X3000

X3000 Ten years of prestige The resourceful Betty was not to be undone by this embarrassing accident. She used the silk shawl to groom the ostrich and to mop the disfiguring stains from Moses’ face. The helmet was discarded and the aigret of red hair rose instantly undaunted, waving a lively accompaniment to the boy’s continued exertions to follow the pace set by Betty’s imagination.,In the short moments that had passed since their coming the Sheriff saw that the fire had gained perilously. Instead of sparks great flaming brands dropped all around them; the crests of the ravine were sheets of fire that swept downward, wrapping every tree and shrub in their path, making of the pines huge towers of flame.,“We shorely are glad to hev a teacher at larst,” re-asserted the bustling lady of the house, as she passed a cup of creamy tea to her new boarder. “Did you hear what happened to our larst teacher, Miss Gordon?” Here the good lady heaved a deep sigh. “The pore man hed a tryin’ time with some big boys named Bullock who started in to school larst fall arter workin’ all summer. The teacher used to spend his evenin’s to Bullock’s bunkhouse, playin’ black-jack with ole man Bullock.”,“As the door creaketh on his hinges, so the slugger turneth on his bed.” Liza Wopp’s voice was compelling in its significance. Through the rose-lit dreams of Moses, the sound and the awful words were like the threatenings of an approaching storm.,“Not arf as smart as a magpie,” dissented Moses, “I’ve saw magpies that c’d think up the scheminest things.” Moses was beginning to suffer from a surfeit of information and wanted to make a break in the proceedings.，“Never mind, Bouncer. I’ve another card up my sleeve!” He patted and hugged the old dog till his tail waved once more gracefully over his back. “Here! Try this. Sic ’em!” Billy thrust the scraps of red silk under his nose; and in an instant Bouncer was off after the new scent.，The whole garden had been fenced in as a precaution against the encroachment of predatory animals. Molly, the inquisitive black cow, or Josh and Jake, who had no proper sense of the fitness of things, would have liked nothing better than to sample Mrs. Wopp’s prize turnips and scanty crop of Indian corn, and to trample into the soft earth whatever did not suit their dainty palates.，With a patient hand removin’“Surely Billy has earned it, Mrs. Bennett,” Mr. Smith urged.

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.,Moses adored his little foster-sister when she was well; but sick, his adoration turned to blind worship. For several days Betty had been ill. Moses’ religion, bottled up during care-free days, burst forth in foam of intercession for Betty’s return to health.,“And Jean and Jimmy, too.”,“Here! Sit down on the bank.” Billy himself was trembling so he felt it safer to see Jimmy sitting. “I’ll get—Twinnies, run, run to the tank and wet your handkerchief. Quick!”,“They shan’t ever again call me Billy To-morrow. It’s Billy To-day, Bouncer. It shall always be Billy To-day!”,They were at the dripping roadside tank and back in a trice. Gently where a moment before he had been ferocious with anger, Billy wiped his play-mate’s face, or rather, changed the mud from one spot to another, got him to his feet again, and finally into the buggy with the little girls by his side.,Yet it was a very quiet little child that crept down to the others a few minutes later; when asked of her fortune she burst into tears.,“Lots o’ them, St. Elmo. I seen some the other evenin’ in the moonlight. Some was dressed in green an’ silver, some in white an’ silver. They danced in an’ out among the sunflowers.”,“You know she never does nothin’ to us really, Moses, no matter how she jaws. Come on, you clipped yer pony so lovely an’ evenlike. The horse-clippers is bangin’ on the wall behind you.”,The strains of “Red Wing” having died away, Mrs. Wopp busied herself setting up the crokinole board. “Me and Par won’t play, jist the young folks,” she announced.,Before answering, the child glanced fearfully around to see if his uncanny foe had gone, and he was relieved to find that Job was hastening to meet his ever-constant friend Betty who had just entered the garden. Betty’s progress had been greatly retarded by the weight of the brimimng watering-can, which she had not stopped to set down though the contents had splashed freely over her dress and shoes.,Notwithstanding Moses’ endeavors to be attractive, Isobel Crump’s voice, as she addressed her brother’s friend was so frigid that her words penetrated his ear like sharply-pointed icicles..