"No," said Patty; "I think it's a bad habit. You see too many unpleasant things there."
"Well, there's certainly an unpleasant one to-day. Miss Skelling wishes the Old English class to be provided with writing materials this afternoon."
Patty stopped with a groan1. "I think it's absolutely abominable2 to give an examination without a word of warning."
"Not an examination," quoted Cathy; "just a 'little test to see how much you know.'"
"Nonsense, Patty; you know more than any one else in the class."
"Bluff4—it's all pure bluff. I come in strong on the literary criticism and the general discussions, and she never realizes that I don't know a word of the grammar."
"You've got two hours. You can cut your classes and review it up."
"Two hours!" said Patty, sadly. "I need two days. I've never learned it, I tell you. The Anglo-Saxon grammar is a thing no mortal can carry in his head, and I thought I might as well wait and learn it before examinations."
"I don't wish to appear unfeeling," laughed Cathy, "but I should say, my dear, that it serves you right."
"Oh, I dare say," said Patty. "You are as bad as Priscilla"; and she trailed gloomily homeward.
She found her friends reviewing biology and eating olives. "Have one?" asked Lucille Carter, who, provided with a hat-pin by way of fork, was presiding over the bottle for the moment.
"What's the matter?" inquired Priscilla. "You don't mean to say that woman has given you another special topic?"
"Worse than that!" and Patty laid bare the tragedy.
A sympathetic silence followed; they realized that while she was, perhaps, not strictly7 deserving of sympathy, still her impending8 fate was of the kind that might overtake any one.
"No," said Priscilla, soothingly10; "I don't believe you can."
"I shall flunk11 flat—absolutely flat. Miss Skelling will never have any confidence in me again, and will make me recite every bit of grammar for the rest of the semester."
"I should think you'd cut," ventured Georgie—that being, in her opinion, the most obvious method of escaping an examination.
"I can't. I just met Miss Skelling in the hall five minutes before the blow fell, and she knows I'm alive and able to be about; besides, the class meets again to-morrow morning, and I'd have to cram12 all night or cut that too."
"Why don't you go to Miss Skelling and frankly13 explain the situation," suggested Lucille the virtuous14, "and ask her to let you off for a day or two? She would like you all the better for it."
"Will you listen to the guileless babe!" said Patty. "What is there to explain, may I ask? I can't very well tell her that I prefer not to learn the lessons as she gives them out, but think it easier to wait and cram them up at one fell swoop15, just before examinations. That would ingratiate myself in her favor!"
"It's your own fault," said Priscilla.
"It's always true. Where are you going?" as Patty started for the door.
"I am going," said Patty, "to ask Mrs. Richards to give me a new room-mate: one who will understand and appreciate me, and sympathize with my afflictions."
Patty walked gloomily down the corridor, lost in meditation17. Her way led past the door of the doctor's office, which was standing18 invitingly19 open. Three or four girls were sitting around the room, laughing and talking and waiting their turns. Patty glanced in, and a radiant smile suddenly lightened her face, but it was instantly replaced by a look of settled sadness. She walked in and dropped into an arm-chair with a sigh.
"What's the matter, Patty? You look as if you had melancholia."
Patty smiled apathetically20. "Not quite so bad as that," she murmured, and leaned back and closed her eyes.
"Next," said the doctor from the doorway21; but as she caught sight of Patty she walked over and shook her arm. "Is this Patty Wyatt? What is the matter with you, child?"
Patty opened her eyes with a start. "Nothing," she said; "I'm just a little tired."
"Come in here with me."
"It's not my turn," objected Patty.
"That makes no difference," returned the doctor.
Patty dropped limply into the consulting-chair.
"Let me see your tongue. Um-m—isn't coated very much. Your pulse seems regular, though possibly a trifle feverish22. Have you been working hard?"
"I don't think I've been working any harder than usual," said Patty, truthfully.
"Sitting up late nights?"
Patty considered. "I was up rather late twice last week," she confessed.
"If you girls persist in studying until all hours of the night, I don't know what we doctors can do."
