It was Saturday afternoon on a busy street in the city. Moses Wopp and Clarence Crump, at whose home the former was spending the week end, were on their way to the skating-rink. If they had wanted to skate there, the streets would have accommodated them with a smooth surface, as an early frost had rimed the pavement.
A tall, lean, loose-jointed, large-limbed man was enjoying the frosty air and walked briskly humming a gay . All at once he found his face upturned to the glorious blue sky and a youthful voice reached his ear, “Did you see the telegraph pole sail over that icy spot?” Then another voice equally youthful, but with a distinct absence of city polish, answered, “Betcher life I seen him, wouldn’t of missed it fer a punkin pie, he’s lookin’ fer gopher holes in the ground yet.”
The loose-jointed one at last his feet and turning in the direction of the witnesses of his ignominy gave them a resentful glare. Moses was leaning against a fence and laughing till it seemed as though his eyes must remain indefinitely imbedded in their .
“I’ll give you spalpeens something to laugh over!” threatened the injured one, as he brushed the snow and dust from his hat. Then he slowly went on looking back at the unyielding glacier-like surface of the sidewalk.
He had not gone far when Moses caught up to him, “Please, Mister, here is three buttings orff yer vest, I guess.” His was not under strict control and again he broke into uproarious laughter.
“None of your nonsense,” replied the long-limbed pedestrian, his thankyou’s cut short by Moses’ cheerfulness.
In a few minutes Moses again touched the man’s elbow, “Say, Mister, I come to arsk yer parding fer larfin’ at yer, but, Glory be! I couldn’t help it. My curtings never rolled up on a funnier sight.”
Here his laughter became a series of decidedly menacing to his .
“I’ll lick you good and plenty,” answered the man, his face purple with indignation. Whereupon Moses, overcome with mirth, lost his own balance and rubbed his nose along a shining of slippery pavement.
Presently Clarence caught up to him and bore him down a side street lest further attempts at apology should cause him to again the stranger.
At the rink the enthusiastic country boy enjoyed the vast expanse of ice with no snags to interrupt his skating. A little girl wearing a bright red cap was to find her hand caught in Moses’ strong grasp and to feel herself, still a learner, whirled giddily over the ice feeling as safe as on a carpeted floor.
The band struck up and, with the rhythm of the music, Moses skated as he had never done before. At first an object of amusement to the city boys he became the centre of an admiring . His spirals and figure eight’s were such as to call remarks. Even Clarence Egerton Crump and admitted to several school mates that Moses Wopp was a pretty solid , only a bit gawky in his get-up.
Moses returned to the Crump home with a appetite.
“I c’d eat a rhindoceros,” he to Clarence.
“Well, Moses,” his host at the supper table, “did the skating go pretty good to-day?”
“It was shore a wonder, with the band playin’ an’ all. I never heard sich moosic, not sence the circus.”
At this moment the dining-room door opened and the daughter of the house entered the room.
“Here is Isobel. What kept you so late, young lady?” As Mr. Crump he viewed the young girl with pride.
“O, Dadsie,” was the reply, “this is afternoon, you know.”
“My eye!” exclaimed Clarence, mockingly shading his eyes from his sister’s radiance, “She’s got her joy-bells on, what’s the ?”
A toss of the head was all the reply to this brotherly .
“Are you hungry, Isobel?” questioned her mother.
“I’m ever so hungry, Mumsie.” As she spoke, Isobel glanced at Moses who was sitting dumbfounded before the dainty girl he was meeting for the first time. His face was ; his ears were by nature stiffly folded forward and the light shining through them from an electric globe on the wall made them now glow like red shells.
Suddenly a light, as a blinding flash of lightning, seemed to reveal to the boy his deficiencies. He stroked into place the of red hair that always stood upright on the crown of his head, untwisted his left leg from around his right and otherwise tried to the ideal of which on the moment crystallized in his mind.
Notwithstanding Moses’ endeavors to be attractive, Isobel Crump’s voice, as she addressed her brother’s friend was so that her words his ear like sharply-pointed icicles.
Later in the evening, as Isobel moved about the drawing-room in a flounced white frock, her hair falling over her shoulders, and her dainty high-heeled silver-buckled shoes skimming the roses on the carpet, Moses’ eyes followed her in wonderment. Never before had he seen a creature so dainty, so airy, and so altogether like a princess. Betty was just plain Betty, straight hair plaited stiffly and tied with red ribbon, tanned face and hands, and big brown eyes “looking like they loved everybody.” But here was a girl who could turn disdainful hazel eyes on one and could make one feel like an worm. Somehow Moses liked feeling like a worm, Isobel Crump was so immeasureably above him that he might as well feel like a worm as like any other more noble inhabitant of this terrestrial globe.
Clarence brought out his high-school books to display before the simple country boy the of his learning. He opened his “Euclid” and Moses, sitting at the table, was vastly impressed with the sight of angles and triangles, and rash but interesting statements about abc being equal to bed. His attitude toward Clarence became one of utter as that budding Archimedes produced his exercise book covered with squat-shaped triangles gleefully pursuing circles whose were horribly by reason of compasses.
Clarence had crossed the Pons Asinorum; a series of intoxicated circles, with sharp-cornered triangles piercing their fat sides, bore to his steps.
To further impress the unsophisticated guest, a Latin Grammar was from a pile of books, and totally careless of how Moses was smarting under such an exhibition of scholarship, Clarence recited loudly “Amo, amas, amat.”
“What does that mean?” queried Moses.
“I love, thou lovest, he loves,” said Clarence, scornfully, in answer to this question.
Moses blushed deeply and dared not raise his eyes from the ground lest Isobel should see his .
In the Crump household, Clarence stood for all that was brilliant and intellectual, while Isobel stood for all that was fairy-like and charming. Moses felt himself a , of no account whatever, in this wonderful home. He would need an extra administration of sympathy from Betty on his return. He thought at that moment very tenderly of the great brown eyes that “looked like they loved everybody.”
“Isobel, play one of your pieces, let’s see how your recital helped you to-day.”
As Isobel seated herself on the piano-stool in with her father’s wishes, her white-flounced dress billowed up around her, reminding Moses, even in his state of mind, of the delicious creamy meringue on a lemon pie.
The captivating music of Grieg’s “Butterfly” floated through the room and Moses watched the white fingers of the player with breathless eagerness.
“Gosh!” he exclaimed, as Isobel closed on the last startlingly unexpected note, “that’s where some feller his strawr hat on a beauty butterfly!”
Covered with confusion at his outburst, Moses sank into his chair and remained silent till Mr. Crump, by conversation, caused him to once again lose his self-consciousness. He called Moses’ attention to a few musical instruments in the corner of the room and led him over to view them more closely.
Mr. Crump indulged in an unusual hobby, the collection of old musical instruments, and a motley group it was that Moses eyed with growing wonder.
“This here thing looks like a with his druv in an’ stan’in’ on his haunches. What d’ye call it?”
“That’s a string .”
“An orful good-natured tied-in-at-the-waist critter, aint it?” commented Moses.
“This is a lyre, very old,” said Mr. Crump, handling an ancient instrument tenderly. Moses looked up suddenly, he hoped nothing he had said called forth the remark.
“This is a xylophone, take this little wooden hammer and play a few notes.” Moses took the hammer held out to him and striking a wooden bar brought out a but sweet sound. He struck several bars in succession and was enraptured to find ............