The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation by Annie Fellows Johnston

"THIS is the worst time of all the yeah to be sick," fretted the Little / Colonel, pausing in her restless journey around the room. She had been / pacing from window to fireplace in the nurse's office, and from / fireplace to window again, watching the clock and the slowly westering / sun, as if watching would hasten the day to its close.

Miss Gilmer, who was placidly knitting, changed needles without looking / up. "That is what people always say. I've never yet found one whose / calendar had a time when illness would be convenient."

"But now, just befoah the holidays, a thousand things are waiting to be / done. I'm behind a whole week with my studies, and my Christmas presents / that I'm going to make are scarcely begun. You haven't even let me look / at the material. I feel like a caged lion, and I'd like to roah and claw / and ramp around till I'd smashed my bah's."

"You'll have your liberty soon," laughed Miss Gilmer. "I think it will / be safe to let you go down to the dining-room this evening, and I'll / give you your honourable discharge in the morning. But, if I were in / your place, I would make no attempt to catch up with the classes this / term. I would lock the unfinished presents away in a drawer, and not / give any this Christmas. You ought to spend the holidays as quietly as / possible, doing nothing but rest."

Lloyd turned toward her with an exclamation of dismay.

"Oh, Miss Gilmer! That's impossible! We've planned for a gayer Christmas / vacation than we've evah had befoah. Every day will be full to the brim. / And I _must_ make up the recitations I have missed. I've had such good / repoah'ts all term that I can't beah to spoil everything right at the / end. When I was in bed, feeling so bad, I made up my mind I wouldn't / worry about them, but now I feel as good as new, only a little weak, and / one always feels weak aftah fevah. It's to be expected. You know I / wasn't dangerously ill."

"No," admitted Miss Gilmer, "but your little illness has left you with / less strength than you think you have. You are like an ice-pond that is / just beginning to freeze over. A very light weight will break it / through at that stage, but if there is no strain until it has frozen / properly, it can bear the weight of the most heavily loaded wagons."

Lloyd slipped into a chair and stared dismally at the fire.

"But I am strongah than you think, Miss Gilmer. Except one time when I / had the measles, I'd never been sick in my life till last week. I don't / believe it's good for people to coddle themselves and worry all the time / for feah they are going to be ill."

"Oh," answered the nurse, "I fully agree with you in that, still I / should not be doing my duty if I did not put up a warning signal when I / see danger ahead. I do see it now. You are getting on very nicely, but / the ice is very thin, -- far too thin for any such extra weights as double / study hours and holiday dissipations. If you don't walk lightly, / there'll be a nervous breakdown."

Some one called Miss Gilmer away before she could finish her warning, / and Lloyd sat facing the fire and this unpleasant bit of counsel for / nearly half an hour. A verse from her favourite carol came echoing / through the halls from the distant music-room, for it was practice hour / again, but this time it did not fit her mood, and it brought no cheer. / It was all well enough for those girls up-stairs, happy and well and / able to do as they pleased, to be singing "Let _nothing_ you dismay," / but she couldn't help being dismayed at Miss Gilmer's opinion of her / condition. She was ready to cry, thinking how all her holidays would be / spoiled should she follow the nurse's advice.

With her chin in her hand and her elbow on the arm of the chair, she sat / picturing her doleful Christmas if she could have no part in the giving, / and must be left out of all the merrymaking they had planned. Tears / welled up into her eyes, and her miserable reverie might have ended in a / downpour had it not been interrupted by the entrance of Gay and Betty. / Having taken a hasty run across the terraces, they had obtained / permission to spend the rest of the recreation hour with Lloyd.

"We can't waste a minute now," exclaimed Gay, as she pulled out her / knitting-work and began clicking her ivory needles through a rainbow / shawl she was making. "I believe Betty sleeps with her embroidery hoops / under her pillow, and I know that Allison paints in her sleep."

"What would you do if you were in my place?" mourned Lloyd. She repeated / the nurse's dismal warning.

"Boo! She magnifies her office," said Gay, glancing over her shoulder to / make sure that they were alone. "I suppose it is perfectly natural that / she should. When you're with Miss White, she makes you feel that there's / nothing in life to live for but Latin. When you're with Miss Hooker, / mathematics is the chief end of man. With Professor Stroebel the violin / is the one and only. So of course a professional nurse is in duty bound / to make hygiene the first consideration. Don't listen to them, listen to / me. I change my mind a dozen times a day, and have a new fad every / fortnight, so it stands to reason that my advice is more broad-minded / than the advice of a person who rides only one hobby, and rides that in / a rut."

Lloyd laughed at Gay's foolishness, but groaned when Betty told her how / far the classes had advanced during her absence from recitations.

"I'll have to work like a beavah this next week to catch up. I stah'ted / out to have perfect repoah'ts, and I feel that I must stick to it, as / Ederyn did when he heard the king's call. It is an obligation that I / _must_ meet. I must keep tryst or die."

Gay looked at her admiringly. "I knew you were like that," she / exclaimed. "If there is anything I envy it is strength of character."