章节正文
edge of the bluff that broke abruptly there, and sat
down and stared at the soft purple of the hills and the
soft green of the nearer slopes, and at the peaceful blue
of the sky arched over it all. Her eyes cleared of their
troubled look and grew dreamy. Her mouth lost its
tenseness and softened to a half smile. She was not
looking now into the past that was so full of heartbreak,
but into the future as hope pictured it for her.
She was seeing the Lazy A alive again and all astir
with the business of life; and her father saddling Sioux
and riding out to look after the stock. She was seeing
herself riding with him,--or else cooking the things
he liked best for his dinner when he came back hungry.
She sat there for a long, long while and never moved.
A sparrow hawk swooped down quite close to Jean
and then shot upward with a little brown bird in its
claws, and startled her out of her castle building. She
felt a hot anger against the hawk, which was like the
sudden grasp of misfortune; and a quick sympathy
with the bird, which was like herself and dad, caught
unawares and held helpless. But she did not move,
and the hawk circled and came back on his way to the
nesting-place in the trees along the creek below. He
came quite close, and Jean shot him as he lifted his
wings for a higher flight. The hawk dropped head
foremost to the grass and lay there crumpled and quiet.
Jean put back her gun in its holster and went over
to where the hawk lay. The little brown bird fluttered
terrifiedly and gave a piteous, small chirp when
her hand closed over it, and then lay quite still in her
cupped palms and blinked up at her.
Jean cuddled it up against her cheek, and talked to
it and pitied it and promised it much in the way of
fat little bugs and a warm nest and her tender regard.
For the hawk she had no pity, nor a thought beyond
the one investigative glance she gave its body to make
sure that she had hit it where she meant to hit it. Lite
had taught her to shoot like that,--straight and quick.
Lite was a man who trimmed life down to the essentials,
and he had long ago impressed it upon her that
if she could not shoot quickly, and hit where she aimed,
there was not much use in her attempting to shoot at
all. Jean proved by her scant interest in the hawk
how well she had learned the lesson, and how sure she
was of hitting where she aimed.
The little brown bird had been gashed in the breast
by a sharp talon. Jean was much concerned over the
wound, even though it did not reach any vital organ.
She was afraid of septic poisoning, she told the bird;
but added comfortingly: "There--you needn't
worry one minute over that. I'm almost sure there's
a bottle of peroxide down at the house, that isn't spoiled.
We'll go and put some on it right away; and then we'll
go bug-hunting. I believe I know where there's the
fattest, juiciest bugs!" She cuddled the bird against
her cheek, and started back across the wide point of
the benchland to where the trail led down the bluff to
the house.
She was wholly absorbed in the trouble of the little
brown bird; and the trail, following a crevice through
the rocks and later winding along behind some scant
bushes, partially concealed the buildings and the house
yard from view until one was well down into the coulee.
So it was not until she was at the spring, looking at the
moist earth there for fat bugs for the bird, that she had
any inkling of visitors. Then she heard voices and
went quickly around the corner of the house toward the
sound.
It seemed to her that she was lately fated to come
plump into the middle of that fat Mr. Burns' unauthorized
picture-making. The first thing she saw when
she rounded the corner was the camera perched high
upon its tripod and staring at her with its one round
eye; and the humorous-eyed Pete Lowry turning a
crank at the side and counting in a whisper. Close
beside her the two women were standing in animated
argument which they carried on in undertones with
many gestures to point their meaning.
"Hey, you're in the scene!" called Pete Lowry, and
abruptly stopped counting and turning the crank.
"You're in the scene, sister. Step over here to one
side, will you?" The fat director waved his pink-
cameoed hand impatiently.
An old bench had been placed beside the house,
under a window. Jean backed a step and sat down upon
the bench, and looked from one to the other. The two
women glanced at her wide-eyed and moved away with
mutual embracings. Jean lifted her hands and looked
at the soft little crest and beady eyes of the bird, to make
sure that it was not disturbed by these strangers, before
she gave her attention to the expostulating Mr.
Burns.
"Did I spoil something?" she inquired casually,
and watched curiously the pulling of many feet of narrow
film from the camera.
