goiasecl

goiasecl Register +128K Jimmy tried not to look pleased, but failed. Something about May Nell attracted him, whether it was her beauty, her fearlessness, or her air of distinction he did not know. It was really her recognition of something fine in him that his cold and irascible father had almost whipped out of him.,In the hours of joy that followed, joy known only to boys and farms in conjunction, Billy,—and it was unusual for him,—more than once recalled his mother’s words; heeded them to the extent of bidding Harold a reluctant good-bye when the sun was still blazing high above the horizon. But when, on his way home, he came to the branching of the road his good resolution weakened. He looked back. The sun was surely more than an hour high. He would have time to go up the hill road to the “Ha’nt.” And, beside that, he wished to look at the river where its divided flow encircled a tiny, shrub-grown island.,Behind the two women trotted a chubby baby. “I see Billy boat,” he cried, shrilly, stumbled, fell, scrambled up again, and repeated his refrain.,Many times she had seen Mrs. Bennett transplant the garden flowers, had helped; now she put all her lore to use. Patiently she toiled with brittle sticks and pointed stones till the vine was replanted against the rude walls; emptied the dinner pail and trudged back and forth to the river several times for water, to wet the earth above the roots; and patted it down with muddy little hands.,“Never mind, Bouncer. I’ve another card up my sleeve!” He patted and hugged the old dog till his tail waved once more gracefully over his back. “Here! Try this. Sic ’em!” Billy thrust the scraps of red silk under his nose; and in an instant Bouncer was off after the new scent.，“Awfully hard, Billy. Some of them had ‘grief swimming in their eyes.’”，“But couldn’t another pair have been born in Siam?” May Nell questioned; and as no one felt sufficiently informed to deny it, Harry and Clarence continued their strained relations.，“This here thing looks like a mule with his ribs druv in an’ stan’in’ on his haunches. What d’ye call it?”“Common?” Billy retorted, “they can’t be common. They have to have power more’n anybody. And snake charmers ’most always are Egyptian Princesses, or royalty of some kind,” he added hastily, lest exact Bess should call on him for a genealogy of his princesses.

To further impress the unsophisticated guest, a Latin Grammar was exhumed from a pile of books, and totally careless of how Moses was smarting under such an exhibition of scholarship, Clarence recited loudly “Amo, amas, amat.”,“Yes, thank you. But most my heart is hungry. Will you help me to find my mama?”,They fired up. An ominous sizz and clatter began. Five pairs of hands shoved the smart boat into the water at May Nell’s feet. The children shouted. The dog barked and the chickens cackled. And above all the din May Nell’s sweet voice rang out, “I christen thee, O wondrous vessel, The Fair Ellen.” She improvised hastily; for no one had thought to prepare a speech for the occasion.,“This is like the cup I had at Mrs. Newman’s, in Calgary,” said Betty, then turning to Nell she asked, “Do you ’member the lovely chiner cups at Mrs. Newman’s, time Mr. Zalhamber was there?”,“All ready?” cried Captain Billy. “Are you ready, Ladybird?”,“All but finding the job, mother. Jobs don’t hunt boys; and mine’s going to be waiting for me when the school house door shuts: that is, if I can persuade any man in the town or county that he needs a boy my size.”,“There’s nary a piece left, that greedy boy et it orl up.”,Mrs. Wopp leaning towards a lady on her right inquired, “Do you know Mis’ Stephens, why Joe Avery is not dancin’ this evenin’. Ever sence we come into this here barn he has never moved from his seat.”,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.,She put back his tumbled hair, looked long into his eyes, realizing with a shock that she was looking up. Her little boy was gone.,“Shore nuff, what relationship do you s’pose they are all to each other now?”,He decided to go first on the mountain and set his traps for rabbits; also to mark the bounds for the “chase,” so that they could gather on time at the island and go on with the second canto. If they didn’t “do” two cantos a day they wouldn’t finish; for Friday must be given to school. As it was some of them had to be at the school house each day at three to rehearse for the “last day” exercises..