“‘Place there the boy,’ the tyrant said
‘Fix me the apple on his head’.”
As Clarence depicted the terror of the father, lest his arrow miss the mark and kill his son, Moses rose from his chair in breathless suspense. However, the arrow cleft the apple and left the boy unscathed, and the relieved Moses, sinking back in his chair, recovered himself sufficiently to murmur “What an orful chanct fer anyone ter take!”
Mrs. Crump smiled kindly at the impressionable boy, and lest her son’s evident amusement should wound his feelings, she asked, “Do you like hearing of other countries and of other people?”
“Yeh, Mar says I’m a reglar jographer I like it so much.”
“In that case, Clarence must take you to the Sunday-school hall to-morrow afternoon to hear a talk on China. There will be all sorts of curious things shown and you are sure to enjoy it.”
In his anticipation of the Sunday afternoon treat in store for him, Moses dreamed all that night of little dark-skinned men running round after him with bowls of rice and jabbing him with chop-sticks.
Early on the following afternoon the two boys found their way into front seats in the Sunday-school hall. The address was fairly well under way when the excitement of absorbing so much information in so short a space of time told on Moses’ constitution. His nose began to bleed. With a handkerchief like a small-sized counterpane applied to the offending nasal organ the boy tiptoed squeakily out of the room.
Vainly he explored the corridors seeking a tap for water to bathe his bleeding nose. The more doors Moses went through the more doors seemed to beckon him on through their portals. He reflected that if he had only had the good fortune to bring the key of the pantry door at home, that large piece of cold steel applied to the back of his neck would speedily have stopped the sanguinary flood.
Turning to the right he entered a short dark corridor and noticed at the end of the passageway a brass knob gleaming. With renewed hope he approached the shining mark and extended his hand to open the door.
It was dark and the handkerchief over his nose rendered one eye ineffective so that he could not see more than a few inches ahead of him. On opening the door he found himself on what seemed a short flight of steps which he proceeded to descend. All at once he tripped and down he went struggling for breath into the font that had been filled with water for the evening baptismal service.
“Holy Smoke! Be this the River Jording I’ve come ter?”
Dim religious lights from stained glass windows shone through the church and falling on the boy chilled him to the marrow.
“Gosh! Wisht Betty was here right this minute. Mebbe I’m dyin’. Hope nobody starts twangin’ a harp. My nose is worser’n ever!”
Moses regained his equilibrium and as the water came just to his hips he turned to retrace his way to the steps down which he had wandered.
“Where is my cap?” With his free hand he felt his bare head. Looking around the luckless boy saw his headgear in the middle of the font and turned to rescue it. The water became deeper, until he stood in it almost to his arm-pits.
As he reached for his cap a door opposite the one through which he had passed opened, and the grey head of the sexton appeared.
“Shade of Beelzebub! Where did you spring from?” shouted the astonished man.
“Please, Mister, my nose was bleedin’ an’ I lorst my way lookin’ fer warter, an’ here I am on Jording’s stormy banks.”
“You young scamp, you found water, didn’t you, more than you needed? For the love of St. Patrick, if it isn’t the spalpeen that split his sides laughing at me falling on the ice yesterday!”
The old man peered over the steps, and Moses recognized the loose-jointed long-limbed individual who had provided him with such mirth on the previous day.
“Just to think I’ve got to heat up more water and fill this tank again for a good-for-nothing urchin like you! Begorra! It’s worth it though to see you get a good ducking!”
Through the open door could be heard the strains of “Pull for the shore” sung with heart and soul by the intermediate class, and to that lively air Moses made for the exit as expeditiously as his sodden garments would allow.
“My religion’s purty well wartered now, I guess,” said Moses, sheepishly, to Clarence, who met him at the end of the fateful corridor. That youth had followed his country friend from the Sunday-school hall, but not in time to direct his erring steps.
“You are one simp,” he comforted, at the same time putting his own overcoat about the shivering boy.
At the door of the Crump household, Moses stood before the daughter of the house who answered the bell, burning hot with the fever of an overwhelming embarrassment. His body glowed so that steam might have been seen arising from his dripping garments. He almost yearned for incarceration in an ice-house. His personal pulchritude had not been enhanced by the experience and the critical eyes of the young girl failed to express any degree of admiration or sympathy. More than ever Moses longed for the encircling arms of Betty.
On the morrow, before returning home, he made several purchases with the money his mother had slipped into his hand as she whispered, “Hev a good time, Mosey, but don’t fergit to say yer prayers reglar.”
