Patti Room

Patti Room ten years of prestige Nell looked toward the morning-glory garden and there she saw Betty kneeling in the moonlight. Jethro was sitting up on his hind legs beside the little figure, holding his paws before him. The moonlight fell on his penitential white body, on the stiff braids of the sorrowful and contrite Betty, and lighted up the bright yellow nasturtiums that filled the air with their pungent odor. The morning-glory leaves gleamed in the pure white light.,“What is Betty like?”,“I believe you are becoming a confirmed westerner,” said Howard as they slowed down to a walk. “If you once drink slough water you know you will never like any other.”,Edith finished her music lesson, dismissed her pupil, and made the little girl tidy if comical, in one of her own frocks. And when the four sat to eat, Billy’s voice rang above the rest in the little song they sang in lieu of grace.,Edith came in dressed for church.，What if they should find him? Gee! Couldn’t a boy run faster than a man? Another sound banished these thoughts; wheels on the road, whose thick coat of dust almost hushed the ring of metal tires. A horseman before, and now a wagon; this was an unusual amount of travel for that lonely road.，This act opened with a hidden chorus that lasted two or three moments, the fairies on the one hand inviting the elves and gnomes to join them; the others responding. While this was in progress Billy rushed to the boys’ dressing room and talked furiously but straight to the purpose.，“All this turnin’ is good for the liver too you know,” she continued, as her son’s vinegary expression remained unaltered.“My eye!” exclaimed Clarence, mockingly shading his eyes from his sister’s radiance, “She’s got her joy-bells on, what’s the stunt?”

“I hate to have you stay without Jean,” Billy objected.,Mrs. Bennett heard anxiety in the voices of the visitors, and came out.,This time Moses was more successful. Comforted, he felt he could enjoy a few morsels himself. Calling the contrite Jethro, who, after extricating himself from the ruins he had made, had retired under a bench, the boy made his way to a remote corner. Here no parental admonitions would disturb him. He surveyed with pleased expectancy an enormous triangle of pie, a huge slab of gingerbread, a monument of glistening iced cake, half a dozen tarts, and a few other trifles he had brought with him.,“She’ll be afraid to sleep in the downstairs bedroom,” Mrs. Bennett reflected, planning rapidly for the unexpected child whom she still had no thought of turning from her door.,“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!”,“This here dorg is clean tuckered out,” she declared, “ef he swallered a green pea, you’d see it goin’ down orl the way.”,The broad shaft of sunlight that flooded the dining-room where Nell Gordon sat was suddenly darkened. Looking up she saw the tall straight figure of Howard Eliot at the doorway.,Ebenezer Wopp was the last silent word in patient masculinity, but his face, becoming darker with his work, would lead an onlooker to believe that sinister thoughts were struggling to find expression.,His mood grew more thoughtful. He put the dishes away quietly, and neither spoke again till the work was finished. Then he went and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s good to have you all to myself, little mother; to be just chums once more.”,“Never mind the floors, Billy. You’ve worked hard already; run off and have a good time.”,All went well with the preparation; and on a glorious spring night in the full moon, the town and countryside jammed the Opera House “to its eyebrows,” Billy said, looking through the peephole in the curtain to the high window seats crowded with boys.,Just then he saw a wagon in the distance rounding the curve of the mountain. This was his minute. He must get her before that team passed. Then if any one attempted to prevent him he would have help. He turned back to May Nell..