At the end of June our school concert came off and was a great event in our young lives. It was the first appearance of most of us on any platform, and some of us were very nervous. We all had recitations, except Dan, who had refused flatly to take any part and was consequently care-free.
“I’m sure I shall die when I find myself up on that platform, facing people,” sighed Sara Ray, as we talked the affair over in Uncle Stephen’s Walk the night before the concert.
“I’m afraid I’ll faint,” was Cecily’s more moderate foreboding.
“I’m not one single bit nervous,” said Felicity complacently6.
“I’m not nervous this time,” said the Story Girl, “but the first time I recited I was.”
“My Aunt Jane,” remarked Peter, “used to say that an old teacher of hers told her that when she was going to recite or speak in public she must just get it firmly into her mind that it was only a lot of cabbage heads she had before her, and she wouldn’t be nervous.”
“One mightn’t be nervous, but I don’t think there would be much inspiration in reciting to cabbage heads,” said the Story Girl decidedly. “I want to recite to PEOPLE, and see them looking interested and thrilled.”
“If I can only get through my piece without breaking down I don’t care whether I thrill people or not,” said Sara Ray.
“I’m afraid I’ll forget mine and get stuck,” foreboded Felix. “Some of you fellows be sure and prompt me if I do—and do it quick, so’s I won’t get worse rattled7.”
“I know one thing,” said Cecily resolutely8, “and that is, I’m going to curl my hair for to-morrow night. I’ve never curled it since Peter almost died, but I simply must tomorrow night, for all the other girls are going to have theirs in curls.”
“The dew and heat will take all the curl out of yours and then you’ll look like a scarecrow,” warned Felicity.
“No, I won’t. I’m going to put my hair up in paper tonight and wet it with a curling-fluid that Judy Pineau uses. Sara brought me up a bottle of it. Judy says it is great stuff—your hair will keep in curl for days, no matter how damp the weather is. I’ll leave my hair in the papers till tomorrow evening, and then I’ll have beautiful curls.”
“You’d better leave your hair alone,” said Dan gruffly. “Smooth hair is better than a lot of fly-away curls.”
“Yes. I didn’t believe in it but I tried it. For the first few days afterwards I kept watching my warts, but they didn’t go away, and then I gave up and forgot them. But one day last week I just happened to look at my hands and there wasn’t a wart10 to be seen. It was the most amazing thing.”
“And yet you’ll say Peg Bowen isn’t a witch,” said Peter.
“It was a dry old potato I had, and there wasn’t much juice in it,” said Sara Ray. “One hardly knows what to believe. But one thing is certain—my warts are gone.”
Cecily put her hair up in curl-papers that night, thoroughly14 soaked in Judy Pineau’s curling-fluid. It was a nasty job, for the fluid was very sticky, but Cecily persevered15 and got it done. Then she went to bed with a towel tied over her head to protect the pillow. She did not sleep well and had uncanny dreams, but she came down to breakfast with an expression of triumph. The Story Girl examined her head critically and said,
“Cecily, if I were you I’d take those papers out this morning.”
“Oh, no; if I do my hair will be straight again by night. I mean to leave them in till the last minute.”
“I wouldn’t do that—I really wouldn’t,” persisted the Story Girl. “If you do your hair will be too curly and all bushy and fuzzy.”
Cecily finally yielded and went upstairs with the Story Girl. Presently we heard a little shriek—then two little shrieks—then three. Then Felicity came flying down and called her mother. Aunt Janet went up and presently came down again with a grim mouth. She filled a large pan with warm water and carried it upstairs. We dared ask her no questions, but when Felicity came down to wash the dishes we bombarded her.
“What on earth is the matter with Cecily?” demanded Dan. “Is she sick?”
“No, she isn’t. I warned her not to put her hair in curls but she wouldn’t listen to me. I guess she wishes she had now. When people haven’t natural curly hair they shouldn’t try to make it curly. They get punished if they do.”
“Look here, Felicity, never mind all that. Just tell us what has happened Sis.”
“Well, this is what has happened her. That ninny of a Sara Ray brought up a bottle of mucilage instead of Judy’s curling-fluid, and Cecily put her hair up with THAT. It’s in an awful state.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Dan. “Look here, will she ever get it out?”
“Goodness knows. She’s got her head in soak now. Her hair is just matted together hard as a board. That’s what comes of vanity,” said Felicity, than whom no vainer girl existed.
