The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Chapter 20 (2)
No.17 Chapter (2)
It was a wonderful family, and a wonderful house.I have never seen such a nice and grand house in the country.There was no iron latch on the gate, nor a wooden latch with a buckskin cord, but a brass handle that could be turned, just like the houses in the city.There was no bed in the drawing-room, but there were always beds in the drawing-rooms of many houses in the city.There was a fireplace with a base of red bricks, each of which had been scoured and ground with bricks dipped in water.Sometimes they also scrub the bricks with a paint called Spanish ochre, just like the people in the city do.There was also a brass firewood stand, big enough to hold a sawn log.A clock stood in the middle of the mantelpiece, and on the lower half of the glass was a picture of a small town, leaving a round space in the middle for the sun, and the pendulum could be seen swinging behind the picture.The sound of tick-tock sounds very comfortable.Sometimes when a peddler comes and polishes the clock and makes it look brand new, it can strike 150 times in a row until it is too tired to strike.They would not sell this clock for any amount.

By the way, there is a big weird parrot on both sides of the clock, probably made of white powder, painted with colorful colors.There was a china cat next to a parrot, and a china dog next to another parrot.When you press your hand, they squeak, but they don't open their mouths, their faces don't change, and they don't look happy.The creaking sound came from under their bellies.Behind these stood two propped turkey feather fans.On the table in the middle of the room stood a beautiful big china basket full of apples, oranges, peaches, and grapes, red and yellow, much brighter than real fruit, but they were fake, because In some places where the skin has fallen off, the flesh is exposed, and it can be seen that it is something like white powder.

On the table was a handsome oilcloth, with an eagle on outstretched wings, painted in red and white, surrounded by lace.They said it was brought from Philadelphia, thousands of miles away.There are also books on the table, neatly stacked on the four corners of the table.One was a big thick family Bible, full of illustrations.One was The Pilgrim's Progress, and it was about a man who left home without saying why.I read a lot of this book on and off.The words in it are very interesting, but they are not easy to understand.The other one is "A Gift of Friendship," which is really beautiful stuff in it, and there are a lot of poems, but I didn't read them, and there was one Henry?Clay's lectures, and a copy of "Family Medicine" by Dr. Gunn, which is all about what to do when you're sick and dead.There was also a hymnbook, and quite a few other books.There were a couple of slatted chairs in the room, and they were nice looking, and there was nothing wrong with them--not the sort of chairs that sagged in the middle and were cracked here and there, like broken baskets.

There are still pictures on the walls, mainly portraits of Washington and Lafayette, and some war pictures, and "Mary on the Plateau", and a picture called "Signing the Declaration of Independence".Some of the drawings they called crayons were drawn by a dead daughter of the family when she was fifteen.These paintings were different from the ones I had seen before, they were darker than usual, and one of them showed a woman in a thin black dress, tightly strapped under the armpit, The middle of the two sleeves is swollen like a cabbage, a black hat like a big spoon is worn on the head, a black veil is covered on the face, black belts are wrapped around the white and thin ankles, and a pair of Small black pointed slippers, like a chisel, she stood under a weeping willow tree, with her right wrist resting on a tombstone, looking sad, and the other hand hanging by her side, holding a white handkerchief and a net bag.Underneath this picture was written: "Woohoo, we'll never see each other again in this lifetime." Another picture showed a young woman with her hair neatly pulled up on top of her head in a bun, and a comb sticking out of the back, like a She was crying with her handkerchief covering her mouth, and in the other hand lay a dead bird lying on its back, with the words under the picture: "Woohoo, it's so hard to hear your melodious singing voice.

Another picture shows a young woman looking up at the moon from the window, with tears streaming down her face, holding an open letter with black wax on the top of the envelope. A little gold box with a chain was pressed over its mouth, and underneath the painting was written: "Alas, those who abandon me will never stay. "I thought the pictures were all right, but somehow I didn't like them very much, and if I wasn't happy in the first place, it made it harder to see them. Everyone was sorry that she died, because she was going to paint a lot. With such a painting, after seeing the paintings she has already painted, you can see how much the loss is. But I think that with her character, it may be more comfortable to stay in the grave.

