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Book Of Hercules - A Legendary Quest read online Take a look at Asia's Top Prestigious Online Casinos!", But just before they were to enter the park Bouncer had his innings. A rabbit, startled, sprang from under the roadside bushes and ran down the street toward the open country. Bouncer’s tail went up. He dashed out of line, overturned the Polar Bear’s cage, and was off after his quarry, barking wildly, with the fast disrupting cage dangling at his heels. The Polar Bear, liberated, flew home like a streak of white light. The trained dogs broke from their struggling boy leaders, carrying with them gleaming bits of red paper uniform.,“I come! I come at thy call, O Sun!,“Jist look at that black man’s chest swellin’ in an’ out like an accorjun,” remarked Mrs. Wopp highly entertained with the sight. Moses leaned over till he was in danger of capsizing. His eager look trailed off into a point of vacuity when the performers left the stage. Bewilderment had left his eyes incapable of properly focussing. Suddenly he caught sight of Betty and he could hardly repress an exclamation of joy as he pointed her out to his mother.,This time Moses was more successful. Comforted, he felt he could enjoy a few morsels himself. Calling the contrite Jethro, who, after extricating himself from the ruins he had made, had retired under a bench, the boy made his way to a remote corner. Here no parental admonitions would disturb him. He surveyed with pleased expectancy an enormous triangle of pie, a huge slab of gingerbread, a monument of glistening iced cake, half a dozen tarts, and a few other trifles he had brought with him.,What matter if the telegraph poles that were to be just twelve feet—that is, twelve inches—fell short or long sometimes.，“Don’t stan’ there fillin’ the doorway like a bung in a barrel, Moses,” reprimanded Mrs. Wopp. “That boy’s gone clean petrified. Go an’ fetch the lamp, it air giftin’ so dark I can’t tell which is Glory an’ which is Miss Gordon.”，What delightfully busy and secret evenings Betty spent in the kitchen with Mrs. Wopp helping and expostulating! What dismal sighs from Moses who, like the Marchioness, cooled his eye at the keyhole! His sighs penetrated through the said keyhole and almost softened the obdurate Betty; but, alas, his eavesdropping ended only in whetting the edge of his curiosity! What yelps from Jethro when Moses trod on his foot in headlong flight from the door as his mother approached! What copious notes written by Ebenezer Wopp on the whispering and conspiracies in the kitchen! And then again what sweeping up and burning of cardboard, what hunting through old newspapers and magazines, and what clicking of scissors while a small pair of jaws worked simultaneously! What gorgeous hues from the paint-box as Betty mixed her colors and painted innumerable pictures cut from the magazines! Animals, birds, flowers! Gay as color could make them! A veritable garden and zoo turned loose in the kitchen!，“Don’t tell—must Edith and May Nell know?” he called after her. “Oh, all the town will—mother!” The anguish in his words halted her. “Mother, this wasn’t a boys’ scrap at all. I didn’t think of you or—or anything; an’ something must have squelched Betsey, she never peeped. Mother, I felt—I felt mad enough to kill him!” He whispered the awesome words.“Ef you wish it, Ebenezer,” responded his spouse though still somewhat absorbed in the frustrated hopes of her relative, “jist wait till I drawr up the blinds.”

“Oh, no,” he sighed; “I suppose duty is the first business; but duty is such a narrow, knock-you-down little word.” His voice was tense and hard.,The infant class which was to be under the guidance of Mrs. Wopp for the day, consisted of seven small pupils. They were seated on a low bench in one corner of the church. Green denim curtains were hung in such a way that, after the preliminary devotional exercises, the little class could be screened from the adults and older pupils. A blackboard stood on the floor, and upon a table near by were many colored crayons. The infantile mind required such aids to the imagination.,“Here’s Mis’ Mifsud an’ St. Elmo comin’ in the buckboard,” he announced.,Balancing her voice on a very high note she popped her head through the dining-room door to speak to her husband. He was seated at the table reading “The Family Herald.” His straggling grey locks were disordered with his mental effort and formed a frieze of irregular design on his shining forehead. Mrs. Wopp’s voice, in a moment, was safe on terra firma.,The Prettymans’ white cow was ingeniously shaped and caparisoned to represent “India’s Sacred White Elephant”; and Jackson was the Hindoo leader. This exhibit caused much controversy. The attendant should ride on the neck of the elephant, all agreed to that; but the cow objected; so they compromised by having Jackson walk. The matter of costume for Jackson was not so easily settled, as the differing pictures of sacred elephants presented a variation in the attendants’ garb. May Nell,—who was to be the “Fair Princess of Bombay,”—as soon as she could get a hearing, ended the dispute amicably by suggesting that Jackson be allowed his choice in the matter of dress, an alternative that permitted each disputant to withdraw from the argument with honor.,Flags waved. In spite of Billy all shouted orders at once. The line was as serpentine as Bess’s snakes that she held high and wriggling above her snake-entwined head. Oh, she was a very realistic snake charmer! Buzz crowed and clapped his pudgy little hands; and the Lancasters’ small Chinese boy who pulled the baby’s car almost fell over himself laughing.,“Don’t you remember the first day I went to school, he took me between his knees,—I was a little kid then,—and said, ‘Billy, if I[133] know that you ever jump on a boy first to fight him, I’ll lick you. And if another boy jumps on you first, and you don’t fight back, no matter how big he is, I’ll lick you then.’”,But even as he looked he saw two people coming; his mother and Jean, crossing the foot-bridge that led to the pasture side of the river. The throbbing in his head, the stifled lungs, interest in the capture of the prisoners,—all faded before this terrible dread.,All the people came out of their shops and offices and clapped generously. A light breeze floated out the flags, and made the gold fringe on the Snake Charmer’s cage wave and look rich and foreign. The band outdid itself; and as the forward end of the procession turned out of the street, a great cheer began behind them, grew and swelled, till even the youngest child knew “folks liked the circus.”,He kept his hands from hers, and begged her not to touch the handkerchief he had bound around his head; but before his story was finished, a growing stain on the pillow had oozed into sight.,“Now Moses,” she called at the end of the third verse, “git the water for the rinsin’.” The clanking lessened and slowly died down to a complaining rumble. It might have been some monster suffering from indigestion.,“Been talkin’ to a grave-digger?” queried Mrs. Wopp, of her offspring, as Moses selected a comfortable seat, his sober face still bearing traces of the last few days’ anxiety. She looked on the solicitude of Moses with an approving eye, but it was necessary, however, to hide her maternal pride by a series of assaults upon him on every possible pretext. Her banterings also helped to keep her son and heir in the spotlight..