Betway.com

Betway.com download +88k Thus adjured, Howard began, while Mrs. Wopp leaned back in her chair rocking vigorously.,The Bennetts’ was one of the oldest places in town, and the most beautiful. It was near the heart of the growing village ambitiously calling itself a city. Level lawns protected by high hedges and shaded by many trees, spread amply around the house and back to the first terrace, where a tangle of berry vines covered trellises that shut off a lower level devoted to vegetables. Beyond this was the chickens’ domain, rock-dotted acres that sloped sharply to where Runa Creek boiled over its stony bed. Here mother hens fluttered and scolded while web-footed broods paddled in the edges of the stream.,“Now Mis’ Stephens, call the boys,” requested Mrs. Wopp who was the busiest of the group.,Moses’ face became as mournful as his music had been. It was as though he had suddenly realized that life was, after all, more serious than one suspects in one’s idle moments.,“Why doesn’t your mama have a man to take care of the grounds?” she questioned after she had told him something of her parents and home.，A haughty toss of the head was all the reply vouchsafed to this brotherly jibe.，“Good-by Dad and Mar and Mosey,” called Betty as she sped down the path toward the school-house.，“That’s the reason. She says a boy will spoil the part; won’t get the shivers like she will. She thinks a minstrel can’t—can’t minstrelize properly without the shivers.”“None of your nonsense,” replied the long-limbed pedestrian, his thankyou’s cut short by Moses’ cheerfulness.

“Oh, the song ’bout the clouds rollin’ away,” she yawned, “I want everybody to be happy.” She looked at her teacher and Nell wondered if the child had read her heart and had seen its unhappiness.,S Billy Bennett wheeled around the corner he saw his mother in the doorway. Also he saw Jean Hammond across the street speaking with Bess Carter,—the Queen of Sheba, the children called her, she was so large and dark and handsome, and had such a royal way, like a sure ’nough queen, one said. Though why children who had never been out of Vine County should know so much about queens no one thought to ask.,CHAPTER XIV.—BETTY AMONG THE FLOWERS,An enlarged crayon portrait in a wide gilt frame of Moses as a baby in a state of round cherubic innocent nudity, had been added recently to the mural decorations and was especially well covered with cloths.,“Moses!” called husband and wife, simultaneously. Mrs. Wopp’s voice spanned an interval of about a dozen semi-tones, and as it always grew in volume in direct ratio to the emergency of the duty to be imposed, the last syllable of her son’s name fell on that wretched boy’s ear like a clap of thunder. Mr. Wopp’s accents remained on nearly all occasions at the same even degree of meekness. Nature had not given him the temperament to indulge in crescendos or double fortes.,“I c’d eat a rhindoceros,” he confided to Clarence.,When the two arrived, Nell Gordon was sitting with the sick child and crooning softly to her. Howard Eliot drew near, accidentally touching the firm round arm of Nell as he did so.,That preliminary march was not without adventure. The “howdah” on the White Elephant where May Nell rode as the Fair Princess of Bombay, became loose and threatened to spill its small bit of royalty. And when Harold cinched the thing tighter the old cow bellowed so the smaller children broke and ran. However, they were soon back, and the procession halted at Mrs. Lancaster’s front gate in fair order. But when she saw the imposing string of wagons, children, and animals, known and unknown, she was afraid to trust her precious Buzz to them.,‘The antlered monarch of the waste,This interlude gave Mrs. Wopp an opportunity to recover her equilibrium which had been disturbed by her vivid conception and realistic description of the storm, all of which had necessitated startling gestures and a swaying, rocking movement of the body, illustrative of a ship in distress.,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 ran off full of vague expectation born of his mother’s smile. No one in all the country round, not even Harold Prettyman, whose father had the finest farm in Vine County, had such a splendid place to play as the Bennetts’ back lot that sloped down to Runa Creek. As Billy slammed the gate and bounded out on a huge boulder that hung over the creek, a sounding cheer greeted him from below..