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发表于 2007-10-12 11:20
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Homework
Now the weekly VOA Special English program American Stories.
Our story today is called "A Municiple Report". It was written by O'Henry and first published in 1904. Here * Shap O'Neal with the story.
It was raining as I got off the train in Nashfere Tenessee. A snow grey rain. I was tired so I went straight to my hotel.
A big heavy man was walking up and down in the hotel lobby. Something about the way he moved made me think of a hungary dog looking for a bone. He had a big, fat, red face and a sleepy expression in his eyes. He introduced himself as Wentworth Cazwel. Major Wentworth Cazwel from a fine, southerm family.
Cazwel put me into the hotel's mall room and yelled for a waiter. We ordered drinks. While we drank, he talked continuelly about himself, his family, his wife and her family. He said his wife was rich. He showed me a handful of silver coins that he put from his coat pocket. By this time, I had decided that I wanted no more of him. I said good night.
I went up my room and looked out the window. It was 10 o'clock that the town was silent. A nice, quiet place has set myself. As I got ready for bed, just an ordinary, sleepy thunder in town.
I was born in the south myself, but I live in New York now. I write for a large magazine. My boss had asked me to go to Nashvel. The magazine had received some stories and poems from a writer in Nashvel named Azineal Odeil. The editor liked her work very much. The publisher asked me to get her to sign a agreement to write only for his magazine.
I left hotel at 9 o'clock in next morning to find Ms. Odeil. It was still raining. As soon as I stepped outside I met uncle Seazer. He was a big, old, black man with fuzzy grey hair. Uncle Seazer was wearing the strangest coat I had ever seen. It must of been a military officer's coat. It was very lone and when it was new, it had been grey. But now rain, sun and age had made it a rainbow of colors. Only one of the buttons was left. It was yellow and as big as a 50 cent coin. Uncle Seazer stood near a horse and carridge.
He opened the carridge door and said softly. "Step right in, sir. I will take you anywhere in the city." "I want to go to 861 Jazzman street," I said, and I started to climb into the carridge. But the old man stopped me. "Why do you want to go there, sir?" "What bussiness is it of yours?" I said angrily.
Uncle Seazer relaxed and smiled. "No thing, sir, but it's a longly bart of down. Just step in and I will take you there right way." 861 Jazzman street had been a fine house once. But now it was old and dying. I get out the carridge. "That will be 2 dollars, sir," Uncle Seazer said. I gave him two one dollar bills. As handed them to him I noticed that one had been torn in half and fixed with a piece of blue paper. Also the up right hand corner was missing.
Azinere Odeil herself opened the door when I knotted. She was about 50 years old. Her white hair was pulled back from her small tired face. She wore a pair yellow dress. It was old but very clean. Azinere Odeil led me into her living room. A damaged table, three chairs and an old red sofa were in the center of floor.
Azinere Odeil and I sat down of the table and began to talk. I told her about the magazine's offer. She told me about herself. She was from a node southern family. Her father had been a judge. Azinere Odeil told me she had never traveled or even attended school. Her parents taught her at home with private teachers.
We finished our meeting. I promised to return with the agreement the next day, and rose to leave. At bad moment, someone knot at the back door. Azinere Odeil whispered a soft apology and went to answer the caller. She came back a minute later with bright eyes and pink cheeks. She looked ten years younger. "You must have a cup of tea before you go," she said.
She shock a little bell on the table. And a small, black girl about 12 years old ran into the room. Azinere Odeil opened a tiny old perse and took out a dollar bill. It had been fixed with a piece of blue paper and the up right corner was missing. It was the dollar I had given to Uncle Seazer. "Go to Mr. Beck's store, Imty," she said, "and get me 25 cents worth of tea, and 10 cents worth of sugar cagers and please hurry." The child went out of the room. We heard the back door a close. Then the girl screamed. Her cry mixed with a man's angry voice.
Azinere Odeil stood up, her face showed no emotion as she left the room. I heard the man's rough voice and her gentle one. Then a door slammed. And she came back into the room. "I am sorry, but I want be able to offer you any tea after all," she said, "it seems that Mr. Beck has no more tea. Perhaps he will find some f* is it tomorrow." We said goodbye. I went back to my hotel.
Just before dinner, Major Wentwes Cazwel found me. It was impossible to avoid him. He insisted on buying me a drink, and pulled two one dollar bills from his pocket. Again, I saw a torn dollar fixed with blue paper with a corner missing. It was the one I gave Uncle Seazer. How strange? I thought. I wandered how Cazwel got it.
Uncle Seazer was waiting outside the hotel the next afternoon. He took me to Ms. Odeil's house. And he agreed to wait there until we had finished our business. Azinere Odeil did not look well. I explained the agreement to her, she signed it. Then as she started to rise from the table. Azinere Odeil fainted and fell to the floor. I picked her up and carried her to the old red sofa. I ran to the door and yelled to Uncle Seazer for help.
He ran down the street. Five minutes later, he was back with a doctor. The doctor examed Ms. Odeil and turned to the old blank driver. "Uncle Seazer," he said, "run to my house and ask my wife for some milk and some eggs. Hurry!" Then the doctor turned to me. "She does not get enough to eat," he said, "she has many friends who want to help her, but she is proud. Ms. Cazwel will accept help only from that old black man. He was once her family's snafe." "Ms. Cazwel?" I said in surprise, "I thought you were Azenere Odeil." "She was," the doctor answered, "until she married Wentworse Cazwel twenty years ago. But he is a hopless drunker. He takes even the small amount of money that Uncle Seazer gives her."
After the doctor left. I heard Seazer's voice in the other room. "Did he take all the money I gave you yesterday? Ms. Azenere." "Yes, Seazer," I heard her answer softly, "he took both dollars." I went into the room and gave Azenere Odeil 50 dollars. I told her it was from the magazine. Then Uncle Seazer drove me back to the hotel.
A few hours later I went out for a walk before dinner. A crowd of people was talking excitedly in front of store. I pushed my way into the store. Major Cazwel was lying on the floor. He was dead. Someone had found his body on the street. He had been killed in a fight. In fact, his hands were still closed into tight fists. But as I stood near his body, Cazwel's right hand opened. Something fell from it and rolled near my feet. I put my foot on it. Then picked it up and put it in my pocket.
People said they believed that a thief had killed him. They said Cazwel had been showing everyone that he had fifty dollars. But when he was found he had no money on him.
I left Lashvel the next morning. As the train crossed river, I took out my pocket the object that had dropped from Cazwel's dead hand. I threw it into the river below. It was a button, a yellow button. The one from Uncle Ceazer's coat.
You have just heard the story "A Municipal Report". It was written by O'Henry, and adapted for Sepcial English by Donald *. Your story teller were Shap O'Neal. This is Susan Clerk. Join us again next week at this time for another American Story on the Voice of America.
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