Unit 4 Unforgettable Teachers全新版大学英语综合教程五课文翻译

Unit 4 Unforgettable Teachers
Text A Take This Fish and Look at It
1 It was more than fifteen years ago that I entered the laboratory of Professor Agassiz, and told him I had enrolled my name in the Scientific School as a student of natural history . He asked me a few questions about my object in coming, my antecedents generally, the mode in which I afterwards proposed to use the knowledge I might acquire, and, finally, whether I wished to study any special branch. To the latter I replied that while I wished to be well grounded in all departments of zoology, I purposed to devote myself especially to insects.
2 "When do you wish to begin?" he asked.
3 "Now," I replied.
4 This seemed to please him, and with an energetic "Very well!" he reached from a shelf
a huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol. "Take this fish," he said, "and look at it; we call it a haemulon; by and by I will ask what you have seen."
5 With that he left me, but in a moment returned with explicit instructions as to the care of the object entrusted to me.
6 "No man is fit to be a naturalist," said he, "who does not know how to take care of specimens."
7 I was to keep the fish before me in a tin tray, and occasionally moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar, always taking care to replace the stopper tightly. Those were not the days of ground-glass stoppers and elegantly shaped exhibition jars; all the old students will recall the huge neckless glass bottles with their leaky, wax-besmeared corks, half eaten by insects, and begrimed with cellar dust. Entomology was a cleaner science than ichthyology, but the example of the Professor, who had unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar to produce the fish, was infectious; and though this alcohol had a "very ancient and fishlike smell," I really dared not show any aversion within these sacred precincts, and treated the alcohol as though it were pure water. Still I was conscious of a passing feeling of disappointment, for gazing at a fish did not commend itself to an ardent entomologist. My friends at home, too, were annoyed when they discovered that no amount of eau-de-Cologne would drown the perfume which haunted me like a shadow.
8 In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish, and started in search of the Professor — who had, however, left the Museum; and when I returned, after lingering over some of the odd animals stored in the upper apartment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed the fluid over the fish as if to resuscitate the beast from a fainting fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of the normal sloppy appearance. This little excitement
over, nothing was to be done but to return to a steadfast gaze at my mute companion. Half an hour passed —an hour —another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face — ghastly; from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at three-quarters' view — just as ghastly. I was in despair; at an early hour I concluded that lunch was necessary; so, with infinite relief, the fish was carefully replaced in the jar, and for an hour I was free.
9 On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at the Museum, but had gone, and would not return for several hours. My fellow-students were too busy to be disturbed by continued conversation. Slowly I drew forth that hideous fish, and with a feeling of desperation again looked at it. I might not use a magnifying-glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish: it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows, until I was convinced that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me — I would draw the fish; and with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature. Just then the Professor returned.
10 "That is right," said he; "a pencil is one of the best of eyes. I am glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet, and your bottle corked."
