My Old Man Hasn’t Been the Same Since

Методические рекомендации

Для самостоятельной работы студентов 2 курса по домашнему чтению по книге Э. Колдуэлла

«Рассказы»

Сыктывкар

ПЕЧАТАЕТСЯ ПО РЕШЕНИЮ РЕДАКЦИОННО-ИЗДАТЕЛЬСКОГО СОВЕТА КОМИ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОГО ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКОГО ИНСТИТУТА ОТ...

Рекомендовано к изданию заседанием кафедры

английского языка КГПИ от 20.03.2008, протокол № 6

Рецензент: Чупрова Н.В., ст. преподаватель кафедры английского языка

Михайлова И.П., Никонова Л.К.

Методические рекомендации для самостоятельной работы студентов 2 курса по домашнему чтению по книге Э. Колдуэлла «Рассказы»: Учебно-методическое пособие для студентов 2 курса/ Михайлова И.П., Никонова Л.К. – Сыктывкар: Изд-во Коми пединститута, 2008. - 47 с.

Пособие знакомит студентов с замечательным произведением современного американского автора, неизвестного широкой русской аудитории. Тщательно подобранный список вокабулярных единиц для активного усвоения и предлагаемая система упражнений расширяют словарь студентов.

© Михайлова И.П., Никонова Л.К..

© Коми государственный педагогический институт, 2008

My Old Man Hasn’t Been the Same Since

When I got to eat breakfast, my old man was sitting at the kitchen stove, and eating hot biscuits.
He had his mouth full when I went in, and he didn’t say anything at first. He looked up at me and winked.
“Howdy, Pa,” I said, awfully glad to see him. He had been away for almost a whole week that time.
He didn’t say anything until he got another biscuit. He broke it open, spread butter on it, and laid it on the plate.
“How are your muscles, son?’’ he said, squeezing his fingers around my arm.
‘‘All right,” I said.
He felt my muscles.
I was awfully glad to see him.
Ma came in then and set my plate at the kitchen table and helped me to bread and a little bacon. She did not say a word to anybody during the whole time she was fixing my breakfast for me. She stirred around after that, making a lot of noise with the pots and pans. She was as mad as a wet hen.
Pa sat looking across the kitchen and waiting for her to say something. We never talked to her when she was like that.

It only made things worse if we tried to talk to her until she was ready to be talked to. Pa sat in his chair as meek as a tramp asking for a bite to eat.
When I had almost finished eating, she came and stood at the stove, hands on hips, staring at Pa.
“Where have you been this time, Morris Stroup?” she said, suddenly raising her hand and brushing the hair back from her face.
“Now, Martha,’’ Pa said bending his head to one side when he saw her raise her hand, “I just went around the country a little.”.
“Where’s your good-for-nothing rooster?” she asked.
“College Boy is out in the chicken house,” he said.
“If I ever get my hands on him,” Ma said, stamping her foot, “I’m going to wring his neck off.”
Pa’s fighting cock, College Boy, was the champion of Merry-weather County, Georgia. We had him for about six months, and when Pa brought him home the first time he said the cock was as smart as people with a college education. That’s why Pa named him College Boy. He might have been the champion of the whole nation if Pa could have taken him to all the cock fights. But Pa didn’t have any money to ride on the trains with, and we didn’t have an automobile to drive. So the only places Pa could go were the ones he could walk to. That was the reason why he had to be away from home so much.
Pa hadn’t answered Ma, because we knew how much Ma hated the cock.
“If you don’t think that I’m asking too big a favour of you,” Ma said, “go down to Mrs. Taylor’s’ and get her washing — if you’re not ashamed for people to see you bringing home washing for me to do.”
“Now, Martha,” he said, you know that’s not a proper
thing to say. You know I always like to help you.”
She went to the kitchen door and looked out into the
backyard to see how the fire was burning under the wash-
pot.
“William,” she said, turning around to me, “go out
in the backyard and throw some more firewood under that
washpot.’’
I got up and went to do what she told me to do. When
I got as far as the door, she turned on Pa again.

“And when you see Mrs. Taylor, Morris Stroup, you
can tell her, and everybody else in Sycamore, how I break
my back doing washing while you go tramping around the country with a good-for-nothing rooster under your arm.”
“Now, Martha —”
“The Lord only knows what would become of us if I didn’t do any washing, she said. “You haven’t done an honest day’s work in ten years.’’

