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+Project Gutenberg's The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by Grace Brooks Hill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Corner House Girls Under Canvas
+       How they reached Pleasant Cove and what happened afterward
+
+Author: Grace Brooks Hill
+
+Illustrator: R. Emmett Owen
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2012 [EBook #38742]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for
+help, they were out of sight of the camp.]
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE
+
+GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+
+ HOW THEY REACHED PLEASANT COVE
+ AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD
+
+BY
+
+GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Author of “The Corner House Girls,”
+“The Corner House Girls at School,” etc.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY_
+
+_R. EMMETT OWEN_
+
+NEW YORK
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+The Corner House Girls Series
+
+By Grace Brooks Hill
+
+_Illustrated._
+
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS’ ODD FIND
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR
+
+(_Other volumes in preparation_)
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+Publishers—New York
+
+Copyright, 1915,
+
+by
+
+Barse & Hopkins
+
+_The Corner House Girls Under Canvas_
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I. Tom Jonah
+  II. Something to Look Forward To
+  III. The Dance at Carrie Poole’s
+  IV. The Mystery of June Wildwood
+  V. Off for the Seaside
+  VI. On the Train
+  VII. Something Ahead
+  VIII. The Gypsy Camp
+  IX. The Spoondrift Bungalow
+  X. Some Excitement
+  XI. The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
+  XII. A Picnic with Agamemnon
+  XIII. The Night of the Big Wind
+  XIV. An Important Arrival
+  XV. Two Girls in a Boat—to Say Nothing of the Dog!
+  XVI. The Gypsies Again
+  XVII. On Wild Goose Island
+  XVIII. The Search
+  XIX. A Startling Meeting
+  XX. The Frankfurter Man
+  XXI. Mrs. Bobster’s Mysterious Friend
+  XXII. The Yarn of the “Spanking Sal”
+  XXIII. The Shadow
+  XXIV. Brought to Book
+  XXV. The End of the Outing
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for help,
+they were out of sight of the camp
+
+A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging
+with both hands to the ridge of it
+
+Ruth actually went back, groping through the
+gathering smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled
+out upon the shingles
+
+The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;
+he started back for the girls. He whined and he
+barked
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+TOM JONAH
+
+
+“Come here, Tess! Come quick and look at this poor dog. He’s just
+drip-ping-_wet_!”
+
+Dot Kenway stood at a sitting-room window of the old Corner House,
+looking out upon Willow Street. It was a dripping day, and anything or
+anybody that remained out-of-doors and exposed to the downpour for
+half an hour, was sure to be saturated.
+
+Nothing wetter or more miserable looking than the dog in question had
+come within the range of the vision of the two younger Corner House
+girls that Saturday morning.
+
+Tess, who was older than Dot, came running. Anything as frightfully
+despondent and hopeless looking as that dog was bound to touch the
+tender heart of Tess Kenway.
+
+“Let’s—let’s take him to the porch and feed him, Dot,” she cried.
+
+“Will Ruthie let us?” asked Dot.
+
+“Of course. She’s gone for her music lesson and won’t know, anyway,”
+declared Tess, recklessly.
+
+“But maybe Mrs. MacCall won’t like it?”
+
+“She’s upstairs and won’t know, either. Besides,” Tess said,
+bolstering up her own desire, “she says she hasn’t ever sent anybody
+away hungry from her door; and that poor dog looks just as hungry as
+any tramp that ever came to the old Corner House.”
+
+The girls ran out of the sitting-room into the huge front hall which,
+in itself, was almost big enough for a ballroom. It was finished in
+dark, dark oak; there was a huge front door—like the door of a
+castle; the furniture was walnut, upholstered in haircloth, worn shiny
+by more than three generations of use; and out of the middle of the
+hall a great stairway arose, dividing when half-way up into two
+sections, while a sort of gallery was built all around the hall at the
+second floor, out of which the doors of the principal chambers opened.
+
+There was a third story above, and above that a huge garret—often the
+playroom of the Corner House girls on such days as this. In the rear
+were two wings built on to the house, each three stories in height.
+The house had its “long” side to Willow Street, and only a narrow
+grass plot and brick walk separated the sitting-room windows from the
+boundary fence.
+
+It faced Main Street, at its head, where the Parade Ground began. The
+dripping trees on the Parade were now in full leaf and the lush grass
+beneath them was green. The lawns of the old Corner House needed the
+mower, too; and at the back Uncle Rufus—the general factotum of the
+establishment—had laid out a wonderful kitchen garden which already
+had yielded radishes and tender onions and salad, and promised green
+peas to accompany the spring lamb to the table on the approaching
+Fourth.
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway crossed the big hall of the Corner House, and went
+on through the dining-room with its big table, huge, heavily carved
+sideboard and comfortably armed chairs, through the butler’s pantry
+into the kitchen. As Tess had said, Mrs. MacCall, their good-natured
+and lovable housekeeper, was not in sight. Nobody delayed them, and
+they stepped out upon the half-screened porch at the back. The
+woodshed joined it at the far end. The steps faced Willow Street.
+
+On the patch of drying green a goat was tethered, lying down in the
+rain, reflectively chewing a cud. He bleated when he saw the girls,
+but did not offer to rise; the rain did not disturb him in the least.
+
+“Billy Bumps likes the rain,” Dot said, thoughtfully.
+
+The dog outside the gate did not seem to be enjoying himself. He had
+dropped down upon the narrow strip of sward between the flagged walk
+and the curbing; his sides heaved as though he had run a long way, and
+his pink tongue lolled out of his mouth and dripped.
+
+“My!” Dot murmured, as she saw this, “the rain’s soaked right through
+the poor doggy—hasn’t it? And it’s just dripping out of him!”
+
+Tess, more practical, if no more earnest in her desire to relieve the
+dog’s apparent misery, ran down to the gate through the falling rain
+and called to him:
+
+“Poor, poor doggie! Come in!”
+
+She opened the gate temptingly, but the strange dog merely wagged his
+tail and looked at her out of his beautiful brown eyes. He was a
+Newfoundland dog, with a cross of some breed that gave him patches of
+deep brown in his coat and very fine, long, silky hair that curled up
+at the ends. He was strongly built and had a good muzzle which was
+powdered with the gray hairs of age.
+
+“Come here, old fellow,” urged Tess, “_Do_ come in!”
+
+She snapped her fingers and held the gate more invitingly open. He
+staggered to his feet and limped toward her. He did not crouch and
+slink along as a dog does that has been beaten; but he eyed her
+doubtfully as though not sure, after all, of this reception.
+
+He was muddied to his flanks, his coat was matted with green burrs,
+and there was a piece of frayed rope knotted about his neck. The dog
+followed Tess doubtfully to the porch. Billy Bumps climbed to his feet
+and shook his head threateningly, stamping his feet; but the strange
+dog was too exhausted to pay the goat any attention.
+
+The visitor at first refused to mount the steps, but he looked up at
+Dot and wagged his tail in greeting.
+
+“Oh, Tess!” cried the smallest girl. “He thinks he knows me. Do you
+suppose we have ever seen him before?”
+
+“I don’t believe so,” said Tess, bustling into the woodshed and out
+again with a pan of broken meat that had been put aside for Sandyface
+and her children. “I know I should remember him if I had ever seen him
+before. Come, old fellow! Good doggie! Come up and eat.”
+
+She put the pan down on the porch and stood back from it. The brown
+eyes of the dog glowed more brightly. He hesitatingly hobbled up the
+steps.
+
+A single sniff of the tidbits in the pan, and the dog fell to
+wolfishly, not stopping to chew at all, but fairly jerking the meat
+into his throat with savage snaps.
+
+“Oh, don’t gobble so!” gasped Dot. “It—it’s bad for your
+indigestions—and isn’t polite, anyway.”
+
+“Guess you wouldn’t be polite if you were as hungry as he is,” Tess
+observed.
+
+The dog was so tired that he lay right down, after a moment, and ate
+with his nose in the pan. Dot ventured to pat his wet coat and he
+thumped his tail softly on the boards, but did not stop eating.
+
+At this juncture Uncle Rufus came shuffling up the path from the
+hen-coop. Uncle Rufus was a tall, stoop-shouldered, pleasantly brown
+negro, with a very bald crown around which was a narrow growth of
+tight, grizzled “wool.” He had a smiling face, and if the whites of
+his eyes were turning amber hued with age he was still “purty
+pert”—to use his own expression—save when the rheumatism laid him
+low.
+
+“Whar’ yo’ chillen done git dat dawg?” he wanted to know, in
+astonishment.
+
+“Oh, Uncle Rufus!” cried Dot. “He came along looking _so_ wet——”
+
+“And he was _so_ tired and hungry,” added Tess.
+
+“I done spec’ yo’ chillen would take in er wild taggar, ef one come
+erlong lookin’ sort o’ meachin’,” grumbled the colored man.
+
+“But he’s so good!” said Tess. “See!” and she put her hand upon the
+handsome head of the bedraggled beast.
+
+“He jes’ er tramp dawg,” said Uncle Rufus, doubtfully.
+
+“He’s only tired and dirty,” said Tess, earnestly. “I don’t believe he
+wants to be a tramp. He doesn’t look at all like the tramps Mrs.
+MacCall feeds at the back door here.”
+
+“Nor like those horrid Gypsies that came to the house the other day,”
+added Dot eagerly. “I was afraid of them.”
+
+“Well, it suah ain’t b’long ’round yere—dat dawg,” muttered Uncle
+Rufus. “It done run erway f’om somewhar’ an’ hit trabbel
+far—ya-as’m!”
+
+He pulled the ears of the big dog himself, in a kindly fashion, and
+the dog pounded the porch harder with his tail and rolled a trusting
+eye up at the little group. Evidently the tramp dog was convinced that
+this would be a good place to remain in, and “rest up.”
+
+A pretty girl of twelve or thirteen, with flower-like face, plump, and
+her blue eyes dancing and laughing in spite of her, ran in at the side
+gate. She had a covered basket of groceries on her arm, and was
+swathed in a raincoat with a close hood about her face.
+
+“Agnes!” screamed Dot. “See what we’ve got! Just the nicest,
+friendfulnest dog——”
+
+“Mercy, Dot! More animals?” was the older sister’s first comment.
+
+“But he’s such a _nice_ dog,” wailed Dot.
+
+“And so hungry and wet,” added Tess.
+
+“What fine eyes he has!” exclaimed Agnes, stooping down to pat the
+noble head. Instantly the dog’s pink tongue sought her hand and—Agnes
+was won!
+
+“He’s splendid! he’s a fine old fellow!” she cried. “Of course we’ll
+keep him, Dot.”
+
+“If Ruthie says so,” added Tess, with a loyalty to the oldest Corner
+House girl born of the fact that Ruth had mothered the brood of three
+younger sisters since their real mother had died three years previous.
+
+“I dunno wot yo’ chillen want er dawg for,” complained Uncle Rufus.
+
+“To keep chicken thieves away,” said Agnes, promptly, laughing
+roguishly at the grumbling black man.
+
+“Oh!” cried Tess. “You said yourself, Uncle Rufus, that those Gypsies
+that stopped here might be looking at Ruth’s chickens.”
+
+“Well, I done guess dat tramp dawg knows when he’s well off,” said the
+old man, chuckling suddenly. “He’s layin’ down lak’ he’s fixin’ tuh
+stay—ya-as’m!”
+
+The dog had crept to the most sheltered corner of the porch and curled
+up on an old rag mat Mrs. MacCall had left there for the cats.
+
+“He ought to have that dirty old rope taken off,” said Agnes.
+
+Uncle Rufus drew out his clasp knife and opened the blade. He
+approached the weary dog and knelt down to remove the rope.
+
+“Glo-_ree_!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “He done got er collar on him.”
+
+It was hidden in the thick hair about the dog’s neck. The three girls
+crowded close to see, Uncle Rufus unbuckled it and handed the leather
+strap to Agnes.
+
+“See if there is any name and address on it, Aggie!” gasped Tess. “Oh!
+I hope not. Then, if we don’t know where he came from, he’s ours for
+keeps.”
+
+There was a small brass plate; but no name, address, or license number
+was engraved upon it. Instead, in clear script, it was marked:
+
+                     “THIS IS TOM JONAH. HE IS A
+                              GENTLEMAN.”
+
+“There!” cried Dot, as though this settled the controversy. “What did
+I tell you? He _can’t_ be any tramp dog. He’s a gentleman.”
+
+“‘Tom Jonah,’” murmured Agnes. “What a funny name!”
+
+When Ruth came home the younger girls bore her off at once to see Tom
+Jonah sleeping comfortably on the porch. The old dog raised his
+grizzled muzzle, wagged his tail, and beamed at her out of his soft
+brown eyes.
+
+“The dear love!” cried Tess, clasping her hands. “Isn’t he beautiful,
+Ruthie?”
+
+“Beautifully dirty,” said Ruth, doubtfully.
+
+“Oh, but Uncle Rufus says he will wash him to-morrow. He’s got some
+insect—insecty-suicide soap like he puts on the henroosts——”
+
+“Insecticide, Dot,” admonished Tess. “I wish you wouldn’t try to say
+words that you _can’t_ say.”
+
+Dot pouted. But Ruth patted her head and said, soothingly:
+
+“Never mind, honey. We’ll let the poor dog stay till he rests up,
+anyway. He looks like a kind creature.”
+
+But she, as well as the adults in the old Corner House, did not expect
+to see Tom Jonah the next morning when they awoke. He was allowed to
+remain on the porch, and despite the objections of Sandyface, the
+mother cat, and the army of younger felines growing up about her, Tom
+Jonah was given a bountiful supper by Mrs. MacCall herself.
+
+Dot and Tess ran to peep at the dog just before going to bed that
+night. He blinked at them in the lampshine from the open door, and
+thumped the porch flooring with his tail.
+
+It was past midnight before anything more was heard of Tom Jonah. Then
+the whole house was aroused—not to say the neighborhood. There was a
+savage salvo of barks from the porch, and down the steps scrambled Tom
+Jonah. They heard him go roaring down the yard.
+
+Then there arose a great confusion at the hen house—a squawking of
+frightened hens, the loud “cut, cut, ca-da-cut!” of the rooster,
+mingling with which was the voice of at least one human being and the
+savage baying of Tom Jonah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO
+
+
+Uncle Rufus was too old and too stiff to get out of bed and down from
+his third-story room in the old Corner House, to be of any assistance
+at this midnight incident. But the girls were awakened the moment Tom
+Jonah began barking.
+
+“It’s a hen thief!” squealed Tess, leaping out of her own warm nest.
+
+“I hope that dog bites him!” cried Agnes, savagely, from the other
+room.
+
+She ran to the window. It was a starlit, but foggy night. She could
+see only vaguely the objects out of doors.
+
+Ruth was scrambling into a skirt and dressing sacque; she thrust her
+feet into shoes, too, and started downstairs. Mrs. MacCall’s window
+went up with a bang, and the girls heard the housekeeper exclaim:
+
+“Shoo! shoo! Get out of there!”
+
+Whoever it was that had roused Tom Jonah, the person was evidently
+unable to “get out of there.” The dog’s threatening growls did not
+cease, and the man’s voice which had first been heard when the trouble
+started, was protesting.
+
+Agnes followed her older sister downstairs. Of course, Aunt Sarah
+Maltby, who slept in one of the grand front rooms in the main part of
+the house, did not even hear all the disturbance. And there were not
+any houses really near the Stower Homestead, which Milton people knew
+by the name of “the old Corner House.”
+
+Therefore, the sounds of conflict at the Kenway hennery were not
+likely to arouse many people. But when Ruth and Agnes reached
+out-of-doors, the younger girl remembered one person who might hear
+and be of assistance.
+
+“Let’s call Neale O’Neil!” she cried to Ruth. “He’ll help us.”
+
+“We’d better call a policeman,” said Ruth, running down the brick
+path.
+
+“Huh! you wouldn’t find a policeman in Milton at this hour of the
+night, if you searched for a week of Sundays,” was the younger girl’s
+ambiguous statement. Then she raised her voice and shouted: “Neale!
+Neale O’Neil! Help!”
+
+Meantime the dog continued his threatening bayings. The fowls
+fluttered and squawked. Billy Bumps began to blat and butt the
+partition in his pen. Whoever had ventured into the hennery had gotten
+into hot quarters and no mistake!
+
+Ruth stopped suddenly in the path and clutched at Agnes’ arm. Agnes
+was as lightly dressed as herself; but it was a warm June night and
+there was no danger of their getting cold.
+
+[Illustration: A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging
+with both hands to the ridge of it.]
+
+“Suppose the dog does not remember us?” the older girl gasped in
+Agnes’ ear. “Maybe—maybe he’ll tear us to pieces. How savage he
+sounds!”
+
+Agnes was frightened; but she had pluck, too. “Come on, Ruth!” she
+said. “He is only mad at the thief.”
+
+“If it _is_ a thief,” quavered Ruth. “I—I am afraid to go on, Aggie.”
+
+At that moment the sound of little feet pattering behind them made
+both girls turn. There were Dot and Tess, both barefooted, and Dot
+with merely a doubled-up comforter snatched from her bed, wrapped over
+her night clothes.
+
+“Mercy me, children!” gasped Ruth. “What are you doing here?”
+
+“Oh, we mustn’t let Tom Jonah _bite_ that man,” Tess declared, and
+kept right on running toward the henhouse.
+
+“If that dog bites——” screamed Ruth, and ran after her smaller
+sister.
+
+There was the big dog leaping savagely toward the low eaves of the
+hennery. A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging with both
+hands to the ridge of it. The girls obtained a glimpse of a dark face,
+with flashing teeth, and big gold rings in the marauder’s ears.
+
+“Tak’ dog away! Tak’ dog away!” the man said, in a strangled voice.
+
+“He’s one of those Gypsies,” whispered Agnes, in an awed voice.
+
+A tribe of the nomads in question had passed through Milton but a day
+or two before, and the girls had been frightened by the appearance of
+the men of the tribe who had called at the old Corner House.
+
+Now, whether this marauder belonged to the same people or not, Ruth
+saw that he looked like a Gypsy. For another reason, too, her mind was
+relieved at once; Tom Jonah was only savage toward the man on the
+roof.
+
+When Tess ran right up to the leaping dog, he stopped barking, and
+wagged his tail, as though satisfied that he had done his duty in
+drawing the family to the scene. But he still kept his eyes on the
+man, and occasionally uttered a growl deep in his throat.
+
+“What are you doing up there?” Ruth demanded of the man.
+
+“Tak’ away dog!” he whined.
+
+“No. I think I will let the dog hold you till a policeman comes. You
+were trying to rob our henroost.”
+
+“Oh, no, Missee! You wrong. No do that,” stammered the man.
+
+“What were you doing here, then?”
+
+Before the fellow could manufacture any plausible tale, a shout came
+from beyond the back fence, and somebody was heard to scramble into
+the Corner House yard.
+
+“What’s the matter, girls?” demanded Neale O’Neil’s cheerful voice.
+
+“Oh, come here, Neale!” cried Agnes. “Tom Jonah’s caught a Gypsy.”
+
+“Tom _Who_?” demanded the tall, pleasant-faced boy of fifteen, who
+immediately approached the henhouse.
+
+“Tom Jonah,” announced Tess. “He’s just the _nicest_ dog!”
+
+The boy saw the group more clearly then. He looked from the savagely
+growling animal to the man sprawling on the roof, and burst out
+laughing.
+
+“Yes! I guess that fellow up there feels that the dog is very ‘nice.’
+Where did you get the dog, and where did _he_ get his name?”
+
+“We’ll tell you all about that later, Neale,” said Ruth, more gravely.
+“At least, we’ll tell you all we know about the dear old dog. Isn’t he
+a splendid fellow to catch this man at my hens?”
+
+“And the fellow had some in this bag!” exclaimed Neale, finding a bag
+of flopping poultry at the corner of the hen-run.
+
+“Tak’ away dog!” begged the man on the roof again.
+
+“That’s all he’s afraid of,” said Agnes. “I bet he has a knife. Isn’t
+he a wicked looking fellow?”
+
+“Regular brigand,” agreed Neale. “What we going to do with him?”
+
+“Give him to a policeman,” suggested Agnes.
+
+“Do you suppose the policeman would _want_ him?” chuckled Neale. “To
+awaken a Milton officer at this hour of the night would be almost
+sacrilege, wouldn’t it?”
+
+“What _shall_ we do?” demanded Agnes.
+
+Ruth had been thinking more sensibly for a few moments. Now she spoke
+up decisively:
+
+“The man did not manage to do any harm. Put the poultry back in the
+house, Neale. If he ever comes again he will know what to expect. He
+thought we had no dog; but he sees we have—and a savage one. Let him
+go.”
+
+“Had we better do that, sister?” whispered Agnes. “Oughtn’t he to be
+punished?”
+
+“I expect so,” Ruth said, grimly. “But for once I am going to shirk my
+duty. We’ll take away the dog and let him go.”
+
+“Who’ll take him away?” demanded Agnes, suddenly.
+
+Neale had taken the sack in which the fowl struggled, to the door of
+the henhouse, opened it, and dumped the fowl out. Tom Jonah evidently
+recognized him for a friend, for he wagged his tail, but still kept
+his eye on the man upon the roof.
+
+“I declare!” said Ruth. “I hadn’t thought. Whom will he mind?”
+
+“Come here, Tom Jonah!” said Neale, snapping his fingers.
+
+Tom Jonah still wagged his tail, but he remained ready to receive the
+Gypsy (if such the fellow was) in his jaws, if he descended.
+
+“Come away, Tom!” exclaimed Agnes, confidently. “Come on back to the
+house.”
+
+The man on the roof moved and Tom Jonah stiffened. He refused to
+budge.
+
+“Guess you’ll have to call a cop after all,” said Neale, doubtfully.
+
+“Here, sir!” commanded Ruth. “Come away. You have done enough——”
+
+But the dog did not think so. He held his place and growled.
+
+“I guess you’re bound to stay up there, till daylight—or a
+policeman—doth appear, my friend,” called up Neale to the besieged.
+
+“Tak’ away dog!” begged the frightened fellow.
+
+“Why, Tom Jonah!” exclaimed Tess, walking up to the big dog and
+putting a hand on his collar. “You must come away when you are spoken
+to. You’ve caught the bad man, and that’s enough.”
+
+Tom Jonah turned and licked her hand. Then he moved a few steps away
+with her and looked back.
+
+“Come on with me, Tom Jonah,” commanded the little girl, firmly. “Let
+the bad man go.”
+
+“What do you know about _that_?” demanded Neale.
+
+The next minute the fellow had scrambled up the roof, caught the low
+hanging limb of a shade tree that stood near the fence, and swinging
+himself like a cat into the tree, he got out on another branch that
+overhung the sidewalk, dropped, and ran.
+
+Tom Jonah sprang to the fence with a savage bay; but the man only went
+the faster. The incident was closed in a minute, and the little party
+of half-dressed young folk went back to their beds, while the strange
+dog curled up on his mat in the corner of the porch again and slept
+the sleep of the just till morning.
+
+And now that the excitement is over, let us find out a little
+something about the Corner House girls, their friends, their condition
+in life, and certain interesting facts regarding them.
+
+When Mr. Howbridge, the lawyer from Milton and Uncle Peter Stower’s
+man of affairs and the administrator of his estate, came to the little
+tenement on Essex Street, Bloomingsburg, where the four orphaned
+Kenway girls had lived for some years with Aunt Sarah Maltby, he first
+met Tess and Dot returning from the drugstore with Aunt Sarah’s weekly
+supply of peppermint drops.
+
+Aunt Sarah had been a burden on the Kenways for many years. The girls
+had only their father’s pension to get along on. Aunt Sarah claimed
+that when Uncle Peter died, his great estate would naturally fall to
+her, and then she would return all the benefits she had received from
+the Kenway family.
+
+But the lawyer knew that queer old Uncle Peter Stower had made a will
+leaving practically all his property to the four girls in trust, and
+to Aunt Sarah only a small legacy. But this will had been hidden
+somewhere by the old man before his recent death and had not yet been
+found.
+
+There seemed to be no other claimants to the Stower Estate, however,
+and the court allowed Mr. Howbridge to take the Kenway girls and Aunt
+Sarah to Milton and establish them in the Stower Homestead, known far
+and wide as the old Corner House.
+
+Here, during the year that had passed, many interesting and exciting
+things had happened to Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot.
+
+Ruth was the head of the family, and the lawyer greatly admired her
+good sense and ability. She was not a strikingly pretty girl, for she
+had “stringy” black hair and little color; but her eyes were big and
+brown, and those eyes, and her mouth, laughed suddenly at you and gave
+expression to her whole face. She was now completing her seventeenth
+year.
+
+Agnes was thirteen, a jolly, roly-poly girl, who was fond of jokes, a
+bit of a tomboy, up to all sorts of pranks—who laughed easily and
+cried stormily—had “lots of molasses colored hair” as she said
+herself, and was the possessor of a pair of blue eyes that could stare
+a rude boy out of countenance, but who _would_ spoil the effect of
+this the next instant by giggling; a girl who had a soulmate among her
+girl friends all of the time, but not frequently did one last for long
+in the catalog of her “best friends.”
+
+Nobody remembered that Tess had been named Theresa. She was a wise
+little ten-year-old who possessed some of Ruth’s dignity and some of
+Agnes’ prettiness, and the most tender heart in the world, which made
+her naturally tactful. She was quick at her books and very courageous.
+
+Dorothy, or Dot, was the baby and pet of the family. She was a little
+brunette fairy; and if she was not very wise as yet, she was faithful
+and lovable, and not one of “the Corner House girls,” as the Kenways
+were soon called by Milton people, was more beloved than Dot.
+
+The girls’ best boy friend lived with the old cobbler, Mr. Con Murphy,
+on the rear street, and in a little house the yard of which adjoined
+the larger grounds of the old Corner House. We have seen how quickly
+Neale O’Neil came to the assistance of the Kenway girls when they were
+in trouble.
+
+Neale had been brought up among circus people, his mother having
+traveled all her life with Twomley & Sorber’s Herculean Circus and
+Menagerie. The boy’s desire for an education and to win a better place
+in the world for himself, had caused him to run away from his uncle,
+Mr. Sorber, and support himself in Milton while he attended school.
+
+The Corner House girls had befriended Neale and when his uncle finally
+searched him out and found the boy, it was they who influenced the man
+against taking Neale away. Neale had proved himself an excellent
+scholar and had made friends in Milton; now he was about to graduate
+with Agnes from the highest grammar grade to high school.
+
+The particulars of all these happenings have been related in the first
+two volumes of the series, entitled respectively, “The Corner House
+Girls” and “The Corner House Girls at School.”
+
+When Agnes woke up in the morning following the unsuccessful raid of
+the Gypsy man on the hennery, she had something of wonderful
+importance to tell Ruth. She had seen her “particular friend,” Trix
+Severn, on the street Saturday afternoon and Trix had told her
+something.
+
+“You’ve heard the girls talking about Pleasant Cove, Ruthie?” said
+Agnes, earnestly. “You know Mr. Terrence Severn owns one of the big
+hotels there?”
+
+“Of course. Trix talks enough about it,” said the older Kenway girl.
+
+“Oh! you don’t like Trix——”
+
+“I’m not exceedingly fond of her. And there was a time when you
+thought her your very deadliest enemy,” laughed Ruth.
+
+“Well! Trix has changed,” declared the unsuspicious Agnes, “and she’s
+proposed the very nicest thing, Ruth. She says her mother and father
+will let her bring all four of us to the Cove for the first fortnight
+after graduation. The hotel will not be full then, and we will be
+Trix’s guests. And we’ll have loads of fun.”
+
+“I—don’t—know——-” began Ruth, but Agnes broke in warmly:
+
+“Now, don’t you say ‘No,’ Ruthie Kenway! Don’t you say ‘No!’ I’ve just
+made up my mind to go to Pleasant Cove——”
+
+“No need of flying off, Ag,” said Ruth, in the cool tone that usually
+brought Agnes “down to earth again.” “We have talked of going there
+for a part of the summer. A change to salt air will be beneficial for
+us all—so Dr. Forsythe says. I have talked to Mr. Howbridge, and he
+says ‘Yes.’”
+
+“Well, then!”
+
+“But I doubt the advisability of accepting Trix Severn’s invitation.”
+
+“Now, isn’t that mean——”
+
+“Hold your horses,” again advised Ruth. “We will go, anyway. If all is
+well we will stay at the hotel a while. Pearl Harrod’s uncle owns a
+bungalow there, too; _she_ has asked me to come there for a while, and
+bring you all.”
+
+“Well! isn’t that nice?” agreed Agnes. “Then we can stay twice as
+long.”
+
+“Whether it will be right for us to accept the hospitality offered us
+when we have no means of returning it——”
+
+“Oh, dear me, Ruth! don’t be a fuss-cat.”
+
+“There is a big tent colony there—quite removed from the hotel,”
+suggested Ruth. “Many of our friends and their folks are going
+_there_. Neale O’Neil is going with a party of the boys for at least
+two weeks.”
+
+“Say! we’ll have scrumptious times,” cried Agnes, with sparkling eyes.
+Her anticipation of every joy in life added immensely to the joy
+itself.
+
+“Yes—if we go,” said Ruth, slowly. But it was something for the
+others to look forward to with much pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE DANCE AT CARRIE POOLE’S
+
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway had something of particular interest to hold their
+attention, too, the minute they awoke on this Sunday morning. Dot
+voiced the matter first when she asked:
+
+“Do you suppose that dear Tom Jonah is here yet, Tess?”
+
+“Oh, I hope so!” cried the older girl.
+
+“Let’s run see,” suggested Dot, and nothing loth Tess slipped into her
+bathrobe and slippers, too, and the two girls pattered downstairs.
+Their baths, always overseen by Ruth, were neglected. They must see,
+they thought, if the good old dog was on the porch.
+
+Nobody was astir downstairs; Mrs. MacCall had not yet left her room,
+and on Sunday mornings even Uncle Rufus allowed himself an extra hour
+in bed. There was the delicious smell of warm baked beans left over
+night in the range oven; the big, steaming pot would be set upon the
+table at breakfast, flanked with golden-brown muffins on one side and
+the sliced “loaf,” or brownbread, on the other.
+
+Sandyface came yawning from her basket behind the stove when Tess and
+Dot entered the kitchen. She had four little black and white blind
+babies in that basket which she had found in a barrel in the woodshed
+only a few days before.
+
+Mrs. MacCall said she did not know what was to be done with the four
+kittens. Sandyface’s original family was quite grown up, and if these
+four were allowed to live, too, that would make nine cats around the
+old Corner House.
+
+“And the goodness knows!” exclaimed the housekeeper, “that’s a whole
+lot more than any family has a business to keep. We’re overrun with
+cats.”
+
+Tess unlocked the door and she and Dot went out on the porch,
+Sandyface following. There was no sign of the big dog.
+
+“Tom Jonah’s gone!” sighed Dot, quaveringly.
+
+“I wouldn’t have thought it—when we treated him so nicely,” said
+Tess.
+
+Sandyface sniffed suspiciously at the old mat on which the dog had
+lain. Then she looked all about before venturing off the porch.
+
+The sunshine and quiet of a perfect Sunday morning lay all about the
+old Corner House. Robins sought their very souls for music to tell how
+happy they were, in the tops of the cherry trees. Catbirds had not yet
+lost their love songs of the spring; though occasionally one scolded
+harshly when a roaming cat came too near the hidden nest.
+
+Wrens hopped about the path, and even upon the porch steps, secure in
+their knowledge that they were too quick for Sandyface to reach, and
+with unbounded faith in human beings. An oriole burst into melody,
+swinging in the great snowball bush near the Willow Street fence.
+
+There was a moist, warm smell from the garden; the old rooster crowed
+raucously; Billy Bumps bleated a wistful “Good-morning” from his pen.
+Then came a scramble of padded feet, and Sandyface went up the nearest
+tree like a flash of lightning.
+
+“Here is Tom Jonah!” cried Tess, with delight.
+
+From around the corner of the woodshed appeared the big, shaggy dog.
+He cocked one ear and actually smiled when he saw the cat go up the
+tree. But he trotted right up on the porch to meet the delighted
+girls.
+
+His brown eyes were deep pools where golden sparks played. The mud had
+been mostly shaken off his flanks and paws. He was rested, and he
+acted as though he were sure of his position here at the old Corner
+House.
+
+“Good old fellow!” cried Tess, putting out a hand to pat him.
+
+At once Tom Jonah put up his right paw to shake hands. He repeated the
+feat with Dot the next moment, to the delight of both girls.
+
+“Oh!” gasped Dot, “he’s a trick dog.”
+
+“He’s just what his collar says; he’s a gentleman,” sighed Tess,
+happily. “Oh! I hope his folks won’t ever come after him.”
+
+Ruth had to come down for Tess and Dot or they would not have been
+bathed and dressed in time for breakfast. The smaller girls were very
+much taken with Tom Jonah.
+
+They found that he had more accomplishments than “shaking hands.” When
+Agnes came down and heard about his first manifestation of education,
+she tried him at other “stunts.”
+
+He sat up at the word of command. He would hold a bit of meat, or a
+sweet cracker, on his nose any length of time you might name, and
+never offer to eat it until you said, “Now, sir!” or something of the
+kind. Then Tom Jonah would jerk the tidbit into the air and catch it
+in his jaws as it came down.
+
+And those jaws! Powerful indeed, despite some of the teeth having been
+broken and discolored by age. For Tom Jonah was no puppy. Uncle Rufus
+declared him to be at least twelve years old, and perhaps more than
+that.
+
+But he had the physique of a lion—a great, broad chest, and muscles
+in his shoulders that slipped under the skin when he was in action
+like a tiger’s. Now that he was somewhat rested from the long journey
+he had evidently taken, he seemed a very powerful, healthy dog.
+
+“And he would have eaten that tramp up, if he’d gotten hold of him,”
+Agnes declared, as they gathered at the breakfast table.
+
+“Oh, no, Aggie; I don’t think Tom Jonah would really have _bitten_
+that Gypsy man,” Tess hastened to say. “But he might have grabbed his
+coat and held on.”
+
+“With those jaws—I guess he would have held on,” sighed Agnes.
+
+“Anyway,” said Dot, “he saved Ruthie’s hens. Didn’t he, Ruthie?”
+
+“I’ll gladly pay his license fee if he wants to stay with us,” said
+Ruth, gaily.
+
+The cornmeal muffins chanced to be a little over-baked that morning;
+at least, one panful was. Dot did not like “crusts”; she had been
+known to hide very hard ones under the edge of her plate.
+
+She played with one of these muffin crusts more than she ate it, and
+Aunt Sarah Maltby (who was a very grim lady indeed with penetrating
+eyes and a habit of seldom speaking) had an accusing eye upon the
+little girl.
+
+“Dorothy,” she said, suddenly, “you will see the time, I have no
+doubt, when you will be hungry for that crust. You had better eat it
+now like a nice girl.”
+
+“Aunt Sarah, I really do not want it,” said Dot, gravely. “And—and if
+I don’t, do you think I shall really some day be hungry for just
+_this_ pertic’lar crust?”
+
+“You will. I expect nothing less,” snapped Aunt Sarah. “The Kenways
+was allus spend-thrifts. Why! when I was your age, Dorothy, I was glad
+to get dry bread to eat!”
+
+Dot looked at her with serious interest. “You must have been awfully
+poor, Aunt Sarah,” she said, sympathetically. “You have a much better
+time living with us, don’t you?”
+
+Ruth shook her head admonishingly at the smallest girl; but for once
+Aunt Sarah was rather nonplussed, and nobody heard her speak again
+before she went off to church.