11 With these encouraging words, he added: "Well, what is it like?"
12 He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of parts whose names were still unknown to me: the fringed gill-arches and movable operculum; the pores of the head, fleshy lips and lidless eyes; the lateral line, the spinous fins and forked tail; the compressed and arched body. When I finished, he waited as if expecting more, and then, with an air of disappointment:
13 "You have not looked very carefully; why," he continued more earnestly, "you haven't even seen one of the most conspicuous features of the animal, which is plainly before your eyes as the fish itself; look again, look again!" and he left me to my misery.
14 I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish! But now I set myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another, until I saw how just the Professor's criticism had been. The afternoon passed quickly; and when, towards its close, the Professor inquired:
15 "Do you see it yet?"
16 "No," I replied, "I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before."
17 "That is next best," said he, earnestly, "but I won't hear you now; put away your fish and go home; perhaps you will be ready with a better answer in the morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish."
18 This was disconcerting. Not only must I think of my fish all night, studying, without the object before me, what this unknown but most visible feature might be; but also, without reviewing my discoveries, I must give an exact account of them the next day. I had a bad memory; so I walked home by Charles River in a distracted state, with my two perplexities.
19 The cordial greeting from the Professor the next morning was reassuring; here was a man who seemed to be quite as anxious as I that I should see for myself what he saw.
20 "Do you perhaps mean," I asked, "that the fish has symmetrical sides with paired organs?"
21 His thoroughly pleased "Of course! Of course!" repaid the wakeful hours of the previous night. After he had discoursed most happily and enthusiastically — as he always did — upon the importance of this point, I ventured to ask what I should do next.
22 "Oh, look at your fish!" he said, and left me again to my own devices. In a little more than an hour he returned, and heard my new catalogue.
23 "That is good, that is good!" he repeated; "but that is not all; go on"; and so for three long days he placed that fish before my eyes, forbidding me to look at anything else, or to use any artificial aid. "Look, look, look," was his repeated injunction.
24 This was the best entomological lesson I ever had — a lesson whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the Professor had left to me, as he has left it to so many others, of inestimable value which we could not buy, with which we cannot part.
25 The fourth day, a second fish of the same group was placed beside the first, and I was bidden to point out the resemblances and differences between the two; another and another followed, until the entire family lay before me, and a whole legion of jars covered the table and surrounding shelves; the odor had become a pleasant perfume; and even now, the sight of an old, six-inch worm-eaten cork brings fragrant memories.
26 The whole group of haemulons was thus brought in review; and, whether engaged upon the dissection of the internal organs, the preparation and examination of the bony framework, or the description of the various parts, Agassiz's training in the method of observing facts and their orderly arrangement was ever accompanied by the urgent exhortation not to be content with them.
27 "Facts are stupid things," he would say, "until brought into connection with some general law."
28 At the end of eight months, it was almost with reluctance that I left these friends and turned to insects; but what I had gained by this outside experience has been of
greater value than years of later investigation in my favorite groups.
把这条鱼拿去好好看看
塞缪尔·斯卡德
我是在15余年前进入阿加西兹教授的实验室的，告诉他我已在科学学院注册读博物学。

