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『あしながおじさん』英文/和訳 CHAPTER IV ロック・ウィロー農場 Part 1

『Daddy-Long-Legs』CHAPTER IV 前半です。試験を終えたジュディが、初めての農場生活へ向かい、ロック・ウィロー農場で自由と自然を満喫する手紙を、英文・和訳ペアと語句色分けで整理しています。

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動作・変化 感情・心理 場面・描写 人物・性格 疑問・転機 重要表現
9th June

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Happy day! I’ve just finished my last examination—Physiology.

And now: Three months on a farm!

I don’t know what kind of a thing a farm is. I’ve never been on one in my life.

I’ve never even looked at one, except from the car window, but I know I’m going to love it, and I’m going to love being FREE.

I am not used even yet to being outside the John Grier Home.

Whenever I think of it, excited little thrills chase up and down my back.

I feel as though I must run faster and faster and keep looking over my shoulder to make sure that Mrs. Lippett isn’t after me.

I don’t have to mind any one this summer, do I?

Your nominal authority doesn’t annoy me in the least; you are too far away to do any harm.

Mrs. Lippett is dead for ever, so far as I am concerned, and the Semples aren’t expected to overlook my moral welfare, are they?

No, I am sure not. I am entirely grown up. Hooray!

I leave you now to pack a trunk, and three boxes of teakettles and dishes and sofa cushions and books.

Yours ever,
Judy

PS. Here is my physiology exam. Do you think you could have passed?

* * *
LOCK WILLOW FARM Saturday night

Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs,

I’ve only just come and I’m not unpacked, but I can’t wait to tell you how much I like farms.

This is a heavenly, heavenly, HEAVENLY spot!

The house is square and OLD, a hundred years or so.

It has a veranda on the side and a sweet porch in front.

The picture really doesn’t do it justice—those things that look like feather dusters are maple trees.

And the prickly ones that border the drive are murmuring pines and hemlocks.

It stands on the top of a hill and looks way off over miles of green meadows to another line of hills.

That is the way Connecticut goes, in a series of Marcelle waves; and Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave.

The barns used to be across the road where they obstructed the view, but a kind flash of lightning came from heaven and burnt them down.

The people are Mr. and Mrs. Semple and a hired girl and two hired men.

The hired people eat in the kitchen, and the Semples and Judy in the dining-room.

We had ham and eggs and biscuits and honey and jelly-cake and pie and pickles and cheese and tea for supper—and a great deal of conversation.

I have never been so entertaining in my life; everything I say appears to be funny.

I suppose it is, because I’ve never been in the country before, and my questions are backed by an all-inclusive ignorance.

The room marked with a cross is not where the murder was committed, but the one that I occupy.

It’s big and square and empty, with adorable old-fashioned furniture and windows that have to be propped up on sticks.

And a big square mahogany table—I’m going to spend the summer with my elbows spread out on it, writing a novel.

Oh, Daddy, I’m so excited! I can’t wait till daylight to explore.

It’s 8.30 now, and I am about to blow out my candle and try to go to sleep.

We rise at five. Did you ever know such fun?

I can’t believe this is really Judy. You and the Good Lord give me more than I deserve.

I must be a very, very, VERY good person to pay. I’m going to be. You’ll see.

Good night,
Judy

PS. You should hear the frogs sing and the little pigs squeal, and you should see the new moon!

I saw it over my right shoulder.

* * *
LOCK WILLOW 12th July

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow?

That isn’t a rhetorical question. I am awfully curious to know.

For listen to this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, but now he has given it to Mrs. Semple, who was his old nurse.

Did you ever hear of such a funny coincidence?

She still calls him Master Jervie and talks about what a sweet little boy he used to be.

She has one of his baby curls put away in a box, and it is red—or at least reddish!

Since she discovered that I know him, I have risen very much in her opinion.

Knowing a member of the Pendleton family is the best introduction one can have at Lock Willow.

And the cream of the whole family is Master Jervis—I am pleased to say that Julia belongs to an inferior branch.

The farm gets more and more entertaining.

I rode on a hay wagon yesterday.

We have three big pigs and nine little piglets, and you should see them eat. They are pigs!

We’ve oceans of little baby chickens and ducks and turkeys and guinea fowls.

You must be mad to live in a city when you might live on a farm.

It is my daily business to hunt the eggs.

I fell off a beam in the barn loft yesterday, while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that the black hen had stolen.

And when I came in with a scratched knee, Mrs. Semple bound it up with witch-hazel.

All the time she was murmuring, “Dear! Dear!” and saying that it seemed only yesterday that Master Jervie had fallen off that very same beam.

The scenery around here is perfectly beautiful.

There’s a valley and a river and a lot of wooded hills, and way in the distance a tall blue mountain that simply melts in your mouth.

We churn twice a week, and we keep the cream in the spring house.

It is made of stone with the brook running underneath.

Some of the farmers around here have a separator, but we don’t care for these new-fashioned ideas.

