第五天阅读
作者的文字温暖而风趣，让人舍不得放下这本书，看来从今天开始作者要慢慢讲述深刻而沉重的内容了……
The Radley Place jutted into a sharp curve beyond our house. Walking south, one faced its porch; the sidewalk turned and ran beside the lot. The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the color of the slate-gray yard around it. Rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard—a “swept” yard that was never swept—where johnson grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in abundance.
Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work.
Once the town was terrorized by a series of morbid nocturnal events: people’s chickens and household pets were found mutilated; although the culprit was Crazy Addie, who eventually drowned himself in Barker’s Eddy, people still looked at the Radley Place, unwilling to discard their initial suspicions. A Negro would not pass the Radley Place at night, he would cut across to the sidewalk opposite and whistle as he walked. The Maycomb school grounds adjoined the back of the Radley lot; from the Radley chicken yard tall pecan trees shook their fruit into the schoolyard, but the nuts lay untouched by the children: Radley pecans would kill you. A baseball hit into the Radley yard was a lost ball and no questions asked.
The misery of that house began many years before Jem and I were born. The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb. They did not go to church, Maycomb’s principal recreation, but worshiped at home; Mrs. Radley seldom if ever crossed the street for a mid-morning coffee break with her neighbors, and certainly never joined a missionary circle. Mr. Radley walked to town at eleven-thirty every morning and came back promptly at twelve, sometimes carrying a brown paper bag that the neighborhood assumed contained the family groceries. I never knew how old Mr. Radley made his living—Jem said he “bought cotton,” a polite term for doing nothing—but Mr. Radley and his wife had lived there with their two sons as long as anybody could remember.
The shutters and doors of the Radley house were closed on Sundays, another thing alien to Maycomb’s ways: closed doors meant illness and cold weather only. Of all daysSunday was the day for formal afternoon visiting: ladies wore corsets, men wore coats, children wore shoes. But to climb the Radley front steps and call, “He-y,” of a Sunday afternoon was something their neighbors never did. The Radley house had no screen doors. I once asked Atticus if it ever had any; Atticus said yes, but before I was born.
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熟词僻义
lot 这里指“地块”
原句：the sidewalk turned and ran beside the lot.
词汇学习
shutters 百叶窗
slate-gray 青灰色
shingles 木瓦
eaves 屋檐
veranda 名词 （房屋底层有顶半敞的）走廊，游廊
drunkenly 醉醺醺地，蹒跚地
picket 尖木桩 同义词：stake
原文：The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard.
drunkenly 这里指尖木桩东倒西歪地守护这前院
phantom 幽灵
azaleas 杜鹃花
mutilated 使残废，残缺不全，毁伤
原文：people’s chickens and household pets were found mutilated… 人们养的鸡和自家的宠物不断受到残害。
culprit 罪犯
pecan trees 美洲山核桃
predilection 偏爱 to have a predilection for sth. 偏爱某物
和作者学习写作
The Radley Place jutted into a sharp curve beyond our house. Walking south, one faced its porch; the sidewalk turned and ran beside the lot. The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the color of the slate-gray yard around it. Rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard—a “swept” yard that was never swept—where johnson grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in abundance.
如何描述一间简陋的房子？
There is a big tree in front of the house??
文化速递
a swept yard
原文：a “swept” yard that was never swept
这个叫做“扫院”的地方从来没有被清扫。
通常，美国南方的某些地方把前院称为“扫院”。因为前院代表一个家的门面，需要经常打扫，保持干净。（如下图）
如果想了解这方面的内容，推荐大家看一本小说 Flipped
或者根据这本小说改编的电影怦然心动
