章节正文
I saw the doctor in the town -- thirty miles from here --
and fixed it up with him. He was a boozer -- I'd 'a shot him afterwards.
I fixed up with a woman in the town to come and stay. I thought Mary
was wrong in her time. She must have been a month or six weeks out.
But I listened to her. . . . Don't argue with a woman.
Don't listen to a woman. Do the right thing. We should have had
a mother woman to talk to us. But it was no place for a woman!"
He rocked his head, as if from some old agony of mind, against the tree-trunk.
"She was took bad suddenly one night, but it passed off. False alarm.
I was going to ride somewhere, but she said to wait till daylight.
Someone was sure to pass. She was a brave and sensible girl,
but she had a terror of being left alone. It was no place for a woman!
"There was a black shepherd three or four miles away. I rode over
while Mary was asleep, and started the black boy into town.
I'd 'a shot him afterwards if I'd 'a caught him. The old black gin was dead
the week before, or Mary would a' bin alright. She was tied up in a bunch
with strips of blanket and greenhide, and put in a hole.
So there wasn't even a gin near the place. It was no place for a woman!
"I was watchin' the road at daylight, and I was watchin' the road at dusk.
I went down in the hollow and stooped down to get the gap agen the sky,
so's I could see if anyone was comin' over. . . . I'd get on the horse
and gallop along towards the town for five miles, but something would
drag me back, and then I'd race for fear she'd die before I got to the hut.
I expected the doctor every five minutes.
"It come on about daylight next morning. I ran back'ards and for'ards
between the hut and the road like a madman. And no one come.
I was runningamongst the logs and stumps, and fallin' over them,
when I saw a cloud of dust agen sunrise. It was her mother an' sister
in the spring-cart, an' just catchin' up to them was the doctor in his buggy
with the woman I'd arranged with in town. The mother and sister
was staying at the town for the night, when they heard of the black boy.
It took him a day to ride there. I'd 'a shot him if I'd 'a caught him
ever after. The doctor'd been on the drunk. If I'd had the gun and known
she was gone I'd have shot him in the buggy. They said she was dead.
And the child was dead, too.
"They blamed me, but I didn't want her to come; it was no place for a woman.
I never saw them again after the funeral. I didn't want to see them
any more."
He moved his head wearily against the tree, and presently drifted on again
in a softer tone -- his eyes and voice were growing more absent and dreamy
and far away.
"About a month after -- or a year, I lost count of the time long ago --
she came back to me. At first she'd come in the night, then sometimes
when I was at work -- and she had the baby -- it was a girl -- in her arms.
And by-and-bye she came to stay altogether. . . . I didn't blame her
for going away that time -- it was no place for a woman. . . .
She was a good wife to me. She was a jolly girl when I married her.
The little girl grew up like her. I was going to send her down country
to be educated -- it was no place for a girl.
"But a month, or a year, ago, Mary left me, and took the daughter,
and never came back till last night -- this morning, I think it was.
I thought at first it was the girl with her hair done up,
and her mother's skirt on, to surprise her old dad. But it was Mary,
my wife -- as she was when I married her. She said she couldn't stay,
but she'd wait for me on the road; on -- the road. . . ."
His arms fell, and his face went white. I got the water-bag.
"Another turn like that and you'll be gone," I thought, as he came to again.
Then I suddenly thought of a shanty that had been started,
when I came that way last, ten or twelve miles along the road,
towards the town. There was nothing for it but to leave him
and ride on for help, and a cart of some kind.
"You wait here till I come back," I said. "I'm going for the doctor."
He roused himself a little. "Best come up to the hut and get some grub.
The wife'll be waiting. . . ." He was off the track again.
"Will you wait while I take the horse down to the creek?"
"Yes -- I'll wait by the road."
"Look!" I said, "I'll leave the water-bag handy. Don't move
till I come back."
"I won't move -- I'll wait by the road," he said.
I took the packhorse, which was the freshest and best,
threw the pack-saddle and bags into a bush, left the other horse
to take care of itself, and started for the shanty, leaving the old man
with his back to the tree, his arms folded, and his eyes on the horizon.