+
+Neale came over later, dressed for Sunday school, and he was as much
+interested in the new boarder at the Corner House as the girls
+themselves.
+
+“If he belongs anywhere around Milton, somebody will surely know about
+him,” said the boy. “I’ll make inquiries. Wherever he comes from, he
+must be well known in that locality.”
+
+“Why so?” demanded Agnes.
+
+“Because of what it says on his collar,” laughed Neale O’Neil.
+
+“Because of what it _doesn’t_ say, I guess,” explained Ruth, seeing
+her sister’s puzzled face. “There is no name of owner, or license
+number. Do you see?”
+
+“It—it would be an insult to license a dog like Tom Jonah,” sputtered
+Tess. “Just—just like a tag on an automobile!”
+
+“Yo’ right, honey,” chuckled Uncle Rufus. “He done seem like
+folkses—don’ he? I’se gwine tuh give him a reg’lar barf an’ cure up
+dem sore feetses ob his. He’ll be anudder dawg—sho’ will!”
+
+The old man took Tom Jonah to the grass plot near the garden hydrant,
+and soaped him well—with the “insect-suicide” soap Dot had talked
+about—and afterward washed him down with the hose. Tom Jonah stood
+for it all; he had evidently been used to having his toilet attended
+to.
+
+When the girls came home from Sunday school, they found him lying on
+the porch, all warm and dried and his hair “fluffy.” They had asked
+everybody they met—almost—about Tom Jonah; but not a soul knew
+anything regarding him.
+
+“He’s going to be ours for keeps! He’s going to be ours for keeps!”
+sang Tess, with delight.
+
+Sandyface’s earlier family—Spotty, Almira, Bungle and
+Popocatepetl—had taken a good look at the big dog, and then backed
+away with swelling tails and muffled objections. But the old cat had
+to attend to the four little blind mites behind the kitchen range, so
+she had grown familiar enough with Tom Jonah to pass him on her way to
+and from the kitchen door.
+
+He was too much of a gentleman, as his collar proclaimed, to pay her
+the least attention save for a friendly wag of his bushy tail. To the
+four half-grown cats he gave little heed. But Tess and Dot thought
+that he ought to become acquainted with the un-named kittens in the
+basket immediately.
+
+“If they get used to him, you know,” said Tess, “they’ll all live
+together just like a ‘happy family.’”
+
+“Like _us_?” suggested Dot, who did not quite understand the
+reference, having forgotten the particular cage thus labeled in the
+circus they had seen the previous summer.
+
+“Why! of course like us!” laughed Tess, and Sandyface being away
+foraging for her brood, Tess seized the basket and carried it out on
+the porch, setting it down before Tom Jonah who was lying in the sun.
+
+The big dog sniffed at the basket but did not offer to disturb the
+sleeping kittens. That would not do for the curious girls. They had to
+delve deeper into the natural lack of affinity between the canine and
+the feline families.
+
+So Tess lifted one little black and white, squirmy kitten—just as its
+mother did, by the back of its neck—and set it upon the porch before
+the dog’s nose. The kitten became awake instantly. Blind as it was, it
+stiffened its spine into an arch, backed away from the vicinity of the
+dog precipitately, and “spit” like a tiny teakettle boiling over.
+
+“Oh! oh! the horrid thing,” wailed Dot. “And poor Tom Jonah didn’t do
+a thing to it!”
+
+“But see him!” gasped Tess, in a gale of giggles.
+
+For really, Tom Jonah looked too funny for anything. He turned away
+his head with a most embarrassed expression of countenance and would
+not look again at the spitting little animal. He evidently felt
+himself in a most ridiculous position and finally got up and went off
+the porch altogether until the girls returned the basket of kittens to
+its proper place behind the stove.
+
+At dinner that Sunday, when Uncle Rufus served the roast, he held the
+swinging door open until Tom Jonah paced in behind him into the
+dining-room. Seeing the roast placed before Mrs. MacCall, Tom Jonah
+sat down beside her chair in a good position to observe the feast; but
+waited his turn in a most gentlemanly manner.
+
+Mrs. MacCall cut some meat for him and put it on a plate. This Uncle
+Rufus put before Tom Jonah; but the big dog did not offer to eat it
+until he was given permission. And now he no longer “gobbled,” but ate
+daintily, and sat back when he was finished like any well-bred person,
+waiting for the next course.
+
+Even Aunt Sarah looked with approval upon the new acquisition to the
+family of the old Corner House. She had heard the tale of his rescue
+of Ruth’s poultry from the marauding Gypsy, and patted Tom Jonah’s
+noble head.
+
+“It’s a good thing to have a watch-dog on the premises,” she said,
+“with all that old silver and trash you girls insist upon keeping out
+of the plate-safe. Your Uncle Peter would turn in his grave if he knew
+how common you was makin’ the Stower plate.”
+
+“But what is the good of having a thing if you don’t make use of it?”
+queried Ruth, stoutly.
+
+Ruth was a girl with a mind of her own, and not even the carping
+criticisms of Aunt Sarah could turn her from her course if once she
+was convinced that what she did was right. Nor was she frightened by
+her schoolmates’ opinions—as note her friendship with Rosa Wildwood.
+
+Bob Wildwood was a “character” in Milton. People smiled at him and
+forgave his peculiarities to a degree; but they could not respect him.
+
+In the first place, Bob was a Southerner—and a Southerner in a New
+England town is just as likely to be misunderstood, as a Northerner in
+a Georgian town.
+
+Bob and his daughter, Rosa, had drifted to Milton a couple of years
+previous. They had been “drifting” for most of the girl’s short life;
+but now Rosa was quite big enough to have some influence with her
+shiftless father, and they had taken some sort of root in the harsh
+New England soil, so different from their own rich bottom-lands of the
+South.
+
+Besides, Rosa was in ill health. She was “weakly”; Bob spoke of her as
+having “a mis’ry in her chest.” Dr. Forsythe found that the girl had
+weak lungs, but he was sane and old-fashioned enough to scout the idea
+that she was in danger of becoming a victim of tuberculosis.
+
+“If you go to work, Bob, and earn for her decent food and a warm
+shelter, she will pull through and get as hearty and strong as our
+Northern girls,” declared the doctor, sternly. “You say you lost her
+twin two years ago——”
+
+“But I didn’t done los’ Juniper by no sickness,” muttered Bob, shaking
+his head.
+
+The Corner House girls thought Bob Wildwood a most amusing man, for he
+talked just like a darky (to their ears); but Uncle Rufus shook his
+head in scorn at Wildwood. “He’s jes’ no-’count white trash,” the old
+colored man observed.
+
+However, spurred by the doctor’s threat, Bob let drink alone for the
+most part, and went to work for Rosa, his remaining daughter, who was
+just Ruth’s age and was in her class at High—when she was well enough
+to get there. In spite of her blood and bringing up, Rosa Wildwood had
+a quick and retentive mind and stood well in her classes.
+
+Bob became a coal-heaver. He worked for Lovell & Malmsey. He drove a
+pair of mules without lines, ordering them about in a most wonderful
+manner in a tongue entirely strange to Northern teamsters; and he was
+black with coal-dust from week-end to week-end. Ruth said there only
+was one visible white part of Rosa’s father; that was the whites of
+his eyes.
+
+The man must have loved his daughter very much, however; for it was
+his nature to be shiftless. He would have gone hungry and ragged
+himself rather than work. He now kept steadily at his job for Rosa’s
+sake.
+
+On Monday Rosa was not at school, and coming home to luncheon at noon,
+Ruth ran half a block out of her way to find out what was the matter.
+Not alone was the tenement the Wildwoods occupied a very poor one, but
+Rosa was no housekeeper. It almost disgusted the precise and prim Ruth
+Kenway to go into the three-room tenement.
+
+Rosa had a cold, and of course it had settled on her chest. She was
+just dragging herself around to get something hot for Bob’s dinner.
+Ruth made her go back to bed, and she finished the preparations.
+
+When she came to make the tea, the Corner House girl was horrified to
+observe that the metal teapot had probably not been thoroughly washed
+out since the day the Wildwoods had taken up their abode in Milton.
+
+“Paw likes to have the tea set back on the stove,” drawled Rosa, with
+her pleasant Southern accent. “When he gets a chance, he runs in and
+‘takes a swig,’ as he calls it, out of the pot. He says it’s good for
+the gnawin’ in his stomach—it braces him up an’ is _so_ much better
+than when he useter mix toddies,” said the girl, gratefully. “We’d
+have had June with us yet, if it hadn’t been for paw’s toddies.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Ruth, startled. “I thought your sister June died?”
+
+Rosa shook her head and the tears flowed into her soft eyes. “Oh, no.
+She went away. She couldn’t stand the toddies no more, she said—and
+her slavin’ to keep the house nice, and us movin’ on all the time.
+June was housekeeper—she was a long sight smarter’n me, Ruth.”
+
+“But the teachers at school think you are awfully smart,” declared the
+Corner House girl.
+
+“June warn’t so smart at her books,” said Rosa. “But she could do
+_anything_ with her hands. You’d thunk she was two years older’n me,
+too. She was dark and handsome. She got mad, and run away, and then we
+started lookin’ for her; but we’ve never found her yet,” sighed Rosa.
+“And now I’ve got so miserable that I can’t keep traveling with paw.
+So we got to stop here, and maybe we won’t ever see June again.”
+
+“Oh! I hope you will,” cried Ruth. “Now, your father’s dinner is all
+ready to dish up. And I’ll come back after school this afternoon and
+rid up the house for you; don’t you do a thing.”
+
+Ruth had time that noon for only a bite at home, and explained to Mrs.
+MacCall that she would be late in returning from school. She carried a
+voluminous apron with her to cover her school frock when she set about
+“ridding up” the Wildwood domicile.
+
+Ruth wanted to help Rosa; she hoped Rosa would keep up with the class
+and be promoted at the end of the term, as she was sure to be herself.
+And she was sorry for sooty, odd-talking Bob Wildwood.
+
+What Rosa had said about her lost twin sister had deeply interested
+Ruth Kenway. She wanted, too, to ask the Southern girl about “June,”
+or Juniper.
+
+“We were the last children maw had,” said Rosa. “She just seemed to
+give up after we were born. The others were all sickly—just drooped
+and faded. And they all were girls and had flower names. Maw was right
+fanciful, I reckon.
+
+“I wish June had held on. She’d stuck it out, I know, if she’d
+believed paw could stop drinking toddies. But, you see he _has_. He
+‘swigs’ an awful lot of tea, though, and I expect it’s tanning him
+inside just like he was leather!”
+
+Ruth really thought this was probable—especially with the teapot in
+the condition she had found it. But she had put some washing soda in
+the pot, filled it with boiling water, and set it back on the stove to
+stew some of the “tannin” out of it.
+
+While the Corner House girl was talking with Rosa in the little
+bedroom the girl called her own, Bob brought his mules to a halt
+before the house with an empty wagon, and ran in as usual.
+
+The girls heard him enter the outer room; but Ruth never thought of
+what the man’s object might be until Rosa laughed and said:
+
+“There’s paw now, for a swig at the teapot. I hope you left it full
+fo’ him, Ruthie, dear.”
+
+“Oh, goodness mercy me!” cried the Corner House girl, and darted out
+to the kitchen to warn the man.
+
+But she was too late. Already the begrimed Bob Wildwood had the spout
+of the teapot to his lips and several swallows of the scalding and
+acrid mixture gurgled down his throat before he discovered that it was
+not tea!
+
+“Woof! woof! woof!” he sputtered, and flung pot and all away from him.
+“Who done tryin’ poison me! Woof! I’s scalded with poison!”
+
+He coughed and spluttered over the sink, and then tried a draught of
+cold water from the spigot—which probably did him just as much good
+as anything.
+
+“Oh, dear me, Mr. Wildwood!” gasped Ruth, standing with clasped hands
+and looking at the sooty man, half frightened. “I—I was just boiling
+the teapot out.”
+
+“Boilin’ it out?”
+
+“Yes, sir. With soda. I—I——It won’t poison you, I guess.”
+
+“My Lawd!” groaned Bob. “What won’t yo’ Northerners do nex’? Wash out
+er teapot!” and he grumblingly went forth to his team and drove away.
+
+Ruth felt that her good intentions were misunderstood—to a degree.
+But Rosa thanked her very prettily for what she had done, and the next
+day she was able to come to school again.
+
+It was only a few days later that Carrie Poole invited a number of the
+high school girls and boys—and some of the younger set—to the last
+dance of the season at her home. She lived in a huge old farmhouse,
+some distance out of town on the Buckshot road, and the Corner House
+girls and Neale O’Neil had spent several pleasant evenings there
+during the winter and spring.
+
+The night before this party there was a big wind, and a part of one of
+the chimneys came down into the side yard during the night with a
+noise like thunder; so Ruth had to telephone for a mason before
+breakfast.
+
+Had it not been for this happening, the Corner House girls—at least,
+Ruth and Agnes—and Neale O’Neil, would have escaped rather an
+embarrassing incident at the party.
+
+Neale came over to supper the evening of the party, and he brought his
+pumps in a newspaper under his arm.
+
+“Come on, girls, let’s have your dancing slippers,” he said to the two
+older Corner House girls, who were going to the dance. “I’ll put them
+with mine.”
+
+And he did so—rolling the girls’ pretty slippers up in the same
+parcel with his own. He left the parcel in the kitchen. Later it was
+discovered that the mason’s helper had left a similarly wrapped parcel
+there, too.
+
+When the three young folk started off, it was Agnes who ran back after
+the bundle of dancing slippers. Neale carried it under his arm, and
+they walked briskly out through the suburbs of Milton and on along the
+Buckshot road.
+
+“Are you really going to Pleasant Cove this summer, Neale?” demanded
+Agnes, as they went on together.
+
+“If I can. Joe has asked me. And you girls?”
+
+“Trix says we must come to her father’s hotel for two weeks at least,”
+Agnes declared.
+
+“Humph!” said Neale, doubtfully. “Are you going, Ruth?”
+
+“I—don’t—know,” admitted the older Corner House girl.
+
+“Now, isn’t that just too mean?” complained Agnes. “You just say that
+because you don’t like Trix.”
+
+“I don’t know whether Trix will be of the same mind when the time
+comes,” said Ruth, firmly.
+
+“I believe you,” grunted Neale.
+
+Agnes pouted. “It’s just mean of you,” she said. “Of course she will
+want us to go.” While Agnes was “spoons” with a girl, she was always
+strictly loyal to her. She could not possibly see Trix Severn’s faults
+just now.
+
+They arrived at the farmhouse and found a crowd already assembled.
+There was a great deal of talking and laughter, and while Neale stood
+chatting with some of the boys in the hall, Ruth and Agnes came to him
+for their slippers.
+
+“Sure!” said the boy, producing the newspaper-wrapped bundle he
+carried. “Guess I’ll put on my own pumps, too.”
+
+He unrolled the parcel. Then a yell of derision and laughter arose
+from the onlookers; instead of three pairs of dancing slippers, Neale
+produced two pairs of half-worn and lime-bespattered shoes belonging
+to the masons who had repaired the old Corner House chimney!
+
+“Now we can’t dance!” wailed Agnes.
+
+“Oh, Neale!” gasped Ruth, while the young folk about them went off
+into another gale of laughter.
+
+“Well, it wasn’t my fault,” grumbled Neale. “Aggie went after the
+bundle.”
+
+“Shouldn’t have left them right there with the masons’ bundle—so
+now!” snapped Agnes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MYSTERY OF JUNE WILDWOOD
+
+
+Now, Trix Severn had maneuvered so as to get the very first dance with
+Neale O’Neil. Among all the boys who attended the upper grammar
+grades, and the High, of Milton, the boy who had been brought up in a
+circus was the best dancer. The older girls all were glad to get him
+for a partner.
+
+Time had been when Trix sneered at “that circus boy,” but that was
+before he and the two older Corner House girls had saved Trix from a
+collapsing snow palace back in mid-winter.
+
+Since that time she had taken up with Agnes Kenway as her very closest
+chum, and she had visited the old Corner House a good deal. When Agnes
+and her sister arrived at the party on this evening, with Neale as
+escort, Trix determined to have at least _one_ dance with the popular
+boy.
+
+“Oh, Neale!” she whispered, fluttering up to him in her very nicest
+way, “Ruth and Agnes will be half an hour primping, upstairs. The
+music is going to strike up. Do let _us_ have the first dance.”
+
+“All right,” said Neale, good-naturedly.
+
+It was the moment later that the discovery was made of the masons’
+shoes in the bundle he carried under his arm.
+
+“Now we can’t dance,” repeated Agnes, when the laughter had somewhat
+subsided.
+
+“Oh, Neale can dance just as well,” Trix said, carelessly. “Come on,
+Neale! You know this is _our_ dance.”
+
+Of course Neale could dance in his walking shoes. But he saw Agnes’
+woebegone face and he hesitated.
+
+“It’s too bad, Aggie,” he said. “If it wasn’t so far——-”
+
+“Why, Neale O’Neill” snapped Trix, unwisely. “You don’t mean to say
+you’d be foolish enough to go clear back to the Corner House for those
+girls’ slippers?”
+
+Perhaps it was just this opposition that was needed to start Neale
+off. He pulled his cap from his pocket and turned toward the door,
+with a shrug. “I guess I can get back in an hour, Ag. Don’t you and
+Ruth dance much in your heavy shoes until then. You’ll tire yourselves
+all out.”
+
+“Why, Neale O’Neill” cried Trix. “You won’t do it?”
+
+Even Ruth murmured against the boy’s making the trip for the slippers.
+“We can get along, Neale,” she said, in her quiet way.
+
+“And you promised to dance with me this first dance,” declared Trix,
+angrily, as the music began.
+
+Neale did not pay much attention to her—at the moment. “It’s my
+fault, I guess,” he said, laughing. “I’ll go back for them, Ag.”
+
+But Trix got right between him and the door. “Now! you sha’n’t go off
+and leave me in the lurch that way, Neale O’Neill” she cried, shrilly.
+
+“Aw——There are other dances. Wait till I come back,” he said.
+
+“You can dance in the shoes you have on,” Trix said, sharply.
+
+“What if?”
+
+“But _we_ can’t, Trix,” interposed Agnes, much distressed. “Ruth and
+I, you know——”
+
+“I don’t care!” interrupted Trix, boiling over at last. “You Corner
+House girls are the most selfish things! You’d spoil his fun for half
+the party——”
+
+“Aw, don’t bother!” growled Neale, in much disgust.
+
+“I will bother! You——”
+
+“Guess she thinks she owns you, Neale,” chuckled one of the boys,
+adding fuel to the flames. Neale did not feel any too pleasant after
+that. He flung away from Trix Severn’s detaining grasp.
+
+“I’m going—it isn’t any of _your_ concern,” he muttered, to the angry
+girl.
+
+Ruth bore Agnes away. She was half crying. The rift in the intimacy
+between her soulmate and herself was apparent to all.
+
+To make the matter worse—according to Trix’s version—when Neale
+finally returned, almost breathless, with the mislaid slippers, he
+insisted, first of all, upon dancing with Ruth and Agnes. Then he
+would have favored Trix (Ruth had advised it), but the angry girl
+would not speak to him.
+
+“He’s nothing but a low circus boy, anyway!” she told Lucy Poole. “And
+I don’t think really well-bred girls would care to have anything to do
+with him.”
+
+Those who heard her laughed. They had known Trix Severn’s ways for a
+long time. She had been upon her good behavior; but it did not
+surprise her old acquaintances that she should act like this.
+
+It made a difference to the Corner House girls, however, for it made
+their plans about going to Pleasant Cove uncertain.
+
+The other girls knew that Trix had invited the Corner House girls for
+the first two weeks after graduation, and that Ruth had tentatively
+accepted. Therefore even Pearl Harrod—who wanted Ruth and her
+sisters, herself—scarcely knew whether to put in a claim for them or
+not.
+
+Graduation Day was very near at hand; the very day following the
+closing of the Milton High, several family parties were to leave for
+the seaside resort which was so popular in this part of New England.
+
+They had to pass through Bloomingsburg to get to it, but when the
+Kenways had lived in that city, they had never expected to spend any
+part of the summer season at such a beautiful summer resort as
+Pleasant Cove.
+
+It was a bungalow colony, with several fine hotels, built around a
+tiny, old-fashioned fishing port. There was a still cove, a beautiful
+river emptying into it, and outside, a stretch of rocky Atlantic coast
+on which the ocean played grim tunes during stormy weather.
+
+This was as much as the Corner House girls knew about it as yet. But
+they all looked forward to their first visit to the place with keen
+delight. Tess and Dot were talking about the expected trip a good deal
+of the time they were awake. Most of their doll-play was colored now
+by thoughts of Pleasant Cove.
+
+They were not too busy to help Mrs. MacCall take the last of the
+winter clothing to the garret, however, and see her pack it away in
+the chests there. As she did this the housekeeper sprinkled, with
+lavish hand, the camphor balls among the layers of clothing.
+
+Dot had tentatively tasted one of the hard, white balls, and
+shuddered. “But they _do_ look so much like candy, Tess,” she said.
+Then she suddenly had another thought:
+
+“Oh, Mrs. MacCall! what do you suppose the poor moths had to live on
+’way back in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve wore any clothes?”
+
+“Now, can you beat _that_?” demanded the housekeeper, of nobody in
+particular. “What won’t that young one get in her head!”
+
+Meanwhile Ruth was helping Rosa Wildwood all she could, so that the
+girl from the South would be able to pass in the necessary
+examinations and stand high enough in the class to be promoted.
+
+Housework certainly “told on” Rosa. Bob said “it jest seems t’ take
+th’ puckerin’ string all out’n her—an’ she jest draps down like a
+flower.”
+
+“We’ll help her, Mr. Wildwood,” Ruth said. “But she really ought to
+have a rest.”
+
+“Hi Godfrey!” ejaculated the coal heaver. “I tell her she kin let the
+housework go. We don’t have no visitors—savin’ an’ exceptin’ _you_,
+ma’am.”
+
+“But she wants to keep the place decent, you see,” Ruth told him. “And
+she can scarcely do that and keep up with her studies—now. You see,
+she’s so weak.”
+
+“Hi Godfrey!” exclaimed the man again. “Ain’t thar sech a thing as
+bein’ a mite _too_ clean?”
+
+But Bob Wildwood had an immense respect for Ruth; likewise he was
+grateful because she showed an interest in his last remaining
+daughter.
+
+“I tell you, sir,” the oldest Corner House girl said, gravely. “Rosa
+needs a change and a rest. And all us girls are going to Pleasant Cove
+this summer. Will you let Rosa come down, too, for a while, if I pay
+her way and look out for her?”
+
+The man was somewhat disturbed by the question. “Yuh see, Miss,” he
+observed, scratching his head thoughtfully, “she’s all I got. I’d
+plumb be lost ’ithout Rosa.”
+
+“But only for a week or two.”
+
+“I know. And I wouldn’t want tuh stand in her way. I crossed her
+sister too much—that’s what _I_ did. Juniper was a sight more uppity
+than Rosa—otherwise she wouldn’t have flew the coop,” said Bob
+Wildwood, shaking his head.
+
+Ruth, all tenderness for his bereavement, hastened to say: “Oh, you’ll
+find her again, sir. Surely you don’t believe she’s dead?”
+
+“No. If she ain’t come to a _bad_ end, she’s all right somewhar. But
+she’d oughter be home with her sister—and with me. Ye see, she was
+pretty—an’ smart. No end smart! She went off in bad comp’ny.”
+
+“How do you mean, Mr. Wildwood?” asked Ruth, deeply interested.
+
+“Travelin’ folks. They had a van an’ a couple team o’ mules, an’ the
+man sold bitters an’ corn-salve. The woman dressed mighty fine, an’
+she took June’s eye.
+
+“We follered ’em a long spell, me an’ Rosa. But we didn’t never ketch
+up to ’em. If we had, I’d sure tuck a hand-holt of that medicine man.
+He an’ his woman put all the foolishness inter Juniper’s haid.
+
+“An’ Rosa misses her sister like poison, too,” finished Bob Wildwood,
+slowly shaking his head.
+
+There seemed to be a mystery connected with the disappearance of
+Rosa’s sister, and Ruth Kenway was just as curious as she could be
+about it; but she stuck to her subject until Bob Wildwood agreed to
+spare his remaining daughter for at least a week’s visit to Pleasant
+Cove, while the Corner House girls would be there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OFF FOR THE SEASIDE
+
+
+The last hours of the school term were busy ones indeed. Even Tess had
+her troublesome “’zaminations.” At the study table on the last evening
+before her own grade had its closing exercises, Tess propounded the
+following:
+
+“Ruthie, what’s a ’scutcheon?”
+
+“Um—um,” said Ruth, far away.
+
+“A _what_, child?” demanded Agnes.
+
+“‘’Scutcheon?’”
+
+“‘Escutcheon,’ she means,” chuckled Neale, who was present as usual at
+study hour.
+
+“Well, what _is_ it?” begged Tess, plaintively.
+
+“Why?” demanded Ruth, suddenly waking up. “That’s a hard word for a
+small girl, Tess.”
+
+“It says here,” quoth Tess, “that ‘There was a blot upon his
+escutcheon.’”
+
+“Oh, yes—sure,” drawled Neale, as Ruth hesitated. “That must mean a
+fancy vest, Tess. And he spilled soup on it—sure!”
+
+“Now Neale! how horrid!” admonished Ruth, while Agnes giggled.
+
+“I do think you are all awful mean to me,” wailed Tess. “You don’t
+tell me a thing. You’re almost as mean as Trix Severn was to me
+to-day. I don’t want to go to her father’s hotel, so there! Have we
+got to, Ruthie?”
+
+“What did she do to you, Tess?” demanded Agnes, with a curiosity she
+could not quench. For, deep as the chasm had grown between her and her
+former chum, she could not ignore Trix.
+
+“She just turned up her nose at me,” complained Tess, “when I went by;
+and I heard her say to some girl she was with: ‘There goes one of them
+now. They pushed their way into our party, and I s’pose we’ve got to
+entertain them.’ Now, _did_ we push our way in, Ruthie?”
+
+Ruth was angry. It was not often that she displayed indignation, so
+that when she did so, the other girls—and even Neale—were the more
+impressed.
+
+“Of course she was speaking of that wretched invitation she gave us to
+stay at her father’s hotel at Pleasant Cove,” said Ruth. “Well!”
+
+“Oh, Ruthie! don’t say you won’t go,” begged Agnes.
+
+“I’ll never go to that Overlook House unless we pay our way—be sure
+of that,” declared the angry Ruth.
+
+“But we _are_ going to the shore, Ruthie?” asked Tess.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Maybe Pearl Harrod will ask us again,” murmured Agnes, hopefully.
+
+“I guess we can pay our way and be beholden to nobody,” said Ruth,
+shortly. “I will hire one of the tents, if nothing else. And we’ll
+start the very day after High closes, just as we planned.”
+
+Despite the loss of her “soulmate,” Agnes was pretty cheerful. She was
+to graduate from grammar school; and although she was sorry to lose
+Miss Georgiana Shipman as a teacher, she was delighted to get out of
+“the pigtail classes,” as she rudely termed the lower grades.
+
+“I’m going to do up my hair, Ruthie, whatever you say,” she declared,
+“just as soon as I get into high school next fall. I’m old enough to
+forget braids and hair-ribbons, I should hope!”
+
+“Not yet, my child, not yet,” laughed Ruth. “Why! there are more girls
+in High who wear their hair _down_ than _up_.”
+
+“But I’m so big——”
+
+“You mean, you’d be big,” chuckled Neale, “if you were only rolled
+out,” for he was always teasing Agnes about her plumpness.
+
+“Well! I want to celebrate some way,” sighed Agnes. “Can’t we have a
+specially nice supper that night?”
+
+“Surely, child,” said her sedate sister. “What do you want?”
+
+“Well!” repeated Agnes, slowly; “you know I’ll never graduate from
+Grammar again. Couldn’t we kill some of those nice frying chickens of
+yours, Ruthie?”
+
+“Oh, my!” cried Neale. “What have the poor chickens done that they
+should be slaughtered to make a Roman holiday?”
+
+“Mr. Smartie!” snapped Agnes. “You be good, or you sha’n’t have any.”
+
+“If that Tom Jonah hadn’t been busy on a certain night, none of us
+would have eaten those particular frying chickens,” laughed Neale. “I
+wonder if that Gypsy is running yet?”
+
+“He didn’t get the frying chickens in the bag,” said Agnes. “They were
+in another coop. We hatched them in January and brought them up by
+hand. Say! I don’t believe you know much about natural history, Neale,
+anyway.”
+
+“I guess he knows more than Sammy Pinkney does,” Tess said, again
+drawn into the conversation. “Teacher asked him to tell us two breeds
+of dairy cattle and which gives the most milk. She’d been reading to
+us about it out of a book. So Sammy says:
+
+“‘The bull and the cow, Miss Andrews; and the cow gives the most
+milk.’”
+
+Dot’s school held its closing exercises one morning, and Tess’ in the
+afternoon. Then came the graduation of Agnes and Neale O’Neil from the
+grammar school. Ruth was excused from her own classes at High long
+enough to attend her sister’s graduation.
+
+Although the plump Corner House girl was no genius, she always stood
+well in her classes. Ruth saw to that, for what Agnes did not learn at
+school she had to study at home.
+
+So she stood well up in her class, and she _did_ look “too
+distractingly pretty,” as Mrs. MacCall declared, when she gave the
+last touches to Agnes’ dress before she started for school that last
+day. Miss Ann Titus, Milton’s most famous seamstress and
+“gossip-in-ordinary,” had outdone herself in making Agnes’ dress. No
+girl in her class—not even Trix Severn—was dressed so becomingly.
+
+The envious Trix heard the commendations showered on her former
+friend, and her face grew sourer and her temper sharper. She well knew
+she had invited the Corner House girls to be her guests at Pleasant
+Cove; but she did not want them in her party now. She did not know how
+to get out of “the fix,” as she called it in her own mind.
+
+She had intimated to two or three other girls who were going, however,
+that Agnes and Ruth had forced the invitation from her in a moment of
+weakness. If she had to number them of her party, Miss Trix proposed
+to make it just as unpleasant for the Kenway sisters as she could.
+
+High school graduation was on Thursday. On Friday a special through
+train was put on by the railroad from Milton to Pleasant Cove. It was
+scheduled to leave the former station at ten o’clock.
+
+Luckily Mrs. MacCall had insisted upon having all the trunks and bags
+packed the day before, for on this Friday morning the Corner House
+girls had little time for anything but saying “good-bye” to their many
+friends, both human and dumb.
+
+“Whatever will Tom Jonah think?” cried Tess, hugging the big dog that
+had taken up his abode at the Corner House so strangely. “He’ll think
+we have run away from him, poor fellow!”
+
+“Oh! _don’t_ you think that, Tom Jonah!” begged Dot, seizing the dog
+on the other side. “We all love you so! And we’ll come back to you.”
+
+“You’ll give him just the best care ever, won’t you, Uncle Rufus?”
+cried Agnes.
+
+“Sho’ will!” agreed the old colored man.
+
+“_Can’t_ we take him with us, Ruthie?” asked Dot.
+
+Ruth would have been tempted to do just this had she been sure that
+they would hire a tent in the colony as soon as they reached Pleasant
+Cove. Tom Jonah was just the sort of a protector the Corner House girl
+would have chosen under those circumstances.
+
+But Ruth was puzzled. She had not seen Pearl Harrod, and was not sure
+whether Pearl had completely filled her uncle’s bungalow with guests
+or not. Of one thing Ruth was sure: if they went to the Overlook House
+(Mr. Terrence Severn’s hotel), they would pay their board and refuse
+to be Trix’s guests.
+
+When the carriage came for them, Tom Jonah stood at the gate and
+watched them get in and drive away with a rather depressed air. Dot
+and Tess waved their handkerchiefs from the carriage window at him as
+long as they could see the big dog.
+
+There was much confusion at the station. Many people whom the girls
+knew were on the platform, or in the cars already. Trix Severn was
+very much in evidence. The Kenway sisters saw the other girls who were
+going to accept Miss Severn’s hospitality in a group at one side, but
+they hesitated to join this party.
+
+Trix passed the Kenways twice and did not even look at them. Of
+course, she knew the sisters were there, but Ruth believed that the
+mean-spirited girl merely wished them to speak to her so that she
+could snub them publicly.
+
+“Well, Ruthie Kenway!” exclaimed a voice suddenly behind the Corner
+House girls.
+
+It was Pearl Harrod. Pearl was a bright-faced, big girl, jovial and
+kind-hearted. “I’ve just been looking for you everywhere,” pursued
+Pearl. “Here it is the last minute, and you haven’t told me whether
+you and the other girls are going to my uncle’s house or not.”
+
+“Why—if you are sure you want us?” queried Ruth, with a little break
+in her voice.
+
+“I should say yes!” exclaimed Pearl. “But I was afraid you had been
+asked by some one else.”
+
+Trix turned and looked the four sisters over scornfully. Then she
+tossed her head. “Waiting like beggars for an invitation from
+_some_body,” she said, loudly enough for all the girls nearby to hear.
+“You’d think, if those Corner House girls are as rich as they tell
+about, that they’d pay their way.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ON THE TRAIN
+
+
+“Don’t you mind what that mean thing says,” whispered Pearl Harrod,
+quickly.
+
+She had seen Ruth flush hotly and the tears spring to Agnes’ eyes when
+Trix Severn had spoken so ill-naturedly. The younger Corner House
+girls did not hear, but Ruth and Agnes were hurt to the quick.
+
+“You are very, very kind, Pearl,” said Ruth. “But we had thought of
+going to the tent colony——”
+
+“Didn’t Trix Severn ask you to her place?” demanded Pearl, hotly. “I
+_know_ she did. And now she insults you. If she hadn’t asked you
+first, and seemed so thick with your sister, Ruth, I would have
+insisted long ago that you all come to uncle’s bungalow. There’s
+plenty of room, for my aunt and the girls won’t be down for a
+fortnight.”
+
+“But, Pearl——”
+
+“I’ll be mad if you don’t agree—now I know that Trix has released
+you, Ruth Kenway,” cried the good-hearted girl. “Now, don’t let’s say
+another word about it.”
+
+“Oh, don’t be angry!” begged Ruth. “But won’t it look as though we
+_were_ begging our way—as Trix says?”
+
+“Pooh! who cares for Trix Severn?”
+
+“You—you are very kind,” said Ruth, yielding at length.
+
+“Then you come on. Hey, girls!” she shouted, running after her own
+particular friends who were climbing aboard the rear car. “I’ve gotten
+them to promise. The Corner House girls are going with us—for two
+weeks, anyway.”
+
+At once the other girls addressed cheered and gathered the four
+Kenways into their group, with great rejoicing. The sting of Trix
+Severn’s unkindness was forgotten.
+
+Mr. Howbridge, their guardian, came to the station to see them off,
+and shook hands with Ruth through the window of the car. When the
+train actually moved away, Neale O’Neil was there in the crowd,
+swinging his cap and wishing them heaps of fun. Neale expected to go
+to Pleasant Cove himself, later in the season.
+
+This last car of the special train was a day coach; but the
+light-hearted girls did not mind the lack of conveniences and comforts
+to be obtained in the chair cars. The train was supposed to arrive at
+Pleasant Cove by three o’clock, and a five hour ride on a hot June day
+was only “fun” for the Corner House girls and their friends.
+
+Ruth first of all got the brakeman to turn over a seat so that she and
+her three sisters could sit facing each other. Mrs. MacCall had put
+them up a nice hamper of luncheon and the older girl knew this would
+be better enjoyed if the seats were thus arranged.
