One day in August Al Condraj was wandering through a shopping center without any money when he saw a small hammer that was not a toy but a real hammer, and he longed to have it. He believed it was just what he needed to make something with and thereby make his life less boring. He had gathered some nails from a box-makers shop, where they had carelessly dropped at least fifteen cent's worth.
Now, with the ten-cent hammer he believed he could make something out of boxwood3 and the nails. He took the hammer and slipped4 it into the pocket of his overalls5, but just as he did so a man took him firmly by the arm and pushed him to the back of the store into a small office. Another man, an older one, was seated behind a desk in the office, working with papers.
The man behind the desk got to his feet and looked Al Condraj up and down.
“What's he swiped6 ?”
“A hammer,” The young man looked at Al with hatred. “Hand it over,” he said.
The boy brought the hammer out of his pocket and handed it to the young man, who said, “I ought to hit you over the head with it.”
The older man sat down and went back to work. Al Condraj stood in the office fifteen minutes before the older man looked at him again.
Al said, “I didn't mean to steal it. I just need it and I haven't got any money.”
“Just because you haven't got any money doesn't mean you've got a right to steal things,”the man said, “Now, does it?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, what am I going to do with you? Turn you over to the police?”
Al didn't say anything, but he certainly didn't want to be turned over to the police. He hated the man, but at the same time he realized somebody else could be a lot tougher than he was being.
“If I let you go, will you promise never to steal from this store again?”
“Yes, sir.”
The first thing he did when he was free was laugh, but he knew he had been humiliated7 and he was deeply ashamed. It was not in his nature to take things that did not belong to him. He hated the young man who had caught him and he hated the manager of the store who had made him stand in silence in the office so long. He didn't like it at all when the young man had said he ought to hit him over the head with the hammer.
After he had walked three blocks he decided he didn't want to go home just yet, so he turned around and started walking back to town. He almost believed he meant to go back and say something to the young man who had caught him. And then he wasn't sure he didn't mean to go back and steal the hammer again, and this time not to get caught. As long as he had been made to feel like a thief anyway, the least he ought to get out of it was the hammer8.
Outside the store he lost his nerve9, though. He stood in the street, looking in, for at least ten minutes.
Then, crushed and confused and now bitterly10 ashamed of himself, for not having guts11 enough to go back and do the job right, he began walking home again, his mind so troubled.
When he got home he was too ashamed to go inside, so he had a long drink of water from the faucet12 in the back yard. The faucet was used by his mother to water what she planted every year; okra13, bell peppers14, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, garlic, mint15, egg-plant16 and parsley.
His mother called the whole business the parsley garden, and every night in the summer she would bring chairs out of the house and put them around the table. She would sit at the table and enjoy the cool of the garden and the smell of the things she had planted and tended17 .
After the long drink of water he sat down where the parsley itself was growing and he pulled a handful of it out and slowly ate it. Then he went inside and told his mother what had happened. He even told her what he had thought of doing after he had been turned loose: to go back and steal the hammer again.
“I don't want you to steal,” his mother said in broken English. “Here is ten cents. You go back to that man and you give him this money and you bring it home, that hammer.”
“No,” Al Condraj said. “I won't take your money for something I don't really need. I just thought I ought to have a hammer, so I could make something if I felt like it. I've got a lot of nails and some boxwood, but I haven't a hammer.”
Al went out and sat on the steps. His humiliation was beginning to really hurt now. He decided to wander off along the railroad tracks to Foley's because he needed to think about it some more. At Foley's he watched Johnny Gale nailing boxes for ten minutes, but Johnny was too busy to notice him. Johnny worked with a box-maker's hatchet18 and everybody in Fresno said he was the fastest box-maker in town.
Al Condraj finally set out for home because he didn't want somebody working hard to notice that he was being watched and maybe said to him, “Go on, beat it.” He didn't want Johnny Gale to do something like that. He didn't want to invite another humiliation.
When mother got up at five in the morning he was out of the house. He was a restless19 boy, and he kept moving all the time every summer. He was making mistakes and paying for them, and he had just tried stealing and had been caught at it and he was troubled. She fixed her breakfast and hurried off to work.
When mother reached the garden it was almost nine o'clock, and she saw her son nailing pieces of boxwood together, making something with a hammer. It looked like a bench. He had already watered the garden and tidied up the rest of the yard, and the place seemed very nice, and her son seemed very serious and busy.
“Where you get it, that hammer, Al?” mother asked.
“I got it at the store.”
“How you get it? You steal it?”
Al Condraj finished the bench and sat on it. “No,” he said. “I didn't steal it. I worked at the store for it.”
“Well, that's good,”mother said. “How long you work for that little hammer?”
“I worked all day,” Al said. “Mr. Clemmer gave me the hammer after I'd worked one hour, but I went right on working. The fellow who caught me yesterday showed me what to do, but at the end of the day he took me to Mr. Clemmer's office and he told Mr. Clemmer that I'd worked hard all day and ought to be paid at least a dollar.”
“So Mr. Clemmer put a silver dollar on his desk for me, and then the fellow told him the store needed a boy like me every day, for a dollar a day, and Mr. Clemmer said I could have the job.”
“That's good,” mother said. “You can make a little money for yourself.”
“I left the dollar on Mr. Clemmer's desk,” Al Condraj said,“and I told them both I didn't want the job.”
“Why you say that?” mother said.“Dollar a day for eleven-year-old boy good money. Why you not take job?”
“Because I hate the both of them,”the boy said.“I just looked at them and picked up my hammer and walked out. I came home and I made this bench.”
Al Condraj sat on the bench he had made and smelled the parsley garden and didn't feel humiliated any more.
1. parsley n. (植) 欧芹
2. William Saroyan 威廉·萨洛扬 (1908-1981)，美国小说家兼剧作家。
3. boxwood n. 黄扬木
4. slip v. 塞入
5. overall n. 外衣，罩衫
6. swipe v. （口）偷拿，乘机窃取
7. humiliate v. 羞辱，使丢脸
8. as long as he had...was the hammer. 既然他已被认为像个贼，他至少就应该从商店拿走那把锤子。
9. lose one's nerve （口）变得胆怯
10. bitterly adv. （英方）极度地，十分地
11. gut n. （俚）勇气，力量
12. faucet n. 水龙头
13. okra n. （植）黄秋葵
14. bell pepper 灯笼椒
15. mint n. 薄荷
16. egg-plant 茄子
17. tend v. 照管，护理
18. hatchet n. 短柄小斧
19. restless adj. 静不下来的，运动不止的