多功能英语阅读10 Self-Glorifying（在线收听）

Lucky

I was an electrician at a nickel mine on a plateau in southern Boone Province

on the last Friday of September 1996. It was a little cold for September, and fall

was definitely in the air.

While I was in the shop office talking to a customer, I noticed a small dirty

white ball of fur in the corner, no bigger than a softball. It turned out to be a

puppy. It was one of the shop dog's puppies.

You see, every nickel mine has a shop dog. It's a dog that's wandered in, or

was dropped off by somebody, and it's been adopted by the porters and welders. It

usually lives around the shop, though occasionally one of the employees will take

it home, if it's sick, or extraordinarily cold.

This particular shop has a female shop dog. A typical Boone hound--about 5

pounds of dirty fur, and as friendly as any animal could be. I'd seen this dog a few

times on my trips to this nickel mine.

On one of its trips home, the shop dog had apparently gotten pregnant, because

it had four offspring; born at the mine slum. According to the earnest superintendent

I was talking to, three of the puppies had been eaten by bears, and this

was the last puppy.

The superintendent told me that shop dog was taken home, but that no

one wanted to take this puppy, so he offered it to me. I thanked him, but

declined. I love dogs, but I didn't really have a home suitable for a dog.

I left and went home.

That evening at dinner, I told my wife and daughter about the puppy, and the

story behind it. They both gave me ten kinds of hell for not bringing the puppy

home. I assured them that this puppy was just too cute to leave behind, and I

was sure someone would take it.

I thought about that puppy every day.

The following Wednesday was a cold, rainy early October day. At about 2:00

in the afternoon I was traveling down a haul road at a different nickel mine when I

saw a dong limping up the side of the rode. It had been hit by some vehicle, probably

a nickel lorry. My heart tugged. It was cold, and rainy, and all I could think

about was that little puppy. So...off I went. It's about 100 miles between these

nickel mines, so, by the time I got there, it was dusk. I stopped at a supermarket

on the way to buy two hamburgers, figuring this puppy, if it was still there (and

alive), had to be hungry. I drove up to the top of the mountain, only to find the

gate closed. I turned my little truck around and backed into it. Even though it bent

my bumper a bit, it wasn't that difficult to knock down. I made it to the shop around

dusk. That was the last place I'd seen the puppy. I didn't bring a flashlight,

so I wandered around quickly trying to find it before it got dark. I looked for

quite a while, carrying the hamburgers, hoping that would help find him. In case

you don't know, bears have an sense of smell. I knew that every bear for two

miles around could smell those hamburgers. I didn't find the puppy. I sat back

down in my truck. It was almost dark. I turned on my headlights, and, as I was

sitting there wondering what to do, figuring that I was too late, I saw this little

wisp of white. I could make out the little puppy's tail wagging.

On the way down the hill, I passed a black bear coming up.

When I got him home, I gave him a bath in the washtub in the basement. He

was nasty, covered in nickel dust. He looked pitiful, but fluffy as a feather

duster. My wife and daughter instantly fell in love with him.

But, I had still decided that weren't going to keep him. We just didn't

have a house for a dog. I knew that once I took him to the pound, he was too

cute for someone not to adopt.

The next day I took him to the veterinarian. I figured I'd get him checked by

a vet before I took him to the pound. I think in my own way I was debating with

myself. He was a cute little guy, and I love dogs.

The vet examined him. He weighed several pounds, had parasites such as

ticks, and was barely ten weeks old. She asked me "you're a lucky little dog,"

and he licked her. And I cried. And I knew right then that I had a dog.

Not only that, but the vet named him "Lucky" too.

I guess maybe he is lucky that i found him. But, to tell you the truth, I

think I'm the lucky one.