章节正文
"Come in--we are glad to see you. We've been looking for you for
ever so long."
"Are your father and mother at home?" asked Aunt Eliza, slowly.
"No, they went to town today. But they'll be home this evening."
"I'm sorry they're away," said Aunt Eliza, coming in, "because I
can stay only a few hours."
"Oh, that's too bad," shouted poor Felicity, darting an angry
glance at the rest of us, as if to demand why we didn't help her
out. "Why, we've been thinking you'd stay a week with us anyway.
You MUST stay over Sunday."
"I really can't. I have to go to Charlottetown tonight," returned
Aunt Eliza.
"Well, you'll take off your things and stay to tea, at least,"
urged Felicity, as hospitably as her strained vocal chords would
admit.
"Yes, I think I'll do that. I want to get acquainted with my--my
nephews and nieces," said Aunt Eliza, with a rather pleasant
glance around our group. If I could have associated the thought
of such a thing with my preconception of Great-aunt Eliza I could
have sworn there was a twinkle in her eye. But of course it was
impossible. "Won't you introduce yourselves, please?"
Felicity shouted our names and Great-aunt Eliza shook hands all
round. She performed the duty grimly and I concluded I must have
been mistaken about the twinkle. She was certainly very tall and
dignified and imposing--altogether a great-aunt to be respected.
Felicity and Cecily took her to the spare room and then left her
in the sitting-room while they returned to the kitchen, to discuss
the matter in family conclave.
"Well, and what do you think of dear Aunt Eliza?" asked Dan.
"S-s-s-sh," warned Cecily, with a glance at the half-open hall door.
"Pshaw," scoffed Dan, "she can't hear us. There ought to be a law
against anyone being as deaf as that."
"She's not so old-looking as I expected," said Felix. "If her
hair wasn't so white she wouldn't look much older than your mother."
"You don't have to be very old to be a great-aunt," said Cecily.
"Kitty Marr has a great-aunt who is just the same age as her
mother. I expect it was burying so many husbands turned her hair
white. But Aunt Eliza doesn't look just as I expected she would
either."
"She's dressed more stylishly than I expected," said Felicity. "I
thought she'd be real old-fashioned, but her clothes aren't too
bad at all."
"She wouldn't be bad-looking if 'tweren't for her nose," said
Peter. "It's too long, and crooked besides."
"You needn't criticize our relations like that," said Felicity
tartly.
"Well, aren't you doing it yourselves?" expostulated Peter.
"That's different," retorted Felicity. "Never you mind Great-aunt
Eliza's nose."
"Well, don't expect me to talk to her," said Dan, "'cause I won't."
"I'm going to be very polite to her," said Felicity. "She's rich.
But how are we to entertain her, that's the question."
"What does the Family Guide say about entertaining your rich, deaf
old aunt?" queried Dan ironically.
"The Family Guide says we should be polite to EVERYBODY," said
Cecily, with a reproachful look at Dan.
"The worst of it is," said Felicity, looking worried, "that there
isn't a bit of old bread in the house and she can't eat new, I've
heard father say. It gives her indigestion. What will we do?"
"Make a pan of rusks and apologize for having no old bread,"
suggested the Story Girl, probably by way of teasing Felicity.
The latter, however, took it in all good faith.
"The Family Guide says we should never apologize for things we
can't help. It says it's adding insult to injury to do it. But
you run over home for a loaf of stale bread, Sara, and it's a good
idea about the rusks. I'll make a panful."
"Let me make them," said the Story Girl, eagerly. "I can make
real good rusks now."
"No, it wouldn't do to trust you," said Felicity mercilessly.
"You might make some queer mistake and Aunt Eliza would tell it
all over the country. She's a fearful old gossip. I'll make the
rusks myself. She hates cats, so we mustn't let Paddy be seen.
And she's a Methodist, so mind nobody says anything against
Methodists to her."
"Who's going to say anything, anyhow?" asked Peter belligerently.
"I wonder if I might ask her for her name for my quilt square?"
speculated Cecily. "I believe I will. She looks so much
friendlier than I expected. Of course she'll choose the five-cent
section. She's an estimable old lady, but very economical."
