Chapter 1
"Tom!"
No answer.
"Tom!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them, about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service;-she could have seen through a pair of stove lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll-"
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom-and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
"I never did see the beat of that boy!"
She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice, at an angle calculated for distance, and shouted:
"Y-o-u-u Tom!"
There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that truck?"
"I don't know, aunt."
"Well I know. It's jam-that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."
The switch hovered in the air-the peril was desperate-
"My! Look behind you, aunt!"
The old lady whirled around, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled, on the instant, scrambled up the high board fence, and disappeared over it.
His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.
"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him
by this time? But old fools is
the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a-laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening,* and I'll just be obleeged to make him work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've got to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child."
Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next day's wood and split the kindlings, before supper-at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. Tom's younger brother, (or rather, half-brother) Sid, was already through with his part of the work (picking up chips,) for he was a quiet boy and had no adventurous, troublesome ways.
While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and very deep-for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning. Said she:
"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?"
"Yes'm."
"Powerful warm, warn't it?"
"Yes'm."
"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"
A bit of a scare shot through Tom-a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said:
"No'm-well, not very much."
The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:
"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:
"Some of us pumped on our heads-mine's damp yet. See?"
Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new inspiration:
"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"
The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed.
"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a singed cat, as
其實孩子的頑皮有時候正好體現瞭孩子的天真爛漫。 這種童真過瞭孩童時代就很難再尋,能讓我們找到的,就隻有一點點偶爾纔會想起的甜蜜迴憶。我相信,即使你的童年再艱苦,迴想起來你也會很開心。誰沒有在小時候做過一件半件的傻事?當你越長大,你就會越覺得這些傻事有趣。 我說童年就像一罐甜酒,時隔越久,嘗起來就越香,越純,越讓人迴味。
評分英文原版的書紙質偏黃,沒有白色的紙,看起來舒服。
評分很好的貨物,傢人已在使用,贊一個!
評分很不錯
評分一直在京東上買書,價格低質量好速度快。做活動的時候買最劃算
評分不錯的書,很喜歡!紙質很好。
評分俗話說文無定法,寫書評當然也無一定的格式,可以因人而異,因書而異。比如偏於談感受的書評就可以直接從述感開頭:“何建明的長篇報告文學《中國高考報告》是一部具有強烈震撼力的作品。不讀則罷,越讀越使人感到,高考的分量實在太重太重,它重得使許多中國人的腰背都壓彎,連中華民族的脊梁也被壓得齣現瞭嚴重的畸型。高考啊!何時纔能走齣怪圈?”(《走齣高考的怪圈》)想要帶點文學色彩又要給讀者一點懸念的也可以抒情開頭:“若你走進普魯斯特的世界,我想你不會不驚嘆於那美妙的符號所産生的神奇魅力,不會不沉醉於瑪德萊娜小點心的綿長迴味,不會不震悸於人類內心的隱秘世界的強烈曝光。作為《追憶似水年華》的譯者之一,我也不可能不更真切地感受到普魯斯特開啓的感覺世界對我的靈魂與感官的誘惑、衝擊、洗滌、豐富、與淨化。“(《全新而永恒的感覺世界》)當然書評的結尾也不一定都要推薦式的。可以錶達某種願望,如“願藉葦岸的親切誠實的語言,生動盎然的詩意和寜靜柔韌的美感鋪就的小徑,引領我們走嚮詩意棲居之地。”
評分簡裝版本的英文原版書,經典兒童讀物,價格很優惠。
評分凡是英語讀物,都是幫老婆付賬的。
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