One of the chaps at the shanty rode on for the doctor at once,
while the other came back with me in a spring-cart. He told me
that old Howlett's wife had died in child-birth the first year
on the selection -- "she was a fine girl he'd heered!" He told me the story
as the old man had told it, and in pretty well the same words,
even to giving it as his opinion that it was no place for a woman.
"And he `hatted' and brooded over it till he went ratty."
I knew the rest. He not only thought that his wife, or the ghost of his wife,
had been with him all those years, but that the child had lived and grown up,
and that the wife did the housework; which, of course,
he must have done himself.
When we reached him his knotted hands had fallen for the last time,
and they were at rest. I only took one quick look at his face,
but could have sworn that he was gazing at the blue fin of the range
on the horizon of the bush.
Up at the hut the table was set as on the first day I saw it,
and breakfast in the camp-oven by the fire.
Mitchell's Jobs
"I'm going to knock off work and try to make some money," said Mitchell,
as he jerked the tea-leaves out of his pannikin and reached for the billy.
"It's been the great mistake of my life -- if I hadn't wasted
all my time and energyworking and looking for work I might have been
an independent man to-day."
"Joe!" he added in a louder voice, condescendingly adapting his language
to my bushed comprehension. "I'm going to sling graft and try and get
some stuff together."
I didn't feel in a responsive humour, but I lit up and settled back
comfortably against the tree, and Jack folded his arms on his knees
and presently continued, reflectively:
"I remember the first time I went to work. I was a youngster then.
Mother used to go round looking for jobs for me. She reckoned, perhaps,
that I was too shy to go in where there was a boy wanted
and barrack for myself properly, and she used to help me and see me through
to the best of her ability. I'm afraid I didn't always feel
as grateful to her as I should have felt. I was a thankless kid
at the best of times -- most kids are -- but otherwise
I was a straight enough little chap as nippers go. Sometimes I almost wish
I hadn't been. My relations would have thought a good deal more of me
and treated me better -- and, besides, it's a comfort, at times,
to sit and watch the sun going down in the bed of the bush,
and think of your wickedchildhood and wasted life, and the way
you treated your parents and broke their hearts, and feel just properly
repentant and bitter and remorseful and low-spirited about it
when it's too late.
"Ah, well! . . . I generally did feel a bit backward in going in
when I came to the door of an office or shop where there was a `Strong Lad',
or a `Willing Youth', wanted inside to make himself generally useful.
I was a strong lad and a willing youth enough, in some things,
for that matter; but I didn't like to see it written up on a card
in a shop window, and I didn't want to make myself generally useful
in a close shop in a hot dusty street on mornings when
the weather was fine and the great sunny rollers were coming in grand
on the Bondi Beach and down at Coogee, and I could swim. . . .
I'd give something to be down along there now."
Mitchell looked away out over the sultry sandy plain that we were to tackle
next day, and sighed.
"The first job I got was in a jam factory. They only had `Boy Wanted'
on the card in the window, and I thought it would suit me. They set me
to work to peel peaches, and, as soon as the foreman's back was turned,
I picked out a likely-looking peach and tried it. They soaked those peaches
in salt or acid or something -- it was part of the process --
and I had to spit it out. Then I got an orange from a boy
who was slicing them, but it was bitter, and I couldn't eat it.
I saw that I'd been had properly. I was in a fix, and had to get out of it
the best way I could. I'd left my coat down in the front shop,
and the foreman and boss were there, so I had to work in that place
for two mortal hours. It was about the longest two hours
I'd ever spent in my life. At last the foreman came up,
and I told him I wanted to go down to the back for a minute.
I slipped down, watched my chance till the boss' back was turned,
got my coat, and cleared.
"The next job I got was in a mat factory; at least, Aunt got that for me.
I didn't want to have anything to do with mats or carpets.
The worst of it was the boss didn't seem to want me to go,
and I had a job to get him to sack me, and when he did
he saw some of my people and took me back again next week.
He sacked me finally the next Saturday.
