章节正文
half past one; mother will be at cousin Ann's, the
children at home will have had their dinner, and
Hannah cleared all away. I have some lunch,
because mother said it would be a bad beginning to get
to the brick house hungry and have aunt Mirandy
have to get me something to eat the first thing.--
It's a good growing day, isn't it?"
"It is, certain; too hot, most. Why don't you
put up your parasol?"
She extended her dress still farther over the
article in question as she said, "Oh dear no! I never
put it up when the sun shines; pink fades awfully,
you know, and I only carry it to meetin' cloudy
Sundays; sometimes the sun comes out all of a
sudden, and I have a dreadful time covering it up;
it's the dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful
care."
At this moment the thought gradually permeated
Mr. Jeremiah Cobb's slow-moving mind that the
bird perched by his side was a bird of very different
feather from those to which he was accustomed in
his daily drives. He put the whip back in its socket,
took his foot from the dashboard, pushed his hat
back, blew his quid of tobacco into the road, and
having thus cleared his mental decks for action, he took
his first good look at the passenger, a look which
she met with a grave, childlike stare of friendly
curiosity.
The buff calico was faded, but scrupulously clean,
and starched within an inch of its life. From the
little standingruffle at the neck the child's slender
throat rose very brown and thin, and the head looked
small to bear the weight of dark hair that hung in
a thick braid to her waist. She wore an odd little
vizored cap of white leghorn, which may either have
been the latest thing in children's hats, or some bit
of ancient finery furbished up for the occasion. It
was trimmed with a twist of buff ribbon and a cluster
of black and orange porcupine quills, which hung
or bristled stiffly over one ear, giving her the
quaintest and most unusual appearance. Her face was
without color and sharp in outline. As to features,
she must have had the usual number, though Mr.
Cobb's attention never proceeded so far as nose,
forehead, or chin, being caught on the way and held
fast by the eyes. Rebecca's eyes were like faith,--
"the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen." Under her delicately etched
brows they glowed like two stars, their dancing
lights half hidden in lustrous darkness. Their
glance was eager and full of interest, yet never
satisfied; their steadfast gaze was brilliant and
mysterious, and had the effect of looking directly through
the obvious to something beyond, in the object, in
the landscape, in you. They had never been
accounted for, Rebecca's eyes. The school teacher
and the minister at Temperance had tried and
failed; the young artist who came for the summer
to sketch the red barn, the ruined mill, and the
bridge ended by giving up all these local beauties
and devoting herself to the face of a child,--a
small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying
such messages, such suggestions, such hints of
sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of
looking into their shining depths, nor of fancying
that what one saw there was the reflection of one's
own thought.
Mr. Cobb made none of these generalizations;
his remark to his wife that night was simply to the
effect that whenever the child looked at him she
knocked him galley-west.
"Miss Ross, a lady that paints, gave me the
sunshade," said Rebecca, when she had exchanged
looks with Mr. Cobb and learned his face by heart.
"Did you notice the pinked double ruffle and the
white tip and handle? They're ivory. The handle
is scarred, you see. That's because Fanny sucked
and chewed it in meeting when I wasn't looking.
I've never felt the same to Fanny since."
"Is Fanny your sister?"
"She's one of them."
"How many are there of you?"
"Seven. There's verses written about seven
children:--
"`Quick was the little Maid's reply,
O master! we are seven!'
I learned it to speak in school, but the scholars
were hateful and laughed. Hannah is the oldest, I
come next, then John, then Jenny, then Mark, then
Fanny, then Mira."
"Well, that IS a big family!"
"Far too big, everybody says," replied Rebecca
with an unexpected and thoroughlygrown-up candor
that induced Mr. Cobb to murmur, "I swan!"
and insert more tobacco in his left cheek.
"They're dear, but such a bother, and cost so
much to feed, you see," she rippled on. "Hannah
and I haven't done anything but put babies to bed
at night and take them up in the morning for years
and years. But it's finished, that's one comfort,
and we'll have a lovely time when we're all grown
up and the mortgage is paid off."
"All finished? Oh, you mean you've come
away?"
"No, I mean they're all over and done with;
our family 's finished. Mother says so, and she always
keeps her promises. There hasn't been any
since Mira, and she's three. She was born the
day father died Aunt Miranda wanted Hannah
to come to Riverboro instead of me, but mother
couldn't spare her; she takes hold of housework
better than I do, Hannah does. I told mother last
night if there was likely to be any more children
while I was away I'd have to be sent for, for when
there's a baby it always takes Hannah and me
both, for mother has the cooking and the farm."
"Oh, you live on a farm, do ye? Where is it?
--near to where you got on?"
"Near? Why, it must be thousands of miles!
We came from Temperance in the cars. Then we
drove a long ways to cousin Ann's and went to bed.