他略略询问了我来此的目的、我大致的经历、以后准备如何运用所学知识，最后问我是否希望修习某一特别学科。

对最后一个问题我回答说，我希望自己在动物学各个领域都具有一定的基础，但特别想研究昆虫。

“你想什么时候开始呢？”他问。

“就现在，”我回答说。

他听了显然挺高兴，劲头十足地说道“很好”，便从架子上取下一个黄色酒精里浸有标本的大罐。

“把这条鱼拿去看看，”他说，“我们叫它石鲈。

过一会儿我会问你都看到些什么。

”
说着他走了，但一会儿又回来跟我详细说明如何保管交给我的标本。

“一个人如果连怎样保护标本都不知道，”他说，“他就不配当博物学家。

”
我得把放在一个锡盘里的鱼摆在面前，过一段时间用罐里的酒精润湿它的表面，每次都要记住把瓶塞塞紧。

那个时候还没有毛玻璃瓶塞和外形精美的展示用瓶，过去的大学生都会记得那种硕大的无颈玻璃瓶，软木瓶塞全是洞孔，涂过蜡，被虫啃去一半，被地下室的灰尘弄得很脏。

昆虫学这门科学比鱼类学干净，可教授没半点犹豫就伸手探入罐底捞出了鱼，他的榜样颇具感染力。

尽管酒精散发着一种“陈腐的鱼腥味”，我却不敢在这神圣的场所流露出丝毫厌恶，只能把酒精当作纯净水对待。

但我心头还是感到一丝失望，因为盯着看一条鱼实非一位满怀热情的昆虫学家之所爱。

回家后我的那些朋友也不怎么高兴，他们发现，用再多的科隆香水也驱不走幽灵般附在我身上的那股异味。

才十分钟，我就把那条鱼能看的全都看了个遍，接着开始找教授，他却已经离开了博物馆。

我在楼上存放着奇异动物的房间里转悠了一会儿，等我回去时，我的鱼标本全都干了。

我急忙把酒精洒上去，就像是要把它从昏迷中救醒过来似的，急切地等着它回复到平时那湿漉漉的样子。

一阵小小的兴奋过后就无事可干了，只好继续凝视着我那一言不发的伙伴。

半个小时过去了，一个小时，又是一个小时。

看着看着觉得那条鱼讨厌得很。

我把鱼翻来翻去，瞧瞧头部——怪可怕的；再从后面看，从下面、上面、侧面看，再从展示面部四分之三的角度看——也是怪可怕的。

我都绝望了。

时间还早，可我觉得应该去吃午饭了，于是我如释重负地把鱼小心翼翼地放回到罐里，便去逍遥了一个小时。

我回来后，得知阿加西兹教授回过博物馆，可又走了，要过几个小时才回来。

我的那些同学都在忙着，不能一直跟他们谈话打搅他们。

我慢吞吞地取出了那条面目可憎的鱼，怀着绝望心情接着看。

我不能用放大镜，任何器材都不许用。

一双手，两只眼，还有这条鱼：这个观察场地也未免太狭小了。

我把一根手指伸进它的喉部，试试它的牙齿有多锋利。

我开始数一排排鱼鳞，一直数到自己也觉得荒唐。

最后我想出了一个绝妙的主意——把鱼画下来。

我惊讶地发现这家伙身上还真有不少新特征。

就在这时教授回来了。

对了，”他说，“笔的目光也是最敏锐的。

而且，令人高兴的是，我还注意到你的标本没有干，瓶子也是塞住的。

”
说了这番鼓励话之后，他接着问：“好了，看得怎么样了？”
他专注地听我简要叙述鱼体的结构，许多部位我还不知道叫什么：带边缘的鳃弓、活动鳃盖骨、头部细孔、肉质唇部、无睑眼；侧线、刺状鳍、叉状尾；扁曲身体。

我讲完了，他仍等着，似乎还想听下去，接着带着失望的神情说：
“你看得不够仔细。

唉，”他满脸认真地接着说道，“你连这条鱼最明显的一项特征都没看出来，跟这条鱼一样，那特征就明摆在你的眼前。

再看，再看!”说着他走了，留下我沮丧不已。

我怒从心生，我深感屈辱。

还要看那条该死的鱼!不过，这次我看时憋了一股劲，于是发现了一个又一个新特征，到最后我明白教授的批评的确有道理。

一个下午很快过去了。

下午将尽时，教授问道：
“发现了没有？”
“还没有，”我回答说，“肯定还没有，可我看出了原先自己的确没观察到什么。

”
“这是仅次于最好的结果了，”他认真地说，“不过现在我不打算听你讲。

把鱼放好，然后就回家吧。

说不定到了明天早上你会回答得更好。

明天在你看鱼之前我再问你。

”
这真是太为难人了。

我不仅得整晚想着这条鱼，要在实物不在眼前的情况下仔细琢磨这一未知却又极其显著的特征是什么；而且，第二天要在无法回顾我所作发现的情况下对我所观察到的东西作一精确描述。

