Mel Winner

Mel Winner ASIA'S NO. 1 BAKER CHANNEL Around the outside of the garden was a border of fragrant mignonette. Inside of this was another of white candytuft. This double wall encircled a splendid array of flowers. There were dwarf nasturtiums, red and yellow, a tangled mass of sweet peas clambering up a yard or two of chickenwire, bright marigolds and asters of various colors. Velvet pansies added their soft charms to the display. But most brilliant of all stood a few hollyhocks. Many of their kin had perished in a struggle against the fierce winds.,The light shone through the colored glass window, casting a bluish tinge over the large earnest countenance of the teacher, and a distinct whisper was heard to the effect that “Mrs. Wopp’s face was blue moulderin’.”,“The robin is jist the carinest bird,” she added.,“Stop Mar, lemme go, you are wrong,” gasped the little man whose efforts to escape from her clutches had grown more and more feeble. “Drat that man, anyhow, why carnt he say what he means?” answered the mortified lady. The jeers of the youths on the benches added to her discomforture. Nell began to wonder whether her mind and constitution were robust enough to allow her to engage in such festivities as these very often.,“Her hand would be as pretty as any one’s if she didn’t have to work so hard,” Billy thought loyally; and promised himself again that the first money he earned should buy his mother a diamond ring.，“Hold your grouch, Sour,” Harold expostulated.，“Oh, Billy!” she said, despairingly; and he knew in spite of her smile that she disliked his words. “The little girl is looking for you. She is lonely; you must amuse her.”，“There’s a better way,” Billy called, when the deputy leading started to climb back as he had come. “Follow the creek; there’s a trail.”“Not till evening; but there’s the lawn.”

“How do you know?”,THE silence was broken a little later by merry voices on the stairway. For several nights the girls had been gathering in May Nell’s room. Billy knew “things were doing” there by the sounds; the tap, tap of the tack hammer, added to much chatter and rustling. Now May Nell caught him by the hand and pulled him across the hall. A strange pungent fragrance like burning spice, yet not familiar, met them at the door. And inside, the dark hangings full of lurking shadows gave the room a foreign air.,“I took a stick of kindling from the kitchen and crept out to chase the thief away; but just then Flash trotted around the corner of the house. He’s been on the front lawn all the morning watching for gophers; wouldn’t come when we called him.”,Bess, though not quite twelve, was a striking girl, larger than most women; with a mind as unusual as her body. Poetry, music, mythology, she fed upon these as a plant upon the sunshine. She was not satisfied with ordinary speech, but continually wove into the most commonplace events the glamour of romance and poetic words. A wise mother had stood between her and the jeers of the thoughtless, that she might have a normal girlhood; and Billy’s mother and sister helped to make it possible for her to play comfortably with those of her own age. Yet it was a surprise to the stranger to see this dark-eyed, magnificent woman-creature in short skirts romping with children.,A lot more nonsense he rattled off, squeezing and kissing her till she was breathless with laughter.,“It’s only a chop left from yesterday,” he excused on his return.,“I’m tho thorry, I wanted to hear more about the fairieth.” Lila Williams would have braved the elements to listen to more of Betty’s original stories.,Billy went on with his rubbing, and his next words were comically resigned. “Besides, I suppose I’ll have to get married some day; of course she’ll be a new woman; might as well learn housework now.”,“That’s Flash; he always works for his breakfast,” Billy pompously approved.,“Do you live here?” she questioned with an irrepressible shudder.,“How in the name of orl the aporstles did that hen git in there?” questioned Mrs. Wopp.,“Are you hurt?” Billy spelled with the hand alphabet every boy and girl knows..