劳工往事：琼斯夫人与矿场童工
Mother Jones is one of the most forceful and picturesque figures of the American labor movement. She has a singleness of purpose, a personal fearlessness, and a contempt for established wrongs. In all her career, Mother Jones never quailed or ran away. Her deep convictions and fearless soul always drew her to seek the spot where the fight was hottest and the danger greatest.
琼斯夫人是美国劳工运动史上最坚强有力，最富传奇色彩的人物之一。她的目标专注而明确，她对个人安危置之度外，对已成圭臬的畸形现状嗤之以鼻。在事业的道路上，琼斯夫人从未畏缩或逃离。她执著的信念和无畏的灵魂一次又一次地将她带到那些充满危险的地方，在那里，激烈的抗争正在展开。
Clarence Darrow, 1857-1938
克莱伦斯•丹诺
Mother Jones with the Miners' Children
琼斯夫人和矿工的孩子们
Excerpted from Autobiography of Mother Jones by Mary Harris Jones (1837-1930)
节选自《琼斯夫人自传》 玛丽•哈里斯•琼斯 著 同文世纪 译注
I got to know the life of the breaker boys. The coal was hoisted to a cupola where it was ground. It then came rattling down in chutes, beside which, ladder-wise, sat little breaker boys whose job it was to pick out the slate from the coal as the black rivers flowed by. Ladders and ladders of little boys sat in the gloom of the breakers, the dust from the coal swirling continuously up in their faces. To see the slate they must bend over their task. Their shoulders were round. Their chests narrow.
我开始了解了那些捡矸童工的生活。那些煤先被提升到一个穹顶平台进行破碎，然后随着咔嗒咔嗒的声音，顺着斜槽不断地滚落下来。在这斜槽边，呈阶梯式分列的捡矸童工们会从这如黑色河流般流淌而来的煤河中捡去混杂的矸石。一列列的小男孩们自上而下地坐在这煤炭破碎设施的巨大阴影里。煤尘盘旋着灌在他们脸上。为了看清矸石他们得弯着腰工作。他们的肩膀因变形而向内弯曲。他们的胸廓很窄。
breaker boy：捡矸童工---------------------------------hoist：提升
cupola：穹顶-----------------------------------------------ground：破碎（原形 grind）
rattling：发出咔嗒咔嗒声------------------------------chute：斜槽
ladder-wise：呈阶梯式排列的------------------------slate：矸石
ladders and ladders of：一列列自上而下的------gloom: 阴影
breaker：煤炭破碎设施--------------------------------swirl：盘旋
A breaker boss watched the boys. He had a long stick to strike the knuckles of any lad seen neglecting his work. The fingers of the little boys bled, bled on to the coal. Their nails were out to the quick.
煤炭破碎工房的老板监视着这些孩子们。只要发现有哪个孩子工作走神儿，他便用长木棍去打那孩子手指头的骨节儿。这些孩子的手指因长时间挑捡矸石而流血，鲜血就淌在煤块上。他们的指甲都磨到了肉根。
knuckle：指关节-----------------------------------------lad：孩子
neglect：疏忽--------------------------------------------quick：指甲下的活肉
A labor certificate was easy to get. All one had to do was to swear to a notary for twenty-five cents that the child was the required age.
一张劳工证很容易就能弄到手。只需花25美分向公证人员起个誓，说这孩子已到了从事这项工作的合法年龄就成了。
labor certificate：劳工证-----------------------------swear：起誓
notary：公证人员
The breaker boys were not Little Lord Fauntleroys. Small chaps smoked and chewed and swore. They did men's work and they had men's ways, men's vices and men's pleasures... They joined the breaker boys' union and beat up scabs. They refused to let their little brothers and sisters go to school if the children of scabs went.
