The Corner House Girls Part 25

Agnes was so delighted over the frocks that were being made for her, that she thought of little else, waking, and probably dreamed of them in sleep, as well! She did not notice Ruth's gravity and additional thoughtfulness.

As for Tess and Dot, they had their small heads quite full of their own affairs. They were having a better time this summer than ever they had dreamed of having in all their young lives.

Tess and Dot were not without friends of their own age to play with, in spite of the fact that the Creamer girls next door had proved so unpleasant. There were two girls next door to Mrs. Adams who were nice, and as Mrs. Adams promised, she arranged a little tea party for Tess and Dot, and these other girls, one afternoon. The new friends were Margaret and Holly Pease.

Mrs. Adams had the tea on her back lawn in the shade of a big tulip tree. She had just the sort of cakes girls like best, and strawberries and cream, and the "cambric tea," as Mrs. Adams called it, was rich with cream and sugar. Mrs. Adams herself took a cup of tea that had brewed much longer; she said she wanted it "strong enough to bite," or it did not give her a mite of comfort.

From where the pleasant little party sat, they could look over the fence into the big yard belonging to the Pease place. "Your folks,"

said Mrs. Adams to her next door neighbors, "are going to have a right smart lot of cherries. That tree's hanging full."

The tree in question was already aflame with the ripening fruit.

Margaret said:

"Mother says we'll have plenty of cherries to do up for once-if the birds and the boys don't do too much damage. There are two nests of robins right in that one tree, and they think they own all the fruit.

And the boys!"

"I expect that Sammy Pinkney has been around," said Mrs. Adams.

"There's worse than him," said Holly Pease, shaking her flaxen head.

"This morning papa chased an awfully ragged boy out of that tree. The sun was scarcely up, and if it hadn't been for the robins scolding so, papa wouldn't have known the boy was there."

"A robber boy!" cried Mrs. Adams. "I wager that's who got my milk. I set a two quart can out in the shed last night, because it was cool there. And this morning more than half of the milk was gone. The little rascal had used the can cover to drink out of."

"Oh!" said Tess, pityingly, "the poor boy must have been hungry."

"He's probably something else by now," said Mrs. Adams, grimly. "Half ripe cherries and milk! My soul and body! Enough to snarl anybody's stomach up into a knot, but a boy's. I guess boys can eat anything-and recover."

Holly said, quietly: "There was a boy worked for Mrs. Hovey yesterday.

He was awfully hungry and ragged. I saw him carrying in wood from her woodpile. And he just staggered, he was so small and weak. And his hair looked so funny--"

"What was the matter with his hair?" asked her sister.

"It was red. Brick red. I never saw such red hair before."

"Oh!" cried Tess. "Did he have sure enough _red_ hair?" Then she turned to Dot. "Do you s'pose it could be Tommy Rooney, Dot?"

"Who's Tommy Rooney?" asked Mrs. Adams.

The Corner House girls told them all about Tommy, and how he had run away from home, and why they half believed he had come here to Milton.

"To shoot Indians!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams. "Whoever heard of such a crazy notion? Mercy! boys get worse and worse, every day."

Perhaps it was because of this conversation that Tess and Dot at once thought of Tommy on the way home that evening after the party, when they saw a man and a dog chasing a small boy across Willow Street near the old Corner House.

"That's Sammy Pinkney's bulldog," declared Tess, in fright. "And it's Sammy's father, too."

The boy crawled over the high fence at the back of their garden and got through the hedge. When the girls caught up with the man, Tess asked:

"Oh, sir! what is the matter?"

"That young rascal has been in my strawberry patch again," declared Mr. Pinkney, wrathfully. He seemed to forget that he had a boy of his own who was always up to mischief. "I'd like to wallop him."

"But the dog might have bit him," said Dot, trembling, and drawing away from the ugly looking animal.

"Oh, no, little girl," said Mr. Pinkney, more pleasantly. "Jock wouldn't bite anybody. He only scared him."

"Well, he _looks_ like he'd bite," said Tess, doubtfully. "And he scared our cat, Sandy-face, almost to death."

"Well, bulldogs always seem to think that cats are their enemies. I am sorry he scared your cat, girls."

Tess and Dot hurried on to their gate. They looked for the boy in the garden, but he was nowhere to be found. When they entered the house, the back door was open and everybody seemed to be at the front.

The two girls went immediately up the back stairs to the bathroom to wash and make themselves tidy for dinner.

"Where do you s'pose he went, Tess?" asked Dot, referring to the strange boy.

"I don't know," said Tess. Then she stopped to listen in the hall outside the bathroom door.

"What's the matter, Tess?" demanded Dot, quickly. "Did you hear something? Up the garret stairs?"

"It sounded like the latch of the garret door," said Tess. "But I guess it was just the wind. Or maybe," she added, laughing, "it was your goat, Dot!"

"Humph!" said the smaller girl, in disgust. "I know there isn't any old goat living up in that garret. That's silly."

The girls thought no more about the odd noise at that time, but hurried to join the rest of the family down stairs.

CHAPTER XVI

MORE MYSTERIES

Some of Miss Ann t.i.tus' gossip was not unkindly, and some of it amused Ruth and Agnes very much.

Miss t.i.tus had known Aunt Sarah when they were both young girls and what she told the Corner House girls about Miss Maltby, who had taken the name of "Stower" of her own accord, satisfied much of the curiosity the older Kenway girls felt regarding Aunt Sarah and her affairs.

"I remember when old Mr. Stower married Mrs. Maltby," said the busy Miss t.i.tus, nodding vigorously as she snipped and talked at the same time. "The goodness knows, Sally Maltby an' her mother was as poor as Job's turkey-an' they say _he_ was sartain-sure a lean fowl. It was as great a change in their sarc.u.mstances when they came to the ol'

Corner House to live, as though they'd been translated straight to the pearly gates-meanin' no irreverence.

"They was sartain-sure dirt poor. I dunno how Mis' Maltby had the heart to stand up an' face the minister long enough for him to say the words over 'em, her black bombazeen was that shabby! They had me here with Ma Britton (I was 'prenticed to Ma Britton in them days) for three solid months, a-makin' both Mrs. Maltby-that-was, an' Sally, fit to be seen.

"An' how Sally _did_ turn her nose up, to be sure-to-be-sure! I reckon she must ha' soon got a crick in her neck, holdin' it so stiff.

An' to see her an' hear her, you'd ha' thought she owned the ol'

Corner House.

"They had sarvints here in them days, an' ol' Mr. Stower-he was still in practice at the law-had las.h.i.+n's of company. I won't say but that Mrs. Maltby-that-was, made him a good wife, and sat at the foot of his table, and poured tea out o' that big solid silver urn like she'd been to the manner born. But Sally was as sa.s.sy and perky as a nuthatch in flytime.