+
+Of course, there was the usual desire of some of the travelers to have
+windows open while others wished them closed. Cinders and dust flew in
+by the peck if the former arrangement prevailed, while the heat was
+intense if the sashes were down.
+
+Tess and Dot were little disturbed by these physical ills. But they
+had their own worries. Dot, who had insisted on carrying the
+Alice-doll in her arms, was troubled mightily to remember whether she
+had packed the whole of the doll’s trousseau (this was supposed to be
+a wedding journey for the Alice-doll—a wedding journey in which the
+bridegroom had no part); while Tess wondered what would happen to Tom
+Jonah and Sandyface’s young family while they were all gone from the
+old Corner House.
+
+“I feel condemned—I do, indeed, Dot,” sighed Tess. “We ought, at
+least, to have named those four kittens before we left. They’ll be
+awfully old before the christening—if we don’t come back at the end
+of our first two weeks.”
+
+“What could happen to them?” demanded Dot.
+
+“Why—croup—or measles—or chicken-pox. They’re only babies, you
+know. And if one should die,” added Tess, warmly, “we wouldn’t even
+know what name to put on its gravestone!”
+
+“My! lots of things can happen in two weeks, I s’pose,” agreed Dot.
+“Do you think we ought to stay away from home so long?”
+
+“I guess we’ll have to if Ruth and Aggie stay,” said Tess. “But I
+shall worry.”
+
+Meanwhile Agnes, who sat with her back to the engine beside Ruth, had
+become interested in a couple sitting together not far down the car.
+They were strangers—and strangely dressed, as well.
+
+“Oh, Ruth!” Agnes exclaimed, under her breath, “they look like
+Gypsies.”
+
+“If they are, they are much better dressed than any Gypsies we ever
+saw before,” observed her sister.
+
+“But how gay!”
+
+This comment was just enough. The older one had shocking taste in
+millinery. She wore, too, long, pendant ear-rings and her fingers were
+covered with gaudy looking jewels. Her garments were rich in texture,
+but oddly made, and the contrasts in color were, as Agnes whispered,
+“fierce!”
+
+“That girl with her is handsome, just the same,” Ruth declared.
+
+“Oh! isn’t she!” whispered the enthusiastic Agnes. “A perfectly
+stunning brunette.”
+
+If she were a Gypsy girl she was a very beautiful one. Her features
+were lovely and her complexion brilliant. When she smiled she flashed
+two rows of perfect teeth upon the beholder. She might have been a
+year or two older than Ruth.
+
+“I don’t know—somehow—she reminds me of somebody,” murmured the
+latter.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“The girl.”
+
+“She reminds me of that chicken-thief Tom Jonah treed on the henhouse
+roof,” chuckled Agnes.
+
+“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth; “all Gypsies can’t be alike.”
+
+“Humph! you never heard a good word said for them,” sniffed Agnes.
+
+“But that doesn’t prove there are not good ones. They are a wandering
+people and have no particular trade or standing in any community.
+Naturally they have a lot of crimes laid upon their shoulders that
+they never commit,” said the just Ruth.
+
+“That was one of them that tried to steal your hens, just the same,”
+said Agnes.
+
+“I suppose so,” admitted her sister. “But surely _these_ two cannot
+belong to the same kind of Gypsies. See how richly they are dressed.”
+
+“I guess that doesn’t make any difference,” said Agnes. “They are all
+cut off the same piece of goods,” and immediately she lost interest in
+the strange couple when Lucy Poole came up the aisle to speak to her.
+
+Ruth had the gaily dressed woman and her companion on her mind a good
+deal. She often looked at them when they did not notice her. The woman
+must have been forty, but was straight, lithe, and of good figure. She
+sat on the outer end of the seat, having the girl between her and the
+window.
+
+The latter seemed more and more familiar in appearance to Ruth as she
+looked, yet the Corner House girl could not say whom the girl looked
+like.
+
+The latter scarcely spoke to her companion. Indeed, she kept her face
+toward the window for the most part, and seemed to be in a sullen
+mood. She had smiled once at Dot and the Alice-doll, and that was the
+only time Ruth had seen the dark, beautiful face with an attractive
+expression upon it.
+
+The woman seemed talkative enough, but what language she jabbered to
+her companion the Corner House girl could not tell. She frequently
+leaned toward the dark girl, her bejeweled fingers seizing the sleeve
+of her waist, and her speech was both emphatic and loud.
+
+The rattle of the train drowned, however, most of the woman’s words.
+Ruth arose and went the length of the car for a drink, just for the
+purpose of overhearing the strange speech of the Gypsy (if such the
+woman was) for she was sure the language was not English.
+
+She heard nothing intelligible. Ruth folded a cup, filled it at the
+ice-water tank, and brought it back for the children. Pearl Harrod was
+sitting directly behind the two strangers, in a seat with Carrie
+Poole.
+
+“Oh, I say, Ruth!” Pearl said, “is it a fact that Rosa Wildwood is
+coming down to the Cove next week?”
+
+Ruth turned to answer. As she did so the girl in the seat with the
+Gypsy sprang to her feet, her face transfigured with amazement, or
+alarm—Ruth did not know which. The woman grabbed her by the elbow and
+pulled her back into the seat, saying something of a threatening
+nature to her companion.
+
+In her excitement the woman knocked the cup of water from Ruth’s hand.
+She turned to apologize, and Ruth, looking over her head, saw the
+dark-skinned girl sitting back in her corner quite colorless and
+broken. The Corner House girl was sure, too, that the strange girl’s
+lips formed the name “Rosa Wildwood”—but she made no sound.
+
+“It is all right,” Ruth assured the Gypsy woman. “No harm done.”
+
+“I am the ver’ awkward one—eh?” repeated the woman, with a hard
+smile.
+
+“It does not matter,” said Ruth. “I can get another cup of water.”
+
+She returned to do so. All the while she was wondering what the
+incident meant. It was not merely a chance happening, she was sure.
+Something about the name of her schoolmate, Rosa Wildwood, had
+frightened the beautiful girl who was evidently in the Gypsy woman’s
+care.
+
+Ruth grew quite excited as she drew another cup of water, and she
+swiftly planned to discover the mystery, as she started up the aisle
+of the coach a second time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOMETHING AHEAD
+
+
+Pearl Harrod was now busily talking with Carrie Poole again; she had
+probably forgotten about Rosa Wildwood for the time being. But Ruth
+stopped at her seat—the seat directly behind that occupied by the two
+strangers.
+
+“You asked about Rosa, Pearl?” said Ruth, speaking loudly enough, she
+was sure, for the girl in front to hear.
+
+“Oh, hello! don’t spill that water again, Ruthie,” laughed Pearl.
+“Yes. I asked if she were coming down to the Cove!”
+
+“Yes. Rosa Wildwood expects to come next week. I am going to find her
+a boarding place.”
+
+Ruth spoke very distinctly, and she kept her eyes fastened upon the
+back of the strange girl’s head. But the latter gave no sign of having
+heard—at least, she appeared not to be interested in the name which
+had before so startled her.
+
+“I don’t see how the poor girl can afford it,” Carrie Poole said, not
+unkindly. “They say she and her father are very poor.”
+
+“Mr. Bob Wildwood works regularly. He doesn’t drink any more,” Ruth
+explained, intentionally speaking so that those in the forward seat
+could hear if they wished to listen.
+
+“Rosa is an awfully sweet girl,” said Carrie.
+
+“I love that little Southern drawl of hers!” cried Pearl. “She says
+‘Ah reckon so’ in just the _cunningest_ way!”
+
+“She is very frail,” Ruth continued, clearly. “I was afraid she would
+break down before the school term closed. Now it has been arranged for
+her to stay at Pleasant Cove until she gains strength. Dr. Forsythe
+says it will do her a world of good.”
+
+“We’ll give her a good time, all right,” declared Pearl. “Wish we
+could have her with us——”
+
+“Not at the bungalow,” said Ruth. “Nor at the hotel. We want a quiet
+place for her. I shall find it.”
+
+Not a sign did the girl in front give that she heard any of this
+conversation. Yet Ruth believed there was a curious intentness in her
+manner—she held her head very still as though she were secretly
+listening, while apparently giving all her attention to what the train
+passed.
+
+“What does your uncle call his bungalow—where we shall stop?” asked
+Ruth of Pearl.
+
+“Why, the Spoondrift—don’t you remember? It’s at this end of the
+cove, near the river, and we have bathing rights on the shore. It’s a
+fine place. You’ll _love_ it, Ruth Kenway.”
+
+“I expect to,” said Ruth, seriously. “And you were very kind to ask me
+to stay two whole weeks with you,” and Ruth passed on.
+
+She had intentionally said enough so that, if the strange girl _were_
+listening, she would learn just where Ruth could be found at Pleasant
+Cove.
+
+For the Corner House girl felt that the dark beauty with the Gypsy
+woman held some keen interest in Rosa Wildwood. Of course—right at
+the start—the story of Rosa’s lost sister, June, had come into Ruth’s
+mind.
+
+Yet, as the Corner House girl looked at the stranger, she could not
+say truthfully that it was Rosa of whom _this_ girl reminded her. Ruth
+conjured before her mind’s eye the fair, delicate beauty of Bob
+Wildwood’s daughter; the two girls possessed no feature in common—and
+in complexion they were, of course, diametrically opposed.
+
+This girl was dark enough and savage enough looking to be a Gypsy.
+Ruth scouted the idea that she might be Juniper Wildwood, who had run
+away with a traveling “medicine man” and his wife.
+
+Nevertheless, Ruth believed that the strange girl must know something
+about the lost June Wildwood. She had been startled when Rosa’s name
+was mentioned. The Corner House girl was deeply interested in the
+affair; but at present she did not want to take anybody into her
+confidence about it—not even Agnes.
+
+The girls did not remain quietly in their seats, by any manner of
+means. First there was a crowd blocking the aisle in one part of the
+car, then in another. Agnes was in and out of her seat half a dozen
+times between stations. The heat and dust was ignored as the girls
+shouted pleasantries back and forth; the air was vibrant with
+laughter.
+
+“I’m just as anxious to see the ocean as I can be,” declared Lucy
+Poole who, like the Corner House girls, had never been to Pleasant
+Cove before.
+
+“Oh, dear me!” scoffed her cousin Carrie. “It’s only a big, big pond!
+Our frog pond at home looks like a piece of the ocean—when it’s
+calm.”
+
+The others laughed and Pearl said: “Guess Lucy wants to see Old Ocean
+in its might, eh? Big storm, whales, great ships——”
+
+“A sea serpent!” cried Agnes.
+
+“Of course—if there is such a thing,” admitted Lucy. “A sea serpent
+must be an awfully interesting sight.”
+
+“There aren’t any more,” said Pearl. “Father Neptune’s all out of
+stock.”
+
+“I guess the sea serpent is something like the _snakes_ alcoholic
+victims think they see,” proposed Carrie.
+
+“Oh, no,” proclaimed Agnes. “Here’s what I read about the sea serpent:
+
+    “‘The old sea serpent used to rave
+      And fiercely roam about;
+    He hit a prohibition wave,
+      And that’s what knocked him out.’”
+
+“‘Perils of the Deep!’” laughed Ruth. “But even if we don’t see
+serpents in the ocean, I expect we’ll have plenty of adventures down
+there at the shore.”
+
+Which prophecy was strangely fulfilled.
+
+The train reached Bloomingsburg about one o’clock, and was immediately
+shifted to the single-tracked branch line that connected that small
+city with Pleasant Cove. The speed of the train after leaving
+Bloomingsburg was not great, for it was often held up for trains
+coming from the shore to pass.
+
+The adult passengers grew impatient and wearied. There were many
+complaints, and the babies began to fret and cry. But our friends in
+the last coach remained in a jolly and—for the most part—kindly
+mood.
+
+Trix Severn had taken her crowd into a forward coach. Her father
+owning one of the big hotels at the Cove, the railroad company had
+presented him with a sheaf of chair coupons. So, as Pearl Harrod
+laughingly said, “Trix’s party was as swell as a wet sponge.”
+
+“I don’t suppose any of that crowd at the Overlook House will talk to
+_us_,” said Pearl. “Just the same, I guess I can show you girls a good
+time at Spoondrift. Uncle always lets us do just as we like. He’s the
+_dearest_ man.”
+
+The train rattled on and on. The alternate pine forests and swamp
+lands seemed interminable. Now and then they went through a cut, the
+railroad bisecting a hickory ridge.
+
+But soon there was a change in the air. When the cinders and dust did
+not sift into the windows, there was a smell of salt marsh. The air
+seemed suddenly cleaner. At one station where they stopped, a salt
+creek came in, and there was a dock, and boats, and barrels of clams
+and fish piled on the platform ready for the next up-train.
+
+“Regular maritime smell——whew!” sighed Carrie Poole, holding her
+nose delicately.
+
+“Oh! The _whole_ of Pleasant Cove doesn’t smell like this, does it?”
+demanded her cousin.
+
+“Only the old part of it—the old village.”
+
+“Well! that’s lucky,” said Lucy. “If this odor prevailed I should say
+the place ought to be called _Un_-pleasant Cove.”
+
+“How far are we from the jumping-off place?” demanded Agnes. “I’d like
+to get out and run.”
+
+Pearl stooped to look out under one of the drawn shades. “Why!” she
+said, “there are only two more stops before we reach the Cove station.
+It’s a winding way the railroad follows. But if we got off about here
+and went right through those woods yonder, we’d reach the Spoondrift
+bungalow in an hour. I’ve walked over here to Jumpertown many a time.”
+
+“Jumpertown?”
+
+“Yes. That’s what they called it before the real estate speculators
+gave it the fancy name of ‘Ridgedale Station.’”
+
+At that moment the train suddenly slowed down. The brakes grated upon
+the wheels and everybody clung to the seats for support. One of the
+brakemen ran through from the front and the girls clamored to know the
+cause of the stoppage.
+
+“Bridge down up front,” said the railroad employee. “Tide rose last
+night and loosened the supports. We’ve got to wait.”
+
+“Oh, dear me!” was the general wail. When they could get hold of the
+conductor the girls demanded to know the length of time they would be
+delayed.
+
+“Can’t tell you, young ladies,” declared the man of the punch.
+“There’s a repair gang at work on it now.”
+
+“An hour?” demanded Pearl Harrod.
+
+“Oh, longer than that,” the conductor assured her.
+
+“But what shall we do? We want to get to the bungalow and air the
+bedclothes, and all that, before dark,” she cried.
+
+“Guess you’ll have to walk, then,” said the conductor, laughing, and
+went away.
+
+“That’s just what we’ll do,” Pearl said to her friends. “Can the
+children walk three miles, Ruth?”
+
+“Surely they can!” Agnes cried. “If they can’t, we’ll carry them.”
+
+Ruth was doubtful of the wisdom of the move, but her opinion was not
+asked.
+
+“Come on! let’s get out quietly. We’ll fool all these other folks,”
+said Pearl. “We’ll get to Pleasant Cove long before they do.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE GYPSY CAMP
+
+
+There were two things that encouraged Ruth Kenway, the oldest Corner
+House girl, to accompany Pearl Harrod’s party through the woods
+without objection. Pearl told her that when they reached the highway
+on the other side of the timber in all probability they would be
+overtaken by an auto-bus that ran four times a day between a station
+on a rival railroad line and the Cove.
+
+This was one thing. The other reason for Ruth’s leaving the train with
+her sisters, and without objection, was the fact that the strangely
+dressed woman and the pretty, dark girl had left it already.
+
+When the train first stopped and the brakeman announced the accident
+ahead, the woman had spoken to the girl and they both had risen and
+left the car. Perhaps nobody had noticed them but Ruth. The strange
+girl had not looked at Ruth when she passed her, but the woman had
+bowed and smiled in a cat-like fashion.
+
+Pearl said they would follow a path through the timber to the road;
+and she pointed out the direction through the window. Ruth saw the
+woman and girl strike into this very path and disappear.
+
+So curiosity, too, led the oldest Corner House girl to agree to
+Pearl’s plan. The party of ten girls, including Ruth, Agnes, Tess and
+Dot Kenway, slipped out of the car without being questioned by any of
+the older people there. Nobody observed them enter the cool and
+fragrant woods. Chattering and laughing, they were quickly in the
+shadowy depths and out of sight of the hot train.
+
+“Oh, isn’t this heavenly!” cried Agnes, tossing up her hat by the
+ribbons that were supposed to tie it under her plump chin.
+
+The green tunnel of the wood-path stretched a long way before them. It
+was paved with pine needles and last-year’s oak leaves.
+
+Ruth looked sharply ahead, but did not see either the woman or the
+girl, in whom she was so much interested. Either they had gone on very
+rapidly, or had turned aside into the wood.
+
+Dot had made no complaint upon being forced to leave the train; but
+she clung very tightly now to the Alice-doll, and finally ventured to
+ask Tess:
+
+“What—what do you think is the chance for _bears_ in this wood, Tess?
+Don’t you think there may be some?”
+
+“Bears? Whoever heard the like? Of course not, child,” said Tess, in
+her most elder-sisterly way. “What gave you such an idea as that?”
+
+“Well—it’s a strange woods, Tess. We aren’t really acquainted here.”
+
+“But Pearl is,” declared Tess, stoutly.
+
+“I don’t care. I’d rather have Tom Jonah with us. Suppose a bear
+should jump out and grab Alice?” and she hugged the doll all the
+closer in her arms. For her own safety she evidently was not anxious.
+
+The girls, after their ride in the train, were like young colts let
+loose in a paddock. They sang and laughed and capered; and when they
+came to a softly carpeted hollow, Pearl Harrod led the way and rolled
+down the slope, instead of walking down in a “decorous manner, as high
+school young ladies should,” quoth Carrie.
+
+“If our dear, _de-ar_ teachers should see us now!” gasped Pearl
+sitting up at the foot of the slide, with a peck of pine needles in
+her hair and her frock all tousled.
+
+Their only baggage was the lunch baskets and boxes. All other of their
+personal possessions were on the train, in the baggage car. But the
+remains of the luncheons came in very nicely. Before they had gone a
+mile through the wood they were all loudly proclaiming their hunger.
+
+So they found a spring, and camped about it, eating the remainder of
+the lunches to the very last crumb. And such a hilarious “feed” as it
+was!
+
+Ruth forgot all about the Gypsy woman and the girl who had so puzzled
+her by her actions. The rest by the spring refreshed even Dot. She was
+plucky, if she _was_ little; and she made no complaint at all about
+the long walk through the stretch of timber.
+
+The party did not hurry after that rest. It was still early in the
+afternoon and Pearl, referring to her watch, said they would surely
+catch the auto-stage that passed on the main road about four o’clock.
+
+“You see, there are no servants at the bungalow yet,” Pearl explained.
+“Uncle has been taking his meals at one of the small boarding-houses
+nearby, that opens early. He is a great fisherman, and always goes
+down early and ‘roughs it’ at the bungalow until my aunt comes down.
+
+“But she thought we girls would be able to get on all right—with
+Uncle Phil to give us a hand if we need him. We’ll have to air
+bedclothes, and get in groceries, and otherwise start housekeeping
+to-night.”
+
+“Why! it will be great fun,” Ruth said. “Just like playing house
+together.”
+
+“Say!” cried Agnes. “We want more than ‘play-house’ food to eat—now I
+warn you! No sweet crackers and ‘cambric tea’ for mine, if you
+please!”
+
+“Oh! if I ask him,” said Pearl, laughing, “I know Uncle Phil will take
+us to his boarding-house to supper to-night—if we get there late. But
+I want to show him what ten girls can do toward housekeeping.”
+
+“There’ll be plenty of cooks to spoil the broth,” sighed Agnes. “Did
+you ever see _me_ fry an egg?”
+
+Ruth began to laugh. The single occasion when Agnes had tried her hand
+at the breakfast eggs was a day marked for remembrance at the old
+Corner House.
+
+“What can you do to a defenseless egg, Aggie?” Lucy Poole demanded.
+
+“Plenty!” declared Agnes, shaking her head. “When I get through with
+an egg, a lump of butter, and a frying-pan, there is left a residue of
+charred ‘what is it?’ in the bottom of the pan, an odor of burned
+grease in the kitchen—and me in hysterics! It was an awful occasion
+when I tackled that egg. I’ve not felt just right about approaching an
+egg since that never-to-be-forgotten day.”
+
+“I was left home to cook for my father, once,” said Carrie Poole,
+seriously, “and he asked to have boiled rice for supper. Mother never
+let me cook much, and I didn’t know a thing about _rice_.
+
+“But I saw the grains were awfully small, and I knew my father liked a
+great, heaping bowlful when he had it, so I told the grocery boy to
+bring two pounds, and I tried to cook it all.”
+
+A general laugh hailed this announcement. Agnes asked: “What happened,
+Carrie? I don’t know anything about rice myself—’cepting that it’s
+good in cakes and you throw it after brides for luck—and—and
+Chinamen live on it.”
+
+“Wait!” urged Carrie, solemnly. “It’s nothing to laugh at. I began
+cooking it in a four quart saucepan, so as to give it plenty of room;
+and when father came in just before supper time, I had the whole top
+of our big range covered with pots and pans into which I had dipped
+the overflow of that two pounds of rice!
+
+“Oh, yes, I had!” said Carrie, warmly, while the others screamed with
+laughter. “And I had gotten so excited by that time that I begged
+father to go out to the washhouse and bring in the big clothes boiler,
+so’s to see if I could keep the stuff from running over onto the
+stove.
+
+“You never saw such a mess,” concluded Carrie, shaking her head. “And
+we had to eat rice for a week!”
+
+It was just here that Agnes spied something far ahead beside the
+woodspath.
+
+“Oh!” she cried, “are we in sight of the tent colony you tell about,
+so soon?”
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Pearl Harrod. “We’re nowhere near the river.”
+
+“But there’s a tent!” exclaimed Agnes, earnestly.
+
+“And I see the top of another,” said Lucy Poole.
+
+“Dirty brown things, both of them. Look more like Indian wigwams,”
+announced Ann Presby.
+
+“My goodness, girls! there are the Gypsies Uncle Phil wrote about,”
+said Pearl, in some excitement. “Let’s get our fortunes told.”
+
+“Oh, dear me,” said Ruth, rather worriedly. “I don’t just _like_
+Gypsies.”
+
+“Oh, you haven’t got to hug and kiss them!” laughed Pearl. “Come on!
+they’re lots of fun.”
+
+But when the party of girls drew nearer to the Gypsy camp, this
+particular tribe of Nomads did not appear to be “lots of fun,” after
+all.
+
+In the first place, the tents—as Ann had said—were very shabby and
+dirty. The two covered wagons were dilapidated, too. Gypsies usually
+have good horses, but those the girls saw feeding in the little glade
+were mere “crowbaits.”
+
+Several low-browed, roughly dressed men sat in a group on the grass
+playing cards. They were smoking, and one was tipping a black bottle
+to his lips just as the girls from Milton came near.
+
+“Let’s hurry right by, Pearl!” begged Ruth.
+
+Pearl, however, was not as observant as the Corner House girl. She
+failed to see danger in the situation, or in the looks the disturbed
+men cast upon the unprotected party of girls. As several of the
+fellows rose, Pearl called to them:
+
+“Where’s your Pythoness? Where is the Queen of the Gypsies? We want
+our fortunes told.”
+
+One man—a tall fellow with a scarred face—turned and shouted
+something in a strange tongue at the tents. Ruth recognized the
+language in which the woman had talked to the dark-faced girl on the
+train.
+
+And then, the next moment, Ruth caught sight of the face of the very
+woman in question, peering from between the flaps of one of the dingy
+tents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE SPOONDRIFT BUNGALOW
+
+
+“I don’t think these are very nice looking men, do you, Tess?” Dot
+seriously asked her sister as the party halted before the Gypsy camp.
+
+“Why, Dot!” gasped Tess. “That man _there_ is the very fellow who
+tried to steal Ruth’s chickens!”
+
+“Oh—o-o!”
+
+“Yes, he is,” whispered the amazed Tess. “He’s the young man Tom Jonah
+chased up on to the henhouse roof.”
+
+“Well,” said the philosophical Dot, “he can’t steal our chickens
+_here_.”
+
+“Just the same I wish Tom Jonah was here with us. I—I’d feel better
+about meeting him,” confessed Tess.
+
+The other girls did not hear this conversation between the two
+youngest Kenways. Ruth and Agnes, however, were really troubled by the
+meeting with the Gypsies; the former was, in addition, suspicious of
+the woman who had been on the train with them.
+
+This strange woman did not come out of the tent. Indeed, almost at
+once she disappeared, dropping the curtain. She did not wish to be
+observed by the girls from Milton.
+
+“Oh, come on!” cried the reckless Pearl. “They’ll only ask us a dime
+each. ‘Cross their palms with silver,’ you know. And they do tell the
+_queerest_ things sometimes.”
+
+“I don’t believe we’d better stop this afternoon, Pearl,” ventured
+Ruth, as one of the rough fellows drew nearer to the girls.
+
+“Let the little ladies wait but a short time,” said this man. “They
+will have revealed to them all they wish to know.”
+
+He had an ugly leer, and had Pearl looked at him she would have been
+frightened by his expression. But she was searching her chain-purse
+for dimes. It did not look to Ruth Kenway as though that purse would
+last long in the company of these evil fellows.
+
+Now the same tent flap was pushed aside again and into the open
+hobbled an old crone. She seemed to be a toothless creature, and
+leaned upon a crutch. Gray strands of coarse hair straggled over her
+wrinkled forehead. She had a hump on her back—or seemed to have, for
+she wore a long cloak, the bedraggled tail of which touched the
+ground.
+
+She hobbled across the lawn toward the girls. Ruth watched her closely
+for, it seemed, she came more hurriedly than seemed necessary.
+
+A dog—one of the mongrels that infested the camp—ran at her, and the
+old crone struck at the creature with her crutch; he ran away yelping.
+She was plainly more vigorous of arm than one would have believed from
+her decrepit appearance.
+
+The grinning fellows separated as the old hag came forward. She did
+not speak to them, but she was muttering to herself.
+
+“Incantations!” whispered Pearl. “Isn’t she enough to give you the
+delicious shudders? Oh!”
+
+Pearl was evidently enjoying the adventure to the full, but some of
+the girls besides Ruth and Agnes, did not feel so very pleasant. When
+one of the fellows took hold of Carrie Poole’s wrist-watch with a
+grimy finger and thumb, she screamed.
+
+“Don’t fear, little lady,” said the tall, grim man, and he struck the
+officious fellow with his elbow in the ribs. “He means nothing
+harmful. Here is Zaliska, the Queen of the Romany. She is very old and
+very wise. She will tell you much for a silver shilling; but she will
+tell you more for two-bits.”
+
+“He means a quarter,” said Pearl, explaining. “But a quarter’s too
+much. Show her your palms, girls. This is my treat. I have ten dimes.”
+
+The tall man had motioned his fellows back, but they were arranged
+around the party of girls in such a way that, no matter which way they
+turned, one of the ruffians was right before them!
+
+“Oh, Ruth! I am frightened!” whispered Agnes in her sister’s ear.
+
+“Sh! don’t scare the children,” Ruth said, her first thought for Tess
+and Dot.
+
+The old crone hobbled directly to Ruth and put out a brown claw. Ruth
+extended her own right hand tremblingly. The hag was mumbling
+something or other, but Ruth could not hear what she said at first,
+the other girls were chattering so.
+
+Then she noticed that the grip of the old Gypsy was a firm one. The
+back of her hand seemed wrinkled and puckered; but suddenly Ruth knew
+that this was the effect of grease paint!
+
+This was a made-up old woman—not a real old woman, at all!
+
+The discovery frightened the Corner House girl almost as much as the
+rough men frightened her. “Zaliska” was a disguised creature.
+
+She clung to Ruth’s hand firmly when the girl would have pulled it
+away, and now Ruth heard her hiss:
+
+“Get you away from this place. Get you away with your friends—quick.
+And do not come back at all.”
+
+Ruth was shaking with hysterical terror. The creature clung to her
+hand and mumbled this warning over and over again.
+
+“What’s she telling you, Ruth?” demanded the hilarious Pearl.
+
+“Trouble! trouble!” mumbled the supposed fortune-teller, shaking her
+head, but accepting the next girl’s dime.
+
+Ruth whispered swiftly to Pearl: “Oh! let us get out of here. These
+men mean to rob us—I am sure.”
+
+“They would not dare,” began the startled Pearl.
+
+Just then there was a creaking of heavy wheels, and a voice shouting
+to oxen. The Gypsies glanced swiftly and covertly at one another,
+falling back farther from the vicinity of the girls.
+
+Indeed, several of them returned to the card game. The fortune-teller
+mumbled her foolish prophecies quickly. Into the glade, along a
+wood-path from the thicker timber, came two spans of oxen dragging
+three great logs. A pleasant-faced young man swung the ox-goad and
+spoke cheerily to the slow-moving, ponderous animals.
+
+“Let’s go at once, Pearl!” begged Ruth. “We’ll keep close to this
+lumberman. Dot and Tess can ride on the logs.”
+
+“Come on, girls! I think this old woman is a faker,” cried Pearl. “She
+can’t even tell me whether I’m going to marry a blond man, or a
+brunette!”
+
+“Don’t go yet, little ladies,” said the tall man, suavely. “Zaliska
+can tell you much——”
+
+“Let’s go, girls!” cried Carrie Poole, snatching her hand away from
+the supposed old woman.
+
+Ruth and Agnes had already seized their sisters and were hurrying them
+toward the lumberman.
+
+“Whoa, Buck! Whoa, Bright!” shouted the teamster, cracking the
+whiplash before the leading span of oxen. “Sh-h! Steady. What’s the
+matter, girls?”
+
+“Won’t you take us to the main road where we can get the stage for
+Pleasant Cove?” cried Ruth.
+
+“Sure, Miss. Going right there. Want to ride?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir!” cried the Corner House girls.
+
+“That will be great fun!” shouted some of the others. “Come on!”
+
+They clambered all over the logs, that were chained together and swung
+from the axle of the rear pair of wheels. The Gypsies began gathering
+around and some of them muttered threateningly, but the lumberman
+cracked his whip and the oxen started easily.
+
+“Cling on, girls!” advised the driver. “No skylarking up there. Soon
+have you out to the pike road. And you want to keep away from that
+Gypsy camp. They are a tough lot—very different from the crowd that
+camped there last year and the year before. We farmers are getting
+about ready to run them out, now I tell ye!”
+
+Ruth said nothing—not even to Agnes—about what she had discovered.
+She had penetrated “Queen Zaliska’s” disguise. She believed that the
+supposed old crone was the handsome, dark girl whom she had observed
+so narrowly on the train.
+
+Perhaps nobody but Ruth, of the party of ten girls, really understood
+that they had been in peril from the Gypsies. _She_ believed that, had
+they not gotten away from the camp as they had, the men would have
+robbed them.
+
+The Gypsies were afraid of the husky lumberman, and they did not
+follow the girls. Once on the highway, Pearl declared the auto-stage
+would be along in ten minutes or so, and they bade the lumberman
+good-bye with a feeling of perfect safety.
+
+The Gypsies had not dared follow the party. Soon the stage came along,
+and for ten cents each the girls rode into Pleasant Cove. There were
+only a few other passengers, and the party from Milton sat on top and
+had a lot of fun.
+
+Pearl pointed out the byroad that led down to the river beach where
+the tent colony was set up, but the stage went right past Spoondrift
+bungalow, and the girls got down and charged that dwelling “like a
+horde of Huns,” Agnes declared.
+
+Uncle Phillip Harrod was at home, and welcomed them kindly. “Help
+yourselves, girls, and go as far as you like,” he said, waving both
+hands, and retired to a corner of the piazza with his book and a pipe.
+
+The girls took him at his word. They were very busy till nightfall.
+Then, however, everything was ready for their occupancy of the
+bungalow, and supper was cooking on the kerosene range.
+
+They had forgotten the Gypsies—all but Ruth. She was bound to be
+puzzled by the disguised “queen” and wondered secretly what the
+masquerade meant, and who the beautiful girl was who posed as
+“Zaliska”?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SOME EXCITEMENT
+
+
+“But _why_ ‘Spoondrift’?” demanded Lucy. “What does it mean?”
+
+“‘Spoondrift’ is the spray from the tops of the waves,” explained
+Pearl. “We think the name is awfully pretty.”
+
+“And so is the bungalow—and the Cove,” sighed Ruth.
+
+“And we’re going to have a scrumptious time here!” declared Agnes.
+
+Tess and Dot were frankly sleepy, and Lucy begged the privilege of
+seeing them to bed.
+
+“That’s real kind of you, I’m sure, Lute,” said Agnes.
+
+“Don’t you praise her,” sniffed Carrie. “I know Lute. She’s sleepy,
+herself. You won’t see her downstairs again to-night.”
+
+“I don’t care,” yawned Lucy Poole, following Tess and Dot. “I sleep so
+slowly that it takes a long time for me to get a good night’s rest.”
+
+“Well! of all things!” ejaculated Carrie, as her cousin departed,
+following the two smaller girls. “What do you know about _that_?”
+
+“Almost as stupid as the inhabitants of London,” chuckled Agnes.
+
+“What do you mean by that, Ag?” demanded Ann Presby. “The people of
+London aren’t any more stupid than those of other cities, are they?”
+
+“I don’t know,” returned Agnes; “but the book says ‘the population of
+London is very dense.’”
+
+“Fine! fine!” cried Carrie Poole, laughing. “Oh! these ‘literal’ folk.
+You know, my Grandfather Poole has an awfully bald head. He was
+telling us once that in some famous battle of the Civil War in which
+he took part, his head was grazed by a bullet. My little brother Jimmy
+stared at his head thoughtfully for a minute, and then he said:
+
+“‘My, Grandpa, there’s not much grazing up there now, is there?’”
+
+These stories began the evening. Everybody had some story or joke to
+relate, and finally the girls began to guess riddles. Somebody
+propounded the old one about the wind: “What is it that goes all
+around the house and yet makes no tracks?” and Agnes had a new answer
+for it:
+
+“Germs!” she shouted. “You know, Miss Georgiana gave us a lecture
+about them, and I bet we’re just surrounded by deadly bacilli right
+now.”
+
+“Those aren’t germs—they’re mosquitos, Ag!” laughed Pearl, slapping
+vigorously at one of the pests. “Pleasant Cove isn’t entirely free
+from them.”
+
+“And they are presenting their bills pretty lively, too,” yawned Ruth.
+“The bedrooms are screened. I believe we’d all better seek the haven
+of bed unless we want to be splotchy to-morrow from mosquito bites.”
+
+In the morning the older girls divided the housework between them, and
+so got it all done in short order. The baggage had come up from the
+station the evening before, and they unpacked.
+
+Then they set forth to explore the fishing port, as well as the more
+modern part of Pleasant Cove.
+
+As they brisked along the walk past Mr. Terrence Severn’s Overlook
+House, they spied Trix and her party on the big veranda. The girls
+hailed each other back and forth; only Trix and the Corner House girls
+did not speak.
+
+“We can’t speak to her if she won’t speak to us,” said Ruth to Agnes.
+“Now, never you mind, Aggie. She’ll get over her tantrum in time.”
+
+The party from Spoondrift bungalow got back in season to get luncheon;
+after which they rested and then bathed. It was the Corner House
+girls’ first experience of salt water bathing and they all enjoyed
+it—even Dot.
+
+“It _does_ make you suck in your breath awfully hard when the waves
+lap upon you,” she confessed. “But there was the Alice-doll sitting on
+the shore watching me, and so I couldn’t let her see that I was
+_afraid_!”
