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 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.
presently, moses made for the yard and on his way, offered tribute to betty by standing on his head on the mat at the door.
“moses stan’s on his head so’s his brains’ll filter back into place,” teased mrs. wopp.
“never mind mosey, yer heart don’t need fixin’ anyhow,” comforted betty.
her breakfast finished, betty sought the company of moses, who was in a small shed adjoining the kitchen. he was piling some fire-wood he had carried in from the yard.
“don’t you think the new teacher is jist lovely moses, with her big shinin’ blue eyes an’ wavy black hair?” betty eagerly enquired, “an’ aint her clothes lovely too?”
moses suspended operations on the woodpile and leaned against it. “huh,” he grunted with masculine superiority, “all girls think of is looks. some of them sorft lookin’ teachers is the wust when it comes to lickin’ the kids. you can’t jedge a hoss by his hide.”
“now, mosey, you like the new teacher’s well’s i do, else why were you showin’ off before her, ridin’ ladybird like mad.”
“mebbe she’s all right,” admitted the boy.
“i wonder ef she guesses you aint my really truly brother. ef i only had your beaut-i-ful red hair an’ white eyebrows, stead of havin’ yaller hair an’ brown eyebrows. i can’t do nothin’ jist now ’bout my hair, but s’pose i cut off my eyebrows an’ make them look nice an’ white like yours. mosey,” coaxingly, “you cut them fer me.”
“naw,” answered the boy, “what’d mar say? she’d put a tin ear on me.”
“you know she never does nothin’ to us really, moses, no matter how she jaws. come on, you clipped yer pony so lovely an’ evenlike. the horse-clippers is bangin’ on the wall behind you.”
“i dassent do it, betty,” replied moses. “anyhow this ole pair of scissors ’d do the job better.”
“then you don’t love yer li’l sister ef you don’t want her to look like you.” betty almost wept.
“orl right betty, i’ll do it, but ef it is a poor job don’t blame me,” returned moses as he advanced with the scissors.
betty winced slightly as the chilly weapon touched her face, but recollecting the importance of the issue at stake she submitted tamely to be shorn. in a few moments moses stepped back to contemplate the result of his drastic work. there was no denying that it had totally changed his little sister’s appearance. a queer expression on moses’ face made betty enquire anxiously, “what is it? don’t i look orlright moses?”
“you look orful, jist like you was growin’ a pair of speckled toothbrushes. what ’ll mar say? you carn’t go to school like that.”
“i’ll take all the blame mosey.”
“ef you could only see how you look, betty. you must hev some eyebrows somehow.”
“put a li’l shoe-black on then an’ that’ll make me dark again,” advised betty serenely.
a liberal application of shoe paste furnished the unfortunate victim with a startling pair of jet-black eyebrows, nearly an inch in depth. appalled at what he saw, moses drew from his pocket a grimy handkerchief. dampening one corner of it in his mouth, the most expeditious thing to do under the circumstances, he carefully wiped around the outside of these funereal bands, reducing them slightly in size but also straightening their edges.
“moses! betty! time fer school!” called mrs. wopp. betty, satisfied that after moses’ frenzied ministrations she was quite presentable, hastened into the house. moses fled into the yard where he became very active splitting wood, his guilty conscience adding efficiency to his arm.
“land o’ goshen, child,” shrieked mrs. wopp throwing up her hands in dismay, “whatever hev you been doin’ to yerself. you look jist like a wooden injin. i wouldn’t of knowed you ef i’d met you in the streets of judear.”
nell gordon, ready for school, came into the kitchen and catching sight of betty was seized with such uncontrollable mirth that she fled upstairs again.
“come here betty, till i clean yer face. where is that boy moses? i know he had a hand in this. drat him anyhow,” said the incensed mrs. wopp.
“moses didn’t want to clip me mar, but i thought ’twould be a ’provement to hev nice white eyebrows.” as betty spoke one large tear rolled slowly down her cheek moistening in its course a small drop of blacking which moses had overlooked in his cleansing operations, adding still more to the child’s grotesque appearance.
“white eyebrows child! what are you talkin’ about? yer eyebrows are blacker nor that stove.”
betty, feeling that further explanations were worse than useless, submitted to be led to the sink where her energetic foster-mother subjected her to so many soapy treatments that in a few minutes time she emerged very red in the face but purified.
as mrs. wopp stood watching her family and the new teacher climb the hill on their way to school, she remarked to herself, “that boy jist naterly takes to mischief same as a gopher takes to my green peas.”
