原文作者：袁希荣

　... my aunt georgiana had been a musicteacher at the boston conservatory, somewhereback in the latter sixties2. one summer, whilevisiting in the little village among the greenmountains where her ancestors had dwelt forgenerations, she had kindled the callow fancy3of my uncle, howard carpenter, then an idle,shiftless boy of twenty-one. when she returnedto her duties in boston, howard followed her,and the upshot of this infatuation was that sheeloped with him, eluding the reproaches of herfamily and the criticism of her friends by go-ing with him to the nebraska4 frontier.carpenter, who, of course, had nomoney, took up a homestead in redwillow county, fifty miles from therailroad5. there they had measured offtheir land themselves ... they built a dugoutin the red hillside, one of those cave dwellingswhose inmates so often reverted to primitiveconditions6 ... for thirty years my aunt had notbeen farther than fifty miles from the home-stead. [论文网]