to cut evening chapel
classics
a contest, contestant
monthly
to put sth out of ones mind
to be great fun
to clean up the mess
to write sth off and on
Learn these words and expression by heart and be ready for the oral translation of sentences with them.
Translate the underlined passages.
4. Explain in English the meanings of these:
- a classics
- a monthly, a daily, a weekly
5. Answer the questions:
1. Have you ever cut classes? Which ones? Why?
2. What kind of a party do you consider to be great fun?
3. What things can you do off and on?
4. Have you ever taken part in any contests? What contests?
Complete the sentences with the words in ex. 1
1. How was the play? Oh, it was great_____________.
2. Judys college issued a__________________which held a_________________for those who wanted to try their hand at writing.
3. Oh, what a mess!___________it________________now!
7. Write an essay on one of the following topics:
Do you agree with Judys words: I dont think children ought to know the meaning of the word duty. They ought to do everything from love.
Everybody likes a few surprises; its a perfectly natural human craving.
Translate the following sentences from Russian into English using the words from ex.1
1. - ?
2. ,
3. .
4. , .
5. , .
6. - ? - , - , .
7. , .
9. Answer the following questions:
1. What kind of chase did the girls have at college in March?
2. What was Judys favourite author at that time?
3. What game did Judy play before going to bed?
4. What wonderful news did Judy write to Daddy-Long-Legs about?
5. Describe Judys visit to New York and the things she did there.
6. Why did Judy send back the cheque from Daddy-Long-Legs?
7. How did she call herself in one of her letters? Why?
8. What can you say about the Field Day at college.
9. What book was Judy reading at that time?
10. Compare the Lowood Institute with the John Grier Home.
11. What quality was the most important in any person to Judys mind?
12. How did Judy spend the money she had won in the writing contest?
UNIT 9
Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith,
SIR: Having completed the study of argumentation and the science of dividing a thesis into heads, I have decided to adopt the following form for letter-writing. It contains all necessary facts, but no unnecessary verbiage.
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I. We had written examinations this week in:
A. Chemistry.
B. History.
II. A new dormitory is being built.
A. Its material is:
(a) red brick.
(b) grey stone.
B. Its capacity will be:
(a) one dean, five instructors.
(b) two hundred girls.
(c) one housekeeper, three cooks, twenty waitresses,
twenty chambermaids.
III. We had junket for dessert tonight.
IV. I am writing a special topic upon the Sources of Shakespeare's Plays.
V. Lou McMahon slipped and fell this afternoon at basket ball, and she:
A. Dislocated her shoulder.
B. Bruised her knee.
VI. I have a new hat trimmed with:
A. Blue velvet ribbon.
B. Two blue quills.
C. Three red pompoms.
VII. It is half past nine.
VIII. Good night.
Judy
Nd June
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
You will never guess the nice thing that has happened.
The McBrides have asked me to spend the summer at their camp in the Adirondacks! They belong to a sort of club on a lovely little lake in the middle of the woods. The different members have houses made of logs dotted about among the trees, and they go canoeing on the lake, and take long walks through trails to other camps, and have dances once a week in the club house Jimmie McBride is going to have a college friend visiting him part of the summer, so you see we shall have plenty of men to dance with.
Wasn't it sweet of Mrs. McBride to ask me? It appears that she liked me when I was there for Christmas.
Please excuse this being short. It isn't a real letter; it's just to let you know that I'm disposed of for the summer.
Yours,
In a VERY contented frame of mind,
Judy
Th June
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Your secretary man has just written to me saying that Mr. Smith prefers that I should not accept Mrs. McBride's invitation, but should return to Lock Willow the same as last summer.
Why, why, WHY, Daddy?
You don't understand about it. Mrs. McBride does want me, really and truly. I'm not the least bit of trouble in the house. I'm a help. They don't take up many servants, and Sallie an I can do lots of useful things. It's a fine chance for me to learn housekeeping. Every woman ought to understand it, and I only know asylum-keeping.
There aren't any girls our age at the camp, and Mrs. McBride wants me for a companion for Sallie. We are planning to do a lot of reading together. We are going to read all of the books for next year's English and sociology. The Professor said it would be a great help if we would get our reading finished in the summer; and it's so much easier to remember it if we read together and talk it over.
Just to live in the same house with Sallie's mother is an education. She's the most interesting, entertaining, companionable, charming woman in the world; she knows everything. Think how many summers I've spent with Mrs. Lippett and how I'll appreciate the contrast. You needn't be afraid that I'll be crowding them, for their house is made of rubber. When they have a lot of company, they just sprinkle tents about in the woods and turn the boys outside. It's going to be such a nice, healthy summer exercising out of doors every minute. Jimmie McBride is going to teach me how to ride horseback and paddle a canoe, and how to shoot and oh, lots of things I ought to know. It's the kind of nice, jolly, care-free time that I've never had; and I think every girl deserves it once in her life. Of course I'll do exactly as you say, but please, PLEASE let me go, Daddy. I've never wanted anything so much.
