rummy hi

rummy hi ASIA'S NO. 1 BAKER CHANNEL From the kitchen came an unmistakeable odor of cheese. Ebenezer Wopp was having a slight snack before retiring. With the back of his nervous hand he was wiping from the corners of his mouth the telltale crumbs.,“The tank must have run over, Billy. You forgot to shut it off.”,“All this turnin’ is good for the liver too you know,” she continued, as her son’s vinegary expression remained unaltered.,The loft in the barn had been swept and garnished by Mr. Wopp for Betty’s moving picture show, and thither, after the preliminary how-d’you-do’s were over, she led her eager audience. Her head was held at the exact angle for ascending the ladder to perform the imposing duties of moving picture operator, and her foot was on the first rung when she suddenly thought of the collection box for the carrots the children were carrying.,Betty picked him a small bouquet. She knew that in the child’s hot grasp the flowers would soon droop and she loved them so dearly that she grieved to see them wither and die. St. Elmo, however, was not satisfied.，“Don’t Betty look jist too sweet,” she murmured when she had finally located the child, “Her hair looks as ef she had got tangled up in the milky way an’ there was nothin’ on it but star-dust.”，“Let’s all go to the parlor, Mar, and hev some music. It isn’t every evenin’ we hev company,” said Mr. Wopp.，Mrs. Wopp was much too energetically engaged to enter into fuller argument. She busied herself preparing the tubs for rinsing, singing in a high tremolo, “Shall we gather at the river?”Meantime Jerusalem Crickets, escaped from Billy’s arm and eye, was sneaking about for prey; and a clinking sound from the pantry warned them that she had found it.

CHAPTER VII THE FIGHT,Diligently as Betty had tended this little garden, it was considered to be a family possession, the child’s own particular treasures lying beyond its fragrant border. Her cherished morning-glories and climbing nasturtiums found a welcome support in the old wooden fence.,“But they are dead,” Jimmy protested.,It took some time to focus her intellect on the proper placing of mirthful youngsters, but at last, after singing “Like a little candle burning in the night,” all were in readiness to imbibe biblical learning.,Bess, an only child, was usually present at the[59] frequent entertainments her parents gave, and was familiar with some of the more formal table customs. She wished Billy’s dinner to have every dignity, and to this end rose and proposed a toast to him. They drank it standing, with cheers. And Billy, accustomed to having the largest voice in every noise, stood and joined lustily; till Jackson, who helped his father at the catering for lodge banquets, and knew a thing or two, reached behind Jean and pulled the back of Billy’s coat violently. “Pst! Set down!” he hissed, tragically.,As that energetic lady bustled about the kitchen the same evening setting the bread, her voice rose in a series of trills and other embellishments as she sang “Where is my wanderin’ boy to-night?”,“P’raps I’ll hinder more than help,” Howard answered, grasping Mrs. Wopp’s outstretched hand and looking questioningly at Nell.,Norah Bliggins, whose nose was already moist from the effects of domestic discord, thrust a chubby finger into her mouth and began to pucker up her eyes preparatory to emitting a howl of dismay at being singled out for the first question. Her brother Pat, sensing the situation, put up his hand eagerly and answered for her.,“But you don’t feel so now, my son. Jimmy will soon be well; you, too. Then you can talk with him about it. Rest, now; that is your first duty,” she comforted, and left him.,A few minutes later the entire Egyptian fortune-telling outfit came down stairs at Billy’s heels. The hubbub was a riot of fun, and no one noticed that Billy said nothing about the revelations of destiny made to him; though later Jean recalled that in the zig-zag journey around the park that was Billy’s evening exercise, he spoke very little to the chatterers with him, even forgot to “jolly.”,“We can play the first canto, ‘The Chase,’ across the river in the Sunol Creek canyon,” Billy explained, eagerly.,Clarence and Harry, much wrapped in white about the head, but with bare little white arms and bare little brown legs, came in solemnly and placed some red lanterns on the table. Bess posed in a chair decorated for the occasion, arranged her draperies, pulled nearer the “incense lamp,” which was her father’s Turkish cigar lighter, laid out her cards, and bent over them in grave silence..