Sisal

Sisal Download +128K - V5.4.1 ‘twine,,Nell Gordon’s eyes were wet with something else than mirth when Betty entered the house later with her pet in her arms. She had heard of the assault upon the innocent Moses and Jethro and resolved to assist mightily in the smiting of the Philistines. She also held a private consultation with her purse and decided to send off at once to a popular mail-order house for a pair of trousers for Moses of a distinctly different cut from those that had been his undoing.,Mrs. Mifsud who had listened to this recital with polite interest, now excused herself on the plea of urgent duties in the kitchen.,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.,“No ‘chase’ to-day, girls. I’ve got business in town.”，“Moses! Betty! Time fer school!” called Mrs. Wopp. Betty, satisfied that after Moses’ frenzied ministrations she was quite presentable, hastened into the house. Moses fled into the yard where he became very active splitting wood, his guilty conscience adding efficiency to his arm.，Now a steamboat was on hand. At odd times for weeks, Billy, Harold, and one or two other boys, under secrecy of lock and key, had been slowly bringing to completion a wonderful structure.，As Mrs. Wopp was preparing for bed that night, she recalled the sensation the sight of her reckless offspring had given her.“It was all splendid; and, Billy, I never dreamed it was in you! Sister’s operetta would have been a failure if it hadn’t been for you.”

Finally, Ebenezer Wopp’s musings, which had been gathering force as he worked, burst into speech. For a quiet man he became almost oratorical. Then he fell to soliloquizing audibly.,Mrs. Bennett hugged her closer and patted her cheek softly, but let the passion of tears spend itself a little before trying the comfort of words. Then she questioned of the child’s parents, her past life, and the events just preceding the catastrophe in San Francisco, that she herself might better understand how to shield and make happy the little waif that a terrible, heaving earth had cast into her home, her arms.,“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.”,The two riders, who were to be followed by the family in the democrat, set off at a gentle lope. Before them lay the Cedar Hills over which the moon was just rising sharply defining their wooded crests. They followed a trail well-known to Howard who had ridden the range, in this district for several years. Nell, though an eastern girl, was at home in the saddle having always been accustomed to riding.,His words had a new ring, and his mother was wise enough to respect the young independence in them. “What brought you to this decision, Billy?”,The hours passed in an uproar of fun. The table was dismantled, toys, tools, and dishes put away, and the feast had sped into the past.,“Wisht that orful pitcher ’d fall inter the swill-pail an’ then turn a somerset in the soot-pile,” murmured the boy as he noticed the care exercised over its safety.,“You have, you have, dear baby! I’ll be your mother, and you can call me ‘mamma’ as Billy does.”,As the door into the dining-room opened to the little guests, St. Elmo Mifsud’s eyes almost darted out of his head, for there on the centre of a bountifully-spread table stood an enormous chocolate cake with eleven candles burning on it. The revelation supplied a fitting climax for the epochal event of a thrilling picture show.,Betty playfully thrust a small forefinger into one of the fresh biscuits on the table and bore it, impaled on the rosy weapon, triumphantly to her plate. This was for the amusement of Moses, but instead of laughing as he was expected to do, he eyed his little sister with assumed indifference.,“Yes, we have, Billy,” Mrs. Bennett corrected. “Bring them in now. Let May Nell see our entire cat family.” She followed him out, and presently returned with a plate of cut meat which she placed on a newspaper on the hearth.,“So they took up Joner an’ tossed him inter the sea.”.