He arrived home Monday evening, and was received as though a visit of several months’ duration had torn him from the bosom of the family.
Ebenezer Wopp became the grateful recipient of a quire of paper for notes. Miss Gordon was enabled to add to the decorations of her bureau a celluloid pictureframe on which were painted vivid blue and pink forget-me-nots. Mrs. Wopp reckoned “to git great comfort fer her corns an’ bungions” in a pair of soft house-shoes.
It was evident that great care had been exercised over Betty’s gift. She exclaimed joyously over a Cyclamen, whose pale pink blooms brought the flush of delight to her cheeks; a bag of peppermint bulls’ eyes elicited a like degree of appreciation.
“This here flower aint a mornin’-glory, but the leaves is mighty like it, an’ the flowers is jist as purty.” Moses explained.
“O, Mosey, these leaves is lovely, an’ jist look here roun’ the edge, looks like the fairies has left footprints!”
Another gift Moses brought his little sister was a small shell purse containing a new silver coin. This largess was in a way expiatory. He had not yet regained his self-respect since his refusal to grant Betty’s request for a quarter, and it seemed as though the act of expiation must repeat itself indefinitely.
Betty said her prayers that night before her cyclamen. It seemed to her a “mornin’-glory that had been growed by an angel, its petals sparkled so, an’ it smelled so pure.” She breathed very softly her thanksgiving, with a vague feeling that it had wings and could find its way better than she knew.
As she thought how dear and kind Moses had been to her, bringing this wonderful plant and the shell purse, not forgetting the peppermint bulls’ eyes, she went to sleep with the conviction that she must be the happiest girl in the world.
“This shore has been a toilin’ day fer me,” sighed Mrs. Wopp, as she opened the oven door and revealed a tempting array of loaves, their brown domes swelling up and over the sides of shining black pans.
“This stove is not drawin’ any too good, an’ what with these pipes an’ the parlor pipes not actin’ christian-like my eyes run warter orl day long. Ebenezer Wopp, I sees a job ahead fer you. My patience is wore out an’ this very day you’ll git at the pipes and git the soot cleaned out.”
“I reckon it is the biggest half of some time sence those there jints was took apart,” agreed Ebenezer, with unerring diplomacy, searching through several slips of paper as though to find memoranda thereon, “I reckon I’d better git to work this very minute.”
“Moses!” called husband and wife, simultaneously. Mrs. Wopp’s voice spanned an interval of about a dozen semi-tones, and as it always grew in volume in direct ratio to the emergency of the duty to be imposed, the last syllable of her son’s name fell on that wretched boy’s ear like a clap of thunder. Mr. Wopp’s accents remained on nearly all occasions at the same even degree of meekness. Nature had not given him the temperament to indulge in crescendos or double fortes.
Moses was whistling a dismal discordant air in the backyard when the voice of his mother smote his ears.
“Yeh, Mar.”
“What yer whistlin’ so mournful like?” queried his mother, “makes me think of funerals an’ sich like; jist come in an’ help yer par with the stove-pipes, mebbe that’ll cheer you up.”
Moses’ face became as mournful as his music had been. It was as though he had suddenly realized that life was, after all, more serious than one suspects in one’s idle moments.
The first act of the unwilling recruit was to bring into the house a coal-scuttle and large shovel, clanking them ominously as he walked.
“Stop that there ‘Dead March of Saul,’ an’ go put on yer overalls,” ordered Mrs. Wopp, “what’s the idear of the gardenin’ tool, go git the littlest shovel to put inter the chimbly, an’ don’t let the grass grow under yer feet, neither.”
By this time Mr. Wopp was bearing a length of pipe into the yard. The parlor looked like a morgue with its inanimate objects lying bidden under sheets and cloths of varying degrees of past usefulness. Through a hole of one sheet could be seen the listless towzled head of Hannah, her faded wax countenance betraying the need of a tonic.
The energetic Mrs. Wopp had accompanied her commands to Moses by a wide sweeping of arms, and from these ample arms had billowed yards of sheeting to cover from the ruinous soot her treasured parlor possessions.
An enlarged crayon portrait in a wide gilt frame of Moses as a baby in a state of round cherubic innocent nudity, had been added recently to the mural decorations and was especially well covered with cloths.
“Wisht that orful pitcher ’d fall inter the swill-pail an’ then turn a somerset in the soot-pile,” murmured the boy as he noticed the care exercised over its safety.
