章节正文
"I guess so. That's what Mr. Came said. He's off to Acreville
now, but he'll be home tonight, and father's going to send my new
hat by him. When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her
name and call her Red Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like
it. When she b'longs to me, mebbe I won't be so fraid of gettin'
hooked and scrunched, because she'll know she's mine, and she'll
go better. I haven't let her get snarled up in the rope one
single time, and I don't show I'm afraid, do I?"
"I should never suspect it for an instant," said Mrs. Baxter
encouragingly. "I've often envied you your bold, brave look!"
Elisha appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't cried, either,
when she's dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs.
Bill Petes's little brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of
anything, not even bears. He says he would walk right up close
and cuff em if they dared to yip; but I ain't like that! He ain't
scared of elephants or tigers or lions either; he says they're
all the same as frogs or chickens to him!"
Rebecca told her Aunt Miranda that evening that it was the
Prophet's twenty-ninth night, and that the big red cow was to be
his on the morrow.
"Well, I hope it'll turn out that way," she said. "But I ain't a
mite sure that Cassius Came will give up that cow when it comes
to the point. It won't be the first time he's tried to crawl out
of a bargain with folks a good deal bigger than Lisha, for he's
terrible close, Cassius is. To be sure he's stiff in his joints
and he's glad enough to have a boy to take the cow to the pasture
in summer time, but he always has hired help when it comes
harvestin'. So Lisha'll be no use from this on; and I dare say
the cow is Abner Simpson's anyway. If you want a walk tonight, I
wish you'd go up there and ask Mis' Came if she'll lend me an'
your Aunt Jane half her yeast-cake. Tell her we'll pay it back
when we get ours a Saturday. Don't you want to take Thirza
Meserve with you? She's alone as usual while Huldy's entertainin'
beaux on the side porch. Don't stay too long at the parsonage!"
III
Rebecca was used to this sort of errand, for the whole village of
Riverboro would sometimes be rocked to the very centre of its
being by simultaneous desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest
repository was a mile and a half distant, as the yeast-cake was
valued at two cents and wouldn't keep, as the demand was
uncertain, being dependent entirely on a fluctuating desire for
"riz bread," the storekeeper refused to order more than three
yeast-cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes they remained on his
hands a dead loss; sometimes eight or ten persons would "hitch
up" and drive from distant farms for the coveted article, only to
be met with the flat, "No, I'm all out o' yeast-cake; Mis'
Simmons took the last; mebbe you can borry half o' hern, she
hain't much of a bread-eater."
So Rebecca climbed the hills to Mrs. Came's, knowing that her
daily bread depended on the successful issue of the call.
Thirza was barefooted, and tough as her little feet were, the
long walk over the stubble fields tired her. When they came
within sight of the Came barn, she coaxed Rebecca to take a short
cut through the turnips growing in long, beautifully weeded rows.
"You know Mr. Came is awfully cross, Thirza, and can't bear
anybody to tread on his crops or touch a tree or a bush that
belongs to him. I'm kind of afraid, but come along and mind you
step softly in between the rows and hold up your petticoat, so
you can't possibly touch the turnip plants. I'll do the same.
Skip along fast, because then we won't leave any deep
footprints."
The children passed safely and noiselessly along, their pleasure
a trifle enhanced by the felt dangers of their progress. Rebecca
knew that they were doing no harm, but that did not prevent her
hoping to escape the gimlet eye of Mr. Came.
As they neared the outer edge of the turnip patch they paused
suddenly, petticoats in air.
A great clump of elderberry bushes hid them from the barn, but
from the other side of the clump came the sound of conversation:
the timid voice of the Little Prophet and the gruff tones of
Cassius Came.
