MSL

MSL Ten years of prestige “Do you think fun the first business of the world?”,Billy breathed deep. How he loved this opulent valley which was his birthplace and home! He longed to see all the world, yet he thought no other place could be as beautiful.,The boy scudded lightly across the narrow open space to the shelter of a manzanita tree, and looked back again; but no one appeared. Did he still hear the softly quarrelling voices? He fancied so. The sudden dip of the sun behind a hill darkened the scene threateningly, and brought a return of “the creeps.”,“But your school, my child! You must be educated; you—”,Mrs. Wopp was too busy to eat breakfast in the orthodox fashion. She could be heard in the kitchen preparing for the trying ordeal of wash-day. Out in the yard the head of the house was busy feeding the fowl.，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.，Enjoying the spectacle, Henry the pet rooster stood on the rail-fence crowing lustily in chanticleer derision.，She turned back and rode up by his side. “Why shouldn’t a girl ride as fast as a boy?” She had a bright, frank face, and her brown eyes were as honest as they were beautiful.She smiled faintly. “Then my feelings must be bloodthirsty, Billy. How dreadful!”

Bess’s coming launched the procession. People in the vicinity who had not before known of the presence of a circus, knew it now. Everybody talked at once, and every living thing made its own kind of a noise. Billy as Master of Ceremonies had his hands full, his voice full too, one might say.,“A doctor’s wife gets over ‘expecting’ very young, Billy. They won’t think I’m dead if I don’t come home to lunch. But your mother?” His inflection finished the question.,Every morning during the summer a bunch of morning-glories, wet with dew, adorned the breakfast table. Blue and pink and white, they seemed the very spirit of morning freshness and sweetness.,“And, darling, I know how to find your mother,” Edith encouraged, brushing her own moist eyes, and clasping them all in her round young arms. “I’ll have your picture taken, and get it in all the papers—”,Betty’s tears by now were flowing too fast for her to make an answer. She picked up the whimpering dog and proceeded to carry him home. From time to time Moses stroked the quivering head and murmured low phrases of comfort.,Going down the stairs his loud unmelodious singing reached the ears of those in the bedroom. When he arrived at the foot, Betty, whose ears were attuned to all acts of outlawry, had reason to believe that Moses performed three successive somersaults.,They will when I am bigger.”,The boy scudded lightly across the narrow open space to the shelter of a manzanita tree, and looked back again; but no one appeared. Did he still hear the softly quarrelling voices? He fancied so. The sudden dip of the sun behind a hill darkened the scene threateningly, and brought a return of “the creeps.”,The old man peered over the steps, and Moses recognized the loose-jointed long-limbed individual who had provided him with such mirth on the previous day.,It was on the first of these busy days in San Francisco that the big counterfeiter saw at a distance May Nell’s father; saw the child’s pictures posted in the galleries, hurried back to the “Ha’nt,” and planned the kidnapping as a chance for “getting even” with Mr. Smith, who had discharged him years before for dishonesty. But Billy had thwarted him, brought him safely to justice for all of his crimes.,“Did you see the fine bin of carrots, Mar?” inquired Betty.,Billy at work or at play was so absorbed that it was hard for him to measure time; and he had a queer notion that it was some other intelligence beside his own will that reminded him, often too late, of duties waiting. This he named Betsey; and among the children Betsey came to stand for Billy’s conscience..