No sooner had Charlie gone off to his to cabin to write notes than Granddad reappeared outside. He had small pieces of venison in his hand. He clicked his tongue to imitate the "knock trill" food call of the adult raven.

"Write it down!" said Blue Sky, and flew to his shoulder.

"I will," said Granddad, feeding him and expressing his affection by "kmmmm gurgling.""You're one cute bird,"he concluded in English. Charlie heard the man-to-bird talk and came outside.

查理刚刚离开，去小木屋里记笔记，爷爷就又出现在室外。他手里拿着切成小块的鹿肉。爷爷用舌头发出咔哒声，来模仿成年渡鸦取食时的“敲击颤音”。

“写下来！”蓝天说，然后飞到爷爷的肩膀上。

“我会的。”爷爷说，一边给蓝天喂食一边发出“咕咕咯咯”的声音来表示自己的喜爱之情。“你是只精明的鸟儿。”爷爷用英语概括道。查理听到了这样的人鸟对话，就来到屋外。

“What are you doing here, Granddad?" he asked. "You should be resting."

"I've just rewarded Blue Sky for his people talk. There is nothing like a reward to make even a raven remember his lesson."

“爷爷，您在这儿干嘛呢？”查理问，“您应该休息才是。”

“我刚才奖励蓝天了，奖励他说人话。即便是渡鸦，也应该得到奖赏才是，这样他才能记得住学过啥。”

Charlie ushered Granddad back indoors to his chair and sat down on the stool beside him. Granddad was pale,raven or no raven. Charlie picked up a book and read aloud until the old naturalist fell asleep.

And while he read, the clock hands swung to 4 P.M.

Pinecone sat on the roof, waiting for her parents to take her home. They did not. At 5 P.M., when they still had not appeared, she drooped her head and wings.

查理扶着爷爷进屋坐在椅子上，自己坐在旁边的凳子上。爷爷脸色苍白，有没有渡鸦都是如此。查理拿起一本书给爷爷朗读，直到这位博物学家睡着了。

读着读着，时钟已经指向下午四点。

松果坐在房顶上，等着渡鸦父母过来带她回家。他们却没有来。五点时，他们仍然没有来。这时松果垂下头，翅膀也耷拉下来。

After a long slump, Pinecone hopped to the rain gutters, flew to the foot of Charlie's cabin steps, and feathers flattened to her body in fear, walked under a clump of flowering yampas.She pulled in her neck and made herself small. A white-crowned sparrow in the willow overhead fed her tiny nestlings.Pinecone opened her mouth to be fed. Nothing happened. She closed it.

松果从高处跳落，然后又跳到排水管上，再飞到查理小木屋台阶的下边。松果因为害怕，羽毛紧贴着身体，走到一丛开花的山药下面。松果缩着脖子，这让自己看上去很小。这时，头顶一棵柳树上的白顶雀正在喂食她小小的幼鸟。松果张开嘴，希望有人喂她。结果没人喂她。松果就闭上了嘴巴。

After dinner Charlie returned to his cabin to write down all he had seen.Then the sun went down behind the mountain peaks. The afterglow colored the mountains and valley red-orange,and abandoned Pinecone stepped out from under the yampa plant. Hesitatingly she hopped up the cabin steps,peeked in the open door, and went in.Blue Sky flew down from the back of Charlie's chair and greeted her.

晚饭后，查理回到小木屋来记录所见所闻。这时候，太阳已经落到了山顶后面。落日余晖把高山和峡谷都染成了一片橙红。那只被父母遗弃的松果也从山药丛下面走了出来。松果小心翼翼地跳上小木屋的台阶，在门口张望，然后走进来。蓝天从查理的椅子背上飞下来，跟她打招呼。

Charlie wrote:

June 30. Blue Sky talks. He says,"Write it down." Mysterious? Supernatural? Or is he just being a raven like Edgar Allan Poe's? That's a great poem. I reread it.

查理记录道：

6月30日。蓝天说话了。他说，“写下来”。神秘吗？超自然吗？他是不是就像埃德加·爱伦·坡的渡鸦一样啊？那是一首很棒的诗歌。我已经重读过。

A rustle of wings. Charlie turned around. Blue Sky and Pinecone were sitting at the foot of his bed.

Big news, he wrote. Pinecone is spending the night. It must be because her parents didn't come for her. That means today is independence day for her--and for her brother too. And that could be why he poked holes in the raft.Is he looking for a new source of food now that he is on his own? If that's it,he must sense that I, like his parents,will no longer feed him-that's a guess.A1l I should write down is that he let the air out the raft--and Grandma Sally was mad. Those are the true facts.

有翅膀窸窸窣窣的声音。查理转过头。蓝天和松果蹲在查理的床脚边。

重要消息，查理继续写道。松果在这里过夜了。肯定是因为她的父母没有来接她。这意味着今天是松果的独立日——对她的哥哥而言也是如此。这也许就是他在渡河筏上啄洞的原因。是不是因为他必须靠自己了才寻找新的食物来源？果真如此，他一定觉得我会像他的父母一样，不再喂他了——这只是猜测而已。我应该写的就是他给渡河筏放气了——而且莎莉奶奶气疯了。这些都是事实。

Charlie wrote on:

I'm not supposed to guess, but I can't help it. My guess is that raven independence day is also why Blue Sky talked. He's experimenting with clever ways to get food. Talking worked. Smart bird.

Hours later a full moon rose over Goat Mountain and swathed the valley in a silver light so bright a sandhill crane standing on one leg in the irrigation ditch saw a frog and caught it.

查理接着写道：

我不应该猜测，但我忍不住。我猜测因为是渡鸦的独立日，所以蓝天才说人话了。他是在试验聪明的方法来得到食物。说人话有用啊。聪明的鸟儿。

几个小时以后，一轮圆月在山羊山顶升起来，整个山谷沉浸在银色的光辉里。如此明亮的月光下，一只沙丘鹤独脚站在灌溉渠里，看见了一只青蛙，一下子抓到了。