"About fifteen feet of good scene," Pete Lowry told
her dryly, but with that queer, half smile twisting his
lips.
Jean looked at him and decided that, save for the
company he kept, which made of him a latent enemy,
she might like that lean man in the red sweater who
wore a pencil over one ear and was always smiling to
himself about something. But what she did was to
cross her feet and murmur a sympatheticsentence to
the little brown bird. Inwardly she resented deeply
this bold trespass of Robert Grant Burns; but she
meant to guard against making herself ridiculous again.
She meant to be sure of her ground before she ordered
them off. The memory of her humiliation before the
supposed rustlers was too vivid to risk a repetition of
the experience.
"When you're thoroughly rested," said Robert
Grant Burns, in the tone that would have shriveled the
soul of one of his actors, "we'd like to make that scene
over."
"Thank you. I am pretty tired," she said in that
soft, drawly voice that could hide so effectually her
meaning. She leaned her head against the wall and
gave a luxurious sigh, and crossed her feet the other
way. She believed that she knew why Robert Grant
Burns was growing so red in the face and stepping about
so uneasily, and why the women were looking at her
like that. Very likely they expected her to prove
herself crude and uncivilized, but she meant to disappoint
them even while she made them all the trouble she
could.
She pushed back her hat until its crown rested
against the rough boards, and cuddled the little brown
bird against her cheek again, and talked to it
caressingly. Though she seemed unconscious of his
presence, she heard every word that Robert Grant Burns
was muttering to himself. Some of the words were
plain, man-sized swearing, if she were any judge of
language. It occurred to her that she really ought to
go and find that peroxide, but she could not forego the
pleasure of irritating this man.
"I always supposed that fat men were essentially;
sweet-tempered," she observed to the world in general,
when the mutterings ceased for a moment.
"Gee! I'd like to make that," Pete Lowry said in an
undertone to his assistant.
Jean did not know that he referred to herself and
the unstudied picture she made, sitting there with her
hat pushed back, and the little bird blinking at her
from between her cupped palms. But she looked at
him curiously, with an impulse to ask questions about
what he was doing with that queer-looking camera, and
how he could injectmotion into photography. While
she watched, he drew out a narrow, gray strip of film
and made mysterious markings upon it with the pencil,
which he afterwards thrust absent-mindedly behind his
ear. He closed a small door in the side of the camera,
placed his palm over the lens and turned the little
crank several times around. Then he looked at Jean,
and from her to the director.
Robert Grant Burns gave a sweeping, downward
gesture with both hands,--a gesture which his company
knew well,--and came toward Jean.
"You may not know it," he began in a repressed
tone, "but we're in a hurry. We've got work to do.
We ain't here on any pleasure excursion, and you'll be
doing me a favor by getting out of the scene so we can
go on with our work."
Jean sat still upon the bench and looked at him.
"I suppose so; but why should I be doing you favors?
You haven't seemed to appreciate them, so far. Of
course, I dislike to seem disobliging, or anything like
that, but your tone and manner would not make any
one very enthusiastic about pleasing you, Mr. Burns.
In fact, I don't see why you aren't apologizing for being
here, instead of ordering me about as if I worked for
you. This bench--is my bench. This ranch--is
where I have lived nearly all my life. I hate to seem
vain, Mr. Burns, but at the same time I think it is
perfectly lovely of me to explain that I have a right
here; and I consider myself an angel of patience and
graciousness and many other rare virtues, because I
have not even hinted that you are once more taking
liberties with other people's property." She looked at
him with a smile at the corners of her eyes and just
easing the firmness of her lips, as if the humor of the
situation was beginning to appeal to her.
"If you would stop dancing about, and let your
naturally sweet disposition have a chance, and would
explain just why you are here and what you want to do,
and would ask me nicely,--it might help you more
than to get apoplexy over it."
The two women exclaimed under their breaths to
each other and moved farther away, as if from an
impending explosion. The assistant camera man gurgled
and turned his back abruptly. Lee Milligan, wandering
up from the stables, stopped and stared. No one,
within the knowledge of those present, had ever spoken
so to Robert Grant Burns; no one had ever dreamed of
speaking thus to him. They had seen him when rage
had mastered him and for slighter cause; it was not an
experience that one would care to repeat.
