美国小学英语教材6:第155课亚伯拉罕·林肯成长历程(1)（打印版）

ABRAHAM LINCOLN GROWS UP Carl Sandburg

亚伯拉罕·林肯成长历程卡尔·桑德堡

George Washington was the son of a rich and well-known family; Abraham Lincoln grew up in poverty.

乔治·华盛顿是富裕家庭的孩子，但亚伯拉罕·林肯却很贫穷。

Yet each man became a great and beloved leader of his people.

但二人都成为了人民爱戴的伟大领袖。

How Abraham Lincoln grew to manhood is told for you by Carl Sandburg, one of America's great writers.

卡尔·桑德堡将为你讲述林肯是如何成长的，他是美国最伟大的作家之一。

Sandburg spent many years studying about Lincoln and talking with people who knew him; then he wrote Abe Lincoln Grows Up,

桑德堡花费了很多年研究林肯，并和认识他的人交谈，之后他写出了《亚伯拉罕·林肯成长历程》，

from which this story is taken. When he was eleven years old, Abraham Lincoln's young body began to change.

这篇故事就是出自这本书，当林肯11岁时，他的身体开始发生变化。

As the months and years went by, he noticed his lean wrists getting longer, his legs, too,

随着年岁的增长，他发现自己纤细的手腕和腿开始变长，

and he was now looking over the heads of other boys. Men said, Land o' Goshen, that boy air a-growin!

他如今已经比其他男孩高了，人们说老天啊，这个男孩又长高了！

As he took on more length, they said he was shooting up into the air like green corn in the summer of a good corn year.

他每长高一点，他们就会说林肯冲上云天，像夏天玉米好时节时的青玉米。

So he grew. When he reached seventeen years of age, and they measured him, he was six feet,

他长高了，当他17岁时，他们给他测量了一下，他有六英尺高，

nearly four inches high from the bottom of his moccasins to the top of his skull. These were years he was handling the ax.

从软帮皮鞋底部到头盖骨上部算，他接近4英寸高，那些年他一直在用斧子劳动。

Except in spring plowing-time and the fall fodder-pulling, he was handling the ax nearly all the time.

除了春天的耕地和秋天的撒饲料时间，他几乎所有时间都在使用斧子。

The insides of his hands took on callus thick as leather. He cleared openings in the timber, cut logs, split firewood,

手掌的老茧和皮革一样厚，他在木材上凿洞，伐木以及劈柴，

built pig-pens. He learned how to measure with his eye the swing, of the ax, so as to nick out the deepest possible chip off a tree-trunk.

建造猪圈，他学着用眼睛测量一斧头下去的大小，从而在树桩中切下最后的一块木头。

The trick of swaying his body easily on the hips, so as to throw the heaviest possible weight into the blow of the ax, he learned that.

他学到的是将身子的重心轻而易举地放在臀部，从而让那一击有最大的力量。