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页眉内容
Indian
Camp
By Ernest
Hemingway
At
the lake shore there was another rowboat drawn up.
The two Indians
stood
waiting.
Nick and his father
got in the
stern of the boat and the
Indians
shoved it off
and
one
of
them
got
in
to
row.
Uncle
George
sat
in
the
stern
of
the
camp
rowboat.
The young Indian shoved the camp boat off
and got in to row Uncle
George.
The two boats started off in the dark.
Nick heard the
oarlocks of the other
boat quite a way ahead of them in the
mist. The Indians rowed with
quick
choppy
strokes. Nick lay back with his father’s arm
around him. It was
cold on the water.
The Indian who was rowing them was working very
hard, but
the other boat moved farther
ahead in the mist all the time.
“Where are we going, Dad?” Nick
asked.
“Over to the Indian
camp. There is an Indian lady very
sick.”
“Oh,” said
Nick.
Across the bay they
found the other boat beached. Uncle George was
smoking
a cigar in the dark. The young
Indian pulled the boat way up the beach. Uncle
George gave both the Indians
cigars.
They
walked
up
from
the
beach
through
a
meadow
that
was
soaking
wet
with dew, following the young Indian
who carried a lantern. Then they went into
the woods and followed a
trail that led to the
logging road
that ran back into
the hills. It was
much lighter on the logging road as the
timber was cut away on
both
sides.
The
young
Indian
stopped
and
blew
out
his
lantern
and
they
all
walked
on along the road.
They came
around a bend and a dog came out barking. Ahead
were the lights
of
the
shanties
where
the
Indian
barkpeelers
lived.
More
dogs
rushed
out
at
them. The
two Indians sent them back to the shanties. In the
shanty nearest the
road
there
was
a
light
in
the
window.
An
old
woman
stood
in
the
doorway
holding a lamp.
Inside on a wooden
bunk lay
a young Indian woman. She had been trying to
have her baby for two days. All the old
women in the camp had been helping her.
The men had moved off up the road to
sit in the dark and smoke out of
range
of
the noise she made. She screamed
just as Nick and the two Indians followed his
页眉内容
father
and
Uncle
George
into
the
shanty.
She
lay
in
the
lower
bunk,
very
big
under
a
quilt.
Her
head
was
turned
to
one
side.
In
the
upper
bunk
was
her
husband. He had cut his foot very badly
with an ax three days before. He was
smoking a pipe. The room smelled very
bad.
Nick’s
father
ordered
some
water
to
be
put
on
the
stove,
and
while
it
was
heating he spoke to Nick.
“This lady is going to have a baby,
Nick,” he said.
“I know,”
said Nick.
“You don’t know,”
said his father. “Listen to me. What she is going
through is
called being in labor. The
baby wants to be born and she wants it to be born.
All
her muscles are trying to get the
baby born. That is what is happening when she
screams.”
“I
see,” Nick said.
Just then
the woman cried out.
“Oh
Daddy, can’t you give her something to make her
stop screaming?” asked
Nick.
“No.
I
haven’t
any
anesthetic,”
his
father
said.
“But
her
screams
are
not
important. I don’t hear them because
they are not important.”
The
husband in the upper bunk rolled over against the
wall.
The
woman
in
the
kitchen
motioned
to
the
doctor
that
the
water
was
hot.
Nick’s father went into the kitchen and
poured about half of the water out of the
big
kettle
into
a
basin.
Into
the
water
left
in
the
kettle
he
put
several
things
he
unwrapped from a handkerchief.
“Those must boil,” he said, and began
to scrub his hands in the basin of hot
water
with
a
cake
of
soap
he
had
brought
from
the
camp.
Nick
watched
his
father’s hands scrubbing each other
with the soap. While h
is father washed
his
hands very carefully and
thoroughly, he talked.
“You
see,
Nick,
babies
are
supposed
to
be
born
head
first
but
sometimes
they’re not. When they’re not they make
a lot of trouble for everybody. Maybe
I’ll have to operate on this lady.
We’ll know in a little while.”
When he was satisfied with his hands he
went in and went to work.
“Pull back that quilt, will you,
George?” he said. “I’d rather not touch
it.”