Va rog sa ma ajutati sa traduc acesta urgent!!!
Laboriously, with a double cotton, the little girl stitched three sides. But what to fill i
with? That was the question. The grandmother was out in the garden, and she wandered
into mother's bedroom to look for “scraps.” On the bed table she discovered a great many
sheets of fine paper, gathered them up, shredded them into tiny pieces, and stuf
case, then sewed up the fourth side.
That night there was a hue and cry over the house. Father's great speech for
Board had been lost. Rooms were ransacked
into the nursery.
“Kass, I suppose you didn't see some papers on a table in our room?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I tore them up for my s'prise.”
“What!” screamed mother. “Come straight down to the dining
And she was dragged down to where father was pacing to and fro, hands behin
“Well? sharply.
Mother explained.
He stopped and stared in a stupefied manner at the child.
“Did you do that?”
“N-n-no,” she whispered.
“Mother, go up to the nursery and fetch down the damned thing
to bed this instant.”
http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org
drawing-room, dressed in
, and father stretched out on the couch, his handkerchief
piano-stool, gravely watched him until he woke and stretched, and
. the grandmother told her that father's
ransacked—servants questioned. Finally mother came
!” dining-room this instant.”
thing—see that the child's put
her
soundly sleeping that
it
stuffed her
the Harbour
behind his back.
Crying too much to explain, she lay in the shadowed room watching the evening light sift
through the Venetian blinds and trace a sad little pattern on the floor.
Then father came into the room with a ruler in his hands.
“I am going to whip you for this,”
“Oh, no, no!” she screamed, cowering down under the bedclothes.
He pulled them aside.
“Sit up,” he commanded, “and hold out your hands. You must be taught once and for all
not to touch what does not belong to you.”
“But it was for your b-b-birthd
Down came the ruler on her little, pink palms.
Hours later, when the grandmother had wrapped her in a shawl and rocked her in the
rocking-chair the child cuddled close to her soft body.
“What did Jesus make fathers for? “she sobbed.
“Here's a clean hanky, darling, with some of my lavender water on it. Go to sleep, pet;
you'll forget all about it in the morning. I tried to explain to father, but he was too upset to
listen to-night.”
But the child never forgot. Next time she saw him she whipped both hand
back, and a red colour flew into her cheeks.
The Macdonalds lived in the next
a hole in the vegetable garden fence the little girl saw them playing “tag” in the evening.
The father with the baby Mac on his shoulders, two little girls hanging on to his coat tails,
ran round and round the flower beds, shaking with laughter. Once she saw the boys turn
the hose on him—turn the hose on him
until they got hiccoughs.
Then it was she decided there were different sorts of fathers.
Suddenly, one day, mother became ill, and she and grandmother drove into town in a
closed carriage.
The little girl was left alone in the house with Alice, the “general.” That
the daytime, but while Alice was putting her to bed she grew suddenly afraid.
“What'll I do if I have nightmare?” she asked.