+
+Ruth, more than the other girls, aided Pearl in looking after
+housekeeping affairs. It was she who discovered the broken lamp in the
+front hall.
+
+The bungalow was lighted by oil-lamps, and they used candles in the
+bed chambers; while there was a marvelous “blue-flame” kerosene range
+in the kitchen.
+
+Not all of the girls understood the handling of kerosene lamps, and
+Pearl told a funny story about her own little sister who had never
+seen any lights but gas or electric.
+
+“When she came down here to Uncle Phil’s bungalow for the first time,
+she was all excited about the lamps. She told mamma that ‘Uncle Phil
+had his ’lectricity in a lamp right on the supper table. It’s a queer
+kind of a light, for they fill it with water out of a can.’”
+
+The hanging lamp in the front hall was set inside a melon-shaped
+globe. Finding that, as Ruth pointed out, it could not be used, Pearl
+made another trip to the village before teatime and in the local
+“department store” bought another lamp.
+
+“I am afraid you ought not to use that lamp, Pearl,” Ruth said, when
+she saw that the chimney was not tall enough to stick out of the top
+of the globe.
+
+“Pooh! why not? Guess it’s just as good as the old chimney was,” said
+Pearl.
+
+“Seems to me Mrs. MacCall says that chimneys should always be tall
+enough to come up through the globe. I don’t know just why——”
+
+“Oh, pshaw!” interrupted Pearl. “It’s all right, I fancy.”
+
+Neither girl had recourse to “applied physics.” Had she done so she
+could easily have discovered just _why_ it was unwise to use a lamp
+with a short chimney inside such a shaped globe as that hanging in
+chains in the front hall of the bungalow.
+
+Ruth forgot the matter. It was Pearl herself who lit the hall lamp
+that evening. As before, they sat on the porch and played games and
+sang or told stories, all the long, bright evening.
+
+Tess and Dot had gone to bed at half after eight. It was an hour later
+that Lucy suddenly said:
+
+“I smell smoke.”
+
+“It isn’t Mr. Harrod,” said Ann. “He’s gone down to the Casino.”
+
+“It isn’t tobacco smoke I smell,” declared Lucy, springing up.
+
+“Oh, Lute!” shrieked Agnes. “Look at the door!”
+
+A cloud of black, thick smoke was belching out of the front hall upon
+the veranda. One of the other girls shrieked “Fire!”
+
+Those next few minutes were terribly exciting for all hands at the
+Spoondrift bungalow. A single glance into the hall showed Ruth Kenway
+that the hanging lamp had burst, and the place was all ablaze.
+
+There was but one stairway, and the children were in one of the
+low-ceilinged rooms above. Tess and Dot could only be reached by
+climbing up the long, sloping roof of the bungalow, and getting in at
+the chamber window.
+
+While some of the girls ran for water—which was useless in the
+quantity they could bring from the kitchen tap in pots and pans—and
+others ran screaming along the street for help, Ruth “shinnied” right
+up one of the piazza pillars and squirmed out upon the shingled roof.
+
+She tore her dress, and hurt her knees and hands; but she did not
+think of this havoc at the moment. She got to the window of the room
+in which her sisters slept, and screamed for Tess and Dot, but in
+their first sleep the smaller girls were completely “dead to the
+world.”
+
+There was the screen to be reckoned with before the oldest Corner
+House girl could enter. It was set into the window from the inside,
+and she could neither lift the window-sash nor stir the screen. So she
+beat the tough wire in with her fists, and they bled and hurt her
+dreadfully! Nevertheless, she got through, falling into the room just
+as the stifling smoke from below began to pour in around the bedroom
+door.
+
+“Tess! Dot! Hurry up! Get up!” she shrieked, shaking them both.
+
+Tess aroused, whimpering. Ruth seized Dot bodily, flung a blanket
+around her, and put her out of the window upon the roof. Then she
+dragged Tess to the window and made her climb out after her sister.
+
+“Oh, oh!” gasped Tess, alive at last to the cause of the excitement.
+“Save the Alice-doll, Ruthie. Save Dot’s Alice-doll!”
+
+And Ruth actually went back, groping through the gathering smoke, for
+the doll. With it she scrambled out upon the shingles.
+
+By that time the street was noisy with shouting people. Mr. Harrod
+came with a fire extinguisher and attacked the flames. Other men came
+and helped the girls down from the roof.
+
+Agnes had fainted when she realized the danger her sisters were in.
+Some of the other girls were quite hysterical. Neighbors took them all
+in for the night.
+
+It was quite an hour before the fire was completely out. Then the
+Spoondrift bungalow certainly was in a mess.
+
+“It will take carpenters and painters a fortnight and more to repair
+the damage,” said Mr. Harrod the next morning. “Luckily none of your
+guests lost their clothing, Pearl; but you will all have to go to the
+hotel to finish your visit to Pleasant Cove.”
+
+[Illustration: Ruth actually went back, groping through the gathering
+smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled out upon the shingles.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE
+
+
+The Overlook House was nearest. Mr. Harrod made arrangements for the
+girls to go there and occupy several rooms. At least, he presumed he
+had made that arrangement with Mr. Severn when he left on the forenoon
+train for Bloomingsburg to arrange his insurance and hire mechanics to
+at once repair the bungalow.
+
+The Spoondrift cottage was really not fit for occupancy and there
+seemed nothing else for the girls to do but follow his advice and go
+over to the Overlook. But Ruth Kenway had her doubts.
+
+After the excitement of the fire, and the general “stir-about” which
+ensued, Pearl Harrod had quite forgotten that the Corner House girls
+were not on terms of intimacy with Trix Severn, the hotel keeper’s
+daughter. It probably never entered her good-natured mind that Trix
+would behave meanly when all hands from the Spoondrift had escaped the
+peril of the fire.
+
+The girls trooped over to the hotel, after repacking their baggage, to
+look at the rooms which had been secured for them. Mr. Severn was not
+there, nor was the clerk on duty. Their schoolmate, Trix, was behind
+the desk.
+
+“Oh, yes,” she said carelessly, “I presume we can find rooms for you.
+But father doesn’t care much to take in people who won’t stay the
+season out—especially at this time of the year. It’s a great
+inconvenience.”
+
+“Pooh!” said Pearl, frankly, “I guess your father is running his hotel
+for money—not for sport. And Uncle Phil is going to pay him for all
+the accommodation we get.”
+
+“Indeed?” returned Trix. “You seem to know a lot about our business,
+Miss Harrod.”
+
+“Don’t you put on any of your high and mighty airs with me, Miss!”
+snapped Pearl. “For they don’t go down, let me tell you! Didn’t Uncle
+Phil secure rooms for us?”
+
+“Well—he spoke of your coming here. There is Number 10, and 11, and
+14; they’re all three double rooms, so you and Ann can have one, Maud
+and Lulu another, and Carrie and Lucy the third.”
+
+“But, goodness gracious! there are ten of us!” cried Pearl. “You know
+that very well.”
+
+“Those three rooms,” said Trix, with elaborate carelessness, “are all
+your uncle provided.”
+
+“Why, Uncle Phil must be crazy! Didn’t he get a big room for the
+Kenways?”
+
+“Humph!” said Trix, maliciously. “Are _they_ with you, Miss Harrod?
+Your uncle must have quite overlooked them. All the rooms I know
+anything about his securing for your party are the three I’ve
+mentioned.”
+
+“Well, where’s your father——”
+
+“He’s gone fishing,” said Trix, promptly, and with a flash of
+satisfaction in her eyes. “He won’t be back till late to-night.”
+
+“Then, where’s the clerk?” demanded Pearl, much worried.
+
+“Mr. Cheever doesn’t know anything about it. I was here when your
+uncle made his bargain. Nothing was said about those Corner House
+girls—so there! There is no room for them here.”
+
+“Well! I call that the meanest thing!” began Pearl, but Ruth, who had
+stood close by, interrupted:
+
+“Don’t let it worry you in the least, Pearl. We have plenty of time to
+find accommodations before night.”
+
+“You won’t find them here, Miss!” snapped Trix.
+
+“Nothing would make me remain under this roof for a night,” said Ruth,
+indignantly. “My sisters and I have never done you any harm, Trix;
+quite the contrary, as you would remember had you any gratitude at
+all. This hotel is not the only place at Pleasant Cove where we can
+find shelter, I am sure.”
+
+“Oh, Ruth! don’t go!” begged Pearl. “This mean girl is not telling the
+truth, I am sure. You’ll break up our party,” Pearl wailed.
+
+“I couldn’t stay here now,” the oldest Corner House girl declared. “I
+am going to secure a tent for us. I am quite sure we will be
+comfortable in one. If other people can stand it under canvas, of
+course _we_ can.”
+
+She took Agnes by the hand and they went out of the hotel. Tess and
+Dot had not come with them, but had been left at the neighbor’s where
+they had all spent the night.
+
+Pearl and the other girls could not very well follow them; they were
+not so independently situated as the Corner House girls. Ruth had a
+well filled pocket-book, as well as checks from Mr. Howbridge and an
+introductory letter to the branch bank at Pleasant Cove.
+
+She had been so used to going ahead, and arranging matters for the
+whole family, during the past three years, that she was not troubled
+much by this emergency. She was sorry that the pleasant party had to
+be broken up, that was all. She was not sure that she and her sisters
+knew any of the campers along the riverside.
+
+There were two men who supplied tents and outfits for those who wished
+to live under canvas, and so there were two distinct tent colonies,
+though they were side by side.
+
+One was called Camp Enterprise, and the other Camp Willowbend. The
+latter was just at the bend of the river, and there were a few willows
+on the low bluff back of it.
+
+There were not more than a dozen tents erected in either camp as yet,
+for it was early in the season. The Corner House girls rode quite a
+mile from the hotel to Willowbend Camp and selected a tent that was
+already erected.
+
+It was a large wall-tent and it was divided in half by a canvas
+partition that made a bedroom of one end and a living-room of the
+front part. In the latter was a small sheetiron cookstove, with a pipe
+that led the smoke outside of the tent. But there was an oilstove,
+too, and Ruth decided that they would make arrangements for buying
+most of their food cooked, so as to reduce the details of
+housekeeping.
+
+Agnes cheered up at once when she saw the tent-cities. And the smaller
+girls were delighted with the prospect of living under canvas.
+
+There were four cots in the tent, with sheets and blankets, and
+apologies for pillows; there was matting laid down on the sand, too,
+in this bedroom part of the tent.
+
+The remainder of the furnishings consisted of four camp-chairs, a
+plain deal table, a chest of drawers that contained the chinaware and
+cooking utensils, and a small icebox. This front apartment had a plank
+floor, made in sections.
+
+It was a rough enough shelter, and the camping arrangements were
+crude; nevertheless, the Corner House girls saw nothing but fun ahead
+of them, and they were as busy as bees all that day “getting settled.”
+
+There were pleasant people in the other tents of Camp Willowbend, but
+none of them chanced to be Milton people. There were several girls of
+ages corresponding to those of the Corner House girls, and the latter
+were sure they would find these neighbors good sport.
+
+The Kenways were so busy at noon that they only “took a bite in their
+fists,” as good Mrs. MacCall would have expressed it. Ruth had been
+wise enough to buy some cooked food in the village before they came
+over to the camp, but she learned from some of the ladies in the tents
+that there was a woman in the neighborhood who baked bread to sell,
+and sometimes cookies and pies.
+
+“You go to see Mrs. Bobster. She’s the nicest old lady!” declared one
+city matron. “Make your arrangements for bread now, Miss Kenway, for
+after she takes orders for as many as she can well supply, she
+wouldn’t agree to bake another loaf. She has a real New England
+conscience, and she wouldn’t promise to bake a single biscuit more
+than she knows she can get in her oven.”
+
+The directions for finding Mrs. Bobster interested and amused the
+Corner House girls.
+
+“She is the little old woman who lives in the shoe,” laughed their
+informant. “You can’t miss the house, if you go along the beach road
+toward town. It’s just beyond the other camp.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Dot, eagerly, “_I_ want to see the lady who lives in a
+shoe. She must have lots of children, for they were a great bother.”
+
+“And,” said Tess, “do you suppose she _does_ whip them all soundly and
+send them to bed with a piece of bread to eat?”
+
+“We’ll discover all that,” promised Ruth, and soon after luncheon,
+having fixed up the tent, and set to rights their things that the
+expressman had brought over from the Spoondrift bungalow, the four
+sisters set out to find Mrs. Bobster.
+
+The girls had ridden over from the village along the highroad, on
+which they had traveled two days before in the auto-stage. This lower,
+or “beach” road was a much less important thoroughfare. In places it
+followed the line of the shore so closely that the unusual high tides
+that had prevailed that spring, had washed a great deal of white sand
+across the swamp-grass and out upon it.
+
+So, in places, the girls plodded through sand over their shoe tops.
+“Might as well go barefooted,” declared Agnes, sitting down for the
+third time to take off her oxfords and shake out the sand.
+
+“You’d find it pretty different, if you tried it,” laughed Ruth. “This
+sand is hot.”
+
+“It does seem as though you slipped back half a step each time you
+tried to go forward,” said Tess, seriously. “Aren’t we ever going to
+get there, Ruth?”
+
+“Oh!” cried Dot, suddenly, “isn’t that a giraffe? And there’s a
+camel!”
+
+“For goodness’ sake!” gasped Agnes, plunging to her feet, and hopping
+along after her sisters, trying to get on her left shoe. “Is this the
+African desert?”
+
+“It looks like it,” said Ruth, herself amazed.
+
+“And it’s hot enough,” grumbled Agnes. “Oh! I see! it’s a wrecked
+carousel.”
+
+There were decrepit lions and tigers, too; the rain-washed and broken
+animals were the remains of a carousel, the machinery of which had
+been taken away. Once somebody had tried to finance a small pleasure
+resort between the real village of Pleasant Cove and the two tent
+colonies, but it had been unsuccessful.
+
+The wreck of a “shoot the chutes,” the carousel, a dancing pavilion
+and a short boardwalk with adjacent stands, had been abandoned by the
+unfortunate promoters. There was a tower—now a “leaning” tower;
+broken-down swings; an abandoned moving picture palace; and back from
+the rest of the wreckage, several hundred yards from the sandy shore,
+the girls saw a rusty looking frame structure, shaped like a shoe,
+with a flagstaff sticking out of the roof.
+
+“There it is!” cried Tess, eagerly. “And it _does_ look like a shoe.”
+
+Originally the house had been a tiny brown cottage set in the midst of
+a garden. The fence surrounding the place was still well kept. The
+second story of the cottage had been transformed into the semblance of
+a congress-gaiter, with windows in the sides and front. It looked as
+though that huge shoe had been carefully placed upon the rafters of
+the first floor rooms of the cottage.
+
+“What a funny looking place!” exclaimed Agnes. “Did you ever see the
+like, Ruth? I wonder if Mrs. Bobster is as funny as her house.”
+
+At that moment a figure bobbed up among the beanpoles in the garden,
+and the girls saw that it was a little woman in a calico sunbonnet.
+Her face was very small and hard and rosy—like a well-shined Baldwin
+apple. She had twinkling blue eyes, as sharp as file-points.
+
+“Shoo!” exclaimed the little woman. “Shoo, Agamemnon! Git aout o’ them
+pea-vines like I told you!”
+
+For a moment the Corner House girls did not see Agamemnon; they could
+not imagine who he was.
+
+“Shoo, I tell ye!” exclaimed the little old woman who lived in a shoe,
+and she struck out with the short-handled hoe she was using.
+
+There was a squawk, and out leaped, with awkward stride, a long legged
+rooster—of what “persuasion” it was impossible to tell, for he was
+swathed from neck to spurs in a wonderful garment which had
+undoubtedly been made out of a red flannel undershirt!
+
+Two or three bedraggled tail-feathers appeared at the aperture in the
+back of this garment; otherwise Agamemnon seemed to be quite
+featherless. And when, clear of his mistress’ reach, he flapped his
+almost naked wings and crowed, he was the most comical looking object
+the Corner House girls had ever seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A PICNIC WITH AGAMEMNON
+
+
+“You see, gals, Agamemnon’s been the most unlucky bird that ever was
+hatched,” said the little old woman, coming across the tiny lawn to
+the fence where the Corner House girls were staring, round-eyed, at
+the strange apparition of a rooster in a red-flannel sleeping-suit.
+
+“But he’s the pluckiest! Yes, ma’am! He was only a pindling critter
+when he pipped the shell, an’ the vi-cis-_si_-tudes that bird’s been
+through since he fust scratched would ha’ made a human lay right down
+and die.
+
+“The other chickens never would let him raise a pin-feather ter cover
+his nakedness; they picked on him suthin’ _awful_. I shet him up till
+his wings and tail growed, an’ a rat got in an’ gnawed the feathers
+right off him in one night; but Agamemnon picked and clawed so’t the
+old rat didn’t bleed him much.
+
+“And now here, lately, a neighbor got a half-breed game rooster, an’
+thet pesky fightin’ bird got down here an’ sasses Agamemnon on his own
+premises.
+
+“Ag wouldn’t stand for that,” said the old lady, her blue eyes fairly
+crackling. “He sailed right inter that game chicken—an’ Neighbor
+Lincoln et his rooster the nex’ Sunday for dinner. ’Twas all he could
+do with the critter after Agamemnon got through with him.
+
+“But that game rooster had tore ev’ry _important_ feather off’n poor
+Agamemnon’s carcass. I had to do suthin’. ’Twarn’t decent for him to
+go ’round bare. So I made him that smock out of one o’ poor Eddie’s
+old shirts. And there ye be!” she finished breathlessly, smiling
+broadly upon the interested Corner House girls.
+
+“I guess you are Mrs. Bobster?” asked Ruth, smiling in return.
+
+“Are you _really_ the—the lady who lives in the shoe?” asked Dot,
+round-eyed.
+
+“That’s what they call me, pet,” said Mrs. Bobster, smiling at the
+smallest Kenway. “I’m the only little old woman who lives in _this_
+shoe. Poor Eddie thought we’d make a mint of money if we built over
+the top of our house like that, and I sold gingercakes and sweeties to
+the children who came down here to the beach. Eddie was allus mighty
+smart in thinkin’ up schemes for me to make money. But the Beach
+Company went up in smoke, as the sayin’ is; so we didn’t make our
+fortun’ after all.”
+
+She laughed. Indeed, this little, apple-faced old lady was almost
+always laughing, it seemed.
+
+“Poor Eddie!” she added. “I guess the Beach Company failin’ took about
+all the tuck out o’ him. He said himself it was the last straw on the
+camel’s back. He jest settled right down inter his chair, like; and he
+didn’t last that winter out. He was allus weakly, Eddie was.”
+
+The Corner House girls knew she must be speaking of her husband. So
+now she was all alone in the house that had such a grotesque upper
+story.
+
+“No. There ain’t no children here—only them that comes in to see me,”
+Mrs. Bobster said in answer to a question from Tess. “We never did
+have no children; but we allus loved ’em.”
+
+Meanwhile she had opened the gate and invited the Corner House girls
+into the yard. There was an arbor which was already shaded by
+quick-growing vines. The little kitchen garden, with its border of
+gooseberries and currants, was as neat as it could be.
+
+“I gotter cow of my own out back, and hens, too. I make a bare livin’
+in winter, and put frills onto it in summer,” and the old lady
+laughed. “These folks from the city that come livin’ in tents here,
+like my bread and cookies.”
+
+“That is what we have come to arrange for, Mrs. Bobster,” said Ruth.
+
+“I dunno. Most all I can comferbly bake three times a week, is
+bespoke,” said the little old woman who lived in a shoe. “How many is
+there in your fam’bly, Miss?”
+
+When she heard that there were just four of them—these girls
+alone—and that they were to live by themselves in a tent, she grew
+greatly interested.
+
+“Surely I’ll bake for you—and cookies, too. Maybe a fruit pie oncet
+in a while—’specially if you’ll go over beyond the bend when berries
+is ripe and pick ’em yourself. And you gals a-livin’ all alone? Sho!
+I’d think you’d be scaret to death.”
+
+“Why, no!” said Ruth. “Why should we?”
+
+“After dark,” said the old woman, shaking her hand.
+
+“Who would hurt us?” asked the Corner House girl in wonder.
+
+“Can’t most always sometimes tell,” said the old woman, shaking her
+head.
+
+“But _you_ live here alone!”
+
+“No,” she said, quickly. “Not after dark. I ain’t never alone. Oh,
+no!”
+
+She spoke as though she were afraid Ruth might not believe her, and
+repeated the denial several times.
+
+Tess and Dot were very anxious to go upstairs and see the rooms in the
+“shoe,” and they made the request to Ruth in an audible whisper.
+
+“For sure!” cried Mrs. Bobster. “All the children that come here want
+to go upstairs. If I had ’em of my own, that’s where I’d put ’em all
+to bed after I’d fed ’em bread and ‘whipped ’em all soundly,’” and she
+laughed.
+
+“I don’t believe you’d have whipped the children, if you’d been the
+really truly little old woman that lived in the shoe,” quoth Dot,
+putting a confiding hand into the apple-faced lady’s hard palm.
+
+“I bet _you_ wouldn’t have had to be whipped,” laughed Mrs. Bobster,
+leading Dot away, with Tess following.
+
+Later the hostess of the shoe-house brought out a pitcher of milk and
+glasses with a heaping plate of ginger cookies—the old-fashioned kind
+that just _melt_ on your tongue!
+
+“Sho!” she said, when Ruth praised them. “It’s easy enough to make
+good merlasses cookies. But ye don’t wanter have no conscience when it
+comes to butter—no, indeed!”
+
+Agamemnon came to the feast. In his ridiculous red flannel suit he
+waddled up to his mistress and pecked crumbs off her lap when she sat
+down on the bench in the arbor.
+
+“He looks just like a person ready to go in swimming,” chuckled Agnes.
+“It’s a red bathing suit.”
+
+“That’s one thing Agamemnon can’t stand. He don’t like water,” said
+Mrs. Bobster. “But if I let him out at low tide he’ll beau a flock of
+hens right down to the clamflats. But now, poor thing! they won’t go
+with him.”
+
+“Who—the hens!” asked Ruth, wonderingly.
+
+“Yes. They don’t think he looks jest right, I s’pose. If he chassés up
+to one of my old biddies, she tries to tear that flannel suit right
+off’n him. It’s hard on poor Agamemnon; but until his feathers start
+to grow good again, I don’t dare have him go without it. He’d git
+sunburned like a brick, in the fust place.”
+
+This tickled Agnes so that she almost fell off the bench.
+
+“But I should think the red flannel would tickle him awfully,”
+murmured Tess, quite seriously disturbed over the plight of the
+rooster.
+
+“Sho! keeps away rheumatics. So poor Eddie allus said,” declared the
+widow. “That’s why he wore red flannel for forty year—and he never
+had a mite of rheumatism. Agamemnon ought to be satisfied he’s alive,
+after all he’s been through.”
+
+It was really very funny to see the rooster strutting about the yard
+in what Agnes called his red bathing suit.
+
+The Corner House girls remained for some time with Mrs. Bobster. When
+they went back to the camp at the bend they carried their first supply
+of bread and cookies.
+
+They arrived at their tent to find a wagonette Pearl had hired in the
+port, and all the other girls who had been at the Spoondrift bungalow
+had come visiting.
+
+The crowd was delighted with the way Ruth and her sisters were
+situated. It looked as though to live under canvas would be great fun
+indeed.
+
+“Wish I’d spoken to Uncle Phil about it, and gotten him to hire tents
+instead of putting us up at that old hotel,” declared Pearl. “And do
+you know, girls, that Trix Severn told a story?”
+
+“I didn’t suppose she’d be above being untruthful,” Ruth said, rather
+indignantly.
+
+“And you’re quite right. We found out that her father set aside a big,
+double-bedded room for you four girls. Trix says she did not know
+anything about it. But of course Uncle Phil would not have forgotten
+you.”
+
+“Never mind,” said Agnes. “I’m glad she acted so. We’re a whole lot
+better off here.”
+
+“I believe you!” said Carrie Poole.
+
+“You going to have Rosa Wildwood here in the tent with you when she
+comes?” asked Ann Presby.
+
+“I’m afraid she ought to have a better place,” said Ruth. “And I
+believe I know just where she would get the attention—and food—that
+she needs,” and the oldest Corner House girl told the crowd about Mrs.
+Bobster—the little old lady who lived in a shoe.
+
+“If I can get the dear old thing to take Rosa to board, I know she’ll
+give her just what she needs—good food, plenty of it, well cooked,
+and Rosa will be in a quiet place where she can rest all she wants
+to,” said Ruth.
+
+She had no idea at the time of the strange adventure that would arise
+out of this plan of hers to bring Rosa Wildwood to stay for a part of
+the summer with the little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NIGHT OF THE BIG WIND
+
+
+“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell you a boat.”
+
+“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell an elephant—and it’s _so_
+cute!”
+
+“For the land’s sake!” gasped Ruth, throwing down a sputtering pen,
+where she was writing on the chest of drawers in the tent. “_How_ can
+a body write? And an elephant, no less!”
+
+She rushed out to see Dot’s elephant, as that seemed more important
+than Tess’ announcement that a man had merely a boat for sale. Dot’s
+man was a gangling young fellow with a covered basket from which he
+was selling sugar cakes made into fancy shapes. So Dot had her
+elephant for the Alice-doll (almost everything that appealed to Dot
+was bought for that pampered child of hers!) and was appeased.
+
+But the man with the boat was a different matter. He proved to be a
+boat owner and he wanted to hire one of his craft to the Corner House
+girls by the week. Agnes was just crazy (so she said) to add rowing to
+her accomplishments, and Ruth thought it would be a good thing
+herself.
+
+The boat was a safe, cedar craft, with two pairs of light oars and a
+portable kerosene engine and propeller to use if the girls got tired
+of rowing. Ruth made the bargain after thoroughly looking over the
+boat, which had had only one season’s use.
+
+There was a chain and padlock for mooring it to a post at the edge of
+the water just below the tent.
+
+The older girls had already learned to swim in the school gymnasium at
+Milton. Milton was pretty well up to date in its school arrangements.
+
+Tess had been taught to “strike out” and could be left safely to
+paddle by herself in shallow water while Ruth and Agnes taught little
+Dot.
+
+The latter refused to own to any fear of the water. Up here in the
+river the waves were seldom of any consequence, and of course on
+stormy days the girls would not go bathing at all.
+
+Others of the Willowbend campers had rowboats for the season; and some
+even owned their own motorboats. The girls were well advised regarding
+fishing-tackle and the like. Crabbing was a favorite sport just then,
+for several small creeks emptied into the river nearby and soft-shell
+crabs and shedders were plentiful.
+
+“I’d be afraid of these crabs if their teeth were hard,” Dot declared,
+for she insisted that the “pincers” of the crustaceans were teeth.
+
+“They are dreadfully _squirmy_, anyway,” sighed Tess. “Just like
+spiders. And yet, we eat them!”
+
+“But—but I always shut my eyes when I eat them; just as I do when I
+swallow raw oysters,” confessed Dot. “They taste so much better than
+they look!”
+
+Having the boat, the Corner House girls rowed to the village for their
+supplies and to visit their friends. They did not go to the Overlook
+House; but Pearl Harrod and her party were at the burned bungalow
+almost all day. They always bathed there, and the Corner House girls
+went down to bathe with them. The beach was better there than at the
+camp.
+
+It was Monday when Ruth Kenway and her sisters were established in
+their tent. On Thursday of that week they rowed over to Spoondrift
+bungalow in the morning. Pearl greeted them before they got ashore
+with:
+
+“Oh, Ruth! The funniest thing has happened. You’d never guess.”
+
+“Trix Severn has the mumps!” exclaimed Agnes. “I knew she was all
+swelled up.”
+
+“Not as good as _that_,” laughed Pearl. “But worse may happen to that
+girl than mumps. However, it’s nothing to do with Trix.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Ruth, calmly. “I’m not a good guesser, Pearl.”
+
+“You remember those Gypsies?”
+
+“That are camped up in the woods!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“If they _are_ Gypsies,” said Ruth, doubtfully.
+
+“Of course they are!” cried Pearl. “Well, they’ve been around here
+looking for you.”
+
+“For goodness’ sake!” gasped Agnes. “What for?”
+
+Ruth herself looked startled. But Pearl began to laugh again.
+
+“At least, that queer old woman has been asking for you,” she
+explained.
+
+“Zaliska!” exclaimed Ruth, although she was very sure that was not the
+person’s name. Of course the name was part of the strange girl’s
+masquerade.
+
+“It was this morning,” Pearl went on to say. “We didn’t see many of
+the women of the tribe when we came past that camp last week. But a
+number of them came down into the village this morning—selling
+baskets and telling fortunes from door to door. We saw them over by
+the hotel—didn’t we, girls?”
+
+“Yes. I bought a basket from one of them,” admitted Carrie Poole.
+
+“But when we came up here to the bungalow,” pursued Pearl, “one of the
+men working here asked me if I’d seen ‘my friend, the Gypsy queen’?
+So, I said ‘No,’ of course.
+
+“Then he told me that that Zaliska had asked him where the girl was
+who was called Ruth Kenway. He told her that after the bungalow got
+afire, all the girls went to the hotel.”
+
+“Then she’ll never find you there, Ruth,” interposed Agnes, with
+satisfaction.
+
+Ruth was not sure that she did not wish the supposed Gypsy queen to
+find her. She knew that “Zaliska” was really the very pretty,
+dark-skinned girl whom she had been so much interested in on the train
+coming down from Milton.
+
+And that strange girl was interested in Rosa Wildwood. Of that Ruth
+was as sure as she could be.
+
+“Maybe she’ll follow you up to the camp,” said Lucy Poole. “I’d be
+afraid to live all alone in that tent if I were you girls.”
+
+“Pooh!” exclaimed Agnes. “What’s going to hurt us!”
+
+“The crabs might come up the beach at night and pinch your toes,”
+laughed Maud Everts.
+
+“I don’t know,” Pearl said, seriously. “I wouldn’t want those Gyps
+interested in _me_.”
+
+“Now you are trying to frighten us,” laughed Ruth. “We have plenty of
+neighbors. Don’t you come up there and try to play tricks on us in the
+tent. You might get hurt.”
+
+“Bet she has a gatling gun,” chuckled Carrie Poole.
+
+“I’m going to have something better than that,” declared Ruth,
+smiling. But she refused to tell them _what_.
+
+Ruth remembered that the little old woman who lived in a shoe had
+spoken of being afraid, too; so the oldest Corner House girl made her
+plans accordingly, but kept them to herself.
+
+After their bath the sisters dressed in the Harrod tent that had been
+pitched on the lawn behind the bungalow, and then went on to the
+village. Ruth and Agnes rowed very nicely, for the former, at least,
+had had some practise at this sport before coming to Pleasant Cove.
+
+They tied the painter of their boat to a ring in one of the wharf
+stringers, and went “up town” to the stores. The village of Pleasant
+Cove was never a bustling business center. There were but few people
+on the main street, and most of those were visitors.
+
+“There are two of those Gypsy women, Ruth!” hissed Agnes in her
+sister’s ear, as they came out of a store.
+
+Ruth looked up to see the woman who had been in the train, and
+another. They were both humbly dressed, but in gay colors. Ruth looked
+up and down the street for the disguised figure of the young girl, but
+_she_ was not in sight.
+
+“My goodness, Ruth!” said Agnes, “what do you suppose that old hag of
+a Gypsy wants you for?”
+
+“She isn’t——” began Ruth. Then she thought better of taking Agnes
+into her confidence just then and did not finish her impulsively begun
+speech, but said:
+
+“We won’t bother about it. She probably won’t find us up at Willowbend
+Camp.”
+
+“I should hope _not_!” cried Agnes. “I don’t want to get any better
+acquainted with those Gyps.”
+
+The matter, however, caused Ruth to think more particularly of Rosa
+Wildwood. She had not yet found a boarding place for the Southern
+girl, and Rosa was to come down to Pleasant Cove the next Monday.
+
+Ruth wanted to see Mrs. Bobster, and she did so that very afternoon.
+On their way back to the camp they tied the boat up at the foot of the
+wrecked pleasure park and walked up the broken boardwalk to the
+shoe-house.
+
+“Here’s your bread, girls—warm from the oven,” said the brisk little
+woman. “And if you want a pan of seed cookies——”
+
+“Oh! don’t we, just!” sighed Agnes.
+
+The girls sat down to eat some of the delicacies right then and there,
+and Mrs. Bobster brought a pitcher of cool milk from the well-curb.
+Ruth at once opened the subject of getting board for Rosa with the
+little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+“Wal, I re’lly don’t know what ter say to ye,” declared Mrs. Bobster.
+“I ain’t never kalkerlated ter run a boardin’ house——
+
+“But one young lady! I dunno. They wanted me to take old Mr. Kendricks
+ter board last winter; the town selectmen did. But I told ’em ‘No.’ I
+warn’t runnin’ a boardin’ house—nor yet the poorfarm.”
+
+“Poorfarm?” questioned Ruth, puzzled by the reference.
+
+“Yep. Ye see, there ain’t been no town poor here in Pleasant Cove for
+a number o’ years. Last winter old Mr. Kendricks see fit to let the
+town board him. He’s spry enough to go clammin’ in the summer; an’ he
+kin steer a boat when his rheumatics ain’t so bad. But winters is
+gittin’ hard on him.
+
+“It didn’t seem good jedgment,” Mrs. Bobster said, reflectively, “to
+open the poorfarm jest for _him_. B’sides, they’d got the old farm let
+to good advantage for another year to Silas Holcomb. So they come to
+me.
+
+“Now, Mr. Kendricks is as nice an old man as ever you’d wish ter see,”
+pursued Mrs. Bobster. “He comes of good folks—jest as good as my poor
+Eddie’s folks.
+
+“The town selectmen had consid’rable trouble gettin’ Mr. Kendricks
+took, ’count o’ his being so pertic’lar. Yeast bread seemed ter be his
+chief objection. He couldn’t make up his mind to it on account of
+havin’ had sour milk biscuit all his life; but finally, after I’d said
+‘No,’ they got Mis’ Ann ’Liza Cobbles to agree to give him hot bread
+three times a day like he was used to.
+
+“But, lawsy me! She ain’t a com-_plete_ cook—no, indeed! Mr.
+Kendricks said her cookin’ warn’t up to the mark, an’ if he has to go
+on the town this comin’ winter he shouldn’t go to Mis’ Cobbles.
+
+“The selectmen may be driv’ to open the poorfarm ag’in, an’ to gittin’
+somebody ter do for Mr. Kendricks proper.
+
+“Maybe it’s a sort of lesson to the folks of Pleasant Cove,” sighed
+Mrs. Bobster, “for bein’ sort o’ proud-like through reason of not
+havin’ no town poor for endurin’ of ten years. I view it that way
+myself.
+
+“Mr. Kendricks says he feels as if he was meant ter be a notice to
+’em; ter be ready an’ waitin’ ter help people in a proper way; not to
+be boardin’ of ’em ’round where they might git dyspepsia fastened on
+’em through eatin’ of unproper food.”
+
+Agnes was giggling; but Ruth managed to get the talkative old lady
+back into the track she wanted her in. The Corner House girl
+expatiated upon how little trouble Rosa would be, and what a nice girl
+she was.
+
+“Well!” said Mrs. Bobster, “I might try her. You offer awful temptin’
+money, Miss. And poor Eddie allus said I’d do anything for money!”