还有一点要知道，这些小捡矸工们可不是那善良而乐观的小伯爵冯德罗，这些小家伙会抽烟，嚼烟叶，也会张口骂人。他们做的是大人的工作，也有着大人们的行径。他们学会了大人的恶习，也会像大人们那样玩乐。他们加入了捡矸童工的工会，还一起去殴打工贼。如果有哪个工贼的孩子去学校读书了，他们就不让自己的弟弟妹妹再去那儿上学。
Little Lord Fauntleroys：指白涅德夫人的小说《小伯爵冯德罗》中的主角薛特利，他乐观、勇敢、热情而有同情心。
chap：小家伙-----------------------------------------chew：咀嚼，指咀嚼烟叶
swore：大骂（原形 swear）--------------------vice：恶习
scabs：工贼
In many mines I met the trapper boys. Little chaps who open the door for the mule when it comes in for the coal and who close the door after the mule has gone out. Runners and helpers about the mine. Lads who will become miners; who will never know anything of this beautiful world, of the great wide sea, of the clean prairies, of the snow capped mountains of the vast West. Lads born in the coal, reared and buried in the coal. And his one hope, his one protection – the union.
在很多矿上，我曾见到过守在矿井风门边的孩子。当骡子要进来运煤时，他将风门打开，当骡子出去后，他再将风门关上。他们是煤矿里打下手的。这些孩子将来也会成为矿工。他们永远不会知道这世上还有那么多美好的东西，有广袤无垠的大海，有一望无际的草原，还有美国西部那些冰雪覆盖的群山。这些孩子在矿上出生，在煤堆里长大，死后就被埋葬在这黑色的土地上。他唯一的指望，唯一的守护者，是工会。
trapper boy: 负责开关矿井风门的孩子---------rear: 养活
I met a little trapper boy one day. He was so small that his dinner bucket dragged on the ground.
有一天我遇见了干这活儿的一个小男孩儿。他还太小了，走起路来手中提的饭桶都在地上拖着。
"How old are you, lad?" I asked him.
“娃娃，你多大了？”我问他。
"Twelve," he growled as he spat tobacco on the ground.
“十二了，”他向地上吐了口烟叶，嘟哝道。
"Say son," I said, "I'm Mother Jones. You know me, don't you? I know you told the mine foreman you were twelve, but what did you tell the union?"
“孩子，跟我说说，”我对他说，“我就是琼斯妈妈。你认识我的，对吧？我知道你是对工头说你12岁了，可是你跟工会又是怎么说的？”
He looked at me with keen, sage eyes. Life had taught him suspicion and caution.
他用敏锐的目光打量着我。生活已经教会了他怀疑和谨慎。
"Oh, the union's different. I'm ten come Christmas."
“哦，跟工会说的可不一样。再过圣诞节我就10岁了。 ”
"Why don't you go to school?"
“你怎么不去上学？”
"Gee," he said – though it was really something stronger – "I ain't lost no leg!" He looked proudly at his little legs.
“啊？可是我的腿都还好好的啊？”他颇为得意地看看自己的两条腿，那腿确是比正常孩子壮些，可还是太瘦小了。
I knew what he meant: that lads went to school when they were incapacitated by accidents.
我明白他话的意思：他们这些孩子，可能只有到了因工伤致残这样的时候，才会去上学。
incapacitated: 丧失能力；残疾
And you scarcely blamed the children for preferring mills and mines. The schools were wretched, poorly taught, the lessons dull.
而且你没有理由去责怪孩子们为什么宁愿去纺织厂或矿上工作都不愿去上学。那些学校破烂不堪，教学水平低劣，课程内容也太过枯燥。
mill：指纺织厂--------------------------------------------wretched：恶劣的
Through the ceaseless efforts of the unions, through continual agitation, we have done away with the most outstanding evils of child labor in the mines. Pennsylvania has passed better and better laws. More and more children are going to school. Better schools have come to the mining districts. We have yet a long way to go. Fourteen years of age is still too young to begin the life of the breaker boy. There is still too little joy and beauty in the miner's life but one who like myself has watched the long, long struggle knows that the end is not yet.
通过各处工会的不懈努力，通过一次次的维权运动，这些矿场在童工使用中最黑暗的一些东西已无法再横行下去了。宾西法尼亚州通过了越来越有人性的法律。越来越多的孩子去上学了。好学校也开始出现在了矿区。不过我们还有很长的路要走。14岁就成为一名捡矸工还是太早了。而且矿工的生活里还看不到有多少欢乐和美的存在。现实如此，但长久以来同我一样见证了这场斗争的人都心中有数，战斗还远没有结束。
ceaseless：不断的-------------------------------------agitation：鼓动，此处指包括游行在内的各种维权运动
outstanding：显著的
（编辑:柳敬智）
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