Barry Deep descent

Barry Deep descent Register +128K The trail was for the most part smooth and uneventful, but here and there the wheels of the democrat dipped into a gopher hole, causing anxiety and discomfort, especially to those in the back seat. These ladies were holding on to the side bars with utmost tenacity, yet Mrs. Wopp afterwards asserted, that when a particularly vicious depression was encountered, they were bounced violently at least three feet in the air and were considerably worried lest they should not land on the seat again. However, they displayed great fortitude under these distressing circumstances, and by the time Moses had calmed the horses to a slower pace, they had regained self-possession.,If he had been older he would have said he had “the blues.” Yet probably he would not have known that his mental—and physical—condition was a natural result of the long strain of previous weeks. All the children felt it. That morning the cousins, Clarence and Harry, who loved each other dearly, had come to blows in the Sunday School room before the teachers arrived, over the question of which one of them should marry Miss Edith. Clarence received a bloody scratch the full length of his palm from Harry’s Band of Mercy pin; while the careful parting disappeared from his own hair, and a red splotch marred the whiteness of his wide collar. No one can tell what further calamity might have happened had not the Twins opportunely arrived and questioned of the quarrel.,In this mood he turned into the main road and came upon Jackson limping, bloody, and crying.,“Doubtless it is incorporated in the language of some foreign people,” conceded Mrs. Mifsud, languidly.,“We’ll play there’s a strike in the saw-mills, Dutchy, and this is scab labor,” Billy excused amiably. And for a fact the white cotton string carried the messages quite safely from the “Front,” where Jimmy and George laid out the “line” over wonderful grades, across impossible gorges; and “wired” back for further orders. Harry Potter was the operator at the “Front,” and Vilette,—“Women do operate, you know,” she said,—Vilette was the proud holder of “the key” at Headquarters, where Clarence Hammond strutted around as Messenger; and because he was the “son of the Boss,” bullied his Cousin Harry unmercifully.，“This is excitin’ fun,” moaned Moses, as he picked his way carefully with a tin elbow that threatened every moment to capsize with its flaky mass of black dust, “about as excitin’ as playin’ with the ashes in the mornin’.”，“Last November.”，Billy turned the bulky papers over and over as if to gather some hint of their meaning from fold and stiffness. “What is it, Mr. Smith?” he asked wonderingly.“Their knifes bin too dull, and she must quick be done,” Max apologized to Billy on his inspection trips.

After setting her white bouquet on the large dining-table, Betty again hastened to her beloved garden and began weeding where her ministrations were needed. As she worked, she hummed “Sweet and Low” softly to herself. The school children had lately learned to sing it.,Geewhillikins did not wait for four feet to be on the floor to spring at the plate. He put his paws on one pile of meat, and began to gobble the other, growling savagely. The house cats drew back, curled their tails around their forefeet, and looked at the gorger in calm disdain.,“Mebbe you’re right, Moses; mebbe the seed was no good,” sighed Mrs. Wopp. “Anyhow, it’s too late now to put in any more. We carnt know ef the heart o’ a seed is good no more nor we kin know the heart o’ our next-door neighbor. The seed may ’pear to be good enough from the outside, yet arter all be mighty lackin’.”,All this time Mrs. Wopp ran breathlessly up and down stairs attending to the feverish child. Even wash-day was postponed, but the terrors of that dread event would never again appal Moses, he felt sure, if only Betty got well. Ebenezer Wopp was distracted and neglected to take his usual number of notes.,“You are one simp,” he comforted, at the same time putting his own overcoat about the shivering boy.,“What’s the matter, Billy? Why don’t you go and play? You surely deserve a fine holiday, my big, big son.” She put her arm around him tenderly; and he saw that she remembered. He would be thirteen to-morrow. He had been counting the days; but he thought mother and sister had been too busy to think of it. It was coming—to-morrow, Sunday! If he didn’t have a good time to-day it wouldn’t be any birthday at all.,But not that night nor for days after did Billy look at his books. The second morning the fever was still present, and he told his mother he was “all over red goose flesh.”,The Wopps, father and son, attacked the load of hay with such vigor that it was quickly disposed of. Just as the last forkful was being pitched over the corral fence, the boy looking up saw a vehicle approaching.,Now he crept through the brush by the roadside till he came close under the west wall. The setting sun blazed red fire at him from the windows, reminding him sharply of the hour.,“She must come to visit us sometime.”,“Why do you think he would have whipped you?”,“Better quit tarlkin’, Moses, an’ let the picter show go on so’s we kin hev supper, everythin’s laid an’ ready.”.