+
+It had been fortunate for the deceased Mr. Bobster, as Ruth had
+learned, that his wife _had_ been willing to earn money in any honest
+way; for Mr. Bobster himself seldom had done a day’s work after his
+marriage to the brisk little woman.
+
+So the matter of Rosa Wildwood’s board and lodging was arranged, and
+the Kenways went back to their boat. Evening was approaching, and with
+it dark clouds had rolled up from the horizon, threatening a bad
+night.
+
+Ruth and Agnes found a head wind to contend with when they pushed off
+the cedar boat. Ruth had learned to run the little motor propeller,
+and she started it at once. Otherwise they would have a hard time
+pulling up to Willowbend Camp.
+
+During the week there were few men at the tent colonies. On Saturdays
+and Sundays the husbands and fathers were present in force; but now
+there was not a handful of adult males in either the Enterprise or
+Willowbend encampments.
+
+The Corner House girls were helped ashore, however, and they hauled
+their boat clear up to the front of their tent. There was quite a
+swell on, and the waves ran far up the beach, hissing and spattering
+spray into the air. The wind swept this spray against the tents in
+gusts, like rain.
+
+But there was no rain—only wind. The black clouds threatened, but
+there was no downpour. There was no such thing as having a coal fire,
+however; the wind blew right down the stack and filled the tent with
+choking smoke.
+
+They lit a lantern and ate a cold supper. The flaps of the tent were
+laced down, for they had been warned against letting the wind get
+under. Now and then, however, a chill draught blew over them and the
+partition creaked.
+
+“It’s just like a storm at sea,” said Agnes, rather fearfully, yet
+enjoying the novel sensation. “We might as well be on a sailing ship.”
+
+“Not much!” exclaimed Ruth. “At least, we’re on an even keel.”
+
+They agreed to go to bed early. Lying in the cots, well covered with
+the blankets, seemed the safest place on such a night. There was no
+shouting back and forth from tent to tent, and no visiting.
+
+Lights went out early. The wind shrieked in the treetops back from the
+shore, and in the lulls the girls could hear the breakers booming on
+the rocks outside the cove.
+
+Tess and Dot went to sleep—tired with the day’s activities. Not so
+the older girls. They lay and listened, and shivered as the booming
+voice of the wind grew in volume, and the water seemed to drive
+farther and farther up the beaches.
+
+Forever after, this night was known at Pleasant Cove as “the night of
+the big wind.” But as yet it had only begun and the Corner House girls
+had no idea of what was in store for them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN IMPORTANT ARRIVAL
+
+
+Agnes _did_ fall asleep; but Ruth only dozed, if she closed her eyes
+at all. The rumble of the storm shook the nerves of the oldest Corner
+House girl—and no wonder!
+
+Ruth felt the weight of responsibility for her sisters’ safety. If
+anything happened while they were under canvas she knew that she would
+be blamed.
+
+Sometimes the spray swept in from the river and spattered on the
+canvas like a drenching shower. The walls of the tent shook. She heard
+many sounds without that she could not explain—and some of these
+sounds frightened her.
+
+Suppose the tent should blow down? The way the wind sometimes shook it
+reminded Ruth of a dog shaking a bit of rag.
+
+Then, when the wind held its breath for a moment, the roaring of the
+sea in the distance was a savage sound to which the girl’s ears were
+not attuned.
+
+She had left the lantern lit and it swung from a rope tied to the
+ridgepole of the tent, and beyond the half partition of canvas. Its
+flickering light cast weird shadows upon the canvas roof.
+
+Now and then the spray beat against the front of the tent, while the
+roof shook and shivered as though determined to tear away from the
+walls. Ruth wished she had gone all around the tent before dark to
+make sure the pegs were driven well into the sand.
+
+Occasionally children cried shrilly, for the noise of the elements
+frightened them; Ruth was thankful that Tess and Dot slept on.
+
+She slept herself at last; how long she did not know, for when she
+awoke she was too greatly frightened to look at her watch. The wind
+seemed suddenly to have increased. It seemed struggling to tear the
+tent up by the roots!
+
+And as the canvas shook, and swelled, and strove to burst its
+fastenings, there came a sudden snap on one side and one of the pegs
+flew high in the air at the end of its rope, coming down slap on the
+roof of the tent!
+
+“The peg has pulled out!” gasped Ruth, sitting up in her cot and
+throwing off the blanket.
+
+The canvas was straining and bellying fearfully at the point where the
+peg had drawn. It was likely to draw the pegs on either side. Ruth
+very well knew that if a broad enough opening was made for the wind to
+get under, the tent would be torn from its fastenings.
+
+She hopped out upon the matting and shook Agnes by the shoulder.
+
+“Get up! Get up, Ag!” she called, breathlessly. “Help me.”
+
+She ran to the front of the tent for the maul—a long-handled,
+heavy-headed croquet-mallet. When she returned with it, Agnes was
+trying to rub her eyes open.
+
+“Come quick, Ag! We’ll be blown away,” declared Ruth.
+
+“I—I——What’ll we do?” whimpered Agnes.
+
+“We must hold the tent down. Come on! Get into your mackintosh. I’ll
+get the lantern.”
+
+Around the upright pole in the sleeping part of the tent were hung the
+girls’ outer garments. Ruth got into her own raincoat and buttoned it
+to her ankles. She left Agnes struggling with hers while she ran to
+unhang the lantern. She knew the night must be as black as a pocket
+outside.
+
+“Wha—what you going to do?” stuttered Agnes.
+
+“Drive the pegs in deeper. One of them pulled out.”
+
+“Oh, dear! _Can_ we?”
+
+“I guess we’ll have to, if we don’t want to lose our tent. Hear that
+wind?”
+
+“It—it sounds like cannon roaring.”
+
+“Come on!”
+
+“But that isn’t the front flap——”
+
+“Think I’m going to unlace that front flap when the wind’s blowing
+right into it?”
+
+“Can’t we get out yonder, where the peg has been pulled?”
+
+“But how’ll we get in again when all the stakes are driven down hard?”
+snapped Ruth, beginning to unlace the flaps of the rear wall of the
+tent.
+
+“Oh! oh!” moaned Agnes. “Hear that wind?”
+
+“I wouldn’t care if it only _hollered_,” gasped Ruth. “It’s what it
+will do if it ever gets under this tent, that troubles me!”
+
+She unlaced the flaps only a little way. “Come along with that
+lantern, Ag. We’ve got to crawl under.”
+
+“‘Get down and get under,’” giggled Agnes, hysterically.
+
+But she brought the lantern and followed Ruth out of the tent, on
+hands and knees. When they stood up and tried to go around to that
+side of the tent where the peg had pulled out, the wind almost knocked
+them down.
+
+“And how the sleet cuts!” gasped Agnes, her arm across her eyes for
+protection.
+
+“It’s sand,” explained Ruth. “I thought it was spray from the river.
+But a good deal of it is sand—just like a sand-storm in the desert.”
+
+“Well!” grumbled Agnes, “I hope it’s killing a lot of those sandfleas
+that bother us so. I don’t see how they can live and be blown about
+this way.”
+
+Ruth tackled the first post at the corner and beat it down as hard as
+she could, Agnes holding the lantern so that the older girl could see
+where to strike.
+
+They went from one peg to the next, taking each in rotation. And when
+they reached the one that had pulled out entirely, Ruth drove that
+into the ground just as far as it would go.
+
+Strangely enough, throughout all this business, Tess and Dot did not
+awake. Ruth went clear around the tent, driving the stakes. The wind
+howled; the sand and spray blew; and the voices of the Night and of
+the Storm seemed fairly to yell at them. Still the smaller Corner
+House girls slept through it all. Ruth and Agnes crept back into the
+tent and laced the flaps down in safety.
+
+A little later, before either of them fell asleep again, they heard
+shouting and confusion at a distance. In the morning they learned that
+two of the tents in the Enterprise Camp had blown down.
+
+The shore was strewn with wreckage, too, when daybreak came; but the
+wind seemed to have blown itself out. Many small craft had come
+ashore, and some were damaged. It was not often that the summer
+visitors at Pleasant Cove saw any such gale as this had been.
+
+Everything was all right with the Corner House girls, and Ruth decided
+they would stick to the tent, in spite of the fact that some of the
+camping families were frightened away from the tent colonies by this
+disgraceful exhibition of Mr. Wind!
+
+The smaller Kenways, as well as the bigger girls, were enjoying the
+out-of-door life immensely. They were already as brown as berries.
+They ran all day, bare-headed and bare-legged, on the sands. It was
+plain to be seen that the change from Milton to Pleasant Cove was
+doing all the Corner House girls a world of good.
+
+And during the extremely pleasant days that immediately followed the
+night of the big wind, many new colonists came to the tents. Two big
+tents were erected in the Willowbend Camp, for Joe Eldred and _his_
+friends—and that included, of course, Neale O’Neil. But the Milton
+boys would not arrive until the next week.
+
+On Monday afternoon the Corner House girls walked down to the railroad
+station to greet Rosa Wildwood. It had been a very hot day in town and
+it was really hot at Pleasant Cove, as well.
+
+“Oh! you poor thing!” gasped Ruth, receiving Rosa in her strong arms
+as she stumbled off the car steps with her bag.
+
+“I’m as thin as the last run of shad, am I not?” asked Rosa, laughing.
+“That train was _awful_! I am baked. It’s never like this down South.
+The air is so much dryer there; there isn’t this humidity. Oh!”
+
+“Well, you’re here all right now, Rosa,” cried Ruth. “We have a nice,
+easy carriage for you to ride in. And the _dearest_ place for you to
+live!”
+
+“And scrumptious eating, Rose,” added Agnes.
+
+“With the little old woman who lives in a shoe,” declared Tess, eager
+to add her bit of information.
+
+Dot’s finger had strayed to the corner of her mouth, as she stared.
+For she had never met Rosa before, and she was naturally rather a
+bashful child.
+
+“Now!” cried Ruth, again. “Where is he?”
+
+“Who?” demanded Agnes, staring all about. “Neale didn’t come, did he?”
+
+“Oh, he’s up in the baggage-car ahead,” said Rosa, laughing.
+
+“You sit right down here till I get him,” Ruth commanded.
+
+“Here’s the check,” Rosa said, and to the amazement of the other
+Corner House girls Ruth ran right away toward the head of the train
+with the baggage check, and without saying another word.
+
+There were two baggage cars on the long train and from the open door
+of the first one the man was throwing trunks and bags onto the big
+wheel-truck.
+
+So Ruth ran on to the other car. The side-door was wheeled back just
+as she arrived, and a glad bark welcomed her appearance.
+
+Tom Jonah stood in the doorway, straining at his leash held in the
+hands of the baggageman. His tongue lolled out on his chest like a red
+necktie, and he was laughing just as plainly as ever a dog _did_
+laugh.
+
+“I see he knows you, Miss,” said the man. “You don’t have to prove
+property. He sure is glad to see you,” and he accepted the check.
+
+“No gladder than I am to see him,” said Ruth. “Let him jump down,
+please.”
+
+She caught the leather strap as the baggageman tossed it toward her,
+and Tom Jonah bounded about her in an ecstasy of delight.
+
+“Down, sir!” she commanded. “Now, Tom Jonah, come and see the girls.
+But behave.”
+
+He barked loudly, but trotted along beside her most sedately. Tess and
+Dot had heard him, and deserting Rosa and Agnes, they came flying up
+the platform to meet Ruth and the big dog.
+
+The two younger Corner House girls hugged Tom Jonah, and he licked
+their hands in greeting. Agnes was as extravagantly glad to see him as
+were the others.
+
+“How did you come to send for him, Ruthie?” Agnes cried.
+
+“I thought we might need a chaperon at the tent,” laughed Ruth.
+
+“The Gyps!” exclaimed Agnes, under her breath. “Let them come now, if
+they want to. You’re a smart girl, Ruthie.”
+
+“Sh!” commanded the older sister. “Don’t let the children hear.”
+
+They helped Rosa into the wagonette and then climbed in after her.
+Ruth had taken off Tom Jonah’s leash and the good old dog trotted
+after the carriage as it rolled through Main Street and out upon the
+Shore Road toward the tent colonies.
+
+Rosa brought all the news of home to the Corner House girls and many
+messages from Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus. Of course, they could
+expect no word from Aunt Sarah, for it was not her way to be
+sympathetic or show any deep interest in what her adopted nieces were
+doing.
+
+The girls from the old Corner House might have been a little homesick
+had there not been so much to take up their attention each hour at
+Pleasant Cove.
+
+They brought Rosa to the little old woman who lived in a shoe, and the
+moment Mrs. Bobster saw how weak and white she was her sympathy went
+out to her.
+
+“Tut, tut, tut!” she said, clucking almost as loudly as Agamemnon
+himself. “We’ll soon fix you up, my dear. If you stay long enough here
+at the beach, you’ll be as brown and strong as these other gals.”
+
+Rosa put her arm about Ruth’s neck when the Corner House girls were
+about to leave.
+
+“This is a heavenly place, Ruth Kenway, and you are an angel for
+bringing me down heah. I don’t know what greater thing anybody could
+do fo’ me—and you aren’t even kin!”
+
+“Don’t bother, Rosa. I haven’t done much——”
+
+“There’s nothing in the world—but one thing—that could make me
+happier.”
+
+Ruth looked at her curiously, and Rosa added:
+
+“To find June. I hope to find her some day—yes, I do.”
+
+“And suppose I should help you do _that_?” laughed the oldest Corner
+House girl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TWO GIRLS IN A BOAT—TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG!
+
+
+“Oh, Dot! do come here. Did you ever see such a funny thing in all
+your life?”
+
+Tess Kenway was just as earnest as though the discovery she had made
+was really of great moment. The two bare-legged girls were on the
+sands below the tent colony of Willowbend, and the tide was out.
+
+The receding waves had just left this wet flat bare. Here and there
+the sand still dimpled to the heave of the tide, and little rivers of
+water ran into the hollows and out again.
+
+“What is the matter, Tess?” asked Dot, wonderingly.
+
+“See!”
+
+Tess pointed down at her feet—where the drab, wet sand showed
+lighter-colored under the pressure of her weight.
+
+“What is it?” gasped the amazed Dot.
+
+There was a tiny round hole in the sand—just like an ant hole, only
+there was no “hill” thrown up about it. As Tess tip-tilted on her toes
+to bring more pressure to bear near the orifice in the sand, a little
+fountain of water spurted into the air—shot as though from a fairy
+gun buried in the sand.
+
+“Goodness!” gasped Dot again. “What _is_ that?”
+
+“That’s what I say,” responded Tess. “Did you ever see the like?”
+
+“Oh! here’s another,” cried Dorothy, who chanced to step near a
+similar vent. “See it squirt, Tess! See it squirt!”
+
+“What kind of a creature do you suppose can be down there?” asked the
+bigger girl.
+
+“It—it can’t be anything very big,” suggested Dot. “At least, it must
+be awfully narrow to get down through the little hole, and pull itself
+’way out of sight.”
+
+This suggestion certainly opened a puzzling vista of possibilities to
+the minds of both inland-bred girls. What sort of an animal could
+possibly crawl into such a small aperture—and yet throw such a
+comparatively powerful stream of water into the air?
+
+They found several more of the little air-holes. Whenever they stamped
+upon the sand beside one, up would spring the fountain!
+
+“Just like the books say a whale squirts water through its nose,”
+declared Tess, who had rather a rough-and-ready knowledge of some
+facts of natural history.
+
+A man with a basket on his arm and a four-pronged, short-handled rake
+in his hand, was working his way across the flats; sometimes stooping
+and digging quickly with his rake, when he would pick something up and
+toss it into his basket.
+
+He drew near to two Corner House girls, and Dot whispered to Tess:
+
+“Do you suppose he’d know what these holes are for? You ask him,
+Tess.”
+
+“And he’s digging out something, himself. Do you suppose he’s
+collecting clams? Ruth says clams grow here on the shore and folks dig
+them,” Tess replied.
+
+“Let’s ask about the holes,” determined Dot, who was persistent
+whether the cause was good or bad.
+
+The two girls approached the clam-digger, hand in hand. Dot hugged
+tight in the crook of one arm her Alice-doll.
+
+“Please, sir,” Tess ventured, “will you tell us what grows down under
+this sand and squirts water up at us through such a teeny, weeny
+hole?”
+
+The man was a very weather-beaten looking person, with his shirt open
+at the neck displaying a brawny chest. He smiled down upon the girls.
+
+“How’s that, shipmet?” he asked, in a very husky voice. “Show me them
+same holes.”
+
+The sisters led the way, and the very saltish man followed. It was not
+until then that Tess and Dot noticed that one of his legs was of wood,
+and he stumped along in a most awkward manner.
+
+“Hel-_lo_!” growled the man, seeing the apertures in the sand. “Them’s
+clams, an’ jest what I’m arter. By your lief——”
+
+He struck the rake down into the sand just beyond one of the holes and
+dug quickly for half a minute. Then he tossed out of the hole he had
+dug a nice, fat clam.
+
+“There he be, shipmets,” declared the clam-digger, who probably had a
+habit of addressing everybody as “shipmate.”
+
+“Oh—but—did _he_ squirt the water up at us, sir?” gasped Dot.
+
+The wooden-legged man grinned again and seized the clam between a firm
+finger and thumb. When he pinched it, the bivalve squirted through its
+snout a fine spray.
+
+“Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Tess, drawing back.
+
+“But—but _how_ did he get down into the sand and only leave such a
+tiny hole behind him?” demanded Dot, bent upon getting information.
+
+“Ah, shipmet! there ye have it. I ain’t a l’arned man. I ain’t never
+been to school. I went ter sea all my days till I got this here leg
+shot off me and had to take to wearin’ a timber-toe. I couldn’t tell
+ye, shipmets, how a clam does go down his hole an’ yet pulls the hole
+down arter him.”
+
+“Oh!” sighed Dot, disappointedly.
+
+“It’s one o’ them wonders of natur’ ye hear tell on. I never could
+understand it myself—like some ignerant landlubbers believin’ the
+world is flat! I know it’s round, ’cos I been down one side o’ it an’
+come up the other!
+
+“As for science, an’ them things, shipmets, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout
+’em. I digs clams; I don’t pester none erbout how they grows——”
+
+And he promptly dug another and then a third. The girls watched him,
+fascinated at his skill. Nor did the “peg-leg” seem to trouble him at
+all in his work.
+
+“Please, sir,” asked Tess, after some moments, “how did you come to
+lose your leg—your really truly one, I mean?”
+
+“Pi-_rats_,” declared the man, with an unmoved countenance.
+“Pi-_rats_, shipmet—on the Spanish Main.”
+
+“Oh!” breathed both girls together. Somehow that expression was
+faintly reminiscent to them. Agnes had a book about pirates, and she
+had read out loud in the evenings at the sitting-room table, at the
+old Corner House. Tess and Dot were not aware that “the Spanish Main”
+had been cleared of pirates, some years before this husky-voiced old
+clam-digger was born.
+
+The clam-digger offered no details about his loss, and Tess and Dot
+felt some delicacy about asking further questions. Besides, Tom Jonah
+came along just then and evinced some distaste for the company of the
+roughly dressed one-legged man. Of course, he could not dig clams in
+his best clothes, as Tess pointed out; but Tom Jonah had confirmed
+doubts about all ill-dressed people. So the girls accompanied the dog
+back towards the tents.
+
+The big girls had been out in the boat and Ruth had left Agnes to
+bring up the oars and crab nets, as well as to moor the boat, while
+she hastened to get dinner.
+
+The tide being on the turn they could not very well pull the boat up
+to the mooring post; but there was a long painter by which it could be
+tied to the post. Agnes, however, carried the oars up to the tent and
+then forgot about the rest of her task as she dipped into a new book.
+
+Tess and Dot came to the empty boat and at once climbed in. Tom Jonah
+objected at first. He ran about on the sand—even plunged into the
+water a bit, and put both front paws on the gunwale.
+
+If ever a dog said, “Please, _please_, little mistresses, get out of
+the boat!” old Tom Jonah said it!
+
+But the younger Corner House girls paid no attention to him. They went
+out to the stern, which was in quite deep water, and began clawing
+overboard with the crab nets. With a whine, the dog leaped into the
+craft.
+
+Now, whether the jar the dog gave it as he jumped into the boat, or
+his weight when he joined the girls in the stern, set the cedar boat
+afloat, will never be known. However, it slid into the water and
+floated free.
+
+“We can catch some crabs, too, maybe, Tess,” Dot said.
+
+Neither of them noticed that the oars were gone, but had they been in
+the boat, Tess or Dot could not have used them—much. And surely Tom
+Jonah could not row.
+
+They did not even notice that they were afloat until the tide, which
+was just at the turn, twisted the boat’s nose about and they began
+drifting up the river.
+
+“Oh, my, Dot!” gasped Tess. “Where are we going?”
+
+“Oh-oo-ee!” squealed Dot, raking wildly with one of the nets. “I
+almost caught one.”
+
+“But we’re adrift, Dot!” cried Tess.
+
+The younger girl was not so much impressed at first. “Oh, I guess
+they’ll come for us,” she said.
+
+“But Ruth and Aggie can’t reach us—’nless they swim.”
+
+“Won’t we float ashore again? We floated out here,” said Dot.
+
+She refused to be frightened, and Tess bethought her that she had no
+right to let her little sister be disturbed too much. She was old
+enough herself, however, to see that there was peril in this
+involuntary voyage. The tide was coming in strongly and the boat was
+quickly passing the bend. Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out
+for help, they were out of sight of the camp and there was nobody to
+whom to call.
+
+Tom Jonah had crouched down in the stern, with his head on his paws.
+He felt that he had done his duty. He had not allowed the two small
+girls to go without him on this voyage. He was with them; what harm
+could befall?
+
+“I—I guess Alice would like to go ashore, Tess,” hesitated Dot, at
+last, having seized her doll and sat down upon one of the seats. The
+boat was jumping a good deal as the little waves slapped her, first on
+one side and then on the other. Without anybody steering she made a
+hard passage of it.
+
+“I’d like to get ashore myself, child,” snapped Tess. “But I don’t see
+how we are going to do it.”
+
+“Oh, Tess! are we going to be carried ’way out to sea?”
+
+“Don’t be a goosey! We’re going _up_ the river, not _down_,” said the
+more observant Tess.
+
+“Well, then!” sighed Dot, relieved. “It isn’t so bad, is it? Of
+course, we’ll stop somewhere.”
+
+“But it will soon be dinnertime,” said her sister. “And I guess Ruth
+and Aggie won’t know where we’ve gone to.”
+
+In fact, nobody about the tent colony had noticed the cedar boat
+floating away with the two girls in it—to say nothing of the dog!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE GYPSIES AGAIN
+
+
+When Ruth shouted to Agnes from the kitchen, where she was frying
+crabs, to call the children, Agnes dropped the book she had been
+reading and remembered for the first time that she had neglected to
+tie the boat.
+
+“Oh, Ruth!” she shrieked. “See what I’ve done!”
+
+Ruth came to the opening in the front of the tent, flushed and
+disheveled, demanding:
+
+“Well, _what_? This old fat snaps so!”
+
+“The boat!” cried Agnes.
+
+Ruth stared up and down the shore. There were other boats drawn up on
+the sand and a few moored beyond low-water mark; but their boat was
+not in sight.
+
+“Have you let it get away, Agnes Kenway?” Ruth demanded.
+
+“Well! you don’t suppose I went down there and pushed it off, do you?”
+
+“This is no laughing matter——”
+
+“I guess I—I’m not laughing,” gulped Agnes. “It—it’s go-o-one! See!
+the tide is flowing in and I forgot to tie it.”
+
+She was a little mixed here; it was the boat she had forgotten to tie.
+
+“So,” murmured Ruth; “if the boat had been tied, the tide wouldn’t
+have carried it away,” and she had no intention of punning, either!
+“_Now_ what shall we do? That boat cost seventy-five dollars, the man
+said.”
+
+“Oh, Ruthie!”
+
+“What will Mr. Howbridge say?”
+
+“Oh, Ruthie!”
+
+“No use crying about it,” said the oldest Corner House girl, with
+decision. “_That_ won’t help.”
+
+“But—but it’s gone out to sea.”
+
+“Nonsense! The tide has taken it up the river. It’s gone round the
+bend. I hope it won’t be smashed on the rocks, that’s all. We must go
+after it.”
+
+“How?” asked the tearful Agnes.
+
+“Get another boat, of course. But let’s eat. The children will be
+hungry, and—— My goodness! the crabs are burning up!” and she ran
+back into the tent. “Get Tess and Dot, and tell them to hurry!” she
+called from inside.
+
+But Tess and Dot were not to be found. The beach just then was
+practically deserted. It was the dinner hour and the various campers
+all had the sort of appetites that demands meals served promptly on
+time.
+
+Agnes ran to the other tents in Camp Willowbend; but her small sisters
+were not with any of the neighbors. It was strange. They had been
+forbidden to go out of sight of their own tent when neither Ruth nor
+Agnes was with them; and Tess and Dot were remarkably obedient
+children.
+
+“I certainly do not understand it,” Ruth said, when Agnes brought back
+the news.
+
+At that moment a shuffling step sounded outside the tent and a husky
+voice demanded:
+
+“Any clams terday, lady? Fresh clams—jest dug. Ten cents a dozen;
+two-bits for fifty; half a dollar a hundred. Fresh clams!”
+
+“Oh!” cried Agnes, springing to the tent entrance so suddenly that the
+wooden-legged clam-man started back in surprise. “Oh! have you seen my
+sisters anywhere on the beach?”
+
+“Hel-_lo_!” growled the startled man. “I dunno ’bout thet thar,
+shipmet. What kind o’ sisters be they?”
+
+“Two little girls,” said Ruth, eagerly, joining Agnes at the opening.
+“One of them carried a doll in her arms. She is dark. The bigger one
+is fair.”
+
+The saltish old fellow chuckled deep in his hairy throat. “Guess I
+seen ’em, shipmets,” he said. “Them’s the leetle gals that didn’t know
+clam-holes.”
+
+“Well! what became of them?” demanded the impatient Agnes.
+
+“Why——I dug ’em, shipmet, an’ they air in this i-den-ti-cal basket
+now,” declared the clam-digger.
+
+“Well!” gasped Agnes, behind her hand. “Maybe the children didn’t know
+clam-holes; but _he_ doesn’t know beans!”
+
+Ruth asked again: “We mean, what became of the girls, sir?”
+
+“I couldn’t tell ye, shipmet. D’ye want any clams?” pursued this man
+of one idea. “Ten cents a dozen; two-bits for——”
+
+“I’ll buy some clams—yes,” cried Ruth, in some desperation. “But tell
+us where you last saw our sisters, sir?”
+
+“How many you want, shipmet?” demanded the quite unmoved old fellow.
+
+“Two!” cried Agnes. “There were only two of them. Two little
+girls——Oh!”
+
+Ruth had pinched her, and now said, calmly: “Please count out a
+hundred for us, sir. Here is fifty cents. And please tell us where you
+saw our little sisters?”
+
+“I seed two small gals, shipmet, down on the flats yonder,” said the
+clam digger, setting down his basket and squatting with the wooden leg
+stretched out before him. He began to busily count the clams onto the
+little platform before the tent.
+
+“Where did they go, sir?” asked Ruth.
+
+“I didn’t take no pertic’lar notice of ’em, shipmet. They had a
+dratted dog with them——”
+
+“Oh! Tom Jonah is with them. Then they _can’t_ be lost,” gasped Agnes.
+
+“Las’ time I ’member of cockin’ me eye at ’em,” declared the old clam
+digger, “they was inter a boat right down here below this tent. The
+dog was with ’em.”
+
+He counted out the last clam, took his fifty cents, and departed. The
+two older Corner House girls looked at each other. Agnes was very
+white.
+
+“Do—do you suppose they drifted away in the boat?” she whispered.
+
+“I expect so,” agreed Ruth. “Come on, Ag. We’ll go up beyond the bend
+and see if we can sight the boat.”
+
+“Oh! if they fall overboard——”
+
+“Tom Jonah would bring them both ashore if they did, I believe,” said
+Ruth, though her voice shook a little. “Do you want something to eat
+before you go?”
+
+Agnes looked at her scornfully. “I don’t ever want to eat again if Dot
+and Tess aren’t found,” she sobbed. “Come on!”
+
+“We’ll take something along to eat, if you don’t want to eat here,”
+Ruth said, sensibly. “The children will be hungry enough when we find
+them, you may be sure.”
+
+“_If_ we find them,” suggested the desperate Agnes.
+
+“Don’t talk like a goose, Ag!” exclaimed the older sister. “Of course
+we’ll find them. They’ve only drifted away.”
+
+“But you said yourself the boat might be smashed against the rocks.”
+
+“Tom Jonah’s with them,” said Ruth, confidently. “He could live in the
+water altogether, you know. Don’t be worried about the children being
+drowned—— Oh, Agnes!”
+
+The change in her sister’s voice startled Agnes, who had gone into the
+back part of the tent. She ran out to where Ruth was wrapping the
+fried soft-shell crabs in a sheet of brown paper.
+
+Ruth was staring through the open flap of the tent. Outside, about
+where the clam digger had stood a few moments before, was the tall,
+scarred-faced Gypsy tramp that they had seen at the nomads’ camp the
+day they came to Pleasant Cove!
+
+“Oh, Ruth!” echoed Agnes, coming to Ruth’s side.
+
+But the older sister quickly recovered her self-possession. Her first
+thought was:
+
+“If Tom Jonah were only here!”
+
+Ruth went to the door. The man leered at her and doffed his old cap.
+
+“Good day, little lady,” he said. “She remember me—Big Jim—heh?”
+
+“I remember you,” Ruth said, shortly.
+
+“Ver’ proud,” declared the Gypsy, bowing again.
+
+“What do you want?” asked the oldest Corner House girl, with much more
+apparent courage than she really felt.
+
+“You remember Zaliska—heh?” asked the man, shrewdly.
+
+“I remember her,” said Ruth.
+
+“Little lady seen Zaliska since that day—heh?”
+
+“What do you want to know for?” demanded Ruth, puzzled, yet standing
+her ground. She remembered in a flash all her suspicions regarding the
+young girl who masqueraded as the Gypsy Queen.
+
+“Zaliska come here, heh?” said the man, doggedly, and with something
+besides curiosity in his narrow eyes.
+
+“I don’t know why I should tell you if she had been here,” declared
+Ruth, while Agnes clung to her arm in fear.
+
+“The little lady would fool Big Jim. No! We want find Zaliska.”
+
+“Don’t come here for her,” said Ruth, sharply. “She’s not here.”
+
+“But she been here—heh?” repeated the fellow. “She come here like she
+was dressed at the camp—heh? Then she go away different—heh?”
+
+Ruth knew well enough what he meant. He hinted that the masquerading
+girl had come here to see Ruth, and discarded her queen’s garments and
+slipped away in her own more youthful character.
+
+“I’m not sure that I know what you mean,” she said to the evil-faced
+man. “But one thing I can tell you—and you can believe it. I have not
+seen Zaliska since that day we girls came by your camp.”
+
+“Ha! she come here to see you——”
+
+“No. She went to the hotel and to a friend’s house in the village,”
+said Ruth, “asking for me. I did not see her. She has not come here.”
+
+“Huh!” grunted the man, and backed away, doubtfully.
+
+“Now we are busy and you must not trouble us any more,” declared Ruth,
+hurriedly. “Come, Agnes!”
+
+“He’ll come in the tent and search it,” whispered Agnes, in her
+sister’s ear.
+
+“I will speak to Mr. Stryver. He is here to-day,” said Ruth,
+mentioning a neighbor in the camp.
+
+“Big Jim,” as the Gypsy called himself, had backed away from the tent,
+but he watched the departing girls with lowering gaze. At Mr.
+Stryver’s tent Ruth halted long enough to tell the gentleman to keep
+his eye on the Gypsy man who was hanging about the camp.
+
+“The women were here to sell baskets and such like truck while you
+girls were off crabbing, this morning,” said Mrs. Stryver. “It gives
+me the shivers to have those folks around. I think we ought to have
+these tent camps policed.”
+
+“I’ll ’tend to this fellow,” promised Mr. Stryver, who was a burly
+man, and not afraid of anything.
+
+Ruth hurried Agnes away toward the bend without another word.
+
+“Why didn’t you tell them Tess and Dot were lost?” asked Agnes,
+gulping down a sob.
+
+“I don’t want anybody to know it, if we can help,” returned Ruth. “It
+just looks as though we didn’t take sufficient care of them.”
+
+“It—it was all my fault,” choked Agnes. “If I had tied the boat as
+you told me——”
+
+“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” said Ruth, quickly. “Or, if it
+is anybody’s fault! We don’t want folks to say that the Corner House
+girls from Milton don’t know enough to take care of each other while
+they are under canvas.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ON WILD GOOSE ISLAND
+
+
+“My!” Tess gasped, sitting in the stern of the drifting boat, “how
+fast the shores go past, Dot! We’re going up the river awfully quick.”
+
+“And so j-j-jerky!” exclaimed her sister, clinging to the Alice-doll.
+
+“You aren’t really afraid, are you, Dot?”
+
+“No-o. Only for Alice. She’s always been weakly, you know, since that
+awful time she got buried alive,” said Dot, seriously. “And if she
+should get wet and catch her death of cold——”
+
+“But you mustn’t drop her overboard,” warned Tess.
+
+“Do you s’pose I _would_, Tess Kenway?” demanded Dot, quite hurt by
+the suggestion.
+
+“If she did fall overboard, Tom Jonah would save her, of course,” went
+on Tess.
+
+“Oh! don’t you say such things,” cried Dot. “And _do_, please, stop
+the boat from jerking so!”
+
+“I—I guess it wants to be steered,” Tess said.
+
+The tiller ropes were at hand and Tess had observed Ruth and Agnes use
+them. She began experimenting with them and soon got the hang of using
+the rudder. But as the boat was propelled, only by the tide, it
+_would_ “wabble.”
+
+Tom Jonah watched all the small girls did with his keen eyes. But he
+scarcely moved. The boat floated on and on. Tess did not know how to
+work the boat ashore—indeed, caught as the craft was in the strong
+tide-rip, it would have taken considerable exertion with the oars to
+have driven it to land.
+
+There chanced to be no other boats beyond the bend on this day. On
+either hand there were farms, but the houses were too far from the
+shores for the dwellers therein to notice the plight of the two small
+girls and the big dog in the bobbing cedar boat.
+
+The shores at the river’s edge were wooded for the most part, as was
+the long and narrow island in the middle of the river, not far ahead.
+This latter was called Wild Goose Island, as Tess and Dot knew.
+
+“Maybe the boat will go ashore there,” said Dot, more cheerfully.
+
+“There are berries on that island,” cried Tess. “Only they were not
+ripe when we were there last week.” She was beginning to feel hungry;
+it was past midday.
+
+“But we can’t walk back to the tent from there,” objected Dot.
+
+“No-o,” admitted Tess. “It’ll be land, just the same!”
+
+But the tide swept the cedar boat out from the lower end of the island
+and up the northern channel. It was this fact that hid the drifting
+boat from the anxious eyes of Ruth and Agnes when they came around the
+bend, expecting to see the missing craft. The island hid it.
+
+Wild Goose Island was more than half a mile long. In the channel where
+the boat floated, the current of the river and the inflowing tide
+began to battle.
+
+There were eddies that seized the boat and swept it in circles. The
+surface of the channel was rippled by small waves. The boat bobbed
+every-which-way, for Tess could not control the rudder.
+
+“Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot. “I—I am afraid my Alice-doll will be sick.
+Do—don’t you s’pose we can get ashore, Tess?”
+
+But Tess did not see how they could do that, although the boat was now
+and then swept very close to the shore of the island.
