第11章 百川之父
我曾经跟你们说过，美国最大的海湾，叫作“百川之母”。而美国最大的一条河流，则叫作“百川之父”。尽管这条河流被称为一个“父亲”，可它并不是一位“先生”（Mr.），而是一位“女士”（Miss）。在印第安语里，此河被称为“密西西比”（Mississippi），而它在英语中的拼写也很有节奏感：
很容易记住吧。
假如我要求你们画出一条河流，并且画出一棵上面没有任何叶子的树来，那么你们很可能都会这样来画那棵树：一根树干，加上粗大的树枝，上面再画较小的树枝，上面再画一些更细的树枝，就像下图一样。并且，你们很可能会将河流画成只是一根蜿蜒曲折的线条，是不是这样呢？事实上，树和河流的画法应该是一模一样的，因为二者都有一个主干和粗大的分支，而粗分支上又有小分支，小分支上又有更细小的分支。不过在地图上，大家在一条河流的示意图上可能是看不到所有分not see all the branches in the picture of a river on the map.
But there is this big difference between a tree and a river：
A tree grows from the bottom to the top of its branches.
A river flows from the top of its branches to the bottom. The sap runs up a tree, water runs down a river.If a river were just a single line and had no branches at all, it would be just as big at the finish as at the start.It's the river's branches that make it bigger and bigger.The biggest river in the United States, the Mississippi, starts almost at the top of our country, at a little lake called Itasca, in the State of Minnesota, and flows all the way to the bottom of our country, getting bigger and bigger all the time as its branches flow into it, until at last it reaches a corner of the ocean we call the Gulf of Mexico.The Mississippi River really cuts our country into two parts, but the two parts are not the same size.The part west of the Mississippi is about twice as big as the part east of the Mississippi.
The Mississippi River hardly gets a good running start on its long journey south to the Gull of Mexico before it falls down, and where it falls men have built big mills, the wheels of which are turned by the falling water. These mills, however, are not like those in New England.They do not make things.They grind wheat to make flour to make bread, for more and better wheat grows near where the Mississippi starts and the States near-by than anywhere else in the whole World.
支的。
但是，一棵树和一条河流之间，还是有着下面这种重大的差别：
一棵树，支桠是从树干底下向顶上生长的。
一条河流，水却是从各条支流的顶端流向底下的主干的。树液从下往上，流向树梢；河水则自上而下，汇入主流。如果一条河流就像一根线，没有任何支流的话，那么它的发源之地就会跟它的终止之处一样粗细了。正是有了各条支流，才使得一条河流变得越来越粗、越来越宽阔。美国最大的河流密西西比河差不多发源于美国的最北端，即明尼苏达州境内一个叫作伊塔斯卡的小湖，然后流向美国南方，一路上随着各条支流的汇入而变得越来越宽阔，最后注入我们所称的“墨西哥湾”这个大洋的一角。实际上，密西西比河把美国分割成了两个部分，不过，这两个部分的面积并不相同。密西西比河以西的那个部分，面积达到了密西西比河以东那一部分的两倍左右。
密西西比河刚一开始向南经过漫长的旅程流往墨西哥湾的时候，便陡然下落，而在它下落形成瀑布的那个地方，人们建造了许多大型的磨坊，利用下落的河水来推动磨轮。然而，这些磨坊却跟新英格兰地区的那些磨坊不同。它们并没有制造出任何东西来。它们只是用于将小麦磨成制作面包的面粉，因为在密西西比河源头的附近地区，人们种植了比全世界其他任何地方更多的、品质更好的小麦。
An acre seems to me, who lives in a city, a large piece of ground, a hundred acres seems immense, and a thousand acres seems enormous, but some farms in Minnesota where they raise wheat have as many as ten thousand acres of wheat in a single farm！The farmers would never get through planting or gathering the wheat if they did so by hand or even with a horse. So they plow with an engine and often with ten plows in a row, and they use machines for gathering the wheat and for separating the grains of the wheat from the straw, which has to be done before it can be ground into flour.
On opposite sides of the Mississippi near these falls two large cities of almost the same size have grown up. These two cities are connected by a bridge, and they are so nearly the same size they are called Twin Cities.One of them is named Minneapolis, which means“Water City，”as Annapolis means“Anna's City”；and the other is named St.Paul.Notice that almost all names around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi are named either after saints or after Indians.That's because priests were among the first to come to this country to make the Indians Christians, and they named places either after the Indians or after the Christian saints.
