章节正文
about it. "You are a banker and you will have
chances I never had," he said and his eyes shone.
"I am thinking about it all the time. Big things are
going to be done in the country and there will be
more money to be made than I ever dreamed of.
You get into it. I wish I were younger and had your
chance." Jesse Bentley walked up and down in the
bank office and grew more and more excited as he
talked. At one time in his life he had been threat-
ened with paralysis and his left side remained some-
what weakened. As he talked his left eyelid twitched.
Later when he drove back home and when night
came on and the stars came out it was harder to get
back the old feeling of a close and personal God
who lived in the sky overhead and who might at
any moment reach out his hand, touch him on the
shoulder, and appoint for him some heroic task to
be done. Jesse's mind was fixed upon the things
read in newspapers and magazines, on fortunes to
be made almost without effort by shrewd men who
bought and sold. For him the coming of the boy
David did much to bring back with renewed force
the old faith and it seemed to him that God had at
last looked with favor upon him.
As for the boy on the farm, life began to reveal
itself to him in a thousand new and delightful ways.
The kindly attitude of all about him expanded his
quiet nature and he lost the half timid, hesitating
manner he had always had with his people. At night
when he went to bed after a long day of adventures
in the stables, in the fields, or driving about from
farm to farm with his grandfather, he wanted to
embrace everyone in the house. If Sherley Bentley,
the woman who came each night to sit on the floor
by his bedside, did not appear at once, he went to
the head of the stairs and shouted, his young voice
ringing through the narrow halls where for so long
there had been a tradition of silence. In the morning
when he awoke and lay still in bed, the sounds that
came in to him through the windows filled him with
delight. He thought with a shudder of the life in the
house in Winesburg and of his mother's angry voice
that had always made him tremble. There in the
country all sounds were pleasant sounds. When he
awoke at dawn the barnyard back of the house also
awoke. In the house people stirred about. Eliza
Stoughton the half-witted girl was poked in the ribs
by a farm hand and giggled noisily, in some distant
field a cow bawled and was answered by the cattle
in the stables, and one of the farm hands spoke
sharply to the horse he was grooming by the stable
door. David leaped out of bed and ran to a window.
All of the people stirring about excited his mind,
and he wondered what his mother was doing in the
house in town.
From the windows of his own room he could not
see directly into the barnyard where the farm hands
had now all assembled to do the morning shores,
but he could hear the voices of the men and the
neighing of the horses. When one of the men
laughed, he laughed also. Leaning out at the open
window, he looked into an orchard where a fat sow
wandered about with a litter of tiny pigs at her
heels. Every morning he counted the pigs. "Four,
five, six, seven," he said slowly, wetting his finger
and making straight up and down marks on the
window ledge. David ran to put on his trousers and
shirt. A feverish desire to get out of doors took pos-
session of him. Every morning he made such a noise
coming down stairs that Aunt Callie, the house-
keeper, declared he was trying to tear the house
down. When he had run through the long old
house, shutting the doors behind him with a bang,
he came into the barnyard and looked about with
an amazed air of expectancy. It seemed to him that
in such a place tremendous things might have hap-
pened during the night. The farm hands looked at
him and laughed. Henry Strader, an old man who
had been on the farm since Jesse came into posses-
sion and who before David's time had never been
known to make a joke, made the same joke every
morning. It amused David so that he laughed and
clapped his hands. "See, come here and look," cried
the old man. "Grandfather Jesse's white mare has
tom the black stocking she wears on her foot."
Day after day through the long summer, Jesse
Bentley drove from farm to farm up and down the
valley of Wine Creek, and his grandson went with
him. They rode in a comfortable old phaeton drawn
by the white horse. The old man scratched his thin
white beard and talked to himself of his plans for
increasing the productiveness of the fields they vis-
ited and of God's part in the plans all men made.
Sometimes he looked at David and smiled happily
and then for a long time he appeared to forget the
boy's existence. More and more every day now his
mind turned back again to the dreams that had filled
his mind when he had first come out of the city to
live on the land. One afternoon he startled David
by letting his dreams take entire possession of him.
With the boy as a witness, he went through a cere-
mony and brought about an accident that nearly de-
stroyed the companionship that was growing up
between them.
Jesse and his grandson were driving in a distant
part of the valley some miles from home. A forest
came down to the road and through the forest Wine
Creek wriggled its way over stones toward a distant
river. All the afternoon Jesse had been in a medita-
tive mood and now he began to talk. His mind went
back to the night when he had been frightened by
thoughts of a giant that might come to rob and plun-
der him of his possessions, and again as on that
night when he had run through the fields crying for
a son, he became excited to the edge of insanity.
Stopping the horse he got out of the buggy and
asked David to get out also. The two climbed over
a fence and walked along the bank of the stream.
