章节正文
"Ohumahoh!" said Jimmy. "I don't know as I hanker for city life
so much as I sometimes think I do. What do you suppose the
adulterated stuff we read about in papers tastes like?"
"I've often wondered," answered Dannie. "Look at some of the hogs
and cattle that we see shipped from here to city markets. The
folks that sell them would starve before they'd eat a bit o'
them, yet somebody eats them, and what do ye suppose maple syrup
made from hickory bark and brown sugar tastes like?"
"And cold-storage eggs, and cotton-seed butter, and even horse
radish half turnip," added Mary. "Bate up the cream a little
before you put it in your coffee, or it will be in lumps. Whin
the cattle are on clover it raises so thick."
Jimmy speared a piece of salt-rising bread crust soaked in ham
gravy made with cream, and said: "I wish I could bring that Thrid
Man home with me to one meal of the real thing nixt time he
strikes town. I belave he would injoy it. May I, Mary?"
Mary's face flushed slightly. "Depends on whin he comes, she
said. "Of course, if I am cleaning house, or busy with something
I can't put off----"
"Sure!" cried Jimmy. "I'd ask you before I brought him, because
I'd want him to have something spicial. Some of this ham, and
horse radish, and maple syrup to begin with, and thin your fried
spring chicken and your stewed squirrel is a drame, Mary. Nobody
iver makes turtle soup half so rich as yours, and your green peas
in cream, and asparagus on toast is a rivilation--don't you
rimimber 'twas Father Michael that said it? I ought to be able to
find mushrooms in a few weeks, and I can taste your rhubarb pie
over from last year. Gee! But I wish he'd come in strawberrying!
Berries from the vines, butter in the crust, crame you have to
bate to make it smooth--talk about shortcake!"
"What's wrong wi' cherry cobbler?" asked Dannie.
"Or blackberry pie?"
"Or greens cooked wi' bacon?"
"Or chicken pie?"
"Or catfish, rolled in cornmeal and fried in ham fat?"
"Or guineas stewed in cream, with hard-boiled eggs in the gravy?"
"Oh, stop!" cried the delighted Mary. "It makes me dead tired
thinkin' how I'll iver be cookin' all you'll want. Sure, have him
come, and both of you can pick out the things you like the best,
and I'll fix thim for him. Pure, fresh stuff might be a trate to
a city man. When Dolan took sister Katie to New York with him,
his boss sent them to a five-dollar-a-day house, and they thought
they was some up. By the third day poor Katie was cryin' for a
square male. She couldn't touch the butter, the eggs made her
sick, and the cold-storage meat and chicken never got nearer her
stomach than her nose. So she just ate fish, because they were
fresh, and she ate, and she ate, till if you mintion New York to
poor Katie she turns pale, and tastes fish. She vows and declares
that she feeds her chickens and hogs better food twice a day than
people fed her in New York."
"I'll bet my new milk pail the grub we eat ivery day would be a
trate that would raise him," said Jimmy. "Provided his taste
ain't so depraved with saltpeter and chalk he don't know fresh,
pure food whin he tastes it. I understand some of the victims
really don't."
"Your new milk pail?" questioned Mary.
"That's what!" said Jimmy." The next time I go to town I'm goin'
to get you two."
"But I only need one," protested Mary. "Instead of two, get me a
new dishpan. Mine leaks, and smears the stove and table."
"Be Gorry!" sighed Jimmy. "There goes me tongue, lettin' me in
for it again. I'll look over the skins, and if any of thim are
ripe, I'll get you a milk pail and a dishpan the nixt time I go
to town. And, by gee! If that dandy big coon hide I got last fall
looks good, I'm going to comb it up, and work the skin fine, and
send it to the Thrid Man, with me complimints. I don't feel right
about him yet. Wonder what his name railly is, and where he
lives, or whether I killed him complate."
"Any dry goods man in town can tell ye," said Dannie.
"Ask the clerk in the hotel," suggested Mary.
"You've said it," cried Jimmy. "That's the stuff! And I can find
out whin he will be here again."