Then we got up and drove ever so far to Maplewood,
where the stage was. Our farm is away off
from everywheres, but our school and meeting
house is at Temperance, and that's only two miles.
Sitting up here with you is most as good as climbing
the meeting-house steeple. I know a boy who's
been up on our steeple. He said the people and
cows looked like flies. We haven't met any people
yet, but I'm KIND of disappointed in the cows;--
they don't look so little as I hoped they would;
still (brightening) they don't look quite as big as
if we were down side of them, do they? Boys always
do the nice splendid things, and girls can only
do the nasty dull ones that get left over. They
can't climb so high, or go so far, or stay out so
late, or run so fast, or anything."
Mr. Cobb wiped his mouth on the back of his
hand and gasped. He had a feeling that he was being
hurried from peak to peak of a mountain range
without time to take a good breath in between.
"I can't seem to locate your farm," he said,
"though I've been to Temperance and used to live
up that way. What's your folks' name?"
"Randall. My mother's name is Aurelia Randall;
our names are Hannah Lucy Randall, Rebecca
Rowena Randall, John Halifax Randall, Jenny
Lind Randall, Marquis Randall, Fanny Ellsler
Randall, and Miranda Randall. Mother named half
of us and father the other half, but we didn't come
out even, so they both thought it would be nice to
name Mira after aunt Miranda in Riverboro; they
hoped it might do some good, but it didn't, and now
we call her Mira. We are all named after somebody
in particular. Hannah is Hannah at the
Window Binding Shoes, and I am taken out of
Ivanhoe; John Halifax was a gentleman in a book;
Mark is after his uncle Marquis de Lafayette that
died a twin. (Twins very often don't live to grow
up, and triplets almost never--did you know that,
Mr. Cobb?) We don't call him Marquis, only Mark.
Jenny is named for a singer and Fanny for a beautiful
dancer, but mother says they're both misfits, for
Jenny can't carry a tune and Fanny's kind of stiff-
legged. Mother would like to call them Jane and
Frances and give up their middle names, but she
says it wouldn't be fair to father. She says we
must always stand up for father, because everything
was against him, and he wouldn't have died if he
hadn't had such bad luck. I think that's all there
is to tell about us," she finished seriously.
"Land o' Liberty! I should think it was
enough," ejaculated Mr. Cobb. "There wa'n't
many names left when your mother got through
choosin'! You've got a powerful good memory!
I guess it ain't no trouble for you to learn your
lessons, is it?"
"Not much; the trouble is to get the shoes to
go and learn 'em. These are spandy new I've got
on, and they have to last six months. Mother
always says to save my shoes. There don't seem
to be any way of saving shoes but taking 'em off
and going barefoot; but I can't do that in Riverboro
without shaming aunt Mirandy. I'm going to
school right along now when I'm living with aunt
Mirandy, and in two years I'm going to the seminary
at Wareham; mother says it ought to be the
making of me! I'm going to be a painter like Miss
Ross when I get through school. At any rate, that's
what _I_ think I'm going to be. Mother thinks I'd
better teach."
"Your farm ain't the old Hobbs place, is it?"
"No, it's just Randall's Farm. At least that's
what mother calls it. I call it Sunnybrook Farm."
"I guess it don't make no difference what you
call it so long as you know where it is," remarked
Mr. Cobb sententiously.
Rebecca turned the full light of her eyes upon
him reproachfully, almost severely, as she answered:--
"Oh! don't say that, and be like all the rest! It
does make a difference what you call things. When
children at home will have had their dinner, and
Hannah cleared all away. I have some lunch,
because mother said it would be a bad beginning to get
to the brick house hungry and have aunt Mirandy
have to get me something to eat the first thing.--
It's a good growing day, isn't it?"
"It is, certain; too hot, most. Why don't you
put up your parasol?"
She extended her dress still farther over the
article in question as she said, "Oh dear no! I never
put it up when the sun shines; pink fades awfully,
you know, and I only carry it to meetin' cloudy
Sundays; sometimes the sun comes out all of a
sudden, and I have a dreadful time covering it up;
it's the dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful
care."
At this moment the thought gradually permeated
Mr. Jeremiah Cobb's slow-moving mind that the
bird perched by his side was a bird of very different
feather from those to which he was accustomed in
his daily drives. He put the whip back in its socket,
took his foot from the dashboard, pushed his hat
back, blew his quid of tobacco into the road, and
having thus cleared his mental decks for action, he took
his first good look at the passenger, a look which
she met with a grave, childlike stare of friendly
curiosity.
