Mist

Mist Download +88K “Kettle’s a-bilin’, Glory Girl, an’ Par an’ Mose’d like a cup of tea; but ’fore you leave the organ, play ‘Greenland Icy Mountains,’ it’s been runnin’ in my head orl day.”,He winced with pain, reeled, and would have fallen but for the other’s sustaining hand.,CHAPTER XIV IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE,Mrs. Newman and Nell waited after the show for the unique trio that had occupied the box but they were nowhere to be seen. Howard Eliot had whisked his companions off under a pretext of urgent business.,“Mary an’ Martha hev jist gone along to ring them shinin’ bells.”，Billy knew by sight the two Italians who lived there, brothers yet enemies. Each dwelt by himself in a corner of the great building.Each cultivated alone his share of the straggling vineyard on the heights above, too steep and rocky for a plough; though the lush acres on the river bottom went fallow. If either overstepped his bounds they fought. Billy had seen one of these encounters; and the fierce fire in their dark faces, the passion in the foreign words they spoke,—oaths the boy felt they must be,—sent him flying home, tinged his dreams for many a night.，“Yes. You see, she rents some of the rooms, and she says they must look extra nice on Sunday so the men won’t mosey off to the saloons.”，“I dassent do it, Betty,” replied Moses. “Anyhow this ole pair of scissors ’d do the job better.”As he came into the main road a rosy, wholesome looking girl was flying by. “Hello, Jean!” he called after her; “that’s going some—for a girl.”

The Mifsud ranch-house was situated in a valley close to Ripple Creek. This stream was guarded in its serpentine course by a fringe of trees which extended several rods on each side. Moses drove up to the house door with a flourish and his passengers alighted. His mother paused a moment to urge, “Be sure an’ git yer chores done early, Moses, an’ you an’ Par be here fer supper by six o’clock.”,Now he crept through the brush by the roadside till he came close under the west wall. The setting sun blazed red fire at him from the windows, reminding him sharply of the hour.,“You’re a plucky kid, all right,” he replied, touched more than he would have admitted. “I won’t hurt the dog if you do as I tell you.” He looked for a cord or rope, but found none, and pulled from his pocket a red handkerchief. “Tie this around his neck; let one end hang down.”,Off they bounded, side by side, through the fragrant spring evening. The red of the western sky touched to brighter rosiness their glowing cheeks, tinted Jean’s wind-blown hair with gold. As they neared the town she shot ahead in a last ambitious spurt, wheeled and faced him as he came up.,“Oh, I was havin’ lots of fun watchin’ the dancin’,” returned Betty rising with childish alacrity. The wistful look that belied her words disappeared like magic.,May Nell looked at him with wide eyes. She saw that he was not a vineyard workman, his clothes were too fine. She did not see them in detail, the large checked trousers, the shiny gloves, and the big diamond, but she felt instinctively that one who could dress so was different from the men she knew. And the look in his face made her cold.,“I guess so. Teacher says every live thing that’s happy works; birds, flowers, children; that those that won’t work shouldn’t eat. He says the greatest joy is to do the work you like best as well as you can.”,At last the long-looked-for day arrived and by two o’clock eight children from the nearest ranches had ridden or had been brought by grownups to the Wopp farm, all arrayed in their best bibs and tuckers.,“S’tup,” he commanded. Jethro immediately sat up on his hind legs.,Mrs. Wopp viewed with misgiving the ornate writing not yet erased from the previous lesson. She feared her own handwriting would suffer by comparison.,But May Nell recovered almost before Mrs. Bennett had time to lift her. “I often do—do—faint,” she apologized, “it isn’t—isn’t ’t all dangerous.” She smiled at Mrs. Bennett, and the smile, the sweet, pale little face with her hair a shining golden halo around it, made of her an ethereal being almost unreal to the awestricken children. Yet she was soon merry again, apparently as well as ever.,“I don’t know what’s the matter,—I’m drowned, I guess.” His teeth rattled, and the hand he put out to her was icy cold..