"Why don't you say she's so mean she'd skin a flea for its hide
and tallow?" said Dan. "That's the plain truth."
"Well, I'm going to see about getting tea," said Felicity, "so the
rest of you will have to entertain her. You better go in and show
her the photographs in the album. Dan, you do it."
"Thank you, that's a girl's job," said Dan. "I'd look nice
sitting up to Aunt Eliza and yelling out that this was Uncle Jim
and 'tother Cousin Sarah's twins, wouldn't I? Cecily or the Story
Girl can do it."
"I don't know all the pictures in your album," said the Story Girl
hastily.
"I s'pose I'll have to do it, though I don't like to," sighed
Cecily. "But we ought to go in. We've left her alone too long
now. She'll think we have no manners."
Accordingly we all filed in rather reluctantly. Great-aunt Eliza
was toasting her toes--clad, as we noted, in very smart and
shapely shoes--at the stove and looking quite at her ease.
Cecily, determined to do her duty even in the face of such fearful
odds as Great-aunt Eliza's deafness, dragged a ponderous, plush-
covered album from its corner and proceeded to display and explain
the family photographs. She did her brave best but she could not
shout like Felicity, and half the time, as she confided to me
later on, she felt that Great-aunt Eliza did not hear one word she
said, because she didn't seem to take in who the people were,
though, just like all deaf folks, she wouldn't let on. Great-aunt
Eliza certainly didn't talk much; she looked at the photographs in
silence, but she smiled now and then. That smile bothered me. It
was so twinkly and so very un-great-aunt-Elizaish. But I felt
indignant with her. I thought she might have shown a little more
appreciation of Cecily's gallant efforts to entertain.
It was very dull for the rest of us. The Story Girl sat rather
sulkily in her corner; she was angry because Felicity would not
let her make the rusks, and also, perhaps, a little vexed because
she could not charm Great-aunt Eliza with her golden voice and
story-telling gift. Felix and I looked at each other and wished
ourselves out in the hill field, careering gloriously adown its
gleaming crust.
But presently a little amusement came our way. Dan, who was
sitting behind Great-aunt Eliza, and consequently out of her view,
began making comments on Cecily's explanation of this one and that
one among the photographs. In vain Cecily implored him to stop.
It was too good fun to give up. For the next half-hour the
dialogue ran after this fashion, while Peter and Felix and I, and
even the Story Girl, suffered agonies trying to smother our bursts
of laughter--for Great-aunt Eliza could see if she couldn't hear:
CECILY, SHOUTING:--"That is Mr. Joseph Elliott of Markdale, a
second cousin of mother's."
DAN:--"Don't brag of it, Sis. He's the man who was asked if
somebody else said something in sincerity and old Joe said 'No, he
said it in my cellar.'"
CECILY:--"This isn't anybody in our family. It's little Xavy
Gautier who used to be hired with Uncle Roger."
DAN:--"Uncle Roger sent him to fix a gate one day and scolded him
because he didn't do it right, and Xavy was mad as hops and said
'How you 'spect me to fix dat gate? I never learned jogerfy.'"
CECILY, WITH AN ANGUISHED GLANCE AT DAN:--"This is Great-uncle
Robert King."
DAN:--"He's been married four times. Don't you think that's often
enough, dear great-aunty?"
CECILY:--"(Dan!!) This is a nephew of Mr. Ambrose Marr's. He
lives out west and teaches school."
DAN:--"Yes, and Uncle Roger says he doesn't know enough not to
sleep in a field with the gate open."
CECILY:--"This is Miss Julia Stanley, who used to teach in
Carlisle a few years ago."
DAN:--"When she resigned the trustees had a meeting to see if
they'd ask her to stay and raise her supplement. Old Highland
Sandy was alive then and he got up and said, 'If she for go let
her for went. Perhaps she for marry.'"
CECILY, WITH THE AIR OF A MARTYR:--"This is Mr. Layton, who used
to travel around selling Bibles and hymn books and Talmage's
sermons."
