Pharaoh's Kingdom

Pharaoh's Kingdom Electronics online - V1.4.7 It may be that atmospheric changes helped to cause the disquiet, for in the midst of an exciting account of a fairy dancing on a moonbeam, a sudden shower descended on the barn and began to pour in a stream through a hole in the roof, immediately over Moses’ head.,Billy ducked his head into the cooling water, filled his mouth, and ran on. He could hear the painful breathing of the prisoners bearing the chest. It looked heavy, and he knew it was hard to carry, walking single file down the steep trail. How awfully they must feel, Billy thought. It was like the children in the fiery furnace. Did the men see that this was a tragic beginning of the just penalty for their sins? Cheats! Robbers! No, not robbers, boldly[221] risking life for booty, but cunning thieves, stealing from their fellow men, from widows, orphans, perhaps from his own mother; she had taken a counterfeit piece only a little while before.,“Well, Flash can’t do that.”,After this vigorous onslaught upon the quondam admirer of Nell, Mrs. Wopp ordered Moses to help her prepare the spare room on the ground-floor for the young rancher.,“Gosh! Wisht Betty was here right this minute. Mebbe I’m dyin’. Hope nobody starts twangin’ a harp. My nose is worser’n ever!”，“Won’t you sing something else, Mrs. Wopp.” Nell was growing uncomfortable under Betty’s reference to the unburnished state of her cloud.，Awakened to the fact of her son’s existence and perhaps as an antidote to her unusual display of sentiment, Mrs. Wopp spoke rather sharply. “Moses, time you an’ Betty was in bed. You won’t want to git up in the mornin’ an’ milk the cows.” Later left alone in the lower part of the house she stood arms akimbo in the middle of the kitchen gazing at the door through which Nell Gordon had just departed. Shaking her head she said mysteriously, “I kalkerlate as how things is a-settin’ in that way.”，“I knew it!” Billy panted feverishly. “The Ha’nt!” Heedless of the dog running with his nose close to the ground, Billy rushed on. His shirt was torn, his trousers hanging by one suspender, his shoes cut and one tap turned back. Ashes whitened his hair; though at the back a dark mat was still damp from oozing blood,—the handkerchief that had bound it had been torn off by a twitching twig. His smarting eyes watered so that he could hardly see his way. Yet of all this he was unconscious. Weariness, pain, his cracked and bleeding lips,—he knew nothing of them, felt nothing.“Thought I’d eloped? I ought to when I’ve brought you an extra mouth to feed.” He was splashing and spluttering in the lavatory off the kitchen.

“Billy! My—boy!” Mrs. Bennett bent over him; and he felt a tear where her cheek touched his.,CHAPTER XVII.—A SAMPLE OF EBENEZER WOPP’S IRE.,Ebenezer Wopp became the grateful recipient of a quire of paper for notes. Miss Gordon was enabled to add to the decorations of her bureau a celluloid pictureframe on which were painted vivid blue and pink forget-me-nots. Mrs. Wopp reckoned “to git great comfort fer her corns an’ bungions” in a pair of soft house-shoes.,“He will dig up a worm from the ground, an’ while the worm stands on one foot with droopin’ head the robin’ll pick it up an’ carry it orff to feed the baby robins.”,“She said, the Queen of Sheba did, that I’d be in danger, and some one would save me. And I’d have a s’prise, and a hus—husband, and fi-five c-chil— children!” She wailed again and hid her face on Mrs. Bennett’s shoulder.,But not that night nor for days after did Billy look at his books. The second morning the fever was still present, and he told his mother he was “all over red goose flesh.”,“Never mind, Mrs. Wopp,” said Nell pleasantly, “he is a perfect gentleman in manners and he wasn’t drinking or gambling when I saw him. May I have a little more of your beautifully cooked meat?”,Mr. Wopp and Moses, who had hurried to the upper storey to escape the recital of the ketchup episode, now came heavily down the stairs, their task at last finished.,CHAPTER VII.—THE LITTLE CHURCH IN THE COULEE.,The basket piled high with snowy linen and cotton seemed almost to overflow the brim. Betty pressed the clothes down with her brown hands, while the complaining boy enlarged on the sordid details of that trying wash-day and on the manner in which his mother had teased him. The child’s sense of humor outbalanced even her sympathy and a peal of laughter rang out. Her laugh was a long delicious trill, as though a bird had dropped from the clouds singing still with the sunrise tangled in its notes. Moses paused long enough for a procession of commas and semicolons to pass by. Then seeing his disappointment in her apparent lack of sympathy, Betty hastened to console him.,Innocuous as this remark might seem, it caused St. Elmo’s lip to quiver and two large tears started on their grimy course down his cheeks.,“That’s the gang we’ve been hunting through[213] five counties. Boy, you’ve done what the State’s been trying a long time to do. The reward’s a good lump; if we bag the game you shall have your share.”.