我记性不好，因此我沿着查尔斯河走回家时心烦意乱，想着自己的两个难题。

第二天早上，教授热情的问候让人感到安慰。

眼前这人跟我一样，急切地希望我能独立看出他业已观察到的事物。

“您的意思是不是说，”我问，“这条鱼两侧对称，器官成对？”
他那听上去极为满意的“当然是，当然是!”的回答补偿了前一晚多少个不眠的小时。

等他高兴而又热情地——他一向如此——讲述完这一发现的重要性，我斗胆问接下来我该做什么。

“哦，看你那条鱼!”他说着走了，又不管我了。

过了一小时多一点，他回来了，听我汇报新的发现。

“很好，很好!”他重复说道。

“可这还不够，接着看。

”于是，整整三天，他把那条鱼置于我眼前，不让我看别的东西，也不让我借助任何工具。

“看看，看看，再看看，”就是他不断重复的指令。

这是我上过的最好的昆虫学课——其影响延伸到以后每一项研究的各个细节。

这是阿加西兹教授留给我以及其他许多人的遗产，其价值无法估量，千金难买，我们决不会割舍。

第四天，另一条同类的鱼摆在了前一条鱼的旁边，我被要求指出两者之间的异同。

接着
一条，又一条，直到这一科的全部成员都摆放在我的眼前，许许多多罐子占满了桌子和周围的架子。

那气味也变得如香水般迷人。

直到今天，只要看见一个被蛀虫咬过的6英寸长的旧软木塞，都会引起我美好的回忆。

就这样，整个石鲈一群全都拿来观察过了。

无论是在解剖内脏，在制作和检查骨架，还是在描述各种不同的部位，阿加西兹在训练学生观察事实及其有序排列的能力时，始终谆谆告诫大家不能满足于已有的发现。

“事实是枯燥无聊的，”他常说，“除非与某种普遍规律联系在一起。

”
快满8个月时，我依依不舍地离开了这些鱼类朋友，转向昆虫类。

可是，我从这次自己选修学科以外的经历中得到的收获，其价值超过以后我对自己喜欢的动物群所作的多年研究。

Carl Rowan grew up to be appointed as an ambassador for his country. And yet he came from a poor family and was raised at a time and in a place where black Americans were denied many of the advantages enjoyed by whites. How did he manage to rise so high from such a disadvantaged background? Much of the credit must go to Miss Bessie.
Text B Unforgettable Miss Bessie
Carl T. Rowan
1 She was only about five feet tall and probably never weighed more than 110 pounds, but Miss Bessie was a towering presence in the classroom. She was the only woman tough enough to make me read Beowulf and think for a few foolish days that I liked it. From 1938 to 1942, when I attended Bernard High School in McMinnville, Tenn., she taught me English, history, civics — and a lot more than I realized.
2 I shall never forget the day she scolded me into reading Beowulf.
3 "But Miss Bessie," I complained, "I ain't much interested in it."
4 Her large brown eyes became daggerish slits. "Boy," she said, "how dare you say 'ain't' to me! I've taught you better than that."
5 "Miss Bessie," I pleaded, "I'm trying to make first-string end on the football team. And if I go around saying 'it isn't' and 'they aren't,' the guys are gonna laugh me off the squad."
6 "Boy," she responded, "you'll play football because you have guts. But do you know what really takes guts? Refusing to lower your standards to those of the crowd. It takes
guts to say you've got to live and be somebody fifty years after all the football games are over."
7 I started saying "it isn't" and "they aren't," and I still made first-string end—and class valedictorian—without losing my buddies' respect.
8 During her remarkable 44-year career, Mrs. Bessie Taylor Gwynn taught hundreds of economically deprived black youngsters—including my mother, my brother, my sisters and me. I remember her now with gratitude and affection — especially in this era when Americans are so wrought-up about a "rising tide of mediocrity" in public education and the problems of finding competent, caring teachers. Miss Bessie was an example of an informed, dedicated teacher, a blessing to children and an asset to the nation.
9 Born in 1895, in poverty, she grew up in Athens, Ala., where there was no public school for blacks. She attended Trinity School, a private institution for blacks run by the American Missionary Association, and in 1911 graduated from the Normal School (a "super" high school) at Fisk University in Nashville. Mrs. Gwynn, the essence of pride and privacy, never talked about her years in Athens; only in the months before her death did she reveal that she had never attended Fisk University itself because she could not afford the four-year course.
10 At Normal School she learned a lot about Shakespeare, but most of all about the profound importance of education —especially, for a people trying to move up from slavery. "What you put in your head, boy," she once said, "can never be pulled out by the Ku Klux Klan, the Congress or anybody."
11 Miss Bessie's bearing of dignity told anyone who met her that she was "educated" in the best sense of the word. There was never a discipline problem in her classes. We didn't dare to mess with a woman who knew about the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights — and who could also play the piano.
12 This frail-looking woman could make sense of Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, and bring to life Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. Believing that it was important to know who the officials were that spent taxpayers' money and made public policy, she made us memorize the names of everyone on the Supreme Court and in the President's Cabinet. It could be embarrassing to be unprepared when Miss Bessie said, "Get up and tell the class who Frances Perkins is and what you think about her."
13 Miss Bessie knew that my family, like so many others during the Depression, couldn't afford to subscribe to a newspaper. She knew we didn't even own a radio. Still, she prodded me to "look out for your future and find some way to keep up with what's
going on in the world." So I became a delivery boy for the Chattanooga Times. I rarely made a dollar a week, but I got to read a newspaper every day.
