4 The Terrible Shovels 可怕的铁锹

4 The Terrible Shovels¹
Down the hole, Mrs Fox was tenderly licking the stump² of Mr Fox’s tail to stop the bleeding. ‘It wasthe finest tail for miles around,’ she said between licks.
‘It hurts,’ said Mr Fox.
‘I know it does, sweetheart. But it’ll soon get better.’
‘And it will soon grow again, Dad,’ said one of the Small Foxes.
‘It will never grow again,’ said Mr Fox. ‘I shall be tailless for the rest of my life.’ He looked veryglum.
There was no food for the foxes that night, and soon the children dozed³ off. Then Mrs Fox dozedoff. But Mr Fox couldn’t sleep because of the pain in the stump of his tail. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘Isuppose I’m lucky to be alive at all. And now they’ve found our hole, we’re going to have to moveout as soon as possible. We’ll never get any peace if we . . . What was that?’ He turned his headsharply and listened. The noise he heard now was the most frightening noise a fox can ever hear – thescrape-scrape-scraping of shovels digging into the soil.
‘Wake up!’ he shouted. ‘They’re digging us out!’
Mrs Fox was wide awake in one second. She sat up, quivering all over. ‘Are you sure that’s it?’
she whispered.
‘I’m positive! Listen!’
‘They’ll kill my children!’ cried Mrs Fox.
‘Never!’ said Mr Fox.
‘But darling, they will!’ sobbed⁴ Mrs Fox. ‘You know they will!’
Scrunch⁵, scrunch, scrunch went the shovels above their heads. Small stones and bits of earthbegan falling from the roof of the tunnel.
‘How will they kill us, Mummy?’ asked one of the Small Foxes. His round black eyes were hugewith fright. ‘Will there be dogs?’ he said.
Mrs Fox began to cry. She gathered her four children close to her and held them tight.
Suddenly there was an especially loud crunch⁶ above their heads and the sharp end of a shovelcame right through the ceiling. The sight of this awful thing seemed to have an electric effect uponMr Fox. He jumped up and shouted, ‘I’ve got it! Come on! There’s not a moment to lose! Why didn’tI think of it before!’
‘Think of what, Dad?’
‘A fox can dig quicker than a man!’ shouted Mr Fox, beginning to dig. ‘Nobody in the world candig as quick as a fox!’
The soil began to fly out furiously behind Mr Fox as he started to dig for dear life with his frontfeet. Mrs Fox ran forward to help him. So did the four children.
‘Go downwards⁷!’ ordered Mr Fox. ‘We’ve got to go deep! As deep as we possibly can!’
The tunnel began to grow longer and longer. It sloped steeply downward. Deeper and deeperbelow the surface of the ground it went. The mother and the father and all four of the children weredigging together. Their front legs were moving so fast you couldn’t see them. And gradually thescrunching and scraping of the shovels became fainter and fainter.
After about an hour, Mr Fox stopped digging. ‘Hold it!’ he said. They all stopped. They turnedand looked back up the long tunnel they had just dug. All was quiet. ‘Phew!’ said Mr Fox. ‘I thinkwe’ve done it! They’ll never get as deep as this. Well done, everyone!’
They all sat down, panting for breath. And Mrs Fox said to her children, ‘I should like you toknow that if it wasn’t for your father we should all be dead by now. Your father is a fantastic fox.’
Mr Fox looked at his wife and she smiled. He loved her more than ever when she said things likethat.