Robert Grant Burns walked up to Jean as if he meant
to lift her from the bench and hurl her by sheer brute
force out of his way. He stopped so close to her that
his shadow covered her.
down and stared at the soft purple of the hills and the
soft green of the nearer slopes, and at the peaceful blue
of the sky arched over it all. Her eyes cleared of their
troubled look and grew dreamy. Her mouth lost its
tenseness and softened to a half smile. She was not
looking now into the past that was so full of heartbreak,
but into the future as hope pictured it for her.
She was seeing the Lazy A alive again and all astir
with the business of life; and her father saddling Sioux
and riding out to look after the stock. She was seeing
herself riding with him,--or else cooking the things
he liked best for his dinner when he came back hungry.
She sat there for a long, long while and never moved.
A sparrow hawk swooped down quite close to Jean
and then shot upward with a little brown bird in its
claws, and startled her out of her castle building. She
felt a hot anger against the hawk, which was like the
sudden grasp of misfortune; and a quick sympathy
with the bird, which was like herself and dad, caught
unawares and held helpless. But she did not move,
and the hawk circled and came back on his way to the
nesting-place in the trees along the creek below. He
came quite close, and Jean shot him as he lifted his
wings for a higher flight. The hawk dropped head
foremost to the grass and lay there crumpled and quiet.
Jean put back her gun in its holster and went over
to where the hawk lay. The little brown bird fluttered
terrifiedly and gave a piteous, small chirp when
her hand closed over it, and then lay quite still in her
cupped palms and blinked up at her.
Jean cuddled it up against her cheek, and talked to
it and pitied it and promised it much in the way of
fat little bugs and a warm nest and her tender regard.
For the hawk she had no pity, nor a thought beyond
the one investigative glance she gave its body to make
sure that she had hit it where she meant to hit it. Lite
had taught her to shoot like that,--straight and quick.
Lite was a man who trimmed life down to the essentials,
and he had long ago impressed it upon her that
if she could not shoot quickly, and hit where she aimed,
there was not much use in her attempting to shoot at
all. Jean proved by her scant interest in the hawk
how well she had learned the lesson, and how sure she
was of hitting where she aimed.
The little brown bird had been gashed in the breast
by a sharp talon. Jean was much concerned over the
wound, even though it did not reach any vital organ.
She was afraid of septic poisoning, she told the bird;
but added comfortingly: "There--you needn't
worry one minute over that. I'm almost sure there's
a bottle of peroxide down at the house, that isn't spoiled.
We'll go and put some on it right away; and then we'll
go bug-hunting. I believe I know where there's the
fattest, juiciest bugs!" She cuddled the bird against
her cheek, and started back across the wide point of
the benchland to where the trail led down the bluff to
the house.
She was wholly absorbed in the trouble of the little
brown bird; and the trail, following a crevice through
the rocks and later winding along behind some scant
bushes, partially concealed the buildings and the house
yard from view until one was well down into the coulee.
So it was not until she was at the spring, looking at the
moist earth there for fat bugs for the bird, that she had
any inkling of visitors. Then she heard voices and
went quickly around the corner of the house toward the
sound.
It seemed to her that she was lately fated to come
plump into the middle of that fat Mr. Burns' unauthorized
picture-making. The first thing she saw when
she rounded the corner was the camera perched high
upon its tripod and staring at her with its one round
eye; and the humorous-eyed Pete Lowry turning a
crank at the side and counting in a whisper. Close
beside her the two women were standing in animated
argument which they carried on in undertones with
many gestures to point their meaning.
"Hey, you're in the scene!" called Pete Lowry, and
abruptly stopped counting and turning the crank.
"You're in the scene, sister. Step over here to one
side, will you?" The fat director waved his pink-
cameoed hand impatiently.
An old bench had been placed beside the house,
under a window. Jean backed a step and sat down upon
the bench, and looked from one to the other. The two
women glanced at her wide-eyed and moved away with
mutual embracings. Jean lifted her hands and looked
at the soft little crest and beady eyes of the bird, to make
sure that it was not disturbed by these strangers, before
she gave her attention to the expostulating Mr.
