There were some very hot days after Alfred’s return to Norwood. On one of these he felt very lazy, and said,
“O, mamma, my lesson is so hard that I cannot get it to-day!”
Then, instead of studying it, he would play with his shoe-string, or pocket-handkerchief.
His mamma said, many times,
“Alfred, it is getting quite late. Are you not ready to say your lesson yet?”
But Alfred did not get ready until twelve o’clock; and even then did not know his first lesson quite well; and the second one had to be put off until the afternoon. In the afternoon it was hotter than it had been in the morning. Alfred held his book in his hand, and did everything but study. He would lie down upon the floor, and look out of the window, although nothing was to be seen there but the still trees, and the drooping flowers, and the parched grass, and the hot, blinding sun, which seemed to have frightened the katydids, and the bees, and the birds, into entire stillness.
At night, when he went to bed, he called to his mamma, who was in the next room,
“O, my sugar-plums, mamma! I have not had my sugar-plums!”
“No, I know you have not, my dear. But why should you have them?”
“O, because I love them! And you know, mamma, I was to have a few every day.”