The Christmas Express 2024

The Christmas Express 2024 ASIA'S NO. 1 BAKER CHANNEL “When Moses is growed up, Mar, I think it ’ud be jist lovely fer him to be in the Mounted P’lice. He’s so clever at findin’ things an’ he’d look jist grand in the clothes,” enthused Betty.,Max was the first to be quite ready with his exhibit. It was a queer creature that one gradually discovered to be some sort of a bird; though such a one had never before been seen on land or sea. Max had arrayed his mother’s big white gander for the occasion. A turkey-tail fan made a huge breastplate, if one can imagine a breastplate of feathers. All the long-tailed roosters that had been killed in town for months, one would guess, had contributed to the coat of sprawling feathers that was tied over the body of the bird. And no one knew by what magic the boy had coaxed some one to lend him the magnificent peacock plumes that rose high above the little wiggling goose tail.,Now the band came up, a troop of boys in gorgeous uniforms made of red calico and tinsel paper. A drum and fife kept tolerable time; but the wheezy harmonicas and paper-covered combs, the tin horns and clanging triangles, quite “covered” any tune the fife attempted. Yet what matter? It was a joyful noise; and even the horses kept step to the valiant drum.,She put out her hand for the pail but stopped suddenly, for the dog growled; and the next instant the room darkened, and a man stood in the doorway.,They came to the crest of the gorge. “We’ll have to slow up and zig-zag down carefully or they’ll hear us an’ get away,” Billy suggested.，“Wot’s the use of livin’ if Betty grows them there wings they talk of?” he demanded of the fowl as they scurried from his path.，The ladies, having descended the ladder, Betty began hurriedly to show the remaining pictures. Visions of a sumptuous repast had flitted before the minds of her listeners and a spirit of restlessness pervaded the loft.，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?”It was not the hour for ghosts, they must be real people. Billy encouraged himself with that thought and wished he could wait for further disclosures. Did the sun ever before go down so fast? He hastened to find his wheel and can, and set out at his best pace.

The Sun called to Flora, and she appeared by his side. In front of them knelt the Sower,crowned with leaves. The Sun bestowed upon him a cornucopia overflowing with cherries; Flora laid on his other arm long sprays of roses.,“Sure.” Billy looked up from all fours and grinned. “I haven’t got two able-bodied sisters like Vilette an’ Echo to work for me; and you wouldn’t have me see my mother do it, would you?”,“Mrs. Bennett, you must unpack it alone, mamma said.”,The loose-jointed one at last regained his feet and turning in the direction of the witnesses of his ignominy gave them a resentful glare. Moses was leaning against a fence and laughing till it seemed as though his eyes must remain indefinitely imbedded in their sockets.,“Hold your grouch, Sour,” Harold expostulated.,“I wonder who’ll buy this here quilt,” speculated Mrs. Wopp, as she bent over her task, “there’s shorely a great sight o’ work on it. As fer me, I aint got time to do much fancy work an’ I’d never git round to a job like this fer myself.”,George nudged Jimmy. “Hit again, Sour. Come on.” The two boys went out, mysteriously embarrassed.,“Sure.” Billy looked up from all fours and grinned. “I haven’t got two able-bodied sisters like Vilette an’ Echo to work for me; and you wouldn’t have me see my mother do it, would you?”,“That’s no giant. She isn’t bigger’n a kid. Will she let you come to play? The Gang’s coming to-morrow.”,St. Elmo’s face brightened with intelligence. He broke into the story to give a graphic account of how a little yellow chicken of his sister’s had got “dwownded” in the pig-trough.,“I c’d eat a rhindoceros,” he confided to Clarence.,Mrs. Mifsud, however, had seemingly heard not a word of the story. In her distress she forgot that Mrs. Wopp was decidedly plebeian in her conversation and otherwise hopelessly unfashionable; all these discrepancies vanished from her mind, and leaning over on the ample bosom, she wept copiously. Mrs. Wopp patted her in a motherly way. “One touch o’ nater makes the hull world a-kin,” she whispered, “Hearten up, Mis’ Mifsud, Moses ’ll find yer little lamb. That boy seems slow, but all’s not gold that’s a-glitterin’. He’s shorely got a nose fer findin’ things. Our black carf got lost on the prairie one day an’ he found it arter everybody else hed giv’ up huntin’.”.