MPL Live

MPL Live ASIA'S NO. 1 BAKER CHANNEL The quaint words seemed incongruous for so small a child, as did her self-control; and the accent on the last syllable of “mama” made her seem almost foreign to Billy. Yet he admired her anew as she tried to hold still her trembling lips, to restrain her tears; as she threw up her head, winked hard, and felt vainly for a handkerchief.,“Mind? What do you mean by that? Anyway, you can’t prove it.”,“Why doesn’t your mama have a man to take care of the grounds?” she questioned after she had told him something of her parents and home.,For I’m a young thing and cannot leave my mother.”,‘The lighter pine trees overhead,’，“Yeh,” scoffed Moses, “this here turnin’ machines every Monday makes me sick. I aint got no liver left to be cheerful.”，“Do you like to work?” His tone was insistent; and he lifted his head and looked hard at her, as if to challenge the tiniest bit of insincerity that might be lurking back of the words. “Like to work?” he repeated with added emphasis.，Mrs. Bennett put down the pan of batter-cake dough and gave him his good-morning kiss. His head was level with hers. “Thank you, my big boy. Mother will soon have a man to look to. Go in and get your breakfast; you must be nearly famished.”For two days the aromas from the kitchen had been such as to dispel the gloom from Moses’ countenance, and hope and anticipation blended on his youthful visage.

Billy went to the door and looked after them. No one was in sight. Harold, the twins, and May Nell, too, were gone. What could it mean? He looked back at the clock. Nearly ten. Usually the Gang gathered earlier than this, hung around and hurried him with his work, many putting in lusty strokes, that Billy, the favorite, might the sooner be released. But now even Jean, his stanch second in all the fun going, was late. He had expected to be late himself; he always was. But he, who planned most of the sport in spite of doing more work than any of them, had this day expected his schemes to be well launched before he could join in them.,“Glory must git better, nothin’s no fun no more,” blurted Moses.,Mrs. Wopp’s face assumed a forgiving air as she accepted this defence. Then began that portion of the story that leads up to the tragic culmination.,“Not arf as smart as a magpie,” dissented Moses, “I’ve saw magpies that c’d think up the scheminest things.” Moses was beginning to suffer from a surfeit of information and wanted to make a break in the proceedings.,“That’s bul—dandy.”,The magic name won the day. Bess was ever dreaming of the land of mystery, whose pictured daughters of old she resembled; and the chance to masquerade in its atmosphere lured her.,“Where is the dern dog hurt?” commiserated Moses.,The bottle went crash, and a furious yell informed the neighborhood that the Gang was “up to some new deviltry.”,“Do you need it right away?” Billy stood his wheel against the steps and flung his books on the porch table.,“I love, thou lovest, he loves,” said Clarence, scornfully, in answer to this preposterous question.,Billy heeded no prize-ring rules, no boys’ traditions of fair play. Every savage instinct inherited from far-distant ancestors and sleeping till to-day, rose, conquered the human in him, for the moment made him brutish. And the sobs of the little girls were as whips of fire.,“Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards,” quoted Mrs. Wopp. “We’ve had sich a time, but I’m shore our li’l Mornin’-Glory is gittin’ better now.” She gazed at the child with true maternal affection. “She’s lookin’ kinder peart agin.”.