Poor Cecily paid dearly enough for HER vanity. She spent a bad forenoon, made no easier by her mother’s severe rebukes16. For an hour she “soaked” her head; that is, she stood over a panful of warm water and kept dipping her head in with tightly shut eyes. Finally her hair softened17 sufficiently18 to be disentangled from the curl papers; and then Aunt Janet subjected it to a merciless shampoo. Eventually they got all the mucilage washed out of it and Cecily spent the remainder of the forenoon sitting before the open oven door in the hot kitchen drying her ill-used tresses. She felt very down-hearted; her hair was of that order which, glossy19 and smooth normally, is dry and harsh and lustreless20 for several days after being shampooed.
“I’ll look like a fright tonight,” said the poor child to me with trembling voice. “The ends will be sticking out all over my head.”
“Sara Ray is a perfect idiot,” I said wrathfully
“Oh, don’t be hard on poor Sara. She didn’t mean to bring me mucilage. It’s really all my own fault, I know. I made a solemn vow21 when Peter was dying that I would never curl my hair again, and I should have kept it. It isn’t right to break solemn vows22. But my hair will look like dried hay tonight.”
Poor Sara Ray was quite overwhelmed when she came up and found what she had done. Felicity was very hard on her, and Aunt Janet was coldly disapproving23, but sweet Cecily forgave her unreservedly, and they walked to the school that night with their arms about each other’s waists as usual.
The school-room was crowded with friends and neighbours. Mr. Perkins was flying about, getting things into readiness, and Miss Reade, who was the organist of the evening, was sitting on the platform, looking her sweetest and prettiest. She wore a delightful24 white lace hat with a fetching little wreath of tiny forget-me-nots around the brim, a white muslin dress with sprays of blue violets scattered25 over it, and a black lace scarf.
“Doesn’t she look angelic?” said Cecily rapturously.
“Mind you,” said Sara Ray, “the Awkward Man is here—in the corner behind the door. I never remember seeing him at a concert before.”
“I suppose he came to hear the Story Girl recite,” said Felicity. “He is such a friend of hers.”
The concert went off very well. Dialogues, choruses and recitations followed each other in rapid succession. Felix got through his without “getting stuck,” and Peter did excellently, though he stuffed his hands in his trousers pockets—a habit of which Mr. Perkins had vainly tried to break him. Peter’s recitation was one greatly in vogue26 at that time, beginning,
“My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father feeds his flocks.”
At our first practice Peter had started gaily27 in, rushing through the first line with no thought whatever of punctuation—“My name is Norval on the Grampian Hills.”
“Stop, stop, Peter,” quoth Mr. Perkins, sarcastically28, “your name might be Norval if you were never on the Grampian Hills. There’s a semi-colon in that line, I wish you to remember.”
Peter did remember it. Cecily neither fainted nor failed when it came her turn. She recited her little piece very well, though somewhat mechanically. I think she really did much better than if she had had her desired curls. The miserable29 conviction that her hair, alone among that glossy-tressed bevy30, was looking badly, quite blotted31 out all nervousness and self-consciousness from her mind. Her hair apart, she looked very pretty. The prevailing32 excitement had made bright her eye and flushed her cheeks rosily33—too rosily, perhaps. I heard a Carlisle woman behind me whisper that Cecily King looked consumptive, just like her Aunt Felicity; and I hated her fiercely for it.
Sara Ray also managed to get through respectably, although she was pitiably nervous. Her bow was naught34 but a short nod—“as if her head worked on wires,” whispered Felicity uncharitably—and the wave of her lily-white hand more nearly resembled an agonized35 jerk than a wave. We all felt relieved when she finished. She was, in a sense, one of “our crowd,” and we had been afraid she would disgrace us by breaking down.
Felicity followed her and recited her selection without haste, without rest, and absolutely without any expression whatever. But what mattered it how she recited? To look at her was sufficient. What with her splendid fleece of golden curls, her great, brilliant blue eyes, her exquisitely36 tinted37 face, her dimpled hands and arms, every member of the audience must have felt it was worth the ten cents he had paid merely to see her.
The Story Girl followed. An expectant silence fell over the room, and Mr. Perkins’ face lost the look of tense anxiety it had worn all the evening. Here was a performer who could be depended on. No need to fear stage fright or forgetfulness on her part. The Story Girl was not looking her best that night. White never became her, and her face was pale, though her eyes were splendid. But nobody thought about her appearance when the power and magic of her voice caught and held her listeners spellbound.
Her recitation was an old one, figuring in one of the School Readers, and we scholars all knew it off by heart. Sara Ray alone had not heard the Story Girl recite it. The latter had not been drilled at practices as had the other pupils, Mr. Perkins choosing not to waste time teaching her what she already knew far better than he did. The only time she had recited it had been at the “dress rehearsal” two nights before, at which Sara Ray had not been present.