"I got the next job myself. I didn't hurry; I took my time and picked out
a good one. It was in a lolly factory. I thought it would suit me --
and it did, for a while. They put me on stirring up and mixing stuff
in the jujube department; but I got so sick of the smell of it
and so full of jujube and other lollies that I soon wanted a change;
so I had a row with the chief of the jujube department
and the boss gave me the sack.
"I got a job in a grocery then. I thought I'd have more variety there.
But one day the boss was away, sick or something, all the afternoon,
and I sold a lot of things too cheap. I didn't know. When a customer
came in and asked for something I'd just look round in the window
till I saw a card with the price written up on it, and sell the best quality
according to that price; and once or twice I made a mistake
the other way about and lost a couple of good customers.
It was a hot, drowsy afternoon, and by-and-bye I began to feel
dull and sleepy. So I looked round the corner and saw a Chinaman coming.
I got a big tin garden syringe and filled it full of brine
from the butter keg, and, when he came opposite the door,
I let him have the full force of it in the ear.
"That Chinaman put down his baskets and came for me. I was strong for my age,
and thought I could fight, but he gave me a proper mauling.
"It was like running up against a thrashing machine,
and it wouldn't have been well for me if the boss of the shop next door
hadn't interfered. He told my boss, and my boss gave me the sack at once.
"I took a spell of eighteen months or so after that,
and was growing up happy and contented when a married sister of mine
must needs come to live in town and interfere. I didn't like married sisters,
though I always got on grand with my brothers-in-law,
and wished there were more of them. The married sister
comes round and cleans up the place and pulls your things about
and finds your pipe and tobacco and things, and cigarette portraits,
and "Deadwood Dicks", that you've got put away all right,
so's your mother and aunt wouldn't find them in a generation of cats,
and says:
"`Mother, why don't you make that boy go to work. It's a scandalous shame
to see a big boy like that growing up idle. He's going to the bad
before your eyes.' And she's always trying to make out that you're a liar,
and trying to make mother believe it, too. My married sister got me a job
with a chemist, whose missus she knew.
"I got on pretty well there, and by-and-bye I was put upstairs
in the grinding and mixing department; but, after a while,
they put another boy that I was chummy with up there with me,
and that was a mistake. I didn't think so at the time,
but I can see it now. We got up to all sorts of tricks. We'd get
mixing together chemicals that weren't related to see how they'd agree,
and we nearly blew up the shop several times, and set it on fire once.
But all the chaps liked us, and fixed things up for us.
One day we got a big black dog -- that we meant to take home that evening --
and sneaked him upstairs and put him on a flat roof outside the laboratory.
He had a touch of the mange and didn't look well, so we gave him
a dose of something; and he scrambled over the parapet and slipped down
and fixed it up with him. He was a boozer -- I'd 'a shot him afterwards.
I fixed up with a woman in the town to come and stay. I thought Mary
was wrong in her time. She must have been a month or six weeks out.
But I listened to her. . . . Don't argue with a woman.
Don't listen to a woman. Do the right thing. We should have had
a mother woman to talk to us. But it was no place for a woman!"
He rocked his head, as if from some old agony of mind, against the tree-trunk.
"She was took bad suddenly one night, but it passed off. False alarm.
I was going to ride somewhere, but she said to wait till daylight.
Someone was sure to pass. She was a brave and sensible girl,
but she had a terror of being left alone. It was no place for a woman!
"There was a black shepherd three or four miles away. I rode over
while Mary was asleep, and started the black boy into town.
I'd 'a shot him afterwards if I'd 'a caught him. The old black gin was dead
the week before, or Mary would a' bin alright. She was tied up in a bunch
with strips of blanket and greenhide, and put in a hole.
So there wasn't even a gin near the place. It was no place for a woman!
"I was watchin' the road at daylight, and I was watchin' the road at dusk.
I went down in the hollow and stooped down to get the gap agen the sky,
so's I could see if anyone was comin' over. . . . I'd get on the horse
and gallop along towards the town for five miles, but something would
drag me back, and then I'd race for fear she'd die before I got to the hut.
I expected the doctor every five minutes.
"It come on about daylight next morning. I ran back'ards and for'ards
between the hut and the road like a madman. And no one come.
