United States or Guatemala ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I tell him there'd be more money for him in the end; but he can't seem to make up his mind to it." "Well, now, look here," said Lapham. "I don't care anything about all that. It's your own business, and I'm not going to meddle with it. But it's my business who lives off me; and so I tell you all three, I'm willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I'm willing to take care of her mother "
'I want to live for poor Molly and Zerrilla' that's what they called the little one; I dunno where they got the name. 'I ain't ever had half a chance; and now she's doing better, and I believe we should get along after this. He set there cryin' like a baby. But he wa'n't no baby when he went into action.
Corey for a few minutes after closing. The type-writer girl had lingered too, as if she wished to speak with him, and Corey stood in abeyance as she went toward Lapham's door. "Can't see you to-night, Zerrilla," he said bluffly, but not unkindly. "Perhaps I'll call at the house, if it's important." "It is," said the girl, with a spoiled air of insistence.
"Well, what do you want, Zerrilla?" he asked, with a sort of rough kindness. "I want to know what I'm going to do about Hen. He's back again; and he and mother have made it up, and they both got to drinking last night after I went home, and carried on so that the neighbours came in." Lapham passed his hand over his red and heated face. "I don't know what I'm going to do.
Lapham had no mercy on Moll Millon, and she had quarrelled often enough with her husband for befriending her. As for the child, if the mother would put Zerrilla out with some respectable family, that would be ONE thing; but as long as she kept Zerrilla with her, she was against letting her husband do anything for either of them.
Zerrilla had admitted them, and at her greeting a young fellow in the shabby shore-suit of a sailor, buttoning imperfectly over the nautical blue flannel of his shirt, got up from where he had been sitting, on one side of the stove, and stood infirmly on his feet, in token of receiving the visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did not rise, but began a shrill, defiant apology.
"Do you want I should call a hack, or do you want I should call an officer?" The woman began to cry into an end of her shawl. "I don't know what we're goin' to do." "You're going to clear out," said Lapham. "Call a hack, Dennis. If you ever come here again, I'll have you arrested. Mind that! Zerrilla, I shall want you early to-morrow morning."
He shut himself into his room again, and Zerrilla dried her tears, put the note into her bosom, and went her way. Lapham kept the porter nearly an hour later. It was then six o'clock, the hour at which the Laphams usually had tea; but all custom had been broken up with him during the past months, and he did not go home now.
"She's here in Boston." Mrs. Lapham kept her eyes on the girl, but she dropped, trembling, into her husband's chair, and a sort of amaze and curiosity were in her voice instead of the fury she had meant to put there. "The Colonel," continued Zerrilla, "he's been helping us, and he's got me a type-writer, so that I can help myself a little.
You're twice the trouble that my own family is, now. But I know what I'd do, mighty quick, if it wasn't for you, Zerrilla," he went on relentingly. "I'd shut your mother up somewheres, and if I could get that fellow off for a three years' voyage " "I declare," said Miss Dewey, beginning to whimper, "it seems as if he came back just so often to spite me.
Word Of The Day