The Mornin'-Glory Girl

								

sometimes they wave it to keep off flies and other insecks. Cows
cannot run as fast as a hoarse but if she is chasing you she seems to
be running very fast. If she chases you pick up a tin can or pale and
hit on it with a stone. The cow will then stampeed. Cows have four
feet called hoofs. They are useful for walking this is all I know
about cows.”
“Well now Howard Eliot I carnt see nothin’ in that to larf at. It is
grand readin’. Do read another,” said Mrs. Wopp.
Picking up a second paper at random, “This is a composition on Alfred
the Great,” he explained.
“Alfred the Grate was a good king. He had a lot of trubel in his rane.
The Danes had come to Ingland and peeple did not no how to read and
rite. He bilt some skools and men called munks showed the peeple how
to read and rite the Danes were very crool they killed a lot of men
and Alfred the Grate had to run away and hide in a slew. One day a
woman where he horded asked him to turn some pancakes and King Alfred
the Grate forgot to turn the pancakes and they were burnt and the
woman boxed his ears and would not bord him no more. Alfred the Grate
beet the Danes.”
“I am not going to let you see any more compositions,” exclaimed Nell,
“You are just making fun of my poor children.”
“Howard Eliot may larf, but I think these writin’s is real clever.”
Mrs. Wopp grew thoughtful, “Moses’ Aunt Lucindy’s cousin, by marriage,
had talents fer literatoor. But the pore girl married an undertaker
an’ she writ no more.”
“Let’s all go to the parlor, Mar, and hev some music. It isn’t every
evenin’ we hev company,” said Mr. Wopp.
“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.”
The Wopp parlor was seldom entered, except on very special occasions
or when Mrs. Wopp with formality and no undue haste dusted the
furniture. The room had an air of solemnity and gloom, absent in the
cheerful dining-room where the family usually sat. A homemade rag
carpet covered the floor. Six slippery, horsehair chairs, one of them
a rocker, and a horsehair couch, which did not invite confidence, were
ranged stiffly around the sides of the room. In one corner was an
ancient organ, wheezy and querulous with neglect, and in another stood
a lofty what-not, on whose numerous shelves were deposited the family
treasures. Here, was a woolly lamb at one time beloved of Moses; there
his tin savings bank. Stiffly upright stood Betty’s wax doll Hannah,
seldom played with and then only for a few minutes at a time. Mrs.
Wopp was represented by a few shell boxes and a match box of china
flanked by a sleek china cat.
In the very centre of the room stood a small table swathed in a
hand-painted felt drape. On this reposed the huge family Bible in
which was chronicled the marriages, births and deaths of the Wopp