14 Miss Bessie noticed things that had nothing to do with schoolwork, but were vital to
a youngster's development. Once a few classmates made fun of my frayed, hand-me-down overcoat, calling me "Strings." As I was leaving school, Miss Bessie patted me on the back of that old overcoat and said, "Carl, never fret about what you don't have. Just make the most of what you do have — a brain."
15 Among the things that I did not have was electricity in the little frame house[ frame house: a house constructed from a wooden skeleton, typically covered with timber boards 木板屋] that my father had built for $400 with his World War I bonus. But because of her inspiration, I spent many hours squinting beside a kerosene lamp reading Shakespeare and Thoreau, Samuel Pepys and William Cullen Bryant.
16 No one in my family had ever graduated from high school, so there was no tradition of commitment to learning for me to lean on. Like millions of youngsters in today's ghettos and barrios, I needed the push and stimulation of a teacher who truly cared. Miss Bessie gave plenty of both, as she immersed me in a wonderful world of similes, metaphors and even onomatopoeia. She led me to believe that I could write sonnets as well as Shakespeare, or iambic-pentameter verse to put Alexander Pope to shame.
17 In those days the McMinnville school system was rigidly "Jim Crow," and poor black children had to struggle to put anything in their heads. Our high school was only slightly larger than the once-typical little red schoolhouse, and its library was outrageously inadequate — so small, I like to say, that if two students were in it and one wanted to turn
a page, the other one had to step outside.
18 Negroes, as we were called then, were not allowed in the town library, except to mop floors or dust tables. But through one of those secret Old South[3 Old South: the South before the Civil War]3 arrangements between whites of conscience and blacks of stature, Miss Bessie kept getting books smuggled out of the white library. That is how she introduced me to the Bront?s, Byron, Coleridge, Keats and Tennyson. "If you don't read, you can't write, and if you can't write, you might as well stop dreaming," Miss Bessie once told me.
19 So I read whatever Miss Bessie told me to, and tried to remember the things she insisted that I store away. Forty-five years later, I can still recite her "truths to live by," such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's lines from "The Ladder of St. Augustine": The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.
20 Years later, her inspiration, prodding, anger, cajoling and almost osmotic infusion of learning finally led to that lovely day when Miss Bessie dropped me a note saying, "I'm so proud to read your column in the Nashville Tennessean."
21 Miss Bessie was a spry 80 when I went back to McMinnville and visited her in a senior citizens' apartment building. Pointing out proudly that her building was racially integrated, she reached for two glasses and a pint of bourbon. I was momentarily shocked, because it would have been scandalous in the 1930s and '40s for word to get out that a teacher drank, and nobody had ever raised a rumor that Miss Bessie did.
22 I felt a new sense of equality as she lifted her glass to mine. Then she revealed a softness and compassion that I had never known as a student.
23 "I've never forgotten that examination day," she said, "when Buster Martin held up seven fingers, obviously asking you for help with question number seven, 'Name a common carrier,' I can still picture you looking at your exam paper and humming a few bars of 'Chattanooga Choo Choo.' I was so tickled, I couldn't punish either of you."
24 Miss Bessie was telling me, with bourbon-laced grace, that I never fooled her for a moment.
25 When Miss Bessie died in 1980, at age 85, hundreds of her former students mourned. They knew the measure of a great teacher: love and motivation. Her wisdom and influence had rippled out across generations.
26 Some of her students who might normally have been doomed to poverty went on to become doctors, dentists and college professors. Many, guided by Miss Bessie's example, became public-school teachers.
27 "The memory of Miss Bessie and how she conducted her classroom did more for me than anything I learned in college," recalls Gladys Wood of Knoxville, Tenn., a highly respected English teacher who spent 43 years in the state's school system. "So many times, when I faced a difficult classroom problem, I asked myself, How would Miss Bessie deal with this? And I'd remember that she would handle it with laughter and love."
28 No child can get all the necessary support at home, and millions of poor children get no support at all. This is what makes a wise, educated, warm-hearted teacher like Miss Bessie so vital to the minds, hearts and souls of this country's children.
卡尔·罗旺长大成人后被任命为代表国家的大使。

