Playmatika

Playmatika ten years of prestige “As the door creaketh on his hinges, so the slugger turneth on his bed.” Liza Wopp’s voice was compelling in its significance. Through the rose-lit dreams of Moses, the sound and the awful words were like the threatenings of an approaching storm.,“Betty dimples in an’ out, like Mar’s dough,” he remarked, joyously, “she’s shore gittin’ better.”,At first he could not eat with relish, his mind was so distracted with admiration of the magnificent room, and impatient to get his worrying secret off his heart and conscience. But his wise host ordered so artfully, and filled the intervals of waiting with such delightful stories and anecdotes, explanations of the decorations, funny facts or conjectures concerning the hotel and guests, that before he knew it, Billy had, he told his mother afterward, referring to his stomach, “loaded her up to the guards, ’nough to make you ’shamed of me, mother.”,“Avaunt, hesitating noddy! The angel child is quite safe!” Bess waved an arm, partly bare and brown in spots.,“We left him by the creek, Ma, playing in the sand,” was the reply. “When Betty and me tried to make him come in he slapped us.”，“O Billy, the poor rabbit will surely be caught; and you know the stag hid in ‘Trosach’s wildest nook.’”，The “Lady of the Lake” was that moment deserted.，May Nell didn’t understand, but thought it best to answer in the affirmative. Beyond that she said nothing, but trudged along by his side till they came to the road and turned toward the haunted house, when he took her suddenly in his arms and walked on in the deepest of the dusty ruts.“We can play the first canto, ‘The Chase,’ across the river in the Sunol Creek canyon,” Billy explained, eagerly.

“Now who wants to ride the camel? Who wants to ride the swayin’ tossin’ ship of the desert?” Betty turned to her swarming audience; then to Moses she whispered as though she might be overheard, “You step forward an’ pay me two bits fer a ride.” Moses put a ticket into Betty’s hand and, not to be outdone in bravery, mounted the single-humped camel. Molly forgot her training in the sandy desert and lurched sadly.,He went home after the engagement, walking on air and talking aloud to himself. “Gee! I don’t suppose there’s a squinch-eyed ghost of a chance for me to win that prize money; but twenty-five a month’ll pay mamma for what I eat,—and break, I guess.”,“Choose your partners for a quadrille,” called Geordie, and once more the floor was filled. There was room for six sets and in one of these stood Mr. Wopp with his partner Nell, while at the capacious side of Mrs. Wopp was Howard.,The scene ended in a crash of music; the curtain fell to a house wild with cheering. Edith and the principal performers were called again and again before the curtain. It was a generous, appreciative audience, giving its heartiest approval by rising.,“Sharpen these pencils, Moses, please, for the drawing lesson.”,“Why, Billy? I don’t believe in whipping unless all else fails.”,“A deed to the stone house, the Ha’nt, May Nell calls it. I was glad to know of something you wanted; and I’ll furnish the money to redeem the place to your idea of the beauty it deserves. It is a splendid location. And Mrs. Bennett,” he turned to Billy’s mother, “you must let me see Billy through college.”,Mrs. Bennett seemed to know exactly what to do. She took out and displayed to May Nell some of the generous gift of child’s wear sent by Mrs. Dorr from the wardrobe of the twins, placed the basket within the door, and introduced the children. Billy wondered what else might be in the basket that made it “act so heavy; it couldn’t be shoes.” He looked critically at May Nell’s small feet.,On Moses Wopp devolved the responsibility of driving the ladies of the household over the two miles of prairie lying between the Wopp ranch and that of Mrs. Mifsud. Betty, too, was going. The Ladies’ Aid did not meet every day, nor had it always on hand the alluring business of an autograph quilt, on which flourished in outlined boldness the name of every man, woman and child in the district and many out of it.,In the very centre of the room stood a small table swathed in a hand-painted felt drape. On this reposed the huge family Bible in which was chronicled the marriages, births and deaths of the Wopp family during the last three generations.,Yet it was very strange, they were all happy! Happier, she felt, than her own mother with maids and money, gems, rich gowns, and her motor car at command. Why was it? “Those that won’t work shouldn’t eat.” Could that be true? Then she should not eat, for she never worked. She wondered how it would seem to work.,The child was “boiling inside,” yet she believed Bouncer’s life depended on her obedience. And anyway, Billy would come in a minute. Oh, why wasn’t he there now!.