wizno

wizno ten years of prestige “It looks jist as ef the sun had crept into that corner at larst,” she decided.,CHAPTER XII.—THE AUTOGRAPH QUILT.,“Sister, she’ll be hunkey for the fairy queen in your Spring Festival, won’t she? She’s a regular progidy, isn’t she?” Billy’s eyes shone.,“Them carrots do smell sweet.”,Moses’ face became as mournful as his music had been. It was as though he had suddenly realized that life was, after all, more serious than one suspects in one’s idle moments.，“I’ll mow in the morning. Let me stay and visit Pretty—Harold, I mean—till sundown; can’t I, mamma?” He patted her cheek with a vigor that made her wink. “You know you can’t refuse your darling boy,” he wheedled.，Mrs. Wopp leaning towards a lady on her right inquired, “Do you know Mis’ Stephens, why Joe Avery is not dancin’ this evenin’. Ever sence we come into this here barn he has never moved from his seat.”，“You don’t want to see your mother now, do you, boy? No more do you feel like jabbering with Bess at our table. Come over to the hotel, and we’ll lunch together.”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.

The service began and was proceeding with its accustomed smoothness and decorum when a most unseemly interruption occurred. Maria Mifsud had long entertained suspicions that all was not well with the interior of the organ. Lately a few of the notes had refused to make a sound, and to-day there seemed to be more of these delinquents than ever. While Mr. Bliggins was collecting the offering Maria began to play a voluntary carefully practised beforehand. She had fairly launched into “One Sweetly Solemn Thought” when suddenly she discerned peering curiously at her through one of the round holes which adorn the front of the instrument the small bright eye of a mouse. The intruder was apparently quite calm and self-possessed. Not so Maria. With a piercing shriek she jumped from the organ stool and rushing to the back of the church leaped wildly to the seat beside her scandalized and uncomprehending mother. Almost at the same moment the offending mouse scampered down the internal anatomy of the organ and gained freedom through an exit beside the pedals. Mr. Wells turned crimson and stood on one foot. Most of the ladies of the congregation drew their feet up on the seat beside them. The mouse ran furiously along the sacred aisles of the church.,The Wopp family had two domestic pets, a plump tortoise-shell cat called Nancy, and a black and white terrier named Jethro, after the father-in-law of Moses, the great law-giver.,“Don’t tell—must Edith and May Nell know?” he called after her. “Oh, all the town will—mother!” The anguish in his words halted her. “Mother, this wasn’t a boys’ scrap at all. I didn’t think of you or—or anything; an’ something must have squelched Betsey, she never peeped. Mother, I felt—I felt mad enough to kill him!” He whispered the awesome words.,“My clothes mostly,” he replied, hoping he had told the truth, though a dreadful, big feeling in his head, the humming in his ears, and the pain in his eyes, made him guess he had told a lie.,“They shan’t ever again call me Billy To-morrow. It’s Billy To-day, Bouncer. It shall always be Billy To-day!”,“Then he walked back as slowly and dignifiedly as a minister,—isn’t ‘dignifiedly’ an awkward word? I wonder if it is right?”,Billy looked at her thoughtfully, wondering why her fearless criticism did not displease him; lifted his battered hat and mussed again his tousled hair. “All right, Fair Ellen, I’ll try to obey the—”,“We won’t have any shadow people to-night, darling.” Mrs. Bennett rose and turned on the lights, though it was not yet dark; drew the curtains, and punched the fire till a storm of sparks sputtered up the chimney.,“Billy! I’ll tell you what let’s do; we’ll make a circus ourselves!”,“Why, they know what you say—mind!” May Nell exclaimed, admiringly.,“By heck!” he thundered.,“Well?” she questioned..