United States or Vatican City ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Her one strong instinct was motherhood; but five little Flathers, opening feeble eyes on their future environment, had become so discouraged that they promptly closed them again. It was as if they really could not stand the prospect of life in that home with Mr. and Mrs. Flathers for parents!
Myrtella, picking her way through the mud, was just turning the corner of the Flathers' house when her eyes fell upon a broken window-pane stuffed with a woolen skirt which she had given to Maria to make over into trousers for Chick. She promptly jerked it out with a force that brought the glass with it, and by the time she reached the back door, her jaw was set and her brows knit.
He had just treated others, as he would have others treat him at the Cant-Pass-It, when he was summoned home to see his sister. He now presented himself in his own doorway, a hand on either side of the jamb, and bowed profoundly: "Miss Flathers! Pleased to meet you! I see you still continue to favor yourself in looks. Lost your place, I suppose?"
Considering all things, Phineas felt that the church got a great deal for its money. Myrtella Flathers, following another method, had for fifteen years fought every obstacle that crossed her path. She had left in her wake traditions of unexcelled cooking, and unparalleled cleanliness, together with a vanquished army of mistresses, housemaids, laundresses, and butlers.
Long after the whippoorwill had ceased its plaint, she lay there staring into the darkness, waiting for the dawn. The autumn sun struggled palely through the windows of the Children's Hospital, and sent a beam across the high narrow bed where Chick Flathers lay, suspiciously watching the proceedings of the attendant nurses. He was not at all sure that he had done right in coming.
Just as he was seeking a hiding-place sufficiently large to accommodate himself and his charge, he was summoned home. Considerable commotion was apparent in the crowded kitchen and Mr. Flathers was moving about with an alacrity unusual to him. "Git off your shoes and stockings, Chick, and turn your coat inside out. Here, I'll hold the baby; yer Mammy's nursing the other one.
"Oh, you'll get along!" said Don, feeling uncommonly lenient toward his fellow men. "Here's a dollar if that will help you out a bit." "It will," said Mr. Flathers reassuringly; "it undoubtedly will. I got much to be thankful for, I know that. Fer instance I never was a poor relation! That's more than lots of men kin say!
Flathers," remonstrated Mrs. Ivy, with a finger on her lip, "never forget that whom He loveth He chasteneth." "I don't, Mrs. Ivy, I don't. I keep that in mind. If it wasn't fer that, Mrs. Ivy, I declare I don't know what I would do. Now you comin' to-day was a answer to prayer! I just ast that some way would be pervided 'fore the rent man come back at six o'clock.
"If my sister Myrtella knowed the half of what we was passin' through she wouldn't continue to steel her heart against us." "Myrtella's heart's all right," said Miss Lady cheerfully; "she takes care of Chick, doesn't she?" "She does, mam, in a way. But there's heavy expenses on a pore man with a family. Mrs. Flathers now ain't been able to have a see-ance since before the baby come.
Sequin startled him by inquiring peremptorily if he was the new man. "I am," said Phineas with pronounced deference, "the new man and a new man. Regenerated, born again, mam, the spirit of evil having departed from me." Mrs. Sequin gasped. "What is your name?" "Flathers, mam." "Dreadful! I will call you Benson." "Benson it is. Better men than me have changed their names.
Word Of The Day