章节正文
into a field. It was just growing dark and the scene
that lay before him was lovely. All the low hills were
washed with color and even the little clusters of
bushes in the corners of the fences were alive with
beauty. The whole world seemed to Ray Pearson to
have become alive with something just as he and
Hal had suddenly become alive when they stood in
the corn field stating into each other's eyes.
The beauty of the country about Winesburg was
too much for Ray on that fall evening. That is all
there was to it. He could not stand it. Of a sudden
he forgot all about being a quiet old farm hand and
throwing off the torn overcoat began to run across
the field. As he ran he shouted a protest against his
life, against all life, against everything that makes
life ugly. "There was no promise made," he cried
into the empty spaces that lay about him. "I didn't
promise my Minnie anything and Hal hasn't made
any promise to Nell. I know he hasn't. She went
into the woods with him because she wanted to go.
What he wanted she wanted. Why should I pay?
Why should Hal pay? Why should anyone pay? I
don't want Hal to become old and worn out. I'll tell
him. I won't let it go on. I'll catch Hal before he gets
to town and I'll tell him."
Ray ran clumsily and once he stumbled and fell
down. "I must catch Hal and tell him," he kept
thinking, and although his breath came in gasps he
kept running harder and harder. As he ran he
thought of things that hadn't come into his mind for
years--how at the time he married he had planned
to go west to his uncle in Portland, Oregon--how
he hadn't wanted to be a farm hand, but had
thought when he got out West he would go to sea
and be a sailor or get a job on a ranch and ride a
horse into Western towns, shouting and laughing
and waking the people in the houses with his wild
cries. Then as he ran he remembered his children
and in fancy felt their hands clutching at him. All
of his thoughts of himself were involved with the
thoughts of Hal and he thought the children were
clutching at the younger man also. "They are the
accidents of life, Hal," he cried. "They are not mine
or yours. I had nothing to do with them."
Darkness began to spread over the fields as Ray
Pearson ran on and on. His breath came in little
sobs. When he came to the fence at the edge of the
road and confronted Hal Winters, all dressed up and
smoking a pipe as he walked jauntily along, he
could not have told what he thought or what he
wanted.
Ray Pearson lost his nerve and this is really the
end of the story of what happened to him. It was
almost dark when he got to the fence and he put his
hands on the top bar and stood staring. Hal Winters
jumped a ditch and coming up close to Ray put his
hands into his pockets and laughed. He seemed to
have lost his own sense of what had happened in
the corn field and when he put up a strong hand
and took hold of the lapel of Ray's coat he shook
the old man as he might have shaken a dog that
had misbehaved.
"You came to tell me, eh?" he said. "Well, never
mind telling me anything. I'm not a coward and I've
already made up my mind." He laughed again and
jumped back across the ditch. "Nell ain't no fool,"
he said. "She didn't ask me to marry her. I want to
marry her. I want to settle down and have kids."
Ray Pearson also laughed. He felt like laughing at
himself and all the world.
As the form of Hal Winters disappeared in the
dusk that lay over the road that led to Winesburg,
he turned and walked slowly back across the fields
to where he had left his torn overcoat. As he went
some memory of pleasant evenings spent with the
thin-legged children in the tumble-down house by
the creek must have come into his mind, for he mut-
tered words. "It's just as well. Whatever I told him
would have been a lie," he said softly, and then
his form also disappeared into the darkness of the
fields.
DRINK
TOM FOSTER came to Winesburg from Cincinnati
when he was still young and could get many new
impressions. His grandmother had been raised on a
farm near the town and as a young girl had gone to
school there when Winesburg was a village of
twelve or fifteen houses clustered about a general
store on the Trunion Pike.
What a life the old woman had led since she went
away from the frontier settlement and what a
strong, capable little old thing she was! She had
been in Kansas, in Canada, and in New York City,
traveling about with her husband, a mechanic, be-
fore he died. Later she went to stay with her
daughter, who had also married a mechanic and
lived in Covington, Kentucky, across the river
from Cincinnati.
Then began the hard years for Tom Foster's
grandmother. First her son-in-law was killed by a
policeman during a strike and then Tom's mother
became an invalid and died also. The grandmother
had saved a little money, but it was swept away by
the illness of the daughter and by the cost of the
two funerals. She became a half worn-out old
woman worker and lived with the grandson above
a junk shop on a side street in Cincinnati. For five
years she scrubbed the floors in an office building
and then got a place as dish washer in a restaurant.
Her hands were all twisted out of shape. When she
took hold of a mop or a broom handle the hands
looked like the dried stems of an old creeping vine
clinging to a tree.