Two hours more they faithfully worked on the garden, and then
Jimmy began to grow restless.
"Ah, go on!" cried Mary. "You have done all that is needed just
now, and more too. There won't any fish bite to-day, but you can
have the pleasure of stringin' thim poor sufferin' worms on a
hook and soaking thim in the river."
"`Sufferin' worms!' Sufferin' Job!" cried Jimmy. "What nixt? Go
on, Dannie, get your pole!"
Dannie went. As he came back Jimmy was sprinkling a thin layer of
earth over the bait in the can. "Why not come along, Mary?" he
suggested.
"I'm not done planting my seeds," she answered. "I'll be tired
when I am, and I thought that place wasn't fixed for me yet."
"We can't fix that till a little later," said Jimmy. "We can't
tell where it's going to be grassy and shady yet, and the wood is
too wet to fix a sate."
"Any kind of a sate will do," said Mary. "I guess you better not
try to make one out of the Kingfisher stump. If you take it out
it may change the pool and drive away the Bass."
"Sure!" cried Jimmy. "What a head you've got! We'll have to find
some other stump for a sate."
"I don't want to go until it gets dry under foot, and warmer"
said Mary. "You boys go on. I'll till you whin I am riddy to go."
"There!" said Jimmy, when well on the way to the river. "What did
I tell you? Won't go if she has the chance! Jist wants to be
ASKED."
"I dinna pretend to know women," said Dannie gravely. "But
whatever Mary does is all richt with me."
"So I've obsarved," remarked Jimmy. "Now, how will we get at this
fishin' to be parfectly fair?"
"Tell ye what I think," said Dannie. "I think we ought to pick
out the twa best places about the Black Bass pool, and ye take
ane fra yours and I'll take the ither fra mine, and then we'll
each fish from his own place."
"Nothing fair about that," answered Jimmy. "You might just happen
to strike the bed where he lays most, and be gettin' bites all
the time, and me none; or I might strike it and you be left out.
And thin there's days whin the wind has to do, and the light. We
ought to change places ivery hour."
"There's nothing fair in that either," broke in Dannie. "I might
have him tolled up to my place, and juist be feedin' him my bait,
and here you'd come along and prove by your watch that my time
was up, and take him when I had him all ready to bite."
"That's so for you!" hurried in Jimmy. "I'll be hanged if I'd
leave a place by the watch whin I had a strike!"
"Me either," said Dannie. "'Tis past human nature to ask it. I'll
tell ye what we'll do. We'll go to work and rig up a sort of a
bridge where it's so narrow and shallow, juist above Kingfisher
shoals, and then we'll toss up fra sides. Then each will keep to
his side. With a decent pole either of us can throw across the
pool, and both of us can fish as we please. Then each fellow can
pick his bait, and cast or fish deep as he thinks best. What d'ye
say to that?"
"I don't see how anything could be fairer than that," said Jimmy.
"I don't want to fish for anything but the Bass. I'm goin' back
and get our rubber boots, and you be rollin' logs, and we'll
build that crossing right now."
"All richt," said Dannie.
So they laid aside their poles and tackle, and Dannie rolled logs
and gathered material for the bridge, while Jimmy went back after
their boots. Then both of them entered the water and began
clearing away drift and laying the foundations. As the first log
of the crossing lifted above the water Dannie paused.
"How about the Kingfisher?" he asked. "Winna this scare him
away?"
"Not if he ain't a domn fool," said Jimmy; "and if he is, let him
go!"
"Seems like the river would no be juist richt without him," said
Dannie, breaking off a spice limb and nibbling the fragrant buds.
"Let's only use what we bare need to get across. And where will
we fix fra Mary?"
"Oh, git out!" said Jimmy. "I ain't goin' to fool with that."
"Well, we best fix a place. Then we can tell her we fixed it, and
it's all ready."
"Sure!" cried Jimmy. "You are catchin' it from your neighbor.