可是，他出生在一个贫穷的家庭里，生长在美国黑人被剥夺了白人享有的许多权益这样一个时代，这样一个地方。

他是如何从这样低的社会阶层升到这样高的地位的呢？这很大程度上得归功于贝西小姐。

难忘恩师贝西小姐
卡尔·T·罗旺
她身高不过5英尺上下，体重可能从来不超过110磅，但贝西小姐在教室里形象极其高大。

她是个厉害女人，只有她能逼得我去读《贝奥武甫》，而且有那么几天，我还真傻乎乎地觉得自己挺喜欢这首史诗。

从1938年到1942年，我在田纳西州麦克敏维尔的伯纳德高中上学，她教我英语、历史、公民学，还有许多当时我未能领悟的东西。

我永远忘不了她训斥着要我读《贝奥武甫》的那一天。

"可是，贝西小姐，"我抱怨说，"我对它不怎么感兴趣。

"
她那双褐色的眼睛眯成一条缝，射出的目光犀利如刀。

"小伙子，"她说，"你竟敢对我说'ain't'!我教过你该怎么说。

"
"贝西小姐，"我恳求道，"我正在努力争取当上橄榄球队的正式边锋。

要是我老是说'it isn't'和'they aren't'，那帮人会嘲笑我，把我撵出球队的。

"
"小伙子，"她回答说，"你打橄榄球是因为你有勇气。

可你是不是知道什么事情真正需要勇气？那就是决不把你的做人标准降低到和那帮子人一样。

你要鼓起勇气对他们说，橄榄球比赛全部结束后你还想出人头地生活50年呢。

"
我开始说"it isn't"和"they aren't"了，而且照样当上了正式边锋——还成为班级里致告别辞的毕业生代表——却一点也没有失去伙伴们的尊重。

在她44年不平凡的教学生涯中，贝西·泰勒·格温太太教过许多穷困的黑人孩子——其中有我的母亲、兄弟、姐妹，还有我本人。

今天，我怀着热爱和感激之情记住她——尤其在今天这个时代，在国人对公共教育"日益平庸化"，对称职的、有爱心的教师难觅等问题深感不安之时，我更是忘不了她。

贝西小姐有见识、有奉献精神，堪称教师楷模，有她这样的老师是孩子们的福分，对国家来说她是宝贵的人才。

她于1895年出生在贫苦人家，在亚拉巴马的阿森斯长大。

当时那里没有黑人公立学校。

她上的是三一学堂，一所美国传教士协会为黑人开设的私立学校。

1911年她毕业于纳什维尔的菲斯克大学附属师范学校(一所"极棒的"高级中学)。

格温太太是个自尊心很强、很想维护隐私的人，从来不提她在阿森斯读过的岁月。

直到她去世前几个月，她才透露说，她从来没上过菲克斯大学本部，因为她付不起4年的学费。

在师范学校求学时，她学到许多关于莎士比亚的知识，但更重要的是她认识了教育的极端重要性——对一个正试图摆脱奴隶地位的民族尤为重要。

"你装进脑袋的东西，小伙子，"她说过，"三K党夺不走，国会夺不走，谁都夺不走。

"
见过贝西小姐的人都从她端庄的举止中看出她是绝对"有学识的"。

她任课的班上从来没有纪律问题。

我们不敢跟一个知道黑斯廷斯战役、英国大宪章、权利法案——又能弹钢琴的女教师捣乱。

