【英文读物】Love and Moondogs

1、【英文读物】Love and MoondogsChapter 1 The headline on the newspapers stacked in front of the drugstore read RUSS DOG REACHES MOON ALIVE. A man in a leather jacket stopped to scan it. Across the street, frost lay crisp on the courthouse lawn, and the white and tan spotted hound put up his forepaws on the kitchen stool as if to warm them. The four women were too busy hauling down the flag to notice.Martha Stonery in the persian lamb coat paid out the halyard. Monica Flint in the reddish muskrat and Pau

2、la Hart in the brown fox caught the flag and folded it, careful not to let it touch the wet cement. A postman and the man in the leather jacket stopped on the sidewalk to watch.Martha, plump face grim under pinchnose spectacles, fastened one halyard snap to a metal ring taped and wired to the dogs right hind leg.Hoist away, girls.Monica, Paula and Abigail Silax in nutria hauled in unison while Martha held the flag. The hound scrabbled with his forepaws and barked frantically. As he went struggle

3、-twisting upward he began to howl in a bell-like voice. The women grunted with effort. People were coming across the lawn and pale faces moved behind the courthouse windows.Two block, Martha said. Vast hauling and belay.She pulled the kitchen stool nearer the flagpole and climbed on it to face the small crowd across the shelf of her bosom. Cars were stopping, people streaming in from all sides. Martha patted her piled gray hair and made her thin lips into a parrot beak.Fellow Americans! she crie

4、d above the howling. Our leaders are cowards and it is time for the people to act before the Russians come and murder us all in our beds! We, the United Dames of the Dog, hereby protest the Russian crime of putting a trusting, loving dog on the moon to starve and freeze and smother and die of loneliness! This dog above our heads cries out to the world against the Russian breach of faith between dog and man. He will stay there until the Russians bring their dog home safely or make amends for thei

5、r crime!Like hell! said the man in the leather jacket, moving in.Martha! Abigail shrieked. Hes taking it down!Monica pulled at his wrists. Paula slapped and scratched at his face. You brute! You coward! they shrilled.Martha jumped off the stool and kicked him. He backed away, bent and holding himself.Look, ladies, he gasped, for Gods sakeHere now, here now, this is county property, said a fat man in shirtsleeves with pink sleeve garters, pushing through the crowd. Whats all this? Take that dog d

6、own, somebody!Never! Martha snapped. She put her back against the halyard cleat, unfolded the flag and draped it around herself. A loose strand of gray hair fell across her face.If youre so big and brave, go bring down the Russian dog, she told the fat man coldly.Now listen, lady, the fat man said. The Clarion press photographer was sprinting across the lawn.George Stonery was tall, thin, stooped and anxious in a gray business suit.I came as soon as I could, he told Sheriff Breen across the scar

7、red, paper-littered wooden desk. I was away checking one of our warehouses.You can make bail for her in two minutes, right across the hall, the sheriff said, scratching his jowl. She wouldnt make it for herself, said we had to lock her in our sputnik.Where is she now?In the sputnik.The desk phone rang and the sheriff growled into it, Hell you say. State forty-three just past Roy Farm? Right. I spose you already heard what we had on the lawn here this morning?The phone gave forth an excited gobbl

8、ing. The sheriffs red eyebrows rose in disbelief and his heavy jaw dropped in dismay. He put down the phone.That was city, he told Stonery. Complaint about a dog hanging by one leg from a tree just outside city limits. But its going on all over town toodogs hanging on trees, out of windows, off clotheslinesevery squad car is out. Your old lady sure started something!What did she do? Stonery asked in anguish.The sheriff told him. Kicked a big fat deputy where it hurts, too. Maybe we ought to hold

9、 her after all. She says shes president of the United Dogs of something.United Dames of the Dog, the thin man corrected. They hold meetings and things. She started it when the Russians put up their second sputnik.Well, I hope none of them dames lives out in the county, the sheriff said, rising. You fix up bail, Mr. Stonery. I got to send out a deputy.Walking past the flagpole with her husband, Martha Stonery wore an exalted look.All over America dogs will cry out in protest against the Russian crime, she said. I have kindled a flame, George, that will sweep away the Kremlin. I, a weak woman.She insisted on driving herself home in her new station wagon.Sirening police cars passed Stonery three times as he drove home in the evening. Outside the tan stucco ranch-style house on Euclid Avenue, cars blocked the driveway and a crowd

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