Holidays Joker - Valentines

Holidays Joker - Valentines ten years of prestige “Can you drive?” he asked, anxiously, as he unhitched the horse. He noticed with a second sinking feeling that Jimmy’s face twitched with pain, that his right arm hung limp.,Betty had a conviction, though an unspoken one, that Moses was the primary cause of Job’s infirmity. The slowest of a large family of striped fluffy turkeys to emerge from the shell, he had been assisted in his efforts by the impatient Moses. Betty felt sure that the clumsy fingers of the boy had ruined the little turkey’s eye. The accusation, however, was too dreadful to be put into words.,“What is the matter with your hand?” May Nell asked as she drew the work-worn hand down and patted it. “It doesn’t feel like my mama’s. And you have only one ring, a plain one. Are your others in the bank? My mama has ever so many,—diamonds, rubies, and such a big sapphire, perfectly exquisite! And they look elegant on her hand,—she has a perfectly beautiful hand.”,“Dear me, mother,” Edith said when Mrs. Bennett came in with hot cakes, “what shall we do with two children in dreamland?” Edith had not touched her breakfast, but was waiting on the others.,Thus interrogated, the boy who had caught but one fleeting word of the sentence, reddened, and shuffling his feet, said he’d “often rode a wild cayuse.”，While this search was being carried on, those left in the house were in no cheerful mood. They all repaired to the kitchen, as the windows there afforded a view of the path leading to the creek. Each lady in her own way tried to bring comfort and consolation to the worried mother. Mrs. Bliggins gave a long graphic account of the loss of her cousin, Mrs. Snoop’s husband, at sea. Mr. Augustus Snoop, it transpired, had sailed away one summer morning on the good ship “Wanderer,” with Australia as his goal. The story was somewhat elliptical, but the hearers could gather that before Mr. Snoop’s departure there had been a huge caldron of trouble brewing on the domestic hearth. Unfortunately, the ship in which Mr. Snoop sailed had after many weeks been reported missing, and Mrs. Snoop had donned sombre garments in honor of the departed. She had found some slight consolation in telling her friends of her late husband’s many excellent qualities and of his unrivalled devotion to her. She would wipe away the gushing tears with her black-bordered handkerchief as she recounted how her dear Augustus had been so careful and considerate of her and had even been known to turn the clothes-wringer for her. True, she had taken in washing for some years to keep the family larder filled, but her dear husband had felt so much concerned about it that during that whole time he had not been equal to doing any work himself. The sorrowing widow had felt certain that from his home of heavenly bliss the loving Augustus, whenever he could be spared from his other duties, was daily and hourly watching his adored wife now living frugally but peacefully on his life insurance money.，Moses’ intuition regarding St. Elmo’s retreat proved to be correct, and it was a sadly dejected countenance on which he gazed when he looked into the cave. Tears, dirt, and the juice of Saskatoon berries mingled on the fair sleeping face of the child, until he seemed to be the very Cree Indian he had so often personated in his play. His long curls were tangled and matted with small twigs. His diminutive brown velvet coat displayed a large rent in the elbow through which oozed a pathetic-looking suppuration of pink and white checked shirt.，“I wathed theeth carroth mythelf, aint they lovely and red jutht like Motheth hair.” She was quite oblivious of the scornful glance bestowed on her by that outraged shock-headed youth.“Sure. All the kids. But Clarence especially,—he’s my son, you know.” Billy grinned.

“I like ‘Ladybird,’ but not ‘bully,’” the little girl returned shyly.,So close was the affiliation between Betty and Moses that exactly three-quarters of an hour after her departure with Miss Gordon for Calgary the impetuous youth was at the rancher’s home trying to inveigle him into a conspiracy to follow the holiday-makers to that city of dazzling attractions.,“That boy’ll sartinly spill the tea,” prophecied Mrs. Wopp, with laughing pessimism.,May Nell had been “through the measles,” yet she shared the quarantine. Billy resented this at first. It was “no fair.” Afterward he was grateful; for aside from the cheer of her presence she did him a fine service. It was her clever brain that proposed to read his lessons aloud to him; and though he didn’t think much of it at first, he soon saw that this would make a chance for the prize which in his heart he had resigned.,“Who is going to auction the quilt when it is finished?” inquired Nell Gordon, appealing to her hostess as President of the Ladies’ Aid.,“Did Clarence show you the sights of the city this morning?” asked Mr. Crump, trying to repress a smile.,“I don’t give two whoops ef he does,” Betty was bubbling with suppressed mirth.,“Come home to dinner with me, Mr. Zalhambra, you’ll p’raps find some folks there that will appreciate the dope you hand out.”,Mrs. Mifsud who had listened to this recital with polite interest, now excused herself on the plea of urgent duties in the kitchen.,Mrs. Wopp repeated the words, slowly rolling them on her tongue as though to extract every ounce possible of scriptural nutriment, “So they took up Joner and carst him forth inter the sea.”,The service began and was proceeding with its accustomed smoothness and decorum when a most unseemly interruption occurred. Maria Mifsud had long entertained suspicions that all was not well with the interior of the organ. Lately a few of the notes had refused to make a sound, and to-day there seemed to be more of these delinquents than ever. While Mr. Bliggins was collecting the offering Maria began to play a voluntary carefully practised beforehand. She had fairly launched into “One Sweetly Solemn Thought” when suddenly she discerned peering curiously at her through one of the round holes which adorn the front of the instrument the small bright eye of a mouse. The intruder was apparently quite calm and self-possessed. Not so Maria. With a piercing shriek she jumped from the organ stool and rushing to the back of the church leaped wildly to the seat beside her scandalized and uncomprehending mother. Almost at the same moment the offending mouse scampered down the internal anatomy of the organ and gained freedom through an exit beside the pedals. Mr. Wells turned crimson and stood on one foot. Most of the ladies of the congregation drew their feet up on the seat beside them. The mouse ran furiously along the sacred aisles of the church.,CHAPTER III THE SURPRISE.