It may be a little harder to separate the cream in pans, but it’s sufficiently better to pay.

We have six calves; and I’ve chosen the names for all of them.

Sylvia, because she was born in the woods. Lesbia, after the Lesbia in Catullus. Sallie. Julia—a spotted, nondescript animal. Judy, after me. And Daddy-Long-Legs.

You don’t mind, do you, Daddy? He’s pure Jersey and has a sweet disposition.

I haven’t had time yet to begin my immortal novel; the farm keeps me too busy.

Yours always,
Judy

PS. I’ve learned to make doughnuts.

PS. If you are thinking of raising chickens, let me recommend Buff Orpingtons. They haven’t any pin feathers.

PS. I wish I could send you a pat of the nice, fresh butter I churned yesterday. I’m a fine dairy-maid!

* * *
Sunday

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Isn’t it funny? I started to write to you yesterday afternoon, but as far as I got was the heading.

Then I remembered I’d promised to pick some blackberries for supper, so I went off and left the sheet lying on the table.

And when I came back today, what do you think I found sitting in the middle of the page?

A real true Daddy-Long-Legs!

I picked him up very gently by one leg, and dropped him out of the window.

I wouldn’t hurt one of them for the world. They always remind me of you.

We hitched up the spring wagon this morning and drove to the Centre to church.

It’s a sweet little white frame church with a spire and three Doric columns in front.

Or maybe Ionic—I always get them mixed.

A nice sleepy sermon, with everybody drowsily waving palm-leaf fans.

The only sound, aside from the minister, was the buzzing of locusts in the trees outside.

I didn’t wake up till I found myself on my feet singing the hymn.

And then I was awfully sorry I hadn’t listened to the sermon.

I should like to know more of the psychology of a man who would pick out such a hymn.

Come, leave your sports and earthly toys

Come, leave your sports and earthly toys / And join me in celestial joys.

Or else, dear friend, a long farewell. / I leave you now to sink to hell.

I find that it isn’t safe to discuss religion with the Semples.

Their God is a narrow, irrational, unjust, mean, revengeful, bigoted Person.

Thank heaven I don’t inherit God from anybody!

I am free to make mine up as I wish Him.

He’s kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding—and He has a sense of humour.

I like the Semples immensely; their practice is so superior to their theory.

They are better than their own God. I told them so—and they are horribly troubled.

They think I am blasphemous—and I think they are!

We’ve dropped theology from our conversation.

This is Sunday afternoon.

Amasai, the hired man, in a purple tie and some bright yellow buckskin gloves, has just driven off with Carrie.

Carrie wore a big hat trimmed with red roses, a blue muslin dress, and her hair curled as tight as it will curl.

Amasai spent all the morning washing the buggy.

And Carrie stayed home from church ostensibly to cook the dinner, but really to iron the muslin dress.

In two minutes more, when this letter is finished, I am going to settle down to a book which I found in the attic.

It’s entitled On the Trail, and across the front page in a funny little-boy hand is written Jervis Pendleton’s name.

If this book should ever roam, / Box its ears and send it home.

He spent the summer here once after he had been ill, when he was about eleven years old.

It looks well read—the marks of his grimy little hands are frequent!

Also in a corner of the attic there is a water wheel and a windmill and some bows and arrows.

Mrs. Semple talks so constantly about him that I begin to believe he really lives.

Not a grown man with a silk hat and walking stick, but a nice, dirty, tousle-headed boy.

He clatters up the stairs with an awful racket, leaves the screen doors open, and is always asking for cookies.

He seems to have been an adventurous little soul—and brave and truthful.

I’m sorry to think he is a Pendleton; he was meant for something better.

We’re going to begin threshing oats tomorrow; a steam engine is coming and three extra men.

It grieves me to tell you that Buttercup, the spotted cow with one horn, has done a disgraceful thing.

She got into the orchard Friday evening and ate apples under the trees, and ate and ate until they went to her head.

For two days she has been perfectly dead drunk!

That is the truth I am telling. Did you ever hear anything so scandalous?

Sir, I remain,
Your affectionate orphan,
Judy Abbott

PS. Indians in the first chapter and highwaymen in the second. I hold my breath. What can the third contain?

“Red Hawk leapt twenty feet in the air and bit the dust.” That is the subject of the frontispiece.

Aren’t Judy and Jervie having fun?

* * *
15th September

Dear Daddy,

I was weighed yesterday on the flour scales in the general store at the Corners.

I’ve gained nine pounds!

Let me recommend Lock Willow as a health resort.

Yours ever,
Judy

出典:Project Gutenberg『Daddy-Long-Legs』by Jean Webster をもとに、英語学習用の英文・和訳・語句色分け形式に編集しています。

あしながおじさん

『あしながおじさん』英文/和訳 CHAPTER III 新入生の一年 続き Part 2 『あしながおじさん』英文/和訳 CHAPTER IV ロック・ウィロー農場と二年生の始まり Part 2