Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
Warmly was the old piper welcomed, not only by the frisky cheery secretary, but by many old friends, and by none more warmly than by the Reverend Alexander Munro, the douce old bachelor Presbyterian minister of Maplehill, a great lover of the pipes and a special friend of Piper Sutherland. But the welcome was hardly over when once more the sound of the pipes was heard far up the side line.
"Harp's just like a young pup," his own father, the Reverend Harper Freeman, the old Methodist minister of the Maplehill circuit, used to say. "If Harp had a tail he would never do anything but play with it." On this, however, it is difficult to hold any well based opinion.
The secretary was greatly disturbed and as nearly wrathful as ever he allowed himself to become. He was set on his brother making a good showing in this race; moreover, without Wilbur there would be no competitor to uphold the honour of Maplehill in this contest and this would deprive it of much of its interest.
But Mack heeded him not. "I can beat it!" he muttered between his shut teeth, "and I will." So, with every nerve taut and every muscle strained to its limit, he made his third attempt. It was in vain. The measure showed ninety-seven feet six. A suppressed groan rose from the Maplehill folk. "A grand throw, lad, for a beginner," said Black Duncan. The excitement now became intense.
The Maplehill folk go mad, and madder than all Isa and her company of girl friends. "I got one bad start me! He pull me back!" panted La Belle to his backers who were holding him up. "Who pulled you back?" indignantly cried the thin-faced man, looking for blood. "That sacre startair!" "You ran a fine race, La Belle!" said Cameron, coming up. "Non! Peste!
Ebullient in his spirits, he radiated cheeriness wherever he went and was at the bottom of most of the practical jokes that kept the village of Maplehill in a state of ferment; yet if any man thought to turn a sharp corner in business with Mr. Harper Freeman, Jr., he invariably found that frisky individual waiting for him round the corner with a cheery smile of welcome, shrewd and disconcerting.
It was a master stroke of diplomacy that resulted in the securing for the hammer-throwing contest the redoubtable and famous Duncan Ross of Zorra, who had at first disdained the bait of the Maplehill Dominion Day picnic, but in some mysterious way had at length been hooked and landed.
The feeding of the multitude was in charge of the Methodist Ladies' Aid, an energetic and exceptionally businesslike organization, which fully expected to make sufficient profit from the enterprise to clear off the debt from their church at Maplehill, an achievement greatly desired not only by the ladies themselves but by their minister, the Reverend Harper Freeman, now in the third year of his incumbency.
"It will play the very mischief with the programme. It will spoil the whole day, for Wilbur was the sole Maplehill representative in the three races; besides, I believe the youngster would have shown up well." "He would that!" cried Mack heartily. "He was a bird. But is there no one else from the Hill that could enter?"
For this race there were four entries, Cahill from London, Fullerton from Woodstock, La Belle from nowhere in particular, and Wilbur Freeman from Maplehill. But Wilbur was nowhere to be seen. The secretary came breathless to the platform. "Where's Wilbur?" he asked his father. "Wilbur? Surely he is in the crowd, or in the tent perhaps."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking