风中奇缘
Chapter Two: Pocahontas meets John Smith
Captain John Smith and his men were happy to be in Chesapeake Bay.
They wanted to establish a small settlement there.
Captain Smith called the big river the James River, after King James I of Britain. On May 13, 1607, he established the small settlement called Jamestown. Jamestown was on the James River. In Jamestown the settlers built some huts, a storehouse and a church.
There were about 100 men in Jamestown in 1607. Most of them were English gentlemen. They came to the New World to find gold and riches.
They did not want to be farmers. John Smith was angry with them. He said, "You must all plant crops, hunt and fish. You must not be lazy!"
In Jamestown there was little food. One day Captain Smith and his men went into the forest to look for food. They walked for a long time. Then they met a big group of Indians. The Indians attacked them with their bows and arrows. They killed one of Smith's men. John Smith and his men killed two Indians. Then the Indians captured John Smith and took him away.
After a long walk, John Smith stood in front of Chief Powhatan and his tribe. Everyone was silent. Pocahontas stood next to her father. She looked at John Smith. He was very tall. She looked at his red hair, his blue eyes and his white skin. He was very different from the Indian men.
John Smith spoke to the Indians in sign language and a few Indian words.
"Great chief, I am a friend. My men and I want to live in peace with you."
Powhatan and his medicine men did not like him.
John Smith gave a compass to the great chief. Powhatan looked at it. He turned it around in his hand. Why did the needle always point in the same direction? He tried to touch the needle but a piece of ice was in front of it!
The ice wasn't cold. It didn't melt! Powhatan thought it was magic. All the Indians of the tribe looked at the compass. They were surprised at the white man's magic.
Pocahontas liked John Smith and his magic, but her father didn't like him.
That afternoon John Smith and his men killed two Indians. Chief Powhatan and his tribe were very angry. Now John Smith must die!
Two Indian warriors pushed Captain Smith to the ground. They put his head on a very big stone. Then the Indians picked up another big stone.
They wanted to kill John Smith! When Pocahontas saw this, she said, "No, father. Please don't kill him. He isn't a bad man."
Powhatan said, "No! He and his men killed two Indians. He must die."
The two Indians were ready to kill Captain Smith. One Indian raised his hand.
"No!" said Pocahontas. She jumped forward and put her head above Captain Smith's head. "Please father, he must not die! Save him!" said Pocahontas.
Powhatan looked at his favorite daughter. He immediately told the two Indians to stop. Everyone was surprised at Pocahontas' courage. Pocahontas saved John Smith's life.
After this Pocahontas and John Smith became great friends.
John Smith taught her English and she taught him the Indian language. He gave her beautiful beads and trinkets. He told her about London and its enormous buildings. Pocahontas listened to Smith's stories.
"The King of England is called King James I. He lives in a beautiful palace in London," said John Smith.
"Is he your chief?" asked Pocahontas. "Yes, he's our leader," said John Smith.
"What do the English ladies wear?" asked Pocahontas.
"They wear long, colorful dresses, shoes and hats. They also wear jewels."
"Are the English ladies beautiful?" Pocahontas asked.
"Some are beautiful and some aren't!" said John Smith.
Pocahontas laughed and listened. She dreamed about London.
Chapter Three: Winter in Jamestown
The hot summer passed and the cool autumn arrived. The Jamestown settlers had little food to eat. Many settlers were ill and weak. They needed help.
When winter arrived there was no food. Pocahontas helped the Jamestown settlers. She asked her father for corn, meat and other food. Pocahontas and other Indians brought the food to Jamestown in big baskets. The courageous Indian princess helped the settlers to live during the cold winter.
Ships came to Jamestown from England. Powhatan was not happy about this. More white men came to the New World. Powhatan was afraid of them.
He was afraid of the future.
One winter day Powhatan sent an Indian messenger to Jamestown. He had a message for Captain Smith. "My chief Powhatan wants to speak to you.
Follow me." John Smith followed the messenger to Powhatan's village.
Powhatan was in his longhouse. John Smith sat next to him. "We have no more food to give to your people. You must all leave this land now," said Powhatan.
"Why must we leave?" asked John Smith.
The two men talked for a long time. At midnight Powhatan said," It is very late. You can sleep in the small cabin near the river."
Captain Smith accepted the invitation. He went to sleep in the small cabin.
During the night, John Smith heard someone at the door. He got up,opened the door and saw Pocahontas. "What a surprise to see you,Pocahontas! Please come in!"
