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mpl desktop download +88k “Let’s all go to the parlor, Mar, and hev some music. It isn’t every evenin’ we hev company,” said Mr. Wopp.,In his anticipation of the Sunday afternoon treat in store for him, Moses dreamed all that night of little dark-skinned men running round after him with bowls of rice and jabbing him with chop-sticks.,“Well, time is near up younguns; has any one a question to arsk?”,Awakened to the fact of her son’s existence and perhaps as an antidote to her unusual display of sentiment, Mrs. Wopp spoke rather sharply. “Moses, time you an’ Betty was in bed. You won’t want to git up in the mornin’ an’ milk the cows.” Later left alone in the lower part of the house she stood arms akimbo in the middle of the kitchen gazing at the door through which Nell Gordon had just departed. Shaking her head she said mysteriously, “I kalkerlate as how things is a-settin’ in that way.”,May Nell! Where was she? He had forgotten her! It must be three—four— Oh, how late was it? Was she safe? Or had she fainted from fright; and was she lying there now, helpless? He looked across the plashing river to the green, blossoming isle, grateful for water and grass and green shrub, and the sheltering Lodge that would keep her safe from the fire. Yet the terror of being there alone, of seeing that awful sheet of flame sweep down the mountain to her very feet,—perhaps a fainting spell,—that surely must have followed,—with no one there to revive her, it might be—fatal!，They tied the horses, and once hidden from the road, shed every superfluous garment. Billy was quite ashamed of the chill he could not help when he saw the handcuffs, pistols, and cartridges disposed neatly and conveniently about the Sheriff’s waist. They looked so vicious, “disrespectable.”，Watchful Mrs. Bennett was not far away. She stopped the boy’s noise, and cuddled the bereft one once more. “What is it, child? You are to be brave, you know.”，Presently they came to others of the posse, and after that to a long line of farmers and other citizens, fighting desperately but successfully against the dying flames.“I’d love to, Billy,” Mrs. Lancaster whispered; “I’ve never liked being grown up.”

Mrs. Bennett continued her gentle, even strokes; bent and kissed him softly before replying. “Duty looks narrow only when it opposes inclination, my child. Selfish people hate duty; but those who live the longest and best lives could tell you that every victory duty wins brings an ever-increasing joy.”,“It’s up to you now, my girl,” he panted under his breath. “The board will bend—you mustn’t be frightened. Fix your eyes on the tree—come fast.”,The clearer air revived Billy, and he was soon walking without help, coming shortly to the road where the wagons waited; coming in sight of Ellen’s Isle.,“I sorter hoped Moses’d take arter Uncle Josh, too,” she said, regretfully.,The heat and smoke increased alarmingly as they went on, the man puffing at the boy’s pace. In and out, occasionally doubling and returning but never losing altitude, Billy crashed on. His slender body slipped through underbrush by way of small apertures that would not admit the man’s greater bulk; he had to break his way. The boy, also accustomed to running, climbing, had the advantage of better breath; though the other could not, Billy still held his mouth shut against the suffocating smoke, kept his smarting eyes partly closed.,“What does that mean?” queried Moses.,He was pleased with her sympathy; but being a boy, he didn’t like to show it. “I’ll tell you,” he said, eagerly, and without further acknowledgment of her kindness, “ask Mr. Brown to give you my books. Perhaps to-night I can see to study.”,Billy thought he detected a touch of resigned disappointment in her words, and looked up with a sudden wonder widening his eyes, making them shine even in the dim light of the shaded lamp. “Do you want me to preach, mamma?”,“I can dance, too,” she said with childish pride.,The second act brought a conflict between elves and gnomes, and the fairies, when first the earth sprites were victorious, but at last the fairies. May Nell was the Fairy Queen, and enchanted all with her beauty, her dancing and singing, and her acting, which was sweetly childish as well as clever.,“The whale went splurgin’ an’ splutterin’ through the waves, mebbe blowin’ up a big waterspout like we see them doin’ in the jography picters. Then Joner prayed like everything an’ wrastled with the Lord, an’ his prayer was heerd, an’ the whale spit him up on the bank.”,“I wonder who’ll buy this here quilt,” speculated Mrs. Wopp, as she bent over her task, “there’s shorely a great sight o’ work on it. As fer me, I aint got time to do much fancy work an’ I’d never git round to a job like this fer myself.”.