A MOTHER IN MANNVILLE
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953), an American novelist and short-story writer, began her literary career as publicity writer. She wrote advertising and special articles for different journals. Of her newspaper work and experiences, she later wrote that it was "a rough school, but I wouldn't have missed it... You learn a lot when you must put down what people said and how they acted in great crisis in their lives. And it teaches you objectivity."
Her first successful short story "Gal Young Un" won the O.Henry Memorial Award in 1933, the same year in which her first book, "South Moon Under", appeared. Then followed "Golden Apples" (1935), "The Yearling" (1938), "When the Whippoorwill" (1940), "Cross Creek" (1942), and others.
"The Yearling", an idyllic story of a twelve-year-old Floridian, Jody Baxter, and his pet fawn, Flag, became a minor American classic, not only as an important piece of regional literature, but as introducing one of the most appealing boy-characters since Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's famous creation. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939.
"Writing", Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings said, "is agony. I stay at my typewriter for eight hours every day when I'm working and keep as free as possible from distractions for the rest of the day. I aim to do six pages a day, but I'm satisfied with three. Often there are only a few lines to show. ...I have no free swing in what I write, no little miracles. I let my novels mature for several years, know almost exactly what I want to do in them, and slowly do it."
Exercise 1. Read the sentences and translate them. Pay attention to the words formed by conversion.
1. We sat by the fire watching the flames. Most people love the flaming autumn leaves.
2. Strong winds blow often in autumn. The blows of the ax were loud and strong.
3. His imagination drew fantastic pictures. The boy was twelve years old, but I could picture him at four.
4. Excuse me for coming so late. The boy made simple excuses to come and sit with me.
5. Be careful, this chair isn't steady. Let's try and steady this table.
6. The sick boy was ordered to stay in bed. But he soon forgot the order and got up and began calling his friends over the telephone.
Exercise2. a) Read the words and word combinations and translate them. Pay attention to the suffixes.
-less: word - wordless; care - careless;
-ful: thought - thoughtful; help - helpful; care - careful;
-ness: thoughtful - thoughtfulness; careful - carefulness; careless - carelessness;
-ing: to hide - hiding, a hiding place;
-ment: pay - payment;
-ity: clear - clarity, clarity of thought, pure - purity, the purity of the mountain stream; simple - simplicity, the simplicity of the plan;
-dom: wise - wisdom.
b) Read the sentences and translate them:
The boy stood wordless. Don't be careless with books. She is always thoughtful of others. Do you always try to be helpful to people? Are you always careful with things? I thanked the boy for his thoughtfulness. Why is carefulness in work very important? Carefulness when doing anything saves a lot of time in the end. Carelessness may lead to a bad mistake. I'll put the key in a good hiding place. The boy's payment was rather low. They are both wise. They have the same kind of wisdom.
Read the story and answer the questions:
· What made the author change her mind about the boy and ask him to come and chop wood for the following day?
· Did Jerry and the author say good-bye to each other before they parted?
I stayed high in the mountains in the autumn. I wanted quiet to do some writing. I wanted mountain air after too long a time in the subtropics. I was homesick, too. I lived in a cabin (1) that belonged to the orphanage (2). When I took the cabin, I asked for a boy or man to come and chop wood for the fireplace. The first few days were warm, no one came, and I forgot the order.
I looked up from my typewriter one late afternoon, a little surprised. A boy stood at the door, and my dog, my companion, was at his side and had not barked to warn me. The boy was probably twelve years old, but rather small for his age. He wore overalls (3) and a torn shirt, and was barefooted.
He said, "I can chop some wood today." I said, "But I have a boy coming from the orphanage." "I'm the boy." "You? But you're small."
"Size don't matter, chopping wood (4)," he said. "Some of the big boys don't chop well. I've been chopping wood at the orphanage a longtime."
"Very well. There's the axe. Go ahead and see what you can do."
I went back to work, closing the door. He began to chop. The blows were rhythmic and steady, and soon I had forgotten him. I suppose an hour and a half passed, for when I stopped and saw the boy at the cabin, the sun was setting behind the farthest mountain.
The boy said, "I have to go to supper now. I can come tomorrow evening."
I said, "I'll pay you now for what you've done," thinking I should probably have to insist on an older boy. "Ten cents an hour?"
"Anything is all right." We went together back of the cabin. A lot of wood had been cut. "But you've done as much as a man," I said.
I looked at him, actually (5), for the first time. His hair was the colour of the corn shocks and his eyes, very direct, were like the mountain sky when it is raining - grey-blue. I gave him a quarter (6).
"You may come tomorrow," I said, "and thank you very much."
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1. cabin - небольшой домик, коттедж
2. orphanage - приют для сирот
3. overalls - широкие рабочие брюки
4. Size don't matter, chopping wood = Size doesn't matter for chopping wood
5. actually - фактически, на самом деле
6. quarter = 25 cents
He looked at me, and at the coin, and seemed to want to speak, but could not, and turned away.
