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23 Download +128K - V3.3.2 Now the band came up, a troop of boys in gorgeous uniforms made of red calico and tinsel paper. A drum and fife kept tolerable time; but the wheezy harmonicas and paper-covered combs, the tin horns and clanging triangles, quite “covered” any tune the fife attempted. Yet what matter? It was a joyful noise; and even the horses kept step to the valiant drum.,As Moses clattered down stairs, Mrs. Wopp continued, “There is shore a thunderstorm comin’ up to-night. ’Pears to me I heerd like a roll of drums.”,“Did you see the fine bin of carrots, Mar?” inquired Betty.,SUNDAY brought rain, and Mrs. Bennett decided that May Nell must remain quietly in the house. The only apparent result of her exciting day, and the faint, was a languor that made her willing to obey, to curl up by the fire, with Sir Thomas by her side. He was a tremendous cat, who accepted lazily all the caresses bestowed upon him, while Flash, his white mate, was shy, and unless forced, would not appear before strangers.,Vina was no exception. Ball games, church collections, children’s mite societies, girls sewing, boys running errands, each and all helped with the relief work.，Pat Bliggins approached the receptacle and deposited a prodigiously overgrown, forked, dusty carrot, miraculously endowed with powers of emotion, for several wrinkles beneath its green feathery top betrayed extreme agitation.，“Moses, ef you hev finished yer supper, change yer good clothes an’ go git the cows,” directed his mother. “Betty run an’ fasten up the hens, else the coyotes’ll git them.”，“Have you been to the show this week, Miss Gordon?” He turned from the fire and stood with his back to the cheerful blaze.“Have more toast Glory,” said Moses suddenly wakened. Unwrapping his leg from the rung of the chair, he reached across the table.

“And you’re my Ladybird sister,” Billy said, very softly for him, and threw his arm about them both.,There was room on the slip of paper for only this last item, so numerous had been the demands, during this busy day, on Mr. Wopp’s memory.,“O Billy, it hurts the ears of my mind to hear you say those vulgar words.” May Nell, playing “man” for the first time in her life, looked up from the “rod of grade” that she was piling deftly with a broken shingle. The color from sun and exercise added much to her beauty. She was neither blowsy nor smudged like the other children, and her lawn frock was as spotless as in the morning.,But May Nell was not to be comforted, till that evening when she composed a wonderful ode to “The Wreck of the Fair Ellen.”,“How in the world did you ever sleep through it, Billy?” his mother asked, coming in from the tank-room where she had been to investigate. “There is a small flood there. I should think the first drop would have wakened you.”,CHAPTER II THE SATURDAY GANG,“There’s no mention of circus-ladies going there anyway,” said Howard, smiling. This reference to her attempts to out-barnum Barnum brought a bright smile to the wan face of Betty.,Mrs. Bliggins’ narrative came to an end. Though its application to the misfortune which dominated the minds of the little gathering in Mrs. Mifsud’s kitchen was somewhat obscure, it served to cause a momentary interest. Experiences so unusual and so complicated as those of Mr. Augustus Snoop were bound to be diverting.,“Good-by Dad and Mar and Mosey,” called Betty as she sped down the path toward the school-house.,“That’s what I’m hurrying for. Mamma sent me on an errand to Mrs. Black’s and I want to be back at the station in time to see the train come in. I wish we were going to have a refugee. Wasn’t the earthquake awful?”,‘The antlered monarch of the waste,“What is Betty like?”.