A Bellows Puff Sends a Red Cloth Sailing - 適合中級的英文短篇故事，含中譯與發音

"The bellows slipped again." Judson caught the wooden handles before they hit a feed bucket. Thin straw scratched his knuckles, and a dusty smell rose when he set the tool back on the rough bench that served as their makeshift workshop. A wide door stood open toward the yard; warm air drifted inside, fluttering the mane of a calm pony that watched from its stall. Beyond the doorway a low stone boundary cut the yard from the short grass. Over that line, the ground fell toward a narrow riverbank where reeds nodded in the same breeze. Somewhere higher, on the sunlit upland, a crow gave a dry caw that echoed against the beams.

Mabel pressed the bellows together. A firm puff shot through its brass nose and chased chaff off an old saddle. The dust billowed upward, then rolled back in a surprise draft that slapped her cheek and made her eyes narrow. She laughed and said, "That air still likes to fight." Another squeeze sent a heavier gust. The saddle straps fluttered like flags, and a scrap of red cloth, forgotten under them, lifted over the stall rail. The cloth drifted across the boundary of light on the floor, hovered, then darted sideways when a stronger gust squeezed through the door. It glided past the pony’s muzzle, landed in the water trough, and floated like a tiny raft, turning slowly.

Judson watched the spinning cloth and imagined small travelers riding its deck. The picture lived only in his imagination, yet the moving colors held his eyes long enough for the bellows to deflate fully with a soft wheeze. Chaff now settled around the saddle in a thin ring, marking their progress. Outside, the breeze shifted and carried the warm smell of sun-baked earth into the stable. A green beetle crawled over the threshold, paused beside the still bellows, and continued toward the cooler shadows behind the feed sacks.

「風箱又滑開了。」賈德森在木柄擊中飼料桶前抓住它。細稻草刮過他的指節，一股帶塵氣味在他把工具放回粗糙長椅時升起，那張長椅暫時成了他們的簡易工作檯。大門向院子敞開，暖風飄入，撩動馬廄裡那匹溫順小馬的鬃毛。門外一道矮石牆將院子和短草劃出分界。牆外地勢下沉，通向窄河岸，蘆葦在同一陣微風裡點頭。更高處的向陽坡，烏鴉發出乾啞叫聲，在橫梁間回盪。

梅貝爾合攏風箱。一股結實的氣流從黃銅嘴衝出，把糠屑趕離舊馬鞍。灰塵向上翻捲，又被突來的逆氣流推回，拍在她的臉頰，使她微眯雙眼。她輕笑道：「這股空氣還真頑皮。」再擠一次，較強的陣風射出。馬鞍帶子像旗子般拍動，一塊遺忘其下的紅布片被掀過欄杆。布片飄過地面上的光帶，懸停片刻，又因更強的風穿門而入而側閃，它掠過小馬鼻端，落在水槽，像微型筏子緩慢打轉。

賈德森看著旋轉布片，腦中浮現小旅人乘船的畫面。那景象只存在他的想像，然而流動色彩足夠吸引他的目光，直到風箱完全放氣，發出輕柔嘶聲。糠屑現已在馬鞍周圍落出細圈，留下他們的進度痕跡。外頭風向轉變，攜著曬熱泥土的味道送入馬廄。一隻綠色甲蟲爬過門檻，停在靜止的風箱旁，接著朝飼料袋後較陰涼的陰影處續行。