The Crypt Newcastle

The Crypt Newcastle download +88k “An orful good-natured tied-in-at-the-waist critter, aint it?” commented Moses.,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?”,“We hev a homestead an’ pre-emption, Miss Gordon, but only work a hundred acres or thereabout. We run stock on the rest of it, aint that the how of it Lize?” Mr. Wopp looked to his help-meet for corroboration.,“Just like a football champion,” Billy interrupted.,In a few days the sight of his wife wrapped in a shawl the color of an unripe cucumber had a rejuvenating influence upon Ebenezer Wopp. He did not say much, being a man of few words, but his sentiments were inscribed in cramped illegible writing on a slip of paper to be handed down to posterity.，“Oh, please, Mrs. Lancaster,” Billy coaxed. “The circus won’t be any circus at all without Buzz. We’re to have him for a side show after the performance. We’ve advertised him,” Billy pleaded well.，“Larst Tuesday,” she continued, “two p’licemen went ridin’ along the trail jist as we were comin’ home from school, an’ they had the beautifulest horses. Moses can ride any horse, no matter how ornery.” Betty’s eyes shone with pride.，“Poor little chaps! They’ve been talking circus for a month.”And Billy, suddenly remembering who was being cheered, slid to his seat sheepishly, a cold feeling down his back, uncomfortable heat in his cheeks.

“I didn’t—I haven’t washed. I’m—” All at once as Billy walked through the tiled entrance, and felt himself in the midst of splendors he had viewed only from without, he was overcome with the suspicion that he looked rather queer beside the immaculate Doctor. He knew his hair “stood up all ways for Sunday”; and his face must be dirty. “But they won’t know how dirty,” he reflected; “this is[211] the time them plaguey freckles’ll get in an’ hide the dust.” Freckles were Billy’s sorest point.,“Who wants to drive my trained bear an’ monkey? Only a dime stranger, only a dime!”,“Must of warlked in when I left a jint outside fer a minute. She shore is a dark complected bird now.” As Moses spoke he stretched out his arm for the sooty Tillie, but with an indignant cackle the hen tore through the dining-room into the kitchen with Moses and Betty in hot pursuit.,Clarence, however, when questioned, declared, “I haven’t seen the little shaver since dinner.”,“Alone?”,“No, no, mother! This is business for only Bouncer and me.” He caught up the cut handkerchief and called the dog before his mother could hinder. “Find her, Bouncer! Find May Nell! Sic ’em!” he shouted, and set off heedless of his mother’s continued protestations, after the bounding dog.,“Never mind grammar, or spelling, whichever it is; what did Flash do?”,“Well I only go ’way about onct in a blue moon,” declared Mrs. Wopp, “an’ I feel so unsartin ’bout everything. Here we are a pack of Gadarene swine goin’ orff to a great city to eat husks I s’pose like the prodigal son. Never mind Ebenezer we’ll come back right glad I’ll bet to the fatted calf.” She pinched his ear in an elephantine playfulness as though he might be the fatted calf himself.,Mr. Wopp in the meantime had seated himself on the other side of Betty and was busy taking notes on the dance then in progress. “It was so interestin” he said, “and the poetry might come in handy.” The dance was called “Captain Jinks.”,Pat Bliggin’s mind was undoubtedly wandering, so a drastic question was in order.,“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.”,“Next month when currants are ripe you shall see.”.