評論
打印
Ah, that rascal Uncle Tony was laughing at her.
啊，那個無賴托尼叔叔在嘲笑她。
At once the boys set about giving the silkworm house—a tiny place with broad shelves along two walls—a thorough cleaning, whitewashing it inside and out. On the shelves they laid clean papers, and put a piece of netting at the window. There were a few bricks piled in one corner. Should a day threaten to be chilly, these would be heated in the kitchen oven and placed below the shelves to warm the air slightly. For silkworms are tender creatures, and must be cared for as though they were fretful babies.
孩子們立刻著手給蠶舍——一個兩面墻上都有寬闊架子的小地方——徹底打掃，把它里里外外刷洗干凈。他們把干凈的紙鋪在架子上，把一張網放在窗前。角落里堆著幾塊磚。如果有一天可能會變冷，這些東西就會在廚房的烤箱里加熱，然后放在架子下面，讓空氣稍微暖和一點。因為蠶是柔弱的動物，必須像照顧焦躁不安的嬰兒一樣。
Then the four, barefooted and bareheaded, and in their simple, home-made clothes, patched but clean, walked the four miles to Florence to buy both silkworm eggs and straw for the braiding. The eggs they bought at a little shop not far from the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest of the bridges over the river—the one that has a row of shops clinging on each side all the way across. For the I straw, they went to the New Market, which, in spite of its name, is centuries old.
于是這四個人光著腳，光著頭，穿著簡單的自制的衣服，打著補丁，但是很干凈，走了四英里路到佛羅倫薩去買蠶卵和編辮子用的稻草。他們在離維琪奧橋不遠的一家小店買的雞蛋，那是河上最古老的橋之一，橋的兩邊都有一排商店。為了得到這根稻草，他們去了新市場。盡管這個市場的名字叫“新市場”，但是它已經有幾百年的歷史了。