"Oh, Captain Smith, your life is in danger. My father and the medicine men want to kill you tonight! They don't want white people to stay here.
You must run away now."
"Dear princess, you are saving my life again. How can I thank you? What can I give you?" asked Captain Smith.
"Run away now! Save yourself!" Pocahontas touched his hand and ran away.
John Smith ran out of the cabin. He walked to Jamestown in the middle of the night. When he arrived in Jamestown, he told the settlers that Pocahontas saved his life again. After this adventure, Captain Smith returned to England.
In Pocahontas' village everyone thought that Captain Smith was dead.
Everyone said that he was killed by a gunpowder explosion.
中级 我的秘密花园
Chapter Two: Mary Visits the Gardens
The next morning, Mary woke up when a young housemaid came into
her room to light the fire. Her name was Martha, and she talked to Mary while she worked.
Mary didn't understand servants who were friendly. In India she had spoken to servants only to give them orders. She never said 'Please' or 'Thank you'. Once, she had even slapped her ayah's face when she was angry with her. Somehow, she knew that she must not behave in this way with Martha.
At first Mary did not listen to Martha, but after a while she began to like the sound of the friendly Yorkshire voice.
'You should see all my little brothers and sisters in our little cottage on the moor,' Martha said. 'There's twelve of us, and my father only earns sixteen shillings a week. It is hard for my mother to feed them all. The fresh air on the moor makes them strong and healthy. Our Dickon's twelve. He's always out on the moor. He's good with animals. He's tamed a wild pony.
'Go and look at the gardens,' Martha said. 'There's not much growing now, but they're lovely in summer.'
She paused for a moment, and then said quietly, 'One of the gardens is locked up. No one has been in it for ten years.'
'Why?' asked Mary.
'Mr Craven closed it after his wife died. It was her garden. He locked the door, dug a hole and buried the key.'
The enormous grounds of Misselthwaite Manor were divided by high walls into many gardens. In some there were flowers, trees and fountains.
Vegetables grew in others. Doors opened from garden into garden. Because it was winter, the trees were bare and no flowers grew. Mary thought that it all looked very empty and ugly.
After a while an old man came through one of the doors. He had a surly old face and did not seem at all pleased to see Mary.
'Can I go through that door?' Mary asked.
'If you like,' he replied. 'There's nothing to see.'
Mary hoped that she might find the door to the locked garden. She tried many doors, but they all opened easily. Then, she noticed one wall that was covered in ivy, but seemed to have no door in it. She could see tall trees behind the ivy-covered wall. A robin on a high branch started to sing. She stopped to listen, and the little bird with the red breast seemed almost to be calling to her. His cheerful song brought a small smile to her sad face.
The old man continued digging. He ignored Mary until at last she said,
'There's a garden over there without a door.'
'What garden?' he asked angrily.
'On the other side of the wall,' she answered. 'I saw a robin in the trees over there.'
The old man stopped digging, and to Mary's surprise he smiled.
He looked quite different when he smiled. He whistled very softly.
Then, a wonderful thing happened. There was a sound of wings, and the robin came down next to the man's foot.
'Here he is,' the old man chuckled . 'He always comes to me when I whistle. Isn't he a nice little bird?'
The robin hopped about, pecking at the earth. The gardener, Ben Weatherstaff, continued digging. 'He's the only friend I've got,' he said.
'I've never had any friends,' said Mary, sadly. Ben stopped digging and looked at Mary.
'You and I are the same, then,' he said to her. 'We're not good looking and we're as sour as we look.'
It was the first time that Mary had ever thought about her angry face and bad temper. Now that she did, she felt uncomfortable. Just then , the clear sound of the robin's song made her look towards the apple tree where he sat.
Ben Weatherstaff laughed.
'What did he do that for?' asked Mary.
'He's decided to be your friend,' replied Ben. 'He's taken a fancy to you.'
'To me?' said Mary, and she moved softly towards the little tree and looked up.
'Would you make friends with me?' she said gently to the robin, as if she was speaking to a person.
'Why,' said Ben quietly, 'you said that like a real child instead of a little old woman. You said it almost like Dickson when he talks to his wild things out on the moor.'
The robin flew over the wall.
'There must be a door to that garden,' Mary said firmly.
'There's no door that you can find and in any case, it's none of your business ,' Ben said sharply. 'Don't poke your nose in where it doesn't belong.'
The gardener walked away without saying goodbye.
Chapter Three: A Cry in the Night
Mary spent most of her days outside in the grounds. The cold wind made her cheeks pink, and each evening she ate all of her food. After dinner she liked to sit near the fire and talk to Martha.