Rebecca was afraid to interrupt, and too honest to wish to
overhear. She could only hope the man and the boy would pass on
to the house as they talked, so she motioned to the paralyzed
Thirza to take two more steps and stand with her behind the
elderberry bushes. But no! In a moment they heard Mr. Came drag a
stool over beside the grindstone as he said:
"Well, now Elisha Jeremiah, we'll talk about the red cow. You say
you've drove her a month, do ye? And the trade between us was
that if you could drive her a month, without her getting the rope
over her foot and without bein' afraid, you was to have her.
That's straight, ain't it?"
The Prophet's face burned with excitement, his gingham shirt rose
and fell as if he were breathing hard, but he only nodded assent
and said nothing.
"Now," continued Mr. Came, "have you made out to keep the rope
from under her feet?"
"She ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time," said Elisha,
stuttering in his excitement, but looking up with some courage
from his bare toes, with which he was assiduously threading the
grass.
"So far, so good. Now bout bein' afraid. As you seem so certain
of gettin' the cow, I suppose you hain't been a speck scared, hev
you? Honor bright, now!"
"I--I--not but just a little mite. I"--
"Hold up a minute. Of course you didn't SAY you was afraid, and
didn't SHOW you was afraid, and nobody knew you WAS afraid, but
that ain't the way we fixed it up. You was to call the cow your'n
if you could drive her to the pasture for a month without BEIN'
afraid. Own up square now, hev you be'n afraid?"
A long pause, then a faint, "Yes."
"Where's your manners?"
"I mean yes, sir."
"How often? If it hain't be'n too many times mebbe I'll let ye
off, though you're a reg'lar girl-boy, and'll be runnin' away
from the cat bimeby. Has it be'n--twice?"
"Yes," and the Little Prophet's voice was very faint now, and had
a decided tear in it.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, sir."
"Has it be'n four times?"
"Y-es, sir." More heaving of the gingham shirt.
"Well, you AIR a thunderin' coward! How many times? Speak up
now."
More digging of the bare toes in the earth, and one premonitory
tear drop stealing from under the downcast lids, then,--
"A little, most every day, and you can keep the cow," wailed the
Prophet, as he turned abruptly and fled behind the shed, where he
flung himself into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave
himself up to unmanly sobs.
Cassius Came gave a sort of shamefaced guffaw at the abrupt
departure of the boy, and went on into the house, while Rebecca
and Thirza made a stealthy circuit of the barn and a polite and
circumspect entrance through the parsonage front gate.
Rebecca told the minister's wife what she could remember of the
interview between Cassius Came and Elisha Simpson, and
tender-hearted Mrs. Baxter longed to seek and comfort her Little
Prophet sobbing in the tansy bed, the brand of coward on his
forehead, and what was much worse, the fear in his heart that he
deserved it.
Rebecca could hardly be prevented from bearding Mr. Came and
openly espousing the cause of Elisha, for she was an impetuous,
reckless, valiant creature when a weaker vessel was attacked or
threatened unjustly.
Mrs. Baxter acknowledged that Mr. Came had been true, in a way,
to his word and bargain, but she confessed that she had never
heard of so cruel and hard a bargain since the days of Shylock,
and it was all the worse for being made with a child.
Rebecca hurried home, her visit quite spoiled and her errand
quite forgotten till she reached the brick house door, where she
told her aunts, with her customary picturesqueness of speech,
that she would rather eat buttermilk bread till she died than
partake of food mixed with one of Mr. Came's yeast-cakes; that it
would choke her, even in the shape of good raised bread.
"That's all very fine, Rebecky," said her Aunt Miranda, who had a
pin-prick for almost every bubble; "but don't forget there's two
other mouths to feed in this house, and you might at least give
your aunt and me the privilege of chokin' if we feel to want to!"
IV
Mrs. Baxter finally heard from Mrs. Came, through whom all
information was sure to filter if you gave it time, that her
husband despised a coward, that he considered Elisha a regular
mother's-apron-string boy, and that he was "learnin'" him to be
brave.