The buff calico was faded, but scrupulously clean,
and starched within an inch of its life. From the
little standingruffle at the neck the child's slender
throat rose very brown and thin, and the head looked
small to bear the weight of dark hair that hung in
a thick braid to her waist. She wore an odd little
vizored cap of white leghorn, which may either have
been the latest thing in children's hats, or some bit
of ancient finery furbished up for the occasion. It
was trimmed with a twist of buff ribbon and a cluster
of black and orange porcupine quills, which hung
or bristled stiffly over one ear, giving her the
quaintest and most unusual appearance. Her face was
without color and sharp in outline. As to features,
she must have had the usual number, though Mr.
Cobb's attention never proceeded so far as nose,
forehead, or chin, being caught on the way and held
fast by the eyes. Rebecca's eyes were like faith,--
"the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen." Under her delicately etched
brows they glowed like two stars, their dancing
lights half hidden in lustrous darkness. Their
glance was eager and full of interest, yet never
satisfied; their steadfast gaze was brilliant and
mysterious, and had the effect of looking directly through
the obvious to something beyond, in the object, in
the landscape, in you. They had never been
accounted for, Rebecca's eyes. The school teacher
and the minister at Temperance had tried and
failed; the young artist who came for the summer
to sketch the red barn, the ruined mill, and the
bridge ended by giving up all these local beauties
and devoting herself to the face of a child,--a
small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying
such messages, such suggestions, such hints of
sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of
looking into their shining depths, nor of fancying
that what one saw there was the reflection of one's
own thought.
Mr. Cobb made none of these generalizations;
his remark to his wife that night was simply to the
effect that whenever the child looked at him she
knocked him galley-west.
"Miss Ross, a lady that paints, gave me the
sunshade," said Rebecca, when she had exchanged
looks with Mr. Cobb and learned his face by heart.
"Did you notice the pinked double ruffle and the
white tip and handle? They're ivory. The handle
is scarred, you see. That's because Fanny sucked
and chewed it in meeting when I wasn't looking.
I've never felt the same to Fanny since."
"Is Fanny your sister?"
"She's one of them."
"How many are there of you?"
"Seven. There's verses written about seven
children:--
"`Quick was the little Maid's reply,
O master! we are seven!'
I learned it to speak in school, but the scholars
were hateful and laughed. Hannah is the oldest, I
come next, then John, then Jenny, then Mark, then
Fanny, then Mira."
"Well, that IS a big family!"
"Far too big, everybody says," replied Rebecca
with an unexpected and thoroughlygrown-up candor
that induced Mr. Cobb to murmur, "I swan!"
and insert more tobacco in his left cheek.
"They're dear, but such a bother, and cost so
much to feed, you see," she rippled on. "Hannah
and I haven't done anything but put babies to bed
at night and take them up in the morning for years
and years. But it's finished, that's one comfort,
and we'll have a lovely time when we're all grown
up and the mortgage is paid off."
"All finished? Oh, you mean you've come
away?"
"No, I mean they're all over and done with;
our family 's finished. Mother says so, and she always
keeps her promises. There hasn't been any
since Mira, and she's three. She was born the
day father died Aunt Miranda wanted Hannah
to come to Riverboro instead of me, but mother
couldn't spare her; she takes hold of housework
better than I do, Hannah does. I told mother last
night if there was likely to be any more children
while I was away I'd have to be sent for, for when
there's a baby it always takes Hannah and me
both, for mother has the cooking and the farm."
"Oh, you live on a farm, do ye? Where is it?
--near to where you got on?"
"Near? Why, it must be thousands of miles!
We came from Temperance in the cars. Then we
drove a long ways to cousin Ann's and went to bed.
Then we got up and drove ever so far to Maplewood,
where the stage was. Our farm is away off
from everywheres, but our school and meeting
house is at Temperance, and that's only two miles.
Sitting up here with you is most as good as climbing
the meeting-house steeple. I know a boy who's
been up on our steeple. He said the people and
cows looked like flies. We haven't met any people
yet, but I'm KIND of disappointed in the cows;--
they don't look so little as I hoped they would;
still (brightening) they don't look quite as big as
if we were down side of them, do they? Boys always
do the nice splendid things, and girls can only
do the nasty dull ones that get left over. They
can't climb so high, or go so far, or stay out so
late, or run so fast, or anything."
Mr. Cobb wiped his mouth on the back of his
hand and gasped. He had a feeling that he was being
hurried from peak to peak of a mountain range
without time to take a good breath in between.
"I can't seem to locate your farm," he said,
"though I've been to Temperance and used to live
up that way. What's your folks' name?"
