阅读理解
At the age of fifteen, both his legs had been badly hurt in an accident. From that time on he begged, dragging himself along the roads.
In the villages, people hardly gave him anything — he was too well-known. Everyone had grown tired of seeing him — day after day for forty years, dragging his disabled and ugly body from door to door on his wooden crutches. He was among people, yet loved and cared by no one. They called him "Bell" because he hung between his two crutches like a bell.
For two days he had eaten nothing. No one gave him anything now. Women shouted at him from their doorsteps when they saw him coming:
"Go away, you good-for-nothing beggar! Why, I gave you a piece of bread only three days ago!"
It was December and a cold wind blew over the fields. Now and then he sat down for a few moments' rest. He only got one wish — to eat — but no one offered anything. For three hours he continued his painful journey but received not a half penny.
When he had visited all the houses he knew, "Bell" sank down in a corner, having no idea what he was waiting for. Several hens ran here and there in front of him. "Bell" watched them at first without thinking of anything. Then a thought reached him —the thought that one of those hens would be good to eat if it were cooked over a fire.
He took up a stone beside him and luckily killed the nearest hen at the first shot. The hen fell, flapping its wings. "Bell" picked up his crutches, approaching where the hen lay.
Just as he reached it, he received a strong hit in the back which made him let go of the crutches and sent him flying half a meter away. The owner of the hens, kept kicking him angrily. The other villagers came up and joined the beating. In the end, "Bell", half dead, was shut in the town jail.
The police had no idea that he might need food, and he was left alone until the following day. When in the early morning they came to him, he was found dead on the floor.
