winzoapp

winzoapp CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit. "Now then, girlie, it's comin' on to flight-time, so well jest set out decoys right here." Billy picked up the wooden ducks and placed them as naturally as he knew how some twenty yards out from shore. As he drew the punt well up among the tall rushes he saw the first line of ducks drift in from the bay.,"You will deny me even a daisy?" he cried, with a sudden passion in his manner which alarmed her, as he was not sober. He sprang to the side of the road, and picking a daisy returned to her, pulled off his hat, and said earnestly—indeed in a voice of emotion and sincerity that put a fine and appealing meaning into the expression of his eyes which by the power of the impulse then governing him were superior to the drink in his head: "Let me entreat you, madam, to put this little flower to your sweet lips, and return it to me. It is but a trifle I ask: you are too good and generous to refuse me.",CHAPTER XI,"Yes, you do," says Mona, with a little obstinate shake of her head. "You call us dirty, for one thing.","Gee! Bill, is she goin' to give you ten cents fer helpin' Maurice keep fire on?" asked Anson eagerly.，Lady Meg sighed, and rising to her feet, she drew her cloak round her tall form.，Billy nodded. "Once. Flushed 'em at the top of the knoll and winged one bird. The rest of the covey flew into our barn-yard an' 'course he couldn't foller 'em in there."，Bob looked up to see a young fellow of about his own age coming towards them. He was rather tall and dark and dressed in khaki, and wore canvas leggins. It was the costume of a regular civil engineer, thought the boy from the East.In spite of noise and heedlessness there was something fine and true about Billy; something that made old Bouncer whine when left behind; something that called the kittens to rub against his legs; that made the little children at school adore him, and men and women smile heartily when they greeted him. It was this mysterious something that brought a wan smile to the small tired face and tired eyes that looked confidingly into his blue ones. He lifted her carefully down from the carriage, and led her up the walk to where his mother and sister came to meet them.

Short was a large fat man with a pink face, merry little drunken eyes almost buried out of sight in hairy eyebrows and eyelashes; his pear-shaped nose was so purple at the end that it might have been supposed he had just been fighting his way through a hedge full of nettles. He treated his patrons as guests, and of those he knew, would ask familiarly after their relations, and how their businesses went and the like.,"Do as I tell you," said Jen, so fiercely that Jaggard did not dare to disobey, but ran off, leaving the major alone with his dead.,"Well, yes," assented Mrs. Dallas, "there is that objection. But it is not much of an obstacle, as Isabella has money. The young couple can live on three thousand a year.",“We can tackle the Labyrinth if it isn’t too far away.”,"You are candor itself," returns he, with a short laugh, shrugging his shoulders. "Of course I am bound to hope your wish may be fulfilled. And yet I doubt it. I am nearer my object to-night than I have ever been before; and," with a sardonic smile, "yours has been the hand to help me forward.",Hinter laughed. "Well, hardly," he returned. "They are thoroughbred Great Danes, although Sphinx and Dexter both have wolf natures, I fear.","Sir, I once said to a sailor who had obtained a berth ashore on sixteen shillings[Pg 148] a week, 'How do you manage to rear your family? How many are there of you?' 'Why,' he answered, 'there's me and the old woman and four youngsters and grandfather!' 'You never see meat, of course,' said I. 'Oh yes, we do,' he answered. 'Meat!' I cried, 'on sixteen shillings a week and seven people to support, four of them hungry youngsters!' 'Well,' he answered, 'I doos it in this way. On Saturday I goes to the butcher and buys a shoulder o' mutton; on Sunday we 'as it 'ot; on Monday we 'as it cold; on Toosday we 'ave what's left of the cold; on Wednesday what's left of the cold we 'ave made into ishee-ashee; on Thursday we makes what's left of the ishee-ashee into ashee-ishee; on Friday we does without; and on Saturday I goes to the butcher and I buys another shoulder of mutton.' Now," the Admiral would say with his face warm with triumph, "name me any joint but a shoulder of mutton that will supply what kept this family in meat, or the like of meat, from Sunday to Thursday?","Mercy! Are we so late?" exclaimed Elinor, remorsefully. "Hurry, Judith. Don't wait for me. I'll catch up to you before you get to the corner.",Suddenly Bob remembered that he had left his job in the office without anybody’s authority. The excitement had made him forget that he had a job. Now, when everything was quiet, the realization that probably he had been missed came to him and he started to make tracks in the general direction of the office. He had not gone far, however, when he heard a familiar voice hail him from behind. It was Mr. Whitney, so he slowed up and turned.,"Gosh! ain't I been trying," groaned Maurice. "My teeth won't keep still a'tall. Maybe I won't be one glad kid when we get out 'a here.",But it was in similar canyons, smaller, perhaps, that the Service built its dams. Down the sides of cliffs like these, which even the mountain goats had difficulty in mastering, the Service had to build its roads. It was to such desolate beauty that the Service brought progress and the service of mankind. In his imagination Bob saw the smooth face of an enormous dam filling even this great canyon,—generating enough horse power to run all the factories of the West, and collecting enough water to irrigate all the homes that could be made on the great American desert. Right then nothing was too stupendous a task for final achievement. His whole being thrilled with the thought that he was to be a part of the Service, that he was to have a hand in the great work that it was doing and would do.,"More's the pity," sighed Jen, leaning upon the shoulder of Sarby; "but you cherish no anger in your heart now?".