这位看似弱不禁风的女子能读懂莎士比亚、弥尔顿、伏尔泰的作品，能把布克尔·T·华盛顿和W·E·B·杜波伊斯说得栩栩如生。

她深信了解花纳税人的钱并制定维护公共利益政策
的官员是非常重要的，因此她要我们记住最高法院全体法官以及总统内阁全体成员的名字。

要是贝西小姐说："站起来，告诉大家弗朗西丝·珀金斯是谁，你觉得她怎么样"，而你却毫无准备，那真够窘的。

贝西小姐知道，跟大萧条时期许多人家一样，我家订不起报纸。

她知道我家连收音机也没有。

但她还是敦促我"要为自己的未来着想，设法了解天下大事。

"于是我成了查塔努加《时报》的送报员。

我一星期挣不满1美金，但我每天都能读到报纸。

贝西小姐十分关注某些虽与功课无关，但对孩子的成长却至关重要的事。

一次几个同学拿我那件穿烂了的旧大衣开玩笑，叫我"破烂"。

放学回家时，贝西小姐拍拍我穿着那件旧大衣的背部说："卡尔，千万别为你没有的东西而烦恼。

要充分利用你拥有的东西——脑子。

"
我没有的东西包括我家小木板屋没有电，那屋是父亲从他一战退伍军人补助金里拿出400美元盖的。

但由于她的鼓励，我花了大量时间在煤油灯下眯着眼阅读莎士比亚、梭罗、塞缪尔·佩皮斯和威廉·科伦·布赖恩特的作品。

我家从来没有过高中毕业生，因此没有用功读书的先例供我学习。

如同今天贫民窟里和西裔聚居区里千百万的孩子一样，我需要一个真正关心人的老师的督促和激励。

贝西小姐既随时督促我，又经常激励我，她让我沉浸在一个由明喻、暗喻，甚至拟声词构成的奇妙世界里。

她使我相信，我能写出不比莎士比亚逊色的十四行诗，能写出让亚历山大·蒲柏感到羞愧的抑扬格五音步诗。

在那个时代，麦克敏维尔所有的学校对黑人实行严格的种族歧视，穷苦的黑人小孩要想学到一点东西得发奋努力。

我们的高中只比南方曾经特有的那种红色小校舍稍大一点，它的图书馆差透了——它是如此之小，我可以说，要是有两个学生在里面看书，一个学生想翻一下书页，另一个学生就得让开。

那时候，我们这些黑人(当时人们称我们"Negro")是不准进市图书馆的，除非是去拖地板或擦桌子。

但是，贝西小姐利用南北战争前有良知的白人和有影响的黑人之间所达成的某种秘密安排，设法不断地将书从白人图书馆偷运过来。

她用这个办法使我读到勃朗特三姐妹、拜伦、科勒律治、济慈和丁尼生的作品。

"你要是不读书，你就不会写，要是你不会写，那你就不要再有什么梦想了，"贝西小姐曾经这样告诫我。

所以，贝西小姐要我读什么，我就读什么，并努力记住她要我一定要记住的东西。

到现在45年了，我仍背得出她推崇的"立身至理名言"，譬如亨利·沃兹华斯·朗费罗写的《圣奥古斯丁的梯子》中的诗句：伟人们登上高山之顶，并非一蹴而就。

而是当同伴们酣睡时，他们仍不辞辛劳摸黑向上攀爬。

许多年之后，她的激励和敦促、她的发怒、她的劝诱，她那差不多是潜移默化式的知识传授，终于化作一个美好的日子，那天贝西小姐给我写了封短信："我在纳什维尔出版的《田纳西人》上读到你的专栏文章，我深感骄傲。

"。