Aunt Jo's scrap bag, Volume 1 : $b My boys, etc.Alcott, Louisa May
General
Aunt Jo's scrap bag, Volume 1 : $b My boys, etc.
Alcott, Louisa May
Children's stories
We played Dolphus and Sophy Tetterby in the 'Haunted Man,' at one of the
school festivals; and during the rehearsals I discovered that my Dolphus
was--permit the expression, oh, well-bred readers!--a trump. What fun we
had to be sure, acting the droll and pathetic scenes together, with a
swarm of little Tetterbys skirmishing about us! From that time he has
been my Dolphus and I his Sophy, and my yellow-haired laddie don't
forget me, though he has a younger Sophy now, and some small Tetterbys
of his own. He writes just the same affectionate letters as he used to
do, though I, less faithful, am too busy to answer them.
But the best and dearest of all my flock was my Polish boy, Ladislas
Wisniewski--two hiccoughs and a sneeze will give you the name perfectly.
Six years ago, as I went down to my early breakfast at our Pension in
Vevey, I saw that a stranger had arrived. He was a tall youth, of
eighteen or twenty, with a thin, intelligent face, and the charmingly
polite manners of a foreigner. As the other boarders came in, one by
one, they left the door open, and a draught of cold autumn air blew in
from the stone corridor, making the new-comer cough, shiver, and cast
wistful glances towards the warm corner by the stove. My place was
there, and the heat often oppressed me, so I was glad of an opportunity
to move.
A word to Madame Vodoz effected the change; and at dinner I was rewarded
by a grateful smile from the poor fellow, as he nestled into his warm
seat, after a pause of surprise and a flush of pleasure at the small
kindness from a stranger. We were too far apart to talk much, but, as he
filled his glass, the Pole bowed to me, and said low in French--
'I drink the good health to Mademoiselle.'
I returned the wish, but he shook his head with a sudden shadow on his
face, as if the words meant more than mere compliment to him.
'That boy is sick and needs care. I must see to him,' said I to myself,
as I met him in the afternoon, and observed the military look of his
blue and white suit, as he touched his cap and smiled pleasantly. I have
a weakness for brave boys in blue, and having discovered that he had
been in the late Polish Revolution, my heart warmed to him at once.
That evening he came to me in the salon, and expressed his thanks in the
prettiest broken English I ever heard. So simple, frank, and grateful
was he that a few words of interest won his little story from him, and
in half an hour we were friends. With his fellow-students he had fought
through the last outbreak, and suffered imprisonment and hardship rather
than submit, had lost many friends, his fortune and his health, and at
twenty, lonely, poor, and ill, was trying bravely to cure the malady
which seemed fatal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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