Viking

Viking ten years of prestige Mrs. Bennett was setting the table. She put down a pile of plates, and a new anxiety came into her careworn face. “A child? I told Mr. Patton I couldn’t take one.”,“Did Clarence show you the sights of the city this morning?” asked Mr. Crump, trying to repress a smile.,“Personally, I should be agreeably disposed to requesting Mr. Wopp to officiate,” answered the lady addressed.,Diligently as Betty had tended this little garden, it was considered to be a family possession, the child’s own particular treasures lying beyond its fragrant border. Her cherished morning-glories and climbing nasturtiums found a welcome support in the old wooden fence.,Yet it was a very quiet little child that crept down to the others a few minutes later; when asked of her fortune she burst into tears.，After several rounds the mouse, at last seeing the open door, darted through it to freedom. Jethro a short distance behind assayed to follow; but taking a short cut under the back seat on which huddled the Mifsud family he unexpectedly encountered his ancient enemy Snappy the Mifsud’s collie. Snappy, who had been roused from his slumbers under the buckboard by the commotion in the church, had crept in unnoticed and had been an interested spectator of the proceedings. Jethro’s always superabundant energies were now turned in a new direction. Snarls and snaps and the fiercest growls testified to the bitterness of the feud.，“Yeh, Mar says I’m a reglar jographer I like it so much.”，In the Crump household, Clarence stood for all that was brilliant and intellectual, while Isobel stood for all that was fairy-like and charming. Moses felt himself a cipher, of no account whatever, in this wonderful home. He would need an extra administration of sympathy from Betty on his return. He thought at that moment very tenderly of the great brown eyes that “looked like they loved everybody.”Mrs. Wopp had a request from Mrs. Williams. She, the requestor, was ill with a touch of “pewmonia,” as Mrs. Wopp afterward related, and would Mrs. Wopp the requestee oblige by taking her Sunday-school class for the following Sunday afternoon.

She clapped her hands. “Oh, I’m glad you like fairies, too. Do you know about Bagdad and Semiramide and Good King Arthur and Ivanhoe, and all the other beautiful things in the world?” she asked, breathlessly.,Betty was trying to keep up the engaging flow of talk but the dance proved to require all her attention.,“Billy! I’ll tell you what let’s do; we’ll make a circus ourselves!”,The big hands in spite of the shiny gloves tied the dog fast and very close to the tree. “Now give me that dinky ribbon from your hair,” he commanded, and tied the growling dog’s forefeet together. And May Nell knew the man’s voice was gruffer when Bouncer was helpless. He gazed at her reproachfully from eyes that moved though his head could not. She would never forget those sad eyes that followed her when she was ordered away.,Mr. Wopp in the meantime had seated himself on the other side of Betty and was busy taking notes on the dance then in progress. “It was so interestin” he said, “and the poetry might come in handy.” The dance was called “Captain Jinks.”,Then scartter seeds of kindness,Moses capitalized his bulk to effectively fill the large chair into which he sank. He surveyed with approval the new trousers presented to him by Miss Gordon, and tried to blot from his mind the ignominy that had attended the wearing of the ill-fitting pair. Those discarded checked monstrosities languished under Moses’ bed in close consultation with a pair of decrepit and muddy shoes. It was so sweet to the boy to see signs of convalescence in Betty that he took great comfort in just gazing on her pale face with its wisps of fair hair across the forehead. He summed up his general attitude to life by whispering to himself, “I don’t give a doughnut fer orl the check pants in Alberta.”,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.,“Of course I am,” he replied promptly, with a squeeze of her hand that made her wince. “At first I was scared; I thought you must be a fairy.”,“Jeth could whip your ole mongrel; but I don’t warnt him bit up,” called Moses over his shoulder as he walked away. To this taunt Clarence replied only with a hideous grimace.,“You’re the only girl I’m afraid of in that line. Isn’t that so, Pretty?”,“But I asked for her, mamma.” Billy’s voice lost its exuberance. His mother never had looked so tired, he thought for the second time that day..