I was runningamongst the logs and stumps, and fallin' over them,
when I saw a cloud of dust agen sunrise. It was her mother an' sister
in the spring-cart, an' just catchin' up to them was the doctor in his buggy
with the woman I'd arranged with in town. The mother and sister
was staying at the town for the night, when they heard of the black boy.
It took him a day to ride there. I'd 'a shot him if I'd 'a caught him
ever after. The doctor'd been on the drunk. If I'd had the gun and known
she was gone I'd have shot him in the buggy. They said she was dead.
And the child was dead, too.
"They blamed me, but I didn't want her to come; it was no place for a woman.
I never saw them again after the funeral. I didn't want to see them
any more."
He moved his head wearily against the tree, and presently drifted on again
in a softer tone -- his eyes and voice were growing more absent and dreamy
and far away.
"About a month after -- or a year, I lost count of the time long ago --
she came back to me. At first she'd come in the night, then sometimes
when I was at work -- and she had the baby -- it was a girl -- in her arms.
And by-and-bye she came to stay altogether. . . . I didn't blame her
for going away that time -- it was no place for a woman. . . .
She was a good wife to me. She was a jolly girl when I married her.
The little girl grew up like her. I was going to send her down country
to be educated -- it was no place for a girl.
"But a month, or a year, ago, Mary left me, and took the daughter,
and never came back till last night -- this morning, I think it was.
I thought at first it was the girl with her hair done up,
and her mother's skirt on, to surprise her old dad. But it was Mary,
my wife -- as she was when I married her. She said she couldn't stay,
but she'd wait for me on the road; on -- the road. . . ."
His arms fell, and his face went white. I got the water-bag.
"Another turn like that and you'll be gone," I thought, as he came to again.
Then I suddenly thought of a shanty that had been started,
when I came that way last, ten or twelve miles along the road,
towards the town. There was nothing for it but to leave him
and ride on for help, and a cart of some kind.
"You wait here till I come back," I said. "I'm going for the doctor."
He roused himself a little. "Best come up to the hut and get some grub.
The wife'll be waiting. . . ." He was off the track again.
"Will you wait while I take the horse down to the creek?"
"Yes -- I'll wait by the road."
"Look!" I said, "I'll leave the water-bag handy. Don't move
till I come back."
"I won't move -- I'll wait by the road," he said.
I took the packhorse, which was the freshest and best,
threw the pack-saddle and bags into a bush, left the other horse
to take care of itself, and started for the shanty, leaving the old man
with his back to the tree, his arms folded, and his eyes on the horizon.
One of the chaps at the shanty rode on for the doctor at once,
while the other came back with me in a spring-cart. He told me
that old Howlett's wife had died in child-birth the first year
on the selection -- "she was a fine girl he'd heered!" He told me the story
as the old man had told it, and in pretty well the same words,
even to giving it as his opinion that it was no place for a woman.
"And he `hatted' and brooded over it till he went ratty."
I knew the rest. He not only thought that his wife, or the ghost of his wife,
had been with him all those years, but that the child had lived and grown up,
and that the wife did the housework; which, of course,
he must have done himself.
When we reached him his knotted hands had fallen for the last time,
and they were at rest. I only took one quick look at his face,
but could have sworn that he was gazing at the blue fin of the range
on the horizon of the bush.
Up at the hut the table was set as on the first day I saw it,
and breakfast in the camp-oven by the fire.
Mitchell's Jobs
"I'm going to knock off work and try to make some money," said Mitchell,
as he jerked the tea-leaves out of his pannikin and reached for the billy.
"It's been the great mistake of my life -- if I hadn't wasted
all my time and energyworking and looking for work I might have been
an independent man to-day."
"Joe!" he added in a louder voice, condescendingly adapting his language
to my bushed comprehension. "I'm going to sling graft and try and get
some stuff together."
I didn't feel in a responsive humour, but I lit up and settled back
comfortably against the tree, and Jack folded his arms on his knees
and presently continued, reflectively:
"I remember the first time I went to work. I was a youngster then.