Till her a place is all fixed and watin', and you couldn't drag
her here with a team of oxen. Till her you are GOING to fix it
soon, and she'll come to see if you've done it, if she has to be
carried on a stritcher."
So they selected a spot that they thought would be all right for
Mary, and not close enough to disturb the Bass and the
Kingfisher, rolled two logs, and fished a board that had been
carried by a freshet from the water and laid it across them, and
decided that would have to serve until they could do better.
Then they sat astride the board, Dannie drew out a coin, and they
tossed it to see which was heads and tails. Dannie won heads.
Then they tossed to see which bank was heads or tails, and the
right, which was on Rainbow side, came heads. So Jimmy was to use
the bridge. Then they went home, and began the night work. The
first thing Jimmy espied was the barrel containing the milk pail.
He fished out the pail, and while Dannie fed the stock, shoveled
manure, and milked, Jimmy pounded out the dents, closed the
bullet holes, emptied the bait into it, half filled it with
mellow earth, and went to Mary for some corn meal to sprinkle on
the top to feed the worms.
At four o'clock the next morning, Dannie was up feeding, milking,
scraping plows, and setting bolts. After breakfast they piled
their implements on a mudboat, which Dannie drove, while Jimmy
rode one of his team, and led the other, and opened the gates.
They began on Dannie's field, because it was closest, and for the
next two weeks, unless it were too rainy to work, they plowed,
harrowed, lined off, and planted the seed.
The blackbirds followed along the furrows picking up grubs, the
crows cawed from high tree tops, the bluebirds twittered about
hollow stumps and fence rails, the wood thrushes sang out their
souls in the thickets across the river, and the King Cardinal of
Rainbow Bottom whistled to split his throat from the giant
sycamore. Tender greens were showing along the river and in the
fields, and the purple of red-bud mingled with the white of wild
plum all along the Wabash.
The sunny side of the hill that sloped down to Rainbow Bottom was
a mass of spring beauties, anemones, and violets; thread-like
ramps rose rank to the scent among them, and round ginger leaves
were thrusting their folded heads through the mold. The
Kingfisher was cleaning his house and fishing from his favorite
stump in the river, while near him, at the fall of every luckless
worm that missed its hold on a blossom-whitened thorn tree, came
the splash of the great Black Bass. Every morning the Bass took a
trip around Horseshoe Bend food hunting, and the small fry raced
for life before his big, shear-like jaws. During the heat of noon
he lay in the deep pool below the stump, and rested; but when
evening came he set out in search of supper, and frequently he
felt so good that he leaped clear of the water, and fell back
with a splash that threw shining spray about him, or lashed out
with his tail and sent widening circles of waves rolling from his
lurking place. Then the Kingfisher rattled with all his might,
and flew for the tunnel in the embankment.
Some of these days the air was still, the earth warmed in the
golden sunshine, and murmured a low song of sleepy content. Some
so much as I sometimes think I do. What do you suppose the
adulterated stuff we read about in papers tastes like?"
"I've often wondered," answered Dannie. "Look at some of the hogs
and cattle that we see shipped from here to city markets. The
folks that sell them would starve before they'd eat a bit o'
them, yet somebody eats them, and what do ye suppose maple syrup
made from hickory bark and brown sugar tastes like?"
"And cold-storage eggs, and cotton-seed butter, and even horse
radish half turnip," added Mary. "Bate up the cream a little
before you put it in your coffee, or it will be in lumps. Whin
the cattle are on clover it raises so thick."
Jimmy speared a piece of salt-rising bread crust soaked in ham
gravy made with cream, and said: "I wish I could bring that Thrid
Man home with me to one meal of the real thing nixt time he
strikes town. I belave he would injoy it. May I, Mary?"
Mary's face flushed slightly. "Depends on whin he comes, she
said. "Of course, if I am cleaning house, or busy with something
I can't put off----"
"Sure!" cried Jimmy. "I'd ask you before I brought him, because
I'd want him to have something spicial. Some of this ham, and
horse radish, and maple syrup to begin with, and thin your fried
spring chicken and your stewed squirrel is a drame, Mary. Nobody
iver makes turtle soup half so rich as yours, and your green peas
in cream, and asparagus on toast is a rivilation--don't you
rimimber 'twas Father Michael that said it? I ought to be able to
find mushrooms in a few weeks, and I can taste your rhubarb pie
over from last year. Gee! But I wish he'd come in strawberrying!
