Bikini Paradise

Bikini Paradise reputable and safe The Wopp parlor was seldom entered, except on very special occasions or when Mrs. Wopp with formality and no undue haste dusted the furniture. The room had an air of solemnity and gloom, absent in the cheerful dining-room where the family usually sat. A homemade rag carpet covered the floor. Six slippery, horsehair chairs, one of them a rocker, and a horsehair couch, which did not invite confidence, were ranged stiffly around the sides of the room. In one corner was an ancient organ, wheezy and querulous with neglect, and in another stood a lofty what-not, on whose numerous shelves were deposited the family treasures. Here, was a woolly lamb at one time beloved of Moses; there his tin savings bank. Stiffly upright stood Betty’s wax doll Hannah, seldom played with and then only for a few minutes at a time. Mrs. Wopp was represented by a few shell boxes and a match box of china flanked by a sleek china cat.,CHAPTER XIII.—MOSES GAINS PRESTIGE.,“Look out! She’s ten, an’ never been to school; but she’s read more things ’n you ’n me put together, Pretty. Knows ’em, too.” Billy introduced the two in characteristic fashion and went within.,Nell’s mirth at Betty’s choice of a hymn could be stifled no longer. Howard’s studied aloofness yielded before her laughter and the hand that was not supporting Betty caught and pressed the small dimpled fingers of Nell.,Although she was asleep, Betty was fully conscious in that Dream-World of love and joy where values are real. Nell and Howard saw a tender smile light up her sweet face as Mrs. Wopp’s singing, subdued by distance, floated into the room,，The amused laugh of Nell Gordon, who sat beside Mrs. Wopp, floated past the youthful pair in front and perhaps helped to embue Moses with the reckless spirit of Jehu. The boy secretly admired his teacher, though he had an idea he would soundly pummel any boy with sufficient temerity to accuse him of it.，CHAPTER XIV IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE，The inexorable portrait on the wall seemed to gaze down on the recalcitrant youth with disapproval.“That’s no giant. She isn’t bigger’n a kid. Will she let you come to play? The Gang’s coming to-morrow.”

“Why, Billy, what has happened to make you think so?”,“Don’t sit there wool-gatherin’ anyways, Mose, or the moths’ll nest in yer head. Ef you carn’t sing in toon, you kin bring up a cup of tea fer Miss Gordon an’ Mr. Eliot, an’ don’t fergit Betty an’ yer Mar.”,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.,“Not till evening; but there’s the lawn.”,“Oh Mar,” asked Moses as they passed a brilliantly colored and illuminated poster, “Is them the actor people?”,“Oh, oh! It ran—across my—foot!” she gasped, and fell over.,Mrs. Wopp had a request from Mrs. Williams. She, the requestor, was ill with a touch of “pewmonia,” as Mrs. Wopp afterward related, and would Mrs. Wopp the requestee oblige by taking her Sunday-school class for the following Sunday afternoon.,“Wisht I hed a chance to holler into one of them brass dinner-horns, too,” he grumbled.,He woke early the next morning. This was rare for him; he usually slept like a bear in midwinter. Perhaps the creaking of the windmill all through the night made his slumber light. Another noise had disturbed him, the sewing machine. Its whirr had come up to him from the open window of the living-room. He knew mother and sister were sewing hard, that on the morrow the poor little stranger might be suitably clad. He had brought upon them this extra work! And this was only the beginning. If the child’s mother was not found they must buy clothes as well as food; and this would take a lot of his sister’s money.,The gentle words, the tender touch, the comfort and hope in her words, unlocked his lips and he told what he had thought to keep forever untold.,“A new kind of hen,” retorted Moses.,She turned back and rode up by his side. “Why shouldn’t a girl ride as fast as a boy?” She had a bright, frank face, and her brown eyes were as honest as they were beautiful..