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amusnet logo Ten years of prestige May Nell ran and hugged Mrs. Bennett, and Edith and Billy in turn, nestling afterward in her father’s arms.,Confusion followed. Harry was struck with a great fear. Was she dead? He had never seen a girl do so before. Would they hang him?,On reaching the hay-loft all were seated with the least possible degree of discomfort on upturned soap-boxes and apple-boxes. Betty covered both windows with blankets and lit a lantern. She had constructed a pasteboard box with a large square opening and now set the lantern in such a way that a picture placed at the opening in the box was illuminated so that all could see it clearly. Betty showed her pictures in a well arranged order and her lively imagination supplied the connecting links in the story her lantern “slides” unfolded.,Mrs. Wopp’s suggestion had an immediate and salutary effect on the boy.,“What new trick has Flash been up to?”，As Moses clattered down stairs, Mrs. Wopp continued, “There is shore a thunderstorm comin’ up to-night. ’Pears to me I heerd like a roll of drums.”，Amid the wealth of love how could the little heart refuse comfort? Billy tossed her to his shoulder and carried her to his mother’s room, where both women coddled her and Edith sang her into a sweet sleep.，“Where you’ll be safe till I let your father know I’ve got you.”He went on, a little cautiously now, and shortly came in view of the “Ha’nt,” a sinister though imposing house, built of cut stone, close against the face of the most picturesque mountain of the range, bounding Vina Valley. The windows were curtained with cobwebs and dust. For years the wide front door had been nailed up with the same sun-bleached boards; and “Keep out!” spoke from every gray splinter.

You can bet your old sweet life,,But his mother watched out the night.,After this vigorous onslaught upon the quondam admirer of Nell, Mrs. Wopp ordered Moses to help her prepare the spare room on the ground-floor for the young rancher.,THINGS happened very fast the next few days. “Something doing every minute,” Billy put it. Billy had neither been ill nor injured,—only exhausted. The wound on his scalp had been worse in appearance than in fact; and a couple of long nights in sleep, and easy days at home mended him completely.,Billy was off, fear lending fleetness to feet that a moment before had been leaden. He overtook his mother and Jean in the path to the Lodge. “Have you come for her?” he panted. “Do you think she’s alone still?”,“Lan’ sakes, here’s friend neighbor,” exclaimed Mrs. Wopp entering the room from the kitchen, “yer jist in time to help this here pore overworked teacher with some papers she brung home from the school.”,“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.,In this mood he turned into the main road and came upon Jackson limping, bloody, and crying.,With a boy’s cunning and swiftness Billy made a running creep through the underbrush up the steep mountain side. From a peephole higher up he stopped, breathless, and watched them beat the chaparral round about where he had stood; saw them go down into the road, look each way, turn and scan the mountain; and at last slink off, one to the house, the other to the vineyard.,“We won’t have any shadow people to-night, darling.” Mrs. Bennett rose and turned on the lights, though it was not yet dark; drew the curtains, and punched the fire till a storm of sparks sputtered up the chimney.,The disgusted artist got up and with a huge hand wiped his handkerchief across his perspiring brow. He was short and very thick set, with prominent forehead, bulging black eyes, coarse nose, thick red lips.,“She has a music class in Loma; and it isn’t dreamland, either, teaching; but she has to earn grub for me, sister does.” The frank statement of a truth he had grown accustomed to this morning roused a feeling of shame, and he gazed steadily at his plate..