Burns.
"Did I spoil something?" she inquired casually,
and watched curiously the pulling of many feet of narrow
film from the camera.
"About fifteen feet of good scene," Pete Lowry told
her dryly, but with that queer, half smile twisting his
lips.
Jean looked at him and decided that, save for the
company he kept, which made of him a latent enemy,
she might like that lean man in the red sweater who
wore a pencil over one ear and was always smiling to
himself about something. But what she did was to
cross her feet and murmur a sympatheticsentence to
the little brown bird. Inwardly she resented deeply
this bold trespass of Robert Grant Burns; but she
meant to guard against making herself ridiculous again.
She meant to be sure of her ground before she ordered
them off. The memory of her humiliation before the
supposed rustlers was too vivid to risk a repetition of
the experience.
"When you're thoroughly rested," said Robert
Grant Burns, in the tone that would have shriveled the
soul of one of his actors, "we'd like to make that scene
over."
"Thank you. I am pretty tired," she said in that
soft, drawly voice that could hide so effectually her
meaning. She leaned her head against the wall and
gave a luxurious sigh, and crossed her feet the other
way. She believed that she knew why Robert Grant
Burns was growing so red in the face and stepping about
so uneasily, and why the women were looking at her
like that. Very likely they expected her to prove
herself crude and uncivilized, but she meant to disappoint
them even while she made them all the trouble she
could.
She pushed back her hat until its crown rested
against the rough boards, and cuddled the little brown
bird against her cheek again, and talked to it
caressingly. Though she seemed unconscious of his
presence, she heard every word that Robert Grant Burns
was muttering to himself. Some of the words were
plain, man-sized swearing, if she were any judge of
language. It occurred to her that she really ought to
go and find that peroxide, but she could not forego the
pleasure of irritating this man.
"I always supposed that fat men were essentially;
sweet-tempered," she observed to the world in general,
when the mutterings ceased for a moment.
"Gee! I'd like to make that," Pete Lowry said in an
undertone to his assistant.
Jean did not know that he referred to herself and
the unstudied picture she made, sitting there with her
hat pushed back, and the little bird blinking at her
from between her cupped palms. But she looked at
him curiously, with an impulse to ask questions about
what he was doing with that queer-looking camera, and
how he could injectmotion into photography. While
she watched, he drew out a narrow, gray strip of film
and made mysterious markings upon it with the pencil,
which he afterwards thrust absent-mindedly behind his
ear. He closed a small door in the side of the camera,
placed his palm over the lens and turned the little
crank several times around. Then he looked at Jean,
and from her to the director.
Robert Grant Burns gave a sweeping, downward
gesture with both hands,--a gesture which his company
knew well,--and came toward Jean.
"You may not know it," he began in a repressed
tone, "but we're in a hurry. We've got work to do.
We ain't here on any pleasure excursion, and you'll be
doing me a favor by getting out of the scene so we can
go on with our work."
Jean sat still upon the bench and looked at him.
"I suppose so; but why should I be doing you favors?
You haven't seemed to appreciate them, so far. Of
course, I dislike to seem disobliging, or anything like
that, but your tone and manner would not make any
one very enthusiastic about pleasing you, Mr. Burns.
In fact, I don't see why you aren't apologizing for being
here, instead of ordering me about as if I worked for
you. This bench--is my bench. This ranch--is
where I have lived nearly all my life. I hate to seem
vain, Mr. Burns, but at the same time I think it is
perfectly lovely of me to explain that I have a right
here; and I consider myself an angel of patience and
graciousness and many other rare virtues, because I
have not even hinted that you are once more taking
liberties with other people's property." She looked at
him with a smile at the corners of her eyes and just
easing the firmness of her lips, as if the humor of the
situation was beginning to appeal to her.
"If you would stop dancing about, and let your
naturally sweet disposition have a chance, and would
explain just why you are here and what you want to do,
and would ask me nicely,--it might help you more
than to get apoplexy over it."