The old woman came back to Winesburg as soon
as she got the chance. One evening as she was com-
ing home from work she found a pocket-book con-
taining thirty-seven dollars, and that opened the
way. The trip was a great adventure for the boy. It
was past seven o'clock at night when the grand-
mother came home with the pocket-book held tightly
in her old hands and she was so excited she could
scarcely speak. She insisted on leaving Cincinnati
that night, saying that if they stayed until morning
the owner of the money would be sure to find them
out and make trouble. Tom, who was then sixteen
years old, had to go trudging off to the station with
the old woman, bearing all of their earthly belong-
ings done up in a worn-out blanket and slung across
his back. By his side walked the grandmother urging
him forward. Her toothless old mouth twitched ner-
vously, and when Tom grew weary and wanted to
put the pack down at a street crossing, she snatched
it up and if he had not prevented would have slung
it across her own back. When they got into the train
and it had run out of the city she was as delighted
as a girl and talked as the boy had never heard her
talk before.
All through the night as the train rattled along,
the grandmother told Tom tales of Winesburg and
of how he would enjoy his life working in the fields
and shooting wild things in the woods there. She
could not believe that the tiny village of fifty years
before had grown into a thriving town in her ab-
sence, and in the morning when the train came to
Winesburg did not want to get off. "It isn't what I
thought. It may be hard for you here," she said, and
then the train went on its way and the two stood
confused, not knowing where to turn, in the pres-
ence of Albert Longworth, the Winesburg baggage
master.
But Tom Foster did get along all right. He was
one to get along anywhere. Mrs. White, the banker's
wife, employed his grandmother to work in the
kitchen and he got a place as stable boy in the bank-
er's new brick barn.
In Winesburg servants were hard to get. The
woman who wanted help in her housework em-
ployed a "hired girl" who insisted on sitting at the
table with the family. Mrs. White was sick of hired
girls and snatched at the chance to get hold of the
old city woman. She furnished a room for the boy
Tom upstairs in the barn. "He can mow the lawn
and run errands when the horses do not need atten-
tion," she explained to her husband.
Tom Foster was rather small for his age and had
a large head covered with stiff black hair that stood
straight up. The hair emphasized the bigness of his
head. His voice was the softest thing imaginable,
and he was himself so gentle and quiet that he
slipped into the life of the town without attracting
the least bit of attention.
One could not help wondering where Tom Foster
got his gentleness. In Cincinnati he had lived in a
neighborhood where gangs of tough boys prowled
through the streets, and all through his early forma-
tive years he ran about with tough boys. For a while
he was a messenger for a telegraph company and
delivered messages in a neighborhood sprinkled
with houses of prostitution. The women in the
houses knew and loved Tom Foster and the tough
boys in the gangs loved him also.
He never asserted himself. That was one thing
that helped him escape. In an odd way he stood in
the shadow of the wall of life, was meant to stand
in the shadow. He saw the men and women in the
houses of lust, sensed their casual and horrible love
affairs, saw boys fighting and listened to their tales
of thieving and drunkenness, unmoved and strangely
unaffected.
Once Tom did steal. That was while he still lived
in the city. The grandmother was ill at the time and
he himself was out of work. There was nothing to
eat in the house, and so he went into a harness shop
on a side street and stole a dollar and seventy-five
cents out of the cash drawer.
The harness shop was run by an old man with a
long mustache. He saw the boy lurking about and
thought nothing of it. When he went out into the
street to talk to a teamster Tom opened the cash
drawer and taking the money walked away. Later
he was caught and his grandmother settled the mat-
that lay before him was lovely. All the low hills were
washed with color and even the little clusters of
bushes in the corners of the fences were alive with
beauty. The whole world seemed to Ray Pearson to
have become alive with something just as he and
Hal had suddenly become alive when they stood in
the corn field stating into each other's eyes.
The beauty of the country about Winesburg was
too much for Ray on that fall evening. That is all
there was to it. He could not stand it. Of a sudden
he forgot all about being a quiet old farm hand and
throwing off the torn overcoat began to run across
the field. As he ran he shouted a protest against his
life, against all life, against everything that makes
life ugly. "There was no promise made," he cried
into the empty spaces that lay about him. "I didn't
promise my Minnie anything and Hal hasn't made
any promise to Nell. I know he hasn't. She went
into the woods with him because she wanted to go.
What he wanted she wanted. Why should I pay?
Why should Hal pay? Why should anyone pay? I
don't want Hal to become old and worn out. I'll tell
him. I won't let it go on. I'll catch Hal before he gets
to town and I'll tell him."
