“Please， somebody help me！” yelled the old farmer. But there was nobody to help him， not even that old black dog who had now ran away in order to save herself.
Once again， the old man was all alone， just like he had been for the past thirty years on his farm. The fire was getting hotter and hotter and closer and closer. The old man finally laid his head back down into the dirt， softly cursing， crying to himself and trying to fling a little dirt with his fingers onto the fire. His hands were burnt and dirty and his overalls were singed and smoking. Finally he just gave up， gave one last cough and slowly lowered his face into the dirt and ash.
All of a sudden he heard voices coming from the road behind him. Very slowly he raised his blackened face and looked back towards the road， as best he could being up side down. Here came that old black dog hobbling as fast as she could towards him. Behind that dog were five or six people running towards the burning truck.
I really do not know much about what happened after that because I moved away several days later because my small clothing store in Brunswick， Georgia， had been broken into so many times that I had to shut it down. But as I was in the Hazlehurst area， where my distributor was located and after being gone for three years， I decided to stop at the local diner for a cup of coffee. As I sat there quietly， looking out the window， I noticed this burnt old black pick-up truck with it’s side caved in sitting across the street at the local feed store. Two young boys were loading bales of hay into the back. I looked down the long wooden loading ramp to where there were three or four old weather beaten rocking chairs and to my surprise I saw this one legged，laughing old farmer man， his crutches leaning against the wall， hugging this three legged， one eared， dirty old black dog who was licking him in the face， as though she liked him！
在我的生命裏，我曾遇到一個居住在這座大山上的老農夫。這個老人既沒有奶牛、馬匹、豬，也沒有雞群。實際上，這個農夫甚至沒有一個老農婦來照顧他。鎮上的每一個人都知道這個老人是個很吝嗇的家夥。雨還沒停，他就迫不及待地跑出去驅趕那些在他的農場上唱歌、吃穀粒的小鳥。你看，這個老農夫是多麽吝嗇。