The Christmas holidays brought a welcome respite1 from the steady grind of school work. And there was every indication, in the Westley home, that they were going to be very merry! Mrs. Westley had one fixed2 rule for her youngsters: "Work while you work and play while you play." So she and Uncle Johnny, behind carefully closed doors, planned all sorts of jolly surprises for the holiday week.
But Jerry had a little secret, too, all of her own. She had written to her mother begging to be allowed to go home "just for Christmas." She had had to write two letters; the first, with its burst of longing3, had sounded so ungrateful that she had torn it up and had written another. Then she waited eagerly, hopefully, for the answer.
It came a few days before Christmas, and with it a huge pasteboard box. Something told Jerry, before she opened the envelope, what her mother had written. Her lips quivered.
"...It will be hard for us both, dear child, not to be together on Christmas, but it seems unwise for you to go to the trouble and expense of coming home for such a short stay. We are snowed in and you would not have the relaxation4 that you need after your long weeks of study. Then, darling, it would be all the harder to let you go again. I want you to have the jolliest sort of a holiday and I shall be happy thinking each day what my little girl is doing. I have had such nice letters from Mrs. Westley and Mr. John telling all about you--they have been a great comfort to me. We are sending the box with a breath of Kettle in it. The bitter-sweet we have been saving for you since last fall...."
When Jerry opened the box the room filled with the fragrant5 odor of pine. In an ecstasy6 she leaned her face close to the branches and sniffed7 delightedly; she wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh--it was as though she suddenly had a bit of home right there with her. Her disappointment was forgotten. She lifted out the pine and bitter-sweet to put it in every corner of her room, then another thought seized her. Except for Gyp, practicing in a half-hearted way downstairs, the house was empty. On tiptoe she stole to the different rooms, leaving in each a bit of her pine and a gay cluster of the bitter-sweet.
The postman's ring brought Gyp's practice, with one awful discord8, to an abrupt9 finish. In a moment she came bounding up the stairs, two little white envelopes in her hand.
"Jerry--we're invited to a real party--Pat Everett's." She tossed one of the small squares into Jerry's lap. "Hope to die invitations, just like Isobel gets!"
Jerry stared at the bit of pasteboard. Gyp's delight was principally because it was the first "real" evening party to which she had been invited; it was a milestone10 in her life--it meant that she was very grown-up.
"Jerauld Travis--you don't act a bit excited! It will be heaps of fun for Pat's father and mother are the jolliest people--and there'll be dancing and boys--and spliffy eats."
"I never went to a party--like that." Jerry, with something like awe11, lifted the card.
"Oh, a party's a party, anywhere," declared Gyp loftily, speaking from the wisdom of her newly-acquired dignity.
"And--I haven't anything to wear," added Jerry, putting the card down on her desk with the tiniest sigh.
Gyp's face clouded; that was too true to be disputed. Her own clothes would not fit Jerry but Isobel's----
"We'll ask Isobel to let you----"
"No--no!" cried Jerry vehemently12. Her face flushed. "Don't you dare!"
Gyp looked aggrieved13. "I don't see why not, but if you feel like that--only, it'll spoil the whole party. Oh----" she suddenly sniffed. "What's that woodsy smell? Where did you get it?"
And the pine and the berries made Gyp and Jerry forget, for the moment, the Everett party.
The holiday frolics began with the appropriate ceremony of consigning14 all the school books to the depths of a great, carved chest in the library, turning the curious old key in the lock and handing it over to Mrs. Westley. Jerry had demurred15, but she recognized, behind all the fun, a real firmness. "Every book, my dear! Not one of you children must peep inside of the cover of even a--story, until I give back the key." Mrs. Westley pinched Jerry's cheek. "I want to see red rosies again, my dear girl."
Christmas eve brought a glad surprise to the family in the unexpected arrival of Robert Westley. Jerry had wondered a little about Gyp's father; it was very nice to find him so much like Uncle Johnny that one liked him at the very first moment. He had, it seemed, resorted to all sorts of expedients16 to get from Valparaiso to his own fireside in time for Christmas, but everyone's delight had made it very worth while.
"That's one thing that makes up for father being away so much," explained Gyp. "He 'most always just walks in and surprises us and brings the jolliest things from queer places."
