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Asian Online Betting: The Pinnacle of Reputation and Quality! Online Casino: Asia's Most Reputable, Safest Playground! CHAPTER II THE SATURDAY GANG,As he crashed again through the close-grown brush he almost forgot the ugly scene just enacted below. He had been sorry to leave Bouncer to come with the girls; now he was glad. It was good to be quite alone up there with Nature in her less familiar places. A dark ravine lured him. Well as he knew the mountain he had never explored this gorge. The delicate fragrance of wild azaleas greeted him; he could see their pale pink bloom tipping the tall trees that rose out of the chaparral forty or fifty feet above the stream that tinkled beneath them.,“It certainly is wonderful,” agreed Nell with perfect truth.,“Did you see the fine bin of carrots, Mar?” inquired Betty.,Visitors! He saw them through the window. Every step was growing more painful,—he must get to his room. The space from the woodshed roof to the tower room, before so easily surmounted by a swinging jump, looked now as high and far as Mount Whitney. Back to the window he turned. The firelight was dancing on the walls. Sister Edith was talking gayly to neighbors who were standing near the door, and May Nell was snuggled beside his mother on the couch, the great yellow cat, or a part of him, sprawling on her small lap.，“Here, you poor darling, take mine! And don’t be afraid—you’ll find your mother before long.” Edith’s words were brave, but her own eyes were moist.，“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.，Acting on this timely suggestion, Mrs. Wopp deposited the mischievous youths on small chairs, one on each side of her table, directly under her watchful eye. Cracking nuts seemed to have been the special proposed form of amusement for the afternoon. By the end of five minutes the substitute teacher had set several large noisy paper bags on the window ledge.“Are your going to church?” she asked, disappointment drawing her lips to a tremulous curve.

“That bunch with the tickets, them’s the refugees,” Billy whispered to Jean. “See? Mr. Patton’s talking to them. Mr. Brown’s going to take ’em to their places in his hack. I wonder which is ours. Jiminy! See how hard that poor little kid’s trying to bluff her tears!”,Bouncer barked at Billy’s heels. Geewhillikins chased an imaginary foe down the hill, and Jerusalem Crickets crept stealthily along the upper support of the side picket fence, trailing a venturesome sparrow.,“She must come to visit us sometime.”,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.,“You know she never does nothin’ to us really, Moses, no matter how she jaws. Come on, you clipped yer pony so lovely an’ evenlike. The horse-clippers is bangin’ on the wall behind you.”,“This is excitin’ fun,” moaned Moses, as he picked his way carefully with a tin elbow that threatened every moment to capsize with its flaky mass of black dust, “about as excitin’ as playin’ with the ashes in the mornin’.”,“You never give my cats a chance,” Billy complained.,To-day his mother’s words had left a pang. He would soon be a man and have to “think for himself.” Yes, and work, too. “Gee whiz! It’ll be tough not to play any more,” he exclaimed under his breath as he bowled along the tree-lined road that led to the Prettyman farm.,All his treasures, pictures, marbles, mineral specimens, what not, were displayed and explained. And finally came the books, when Billy discovered that she knew most of his favorites, loved them as he did, and could introduce him to new ones that promised delight.,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.,There was a strange weight in his left side, like lead. He felt as if the whole world was against him; and the future looked dark and terrible. Three days ago life had reached out, a white shining road to success. Only three days! He looked north to where clouds were shutting down over the Mountain, gray to-day, not blue. The Mountain, every one called it, for it closed the valley and towered, a sentinel, far above all other mountains in view. Billy thought that stood for him; he was to be chained to this narrow valley all his life; struggle as he might he should never be free.,“Well, he ain’t dead; he’s alive and bully, with a wad that bulges. I’m going to take you to him.”.