The boy paid no attention to the muttering of his
grandfather, but ran along beside him and won-
dered what was going to happen. When a rabbit
jumped up and ran away through the woods, he
clapped his hands and danced with delight. He
looked at the tall trees and was sorry that he was
not a little animal to climb high in the air without
being frightened. Stooping, he picked up a small
stone and threw it over the head of his grandfather
into a clump of bushes. "Wake up, little animal. Go
and climb to the top of the trees," he shouted in a
shrill voice.
Jesse Bentley went along under the trees with his
head bowed and with his mind in a ferment. His
earnestness affected the boy, who presently became
silent and a little alarmed. Into the old man's mind
had come the notion that now he could bring from
God a word or a sign out of the sky, that the pres-
ence of the boy and man on their knees in some
lonely spot in the forest would make the miracle he
had been waiting for almost inevitable. "It was in
just such a place as this that other David tended the
sheep when his father came and told him to go
down unto Saul," he muttered.
Taking the boy rather roughly by the shoulder, he
climbed over a fallen log and when he had come to
an open place among the trees he dropped upon his
knees and began to pray in a loud voice.
A kind of terror he had never known before took
possession of David. Crouching beneath a tree he
watched the man on the ground before him and his
own knees began to tremble. It seemed to him that
he was in the presence not only of his grandfather
but of someone else, someone who might hurt him,
someone who was not kindly but dangerous and
brutal. He began to cry and reaching down picked
up a small stick, which he held tightly gripped in
his fingers. When Jesse Bentley, absorbed in his own
idea, suddenly arose and advanced toward him, his
terror grew until his whole body shook. In the
woods an intense silence seemed to lie over every-
thing and suddenly out of the silence came the old
man's harsh and insistent voice. Gripping the boy's
shoulders, Jesse turned his face to the sky and
shouted. The whole left side of his face twitched
and his hand on the boy's shoulder twitched also.
"Make a sign to me, God," he cried. "Here I stand
with the boy David. Come down to me out of the
sky and make Thy presence known to me."
With a cry of fear, David turned and, shaking
himself loose from the hands that held him, ran
away through the forest. He did not believe that the
man who turned up his face and in a harsh voice
shouted at the sky was his grandfather at all. The
man did not look like his grandfather. The convic-
tion that something strange and terrible had hap-
pened, that by some miracle a new and dangerous
person had come into the body of the kindly old
man, took possession of him. On and on he ran
down the hillside, sobbing as he ran. When he fell
over the roots of a tree and in falling struck his head,
he arose and tried to run on again. His head hurt
so that presently he fell down and lay still, but it
was only after Jesse had carried him to the buggy
and he awoke to find the old man's hand stroking
his head tenderly that the terror left him. "Take me
away. There is a terrible man back there in the
woods," he declared firmly, while Jesse looked away
over the tops of the trees and again his lips cried
out to God. "What have I done that Thou dost not
approve of me," he whispered softly, saying the
words over and over as he drove rapidly along the
road with the boy's cut and bleeding head held ten-
derly against his shoulder.
III
Surrender
THE STORY OF Louise Bentley, who became Mrs. John
Hardy and lived with her husband in a brick house
on Elm Street in Winesburg, is a story of mis-
understanding.
Before such women as Louise can be understood
and their lives made livable, much will have to be
done. Thoughtful books will have to be written and
chances I never had," he said and his eyes shone.
"I am thinking about it all the time. Big things are
going to be done in the country and there will be
more money to be made than I ever dreamed of.
You get into it. I wish I were younger and had your
chance." Jesse Bentley walked up and down in the
bank office and grew more and more excited as he
talked. At one time in his life he had been threat-
ened with paralysis and his left side remained some-
what weakened. As he talked his left eyelid twitched.
Later when he drove back home and when night
came on and the stars came out it was harder to get
back the old feeling of a close and personal God
who lived in the sky overhead and who might at
any moment reach out his hand, touch him on the
shoulder, and appoint for him some heroic task to
be done. Jesse's mind was fixed upon the things
read in newspapers and magazines, on fortunes to
be made almost without effort by shrewd men who
bought and sold. For him the coming of the boy
David did much to bring back with renewed force
the old faith and it seemed to him that God had at
last looked with favor upon him.
As for the boy on the farm, life began to reveal
itself to him in a thousand new and delightful ways.
