Casino Days owner

Casino Days owner Ten years of prestige “Oh ’bout the fairies an’ stars an’ lovely things that grownups know nothin’ about.”,If he had been older he would have said he had “the blues.” Yet probably he would not have known that his mental—and physical—condition was a natural result of the long strain of previous weeks. All the children felt it. That morning the cousins, Clarence and Harry, who loved each other dearly, had come to blows in the Sunday School room before the teachers arrived, over the question of which one of them should marry Miss Edith. Clarence received a bloody scratch the full length of his palm from Harry’s Band of Mercy pin; while the careful parting disappeared from his own hair, and a red splotch marred the whiteness of his wide collar. No one can tell what further calamity might have happened had not the Twins opportunely arrived and questioned of the quarrel.,This threatened catastrophe had considerable weight with St. Elmo who, in spite of Betty’s discouraging words, still had a lurking hope that he too might be privileged to see the “faywies” some day. Although he was badly handicapped in being a boy, yet in some miraculous manner there might be an exception made in his favor.,“They shan’t ever again call me Billy To-morrow. It’s Billy To-day, Bouncer. It shall always be Billy To-day!”,“By heck! Flash is all right.”，THE day was fine. Billy, not long released from his green shade, wondered if the world was ever so lovely before; the flowers so sweet, the birds so joyous. Could it be only a few short weeks since that gray Sunday? Billy’s confinement had quickened him, introduced him to himself; now he looked on life with wider eyes, with a more understanding heart.，“Like the lazy coward he is,” Billy tartly interrupted.，“It’s plain lazy. He won’t even wash himself.”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.

“Come, come! We can’t be cremated while we wait. Mush!”,In the midst of these reflections, the trombone player of the orchestra came to him.,The loose-jointed one at last regained his feet and turning in the direction of the witnesses of his ignominy gave them a resentful glare. Moses was leaning against a fence and laughing till it seemed as though his eyes must remain indefinitely imbedded in their sockets.,When Moses reached the barn he found Mr. Wopp just drawing up his team of heavy-work horses beside a small corral where the hay was to be deposited. On the load beside Mr. Wopp. Moses’ wondering eyes beheld Jethro—Jethro whose greatest joy was to run beside any vehicle and range the country as far as he could on both sides of the trail.,“He was a real little cat Moses, wasn’t he? And you—you must be Pharaoh’s son instead of daughter.” The child laughed and clapped her hands.,He tried to hold it from falling, but could not. It seemed as if his arms would be pulled out of their sockets. It would fall short—he must hold on to it, not let it strike below, for the noise would betray them too soon; and—the men in the wagon were passing!,Outside the spring warmth and fragrance enfolded the children as a mantle, opening their hearts to each other. Billy showed his flock of pigeons, his white chickens and the house where they roosted and brought forth their fluffy broods. Old Bouncer barked and capered about them; and the little girl tried to decide which cat was the prettiest, white Flash watching for gophers in the green alfalfa, or Sir Thomas Katzenstein, his yellow mate, basking in the sun. “He isn’t yellow like any other cat I ever saw; he’s shaded so beautifully.”,“Billy, you’re a wise guy. This beats Maskey’s,” Harold declared.,“The darned old robber!” Billy started up and walked restlessly toward the door.,The story had fairly begun when Mrs. Wopp, Nell Gordon and Mrs. Bliggins could be heard coming up the ladder.,“Moses Habakuk Ezra Wopp an’ Ebenezer Wopp! You’d orter be shamed of yerselves. You shorely must of fell with Lucifer when he come tumblin’ outer the sky. Them swear words make every single hair on my head stan’ on edge.”,“S’Gordon won’t care,” grunted Moses. “She never had to wear Par’s old pants, an’ she won’t un’erstan’ how a feller feels.”.