लॉटरीपिक्चर

लॉटरीपिक्चर ten years of prestige “Have more toast Glory,” said Moses suddenly wakened. Unwrapping his leg from the rung of the chair, he reached across the table.,“Try agin, Mose, now not too hard! Easy like! There! Jest a leetle bit more! Stop! Hold on! Shucks! Everythink’s went wrong! Here, we’ll start agin.”,“Moses, yer as useless as the hole in a doughnut; here quick gimme yer handkerchief till I mop up yer Par.”,“S’posin’ the pore little critter’s hidin’ there, shiverin’ an’ chatterin’, afeerd o’ them orful pirates,” he soliloquised, while large drops of moisture gathered on his brow at the thought. As he hurried along he encountered a branch which hung low and like a scalpel lifted the straw hat from the head of the astonished boy.,“Naw Nosey,” he retorted, “there ain’t no bun to break in two, the dorg is outside the bun already.”，Though these and similar remarks seemed rather personal no resentment was felt by anybody.，“What has happened to you, Billy?” his mother questioned sharply as she turned at his voice and saw his damaged head. “You’re hurt, Billy!”，Inside the church matters were beginning to resume a normal condition. But Mr. Wells still badly shaken and feeling unable to proceed announced, “My friends we will conclude our service with a hymn. Will some one suggest a suitable one.”“By heck! Flash is all right.”

The child was gifted in this most elemental of the arts, and her histrionic ability carried along the interest of her listeners even when the printed matter on the back of the paper interfered with the clearness of the picture. Her imagination bolstered up the defects of dry facts.,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.,Dough when Mother bakes the bread,,A gentle rap halted his reflections, a sweet voice asked to come in; and in a moment there was a rose-leaf touch on his cheek.,The boy gave her a squeeze that made her last words come in jerks. “That’s a mean trick to play on a fellow,—chuck such a responsibility on a twelve-year-old. Say I must or I mustn’t, mamma.” He caught her hand and gently tweaked her fingers.,After several rounds the mouse, at last seeing the open door, darted through it to freedom. Jethro a short distance behind assayed to follow; but taking a short cut under the back seat on which huddled the Mifsud family he unexpectedly encountered his ancient enemy Snappy the Mifsud’s collie. Snappy, who had been roused from his slumbers under the buckboard by the commotion in the church, had crept in unnoticed and had been an interested spectator of the proceedings. Jethro’s always superabundant energies were now turned in a new direction. Snarls and snaps and the fiercest growls testified to the bitterness of the feud.,It was evident that great care had been exercised over Betty’s gift. She exclaimed joyously over a Cyclamen, whose pale pink blooms brought the flush of delight to her cheeks; a bag of peppermint bulls’ eyes elicited a like degree of appreciation.,“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.’”,“S’tup,” he commanded. Jethro immediately sat up on his hind legs.,He tidied himself, bade his mother good-bye, and followed the girls to rehearsal.,“Mebbe you’re right, Moses; mebbe the seed was no good,” sighed Mrs. Wopp. “Anyhow, it’s too late now to put in any more. We carnt know ef the heart o’ a seed is good no more nor we kin know the heart o’ our next-door neighbor. The seed may ’pear to be good enough from the outside, yet arter all be mighty lackin’.”,“I don’t know.”.