DAN:--"He was so thin Uncle Roger used to say he always mistook
him for a crack in the atmosphere. One time he stayed here all
night and went to prayer meeting and Mr. Marwood asked him to lead
in prayer. It had been raining 'most every day for three weeks,
and it was just in haymaking time, and everybody thought the hay
was going to be ruined, and old Layton got up and prayed that God
would send gentle showers on the growing crops, and I heard Uncle
Roger whisper to a fellow behind me, 'If somebody don't choke him
off we won't get the hay made this summer.'"
CECILY, IN EXASPERATION:--"(Dan, shame on you for telling such
irreverent stories.) This is Mrs. Alexander Scott of Markdale.
She has been very sick for a long time."
DAN:--"Uncle Roger says all that keeps her alive is that she's
scared her husband will marry again."
CECILY:--"This is old Mr. James MacPherson who used to live behind
the graveyard."
DAN:--"He's the man who told mother once that he always made his
own iodine out of strong tea and baking soda."
CECILY:--"This is Cousin Ebenezer MacPherson on the Markdale
road."
DAN:--"Great temperance man! He never tasted rum in his life. He
took the measles when he was forty-five and was crazy as a loon
with them, and the doctor ordered them to give him a dose of
brandy. When he swallowed it he looked up and says, solemn as an
owl, 'Give it to me oftener and more at a time.'"
CECILY, IMPLORINGLY:--"(Dan, do stop. You make me so nervous I
don't know what I'm doing.) This is Mr. Lemuel Goodridge. He is a
minister."
DAN:--"You ought to see his mouth. Uncle Roger says the drawing
string has fell out of it. It just hangs loose--so fashion."
Dan, whose own mouth was far from being beautiful, here gave an
imitation of the Rev. Lemuel's, to the utter undoing of Peter,
Felix, and myself. Our wild guffaws of laughter penetrated even
Great-aunt Eliza's deafness, and she glanced up with a startled
face. What we would have done I do not know had not Felicity at
that moment appeared in the doorway with panic-stricken eyes and
exclaimed,
"Cecily, come here for a moment."
Cecily, glad of even a temporaryrespite, fled to the kitchen and
we heard her demanding what was the matter.
"Matter!" exclaimed Felicity, tragically. "Matter enough! Some of
you left a soup plate with molasses in it on the pantry table and
Pat got into it and what do you think? He went into the spare room
and walked all over Aunt Eliza's things on the bed. You can see
his tracks plain as plain. What in the world can we do? She'll be
simply furious."
I looked apprehensively at Great-aunt Eliza; but she was gazing
intently at a picture of Aunt Janet's sister's twins, a most
stolid, uninteresting pair; but evidently Great-aunt Eliza found
them amusing for she was smiling widely over them.
ever so long."
"Are your father and mother at home?" asked Aunt Eliza, slowly.
"No, they went to town today. But they'll be home this evening."
"I'm sorry they're away," said Aunt Eliza, coming in, "because I
can stay only a few hours."
"Oh, that's too bad," shouted poor Felicity, darting an angry
glance at the rest of us, as if to demand why we didn't help her
out. "Why, we've been thinking you'd stay a week with us anyway.
You MUST stay over Sunday."
"I really can't. I have to go to Charlottetown tonight," returned
Aunt Eliza.
"Well, you'll take off your things and stay to tea, at least,"
urged Felicity, as hospitably as her strained vocal chords would
admit.
"Yes, I think I'll do that. I want to get acquainted with my--my
nephews and nieces," said Aunt Eliza, with a rather pleasant
glance around our group. If I could have associated the thought
of such a thing with my preconception of Great-aunt Eliza I could
have sworn there was a twinkle in her eye. But of course it was
impossible. "Won't you introduce yourselves, please?"
Felicity shouted our names and Great-aunt Eliza shook hands all
round. She performed the duty grimly and I concluded I must have
been mistaken about the twinkle. She was certainly very tall and
dignified and imposing--altogether a great-aunt to be respected.
Felicity and Cecily took her to the spare room and then left her
in the sitting-room while they returned to the kitchen, to discuss
the matter in family conclave.
"Well, and what do you think of dear Aunt Eliza?" asked Dan.