Bill Peters, the hired man, now drove Buttercup to pasture,
though whenever Mr. Came went to Moderation or Bonnie Eagle, as
he often did, Mrs. Baxter noticed that Elisha took the hired
man's place. She often joined him on these anxious expeditions,
and, a like terror in both their souls, they attempted to train
the red cow and give her some idea of obedience.
"If she only wouldn't look at us that way we would get along real
nicely with her, wouldn't we?" prattled the Prophet, straggling
along by her side; "and she is a splendid cow; she gives
twenty-one quarts a day, and Mr. Came says it's more'n half
cream."
The minister's wife assented to all this, thinking that if
Buttercup would give up her habit of turning completely round in
the road to roll her eyes and elevate her white-tipped eyebrow,
she might indeed be an enjoyable companion; but in her present
state of development her society was not agreeable, even did she
give sixty-one quarts of milk a day. Furthermore, when Mrs.
Baxter discovered that she never did any of these reprehensible
things with Bill Peters, she began to believe cows more
intelligent creatures than she had supposed them to be, and she
was indignant to think Buttercup could count so confidently on
the weakness of a small boy and a timid woman.
One evening, when Buttercup was more than usually exasperating,
Mrs. Baxter said to the Prophet, who was bracing himself to keep
from being pulled into a wayside brook where Buttercup loved to
dabble, "Elisha, do you know anything about the superiority of
mind over matter?"
No, he didn't, though it was not a fair time to ask the question,
for he had sat down in the road to get a better purchase on the
rope.
"Well, it doesn't signify. What I mean is that we can die but
once, and it is a glorious thing to die for a great principle.
Give me that rope. I can pull like an ox in my present frame of
mind. You run down on the opposite side of the brook, take that
big stick wade right in--you are barefooted,--brandish the stick,
and, if necessary, do more than brandish. I would go myself, but
it is better she should recognize you as her master, and I am in
as much danger as you are, anyway. She may try to hook you, of
course, but you must keep waving the stick,--die brandishing,
Prophet, that's the idea! She may turn and run for me, in which
case I shall run too; but I shall die running, and the minister
can bury us under our favorite sweet-apple tree!"
The Prophet's soul was fired by the lovely lady's eloquence.
Their spirits mounted simultaneously, and they were flushed with
a splendid courage in which death looked a mean and paltry thing
compared with vanquishing that cow. She had already stepped into
the pool, but the Prophet waded in towards her, moving the alder
now, but he'll be home tonight, and father's going to send my new
hat by him. When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her
name and call her Red Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like
it. When she b'longs to me, mebbe I won't be so fraid of gettin'
hooked and scrunched, because she'll know she's mine, and she'll
go better. I haven't let her get snarled up in the rope one
single time, and I don't show I'm afraid, do I?"
"I should never suspect it for an instant," said Mrs. Baxter
encouragingly. "I've often envied you your bold, brave look!"
Elisha appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't cried, either,
when she's dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs.
Bill Petes's little brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of
anything, not even bears. He says he would walk right up close
and cuff em if they dared to yip; but I ain't like that! He ain't
scared of elephants or tigers or lions either; he says they're
all the same as frogs or chickens to him!"
Rebecca told her Aunt Miranda that evening that it was the
Prophet's twenty-ninth night, and that the big red cow was to be
his on the morrow.
"Well, I hope it'll turn out that way," she said. "But I ain't a
mite sure that Cassius Came will give up that cow when it comes
to the point. It won't be the first time he's tried to crawl out
of a bargain with folks a good deal bigger than Lisha, for he's
terrible close, Cassius is. To be sure he's stiff in his joints
and he's glad enough to have a boy to take the cow to the pasture
in summer time, but he always has hired help when it comes
harvestin'. So Lisha'll be no use from this on; and I dare say
the cow is Abner Simpson's anyway. If you want a walk tonight, I
wish you'd go up there and ask Mis' Came if she'll lend me an'
your Aunt Jane half her yeast-cake. Tell her we'll pay it back
when we get ours a Saturday. Don't you want to take Thirza
Meserve with you? She's alone as usual while Huldy's entertainin'
beaux on the side porch. Don't stay too long at the parsonage!"
