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I have many tree friends in Wrentham. One of them, a splendid oak, is the special pride of my heart. I take all my other friends to see this king-tree. It stands on a bluff overlooking King Philip's Pond, and those who are wise in tree lore say it must have stood there eight hundred or a thousand years. There is a tradition that under this tree King Philip, the heroic Indian chief, gazed his last on earth and sky.
我在蘭瑟姆有很多“大樹朋友”，其中有一棵秀美的橡樹可以說是令我引以為豪的伙伴。我曾帶領我所有的朋友們參觀過這位樹王。這棵聳立在懸崖之上的大樹徑直俯瞰著菲利普國王池塘，那些熟諳樹木知識的人一定會說，這棵樹至少已有八百或者一千年的歷史了。在這棵菲利普國王之樹下面延續著一種傳統——菲利普，這位英勇的印第安酋長，將他臨終的凝望獻給了大地和天空，他已經把自己的精神同自然融為一體。
I had another tree friend, gentle and more approachable than the great oak—a linden that grew in the dooryard at Red Farm. One afternoon, during a terrible thunderstorm, I felt a tremendous crash against the side of the house and knew, even before they told me, that the linden had fallen. We went out to see the hero that had withstood so many tempests, and it wrung my heart to see him prostrate who had mightily striven and was now mightily fallen.
我還有另外一位“樹友”，同莊嚴的橡樹相比，它顯得相當隨和而平易近人——這是一株生長在紅色農莊庭院里的菩提樹。在一個雷電交加的下午，我感覺房子的一邊似乎受到了劇烈的碰撞，即使沒有人告訴我，我也立刻猜出是菩提樹被雷擊倒了。于是我們都跑到院子里察看這位“英雄”到底經受了怎樣的磨難，看到它奮勇抗爭后又轟然倒地的景象，我不禁心如刀絞。
But I must not forget that I was going to write about last summer in particular. As soon as my examinations were over, Miss Sullivan and I hastened to this green nook, where we have a little cottage on one of the three lakes for which Wrentham is famous. Here the long, sunny days were mine, and all thoughts of work and college and the noisy city were thrust into the background. In Wrentham we caught echoes of what was happening in the world—war, alliance, social conflict. We heard of the cruel, unnecessary fighting in the far-away Pacific, and learned of the struggles going on between capital and labour.
我決不會忘記我所要描述的那個特別的夏天。我的考試剛一結束，蘇立文小姐和我就急匆匆地趕到了這個“綠色幽境”。蘭瑟姆有三個很出名的湖，我們在其中的一個湖上擁有一所小房子。在這里，陽光普照的一整天都是屬于我的。有關學院和課業的所有思緒，以及喧囂聒噪的城市生活，統統地被這里的幽深美景消解殆盡。雖然身在蘭瑟姆，我們仍然捕捉到了世界時事的回聲——戰爭、盟約、社會矛盾。我們聽說了殘酷而不必要的太平洋戰事，也了解到了資本和勞工之間日趨激烈的對抗形勢。
