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Miss Bessie knew that my family, like so many others during the Depression, couldn't afford to subscribe to a newspaper. She knew we didn't even own a radio. Still, she prodded me to "look out for your future and find some way to keep up with what's going on in the world." So I became a delivery boy for the Chattanooga Times. I rarely made a dollar a week, but I got to read a newspaper every day.
贝茜老师知道，像很多在美国经济大萧条时期的家庭一样，我家订不起报纸。她也知道我们甚至连一台收音机也没有。但是她仍然督促我让我“放眼未来，并想办法与时倶进”。于是我成了查塔努加《泰晤士报》的一名报童。尽管我一周挣不到一美元，但是我每天都有报纸读。
Miss Bessie noticed things that had nothing to do with schoolwork, but were vital to a youngster's development. Once a few classmates made fun of my old worn-out overcoat. As I was leaving school, Miss Bessie patted me on the back of that old overcoat and said, "Carl, never worry about what you don't have. Just make the most of what you do have—a brain."
贝茜老师会注意到一些跟学习无关但对青少年的发展至关重要的东西。一次几个同学拿我的一件破旧的大衣开玩笑。放学的时候，贝茜老师轻轻地拍拍我的背说：“卡尔，永远不要为你没有的东西而烦恼，好好利用你所拥有的东西，那就是你的大脑。”
Among the things that I did not have was electricity in the little house that my father had built for $400 with his World War I bonus. But because of her inspiration, I spent many hours beside a kerosene lamp reading Shakespeare and other famous writers.
我所没有的东西还有电。我们家住的那个小木屋是我爸爸用他那400美元的一战退伍军人补助金建起来的。但是由于贝茜老师的鼓励，我每天会花好几个小时在煤油灯前读莎士比亚和其他著名作家的作品。
No one in my family had ever graduated from high school, so there was no tradition of commitment to learning for me to lean on. Like millions of youngsters in today's ghettos, I needed the push and stimulation of a teacher who truly cared. Miss Bessie gave plenty of both, as she immersed me in a wonderful world of simile and metaphors. She led me to believe that I could write sonnets as well as Shakespeare, or verse to put Alexander Pope to shame.
在我家里没有人上过高中，因此家中没有用功读书的先例供我学习。像今天贫民区成千上万的孩子一样，我需要从真正关心我的老师那里得到动力和鼓励。当贝茜老师引导我沉浸在精彩的诗歌的海洋里时，这两样我都得到了。她让我相信我也能像莎士比亚一样写出好的十四行诗，能写出让亚历山大·蒲柏都自愧不如的韵文。