III
Rebecca was used to this sort of errand, for the whole village of
Riverboro would sometimes be rocked to the very centre of its
being by simultaneous desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest
repository was a mile and a half distant, as the yeast-cake was
valued at two cents and wouldn't keep, as the demand was
uncertain, being dependent entirely on a fluctuating desire for
"riz bread," the storekeeper refused to order more than three
yeast-cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes they remained on his
hands a dead loss; sometimes eight or ten persons would "hitch
up" and drive from distant farms for the coveted article, only to
be met with the flat, "No, I'm all out o' yeast-cake; Mis'
Simmons took the last; mebbe you can borry half o' hern, she
hain't much of a bread-eater."
So Rebecca climbed the hills to Mrs. Came's, knowing that her
daily bread depended on the successful issue of the call.
Thirza was barefooted, and tough as her little feet were, the
long walk over the stubble fields tired her. When they came
within sight of the Came barn, she coaxed Rebecca to take a short
cut through the turnips growing in long, beautifully weeded rows.
"You know Mr. Came is awfully cross, Thirza, and can't bear
anybody to tread on his crops or touch a tree or a bush that
belongs to him. I'm kind of afraid, but come along and mind you
step softly in between the rows and hold up your petticoat, so
you can't possibly touch the turnip plants. I'll do the same.
Skip along fast, because then we won't leave any deep
footprints."
The children passed safely and noiselessly along, their pleasure
a trifle enhanced by the felt dangers of their progress. Rebecca
knew that they were doing no harm, but that did not prevent her
hoping to escape the gimlet eye of Mr. Came.
As they neared the outer edge of the turnip patch they paused
suddenly, petticoats in air.
A great clump of elderberry bushes hid them from the barn, but
from the other side of the clump came the sound of conversation:
the timid voice of the Little Prophet and the gruff tones of
Cassius Came.
Rebecca was afraid to interrupt, and too honest to wish to
overhear. She could only hope the man and the boy would pass on
to the house as they talked, so she motioned to the paralyzed
Thirza to take two more steps and stand with her behind the
elderberry bushes. But no! In a moment they heard Mr. Came drag a
stool over beside the grindstone as he said:
"Well, now Elisha Jeremiah, we'll talk about the red cow. You say
you've drove her a month, do ye? And the trade between us was
that if you could drive her a month, without her getting the rope
over her foot and without bein' afraid, you was to have her.
That's straight, ain't it?"
The Prophet's face burned with excitement, his gingham shirt rose
and fell as if he were breathing hard, but he only nodded assent
and said nothing.
"Now," continued Mr. Came, "have you made out to keep the rope
from under her feet?"
"She ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time," said Elisha,
stuttering in his excitement, but looking up with some courage
from his bare toes, with which he was assiduously threading the
grass.
"So far, so good. Now bout bein' afraid. As you seem so certain
of gettin' the cow, I suppose you hain't been a speck scared, hev
you? Honor bright, now!"
"I--I--not but just a little mite. I"--
"Hold up a minute. Of course you didn't SAY you was afraid, and
didn't SHOW you was afraid, and nobody knew you WAS afraid, but
that ain't the way we fixed it up. You was to call the cow your'n
if you could drive her to the pasture for a month without BEIN'
afraid. Own up square now, hev you be'n afraid?"
A long pause, then a faint, "Yes."
"Where's your manners?"
"I mean yes, sir."
"How often? If it hain't be'n too many times mebbe I'll let ye
off, though you're a reg'lar girl-boy, and'll be runnin' away
from the cat bimeby. Has it be'n--twice?"
"Yes," and the Little Prophet's voice was very faint now, and had
a decided tear in it.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, sir."
"Has it be'n four times?"
"Y-es, sir." More heaving of the gingham shirt.
"Well, you AIR a thunderin' coward! How many times? Speak up
now."
