As the summer wore away, Mrs. Oliver daily grew more and more languid, until at length she was forced to ask a widowed neighbor, Mrs. Chadwick, to come and take the housekeeping cares until she should feel stronger. But beef-tea and drives, salt-water bathing and tonics2, seemed to do no good, and at length there came a day when she had not sufficient strength to sit up.
The sight of her mother actually in bed in the daytime gave Polly a sensation as of a cold hand clutching at her heart, and she ran for Dr. Edgerton in an agony of fear. But good "Dr. George" (as he was always called, because he began practice when his father, the old doctor, was still living) came home with her, cheered her by his hopeful view of the case, and asked her to call at his office that afternoon for some remedies.
After dinner was over, Polly kissed her sleeping mother, laid a rose on her pillow for good-by, and stole out of the room.
Her heart was heavy as she walked into the office where the doctor sat alone at his desk.
"Good-day, my dear!" he said cordially, as he looked up, for she was one of his prime favorites. "Bless my soul, how you do grow, child! Why you are almost a woman!"
"I am quite a woman," said Polly, with a choking sensation in her throat; "and you have something to say to me, Dr. George, or you would n't have asked me to leave mamma and come here this stifling3 day; you would have sent the medicine by your office-boy."
Dr. George laid down his pen in mild, amazement4. "You are a woman, in every sense of the word, my dear! Bless my soul, how you do hit it occasionally, you sprig of a girl! Now, sit by that window, and we 'll talk. What I wanted to say to you is this, Polly. Your mother must have an entire change. Six months ago I tried to send her to a rest-cure, but she refused to go anywhere without you, saying that you were her best tonic1."
Two tears ran down Polly's cheeks.
"Tell me that again, please," she said softly, looking out of the window.
"She said--if you will have the very words, and all of them--that you were sun and stimulant5, fresh air, medicine, and nourishment6, and that she could not exist without those indispensables, even in a rest-cure."
Polly's head went down on the windowsill in a sudden passion of tears.
"Hoity-toity! that 's a queer way of receiving a compliment, young woman!"
She tried to smile through her April shower.
"It makes me so happy, yet so unhappy, Dr. George. Mamma has been working her strength away so many years, and I 've been too young to realize it, and too young to prevent it, and now that I am grown up I am afraid it is too late."
"Not too late, at all," said Dr. George cheerily; "only we must begin at once and attend to the matter thoroughly7. Your mother has been in this southern climate too long, for one thing; she needs a change of air and scene. San Francisco will do, though it 's not what I should choose. She must be taken entirely8 away from her care, and from everything that will remind her of it; and she must live quietly, where she will not have to make a continual effort to smile and talk to people three times a day. Being agreeable, polite, and good-tempered for fifteen years, without a single lapse9, will send anybody into a decline. You 'll never go that way, my Polly! Now, pardon me, but how much ready money have you laid away?"
"Three hundred and twelve dollars."
"Whew!"
"It is a good deal," said Polly, with modest pride; "and it would have been more yet if we had not just painted the house."
"'A good deal!' my poor lambkin! I hoped it was $1012, at least; but, however, you have the house, and that is as good as money. The house must be rented, at once, furniture, boarders, and all, as it stands. It ought to bring $85 or $95 a month, in these times, and you can manage on that, with the $312 as a reserve."
"What if the tenant10 should give up the house as soon as we are fairly settled in San Francisco?" asked Polly, with an absolutely new gleam of caution and business in her eye.
"Brava! Why do I attempt to advise such a capable little person? Well, in the first place, there are such things as leases; and in the second place, if your tenant should move out, the agent must find you another in short order, and you will live, meanwhile, on the reserve fund. But, joking aside, there is very little risk. It is going to be a great winter for Santa Barbara, and your house is attractive, convenient, and excellently located. If we can get your affairs into such shape that your mother will not be anxious, I hope, and think, that the entire change and rest, together with the bracing11 air, will work wonders. I shall give you a letter to a physician, a friend of mine, and fortunately I shall come up once a month during the winter to see an old patient who insists on retaining me just from force of habit."
