有声英语儿童童话故事 绿野仙踪 第1卷 第2章

When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young,pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparklefrom her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from hercheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and neversmiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em hadbeen so startled by the child’s laughter that she would scream and press herhand upon her heart whenever Dorothy’s merry voice reached her ears; and shestill looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything tolaugh at.

Uncle Henry never laughed. Heworked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was grayalso, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn,and rarely spoke.

It was Toto that made Dorothylaugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto wasnot gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyesthat twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played allday long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.

有声英语儿童童话故事 绿野仙踪 第1卷 第1章

Dorothy lived in the midst of thegreat Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who wasthe farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to becarried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, whichmade one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboardfor the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry andAunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner.There was no garret at all, and no cellar–except a small hole dug in theground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of thosegreat whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It wasreached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led downinto the small, dark hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorwayand looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on everyside. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reachedto the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed landinto a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was notgreen, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were thesame gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but thesun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was asdull and gray as everything else.