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The Boys' Ambition
孩子們的志愿
When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman.
在密西西比河西岸的小鎮上，我還是個小孩子的時候，家鄉的水手們都有一個遠大的志向，這個志向就是當一名輪船上的水手。
We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient.
我們也有過其他的愿望，但它們都不過是一時的想法。
When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
馬戲團在村子里表演過后，我們都積極踴躍地希望扮演小丑；第一次到附近看過黑人吟唱團的表演后，我們都及不可待地想要體驗一下那種生活。我們還有一個愿望：如果我們本分地過日子，上帝就會允許我們成為海盜。
These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.
沒過多久，這些愿望都接二連三地被遺忘了。但在我們的內心深處，當水手的志愿沒有改變。
Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk.
每天都有一艘廉價但外表艷麗的郵船從圣路易斯開過來，有另一艘從奇奧庫克向下游駛去。
Before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing.
船只抵達之前，人們翹首以盼，日子也變得津津有味。船只離開以后，日子又變得毫無生氣、無聊至極了。
Not only the boys, but the whole village, felt this.
不單單是孩子們，整個鎮子上的人們都說同樣的感覺。
