A city child’s summer is spent in the street in front of his home, and all through the long summer vacations I sat on the edge of the street and watched enviously the other boys on the block play baseball. I was never asked to take part even when one team had a member missing—not out of special cruelty, but because they took it for granted I would be no good at it. They were right, of course.
I would never forget the wonderful evening when something changed. The baseball ended about eight or eight thirty when it grew dark. Then it was the custom of the boys to retire to a little stoop(门廊) that stuck out from the candy store on the corner and that somehow had become theirs. No grownup ever sat there or attempted to. There the boys would sit, mostly talking about the games played during the day and of the game to be played tomorrow. Then long silences would fall and the boys would wander off one by one. It was just after one of those long silences that my life as an outsider changed. I can no longer remember which boy it was that summer evening who broke the silence with a question: but whoever he was, I nod to him gratefully now. “What’s in those books you’re always reading?” he asked casually. “Stories,” I answered. “What kind?” asked somebody else without much interest.
Nor do I know what drove me to behave as I did, for usually I just sat there in silence, glad enough to be allowed to remain among them; but instead of answering his question, I told them for two hours the story I was reading at the moment. The book was Sister Carrie. They listened bug-eyed and breathless. I must have told it well, but I think there was another and deeper reason that made them to keep an audience. Listening to a tale being told in the dark is one of the most ancient of man’s entertainments, but I was offering them as well, without being aware of doing it, a new and exciting experience.
The books they themselves read were the Rover Boys or Tom Swift or G.A.Henty. I had read them too, but at thirteen I had long since left them behind. Since I was much alone I had become an enthusiastic reader and I had gone through the books-for-boys series. In those days there was no reading material between children’s and grownups’ books or I could find none. I had gone right from Tome Swift and His Flying Machine to Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie. Dreiser had hit my young mind, and they listened to me tell the story with some of
the wonder that I had had in reading it.
The next night and many nights thereafter, a kind of unspoken ritual (仪式) took place. As it grew dark, I would take my place in the center of the stoop and begin the evening’s tale. Some nights, in order to taste my victory more completely, I cheated. I would stop at the most exciting part of a story by Jack London or Bret Harte, and without warning tell them that that was as far as I had gone in the book and it would have to be continued the following evening. It was not true, of course; but I had to make certain of my new-found power and position. I enjoyed the long summer evenings until school began in the fall. Other words of mine have been listened to by larger and more fashionable audiences, but for that tough and athletic one that sat close on the stoop outside the candy store, I have an unreasoning love that will last forever.
1. Watching the boys playing baseball, the writer must have felt ________.
A. bitter and lonely B. special and different
C. pleased and excited D. disturbed and annoyed
2. The writer feels grateful even now to the boy who asked the question because the boy ________.
A. invited him to join in their game
B. liked the book that he was reading
C. broke the long silence of that summer evening
D. offered him an opportunity that changed his life
3. According to Paragraph 3, story-telling was popular among the boys basically because ________.
A. the story was from a children’s book
B. listening to tales was an age-old prac
tice
C. the boys had few entertainments after dark
D. the boys didn’t read books by themselves
4.The boys were attracted to Sister Carrie because ________.
A. it was written by Theodore Dreiser
B. it was specifically targeted at boys
C. it gave them a deeper feeling of pleasure
D. it talked about the wonders of the world
5. Sometimes the writer stopped at the most exciting part of a story to _______.
A. play a mean trick on the boys
B. experience more joy of achievement
C. add his own imagination to the story
D. help the boys understand the story better
6. What is the message conveyed in the story?
A. One can find his position in life in his own way.
B. Friendship is built upon respect for each other.
C. Reading is more important than playing games.
D. Adult habits are developed from childhood.