Boost the Wheel!

Boost the Wheel! Reputable and Safe At the door of the Crump household, Moses stood before the daughter of the house who answered the bell, burning hot with the fever of an overwhelming embarrassment. His body glowed so that steam might have been seen arising from his dripping garments. He almost yearned for incarceration in an ice-house. His personal pulchritude had not been enhanced by the experience and the critical eyes of the young girl failed to express any degree of admiration or sympathy. More than ever Moses longed for the encircling arms of Betty.,“That bunch with the tickets, them’s the refugees,” Billy whispered to Jean. “See? Mr. Patton’s talking to them. Mr. Brown’s going to take ’em to their places in his hack. I wonder which is ours. Jiminy! See how hard that poor little kid’s trying to bluff her tears!”,“Ebenezer, you might bring in my slumber robe, bein’s I’m so busy an’ Mose an’ Betty’s gone to bed.”,“Jiminy! I’ll have time in the morning,” he said aloud, and hurried on, not slackening his speed till he came to a sharp turn that took the road against the face of a rugged mountain. He hid his wheel and can in a tangle of rose vine and snowdrop, and stood out on the edge of the steep bluff that overhung the rushing river. There bloomed the island. Near the centre a rocky point was aflame with gorgeous poppies; and Billy could smell the fragrance of the snowy wild heliotrope,—pop-corn the children called it.,The resourceful Betty was not to be undone by this embarrassing accident. She used the silk shawl to groom the ostrich and to mop the disfiguring stains from Moses’ face. The helmet was discarded and the aigret of red hair rose instantly undaunted, waving a lively accompaniment to the boy’s continued exertions to follow the pace set by Betty’s imagination.，In desperation he stood still, gazing at the windows above; reprimanding the dog sharply when he whined, though his fingers unconsciously patted away the sting of the rebuke.，She stooped and kissed him.，“The tank must have run over, Billy. You forgot to shut it off.”Had he but dreamed on for an hour or so he would have returned, rested, refreshed, the cheery boy that helped to make the Bennett house a home. But a voice in the road above startled him. Only a word was spoken, a greeting; but it was surly and foreign, Italian.

“There’s no mention of circus-ladies going there anyway,” said Howard, smiling. This reference to her attempts to out-barnum Barnum brought a bright smile to the wan face of Betty.,Moses regretted a hundred times his refusal to grant Betty’s request for two bits. He had since offered it and had tried to thrust it on her, but injured pride could not thus be appeased.,Discarded shoe-laces, rope and trunk-straps came hastily into requisition. The vociferations of Moses were so severe on his vocal chords that he found it necessary to visit the pump.,Jean and the twins, Charley, George and some others, rattled down the stairs; while Clarence and Harry stood rigid, with wooden scymitars drawn, one on each side of the door.,“Break it,—not now; when I tell you.”,Presently, Moses made for the yard and on his way, offered tribute to Betty by standing on his head on the mat at the door.,“All but finding the job, mother. Jobs don’t hunt boys; and mine’s going to be waiting for me when the school house door shuts: that is, if I can persuade any man in the town or county that he needs a boy my size.”,“The fairies might git cross,” countered Betty.,The pianist sat easily at the piano and began the Moskowski selection that had failed to create the expected furore in the afternoon. A cadenza that shivered down the spine like spray from a glacial torrent wakened the room. Then he plunged into the first theme. His small audience listened spell-bound. Betty’s eyes followed the fingers that leaped over the ivory keys like white flame. A subtle current began to play in the room. Steadily it grew in power. Magnetism to the nth degree was being generated. A tremendous chord brought the music to a close and the pianist to his feet. Something in Nell’s glance inspired him. He whirled about the room whistling and imitating some of the cadenzas and other passages from the selection just played. He gesticulated wildly with his hands, the passion for dramatic music oozing from his pores.,What more might he do to hasten the Saturday work? He could not chop the kindling or fill the wood boxes. The weeding! It was behind. Both mother and sister had reminded him repeatedly, but he had forgotten. Only yesterday his sister had made tidy the flower beds that flanked the house; but the melons, the vegetables,—they were not done, and that would make no noise.,Nell’s answer was somehow strangely muffled.,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..