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fairplay@rummy circle.com download +88k Betty Wopp was gambolling along the road with other little school-girls and heard the jeers addressed to the wretched boy. The penetrating sense of Moses’ need of her brought her to a halt. Indignation made her tight little braids of hair assume an aspect as terrific as Medusa’s snaky coils. She ran lightly up to Moses and walked beside him.,Mrs. Bennett leaned over him without speaking for a minute, but stroked his hair softly. “Remember, with One there is no ‘forever.’ As long as we live we have a chance to retrieve. Rest on that, my child. Now you must sleep.” She kissed him and was silent, for a drop glistened on his cheek she knew he would not wish her to notice.,Everything was going smoothly when suddenly a catastrophe stopped short the circus, and left Moses greatly distressed. He inwardly complained that never yet was he “havin’ a good time but some orful thing happened to put a cloud over the sun.” The hens and chickens that had been pressed into the ranks of the circus performers were crowding round a swill-bucket which Moses had left tilted at a precarious angle on an upturned soap-box. In its zig-zag gyrations round the yard, the ostrich, to avoid the ubiquitous fowl, ran against the bucket and the odoriferous contents were splashed over the yellow-draped circus lady. The contents of the swill-pail trickled down Betty’s finery and dropped sadly from the pink headgear of the ostrich.,THE silence was broken a little later by merry voices on the stairway. For several nights the girls had been gathering in May Nell’s room. Billy knew “things were doing” there by the sounds; the tap, tap of the tack hammer, added to much chatter and rustling. Now May Nell caught him by the hand and pulled him across the hall. A strange pungent fragrance like burning spice, yet not familiar, met them at the door. And inside, the dark hangings full of lurking shadows gave the room a foreign air.,“Oh, Billy!” she said, despairingly; and he knew in spite of her smile that she disliked his words. “The little girl is looking for you. She is lonely; you must amuse her.”，“Moses, ef you hev finished yer supper, change yer good clothes an’ go git the cows,” directed his mother. “Betty run an’ fasten up the hens, else the coyotes’ll git them.”，With a patient hand removin’，“O Billy, he’s so beautiful and so clever; and he put his nose up to Flash so gratefully. Flash just mewed again, low as before, and walked off round the house. And Tom went and ate his breakfast.”“No, we won’t!” came a dozen voices.

“I was ten in January, the twelfth,” May Nell replied, with no pride in her tone; she was always older than those of her size. Yet she was not prepared for the gasps and backward movement of the twins.,“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.”,“Three you should say. Don’t you live in the dreamland of music? Eat your own breakfast, or you’ll be late for the train.”,Moses and Betty were left to mind house, the admonishings of Mrs. Wopp being seasoned with picturesque if carelessly applied texts. The envious might hurl hisses, but Moses and Betty were invulnerable to all such assaults upon their anticipations of the day’s freedom with its already planned joys.,To the melody of the shining bells, Betty dropped off to sleep.,While this search was being carried on, those left in the house were in no cheerful mood. They all repaired to the kitchen, as the windows there afforded a view of the path leading to the creek. Each lady in her own way tried to bring comfort and consolation to the worried mother. Mrs. Bliggins gave a long graphic account of the loss of her cousin, Mrs. Snoop’s husband, at sea. Mr. Augustus Snoop, it transpired, had sailed away one summer morning on the good ship “Wanderer,” with Australia as his goal. The story was somewhat elliptical, but the hearers could gather that before Mr. Snoop’s departure there had been a huge caldron of trouble brewing on the domestic hearth. Unfortunately, the ship in which Mr. Snoop sailed had after many weeks been reported missing, and Mrs. Snoop had donned sombre garments in honor of the departed. She had found some slight consolation in telling her friends of her late husband’s many excellent qualities and of his unrivalled devotion to her. She would wipe away the gushing tears with her black-bordered handkerchief as she recounted how her dear Augustus had been so careful and considerate of her and had even been known to turn the clothes-wringer for her. True, she had taken in washing for some years to keep the family larder filled, but her dear husband had felt so much concerned about it that during that whole time he had not been equal to doing any work himself. The sorrowing widow had felt certain that from his home of heavenly bliss the loving Augustus, whenever he could be spared from his other duties, was daily and hourly watching his adored wife now living frugally but peacefully on his life insurance money.,“Hello, Billy To-morrow! Why didn’t you do that mowing last night? You said you were going to.” He dismounted, tied the pony to the post, and went inside; and one saw that in spite of jeers the boys were friends.,“La now! An’ why do you say that, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Wopp. “Set up straight, Moses, yer back looks like you was packin’ a sack of pertaters.”,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’.”,“Poor little Billy! You’ve had a hard night of it.”,And if the girls don’t love me now,“She’s been stolen, mother! But I’ll find her—I know where to look. Don’t be afraid, mother, I will find her!” he repeated with grave emphasis, as he whipped out his knife and cut the dog loose..