Wild Jungle

Wild Jungle download +128k Mrs. Bennett hugged her closer and patted her cheek softly, but let the passion of tears spend itself a little before trying the comfort of words. Then she questioned of the child’s parents, her past life, and the events just preceding the catastrophe in San Francisco, that she herself might better understand how to shield and make happy the little waif that a terrible, heaving earth had cast into her home, her arms.,Billy sprang up. The dark man of the sinister house was passing on his way to town; had answered a horseman’s salute. The boy could not see the house; but on the high hill above it he saw the other brother, regardless of the Sabbath, hoeing his vineyard.,Flags waved. In spite of Billy all shouted orders at once. The line was as serpentine as Bess’s snakes that she held high and wriggling above her snake-entwined head. Oh, she was a very realistic snake charmer! Buzz crowed and clapped his pudgy little hands; and the Lancasters’ small Chinese boy who pulled the baby’s car almost fell over himself laughing.,Howard sat back in his chair and thought of the possibilities of seeing Nell. He reflected that they were as good as engaged. Mrs. Wopp had given her diagnosis of the case enigmatically, perhaps, but with a degree of accuracy denoting keen observation on the evening of his last visit at the Wopp household. For fully a fraction of a minute Nell had let him hold her hand, and then her face all dimpling had turned to say good-night. He was rehearsing what he should say next time she dimpled so irresistibly and he breathed anathemas on his asinine conduct in being so shy and tardy. He was brought to the immediate present by Moses who was regarding an ice-cream soda with suspicion.,After these followed Jean as Rain. Wherever she passed the singers bowed their heads and sang more softly, and Frost retreated in haste.，“Oh, Mr. Sheriff, you won’t send me off now, will you, when the business is just beginning?”，“Betty’s not goin’ to no kingdom come yet,” assured Mrs. Wopp, her optimism rising like a star of the first magnitude to lighten the darkness of her son’s midnight sky.，“Now who wants to ride the camel? Who wants to ride the swayin’ tossin’ ship of the desert?” Betty turned to her swarming audience; then to Moses she whispered as though she might be overheard, “You step forward an’ pay me two bits fer a ride.” Moses put a ticket into Betty’s hand and, not to be outdone in bravery, mounted the single-humped camel. Molly forgot her training in the sandy desert and lurched sadly.It was Saturday afternoon on a busy street in the city. Moses Wopp and Clarence Crump, at whose home the former was spending the week end, were on their way to the skating-rink. If they had wanted to skate there, the streets would have accommodated them with a sufficiently smooth surface, as an early frost had rimed the pavement.

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.,Nancy was the older and larger of the two, and having long been the pampered favorite of the house, she had at first resented the introduction of Jethro. She would not associate with him at all, and whenever he came dancing into the room where she was, she generally withdrew with the greatest possible dignity.,They tied the horses, and once hidden from the road, shed every superfluous garment. Billy was quite ashamed of the chill he could not help when he saw the handcuffs, pistols, and cartridges disposed neatly and conveniently about the Sheriff’s waist. They looked so vicious, “disrespectable.”,She turned back and rode up by his side. “Why shouldn’t a girl ride as fast as a boy?” She had a bright, frank face, and her brown eyes were as honest as they were beautiful.,Billy was skeptical, yet soon convinced, as the little girl slowly and carefully read the problems, followed his directions, and obtained correct results. A few problems were too complicated; these the boy had her mark for attack with recovered sight.,Mrs. Mifsud had entered the room in time to hear the last remark. Owing to the paucity of minds as keenly intellectual as her own, Mrs. Mifsud always tried to keep her remarks to a suitable level so that all present might comprehend her language. The heights, alas! must be scaled by her alone. While willing to acknowledge the substantial character of Mrs. Wopp, she considered her sadly deficient in grammar and social graces. She now interposed.,Betty, not interested in intricate relationships, tiptoed into the parlor and uncovering the organ, played with one finger “Home Sweet Home.” The wool-embroidered motto on the wall almost wept.,As Clarence depicted the terror of the father, lest his arrow miss the mark and kill his son, Moses rose from his chair in breathless suspense. However, the arrow cleft the apple and left the boy unscathed, and the relieved Moses, sinking back in his chair, recovered himself sufficiently to murmur “What an orful chanct fer anyone ter take!”,As he reached for his cap a door opposite the one through which he had passed opened, and the grey head of the sexton appeared.,“Gosh!” he exclaimed, as Isobel closed on the last startlingly unexpected note, “that’s where some feller planks his strawr hat on a beauty butterfly!”,And that night after school, when May Nell’s little wardrobe was all packed,—not without a slight baptism of Edith’s tears,—and waiting for the morning train, Mr. Smith came in and put a ceremonious looking document into Billy’s hand.,Her birthday would fall on the last Saturday in September and she was sure to be allowed a party. Each guest could be secretly advised to bring as many carrots as could be conveniently carried to gain entrance to “The greatest movin’ picter gallery in the world, where fairies an’ birds an’ flowers would act an’ tarlk.” The carrots so obtained could be auctioned off to the adults present, and Betty felt sure that her mother, seeing her carrots were not a success, would give a high price for the succulent vegetables. A discreet hint must also be thrown out that anyone not so fortunate as to be the possessor of a spare carrot could bring silver..