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● as for herself：好像替她自己恳求。她对那两头牛十分同情。
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● musing：沉思着。newly：他们新买下来的。
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● anyway：不管怎样，“反正现在苹果也快摘了”，让两头牛去快乐几天吧。
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By the end of October they had picked all the apples on the trees. They knelt carefully in the long grass, collecting even the windfalls and hauling them up the wagon ramp into the upper story of the old barn for cider-making.
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● windfall：给风吹下来的果子。他们非但把树上的苹果全摘了，连地下的也都捡回去。hauling：拖。wagon ramp：梯道，功用如梯，然面平，无梯级，故大筐水果可以拖上；坡缓而道宽，牛也会走得上的。大车也拉得上，故用wagon一字。barn：仓。普通barn的结构，底层养牲口，上层作储藏干草谷实等之用。cider：苹果酒。
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They were pressing cider the afternoon the county agent stopped by for his first visit, and the first thing he told them was that the orchard should be cut down. Those old trees would never show a profit, he said. The orchard should go, the horses should be replaced by a tractor and modern equipment, new fences should be built, the chickens not allowed to run.
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● pressing：挤压（苹果作酒）。the afternoon两字作conjunction。
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● county：郡（较“州”为小的行政单位）。county agent：本郡的巡回调查员，协助农民解决各种困难者。
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● 第一句中的the orchard=the trees in the orchard。profit：盈利。tractor：曳引机。modern equipment：新式配备。
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After a minute Joe said: “I guess you better not put us down as farmers. We are grateful for your advice and we sure need a lot of it, but I guess we’d rather live peaceful than make money.”
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● put down本意是write down（记下来），这里只是“当作，认为”的意思。I guess=I think（通常是美国用法）。
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● we’d rather=we would rather：我们宁可这样；下面常跟着than，表示“不愿那样”。
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“No, son, I’ll put you down as two romantic dreamers and come around again next spring.” The agent got in his car and was starting out the dirt lane when he leaned out the window again, pointing to where the pasture fence rail was down again. “Your cows are out,” he called. “Who’s boss around here, you or bossy?” and, laughing slyly, he jounced away in his dusty sedan.
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● romantic dreamers：浪漫的梦想家。所谓“浪漫”约相当于中文成语“不务实际”。照那调查员看来，务农当以谋利为目的，可是那对小夫妻自认所要求者只是一种美丽宁静的田园生活而已。
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● leaned out the window：探首窗外。where… down again是名词性从句。boss：主人。bossy：牛。（两字皆美国俗语。）slyly：狡猾地。不一定有什么恶意，只是明知其可笑而笑之。jounced：颠荡（车行不稳）。sedan：轿车。
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For a little while Phoebe and Joe stood where he left them, quiet and abstracted in the pale, slanting sunlight. Phoebe’s hands were cold and sticky from the apple juice, and she held them up in the sun to warm them. At last she said, “I’d better get the cows.” The orchard was stripped now, completely appleless, so she wouldn’t find them there; but the scent of apples still hung everywhere in the air, filling the cows with yearning, and searching restlessly for fulfillment they still broke out of the pasture. Joe looked at Phoebe as if he hadn’t heard her. “What if he’s right?” he said broodingly. “Maybe it’s all an impossible dream.” But when Phoebe protested, “No, he’s wrong! We’ve never been so happy,” Joe smiled and touched her reassuringly, because of course it was true.
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● quiet和abstracted（出神的）两字都形容主语Phoebe and Joe。其时夕阳斜（slanting）照，日光淡弱（pale），盖已近黄昏。Phoebe的手上苹果汁未除，现在觉得冷，也觉得粘。本文以Phoebe为主角，心理活动（感觉和思想）只描写她一个人的。牛的快乐是从她眼里看出来的，她丈夫的态度也是从她的观点来写的。
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● I’d better get the cows：我还是把牛找回来吧。’d是had的缩写。
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● stripped：果子已摘光。she wouldn’t find them there中之would表示将来：到果园去是找不到它们的了。
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● hung一字用得很有力量：苹果已经摘尽，然而香味仍遍“悬”空中，诱力不减。yearning（名词）：恋慕之念。
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● searching是分词，形容后面的主词they。restlessly：坐立不安地，寝食难安地。fulfillment：（欲望的）满足。
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● broodingly：若有所思地。What if he’s right?中的he指调查员：他的话假如对的，便怎么呢？Joe的想法多少还切实一点。
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● We’ve never been so happy=we have never been so happy as now。
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● reassuringly：安慰地（使她放心）。他们结婚以来，的确是以这段田园生活为最快乐了。
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In a minute Joe went back to the barn to finish pressing the last batch of cider, and Phoebe started down the lane. “Co’ ba, co’ ba,” she sang out dreamily, taking comfort from the sound of her voice in the quiet air. It was a call for cows she had read in a book, but of course they never came.
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