More digging of the bare toes in the earth, and one premonitory
tear drop stealing from under the downcast lids, then,--
"A little, most every day, and you can keep the cow," wailed the
Prophet, as he turned abruptly and fled behind the shed, where he
flung himself into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave
himself up to unmanly sobs.
Cassius Came gave a sort of shamefaced guffaw at the abrupt
departure of the boy, and went on into the house, while Rebecca
and Thirza made a stealthy circuit of the barn and a polite and
circumspect entrance through the parsonage front gate.
Rebecca told the minister's wife what she could remember of the
interview between Cassius Came and Elisha Simpson, and
tender-hearted Mrs. Baxter longed to seek and comfort her Little
Prophet sobbing in the tansy bed, the brand of coward on his
forehead, and what was much worse, the fear in his heart that he
deserved it.
Rebecca could hardly be prevented from bearding Mr. Came and
openly espousing the cause of Elisha, for she was an impetuous,
reckless, valiant creature when a weaker vessel was attacked or
threatened unjustly.
Mrs. Baxter acknowledged that Mr. Came had been true, in a way,
to his word and bargain, but she confessed that she had never
heard of so cruel and hard a bargain since the days of Shylock,
and it was all the worse for being made with a child.
Rebecca hurried home, her visit quite spoiled and her errand
quite forgotten till she reached the brick house door, where she
told her aunts, with her customary picturesqueness of speech,
that she would rather eat buttermilk bread till she died than
partake of food mixed with one of Mr. Came's yeast-cakes; that it
would choke her, even in the shape of good raised bread.
"That's all very fine, Rebecky," said her Aunt Miranda, who had a
pin-prick for almost every bubble; "but don't forget there's two
other mouths to feed in this house, and you might at least give
your aunt and me the privilege of chokin' if we feel to want to!"
IV
Mrs. Baxter finally heard from Mrs. Came, through whom all
information was sure to filter if you gave it time, that her
husband despised a coward, that he considered Elisha a regular
mother's-apron-string boy, and that he was "learnin'" him to be
brave.
Bill Peters, the hired man, now drove Buttercup to pasture,
though whenever Mr. Came went to Moderation or Bonnie Eagle, as
he often did, Mrs. Baxter noticed that Elisha took the hired
man's place. She often joined him on these anxious expeditions,
and, a like terror in both their souls, they attempted to train
the red cow and give her some idea of obedience.
"If she only wouldn't look at us that way we would get along real
nicely with her, wouldn't we?" prattled the Prophet, straggling
along by her side; "and she is a splendid cow; she gives
twenty-one quarts a day, and Mr. Came says it's more'n half
cream."
The minister's wife assented to all this, thinking that if
Buttercup would give up her habit of turning completely round in
the road to roll her eyes and elevate her white-tipped eyebrow,
she might indeed be an enjoyable companion; but in her present
state of development her society was not agreeable, even did she
give sixty-one quarts of milk a day. Furthermore, when Mrs.
Baxter discovered that she never did any of these reprehensible
things with Bill Peters, she began to believe cows more
intelligent creatures than she had supposed them to be, and she
was indignant to think Buttercup could count so confidently on
the weakness of a small boy and a timid woman.
One evening, when Buttercup was more than usually exasperating,
Mrs. Baxter said to the Prophet, who was bracing himself to keep
from being pulled into a wayside brook where Buttercup loved to
dabble, "Elisha, do you know anything about the superiority of
mind over matter?"
No, he didn't, though it was not a fair time to ask the question,
for he had sat down in the road to get a better purchase on the
rope.
"Well, it doesn't signify. What I mean is that we can die but
once, and it is a glorious thing to die for a great principle.
