Lucky Piggy

Lucky Piggy Register +188K Clarence had crossed the Pons Asinorum; a series of intoxicated circles, with sharp-cornered triangles piercing their fat sides, bore eloquent testimony to his faltering steps.,Choosing a piece of bright yellow chalk she began to inscribe the golden text on the blackboard. She pressed too hard and the chalk cracked and fell to the floor. Pete Stolway vaulted out of his chair to capture the yellow pencil, but he had the misfortune to step on both the pieces of crayon, crushing them to sand, a heap of yellow grit.,CHAPTER XII.—THE AUTOGRAPH QUILT.,Involved and intricate variations of “Holy smoke!” made the air sulphureous as a swaying piece of wire caught his shoulder and tore a large gash in his shirt.,The bun in question must have had great dynamic force, the tail of Jethro bearing evidence to the internal power generated.，Ricketty jig and away we go.”，“Well, he ain’t dead; he’s alive and bully, with a wad that bulges. I’m going to take you to him.”，It was May Nell who first broke the silence. She had been thinking. “It isn’t so very bad to have to work, is it? Your mama looks happier than my mama does. She said she’d rather wear calico and work ever so hard, and have papa at home, than be the richest, richest without him. She cries a lot—my mama does. And now—she’s crying—for me.” The last word was a sob.May Nell was not taken to her father; he came to her. Edith’s pictures of the little girl fulfilled their mission; they met him as soon as he landed from South America. He had been a busy man during those few days; had found not only his child but his wife, ill in a country sanitarium; where, for weeks after the earthquake and fire had, she supposed, swallowed her little daughter, she lingered, praying only to die. Now with husband and child both saved to her, she was fast growing well; needed only their presence to complete her recovery.

During Betty’s illness these one-sided dialogues were more than usually plentiful. In this way only was Mrs. Wopp able to alleviate the “gnawin’ at her heart-strings” as she said, at having Betty so ill. It also kept the boy alive to the fact that life’s path was not strewn with “cabbage roses.” Such, at least, were the confidences poured into the sympathetic ear of his pinto.,“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.”,“Arsk a dorg with a tin pail tied to his ear to smile at yer,” returned Moses, sourly.,At this point Moses looked up from his plate and complained, “Mar, this piece o’ meat I got, is so tough it hurts yer eyes to look at it.”,Uplifted by limburger, Mr. Wopp grew emboldened, “Jist a mouthful of somethink don’t hurt nobody, an’ I’ll be asleep afore you kin say Jack Robinson, an’ ef I talk as loud as you snore, we’re even I reckon.”,As they neared the house with their disquieting news, Mr. Wopp and Moses were just alighting from the democrat, while Mrs. Mifsud at the open door stood calling out cheery greetings.,“What song would you like, Betty?”,Job’s feathers that to Betty’s eyes had taken on the glory of ostrich plumes, drooped disconsolately, while Moses denounced in fluent language the stupidity of the fowl that had caused the unfortunate episode. He declared loudly that he would like to wring the aggressive portions of those feathered culprits. The group stood for a moment, a miniature Vesuvius erupting lava and ashes, while Moses wrung the offending liquid from Betty’s yellow drape and the magenta antimacassar. His sense of the ludicrous however overcame his wrath, “My Eye Betty!” he cried, “I near kerlapse every time I draw up my curtings on Job.”,In the matter of the next adventure, Moses’ feet were fast approaching that degree known as freezing point. But spurred on by the resolute will of his sister he rose to the occasion of a chariot race, adapted from “Ben Hur.” They had never forgotten the thrill they had experienced when one day at Mrs. Mifsud’s house the nephew of that good lady, with city-bred art, had recited in melodramatic fashion “Ben Hur’s Chariot Race.”,This threatened catastrophe had considerable weight with St. Elmo who, in spite of Betty’s discouraging words, still had a lurking hope that he too might be privileged to see the “faywies” some day. Although he was badly handicapped in being a boy, yet in some miraculous manner there might be an exception made in his favor.,“Pore Joe! Truly the way of the transgressor is hard. I feel bad fer him, to think he has to set round all evenin’ and carnt even git up to git a drink of water fer hisself.”,“Well, Miss Smith, are you alone here?”.