The Sweets Ranch

The Sweets Ranch Register +188K Geewhillikins did not wait for four feet to be on the floor to spring at the plate. He put his paws on one pile of meat, and began to gobble the other, growling savagely. The house cats drew back, curled their tails around their forefeet, and looked at the gorger in calm disdain.,Still no St. Elmo. They proceeded a considerable distance down the creek.,Edith came in dressed for church.,“You’re the only girl I’m afraid of in that line. Isn’t that so, Pretty?”,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.，There was a strange weight in his left side, like lead. He felt as if the whole world was against him; and the future looked dark and terrible. Three days ago life had reached out, a white shining road to success. Only three days! He looked north to where clouds were shutting down over the Mountain, gray to-day, not blue. The Mountain, every one called it, for it closed the valley and towered, a sentinel, far above all other mountains in view. Billy thought that stood for him; he was to be chained to this narrow valley all his life; struggle as he might he should never be free.，Jethro, lying on a mat at the door, was contentedly gnawing a bone. Nancy, having finished her milk, and still enjoying its flavor from her whiskers, as Betty remarked, stealthily approached her canine playmate. A slight altercation took place concerning the ownership of the bone. It was not long before Jethro walked out of the room, perceptibly toeing in, and probably reflecting that life was too short to wrangle over a bare bone anyway.，“Where are you going to take me?” she asked, trying to equal his long stride.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.

“How in the world did you ever sleep through it, Billy?” his mother asked, coming in from the tank-room where she had been to investigate. “There is a small flood there. I should think the first drop would have wakened you.”,The frenzied cries of the child were distinctly audible in the kitchen where sat Mrs. Mifsud and Mrs. Wopp, the latter busily engaged in mending a pile of socks. Both ladies sprang to their feet and hurried through the open door towards the garden, Mrs. Wopp still wearing a half-darned sock on her left hand and scattering others as she ran. They were followed by Betty, who had been filling her watering-can from the rain-barrel and had also heard the cries of the frightened child.,“Yes, I seen them an’ smelt them, too; they shore ’d delight the heart of an Eskermo, Betty.”,As the children left the school-house, Betty was met by Job. He appeared to be headed for a point at an angle of about forty-five degrees from his mistress, but it was only his corner-wise way of walking, caused by his defective eye. Notwithstanding his seemingly erratic course he reached Betty’s side and thrust his head into the pocket of her small pinafore. He found there what put him into high good humor. Gaily he strutted after his little mistress. Bringing up the rear came Moses shuffling along, accompanied by Jethro. He took from his pocket a huge bun.,If he had been older he would have said he had “the blues.” Yet probably he would not have known that his mental—and physical—condition was a natural result of the long strain of previous weeks. All the children felt it. That morning the cousins, Clarence and Harry, who loved each other dearly, had come to blows in the Sunday School room before the teachers arrived, over the question of which one of them should marry Miss Edith. Clarence received a bloody scratch the full length of his palm from Harry’s Band of Mercy pin; while the careful parting disappeared from his own hair, and a red splotch marred the whiteness of his wide collar. No one can tell what further calamity might have happened had not the Twins opportunely arrived and questioned of the quarrel.,“Well, the lack of Buzz shall not damage your show; I’ll go,” Mrs. Lancaster yielded.,Betty said her prayers that night before her cyclamen. It seemed to her a “mornin’-glory that had been growed by an angel, its petals sparkled so, an’ it smelled so pure.” She breathed very softly her thanksgiving, with a vague feeling that it had wings and could find its way better than she knew.,Edith finished her music lesson, dismissed her pupil, and made the little girl tidy if comical, in one of her own frocks. And when the four sat to eat, Billy’s voice rang above the rest in the little song they sang in lieu of grace.,“The prize is equally divided between James Dorr and William Bennett,” the judges announced.,She shook her head.,But the moment of frolic passed, and he turned to her with shining face. “You’re the only mother I ever had—so far as I know—” his eyes danced; “anyway, you’re the only one in sight, an’ a heap too good for this guy; I guess—I’ll—I’ll mind.”,“No; well,” came the answer..