023 馅饼、老鼠和蛇

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Early the next morning, Tom and I searched the rubbish heap in the backyard and found an old tin washtub

第二天一大早，汤姆和我在后院垃圾堆里翻找，找到了一个旧锡制洗衣盆。

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We decided that we could use it to bake our big pie in

我们决定用它来烤我们的大馅饼。

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We hid it in the hut, and then went into the house

我们把它藏在木屋里，然后进了屋。

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No one was in the kitchen yet, so we borrowed a spoon

厨房里还没人，所以我们拿了一把勺子。

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Tom said Jim could use it to scratch a sad message on his wall

汤姆说吉姆可以用它在墙上刻下凄惨的留言。

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Later at breakfast, Aunt Sally looked red-faced and cross

后来吃早饭时，萨莉姨妈脸颊通红，满脸怒气。

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She said to Uncle Silas," I've looked everywhere for your clean shirt, but I can't find it."

她对塞拉斯姨父说：“我到处都找过你的干净衬衫了，就是找不到。”

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A piece of cornbread stuck in my throat, and I choked a little

一块玉米面包卡在我喉咙里，我噎了一下。

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" That's not the only thing that's gone," she said

“不见的不止这一样。”她说。

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" Somehow I've lost one of my best spoons

“不知怎么的，我丢了一把最好的勺子。

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Candles are missing from the cellar, too. But rats might have taken those

地窖里的蜡烛也不见了。不过，可能是老鼠叼走了。

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Silas, I've asked you many times to plug the holes in the cellar so that they can't come in."

赛拉斯，我跟你说过好多次了，把地窖的洞堵上，省得它们跑进来。

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Uncle Silas apologized to his wife and said he would plug the holes that day

赛拉斯姨父向妻子道了歉，说当天就把洞堵上。

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Just then, a young black servant came into the kitchen and told Aunt Sally that a sheet was missing. At that, Aunt Sally grew very angry

正在这时，一个年轻的黑人仆人到厨房来，告诉萨莉姨妈少了一条床单。这一下，萨莉姨妈勃然大怒。

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" Out of my kitchen, all of you!" she yelled

“都给我出去，从我的厨房里！”她喊道。

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That night, Tom and I put the sheet back on the line

那天晚上，我和汤姆把床单又挂回晾衣绳上。

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Then we snuck into the closet and took a different sheet

然后我们溜进储物间，拿走了另一条床单。

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We kept doing this for several days — taking a sheet from one place and putting one back in the other

我们这样连续干了好几天——从一个地方拿走一条床单，再放回另一条到另一个地方。

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By the end of three days, Aunt Sally was so confused that she didn't know how many sheets she had

到了第三天，萨莉姨妈彻底糊涂了，连自己有几条床单都搞不清了。

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She stopped complaining about the missing sheet

她不再抱怨床单不见了。

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We tore up the sheet and braided the strips together to make a rope ladder

我们把床单撕成条，编成一根绳梯。

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We pretended that it had taken us nine months to make it

我们假装花了九个月才做成。

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Next we had to bake a pie to hide the ladder in and give it to Jim

接下来，我们得烤个馅饼，把绳梯藏在里面，送给吉姆。

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That night, we borrowed flour from the kitchen

那天晚上，我们从厨房借了些面粉。

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The next day, we took it and the washtub into the woods, and we built a campfire to bake the pie

第二天，我们带着面粉和洗衣盆进了树林，生起篝火烤馅饼。

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The tub was large, but we needed a big pie to hide our ladder

盆虽然大，但我们得烤个大馅饼才能藏住绳梯。

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It was hard work. We didn't put anything inside the pie because we wanted to leave room for the ladder

这活儿真累。我们一开始没在馅饼里放馅，想给绳梯留出空间。

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But the top crust kept collapsing, and we kept having to start again

可是顶上的面皮老是塌，我们只好一遍遍重来。

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Finally, we realized that we had to bake the pie with the ladder already inside, and that is what we did

