PlayOro

PlayOro Literary Archive Foundation “They’ve stolen her, all right. I don’t know why, but I know who,—it’s the Ha’nt people!” Billy panted, coming out of the Lodge.,Yet he could not long keep his mind from the struggle. “Mother, won’t you find out soon about Jimmy, how bad he’s hurt? An’ I wish I knew if Vilette ’n Evelyn ’re all right; it looked awful to see ’em hit with a horsewhip.”,Lurks at the gate:,Pshaw! how silly people were! And now came Olea, the cook from his own home, weeping and wailing aloud. When she saw him she was ready to drop with astonishment. “Oh, you angel John! Are you risen from the dead? They brought us word that you were drowned.”,Meantime, Violet is having rather a bad time in the boudoir. Lady Rodney refuses to see light anywhere, and talks on in a disjointed fashion about this disgrace that has befallen the family.，“Bctcher took orl mornin’ to tittyvate them there carrots,” offered Moses, edging up to Maria with conciliatory glances, and jostling St. Elmo who stood waiting to contribute his donation. The little fellow, whose nose was still “bluggy” from tripping over the saw-horse, dropped his lonely long scraggy carrot on the floor, and in stooping to pick it up struck his head against the handle of a hay-fork and emitted a howl that might have been heard by the heathen themselves in Africa. Betty comforted him with a gum-drop that had lain neglected in her pocket for several weeks, and the cries ceased.，"Patricia!" gasped Judith, shocked out of her dreamy calm. "You oughtn't to say things like that. It's—it's not religious!"，"Nonsense! She likes Maurice herself," replied Isabella, uneasily. "Maurice wants our engagement kept quiet for the present, but when I do tell Major Jen and my mother, I am sure neither of them will object."To the old women Kŭt-o-yĭs´ then said, "Now, grandmothers, where are there any more people? I want to travel about and see them."

During the meal the conversation was without any special interest, but afterwards, when Mr. Holman had retired for his siesta, Link O’Day joined the boys on the porch. The talk drifted from cattle to farming and from farming to forestry. On this topic the man spoke not only with knowledge but with enthusiasm.,Once upon a time there was a woodcutter and his wife who had seven children, all boys. The eldest was but ten years old, and the youngest only seven. People wondered that the woodcutter had so many children so near in age, but the fact was, that several of them were twins. He and his wife were very poor, and their seven children were a great burden to them, as not one of them was yet able to earn his livelihood. What troubled them still more was, that the youngest was very delicate, and seldom spoke, which they considered a proof of stupidity rather than of good sense. He was very diminutive, and, when first born, scarcely bigger than one's thumb, and so they called him Little Thumbling.,"Well, you'd best come quick, then. You'll be gettin' enough hidin's today—if that new teacher's any good—without me havin' to wear my arm out on you 'fore breakfast.",CHAPTER XV THE CAPTURE OF BOB,He contrasted her wretched bed on that cabin floor with her home bedchamber which he figured—he had never entered it; a room sweet-scented with the flowers of the creepers at the windows, white and fair in the apparel of a girl's bower of rest, elegant in its equipment as were all the rooms of the home of the Actons.,“It’s a terrible disease, shorely,” interpolated Mrs. Wopp. “Ebenezer’s sisten-in-law’s cousin hed it, an’ fer a long time she was as yaller as a biled turnip. Her feelin’s was low, too, an’ she thort she was goin’ to die. She made her will, leavin’ her clothes an’ her cat, which was all she hed, to an ole men’s refuge. But lan’ sakes! she’s alive yet an’ peart as a robin. She got a set o’ false teeth an’ a switch jist larst month.”,"You girls are angels to wait for me till the very last moment," chatted Elinor, stuffing her things into her locker recklessly. "I hated to run the risk of not going to the station, but, oh, it was worth it!","Why should it be strange?",The Admiral buried half his face in his tankard, and after wiping the froth from his lips and looking earnestly at the round of beef as though he deliberated within himself whether he should take another slice, he said: "I am happy to say that I have good news for you. An opportunity has been offered which will do away with the need of your shipping before the mast and seeking your fortune in America. The Minorca, as you doubtless know, is in want of a captain. I was speaking about you to Captain Acton this morning, and regretting, as I must continue to regret whilst I have the capacity of a sigh—I do not say a tear—left in me, that you should relinquish the Service in which, had you behaved with prudence, you were eminently calculated to make a shining figure.",“Moses, you git to the barn an’ hunt the aigs, an’ min’ you look in the haystack; that ole yaller hen has been wantin’ ter set in the nigh corner of it.”,When the feasting was over, there was a call for silence. It came from Father, who stood again at the top of the marble steps and was evidently going to make a speech. All the children flocked together near the steps, in the sunshine, and hundreds of childish faces were upturned towards the speaker. Behind Father, on the veranda, at the windows, and in the doorways stood John’s aged friends, among them Katrina in her bright red dress and Jeremias the wood-cutter in the mayor’s light coat that was altogether too small for him. Jeremias had been to the Kingthorpe woodshed the first thing, for there was something he understood; but now he had stationed himself behind Father. The crippled child sat on the lowest step, his pockets stuffed full of plums.,"Weary me! no, indeed. That is one of the very few unkind things you have ever said to me. How could I weary of your voice? Go on; tell me where you keep this magical piano.".