SHORT STORY BY O’HENRY The Sparrows In Madison Square Đây là một serries truyện ngắn anh ngữ nổi tiếng với những từ vựng quen thuộc. Nhằm giúp các em và các bạn yêu thich tiếng anh luyện tập và củng cố thêm kỹ năng đọc tiếng anh | SHORT STORY BY O HENRY The Sparrows In Madison Square The young man in straitened circumstances who comes to New York City to enter literature has but one thing to do provided he has studied carefully his field in advance. He must go straight to Madison Square write an article about the sparrows there and sell it to the Sun for 15. I cannot recall either a novel or a story dealing with the popular theme of the young writer from the provinces who comes to the metropolis to win fame and fortune with his pen in which the hero does not get his start that way. It does seem strange that some author in casting about for startlingly original plots has not hit upon the idea of having his hero write about the bluebirds in Union Square and sell it to the Herald. But a search through the files of metropolitan fiction counts up overwhelmingly for the sparrows and the old Garden Square and the Sun always writes the check. Of course it is easy to understand why this first city venture of the budding author is always successful. He is primed by necessity to a superlative effort mid the iron and stone and marble of the roaring city he has found this spot of singing birds and green grass and trees every tender sentiment in his nature is baffling with the sweet pain of homesickness his genius is aroused as it never may be again the birds chirp the tree branches sway the noise of wheels is forgotten he writes with his soul in his pen--and he sells it to the Sun for 15. I had read of this custom during many years before I came to New York. When my friends were using their strongest arguments to dissuade me from coming I only smiled serenely. They did not know of that sparrow graft I had up my sleeve. When I arrived in New York and the car took me straight from the ferry up Twenty-third Street to Madison Square I could hear that 15 check rustling in my inside pocket. I obtained lodging at an unhyphenated hostelry and the next morning I was on a bench in Madison Square almost by the time