The water city—Minneapolis—is the greatest flour-making place in the whole World. I have to say“in the whole World”so often, I'm going to use only the first letters from now on—i for“in，”t for“the，”w for“whole，”W for“World”—thus：i.t.w.W.Minneapolis is the greatest flour-making place i.t.w.W.Minnesota and the States near it are the greatest wheat-raising States i.t.w.W.
对于居住在城市里的我来说，一英亩可是面积很大的一块土地了，一百英亩土地属于极大，而一千英亩土地则属于无边无际了，可在明尼苏达州一些种植小麦的农场里，单个农场就种植着多达一万英亩的小麦呢！要是人工种植的话，那些农民永远都种不了、也收割不了这么多的小麦，哪怕用马匹来，也做不到。因此，他们都是用一种装有发动机的犁来耕地，并且常常是一次用十张犁排成一行来进行的，而收割小麦、脱粒时用的也是机器，小麦必须先经过脱粒，才能再去磨成面粉。
在密西西比河这些瀑布的两岸，出现了两座大小差不多相等的大城市。这两座城市之间，有一条大桥相连，由于两市的大小几乎相同，因此人们还把它们称为“双子城”呢。其中一座，叫作“明尼阿波利斯”，意思是“水城”，就像“安那波利斯”指的是“安娜之城”一样；另一座城市则叫“圣保罗”。注意，大湖地区和密西西比河附近地区，几乎所有的地名，不是用基督教圣徒的名字，便是用印第安名称来命名的。那是因为，一些传教士最先来到美国并将印第安人点化成为基督徒，他们在给地点命名时，要么是用印第安人的名称，要么便是用基督教圣徒的名字。
“水城”明尼阿波利斯是整个世界上最大的面粉生产地。由于我必须不停地说“整个世界上”，因此我打算此后只用“全世界”来进行简称。比如，明尼阿波利
As the Mississippi River flows south toward the Gulf of Mexico it passes other cities, but the biggest one is St. Louis, about half-way down.St.Louis—another saint—is near the two biggest branches of the Mississippi River—the Missouri, which comes in from the west, and the Ohio, which comes in from the east—both rivers named after States and both States named after the Indians.The Missouri is such a big branch that it is hard to tell whether it is a branch of the Mississippi or the Mississippi is a branch of it.Indeed, if you can find where the Missouri River begins you will see that from that point to the end of the Mississippi the river is much longer than the Mississippi itself—it is over 4，000 miles—so the Missouri-Mississippi together is the longest river i.t.w.W.
The Mississippi gets bigger and bigger as it gets more and more branches, and in the spring when the snow melts and the rain rains so hard and flows down into the branches, the river swells and swells until it finally bursts over its banks and floods the country. So, down where this is likely to happen, men have built banks along the river on each side, to hold the water in.These banks are called levees；but sometimes the river grows too big and strong even for these levees to hold it in, and the river breaks through or over the top and floods the country.If there happen to be any farms or houses or towns with people in them, the water washes houses away and drowns people and animals, and destroys thousands upon thousands of farms and other property.
The Mississippi near its end passes the city called New Orleans and at last flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The end of a river where it flows into the sea is called its mouth.I
斯是全世界最大的小麦生产地；明尼苏达州及附近各州，是全世界最大的小麦种植州，等等。
密西西比河在向南流入墨西哥湾的过程中，还流经了其他一些城市，其中最大的一座，则是位于该河中下游的圣路易斯。“圣路易斯”又是一位圣徒的名字，该市位于密西西比河两条最大的支流附近：其中一条是密苏里河，它自西向东注入密西西比河，另一条则是俄亥俄河，它自东向西注入密西西比河。这两条支流的名称都与州名相同，也都是用印第安人的名称来命名的。密苏里河非常巨大，因此我们很难说清，究竟是它属于密西西比河的支流呢，还是密西西比河属于它的支流。事实上，假如能够找到密苏里河的发源地，那么你们就会看出，从那个地方起，直到密西西比河的入海口，密苏里河的流程都要比密西西比河本身长得多，竟然超过了四千英里，因此，倘若将密苏里河与密西西比河合起来，它便是全世界最长的河流了。
随着汇入的支流越来越多，密西西比河也变得越来越宽阔，到了春季，冰雪消融、春雨如注并流入各条支流之后，密西西比河就会变得越来越宽，河水也会越涨越高，最终决堤，淹没整个乡村。因此，在下游有可能决堤的地方，人们在河流两岸都筑有高高的河堤，以便约束河水。这些河堤，称为防洪堤，不过，有的时候，由于河水上涨得太厉害，连这些防洪堤也约束不了，因此河水便会冲垮堤坝，或者越过堤坝，淹没乡村。如果附近正好有住了人的农场、房屋或者市镇，河水便会将房屋冲走、淹死民众和牲畜，毁掉成千上万座农场和其他的财产呢。
never knew why, because a mouth is where water flows in, not where it flows out. At any rate, the Mississippi has several mouths instead of one mouth, for the water in the river brings along with it so much mud that it settles right in the way of the river's mouth and forms mud islands which the river has to go round, so the river blocks itself.
