Dazzling Crown

Dazzling Crown Download +128K By this time, Nell was struggling with a dish of hard underdone crab-apples. She chased a refractory apple round and round in its small dish. Finally, with a feeling of triumph, she brought the apple to a halt. Alas! it did not yield to the prodding of the spoon, but bounced up and with an accuracy worthy of a better cause, landed on the eye of Howard Eliot. Betty, all this time feasting her eyes on the new-comer, and enjoying the unusual opulence of the table, burst into hearty laughter.,“O Billy, the poor rabbit will surely be caught; and you know the stag hid in ‘Trosach’s wildest nook.’”,“But the Lord hed his eye on Joner an’ put an orful wind on the sea.”,Mrs. Wopp was too busy to eat breakfast in the orthodox fashion. She could be heard in the kitchen preparing for the trying ordeal of wash-day. Out in the yard the head of the house was busy feeding the fowl.,It was apparent to the most casual observer that Mannel’s whole wardrobe consisted of one grey shirt, one pair of faded blue overalls and a pair of braces. To the uninitiated his occasional absences from school for an entire day would have seemed most mysterious. Leading questions as to the cause having been put to other members of the family who were present elicited only a reluctant reply that Mannel was not ill. Further than this they would not go. At last even on the most obtuse one, light would dawn. Mannel was being laundered.，“Can you forgive me, Nell? This guiding star of Moses is our guiding star, too.” After a moment Howard continued, “I wish we could transplant this morning-glory into our garden, don’t you?”，“Orl right, Mar,” answered Moses, dutifully, his mouth watering in anticipation of the goodies in prospect.，“Flash and Tom wouldn’t touch meat left on the table alone with them for a day,” Edith said as she replenished the plate, shook and folded away the paper, and called her cats.“All right Lize, I’ll jist make a note of that.”

All went well for some blocks. There was a flattering audience at each front door; a few honored the pageant by following. These were mostly mothers of the younger children, who knew the possibilities of such an aggregation of animals and boys.,“Doh, re, mi, fah, soh, la, ti, doh,” sang the children in faint uncertain tones.,Maria, accompanied by Betty, repaired to the spot where they had left the little boy. He was not there. In vain they shouted and called his name.,“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!”,Supper passed. Edith went to church, Billy to keep an appointment with his teacher; and the spring twilight settled down over the room. Mrs. Bennett knew this would be a trying hour, and hastened her work, inventing some light task for May Nell; hastened also the errand to her own room. Yet though she was gone but a moment, on returning a sob greeted her from the cuddled heap on the couch.,“Please,” answered the discomfited youth, “I aint never seen a ship of no kind.”,It may be that atmospheric changes helped to cause the disquiet, for in the midst of an exciting account of a fairy dancing on a moonbeam, a sudden shower descended on the barn and began to pour in a stream through a hole in the roof, immediately over Moses’ head.,“You’re a plucky kid, all right,” he replied, touched more than he would have admitted. “I won’t hurt the dog if you do as I tell you.” He looked for a cord or rope, but found none, and pulled from his pocket a red handkerchief. “Tie this around his neck; let one end hang down.”,“She won’t do it; she said so before. She wants to be Alan-bane.”,“Let ’em come. What do I care for Sour ’n Shifty? I’ll never desert Micawber this near success.” He rubbed on calmly, and the two boys came in at the open door.,She was a queer draggled little creature, with her soaked and tattered dress, and her yellow curls all stringlets. Timidly she touched Jimmy’s blistered hands, realized what he had saved her from, and when she looked her gratitude into his dark eyes something awoke in his heart that never slept again.,Presently Jimmy and George slipped away and quickly returned bearing a huge freezer, Mrs. Bennett following. Now Billy knew what she had done with the cream..