Christmas card companles

Christmas card companles ten years of prestige 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.,What matter if the telegraph poles that were to be just twelve feet—that is, twelve inches—fell short or long sometimes.,Mrs. Wopp leaning towards a lady on her right inquired, “Do you know Mis’ Stephens, why Joe Avery is not dancin’ this evenin’. Ever sence we come into this here barn he has never moved from his seat.”,“Oh, Betsey, give it to me!” he whispered in agony of soul. “Don’t let up’s long’s I live! Maybe I’ve killed her!”,Pat Bliggin’s mind was undoubtedly wandering, so a drastic question was in order.，And Billy did not think of it as strange till Buzz’s grandmother called from behind the window curtain, “Delia, you surely won’t traipse through town with that crowd! How you will look!”，All this time Mr. Wopp had carried and brushed and shaken stove-pipe lengths until his face and bald head resembled a latticework trellis. Only one length remained to be operated on before proceeding to the upper storey, where the stove-pipe continued its tortuous way to the chimney, warming sundry rooms on its beneficent course.，“Nothin’.”“That ole bantam has shore got some speeditood,” reflected Moses, in gasps, as he made several futile plunges for Tillie.

Billy went on with his rubbing, and his next words were comically resigned. “Besides, I suppose I’ll have to get married some day; of course she’ll be a new woman; might as well learn housework now.”,“But, Billy, Tom opens it for him! He climbs up, gets his nose in, and the largest part of himself; then he crowds along as hard as he can, and calls to Flash, ‘The way is clear; come’;—you needn’t laugh; he says it just as plain as words,” she protested. “And Flash springs up, creeps through, and jumps to the floor, with Tom after him; and the screen slaps to with a big noise. I’ve seen them do it three times this week. Isn’t that a wonder?”,“I’m sorry to make you late with your mowing, Billy, but I must have you go out to Mrs. Prettyman’s for some cream she promised me.”,Friction and mustard, hot water bags without and hot tea within soon set Billy’s teeth at rest.,Mrs. Wopp viewed with misgiving the ornate writing not yet erased from the previous lesson. She feared her own handwriting would suffer by comparison.,“Aint it amazin’ how hungry one gits,” hoarsely remarked Mr. Wopp who had not spoken for some time owing to close application to the task in hand. “Lize, I want a piece of that punkin pie of yourn.” Here he caressed the bulging buttons on his waistcoat. “My mouth’s waterin’ fer it an’ I b’lieve I hev room.”,“Bring him here.” The man stepped out and laid his hand on a sapling that grew beside the Lodge. May Nell followed with the dog.,The two steeds attached to the car of the Goddess of Liberty, also deserted their task, and marked their path with bright bits of paper and bunting.,When the train snorted into the station the two were there, Billy with his loaf under his arm, his can dangling. Most of the arrivals were townsfolk home from visits to the stricken city; but a few, evidently strangers, descended and stood by themselves.,“Yes, I seen them an’ smelt them, too; they shore ’d delight the heart of an Eskermo, Betty.”,Edith had quickly put her plan in execution, aided by the willing newspapers; but so far nothing had come of it, and mother and daughter feared their charge had lost more than aunt and cousin. South America, a very definite spot in the child’s mind, was still too vague a postoffice address for even Uncle Sam’s marvellous mail-carrying; and so, while encouraging May Nell, the two women tacitly adopted her into their hearts and discussed her future as if she were their own.,So the hours passed. The two women had their quiet rest till five o’clock when they came down for the usual singing. May Nell had a sweet voice, surprisingly strong for a child; and when she asked to play her own accompaniment to a little song unknown to Edith, the latter was surprised by the child’s skill, and still more by her rare feeling and expression..