9EXCHANGE

9EXCHANGE 100,000 players “O mother, how can there be joy if life is all work and never any fun?” He took her hand and pressed it against his cheek.,“But you said you would take me to him. I thought you knew where he is.”,Jean and the twins, Charley, George and some others, rattled down the stairs; while Clarence and Harry stood rigid, with wooden scymitars drawn, one on each side of the door.,“Aint that wonderful Miss Gordon? An’ Betty never had a lesson in her life. She jist naterly takes to music,” said Mrs. Wopp complacently.,“It’s up to you now, my girl,” he panted under his breath. “The board will bend—you mustn’t be frightened. Fix your eyes on the tree—come fast.”，The three men lined up in front of the closed door, and one of the deputies quickly threw it open. For an instant the officers stood motionless with weapons drawn. Billy watched with fascinated eyes; the moment the door opened forgot orders, ran and crouched behind the Sheriff, peering under his uplifted arm. There in the lurid firelight that streamed through the closed window, stood the two men he had seen before, hands up, rigid, staring into pistol barrels. Floor boards were torn up; strange vessels, scales, various paraphernalia Billy could not understand, lay about them; while in a deep hole they had dug, a small, iron-bound chest was partially covered with earth. The men’s faces were smutched, streaming with perspiration, and pale with terror.，“Ay, ay, sir,” came this time from two boys who had charge of some logs lashed together and crossed and recrossed by a hash-like lot of refuse lumber, and moored with a dog chain.，“White eyebrows child! What are you talkin’ about? Yer eyebrows are blacker nor that stove.”Moses was not easily satisfied. His attitude was always that of one who has dined on an undersized shrimp while expecting a ten-course banquet.

Once she had seen a moving picture show. It was a marvellous experience to her and had filled her dreams for many nights. She now decided to have a little moving picture show of her own.,“They’d look purtier, Glory, ef you’d put more colors in,” commented Mrs. Wopp.,“Oh, Billy, Billy! My beautiful opera is ruined!” Edith wailed, as she heard the jeers of the small boys in the audience.,He arrived home Monday evening, and was received as though a visit of several months’ duration had torn him from the bosom of the family.,He threw himself on the bed and wept the bitterest tears he had ever shed in his life, tears of shame. There he lay—hours, he thought—determined to bear his pain and disgrace alone. Yet it was only minutes when he heard his mother in her room, coming!,“Hello, Billy! You washin’ floors?” There was a sneer in Jimmy’s voice.,From the waist down, Moses’ masculine and uncouth figure seemed to utter a dull protest against cut-me-downs. There are many forces in life that growing youths are not able to control. One of these, in the career of Moses, was the inexorable will of his mother that ordained homemade garments for his nether limbs. Made from his father’s discarded trousers of black and grey check, the new pair of abominations that adorned the legs of the youthful Wopp bore evidence to the unskilled fingers of the maker. They had the generous dimensions allowed by an imaginative and economical mind that could look into the future and could see legs lengthening and a general expansion. In fact, the coarse checked tweed fell in slight gathers, fore and aft. The dingy greenish-grey coat that slouched from Moses’ shoulders did not fail to heighten the effect, but seemed to set the costume in italics.,“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.,Betty had lent Moses fifteen cents of her Christmas money and was receiving two pink and white candy canes as her weekly dividend—“truly a lean annuitant.”,A small stove had been set up in the improvised kitchen, and a big boiler filled with water. This was now boiling furiously and the ladies proceeded to make the coffee. Cakes and pies were cut, cups and saucers were piled in one huge basket and sandwiches in another.,CHAPTER VI.—AN EVENING IN THE WOPP PARLOR.,“They shan’t ever again call me Billy To-morrow. It’s Billy To-day, Bouncer. It shall always be Billy To-day!”.