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Read Ebook: A History of Chinese Literature by Giles Herbert Allen
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Ebook has 25 lines and 1941 words, and 1 pages
Our Little Roumanian Cousin
THE DOCTOR PRESCRIBES
Jonitza lay sprawled out on the warm carpet in the living-room near a big brick stove that reached almost to the ceiling. Beside him were his playthings and two picture books with fancy covers, but he kicked his slippered feet discontentedly at them, until his mother, seated at the other end of the room, arose, put down her sewing, and with a scarcely audible sigh, picked them up and laid them on the table.
Jonitza paid no attention. Ever since he had been seriously ill the month before, he had grown accustomed to having people wait on him. He now turned on his back and began tracing in the air with his finger the pretty stenciled patterns that covered the walls. Tiring of that, he started beating a monotonous tattoo with one foot, until his mother, with the faintest shade of impatience, said: "I think you'd better get up. You've been lying on the floor for a whole hour doing nothing."
Jonitza arose languidly, stretched himself, and walking over to one of the big double windows, plumped himself down into a deep arm chair in front of it.
Jonitza's home was a very comfortable one-story house in the city of Galatz, one of the leading ports on the Danube River, near the border line between Moldavia and Wallachia, the two provinces which with Dobrudja, make up the kingdom of Roumania. It was in one of the best residence districts, at one end of a high earth cliff. Somewhat below this cliff extended the flat level of the Lower Town, made up principally of mills and business houses, immense warehouses for grain, much of which is exported from Roumania, and wharves stretching out to the river.
The little boy could not see much of this, but far below, in between the scattered apricot-trees and lilac bushes in the garden, he could just get a glimpse of an interesting procession of rude carts to which bullocks or buffaloes were harnessed, toiling slowly upward on a wide road. He had become so interested in the struggles of one cart that looked as if it were loaded with the enormous reeds that are used for fuel by the poorer people of Galatz that he did not hear the bell ring and so was quite unprepared to have a hand suddenly laid on his shoulder and to look up into the smiling face of the family Doctor.
Jonitza had a guilty feeling without knowing why and tried his best to scowl and look away. It wasn't easy though.
"Why aren't you out-of-doors?" the Doctor asked in a surprised tone.
It was Jonitza's turn to be surprised. "Why," he stammered, "it's--too cold," here he shivered, "I--I--I am not well enough."
"What nonsense!" the Doctor said. "The air is delightful. I've been traveling around half the day in it. And, even granting that you're not well--why, fresh air is the only thing that will make you well."
Jonitza suppressed a yawn and looked listlessly about him. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders as he said: "I see I must leave a new prescription for you." Saying this, he tore a leaf from his note-book, hastily wrote something on it, folded it, and handed it to Jonitza's mother who stood near by, with: "Please treat what is written here seriously, Mrs. Popescu. I shall have more to say regarding it to your husband. Now I must hurry away."
But Mrs. Popescu barred the entrance.
It was only after the door had closed behind him that Mrs. Popescu unfolded the paper that he had given her. As she glanced over it she gave an exclamation that caused her son to look up inquiringly.
"Come here," she said to him, and, when he approached, she put her arms around him. "The Doctor asked this to be taken seriously, and he has ordered--"
Jonitza's eyes grew round with something like terror, as he fixed them on her.
"It's nothing bad. Do look natural," his mother hastily continued. "He has simply ordered me--to take you to spend a month on a farm near some springs in the foot-hills!"
JONITZA GETS INTERESTED
Evidently the Doctor did see Jonitza's father, for before the week was ended it had been definitely decided that as soon as the weather was a little warmer Mrs. Popescu would leave with her son for a month's stay in the country. Jonitza had been a trifle interested at first, then he had grumbled, and, finally, he had resumed the languid air that was so peculiarly trying to those about him.
There was one thing in particular that he rebelled against even in his languid state and that was the fact that every afternoon he was now bundled up and ordered out-of-doors for an hour.
"I don't want to go," he would say every time; and every time his mother would kiss him and answer sweetly, "It is for your own good. We must do what the Doctor orders."
Then he would go out into the garden with its lilac and acacia bushes that were just beginning to show leaf buds and walk slowly up and down or stand first on one foot and then on the other as if unable to decide what to do. But one day things went differently. Whether it was due to the air having a genuine spring flavor for the first time that year, or to the fact that it was a holiday and he had been left at home with a couple of servants, or to the fact that the departure for the foot-hills had been definitely set for the first day of the following week, or to some other entirely different cause, in any case there was quite an alert look about the boy and even something of a sparkle in his eyes.
Maritza, the maid, noticed it and remarked to the cook: "Master Jonitza looks quite spry to-day. If he were well, I'd warrant he would get into some mischief." Then she forgot all about him.
A group of boys that Jonitza knew slightly passed by and one seeing him called out: "Come on with us. We're going to the marsh." To his own surprise, Jonitza called back, "All right," and joined them.
When they reached a marshy plain bordering on the Danube some of the boys left them, and Jonitza found himself alone with two boys, both younger than himself. All three were tired from the walk, and finding the stump of an old tree, sat down on it and amused themselves counting the ducks that they saw. Suddenly something that his tutor had told him occurred to Jonitza. "Do you know," he said, "that there are more varieties of ducks on the Danube than in most parts of the world? Le
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