Listening Exercise: Old Time Radio Drama
Gunsmoke: Marryin' Bertha, Part I
Audio file (MP3)
This lesson is divided into two parts; you only need to listen
up to the 11:32 minute point in the audio file for this week's exercise.

Vocabulary:
Western
Dodge City
territory
on West
to handle
"the killers and the spoilers"
U. S. Marshal
smell
gunsmoke

to star
William Conrad
violence
to move West
young America
Matt Dillon
chancy
watchful
lonely

try not to be hard on s.o.
Chester
Kitty
to do one's job
I'm afraid...
to ride through
Cottonwood Grove
there was Chester
big as life
straw
stuck in his mouth
Red Morgon's
youngest kid
to get oneself
roll of barbed wire
supposed to
clean rifles
stirrup leather
saddle
half a dozen other things
to stare up at the sky
spring fever
We've sure been havin' the weather for it.
I've got a touch of it myself.
to have to straighten out
to have been going on for weeks
to be easy on s.o.
surprised to
about now
to have been waitin' around for
to sit and watch a beaver build a dam
exactly
to get s.t. done
to explain about s.t.
for most of the year
stream
to run
along comes...
kindly
to go in the other direction
for a while
blood
to dam up
to go the other way
Out with it! (= Tell me the truth.)
Dodge House
St. Louis
to marry
out of town
to run across
St. Louis newspapers
all these ads
with me feelin' like I do and all
ain't
here and there
I might have ("mighta")
to stretch things a mite (= to exaggerate things a little bit)
lies
to call one's hand (= to expose s.o.'s lie)
to get s.o. out of s.t.
Mrs. Corinne Gatesly
widow lady
to have left town
if you don't mind too awful much
Chester Proudfoot
to go on about how you...
and all that
picture
an awful good likeness (= really looks like s.o.)
Mr. Titus
studio
bowler hat
You see that you're here when I get back.
darling
to fool
Corinne
naughty
mix-up
by mistake
possibly 		to have worked out
to have need of
passages
to conclude s.t. from s.t.
to expect
to come one's way
not to be above
to marry the right woman
to call on s.o.
"Good Day" (=Good-bye)
to serve s.o. right
well, that may be, but...
to be nothing to look at (not attractive)
to weigh
I can hardly wait
wedding
to count on
to hide out at
to drink a toast to
just in case
to make fun of
to deliver a child
to worry
to teach s.o. a lesson
to get s.o. to leave town
the trouble is...
to have money comin' in
there is such a thing as
breach of promise
if he only hadn't mentioned...
(Did) She say where she was from?
saloon
sheriff
bodies
shot and robbed
to prove s.t. on her
to let s.t. go
Bertha Hoskovitz
Would she know you?
I sure would remember her.
You see if you can get a look at her.
to take her in
no way I can
to wire
in the meantime
one thing pretty sure
victim


Listening comprehension questions:
1. What are 'spoilers' in the context of this story?
2. This story is set in which city and state?
3. Why is Matt Dillon complaining about his assistant Chester at the beginning of the story?
4. What is "spring fever"?
5. Why is there a woman at the Dodge House waiting for Chester?
6. How did Chester represent himself to this woman?
7. What does Chester want Matt Dillon to do for him?
8. What does the woman tell Matt Dillon to tell Chester?
9. What does the woman look like?
10. How does Doc react to what has developed?
11. What part of Chester's letters is an especially big problem in this situation?
12. Kitty is suspicious that the woman looking for Chester might be who? What was this woman suspected of in St. Louis?

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