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It was a sweltering July day in Philadelphia----I can feel it still, 57years later. The five boys I was with had grown tired of playing marbles and were casting about for something different.
“Hey!” said Ned. “We haven’t climbed the cliff in a long while.”
“Let’s go!” someone shouted.
I hesitated. I longed to be brave and active like them, but I’d been sickly most of my eight years and had taken to heart my mother’s admonitions not to take chances.
“Come on!” called Jerry, my best friend. “Don’t be a sissy.”
“I am coming!” I yelled, running after them.
We finally came to a clearing. At the far side loomed the cliff, a near vertical wall of jutting rocks, earth slides, scraggly bushes and saplings. It was only about 60 feet high, but to me it looked like the very embodiment of the Forbidden and Impossible.
One by one, the other boys scrabbled upward toward a narrow ledge two-thirds of the way to the top. Then, trembling and sweating. I began to climb, my heart thumping in my skinny chest,
At last I reached them, and settled uneasily as far back on the ledge as I could. The others inched close to the edge; the sight made me queasy.
Then they started to the top, from where they would walk home by a roundabout route.
“Hey, wait.” I croaked weakly. “I can’t ---”
“So long! See you in the funny papers,” one of them said, and the others laughed.
After they wriggled their way to the top, they peered down at me. “You can stay if you want to,” mocked one of the boys. “It’s all yours.” Jerry looked concerned, but he left with others.
I looked over the edge and was overcome by dizziness; I could never climb back down. I would lose my grip, fall and die. But the way to the top was even worse----steeper and more treacherous. I heard someone sobbing; I wondered who it was and realized it was me.
Time passed, and dust began to gather. Silent now, I lay on my stomach, stupefied by fear and fatigue, unable to move.
Twilight, a first star was in the sky, the ground below the cliff growing dim. But now in the woods a flashlight beam dances about. I heard the voices of Jerry and my father! My father pointed the beam upward. “Come on down, son,” he said in a comforting tone. “Dinner is ready.”
“I can’t!” I wailed. “I will fall, I will die.”
“Listen to me,” my father said. “Don’t think how it is. All you have to think about is taking one little step. You can do that. Look where I’m shining the light. Do you see the rock just below the ledge?”
I inched over. “Yes,” I said.
“Good,” he said, “Now put your left foot on the rock. Don’t worry about what comes next. Trust me.”
It seemed possible. I gingerly felt for the rock for the rock with my left foot and found it. I gained confidence. “That’s good.” my fathers called. “Now, move your right foot a few inches to the right and there is another foothold.” Again, I did so. My confidence soared. I could do it, I thought.
One step at a time, I made my way down the cliff. Suddenly I stepped onto the rock at the bottom and into my father’s strong arms, sobbing a little, and then surprisingly, feeling a sense of immense accomplishment. It is a lesson I will never forget.
As time passes by, I have realized time and again, that, having looked at a far and frightening prospect and been dismayed, I can cope with it after all by remembering the simple lesson I learned long ago on the face of a small cliff. I remind myself to not look at the rocks far below but at the first small step and, having taken it, to take the next one, until I have gotten to where I wanted to be. Then I can look back, amazed and proud, at the distance I have come.
摘自《随意英语文库（第四级）》，略有删改
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