+
+The island was a famous picnicking place; but there were no pleasure
+seekers there to-day. The shore seemed deserted as the girls were
+swept on by the resistless tide.
+
+Suddenly Dot stood right up and squealed—pointing at the island. Tom
+Jonah lifted his head and barked.
+
+“There’s somebody, Tess!” declared Dot.
+
+The bigger Corner House girl had seen the face break through the
+fringe of bushes on the island shore. It was a dark, beautiful face,
+and it was a girl’s.
+
+“Oh! oh! Let’s call her,” gasped Tess. “She’ll help us.”
+
+The two small Kenways had a strong belief in the goodness of humanity
+at large. They expected that anybody who saw their plight would come
+to their rescue if possible.
+
+For fully a minute, however, the girl in the bushes of Wild Goose
+Island did not come out into the open. Tess and Dot shouted again and
+again, while Tom Jonah lifted up his head and bayed most mournfully.
+
+If the girl on the island did not want general attention attracted to
+the place, it behooved her to come out of concealment and try to
+pacify the drifting trio in the cedar boat.
+
+Her face was very red when she reappeared in an open place on the
+shore. The distance between her and the boat, which was now caught in
+a small eddy, was only a few yards.
+
+“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded, in rather a sharp tone.
+
+“We—we can’t stop the boat,” responded Tess.
+
+“We want to get ashore,” added Dorothy,
+
+“How did you get out there?” asked the strange girl. She was older
+than Ruth, and although she was very pretty, Tess and Dot were quite
+sure they did not like her—much!
+
+“We got in it, and it floated away with us,” said Tess.
+
+“Where from?” asked the girl on shore.
+
+“Oh! ’way down the river. ’Round that turn. We live at Willowbend Camp
+with Ruth and Aggie.”
+
+“Ruth _Who_?” the other demanded, sharply.
+
+“Our sister, Ruth Kenway,” said Tess.
+
+The girl on the island was silent for a moment, while the boat turned
+lazily in the eddy. It now was headed up stream again, when she said:
+
+“Is that dog good for anything?”
+
+“Tom Jonah?” cried Tess and Dot together. “Why, he’s the best dog that
+ever _was_,” Dot added.
+
+“Does he know anything?” insisted the strange girl.
+
+“Uncle Rufus says he’s just as knowin’ as any human,” Tess said,
+impressively.
+
+“Does he mind?” pursued the girl on the shore.
+
+“Oh, yes,” said Tess. “He’ll sit up and beg—and shakes hands—and
+lies down and rolls over—and——”
+
+“Say! those tricks won’t help you any,” cried the other. “Can you make
+him swim ashore here?”
+
+“Why—ee—I don’t know,” stammered Tess.
+
+“We wouldn’t want to let you have Tom Jonah,” Dorothy hastened to
+explain.
+
+“Goodness knows, _I_ don’t want him,” said the big girl, still tartly.
+“But if he can swim ashore with the end of that rope you have coiled
+there in the bow of your boat, tied to his collar, he may be of some
+use.”
+
+“Oh, yes!” cried Tess, scrambling toward the bow at once.
+
+“See that the other end is fast to your boat,” commanded the girl on
+the island.
+
+It was. Tess quickly knotted the free end of the long painter to Tom
+Jonah’s collar.
+
+“Now send him ashore, child!” cried the big girl.
+
+Tom Jonah was looking up at Tess with his wonderfully intelligent
+eyes. He seemed to understand just what was expected of him when the
+rope was tied to his collar.
+
+“Go on, Tom Jonah! Overboard!” cried Tess, firmly.
+
+“He—he’ll get all wet, Tess,” objected Dot, plaintively.
+
+“That won’t hurt him, Dot,” explained her sister. “You know he loves
+the water.”
+
+“Come on, here!” cried the girl on the island, snapping her fingers.
+“Push him overboard.”
+
+But Tom Jonah did not need such urging. With his forepaws on the
+gunwale of the boat he barked several times. The boat tipped a little
+and Dot screamed, clutching the Alice-doll tighter to her bosom.
+
+“Go on, Tom Jonah!” shouted Tess. “You’re rocking the boat!”
+
+The big dog leaped over the gunwale into the river, leaving the light
+craft tossing in a most exciting fashion. Some water even slopped over
+the side.
+
+“Come on, sir! come on!” shouted the girl ashore.
+
+Tom Jonah swam directly for the beach where she stood. The line
+uncoiled freely behind him, slipping into the water. It was long
+enough to reach the shore where the big girl stood; but none too long.
+
+The sag of the rope in the water began to trouble Tom Jonah, strong as
+he was. Quickly the girl drew off her shoes and stockings and waded in
+to meet the laboring dog.
+
+“Come on, sir! now we’ll get them!” she urged, laying hold of the
+line.
+
+The dog scrambled ashore, barking loudly. The line was taut and the
+boat had swung around, tugging on the other end like a thing of life.
+
+“Now we have them!” cried the girl.
+
+She pulled hard on the rope. Tom Jonah, seeing what she was doing,
+caught the rope in his strong jaws, and set back to pull, too. Tess
+and Dot screamed with delight.
+
+As the big girl slowly drew in the rope the dog backed up the beach,
+and so the cedar boat, with its two remaining passengers, came to
+land.
+
+“Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot, standing in the bow of the
+boat. “I’m so glad to get ashore. And so’s my Alice-doll,” she added,
+seriously.
+
+Tess helped her sister to jump down upon the sand and then followed,
+herself. Tom Jonah dropped the rope and bounded about them, barking
+his satisfaction. But the strange girl was looking up and down the
+river, and over at the opposite shore, with a mind plainly disturbed.
+
+“Come on, now!” she said, sharply. “Unfasten the rope from that dog’s
+collar. We’ll keep _that_. It may come in handy.”
+
+“Don’t you want it to pull the boat up on the beach?” asked Tess, as
+she obeyed the command.
+
+The strange girl was already unfastening the rope from the ring in the
+bow of the boat. She threw the line ashore and then pushed the boat
+off with such vigor that she ran knee deep into the river again.
+
+“Oh! oh!” squealed Dot. “You’ll lose our boat.”
+
+“I want to lose it,” declared the girl, coming back very red in the
+face from her exertions. “I got you kids ashore, ’cause you might have
+been tipped over, or hurt in some way. I’m not going to be bothered by
+that boat.”
+
+“But that’s Ruthie’s boat,” exclaimed Tess.
+
+“I can’t help it! You young ones go into the bushes there and sit
+down. Keep quiet, too. Take the dog with you and keep _him_ quiet.
+Don’t let him run about, or bark. If he does I’ll tie him to a tree
+and muzzle him.”
+
+“Why—why, I don’t think that’s very nice of you,” said Tess, who was
+too polite, and had too deep a sense of gratitude, to say just what
+she really thought of this conduct on the part of the strange girl.
+“We might have saved the boat for Ruth.”
+
+“And it would give me dead away,” declared the big girl, angrily. “You
+children be satisfied that I took you ashore. Now keep still!”
+
+“I—I don’t believe I like her very much, Tess,” Dot whispered again.
+
+The older Corner House girl was not only puzzled by the strange girl’s
+actions and words, but she was somewhat frightened. She and Dot sat
+down among the bushes, where they were completely hidden from the
+river and the opposite shore, and called Tom Jonah to them.
+
+He lay at their feet. He had shaken himself comparatively dry, and now
+he put his head on his paws and went to sleep.
+
+“Well,” sighed Tess, caressing the dog’s head. “I’m glad we have him
+with us.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SEARCH
+
+
+Ruth and Agnes went around the wooded point, called “Willowbend,” and
+looked up the river. As we already know, the drifting boat, with Tess
+and Dot and Tom Jonah in it, had gone out of sight on the other side
+of Wild Goose Island.
+
+“It never came this way, Ruth!” groaned the frightened Agnes. “They’ve
+drifted out to sea, just as I said.”
+
+“Nothing of the kind,” Ruth declared, bound to keep up her sister’s
+courage, and knowing well that her conscience was punishing her
+cruelly. “The tide is coming in. They were bound to float up the
+river. But maybe the boat’s gone ashore somewhere.”
+
+“Or it’s sunk,” said the lugubrious Agnes.
+
+“Now you stop that, Aggie Kenway!” cried Ruth, stamping her foot. “I
+won’t have it. With Tom Jonah those children would not easily get into
+trouble.”
+
+“They could fall out of the boat,” urged Agnes, wiping her eyes.
+
+“They’d not be foolish enough to rock the boat. It’s all right, I tell
+you. I _did_ expect to see the boat from this spot; but it’s floated
+into some cove somewhere. The children are safe enough——”
+
+“You don’t know!” blubbered Agnes.
+
+“Keep still! Yes, I _do_ know—I know as well as I want to. But we’ll
+have to ask for help to find them.”
+
+“What kind of help?” asked Agnes.
+
+“We’ll get Mr. Stryver’s motorboat,” said the oldest Corner House
+girl, with decision.
+
+As they went back around the bend they heard a chorus of shouts from
+the camp. Agnes was startled, being in a nervous state, anyway.
+
+“What is that, Ruth? The Gypsies?” she demanded.
+
+“If it is, then the Gypsies have adopted the Milton high school yell.
+Don’t you recognize it?” returned Ruth. “The boys have arrived.”
+
+“Neale O’Neil!”
+
+“I suppose Neale is with them.”
+
+“He will help us,” cried the delighted Agnes, sure in the ability of
+Neale O’Neil to do almost anything.
+
+“Well—I suppose he may,” admitted Ruth, slowly.
+
+Ruth had made no mistake in identifying the school yell of their boy
+friends. There was a crowd of boys at the two big tents reserved for
+Joe Eldred and his friends. They had just come on the auto-stage.
+
+Already an American flag and the school pennant were being raised on
+the flag-pole before the tents. The scene at Willowbend Camp had been
+a most quiet one ten minutes before; now it seemed to be alive in
+every part, and the boys from Milton were all over it.
+
+They were like a herd of young colts let loose in a new pasture. They
+got the flags up before the girls came back, and then began running
+races, and playing leap-frog on the sand. The midday heat made no
+difference to them.
+
+“Doesn’t that water look inviting?” shouted Ben Truman to Joe and some
+of the bigger boys. “When do we go in swimming, Joe?”
+
+“_You_ can go when you like, Bennie,” returned Eldred.
+
+“I’d like right now,” declared the youngster.
+
+“Clothes and all, I suppose, Ben?” drawled Neale O’Neil.
+
+“What’s clothes? I’m not afraid to go in just as I am.”
+
+“I dare you, Ben!” shouted another of the boys, knowing the spirit of
+Truman.
+
+“Done!” exclaimed Ben, and sprang away toward the in-coming tide. He
+splashed half-knee deep into the river before the others could call
+him back. He probably had no intention of going any deeper; but
+inadvertently he stepped into one of the holes the wooden-legged man
+had recently made when he dug for clams there, and over Ben pitched
+upon his nose!
+
+There was a great shout of laughter. Ben was submerged—every bit! He
+came up blowing like a porpoise.
+
+“Come on in, fellows! the water’s fine!” he gasped, not embarrassed by
+the accident.
+
+“Thank you. We’ll wait till the bathing suits arrive,” returned Neale.
+“Hello! Here are the Corner House girls—two of them, at least.”
+
+He hurried forward to greet Ruth and Agnes. The other boys simmered
+down a little when they observed the girls; most of them doffed their
+caps politely, but only Joe and Neale knew Ruth and Agnes very well.
+
+“Oh, Neale!” was the latter’s greeting to her boy friend. “Don’t tell
+the other fellows, but Tess and Dot are lost.”
+
+“Great goodness, Ag! You don’t mean it?” cried Neale, keenly troubled
+by her statement.
+
+“It’s not as bad as _that_,” Ruth interposed. “They are out in our
+boat with Tom Jonah.”
+
+“I knew you had him down here. He’ll take care of them,” said Neale,
+with confidence.
+
+“Yes, I know,” agreed Ruth. “But they all got in the boat unbeknown to
+Aggie and me, and the tide’s carried them up the river.”
+
+“You don’t _know_!” burst out Agnes.
+
+“Well, they couldn’t have drifted out into the cove, that’s sure!”
+returned the older Corner House girl. “I’m going to get Mr. Stryver’s
+motorboat. Will you take us out in it and look for the children,
+Neale? You can run a motorboat, can’t you?”
+
+“Sure! And I’ll do anything I can to help find the children,” declared
+Neale O’Neil. “Now, don’t you girls turn on the sprinklers——”
+
+“Who’s crying?” gulped Agnes, angrily.
+
+“You are—pretty nearly. And your eyes are all red.”
+
+“Hay fever,” sniffed Agnes, trying to joke.
+
+“I’m going to get the boat right away. Come on, Neale,” cried Ruth,
+and she started for the Stryver tent. “I’m worried about those
+children,” she added, over her shoulder. “There are Gypsies about.”
+
+She hurried on and Neale took Agnes by the elbow and led her out of
+all possible earshot of the other boys.
+
+“Buck up, Aggie,” he said, gruffly, as a boy will. “You’ve been a good
+little sport—always. Don’t blubber about it.”
+
+“But it was I who forgot to tie the boat,” Agnes said.
+
+“Tell me about it,” urged Neale. So Agnes gave him the particulars.
+“Funny how the boat should have drifted out of sight so quickly,” was
+the boy’s comment.
+
+“Isn’t it? But it’s go-o-one——”
+
+“There, there! We’ll find it and the children will be all right,” he
+assured her.
+
+Ruth came running with the key to the padlock that moored the _Nimble
+Shanks_ to the mooring stake. They got out to her—just the two girls
+and Neale—in a dory.
+
+The _Nimble Shanks_ was a blue boat with a high prow and long,
+sweeping lines to the low stern. It was not a large boat, but was
+built for speed. The engine and steering-gear were amidships and were
+arranged so that one man could handle the craft.
+
+Neale was naturally of a mechanical turn, as well as an athlete. He
+had built a kerosene engine during the winter, with some assistance
+from Mr. Con Murphy, the shoemaker with whom he lived in Milton.
+Moreover, he had driven a boat just like this one of Mr. Stryver’s on
+the Milton river.
+
+While Ruth was unlocking the chain of the _Nimble Shanks_, and
+fastening the dory in its place, Neale whirled the fly-wheel and
+caught the ignition spark; immediately the exhaust began to pop and
+Neale shouted:
+
+“All free, there, Ruth?”
+
+“Let her go, Neale!” returned Agnes, eagerly. “I can’t wait, it seems
+to me.”
+
+“Sit tight, then, ladies,” said Neale, as Ruth scrambled aft. “I
+believe this craft can be made to travel.”
+
+The girls obeyed as the _Nimble Shanks_ started. She shot right out
+into the middle of the river, and the wave thrown up by her wedge-like
+bow rose higher and higher on either hand. Actually, when the
+motorboat had been running for five minutes, the girls in the
+sternsheets seemed sitting at a much lower level than the surface of
+the river.
+
+“Goodness! if this boat stopped suddenly we’d be drowned by that
+wave,” gasped Ruth.
+
+Neale headed up the river in a grand curve. They could see the shores
+on either hand. The boys ashore cheered their departure, though they
+did not know their errand.
+
+They shot by the wooded bend like an express train. The girls kept
+watch on either hand for the boat. They hoped to see her rocking in
+some cove along one shore or the other.
+
+But it was Neale himself who first sighted the drifting craft. The
+motorboat took the south channel in passing Wild Goose Island. Neale
+suddenly brought the speed of the craft down to one-half.
+
+“There’s a boat ahead,” he said to the girls. “It appears to be empty.
+Stand up and see if it’s the one.”
+
+Ruth rose and clung to Agnes’ shoulder to steady herself. She saw the
+empty cedar boat, bobbing on the little waves beyond the far point of
+Wild Goose Island.
+
+“It’s her!” she said, breathlessly. “But where are the children?”
+
+“We’ll find out,” said Neale, quickly. “Sit down again.”
+
+“And Tom Jonah?” urged Ruth.
+
+“Make up your mind that wherever the children are, _he_ is, too,” said
+Neale, and he let the _Nimble Shanks_ out again, and Ruth tumbled
+promptly into her seat.
+
+The motorboat fairly leaped ahead. In five minutes they were near the
+empty boat, and Neale shut off the engine entirely. Under the momentum
+she had gained she slid right up beside the tossing cedar boat.
+
+“Oh, oh!” groaned Agnes. “Where _have_ they gone?”
+
+“Not overboard, that’s sure,” said Neale, cheerfully. “They would have
+overturned the boat.”
+
+“I—don’t—know,” began Ruth.
+
+“Oh, Ruth!” shrieked Agnes. “Maybe they were not in her after all.”
+
+“But that clam man said he saw them.”
+
+“He didn’t see them in the boat when it was afloat,” said Agnes,
+clinging to the safer possibility.
+
+“I know. But where else did they go?”
+
+“Down the beach, maybe,” said Neale, slowly.
+
+“The Gypsies have gotten them!” exclaimed Agnes, in despair.
+
+“Stop it, Ag!” cried Ruth, shaking her sister. “You can think up the
+most perfectly awful things——”
+
+“Bet they got out of the boat on the shore somewhere, and let it drift
+away again,” suggested Neale, rather feebly.
+
+“It wouldn’t be like Tess to do such a foolish thing,” said Ruth,
+shaking her head.
+
+“They didn’t have anything to tie the boat up with. There’s no painter
+in her,” said the observant Neale.
+
+“Of course there’s a painter!” cried Agnes, jumping up. “A nice long
+one——”
+
+“Where is it?” demanded the boy.
+
+“Oh, Ruth! _That’s_ gone!” gasped Agnes.
+
+“Say!” said Neale, very seriously; “ropes don’t come untied of
+themselves. Sure it was fastened to the boat?”
+
+“To that ring,” Ruth declared, confidently.
+
+“And little Tess, or Dot, wouldn’t think to untie it themselves—I’m
+sure,” the boy observed. “They are with somebody who has taken them
+out of the boat—be sure of that.”
+
+“You only—only say so to comfort us,” sobbed Agnes.
+
+“Oh, Ag! stop being a ‘leaky vessel’!” cried Neale, with a boy’s
+exasperation at a girl’s tears. “Crying won’t help you any.”
+
+Ruth had been examining the cedar boat, carefully. There was a little
+water in the bottom of it. She knew it did not leak. And floating on
+the water was a tiny russet leather slipper.
+
+“That belongs to Dot’s Alice-doll!” she cried, leaning over the
+gunwale and fishing for the slipper. “They _were_ in the boat.”
+
+“We knew that before. The clam man said so,” sniffed Agnes.
+
+“But they got out in a hurry. Otherwise Dot would have noticed that
+the doll had lost her slipper.”
+
+“That seems reasonable,” admitted Neale O’Neil. “But what’s become of
+them? Where did they go? Where are they now?”
+
+He was staring all about the river, while the two boats gently rubbed
+together, bobbing and courtesying on the tide.
+
+“Don’t see anybody on the shores—and not another boat in sight,” the
+boy added.
+
+“Maybe they went ashore on the island?” suggested Agnes, looking back.
+
+“There’s nobody there,” said her sister, looking back, too. “Not a
+soul.”
+
+“Guess you’re right. If there were anybody besides the girls there
+they’d have some kind of a boat, and we’d see it.”
+
+“That’s so, Neale,” Ruth said. “And surely any grown person who
+rescued the girls wouldn’t have let the boat drift away again.”
+
+The trio of searchers gazed at each other in trouble and amazement.
+They could not explain this mystery in any satisfactory way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A STARTLING MEETING
+
+
+Tess and Dot, sitting in the middle of a brush clump on Wild Goose
+Island, never saw the blue motorboat with their sisters and Neale
+O’Neil in it, fly past.
+
+But the dark-faced girl, dressed in her bedraggled Gypsy finery, saw
+the _Nimble Shanks_, for she was on the watch at one side or the other
+of the island, all the time.
+
+She observed the motorboat overtake the drifting craft, and saw Neale
+carry a line aboard the latter and then start up the engine of the
+power boat again. The two boats went up the lake at a fair pace; but
+the searching party could not travel so fast now, for fear of swamping
+the towed boat.
+
+“I don’t think this is much fun,” said Dot, plaintively, when the big
+girl came back to them. “It’s hot here—and I’m hungry—and my
+Alice-doll has lost one of her shoes.”
+
+“We’ll go up into the woods and pick some berries,” said the strange
+girl, not unkindly. “I know where there are some strawberries—and
+they’re just as sweet.”
+
+“Oh! that will be fine. I _do_ love strawberries,” declared Dot,
+easily appeased.
+
+Tess was more troubled than her sister by this strange situation. She
+felt, somehow, as though the big girl were holding them prisoners. Yet
+she could not understand _why_.
+
+She got up from the ground and at once Tom Jonah started up, barking
+and bounding about.
+
+“Stop that dog!” exclaimed the big girl, crossly. “Make him walk
+beside you. I’ll tie him up,” she threatened.
+
+“Then he’ll howl _awful_,” cried Dot. “We tried that once at home.
+Don’t you ’member, Tess?”
+
+“Well, you keep him still,” snapped the big girl.
+
+At a word from Tess the old dog drooped his tail and fell in behind
+them, in a most subdued manner. They went up through the thick woods
+to the higher part of the island. At no point could the little
+procession have been seen from the water.
+
+There was a hillock up there, bare of trees, the southern side of
+which was sown thickly with strawberries. The bed was rich in berries,
+and how sweet and delicate was their flavor!
+
+“Oh, _so_ much nicer than boughten berries!” Tess declared, forgetting
+for the time all her anxiety.
+
+Indeed, both of the Corner House girls were so busy satisfying their
+appetites with strawberries that they forgot about the unpleasant side
+to their adventure. Nor did they see the girl who had helped them
+ashore from the boat, creep over the knoll to watch the motorboat and
+its tow going down the river again, by way of the northern channel.
+
+It was fully half past one. While Tess and Dot feasted in the wild
+strawberry patch, their sisters and Neale O’Neil munched cold, fried
+crabs on the _Nimble Shanks_.
+
+It took a lot of berries to satisfy the healthy appetites of two girls
+like Tess and Dot whose dinner had been indefinitely postponed. Dot
+finally rolled right over in the shade, fast asleep, her dress and
+fingers berry-stained and the last plump one she had picked between
+her rosy lips!
+
+The big girl came back and Tess whispered: “We’d best not wake her,
+for she usually takes a nap afternoons. When she wakes up, I guess
+we’d best be going. Ruth and Agnes will be _awfully_ scared for us.
+And we’ve lost Ruth’s boat, too,” she added, disconsolately.
+
+“How do you expect to get off this island?” demanded the strange girl.
+
+“Why! how did you get _on_?” returned Tess.
+
+“I paddled myself over on a raft of logs, early this morning before
+anybody else was up,” said the girl, after a minute. “I wasn’t going
+back till night. But if I keep you children all day there’ll be a big
+row, I s’pose,” she added, sullenly.
+
+“I expect there will,” was Tess’ calm response.
+
+“They’d get me for kidnapping, like enough,” said the girl, as though
+talking to herself. “Wish I hadn’t taken you out of that boat. But you
+and the dog were raising an awful noise.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” said Tess, politely, “if we have been a nuisance. But of
+course we’ve got to get back to the tent before dark.”
+
+“I s’pose so,” admitted the older girl.
+
+“It’s funny Ruth hasn’t been up here before now looking for us,” Tess
+observed.
+
+The big girl turned her head so Tess should not see her face. “Suppose
+she did not know you went sailing in the boat?” she said.
+
+“Why! perhaps that is the reason,” Tess agreed. “They couldn’t have
+seen us; for if they had, Ruth would have been after the boat in a
+hurry.”
+
+“Well,” said the strange girl, “I’ll have to get you across to the
+river bank. I wasn’t going till night. But——”
+
+“We are very much obliged to you,” Tess hastened to say. “But we
+_couldn’t_ stay that long.”
+
+“Oh, well! I’ll leave you children at a farmer’s over there. They’ll
+have a telephone and they’ll get word to your sisters. You’ll get back
+by suppertime.”
+
+“Thank you,” Tess said, simply.
+
+But she was more than a little disturbed in her mind. A raft of logs
+did not encourage her to look forward to the trip to the mainland with
+much pleasure.
+
+Besides, the mystery regarding this pretty girl made Tess feel
+_un_comfortable. Tess Kenway was quite old enough to know the
+difference between right and wrong; and there was something about the
+strange girl that was decidedly wrong!
+
+Why had she come out here to Wild Goose Island in the early
+morning—before anybody in the neighborhood was up? Was she a runaway?
+Had she done something really _naughty_? and was she afraid to have
+her folks find her?
+
+It was all a great puzzle and Tess sighed and shook her head. Finally
+she asked: “If you please, where _is_ the raft of logs?”
+
+“Right down there,” said the girl, pointing to the southern side of
+the island. “You can’t see it. I dragged it into shallow water and
+covered it up with branches and brush.”
+
+“Is—is it safe?” queried Tess.
+
+“Well, it didn’t drown me coming over,” said the girl, with a short,
+hard laugh. “But the logs came near parting.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“I’ll fix ’em before we start back. That painter off your boat will
+help. We will be all right,” said the big girl, carelessly.
+
+Dot awoke after a little, and so did Tom Jonah. The whole party went
+down to the brush-fringed shore. Tess saw that the girl had hidden her
+raft very ingeniously. And it was evident, too, that she hated to
+leave the island so long before evening.
+
+“Got myself in a nice mess!” the Corner House girl heard her mutter,
+as she went about binding the three logs together more tightly with
+the strong rope from the cedar boat.
+
+She worked hard for half an hour, standing almost waist deep in the
+water as she made the logs secure. It was not a heavy raft—nor was it
+very safe looking, to Tess’ mind.
+
+But fortunately Dot thought it would be great fun to ride on such a
+craft, and Tess was too brave to say anything that would really
+frighten Dorothy.
+
+Tom Jonah became restless and wanted to wander about; but the big girl
+was very sharp with him. “If he were my dog I’d make him mind better!”
+she threatened. “If anything gives us away, it will be that dog.”
+
+Tess did not understand this; and like Dot she felt hurt when anybody
+criticised Tom Jonah. “Love me, love my dog” was the motto of the
+younger Kenway sisters.
+
+Finally the big girl pronounced the raft strong enough, and she waded
+out of the water and put on her skirts again. “Now, get aboard there,”
+she commanded. “If we’ve got to go, we might as well start. The tide
+will be less strong now.”
+
+Dot skipped aboard the raft with her Alice-doll, in great glee; Tess
+followed more slowly. But when Tom Jonah tried to come, too, the big
+girl, with the broken oar she used for a paddle, drove him back.
+
+“It won’t hold him up, too!” she cried. “Get out!”
+
+“Oh! don’t hurt Tom Jonah!” wailed Dot, shrilly. “Don’t!”
+
+“You look out!” warned Tess. “He’ll grab you!”
+
+Tom Jonah certainly _did_ grab the paddle. And he nearly wrenched it
+from the hands of the big girl, strong as she was.
+
+“He’ll tip us all over!” declared the girl, angrily, flushed and
+breathing heavily. “Don’t you see how deep in the water we are? Any
+little wave will come right over the logs and wet us.”
+
+“Well!” cried Tess. “We’re barefooted. And we can’t leave Tom Jonah
+behind.”
+
+“He can swim, can’t he? Silly!” exclaimed the big girl. She pushed off
+the raft suddenly, leaving the troubled dog on the bank. The current
+caught the raft instantly and headed it down stream. The big girl
+hurried to dip her paddle in the water on the lower side and swerve
+the head of the raft around.
+
+“Oh, Tom Jonah! Come! Come!” cried Dot, fearful that the dog would be
+lost.
+
+He plunged right in and swam to the rear of the raft. He did not try
+to climb aboard, but he rested his nose on the logs and paddled
+quietly behind. The big girl paid him no further attention. She had
+her hands full as it was, keeping the raft from being swept down
+stream.
+
+The current of the river had now conquered the inflowing tide. The
+force of the latter was spent; but the channel on this side of the
+island was not rough. The little waves did not break over their feet
+as yet.
+
+The passage of the river was not, however, so hard. The handsome dark
+girl was strong, and she plied the broken oar with vigor. In half an
+hour they drew near to the tree-fringed southern bank.
+
+The girls saw nobody along the shore, nor had any boat put out to meet
+them. It was a day when all the farmers seemed to be busy in their
+fields, and this was a wild spot toward which the raft had been aimed.
+
+At last the end of the logs touched a shelving, narrow beach. The big
+girl leaped off and commanded Tess and Dot to follow immediately.
+Already Tom Jonah had scrambled ashore and was shaking himself, as a
+dog will.
+
+Suddenly the big dog uttered a throaty growl. None of the three girls
+paid any attention. The strange girl was busy helping Tess and Dot to
+land.
+
+Again Tom Jonah uttered his warning, and then barked sharply.
+
+“Shut up!” commanded the big girl, turning on him fiercely.
+
+At that moment a man walked out of the wood. He was a fierce little
+fellow with a black mustache and a dirty red tie. His velveteen suit
+was worn and greasy and his hat broken.
+
+The strange girl turned suddenly and saw him. She uttered a stifled
+scream and the fellow folded his arms and said something to her
+sternly in a language that afterwards Tess said “sounded like
+powder-crackers exploding!”
+
+The girl was terrified in the extreme. She looked from side to side as
+though contemplating escape. The fellow took another stride toward
+her.
+
+And then Tom Jonah intervened. The big dog sprang with an awful growl,
+hurling himself straight at the man’s chest. The fellow went over
+backward and Tom Jonah held him down with both paws on his chest and
+his bared teeth at the victim’s brown throat!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE FRANKFURTER MAN
+
+
+Dot screamed shrilly; but Tess said, with conviction: “Well! I think
+it serves him right. Let him holler. He had no business trying to
+steal Ruthie’s chickens.”
+
+For the young man that Tom Jonah held on the ground, and threatened so
+dreadfully, was the very Gypsy that had gotten into the hen-coop at
+the old Corner House in Milton, weeks before.
+
+“Now, don’t you be afraid for him, Dot,” added Tess, quite calmly.
+“Tom Jonah won’t really _bite_ him—not as long as he keeps still and
+doesn’t try to get up——”
+
+The fellow was moaning and begging just as he had when the big dog
+“treed” him on the henhouse roof.
+
+“Tak’ away dog! Tak’ away dog!” he begged.
+
+“I don’t know why we should—do you, Dot?” pursued Tess, undisturbed.
+“He was going to hurt _her_——”
+
+Tess turned around. The strange girl who had helped them out of the
+cedar boat and later had brought them to the river bank from Wild
+Goose Island, had disappeared like a shadow!
+
+“Why—why,” stammered Tess. “And she never said ‘Good-bye’!”
+
+“I guess she was afraid of this man,” Dot said, eyeing the prostrate
+and miserable victim of Tom Jonah’s attack without much pity. “What
+shall we do with him?”
+
+“Oh!” cried Tess, with a sudden sharp idea. “She _was_ afraid of him.
+Let us help her. She helped us.”
+
+“How will we?” inquired the smaller girl.
+
+“Just let Tom Jonah hold him where he is. We will give that pretty
+girl a good chance to get away. Won’t we?”
+
+“That will be just the thing,” agreed Dot. “We can sit down and wait.
+I hope it isn’t too long a walk to the camp, Tess. Somehow those
+strawberries didn’t stay by me—much. I’m hungry right now!”
+
+“We’ll keep him here a few minutes. Then we’ll find the road and start
+right back home. I know the direction,” said Tess, with confidence.
+
+The frightened Gypsy moaned and begged for them to call off the dog;
+and Tom Jonah growled most frightfully every time the man squirmed.
+Under other circumstances the girls would have been quite stricken
+with pity for the poor man; but he had tried to steal Ruth’s hens, and
+he had now frightened their new friend away, and, as Dot whispered,
+“it served him right.”
+
+Of course, they knew that the big dog would not really harm the
+fellow.
+
+After some fifteen minutes Tess got up and motioned Dot to do the
+same. “We’d better start. The afternoon is going,” she said to her
+younger sister. “And I guess it’s a long walk home. Come on, Tom
+Jonah.”
+
+The old dog lifted his head enquiringly. The muscles of his shoulders
+and fore-paws relaxed.
+
+“Come on!” commanded Tess. “Leave him alone. Let him up, Tom Jonah! I
+guess he has been punished enough. Don’t you think so, Dot?”
+
+The smaller girl nodded seriously, staring at the trembling Gypsy. “I
+hope you won’t ever try to steal our Ruthie’s hens again,” she said,
+pointedly.
+
+The moment the fellow knew he was free, he scrambled up and dodged
+into the bushes. He did not stay for a word.
+
+“That big girl must have gotten away by this time,” Tess said,
+cheerfully. “And he is too scared to catch her, anyway.”
+
+Which was probably true. The two small girls walked away from the
+river bank in the direction where they knew the auto-stage road lay.
+Tom Jonah paced beside them, looking about suspiciously, and licking
+his lips now and then with his red tongue.
+
+It was remarkable how ferocious he had been with that Gypsy, and how
+perfectly kind he was to the small Kenways. And nothing much could
+have overtaken them just then that Tom Jonah would not have attacked.
+
+They came out of the fringe of wood that bordered the river and
+crossed a farmer’s fields. But the house was at a distance, and in the
+other direction from Pleasant Cove and the camps; so the girls did not
+go to that house.
+
+In fact, Tess felt quite brave now that she was again on the mainland.
+She was sure that they could easily find Willowbend Camp.
+
+They came out into the hot, dusty road. It stretched before them as
+bare as a tennis-court and as hot as a sea-beach. The trees that
+bordered it were white with dust far up their trunks and the leaves of
+their lower branches, too, were dust-covered.
+
+This was the result of rapidly passing automobiles on the road; but
+none of these vehicles was in sight now. The road seemed deserted.
+
+Save for just one thing. Dot saw it before Tess.
+
+“Oh, look!” the smaller girl cried. “Isn’t that a peanut man, Tess?
+Don’t you wish you had a nickel?”
+
+“He isn’t a peanut man,” said Tess, after a sharp look at the man
+pushing the little wagon along the road before them.
+
+“Isn’t he?” returned Dot, disappointedly.
+
+“It’s a hot-frankfurter man,” declared Tess.
+
+“Oh, Tess! a nickel would buy two frankfurter sandwiches,” gasped Dot.
+“And I’m _so_ hungry.”
+
+So was Tess. The thought of the steaming sausages lying on the split
+Vienna roll, with a spoonful of mustard on each half-sausage, was
+enough to make _any_ hungry person’s mouth water. At least, any hungry
+person of the age of Tess and Dot Kenway.
+
+Where the frankfurter man had been with his wagon away up this country
+road, the girls did not know; but before they overtook him they
+smelled the warm sausages and saw that the top of his boxlike wagon
+was covered over with a glass case and that everything was clean about
+his outfit.
+
+So eager and hungry were they that Tess and Dot fairly trotted through
+the hot dust to overtake the man. He was a short, sturdy man in a blue
+shirt, khaki trousers, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. When Tom Jonah
+bounded along beside him, sniffing in a friendly fashion, he turned
+around and saw the girls.
+
+“How-de-do!” he said, smiling. “You want a hot frankfurter, little
+girls?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Dot, frankly.
+
+“Oh, we can’t, sir—not till we get to Willowbend Camp,” Tess hastened
+to say, squeezing Dot’s hand admonishingly.
+
+Dot’s lower lip trembled and the man asked:
+
+“Why can’t you have ’em now?”
+
+“We—we should have to ask Ruthie,” said Tess, slowly.