At daylight I was wakened by the sound of chopping. Again it was so rhythmic and steady that I went back to sleep. When I left my bed in the cool morning, the boy had come and gone, and another pile of wood was neat against the cabin wall. He came again after school in the afternoon and worked until time to return to the orphanage. His name was Jerry; he was twelve years old, and he had been at the orphanage since he was four. I could picture him at four, with the same grey-blue eyes and the same independence? No, the word that comes to me is "integrity (1)."
The word means something very special to me . It is honest, but it is more than honesty.
The axe handle (2) broke one day. Jerry said the woodshop at the orphanage would repair it. I brought money to pay for the job and he refused it.
"I'll pay for it," he said, "I broke it." He was sure it was his fault, that he had broken the axe handle because of his own carelessness.
"It was not your fault," I told him. "The fault was the wood of the handle. I'll see the man from whom I bought it."
It was only then he would take the money. He was willing to do careful work, and if he failed, he was ready to take the responsibility.
And he did for me the unnecessary thing, the thing, that we find done only by the great of heart. Things no training can teach, for they are done on the instant (3), with no experience. He found a hole beside the fireplace that I had not noticed. There he put some wood, so that I might always have dry fire material ready in case of sudden wet weather. A stone was loose (4) in the walk to the cabin. He dug a deeper hole and steadied it, though he came, himself, by a shortway over the bank.
I found that when I tried to return his thoughtfulness with such things as candy and apples, he was wordless. "Thank you" was, perhaps, an expression for which he had had no use, for his courtesy (5) was instinctive. He only looked at the gift and at me, and I saw deep into his eyes, and gratitude was there, and affection, soft over the firm granite of his character.
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1. integrity - прямота, честность, чистота
2. handle - рукоятка топора
3. on the instant - тотчас, немедленно
4. a stone was loose - расшатался камень
5. courtesy - вежливость
He made simple excuses to come and sit with me. I suggested once that the best time for us to visit was just before supper, when I left off my writing. After that, he waited always until my typewriter had been some time quiet. One day I worked until nearly dark. I went outside the cabin, having forgotten him. I saw him going up over the hill in the twilight (1) toward the orphanage. When I sat down on the step of my cabin, a place was warm from his body where he had been sitting.
He became friendly, of course, with my pointer dog, Pat. There is a strange communication between a boy and a dog. Perhaps they have the same kind of wisdom. It is difficult to explain, but it exists. When I went across the state for a weekend, I left the dog in Jerry's charge (2). He was to come two or three times a day and let out the dog, and feed and exercise him. I should return Sunday night, and Jerry would take out the dog for the last time Sunday afternoon and leave the key under an agreed hiding place. But it was Monday noon before I reached the cabin because of the thick fog in the mountains. The dog had been fed and cared for that morning. Jerry came early in the afternoon, anxious.
"They said nobody would drive in the fog," he said. "I came just before bedtime last night and you hadn't come. So I brought Pat some of my breakfast this morning. I wouldn't have let anything happen to him (3)."
"I was sure of that. I didn't worry."
He was needed for work in the orphanage and he had to return at once. I gave him a dollar in payment, and he looked at it and went away. But that night he came in the darkness and knocked at the door.
"I told - maybe a story," (4) he said. "I told them I thought you would want to see me."
"That's true," I said, and saw his relief (5), "I want to hear about how you managed with the dog."
He sat by the fire with me, with no other light, and told me of their two days together.
"He stayed right with me," he told me, "except when he ran in the laurel (6). He likes the laurel. I took him up over the hill and we both ran fast. There was a place where the grass was high and I lay down in it and hid. I could hear Pat hunting for me. He found my trail and he barked. When he found me, he acted crazy, and he ran around and around me, in circles." We watched the flames.
"That's an apple log," he said. "It burns the prettiest of any wood."
He suddenly began to speak of things he had not spoken before, nor had I dared to ask him.
"You look a little bit like my mother," he said. "Especially in the dark, by the fire."
"But you were only four, Jerry, when you came here. You have remembered how she looked, all these years?"
"My mother lives in Mannville," he said.
"Have you seen her, Jerry - lately?"
"I see her every summer. She sends for me." He went on, "She comes up here from Mannville whenever she can. She doesn't have a job now." His face shone in the firelight.
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1. in the twilight - в сумерках
2. in somebody's charge - на чьем-то попечении
3. I wouldn't have let anything happen to him. - Я бы не допустил, чтобы что-то с ним случилось.
4. I told - maybe a story = Perhaps, I didn't tell the truth
5. relief - облегчение
6. laurel - лавр
"She wanted to give me a puppy, but they can't let any one boy keep a puppy. You remember the suit I had on last Sunday?" He was very proud. "She sent me that for Christmas. The Christmas before that" - he drew a long breath, (1) - "she sent me a pair of skates."
