The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Volume 1 Chapter 1

有声英语儿童童话故事 绿野仙踪 第1卷 第1章

Dorothy lived in the midst of thegreat Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who wasthe farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to becarried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, whichmade one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboardfor the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry andAunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner.There was no garret at all, and no cellar–except a small hole dug in theground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of thosegreat whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It wasreached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led downinto the small, dark hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorwayand looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on everyside. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reachedto the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed landinto a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was notgreen, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were thesame gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but thesun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was asdull and gray as everything else.