BetRebels

BetRebels Electronics online “I knew it!” Billy panted feverishly. “The Ha’nt!” Heedless of the dog running with his nose close to the ground, Billy rushed on. His shirt was torn, his trousers hanging by one suspender, his shoes cut and one tap turned back. Ashes whitened his hair; though at the back a dark mat was still damp from oozing blood,—the handkerchief that had bound it had been torn off by a twitching twig. His smarting eyes watered so that he could hardly see his way. Yet of all this he was unconscious. Weariness, pain, his cracked and bleeding lips,—he knew nothing of them, felt nothing.,“Here, Mose, hoi’ this here jint while I fit the next one inter it.” A tongue-twisting silence ensued.,He found Evelyn on her knees before a hot fire, bravely trying to hold level one of the several pots that were sizzling there. Her drooping hair smothered her small hot face, and perspiration stood like dew on her anxious little upper lip.,After the opening exercises of the Sunday-school session, Mrs. Wopp was pained to notice that some of her scholars did not consider attention to the lesson any part of their duty. However, that strict disciplinarian had a vast store of startling reprimands that set all eyes gazing on her sincere countenance.,Several hands waved wildly and a chorus of voices eagerly broke in; through the childish babel could be heard a lisping narrative.，“I haf learn for gifing avay already, but I feel more as rich dan if they haf gif to me. How ist dat?” Max asked himself, not knowing, this little German lad so lately come to America, that he had discovered one of the profoundest secrets of the universe.，Late that night when Billy’s mother followed him to the Fo’castle, he asked, “Are you pleased with it, little mother?”，THINGS happened very fast the next few days. “Something doing every minute,” Billy put it. Billy had neither been ill nor injured,—only exhausted. The wound on his scalp had been worse in appearance than in fact; and a couple of long nights in sleep, and easy days at home mended him completely.“Whoa, Josh! Whoa, Jake!” he roared, apparently exerting himself to the utmost to hold in the skittish pair, but in reality giving a few practised touches on the reins which defeated his commands.

“Yes, I seen them an’ smelt them, too; they shore ’d delight the heart of an Eskermo, Betty.”,“I forgive you,” he condoned.,It must have been hours past midnight when Billy’s chattering voice startled his mother. She had heard no bell; the boy himself stood by her bedside; she could see him dimly against the window.,“You remember that story about a man who died for love of a girl because he knew he ought not to marry her? I thought that sort kind of noble, but you said there was nobler. Do you remember?”,“We came—we came to bring these,” one ventured timidly, and lifted one end of the basket they carried between them.,He tidied himself, bade his mother good-bye, and followed the girls to rehearsal.,“It’s been the best ever,” Jean said, happily.,CHAPTER II THE SATURDAY GANG,After setting her white bouquet on the large dining-table, Betty again hastened to her beloved garden and began weeding where her ministrations were needed. As she worked, she hummed “Sweet and Low” softly to herself. The school children had lately learned to sing it.,“That’s no giant. She isn’t bigger’n a kid. Will she let you come to play? The Gang’s coming to-morrow.”,“Why, you see,” Billy hesitated, for he was modest, “sister has a class of us heathen boys, and—well, you see, it’s this way; sister says,—she’s partial, you know,—she says I have influence; if I don’t giggle the others won’t, and she gets on O. K.”,“At my brother’s Mrs. Wopp. He had just acquired it, so of course little proficiency was yet attained.”.