'Why does Mr Craven hate the locked garden?' Mary asked once.
'It was Mrs Craven's garden. She loved it. She and Mr Craven looked after the flowers together. No gardeners were allowed in.'
'But what happened?' Mary asked impatiently.
'Mrs Craven was sitting on a branch of a tree when it broke and she fell.
She was injured so badly she died. That's why Mr Craven hates the garden.
He won't let anyone ever talk about it.'
Mary had never felt sorry for anyone before, but now she realised how unhappy her uncle must be.
The wind moaned around the house, banging at the doors and windows.
Martha said it was 'wutherin'. Mary listened and through the noise she thought that she heard a child crying.
'Do you hear someone crying?' she asked Martha.
Martha suddenly looked confused.
'No,' she answered. 'It's only the wind or the scullery maid. She's cried all day with toothache.'
Then Martha quickly left the room.
Next day, it rained. Mary was bored and complained to Martha that she had nothing to do.
'On a day like this at home, we all try to keep busy indoors,' Martha said.
'Except Dickson. He goes out on the moor in all types of weather. He brought home a fox cub that he found. He's got a crow , too, called Soot.'
When Martha left her alone, Mary decided to explore the house. She went along corridors and up and down stairs. In the silence of the house she heard again the sound of a child crying. She stopped to listen at a door, but then another door opened and out came Mrs Medlock.
'What are you doing here?' she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away. 'Get back to your room at once!'
'I didn't know which way to go, and then I heard someone crying,' said Mary.
'You didn't hear anything,' said Mrs Medlock. 'Go back to your room, or I'll tell the master that you disobeyed him.'
Mary was angry. She wanted to know what the cry was.
Soon the storm passed.
'Wait until the sun shines and lights up the moor,' said Martha.
'I'd love to see your cottage on the moor and meet your mother,' said Mary.
'You would like my mother,' Martha said. 'She's kind and good tempered and works hard. When it's my day off and I can go home and see her, I jump for joy.'
'I'd like to see Dickson, too,' said Mary.
'Yes, you'd like him,' Martha said. 'Everyone likes Dickson.'
'No one likes me,' said Mary sadly.
'Maybe that's because you don't like yourself,' laughed Martha. 'I never thought of that,' said Mary.
Mary found Ben Weatherstaff working in the garden.
'Spring's coming,' he said. 'The plants are growing under the soil . Soon you'll see crocuses and daffodils.'
Mary saw that the robin was on a wall covered with ivy. He hopped down to the soil at her feet. The robin tried to find a worm in the garden. Suddenly, Mary saw an old, rusty key.
'Perhaps it's been buried for ten years,' she said to herself.
'Perhaps it's the key to the garden,' she thought, putting it into her pocket.
After supper, Martha told Mary all about her day at home.
'Mother has sent you a present,' she said. She brought out a skipping rope with striped handles, and showed Mary how to skip.
'Your mother is very kind,' Mary said. She wondered how Mary's mother could find the money to buy her the rope with all those hungry mouths to feed.
Mary skipped all the time, and the more she skipped, the stronger she grew.
Her cheeks became red, and her plain face started to look almost pretty.
One day as Mary watched the robin in the garden, a wonderful thing happened. To Mary it was almost like magic. A small gust of wind blew aside some of the ivy on the wall, and beneath the leaves, she saw a door.
She remembered that she had the key in her pocket. She tried it in the lock, and although it was very stiff , she turned it. The next moment, she stood inside the secret garden.
It was the loveliest and most mysterious looking place that Mary had seen.
It was overgrown and untidy, but she could see plants starting to push their way up through the soil. She pulled weeds away to make space for the spring flowers to grow.
'Now they look as if they can breathe ,' she thought. Then she whispered to herself, 'I am the first person who has spoken in here for ten years.'
Time passed quickly as Mary cleared the weeds and dead grass. Soon it was time to go back to the house for her supper.
Mary wanted to tell Martha her secret, but she knew that this was not a good idea. She might be forbidden to go into the secret garden again, so instead she said, 'I would like a little garden to grow things in.'
'Why, that's just what you need to keep you busy,' said Martha. 'I'll get Dickson to bring some garden tools and some seeds to plant.'
Mary worked with her hands each day in the secret garden. She was careful not to let Ben Weatherstaff see where she went.
But Ben noticed a change in her. One day he said, 'The fresh air is good for you. You're less thin, and your skin is less yellow.'
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