汤姆·索亚历险记-chapter12(有声英语名著)

ONE of the reasons why Tom's mind had drifted away from its secret troubles was, that it had found a new and weighty matter to interest itself about. Becky Thatcher 1 had stopped coming to school. Tom had struggled with his pride a few days, and tried to "whistle her down the wind," but failed. He began to find himself hanging around her father's house, nights, and feeling very miserable 2. She was ill. What if she should die! There was distraction 3 in the thought. He no longer took an interest in war, nor even in piracy 4. The charm of life was gone; there was nothing but dreariness 5 left. He put his hoop 6 away, and his bat; there was no joy in them any more. His aunt was concerned. She began to try all manner of remedies on him. She was one of those people who are infatuated with patent medicines and all new-fangled methods of producing health or mending it. She was an inveterate 7 experimenter in these things. When something fresh in this line came out she was in a fever, right away, to try it; not on herself, for she was never ailing 8, but on anybody else that came handy. She was a subscriber 9 for all the "Health" periodicals and phrenological frauds; and the solemn ignorance they were inflated 10 with was breath to her nostrils 11. All the "rot" they contained about ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how to get up, and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much exercise to take, and what frame of mind to keep one's self in, and what sort of clothing to wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed that her health-journals of the current month customarily upset everything they had recommended the month before. She was as simple-hearted and honest as the day was long, and so she was an easy victim. She gathered together her quack 12 periodicals and her quack medicines, and thus armed with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically 13 speaking, with "hell following after." But she never suspected that she was not an angel of healing and the balm of Gilead in disguise, to the suffering neighbors.

The water treatment was new, now, and Tom's low condition was a windfall to her. She had him out at daylight every morning, stood him up in the woodshed and drowned him with a deluge 14 of cold water; then she scrubbed him down with a towel like a file, and so brought him to; then she rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him away under blankets till she sweated his soul clean and "the yellow stains of it came through his pores" -- as Tom said.

Yet notwithstanding all this, the boy grew more and more melancholy 16 and pale and dejected. She added hot baths, sitz baths, shower baths, and plunges 17. The boy remained as dismal 18 as a hearse. She began to assist the water with a slim oatmeal diet and blisterplasters. She calculated his capacity as she would a jug's, and filled him up every day with quack cure-alls.

Tom had become indifferent to persecution 19 by this time. This phase filled the old lady's heart with consternation 20. This indifference 21 must be broken up at any cost. Now she heard of Pain-killer for the first time. She ordered a lot at once. She tasted it and was filled with gratitude 22. It was simply fire in a liquid form. She dropped the water treatment and everything else, and pinned her faith to Pain-killer. She gave Tom a teaspoonful 24 and watched with the deepest anxiety for the result. Her troubles were instantly at rest, her soul at peace again; for the "indifference" was broken up. The boy could not have shown a wilder, heartier 25 interest, if she had built a fire under him.

Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this sort of life might be romantic enough, in his blighted 26 condition, but it was getting to have too little sentiment and too much distracting variety about it. So he thought over various plans for relief, and finally hit pon that of professing 27 to be fond of Pain-killer. He asked for it so often that he became a nuisance, and his aunt ended by telling him to help himself and quit bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had no misgivings 28 to alloy 29 her delight; but since it was Tom, she watched the bottle clandestinely 30. She found that the medicine did really diminish, but it did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a crack in the sitting-room 31 floor with it.

One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt's yellow cat came along, purring, eying the teaspoon 23 avariciously 32, and begging for a taste. Tom said:

"Don't ask for it unless you want it, Peter."

But Peter signified that he did want it.

"You better make sure."

Peter was sure.

"Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you, because there ain't anything mean about me; but if you find you don't like it, you mustn't blame anybody but your own self."

Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried 33 his mouth open and poured down the Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging against furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and making general havoc 34. Next he rose on his hind 35 feet and pranced 36 around, in a frenzy 37 of enjoyment 38, with his head over his shoulder and his voice proclaiming his unappeasable happiness. Then he went tearing around the house again spreading chaos 39 and destruction in his path. Aunt Polly entered in time to see him throw a few double summersets, deliver a final mighty 40 hurrah 41, and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of the flower-pots with him. The old lady stood petrified 42 with astonishment 43, peering over her glasses; Tom lay on the floor expiring with laughter.

"Tom, what on earth ails 44 that cat?"

"I don't know, aunt," gasped 45 the boy.

"Why, I never see anything like it. What did make him act so?"

"Deed I don't know, Aunt Polly; cats always act so when they're having a good time."

"They do, do they?" There was something in the tone that made Tom apprehensive 46.

"Yes'm. That is, I believe they do."

"You do?"

"Yes'm."

The old lady was bending down, Tom watching, with interest emphasized by anxiety. Too late he divined her "drift." The handle of the telltale teaspoon was visible under the bed-valance. Aunt Polly took it, held it up. Tom winced 47, and dropped his eyes. Aunt Polly raised him by the usual handle -- his ear -- and cracked his head soundly with her thimble.

"Now, sir, what did you want to treat that poor dumb beast so, for?"

"I done it out of pity for him -- because he hadn't any aunt."

"Hadn't any aunt! -- you numskull. What has that got to do with it?"

"Heaps. Because if he'd had one she'd a burnt him out herself! She'd a roasted his bowels 48 out of him 'thout any more feeling than if he was a human!"

Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang 49 of remorse 50. This was putting the thing in a new light; what was cruelty to a cat might be cruelty to a boy, too. She began to soften 51; she felt sorry. Her eyes watered a little, and she put her hand on Tom's head and said gently:

"I was meaning for the best, Tom. And, Tom, it did do you good."

Tom looked up in her face with just a perceptible twinkle peeping through his gravity.

"I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter. It done him good, too. I never see him get around so since --"

"Oh, go 'long with you, Tom, before you aggravate 52 me again. And you try and see if you can't be a good boy, for once, and you needn't take any more medicine."

Tom reached school ahead of time. It was noticed that this strange thing had been occurring every day latterly. And now, as usual of late, he hung about the gate of the schoolyard instead of playing with his comrades. He was sick, he said, and he looked it. He tried to seem to be looking everywhere but whither he really was looking -- down the road. Presently Jeff Thatcher hove in sight, and Tom's face lighted; he gazed a moment, and then turned sorrowfully away. When Jeff arrived, Tom accosted 53 him; and "led up" warily 54 to opportunities for remark about Becky, but the giddy lad never could see the bait. Tom watched and watched, hoping whenever a frisking frock came in sight, and hating the owner of it as soon as he saw she was not the right one. At last frocks ceased to appear, and he dropped hopelessly into the dumps; he entered the empty schoolhouse and sat down to suffer. Then one more frock passed in at the gate, and Tom's heart gave a great bound. The next instant he was out, and "going on" like an Indian; yelling, laughing, chasing boys, jumping over the fence at risk of life and limb, throwing handsprings, standing 15 on his head -- doing all the heroic things he could conceive of, and keeping a furtive 55 eye out, all the while, to see if Becky Thatcher was noticing. But she seemed to be unconscious of it all; she never looked. Could it be possible that she was not aware that he was there? He carried his exploits to her immediate 56 vicinity; came war-whooping around, snatched a boy's cap, hurled 57 it to the roof of the schoolhouse, broke through a group of boys, tumbling them in every direction, and fell sprawling 58, himself, under Becky's nose, almost upsetting her -- and she turned, with her nose in the air, and he heard her say: "Mf! some people think they're mighty smart -- always showing off!"

Tom's cheeks burned. He gathered himself up and sneaked 59 off, crushed and crestfallen 60.