The two women exclaimed under their breaths to
each other and moved farther away, as if from an
impending explosion. The assistant camera man gurgled
and turned his back abruptly. Lee Milligan, wandering
up from the stables, stopped and stared. No one,
within the knowledge of those present, had ever spoken
so to Robert Grant Burns; no one had ever dreamed of
speaking thus to him. They had seen him when rage
had mastered him and for slighter cause; it was not an
experience that one would care to repeat.
Robert Grant Burns walked up to Jean as if he meant
to lift her from the bench and hurl her by sheer brute
force out of his way. He stopped so close to her that
his shadow covered her.
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli]
ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词) - purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
- peaceful [´pi:sfəl] a.和平的；平静的 (初中英语单词)
- sparrow [´spærəu] n.麻雀 (初中英语单词)
- upward [´ʌpwəd] a.&ad.向上(的)；以上 (初中英语单词)
- helpless [´helpləs] a.无助的，无依靠的 (初中英语单词)
- flight [flait] n.逃走；飞行；班机 (初中英语单词)
- wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
- lately [´leitli] ad.近来，不久前 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
- curiously [´kjuəriəsli] ad.好奇地；稀奇古怪地 (初中英语单词)
- sympathetic [,simpə´θetik] a.同情的，有同情心的 (初中英语单词)
- sentence [´sentəns] n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词)
- thoroughly [´θʌrəli] ad.完全地，彻底地 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- impulse [´impʌls] n.推动(力)；冲动；刺激 (初中英语单词)
- mysterious [mi´stiəriəs] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- gesture [´dʒestʃə] n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词)
- appreciate [ə´pri:ʃieit] v.评价；珍惜；感激 (初中英语单词)
- dislike [dis´laik] vt.&n.不喜爱，厌恶 (初中英语单词)
- patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- disposition [,dispə´ziʃən] n.安排；性情；倾向 (初中英语单词)
- assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- misfortune [mis´fɔ:tʃən] n.不幸；灾祸 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- ridiculous [ri´dikjuləs] a.荒谬的；可笑的 (高中英语单词)
- repetition [,repi´tiʃən] n.重复；背诵；复制品 (高中英语单词)
- unconscious [ʌn´kɔnʃəs] a.无意识的；不觉察的 (高中英语单词)
- motion [´məuʃən] n.手势 vt.打手势 (高中英语单词)
- sweeping [´swi:piŋ] a.掠过的 n.扫除；清除 (高中英语单词)
- enthusiastic [inθju:zi´æstik] a.热情的，热心的 (高中英语单词)
- pleasing [´pli:ziŋ] a.使人愉快的；合意的 (高中英语单词)
- appeal [ə´pi:l] vi.&n.请求；呼吁；上诉 (高中英语单词)
- explosion [ik´spləuʒən] n.爆炸；爆发；发作 (高中英语单词)
- crevice [´krevis] n.裂缝，罅隙 (英语四级单词)
- partially [´pɑ:ʃəli] ad.部分地；局部地 (英语四级单词)
- sweater [´swetə] n.毛线衫 (英语四级单词)
- luxurious [lʌg´zjuəriəs] a.奢侈的；豪华的 (英语四级单词)
- excursion [ik´skə:ʃən] n.短途旅行，游览；离题 (英语四级单词)
- firmness [´fə:mnis] n.坚定；坚硬；稳定 (英语四级单词)
- arched [´ɑ:tʃid] a.弓形(结构)的 (英语六级单词)
- dreamy [´dri:mi] a.心不在焉的；朦胧的 (英语六级单词)
- latent [´leitənt] a.潜在的，潜伏的 (英语六级单词)
- inwardly [´inwədli] ad.内向；独自地 (英语六级单词)
- trespass [´trespəs, -pæs] vi.&n.侵入(占)；打扰 (英语六级单词)
- humiliation [hju:,mili´eiʃən] n.羞辱，屈辱 (英语六级单词)
- effectually [i´fektjuəli] ad.有效地 (英语六级单词)
- uneasily [ʌn´i:zili] ad.不安地；局促地 (英语六级单词)
- inject [in´dʒekt] vt.注射 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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