"S-s-s-sh," warned Cecily, with a glance at the half-open hall door.
"Pshaw," scoffed Dan, "she can't hear us. There ought to be a law
against anyone being as deaf as that."
"She's not so old-looking as I expected," said Felix. "If her
hair wasn't so white she wouldn't look much older than your mother."
"You don't have to be very old to be a great-aunt," said Cecily.
"Kitty Marr has a great-aunt who is just the same age as her
mother. I expect it was burying so many husbands turned her hair
white. But Aunt Eliza doesn't look just as I expected she would
either."
"She's dressed more stylishly than I expected," said Felicity. "I
thought she'd be real old-fashioned, but her clothes aren't too
bad at all."
"She wouldn't be bad-looking if 'tweren't for her nose," said
Peter. "It's too long, and crooked besides."
"You needn't criticize our relations like that," said Felicity
tartly.
"Well, aren't you doing it yourselves?" expostulated Peter.
"That's different," retorted Felicity. "Never you mind Great-aunt
Eliza's nose."
"Well, don't expect me to talk to her," said Dan, "'cause I won't."
"I'm going to be very polite to her," said Felicity. "She's rich.
But how are we to entertain her, that's the question."
"What does the Family Guide say about entertaining your rich, deaf
old aunt?" queried Dan ironically.
"The Family Guide says we should be polite to EVERYBODY," said
Cecily, with a reproachful look at Dan.
"The worst of it is," said Felicity, looking worried, "that there
isn't a bit of old bread in the house and she can't eat new, I've
heard father say. It gives her indigestion. What will we do?"
"Make a pan of rusks and apologize for having no old bread,"
suggested the Story Girl, probably by way of teasing Felicity.
The latter, however, took it in all good faith.
"The Family Guide says we should never apologize for things we
can't help. It says it's adding insult to injury to do it. But
you run over home for a loaf of stale bread, Sara, and it's a good
idea about the rusks. I'll make a panful."
"Let me make them," said the Story Girl, eagerly. "I can make
real good rusks now."
"No, it wouldn't do to trust you," said Felicity mercilessly.
"You might make some queer mistake and Aunt Eliza would tell it
all over the country. She's a fearful old gossip. I'll make the
rusks myself. She hates cats, so we mustn't let Paddy be seen.
And she's a Methodist, so mind nobody says anything against
Methodists to her."
"Who's going to say anything, anyhow?" asked Peter belligerently.
"I wonder if I might ask her for her name for my quilt square?"
speculated Cecily. "I believe I will. She looks so much
friendlier than I expected. Of course she'll choose the five-cent
section. She's an estimable old lady, but very economical."
"Why don't you say she's so mean she'd skin a flea for its hide
and tallow?" said Dan. "That's the plain truth."
"Well, I'm going to see about getting tea," said Felicity, "so the
rest of you will have to entertain her. You better go in and show
her the photographs in the album. Dan, you do it."
"Thank you, that's a girl's job," said Dan. "I'd look nice
sitting up to Aunt Eliza and yelling out that this was Uncle Jim
and 'tother Cousin Sarah's twins, wouldn't I? Cecily or the Story
Girl can do it."
"I don't know all the pictures in your album," said the Story Girl
hastily.
"I s'pose I'll have to do it, though I don't like to," sighed
Cecily. "But we ought to go in. We've left her alone too long
now. She'll think we have no manners."
Accordingly we all filed in rather reluctantly. Great-aunt Eliza
was toasting her toes--clad, as we noted, in very smart and
shapely shoes--at the stove and looking quite at her ease.
Cecily, determined to do her duty even in the face of such fearful
odds as Great-aunt Eliza's deafness, dragged a ponderous, plush-
covered album from its corner and proceeded to display and explain
the family photographs. She did her brave best but she could not
shout like Felicity, and half the time, as she confided to me
later on, she felt that Great-aunt Eliza did not hear one word she
said, because she didn't seem to take in who the people were,
though, just like all deaf folks, she wouldn't let on. Great-aunt
Eliza certainly didn't talk much; she looked at the photographs in
silence, but she smiled now and then. That smile bothered me. It
was so twinkly and so very un-great-aunt-Elizaish. But I felt
indignant with her. I thought she might have shown a little more
appreciation of Cecily's gallant efforts to entertain.
