Hooked summary

Hooked summary Register +128K Moses and Betty were left to mind house, the admonishings of Mrs. Wopp being seasoned with picturesque if carelessly applied texts. The envious might hurl hisses, but Moses and Betty were invulnerable to all such assaults upon their anticipations of the day’s freedom with its already planned joys.,“We hev a homestead an’ pre-emption, Miss Gordon, but only work a hundred acres or thereabout. We run stock on the rest of it, aint that the how of it Lize?” Mr. Wopp looked to his help-meet for corroboration.,“Biff on the eye!” she cried.,“You know she never does nothin’ to us really, Moses, no matter how she jaws. Come on, you clipped yer pony so lovely an’ evenlike. The horse-clippers is bangin’ on the wall behind you.”,May Nell had learned to use the towel; and the two children usually “did” the dishes at night; but now she was away with Edith at the Opera House, and mother and son were alone in the kitchen.，“That’s a string bass.”，But May Nell was not to be comforted, till that evening when she composed a wonderful ode to “The Wreck of the Fair Ellen.”，“You had very soon to fight for the Douglases, didn’t you, Roderick Dhu?” she said, as Mrs. Bennett covered her with an apron, and Billy took her up and went toward the house.“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’.”

But after a time Jethro grew very tired of playing with a dilapidated shoe, a shiny bone, a grimy dish-mop and other erstwhile interesting things, and he thought it would be delightful to make friends with Nancy and play with her. But Nancy was still unapproachable. When Jethro capered up to her she arched her back and spat at him. Not being a thin-skinned puppy, he refused to consider this rebuff as final.,He roused himself sharply; found his handkerchief and rubbed his eyes a little clearer; bent swiftly over Jimmy, who stirred when touched, and, to Billy’s intense relief, spoke.,“My feet’s purty well jolted up inter my head,” cried the uncomfortable rider. But Betty insisted on his getting full value for his money, and dared him to descend until the round of the arena had been completed.,“All right. I’m off!”,“No, no, dear. Keep them, an’ I’ll put them in warter when we go to the house,” begged Betty. “The fairies are orful cross when they see dead flowers lyin’ round. Mebbe they might be too angry to come in the garding again ever.”,Clarence, however, when questioned, declared, “I haven’t seen the little shaver since dinner.”,By two o’clock one bright afternoon in May the school children found it hard to keep their minds concentrated on their lessons. But when their teacher said, “Now, Moses, will you pass the singing books,” a wave of awakened interest perceptibly cleared the atmosphere. Moses promptly proceeded to distribute the geography textbooks.,“What’s the Golden Text, Norer?”,Presently he raised his head and was confronted by Job the turkey wearing a tiny bright pink hat and a green ribbon round his neck. An antimacassar bearing wide magenta and red crocheted stripes covered his back causing him to strut with peacock pride.,He went on, a little cautiously now, and shortly came in view of the “Ha’nt,” a sinister though imposing house, built of cut stone, close against the face of the most picturesque mountain of the range, bounding Vina Valley. The windows were curtained with cobwebs and dust. For years the wide front door had been nailed up with the same sun-bleached boards; and “Keep out!” spoke from every gray splinter.,“All right. I’m off!”,“Now, Mose, fer the elbow. Stiddy! Don’t shove! Don’t pull! Hole her stiddy!”.