Lesson 3 The lead-pencil
第三课 木杆铅笔

Have you a lead-pencil? If not, I want you to get a loan of one, and to look at it very carefully. It is made of wood—most likely of cedar wood, for the wood of the cedar tree is much used for making pencils.

小朋友，你有木杆铅笔吗？要是没有，就借一支来，好好看看吧。木杆铅笔的木头，大部分都是杉木，也叫雪松木，因为英国的杉木很多都用来做铅笔了。
Do you see the name of the maker in bright letters on the side of the pencil? You may see, too, the letters H for hard, B for black, or HB for both hard and black, which are stamped on the pencil. From these marks you know what kind of pencil it is.
看见了吗？铅笔的侧面，用闪闪发亮的字，印着制造商的名字。你可能也看见了，字母H代表英语的Hard（硬），字母B代表英语的Black（黑），HB就代表又硬又黑。从刻上去的这些字母，就可以知道这支铅笔是什么类型的。
The pencil is a round piece of wood, is it not? At each end of the pencil you can see a small square of black-lead. Now, how did the black-lead get there? Did it grow inside the wood?
铅笔是一根圆形的木杆，两头都可以看见里面铅笔芯的小方块。那么铅笔芯是怎么进去的呢？难道是在木头里长出来的吗？
Look very carefully at the ends of the pencil. Ah, you see! it is made of two strips of wood, which were glued together after the black-lead was put in.
仔细看看铅笔的两头。啊，看见了！铅笔是“两片”木头做的， 这两片木头，是在铅芯放进去之后，用胶黏在一起的！
Try to pull your pencil to pieces. If you put it in water for a while, the glue will become soft, and the two pieces of wood will come apart.
试试把这支铅笔拆开。把铅笔在水里泡一会儿，胶就变软了，两片木头就会分开了。
Then you will see that a neat little hollow was made in one of the pieces, and that a little strip of black-lead— of just the right size—was put into it. The other piece of wood was then glued over it, and the pencil was made round and smooth.
现在你能看见，两片木头中间都有一个精细的凹槽，长条的铅芯，做成了合适的尺寸，放在一片木头的凹槽里面，然后把另一片木头黏上去，铅笔就变成了圆形，摸起来很光滑了。
When you rub the point on a piece of paper, little bits of black-lead stick to the paper and make black marks. In this way the black-lead pencil is very useful for writing or drawing.
铅笔尖儿在纸上蹭的时候，就会有一点儿铅笔芯附着在纸上，留下黑色的印子。这样，在我们写字画画的时候，铅笔就特别有用。
Before you use your lead-pencil, you must sharpen one end of it with a knife. The wood will not make a black mark,so it must be cut away. Then the black-lead is left sticking out by itself to make black marks on the paper.
在你用木杆铅笔之前，要先用小刀把铅笔的一头削尖。木头是不会留下黑色印子的，所以得把木头削掉，这样，黑色的铅芯自己就会突出来，在纸上留下印子了。