2 I Get Started on This Venture

In Which I Get Started on This Venture I left New York in May. I had a penknife, a ball of string, an axe, and $40, which I had saved from selling magazine subscriptions. I also had some flint and steel which I had bought at a Chinese store in the city. The man in the store had showed me how to use it. He had also given me a little purse to put it in, and some tinder to catch the sparks. He had told me that if I ran out of tinder, I should burn cloth, and use the charred ashes. I thanked him and said, "This is the kind of thing I am not going to forget." On the train north to the Catskills I unwrapped my flint and steel and practised hitting them together to make sparks. On the wrapping paper I made these notes:

开启这场冒险，我在五月离开了纽约。 我带了一把小折刀、一团线、一把斧头，还有卖杂志订阅攒下的四十美元。 我还带了火石和钢片，是在城里一家华人商店买的。 店里的老板教了我怎么用它。 他还送我一个小袋子装它，还有接住火星的引火绒。 他告诉我如果引火绒用完了，可以烧布，用烧黑的布灰引火。 我谢过他说：“这件事我绝对不会忘的。” 在北上卡茨基尔的火车上，我拆开火石和钢片，练习敲击出火花。 我在包装纸上记下了这些要点：

A hard brisk strike is best. Remember to hold the steel in the left hand and the flint in the right, and hit the steel with the flint. The trouble is the sparks go every which way. And that was the trouble. I did not get a fire going that night, and as I mentioned, this was a scary experience. I hitched rides into the Catskill Mountains. At about four o'clock a truck driver and I passed through a beautiful dark hemlock forest, and I said to him, "This is as far as I am going." He looked all around and said, "You live here?" "No" I said, "but I am running away from home, and this is just the kind of forest I have always dreamed I would run to. I think I'll camp here tonight." I hopped out of the cab.

用力快速击打效果最好。 记住左手握钢片，右手拿火石，用火石敲钢片。 麻烦的是火星会乱飞。 我当时就遇上了这个麻烦。 那天晚上我没能生起火，这可真是一段吓人的经历。 我搭顺风车到了卡茨基尔山区。 大约四点的时候，我和卡车司机穿过一片优美幽深的铁杉林，我对他说：“我就在这里下车。” 他四下看了看说：“你住在这里吗？” “不是，”我说，“我从家里跑出来，这片森林正是我一直梦想跑来的地方。 我今晚就在这里扎营。” 我一下子跳出了卡车驾驶室。

"Hey, boy," the driver shouted. "Are you serious?" "Sure," I said. "Well, now, ain't that sumpin'? You know, when I was your age, I did the same thing. Only thing was, I was a farm boy and ran to the city, and you're a city boy running to the woods. I was scared of the city– do you think you'll he scared of the woods?" "Heck, no!" I shouted loudly. As I marched into the cool shadowy woods, I heard the driver call to me, "I'll be back in the morning, if you want to ride home." He laughed. Everybody laughed at me. Even Dad. I told Dad that I was going to run away to Great-grandfather Gribley's land. He had roared with laughter and told me about the time he had run away from home. He got on a boat headed for Singapore, but when the

“嘿，孩子，”司机大喊道。 “你是认真的吗？” “当然，”我说。 “哇哦，这可太奇妙了。 你知道吗，我像你这么大的时候，也做过一样的事。 只不过我是乡下孩子往城里跑，你是城里孩子往树林跑。 我那时候怕城市，你觉得你会怕树林吗？” “才不会呢！” 我大声喊道。 我大步走进阴凉幽暗的树林，听见司机对我喊：“要是你想回家，我明早会从这里回来。” 他笑了。 所有人都笑过我。 连爸爸也不例外。 我告诉爸爸我要去格里布利曾祖父的土地。 他哈哈大笑，跟我说他小时候离家出走的事。 他登上了开往新加坡的船，可当

whistle blew for departure, he was down the gangplank and home in bed before anyone knew he was gone. Then he told me, "Sure, go try it. Every boy should try it." I must have walked a mile into the woods until I found a stream. It was a clear athletic stream that rushed and ran and jumped and splashed. Ferns grew along its bank, and its rocks were upholstered with moss. I sat down, smelled the piney air, and took out my penknife. I cut off a green twig and began to whittle. I have always been good at whittling. I carved a ship once that my teacher exhibited for parents" night at school. First I whittled an angle on one end of the twig. Then I cut a smaller twig and sharpened it to a point. I whittled an angle on that twig, and bound the two angles face to face with a strip of green bark It was supposed to be a fishhook.

鸣哨准备开船的时候，他已经走下跳板，回到家躺在床上，谁都没发现他出过门。 然后他对我说：“当然啦，去试试吧。 每个男孩都该试一次。” 我往树林里走了大概一英里，终于找到了一条小溪。 小溪清澈活泼，哗哗奔涌，溅起阵阵水花。 岸边长满蕨类，石头上也铺着软软的苔藓。 我坐下来，闻着带松香味的空气，掏出了我的小折刀。 我砍下一根绿树枝，开始削木头。 我一直很擅长削木头。 我之前削过一艘小船，老师还在学校家长日展出过呢。 我先在树枝的一头削出一个斜角。 接着我截了一根更小的树枝，把一头削尖。 我在这根小树枝上也削了斜角，把两个斜角对在一起，用绿树皮绑好，这就是我做的鱼钩。

According to a book on how to survive on the land that I read in the New York Public Library, this was the way to make your own hooks. I then dug for worms. I had hardly chopped the moss away with my axe before I hit frost. It had not occurred to me that there would be frost in the ground in May, but then, I had not been on a mountain before. This did worry me, because I was depending on fish to keep me alive until I got to my Great-grandfather's mountain where I was going to make traps and catch game.

我之前在纽约公共图书馆看过一本野外生存书，说鱼钩就是这么做的。 接着我就动手挖蚯蚓。 我刚用斧头砍开苔藓，就碰到了冻土层。 我从来没想到五月的土里还会有冻层，毕竟我之前从来没进过山。 这可真让我发愁，因为我原本打算靠钓鱼果腹，直到走到曾祖父的山头再做陷阱捕猎物。

I looked into the stream to see what else I could eat, and as I did, my hand knocked a rotten log apart. I remembered about old logs and all the sleeping stages of insects that are in it. I chopped away until I found a cold white grub. I swiftly tied a string to my hook, put the grub on, and walked up the stream looking for a good place to fish. All the manuals I had read were very emphatic about where fish lived, and so I had memorized this: "In streams fish usually congregate in pools and deep calm water. The heads of small rapids, the tail of a pool, eddies below rocks or logs, deep undercut banks, in the shade of overhanging bushes– all are very likely places to fish." This stream did not seem to have any calm water, and I must have walked a thousand miles before I found a pool by a deep undercut bank in the shade of overhanging hushes. Actually, it wasn't that far, it just

我往小溪里看，想找找还有什么能吃，这时我的手不小心碰散了一根腐木。 我想起老腐木里会有各个虫态的昆虫。 我砍开腐木，找到了一条白白的凉蛴螬。 我飞快地把线绑在鱼钩上，挂上蛴螬，沿着小溪往上走，找合适的钓位。 我看过的所有手册都反复强调鱼的栖息地，所以我牢牢记住：“溪流里的鱼通常聚在水潭和水深流缓的地方。 小急流的上游、水潭末端、岩石或圆木下的漩涡、被冲空的深岸、悬垂灌木的树荫下，全都是很适合钓鱼的地方。” 这条小溪看起来根本没有平缓水域，我感觉走了上千英里，才找到一处水潭，它挨着被冲空的深岸，躲在悬垂灌木的树荫下。 其实根本没那么远，只是