As I shall not have occasion to refer to Nancy again, I wish to tell here a sad experience she had soon after our arrival in Boston. She was covered with dirt--the remains3 of mud pies I had compelled her to eat, although she had never shown any special liking4 for them. The laundress at the Perkins Institution secretly carried her off to give her a bath. This was too much for poor Nancy. When I next saw her she was a formless heap of cotton, which I should not have recognized at all except for the two bead eyes which looked out at me reproachfully.
When the train at last pulled into the station at Boston it was as if a beautiful fairy tale had come true. The "once upon a time" was now; the "far-away country" was here.
We had scarcely arrived at the Perkins Institution for the Blind when I began to make friends with the little blind children. It delighted me inexpressibly to find that they knew the manual alphabet. What joy to talk with other children in my own language! Until then I had been like a foreigner speaking through an interpreter. In the school where Laura Bridgman was taught I was in my own country. It took me some time to appreciate the fact that my new friends were blind. I knew I could not see; but it did not seem possible that all the eager, loving children who gathered round me and joined heartily5 in my frolics were also blind. I remember the surprise and the pain I felt as I noticed that they placed their hands over mine when I talked to them and that they read books with their fingers. Although I had been told this before, and although I understood my own deprivations6, yet I had thought vaguely7 that since they could hear, they must have a sort of "second sight," and I was not prepared to find one child and another and yet another deprived of the same precious gift. But they were so happy and contented8 that I lost all sense of pain in the pleasure of their companionship.
One day spent with the blind children made me feel thoroughly9 at home in my new environment, and I looked eagerly from one pleasant experience to another as the days flew swiftly by. I could not quite convince myself that there was much world left, for I regarded Boston as the beginning and the end of creation.
While we were in Boston we visited Bunker Hill, and there I had my first lesson in history. The story of the brave men who had fought on the spot where we stood excited me greatly. I climbed the monument, counting the steps, and wondering as I went higher and yet higher if the soldiers had climbed this great stairway and shot at the enemy on the ground below.
The next day we went to Plymouth by water. This was my first trip on the ocean and my first voyage in a steamboat. How full of life and motion it was! But the rumble10 of the machinery11 made me think it was thundering, and I began to cry, because I feared if it rained we should not be able to have our picnic out of doors. I was more interested, I think, in the great rock on which the Pilgrims landed than in anything else in Plymouth. I could touch it, and perhaps that made the coming of the Pilgrims and their toils12 and great deeds seem more real to me. I have often held in my hand a little model of the Plymouth Rock which a kind gentleman gave me at Pilgrim Hall, and I have fingered its curves, the split in the centre and the embossed figures "1620," and turned over in my mind all that I knew about the wonderful story of the Pilgrims.
How my childish imagination glowed with the splendour of their enterprise! I idealized them as the bravest and most generous men that ever sought a home in a strange land. I thought they desired the freedom of their fellow men as well as their own. I was keenly surprised and disappointed years later to learn of their acts of persecution13 that make us tingle14 with shame, even while we glory in the courage and energy that gave us our "Country Beautiful."
Among the many friends I made in Boston were Mr. William Endicott and his daughter. Their kindness to me was the seed from which many pleasant memories have since grown. One day we visited their beautiful home at Beverly Farms. I remember with delight how I went through their rose-garden, how their dogs, big Leo and little curly-haired Fritz with long ears, came to meet me, and how Nimrod, the swiftest of the horses, poked15 his nose into my hands for a pat and a lump of sugar. I also remember the beach, where for the first time I played in the sand. It was hard, smooth sand, very different from the loose, sharp sand, mingled16 with kelp and shells, at Brewster. Mr. Endicott told me about the great ships that came sailing by from Boston, bound for Europe. I saw him many times after that, and he was always a good friend to me; indeed, I was thinking of him when I called Boston "the City of Kind Hearts."
点击收听单词发音
1 popcorn | |
n.爆米花 | |
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2 bead | |
n.念珠;(pl.)珠子项链;水珠 | |
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3 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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4 liking | |
n.爱好;嗜好;喜欢 | |
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5 heartily | |
adv.衷心地,诚恳地,十分,很 | |
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6 deprivations | |
剥夺( deprivation的名词复数 ); 被夺去; 缺乏; 匮乏 | |
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7 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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8 contented | |
adj.满意的,安心的,知足的 | |
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9 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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10 rumble | |
n.隆隆声;吵嚷;v.隆隆响;低沉地说 | |
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11 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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12 toils | |
网 | |
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13 persecution | |
n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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14 tingle | |
vi.感到刺痛,感到激动;n.刺痛,激动 | |
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15 poked | |
v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 );戳出;拨弄;与(某人)性交 | |
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16 mingled | |
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系] | |
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