Fortue Rewin

Fortue Rewin ten years of prestige At this particular moment Croaker, from whom attention had for the time being been diverted, came into evidence again. At first sight of his old enemy the crow had grown rigid with anger; his black neck-ruff had stood up like the feathers on an Indian warrior's head dress and into his beady eyes had sprung the fighting-fire. When Ringdo got possession of the cookie he raised his short wings and prepared to swoop, strike, and if luck held, swoop again. But when the coon dropped the cookie that he might show the girl who had come back to the old playground that he was glad Croaker promptly changed his mind. He swooped, but on the precious cookie instead of on Ringdo, and with the prize in his black beak and the glasses dangling from one black claw, he went out of the open window like a dark streak.,Did he believe her mad, or did he conceive that she was merely feigning a part?,"Ringdo, you old sweetheart!" cried the girl and, reaching for the big swamp-coon, gathered him into her arms.,His mother gasped. Whatever was coming over the boy, she wondered. Never before had she been able to get a dose of medicine down him without a struggle. There could be only one answer. He was sick—sicker than he let on.,"Shoot?"，Billy told him of his bag.，"You'll ketch it fer this, an' don't you ferget it," she stormed, "an' if I ever hear of you gobblin' up Anson's share o' the lunch ag'in, you young glutton, you'll go to school fer a month without any lunch a'tall."，"I was too much agitated to reflect, papa," Lucy answered. "It seemed so natural—so reasonable, and I hastened to the ship, in the belief that you were lying in her seriously hurt.""Had your supper, Pa?" she asked.

Not far from the large old-fashioned hearth[Pg 65] beside a little table on which stood a work-basket, sat in a tall-backed arm-chair fit for a queen to be crowned in, a figure that must have carried the memory of a middle-aged or old man of that time well back into the past century. She was Miss Acton, Lucy's Aunt Caroline, sister of Captain Acton, a lady of about seventy years of age, who trembled with benevolence and imaginary alarms, who was always doing somebody good, and was now at work upon some baby clothing for an infant that had been born a week or two before.,CHAPTER XXVI A GOLDEN WEDDING GIFT,"I've been waitin' for you and now I'm goin' to lick you," he said.,"I wish, madam," said he, "that you would return to the piano at which we interrupted you.,"I cannot but think," answered Miss Acton, "that Lucy had a secret hankering after Mr Lawrence. He is exceedingly handsome. In bearing he is superior to any man of quality I ever met, and for fine manners you must look to the aristocracy of this country. He can make a leg with the grace equal to any master of elegant salutations; and though his character is bad, yet there are many points in him which women admire, and I say," she continued, with perseverance and a fixity of[Pg 192] meaning truly astonishing in an old lady who in most matters scarcely knew her own mind, who was easily filled with terror, and who seldom acted without consulting her friends, "Lucy has a secret liking for the man, which could scarcely escape the observation of any one who watched them when they are in company.","I came here after you drove me from the Pennsylvania oil fields," said the other, realizing the uselessness of lying.,The next instant two great dogs plunged from the thicket, their heavy jaws open and dripping and their deep eyes searching for their master and the reason for his call.,"Oh no, oh no!" interposed Miss Acton; "she would not be our Lucy if she did.","Do you expect to kill any ducks with that old iron?" he sneered, looking hard at Billy.,"I'm not afraid of no dog, Mr. Hinter," said Billy, "but I've been told your dogs are half wolf. Is that so?",A gleam of satisfaction lit Anson's shifty eyes. "All right," he said shortly, and went off after the herd.,"Croaker, good old Croaker, come down and I'll get you a cookie," Erie begged..