英语智慧背囊15-看不见的微笑

[00:00.00]An invisible smile 看不见的微笑
[00:04.42]Mr. Dawson was an old grouch,
[00:09.44]and everyone in town knew it.
[00:10.98]Kids dared not to go into his yard to pick a yummy apple,
[00:14.80]because Dawson, they said,
[00:16.68]would come after you with his BB gun.
[00:19.07]When, one Friday,
[00:20.61]Janet and Amy got close enough to his house,
[00:23.46]Dawson looked up with his usual frown.
[00:25.97]But when he saw it was Amy,
[00:28.49]he put on a broad smile and said,
[00:31.11]“Hello! Miss Amy.
[00:32.98]I see you’ve got a little friend today.”
[00:35.59]Amy smiled back and told him Janet was staying overnight
[00:40.40]and they were going to listen to music and play games.
[00:43.48]Dawson told them that sounded fun,
[00:46.09]and offered them each a fresh apple picked off his tree.
[00:49.28]They gladly accepted—
[00:51.12]Dawson had the best apple in town.
[00:53.65]When they got out of Dawson’s earshot,
[00:56.92]Janet asked,
[00:57.91]“Everyone says he’s the meanest man in town.
[01:01.07]How come he was so nice to us?”
[01:02.83]Amy explained that
[01:05.24]when she first started walking past his house he wasn’t very friendly
[01:09.07]and she was afraid of him,
[01:10.49]but she pretended he was wearing an invisible smile
[01:13.77]and so she always smiled back at him.
[01:16.16]It took a while,
[01:17.70]but one day he half-smiled back at her.
[01:20.67]After some more time, he started smiling real smiles
[01:24.38]and then started talking to her,
[01:26.44]just a “hello” at first,
[01:28.42]and then more.
[01:29.63]She said he always offers her an apple now,
[01:32.47]and is always very kind.
[01:34.11]“An invisible smile?”
[01:36.61]questioned Janet.
[01:38.04]“Yes,” answered Amy,
[01:39.80]“my grandma told me that if I pretended I wasn’t afraid
[01:43.85]and pretended he was wearing an invisible smile at me
[01:47.12]and I smiled back at him,
[01:48.65]that sooner or later he really would smile.
[01:51.51]Grandma says smiles are contagious.”
[01:54.46]If we remember what Amy’s grandma said,
[01:57.95]that everyone wears an invisible smile,
[02:01.13]we too will find that most people can’t resist our smile after a while.
[02:05.95]All it takes to uplift the day is to remember to give that smile away!
[02:11.41]You can’t save them, you can’t store them.
[02:13.81]The only way they are any good is to share.
[02:17.11]Giving a smile away takes so little effort and time.
[02:21.15]Let’s make sure that we are not the one
[02:23.87]that others have to pretend is wearing an invisible smile.