It was very dull for the rest of us. The Story Girl sat rather
sulkily in her corner; she was angry because Felicity would not
let her make the rusks, and also, perhaps, a little vexed because
she could not charm Great-aunt Eliza with her golden voice and
story-telling gift. Felix and I looked at each other and wished
ourselves out in the hill field, careering gloriously adown its
gleaming crust.
But presently a little amusement came our way. Dan, who was
sitting behind Great-aunt Eliza, and consequently out of her view,
began making comments on Cecily's explanation of this one and that
one among the photographs. In vain Cecily implored him to stop.
It was too good fun to give up. For the next half-hour the
dialogue ran after this fashion, while Peter and Felix and I, and
even the Story Girl, suffered agonies trying to smother our bursts
of laughter--for Great-aunt Eliza could see if she couldn't hear:
CECILY, SHOUTING:--"That is Mr. Joseph Elliott of Markdale, a
second cousin of mother's."
DAN:--"Don't brag of it, Sis. He's the man who was asked if
somebody else said something in sincerity and old Joe said 'No, he
said it in my cellar.'"
CECILY:--"This isn't anybody in our family. It's little Xavy
Gautier who used to be hired with Uncle Roger."
DAN:--"Uncle Roger sent him to fix a gate one day and scolded him
because he didn't do it right, and Xavy was mad as hops and said
'How you 'spect me to fix dat gate? I never learned jogerfy.'"
CECILY, WITH AN ANGUISHED GLANCE AT DAN:--"This is Great-uncle
Robert King."
DAN:--"He's been married four times. Don't you think that's often
enough, dear great-aunty?"
CECILY:--"(Dan!!) This is a nephew of Mr. Ambrose Marr's. He
lives out west and teaches school."
DAN:--"Yes, and Uncle Roger says he doesn't know enough not to
sleep in a field with the gate open."
CECILY:--"This is Miss Julia Stanley, who used to teach in
Carlisle a few years ago."
DAN:--"When she resigned the trustees had a meeting to see if
they'd ask her to stay and raise her supplement. Old Highland
Sandy was alive then and he got up and said, 'If she for go let
her for went. Perhaps she for marry.'"
CECILY, WITH THE AIR OF A MARTYR:--"This is Mr. Layton, who used
to travel around selling Bibles and hymn books and Talmage's
sermons."
DAN:--"He was so thin Uncle Roger used to say he always mistook
him for a crack in the atmosphere. One time he stayed here all
night and went to prayer meeting and Mr. Marwood asked him to lead
in prayer. It had been raining 'most every day for three weeks,
and it was just in haymaking time, and everybody thought the hay
was going to be ruined, and old Layton got up and prayed that God
would send gentle showers on the growing crops, and I heard Uncle
Roger whisper to a fellow behind me, 'If somebody don't choke him
off we won't get the hay made this summer.'"
CECILY, IN EXASPERATION:--"(Dan, shame on you for telling such
irreverent stories.) This is Mrs. Alexander Scott of Markdale.
She has been very sick for a long time."
DAN:--"Uncle Roger says all that keeps her alive is that she's
scared her husband will marry again."
CECILY:--"This is old Mr. James MacPherson who used to live behind
the graveyard."
DAN:--"He's the man who told mother once that he always made his
own iodine out of strong tea and baking soda."
CECILY:--"This is Cousin Ebenezer MacPherson on the Markdale
road."
DAN:--"Great temperance man! He never tasted rum in his life. He
took the measles when he was forty-five and was crazy as a loon
with them, and the doctor ordered them to give him a dose of
brandy. When he swallowed it he looked up and says, solemn as an
owl, 'Give it to me oftener and more at a time.'"
CECILY, IMPLORINGLY:--"(Dan, do stop. You make me so nervous I
don't know what I'm doing.) This is Mr. Lemuel Goodridge. He is a
minister."
DAN:--"You ought to see his mouth. Uncle Roger says the drawing
string has fell out of it. It just hangs loose--so fashion."