Pa got up and came out in the yard where I was feeding the fire under the pot. He stood and watched me.
“Son,” he said, lowering his voice so Ma couldn’t hear, “do you know where you can find a handful of corn somewhere for College Boy?”
He didn’t wait for my answer, because he knew that I knew what to do. He went out the back gate and down the street towards Mrs. Taylor’s house. After Ma had gone back into the kitchen, I went to the hen house and got an egg out of a nest and put it into my pocket. I knew exactly what Pa wanted me to do, because he always sent me to Mr. Brown’s grocery at the corner when he needed corn for College Boy.
I took the egg to the store and traded it for a poke of corn just like Pa did when I went along with him. Mr. Brown said he had heard that Pa won three dollars at a cock-fighting. He wanted to know why we were trading an egg for the corn instead of paying some of the money Pa had made. I told him I didn’t know anything about that, because Pa hadn’t said a word about the fighting. Then I went back with the poke of corn in my shirt so Ma couldn’t see it and take it away from me.
Pa was already back from Mrs. Taylor’s with the washing, and he had come out behind the chicken house to see if I had brought the corn. The chicken house was about a hundred and fifty feet from the backyard where Ma was washing, and we could stay out there and be out of sight.
Pa was holding College Boy and wiping him off with a damp rag. College Boy had lost quite a lot of feathers, and he was very tired. His right leg was sore. Pa said for a while he was afraid that College Boy wouldn’t be able to come through, but when the cock found out he couldn’t fight with the right leg he went to work with the left one. He said he was going to let College Boy rest until his leg healed up, because he didn’t want to run any risks.

When Pa finished wiping the cock with the damp rag
he let me hold College Boy in my arms. It was the first time
he had ever let me touch the cock, and I asked Pa if I could
go along with him the next time he would go to a fight. Pa
said he wanted me to wait until I was older, but he said it
wouldn’t be long.
I held College Boy in my arms and he sat there just as
if he never wanted to leave. He was a fine-looking cock with
bright red feathers on his neck and wings. He wasn’t bigger
than a medium-sized pullet, but you could feel how strong
and quick he was. Pa said there wasn’t a finer cock in the
whole nation.
I handed him back to Pa, and Pa told me to crack the corn.
I got a flat piece of iron and a rock and cracked the corn and Pa held it in his hand for College Boy. The cock ate up the corn as fast as I could crack it.
All the time we were out behind the chicken house, Ma
was in the backyard boiling the washing. She was doing
Mrs. Taylor’s washing. There were six or seven other washings that she did every week, too. She washed every day and ironed all night.
We stayed out there a long time watching College Boy.
He had a dust-bed in one corner of the chicken house, and
he liked to lie there in the shadow.
I told Pa I hoped he wasn’t going away again soon, because
I wanted him to stay at home and let me help him crack
corn and feed College Boy every day. He said he wasn’t
going anywhere for a while, because he thought College Boy needed at least a week’s rest.
We sat there on the ground in the shadow until noon. Then Ma called to us to come and eat.
When we had finished, she told Pa she wanted him to
carry Mrs. Dolan’s washing to her. Mrs. Dolan lived on the
other side of town, and it was a long walk over there and
back. I asked Ma if I could go along and help to carry the
washing, and she said I could.
We took the washing right after we finished eating. I thought we would get back in time to go out and see College Boy again before it was too dark. But it was late when we came through town on our way back, and Pa said he wanted to stop at the post office and talk to some men for a while. We stayed there two or three hours. When we got home, it was pitch-dark. Ma heard us on the front porch and she came out and asked Pa for the money he had got for Mrs. Dolan’s washing. Pa gave her the fifty cents and asked her how long before supper would be ready. She said it would be soon and so we sat down on the porch.
“Son,” my Old Man said after a while, “as soon as you’ve had your breakfast in the morning, I want you to go down to Brown’s grocery. Get another egg out of the chicken house and take it down and trade for some more corn. I want to feed College Boy as soon as breakfast is over. I want to feed him well so he’ll get his strength back.”
“All right, Pa,’’ I told him. ‘‘I will.’’
We were sitting in the dark and thinking about the cock.
Ma called us in a little while and we went inside and sat down at the supper table. There wasn’t much on the table to eat that night, except a big chicken pie. Pa helped me first, and then Ma. After that he took a big piece for himself.
Ma didn’t have much to say, and Pa was afraid to talk. We sat at the table eating the chicken pie and not saying anything much until the pie was all gone. Pa leaned back and looked at me, and it was easy to see that he was pleased with Ma’s cooking.
It was as quiet as inside a church after all the people had gone.
“Morris,’’ Ma said, putting her knife and fork on her plate, “I hope this will be a lesson to you.’’
She looked down at her knife and fork on the plate, moved them just a little, and then looked him straight in the face.
“I hope you’ll never bring another rooster to this house as long as you live,” she said. “I had to do something desperate —”

“What?’’ he said, leaning over the table towards her.

“I made this chicken pie out of the one —”

“College Boy!” Pa said, pushing his chair back a little. Ma nodded her head.
My Old Man’s face turned white and his hands dropped
down beside him. He opened his mouth to say something, but he made no sound. I don’t know how long it was, but it seemed as if the night had passed before anybody moved.

Ma was the first one to say anything.
“It was a harsh thing to do Morris,’’ she said, “but something desperate had to be done.”
“That was College Boy, Ma,’’ I said, “you shouldn’t —”

“Be quiet, William,” she said, turning to me.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Martha,” Pa said, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. “Not to College Boy, anyway. He was — ”

He did not say anything more after that. The next moment he turned around and went through the house to the front porch.
I got up and went through the house behind him. It was darker than ever on the porch and I couldn’t see anything at all. I felt on all the chairs for him, but he was not there. I hurried down the steps and ran down the street trying to catch up with him before it was too late to find him in the dark.