In overalls, the color of which was entirely unrecognizable, Moses began to help his father carry through the house sooty lengths of pipe. Very carefully and gingerly they stepped as the eagle eye of Mrs. Wopp was upon them, and they knew that a full battery of reprimands and warnings was at hand.
In the middle of this trying work, Moses remembered he had glimpsed a large tempting piece of jelly-roll on the pantry shelf. As soon as an opportune moment arrived he slipped, unnoticed as he thought, into the pantry and immediately life took on a new and brighter interest.
“Here you, Moses,” shouted his mother from the top of the stairs, “I heerd the pantry door squeakin’, no eatin’ till the job’s done.” She further informed him that stopping to eat “et inter his time too much an’ the work must be done afore dark.”
Moses returned to work with jelly and soot mingling in a purple streak on cheek and chin.
“You look like some kind-faced happygo-lucky cow, chewin’ her cud,” teased Mrs. Wopp, standing at the parlor door and noting the reminiscent moving of her son’s jaws.
“This is excitin’ fun,” moaned Moses, as he picked his way carefully with a tin elbow that threatened every moment to capsize with its flaky mass of black dust, “about as excitin’ as playin’ with the ashes in the mornin’.”
All this time Mr. Wopp had carried and brushed and shaken stove-pipe lengths until his face and bald head resembled a latticework trellis. Only one length remained to be operated on before proceeding to the upper storey, where the stove-pipe continued its tortuous way to the chimney, warming sundry rooms on its beneficent course.
Ebenezer Wopp was the last silent word in patient masculinity, but his face, becoming darker with his work, would lead an onlooker to believe that sinister thoughts were struggling to find expression.
However, the stove-pipe was at last cleaned and ready to put up. Moses’ moroseness had by now developed into a complaint, the chief symptoms of which were sniffling and coughing.
“I got an orful cold, goin’ in an’ out so orften,” he complained.
“A dose of senner tea’ll fix that, my boy,” was Mrs. Wopp’s cheerful rejoinder.
What really ailed Moses was the prospect of bolstering up the pipes again.
“Here, Mose, hoi’ this here jint while I fit the next one inter it.” A tongue-twisting silence ensued.
“Now, Mose, fer the elbow. Stiddy! Don’t shove! Don’t pull! Hole her stiddy!”
“Glory be! It’s pulled apart at the other end!” ejaculated the perspiring assistant.
“Try agin, Mose, now not too hard! Easy like! There! Jest a leetle bit more! Stop! Hold on! Shucks! Everythink’s went wrong! Here, we’ll start agin.”
The work went on, each length at the first possible opportunity resuming its state of strict neutrality and refusing to be drawn into negotiations.
Finally, Ebenezer Wopp’s musings, which had been gathering force as he worked, burst into speech. For a quiet man he became almost oratorical. Then he fell to soliloquizing audibly.
His mutterings rumbled along, a series of submerged imprecations. He paused for breath and as soon as he had accumulated enough for his dire purpose, he swore what was to him a long and fearful oath.
“By heck!” he thundered.
Then Moses commenced. He ran up and down a chromatic scale of puffs and groans and sniffles, ending with a cadence that sounded like, “Gosh dern!”
Involved and intricate variations of “Holy smoke!” made the air sulphureous as a swaying piece of wire caught his shoulder and tore a large gash in his shirt.
“Moses Habakuk Ezra Wopp an’ Ebenezer Wopp! You’d orter be shamed of yerselves. You shorely must of fell with Lucifer when he come tumblin’ outer the sky. Them swear words make every single hair on my head stan’ on edge.”
In answer to his wife’s reproof, Mr. Wopp almost roared, “Where’s the hammer? Gone hide an’ hair it is, like everythink else.”
“Ebenezer Wopp, I’ve tarlked to you till I’m black in the face, but it’s jist wastin’ valyble breath. Yer brains is allers wool-gatherin’. The hammer’s in yer hip-pocket.”
“Mose, hoi’ this benighted idjit of a jint till I drive a nail in the wall to wire it up,” called Mr. Wopp, thrusting a nail between his teeth and turning his back on his wife.
“Land O’ Goshen! Ye’ve a peck of nails in the wall orlready. You couldn’t add two an’ two without wrappin’ up yer thumb an’ countin’ what’s left,” remonstrated Mrs. Wopp.
