Aunt Glosspan was nearly seventy when she became guardian1 to Lexington, but to look at her you
would never have guessed it for one minute. She was as sprightly2 as a woman half her age, with a
small, wrinkled, but still quite beautiful face and two lovely brown eyes that sparkled at you in the
nicest way. She was also a spinster, though you would never have guessed that either, for there
was nothing spinsterish about Aunt Glosspan. She was never bitter or gloomy or irritable3; she
didn’t have a moustache; and she wasn’t in the least bit jealous of other people, which in itself is
something you can seldom say about either a spinster or a virgin4 lady, although of course it is not
known for certain whether Aunt Glosspan qualified5 on both counts.
But she was an eccentric old woman, there was no doubt about that. For the past thirty years she
had lived a strange isolated6 life all by herself in a tiny cottage high up on the slopes of the Blue
Ridge7 Mountains, several miles from the nearest village. She had five acres of pasture, a plot for
growing vegetables, a flower garden, three cows, a dozen hens, and a fine cockerel.
And now she had little Lexington as well.
She was a strict vegetarian8 and regarded the consumption of animal flesh as not only unhealthy
and disgusting, but horribly cruel. She lived upon lovely clean foods like milk, butter, eggs,
cheese, vegetables, nuts, herbs, and fruit and she rejoiced in the conviction that no living creature
would be slaughtered9 on her account, not even a shrimp10. Once, when a brown hen of hers passed
away in the prime of life from being eggbound, Aunt Glosspan was so distressed11 that she nearly
gave up egg-eating altogether.
She knew not the first thing about babies, but that didn’t worry her in the least. At the railway
station in New York, while waiting for the train that would take her and Lexington back to
Virginia, she bought six feeding-bottles, two dozen diapers, a box of safety pins, a carton of milk
for the journey, and a small paper-covered book called The Care of Infants. What more could
anyone want? And when the train got going, she fed the baby some milk, changed its nappies after
a fashion, and laid it down on the seat to sleep. Then she read The Care of Infants from cover to
cover.
‘There is no problem here,’ she said, throwing the book out of the window. ‘No problem at all.’
And curiously12 enough there wasn’t. Back home in the cottage everything went just as smoothly13
as could be. Little Lexington drank his milk and belched14 and yelled and slept exactly as a good
baby should, and Aunt Glosspan glowed with joy whenever she looked at him and showered him
with kisses all day long.
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1
guardian
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n.监护人;守卫者,保护者 | |
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2
sprightly
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adj.愉快的,活泼的 | |
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3
irritable
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adj.急躁的;过敏的;易怒的 | |
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4
virgin
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n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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5
qualified
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adj.合格的,有资格的,胜任的,有限制的 | |
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6
isolated
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adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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7
ridge
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n.山脊;鼻梁;分水岭 | |
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8
vegetarian
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n.素食者;adj.素食的 | |
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9
slaughtered
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v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
shrimp
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n.虾,小虾;矮小的人 | |
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11
distressed
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痛苦的 | |
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12
curiously
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adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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13
smoothly
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adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地 | |
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14
belched
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v.打嗝( belch的过去式和过去分词 );喷出,吐出;打(嗝);嗳(气) | |
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