最后我们才明白，得先把绳梯放进去再烤，于是就照做了。

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Then we took the huge pie through the hole we'd dug and gave it to Jim

然后，我们抱着这个大馅饼，穿过我们挖的洞，送给了吉姆。

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We told him to be very careful eating the pie, so that he didn't chew the ladder

我们告诉他吃馅饼时要非常小心，别把绳梯嚼了。

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And we told him that he should hide the ladder in his mattress. Jim agreed

我们还告诉他应该把绳梯藏在床垫里。吉姆答应了。

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Tom said that he thought our plan was going very well

汤姆说，他觉得我们的计划进展得很顺利。

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But Jim hadn't yet used the spoon to scratch a sad message on the wall

但吉姆还没用勺子往墙上刻下伤感的留言。

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Tom made a list of things Jim might write, and his voice trembled with emotion when he read them to me:

汤姆列了份清单，写了吉姆也许能刻的话，他念给我听时，声音激动得发颤：

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1. Here, a captive heart broke

1. 此地，一颗囚心碎去。

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2. Here, a poor prisoner, forgotten by the world, lived out his sad life

2. 此地，一个可怜的囚徒，被世人遗忘，度过了凄惨的一生。

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3. Here, a lonely soul went to its rest, after 37 years of being a prisoner

3. 此地，一个孤独的灵魂，在囚禁三十七载后，终于安息了。

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I agreed that they were very sad, but I saw a problem

我同意这些话确实很伤感，但我发现了一个问题。

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He doesn't know how to read or write

他根本不识字，也不会写字。

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Tom said that he would outline the letters on the wall, and Jim could trace over them

汤姆说，他会在墙上描出字的大致轮廓，然后吉姆照着描就行。

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The next night, we visited Jim again

第二天夜里，我们又去看望吉姆。

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Tom told Jim that he really ought to have some spiders, or maybe some rats or snakes, in his prison

汤姆对吉姆说，他的牢房里真该有些蜘蛛，或者来几只老鼠、几条蛇什么的。

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Tom said that prisoners in books always had creatures like this

汤姆说，书里写的囚犯身边总有这类活物。

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" You could make them your pets," Tom said

“你可以把它们当成宠物呀。”汤姆说。

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Jim thought this was a very bad idea, and so did I

吉姆觉得这主意糟透了，我也这么想。

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But I still didn't stop Tom. I wish I had

可我还是没拦住汤姆。我真后悔当时没拦住他。

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The next day, we went down to the cellar and opened one of the holes Uncle Silas had mended

第二天，我们溜进地窖，撬开了塞拉斯姨父补过的一个洞。

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Tom and I caught 16 rats in a wire cage and hid them under our bed

我和汤姆用铁丝笼子抓了十六只老鼠，藏在我们床底下。

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However, the latch on our cage door popped open, and they all escaped

结果，笼子门上的搭扣突然弹开了，老鼠全跑光了。

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It took us quite a while to catch 16 more

我们又花了好一阵子，才又抓到十六只。

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We caught a few garter snakes too, and some of them got free in the house

我们还捉了几条束带蛇，有一些在屋子里逃窜了。

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The whole family was becoming very nervous, with rats and snakes popping out when they weren't expecting them

全家人变得非常紧张，老鼠和蛇会冷不丁地窜出来，让人毫无防备。

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Meanwhile, we also caught spiders, frogs, and caterpillars

与此同时，我们还抓了蜘蛛、青蛙和毛毛虫。

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We put all the creatures in Jim's shed

我们把这些活物都放进了吉姆的小棚屋里。

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Every time a rat gave Jim a little nip, he'd make a mark on the shirt in his blood

每次有老鼠轻轻咬吉姆一口，他就用血在衬衫上划一道印子。

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Jim was kept very busy satisfying Tom's need for adventure

吉姆被折腾得够呛，全是为了满足汤姆那股冒险的劲头。