Mr. Wopp, goaded to desperation, breathed audibly his opinion regarding pipe-fitting. Diogenes in one of his periodical excursions from his tub would have been glad to category that remark as an honest man’s attitude, at least toward certain jobs.
Moses’ opinion, repressed, however, in his bursting bosom, was of a like complexion, only much more vivid. He was hesitating between the liquid verge of tears and the lambent verge of profane utterance.
The door opened and Betty, who had stayed in school to clean the blackboard for “teacher,” appeared. She came in bringing with her the very essence of outdoor freshness and buoyancy.
“Dad an’ Mosey don’t look orful happy,” she laughed. “Smile at me, Mosey.”
“Arsk a dorg with a tin pail tied to his ear to smile at yer,” returned Moses, sourly.
“Them critters has swore more than I ever heerd sence the ketchup bottle fomented an’ bust an’ splashed orl over Par’s shirt an’ trickled down his pants.”
Here Mrs. Wopp related for the hundredth time the account of the ketchup disaster.
“When I heerd Par swear I run inter the kitchen, an’ there he stood with suthin red orl down his face an’ neck. A ketchup bottle on the shelf above had bust over him an’ I thort it was blood. ‘Ebenezer Wopp,’ I says, ‘whose been tryin’ to arssarssinate yer?’ All he said was ‘By Heck,’ but a forty-horse power gun couldn’t of roared through the kitchen louder ’n them words.”
Mrs. Wopp was overcome with laughter at the bare memory of the picture her irate husband had presented.
“Hurry up, Moses,” she called, as soon as her joy had subsided, “git those pipes finished an’ go arfter yor chores.”
“I’m chored from mornin’ till night, an’ arfter I go to sleep I do some more chorin’ jist to keep my hand in.” Moses was in a distinctly peevish mood.
“Can I hev a piece of jelly-roll, Mar?” coaxed Betty, stemming the tide of her brother’s complaints.
“There’s nary a piece left, that greedy boy et it orl up.”
“I b’lieve Moses’ll eat jelly-roll some day till he rolls up hisself. I’m orful hungry, can I hev some fresh bread?”
“What! Bread jist outer the oving! There aint a sinner this minute but what begun his vile career on a slice of fresh bread. Indisgestion shore fills jails an’ ’sylums more nor drink. You carn’t hev one slice till to-morrcr.”
“O, Mar, jist a teeny-weeny brown crust, it carn’t hurt me.”
“Orl right, you rascalashus coaxer, an’ go make some tea an’ fetch some crackers an’ cheese an’ we’ll orl hev a bite.”
Mr. Wopp and Moses, who had hurried to the upper storey to escape the recital of the ketchup episode, now came heavily down the stairs, their task at last finished.
“Light the stove, Mose, an’ git the house het up. Mis’ Williams must of been froze to a cinder yesterday when she was here. That stove did nothin’ but smoke till our eyes leaked. I expected every minute to see her turn into an iced berg. Do you know, Ebenezer, Mis’ Williams told me that Mrs. Frame’s sister married the oldest son of Mr. Frame an’ his first wife.”
“Well, well, you don’t say!”
“Shore nuff, what relationship do you s’pose they are all to each other now?”
“Ain’t she her own aunt?” hazarded Mr. Wopp, abstractedly thrusting his hammer into his boot top and scratching his bald head with a pair of pincers.
Betty, not interested in intricate relationships, tiptoed into the parlor and uncovering the organ, played with one finger “Home Sweet Home.” The wool-embroidered motto on the wall almost wept.
“Kettle’s a-bilin’, Glory Girl, an’ Par an’ Mose’d like a cup of tea; but ’fore you leave the organ, play ‘Greenland Icy Mountains,’ it’s been runnin’ in my head orl day.”
“Don’t nobody start ‘Greenland Icy Mountings’ round here,” objected Moses. “I got orl the cool drarfts I need comin’ through this here hole in my shirt.”
Having disposed of the song, dear to her mother’s heart, in spite of the protestations of Moses, Betty went to the kitchen and in a few moments returned with a steaming pot of tea.
“Warsh yer ban’s, Mosey, an’ Par, an’ come on, Mar, here’s yer tea an’ crackers. Wisht I hed a piece of jelly-roll.”
“Fer the love of mike, what’s that noise?” Moses’ eyes seemed to almost dart from his head. The others looked up as a distinct rustling was heard in the parlor. Moses was on his feet first. The noise came from the stove.