Ray ran clumsily and once he stumbled and fell
down. "I must catch Hal and tell him," he kept
thinking, and although his breath came in gasps he
kept running harder and harder. As he ran he
thought of things that hadn't come into his mind for
years--how at the time he married he had planned
to go west to his uncle in Portland, Oregon--how
he hadn't wanted to be a farm hand, but had
thought when he got out West he would go to sea
and be a sailor or get a job on a ranch and ride a
horse into Western towns, shouting and laughing
and waking the people in the houses with his wild
cries. Then as he ran he remembered his children
and in fancy felt their hands clutching at him. All
of his thoughts of himself were involved with the
thoughts of Hal and he thought the children were
clutching at the younger man also. "They are the
accidents of life, Hal," he cried. "They are not mine
or yours. I had nothing to do with them."
Darkness began to spread over the fields as Ray
Pearson ran on and on. His breath came in little
sobs. When he came to the fence at the edge of the
road and confronted Hal Winters, all dressed up and
smoking a pipe as he walked jauntily along, he
could not have told what he thought or what he
wanted.
Ray Pearson lost his nerve and this is really the
end of the story of what happened to him. It was
almost dark when he got to the fence and he put his
hands on the top bar and stood staring. Hal Winters
jumped a ditch and coming up close to Ray put his
hands into his pockets and laughed. He seemed to
have lost his own sense of what had happened in
the corn field and when he put up a strong hand
and took hold of the lapel of Ray's coat he shook
the old man as he might have shaken a dog that
had misbehaved.
"You came to tell me, eh?" he said. "Well, never
mind telling me anything. I'm not a coward and I've
already made up my mind." He laughed again and
jumped back across the ditch. "Nell ain't no fool,"
he said. "She didn't ask me to marry her. I want to
marry her. I want to settle down and have kids."
Ray Pearson also laughed. He felt like laughing at
himself and all the world.
As the form of Hal Winters disappeared in the
dusk that lay over the road that led to Winesburg,
he turned and walked slowly back across the fields
to where he had left his torn overcoat. As he went
some memory of pleasant evenings spent with the
thin-legged children in the tumble-down house by
the creek must have come into his mind, for he mut-
tered words. "It's just as well. Whatever I told him
would have been a lie," he said softly, and then
his form also disappeared into the darkness of the
fields.
DRINK
TOM FOSTER came to Winesburg from Cincinnati
when he was still young and could get many new
impressions. His grandmother had been raised on a
farm near the town and as a young girl had gone to
school there when Winesburg was a village of
twelve or fifteen houses clustered about a general
store on the Trunion Pike.
What a life the old woman had led since she went
away from the frontier settlement and what a
strong, capable little old thing she was! She had
been in Kansas, in Canada, and in New York City,
traveling about with her husband, a mechanic, be-
fore he died. Later she went to stay with her
daughter, who had also married a mechanic and
lived in Covington, Kentucky, across the river
from Cincinnati.
Then began the hard years for Tom Foster's
grandmother. First her son-in-law was killed by a
policeman during a strike and then Tom's mother
became an invalid and died also. The grandmother
had saved a little money, but it was swept away by
the illness of the daughter and by the cost of the
two funerals. She became a half worn-out old
woman worker and lived with the grandson above
a junk shop on a side street in Cincinnati. For five
years she scrubbed the floors in an office building
and then got a place as dish washer in a restaurant.
Her hands were all twisted out of shape. When she
took hold of a mop or a broom handle the hands
looked like the dried stems of an old creeping vine
clinging to a tree.
The old woman came back to Winesburg as soon
as she got the chance. One evening as she was com-
ing home from work she found a pocket-book con-
taining thirty-seven dollars, and that opened the
way. The trip was a great adventure for the boy. It
was past seven o'clock at night when the grand-
mother came home with the pocket-book held tightly
in her old hands and she was so excited she could
scarcely speak. She insisted on leaving Cincinnati
that night, saying that if they stayed until morning
the owner of the money would be sure to find them
out and make trouble. Tom, who was then sixteen
years old, had to go trudging off to the station with
the old woman, bearing all of their earthly belong-
ings done up in a worn-out blanket and slung across
his back. By his side walked the grandmother urging
him forward. Her toothless old mouth twitched ner-
vously, and when Tom grew weary and wanted to
put the pack down at a street crossing, she snatched
it up and if he had not prevented would have slung
it across her own back. When they got into the train
and it had run out of the city she was as delighted
as a girl and talked as the boy had never heard her
talk before.