In the poem a Florentine lady of old time, wedded38 to a cold and cruel husband, had died, or was supposed to have died, and had been carried to “the rich, the beautiful, the dreadful tomb” of her proud family. In the night she wakened from her trance and made her escape. Chilled and terrified, she had made her way to her husband’s door, only to be driven away brutally39 as a restless ghost by the horror-stricken inmates40. A similar reception awaited her at her father’s. Then she had wandered blindly through the streets of Florence until she had fallen exhausted41 at the door of the lover of her girlhood. He, unafraid, had taken her in and cared for her. On the morrow, the husband and father, having discovered the empty tomb, came to claim her. She refused to return to them and the case was carried to the court of law. The verdict given was that a woman who had been “to burial borne” and left for dead, who had been driven from her husband’s door and from her childhood home, “must be adjudged as dead in law and fact,” was no more daughter or wife, but was set free to form what new ties she would. The climax42 of the whole selection came in the line,
“The court pronounces the defendant—DEAD!” and the Story Girl was wont43 to render it with such dramatic intensity44 and power that the veriest dullard among her listeners could not have missed its force and significance.
She swept along through the poem royally, playing on the emotions of her audience as she had so often played on ours in the old orchard45. Pity, terror, indignation, suspense46, possessed her hearers in turn. In the court scene she surpassed herself. She was, in very truth, the Florentine judge, stern, stately, impassive. Her voice dropped into the solemnity of the all-important line,
“‘The court pronounces the defendant—‘”
The effect, to use a hackneyed but convenient phrase, can better be imagined than described. Instead of the sigh of relieved tension that should have swept over the audience at the conclusion of the line, a burst of laughter greeted it. The Story Girl’s performance was completely spoiled. She dealt the luckless Sara a glance that would have slain50 her on the spot could glances kill, stumbled lamely51 and impotently through the few remaining lines of her recitation, and fled with crimson52 cheeks to hide her mortification53 in the little corner that had been curtained off for a dressing-room. Mr. Perkins looked things not lawful54 to be uttered, and the audience tittered at intervals55 for the rest of the performance.
Sara Ray alone remained serenely56 satisfied until the close of the concert, when we surrounded her with a whirlwind of reproaches.
“Why,” she stammered57 aghast, “what did I do? I—I thought she was stuck and that I ought to prompt her quick.”
“You little fool, she just paused for effect,” cried Felicity angrily. Felicity might be rather jealous of the Story Girl’s gift, but she was furious at beholding58 “one of our family” made ridiculous in such a fashion. “You have less sense than anyone I ever heard of, Sara Ray.”
Poor Sara dissolved in tears.
She cried all the way home, but we did not try to comfort her. We felt quite out of patience with her. Even Cecily was seriously annoyed. This second blunder of Sara’s was too much even for her loyalty60. We saw her turn in at her own gate and go sobbing61 up her lane with no relenting.
The Story Girl was home before us, having fled from the schoolhouse as soon as the programme was over. We tried to sympathize with her but she would not be sympathized with.
“Please don’t ever mention it to me again,” she said, with compressed lips. “I never want to be reminded of it. Oh, that little IDIOT!”
“She spoiled Peter’s sermon last summer and now she’s spoiled your recitation,” said Felicity. “I think it’s time we gave up associating with Sara Ray.”
“Oh, don’t be quite so hard on her,” pleaded Cecily. “Think of the life the poor child has to live at home. I know she’ll cry all night.”
“Oh, let’s go to bed,” growled62 Dan. “I’m good and ready for it. I’ve had enough of school concerts.”
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收听单词发音
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1
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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2
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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3
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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4
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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5
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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7
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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8
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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10
wart
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| n.疣，肉赘；瑕疵 | |
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warts
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| n.疣( wart的名词复数 )；肉赘；树瘤；缺点 | |
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12
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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13
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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15
persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
rebukes
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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17
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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18
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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19
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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20
lustreless
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| adj.无光泽的，无光彩的，平淡乏味的 | |
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21
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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22
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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23
disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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24
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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25
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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26
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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27
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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28
sarcastically
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| adv.挖苦地，讽刺地 | |
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29
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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30
bevy
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| n.一群 | |
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31
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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32
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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33
rosily
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| adv.带玫瑰色地，乐观地 | |
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34
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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35
agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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36
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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37
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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38
wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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40
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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41
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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42
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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43
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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44
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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45
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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46
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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47
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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48
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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49
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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50
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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51
lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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52
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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53
mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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54
lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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55
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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56
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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57
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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59
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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61
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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62
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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