“The house is haunted, Ebenezer. It’s them swear words has brung evil speerits. Moses run fer the ax an’ come back an’ open the stove door, lucky the fire wasn’t started yit.”
As the stove door opened for the intrepid Moses, out flew Tillie the white bantam hen now as black as a crow with soot. She fluttered into the face of Moses who was kneeling before the stove.
“How in the name of orl the aporstles did that hen git in there?” questioned Mrs. Wopp.
“Must of warlked in when I left a jint outside fer a minute. She shore is a dark complected bird now.” As Moses spoke he stretched out his arm for the sooty Tillie, but with an indignant cackle the hen tore through the dining-room into the kitchen with Moses and Betty in hot pursuit.
“That ole bantam has shore got some speeditood,” reflected Moses, in gasps, as he made several futile plunges for Tillie.
The pursuit lasted longer than was anticipated and was most disastrous to the clean kitchen floor. Betty and Moses themselves got soot on their shoes and their footprints wrought havoc in the spotless kitchen.
As that long-suffering Mrs. Wopp wiped up the last traces of the chase she observed, “Moses’ footprints is twict as big as Betty’s, but hern is twict as many. They’ll shore git inter jist as much mischief, but Praise be! They’re both toein’ in the right d’rection.”
From the waist down, Moses’ masculine and uncouth figure seemed to utter a dull protest against cut-me-downs. There are many forces in life that growing youths are not able to control. One of these, in the career of Moses, was the inexorable will of his mother that ordained homemade garments for his nether limbs. Made from his father’s discarded trousers of black and grey check, the new pair of abominations that adorned the legs of the youthful Wopp bore evidence to the unskilled fingers of the maker. They had the generous dimensions allowed by an imaginative and economical mind that could look into the future and could see legs lengthening and a general expansion. In fact, the coarse checked tweed fell in slight gathers, fore and aft. The dingy greenish-grey coat that slouched from Moses’ shoulders did not fail to heighten the effect, but seemed to set the costume in italics.
Going home from school one Friday afternoon, Moses heard sniggering half-suppressed comments behind him. He walked along slowly, contemplating his big toe that protruded pathetically from a large hole in his shoe. It reached his ears that one aesthetic youth was dazzled by the kaleidoscopic effect of his checked trousers; in other words, it made him sea-sick. Moses quickened his pace slightly, but his face looked like an advance notice of calamity. Presently he turned and glowered at his tormenters.
“Smile, Moses, dern yer empty corn-cob face! Smile!” shouted one.
Betty Wopp was gambolling along the road with other little school-girls and heard the jeers addressed to the wretched boy. The penetrating sense of Moses’ need of her brought her to a halt. Indignation made her tight little braids of hair assume an aspect as terrific as Medusa’s snaky coils. She ran lightly up to Moses and walked beside him.
“Never mind, Mosey, we’ll tell Miss Gordon. She’ll give them sulphur an’ brimstone to-morrer.”
“S’Gordon won’t care,” grunted Moses. “She never had to wear Par’s old pants, an’ she won’t un’erstan’ how a feller feels.”
“Oh, Mosey, she un’erstan’s everything, she’s jist wonderful.” Betty’s voice was positive.
“Jist hold on there, Mose, we wanter play a game of checkers on yer pants.” At this jibe Moses turned and held up a clenched fist as warning of a potential thrashing which the boys knew would never materialize. Moses was slow to active wrath.
One bullying boy, to punctuate his last taunt to Moses before turning into another road, picked up a stone and hurled it at his dejected victim. The stone glanced and struck Jethro who was bounding along the road to meet his mistress. A piteous yelp followed by a loud howl, and Betty was on her knees beside the wounded animal. She turned and shouted fiery imprecations after the fleeing boys.
“Where is the dern dog hurt?” commiserated Moses.
Betty’s tears by now were flowing too fast for her to make an answer. She picked up the whimpering dog and proceeded to carry him home. From time to time Moses stroked the quivering head and murmured low phrases of comfort.
When the house was reached, Eliza Wopp was standing, an effective barricade, at the door, waving her large hands in a gesture indicative of dismay. Moses stoically told his tale of assault.
“But, Mose, you shorely didn’t fergit a sorft answer turneth away wrarth?”
“Oh!” interposed Betty, “but they didn’t throw a sorft stone. I don’t b’lieve in sorft answers no more.”
“To-morrer’ll see my revenge,” growled Moses, now thoroughly roused to action under the protection of his own roof.
