A boy，before he really grows up，is pretty likea wild animal. He can be scared right out of hiswits one day and by the next he’ll have forgottenall about it.
一个男孩，在他真正成人之前，很象一只野生动物。对有些事情，第一天他会吓得灵魂出窍，可是到了第二天他又会把它忘得干干净净。
Anyway，that’s how it was with me. I keptthinking about the rabies Burn Sanderson told meabout. I didn”t get much sleep that night. I keptseeing pictures in my mind of mad dogs and madwolves，and sometimes I would see Mama and LittleArliss being bitten so that they got ill and went madtoo. I lay in bed and shook，I was so afraid.
而我的情况就是如此。那天我一直在想伯恩·桑德生告诉我的有关狂犬病的事，连觉也没有睡好。
我的脑海里浮现了一幅又一幅的疯狗、疯狼的画面，有时候还梦见妈妈和小阿里斯被疯狗咬了，生病了，发疯了。我躺在床上瑟瑟发抖。我真害怕啊！
Then，next day，I went out to round up andmark the hogs and I forgot all about the rabies.
可是第二天，我出去把猪赶拢来打上记印时，把狂犬病的事一古脑儿给忘光了。
Our hogs ran loose in those days，like our cattle.
We fenced them out of the fields，that’s all. Wenever fed them，except perhaps in a bad winterwhen we’d throw them a little corn. The rest of thetime they had to look after themselves.
那时候我家的猪象牛群一样到处乱跳。我们只是在田边筑起一道围栏不让它们跑进去就行了。我们从来也不喂它们，除了在某个严寒的冬天我们或许撒一些玉米给它们吃吃以外，其余的日子它们就得自己照料自己了。
Usually they fed on acorns，berries，wildplums，prickly - pear apples，grass，weeds，and bulbplants they rooted out of the ground.
通常它们靠橡树果、酱果、野李子、霸王树果、青草、野草以及它们自己从地里拱出来的球茎植物为生。
Sometimes，too，they’d eat a newborn calf ifthe mama cow couldn’t keep them away with herhorns. Or a baby fawn that the doe had left hiddenin the tall grass.
有时候，如果牛妈妈没能用牛角把它们赶跑的话，它们也要吃刚生下来的小牛犊，或者吃雌鹿深藏在草丛里的幼鹿。
But most of these meat eaters were old hogs.
They would have begun to eat just anything theycould get hold of in a very cold winter，perhaps，orwhen there’d been no rain for more than a month.
Papa said they usually started by feeding on somedeer or cow that had died，and then from there theywent on to catching and killing live meat.
但是食肉的大多数是些老猪。
在严寒的冬天，或者在一个多月不下雨的情况下，它们会搞到什么就吃什么。爸爸说它们一般是从吃死鹿、死牛开始，再下去就要捕捉和杀害活的动物了。
Mama didn”t like it a bit when I set out tocatch and mark all the pigs that had been born thatyear. She knew it had to be done so that we couldtell our hogs from everyone else’s. But she didn’tlike my doing it alone.
我要出去捕捉当年生的猪，给它们打印记时，妈妈很不乐意。她知道这是非做不可的事，只有这样才能把我家的猪和别人家的猪区别开来。但是她不愿让我一个人去干这件事。
“Bu t I’m not d oing it a lone ，Mama ，”I pointedout.“I’ve go t Old Ye lle r，a nd Burn Sa nde rs on s a yshe”s a re a lly good hog dog .”
“可是我并不是独自一个人、去干啊，妈妈，”我提醒她，“我有阿黄。伯恩·桑德生说它是一头顶呱呱的赶猪狗呢！”
“Th a t doe sn”t me a n a thin g，”said Mama.“All
“这又算得了什么呢，”妈妈说，
hog dogs a re good one s.A go od one is the only kindtha t c a n do the job a nd live.The be s t dog in the worldwon”t s top you from be ing cut to pie ce s if you shouldma ke a s lip.”
“所有的赶猪狗都是顶呱呱的。只有好的赶猎狗才能干这种事儿并且能活下来。如果你稍有疏忽，世界上最好的狗也没法使你不被撕个粉碎。”
Well，Mama was right. I’d worked with Papalong enough to know that. If you leave a wild hog alonehe’ll run from you on sight ，like a deer. Butonce you corner him，he’s the most dangerous animalin Texas. If you catch a little pig out of thebunch，you’ve got a battle on your hands. They’llkill you if they can get to you；and if you”re notfast footed and don’t keep a close watch，they’llget to you. They had to be like that，of course，in acountry where the wolves，panthers，and bears werealways after them for a meal of fresh hog meat.
是 啊，妈妈是对的。我跟爸爸干这活已经有相当长的一段时间了，所以也懂得这一点。如果你不去碰它，野猪就会象鹿一样，一看到你就逃。可是，一旦你把它逼得走投无路，它便成了得克萨斯最危险的动物了。如果你从一群小猪崽里抓走了一只，你就得准备进行一场恶战。如果它们能够抓住你，就会把你给弄死；而如果你跑不快，警惕性不高，它们就会抓住你。在这个山村里到处有狼、豹和熊在追逐着它们，想吃上一餐鲜猪肉，因此它们当然也只能如此了。
But I liked working the hogs. I couldn’t help it.
It was fun，and I suppose I liked the danger.
但是我很喜欢干这活儿，我也是没有办法，这活儿很有趣，再说我想我也喜欢冒险。
Burn Sanderson was right about Old Yeller，Hewas a good hog dog. We found our first bunch ofhogs at a spring where they’d come to drink andcool off in the soft mud. They caught wind of us atabout the same time I saw them. They all raced offfor the hills，running through the rocks and bushesalmost as fast and silently as deer.
伯恩·桑德生对阿黄的评价很正确。它是一头很好的赶猪狗。我们在一个山泉那边发现了第一批猪，它们到那儿去喝水，在松软的地里乘凉。几乎就在我看到它们的同时，它们也察觉到了我们。它们就象鹿一样敏捷，无声息地穿过岩石和矮树丛向山里逃去。
“He a d”em，Ye lle r，”I shouted.“Go ge t”emboy！”
“追上它们，阿黄！”我喊道。
“抓住它们，伙计！”
But Old Yeller was gone already.
可是阿黄早已无影无踪了。
He was down the hill ，across the mud and hadthe last pig by the leg before the others knew hewas after them.