章节正文
I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post-
office and store, talking with the chawbacons that came
in to trade. One whiskerando says that he hears Summit
is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset's boy
having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know.
I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the
price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously
and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier
would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.
When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not
to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked
a yodel or two, but there was no response.
So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to
await developments.
In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and
Bill wabbled out into the little glade in front of the cave.
Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with
a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat
and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid
stopped about eight feet behind him.
"Sam," says Bill, "I suppose you'll think I'm a rene-
gade, but I couldn't help it. I'm a grown person with
masculine proclivities and habits of self-defense, but there
is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance
fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All
is off. There was martyrs in old times," goes on Bill,
"that suffered death rather than give up the particular
graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated
to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to
be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came
a limit."
"What's the trouble, Bill?" I asks him.
"I was rode," says Bill, "the ninety miles to the stockade,
not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued,
I was given oats. Sand ain't a palatable substitute.
And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him
why there was nothin' in holes, how a road can run both
ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam,
a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the
neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain.
On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees
down; and I've got to have two or three bites on my thumb
and hand cauterized.
"But he's gone" -- continues Bill -- "gone home.
I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about
eight feet nearer there at one kick. I'm sorry we lose the
ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the
madhouse."
Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable
peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.
"Bill," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your
family, is there?
"No," says Bill, "nothing chronic except malaria
and accidents. Why?"
"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a
took behind you."
Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion
and sits down plump on the round and begins to pluck
aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was
afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme
was to put the whole job through immediately and that
we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight
if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced
up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a
promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him
is soon as he felt a little better.
I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without
danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to
commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree
under which the answer was to be left -- and the
money later on -- was close to the road fence with big,
bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be
watching for any one to come for the note they could see
him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But
no, sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well
hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.
Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on
a bicycle, locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the
fence-post, slips a folded piece of paper into it and pedals
away again back toward Summit.
I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was
square. I slid down the tree, got the note, slipped along
the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at the cave
in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the
lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a
crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:
Two Desperate Men.
Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post,
in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son.
I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby
make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to
believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and
pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree
to take him off your hands. You had better come at
night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn't
be responsible for what they would do to anybody they
saw bringing him back. Very respectfully,
EBENEZER DORSET.
"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the
impudent -- "
But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most
appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb
or a talking brute.
"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars,
after all? We've got the money. One more night of
this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being
a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spend-
thrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going
to let the chance go, are you?"
"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe
lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take
him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away."
We took him home that night. We got him to go
by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted
rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going
to hunt bears the next day.
It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebene-
zer's front door. Just at the moment when I should have
been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box
under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill
was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into
Dorset's hand.
When the kid found out we were going to leave him at
home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened
himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled
him away gradually, like a porous plaster.
"How long can you hold him?" asks Bill.
"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset,
"but I think I can promise you ten minutes."
"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross
the Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be
legging it trippingly for the Canadian border."
And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as
good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and a half
out of Summit before I could catch up with him.
THE MARRY MONTH OF MAY
PRITHEE, smite the poet in the eye when he would
sing to you praises of the month of May. It is a month
presided over by the spirits of mischief and madness.
Pixies and flibbertigibbets haunt the budding woods:
Puck and his train of midgets are busy in town and
country.
In May nature holds up at us a chiding finger, bidding
us remember that we are not gods, but overconceited
members of her own great family. She reminds us that
we are brothers to the chowder-doomed clam and the
donkey; lineal scions of the pansy and the chimpanzee,
and but cousins-german to the cooing doves, the quacking
ducks and the housemaids and policemen in the parks.
In May Cupid shoots blindfolded -- millionaires marry
stenographers; wise professors woo white-aproned gum-
chewers behind quick-lunch counters; schoolma'ams
make big bad boys remain after school; lads with ladders
steal lightly over lawns where Juliet waits in her trellissed
window with her telescope packed; young couples out
for a walk come home married; old chaps put on white
spats and promenade near the Normal School; even
married men, grown unwontedly tender and sentimental,
whack their spouses on the back and growl: "How goes
it, old girl:"
This May, who is no goddess, but Circe, masquerading
at the dance given in honour of the fair d锟絙utante, Sum-
mer, puts the kibosh on us all.
Old Mr. Coulson groaned a little, and then sat up
straight in his invalid's chair. He had the gout very
bad in one foot, a house near Gramercy Park, half a
million dollars and a daughter. And he had a house-
keeper, Mrs. Widdup. The fact and the name deserve
a sentence each. They have it.
When May poked Mr. Coulson he became elder brother
to the turtle-dove. In the window near which he sat
were boxes of jonquils, of hyacinths, geraniums and
pansies. The breeze brought their odour into the room.
Immediately there was a well-contested round between
the breath of the flowers and the able and active effluvium
from gout liniment. The liniment won easily; but not
before the flowers got an uppercut to old Mr. Coulson's
nose. The deadly work of the implacable, false enchant-
ress May was done.