Berries from the vines, butter in the crust, crame you have to
bate to make it smooth--talk about shortcake!"
"What's wrong wi' cherry cobbler?" asked Dannie.
"Or blackberry pie?"
"Or greens cooked wi' bacon?"
"Or chicken pie?"
"Or catfish, rolled in cornmeal and fried in ham fat?"
"Or guineas stewed in cream, with hard-boiled eggs in the gravy?"
"Oh, stop!" cried the delighted Mary. "It makes me dead tired
thinkin' how I'll iver be cookin' all you'll want. Sure, have him
come, and both of you can pick out the things you like the best,
and I'll fix thim for him. Pure, fresh stuff might be a trate to
a city man. When Dolan took sister Katie to New York with him,
his boss sent them to a five-dollar-a-day house, and they thought
they was some up. By the third day poor Katie was cryin' for a
square male. She couldn't touch the butter, the eggs made her
sick, and the cold-storage meat and chicken never got nearer her
stomach than her nose. So she just ate fish, because they were
fresh, and she ate, and she ate, till if you mintion New York to
poor Katie she turns pale, and tastes fish. She vows and declares
that she feeds her chickens and hogs better food twice a day than
people fed her in New York."
"I'll bet my new milk pail the grub we eat ivery day would be a
trate that would raise him," said Jimmy. "Provided his taste
ain't so depraved with saltpeter and chalk he don't know fresh,
pure food whin he tastes it. I understand some of the victims
really don't."
"Your new milk pail?" questioned Mary.
"That's what!" said Jimmy." The next time I go to town I'm goin'
to get you two."
"But I only need one," protested Mary. "Instead of two, get me a
new dishpan. Mine leaks, and smears the stove and table."
"Be Gorry!" sighed Jimmy. "There goes me tongue, lettin' me in
for it again. I'll look over the skins, and if any of thim are
ripe, I'll get you a milk pail and a dishpan the nixt time I go
to town. And, by gee! If that dandy big coon hide I got last fall
looks good, I'm going to comb it up, and work the skin fine, and
send it to the Thrid Man, with me complimints. I don't feel right
about him yet. Wonder what his name railly is, and where he
lives, or whether I killed him complate."
"Any dry goods man in town can tell ye," said Dannie.
"Ask the clerk in the hotel," suggested Mary.
"You've said it," cried Jimmy. "That's the stuff! And I can find
out whin he will be here again."
Two hours more they faithfully worked on the garden, and then
Jimmy began to grow restless.
"Ah, go on!" cried Mary. "You have done all that is needed just
now, and more too. There won't any fish bite to-day, but you can
have the pleasure of stringin' thim poor sufferin' worms on a
hook and soaking thim in the river."
"`Sufferin' worms!' Sufferin' Job!" cried Jimmy. "What nixt? Go
on, Dannie, get your pole!"
Dannie went. As he came back Jimmy was sprinkling a thin layer of
earth over the bait in the can. "Why not come along, Mary?" he
suggested.
"I'm not done planting my seeds," she answered. "I'll be tired
when I am, and I thought that place wasn't fixed for me yet."
"We can't fix that till a little later," said Jimmy. "We can't
tell where it's going to be grassy and shady yet, and the wood is
too wet to fix a sate."
"Any kind of a sate will do," said Mary. "I guess you better not
try to make one out of the Kingfisher stump. If you take it out
it may change the pool and drive away the Bass."
"Sure!" cried Jimmy. "What a head you've got! We'll have to find
some other stump for a sate."
"I don't want to go until it gets dry under foot, and warmer"
said Mary. "You boys go on. I'll till you whin I am riddy to go."