"Randall. My mother's name is Aurelia Randall;
our names are Hannah Lucy Randall, Rebecca
Rowena Randall, John Halifax Randall, Jenny
Lind Randall, Marquis Randall, Fanny Ellsler
Randall, and Miranda Randall. Mother named half
of us and father the other half, but we didn't come
out even, so they both thought it would be nice to
name Mira after aunt Miranda in Riverboro; they
hoped it might do some good, but it didn't, and now
we call her Mira. We are all named after somebody
in particular. Hannah is Hannah at the
Window Binding Shoes, and I am taken out of
Ivanhoe; John Halifax was a gentleman in a book;
Mark is after his uncle Marquis de Lafayette that
died a twin. (Twins very often don't live to grow
up, and triplets almost never--did you know that,
Mr. Cobb?) We don't call him Marquis, only Mark.
Jenny is named for a singer and Fanny for a beautiful
dancer, but mother says they're both misfits, for
Jenny can't carry a tune and Fanny's kind of stiff-
legged. Mother would like to call them Jane and
Frances and give up their middle names, but she
says it wouldn't be fair to father. She says we
must always stand up for father, because everything
was against him, and he wouldn't have died if he
hadn't had such bad luck. I think that's all there
is to tell about us," she finished seriously.
"Land o' Liberty! I should think it was
enough," ejaculated Mr. Cobb. "There wa'n't
many names left when your mother got through
choosin'! You've got a powerful good memory!
I guess it ain't no trouble for you to learn your
lessons, is it?"
"Not much; the trouble is to get the shoes to
go and learn 'em. These are spandy new I've got
on, and they have to last six months. Mother
always says to save my shoes. There don't seem
to be any way of saving shoes but taking 'em off
and going barefoot; but I can't do that in Riverboro
without shaming aunt Mirandy. I'm going to
school right along now when I'm living with aunt
Mirandy, and in two years I'm going to the seminary
at Wareham; mother says it ought to be the
making of me! I'm going to be a painter like Miss
Ross when I get through school. At any rate, that's
what _I_ think I'm going to be. Mother thinks I'd
better teach."
"Your farm ain't the old Hobbs place, is it?"
"No, it's just Randall's Farm. At least that's
what mother calls it. I call it Sunnybrook Farm."
"I guess it don't make no difference what you
call it so long as you know where it is," remarked
Mr. Cobb sententiously.
Rebecca turned the full light of her eyes upon
him reproachfully, almost severely, as she answered:--
"Oh! don't say that, and be like all the rest! It
does make a difference what you call things. When
- beginning [bi´giniŋ]
n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词) - dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- tobacco [tə´bækəu] n.烟草(叶)；卷烟 (初中英语单词)
- mental [´mentl] a.精神的；心理的 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- ribbon [´ribən] n.缎带；带子；色带 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- outline [´autlain] n.外形 vt.画出...轮廓 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
- obvious [´ɔbviəs] a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词)
- minister [´ministə] n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词)
- sketch [sketʃ] n.素描；短剧 v.草拟 (初中英语单词)
- reflection [ri´flekʃən] n.反射；映象；想法 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- thoroughly [´θʌrəli] ad.完全地，彻底地 (初中英语单词)
- grown-up [´grəun-ʌp] n.成年人 a.成熟的 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- singer [´siŋə] n.歌手，演唱者 (初中英语单词)
- painter [´peintə] n.画家；(油)漆工 (初中英语单词)
- ruffle [´rʌfl] v.弄皱；扰乱 n.轻擂 (高中英语单词)
- stiffly [´stifli] ad.硬；顽固地 (高中英语单词)
- landscape [´lændskeip] n.风景；景色；风景画 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- unexpected [ʌniks´pektid] a.突然的；意外的 (高中英语单词)
- insert [in´sə:t, ´insə:t] vt.插入；夹入 n.插入物 (高中英语单词)
- mortgage [´mɔ:gidʒ] a.&vt.抵押 (高中英语单词)
- marquis [´mɑ:kwis] n.侯爵 (高中英语单词)
- severely [si´viəli] ad.剧烈地；严格地 (高中英语单词)
- calico [´kælikəu] n.白棉布；印花布 (英语四级单词)
- porcupine [´pɔ:kjupain] n.豪猪，箭猪 (英语四级单词)
- delicately [´delikitli] ad.精美地；微妙地 (英语四级单词)
- temperance [´tempərəns] n.节制；节欲；戒酒 (英语四级单词)
- hateful [´heitfəl] a.可恨的，可憎的 (英语四级单词)
- steeple [´sti:pəl] n.(礼拜堂等的)尖塔 (英语四级单词)
- binding [´baindiŋ] a.捆绑的 n.捆绑(物) (英语四级单词)
- extended [iks´tendid] a.伸长的；广大的 (英语六级单词)
- steadfast [´stedfɑ:st, -fæst] a.坚定的，不动摇的 (英语六级单词)
- insight [´insait] n.洞悉；洞察力；见识 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- barefoot [´beəfut] ad.&a.=barefooted (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