Across the park to the olfactories of Mr. Coulson came
other unmistakable, characteristic, copyrighted smells
of spring that belong to the-big-city-above-the-Subway,
alone. The smells of hot asphalt, underground caverns,
gasoline, patchouli, orange peel, sewer gas, Albany grabs,
Egyptian cigarettes, mortar and the undried ink on news-
papers. The inblowing air was sweet and mild. Sparrows
wrangled happily everywhere outdoors. Never trust May.
Mr. Coulson twisted the ends of his white mustache,
cursed his foot, and pounded a bell on the table by his
side.
In came Mrs. Widdup. She was comely to the eye,
fair, flustered, forty and foxy.
"Higgins is out, sir," she said, with a smile suggestive
of vibratory massage. "He went to post a letter. Can
I do anything for you, sir?"
"It's time for my aconite," said old Mr. Coulson.
"Drop it for me. The bottle's there. Three drops.
In water. D -- that is, confound Higgins! There's
nobody in this house cares if I die here in this chair for
want of attention."
Mrs. Widdup sighed deeply.
office and store, talking with the chawbacons that came
in to trade. One whiskerando says that he hears Summit
is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset's boy
having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know.
I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the
price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously
and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier
would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.
When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not
to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked
a yodel or two, but there was no response.
So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to
await developments.
In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and
Bill wabbled out into the little glade in front of the cave.
Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with
a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat
and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid
stopped about eight feet behind him.
"Sam," says Bill, "I suppose you'll think I'm a rene-
gade, but I couldn't help it. I'm a grown person with
masculine proclivities and habits of self-defense, but there
is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance
fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All
is off. There was martyrs in old times," goes on Bill,
"that suffered death rather than give up the particular
graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated
to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to
be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came
a limit."
"What's the trouble, Bill?" I asks him.
"I was rode," says Bill, "the ninety miles to the stockade,
not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued,
I was given oats. Sand ain't a palatable substitute.
And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him
why there was nothin' in holes, how a road can run both
ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam,
a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the
neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain.
On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees
down; and I've got to have two or three bites on my thumb
and hand cauterized.
"But he's gone" -- continues Bill -- "gone home.
I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about
eight feet nearer there at one kick. I'm sorry we lose the
ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the
madhouse."
Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable
peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.
"Bill," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your
family, is there?
"No," says Bill, "nothing chronic except malaria
and accidents. Why?"
"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a
took behind you."
Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion
and sits down plump on the round and begins to pluck
aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was
afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme
was to put the whole job through immediately and that
we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight
if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced
up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a
promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him
is soon as he felt a little better.
I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without
danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to
commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree
under which the answer was to be left -- and the
money later on -- was close to the road fence with big,
bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be
watching for any one to come for the note they could see
him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But
no, sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well
hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.
Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on
a bicycle, locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the
fence-post, slips a folded piece of paper into it and pedals
away again back toward Summit.
I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was
square. I slid down the tree, got the note, slipped along
the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at the cave
in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the
lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a
crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:
Two Desperate Men.
Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post,
in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son.
I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby
make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to
believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and
pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree
to take him off your hands. You had better come at
night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn't
be responsible for what they would do to anybody they
saw bringing him back. Very respectfully,
EBENEZER DORSET.
"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the
impudent -- "
But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most
appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb
or a talking brute.
"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars,
after all? We've got the money. One more night of
this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being
a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spend-
thrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going
to let the chance go, are you?"
"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe
lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take
him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away."
We took him home that night. We got him to go
by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted
rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going
to hunt bears the next day.
It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebene-
zer's front door. Just at the moment when I should have
been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box
under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill
was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into
Dorset's hand.
When the kid found out we were going to leave him at
home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened
himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled
him away gradually, like a porous plaster.
"How long can you hold him?" asks Bill.
"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset,
"but I think I can promise you ten minutes."
"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross
the Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be
legging it trippingly for the Canadian border."
And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as
good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and a half
out of Summit before I could catch up with him.
THE MARRY MONTH OF MAY
PRITHEE, smite the poet in the eye when he would
sing to you praises of the month of May. It is a month
presided over by the spirits of mischief and madness.
Pixies and flibbertigibbets haunt the budding woods:
Puck and his train of midgets are busy in town and
country.
In May nature holds up at us a chiding finger, bidding
us remember that we are not gods, but overconceited
members of her own great family. She reminds us that
we are brothers to the chowder-doomed clam and the
donkey; lineal scions of the pansy and the chimpanzee,
and but cousins-german to the cooing doves, the quacking
ducks and the housemaids and policemen in the parks.
In May Cupid shoots blindfolded -- millionaires marry
stenographers; wise professors woo white-aproned gum-
chewers behind quick-lunch counters; schoolma'ams
make big bad boys remain after school; lads with ladders
steal lightly over lawns where Juliet waits in her trellissed
window with her telescope packed; young couples out
for a walk come home married; old chaps put on white
spats and promenade near the Normal School; even
married men, grown unwontedly tender and sentimental,
whack their spouses on the back and growl: "How goes
it, old girl:"
This May, who is no goddess, but Circe, masquerading
at the dance given in honour of the fair d锟絙utante, Sum-
mer, puts the kibosh on us all.
