The old gentleman came out now and then and looked it over,
老先生不时地出来检查，
and usually before he went away he would stop long enough to say,
他通常在离开之前会停很长时间，说道，
"Well, boys, are the thistles all gone? Good!"
“好了，孩子们，蓟都没了吗？做的好!”
One day the boys found their ball field nicely marked out by tiles set into the ground for bases,
一天，男孩们发现他们的球场整齐地铺上了地砖，
and under the elms were four stout benches.
榆树下有四条粗壮的长凳。
The old gentleman was sitting on one of them.
老先生坐在其中一条凳子上。
"I thought," he said, "that perhaps your sisters might like to have some seats here. The work you boys did has paid for them."
他说，“我想，也许你们的姐妹们想坐在这儿，你们已经工作付过钱了。”
That was the beginning of the Brookvale Playground.
那是布鲁克维尔游乐场的开始。
As the old gentleman grew older he used to spend more and more of his time sitting on one of the benches and watching the children at their games.
随着这位老先生年龄的增长，他把越来越多的时间花在坐在长椅上看孩子们玩游戏上。
Years later, when he died, it was found that he had given that field to the town, and had left money to care for it.
多年以后，当他去世的时候，人们发现他把那块地留给了小镇，并留下钱来照料这块土地。
On a stone post at the lower end, where the big elms are,
石柱的下面（大榆树生长的地方）
is a brass plate that tells in a few words how the first group of boys earned their right to use the field by clearing it of thistles.
是一块黄铜板，上面的几句话叙述了第一批男孩是如何通过清除地里的蓟而赢得了这片土地的使用权的。