Mother used to go round looking for jobs for me. She reckoned, perhaps,
that I was too shy to go in where there was a boy wanted
and barrack for myself properly, and she used to help me and see me through
to the best of her ability. I'm afraid I didn't always feel
as grateful to her as I should have felt. I was a thankless kid
at the best of times -- most kids are -- but otherwise
I was a straight enough little chap as nippers go. Sometimes I almost wish
I hadn't been. My relations would have thought a good deal more of me
and treated me better -- and, besides, it's a comfort, at times,
to sit and watch the sun going down in the bed of the bush,
and think of your wickedchildhood and wasted life, and the way
you treated your parents and broke their hearts, and feel just properly
repentant and bitter and remorseful and low-spirited about it
when it's too late.
"Ah, well! . . . I generally did feel a bit backward in going in
when I came to the door of an office or shop where there was a `Strong Lad',
or a `Willing Youth', wanted inside to make himself generally useful.
I was a strong lad and a willing youth enough, in some things,
for that matter; but I didn't like to see it written up on a card
in a shop window, and I didn't want to make myself generally useful
in a close shop in a hot dusty street on mornings when
the weather was fine and the great sunny rollers were coming in grand
on the Bondi Beach and down at Coogee, and I could swim. . . .
I'd give something to be down along there now."
Mitchell looked away out over the sultry sandy plain that we were to tackle
next day, and sighed.
"The first job I got was in a jam factory. They only had `Boy Wanted'
on the card in the window, and I thought it would suit me. They set me
to work to peel peaches, and, as soon as the foreman's back was turned,
I picked out a likely-looking peach and tried it. They soaked those peaches
in salt or acid or something -- it was part of the process --
and I had to spit it out. Then I got an orange from a boy
who was slicing them, but it was bitter, and I couldn't eat it.
I saw that I'd been had properly. I was in a fix, and had to get out of it
the best way I could. I'd left my coat down in the front shop,
and the foreman and boss were there, so I had to work in that place
for two mortal hours. It was about the longest two hours
I'd ever spent in my life. At last the foreman came up,
and I told him I wanted to go down to the back for a minute.
I slipped down, watched my chance till the boss' back was turned,
got my coat, and cleared.
"The next job I got was in a mat factory; at least, Aunt got that for me.
I didn't want to have anything to do with mats or carpets.
The worst of it was the boss didn't seem to want me to go,
and I had a job to get him to sack me, and when he did
he saw some of my people and took me back again next week.
He sacked me finally the next Saturday.
"I got the next job myself. I didn't hurry; I took my time and picked out
a good one. It was in a lolly factory. I thought it would suit me --
and it did, for a while. They put me on stirring up and mixing stuff
in the jujube department; but I got so sick of the smell of it
and so full of jujube and other lollies that I soon wanted a change;
so I had a row with the chief of the jujube department
and the boss gave me the sack.
"I got a job in a grocery then. I thought I'd have more variety there.
But one day the boss was away, sick or something, all the afternoon,
and I sold a lot of things too cheap. I didn't know. When a customer
came in and asked for something I'd just look round in the window
till I saw a card with the price written up on it, and sell the best quality
according to that price; and once or twice I made a mistake
the other way about and lost a couple of good customers.
It was a hot, drowsy afternoon, and by-and-bye I began to feel
dull and sleepy. So I looked round the corner and saw a Chinaman coming.
I got a big tin garden syringe and filled it full of brine
from the butter keg, and, when he came opposite the door,
I let him have the full force of it in the ear.
"That Chinaman put down his baskets and came for me. I was strong for my age,
and thought I could fight, but he gave me a proper mauling.
"It was like running up against a thrashing machine,
and it wouldn't have been well for me if the boss of the shop next door
hadn't interfered. He told my boss, and my boss gave me the sack at once.
"I took a spell of eighteen months or so after that,
and was growing up happy and contented when a married sister of mine
must needs come to live in town and interfere. I didn't like married sisters,
though I always got on grand with my brothers-in-law,
and wished there were more of them. The married sister
comes round and cleans up the place and pulls your things about
and finds your pipe and tobacco and things, and cigarette portraits,
and "Deadwood Dicks", that you've got put away all right,
so's your mother and aunt wouldn't find them in a generation of cats,
and says:
"`Mother, why don't you make that boy go to work. It's a scandalous shame
to see a big boy like that growing up idle. He's going to the bad
before your eyes.' And she's always trying to make out that you're a liar,
and trying to make mother believe it, too. My married sister got me a job
with a chemist, whose missus she knew.
