I started for school very late that morning and was in great dread2 of a scolding, especially because M. Hamel had said that he would question us on participles3, and I did not know the first word about them. For a moment I thought of running away and spending the day out of doors. It was so warm, so bright! The birds were singing at the edge of the woods; and in the open field back of the sawmill the Prussian soldiers were drilling4. It was all much more tempting5 than the rule for participles, but I had the strength to resist6, and hurried off to school.
When I passed the town hall there was a crowd in front of the bulletinboard7. For the last two years all our bad news had come from there—the lost battles, the draft8, the orders of the commanding officer—and I thought to myself, without stopping:
“What can be the matter now?”
Then, as I hurried by as fast as I could go, the blacksmith, Wachter, who was there, with his apprentice9, reading the bulletin, called after me:
“Don t go so fast, bub10;&n此文共有4页 上一页 1 2 3 4 下一页 |