After supper, Betty was sought diligently, but without success. At last Moses discovered her underneath the huge red tablecloth that covered the dining-room table. She was sound asleep on the floor with Jethro in her arms and his head on her bosom. Her face was smeared with tear-stains.
“Come, Betty Girl,” said Moses, “Mar wants you to go to bed.”
“Yes, Mosey, I jist want to go to my mornin’-glory garding to tell it good-night.” She rubbed her sleepy tear-stained eyes.
“Come, Jethro, Betty’ll carry her li’l white puppykins, pore li’l footsy’s so sore.”
Betty staggered with her burden out into the garden to leave with her flowers the benediction of her presence and also to crave a few small favors for herself.
“Jethro,” she whispered in the ear of her playmate, “I hated jist orful to-day, an’ I didn’t hev a cheerful liver. Let’s pray together if the Lord will fergive all of us, me an’ those hateful boys, too.”
As Betty stood in her garden whispering to Jethro, Nell Gordon came slowly down the path. For many weary weeks Howard Eliot had evaded her in every way. Was his jealousy so strong as to part them irrevocably? She remembered with remorse the flutterings of her heart when genius had knocked. She had learned since that greatness and domestic felicity are seldom associated even in the mind of the most ardent lover. Zalhambra was a human cyclone, he had simply carried her away for the moment with his magnetic personality. She had come through the experience with the conviction that ordinary everyday capabilities make for happiness, while genius is an abnormal condition bringing joy to the multitude, but disaster to the individual. All her femininity called out now for the support of a strong nature unhampered by genius.
Nell looked toward the morning-glory garden and there she saw Betty kneeling in the moonlight. Jethro was sitting up on his hind legs beside the little figure, holding his paws before him. The moonlight fell on his penitential white body, on the stiff braids of the sorrowful and contrite Betty, and lighted up the bright yellow nasturtiums that filled the air with their pungent odor. The morning-glory leaves gleamed in the pure white light.
“Oh, Lord,” prayed Betty, “it was Murf Bliggins as throwed the stone, please don’t fergit. Make Jethro’s foot better. Mar allers says, ‘arsk an’ it’ll be given.’ All I arsk is fer Jethro’s foot. He is so l’il, Oh, Lord, an’ the stone was so big. An’ don’t fergit it was Murf Bliggins as done it. Please put it in Miss Gordon’s heart to smite the Philistones with the edge of the sword. Mebbe you could put it inter Mar’s heart to buy Mose a pair of pants that won’t be so hard on him, Oh, Lord. Amen!”
Nell Gordon’s eyes were wet with something else than mirth when Betty entered the house later with her pet in her arms. She had heard of the assault upon the innocent Moses and Jethro and resolved to assist mightily in the smiting of the Philistines. She also held a private consultation with her purse and decided to send off at once to a popular mail-order house for a pair of trousers for Moses of a distinctly different cut from those that had been his undoing.
Moses adored his little foster-sister when she was well; but sick, his adoration turned to blind worship. For several days Betty had been ill. Moses’ religion, bottled up during care-free days, burst forth in foam of intercession for Betty’s return to health.
“Oh, Lord, she’s orl I got,” he wailed. He hinted that there would be no more light in him, than in Job’s blind eye, should Betty be lost to him.
The first sign of return to health was indicated by a slight querulousness that invalids seem to claim as their prerogative. The convalescent wanted books and pictures, her discarded favorite, Hannah, stiff with long neglect, and her pets individually and collectively. Then having run the gamut of dumb playmates, she called for her beloved friends.
“I want Howard Eliot,” she cried, “he can sing so lovely, an’ I want Miss Gordon, she’s so comfortin’.”
All this time Mrs. Wopp ran breathlessly up and down stairs attending to the feverish child. Even wash-day was postponed, but the terrors of that dread event would never again appal Moses, he felt sure, if only Betty got well. Ebenezer Wopp was distracted and neglected to take his usual number of notes.
Directly the invalid’s querulous demand for the rancher was made, Moses started off to fetch him.
“Wot’s the use of livin’ if Betty grows them there wings they talk of?” he demanded of the fowl as they scurried from his path.
When the two arrived, Nell Gordon was sitting with the sick child and crooning softly to her. Howard Eliot drew near, accidentally touching the firm round arm of Nell as he did so.
“Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards,” quoted Mrs. Wopp. “We’ve had sich a time, but I’m shore our li’l Mornin’-Glory is gittin’ better now.” She gazed at the child with true maternal affection. “She’s lookin’ kinder peart agin.”
