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A week later Mother took a job selling dry goods at half the salary the radio station had offered. “It's a job I can do,” she said simply. But the evening practice sessions on the old green typewriter continued. I had a very different feeling now when I passed her door at night and heard her tapping away. I knew there was something more going on in there than a woman learning to type.
一周过后，妈找到一个卖纺织品的工作，工资只有原先电台的一半。“这是一个我能胜任的工作，”她简单地说道。但在晚上，她继续在那台绿色的旧打字机上练习。如今，每当我在夜晚走过她的房门前，听着她那一刻不停的嗒、嗒的打字声时，我的感情与过去迥然不同了。我深知，在那个房间里进行着的绝不仅仅是一个妇女在学习打字。
When I left for college two years later, Mother had an office job with better pay and more responsibility. I have to believe that in some strange way she learned as much from her moment of defeat as I did, because several years later, when I had finished school and proudly accepted a job as a newspaper reporter, she had already been a journalist with our hometown paper for six months.
两年后我上大学时，妈找到一份薪金比原来高但责任也比原来重的办公室工作。使我不得不相信的是，妈不可思议地从失败中学到的东西竟与我所学到的一样多。因为几年后，我大学毕业、自豪地受聘担任报纸记者时，她已在我们家乡的报社里当了六个月的记者了。
The old green typewriter sits in my office now, unrepaired. It is a memento, but what it recalls for me is not quite what if recalled for Mother. When I'm having trouble with a story and think about giving up or when I start to feel sorry for myself and think things should be easier for me, I roll a piece of paper into that cranky old machine and type, word by painful word, just the way Mother did. What I remember then is not her failure, but her courage, the courage to go ahead.
那台绿色旧打字机现在放在我的办公室里，至今没有修理过。它是一件纪念品。但它所勾起的我的回忆与妈的不尽相同。每当我写文章遇到困难想打退堂鼓时，或是自叹不走运时，我就往那台破旧的打字机里卷进一张纸，像妈当年一样，一个字一个字地吃力地打着。这时，我回忆起的不是妈的失败，而是她的勇气，她那一往无前的勇气。
It's the best memento anyone ever gave me.
这台打字机是我一生中得到的最好的纪念品。