"And in another year, Dr. George, I shall be ready to take care of mamma myself; and then--
"She shall sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam,
And feast upon strawberries, sugar, and cream."
"Assuredly, my Polly, assuredly." The doctor was pacing up and down the office now, hands in pockets, eyes on floor. "The world is your oyster12; open it, my dear,--open it. By the way," with a sharp turn, "with what do you propose to open it?"
"I don't know yet, but not with boarders, Dr. George."
"Tut, tut, child; must n't despise small things!"
"Such as Mr. Greenwood," said Polly irrepressibly, "weight two hundred and ninety pounds; and Mrs. Darling, height six feet one inch; no, I 'll try not to despise small things, thank you!"
"Well, if there 's a vocation13, it will 'call,' you know, Polly. I 'd rather like you for an assistant, to drive my horse and amuse my convalescents. Bless my soul! you 'd make a superb nurse, except"--
"Except what, sir?"
"You 're not in equilibrium14 yet, my child; you are either up or down, generally up. You bounce, so to speak. Now, a nurse must n't bounce; she must be poised15, as it were, or suspended, betwixt and between, like Mahomet's coffin16. But thank Heaven for your high spirits, all the same! They will tide you over many a hard place, and the years will bring the 'inevitable17 yoke18' soon enough, Polly," and here Dr. George passed behind the girl's chair and put his two kind hands on her shoulders. "Polly, can you be really a woman? Can you put the little-girl days bravely behind you?"
"I can, Dr. George." This in a very trembling voice.
"Can you settle all these details for your mother, and assume responsibilities? Can you take her away, as if she were the child and you the mother, all at once?"
"I can!" This more firmly.
"Can you deny yourself for her, as she has for you? Can you keep cheerful and sunny? Can you hide your fears, if there should be cause for any, in your own heart? Can you be calm and strong, if"--
"No, no!" gasped19 Polly, dropping her head on the back of the chair and shivering like a leaf. "No, no; don't talk about fears, Dr. George. She will be better. She will be better very soon. I could not live"--
"It is n't so easy to die, my child, with plenty of warm young blood running pell-mell through your veins20, and a sixteen-year-old heart that beats like a chronometer21."
"I could not bear life without mamma, Dr. George!"
"A human being, made in the image of God, can bear anything, child; but I hope you won't have to meet that sorrow for many a long year yet. I will come in to-morrow and coax22 your mother into a full assent23 to my plans; meanwhile, fly home with your medicines. There was a time when you used to give my tonics at night and my sleeping-draught in the morning; but I believe in you absolutely from this day."
Polly put her two slim hands in the kind doctor's, and looking up with brimming eyes into his genial24 face said, "Dear Dr. George, you may believe in me; indeed, indeed you may!"
Dr. George looked out of his office window, and mused25 as his eyes followed Polly up the shaded walk under the pepper-trees.
"Oh, these young things, these young things, how one's heart yearns26 over them!" he sighed. "There she goes, full tilt27, notwithstanding the heat; hat swinging in her hand instead of being on her pretty head; her heart bursting with fond schemes to keep that precious mother alive. It's a splendid nature, that girl's; one that is in danger of being wrecked28 by its own impetuosity, but one so full and rich that it is capable of bubbling over and enriching all the dull and sterile29 ones about it. Now, if all the money I can rake and scrape together need not go to those languid, boneless children of my languid, boneless sister-in-law, I could put that brave little girl on her feet. I think she will be able to do battle with the world so long as she has her mother for a motive-power. The question is, how will she do it without?"
收听单词发音 |
1
tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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tonics
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| n.滋补品( tonic的名词复数 )；主音；奎宁水；浊音 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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oyster
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| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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chronometer
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| n.精密的计时器 | |
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coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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yearns
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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