Where the Mississippi begins in the far north of the United States it is very cold in winter, but as the river flows farther and farther south it gets warmer and warmer and warmer. This warm country is nicknamed“Dixie.”When the river is near its end at New Orleans, flowers bloom even at Christmas and it is warm all the year round.Where the river begins you see white people in the fields and on the shores, but when it gets down south in Dixie Land you see more and more colored people working in the fields.The chief thing they are doing is growing cotton, for“Dixie Land，”as the song says, is way down south“in the land of cotton，”and more cotton is grown here than anywhere else i.t.w.W.Strange to say, there was no cotton in America at first.A cotton plant was brought first to Maryland from the other side of the world and grown only for its pretty flowers.
Cotton grows on a low bush in little white balls, and inside each white ball are troublesome little seeds. The cotton is picked off the bush and then these seeds have to be picked out of the cotton before it can be made into cotton thread, and then into cotton cloth, and then into cotton clothes, sheets, towels—can you think of anything else made out of cotton?Things made of cotton were once very expensive, because it took such a long time to pick the seeds out of the cotton, but a school-teacher—a man—invented a
密西西比河的最末端，流经一个叫作“新奥尔良”的城市，最后注入墨西哥湾。一条河流末端注入大海的地方，叫作河口。我一直都不知道为什么要这么叫，因为“口”应当是指水流汇入河中的地方，而不是河水排出河流的地方。不管怎么说，密西西比河可不止一个河口，而是有好几个河口，原因就是，河水一路携带着许多的泥沙，并在河口中间沉积下来，形成了一些泥沙岛屿，使得河水必须绕流而过，也就是说，河流堵住了自己的去路。
在密西西比河那个位于美国遥远的北方的发源地，冬季气候非常寒冷，但随着这条河流逐渐向南流去，一路上的气候则变得越来越暖和、越来越炎热了。这片暖和的土地，还有个绰号，叫作“狄克西”。这条河在新奥尔良靠近河口的地方，连圣诞节花儿也会盛开，并且一年到头都温暖如春。在这条河的发源地，你们会看到地里和河岸上都是白人在干活，可当它向南流到了“狄克西之国”后，大家就会看到，地里干活的有色人种越来越多。他们主要干的就是种植棉花，因为正如歌谣所唱，“狄克西之国”位于遥远的南方的“棉花地里”，所以这里种植的棉花比全世界其他任何一个地方都要多呢。说来也怪，美国起初是没有棉花的。最初的棉花树，是人们从地球的另一面带到马里兰州来的，并且，当初人们之所以种植棉花，也只是为了观赏这种植物开出的美丽花朵。
way to pick the seeds out by a machine—an“engine”which the colored people called“a gin，”for short, and now cotton goods can be made very cheaply. Indeed, it is now hard to understand how we ever got along without cotton, for this little plant that was once grown only for its flowers is used in more things and in more ways than anything that grows out of the ground.This is why it is often called“King Cotton.”
棉花是一种长有白色小球的低矮灌木，而每个白色小球里面，都长有令人烦恼的小棉籽儿。人们将棉花从棉花树上摘下来之后，必须先将这些小棉籽儿挑出来，才能将棉花纺成棉线，再用棉线去织成棉布衣服、袜子和毛巾，你们还能想出其他一些用棉花制成的东西吗？用棉花制成的东西，价格曾经十分昂贵，因为将棉籽儿从棉花中挑出来，要费很久的时间，不过，后来有一位老师（竟然是位男老师），他发明出了一种用机器来挑出棉籽儿的方法。有色人种将他发明的那种“机械装置”简称为“机子”，这样，如今的棉织品才可以很便宜地生产出来了。事实上，我们现在很难理解，当初没有棉花的时候，人们都是怎么过来的，因为人们曾经只是为了观赏其花朵才种植的这种小植物，如今的用处可比地上生长出来的任何东西都要大，用途也更广泛呢。它之所以经常被人们称为“棉花大王”，原因也正在于此。