Dear ablf

Dear ablf Ten years of prestige “No matter, Billy. I think she was sent to us; and we shall find a way. Are the chickens fed?”,Meantime Jerusalem Crickets, escaped from Billy’s arm and eye, was sneaking about for prey; and a clinking sound from the pantry warned them that she had found it.,“Shan’t we defer the ceremonies till we can get Charley’s little sister and Jackson’s two weeks’ old brother?” Jimmy asked, disagreeably.,“Then he walked back as slowly and dignifiedly as a minister,—isn’t ‘dignifiedly’ an awkward word? I wonder if it is right?”,“Gee! Did you hear it splash?” screamed Moses.，The heat was awful; yet it was growing less, for the fire was nearly spent, but Billy was so exhausted he did not perceive it. He began to stumble, to see double. Everything seemed to be on fire,—trees, rocks, even the water gleaming from overhead flames. His blood felt hot in his veins; and long afterward he saw red in his sleep. At length his foot caught in a root, and he fell heavily.，“How nice, Betty,” answered Nell, who had threaded her needle and was now prepared to join those already busily stitching away. “You and I will travel down the ages side by side.”，“I don’t give two whoops ef he does,” Betty was bubbling with suppressed mirth.“Now ef you would jist play ‘Home Sweet Home’ with variations, my dear, we’ll arterwards hev a game of crokinole. Crokinole is sich an amusin’ game.”

The Wopps, father and son, attacked the load of hay with such vigor that it was quickly disposed of. Just as the last forkful was being pitched over the corral fence, the boy looking up saw a vehicle approaching.,And if the girls don’t love me now,St. Elmo hung back, electing to stay with the hero who had rescued him from the dangers of the wood.,“Only for a day, dear. I’ll be back to-night.”,Balancing her voice on a very high note she popped her head through the dining-room door to speak to her husband. He was seated at the table reading “The Family Herald.” His straggling grey locks were disordered with his mental effort and formed a frieze of irregular design on his shining forehead. Mrs. Wopp’s voice, in a moment, was safe on terra firma.,“How in the world did you ever sleep through it, Billy?” his mother asked, coming in from the tank-room where she had been to investigate. “There is a small flood there. I should think the first drop would have wakened you.”,The Sheriff smiled at the note of command in the boy’s incoherence. “Not on your life, sonny,” and his voice softened; “we’ve got to have you in our business. Help him along,” he said to one of the deputies, as they came a moment later to where the path broadened; while he walked behind covering the panting prisoners.,“That’s good enough for me, then,” he said, sleepily. And no one ever heard him mention again his unexpected addition to the scene.,While Betty had been busy in the garden her pet turkey, Job, who depended on his little mistress to feed him, became very hungry. Job suffered under great disadvantages. His general one-sided condition, caused by his partial blindness, rendered him incapable of picking up the various dainties on which his brethren fattened. It must be confessed that the fondest and most partial vision could not overlook Job’s undoubted scrawniness. Indeed, had he not received individual attention from the deeply sympathetic Betty, there is every reason to believe that his career would have been shortened by that inexorable law which, in those forms of life termed the lower, decrees the extinction of the weak.,Presently he raised his head and was confronted by Job the turkey wearing a tiny bright pink hat and a green ribbon round his neck. An antimacassar bearing wide magenta and red crocheted stripes covered his back causing him to strut with peacock pride.,She took the child in her comforting arms. “Don’t cry, little one! We shall find her, never fear.”,Betty and Maria, whose reviving interest in the quilt had drawn them from their play to the somewhat crowded parlor, now reported several vehicles to be in sight. They hastened with this information to Mrs. Mifsud in the kitchen, that important domain whence a savory odor had been issuing for some time..