Dan, whose own mouth was far from being beautiful, here gave an
imitation of the Rev. Lemuel's, to the utter undoing of Peter,
Felix, and myself. Our wild guffaws of laughter penetrated even
Great-aunt Eliza's deafness, and she glanced up with a startled
face. What we would have done I do not know had not Felicity at
that moment appeared in the doorway with panic-stricken eyes and
exclaimed,
"Cecily, come here for a moment."
Cecily, glad of even a temporaryrespite, fled to the kitchen and
we heard her demanding what was the matter.
"Matter!" exclaimed Felicity, tragically. "Matter enough! Some of
you left a soup plate with molasses in it on the pantry table and
Pat got into it and what do you think? He went into the spare room
and walked all over Aunt Eliza's things on the bed. You can see
his tracks plain as plain. What in the world can we do? She'll be
simply furious."
I looked apprehensively at Great-aunt Eliza; but she was gazing
intently at a picture of Aunt Janet's sister's twins, a most
stolid, uninteresting pair; but evidently Great-aunt Eliza found
them amusing for she was smiling widely over them.
- twinkle [´twiŋkl]
vi.&n.闪烁；眨眼 (初中英语单词) - old-fashioned [´əuld´feʃənd] a.老式的；过时的 (初中英语单词)
- polite [pə´lait] a.有礼貌的；温和的 (初中英语单词)
- entertain [,entə´tein] vt.招待；娱乐；使高兴 (初中英语单词)
- insult [in´sʌlt, ´insʌlt] n.&vt.侮辱；损害 (初中英语单词)
- injury [´indʒəri] n.伤害；毁坏；侮辱 (初中英语单词)
- eagerly [´i:gəli] ad.渴望地，急切地 (初中英语单词)
- fearful [´fiəfəl] a.可怕的；担心的 (初中英语单词)
- gallant [´gælənt, gə´lænt] a.英勇的；华丽的 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- amusement [ə´mju:zmənt] n.娱乐；文娱设施 (初中英语单词)
- explanation [,eksplə´neiʃən] n.解释；说明；辩解 (初中英语单词)
- nephew [´nevju:, ´nɛfju] n.侄子；外甥 (初中英语单词)
- atmosphere [´ætməsfiə] n.大气；空气；气氛 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- doorway [´dɔ:wei] n.门口 (初中英语单词)
- evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- grimly [´grimli] ad.严厉地；坚强地 (高中英语单词)
- mistaken [mis´teikən] mistake的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- crooked [´krukid] a.弯曲的；畸形的 (高中英语单词)
- gossip [´gɔsip] n.&vi.说闲话；聊天 (高中英语单词)
- consequently [´kɔnsikwəntli] ad.因此，所以 (高中英语单词)
- smother [´smʌðə] v.抑制；覆盖 n.浓烟 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- baking [´beikiŋ] n.&a.烘烤(的) (高中英语单词)
- temporary [´tempərəri] a.暂时的 n.临时工 (高中英语单词)
- pantry [´pæntri] n.食品室；餐具室 (高中英语单词)
- amusing [ə´mju:ziŋ] a.有趣的 (高中英语单词)
- reluctantly [ri´lʌktəntli] a.不情愿地；勉强地 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- sincerity [sin´seriti] n.真诚；诚意 (英语四级单词)
- supplement [´sʌplimənt, ´sʌpliment] n.增补；增刊；附录 (英语四级单词)
- temperance [´tempərəns] n.节制；节欲；戒酒 (英语四级单词)
- molasses [mə´læsiz] n.糖浆，糖蜜 (英语四级单词)
- felicity [fi´lisiti] n.幸福；(措词)适当 (英语六级单词)
- ponderous [´pɔndərəs] a.沉重的；冗长的 (英语六级单词)
- gloriously [´glɔ:riəsli] ad.光荣地，辉煌地 (英语六级单词)
- half-hour [´hɑ:f-auə] n.&a.(每)三十分钟的 (英语六级单词)
- respite [´respait] n.暂缓 vt.缓期执行 (英语六级单词)
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