The kindly attitude of all about him expanded his
quiet nature and he lost the half timid, hesitating
manner he had always had with his people. At night
when he went to bed after a long day of adventures
in the stables, in the fields, or driving about from
farm to farm with his grandfather, he wanted to
embrace everyone in the house. If Sherley Bentley,
the woman who came each night to sit on the floor
by his bedside, did not appear at once, he went to
the head of the stairs and shouted, his young voice
ringing through the narrow halls where for so long
there had been a tradition of silence. In the morning
when he awoke and lay still in bed, the sounds that
came in to him through the windows filled him with
delight. He thought with a shudder of the life in the
house in Winesburg and of his mother's angry voice
that had always made him tremble. There in the
country all sounds were pleasant sounds. When he
awoke at dawn the barnyard back of the house also
awoke. In the house people stirred about. Eliza
Stoughton the half-witted girl was poked in the ribs
by a farm hand and giggled noisily, in some distant
field a cow bawled and was answered by the cattle
in the stables, and one of the farm hands spoke
sharply to the horse he was grooming by the stable
door. David leaped out of bed and ran to a window.
All of the people stirring about excited his mind,
and he wondered what his mother was doing in the
house in town.
From the windows of his own room he could not
see directly into the barnyard where the farm hands
had now all assembled to do the morning shores,
but he could hear the voices of the men and the
neighing of the horses. When one of the men
laughed, he laughed also. Leaning out at the open
window, he looked into an orchard where a fat sow
wandered about with a litter of tiny pigs at her
heels. Every morning he counted the pigs. "Four,
five, six, seven," he said slowly, wetting his finger
and making straight up and down marks on the
window ledge. David ran to put on his trousers and
shirt. A feverish desire to get out of doors took pos-
session of him. Every morning he made such a noise
coming down stairs that Aunt Callie, the house-
keeper, declared he was trying to tear the house
down. When he had run through the long old
house, shutting the doors behind him with a bang,
he came into the barnyard and looked about with
an amazed air of expectancy. It seemed to him that
in such a place tremendous things might have hap-
pened during the night. The farm hands looked at
him and laughed. Henry Strader, an old man who
had been on the farm since Jesse came into posses-
sion and who before David's time had never been
known to make a joke, made the same joke every
morning. It amused David so that he laughed and
clapped his hands. "See, come here and look," cried
the old man. "Grandfather Jesse's white mare has
tom the black stocking she wears on her foot."
Day after day through the long summer, Jesse
Bentley drove from farm to farm up and down the
valley of Wine Creek, and his grandson went with
him. They rode in a comfortable old phaeton drawn
by the white horse. The old man scratched his thin
white beard and talked to himself of his plans for
increasing the productiveness of the fields they vis-
ited and of God's part in the plans all men made.
Sometimes he looked at David and smiled happily
and then for a long time he appeared to forget the
boy's existence. More and more every day now his
mind turned back again to the dreams that had filled
his mind when he had first come out of the city to
live on the land. One afternoon he startled David
by letting his dreams take entire possession of him.
With the boy as a witness, he went through a cere-
mony and brought about an accident that nearly de-
stroyed the companionship that was growing up
between them.
Jesse and his grandson were driving in a distant
part of the valley some miles from home. A forest
came down to the road and through the forest Wine
Creek wriggled its way over stones toward a distant
river. All the afternoon Jesse had been in a medita-
tive mood and now he began to talk. His mind went
back to the night when he had been frightened by
thoughts of a giant that might come to rob and plun-
der him of his possessions, and again as on that
night when he had run through the fields crying for
a son, he became excited to the edge of insanity.
Stopping the horse he got out of the buggy and
asked David to get out also. The two climbed over
a fence and walked along the bank of the stream.
The boy paid no attention to the muttering of his
grandfather, but ran along beside him and won-
dered what was going to happen. When a rabbit
jumped up and ran away through the woods, he
clapped his hands and danced with delight. He
looked at the tall trees and was sorry that he was
not a little animal to climb high in the air without
being frightened. Stooping, he picked up a small
stone and threw it over the head of his grandfather
into a clump of bushes. "Wake up, little animal. Go
and climb to the top of the trees," he shouted in a
shrill voice.
Jesse Bentley went along under the trees with his
head bowed and with his mind in a ferment. His
earnestness affected the boy, who presently became
silent and a little alarmed. Into the old man's mind
had come the notion that now he could bring from
God a word or a sign out of the sky, that the pres-
ence of the boy and man on their knees in some
lonely spot in the forest would make the miracle he
had been waiting for almost inevitable. "It was in
just such a place as this that other David tended the
sheep when his father came and told him to go
down unto Saul," he muttered.
Taking the boy rather roughly by the shoulder, he
climbed over a fallen log and when he had come to
an open place among the trees he dropped upon his
knees and began to pray in a loud voice.