“Glory must git better, nothin’s no fun no more,” blurted Moses.
“Betty’s not goin’ to no kingdom come yet,” assured Mrs. Wopp, her optimism rising like a star of the first magnitude to lighten the darkness of her son’s midnight sky.
“There’s no mention of circus-ladies going there anyway,” said Howard, smiling. This reference to her attempts to out-barnum Barnum brought a bright smile to the wan face of Betty.
“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.”
As Moses clattered down stairs, Mrs. Wopp continued, “There is shore a thunderstorm comin’ up to-night. ’Pears to me I heerd like a roll of drums.”
A dull yellow glow from the kerosene lamp, placed by Moses on the bureau, lighted up the figure of Betty reclining on snowy pillows. On one side of her was seated Howard, his arm about the drowsy child. On the side of the bed, squarely seated on one of Mrs. Wopp’s texts worked into the patchwork quilt, was Nell, watching the little pallid face and trying to avoid the eyes of her silent lover.
“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.
“There’s Mose allers ready fer a sitdown, a sort of kerlapsible verlise.”
During Betty’s illness these one-sided dialogues were more than usually plentiful. In this way only was Mrs. Wopp able to alleviate the “gnawin’ at her heart-strings” as she said, at having Betty so ill. It also kept the boy alive to the fact that life’s path was not strewn with “cabbage roses.” Such, at least, were the confidences poured into the sympathetic ear of his pinto.
Moses capitalized his bulk to effectively fill the large chair into which he sank. He surveyed with approval the new trousers presented to him by Miss Gordon, and tried to blot from his mind the ignominy that had attended the wearing of the ill-fitting pair. Those discarded checked monstrosities languished under Moses’ bed in close consultation with a pair of decrepit and muddy shoes. It was so sweet to the boy to see signs of convalescence in Betty that he took great comfort in just gazing on her pale face with its wisps of fair hair across the forehead. He summed up his general attitude to life by whispering to himself, “I don’t give a doughnut fer orl the check pants in Alberta.”
A low rumble of thunder was heard in the distance and a flash of lightning made the coal-oil lamp look like a bilious spot in the room.
“Sing something, Mar.” Betty’s plaintive voice broke the silence.
“What’ll I sing Betty?”
“Oh, the song ’bout the clouds rollin’ away,” she yawned, “I want everybody to be happy.” She looked at her teacher and Nell wondered if the child had read her heart and had seen its unhappiness.
“Wait till the clouds roll by, Jenny,
Wait till the clouds roll by,
Jenny, my own true loved one
Wait till the clouds roll by.”
Mrs. Wopp’s voice, a dramatic outburst before which almost any cloud would have quailed, filled the bedroom. Betty turned to Nell Gordon, “I hope all yer clouds’ll hev silver linin’s, Miss Gordon,” she smiled.
“Why, Betty?”
“’Cause I love you, ’n’ I hope the edges’ll be all pink like my mornin’-glories.”
Howard caught Nell’s gaze. He longed to gather the girl who had so completely captured his heart into his arms and kiss away their estrangement.
“I think the linin’ of Miss Gordon’s cloud needs polishin’ these days,” ventured Betty, shyly.
“Won’t you sing something else, Mrs. Wopp.” Nell was growing uncomfortable under Betty’s reference to the unburnished state of her cloud.
Mrs. Wopp obligingly gave as an encore, “There were ninety and nine,” apropos of nothing whatever. Then turning to a portrait on the wall, she enlarged on the musical ability of a great-uncle from whom she reckoned she had received her gift of song.
“I sorter hoped Moses’d take arter Uncle Josh, too,” she said, regretfully.
The inexorable portrait on the wall seemed to gaze down on the recalcitrant youth with disapproval.
“He’s been pushin’ up the daisies fer thirty years, I ain’t goin’ to warble to please no tombstun.” Moses swung a ponderous foot to give emphasis to his decision.
“Don’t sit there wool-gatherin’ anyways, Mose, or the moths’ll nest in yer head. Ef you carn’t sing in toon, you kin bring up a cup of tea fer Miss Gordon an’ Mr. Eliot, an’ don’t fergit Betty an’ yer Mar.”
Betty was still faintly laughing at Moses’ spirited retort to his mother’s observations on his singing.
“Betty dimples in an’ out, like Mar’s dough,” he remarked, joyously, “she’s shore gittin’ better.”