+
+“Who’s she?”
+
+“Our sister. We—we don’t carry any money in these old clothes. She’s
+afraid we’ll lose it out of our pockets,” said Tess, honestly.
+
+“Oh-ho!” exclaimed the man.
+
+“But we’re awful hungry,” ventured Dot. “And so’s my Alice-doll. We
+been shipwrecked, you see.”
+
+“Shipwrecked?” asked the man, wonderingly.
+
+“Not just _that_, Dot,” said Tess, doubtfully. “We were sort of
+castaways.”
+
+“Well, we lost our boat, didn’t we?” demanded Dot. “And isn’t that
+being shipwrecked?” She was just hungry and tired enough to be rather
+“touchy.”
+
+“Tell me about it,” said the frankfurter man, as the girls and Tom
+Jonah trotted along beside his little wagon.
+
+So Tess—with much assistance from Dot—related their exciting
+adventures since the wooden-legged clam-digger had shown them what it
+was that squirted water up through the tiny holes on the clam-flat.
+
+Sometimes the frankfurter man laughed, or chuckled; at other times he
+looked quite grave. And finally he insisted upon stopping under a
+broad, shady tree beside the road, and resting while he listened to
+the remainder of the story.
+
+Meanwhile he opened the glass case and took out a couple of paper
+napkins and two rolls which were as white as snow when he split them
+with a very sharp knife. He buttered both sides of these rolls
+lavishly.
+
+Then he opened the steaming frankfurter pot and oh! how the luscious
+steam gushed out! Dot grabbed Tess’ hand hard. She thought she was
+going to faint, for a moment—it smelled so good!
+
+He selected two fat frankfurters and split them evenly. He placed them
+on the buttered rolls. He put on mustard with a lavish hand. And then
+he closed the rolls and wrapped the napkins about them.
+
+Suddenly he saw Tom Jonah standing, too, watching him with wistful
+intentness, his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. If ever a dog’s
+countenance expressed hunger, it was shown now in Tom Jonah’s face.
+But he was too much of a gentleman, just as his collar said, to bark.
+
+So the frankfurter man, without saying a word, opened the pot again
+and took out a third sausage. This he did not split or put mustard on.
+
+“Would you little girls like to eat a lunch now and pay me for it the
+next time you see me?” he asked, smiling at Tess and Dot.
+
+“Oh!” gasped Dot, clasping her hands and almost letting the Alice-doll
+fall.
+
+“You—you are _so_ kind!” said Tess, her voice fairly trembling.
+
+He passed the two wrapped sandwiches over with a polite bow. “You are
+very welcome,” he said. “And I am going to give your dog one for
+himself because he grabbed that Gypsy. He’s a brave dog and deserves
+one.”
+
+“Oh! if you would be so good!” cried Tess.
+
+Tom Jonah made one mouthful of the frankfurter. You see, _he_ had not
+cared at all for the strawberries!
+
+“Now,” said the frankfurter man, as the girls walked on beside him
+again, munching their sandwiches, “that road yonder to the left leads
+right down to the beach and to those tents. You can see the flags
+flying above them now—see?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir!” returned Tess and Dot, in delight.
+
+“Then you can easy find your way. Good-day, young ladies. I know your
+sisters will be anxious to see you.”
+
+“Thank you, sir,” Tess said, not forgetting her manners. “And we shall
+not forget that we owe you for the sausages.”
+
+“That’s right. Always pay your debts,” said the man, laughing, and
+trundled his cart on through the dust, while the Kenway sisters
+trudged down the shadier road toward the beach.
+
+In fifteen minutes they were seen coming. The entire encampment had
+turned out to search for the lost children. The boys from Milton had
+gone in all directions to look for Tess and Dot.
+
+It was only to Ruth and Agnes that the small girls related the details
+of their surprising adventure. And Agnes did not understand entirely,
+and was much troubled over the identity of the girl who had befriended
+her sisters in so strange a fashion.
+
+Ruth had no difficulty in guessing who she was. It was the girl with
+the Gypsies who had masqueraded as the queen. The oldest Corner House
+girl was sure that it was she. And Ruth understood that she must be
+striving to get away from the Gypsies.
+
+“I hope she won’t go so far from here that I shall never see her
+again,” thought Ruth. “For she was interested in Rosa Wildwood, I am
+sure; and it might be that she could tell me something about Rosa’s
+missing sister.”
+
+While Agnes put forth many “guesses” and “supposin’s” about the
+strange girl, Dot had quite another problem in her enquiring mind. And
+finally, as they were getting ready for bed that night, she threw out
+a leading question which attracted the immediate attention of her
+three sisters:
+
+“Say, Ruthie,” she asked, “how do frankfurters grow?”
+
+“What?” gasped Agnes, and clapped a hand over her own mouth to keep
+from laughing.
+
+“How do they _grow_, dear?” returned Ruth, rather taken aback herself.
+
+“Goodness gracious, child!” exclaimed Tess. “They don’t grow on bushes
+like pea-pods.”
+
+“Oh, no, of course not!” ejaculated Dot, who did not like to be
+considered ignorant. “A frankfurter flies, doesn’t it?”
+
+“Mercy!” murmured Ruth. “Hear her!”
+
+“Oh! I mean it crawls—it _creeps_. Of course,” Dot hurried to add.
+
+Agnes exploded here. She could not keep in any longer.
+
+“Well, I think you’re real mean!” complained Dot. “You won’t tell me.
+I guess it’s a fish, then. Does it _swim_?”
+
+“Goodness!” cried Tess.
+
+“Then they come in bunches like bananas!” declared the frantic Dot.
+
+_This_ was the worst yet. Agnes rolled on the matting of the bedroom
+and almost choked. Ruth herself was laughing heartily at her small
+sister as she gathered her into her arms and told her just how the
+sausage-meat was stuffed into the frankfurters’ skins.
+
+“Well!” murmured Dot, at last, and rather sleepily. “I don’t care. I
+believe they are the very _nicest_ things there are to eat—so there!
+Those the frankfurter man gave us were perfectly lovely.”
+
+That was what suggested the Frankfurter Party, and the Frankfurter
+Party was one of the very happiest thoughts that Ruth Kenway ever
+evolved. We shall have to hear about it, in another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+MRS. BOBSTER’S MYSTERIOUS FRIEND
+
+
+Rosa Wildwood quickly showed improvement after her arrival at Pleasant
+Cove. Under the ministrations of the little old woman who lived in a
+shoe the Southern girl could not help feeling a measure of
+contentment, if nothing else.
+
+Her hostess was such a cheerful body! And, as Agnes had promised, Rosa
+was supplied with good, hearty food—and plenty of it.
+
+There was a glass of warm milk, fresh from the cow, on the stand
+beside the head of her little chintz-hung bed every morning when Rosa
+awoke. For Mrs. Bobster was up and about by daybreak.
+
+When Rosa came down to the sunlit kitchen, breakfast was ready and the
+little old woman who lived in a shoe declared she had all her
+“outside” chores done, saving her regular work in her garden.
+
+Rosa sometimes helped about the housework. The doctor had told her
+that certain forms of housework would be good for her. But she had to
+be very exact and careful in doing the work about the shoe-house, for
+Mrs. Bobster was a New England housekeeper of the old school and was
+as methodical as Grandfather’s Clock.
+
+The girls from Milton did not neglect Rosa Wildwood. At least, the
+Corner House girls and their friends did not. Pearl Harrod and the
+girls at Spoondrift Bungalow came with a wagonette and took her
+driving. The repairs had been made upon the bungalow and Pearl’s party
+was there again—all but the Corner House girls.
+
+Ruth had decided to stick to the tent for the remainder of their stay
+at Pleasant Cove. And Willowbend Camp was becoming the liveliest spot
+along the entire beach-front.
+
+Ruth and her sisters came after Rosa and took her out in their boat.
+The boys who were living at Willowbend, too, took an interest in the
+frail Southern girl. For Rosa Wildwood, with the color stealing back
+into her cheeks and lips, and her eyes bright again, was a very
+attractive girl indeed!
+
+Dot Kenway’s birthday came at this time, and that was the date set for
+the Frankfurter Party. Dot’s guesses about the origin and nature of
+the hearty and inviting, if not delicate, frankfurter, had delighted
+the campers who heard the story; and Dot’s sisters and Neale spent
+some time and a good deal of ingenuity in preparing for the festive
+occasion.
+
+Rosa came over to the tent colony and helped the girls prepare for the
+party. Moreover, she had a secret to impart to Ruth.
+
+“Don’t let the other girls hear, Ruth Kenway,” she said, with much
+mystery. “But Mrs. Bobster is the oddest thing!”
+
+“Well! I guess she is,” laughed Ruth. “But she’s _good_.”
+
+“Good as gold,” agreed Rosa. “But she has some funny ways. Of course I
+go to bed early. The doctor told me I should.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You’d think she’d go to bed early, too, when she’s up so soon in the
+morning?”
+
+“Well——I suppose that’s a matter of taste,” Ruth observed.
+
+“Anyway, you know how lonesome it is over there?”
+
+“I guess there are not many people about—after dark.”
+
+“That’s just it!” cried Rosa. “Mrs. Bobster scurries around and does
+all her out of doors chores before dark. And she locks and bolts all
+the doors. She is really afraid after dark.”
+
+Ruth nodded. She remembered how once the little old woman who lived in
+a shoe had spoken to her about being afraid.
+
+“Well, she locks and bolts the doors,” said Rosa, “and then we have
+supper and I go to bed. Sometimes, like a good child, I go right to
+sleep. Sometimes, like a bad child, I _don’t_.”
+
+“Well—what then?”
+
+“Then I hear Mrs. Bobster talking. She has company. I never hear the
+company come in, or go out; but she has it every night.”
+
+“And never says anything about it?”
+
+“Not a word,” said Rosa. “I hinted once or twice that she must have
+company every night, and all she said was that she didn’t like sitting
+alone.”
+
+“Is it a man or a woman?” asked Ruth.
+
+“I don’t know,” laughed Rosa. “That’s one of the funny things about
+it. Although I hear Mrs. Bobster sometimes chattering like a magpie, I
+never hear an answer.”
+
+“What?” gasped Ruth, in amazement.
+
+“That’s right,” said Rosa, nodding confidently. “Whoever it is talks
+so low that I haven’t heard his, or her, voice yet!”
+
+“A dumb person?” suggested Ruth.
+
+“Maybe. At any rate, I couldn’t tell you for the life of me whether it
+is a man or a woman that comes to see the little old woman who lives
+in a shoe. Isn’t it odd, Ruth?”
+
+“I should say it was,” admitted Ruth.
+
+“But she treats me well,” sighed Rosa. “I wouldn’t do her any harm for
+the world. But I _am_ awfully curious!”
+
+It was this day, too—the day of Dot’s party—that the wooden-legged
+clam-digger came along through the Willowbend tent colony again. He
+always came to the tent of the Corner House girls when he appeared;
+Ruth was a regular customer, for she and her sisters were fond of
+shellfish.
+
+“I’ll have fifty to-day, Mr. Kuk,” she said to the saltish individual
+when he hailed her from outside the tent. Ruth had learned that his
+name was Habakuk Somes; everybody along the beach called him “Kuk,”
+and Ruth, to be polite, tagged him with “Mister” in addition.
+
+Tom Jonah appeared and showed his disapproval of the clam man by a
+throaty growl. “That thar dawg don’t like me none too well,” said the
+clam man. “What d’yeou call him?”
+
+“Tom Jonah.”
+
+“Thet’s enough to sink him,” said the man with a grin. “How’d ye come
+ter call him that?”
+
+“It’s his name,” said Ruth. “It was engraved on his collar when he
+came to our house in Milton.”
+
+“Oh! then he ain’t allus been your dawg, shipmet?” demanded the man.
+
+“No. He came to us. We don’t know where from. But he is a gentleman,
+and he is going to stay with us as long as he will.”
+
+The clam man blinked, and said nothing more. But he cast more than one
+glance at Tom Jonah before he went away.
+
+The preparations made for the birthday party included the purchase of
+a good many pounds of first quality frankfurters. And when they were
+delivered to the Corner House girls’ tent, the fun began.
+
+Tess and Dot were sent away for the morning to play with some of the
+children at Enterprise Camp. Then Ruth and Agnes and Rosa and Neale
+set to work to make frankfurters into the very funniest looking things
+that you could imagine!
+
+With bits of tinsel and colored paper and pins and other small wares,
+the young folks set to work. They made frankfurters look like
+caricatures of all kinds of beasts and birds, and insects as well. One
+was the body of a huge, gaily-winged butterfly. Another was striped
+and horned like a worm of ferocious aspect.
+
+They were made into fishes, with tails and fins. Neale made a nest
+with several “young” frankfurters poking their heads out for food,
+while the mother frankfurter was just poised upon the edge of the
+nest, her wings spread to balance her.
+
+There were short-legged frankfurters, with long, flapping ears, like
+dachshunds, and long, stiff-legged frankfurters, with abbreviated
+tails, and appearing to gambol like lambs. There were several linked
+together and apparently creeping about like a species of jointed,
+horrid caterpillar.
+
+Then they actually _were_ bunched like bananas! while some grew,
+husked, like sweetcorn, and some had the green, fluffy tops of carrots
+cunningly fastened to them and were tied together as carrots are
+bunched in the market.
+
+Neale’s ingenuity, however, rose to its height when he stretched a
+slanting wire across the tent, higher than the partition, and made
+several “aeroplanes” with bodies of the succulent sausage, which he
+could start at one end of the wire to “fly” to the other end.
+
+The young folks came to Willowbend Camp about five o’clock to enjoy
+the festivities. The older Corner House girls, with the help of some
+of their friends, served the crowd a hearty supper, the main course of
+which was hot frankfurters, prepared by the “frankfurter man” whose
+acquaintance Tess and Dot had made.
+
+When the fun was over the guests took the fancy-dressed sausages home
+as souvenirs.
+
+Neale and Agnes and Ruth went home with Rosa, for it was a long walk,
+and part of the way it was lonely. One of the ladies who had
+chaperoned the party remained with Tess and Dot while their sisters
+were absent.
+
+The young folk had a pleasant walk, for there was a moon. Coming
+finally in sight of the home of the little old woman who lived in a
+shoe, Ruth said to Rosa, who walked with her:
+
+“It is a lonely spot, isn’t it?”
+
+“But I never feel afraid. Only I’m curious about Mrs. Bobster’s
+friend——There! See it?” she cried, suddenly, but under her breath.
+
+“See what?” Ruth asked.
+
+“The shadow on the curtain,” said Rosa.
+
+At the same moment Agnes said: “Hello! Mrs. Bobster has company.”
+
+There was a lamp lit in the tiny front room of the cottage. Plainly
+silhouetted upon the white shade was a man sitting in a chair.
+
+“What! With his hat on?” exclaimed Ruth. “Who can it be?”
+
+“He isn’t very polite, whoever he is,” said Neale.
+
+“Let’s see about it,” suggested Agnes. “Do you know anything about
+him, Rosa?”
+
+“I only know she has had a visitor sometimes—after I’m in bed,” said
+the Southern girl.
+
+“Come on! let’s go in the side door,” said Agnes, in a low voice.
+
+But when they had tiptoed to the door they found it locked. Rosa
+laughed. “I tell you she never leaves a door or window unfastened
+after dark,” she said.
+
+They heard the little old woman who lived in a shoe coming to the door
+to let them in. But Rosa had to assure her who it was before Mrs.
+Bobster unlocked the door.
+
+“But you had company?” said Agnes, rather pertly.
+
+“Eh?” returned Mrs. Bobster, setting the broom behind the hall door.
+“Oh, yes! I don’t never kalkerlate ter be alone many evenings.”
+
+“Is he here now?” demanded Neale, laughing.
+
+“Who? _Him?_ No,” said the widow, calmly. “He’s bashful. He went out
+jest as you young folks come in. Sit right down, children, an’ I’ll
+find a pitcher of milk an’ some cookies.”
+
+The Corner House girls and Rosa—to say nothing of Neale O’Neil—were
+amazed. They looked at each other wonderingly as the widow bustled out
+to the pantry.
+
+“I’d give a penny,” murmured Rosa Wildwood, “to know who her
+mysterious friend is.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE YARN OF THE “SPANKING SAL”
+
+
+The wooden-legged clam digger, Habakuk Somes, seemed suddenly to have
+acquired a great interest in Tom Jonah.
+
+He appeared almost every day at the tent of the Corner House girls and
+did his best to become friendly with the dog. Tom Jonah grew used to
+his presence, but he would allow no familiarities from the dilapidated
+waterside character.
+
+The girls thought “Kuk” Somes only queer; the boys “joshed” him a good
+deal. Nobody minded having him around, considering merely that he was
+a peculiar fellow, and harmless.
+
+His tales of sea-going and sea-roving were wonderful indeed. How much
+of them was truth and how much pure invention, the older Corner House
+girls and Neale O’Neil did not know. However, they forgave his
+“historical inaccuracies” because of the entertainment they derived
+from his yarns.
+
+Tess and Dot listened to the old fellow with perfect confidence in his
+achievements. Had he not known—in a moment—what it was that shot
+water up through the holes in the clam flat? The smaller girls
+listened to old Kuk Somes with unshaken confidence.
+
+“And how did the pirates get your leg, Mr. Kuk?” asked Tess. “Your
+really truly leg, I mean.”
+
+She and Dot were sitting on the edge of the tent-platform, under the
+awning, with their bare feet in the sand, with Tom Jonah lying
+comfortably between them. The dog had a brooding eye upon the clam
+digger, who sat on a broken lobster trap a few feet away.
+
+“Huh! them pi-_rats_?” queried the clam digger. “Well—er—now, did I
+say it was pi-_rats_ as got my leg, shipmet?”
+
+“Yes, you did, sir.” Dot hastened to bolster up her sister’s statement
+of fact. “And you said it was on the Spanish Main.”
+
+“Well!” declared the old man, “so it was, an’ so they did. Pi-_rats_
+it was, shipmet. An’ I’ll tell yer the how of it.
+
+“I was carpenter’s mate on the _Spankin’ Sal_, what sailed from
+Bosting to Rio, touchin’ at some West Injy ports on the
+way—pertic’larly Porto Rico, which is a big merlasses port. We had a
+good part of our upper holt stowed with warmin’ pans for the merlasses
+planters——”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Kuk!” ejaculated Tess in rather a pained voice. “Isn’t that a
+mistake? _Warming pans?_”
+
+“Not by a joblot it ain’t no mistake!” returned the old man. “Warming
+pans I sez, an’ warming pans I sticks to.”
+
+“But my geogoraphy,” Tess ventured, timidly, and mispronouncing the
+word as usual, “says that the West Indies are tropical. Porto Rico is
+near the Equator.”
+
+“Now, ain’t that wonderful—jest wonderful?” declared the clam digger,
+smiting his knee with his palm. “Shows what it is to be book l’arned,
+shipmet.
+
+“’Course, _I_ knowed them was tropical places, but I didn’t know ’twas
+all writ down in books—joggerfries, do they call ’em?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Tess, seriously. “And it is so hot down there they
+couldn’t possibly need warming pans.”
+
+“Now, ye’d think that, wouldn’t ye, shipmet? And I’d think it. But the
+skipper of the _Spankin’ Sal_, he knowed dif’rent.
+
+“A master brainy man was Captain Roebuck. That was his name—Roebuck,”
+declared the clam digger, solemnly. “Hev you ever seen a warming pan,
+shipmet—an old-fashioned warmin’ pan?”
+
+“Oh, yes!” cried Tess and Dot together. “There’s one hangs over the
+mantelpiece in the sitting-room of the old Corner House,” added Tess.
+“That’s where we live when we’re at home in Milton.
+
+“And it is a round brass pan, with a cover that has holes in it, and a
+long handle. Mrs. MacCall says folks used to put live coals in it and
+iron the beds before folks went to bed, in the cold weather. But we
+got furnace heat now, and don’t need the warming pan.”
+
+“Surely, surely, shipmet,” agreed the clam digger. “Them’s the things.
+And Cap’n Roebuck of the _Spankin’ Sal_, plagued near crammed the
+upper holt with them.
+
+“It looks right foolish, shipmet; but that skipper got a chancet ter
+buy up a whole lot o’ them brass warmin’ pans cheap. If he’d seen ’em
+cheap enough, he’d bought up a hull cargo of secon’ hand hymn books,
+and he’d took ’em out to the heathen in the South Seas and made a
+profit on ’em—he would that!” pursued Kuk, confidently.
+
+“He must have been a wonderful man, sir,” said Tess, while Dot sat
+round-eyed and listened.
+
+“Wonderful! wonderful!” agreed the clam digger. “But about them
+warmin’ pans. When we got ter Porto Rico we broke out the first of
+them things. Looked right foolish. All them dons in Panama hats and
+white pants, an’ barefooted comin’ aboard to look over samples of
+tradin’ stock, an’ all they can see is warmin’ pans.
+
+“‘What’s them things for?’ axed the first planter, in the Spanish
+lingo.
+
+“‘Them’s skimmers,’ says Cap’n Roebuck, knowin’ it warn’t no manner o’
+use to try to explain the exact truth to a man what ain’t never seed
+snow, or knowed there was a zero mark on the almanack.
+
+“He grabbed up one o’ them warmin’ pans and made a swing with it like
+you’d use a crab-net. ‘See! See!’ says the dons. ‘Skim-a da
+merlasses.’ That’s Spanish for ‘Yes, yes! skim the merlasses,’”
+explained Kuk, seriously.
+
+“‘But what’s the cover for?’ axed the don. ‘Ye don’t hafter have no
+cover,’ says Cap’n Roebuck, and he yanks the cover off the warmin’ pan
+an’ throws it away.
+
+“And there them dons had the finest merlasses dipper that ever went
+inter the islan’s. Cap’n Roebuck seen their eyes snap an’ put a good,
+stiff price on the things, and inside of a week there warn’t a warmin’
+pan left on the _Spankin’ Sal_.
+
+“Then,” pursued the clam digger, “we stowed away in our upper holt
+goods what would bring a fancy price at Rio, and laid our course for
+the Amazon.
+
+“But we was all hands mighty worritted,” admitted Kuk, lowering his
+voice mysteriously. “Ye see, ye never could tell in them old days, an’
+in the West Injies, who it was safe to trust, an’ who it was safe ter
+_dis_-trust.
+
+“Yer see, so many of them snaky Spanish planters was hand an’ glove
+with the pi-_rats_. And ev’rybody on the island knowed the _Spankin’
+Sal_ was takin’ away a great treasure that had been exchanged for them
+warmin’ pans. We was a fair mark, as ye might say, for them
+pi-_rats_.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Dot, hugging her Alice-doll the tighter.
+
+“How much treasure was there, Mr. Kuk?” asked the ever-practical Tess.
+
+“A chist full,” announced the clam digger without a moment’s
+hesitation. “A reg’lar treasure-chist full. All them planters hadn’t
+had ready cash money to pay for the warmin’ pans, and they’d give in
+exchange di’monds and other jools—and the exchange rates for American
+money was high anyway. So the _Spankin’ Sal_ was a mighty good ketch
+if the pi-_rats_ ketched her.
+
+“So, when we sailed from Porto Rico we kep’ a weather eye open for
+black-painted schooners with rakin’ masts an’ skulls and shinbones on
+their flags. When we seed them signs we’d know they was pi-_rats_,”
+declared Kuk, gravely.
+
+The small Corner House girls sighed in unison—and in delight! “The
+plot thickens!” whispered Agnes to Ruth behind the flap of the tent
+where they were listening, likewise, though unbeknown to Kuk and the
+children.
+
+“Go on, please, Mr. Kuk,” breathed Tess.
+
+“Oh, do!” said Dot.
+
+“Well, shipmets,” said the old clam digger, “bein’ peaceful
+merchantmen, as ye might say, we hadn’t shipped aboard the _Spankin’
+Sal_ to fight no pi-_rats_,” declared Kuk, with energy. “We wasn’t no
+sogers, and we told the skipper so.
+
+“‘We’ll fight,’ says I. Bein’ an officer—carpenter’s mate, as I told
+ye—I was spokesman for the crew. ‘But we wants ter fight with weepons
+as we air fermiliar with. Let you and the ossifers fire the cannon,
+skipper,’ says I, ‘and give us fellers that was bred along shore an’
+on the farms some o’ them scythes out’n the lower holt.
+
+“‘Cutlasses an’ muskets,’ says I, ‘is all right for them as has been
+brought up with ’em,’ says I, ‘but, skipper, me an’ my shipmets has
+been better used ter cuttin’ swamp-grass an’ mowin’ oats. Give us the
+weepons we air fermiliar with.’
+
+“And he done it,” declared Kuk, wagging his sinful old head. “We broke
+out some cases of scythes and fixed ’em onto their handles after
+grindin’ of ’em sharp as razers on the grin’stone in the waist of the
+_Spankin’ Sal_.
+
+“Pretty soon we seen one o’ them black-hulled schooners comin’. She
+couldn’t be mistook for anythin’ but a pi-_rat_, although she didn’t
+fly no black flag yet.
+
+“‘Let ’em come to close quarters, skipper,’ says I. ‘Let ’em board us.
+Then me an’ my shipmets can git ’em on the short laig. We’ll mow ’em
+down like weeds along a roadside ditch.’
+
+“He done it, an’ we did,” pursued Kuk, rather heated now with the
+interest of his own narrative. “When they run their schooner alongside
+of us and the two ships clinched, and they broke out the black flag at
+their peak, me an’ my shipmets stood there ready to repel boarders.
+
+“Them pi-_rats_,” proceeded Kuk, “fought like a passel of cats—tooth
+an’ nail! They come over aour bulwarks jest like peas pourin’ out o’ a
+sack. ‘Steady, lads!’ I sings out. ‘Take a long, sweepin’ stroke, an’
+each o’ ye cut a good swath!’
+
+“An’ we done so,” the clam digger said, nodding. “Our scythes was
+longer than the cutlasses of them pi-_rats_; and before they could git
+at us, we’d reach ’em with a side-swipe of the scythes, and mow ’em
+down like ripe hay.”
+
+“Oh, dear, me!” gasped Dot.
+
+“How awful!” murmured Tess.
+
+“’Twas sartain sure a bloody field of battle,” declared the clam
+digger, nodding again. “If it hadn’t been for my leg I wouldn’t never
+have fought no pi-_rats_ again. A man has his feelin’s, ye see. Our
+scuppers run blood. The enemy was piled along the deck under our
+bulwarks in a reg’lar windrow.”
+
+“And did you kill them _all_—every one?” demanded Tess, in amazement.
+
+“No. We jest cut ’em down for the most part,” explained Kuk. “Ye see,
+we cut a low swath with our scythes; mostly we mowed off their feet
+and mebbe their legs purty near to their knees. After that there
+battle there was a most awful lot o’ wooden legged pi-_rats_ on the
+Spanish Main.
+
+“An’ _that_,” declared the clam digger, rising and getting ready to
+move on, “was the main reason why I left the sea; leastwise I never
+wanted to go sailin’ much in them parts again.
+
+“In the scrimmage I got a shot in this leg as busted my knee-cap. I
+kep’ hoppin’ ’round on that busted leg as long as there was any
+pi-_rats_ to mow down; and I did the knee a lot of harm the doctors in
+the horspital said.
+
+“So I had ter have the leg ampertated. That made folks down that-a-way
+ax me was I a pi-_rat_, too. I’m a sensitive man,” said Kuk, wagging
+his head, “an’ it hurt my feelin’s to be classed in with all them
+wooden-legged fellers as we mowed down in the _Spankin’ Sal_. So I
+come hum an’ left the sea for good and all,” concluded Habakuk Somes,
+and at once pegged off with his clam basket on his arm.
+
+“What an awful, _awful_ story!” cried Dot.
+
+“Too awful to believe,” answered Tess, wisely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+The four Corner House girls planned to start for town one morning
+early, and they were going by road instead of by boat.
+
+Agnes ran over to the boys’ tents to ask Neale O’Neil to see that
+their fresh fish was put upon the ice in the icebox when the fishman
+came; and she found Neale doing duty on the housekeeping staff that
+morning, being busily engaged in shaking up the pillows and beating
+mattresses in the sun. The latter exertion was particularly for the
+dislodgment of the ubiquitous sandflea!
+
+“Hello, Ag! What’s the good word?” cried Neale.
+
+Agnes told him what they were going to do and asked the favor.
+
+“I’ll see that you get the fish all right,” Neale agreed. “But what
+about the iceman? He’ll never come near your tent with Tom Jonah
+there.”
+
+“Tom Jonah is going with us,” Agnes said, promptly. “Did you suppose
+we’d leave him all day alone, poor fellow?”
+
+When they started Tom Jonah showed his delight at being included in
+the girls’ outing by the most extravagant gyrations. As they went up
+the shaded lane toward the auto-stage road, he chased half a dozen
+imaginary rabbits into the woods in as many minutes.
+
+It was right at the head of the lane that they met the man. He was not
+a bad looking man at all, and he was driving a nice horse to a
+rubber-tired runabout.
+
+He drew in the horse, that seemed to have already traveled some miles
+that morning, and looked hard at Tom Jonah.
+
+“Well,” he said, cheerfully, “there’s the old tramp himself. How long
+have you girls had him?”
+
+The four Corner House girls stood stock-still, and even Ruth was
+smitten dumb for the moment.
+
+“Tom Jonah, you rascal!” said the man, not unkindly. “Don’t you know
+your old master?”
+
+At first the dog had not seen him; but the moment he heard the man’s
+voice, he halted and his whole body stiffened. The plume of his tail
+began to wave; his jaws stretched wide in a doggish smile. Then, as
+the man playfully snapped the whip at him, Tom Jonah barked loudly.
+
+“Where did you get him!” the man repeated, looking at the Corner House
+girls again.
+
+Tess and Dot were clinging to each other’s hands. Agnes stared at the
+man belligerently. Ruth said—and her voice was not quite steady:
+
+“Do you think you know Tom Jonah, sir?”
+
+“What do you think yourself, Miss?” responded the man, rather gruffly.
+“I guess there’s no mistake about whether he knows me and I know him.”
+
+“No, sir,” said Ruth, bravely. “But lots of people may know him.”
+
+“Do you mean to put in a claim for the dog?” interrupted the man,
+quickly.
+
+“Tom Jonah came to our house in Milton,” began Ruth, when again the
+man interrupted with:
+
+“Of course. He was on his way home to me. I sold him to a man who
+lives forty miles beyond Milton.”
+
+“Then you do _not_ own him?” Ruth said, with a feeling of relief.
+
+The man looked at her steadily for a minute. Ruth had recovered her
+self-possession. Tess and Dot were now on either side of Tom Jonah,
+with their arms about the dog’s neck. Agnes was very angry, but
+remained silent.
+
+“I raised that dog from a pup, Miss. I owned his mother. I raised him.
+I put his name on his collar. He has it there yet, hasn’t he?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” admitted Ruth.
+
+“He’s always been a good dog. He’s a gentleman if ever a dog was! He
+had the run of the house. My wife and the girls made a great pet of
+him. But by and by they said he was too big and clumsy for the house.
+They have a couple of little _fice_—lap-poodles, or the like. Tom
+Jonah was put out, and he got jealous. Yes, sir!” and the man laughed.
+“Just as jealous as a human.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Agnes. She _disliked_ that man!
+
+“My name’s Reynolds,” said the man. “Everybody knows me about Shawmit.
+I run a lumber-yard there.
+
+“Well! Tom Jonah got to running away to the neighbors. Stayed a while
+with one, then with another. Always liked kids, Tom Jonah did, and
+he’d stay longest where there were kids in the family.
+
+“But it got to be a nuisance. I didn’t know whether the dog belonged
+to me or somebody else. So I sold him to a relative of my wife’s who
+came on visiting us, and took a fancy to Tom Jonah, and who lives—as
+I said—forty miles beyond Milton. So the old fellow was on his way
+back home when you took him in, eh?”
+
+“He came to us at Milton,” Ruth replied. “He wanted to stay. I brought
+him down here to take care of my little sisters. We’re living in a
+tent down on the shore yonder——”
+
+“And we’re going to keep him!” interrupted Agnes, angrily.
+
+“Hush! Be still, Aggie!” begged Ruth, in a low tone.
+
+“You don’t claim you bought him, I suppose?” said the man who called
+himself Reynolds.
+
+“But we _will_!” cried Ruth, instantly. “We will gladly pay for him.”
+
+“Oh, he’s not for sale again,” laughed the man. “I sold him once and
+he wouldn’t stay sold, you see.”
+
+“Then he doesn’t belong to you now, any more than he does to us,
+really,” Ruth hastened to say.
+
+“Well——that’s so, I suppose,” admitted the man.
+
+“We won’t give Tom Jonah up to anybody,” said Agnes again.
+
+Dot was crying and Tess could scarcely keep from following her lead.
+Tom Jonah stood solemnly, his eyes very bright, his tail waving
+slowly. He looked from the girls to the man in the runabout, and back
+again. He knew they were discussing him; but he did not know just what
+it was all about.
+
+“If we have to,” said Ruth, with much more confidence in her voice
+than she felt in her heart, “we will give Tom Jonah up to the person
+who really owns him. We do not know you, sir. We do not know if what
+you say is true. You must prove it.”
+
+“Well! I like that!” said the man in a tone that showed he did not
+like it at all. “You are a pretty pert young lady, you are. I guess
+I’ll take my own dog home. I heard he was over here to the beach and I
+drove over particularly to get him.”
+
+“Take him, then!” exclaimed Ruth, desperately. “If Tom Jonah will go
+with you, all right. You call him.”
+
+“Come here, boy!” commanded the man.
+
+Tom Jonah did not move. Ruth took a hand of each of the smaller girls
+and led them away from the big dog.
+
+“Come, children,” she said. “We’ll go on. If Tom Jonah really loves
+us, he’ll come, too.”
+
+The dog whined. He looked from the red-faced, angry man to the four
+girls who loved him so well.
+
+“Come here, Tom Jonah!” commanded the man again. He had turned his
+horse and was evidently headed for home. “Come, sir!”
+
+The Corner House girls were moving sadly away. Agnes glanced back and
+actually made a face at the man in the runabout. Fortunately he did
+not see it.
+
+“Come on, Tom Jonah!” said the man for the third time.
+
+The dog was perplexed. He showed it plainly. He started after the man;
+he started back for the girls. He whined and he barked. He was torn by
+the conflicting emotions in his doggish soul.
+
+“What’s the matter with him?” exclaimed the man, and snapped his
+whiplash at Tom Jonah.
+
+At that, Dot uttered a shriek of anguish. Tess burst into tears. Agnes
+started back as though to protect the dog. Even Ruth could not forbear
+to utter a cry.
+
+“Here, Tom Jonah! here, sir!” Agnes shouted. “Come on, you dear old
+fellow.”
+
+The dog barked, circled the moving carriage once, and then raced down
+the road toward the Corner House girls. The man shouted and snapped
+his whip. Tom Jonah did not even look back at him when he caught up
+with the girls.
+
+[Illustration: The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;
+started back for the girls. He whined and he barked.]
+
+“Hurry up! let’s run with him, Ruthie,” begged Agnes.
+
+But there was no need of that. The man did not turn his horse and
+follow. He was quickly out of sight and Tom Jonah gave no sign of
+wishing to follow his old master.
+
+The incident troubled the Corner House girls vastly. Even Ruth was
+devoted to the good old dog by this time. If he were taken away by
+this Mr. Reynolds, it would be like losing one of the Corner House
+family.