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This isn't Jerusha Abbott, the future great author, writing to you.
It's just Judy a girl.
Th June
Mr. John Smith,
SIR: Yours of the 7th inst. at hand. In compliance with the instructions received through your secretary, I leave on Friday next to spend the summer at Lock Willow Farm.
I hope always to remain,
(Miss) Jerusha Abbott
LOCK WILLOW FARM,
Rd August
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
It has been nearly two months since I wrote, which wasn't nice of me, I know, but I haven't loved you much this summer you see I'm being frank!
You can't imagine how disappointed I was at having to give up the McBrides' camp. Of course I know that you're my guardian, and that I have to regard your wishes in all matters, but I couldn't see any REASON. It was so distinctly the best thing that could have happened to me. If I had been Daddy, and you had been Judy, I should have said, 'Bless yo my child, run along and have a good time; see lots of new people and learn lots of new things; live out of doors, and get strong and well and rested for a year of hard work.'
But not at all! Just a curt line from your secretary ordering me to Lock Willow.
It's the impersonality of your commands that hurts my feelings. It seems as though, if you felt the tiniest little bit for me the way I feel for you, you'd sometimes send me a message that you'd written with your own hand, instead of those beastly typewritten secretary's notes. If there were the slightest hint that you cared, I'd do anything on earth to please you.
I know that I was to write nice, long, detailed letters without ever expecting any answer. You're living up to your side of the bargain I'm being educated and I suppose you're thinking I'm not living up to mine!
But, Daddy, it is a hard bargain. It is, really. I'm so awfully lonely. You are the only person I have to care for, and you are so shadowy. You're just an imaginary man that I've made up and probably the real YOU isn't a bit like my imaginary YOU. But you did once, when I was ill in the infirmary, send me a message, and now, when I am feeling awfully forgotten, I get out your card and read it over.
I don't think I am telling you at all what I started to say, which was this:
Although my feelings are still hurt, for it is very humiliating to be picked up and moved about by an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable, omnipotent, invisible Providence, still, when a man has been as kind and generous and thoughtful as you have heretofore been towards me, I suppose he has a right to be an arbitrary, peremptory, unreasonable, invisible Providence if he chooses, and so I'll forgive you and be cheerful again. But I still don't enjoy getting Sallie's letters about the good times they are having in camp!
However we will draw a veil over that and begin again.
I've been writing and writing this summer; four short stories finished and sent to four different magazines. So you see I'm trying to be an author. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the attic where Master Jervie used to have his rainy-day playroom. It's in a cool, breezy corner with two dormer windows, and shaded by a maple tree with a family of red squirrels living in a hole.
I'll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm news.
We need rain.
Yours as ever,
Judy
Th August
Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs,
SIR: I address you from the second crotch in the willow tree by the pool in the pasture. There's a frog croaking underneath, a locust singing overhead and two little 'devil downheads' darting up and down the trunk. I've been here for an hour; it's a very comfortable crotch, especially after being upholstered with two sofa cushions. I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I've been having a dreadful time with my heroine I CAN'T make her behave as I want her to behave; so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you. (Not much relief though, for I can't make you behave as I want you to, either.)
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If you are in that dreadful New York, I wish I could send you some of this lovely, breezy, sunshiny outlook. The country is Heaven after a week of rain.
Speaking of Heaven do you remember Mr. Kellogg that I told you about last summer? the minister of the little white church at the Corners. Well, the poor old soul is dead last winter of pneumonia. I went half a dozen times to hear him preach and got very well acquainted with his theology. He believed to the end exactly the same things he started with. It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity. I hope he is enjoying his harp and golden crown; he was so perfectly sure of finding them! There's a new young man, very consequential, in his place. The congregation is pretty dubious, especially the faction led by Deacon Cummings. It looks as though there was going to be an awful split in the church. We don't care for innovations in religion in this neighbourhood.
During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgy of reading Stevenson, mostly. He himself is more entertaining than any of the characters in his books; I dare say he made himself into the kind of hero that would look well in print. Don't you think it was perfect of him to spend all the ten thousand dollars his father left, for a yacht, and go sailing off to the South Seas? He lived up to his adventurous creed. If my father had left me ten thousand dollars, I'd do it, too. The thought of Vailima makes me wild. I want to see the tropics. I want to see the whole world. I am going to be a great author, or artist, or actress, or playwright or whatever sort of a great person I turn out to be. I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. 'I shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.'