All through the night as the train rattled along,
the grandmother told Tom tales of Winesburg and
of how he would enjoy his life working in the fields
and shooting wild things in the woods there. She
could not believe that the tiny village of fifty years
before had grown into a thriving town in her ab-
sence, and in the morning when the train came to
Winesburg did not want to get off. "It isn't what I
thought. It may be hard for you here," she said, and
then the train went on its way and the two stood
confused, not knowing where to turn, in the pres-
ence of Albert Longworth, the Winesburg baggage
master.
But Tom Foster did get along all right. He was
one to get along anywhere. Mrs. White, the banker's
wife, employed his grandmother to work in the
kitchen and he got a place as stable boy in the bank-
er's new brick barn.
In Winesburg servants were hard to get. The
woman who wanted help in her housework em-
ployed a "hired girl" who insisted on sitting at the
table with the family. Mrs. White was sick of hired
girls and snatched at the chance to get hold of the
old city woman. She furnished a room for the boy
Tom upstairs in the barn. "He can mow the lawn
and run errands when the horses do not need atten-
tion," she explained to her husband.
Tom Foster was rather small for his age and had
a large head covered with stiff black hair that stood
straight up. The hair emphasized the bigness of his
head. His voice was the softest thing imaginable,
and he was himself so gentle and quiet that he
slipped into the life of the town without attracting
the least bit of attention.
One could not help wondering where Tom Foster
got his gentleness. In Cincinnati he had lived in a
neighborhood where gangs of tough boys prowled
through the streets, and all through his early forma-
tive years he ran about with tough boys. For a while
he was a messenger for a telegraph company and
delivered messages in a neighborhood sprinkled
with houses of prostitution. The women in the
houses knew and loved Tom Foster and the tough
boys in the gangs loved him also.
He never asserted himself. That was one thing
that helped him escape. In an odd way he stood in
the shadow of the wall of life, was meant to stand
in the shadow. He saw the men and women in the
houses of lust, sensed their casual and horrible love
affairs, saw boys fighting and listened to their tales
of thieving and drunkenness, unmoved and strangely
unaffected.
Once Tom did steal. That was while he still lived
in the city. The grandmother was ill at the time and
he himself was out of work. There was nothing to
eat in the house, and so he went into a harness shop
on a side street and stole a dollar and seventy-five
cents out of the cash drawer.
The harness shop was run by an old man with a
long mustache. He saw the boy lurking about and
thought nothing of it. When he went out into the
street to talk to a teamster Tom opened the cash
drawer and taking the money walked away. Later
he was caught and his grandmother settled the mat-
- breath [breθ]
n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词) - running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- shaken [´ʃeikən] shake的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- coward [´kauəd] n.胆怯者 a.胆小的 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- grandmother [´græn,mʌðə] n.(外)祖母 (初中英语单词)
- frontier [´frʌntiə] n.国境；边疆；边界 (初中英语单词)
- capable [´keipəbəl] a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词)
- mechanic [mi´kænik] n.技工 a.手工的 (初中英语单词)
- illness [´ilnis] n.生病，不健康，疾病 (初中英语单词)
- worker [´wə:kə] n.工人；劳动者；工作者 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- stable [´steibəl] n.马棚 a.稳固的 (初中英语单词)
- messenger [´mesindʒə] n.使者；送信人 (初中英语单词)
- telegraph [´teligrɑ:f] n.&v.(打)电报；电告 (初中英语单词)
- neighborhood [´neibəhud] n.邻居；邻近；附近 (初中英语单词)
- horrible [´hɔrəbəl] a.可怕的；恐怖的 (初中英语单词)
- harness [´hɑ:nis] vt.上马具 n.马具 (初中英语单词)
- overcoat [´əuvəkəut] n.大衣 (高中英语单词)
- foster [´fɔstə] vt.促进；推动；鼓励 (高中英语单词)
- kansas [´kænzəs] n.堪萨斯(州) (高中英语单词)
- kentucky [kən´tʌki] n.肯塔基 (高中英语单词)
- cincinnati [,sisin´næti] n.辛辛那提 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
- casual [´kæʒuəl] a.偶然的；临时的 (高中英语单词)
- invalid [in´vælid] n.病人 a.无效的 (英语四级单词)
- grandson [´grænsʌn] n.孙子；外孙子 (英语四级单词)
- upstairs [,ʌp´steəz] ad.在楼上 a.楼上的 (英语四级单词)
- gentleness [´dʒentlnis] n.温和，温柔 (英语四级单词)
- mustache [mə´stɑ:ʃ] n.髭，小胡子 (英语四级单词)
- washer [´wɔʃə] n.洗衣机(人) (英语六级单词)
- housework [´hauswə:k] n.家务劳动 (英语六级单词)
- unmoved [ʌn´mu:vd] a.无动于衷的；坚定的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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