Give me that rope. I can pull like an ox in my present frame of
mind. You run down on the opposite side of the brook, take that
big stick wade right in--you are barefooted,--brandish the stick,
and, if necessary, do more than brandish. I would go myself, but
it is better she should recognize you as her master, and I am in
as much danger as you are, anyway. She may try to hook you, of
course, but you must keep waving the stick,--die brandishing,
Prophet, that's the idea! She may turn and run for me, in which
case I shall run too; but I shall die running, and the minister
can bury us under our favorite sweet-apple tree!"
The Prophet's soul was fired by the lovely lady's eloquence.
Their spirits mounted simultaneously, and they were flushed with
a splendid courage in which death looked a mean and paltry thing
compared with vanquishing that cow. She had already stepped into
the pool, but the Prophet waded in towards her, moving the alder
- suspect [´sʌspekt, sə´spekt]
v.怀疑；觉得 n.嫌疑犯 (初中英语单词) - distinctly [di´stiŋktli] ad.清楚地，明晰地 (初中英语单词)
- pasture [´pɑ:stʃə] n.牧场；放牧 v.吃(草) (初中英语单词)
- bargain [´bɑ:gin] n.买卖合同 v.议(价) (初中英语单词)
- errand [´erənd] n.差使，使命 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- safely [´seifli] ad.安全地；平安地 (初中英语单词)
- trifle [´traifəl] n.琐事，小事；少量 (初中英语单词)
- prophet [´prɔfit] n.预言家；先知；提倡者 (初中英语单词)
- interrupt [,intə´rʌpt] v.中断；打扰 (初中英语单词)
- excitement [ik´saitmənt] n.兴奋；骚动；煽动 (初中英语单词)
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli] ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词)
- circuit [´sə:kit] n.环行 v.(绕....)环行 (初中英语单词)
- polite [pə´lait] a.有礼貌的；温和的 (初中英语单词)
- coward [´kauəd] n.胆怯者 a.胆小的 (初中英语单词)
- vessel [´vesəl] n.容器；船；脉管 (初中英语单词)
- bubble [´bʌbəl] n.水泡 vi.冒泡；沸腾 (初中英语单词)
- privilege [´privilidʒ] n.特权 vt.给....特权 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- companion [kəm´pæniən] n.同伴；同事；伴侣 (初中英语单词)
- agreeable [ə´gri:əbəl] a.适合的；符合的 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- dependent [di´pendənt] a.依赖的；从属的 (高中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- turnip [´tə:nip] n.萝卜，芜菁 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- customary [´kʌstəməri] a.通常的；惯例的 (高中英语单词)
- furthermore [,fə:ðə´mɔ:] ad.而且，此外 (高中英语单词)
- signify [´signifai] vt.表示 vi.有重要性 (高中英语单词)
- barefooted [beə´futid] ad.&a.赤脚(的) (英语四级单词)
- beautifully [´bju:tifəli] ad.美丽地；优美地 (英语四级单词)
- petticoat [´petikəut] n.裙子 a.女性的 (英语四级单词)
- noiselessly [´nɔizlisli] ad.静静地，轻轻地 (英语四级单词)
- valiant [´væliənt] a.勇敢的，英勇的 (英语四级单词)
- filter [´filtə] n.滤器 v.过滤，渗入 (英语四级单词)
- moderation [,mɔdə´reiʃən] n.适度；温和；节制 (英语四级单词)
- indignant [in´dignənt] a.义愤的，愤慨的 (英语四级单词)
- superiority [su:piəri´ɔriti, sju:-] n.优越，卓越 (英语四级单词)
- simultaneously [,siməl´teinjəsli] ad.同时，一起 (英语四级单词)
- stubble [´stʌbəl] n.麦茬；短须 (英语六级单词)
- gingham [´giŋəm] n.方格花布，条格平布 (英语六级单词)
- downcast [´daunkɑ:st] a.沮丧的；向下看的 (英语六级单词)
- confidently [´kɔnfidəntli] ad.有信心地；自信地 (英语六级单词)
- wayside [´weisaid] n.&a.路边(的) (英语六级单词)
- brandish [´brændiʃ] vt.&n.挥舞(刀，剑等) (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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