On Christmas morning Jerry opened sleepy eyes to find soft flurries of snow beating against her windows, a piney odor in her nostrils17 and Gyp in a red dressing-gown by the side of her bed.
"Merry Christmas!" In her arms Gyp carried some of the contents of her own Christmas stocking. "Wake up and see what Santa has brought you!"
On the bedpost hung a bulging18 stocking; queer-shaped packages, tied with red ribbon, were piled close to it, and across the foot of Jerry's bed lay a huge box.
"Open this first. What is it? I don't know." Gyp was as excited as though the box was for her. Jerry untied19 the cord and lifted the cover. Within, beneath the folds of tissue paper, lay two pretty dresses, a blue serge school dress and a fluffy20, shimmery21 party frock; beneath them a gay sweater and tam o'shanter. Upon a card, enclosed, had been written, plainly in Uncle Johnny's handwriting: "From Santa Claus."
Jerry did not know that ever since the eventful debate there had been much secret planning between Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley over her wardrobe. He had realized that night, for the first time, that Jerry, in her queer, country-made clothes, was at a disadvantage among the city girls and boys. It was all very well to argue that fine feathers did not make fine birds--Uncle Johnny knew the heart of a girl well enough to realize how much a pretty ribbon or a neat new dress could help one hold one's own! He had wanted to buy out almost an entire store, but Mrs. Westley had held him in restraint. "You may offend her and spoil your gift if you make it seem too much," she had warned him.
Jerry knew too little of the price of the materials that made up her precious dresses to be distressed22 with the gift. In rapture23 she kissed the shimmering24 blue folds. And Gyp executed a mad dance in the middle of the room.
"Now you've just got to go to the Everett party."
On Christmas afternoon Mrs. Allan walked into the Westley home. She and her husband had come to the Everetts for the holidays. She brought a little gift to Jerry from her mother. It was a daintily embroidered25 set of collar and cuffs26. Jerry pictured her mother in the lamplight of the dear living-room at Sunnyside, working the shining needle in and out and loving every stitch! Oh, it was much nicer than the grandest gift the stores could offer.
Christmas past, Gyp and Jerry thought of nothing but the Everett party. Isobel, flitting here and there like a pretty butterfly, divided her enthusiasm. She indulged in a patronizing attitude--she would go, of course, to the Everetts', though it was a kids' party and she'd probably be bored to death.
But within a few hours of the Great Event a horrible realization27 overtook Gyp's and Jerry's golden anticipation28. Santa Claus had forgotten to put any dancing shoes in the Christmas box!
The two girls shook their heads dolefully over Jerry's three pairs of square-toed shoes.
"I just can't wear one of them," cried Jerry.
Gyp would not be disappointed. "Then you'll have to squeeze your feet into my last summer's pumps. They won't hurt very much, and anyway, when the party begins you'll forget them!"
Jerry wanted so much to wear the new blue dress that she was persuaded. Gyp helped her get them on and Jerry stumped29 about in them--"to get used to them!"
"Now, do they hurt awfully30?" Gyp asked, in a tone that said, "Of course they don't," and Jerry, fascinated by the strange girl she saw in the mirror, answered absently: "Oh, they just feel queer!"
Anyway, going to a "real" party was too exciting to permit of thinking of one's feet. Jerry moved as though in a dream. Like Gyp, she felt delightfully31 grown-up. The spacious32, old-fashioned Everett home was gay with holiday greens, in one corner an orchestra played, Patricia with her mother and her older sister greeted each guest in such a jolly way that one felt in a moment that one was going to have the best sort of a time.
For awhile, very happily, Jerry trailed Gyp among the young people, exchanging merry greetings. Then suddenly dreadful pains began to cut sharply through her feet; they climbed higher and higher until they quivered up and down her spine33. Poor Jerry found it hard to keep the tears from her eyes. She limped to a half-hidden corner near the orchestra, and slipped off the offending pumps.
Isobel spied her in her hiding-place. Isobel did not know about the pumps--she thought Jerry had retreated there from shyness. A disdainful smile curled her pretty lips. She had had moments, since the debate, when her conscience had bothered her, the more so because Jerry had not told what had happened; but, as is sometimes the way, after such moments, she had hardened her heart all the more toward Jerry. She was savagely34 jealous, too, over Uncle Johnny's Christmas box to Jerry; she had figured that the dresses had cost a great deal more than the bracelet35 he had given her! So into her head flashed a plan that should have found no place there, for Isobel was indisputably the prettiest girl in the room and the most-sought-for dancing partner.
