VOA Special English -  听写作业：AMERICAN STORIES - 4/19/2008

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Now, the Special English program AMERICAN STORIES.

Our story today is called "Upset". It was written by Frank Bernard. Here is Walter Guthrie with the story.

John Limon stood on the steps of the summer house watching his wife climb into the car and drive off along the lake road. She was going to the village to get some boxes for his manuscripts and books.

He looked unhappy. He'd done little work on his book and the summer was now gone. "A wasted summer," he had said to his wife.

"Not wasted, John," she said gently. "It has been good for all of us."

"But not good for my work," he had answered bitterly.

He put his pipe down and smiled weakly as his old dog, Bingo, came up to sniff it. The dog did this to be awarded and he patted it on the head. Then he remembered his unfinished book and he asked his child hopefully, "Isn't there something else you would like to do instead of going sailing on our last day here?"

The child stopped wiggling her toes in the hot dust and turned up her face and said with an unhappy look, "Do we have to go home tomorrow, Daddy?"

"Yes," he answered. "School begins Monday, you know."

She moaned. She looked small in her swim-shirt and frail.

Bingo pushed against his hand and he thought about a number of things. That he had had the dog longer than his child who was almost nine. And he remembered that Bingo had been his dog even before he met his wife, Doris. She had been eighteen then and was now twenty-nine. For eleven years she had tried to be as old as him and he had tried to be as young as she. Now in anger, he wondered if their love was worth the years' trying and so often failing.

The child said, "Daddy, I can't think of anything else I would rather do than go sailing."

This made him more angrily. He was a poor sailor and had already upset the boat once. His wife was probably right, he thought. She said he was always thinking so much about his book on early Greek art that he let the wind and the boat get the better of him.

And so after he agreed to take out the boat, it happened again today. He was so troubled with the loss of his time that he let a gust of wind turn his light boat over. He went under and was terrified, not because of his own safety but that of the child. Usually she swam well. But it was different today. In panic he broke through the surface of the water and looked wildly about for her. He saw the boat first. It had swung to the right, its red painted side glistening in the sun. Then to his left, he saw her bright hair. In her terror, she was fighting the water, gasping and screaming. He called out to calm her and swam to her. She came up sobbing. He put an arm around her and held her close. She clung to him like a thin frightened animal. He could feel her terror. It was like something alive and insane. Suddenly he wanted to shout for help though he knew there was no one to hear. And he wanted to fight against the water with all his strength. But he forced himself to keep calm. "Don't cry, angel," he said gently. "You are all right."

He stayed in the same spot moving his legs up and down in the water to keep afloat. He held her close, talking quietly. At last she heard him. When her arms loosened, he laughed and said, "We'll never hear the last of this from Mother."

She laughed too and asked, "Where is the boat?"

He finally saw it far to the right. "It's running away from us," he said.

Alone, he might have caught up with it and let it carry them to safety. Lifting his head, he saw how far they were from shore, almost half a mile. Again he became tense, frightened but he said, "Think you can hang on while I swim?" She laughed again and put her arms around his neck. She seemed light at first and he told himself he could make it. "Swim 100 strokes," he kept saying to himself, "Then float and rest a while."

After the third rest period she seemed to have grown surprisingly heavy. He was too old for something like this, he thought. Now he had lost count of the rest periods. He felt physically spent, unable to make it to shore.

He'd always cared more for books than sports and now he wondered if he had spent too many hours of his life by himself, studying, writing, teaching, too many hours of wanting nothing more that his pipe, his dog, his books.

He remembered how Doris had come into one of his classes, a girl of eighteen, the oldest of a large family, a fresh lovely girl with laughter in her eyes. One day he had found her on the college grounds gently touching Bingo and had said he was a beautiful dog. Really Bingo was a big ugly brute. Doris said that Bingo had character. He laughed and told her what a lazy no-good Bingo was. And then she laughed, too. Listening, He knew that she was what he wanted. Then came their wedding day, she said she would give him a houseful of noisy sons. They would make him forget his books and fill him with laughter. The first was to be named John Jr. But she succeeded in giving him only a tiny daughter who arrived too early and was given only a small chance to live. But she lived. And they named her Joanna and called her Johnny.

Now, he was swimming to shore with her while a great weakness filled every inch of his body. He felt there was little hope. He was tiring fast.

He wondered what it would be like to die at nine and at forty. He wondered what would become of old Bingo and of the pipe he had left on the front steps of his house. He wondered how long it would be before Doris would laugh again. And he knew how foolish it was to be angry because a book had not been written.

"Daddy," Johnny asked. "Is our boat lost for good?"

"Oh, no, it-it'll wash ashore."

"And will we sail lake next summer?"

"Of course, and probably upset it again!"

She laughed and he swam on. The next time he painfully lifted his head, he saw they were quite close to land. But as far as he was concerned, it didn't matter. He had reached the point where he could no longer move, not an inch.

"Now," he said smiling. "I'll rush you to the house. I'll count ten and-and give you that much of starting! No looking back!"

Excitedly, she swam out on her own. He closed his eyes. His feet and legs were like lead, pulling him down. Slowly the water covered his chin, his mouth. And then surprisingly his feet touched bottom. At last he pushed forward on his stomach along the dry hot sand.

"I won," Johnny cried as she ran back toward where her father lay, "I've been to the house already!"

He sat up slowly to look at her, funny-looking knees, thin arms and legs. He had been like that when he was a boy of nine. Blond hair, blue eyes, that part of her was Doris's gift. Then he knew that if he had drowned, it would not have mattered much. But if Johnny had drowned he and Doris would have been lost and a whole future would have been changed. Suddenly he knew why he himself had been born into this would, not to write a book, but to father and protect this one child.

"There comes Mother!" Johnny cried and went racing away.

Somehow he was able to get to his feet and follow.

"Daddy and I upset the boat," he heard Johnny say laughingly. "And we swam a race to shore and I won."

Doris's shocked eyes met his, immediately, without being told, she seemed to know what had almost happened to him and Johnny. She sat down as if her knees had suddenly turned to rubber. He dropped down beside her and took her hand in his. "You were right," he said gently, "it's been a good summer.” And when she stopped shaking, he kissed her.

You have been listening to the story "Upset". It was written by Frank Bernard, copyrighted by Family Circle Incorporated, all rights reserved. Your storyteller was Walter Guthrie.

Listen again next week at the same time for another AMERICAN STORY told in Special English on the Voice of America. This is Shirley Griffith.