Patty did not think it necessary to explain that it was a Welsh-rabbit party on each occasion, so she merely sighed and looked out of the window.
"Is your appetite good?"
"Um-m," said the doctor.
"I'm just a little tired," pursued Patty, "but I think I shall be all right as soon as I get a chance to rest. Perhaps I need a tonic," she suggested.
"You'd better stay out of classes for a day or two and get thoroughly24 rested."
"Oh, no," said Patty, in evident perturbation. "Our room is so full of girls all the time that it's really more restful to go to classes; and, besides, I can't stay out just now."
"Why not?" demanded the doctor, suspiciously.
"Well," said Patty, a trifle reluctantly, "I have a good deal to do. I've got to cram for an examination, and—"
The word "cram" was to the doctor as a red rag to a bull. "Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "I know what I shall do with you. You are going right over to the infirmary for a few days—"
"Oh, doctor!" Patty pleaded, with tears in her eyes, "there's truly nothing the matter with me, and I've got to take that examination."
"What examination is it?"
"Old English—Miss Skelling."
"I will see Miss Skelling myself," said the doctor, "and explain that you cannot take the examination until you come out. And now," she added, making a note of Patty's case, "I will have you put in the convalescent ward5, and we will try the rest cure for a few days, and feed you up on chicken-broth and egg-nog, and see if we can get that appetite back."
"Thank you," said Patty, with the resigned air of one who has given up struggling against the inevitable25.
"I like to see you take an interest in your work," added the doctor, kindly26; "but you must always remember, my dear, that health is the first consideration."
"What's the matter?" exclaimed Priscilla. "Are you crazy?"
"No," said Patty; "only ill." And she went into her bedroom and began slinging28 things into a dress-suit case.
Priscilla stood in the doorway and watched her in amazement29. "Are you going to New York?" she asked.
"No," said Patty; "to the infirmary."
"Patty Wyatt, you're a wretched little hypocrite!"
"Not at all," said Patty, cheerfully. "I didn't ask to go, but the doctor simply insisted. I told her I had an examination, but she said it didn't make any difference; health must be the first consideration."
"What's in that bottle?" demanded Priscilla.
"That's for my appetite," said Patty, with a grin; "the doctor hopes to improve it. I didn't like to discourage her, but I don't much believe she can." She dropped an Old English grammar and a copy of "Beowulf" into her suit-case.
"They won't let you study," said Priscilla.
"I shall not ask them," said Patty. "Good-by. Tell the girls to drop in occasionally and see me in my incarceration30. Visiting hour from five to six." She stuck her head in again. "If any one wants to send violets, I think they might cheer me up."
The next afternoon Georgie and Priscilla presented themselves at the infirmary, and were met at the door by the austere31 figure of the head nurse. "I will see if Miss Wyatt is awake," she said dubiously32, "but I am afraid you will excite her; she's to be kept very quiet."
"Oh, no; we'll do her good," remonstrated33 Georgie; and the two girls tiptoed in after the nurse.
The convalescent ward was a large, airy room, furnished in green and white, with four or five beds, each surrounded with brass34 poles and curtains. Patty was lying in one of the corner beds near a window, propped35 up on pillows, with her hair tumbled about her face, and a table beside her covered with flowers and glasses of medicine. This elaborate paraphernalia36 of sickness created a momentary37 illusion in the minds of the visitors. Priscilla ran to the bedside and dropped on her knees beside her invalid38 room-mate.
"Patty dear," she said anxiously, "how do you feel?"
A seraphic smile spread over Patty's face. "I've been able to take a little nourishment39 to-day," she said.
"Patty, you're a scandalous humbug40! Who gave you those violets? 'With love, from Lady Clara Vere de Vere'—that blessed freshman41!—and you've borrowed every drop of alcohol the poor child ever thought of owning. And whom are those roses from? Miss Skelling! Patty, you ought to be ashamed."
Patty had the grace to blush slightly. "I was a trifle embarrassed," she admitted; "but when I reflected upon how sorry she would have been to find out how little I knew, and how glad she will be to find out how much I know, my conscience was appeased42."
