Pocket Aces logol

Pocket Aces logol Reputable and Safe They were a happy lot. Each held some high-sounding position, the name coined in Billy’s busy brain. His box of abused tools came forth; the much mended wheelbarrow, picks, shovels wobbly from use as well as abuse, improvised things that only an imagination as large as Billy’s could have named tools,—something for each one there.,Her absorption hypnotized the others to wondering stillness. In a moment her attitude and intensity had transported them to the mysterious East, and put upon them the spell of ancient superstitions.,CHAPTER XVII.—A SAMPLE OF EBENEZER WOPP’S IRE.,“We hev a homestead an’ pre-emption, Miss Gordon, but only work a hundred acres or thereabout. We run stock on the rest of it, aint that the how of it Lize?” Mr. Wopp looked to his help-meet for corroboration.,It was Mrs. Wopp’s voice. From her remarks one would gather that the rarest perfumes wafted on the winds invoked by Solomon could never seem so sweet to Woppian nostrils as the mingled odor of hay and freshly dug carrots.，“Giving music lessons isn’t work. I’d love to do that.”，“But some people like their work, don’t they?” May Nell persisted. She was exploring strange country.，“I’m sorry to make you late with your mowing, Billy, but I must have you go out to Mrs. Prettyman’s for some cream she promised me.”“Billy! My—boy!” Mrs. Bennett bent over him; and he felt a tear where her cheek touched his.

Not unwillingly the boy relinquished his task. Weeding after all is thankless work. The weeds will persist in growing in spite of every discouragement.,Amid the wealth of love how could the little heart refuse comfort? Billy tossed her to his shoulder and carried her to his mother’s room, where both women coddled her and Edith sang her into a sweet sleep.,One bullying boy, to punctuate his last taunt to Moses before turning into another road, picked up a stone and hurled it at his dejected victim. The stone glanced and struck Jethro who was bounding along the road to meet his mistress. A piteous yelp followed by a loud howl, and Betty was on her knees beside the wounded animal. She turned and shouted fiery imprecations after the fleeing boys.,“Was it as bad as that?” She smiled, and smoothed back the thick, tumbled hair.,The Sun called to Flora, and she appeared by his side. In front of them knelt the Sower,crowned with leaves. The Sun bestowed upon him a cornucopia overflowing with cherries; Flora laid on his other arm long sprays of roses.,“But, Mose, you shorely didn’t fergit a sorft answer turneth away wrarth?”,He found Evelyn on her knees before a hot fire, bravely trying to hold level one of the several pots that were sizzling there. Her drooping hair smothered her small hot face, and perspiration stood like dew on her anxious little upper lip.,The service began and was proceeding with its accustomed smoothness and decorum when a most unseemly interruption occurred. Maria Mifsud had long entertained suspicions that all was not well with the interior of the organ. Lately a few of the notes had refused to make a sound, and to-day there seemed to be more of these delinquents than ever. While Mr. Bliggins was collecting the offering Maria began to play a voluntary carefully practised beforehand. She had fairly launched into “One Sweetly Solemn Thought” when suddenly she discerned peering curiously at her through one of the round holes which adorn the front of the instrument the small bright eye of a mouse. The intruder was apparently quite calm and self-possessed. Not so Maria. With a piercing shriek she jumped from the organ stool and rushing to the back of the church leaped wildly to the seat beside her scandalized and uncomprehending mother. Almost at the same moment the offending mouse scampered down the internal anatomy of the organ and gained freedom through an exit beside the pedals. Mr. Wells turned crimson and stood on one foot. Most of the ladies of the congregation drew their feet up on the seat beside them. The mouse ran furiously along the sacred aisles of the church.,After the opening exercises of the Sunday-school session, Mrs. Wopp was pained to notice that some of her scholars did not consider attention to the lesson any part of their duty. However, that strict disciplinarian had a vast store of startling reprimands that set all eyes gazing on her sincere countenance.,A liberal application of shoe paste furnished the unfortunate victim with a startling pair of jet-black eyebrows, nearly an inch in depth. Appalled at what he saw, Moses drew from his pocket a grimy handkerchief. Dampening one corner of it in his mouth, the most expeditious thing to do under the circumstances, he carefully wiped around the outside of these funereal bands, reducing them slightly in size but also straightening their edges.,Let us find our sweetest comfort,“Yes, yes, marmsey; but there’s night shops where a fellow can gobble education by the hunk, you know, and—” He paused. Even his own mother didn’t know the pang in his heart when he thought of Jean and Jimmy, and the others, going on together through the high school, perhaps the university..