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cards game Usual Asia casino Mr. Wopp in the meantime had seated himself on the other side of Betty and was busy taking notes on the dance then in progress. “It was so interestin” he said, “and the poetry might come in handy.” The dance was called “Captain Jinks.”,“Feel that muscle,” he said a moment later; bending his arm, and pressing her fingers to it. “That’s got to grow by a broom or hoe, something besides football!”,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.,CHAPTER XVI.—MOSES HAS EXCITING EXPERIENCES.,May Nell had been “through the measles,” yet she shared the quarantine. Billy resented this at first. It was “no fair.” Afterward he was grateful; for aside from the cheer of her presence she did him a fine service. It was her clever brain that proposed to read his lessons aloud to him; and though he didn’t think much of it at first, he soon saw that this would make a chance for the prize which in his heart he had resigned.，From the kitchen came an unmistakeable odor of cheese. Ebenezer Wopp was having a slight snack before retiring. With the back of his nervous hand he was wiping from the corners of his mouth the telltale crumbs.，The two riders, who were to be followed by the family in the democrat, set off at a gentle lope. Before them lay the Cedar Hills over which the moon was just rising sharply defining their wooded crests. They followed a trail well-known to Howard who had ridden the range, in this district for several years. Nell, though an eastern girl, was at home in the saddle having always been accustomed to riding.，“Let him play to-day, mother,” she pleaded, when the two stepped into the hall; “he can be a boy only once.”“You’re the only girl I’m afraid of in that line. Isn’t that so, Pretty?”

“Did the little kids take it hard?”,May Nell didn’t understand, but thought it best to answer in the affirmative. Beyond that she said nothing, but trudged along by his side till they came to the road and turned toward the haunted house, when he took her suddenly in his arms and walked on in the deepest of the dusty ruts.,Thus interrogated, the boy who had caught but one fleeting word of the sentence, reddened, and shuffling his feet, said he’d “often rode a wild cayuse.”,“Don’t you remember the first day I went to school, he took me between his knees,—I was a little kid then,—and said, ‘Billy, if I[133] know that you ever jump on a boy first to fight him, I’ll lick you. And if another boy jumps on you first, and you don’t fight back, no matter how big he is, I’ll lick you then.’”,“Yes, you shall be our dear little girl.” Mrs. Bennett took the forlorn child in her motherly arms and kissed her. “You’re tired and hungry, too, aren’t you?”,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.,“Oh, Lord,” prayed Betty, “it was Murf Bliggins as throwed the stone, please don’t fergit. Make Jethro’s foot better. Mar allers says, ‘arsk an’ it’ll be given.’ All I arsk is fer Jethro’s foot. He is so l’il, Oh, Lord, an’ the stone was so big. An’ don’t fergit it was Murf Bliggins as done it. Please put it in Miss Gordon’s heart to smite the Philistones with the edge of the sword. Mebbe you could put it inter Mar’s heart to buy Mose a pair of pants that won’t be so hard on him, Oh, Lord. Amen!”,“Hello, Billy To-morrow! Why didn’t you do that mowing last night? You said you were going to.” He dismounted, tied the pony to the post, and went inside; and one saw that in spite of jeers the boys were friends.,“No, Billy never forgets his cats,” his sister answered for him; “though the chickens might sometimes suffer but for mamma. Take your ill-bred felines out, Billy.”,All went well for some blocks. There was a flattering audience at each front door; a few honored the pageant by following. These were mostly mothers of the younger children, who knew the possibilities of such an aggregation of animals and boys.,“Why, Billy? I don’t believe in whipping unless all else fails.”,Billy cuddled down in the low-growing manzanitas, whose screen was further thickened by a tangle of wild pea vines all a-bloom. Placing himself so that he could watch both the house and the man on the hill, he settled to await further disclosures..