She beckoned36 gaily37 to Dana King. She would kill two birds with one stone, she thought--though not in just those words; she would have the pleasant satisfaction of seeing Jerry make a ridiculous figure of herself trying to dance (for Jerry had told her she only knew the "old-fashioned" dances) and she would see Dana King embarrassed before all the others! Isobel had never forgiven him for championing Jerry the night of the debate.
"Will you do me a favor, Dana?" she asked sweetly. "Dance with that poor Jerry Travis over there. She's perfectly38 miserable39."
Dana hastened, politely, to do what Isobel asked. He had never exchanged a word with Jerry; however, after the debate, no introduction seemed necessary. When Jerry saw him approach a flood of color dyed her cheeks--not from shyness, but because she did not know what to do with her unshod feet!
"Will you dance this, Miss Travis?"
Jerry lifted eyes dark with laughter. She did not look in the least "perfectly miserable." "I--I--can't!" She put out the tips of her unstockinged toes. Then she told him how she had had to wear Gyp's pumps. "And they hurt so dreadfully that I slipped them off and now nothing'll get them back on. I guess I've got to stay here the rest of my life."
There was something so refreshing40 in Jerry's frankness and unaffectedness that Dana King sat down eagerly beside her.
"Let me sit here and talk, then. Say, what on earth was the matter with you the night of the debate? Was it your shoes--then? You could have talked--I know!"
He spoke41 with such conviction that Jerry's eyes shone.
"No, it wasn't--entirely--my shoes. Something did happen--but I can't tell. Isn't this the jolliest party? I never went to one before--like this. There aren't this many people in all Miller's Notch42."
Isobel, watching Jerry's corner, grew very angry when she saw that Dana King lingered with Jerry. She wondered what on earth Jerry could be saying that made him laugh so heartily43; they were acting44 as though they had known one another all their lives.
Just as Dana King was asking Jerry what she would do if the midnight hour struck and found her slipperless, Mrs. Allan discovered them. She had to hear about the pumps, too.
"You blessed child, I'll get a pair of Pat's--they'd fit anything!" She returned in a few moments, two shiny, patent-leather toes protruding45 from the folds of her spangled scarf. Pat's pumps slipped easily over Jerry's poor swollen46 feet.
"There, now, Cinderella, let's go and get some ice cream." And Dana King led Jerry through the dancers, past Isobel and a fat boy whose curly red head only reached to her shoulder, to the dining-room where, around small tables, boys and girls were devouring47 all sorts of goodies.
The party was spoiled for Isobel; not so for Gyp who, besides having had the jolliest sort of a time herself, was bursting with satisfaction because Jerry had "captured" the most popular boy in the room.
"He sat out six dances with you--I counted! He took you to supper I heard him ask you, Jerry Travis, if you were going out to the school Frolic. And why did he call you Cinderella?" asked Gyp as the young people rode homeward.
Jerry had no intention of telling Isobel of the ignominy of the pumps, so she answered evasively: "Because it was my first party, I guess," then, with a long, happy sigh, she cuddled back against Gyp's shoulder and watched the street lamps flash past. Oh, surely the Wishing-rock had opened a wonderful new world to little Jerry!
"Did you tell him it was your first party?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Oh--nothing. I wouldn't have been honest 'nough to--I'd have pretended I'd gone to lots."
"I'm not going to the Frolic," Isobel broke in. "I'm too old for such things."
Gyp straightened indignantly.
"Too old to coast? Well, I hope I never grow as old as that!" she cried.
"You never will!" was Isobel's withering48 answer.
收听单词发音 |
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respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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milestone
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| n.里程碑；划时代的事件 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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consigning
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的现在分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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demurred
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| v.表示异议，反对( demur的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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shimmery
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| adj.微微发亮的 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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stumped
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的过去式和过去分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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bracelet
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| n.手镯，臂镯 | |
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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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notch
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| n.(V字形)槽口，缺口，等级 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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withering
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| 使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的 | |
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