The Mornin'-Glory Girl

								

pup. Now they were very good friends.
Betty, orphaned at the age of six, had been adopted by the
kind-hearted Mrs. Wopp. The child found her chief joy in life, outside
of Jethro, Nancy and Job, in a flower-bed. A small plot of ground had
been allotted her for her own use, and there every spring for the last
four years her precious flowers had bloomed and had filled her eyes
with brightness and her soul with gladness. Morning-glories and
nasturtiums were the surest to bloom. They climbed the strings so
gracefully and turned the old weather-beaten fence where they grew
into a tapestry of gorgeous dyes.
Every morning during the summer a bunch of morning-glories, wet with
dew, adorned the breakfast table. Blue and pink and white, they seemed
the very spirit of morning freshness and sweetness.
On the morning after Nell Gordon’s arrival, she admired the lovely
array of fairy-like trumpets that seemed to smile a welcome from the
glass bowl in the centre of the table. A tiny spider had been hidden
in the heart of one of the blooms, and was weaving a net of filmy
loveliness from flower to flower.
“Oh Miss Gordon,” cried Betty, her dark brown eyes sparkling with
delight, “the flowers can talk to each other across them telfone
wires, can’t they?”
“Why yes Betty, what do you suppose they will talk about?”
“Oh ’bout the fairies an’ stars an’ lovely things that grownups know
nothin’ about.”
“Do you understand them Betty?”
“Oh yes,” said Betty solemnly, “they tell me orl their secrets. They
call me their Mornin-Glory Girl.” As she spoke she leaned over to
touch with her slender, brown fingers one of the pure, white bells.
“Yes indeed,” laughed Mrs. Wopp, who was just then entering the room
with a platter of bacon and eggs, “Betty’s our mornin’-glory girl
shore nuff, she’s first up in the mornin’, she’s a glory little urchin
an’ she’s our little girl to stay.”
Mrs. Wopp, as was usual at the morning meal, appeared with her
greyish-red hair tortured with curl papers. After depositing the
appetizing breakfast dish on the table she thrust her head out of a
window and called lustily, “Come on Moses the perkelater’s perkin’ an’
the bacon’s sizzlin’ on the plate.”
Moses, once seated, speedily overtook the other members of the family.
Betty looked at him gravely and remarked, “Moses says nothin’ buts
eats purty steady on.”
“Have more toast Glory,” said Moses suddenly wakened. Unwrapping his
leg from the rung of the chair, he reached across the table.
“No, Mosey, I must hurry and get some flowers fer school to-day.”
“Oh go on Betty, a daddy-long-legs’d die of starvin’ on what you eat.”
“Don’t worry me Mosey, this is a ’portant day,” then turning to Miss
Gordon she added, “I’ll take ’sturtiums an’ larkspur an’ sweet peas
an’ you’ll be ever so happy lookin’ at them.” A busy silence ensued.