Old Mr. Coulson groaned a little, and then sat up
straight in his invalid's chair. He had the gout very
bad in one foot, a house near Gramercy Park, half a
million dollars and a daughter. And he had a house-
keeper, Mrs. Widdup. The fact and the name deserve
a sentence each. They have it.
When May poked Mr. Coulson he became elder brother
to the turtle-dove. In the window near which he sat
were boxes of jonquils, of hyacinths, geraniums and
pansies. The breeze brought their odour into the room.
Immediately there was a well-contested round between
the breath of the flowers and the able and active effluvium
from gout liniment. The liniment won easily; but not
before the flowers got an uppercut to old Mr. Coulson's
nose. The deadly work of the implacable, false enchant-
ress May was done.
Across the park to the olfactories of Mr. Coulson came
other unmistakable, characteristic, copyrighted smells
of spring that belong to the-big-city-above-the-Subway,
alone. The smells of hot asphalt, underground caverns,
gasoline, patchouli, orange peel, sewer gas, Albany grabs,
Egyptian cigarettes, mortar and the undried ink on news-
papers. The inblowing air was sweet and mild. Sparrows
wrangled happily everywhere outdoors. Never trust May.
Mr. Coulson twisted the ends of his white mustache,
cursed his foot, and pounded a bell on the table by his
side.
In came Mrs. Widdup. She was comely to the eye,
fair, flustered, forty and foxy.
"Higgins is out, sir," she said, with a smile suggestive
of vibratory massage. "He went to post a letter. Can
I do anything for you, sir?"
"It's time for my aconite," said old Mr. Coulson.
"Drop it for me. The bottle's there. Three drops.
In water. D -- that is, confound Higgins! There's
nobody in this house cares if I die here in this chair for
want of attention."
Mrs. Widdup sighed deeply.
- account [ə´kaunt]
vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词) - stolen [´stəulən] steal 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- tobacco [tə´bækəu] n.烟草(叶)；卷烟 (初中英语单词)
- rustle [´rʌsl] v.&n.(使)沙沙作响 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif] n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词)
- faithful [´feiθfəl] a.忠实的；可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- scheme [ski:m] n.计划；阴谋，诡计 (初中英语单词)
- professional [prə´feʃənəl] a.职业的 n.自由职业 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- messenger [´mesindʒə] n.使者；送信人 (初中英语单词)
- desperate [´despərit] a.拼死的；绝望的 (初中英语单词)
- responsible [ri´spɔnsəbəl] a.尽责的；责任重大的 (初中英语单词)
- liberal [´libərəl] a.大方的 n.开明的人 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- canadian [kə´neidiən] a.加拿大的n.加拿大人 (初中英语单词)
- mischief [´mistʃif] n.伤害；故障；调皮 (初中英语单词)
- lightly [´laitli] ad.轻微地，稍微 (初中英语单词)
- normal [´nɔ:məl] a.正规的 n.正常状态 (初中英语单词)
- goddess [´gɔdis] n.女神 (初中英语单词)
- sentence [´sentəns] n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词)
- breeze [bri:z] n.微风；不费力的事 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
- summit [´sʌmit] n.顶(点)；绝顶 (高中英语单词)
- ransom [´rænsəm] n.赎金；勒索 vt.赎 (高中英语单词)
- proposition [,prɔpə´ziʃən] n.提议；主张；陈述 (高中英语单词)
- bicycle [´baisik(ə)l] n.自行车 (高中英语单词)
- thorough [´θʌrə] a.彻底的；详尽的 (高中英语单词)
- runner [´rʌnə] n.奔跑者；走私人(船) (高中英语单词)
- telescope [´teliskəup] n.望远镜 (高中英语单词)
- characteristic [,kæriktə´ristik] a.特有的 n.特性 (高中英语单词)
- underground [,ʌndə´graund] ad.&a.地下(的) (高中英语单词)
- albany [´ɔ:lbəni] n.奥尔巴尼 (高中英语单词)
- confound [kən´faund] v.混淆；使惊惶 (高中英语单词)
- poplar [´pɔplə] n.白杨；杨木 (英语四级单词)
- vicinity [vi´siniti] n.邻近，附近，接近 (英语四级单词)
- promenade [,prɔmə´nɑ:d, ´prɔmənɑ:d] n.散步 v.散步(于) (英语四级单词)
- asphalt [´æsfælt] n.沥青 (英语四级单词)
- mortar [´mɔ:tə] n.灰浆 vt.用灰浆涂抹 (英语四级单词)
- comely [´kʌmli] a.秀丽的；文雅的 (英语四级单词)
- chronic [´krɔnik] a.慢性的；剧烈的 (英语六级单词)
- unmistakable [,ʌnmi´steikəbəl] a.明显的；错不了的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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