Ballysbet

Ballysbet afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of “He didn’t come roun’ here, I kin tell you though,” joined in Mrs. Wopp, energetically. In speaking of Mr. Zelamba, her voice modulated harshly into a key of hyper-acidulated sharps. “I says to Miss Gordon, an’ she jined in with me, a piannerist may be well ’nough as an actor man, but when it comes to takin’ fer keeps, give me a real man.” After taking a deep breath she continued, “My, but he makes a heap of money an’ he loves it, too; but when he gits to be about forty, the lines in his fiz’ll be as tight as my clothes-rope arter a spell of rain.”,"No, Anse, I promised Missus Keeler that me an' Maurice would keep fire under that preservin' kettle till she gits back from the store. I need the ten cents to buy fish hooks with, besides—',That night when Mrs. Bennett went into the Fo’castle there was an unusual note in Billy’s voice.,“Now Moses,” she called at the end of the third verse, “git the water for the rinsin’.” The clanking lessened and slowly died down to a complaining rumble. It might have been some monster suffering from indigestion.,Lucy was not a young lady to sit idle. She could find something to do in every hour in the day. As Miss Acton did the housekeeping, Lucy was left to her own inventions, and being a girl of several[Pg 83] resources, she was very happy in pleasing herself. Miss Acton went to look after the affairs of the home, and to attend to the needs of a little congregation of poor who were ushered into the housekeeper's room one after another every morning, excepting Sunday, where they stated their wants and obtained such relief as Miss Acton's closets, stocked from her own purse, could supply; and if they did not get always exactly what they wished, they were sure of tender and consoling words, of sympathetic enquiry into their troubles, of a promise of some stockings for little James next week, of a roll of flannel for old Martha the day after to-morrow. Pleasant and instructive it might have been to witness this old lady in her hoop and flowered gown asking questions, handing purges, promising little gifts of apparel to the poor people, who ceaselessly sank in curtsies, or plucked at wisps of hair upon their foreheads whilst they scraped the ground behind with their feet.，It wasn’t because the wind blew so furiously or that the waves dashed so high or that the umbrella had floated away, that made him so sorry! No indeed. Pooh! Nor was it that they sat drenched in the tossing boat far out among great white-capped waves. If he only had not been so awfully disobedient.，At this instant a soft ringing laugh, that once heard is not easily forgotten, comes from an inner room, that is carefully curtained and delicately lighted, and smites upon their ears.，"Where are you going—far from the camp?" asked the old woman.Mr. Keeler was leaning across the back of the long seat, smiling commendingly upon him.

“Well, Bob,” remarked Mr. Hazard when the tale was done, “you certainly had a better time here than you would have had if you had gone to Russia with me!”,How disgusting about Tellef’s old fishing tackle! And that his jacket should get that great split in it, too! The pity about the jacket was that Tellef hadn’t any other. But all the same, it was mean of Tellef to hit him in the back.,Shipley laid a claw-like hand on his friend's arm and turned his rheumy eyes on Sward's blinking blue ones. "Benjamin, we're goin' after the deacon's apples, but we ain't goin' to take no windfalls.",The stars are coming out one by one,—slowly, tranquilly, as though haste has got no part with them. The heavens are clothed in azure. A single star, that sits apart from all the rest, is twinkling and gleaming in its blue nest, now throwing out a pale emerald ray, now a blood-red fire, and anon a touch of opal, faint and shadowy, yet more lovely in its vagueness than all the rest, until verily it resembles "a diamond in the sky.","Have you told Mr. Hinter yet?" she asked suddenly.,He was seated on a stump in the new clearing which sloped to Levee Creek, fingers locked about one knee, battered felt hat pulled over his eyes. The green slope at his feet lay half in the sunlight, half in the shadow. Across from a patch of golden-rod, the cock bird of a fox-scattered quail-covey whistled the "All's Well" call to the birds in hiding. Ordinarily Billy would have answered that call, would have drawn the brown, scuttling birds close about him with the low-whistled notes he could produce so well: but today he was oblivious to all save his thoughts.,There was a general murmur of surprise and a following rustle of gratification.,"Twelve pounds a month, and ten per cent. commission on the freight.","I cannot believe that he made any excuses[Pg 375] at all. He is not a man," Lucy answered, with a faint smile which was certainly not unsuggestive of that sort of expression which the human face puts on when its wearer speaks with secret pride of another, "to make excuses for his conduct to the common sailors under him. Indeed, papa, I don't know which side would be more surprised: he, in excusing his actions to the sailors, or they, that he should condescend to explain. When I first went on deck after being kept in the cabin the scene I witnessed might have been on the stage of a theatre: the crew stood in a body in the fore-part of the ship; two men were a little in advance of them, and at one of these men Mr Lawrence had levelled a pistol. There he stood, pistol in hand, and the sailor, stubborn and defiant, never budged. I felt faint. I feared he would shoot and kill the man.",Betty winced slightly as the chilly weapon touched her face, but recollecting the importance of the issue at stake she submitted tamely to be shorn. In a few moments Moses stepped back to contemplate the result of his drastic work. There was no denying that it had totally changed his little sister’s appearance. A queer expression on Moses’ face made Betty enquire anxiously, “What is it? Don’t I look orlright Moses?”,CHAPTER XV AGAINST THE FIRE,He formed his resolution, and stepping to the door, knocked. He received no answer, whereupon he entered..