WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL
By
qingsongzhi
In those days time always bothered us. It went fast or it went slow, with no one interfering. It was impossible to hurry it or to hold it back.
“Only ten weeks more,” we invariably said glibly, when the Spring term began.
“Just think! We’ve—got—t-e-n—weeks!” we told one another at the beginning of vacation, what time we came home with our books, chanting it:—
“No more Latin,
No more French,
No more sitting on a hard wood bench.”
—both chorally and antiphonally chanting it.
Yet, in spite of every encouragement, the Spring term lasted immeasurably and the Summer vacation melted. It was the kindred difference of experience respectively presented2 by a bowl of hot ginger tea and an equal bulk of ice-cream.
In other ways time was extraordinary. We used to play with it: “Now is now. But now that other Now is gone and a Then is now. How did it do it? How do all the Nows begin?”
“When is the party?” we had sometimes inquired...
“Only ten weeks more,” we invariably said glibly, when the Spring term began.
“Just think! We’ve—got—t-e-n—weeks!” we told one another at the beginning of vacation, what time we came home with our books, chanting it:—
“No more Latin,
No more French,
No more sitting on a hard wood bench.”
—both chorally and antiphonally chanting it.
Yet, in spite of every encouragement, the Spring term lasted immeasurably and the Summer vacation melted. It was the kindred difference of experience respectively presented2 by a bowl of hot ginger tea and an equal bulk of ice-cream.
In other ways time was extraordinary. We used to play with it: “Now is now. But now that other Now is gone and a Then is now. How did it do it? How do all the Nows begin?”
“When is the party?” we had sometimes inquired...
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