夏洛特的网 Chapter 3 上

The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure ¹. It smelled of the perspiration ² of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a sort of peaceful smell -- as though noghing bad could happen ever again in the world. It smelled of grain and of harness dressing ³ and of axle grease and of rubber boots and of new rope. And whenever the cat was given a fish-head to eat, the barn would smell of fish. But mostly it smelled of hay, for there was always hay in the great loft ⁴ up overhead. And there was always hay being pitched down to the cows and the hourses and the sheep., ,The barn was pleasantly warm in winter when the animals spent most of their time indoors, and it was pleasantly cool in summer when the big doors stood wide open to the breeze. The barn had stalls on the main floor for the work hourses, tie-ups on the main floor for the cows, a sheepfold down below for the sheep, a pigpen down below for Wilbur, and it was full of all sorts of things that you find in barns: ladders, grindsones, pitch forks, monkey wrenches ⁶, scythes ⁷, lawn mowers, snow shovels ⁸, ax handles, milk pails, water buchers, empty grain sacks, and rusty ⁹ rat traps. It was the kind of barn that swallows like to build their nests in. It was the kind of barn that children like to play in. And the whole thing was owned by Fern's uncle, Mr. Homer L. Zuckerman., ,Wilbur's new home was in the lower part of the barn, directly underneath ¹⁰ the cows. Mr. Zuckerman knew that a manure pile is a good place to keep a young pig. Pigs need warmth, and it was warm and comfortable down there in the barn cellar on the south side., , ,One afternoon in June, when Wilbur was almost two months old, he wandered out into his small yard outside the barn. Fern had not arrived for her usual visit. Wilbur stood in the sun feeling lonely and bored., ,"There's never anything to do around here," he thought. He walked slowly to his food trough and sniffed ¹¹ to see if anything had been overlooked at lunch. He found a small strip of potato skin and ate it. His back itched ⁵, so he leaned against the fence and rubbed against the boards. When he tired of this, he walked indoors, climbed to the top of the manured pile, and sat down. He didn't feel like going to sleep, he didn't feel like digging, he was tired of standing ¹² still, tired of lying down. "I'm less than two months old and I'm tired of living," he said. He walked out to the yard again., ,The farmers used manure to keep up the fertility of their land.农夫们用粪保持其土质的肥沃 。,It is so hot that my clothes are wet with perspiration.天太热了 ，我的衣服被汗水湿透了
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