Ram Dalal Travels

Ram Dalal Travels ten years of prestige “Why not arsk Geordie Hodgekiss. He’s sich a grand feller fer helpin’ at dances, an’ his voice ’ud most wake the dead. I feel shore he’d hev the good o’ the quilt at heart.”,Betty had lent Moses fifteen cents of her Christmas money and was receiving two pink and white candy canes as her weekly dividend—“truly a lean annuitant.”,Al Newman arranged all the theatre parties for his wife and guests. He opened up the piano as he spoke and turned to the musician.,St. Elmo willingly consented. His mind was still running on the wonderful story Betty had told him. Perhaps the fairies would show themselves now Betty had gone. A few moments before, Moses had thrown down his hoe and departed to the barn, so the little boy was quite alone. He stood eagerly watching the sunflower patch where the fairies had appeared on at least one occasion.,“Nothin’.”，Moses’ teeth chattered. It was not cold, but wash-day meant to the unhappy boy a dismal round of duties.，“Right—now—are you?” The arm that was around Bouncer tightened, and she thought her “heart would fly right up into her throat.”，After several rounds the mouse, at last seeing the open door, darted through it to freedom. Jethro a short distance behind assayed to follow; but taking a short cut under the back seat on which huddled the Mifsud family he unexpectedly encountered his ancient enemy Snappy the Mifsud’s collie. Snappy, who had been roused from his slumbers under the buckboard by the commotion in the church, had crept in unnoticed and had been an interested spectator of the proceedings. Jethro’s always superabundant energies were now turned in a new direction. Snarls and snaps and the fiercest growls testified to the bitterness of the feud.“What’s the matter, Billy? Why don’t you go and play? You surely deserve a fine holiday, my big, big son.” She put her arm around him tenderly; and he saw that she remembered. He would be thirteen to-morrow. He had been counting the days; but he thought mother and sister had been too busy to think of it. It was coming—to-morrow, Sunday! If he didn’t have a good time to-day it wouldn’t be any birthday at all.

“You can send some one after us, a man—not you, not either of you,” he called back over his shoulder, and was soon out of sight.,He laughed coarsely. “George Smith’s kid, all right. You’ve got the same high way with you.”,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.,“Bully for you, Ladybird. I’ve got a backer you see, sister.”,“I didn’t—I haven’t washed. I’m—” All at once as Billy walked through the tiled entrance, and felt himself in the midst of splendors he had viewed only from without, he was overcome with the suspicion that he looked rather queer beside the immaculate Doctor. He knew his hair “stood up all ways for Sunday”; and his face must be dirty. “But they won’t know how dirty,” he reflected; “this is[211] the time them plaguey freckles’ll get in an’ hide the dust.” Freckles were Billy’s sorest point.,Visitors! He saw them through the window. Every step was growing more painful,—he must get to his room. The space from the woodshed roof to the tower room, before so easily surmounted by a swinging jump, looked now as high and far as Mount Whitney. Back to the window he turned. The firelight was dancing on the walls. Sister Edith was talking gayly to neighbors who were standing near the door, and May Nell was snuggled beside his mother on the couch, the great yellow cat, or a part of him, sprawling on her small lap.,The boy gave her a squeeze that made her last words come in jerks. “That’s a mean trick to play on a fellow,—chuck such a responsibility on a twelve-year-old. Say I must or I mustn’t, mamma.” He caught her hand and gently tweaked her fingers.,“Ugh! Confound their impudence, I’ll make them listen yet to something else than rag.”,What matter if the telegraph poles that were to be just twelve feet—that is, twelve inches—fell short or long sometimes.,“Pretty; and Charley will be Douglas, and—”,“You don’t like Sir Thomas because he’s a little indolent.”,“Ay, ay, sir,” came this time from two boys who had charge of some logs lashed together and crossed and recrossed by a hash-like lot of refuse lumber, and moored with a dog chain..