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Lesson 3 The lead-pencil
第三課 木桿鉛筆
Have you a lead-pencil? If not, I want you to get a loan of one, and to look at it very carefully. It is made of wood—most likely of cedar wood, for the wood of the cedar tree is much used for making pencils.
小朋友，你有木桿鉛筆嗎？要是沒有，就借一支來，好好看看吧。木桿鉛筆的木頭，大部分都是杉木，也叫雪松木，因為英國的杉木很多都用來做鉛筆了。
Do you see the name of the maker in bright letters on the side of the pencil? You may see, too, the letters H for hard, B for black, or HB for both hard and black, which are stamped on the pencil. From these marks you know what kind of pencil it is.
看見了嗎？鉛筆的側面，用閃閃發亮的字，印著制造商的名字。你可能也看見了，字母H代表英語的Hard（硬），字母B代表英語的Black（黑），HB就代表又硬又黑。從刻上去的這些字母，就可以知道這支鉛筆是什么類型的。
The pencil is a round piece of wood, is it not? At each end of the pencil you can see a small square of black-lead. Now, how did the black-lead get there? Did it grow inside the wood?
鉛筆是一根圓形的木桿，兩頭都可以看見里面鉛筆芯的小方塊。那么鉛筆芯是怎么進去的呢？難道是在木頭里長出來的嗎？
Look very carefully at the ends of the pencil. Ah, you see! it is made of two strips of wood, which were glued together after the black-lead was put in.
仔細看看鉛筆的兩頭。啊，看見了！鉛筆是“兩片”木頭做的， 這兩片木頭，是在鉛芯放進去之后，用膠黏在一起的！
Try to pull your pencil to pieces. If you put it in water for a while, the glue will become soft, and the two pieces of wood will come apart.
試試把這支鉛筆拆開。把鉛筆在水里泡一會兒，膠就變軟了，兩片木頭就會分開了。
Then you will see that a neat little hollow was made in one of the pieces, and that a little strip of black-lead— of just the right size—was put into it. The other piece of wood was then glued over it, and the pencil was made round and smooth.
現在你能看見，兩片木頭中間都有一個精細的凹槽，長條的鉛芯，做成了合適的尺寸，放在一片木頭的凹槽里面，然后把另一片木頭黏上去，鉛筆就變成了圓形，摸起來很光滑了。
When you rub the point on a piece of paper, little bits of black-lead stick to the paper and make black marks. In this way the black-lead pencil is very useful for writing or drawing.
鉛筆尖兒在紙上蹭的時候，就會有一點兒鉛筆芯附著在紙上，留下黑色的印子。這樣，在我們寫字畫畫的時候，鉛筆就特別有用。
Before you use your lead-pencil, you must sharpen one end of it with a knife. The wood will not make a black mark,so it must be cut away. Then the black-lead is left sticking out by itself to make black marks on the paper.
在你用木桿鉛筆之前，要先用小刀把鉛筆的一頭削尖。木頭是不會留下黑色印子的，所以得把木頭削掉，這樣，黑色的鉛芯自己就會突出來，在紙上留下印子了。
