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0Episode: The Day You Could Mail a Child
Subtitle: 可以邮寄孩子的那一天
Duration: approximately 5 minutes
Level: B1
PubDate: 2026-10-25
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[Mike]: Sarah, imagine you need to send your little boy to his grandmother's house. You have no car. The train ticket costs more than a full day of work. What do you do?
zh:Sarah，想象一下你要把儿子送去奶奶家。你没有车。火车票比一整天工资还贵。你会怎么办？
[Sarah]: I would walk. Or wait until I had the money.
zh:我会走过去。或者等到有钱的时候。
[Mike]: In 1913, some American parents found a third option. They put postage stamps on the child and mailed him.
zh:1913 年，有些美国父母找到了第三个办法。他们给孩子贴上邮票，把他寄出去。
[Sarah]: That cannot be true.
zh:这不可能是真的。
[Mike]: It is. And the strangest part is that the post office played along.
zh:是真的。最奇怪的是，邮局还配合了。
[Sarah]: Okay. How does something like this even start?
zh:好吧。这种事到底是怎么开始的？
[Mike]: On January 1, 1913, the United States Post Office opened a new service called parcel post. Before that, you could only send small packages, about 4 pounds. Anything bigger went by private companies, and they charged a lot.
zh:1913 年 1 月 1 日，美国邮政局开通了一项新服务，叫包裹邮递。在这之前，你只能寄小包裹，大约 4 磅以内。更大的东西要走私营公司，收费很贵。
[Sarah]: So this changed daily life for ordinary families.
zh:所以这对普通家庭的日常生活改变很大。
[Mike]: Huge. Suddenly a farmer could post a box of eggs to a city, and a mother could order shoes from a catalog. Millions of parcels moved in the first few months.
zh:改变非常大。突然之间，农民可以把一箱鸡蛋寄到城里，母亲可以从商品目录上订鞋。头几个月就有几百万个包裹在路上。
[Sarah]: And nobody wrote a rule saying you cannot post a person.
zh:而且没人写一条规定说不能寄人。
[Mike]: Exactly. The rules talked about weight and size. They never said what a parcel was allowed to be.
zh:正是这样。规定只讲重量和尺寸，从没说包裹里可以装什么。
[Sarah]: So people tested it. With a baby.
zh:所以有人就试了。用一个婴儿。
[Mike]: Two weeks after the service opened, a family in Batavia, Ohio, mailed their eight-month-old son, James, to his grandmother a few miles away. He weighed just under the limit, so the postage was 15 cents.
zh:服务开通两周后，俄亥俄州巴达维亚的一家人把 8 个月大的儿子詹姆斯寄给了几英里外的奶奶。他的体重刚好在限重以内，邮费是 15 美分。
[Sarah]: Fifteen cents. And his mother put the stamps on his clothes?
zh:15 美分。他妈妈把邮票贴在他衣服上？
[Mike]: On his clothes, yes. They even bought 50 dollars of insurance, in case the baby got lost. A rural carrier called Vernon Lytle carried him the whole way and got a signature at the door, like any other delivery.
zh:贴在衣服上。他们甚至买了 50 美元的保险，怕孩子丢了。一个叫弗农·莱特尔的乡村邮递员一路抱着他，到了门口还按流程要了一个签收签名，跟送别的包裹一样。
[Sarah]: I keep waiting for the part where someone says no.
zh:我一直在等有人说不行的那一段。
[Mike]: That part comes later. First, newspapers picked up the story, and other families copied it. One in Pennsylvania paid 45 cents to send a daughter to relatives.
zh:那一段在后面。先是报纸把这个故事登了出来，别的家庭开始模仿。宾夕法尼亚有一家花了 45 美分，把女儿寄给了亲戚。
[Sarah]: Did the children travel inside a mail sack?
zh:那些孩子是装在邮袋里运的吗？
[Mike]: No, and this matters. They walked or rode with a postal worker. Nobody was thrown in with the letters.
zh:不是，这点很重要。他们是跟邮递员一起走、一起坐车的。没有人被塞进信件堆里。
[Sarah]: That is a small comfort.
zh:这算是小小的安慰。
[Mike]: The most famous case came a year later, on February 19, 1914. A five-year-old girl named May Pierstorff lived in Grangeville, Idaho. Her grandparents were 73 miles away in Lewiston.
zh:最有名的一例在一年后，1914 年 2 月 19 日。一个 5 岁女孩叫梅·皮尔斯托夫，住在爱达荷州格兰吉维尔。她的祖父母在 73 英里外的刘易斯顿。
[Sarah]: Let me guess. The ticket was too expensive.
zh:我猜，车票太贵了。
[Mike]: A ticket cost 1 dollar and 55 cents, which was a full day of work for her family. May weighed 48 and a half pounds, just under the 50-pound limit. The postage came to 53 cents.
zh:一张票要 1 美元 55 美分，相当于她家一整天的工钱。梅体重 48.5 磅，刚好在 50 磅限重之内。邮费是 53 美分。
[Sarah]: So they really did it.
zh:所以他们真的做了。
[Mike]: Her cousin Leonard worked on the mail train. He fixed the stamps to the back of her coat and took her with him in the mail car. She ate a hard candy and a red apple her mother packed, and she felt a little sick on the mountain curves.
zh:她的表兄伦纳德在邮政列车上工作。他把邮票贴在她外套背面，带着她坐在邮件车厢里。她吃着妈妈准备的硬糖和一个红苹果，山路转弯太多，她有点晕。
[Sarah]: Poor thing. Did anyone notice?
zh:可怜的孩子。有人发现吗？
[Mike]: The conductor did. He asked for her ticket, then saw the stamps and laughed. Later he called a reporter, because he thought it was a good story.
zh:列车员发现了。他先是要她的车票，然后看到邮票，笑了。后来他打电话给一个记者，因为他觉得这故事挺好玩。
[Sarah]: And that is how the post office heard about it.
zh:邮局就是这么知道的。
[Mike]: That is exactly how they heard about it. Leonard got a letter threatening to give him 500 demerits. At 700, a postal worker lost his job.
zh:正是这样。伦纳德收到一封信，说要给他记 500 个过失分。累计到 700 分，邮递员就会被辞退。
[Sarah]: For delivering a child safely?
zh:就因为安全地送了一个孩子？
[Mike]: For delivering a child safely. In the end, May's family paid half the price of a train ticket, and the matter was closed.
zh:就因为安全地送了一个孩子。最后梅家补了半张火车票的钱，这事就算了结了。
[Sarah]: So the cheap trip was not cheap after all.
zh:所以这趟便宜的旅程其实也不便宜。
[Mike]: The post office banned mailing people that year, and by 1920 it was a federal crime. In every recorded case, though, not one child was lost or delivered to the wrong house.
zh:邮局在那一年就禁止邮寄人，到 1920 年这成了联邦罪行。不过在每一个有记录的案例里，没有一个孩子丢失，也没有一个被送错门。
[Sarah]: The mail went through.
zh:邮件送到了。
[Mike]: The mail went through. If you enjoy strange true stories from history, join us for the next episode of Learn English with Podcasts.
zh:邮件送到了。如果你喜欢历史上这些离奇的真实故事，欢迎收听下一集 Learn English with Podcasts。
