rummy girl

rummy girl ASIA'S NO. 1 BAKER CHANNEL Mrs. Wopp was an incurable optimist, although the citadel of her optimism was being assailed. Turning her wrathful gaze from Moses, her eye lighted on the soiled pink hat and antimacassar still worn by Job. She burst into a hearty laugh and turned to Betty.,CHAPTER II.—CONCERNING BETTY.,She stood at the end of the creaking wharf, and one little bare arm was lifted high. She held a small fruit jar filled with water and beet juice. It was awkward, but Billy had insisted on the fruit jar,—“So’s it will be sure to break; it’s the only kind of a bottle that always will break.”,“Mrs. Bennett, you must unpack it alone, mamma said.”,“And Flash mewed just once, very softly. He couldn’t see the tramp cat, for the big oak tree hid him. But the second Tom answered his mew, Flash flew like a lightning streak, around the tree and up to that old, stealing feline cat. And he ran— O Billy, you’d have laughed an ache in your side if you could have seen him run,—over the fence, he ran again, across the street, down the sidewalk,—he never stopped till he came to the tip top of Mr. Potter’s big locust tree.”，CHAPTER XIII THE HIDDEN HUT，“Do you think fun the first business of the world?”，“You can send some one after us, a man—not you, not either of you,” he called back over his shoulder, and was soon out of sight.Several others were summoned and returned with remarkable reports. At last two high-pitched little voices called in concert down the[160] stair: “The Royal Seeress will rend the veil of futurity for William Bennett.”

“Sunday School, too? How long you’ll be away!”,But even as he looked he saw two people coming; his mother and Jean, crossing the foot-bridge that led to the pasture side of the river. The throbbing in his head, the stifled lungs, interest in the capture of the prisoners,—all faded before this terrible dread.,When Betty returned from school in the afternoon, she beheld snowy billowing apparel on the clothes-line. Mrs. Wopp, being very thrifty in the matter of using up flour and sugar sacks for underwear, had a motley collection of garments suspended by wooden pegs. A night-shirt of Mr. Wopp’s bore the inscription “Three Roses” dimly outlined in pink, while on the southern portion of a pair of more intimate garments could be discerned, fading into palest blue. “Great Western Mills.” The wind was causing a riotous time among the cheerful array of reconstructed sacks, and as Betty ran down the path singing “Twenty froggies went to school,” a sugar sack sleeve of Moses’ shirt embraced a flour sack bosom of his father’s undergarment; and “Pure Cane Sugar“ saluted “Ogiveme’s Mills.” Betty cheerfully performed her task of bringing in the clothes saturated with wind and sunshine. She thought the sweetest smell in the world next to morning-glories and nasturtiums was the smell of clean clothes fresh from the line.,Mrs. Wopp’s suggestion had an immediate and salutary effect on the boy.,“You’ll have to break the record if you get here before noon.”,“The storm’ll be worse yet, Mr. Howard, so you jist stay here till the cock crows fer risin’, an’ I’ll cook you a breakfast better’n a pore lonely bachelor kin cook fer hisself.”,And so the story went on. All the wholesome things of the country that children like had come from one and another. And each had been as happy in giving as Billy could possibly be in receiving.,“Oh, I was havin’ lots of fun watchin’ the dancin’,” returned Betty rising with childish alacrity. The wistful look that belied her words disappeared like magic.,“Moses, here with that pie,” called the gratified Mrs. Wopp, “Yer par wants some.”,Bess, though not quite twelve, was a striking girl, larger than most women; with a mind as unusual as her body. Poetry, music, mythology, she fed upon these as a plant upon the sunshine. She was not satisfied with ordinary speech, but continually wove into the most commonplace events the glamour of romance and poetic words. A wise mother had stood between her and the jeers of the thoughtless, that she might have a normal girlhood; and Billy’s mother and sister helped to make it possible for her to play comfortably with those of her own age. Yet it was a surprise to the stranger to see this dark-eyed, magnificent woman-creature in short skirts romping with children.,Mrs. Newman smiled knowingly; she was familiar with his type, here to-day and gone to-morrow, with falling in love a convenient habit to give zest to the round of vaudeville performances. Mr. Zalhambra caught her smile of incredulity and murmured, “This time it is really fatal.”,“Don’t go off Mr. Potter’s land, will you, May Nell? The fenced part, I mean. Eat some lunch soon; Billy may be gone an hour longer. Good-bye. Don’t get too tired. I’ll send Clarence if I can find him.”.