"There!" said Jimmy, when well on the way to the river. "What did
I tell you? Won't go if she has the chance! Jist wants to be
ASKED."
"I dinna pretend to know women," said Dannie gravely. "But
whatever Mary does is all richt with me."
"So I've obsarved," remarked Jimmy. "Now, how will we get at this
fishin' to be parfectly fair?"
"Tell ye what I think," said Dannie. "I think we ought to pick
out the twa best places about the Black Bass pool, and ye take
ane fra yours and I'll take the ither fra mine, and then we'll
each fish from his own place."
"Nothing fair about that," answered Jimmy. "You might just happen
to strike the bed where he lays most, and be gettin' bites all
the time, and me none; or I might strike it and you be left out.
And thin there's days whin the wind has to do, and the light. We
ought to change places ivery hour."
"There's nothing fair in that either," broke in Dannie. "I might
have him tolled up to my place, and juist be feedin' him my bait,
and here you'd come along and prove by your watch that my time
was up, and take him when I had him all ready to bite."
"That's so for you!" hurried in Jimmy. "I'll be hanged if I'd
leave a place by the watch whin I had a strike!"
"Me either," said Dannie. "'Tis past human nature to ask it. I'll
tell ye what we'll do. We'll go to work and rig up a sort of a
bridge where it's so narrow and shallow, juist above Kingfisher
shoals, and then we'll toss up fra sides. Then each will keep to
his side. With a decent pole either of us can throw across the
pool, and both of us can fish as we please. Then each fellow can
pick his bait, and cast or fish deep as he thinks best. What d'ye
say to that?"
"I don't see how anything could be fairer than that," said Jimmy.
"I don't want to fish for anything but the Bass. I'm goin' back
and get our rubber boots, and you be rollin' logs, and we'll
build that crossing right now."
"All richt," said Dannie.
So they laid aside their poles and tackle, and Dannie rolled logs
and gathered material for the bridge, while Jimmy went back after
their boots. Then both of them entered the water and began
clearing away drift and laying the foundations. As the first log
of the crossing lifted above the water Dannie paused.
"How about the Kingfisher?" he asked. "Winna this scare him
away?"
"Not if he ain't a domn fool," said Jimmy; "and if he is, let him
go!"
"Seems like the river would no be juist richt without him," said
Dannie, breaking off a spice limb and nibbling the fragrant buds.
"Let's only use what we bare need to get across. And where will
we fix fra Mary?"
"Oh, git out!" said Jimmy. "I ain't goin' to fool with that."
"Well, we best fix a place. Then we can tell her we fixed it, and
it's all ready."
"Sure!" cried Jimmy. "You are catchin' it from your neighbor.
Till her a place is all fixed and watin', and you couldn't drag
her here with a team of oxen. Till her you are GOING to fix it
soon, and she'll come to see if you've done it, if she has to be
carried on a stritcher."
So they selected a spot that they thought would be all right for
Mary, and not close enough to disturb the Bass and the
Kingfisher, rolled two logs, and fished a board that had been
carried by a freshet from the water and laid it across them, and
decided that would have to serve until they could do better.
Then they sat astride the board, Dannie drew out a coin, and they
tossed it to see which was heads and tails. Dannie won heads.
Then they tossed to see which bank was heads or tails, and the
right, which was on Rainbow side, came heads. So Jimmy was to use
the bridge. Then they went home, and began the night work. The
first thing Jimmy espied was the barrel containing the milk pail.
He fished out the pail, and while Dannie fed the stock, shoveled
manure, and milked, Jimmy pounded out the dents, closed the
bullet holes, emptied the bait into it, half filled it with
mellow earth, and went to Mary for some corn meal to sprinkle on
the top to feed the worms.
At four o'clock the next morning, Dannie was up feeding, milking,
scraping plows, and setting bolts. After breakfast they piled
their implements on a mudboat, which Dannie drove, while Jimmy
rode one of his team, and led the other, and opened the gates.
They began on Dannie's field, because it was closest, and for the
next two weeks, unless it were too rainy to work, they plowed,
harrowed, lined off, and planted the seed.
