he liked the slow, drawling voice that answered his innumerable questions and he found the chuckling84 laugh irresistibly85 infectious. The stranger's brown hands moved with steady skill among the horde86 of crawling insects, until the last frame was set in place, the last puff87 of smoke blown, and the cover was put down.
"There, young man," said the beekeeper, "that was a good job well done, thanks to you; but you must not go yet. Polly and I always have a little lunch here in the honey house when we have finished, to revive us after our exhausting labor88."
Oliver was about to protest that he must go on at once, but the man interrupted him, with a twinkle in his eye.
"There is a spring behind the house where we wash up," he said. "Polly will give you some soap and a towel. Wood smoke smells good, but it is just as black as the soft-coal kind."
When he looked at himself a moment later in the mirror of the spring, Oliver realized that he was scarcely fit to start on a journey, since, in his energetic wielding89 of the smoker90 he had smudged his face far worse than even Polly had. He began splashing and scrubbing, but honey and soot91 and the odd, sticky glue with which bees smear92 their hives are none of them easy to remove. When he presented himself once more at the door of the cottage, there was a feast spread out on the rough table—buttered and toasted biscuits spread with honey, iced cocoa with whipped cream, and a big square chocolate cake. Quite suddenly he remembered how far he had walked and how hungry he was and with equal suddenness forgot his pressing necessity for setting off again. He sat down on the three-legged stool that the Beeman offered him, sampled the hot biscuit and the cold drink, and breathed a deep, involuntary sigh of content. In the presence of these friendly, shabbily dressed strangers he felt, for the first time since leaving home, really happy and at ease.
It seemed dark and cool within the little cottage after the blazing sunshine outside. The place was evidently no longer used for anything but a storehouse and a shelter for picnics of this kind, but it was a quaint93, attractive little dwelling and evidently very old. The main room where they sat had a big-beamed ceiling, deep casement94 windows, and a door that swung open in two sections, one above the other. The upper half was wide open now, framing a sun-bathed picture of the green slope, the treetops of the orchard, and the rising hills opposite, with a narrow glimpse of sparkling, blue sea. The air was very hot and quiet, with the sleepy peacefulness that belongs to summer afternoons. The round, dense95 shadow of the oak tree above them was lengthening96 so that its cool tip just touched the doorstone.
Polly, with hands as brown and skillful as her father's, was still toasting biscuits before the little fire they had built on the rough hearth97. The Beeman, having taken off his hat, showed a handsome, cheery face much like his daughter's, except that his big nose was straight, rather than tilted98 like her small one, and his eyes were gray. Their clothes were even older and shabbier than Oliver had at first observed, but their manners were so easy and cordial that the whole of the little house seemed filled with the pleasant atmosphere of friendliness99.
Polly left the fire at last, bringing a plate of hot biscuits, and sat down beside the table.
"Daddy always tells me a story when we have finished with the bees," she began a little shyly. "He said he had one saved up in his head that I would especially like. You won't mind our going on with it, will you?"
Oliver would not mind at all. He felt assured already that he would like anything that the Beeman had to say.
"I suppose you must have it, if your heart is set on it," Polly's father said, "but my tales are usually designed for an audience of only one. This young gentleman may not like our style of stories, my dear."
"I hope he will," replied Polly, "but—oh, daddy, I forgot all about it, didn't we have an engagement some time about now, at home?"
"No," he returned so positively100 that his daughter, though at first a little puzzled, seemed quite satisfied. "It is quite all right for us to stay here."
He chuckled101 for a moment, as though over some private joke of his own, then at last laid down his pipe and crossed his legs. Oliver leaned back against the wall and Polly curled up on the bench by the fireplace.
"Are you both quite comfortable?" the Beeman inquired. "Very well, then I'll begin."
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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gauging
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| n.测量[试]，测定，计量v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的现在分词 )；估计；计量；划分 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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penetration
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| n.穿透，穿人，渗透 | |
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jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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plodded
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| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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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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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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disquiet
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| n.担心，焦虑 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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chafe
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| v.擦伤；冲洗；惹怒 | |
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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tardy
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| adj.缓慢的，迟缓的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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41
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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44
gainsaid
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| v.否认，反驳( gainsay的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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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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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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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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myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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83
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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84
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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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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smoker
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| n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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smear
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| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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96
lengthening
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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99
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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101
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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