The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 36

"I don't know just what I'll do when I get there but I'll do something--you see if I don't, Sammy Pinkney!" threatened this usually mild and retiring Tess Kenway.

CHAPTER XXIV

IT ENGAGES AUNT SARAH'S ATTENTION

Ruth, as has been said, was away from the house when this dreadful thing happened to Tom Jonah. Uncle Rufus was too lame to have followed the dog catchers' van in any case, had he seen the capture of their pet.

But Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah were sitting together sewing in the latter's big front room over the dining-room of the Corner House.

Looking out of the window by which she sat, and biting off a thread reflectively, the housekeeper said:

"It's on my mind, Miss Maltby, that our Ruth is not so chirpy as she used to be."

"She's growing up," said Aunt Sarah. "I'll be glad when they're all grown up." And then she added something that would have quite shocked all four of the Corner House girls. "I'll be glad when they are all grown up, and married, and settled down."

"My certie! but you are in haste, woman," gasped the housekeeper. "And it sounds right-down wicked. Wis.h.i.+ng the bairns' lives away."

"Do you realize what it's going to mean--these next four or five years?"

snapped Aunt Sarah.

"In what way, Miss Maltby?" asked Mrs. MacCall.

"For us," said Aunt Sarah, nodding emphatically. "We're going to have the house cluttered up with boys and young men who will want to marry my nieces."

"Lawk!" gasped the housekeeper. "Will they be standin' in line, think you? Not but the bonny la.s.sies deserve the best there is--"

"Which isn't saying much when it comes to a choice of _men_," Aunt Sarah sniffed.

"Well," returned Mrs. MacCall, slowly, "of course there'll be none worthy of the la.s.sies. None who deserves our Ruthie. Yet--I'm thinkin'--that that young laddie that was here now--you know, Miss Maltby. Luke Shepard."

"A likeable boy," admitted Aunt Sarah, and that was high praise from the critical spinster.

"Aye," Mrs. MacCall hastened to say, "a very fine young man indeed. And I am moved to say Ruthie liked him."

"Eh!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah.

"You maybe didn't see it. It was plain to me. They two were very fond of each other. Yes, indeed!"

"My niece _fond_ of a boy?" gasped the spinster, bridling.

"Why! were ye not just now speakin' of such a possibeelity?" demanded the housekeeper, and in her surprise, dropping for the moment into broad Scotch. "And they are baith of them old enough tae be thinkin' of matin'. Yes!"

Aunt Sarah still stared in amazement. "Can it be _that_ that seems to have changed Ruth so?" she asked at last.

"You've noticed it?" cried the Scotchwoman.

"Yes. As you have suggested, she seems down-hearted. But why--"

"There's something that went wrong. 'Love's young dream,' as they say, is having a partial eclipse, so it is! I see no letters comin' from that college where the laddie has gone."

"But she hears from Cecile Shepard," said Aunt Sarah. "She reads me extracts from Cecile's letters. A very lively and pleasant girl is Cecile."

"So she is," admitted the housekeeper. "But I'm a sight more interested in the laddie. Why doesn't he write?"

"Why--er--would that be quite the thing, Mrs. MacCall?" asked Aunt Sarah, momentarily losing much of her grimness and seemingly somewhat fluttered by this discussion of Ruth's affair.

"'Twould be almost necessary, Miss Maltby, I can tell you, if he was a laddie of mine," declared the Scotchwoman vigorously. "I'd no have a sweetheart that was either tongue-tied or unable to write."

"Oh, but you take too much for granted," cried Aunt Sarah.

"My observation tells me the two of them are fair lost on each other. I watched 'em while young Shepard was here. It's true they are young; but they'll never be younger, and it's the young lovin' and matin' was made for--not for old bodies."

"You--you quite surprise me," said Aunt Sarah.

"You'd best get over your surprise, Miss Maltby," said the very practical housekeeper. "You should have your eyes opened. You should see them together again."

"Why not?" demanded Aunt Sarah, suddenly.

"Why not what?"

"Let the children have Cecile and her brother here for over Sunday--for a week end. Let them give a little party. I am sure I loved parties when I was a young girl and lived at this Corner House, when mother was alive."

"It's a good idea," said the housekeeper. "I'll make some layer cakes for the party. We'll not need to go to the expense of a caterer--"

She would have gone on immediately planning for the affair had she not, on glancing through the window, seen the dog catchers' green van rattling over the crossing of Main Street.

"There's those dog catchers!" she exclaimed. "I wonder if Tom Jonah's safe. There are some children running and crying after it--they've lost a pet I've no doubt."

Then suddenly she sprang to her feet.

"Miss Maltby!" she cried. "'Tis our Tess and Dot--and Sammy Pinkney, the little scamp! It must be either his bulldog or old Tom Jonah those pestilent men have caught."

Aunt Sarah had very good eyes indeed. She had already spied the party and she could see in the back of the van.

"It is Tom Jonah!" she exclaimed. "They must be stopped. How dared those men take our dog?"

Mrs. MacCall, who had no shoes on, could not hurry out. But Aunt Sarah was dressed for company as she always was in the afternoon. She amazed the sputtering housekeeper by stopping only to throw a fleecy hood over her hair before hurrying out of the front door of the Corner House.

Aunt Sarah Maltby seldom left the premises save for church on Sunday.

She did not even ride much in the girls' motor-car. She had made up her mind that an automobile was an unnecessary luxury and a "new-fangled notion" anyway; therefore she seldom allowed herself to be coaxed into the car.

She never went calling, claiming vigorously that she was "no gadabout, she hoped." It was an astonis.h.i.+ng sight, therefore, to see her marching along Willow Street in the wake of the crying, excited children, who themselves followed in the wake of the dog catchers' van.

The van traveled so fast that Tess and Dot and Sammy could scarcely keep it in sight; while the children were so far ahead of Aunt Sarah that the old woman could not attract their attention when she called.