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  3. (1)When I was 10 years old one of my father’s customers had caught a big cat

(1)When I was 10 years old one of my father’s customers had caught a big cat

游客2023-11-30  44
问题     (1)When I was 10 years old one of my father’s customers had caught a big catfish on a weekend trip to the Colorado River. It weighed 86 pounds, a swollen, gasping, grotesque netherworld creature pulled writhing and fighting up into the bright, hot, dusty world above.
    (2)The man had brought the fish, wrapped in wet burlap, all the way out to my father’s service station in the back of his car. We were to have a big barbecue that weekend, and I was given the job of keeping the fish watered and alive until the time came to kill and cook it.
    (3)All day long that Friday — in late August, school had not yet started — I knelt beside the gasping fish and kept it hosed down with a trickle of cool water, giving the fish life one silver gasp at a time, keeping its gills and its slick gray skin wet: the steady trickling of that hose, and nothing else, helping it stay alive. We had no tub large enough to hold the fish, and so I squatted beside it in the dust, resting on my heels, and studied it as I moved the silver stream of water up and down its back.
    (4)The fish, in turn, studied me with its eyes, which had a gold lining to their perimeter, like pyrite. The fish panted and watched me while the heat built all around us, rising steadily through the day from the fields, giving birth in the summer-blue sky to towering white clouds. I grew dizzy in the heat, and from the strange combination of the unblinking monotony and utter fascination of my task, until the trickling from my hose seemed to be inflating those clouds — I seemed to be watering those clouds as one would water a garden. Do you ever think that those days were different — that we had more time for such thoughts, that time had not yet been corrupted? I am speaking less of childhood than of the general nature of the world we are living in. If you are the age I am now — mid-50s — then maybe you know what I mean.
    (5)The water pooled and spread across the gravel parking lot before running in wandering rivulets out into the field beyond, where bright butterflies swarmed and fluttered, dabbing at the mud I was making.
    (6)Throughout the afternoon, some of the adults who were showing up wandered over to examine the monstrosity. Among them was an older boy, Jack, a 15-year-old who had been kicked out of school the year before for fighting. Jack waited until no adults were around and then came by and said that he wanted the fish, that it was his father’s — that his father had been the one who had caught it — and that he would give me five dollars if I would let him have it
    (7)"No," I said, "my father told me to take care of it."
    (8)Jack had me figured straightaway for a Goody Two-Shoes. "They’re just going to kill it," he said. "It’s mine. Give it to me and I’ll let it go. I swear I will," he said "Give it to me or I’ll beat you up."
    (9)As if intuiting or otherwise discerning trouble — though trouble followed Jack, and realizing that did not require much foresight — my father appeared from around the corner, and asked us how everything was going. Jack, scowling but saying nothing, tipped his cap at the fish but not at my father or me, and walked away.
    (10)"What did he want?" my father asked
    (11)"Nothing," I said. "He was just looking at the fish." I knew that if I told on Jack and he got in trouble, I would get beaten.
    (12)"Did he say it was his fish?" my father asked. "Was he trying to claim it?"
    (13)"I think he said his father caught it"
    (14)"His father owes us $67," my father said "He gave me the fish instead. Don’t let Jack take that fish back."
    (15)"I won’t," I said.
    (16)I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that, while not poor, we were right at the edge of poor.
    (17)The dusty orange sky faded to the cool purple-blue of dusk. Stars appeared and fireflies emerged from the grass. I watched them, and listened to the drum and groan of the bullfrogs in the stock tank in the field below, and to the bellowing of the cattle. I kept watering the fish, and the fish kept watching me, with its gasps coming harder. From time to time I saw Jack loitering, but he didn’t come back over to where I was.
    (18)Later in the evening, before dark, but only barely, a woman I thought was probably Jack’s mother — I had seen her talking to him — came walking over and crouched beside me. She was dressed as if for a party of far greater celebration than ours, with sequins on her dress, and flat leather sandals. Her toenails were painted bright red, but her pale feet were speckled with dust as if she had been walking a long time. I could smell the whiskey on her breath, and on her clothes, I thought, and I hoped she would not try to engage me in conversation, though such was not to be my fortune.
    (19)"This’s a big fish," she said
    (20)"Yes, ma’am," I said, quietly. I dreaded that she was going to ask for the fish back.
    (21)"My boy and my old man caught that fish," she said "You’ll see. Gonna have their pictures in the newspaper." She paused and stared at the fish as if in labored communication with it "That fish is worth a lot of money, you know?" she said.
    (22)I didn’t say anything. Her diction and odor were such that I would not take my first sip of alcohol until I was 22. [br] The author’s behavior of guarding the fish showed
选项 A、bravery and self-control.
B、wisdom and responsibility.
C、devotion and romance.
D、chivalry and charity.
答案 B
解析 细节推断题。考查作者守护鲶鱼过程中所体现出来的性格特点。文章第6段至第11段描绘了作者一直坚持守护鲶鱼，体现了其强烈的责任感，此处文章还说到作者为避免遭到报复而撒谎，体现其机智的一面；第3段第1句话描写作者整天跪着守护鲶鱼也体现了他的责任心，故B为正确答案。
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