Mildew Manse (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916. Excerpt: ... and a woman the world over. Haphiram looks on with a sardonic glance and scoffs at these springtime fancies. There is a nice long stretch of time now between my half-past five dinner hour and dusk, and I am allowing myself a Saturday half holiday like other workers. Then, too, the Haphazards are not very strict Sabbath observers. All this lovely, idle time I pass in play, real childhood play--with the three young Haps and their/'gang." Mildew Manse is my first actual contact with a yard, and I simply have to make up for that cheated childhood. Play calls to me and I must get it out of my system. I was initiated into the popular pursuits of the neighborhood by learning how to manage a raft. From that I passed to marbles in the mud. Tag, duck on a rock (grandest game ever devised), still pond, prisoner, Pom, pom, pull away, one-old-cat (kindergarten to baseball) all followed, and now I am learning to walk on the wavering fence with a balancing pole. This last named sport brought me an adventure, a promise of romance, as I intimated. Last night as I leaned, not out of window, but on my balancing pole, which I used as a staff, it struck a stone and I struck the long deep grass in someone's back yard. The house belonging to the back yard faced on the street parallel with ours. I lay very still, not because I was hurt but because I was surprised, and then, too, it was rather pleasant to he in the soft, sweet-smelling grass and look up into the misty sky while I wondered how I was going to climb the wobbly fence from this side. I heard a voice--not a Haphazard's, --say: "Are you hurt, little one?" I jumped to my feet and looked into blue goggles They were worn by a man who was tall and slender and straight. He had a very nice mouth, but I couldn't tell the color...