30 Cents Later
30美分（一）
By 9 a.m. on a beautiful Saturday morning, Mike and I were working for Mrs. Martin. She was a kind and patient woman. She always said that Mike and I reminded her of her two sons who were grown and gone.
以後從一個美好的星期六早上9點起，邁克和我正式開始給馬丁夫人幹活了。馬丁夫人是一個慈祥而有耐心的女人，她總是說邁克和我使她想起她的兩個兒子，她的兩個兒子長大後就離開了她。
Although kind, she believed in hard work and she kept us working. She was a task master. We spent three hours taking canned goods off the shelves and, with a feather duster, brushing each can to get the dust off, and then re-stacking them neatly. It was excruciatingly boring work.
馬丁夫人雖然很慈祥，卻強調應該努力工作，她讓我們不停地幹活。她是一個很好的監工，3個小時裏，我們不停地把罐裝食品從架子上拿下來，用羽毛撣彈去每個罐頭上的灰塵，然後重新把它們碼放好。這工作真的很乏味。
Mike's dad, whom I call my rich dad, owned nine of these little superettes with large parking lots. They were the early version of the 7-11 convenience stores. Little neighborhood grocery stores where people bought items such as milk, bread, butter and cigarettes.
邁克的爸爸，就是我稱爲“富爸爸”的那一位，擁有9個這樣的小型超市，它們是“7-11”便利店的早期版本，當時除了這些小型超市以外附近幾乎沒有可以買到牛奶、麪包、黃油和香菸的雜貨店，所以生意還不錯。
The problem was, this was Hawaii before air conditioning, and the stores could not close its doors because of the heat. On two sides of the store, the doors had to be wide open to the road and parking lot. Every time a car drove by or pulled into the parking lot, dust would swirl and settle in the store.
問題是，這是在空調出現之前的夏威夷，由於炎熱，商店不可能關上門。而店的兩邊有許多停車位，每當一輛車開過或駛進車位，灰塵就漫天揚起飄入店內。
Hence, we had a job for as long as there was no air conditioning.
於是，在還沒有空調的時代，我們就有事可幹了。
For three weeks, Mike and I reported to Mrs. Martin and worked our three hours. By noon, our work was over, and she dropped three little dimes in each of our hands.
此後的三個星期中，每週六邁克和我向馬丁夫人報到並在她那兒工作3個小時。中午以前，我們的工作就結束了，她就在我們每人的手中放下三個小鋼蹦兒。
Now, even at the age of 9 in the mid-1950s, 30 cents was not too exciting. Comic books cost 10 cents back then, so I usually spent my money on comic books and went home.
即使是在50年代中期，對於9歲的男孩來說，30美分也並不十分令人激動，因爲就算買一本小人書也得花上10美分呢。