"Have you been studying?" asked Georgie.
"Studying!" Patty lifted up the corner of her pillow and exhibited a blue book. "Two days more of this, and I shall be the chief authority in America on Anglo-Saxon roots."
"How do you manage it?"
"Oh," said Patty, "when the rest-hour begins I lie down and shut my eyes, and they tiptoe over and look at me, and whisper, 'She's asleep,' and softly draw the curtains around the bed; and I get out the book and put in two solid hours of irregular verbs, and am still sleeping when they come to look at me. They're perfectly43 astonished at the amount I sleep. I heard the nurse telling the doctor that she didn't believe I'd had any sleep for a month. And the worst of it is," she added, "that I am tired, whether you believe it or not, and I should just love to stay over here and sleep all day if I weren't so beastly conscientious44 about that old grammar."
"Poor Patty!" laughed Georgie. "She will be imposing45 on herself next, as well as on the whole college."
Friday morning Patty returned to the world.
"How's Old English?" inquired Priscilla.
"Very well, thank you. It was something of a cram, but I think I know that grammar by heart, from the preface to the index."
"You're back in all your other work. Do you think it paid?"
She knocked on Miss Skelling's door, and, after the first polite greetings, stated her errand: "I should like, if it is convenient for you, to take the examination I missed."
"Do you feel able to take it to-day?"
"I feel much better able to take it to-day than I did on Tuesday."
Miss Skelling smiled kindly. "You have done very good work in Old English this semester, Miss Wyatt, and I should not ask you to take the examination at all if I thought it would be fair to the rest of the class."
"Fair to the rest of the class?" Patty looked a trifle blank; she had not considered this aspect of the question, and a slow red flush crept over her face. She hesitated a moment, and rose uncertainly. "When it comes to that, Miss Skelling," she confessed, "I'm afraid it wouldn't be quite fair to the rest of the class for me to take it."
Miss Skelling did not understand. "But, Miss Wyatt," she expostulated in a puzzled tone, "it was not difficult. I am sure you could pass."
Patty smiled. "I am sure I could, Miss Skelling. I don't believe you could ask me a question that I couldn't answer. But the point is that it's all learned since Tuesday. The doctor was laboring47 under a little delusion—very natural under the circumstances—when she sent me to the infirmary, and I spent my time there studying."
"But, Miss Wyatt, this is very unusual. I shall not know how to mark you," Miss Skelling murmured in some distress48.
"Oh, mark me zero," said Patty, cheerfully. "It doesn't matter in the least—I know such a lot that I'll get through on the finals. Good-by; I'm sorry to have troubled you." And she closed the door and turned thoughtfully homeward.
"Did it pay?" asked Priscilla.
Patty laughed and murmured softly:
"'The King of France rode up the hill with full ten thousand men;
The King of France did gain the top, and then rode down again.'"
"What are you talking about?" demanded Priscilla.
"Old English," said Patty, as she sat down at her desk and commenced on the three days' work she had missed.
该作者的其它作品
《DADDY-LONG-LEGS 长腿叔叔》
《The Wheat Princess小麦公主》
该作者的其它作品
《DADDY-LONG-LEGS 长腿叔叔》
《The Wheat Princess小麦公主》
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1
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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3
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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5
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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6
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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7
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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8
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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9
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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10
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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11
flunk
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| v.(考试)不及格(=fail) | |
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12
cram
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| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
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13
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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14
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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15
swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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16
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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17
meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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18
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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invitingly
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| adv. 动人地 | |
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apathetically
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| adv.不露感情地；无动于衷地；不感兴趣地；冷淡地 | |
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21
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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22
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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23
belied
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| v.掩饰( belie的过去式和过去分词 )；证明（或显示）…为虚假；辜负；就…扯谎 | |
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24
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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27
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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28
slinging
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| 抛( sling的现在分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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29
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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30
incarceration
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| n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭 | |
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31
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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32
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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33
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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34
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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35
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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37
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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38
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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39
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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40
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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41
freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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42
appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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43
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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44
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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45
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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46
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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47
laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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48
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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