Vocabulary
- to ache to move
- to look sick and miserable
- to have a fever
- to take temperature
- a light epidemic of influenza
- to avoid pneumonia
- to have dark areas under eyes
- to be detached from what’s going on
- to read to oneself
- to be a little light-headed
- prescribed capsules
Notes
Schats ['∫Λts] (нем.) - дорогой
Take it easy – не принимай близко к сердцу, не обращай внимания
102º по Фаренгейту = 38,9º по Цельсию
He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.
"What's the matter, Schatz?"
"I've got a headache".
"You better go back to bed".
"No, I am all right".
"You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed".
But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever.
"You go up to bed," I said, "you are sick".
"I am all right", he said.
When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.
"What is it?" I asked him.
"One hundred and two."
Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different coloured capsules with instructions for giving them. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic of influenza and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia.
Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.
"Do you want me to read to you?"
"All right. If you want to," said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on.
I read about pirates from Howard Pyle's "Book of Pirates", but I could see he was not following what I was reading.
"How do you feel, Schatz?" I asked him.
"Just the same, so far," he said.
I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed.
"Why, don't you try to go to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine."
"I'd rather stay awake."
After a while he said to me. "You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you."
"It doesn't bother me."
"No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you."
I thought perhaps he was a little light-headed and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o'clock I went out for a while...
At the house they said the boy had refused to let any one come into the room.
"You can't come in," he said. "You mustn't get what I have." I went up to him and found him in exactly the same position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.
I took his temperature.
"What is it?"
"Something like a hundred," I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.
"It was a hundred and two," he said.
"Who said so? Your temperature is all right," I said. "It's nothing to worry about."
"I don't worry," he said, "but I can't keep from thinking."
"Don't think," I said. "Just take it easy."
"I'm taking it easy," he said and looked straight ahead.
He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.
"Take this with water."
"Do you think it will do any good?"
"Of course, it will."
I sat down and opened the "Pirate" book and commenced to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.
"About what time do you think I'm going to die?" he asked.
"What?"
"About how long will it be before I die?"
"You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you?"
"Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two."
"People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to talk."
"I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two."
He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.
"You poor Schatz," I said. "It's like miles and kilometres. You aren't going to die. That's a different thermometre. On that thermometre thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely," I said. "It's like miles and kilometres. You know, like how many kilometres we make when we do seventy miles in the car?"
"Oh," he said.
But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day he was very slack and cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.
Vocabulary Practice
I. Write in transcription and read the following words and phrases:
shiver; ache; headache; miserable; forehead; fever; temperature; downstairs; coloured capsules; epidemic of influenza; danger; various; detached; medicine; bother; the same position; stare; one hundred and two and four tenth; straight ahead; evidently; pirate; commence to read; different thermometre; gaze; cry easily; absolutely.
II. Translate into English:
бледное лицо; больно двигаться; разные лекарства; инструкция для применения; сто четыре градуса; избежать пневмонии; сделать пометку; он не следил за моим чтением; Как ты себя чувствуешь?; пока так же; в ногах кровати; предписанные лекарства; щёки покраснели от жара; я не могу не думать; глупо об этом говорить; плакать по пустякам; напряжение в нём спало.
III. Reproduce the situations from the text where the active vocabulary is used. Think of your own sentences with the words from the list.
IV. Suggest words and word combinations from active vocabulary for the following:
- to look unwell and unhappy
- to have temperature
- to be delirious
- to evade flue
- not dangerous case of flue
- not showing much personal feeling to what is happening around
- to suffer a continuous pain while walking
- to measure sb’s fever
- black circles around the eyes
- to read to one’s own private use
V. Choose the correct statement:
1. “You go to bed. I’ll see you when …”
a) I’m dressed
b) I have breakfast
c) I go shopping
2. When the doctor came he …
a) washed his hands
b) took the boy’s temperature
c) asked to bring a teaspoon
3. He lay still in bed and seemed
a) very wistful
b) very sad
c) very detached from what was going on
4. It would have been natural for him to …
a) read a book
b) go for a walk
c) to go to sleep
5. At the house they said the boy had refused …
a) to eat his soup
b) to take medicine
c) to let anyone into the room
6. At school in France the boys told me …
a) young boys mustn’t smoke
b) young boys mustn’t drink wine
c) you can’t live with forty-four degrees
VI. Answer the following questions:
- Who is the main character of the story?
- What happened to the boy one day?
- What did the doctor advise?
- What was the boy’s behaviour after the doctor’s visit?
- Why didn’t the boy refuse to let anyone into his room?
- Why did he think he was going to die?
- How did the boy’s father comfort him?
VII. Topics for general discussion
- What kind of history is it?
- What kind of boy was the principle character?
- Do you think the boy really believed his father?
| Stephen Butler Leacock, Ph.D, FRSC (30 December 1869 – 28 March 1944) was a Canadian writer and economist. Born in Swanmore, Hampshire, England, at the age of six years old Leacock and his family moved to Canada. While the family had been comfortable in England, the farm in Georgina Township of York County was not a success and Leacock's family was quite poor. |
Leacock, always of obvious intelligence, was sent to the elite private school of Upper Canada College in Toronto, where he was top of the class and was chosen as head boy. In 1887, seventeen year-old Leacock started at University College at the University of Toronto.
He left university to earn money as a school teacher - a job he disliked immensely. As a teacher at Upper Canada College, his alma mater, he was able to simultaneously attend classes at the University of Toronto and, in 1891, earn his degree through part-time studies. It was during this period that his first writing was published in The Varsity, a campus newspaper.
In 1899 he became a lecturer and long-time acting head of the political economy department at McGill University.
Early in his career Leacock turned to fiction, humour, and short reports. His stories, became extremely popular around the world. Between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock was the most popular humourist in the English-speaking world.
In accordance with his wishes, after his death due to throat cancer, he was cremated and buried at Sibbald Point in Georgina Township near his boyhood home. In 1947, the Stephen Leacock Award was created to recognize the best in Canadian literary humour.
A number of buildings in Canada are named after Leacock, including the Stephen Leacock Building at McGill University, a theatre in Keswick, Ontario, and schools in Toronto and Ottawa.
The-Reading Public
S. Leacock
(Canada)
