Historische Museum

Historische Museum Registering for N88 will give you 128K - V1.3.2 “Singe my hair ef I do, let’s hev some more doin’s,” rebelled Moses.,“You never give my cats a chance,” Billy complained.,“I think you’ve broke my neck, kid,” he said, feebly, as quaking Billy helped him to his feet.,Billy looked at her wonderingly for an instant. “You guess everything that troubles a fellow, don’t you? How do you do it?” He sighed deeply.,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.，CHAPTER I.—MRS. WOPP’S HOSPITALITY.，“He’s jist the plainest gorl-darndest dorg in the worl’, but me an’ Betty thinks heaps of him, an’ Job’s lorst one eye but he’s a dandy live feather duster orl right.” Gestures and grins illuminated this earnest speech.，That was not difficult, for the soft silk slipped into a knot as strong as if tied in hemp.He returned his notes to his pocket with the assurance of one whose unreliable memory has been fortified and rendered infallible. Nevertheless the voluminous folds of Eliza Wopp’s cotton nightgown fluttered all night under the starry heavens.

“Must of warlked in when I left a jint outside fer a minute. She shore is a dark complected bird now.” As Moses spoke he stretched out his arm for the sooty Tillie, but with an indignant cackle the hen tore through the dining-room into the kitchen with Moses and Betty in hot pursuit.,CHAPTER XIX.—BETTY’S ILLNESS.,Mrs. Wopp’s bonnet with its imitation osprey looked as though adorned with fragments of barbed-wire. Her jet earrings seemed entirely superfluous as the lobes of her generous ears glowed like rubies.,“I haf learn for gifing avay already, but I feel more as rich dan if they haf gif to me. How ist dat?” Max asked himself, not knowing, this little German lad so lately come to America, that he had discovered one of the profoundest secrets of the universe.,Mrs. Mifsud, however, had seemingly heard not a word of the story. In her distress she forgot that Mrs. Wopp was decidedly plebeian in her conversation and otherwise hopelessly unfashionable; all these discrepancies vanished from her mind, and leaning over on the ample bosom, she wept copiously. Mrs. Wopp patted her in a motherly way. “One touch o’ nater makes the hull world a-kin,” she whispered, “Hearten up, Mis’ Mifsud, Moses ’ll find yer little lamb. That boy seems slow, but all’s not gold that’s a-glitterin’. He’s shorely got a nose fer findin’ things. Our black carf got lost on the prairie one day an’ he found it arter everybody else hed giv’ up huntin’.”,“A girl under foot all the time,” Shifty complained. He had no sister.,Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?”,The shower was over in a few moments and all prepared to leave the barn for the house.,In the house, meanwhile, affairs were proceeding quite as happily as those out of doors. The hostess fluctuated between the parlor and kitchen. She was preparing a repast not only for the workers present, but also for the men-folk who would presently arrive to take them to their respective homes. Excused from quilting, she nevertheless managed to spend considerable time with her guests. Mrs. Mifsud was a lady who aspired to literary attainments. She had read “Beulah,” “Vashti,” “Lucile,” “St. Elmo” and many other books of like calibre. She felt that her talents were practically wasted, living in what she termed a desert, yet she strove, when occasion offered, by elegance of deportment and conversation to enhance her gifts. She often spoke tenderly of the late Mr. Mifsud who, in spite of the fact that his face had been adorned with bristling side-whiskers of an undeniable red, had shown in other ways some signs of intelligence and feeling. He had been carried off by the shingles. According to Mrs. Mifsud’s account, her deeply-lamented spouse had considered the tall attenuated form of his wife “willowy,” her long thin black hair “a crown of glory,” her worn narrow countenance with its sharp nose and coal-black eyes, “seraphic.”,“Come home to dinner with me, Mr. Zalhambra, you’ll p’raps find some folks there that will appreciate the dope you hand out.”,Now in the silence and fragrance his tightened springs began to relax. Presently he found himself in a dream of possibilities of the island,—Ellen’s Isle, he always called it; of what might be done with the smooth places in the river, the hills, Sunol Creek not far away, boiling and tumbling in boisterous beauty; of hidden nooks, piled boulders, and tiny meadows, vine-enclosed and flower-fragrant.,The captivating music of Grieg’s “Butterfly” floated through the room and Moses watched the white supple fingers of the player with breathless eagerness..