The Mornin'-Glory Girl

								

“Huh!” grunted Moses, “your ole turkey aint worth an eyestrain.”
By this time Moses’ plate was piled high with a steaming and
odoriferous portion of Fuji Yama and he was content to postpone all
discussions of Geography and fowls to an indefinite future. In a very
few minutes, the entire mound had disappeared and Moses was polishing
his plate with a piece of bread.
“Moses, ef you hev finished yer supper, change yer good clothes an’ go
git the cows,” directed his mother. “Betty run an’ fasten up the hens,
else the coyotes’ll git them.”
“I suppose you have a large farm, Mr. Wopp,” said Nell Gordon.
“We hev a homestead an’ pre-emption, Miss Gordon, but only work a
hundred acres or thereabout. We run stock on the rest of it, aint that
the how of it Lize?” Mr. Wopp looked to his help-meet for
corroboration.
At this moment a wild whoop was heard, and through the open door Moses
could be seen dashing out of the corral gate on his cow-pony.
As Mrs. Wopp was preparing for bed that night, she recalled the
sensation the sight of her reckless offspring had given her.
“When I see Moses was still wearin’ his best Sunday coat an’ pants an’
tearin’ along on that cayuse like John Gilping, I come all out in
goose-flesh, Ebenezer, till you’d think the merkery had fell clean
down to zero.”

CHAPTER II.
CONCERNING BETTY.

The Wopp family had two domestic pets, a plump tortoise-shell cat
called Nancy, and a black and white terrier named Jethro, after the
father-in-law of Moses, the great law-giver.
Nancy was the older and larger of the two, and having long been the
pampered favorite of the house, she had at first resented the
introduction of Jethro. She would not associate with him at all, and
whenever he came dancing into the room where she was, she generally
withdrew with the greatest possible dignity.
But after a time Jethro grew very tired of playing with a dilapidated
shoe, a shiny bone, a grimy dish-mop and other erstwhile interesting
things, and he thought it would be delightful to make friends with
Nancy and play with her. But Nancy was still unapproachable. When
Jethro capered up to her she arched her back and spat at him. Not
being a thin-skinned puppy, he refused to consider this rebuff as
final.
“Perhaps this is Nancy’s way of playing,” he thought.
Nancy had jumped on a chair, and when Jethro pranced up to her again
she promptly boxed his ear. The blow, delivered with such a soft paw,
could not have been very severe, but the feelings of the pup were
badly hurt. He did not yelp, but his brown eyes grew solemn and
wistful and he ceased his antics. He put his forepaws on the rung of
the chair and looked long and appealingly at Nancy. The cat sat down,
her paws doubled under her, and apparently remained quite unmoved. But
her heart may have been touched more than an observer would imagine,
because from that time, she gradually grew more tolerant towards the