4　可怕的铁锹
在洞里，狐狸太太温柔地为狐狸先生舔着尾巴的残根，以便使它止住血。“这是方圆几英里内最漂亮的尾巴。”她一边舔着一边说。
“真痛啊。”狐狸先生说。
“我知道你痛，亲爱的，但是很快就会好起来的。”
“而且它很快就又会长出来的，爸爸。”其中一个小狐狸说道。
“它再也长不出来了，”狐狸先生说，“我下半生不会再有尾巴了。”他看上去非常沮丧。
这天晚上，狐狸一家没有东西吃，孩子们很快便打起盹来。狐狸太太也睡着了。但是狐狸先生由于尾巴根的伤痛，怎么也睡不着。“嗯，”他暗想，“我看，自己竟然还活着，这就够幸运的了。现在他们发现了我们的洞口，我们必须尽快搬家。不然的话，我们将永无宁日……那是什么动静？”他敏捷地转过头去，倾听着。他现在听到的声音，是一只狐狸所能听到的最可怕的声音—铁锹挖进土里的嚓嚓声。
“醒醒！”他喊道，“他们要把咱们挖出去了！”
狐狸太太顿时就醒了。她坐起身来，浑身发抖。“你敢肯定是这么回事吗？”她悄声耳语道。
“绝对没错！听！”
“他们会杀了我的孩子们的！”狐狸太太哭道。
“办不到！”狐狸先生说。
“可是亲爱的，他们会的！”狐狸太太啜泣着说，“你知道他们会的。”
铁锹在他们头顶上不停地挖着，发出咯吱、咯吱、咯吱的声响。小石块和土粒开始从地道的顶上往下落。
“他们会怎样杀死我们，妈妈？”其中的一个小狐狸问道。他吓得睁大那双又黑又圆的眼睛。“那儿会有狗吗？”他说。
狐狸太太开始哭起来。她让四个孩子凑近自己，并紧紧地搂着他们。
突然，他们头顶上“喀嚓”一声巨响，一个锋利的铁锹头直穿洞顶，落了下来。看到这个可怕的东西，狐狸先生像是通了电似的，他跳起来喊道：“有办法了！快点！一会儿也不能耽搁了！我怎么以前就没有想到呀！”
“想到什么啊，爸爸？”
“狐狸挖洞会比人挖得还快！”狐狸先生一边大声说着，一边开始挖了起来，“世界上谁也没有狐狸挖洞挖得快！”
为了逃命，狐狸先生用前爪挖了起来，挖下来的土呼呼地向他身后飞去。狐狸太太跑上前去助他一臂之力，四个孩子也来帮忙。
“向下挖！”狐狸先生命令道，“我们必须往深处挖，越深越好！”
地道越来越长了。它以很陡的坡度向下延伸，随着深度的增加，离地面也愈来愈远了。
母亲、父亲和所有的四个孩子都在一起挖着。他们的前腿飞快地运动着，让人都看不清楚。
铁锹的咯吱声和喀嚓声渐渐地变得越来越微弱了。
大约一个小时之后，狐狸先生停下来不挖了。“停！”他说。他们都停了下来。他们转过身去向后看着自己刚刚挖过来的长长的地道。周围一片寂静。“呃！”狐狸先生说道，“我看咱们已经干完了！他们决不会挖这么深的。大家干得很好！”
他们都坐下来喘息着。狐狸太太对她的孩子们说：“你们可要知道，要不是你们的爸爸，我们现在早就没命了。你们的爸爸是一个了不起的狐狸。”
狐狸先生看了看自己的妻子，于是她笑了。听她说出这样的话，他更喜欢她了。

1 shovels   

n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份

参考例句：

• workmen with picks and shovels 手拿镐铲的工人
• In the spring, we plunge shovels into the garden plot, turn under the dark compost. 春天，我们用铁锨翻开园子里黑油油的沃土。 来自辞典例句

2 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

3 dozed   

v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He boozed till daylight and dozed into the afternoon. 他喝了个通霄，昏沉沉地一直睡到下午。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• I dozed off during the soporific music. 我听到这催人入睡的音乐，便不知不觉打起盹儿来了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 sobbed   

哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说

参考例句：

• She sobbed out the story of her son's death. 她哭诉着她儿子的死。
• She sobbed out the sad story of her son's death. 她哽咽着诉说她儿子死去的悲惨经过。

5 scrunch   

v.压，挤压；扭曲（面部）

参考例句：

• The sand on the floor scrunched under our feet.地板上的沙子在我们脚下嘎吱作响。
• Her mother was sitting bolt upright, scrunching her white cotton gloves into a ball.她母亲坐得笔直，把她的白手套揉成了球状。

6 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

7 downwards   

adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地）

参考例句：

• He lay face downwards on his bed.他脸向下伏在床上。
• As the river flows downwards,it widens.这条河愈到下游愈宽。