"I got on pretty well there, and by-and-bye I was put upstairs
in the grinding and mixing department; but, after a while,
they put another boy that I was chummy with up there with me,
and that was a mistake. I didn't think so at the time,
but I can see it now. We got up to all sorts of tricks. We'd get
mixing together chemicals that weren't related to see how they'd agree,
and we nearly blew up the shop several times, and set it on fire once.
But all the chaps liked us, and fixed things up for us.
One day we got a big black dog -- that we meant to take home that evening --
and sneaked him upstairs and put him on a flat roof outside the laboratory.
He had a touch of the mange and didn't look well, so we gave him
a dose of something; and he scrambled over the parapet and slipped down
- sensible [´sensəbəl]
a.感觉得到的 (初中英语单词) - terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- shepherd [´ʃepəd] n.牧羊人 vt.带领 (初中英语单词)
- daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
- gallop [´gæləp] n.&v.奔驰；急速行进 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- funeral [´fju:nərəl] n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- absent [´æbsənt, əb´sent] a.不在的 vt.使缺席 (初中英语单词)
- altogether [,ɔ:ltə´geðə] ad.完全；总而言之 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- horizon [hə´raizən] n.地平线；范围；视野 (初中英语单词)
- energy [´enədʒi] n.活力，精力；能力 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- humour [´hju:mə] n.幽默，诙谐 (初中英语单词)
- youngster [´jʌŋstə] n.年轻人；小伙子；少年 (初中英语单词)
- properly [´prɔpəli] ad.适当地；严格地 (初中英语单词)
- ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
- grateful [´greitful] a.感谢的；令人愉快的 (初中英语单词)
- wicked [´wikid] a.邪恶的；不道德的 (初中英语单词)
- childhood [´tʃaildhud] n.幼年(时代)；早期 (初中英语单词)
- backward [´bækwəd] ad.向后 a.向后的 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- variety [və´raiəti] n.变化；多样(性)；种类 (初中英语单词)
- interfere [,intə´fiə] vi.干涉；妨碍；打扰 (初中英语单词)
- tobacco [tə´bækəu] n.烟草(叶)；卷烟 (初中英语单词)
- generation [,dʒenə´reiʃən] n.发生；世代；同龄人 (初中英语单词)
- chemist [´kemist] n.化学家；药剂师 (初中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- sunrise [´sʌnraiz] n.日出，黎明 (高中英语单词)
- selection [si´lekʃən] n.选择；选拔；精选物 (高中英语单词)
- comprehension [,kɔmpri´henʃən] n.理解；领悟 (高中英语单词)
- mortal [´mɔ:tl] a.致命的 n.凡人 (高中英语单词)
- grocery [´grəusəri] n.食品杂货店 (高中英语单词)
- drowsy [´drauzi] a.困倦的；催眠的 (高中英语单词)
- sleepy [´sli:pi] a.困的，想睡的 (高中英语单词)
- contented [kən´tentid] a.满足的；心满意足的 (高中英语单词)
- missus [´misəz] n.(已婚的)...夫人 (高中英语单词)
- related [ri´leitid] a.叙述的；有联系的 (高中英语单词)
- wearily [´wiərili] ad.疲倦地；厌烦地 (英语四级单词)
- foreman [´fɔ:mən] n.领班；陪审团主席 (英语四级单词)
- stirring [´stə:riŋ] a.活跃的；热闹的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- upstairs [,ʌp´steəz] ad.在楼上 a.楼上的 (英语四级单词)
- madman [´mædmən] n.疯子；狂人 (英语六级单词)
- housework [´hauswə:k] n.家务劳动 (英语六级单词)
- barrack [´bærək] n.兵营 vt.使驻兵营内 (英语六级单词)
- sultry [´sʌltri] a.狂(闷)热的；风骚的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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