A kind of terror he had never known before took
possession of David. Crouching beneath a tree he
watched the man on the ground before him and his
own knees began to tremble. It seemed to him that
he was in the presence not only of his grandfather
but of someone else, someone who might hurt him,
someone who was not kindly but dangerous and
brutal. He began to cry and reaching down picked
up a small stick, which he held tightly gripped in
his fingers. When Jesse Bentley, absorbed in his own
idea, suddenly arose and advanced toward him, his
terror grew until his whole body shook. In the
woods an intense silence seemed to lie over every-
thing and suddenly out of the silence came the old
man's harsh and insistent voice. Gripping the boy's
shoulders, Jesse turned his face to the sky and
shouted. The whole left side of his face twitched
and his hand on the boy's shoulder twitched also.
"Make a sign to me, God," he cried. "Here I stand
with the boy David. Come down to me out of the
sky and make Thy presence known to me."
With a cry of fear, David turned and, shaking
himself loose from the hands that held him, ran
away through the forest. He did not believe that the
man who turned up his face and in a harsh voice
shouted at the sky was his grandfather at all. The
man did not look like his grandfather. The convic-
tion that something strange and terrible had hap-
pened, that by some miracle a new and dangerous
person had come into the body of the kindly old
man, took possession of him. On and on he ran
down the hillside, sobbing as he ran. When he fell
over the roots of a tree and in falling struck his head,
he arose and tried to run on again. His head hurt
so that presently he fell down and lay still, but it
was only after Jesse had carried him to the buggy
and he awoke to find the old man's hand stroking
his head tenderly that the terror left him. "Take me
away. There is a terrible man back there in the
woods," he declared firmly, while Jesse looked away
over the tops of the trees and again his lips cried
out to God. "What have I done that Thou dost not
approve of me," he whispered softly, saying the
words over and over as he drove rapidly along the
road with the boy's cut and bleeding head held ten-
derly against his shoulder.
III
Surrender
THE STORY OF Louise Bentley, who became Mrs. John
Hardy and lived with her husband in a brick house
on Elm Street in Winesburg, is a story of mis-
understanding.
Before such women as Louise can be understood
and their lives made livable, much will have to be
done. Thoughtful books will have to be written and
- banker [´bæŋkə]
n.银行家 (初中英语单词) - overhead [´əuvə,hed] ad.当头 a.在头上的 (初中英语单词)
- appoint [ə´pɔint] vt.安排；委派；任命 (初中英语单词)
- delightful [di´laitful] a.讨人喜欢的 (初中英语单词)
- grandfather [´grænd,fɑ:ðə] n.(外)祖父；祖先 (初中英语单词)
- everyone [´evriwʌn] pron.=everybody 每人 (初中英语单词)
- tradition [trə´diʃən] n.传统；惯例；传说 (初中英语单词)
- orchard [´ɔ:tʃəd] n.果园 (初中英语单词)
- trousers [´trauzəz] n.裤子，长裤 (初中英语单词)
- tremendous [tri´mendəs] a.可怕的；巨大的 (初中英语单词)
- stocking [´stɔkiŋ] n.长统袜 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- miracle [´mirəkl] n.奇迹；令人惊奇的 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- advanced [əd´vɑ:nst] a.先进的；高级的 (初中英语单词)
- hillside [´hilsaid] n.山腰 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- heroic [hi´rəuik] a.英雄的，英勇的 (高中英语单词)
- shrewd [ʃru:d] a.精明的；狡猾的 (高中英语单词)
- shudder [´ʃʌdə] n.&vi.震颤；发抖 (高中英语单词)
- litter [´litə] n.杂乱 v.乱丢 (高中英语单词)
- companionship [kəm´pæniənʃip] n.伴侣关系；友谊 (高中英语单词)
- inevitable [i´nevitəbəl] a.不可避免的 (高中英语单词)
- roughly [´rʌfli] ad.粗糙地；毛糙地 (高中英语单词)
- tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
- intense [in´tens] a.强烈的；紧张的 (高中英语单词)
- tenderly [´tendəli] ad.娇嫩地；柔和地 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- thoughtful [´θɔ:tfəl] a.深思的；体贴的 (高中英语单词)
- eyelid [´ai,lid] n.眼睑；眼皮 (英语四级单词)
- bedside [´bedsaid] n.床边 a.护理的 (英语四级单词)
- stirring [´stə:riŋ] a.活跃的；热闹的 (英语四级单词)
- feverish [´fi:vəriʃ] a.发烧的；狂热的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- grandson [´grænsʌn] n.孙子；外孙子 (英语四级单词)
- paralysis [pə´rælisis] n.麻痹；瘫痪 (英语六级单词)
- barnyard [´bɑ:njɑ:d] n.仓前空前 (英语六级单词)
- ferment [fə´ment] n.&v.发酵；激动 (英语六级单词)
- affected [ə´fektid] a.做作的；假装的 (英语六级单词)
- insistent [in´sistənt] a.坚持的；逼人注意的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
