As that energetic lady bustled about the kitchen the same evening setting the bread, her voice rose in a series of trills and other embellishments as she sang “Where is my wanderin’ boy to-night?”
Balancing her voice on a very high note she popped her head through the dining-room door to speak to her husband. He was seated at the table reading “The Family Herald.” His straggling grey locks were disordered with his mental effort and formed a frieze of irregular design on his shining forehead. Mrs. Wopp’s voice, in a moment, was safe on terra firma.
“Ebenezer, you might bring in my slumber robe, bein’s I’m so busy an’ Mose an’ Betty’s gone to bed.”
“All right Lize, I’ll jist make a note of that.”
There was room on the slip of paper for only this last item, so numerous had been the demands, during this busy day, on Mr. Wopp’s memory.
He returned his notes to his pocket with the assurance of one whose unreliable memory has been fortified and rendered infallible. Nevertheless the voluminous folds of Eliza Wopp’s cotton nightgown fluttered all night under the starry heavens.
CHAPTER V.—A DANCE IN THE CEDAR HILLS.
It was a fine summer evening. The whole Wopp family was getting ready to go to a dance, to be held at a ranch some ten miles off. An array of clean clothing was laid out on the different beds and an odor of musk-scented soap pervaded the air.
“Now, Moses, look sharp. Quit yer foolin’ an’ git busy,” called Mrs. Wopp, to the son and heir, whose toilet was not even begun. She herself was busy braiding Betty’s fair hair. “Be sure to warsh yer neck an’ ears. Larst party we was to, Mis’ Williams says to me, she says, ‘Is that your Moses settin’ on that bench? La me! he seems darker complected than I ever seed him before. I thort he were some Arfrican,’ she says. I hev always been a godly woman, Moses, ef I do go to a dance now an’ agin. Anyhow, the good book says there is a time to dance, but it aint got no patience with dirt. Git yerself cleaned up, then go an’ hook up the team.”
At this juncture there was a knock at the door. It was Howard Eliot who had called for Nell.