-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Unit 12
TEXT I
A Winter to Remember
Text
According to the weather men last winter was one of the worst in living memory.
We live in the depths of the country, and my whole family agree that it was certainly a winter we shall never forget. Snow began to fall at round about the beginning of the New Year and continued on and off for approximately ten days.
At first we were all thrilled to see it. It fell silently and relentlessly1 in large soft flakes2 until every ugly patch and corner of our rather rambling3 garden was smoothed over and had become a spotless white canopy4. The children soon spoilt its beauty by having snowball fights and leaving their footprints all over it. Hungry birds too, in search of scraps5 of food, made delicate impressions on its surface. It was now, when the garden was all churned up and of a dirty grey colour, that a severe frost set in, hardening the snow into ugly lumps of grimy concrete. For the next three months the whole countryside lay in a grip of iron.
Every day the birds grew tamer, often waiting hopefully almost on our backdoor step. We fed them with bits of cheese, chopped up meat and any leftovers6 we had. We also put out bowls of water, which unfortunately within an hour had frozen solid.
Indoors it was pretty cold too. Our central heating system proved both inadequate7 and uncooperative: inadequate partly because it needed overhauling8 and partly because the poor state of the doors and most of the windows made a whistling stream of cold air come through; unco-operative because occasionally it simply went on strike. To make matters worse there were tiny holes in the brickwork of many of the rooms. As a result the water pipes froze so that for several weeks our water supply had to be brought in buckets from a nearby farm. We tried to buy a number of oil-stoves to keep these rooms warm, but other people had thought of doing this too — when we called at the village shop the shopkeeper told us she had sold out and that although there were more on order they were unlikely to be delivered until the spring — which, of course, was a great comfort.
Throughout January and February and much of March we sat about in our overcoats and warmed ourselves by tramping to and from the farm, lugging9 buckets of water.
On one occasion the water actually froze before it reached the house, and our youngest son — not the most intelligent of youth — promptly10 took it all the way back to the farm.
However, one good thing did happen. One of the children dropped a container with a dozen eggs in it. I stooped down furiously to pick up what I thought would be the messy remains11 only to discover the eggs had come to no harm — they were as solid as if they had been hard-boiled.
Late in March, it finally thawed12. Water squirted from pipes in at least half a dozen places. Instead of carting buckets of water into the kitchen from the farm we now brought them in from different parts of the house. Eventually we found a plumber13. The plumber undoubtedly14 saved us from drowning. I have been devoted15 to plumbers16 ever since.
By Robert Best
TEXT II
January Wind
The January wind has a hundred voices. It can scream, it can bellow17, it can whisper, and it can sing a lullaby. It can roar through the leafless oaks and shout down the hillside, and it can murmur18 in the white pines rooted among the granite19 ledges20 where lichen21 makes strange hieroglyphics22. It can whistle down a chimney and set the hearth-flames to dancing. On a sunny day it can pause in a sheltered spot and breathe a promise of spring and violets. In the cold of a lonely night it can rattle23 the sash and stay there muttering of ice and snowbanks and deep-frozen ponds.
Sometimes the January wind seems to come from the farthest star in the outer darkness, so remote and so impersonal24 is its voice. That is the wind of a January dawn, in the half-light that trembles between day and night. It is a wind that merely quivers the trees, its force sensed but not seen, a force that might almost hold back the day if it were so directed. Then the east brightens, and the wind relaxes — the stars, its source, grown dim.
And sometimes the January wind is so intimate that you know it came only from the next hill, a little wind that plays with leaves and puffs25 at chimney smoke and whistles like a little boy with puckered26 lips. It makes the little cedar27 trees quiver, as with delight. It shadow-boxes with the weather-vane. It tweaks an ear, and whispers laughing words about crocuses and daffodils, and nips the nose and dances off.
But you never know, until you hear its voice, which wind is here today. Or, more important, which will be here tomorrow.
By Hal Borland
1 relentlessly | |
adv.不屈不挠地;残酷地;不间断 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 flakes | |
小薄片( flake的名词复数 ); (尤指)碎片; 雪花; 古怪的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 rambling | |
adj.[建]凌乱的,杂乱的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 canopy | |
n.天篷,遮篷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 scraps | |
油渣 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 leftovers | |
n.剩余物,残留物,剩菜 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 overhauling | |
n.大修;拆修;卸修;翻修v.彻底检查( overhaul的现在分词 );大修;赶上;超越 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 lugging | |
超载运转能力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 promptly | |
adv.及时地,敏捷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 thawed | |
解冻 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 plumber | |
n.(装修水管的)管子工 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 plumbers | |
n.管子工,水暖工( plumber的名词复数 );[美][口](防止泄密的)堵漏人员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 bellow | |
v.吼叫,怒吼;大声发出,大声喝道 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 murmur | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;v.低语,低声而言 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 granite | |
adj.花岗岩,花岗石 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 ledges | |
n.(墙壁,悬崖等)突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 );(平窄的)壁架;横档;(尤指)窗台 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 lichen | |
n.地衣, 青苔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 hieroglyphics | |
n.pl.象形文字 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 rattle | |
v.飞奔,碰响;激怒;n.碰撞声;拨浪鼓 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 impersonal | |
adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 puffs | |
n.吸( puff的名词复数 );(烟斗或香烟的)一吸;一缕(烟、蒸汽等);(呼吸或风的)呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 puckered | |
v.(使某物)起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 cedar | |
n.雪松,香柏(木) | |
参考例句: |
|
|