VOA慢速英語：《羽毛冠》——納桑尼爾·霍桑

00:00

00:00

MP3下載 文本下載

https://online2.tingclass.net/lesson/shi0529/0008/8395/20150731a.mp3

https://image.tingclass.net/statics/js/2012

The long cold winter was gone at last. At first the coldnights went away slowly. Then suddenly, the warmdays of spring started to come. There was new lifeagain in the earth. Things started to grow and come up. For the first time, green corn plants began to show.They pushed through the soil and could now be seenabove the ground.

After the long winter months, the crows, the big blackbirds, were hungry. And when they saw the little greenplants, they flew down to eat them. Old Mother Rigbytried to make the noisy and hungry birds go away. Theymade her very angry. She did not want the black birdsto eat her corn. But the birds would not go away. So,early one morning, just as the sun started to rise,Mother Rigby jumped out of bed. She had a plan to stopthose black birds from eating her corn.

Mother Rigby could do anything. She was a witch, a woman with strangepowers. She could make water run uphill, or change a beautiful woman into awhite horse. Many nights when the moon was full and bright, she could beseen flying over the tops of the houses in the village, sitting on a long woodenstick. It was a broomstick, and it helped her to do all sorts of strange tricks.

Mother Rigby ate a quick breakfast and then started to work on herbroomstick. She was planning to make something that would look like a man. It would fill the birds with fear, and scare them from eating her corn, the waymost farmers protect themselves from those black, pesky birds.

Mother Rigby worked quickly. She held her magic broomstick straight, andthen tied another piece of wood across it. And already, it began to look like aman with arms.

Then she made the head. She put a pumpkin, a vegetable the size of afootball, on top of the broomstick. She made two small holes in the pumpkinfor eyes, and made another cut lower down that looked just like a mouth.

At last, there he was. He seemed ready to go to work for Mother Rigby andstop those old birds from eating her corn. But, Mother Rigby was not happywith what she made. She wanted to make her scarecrow look better andbetter, for she was a good worker. She made a purple coat and put it aroundher scarecrow, and dressed it in white silk stockings. She covered him withfalse hair and an old hat. And in that hat, she stuck the feather of a bird.

She examined him closely, and decided she liked him much better now,dressed up in a beautiful coat, with a fine feather on top of his hat. And, shenamed him Feathertop.

She looked at Feathertop and laughed with happiness. He is a beauty, shethought. “Now what?” she thought, feeling troubled again. She felt thatFeathertop looked too good to be a scarecrow. “He can do something better,” she thought, “than just stand near the corn all summer and scare the crows.” And she decided on another plan for Feathertop.

She took the pipe of tobacco she was smoking and put it into the mouth ofFeathertop. “Puff, darling, puff,” she said to Feathertop. “Puff away, my finefellow.” It is your life.” Smoke started to rise from Feathertop’s mouth. At first, it was just a little smoke, but Feathertop worked hard, blowing and puffing. And, more and more smoke came out of him.

“Puff away, my pet,” Mother Rigby said, with happiness. “Puff away, my prettyone. Puff for your life, I tell you.” Mother Rigby then ordered Feathertop to walk. “Go forward,” she said. “You have a world before you.”

Feathertop put one hand out in front of him, trying to find something forsupport. At the same time he pushed one foot forward with great difficulty. ButMother Rigby shouted and ordered him on, and soon he began to go forward.Then she said, “you look like a man, and you walk like a man. Now I order youto talk like a man.”

Feathertop gasped, struggled, and at last said in a small whisper, “Mother, Iwant to speak, but I have no brain. What can I say?”

“Ah, you can speak,” Mother Rigby answered. “What shall you say? Have nofear. When you go out into the world, you will say a thousand things, and saythem a thousand times…and saying them a thousand times again and again,you still will be saying nothing. So just talk, babble like a bird. Certainly youhave enough of a brain for that.”

Mother Rigby gave Feathertop much money and said “Now you are as goodas any of them and can hold your head high with importance.”

But she told Feathertop that he must never lose his pipe and must never let itstop smoking. She warned him that if his pipe ever stopped smoking, hewould fall down and become just a bundle of sticks again.

“Have no fear, Mother,” Feathertop said in a big voice and blew a big cloud ofsmoke out of his mouth.

“On your way,” Mother Rigby said, pushing Feathertop out the door. “Theworld is yours. And if anybody asks you for your name, just say Feathertop. For you have a feather in your hat and a handful of feathers in your emptyhead.”

Feathertop found the streets in town, and many people started to look at him.They looked at his beautiful purple coat and his white silk stockings, and at thepipe he carried in his left hand, which he put back into his mouth every fivesteps he walked. They thought he was a visitor of great importance.

“What a fine, noble face” one man said. “He surely is somebody,” saidanother. “A great leader of men.”

As Feathertop walked along one of the quieter streets near the edge of town, he saw a very pretty girl standing in front of a small red brick house. A little boywas standing next to her. The pretty girl smiled at Feathertop, and loveentered her heart. It made her whole face bright with sunlight.

Feathertop looked at her and had a feeling he never knew before. Suddenly,everything seemed a little different to him. The air was filled with a strangeexcitement. The sunlight glowed along the road, and people seemed to danceas they moved through the streets. Feathertop could not stop himself, andwalked toward the pretty smiling young girl. As he got closer, the little boy ather side pointed his finger at Feathertop and said, “Look, Polly! The man has no face. It is a pumpkin.”

Feathertop moved no closer, but turned around and hurried through thestreets of the town toward his home. When Mother Rigby opened the door, she saw Feathertop shaking with emotion. He was puffing on his pipe withgreat difficulty and making sounds like the clatter of sticks, or the rattling ofbones.

“What’s wrong?” Mother Rigby asked.

“I am nothing, Mother. I am not a man. I am just a puff of smoke. I want to besomething more than just a puff of smoke.” And Feathertop took his pipe, andwith all his strength smashed it against the floor. He fell down and became abundle of sticks as his pumpkin face rolled toward the wall.

“Poor Feathertop,” Mother Rigby said, looking at the heap on the floor. “He was too good to be a scarecrow. And he was too good to be a man. But he will be happier, standing near the corn all summer and protecting it from thebirds. So I will make him a scarecrow again.”

You have heard the American story, “Feathertop.” It was written by NathanielHawthorne. Lawan Davis adapted it for Learning English. Your storyteller wasShep O’Neal.

____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

broomstick- n. the handle of a broom

pesky- adj. making someone annoyed or irritated

pumpkin- n. a large, round, orange vegetable used as food and sometimesas a decoration — often used before another noun

scarecrow- n. an object that looks like a person and that is placed in a field toscare birds away from crops

puff - v. to breathe smoke from a cigarette, pipe, etc., in and out of the lungs

n. a movement of gas, smoke, or air that can be seen or felt