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dafawin.app️ ten years of prestige “Don’t care a doughnut,” answered Moses defiantly, “I’d ruther turn the washin’ machine any day than stand like a goose spellin’ words any arss can spell.”,CHAPTER IV.—WASH-DAY AT MRS. WOPP’S.,“Betty Wopp,” she exclaimed, “you couldn’t be no wetter ef you’d fell in the big slough. Come on to the house an’ change yer clothes. St. Elmo ’ll need warshin’, too, I reckon.”,The light shone through the colored glass window, casting a bluish tinge over the large earnest countenance of the teacher, and a distinct whisper was heard to the effect that “Mrs. Wopp’s face was blue moulderin’.”,Ray when the sun shines on your bed,，A low rumble of thunder was heard in the distance and a flash of lightning made the coal-oil lamp look like a bilious spot in the room.，“That’s what I’m hurrying for. Mamma sent me on an errand to Mrs. Black’s and I want to be back at the station in time to see the train come in. I wish we were going to have a refugee. Wasn’t the earthquake awful?”，“Do you like it, Sunday School, I mean? I don’t. I like church, though,—the great booming organ, the beautiful singing. And when the minister speaks I just float away into fairy-land and never come back till he says, ‘The-Lord-make-his-face-to-shine-upon-us-amen.’”Jimmy’s face lost its scorn. Someway the sting of his sarcasm never seemed to touch Billy, who could always strike back a surer if less venomous blow. Perhaps that was the very reason why Jimmy, though larger and older, sought Billy and heeded him as he did no other save his own stern father.

Billy beamed upon her. He adored her, as did every child in town.,Turning to the right he entered a short dark corridor and noticed at the end of the passageway a brass knob gleaming. With renewed hope he approached the shining mark and extended his hand to open the door.,For two days the aromas from the kitchen had been such as to dispel the gloom from Moses’ countenance, and hope and anticipation blended on his youthful visage.,“Oh, Mosey, she un’erstan’s everything, she’s jist wonderful.” Betty’s voice was positive.,Nell looked toward the morning-glory garden and there she saw Betty kneeling in the moonlight. Jethro was sitting up on his hind legs beside the little figure, holding his paws before him. The moonlight fell on his penitential white body, on the stiff braids of the sorrowful and contrite Betty, and lighted up the bright yellow nasturtiums that filled the air with their pungent odor. The morning-glory leaves gleamed in the pure white light.,Mrs. Bennett smiled at her mistake and went in, while Billy took up his mower. The girls looked at one another in the mute scrutiny children bestow on newcomers, May Nell the least embarrassed of the three.,When the party reached the house and St. Elmo had been received with every manifestation of joy, Mr. Wopp in one burst of eloquence explained how his boy Moses had found him. Moses, the hero of the hour, stood abashed before the encomiums of Mrs. Mifsud. He twirled his hat at a fearful rate on his doubled fist, standing awkwardly on one foot the while.,Billy felt his head lift a little higher at his mother’s words; felt a new standard of honor and independence leap into being. The house was too small for him. He ran out into the summer evening, down the hill to the big rock that overhangs Runa Creek. The stars were beginning to shine, and he could hear the tinkle of the water below. Bouncer rubbed against him, and Billy hugged him to the peril of the old dog’s breath.,“Geegustibus! You kids are doin’ a fine job,” Billy encouraged, as he walked by the line of little bending, sweating backs. “There never was a railroad built on the square like this. Contractors on time; men a-workin’ that’s got brains an’ ain’t afraid to use ’em. Jiminy crickets, it’s fine!”,“No, my son.” The answer was more sincere than a few weeks before she could have believed possible. The coming of the child had taken from her life many hours of association with Billy, sweet as only mothers know; yet May Nell’s influence had softened and refined Billy, enlarged his vision.,Yet they had already stopped, turned, and driven quickly to the house, hurried by the frenzy in the boy’s tones.,During Betty’s illness these one-sided dialogues were more than usually plentiful. In this way only was Mrs. Wopp able to alleviate the “gnawin’ at her heart-strings” as she said, at having Betty so ill. It also kept the boy alive to the fact that life’s path was not strewn with “cabbage roses.” Such, at least, were the confidences poured into the sympathetic ear of his pinto..