"Roller skates?"
"Roller skates. I let other boys use them. They're always borrowing them, but they're careful of them. I'm going to take the dollar you gave me for taking care of Pat," he said, "and buy her a pair of gloves. She likes white gloves," he went on. "Do you think I can get them for a dollar?"
"I think so," I said. He came every day and cut my wood and did small helpful things and stayed to talk. The days had become cold, and often I let him come inside the cabin. He would lie on the floor in front of the fire, with one arm across the pointer, and they would both sit and wait quietly for me. Other days they ran through the laurel, and he brought me maple leaves, and yellow chestnut boughs (2).
I finished my work and was ready to leave for another place and do the writing there.
I said to him, "You have been my good friend, Jerry. I shall often think of you and miss you. Pat will miss you too. I am leaving tomorrow." He did not answer. When he went away, I watched him go in silence up the hill. I expected him the next day, but he did not come. Late in the day I closed the cabin and started the car. I stopped by the orphanage and left the cabin key and money for my light bill (3) with Miss Clark.
"And will you call Jerry for me to say goodbye to him?"
"I don't know where he is," she said, "I'm afraid he's not well. He didn't eat his dinner this noon. One of the other boys saw him going over the hills into the laurel. He was supposed to fire the boiler this afternoon. It's not like him; he's usually reliable."
I said, "I wanted to talk with you about his mother - why he's here - and here's some money I'd like to leave with you to buy things for him at Christmas and on his birthday. It will be better than for me to try to send him things. What I mean," I added, "is that I don't want to buy the same things his mother sends him. I might have chosen skates if I didn't know she had already given them to him."
She looked at me in surprise. "I don't understand." she said. "He has no mother. He has no skates."
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1. he drew a long breath - он глубоко вздохнул
2. chestnut boughs - ветви каштана
3. light bill - счет за электричество
Exercise 3. True - False
Some of the statements below are true and some are false. Choose the false statements and tell why they are incorrect.
1 The author was homesick for the subtropics.
2 The author expected to find a large pile of wood after the boy's first day of work.
3 Jerry could chop wood as well as a man.
4 Jerry paid to have the ax repaired.
5 Jerry did other jobs around the cabin without being asked.
6 The author's dog was fed and cared for while she was away.
7 The dog had tried to run away from Jerry in the high grass.
8 The author sympathizes with Jerry's mother.
9 Jerry did not stop by the cabin to say good-bye to the author.
10 Miss Clark told the author that Jerry had no mother.
Exercise 4. Answer the questions on the story:
1 Why did the author want to pay the boy at once for what he had done?
2 What little helpful things did Jerry do for the author?
3 How did the author try to thank Jerry and pay him back for his thoughtfulness?
4 What was Jerry to do when the author left for a weekend and left the dog in Jerrry's charge?
5 What did Jerry tell the author about his mother when they sat by the fire late at night?
6 Why could the author not say goodbye to the boy before she left the place?
7 What conversation did the author have with Miss Clark and what did she understand about Jerry from this conversation?
Exercise 5. Translate the following sentences. Pay attention to the meaning of the modal verbs.
· "I have to go to supper now. I can come tomorrow evening," the boy said.
· "You may come tomorrow," I said.
· The boy was to come two or three times a day and let out the dog.
· He was needed for work in the orphanage and he had to return at once.
· The boy found a hole beside the fireplace. There he put some wood, so that I might always have dry material in case of sudden wet weather.
Exercise 6. Say how the author of the story describes Jerry's appearance. Does it reveal his character?
Find in the text and read aloud the parts of the story which best show the character of Jerry and prove that:
· Jerry enjoyed nature and understood it deeply;
· Jerry was fond of the dog and devoted most of his free time to taking care of it;
· Jerry did a lot of work at the orphanage.
Describe the scenes which you think:
- most impressed Jerry;
- made him suffer most deeply;
- most disappointed him;
- will last in his memory for a long time.
Exercise 7. How can you tell from the story that Jerry felt deep pain when he learned that the author was leaving for another place and when he realized that he had to part with the woman who had become very dear to him and with the dog with whom he had made friends?
Exercise 8. Jerry never said "Thank you" and was always wordless when the author tried to give him something for his thoughtfulness. Does that mean that the boy was impolite or ungrateful? Give reasons for your answer.
Exercise 9. Describe Jerry's feelings and thoughts during the short weeks of his unusual and friendly relations with the author and his feelings after they parted.
You may use the following:
to feel satisfaction;
to feel disappointment;
enjoyment;
joy and happiness;
delight;
to leave an unforgettable memory of ...;
loneliness;
to give somebody rare moments of happiness;
fear;
unusual and unforgettable experience;
grief;
to experience the bitter feeling of loneliness;
sadness;