Going down the stairs his loud unmelodious singing reached the ears of those in the bedroom. When he arrived at the foot, Betty, whose ears were attuned to all acts of outlawry, had reason to believe that Moses performed three successive somersaults.
“That boy’ll sartinly spill the tea,” prophecied Mrs. Wopp, with laughing pessimism.
“I don’t give two whoops ef he does,” Betty was bubbling with suppressed mirth.
Moses reappeared with a tray. The tea had been spilled as foretold by his Mother, but sufficient was left for the party. Betty drank from a dainty cup, her little finger straight and rigid as was fitting for the delicate hand-painted china.
The effulgence of Mrs. Wopp’s smile was somewhat obscured by “I told you so’s,” but the aroma of the steaming teapot soon restored its radiance.
“This is like the cup I had at Mrs. Newman’s, in Calgary,” said Betty, then turning to Nell she asked, “Do you ’member the lovely chiner cups at Mrs. Newman’s, time Mr. Zalhamber was there?”
“Who is Mr. Zalhamber?” asked Howard, as though he had forgotten his existence.
“Oh, he is a wonderful piannerist,” explained Betty. “He played, Oh, jist lovely, jist like birds singin’ an’ rivers runnin’ an’ the sun shinin’. But arfter he played he looked so fierce I was skeered of him. Miss Gordon didn’t like him either, arfter she got knowin’ him better.”
“He didn’t come roun’ here, I kin tell you though,” joined in Mrs. Wopp, energetically. In speaking of Mr. Zelamba, her voice modulated harshly into a key of hyper-acidulated sharps. “I says to Miss Gordon, an’ she jined in with me, a piannerist may be well ’nough as an actor man, but when it comes to takin’ fer keeps, give me a real man.” After taking a deep breath she continued, “My, but he makes a heap of money an’ he loves it, too; but when he gits to be about forty, the lines in his fiz’ll be as tight as my clothes-rope arter a spell of rain.”
After this vigorous onslaught upon the quondam admirer of Nell, Mrs. Wopp ordered Moses to help her prepare the spare room on the ground-floor for the young rancher.
“The storm’ll be worse yet, Mr. Howard, so you jist stay here till the cock crows fer risin’, an’ I’ll cook you a breakfast better’n a pore lonely bachelor kin cook fer hisself.”
From the kitchen came an unmistakeable odor of cheese. Ebenezer Wopp was having a slight snack before retiring. With the back of his nervous hand he was wiping from the corners of his mouth the telltale crumbs.
“Ebenezer Wopp, no wonder you talk sich ridicilsome nonsense in yer sleep, eatin’ cheese at night. It’s ’nough to make you dream of boer-constructors.”
Uplifted by limburger, Mr. Wopp grew emboldened, “Jist a mouthful of somethink don’t hurt nobody, an’ I’ll be asleep afore you kin say Jack Robinson, an’ ef I talk as loud as you snore, we’re even I reckon.”
“There ain’t a shadder of a doubt Moses takes arter his Par in the gift of the gab,” was Mrs. Wopp’s genial rejoinder.
Upstairs the lightning filled Betty’s room with a weird intermittent radiance. The child had become increasingly drowsy and asked Howard to sing her to sleep.
“What song would you like, Betty?”
“Mary an’ Martha hev jist gone along to ring them shinin’ bells.”
To the melody of the shining bells, Betty dropped off to sleep.
Nell’s mirth at Betty’s choice of a hymn could be stifled no longer. Howard’s studied aloofness yielded before her laughter and the hand that was not supporting Betty caught and pressed the small dimpled fingers of Nell.
“Can you forgive me, Nell? This guiding star of Moses is our guiding star, too.” After a moment Howard continued, “I wish we could transplant this morning-glory into our garden, don’t you?”
Nell’s answer was somehow strangely muffled.
Although she was asleep, Betty was fully conscious in that Dream-World of love and joy where values are real. Nell and Howard saw a tender smile light up her sweet face as Mrs. Wopp’s singing, subdued by distance, floated into the room,
“Let us keep the wheat an’ roses
Gamin’ out the thorns an’ charff,
Let us find our sweetest comfort
In the blessin’s of to-day,
With a patient hand removin’
Orl the briers from the way.
Then scartter seeds of kindness,
Then scartter seeds of kindness,
Then scartter seeds of kindness
Fer our reapin’ bye ’n’ bye.”
Warwick Bro’s & Rutter, Limited, Printers and Bookbinders, Toronto, Canada.