大学英语精读-1 Unit Five: A Miserable，Merry Christmas -3

For such a horse as that I would have given anything.

But the man came along, reading the numbers on the houses, and, as my hopes -- my impossible hopes -- rose, he looked at our door and passed by, he and the pony, and the saddle.

Too much, I fell upon the steps and broke into tears. Suddenly I heard a voice.

"Say, kid," it said, "do you know a boy named Lennie Steffens?"

I looked up. It was the man on the pony, back again.

"Yes," I spluttered through my tears. "That's me."

"Well," he said, "then this is your horse. I've been looking all over for you and your house. Why don't you put your number where it can be seen?"

"Get down," I said, running out to him. I wanted to ride.

He went on saying something about "ought to have got here at seven o'clock, but--" I hardly heard, I could scarcely wait.

I was so happy, so thrilled. I rode off up the street. Such a beautiful pony. And mine!

After a while I turned and trotted back to the stable.

There was the family, father, mother, sisters, all working for me, all happy.

They had been putting in place the tools of my new business: currycomb, brush, pitchfork -- everything, and there was hay in the loft.

But that Christmas, which my father had planned so carefully, was it the best or the worst I ever knew?

He often asked me that; I never could answer as a boy. I think now that it was both.

It covered the whole distance from broken-hearted misery to bursting happiness -- too fast, A grown-up could hardly have stood it.