adventures beyond wonderland results

adventures beyond wonderland results Reputable and Safe Then Moses commenced. He ran up and down a chromatic scale of puffs and groans and sniffles, ending with a cadence that sounded like, “Gosh dern!”,CHAPTER XVI THE BRIDGE TO SAFETY,If he was more thoughtful, quiet, at home, his hours of play were more keenly enjoyed as they grew daily fewer. He had found a “dandy job” that would not take him away from home; he could still mow the lawn, and do the chores. He was glad now that he had learned various parts of the housework, for he was to be janitor and messenger at one of the banks, a fact to be told his mother as a surprise on the last day of school.,“I’ll make a note of that, Lize.”,He placed them before him, Rain and Storm, took his great golden horn of plenty under his arm, stepped on the wheeled board, signalled the super, and rolled on, driving the crouching pair in front of him with pelting showers’ of rose leaves, and landing at his station just as the chorus filed in. The gray pair threw their shrouding mantles over the truck, and still crouching pushed it out of sight; and the spectators, believing they had laughed in the wrong place, cheered vociferously, and never knew the difference.，“Tell us how you found him, Moses,” requested Nell Gordon, who was always interested in tales of knighthood.，Dim religious lights from stained glass windows shone through the church and falling on the boy chilled him to the marrow.，At first he could not eat with relish, his mind was so distracted with admiration of the magnificent room, and impatient to get his worrying secret off his heart and conscience. But his wise host ordered so artfully, and filled the intervals of waiting with such delightful stories and anecdotes, explanations of the decorations, funny facts or conjectures concerning the hotel and guests, that before he knew it, Billy had, he told his mother afterward, referring to his stomach, “loaded her up to the guards, ’nough to make you ’shamed of me, mother.”“’Cause I love you, ’n’ I hope the edges’ll be all pink like my mornin’-glories.”

The pianist took a long look at Nell who had been visibly affected by his playing. Misgivings that date back to Eden were leaping into life in his breast. He had been in love more times than he could count, but here was the girl after all. He began a Scherzo of his own composition. Youth gathering flowers at the open mouth of a volcano. The melody was born to live forever. He was a genius. Now Nell knew it and her soul worshipped genius. Howard Eliot was far from her thoughts as she listened to the enchanting chain of melodies that poured forth.,Billy heeded no prize-ring rules, no boys’ traditions of fair play. Every savage instinct inherited from far-distant ancestors and sleeping till to-day, rose, conquered the human in him, for the moment made him brutish. And the sobs of the little girls were as whips of fire.,Billy knew by sight the two Italians who lived there, brothers yet enemies. Each dwelt by himself in a corner of the great building.Each cultivated alone his share of the straggling vineyard on the heights above, too steep and rocky for a plough; though the lush acres on the river bottom went fallow. If either overstepped his bounds they fought. Billy had seen one of these encounters; and the fierce fire in their dark faces, the passion in the foreign words they spoke,—oaths the boy felt they must be,—sent him flying home, tinged his dreams for many a night.,“I don’t know.”,“That’s no giant. She isn’t bigger’n a kid. Will she let you come to play? The Gang’s coming to-morrow.”,He lifted the board, trying its weight. Could he ever get it safely placed? Higher he lifted it, and began to let it drop; but he saw that if the other end missed the window sill, it would pull him down to the court below. Frantic, he stared about for help, for inspiration. He dared not wait till the passers came in hearing; the sound of his voice calling might too soon rouse men inside, make them shoot perhaps. As it was he expected every minute to see a swarthy face appear, a hand with a knife or pistol. It was not for himself he feared, but for May Nell, the little girl who for some strange reason was worth something to these desperadoes, and whose life would be on his soul if he did not save her.,CHAPTER VII.—THE LITTLE CHURCH IN THE COULEE.,“Well, I’ll be blowed, gosh! Mar’d larf to hear you tarlk. You’ll darn my socks, two bits or no two bits, ef Mar says.”,“Jiminy whiz! Your royal splendor dazzles me!” Billy chaffed.,“Them critters has swore more than I ever heerd sence the ketchup bottle fomented an’ bust an’ splashed orl over Par’s shirt an’ trickled down his pants.”,“Been talkin’ to a grave-digger?” queried Mrs. Wopp, of her offspring, as Moses selected a comfortable seat, his sober face still bearing traces of the last few days’ anxiety. She looked on the solicitude of Moses with an approving eye, but it was necessary, however, to hide her maternal pride by a series of assaults upon him on every possible pretext. Her banterings also helped to keep her son and heir in the spotlight.,“Never mind, Mrs. Wopp,” said Nell pleasantly, “he is a perfect gentleman in manners and he wasn’t drinking or gambling when I saw him. May I have a little more of your beautifully cooked meat?”.