Letou️

Letou️ Earn money by referring friends But May Nell’s ambition was boundless. “We can do mathematics work, too. I can multiply, and divide, and other things beside, I can do; I’ll just be your paper and pencil.”,The little stranger girl smiled winningly. Her childish companions had not been numerous enough to justify her in drawing such close lines; and she liked the sweet, half timid faces that always looked so earnestly into her own. “Surely, I’ll play with you. I’ll come to see you some time when Mrs. Bennett says I may.”,“Why not, I’d like to know? Isn’t this my shack? And shall I let a kid burn up?”,“This here thing looks like a mule with his ribs druv in an’ stan’in’ on his haunches. What d’ye call it?”,The unstinted praise of the children in the operetta, the aftermath of buzz about the “show” at school,—this excitement lasted for a day or so; but on this lowering Sunday tired nature put in a claim for her own; and relaxed nerves were irritably near the surface.，Outside of the flower garden proper and between it and the vegetables, were several rows of gay sunflowers. Mr. Wopp approved of these mightily, because the seeds were “sich grand feed for the chickings.” Betty looked on these gaudy sentinels with sorrowing pity, because they had not the daintiness of the other flowers.，CHAPTER IV.—WASH-DAY AT MRS. WOPP’S.，Again he patted her shoulder, and this time his voice was more kind. “You’re a brave little girl, and if I was your dad I’d be dead stuck on you. Just you don’t be afraid. I’ll bring your supper by and by.”“She said, the Queen of Sheba did, that I’d be in danger, and some one would save me. And I’d have a s’prise, and a hus—husband, and fi-five c-chil— children!” She wailed again and hid her face on Mrs. Bennett’s shoulder.

“No, no, dear. Keep them, an’ I’ll put them in warter when we go to the house,” begged Betty. “The fairies are orful cross when they see dead flowers lyin’ round. Mebbe they might be too angry to come in the garding again ever.”,“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.”,“Uh huh.”,Betty Wopp was gambolling along the road with other little school-girls and heard the jeers addressed to the wretched boy. The penetrating sense of Moses’ need of her brought her to a halt. Indignation made her tight little braids of hair assume an aspect as terrific as Medusa’s snaky coils. She ran lightly up to Moses and walked beside him.,Max was the first to be quite ready with his exhibit. It was a queer creature that one gradually discovered to be some sort of a bird; though such a one had never before been seen on land or sea. Max had arrayed his mother’s big white gander for the occasion. A turkey-tail fan made a huge breastplate, if one can imagine a breastplate of feathers. All the long-tailed roosters that had been killed in town for months, one would guess, had contributed to the coat of sprawling feathers that was tied over the body of the bird. And no one knew by what magic the boy had coaxed some one to lend him the magnificent peacock plumes that rose high above the little wiggling goose tail.,The solid rock of the mountain had been cut away from the rear of the house to form a natural, paved court. At the top was a small chicken coop, its wall flush with the wall of rock; and near it grew an oak sapling not larger than Billy’s arm.,Mrs. Wopp’s eagle eye, again rested on the lowering face of her offspring.,As Betty stood in her garden whispering to Jethro, Nell Gordon came slowly down the path. For many weary weeks Howard Eliot had evaded her in every way. Was his jealousy so strong as to part them irrevocably? She remembered with remorse the flutterings of her heart when genius had knocked. She had learned since that greatness and domestic felicity are seldom associated even in the mind of the most ardent lover. Zalhambra was a human cyclone, he had simply carried her away for the moment with his magnetic personality. She had come through the experience with the conviction that ordinary everyday capabilities make for happiness, while genius is an abnormal condition bringing joy to the multitude, but disaster to the individual. All her femininity called out now for the support of a strong nature unhampered by genius.,“She’ll be orful mad,” prophecied Moses.,“Here, you poor darling, take mine! And don’t be afraid—you’ll find your mother before long.” Edith’s words were brave, but her own eyes were moist.,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, God, walk with her!” he prayed silently when he felt her weight first touch the board; prayed as he never had before. It seemed as if something strange and strong was going out of him right to May Nell..