Daily

Daily download +128k “Well, just listen! This morning your mama set out the meat for their breakfast. I had Geewhillikins and Jerusalem Crickets in the pound—the woodshed, you know. Oh, they had a big breakfast before,” she added quickly, feeling rather than seeing Billy’s disapproval.,“She’s the swellest looking one in the whole school,” he whispered to his smiling mother.,Billy suspected his mother was waiting for him; he must hurry, he thought. Yet he couldn’t resist showing off a bit. He bent over his wheel, went by the girls with a rush and a “Hello!” made a neat turn, wheeled a figure “8” around a team or two, shouted, “Don’t frame up anything there!” as he passed a second time, and whizzed through the arch in his own high hedge with one wheel in the air.,“Here I stand upon this stage,“No; well,” came the answer.，“Sunday School, too? How long you’ll be away!”，His words had a new ring, and his mother was wise enough to respect the young independence in them. “What brought you to this decision, Billy?”，He threw himself on the bed and wept the bitterest tears he had ever shed in his life, tears of shame. There he lay—hours, he thought—determined to bear his pain and disgrace alone. Yet it was only minutes when he heard his mother in her room, coming!The broad shaft of sunlight that flooded the dining-room where Nell Gordon sat was suddenly darkened. Looking up she saw the tall straight figure of Howard Eliot at the doorway.

Edith had quickly put her plan in execution, aided by the willing newspapers; but so far nothing had come of it, and mother and daughter feared their charge had lost more than aunt and cousin. South America, a very definite spot in the child’s mind, was still too vague a postoffice address for even Uncle Sam’s marvellous mail-carrying; and so, while encouraging May Nell, the two women tacitly adopted her into their hearts and discussed her future as if she were their own.,He felt his mother start. “You’re too young for hard work, Billy; you do enough as it is.”,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.,As Moses clattered down stairs, Mrs. Wopp continued, “There is shore a thunderstorm comin’ up to-night. ’Pears to me I heerd like a roll of drums.”,“Oh, Lord,” prayed Betty, “it was Murf Bliggins as throwed the stone, please don’t fergit. Make Jethro’s foot better. Mar allers says, ‘arsk an’ it’ll be given.’ All I arsk is fer Jethro’s foot. He is so l’il, Oh, Lord, an’ the stone was so big. An’ don’t fergit it was Murf Bliggins as done it. Please put it in Miss Gordon’s heart to smite the Philistones with the edge of the sword. Mebbe you could put it inter Mar’s heart to buy Mose a pair of pants that won’t be so hard on him, Oh, Lord. Amen!”,“Jiminy! If they don’t let me work this vacation, I’ll have to run away,” he thought as, through the uncurtained window, he watched the evening star sink below the western hills. While he was wondering if people lived in the star he fell asleep; yet waked later to hear the busy machine.,“Ah Miss Gordon, I see you love the music too,” he murmured in her ear.,“What’s the trouble, dear? What were you afraid of?” she enquired, as she raised him to his feet.,Moses and Betty were left to mind house, the admonishings of Mrs. Wopp being seasoned with picturesque if carelessly applied texts. The envious might hurl hisses, but Moses and Betty were invulnerable to all such assaults upon their anticipations of the day’s freedom with its already planned joys.,“How is your Ada since she had the jaundice, Mrs. Stolway?” inquired Airs. Bliggins.,Mrs. Bennett wished May Nell to be in the open air as much as possible; and this meant a new experience for Billy, which he accepted with tolerable grace.,Presently they came to others of the posse, and after that to a long line of farmers and other citizens, fighting desperately but successfully against the dying flames..