The Mornin'-Glory Girl

								

declared as she and Moses brought the last basketful into the house.
Mrs. Wopp’s nightgown of ample proportions was left out a little
longer being still somewhat damp.
As she went about her work, Betty’s braids of fair hair tied with
wisps of faded red ribbon stood out stiffly from her head. Her
eyebrows were not quite grown in yet and she presented a comical
appearance blinking in the sun as she regarded Moses who was helping
her.
“Gee! Betty,” laughed the boy, “yer eyes look orful yet, this is the
fust good shake my sides hev felt to-day, it’s jist been ’orrible the
way Mar was jawred.”
The basket piled high with snowy linen and cotton seemed almost to
overflow the brim. Betty pressed the clothes down with her brown
hands, while the complaining boy enlarged on the sordid details of
that trying wash-day and on the manner in which his mother had teased
him. The child’s sense of humor outbalanced even her sympathy and a
peal of laughter rang out. Her laugh was a long delicious trill, as
though a bird had dropped from the clouds singing still with the
sunrise tangled in its notes. Moses paused long enough for a
procession of commas and semicolons to pass by. Then seeing his
disappointment in her apparent lack of sympathy, Betty hastened to
console him.
“Never mind Mosey, Next Monday I’m goin’ to ask Mar to let me stay
home and turn the nasty mouldy machine.”
“Oh no Betty,” Moses tones were of an elder-brotherly authority, “yer
li’l han’s aint meant fer sich servitood. I’d not stan’ by an’ see you
do that.” With all his teasing at times, Moses adored his little
foster-sister. He idealized her, and as Mrs. Wopp had often remarked,
whenever Betty left his presence he saw her ascend into heaven in a
“Whirlwin’ of fire, an’ go-cart of flame.”
As that energetic lady bustled about the kitchen the same evening
setting the bread, her voice rose in a series of trills and other
embellishments as she sang “Where is my wanderin’ boy to-night?”
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.
“Ebenezer, you might bring in my slumber robe, bein’s I’m so busy an’
Mose an’ Betty’s gone to bed.”
“All right Lize, I’ll jist make a note of that.”
There was room on the slip of paper for only this last item, so
numerous had been the demands, during this busy day, on Mr. Wopp’s
memory.
He returned his notes to his pocket with the assurance of one whose
unreliable memory has been fortified and rendered infallible.
Nevertheless the voluminous folds of Eliza Wopp’s cotton nightgown