Moses capitalized his bulk to effectively fill the large chair into which he sank. He surveyed with approval the new trousers presented to him by Miss Gordon, and tried to blot from his mind the ignominy that had attended the wearing of the ill-fitting pair. Those discarded checked monstrosities languished under Moses’ bed in close consultation with a pair of decrepit and muddy shoes. It was so sweet to the boy to see signs of convalescence in Betty that he took great comfort in just gazing on her pale face with its wisps of fair hair across the forehead. He summed up his general attitude to life by whispering to himself, “I don’t give a doughnut fer orl the check pants in Alberta.”
A low rumble of thunder was heard in the distance and a flash of lightning made the coal-oil lamp look like a bilious spot in the room.
“Sing something, Mar.” Betty’s plaintive voice broke the silence.
“What’ll I sing Betty?”
“Oh, the song ’bout the clouds rollin’ away,” she yawned, “I want everybody to be happy.” She looked at her teacher and Nell wondered if the child had read her heart and had seen its unhappiness.
“Wait till the clouds roll by, Jenny,
Wait till the clouds roll by,
Jenny, my own true loved one
Wait till the clouds roll by.”
Mrs. Wopp’s voice, a dramatic outburst before which almost any cloud would have quailed, filled the bedroom. Betty turned to Nell Gordon, “I hope all yer clouds’ll hev silver linin’s, Miss Gordon,” she smiled.
“Why, Betty?”
“’Cause I love you, ’n’ I hope the edges’ll be all pink like my mornin’-glories.”
Howard caught Nell’s gaze. He longed to gather the girl who had so completely captured his heart into his arms and kiss away their estrangement.