When she fell ill, she was painting a painting, which they said was her best painting. She prayed every day and night, asking God to let her live to the day when she finished painting, but she did not It didn't work out.It shows a young woman in a long white dress standing on the railing of a bridge about to jump off, with long hair hanging down her back, looking up at the moon, with tears streaming down her face, she has many arms, two Crossed across her chest, two stretched forward, and two raised upwards toward the moon—she originally wanted to see which two arms would be the most suitable for drawing, and then erase all the other arms; Having said that, she died before she could make up her mind.Now her family hangs this painting on her bedside in her house, and on her birthday, they hang a few flowers on it, and usually cover it with a small piece of cloth.The face of the young woman in the painting is sweet and pretty, but it's a pity that there are so many arms that I think it looks like a spider.

When the girl was alive, she kept a scrapbook, and often cut out some obituaries, accidents, and spiritual practice stories published in the "Presbyterian Observer" and pasted them in the notebook, and wrote some unique poems to attach to the back.These poems are wonderfully written.The following poem is her poem for a man named Stephen?Dorian?Written by Botts' boy, who accidentally fell into a well and drowned:

Mourning to Stephen?Dorian?Botts

Young Stephen,
Could it be that he died of illness?

Relatives cry heartbroken for you,
Can you not be sad?

What is the cause of the young man's death?
The body is free from disease;

Wet clothes with tears from loved ones,
knowing is destined;

never had pertussis,
No measles erythema;

To die young is too sad,

But nothing to do with disease.

So handsome with curly hair,

Don't be discouraged even if you are broken in love;

I can't let go of the headache and brain fever,
Be happy and happy every day.

The impermanence of fate makes people cry,
Hear me from the beginning;

Misfortune fell down the bottom of the well,
The soul flew out of the nest.

Pick up and squeeze out the water in your belly,
Unfortunately it is too late;

The soul wanders slowly into the void,
The kingdom of heaven is happy forever.

Emmeline?Granger Ford was not yet 14 years old, but he could write such beautiful poems. If he was alive, he would grow up to be so capable.Buck said she could write poetry when she picked up the pen, without even thinking about it, just like playing.He said that she wrote a line with one stroke of the pen, and if she couldn't think of the rhyme for the next sentence, she simply erased the line, wrote another line with the pen, and continued writing.She doesn't specialize in one aspect of poetry, no matter what aspect of poetry you ask her to write, she can write anything that makes people sad, and she can write it into her poems.Whenever someone died, whether it was a man, a woman, or a child, she could always write the "sacrificial poem" without waiting for the body to cool down.She called this kind of poetry sacrificial poetry.The neighbors said that on such an occasion, the doctor would be the first to arrive, Emmeline must be the second, and then the undertaker—they never came as quickly as Emmeline, and only once did they compare. She came early because she wanted to rhyme the name when she wrote a poem for the deceased Whistler, but she couldn't rhyme it after thinking about it for a while.

She hasn't been the same since then.She never said that she had any disease, but she lost weight day by day, and died within a short period of time.Poor girl, how many times have I been breathless looking at her paintings, I go upstairs to the cabin where she lived, take out her old scrapbook, and look at the posts on it. thing.I like all of this family, even the dead ones, so I don't intend to have any bad things happen between us.When poor Emmeline was alive, she wrote poetry to people when she was dead, but when she was dead, it was a little unfair that no one wrote to her; My son worked hard to compose one or two poems for her, but for some reason, he couldn't hold back a word after holding back for a long time.They kept Emmeline's house very clean and tidy, everything was exactly the same as when she was alive, and it was arranged according to her wishes. The house was always empty and no one lived in it.There were many niggers in her house, but the old lady insisted on taking care of the room herself, where she often sewed and read the Bible.

By the way, I just mentioned the living room. The curtains in the living room are beautiful, white, and there are pictures on them. It is a castle covered with vines on the wall, and there are cows and sheep drinking water by the river.There's an old little piano in the living room, too, and I think it must be full of little tin plates and stuff, and if you could hear the young girls sing that "The Last Link Is Broken," Play that "Battle of Prague" piece, that's all right.The walls of each house were plastered, the floors were almost carpeted, and the exterior of the entire house was whitewashed.

This is a two-row house, with a large open space between the two rows, covered with a roof and covered with floors, sometimes we eat lunch there, it is really a cool and comfortable place.Living here is really comfortable, and the food is good, always piled up, no matter how big the stomach is, it can't finish it!

(End of this chapter)