The blackbirds followed along the furrows picking up grubs, the
crows cawed from high tree tops, the bluebirds twittered about
hollow stumps and fence rails, the wood thrushes sang out their
souls in the thickets across the river, and the King Cardinal of
Rainbow Bottom whistled to split his throat from the giant
sycamore. Tender greens were showing along the river and in the
fields, and the purple of red-bud mingled with the white of wild
plum all along the Wabash.
The sunny side of the hill that sloped down to Rainbow Bottom was
a mass of spring beauties, anemones, and violets; thread-like
ramps rose rank to the scent among them, and round ginger leaves
were thrusting their folded heads through the mold. The
Kingfisher was cleaning his house and fishing from his favorite
stump in the river, while near him, at the fall of every luckless
worm that missed its hold on a blossom-whitened thorn tree, came
the splash of the great Black Bass. Every morning the Bass took a
trip around Horseshoe Bend food hunting, and the small fry raced
for life before his big, shear-like jaws. During the heat of noon
he lay in the deep pool below the stump, and rested; but when
evening came he set out in search of supper, and frequently he
felt so good that he leaped clear of the water, and fell back
with a splash that threw shining spray about him, or lashed out
with his tail and sent widening circles of waves rolling from his
lurking place. Then the Kingfisher rattled with all his might,
and flew for the tunnel in the embankment.
Some of these days the air was still, the earth warmed in the
golden sunshine, and murmured a low song of sleepy content. Some
- starve [stɑ:v]
v.(使)饥饿 (初中英语单词) - slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- squirrel [´skwirəl] n.松鼠 (初中英语单词)
- pretend [pri´tend] v.假装；借口；妄求 (初中英语单词)
- gravely [´greivli] ad.庄重地，严肃地 (初中英语单词)
- shallow [´ʃæləu] a.肤浅的；表面的 (初中英语单词)
- rubber [´rʌbə] n.(摩)擦的人；橡皮 (初中英语单词)
- disturb [di´stə:b] vt.扰乱；使不安；打乱 (初中英语单词)
- barrel [´bærəl] n.(琵琶)桶；圆筒 (初中英语单词)
- sprinkle [´spriŋkəl] v.撒，洒 n.细雨；微量 (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
- splash [splæʃ] v.&n.溅水声；涉水而进 (初中英语单词)
- tunnel [´tʌnl] n.隧道 v.挖隧道 (初中英语单词)
- sunshine [´sʌnʃain] n.日光，阳光 (初中英语单词)
- clover [´kləuvə] n.三叶草 (高中英语单词)
- turtle [´tə:tl] n.海龟；甲鱼 (高中英语单词)
- cherry [´tʃeri] n.樱桃(树) (高中英语单词)
- faithfully [´feiθfəli] ad.忠实地；诚恳地 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- decent [´di:sənt] a.体面的，正派的 (高中英语单词)
- tackle [´tækəl] n.用具；装置 vt.处理 (高中英语单词)
- fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
- rainbow [´reinbəu] n.彩虹 (高中英语单词)
- cardinal [´kɑ:dinəl] a.主要的 n.深红色 (高中英语单词)
- ginger [´dʒindʒə] n.姜；精神，元气 (高中英语单词)
- sleepy [´sli:pi] a.困的，想睡的 (高中英语单词)
- asparagus [ə´spærəgəs] n.文竹；天门冬；龙须菜 (英语四级单词)
- blackberry [´blækbəri] n.黑莓 (英语四级单词)
- delighted [di´laitid] a.高兴的；喜欢的 (英语四级单词)
- grassy [´grɑ:si] a.多草的；青草味的 (英语四级单词)
- bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- fishing [´fiʃiŋ] n.钓鱼；捕鱼；渔业 (英语四级单词)
- hickory [´hikəri] n.山核桃(属) (英语六级单词)
- horseshoe [´hɔ:s,ʃu] n.马蹄铁；马蹄铁形 (英语六级单词)
- hunting [´hʌntiŋ] n.打猎 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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