+
+Ruth feared that Mr. Reynolds would find some legal way of getting
+possession of Tom Jonah. She wished Mr. Howbridge were here to advise
+them what to do. She even wished now that she had not brought Tom
+Jonah to Pleasant Cove to act as their “chaperon.”
+
+The smaller girls dried their eyes after a time. Agnes, “breathing
+threatenings,” as Ruth said, promised Tess and Dot that the man never
+should take Tom Jonah away. But Ruth wondered what they would do about
+it if Mr. Reynolds came to Willowbend Camp with a police constable and
+a warrant for the dog?
+
+And, too, who had sent Mr. Reynolds word that Tom Jonah was at the
+beach? He particularly said that he had been informed of the fact. It
+seemed to Ruth that the informer must be their enemy.
+
+Then, out of a dust cloud that had been drawing near the Corner House
+girls for some few moments, appeared the forefront of a big touring
+car. In it were Trix Severn and some of her friends from the Overlook
+House.
+
+“Oh! there’s Trix!” murmured Agnes to her older sister.
+
+The hotel-keeper’s daughter would not look at the Corner House girls.
+She, certainly, had proved herself their enemy. Ruth wondered if Trix
+had had anything to do with bringing Mr. Reynolds to Pleasant Cove,
+searching for his dog.
+
+Ruth knew that the hotel-keeper’s daughter often rode over to Shawmit;
+she was probably on her way there now with her party. And after the
+way Trix had acted at the time the Spoondrift bungalow was burned, one
+might expect anything mean of Trix. For once Ruth allowed her
+suspicions to color her thoughts.
+
+“She has awfully good times, just the same,” murmured Agnes.
+
+“Who does?” demanded Ruth, tartly.
+
+“Trix.”
+
+“I declare!” exclaimed Ruth, with more vexation than she usually
+displayed. “I’d be ashamed that I ever knew her after the way she’s
+acted. And I believe, Agnes, that we can thank her for setting that
+man after Tom Jonah.”
+
+“Oh, Ruth! Do you believe so?”
+
+“I do,” said the older Corner House girl, and she explained why she
+thought so.
+
+Mr. Severn bought many of his supplies in Shawmit, and Trix was
+forever running over there in the car. It did not strain one’s
+imagination very much to picture Trix hearing about Mr. Reynolds’ dog
+and recognizing Tom Jonah from the description. Besides, the Severns
+had been coming to Pleasant Cove for several seasons, and Trix might
+easily have seen the dog when he lived with his first master.
+
+“Oh, dear me!” sighed Agnes. “It does seem too bad that one’s very
+_best_ friends sometimes turn out to be one’s enemies. Who’d have
+thought Trix Severn would do such a thing?”
+
+“Of course, we don’t _know_,” admitted Ruth, trying to be fair. “But
+who else could have told Mr. Reynolds about Tom Jonah?”
+
+Ruth went into the first store in the village that sold such things
+and bought a new leash. This she snapped into the ring of his collar
+and made the old dog walk beside them more decorously.
+
+Tess and Dot could scarcely keep from hugging him all the time; they
+wanted Ruth to agree to take the very next train back to Milton, for
+they thought with the dog once at the old Corner House, nobody could
+take him away from them.
+
+“I didn’t like that man at all, anyway,” Tess declared. “He had red
+whiskers.”
+
+“Is—is that a sign that a man’s real mean if he has red whiskers,
+Tess?” asked Dot, wonderingly.
+
+“It’s a sign Tess doesn’t like him,” laughed Agnes. “But I don’t like
+that Reynolds man myself. Do you, Ruthie?”
+
+“We’re all agreed on that point I should hope,” said Ruth. “But we
+won’t run away with Tom Jonah. If that man comes for him again, I’ll
+find some way to circumvent him. The good old dog belongs to us, if he
+does to anybody. And as long as he wants to live with us, he shall. So
+now!”
+
+The other Corner House girls finally forgot their worriment about Tom
+Jonah. Ruth warned them not to talk about it to the girls they met.
+They did their errands in the village and then went on to Spoondrift
+bungalow where they spent a very enjoyable day.
+
+Neale O’Neil and Joe Eldred came after supper to escort the Corner
+House girls back to Willowbend Camp. Tess and Dot had taken a nap
+during the afternoon, so were not a drag on the procession, going
+home.
+
+They went around by the home of the little old woman who lived in the
+shoe. Ruth and Agnes had been talking with the boys about the mystery
+of the strange girl who had shared in the adventures of Tess and Dot
+on Wild Goose Island. They all agreed she must be a Gypsy; but Ruth
+had kept to herself the knowledge of the girl’s identity as the Gypsy
+“queen.”
+
+“I saw several of the Gypsies about the beach to-day,” Joe Eldred
+said. “That snaky, scarred-faced fellow was one of them.”
+
+“He’s the ring-leader, I believe,” Ruth hastened to say.
+
+“Can’t just see what they are after, hanging about here,” Neale
+observed. “There isn’t much to steal. Everybody’s brought just the
+oldest things they own down here to the beach.”
+
+“And there are no hens to steal,” chuckled Agnes.
+
+“I bet none of them will come near the tents while Tom Jonah is on
+guard,” Neale added, snapping his fingers for the dog who was running
+ahead in the moonlit path.
+
+Suddenly Tom Jonah stopped and growled. They had arrived in sight of
+the queer little cottage where Rosa Wildwood lived with Mrs. Bobster.
+The young folk could even see the drawn shade of the sitting-room
+window.
+
+“There’s that man again!” exclaimed Agnes.
+
+“What man?” Joe Eldred asked.
+
+“Mrs. Bobster’s mysterious friend,” giggled Agnes. “See his shadow on
+the curtain?”
+
+“And he’s sitting there with his hat on,” murmured Neale.
+
+But it was Ruth who saw the other—and more important—shadow. This
+was the figure of a tall man slipping along the outer side of Mrs.
+Bobster’s picket fence. It was _this_ shadow at which Tom Jonah was
+growling.
+
+The man came to the gate, opened it softly, and stole in. His furtive
+movements gave the big dog his cue. He leaped forward, barking
+vociferously, leaped the fence, and followed the running figure around
+the corner of the house.
+
+Mrs. Bobster shrieked—the young folk outside could hear her. But her
+“company” did not move. He still sat there with his derby hat on.
+
+The boys started after the dog. The girls stood, clinging to one
+another’s hands, at the corner of the fence.
+
+From around the house appeared another running figure; but this was a
+girl. She flung herself headlong over the fence, and her skirt caught
+on a picket. Ruth ran forward to release her.
+
+“Oh, my dear!” she gasped. “Where did you come from?”
+
+It was the girl she had first noticed in the train with the Gypsy
+woman—the very girl who had been on Wild Goose Island with Tess and
+Dot. It was she who had masqueraded as Zaliska, the Gypsy queen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BROUGHT TO BOOK
+
+
+“Let me go! Let me go!” gasped the girl in Ruth’s arms. “He will get
+me.”
+
+“Who’ll get you?” demanded the wondering Agnes.
+
+“Big Jim, the Gypsy. He’s after me,” said the strange girl.
+
+“And Tom Jonah and the boys are after _him_,” declared Ruth. “Don’t
+you fret; Big Jim won’t come back here.”
+
+“Who _is_ she, Ruth?” asked Agnes.
+
+“Never mind who I am,” said the girl, rather sharply. “Let me go.”
+
+“I know why you were lurking about here,” Ruth said, calmly. “You
+heard that Rosa Wildwood is stopping here.”
+
+“Well?” demanded the other.
+
+“Then you are June Wildwood. You’re her sister. I don’t know how you
+came to be with those Gypsies, and masquerading as an old woman——”
+
+“My goodness!” gasped Agnes. “Was _she_ that Gypsy queen?”
+
+“Yes,” Ruth said, confidently. “Now, weren’t you?” to the strange
+girl. “And aren’t you Rosa’s sister who ran away two years ago?”
+
+“Oh, I am! I am!” groaned the girl.
+
+“Well, Rosa’s just crazy to see you. And your father has been
+searching for you everywhere,” said Ruth, quickly. “You must come in
+and see Rosa. There’s Mrs. Bobster opening the front door.”
+
+The shadow of the man with the derby hat on his head still was
+motionless upon the shade; but the widow had opened the front door on
+its chain, and now demanded:
+
+“Who’s there? what do you want?”
+
+“It’s only me, Mrs. Bobster,” cried Ruth.
+
+Tess and Dot were already running toward the cottage door. “Oh, Mrs.
+Bobster!” Tess cried, “here’s the girl that helped us on the
+island—me and Dot.”
+
+“And my Alice-doll,” concluded Dot, likewise excited. “And Ruthie says
+she’s Rosa’s sister.”
+
+“For the good land of liberty’s sake!” ejaculated Mrs. Bobster,
+throwing wide the door. “Come in! Come in!”
+
+The girl whom Ruth had seized hesitated for a moment. Ruth whispered
+in her ear:
+
+“Rosa is wearing her heart out for you, June Wildwood. And your father
+isn’t drinking any more. He has a steady job. You come back to them
+and you needn’t be afraid of those Gypsies.”
+
+“They’ll try to get me back. Doc. Raynes’ wife was one of them. The
+old doctor died a year ago, and since then I’ve been with that gang,”
+said June Wildwood.
+
+“Were the doctor and his wife the folks you ran away with?”
+
+“Yes. I danced and sang and dressed up in character to help entertain
+their audiences when he sold bitters and salve,” the girl explained.
+“The old doctor treated me all right. But these thieving Gypsies are
+different. Mrs. Doc. Raynes is Big Jim’s sister.”
+
+“Don’t you be afraid of them any more. We’ll set the police after
+them,” Ruth declared. “Where have you been since the day my sisters
+were with you?”
+
+“I’ve been washing dishes at a hotel here in Pleasant Cove. But I kept
+under cover. I was afraid of them,” said the girl.
+
+They reached the door then, and went into the cottage. Mrs. Bobster
+ushered them right into the sitting-room and at once all the girls
+halted in amazement. There was an armchair standing between the window
+and the center table, where the lamp sat. Leaning against the chair
+was the broom, and on the business end of that very useful household
+implement was a hat that had probably once belonged to the husband of
+the little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+“My goodness sake!” ejaculated Agnes, the first to get her breath.
+“Then it was not company you had at all, Mrs. Bobster?”
+
+“No,” said the widow, in a business-like way, removing the hat from
+the broom and standing the latter in the corner. “But I didn’t want
+folks to know it. There’s some stragglers around here after dark, and
+I wanted ’em to think there was a man in the house.”
+
+At that moment Rosa Wildwood came running downstairs in wrapper and
+slippers. “I heard her! I heard her!” she shrieked, and the next
+moment the two sisters were hugging each other frantically.
+
+Explanations were in order; and it took some time for the little old
+lady who lived in a shoe to understand the reunion of her boarder and
+the girl who had lived with the Gypsies.
+
+The boys and Tom Jonah came back, having chased the lurking Big Jim
+for quite a mile through the woods. “And Tom Jonah brought back a
+piece of his coat-tail,” chuckled Neale O’Neil. “He can consider
+himself lucky that the dog didn’t bite deeper!”
+
+“I guess that dog doesn’t like Gypsies,” said June Wildwood, patting
+Tom Jonah’s head.
+
+The boys were just as much interested as their girl friends in the
+reunion of Rosa and her sister. Meanwhile Mrs. Bobster bustled about
+and found the usual pitcher of cool milk and a great platter of
+cookies. The young folk feasted beyond reason while they all talked.
+
+Ruth arranged with the little old woman who lived in a shoe to let
+June stay with her sister, and she promised June, as well, that if she
+would return to Milton with Rosa, employment would be found for her so
+that she could be self-supporting, yet live at home with Rosa and Bob
+Wildwood.
+
+The Corner House girls offered to leave Tom Jonah to guard the
+premises for that night. But Mrs. Bobster said:
+
+“I reckon I won’t be scaret none with two great girls in the house
+with me. Besides, when I am asleep, being lonesome don’t bother me
+none—no, ma’am!”
+
+“Well, we don’t know how long we’re going to have old Tom Jonah
+ourselves,” sighed Agnes, as the party bound for the tent colony
+started on again.
+
+“How’s that!” demanded Neale, quickly.
+
+They told him about the man named Reynolds, from Shawmit, and the
+claim he had made to the big dog. Neale was equally troubled with the
+Corner House girls over this, and he advised Ruth and Agnes to take
+the dog wherever they went.
+
+“Don’t give the fellow a chance to find Tom Jonah alone, or with the
+little girls,” said Neale. “I don’t believe he can get the dog legally
+without considerable trouble. And Tom Jonah has shown whom he likes
+best.”
+
+This uncertainty about Tom Jonah, however, did not keep the Corner
+House girls from continuing their good times at Pleasant Cove. With
+one of the ladies of the tent colony for chaperon the girls and their
+boy friends had many a “junket”—up the river, down the bay, and even
+outside upon the open sea.
+
+It was on one of these latter occasions that Ruth and Agnes joined
+Neale and his friends on the “double-ender,” _Hattie G._, and with her
+crew spent a night and a day chasing the elusive swordfish.
+
+That _was_ an adventure; and one not soon to be forgotten by the older
+Corner House girls. Of course Tess and Dot were too small to go on
+this trip and they were fast asleep in one of the neighboring tents
+when Neale O’Neil came and scratched on the canvas of that in which
+Ruth and Agnes slept.
+
+“Oh!” gasped Agnes. “What’s that!”
+
+“Is that you, Neale?” demanded Ruth, calmly.
+
+“Of course. Get a bustle on,” advised the boy. “The motorboat will be
+ready in ten minutes.”
+
+“Mercy!” ejaculated Agnes, giggling. “You know we don’t wear bustles,
+Neale. They are too old-fashioned for anything.”
+
+She and Ruth quickly dressed. There wasn’t much “prinking and
+preening” before the mirror on this morning, that was sure. In ten
+minutes the two Corner House girls were running down the beach, with
+their bags (packed over-night) and their rain-coats over their arms.
+Tom Jonah raced after them.
+
+Everywhere save on the beach itself the shadows lay deep. There was no
+moon and the stars twinkled high overhead—spangles sewed on the
+black-velvet robe of Night.
+
+Out upon the quietly heaving waters sounded voices—then the pop of a
+launch engine.
+
+“Come on!” urged Neale’s voice. “They’re getting the boat ready,
+girls.”
+
+“But we’re not going out to the banks in the _Nimble Shanks_—surely!”
+cried Agnes.
+
+“No. But we’re going down the cove in her to catch the _Hattie G._
+Skipper Joline sent up a rocket for us half an hour ago. The tide’s
+going out. He won’t wait long, I assure you.”
+
+“It would be lots more comfortable to go all the way in the
+motorboat—wouldn’t it?” asked Ruth, stepping into the skiff after
+Agnes and the dog.
+
+“Skipper Joline would have a fit,” laughed Joe Eldred. “A motorboat
+engine would scare every swordfish within a league of the Banks—so
+_he_ says. He declares _that_ is what makes them so hard to catch the
+last few seasons. These motorboats running about the sea are a greater
+nuisance than the motor cars ashore—so he declares.”
+
+“I suppose the swordfish shy at the motorboats just like the horses
+shy at automobiles!” giggled Agnes, as Neale and Joe pushed off and
+seized the oars.
+
+“Yep,” grunted Neale O’Neil. “And the motorboats have frightened all
+the horse-mackerel away. That’s a joke. I’ll tell the Skipper _that_.”
+
+Several shadowy figures—being those of the other boys and Mr. and
+Mrs. Stryver, who were members of the swordfishing party, too—were
+spied about the deck and cockpit of the _Nimble Shanks_. The boys shot
+the skiff in beside the motorboat and helped the girls aboard. Then
+they moored the skiff to the motorboat’s buoy and soon the _Nimble
+Shanks_ was away, down the cove.
+
+It was past two o’clock—the darkest minutes of a summer’s morning.
+Seaward, a light haze hung over the water—seemingly a veil of mist
+let down from the sky to shut out the view of all distant objects from
+the out-sailing mariners.
+
+As the party neared the fishing fleet, voices carried flatly across
+the water, and now and then a dog barked. Tom Jonah answered these
+canines ashore with explosive growls. He stood forward, his paws
+planted firmly on the deck, and snuffing the sea air. Tom Jonah was a
+good sailor.
+
+“Got your scare?” a voice came out of the darkness, quavering across
+the cove. “Going to be thick outside.”
+
+Neale grabbed the fish-horn and blew a mighty blast on it. Similar
+horns answered from all about the fleet.
+
+A towering mast, with its big sail bending to the breeze, shot past
+them—the big cat-boat, _Susie_, bound for her lines of lobster-pots
+just off the mouth of the cove. Her crew hailed the launch and her
+party—four sturdy young fellows in jerseys and high sea-boots.
+
+“Whew!” said Joe. “Smell that lobster bait! I’d hate to go for a
+pleasure trip on the _Susie_.”
+
+The _Hattie G._ was just ahead and Mr. Stryver shut off the engine.
+The drab, dirty looking old craft tugged sharply at her taut mooring
+cable. She had two short masts, and on these heavy canvas was being
+spread by the crew, which consisted of five men and a boy.
+
+One of the men was the skipper, another the mate, a third the cook;
+but all hands had to turn to to make sail. There were several sweeps
+(heavy oars) held in bights of rope along the rail. Both ends of the
+_Hattie G._ were sharp; in other words she had two bows. Thus the
+name, “double-ender”—a build of craft now almost extinct save in a
+few New England ports out of which ply the swordfishermen.
+
+Skipper Joline came to the rail. He was a hoarse, red-faced man with a
+white beard, cut like a paintbrush, on his chin.
+
+“Climb aboard, folks,” he said. “Steve will get breakfast shortly.
+There’s a bit of fog and some swell outside. Better all lay in a good
+foundation of scouse and sody biscuit. Ye’ll need it later.”
+
+“That sounds rather suggestive, Ruth,” whispered Agnes. “Do you
+suppose he expects us landlubbers to be really _sick_?”
+
+“I hope not,” replied her sister. “But I don’t care! I’m going to eat
+that breakfast if it kills me! I was never so hungry in all my life
+before.”
+
+They left the _Nimble Shanks_ moored at the double-ender’s
+anchor-buoy, and the latter lurched away on the short leg of her tack
+for the entrance to the cove. There was a fresh breeze and the water
+began to sing under the sharp bows of the _Hattie G._
+
+The cook got busy in the galley and the fragrance of coffee and fried
+fish smothered all other smells about the craft—for it must be
+confessed that the double-ender had an ancient and fishy smell of her
+own that was not altogether pleasant to the nostrils of a fastidious
+person.
+
+These hearty boys and girls were out for fun, however, and they had
+been long enough at Pleasant Cove to get used to most fishy odors.
+Before breakfast was over the _Hattie G._ had run through the
+“Breach,” as the cove entrance was called, and they were sailing
+straight out to sea.
+
+The mournful wail of a horn in the fog now and then announced the
+location of some lobsterman. The _Hattie G._ answered these “scares”
+with her own horn and swept on through the fog.
+
+But now the mist began to lift. A golden glow rose, increased, and
+spread all along the eastern horizon. Suddenly they shot out of the
+fog and sailed right into the bright path of the rising sun.
+
+This wonderful sight of sunrise at sea delighted Ruth and Agnes
+intensely. It was just as though they had sailed suddenly into a new
+world.
+
+The fog masked the land astern. Ahead was nothing but the heaving,
+greenish-gray waves, foam-streaked at their crowns to the distant
+skyline, with only a few sails crossing the line of vision. Not a
+speck of land marred the seascape.
+
+Later, when the _Hattie G._ reached the Banks, there was something
+beside the view to interest and excite the Corner House girls.
+
+The big sails were lowered and only a riding sail spread to keep the
+_Hattie G._ on an even keel. A “pulpit” was set up on each of her
+short booms—both fore and aft.
+
+At the top of a mast was rigged a barrel-like thing in which the
+lookout stood with a glass, on the watch for the swordfish.
+
+These can only be caught asleep on the surface of the sea. When one is
+sighted either the sails are hoisted, or the sweeps are used, to bring
+the vessel near enough for the skipper or his mate to make a cast of
+the harpoon.
+
+Once one of the huge fish was spied, everybody aboard the _Hattie G._
+was on the _qui vive_. The boys climbed the ratlines to see. The girls
+borrowed the cook’s old-fashioned spyglass to get a better view of the
+creature.
+
+The _Hattie G._ was brought softly near the fish. Skipper Joline had
+warned his guests to keep quiet. Ruth kept her hand upon Tom Jonah’s
+collar so that he should not disturb the proceedings.
+
+The skipper stepped into the pulpit—a framework of iron against which
+he leaned when he cast the harpoon. All was ready for the supreme
+moment.
+
+The coil of the line was laid behind him. The crew brought the _Hattie
+G._ just to the spot Skipper Joline indicated with a wave of his hand.
+
+Back swung the mighty arm of the skipper, the muscles swelling like
+cables under the sleeve of his blue jersey.
+
+“Now!” breathed the mate, as eager as any of the boys or girls among
+the spectators.
+
+Ping!
+
+The skipper had let drive. The harpoon sank deeply into the fish. For
+a brief instant they saw blood spurt out and dye the sea.
+
+Then the huge fish leaped almost its length from the sea. The crew
+drove the _Hattie G._ back. Good reason why the swordfishing craft are
+built sharp at both ends!
+
+How the fish thrashed and fought! Its sword beat the water to foam.
+Had it found the double-ender, the latter’s bottom-planks would have
+been no protection against the creature’s blows.
+
+A swordfish has been known to thrust its weapon through the bottom of
+a boat and break it off in its struggles to get free.
+
+“Oh, Agnes!” gasped Ruth, when the fight was over and the huge fish
+killed. “Who would ever believe, while buying a slice of swordfish,
+that it was so dangerous to capture one of the creatures?”
+
+The crew of the _Hattie G._ got four ere they set sail for Pleasant
+Cove again, and the Corner House girls became quite used to the
+methods of the fishermen and the tactics of the swordfish on being
+struck.
+
+They sailed back to Pleasant Cove with what was called the prize catch
+of the season. When a fish is as big as a good-sized dining-table and
+sells for twenty-five cents a pound, retail, it does not take many to
+make a good catch.
+
+Ruth and Agnes, and Neale and the other boys, were glad they went on
+the trip. They arrived at the camp late in the evening, filled with
+enthusiasm over the adventures of the day.
+
+And Skipper Joline presented the Corner House girls with a four-foot
+sword which, later, occupied a place of honor over the sitting-room
+mantelpiece in the old Corner House at Milton.
+
+Ruth took Tom Jonah up to see the Wildwood girls with her the very
+next time she went to call.
+
+The Corner House girl found Rosa and June shelling peas under the
+arbor, while Mrs. Bobster was talking with Kuk Somes over a “mess” of
+clams she had bought.
+
+“You ain’t honest enough to count out a hunderd clams, Kuk,” declared
+the plain-spoken old lady. “Ye got such a high-powered imagination
+that ye can’t count straight.”
+
+“Now, Mis’ Bobster, thet thar’s a hard statement ter make,” said Kuk,
+shaking his head, but grinning. “Don’t make me out so ’fore these here
+young ladies.”
+
+“I reckon they know ye!” cried the widow. “If they’ve ever hearn ye
+spin one o’ yer sea-farin’ yarns——”
+
+“And we have,” interposed Ruth, smiling. “He’s told us about how he
+sailed in the _Spanking Sal_ and lost his leg fighting pirates.”
+
+“For the good land o’ liberty!” gasped Mrs. Bobster. “He never told ye
+_that_?”
+
+“Oh, yes. It was very interesting,” laughed Ruth.
+
+“Why,” said the widow, angrily, “that fellow never sailed in a
+deep-water craft in his life. The only time he ever went out in a
+double-ender as fur as the swordfish banks, he was so sick they had
+ter bring him ashore on a stretcher!”
+
+“Now, Mis’ Bobster——” began the clam digger, faintly.
+
+“Ain’t that _so_? Ye daren’t deny it,” she declared. “He ain’t no
+sailor. He’s jest an old beach-comber. Don’t never go in _any_ boat
+outside of the cove. Lost his leg fightin’ pirates, did he? Huh!”
+
+“So he told us,” said the much amused Ruth.
+
+“Why, th’ ridiculous old thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobster, laughing
+herself now. “He lost that leg in Mr. Reynolds’ sawmill at
+Shawmit—that’s how he did it. And he was tipsy at the time or he
+wouldn’t never have got hurt.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Ruth, staring at the sheepish clam digger.
+
+“And he goes over there to Shawmit ev’ry month an’ collects ten
+dollars from Reynolds, who’s good-natured and helps him out with a
+pension. Ain’t that so, Kuk Somes!”
+
+The wooden-legged clam digger nodded. “Whar’s the harm?” he murmured.
+“Ye know these city folks likes ter hear my yarns. An’ it don’t hurt
+’em none.”
+
+“But that’s how Mr. Reynolds heard about our having Tom Jonah,”
+declared Ruth, accusingly. “You told him.”
+
+“Yep. That’s his old dawg,” said Kuk.
+
+“Well, you’ve made us a lot of trouble,” said Ruth, sadly. “For I am
+afraid that Mr. Reynolds will try to take Tom Jonah away. And,” she
+added, in secret, “how wrong I was to accuse Trix Severn, without
+stronger evidence.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE END OF THE OUTING
+
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway had a very serious matter to decide. Ruth had
+determined that, as they were all enjoying themselves at Pleasant Cove
+so much, the Corner House flag should continue to wave for a time
+longer over their tent in the Willowbend Camp.
+
+But there was something at home in Milton, at the old Corner House
+itself, that the younger girls thought they _must_ attend to.
+
+“It’s really a _nawful_ state of affairs,” Tess declared, nodding her
+sunny head, gravely, and with her lips pursed up. “They are growing
+right up without knowing their own names. Why! I don’t see how their
+own mother knows them apart.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Dot, to whom this was a new idea indeed. “I never thought
+of that.”
+
+“Well, it’s so,” said Tess. “I—I wish Ruth had sent for them and had
+had them brought down here when Rosa and Tom Jonah came.”
+
+“But they couldn’t leave their mother, Tess,” objected Dot. “They’re
+too small.”
+
+“I—don’t—know,” said Tess, doubtfully. “At any rate, it’s high time
+they were named. You know, Mrs. MacCall says so herself.”
+
+Dot picked up the letter that the kind housekeeper at the old Corner
+House had written especially to the two smaller Kenway girls.
+
+“She says they chase their tails all day long and they have had to put
+them out in the woodshed to keep them from being under foot,” Dot
+said, reading slowly, for Mrs. MacCall’s writing was not like print.
+
+“They must be named,” repeated Tess, with conviction.
+
+“But Ruth won’t let us go home to do it,” quoth Dot.
+
+“And I don’t want to. Do _you_?” demanded Tess, hastily. “I don’t want
+to leave the beach now, just when we’re having so much fun.”
+
+Neither did Dot. But the state of the unchristened kittens—the
+youngest family of Sandyface—troubled her exceedingly.
+
+Tess, however, suddenly had one of her very brilliant ideas. “I tell
+you what let’s do!” she cried.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Let’s write Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus a letter, and ask them to
+name Sandyface’s children their own selves.”
+
+“But—but _we_ want to name them,” cried Dot.
+
+“Goosey!” exclaimed Tess. “We’ll choose the names; but Mrs. MacCall
+and Uncle Rufus can give them to the kittens. Don’t you see?”
+
+“Oh, Tess! we might,” agreed Dot, delighted.
+
+Tess ran to the tent for paper and pencil, and bespoke the favor of an
+envelope addressed in ink to Mrs. MacCall.
+
+“Of course, I’ll address one for you,” said Ruth, kindly. “But what’s
+all the hurry about writing home?”
+
+Tess explained the necessity that had arisen. Sandyface’s family of
+kittens was growing up without being christened—and something might
+happen to them.
+
+“You know,” said Tess, gravely, “it would be dreadful if one of them
+died and we didn’t know what to put on the headboard. It would be
+dreadful!”
+
+“And what names shall we send Mrs. MacCall?” Dot wanted to know, when
+Tess had started the letter “Deare Missus Mcall” and was chewing the
+pencil as an aid to further thought.
+
+“Let’s call them by seashore names,” suggested Tess. “Then they’ll
+remind us of the fun we had here at Pleasant Cove.”
+
+“Oh-oo! Let’s,” agreed Dot.
+
+“Well, now,” said Tess, promptly. “What will be the very first one?
+I’ll write Mrs. MacCall what we want,” and she proceeded to indite the
+following paragraph to begin the letter:
+
+  “We are having so much fun down here at plesent cove that we cant
+  find time to come home and name Sandface’s babbies. But we want
+  you and unc rufs to do it for us and we are going to send you the
+  names we chose. They are——”
+
+Here Tess’s laboring pencil came to a full stop. “Now, you got the
+first name, Dot?” she asked.
+
+“I got two,” declared Dot, confidently.
+
+“What are they!” queried Tess. “Now, we want them to be real
+salt-water names. Just like fishes’ names—or boats’ names—or like
+that.”
+
+“I got two,” declared Dot, soberly. “Lots of men must be named those
+names about here. I hear them hollerin’ to each other when they are
+out in the boats.”
+
+“Well, well!” cried Tess, impatiently. “What are the names?”
+
+“One’s ‘Starboard’ and the other’s ‘Port,’” declared Dot, seriously.
+“And they are real nice names, _I_ think.”
+
+Tess was rather taken aback. She had a hazy opinion that “Starboard”
+and “Port” were not Christian names; they _might_ be, however, and she
+had heard them herself a good deal. Besides, she wanted to agree with
+Dot if she could, and so she sighed and wrote as follows:
+
+   “We got to names alreddy, Missus Mcall, and one’s Starborde and the
+   other is Port. They are very pretty names, we think and we hope you
+   an unc rufs and Sandface will like them, to. You give them to the
+   kittens that they seem to fit the best, pleas.”
+
+Neale, and Ruth, and Agnes came along some time afterward and found
+the smaller Corner House girls reduced almost to a state of
+distraction. They had been unable to decide upon two more names.
+“Starboard” and “Port” had been inspired, it seemed. Now they were
+“stuck.”
+
+“It _does_ seem as though there should be some other seashore names
+that would sound good for kittens,” sighed Tess. “I think ‘Starboard’
+and ‘Port’ are real pretty—don’t you, Ruth?”
+
+“Very fine,” agreed her older sister, while Agnes restrained her
+giggles.
+
+“Why not call one of the others ‘Hard-a-Lee’?” suggested Neale,
+gravely.
+
+“Is _that_ a seashore name?” asked Tess, doubtfully.
+
+“Just as salt as a dried codfish,” declared Neale, confidently.
+
+“I think it is real pretty,” Dot ventured.
+
+“Then we’ll call the third one ‘Hard-a-Lee,’” declared Tess. “I’ll
+tell Mrs. MacCall so,” and she laboriously went at the misspelled
+letter again.
+
+“But how about the fourth one?” asked Agnes, laughing. “He’s not going
+to be a step-child, is he? Isn’t he to have a name?”
+
+“Yes. We must have one more,” Tess said, wearily. “Won’t _you_ give us
+one, Aggie?”
+
+“Sure!” said Agnes, promptly. “Main-sheet.’”
+
+“‘Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet.’ Some names, those!”
+declared Neale.
+
+“I like them,” Tess said, reflectively. “They don’t sound like other
+cats’ names—do they, Ruthie?”
+
+“They most certainly do not,” admitted the oldest Corner House girl.
+
+“And are they pretty, Ruthie?” asked Dot.
+
+“They are better than ‘pretty,’” agreed Ruth, kindly. “If you children
+are suited, I am sure everybody else—including the kittens
+themselves—will be pleased!”
+
+The labored letter was therefore finished and sent away. As Dot said,
+“it lifted a great load from their minds.”
+
+But there was another matter that served to trouble all four of the
+Corner House girls for some days. That was what Mr. Reynolds, the
+lumberman, was going to do about Tom Jonah.
+
+The girls seldom left their tent now without taking the dog with them.
+He was something of a nuisance in the boat when they went crabbing;
+but Agnes would not hear of going out without him.
+
+“I know that man will come back here some time and try to get him
+away,” she declared. “But Tom Jonah will never go of his own free
+will—no, indeed!”
+
+“And he won’t sell him again, he said,” sighed Ruth. “I don’t just see
+what we can do.”
+
+However, this trouble did not keep the Corner House girls from having
+many good times with their girl friends at the Spoondrift bungalow,
+and their boy friends on the beach.
+
+There were fishing trips, and picnics on Wild Goose Island. They
+sometimes went outside the cove in bigger boats, and fished on the
+“banks,” miles and miles off shore. There was fun in the evenings,
+too, at the hotel dances, although the Corner House girls did not
+attend any of those held at the Overlook House, for they were not
+exactly friendly with Trix Severn.
+
+One day Pearl Harrod’s Uncle Phil arranged to take a big party of the
+older girls to Shawmit, which was some miles up the river. Ruth and
+Agnes went along and that day they left Tom Jonah at Willowbend to
+take care of the smaller girls.
+
+Ruth determined to see Mr. Reynolds, so when they reached Shawmit, she
+hunted up the lumberman’s office. She found him in a more amiable mood
+than he had been on the morning he drove to Pleasant Cove to get Tom
+Jonah.
+
+“Well, Miss!” he said. “How do you feel about giving up that dog?”
+
+“Just the same, sir,” said Ruth, honestly. “But I hope you will tell
+me who the man is you sold Tom Jonah to, so that we can go to him and
+buy the dog.”
+
+“Do you girls really want old Tom Jonah as much as _that_?” asked Mr.
+Reynolds.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the girl, simply.
+
+“Willing to buy the old rascal? And he’s nothing but a tramp.”
+
+“He’s a gentleman. You said so yourself on his collar,” said Ruth.
+
+The man looked at her seriously and nodded. “I guess you think a whole
+lot of him, eh?”
+
+“A great deal, sir,” admitted Ruth.
+
+“Well! I guess I’ll have to tell you,” said the man, smiling. “Old Tom
+evidently thinks more of you girls than he does of me. Tell you what:
+After I got home the other day I thought it over. I reckon Tom Jonah’s
+chosen for himself. I paid my brother-in-law back the money he gave me
+for him. So you won’t be bothered again about him.”
+
+“Oh, sir——”
+
+“You keep him. Rather, let Tom Jonah stay as long as he wants to. But
+if he comes back to me I sha’n’t let him go again. No! I don’t want
+money for him. I guess the old dog likes it where he is, and his days
+of usefulness are pretty nearly over anyway. I’m convinced he’ll have
+a good home with you Corner House girls.”
+
+“Just as long as he lives!” declared Ruth, fervently.
+
+So Mr. Reynolds did not prove to be a hardhearted man, after all.
+Agnes and Tess and Dot were delighted. There was a regular celebration
+over Tom Jonah that evening after Ruth got home and told the news.
+
+It is doubtful if Tom Jonah understood when Dot informed him that he
+was going to be their dog “for keeps.” But he barked very
+intelligently and the two smaller girls were quite convinced that he
+understood every word that was said to him.
+
+“Of course, he can’t talk back,” Tess said. “Dogs don’t speak our
+language. But if we could understand the _barking language_, I am sure
+we would hear him say he was glad.”
+
+And as our story of the Corner House girls’ visit to Pleasant Cove
+began with Tom Jonah, we may safely end it with the assurance that the
+good old dog will spend the rest of his life with Ruth and Agnes and
+Tess and Dot, at the old Corner House in Milton.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+CHARMING STORIES FOR GIRLS
+
+(From eight to twelve years old)
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES
+
+BY GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a
+rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he
+occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find
+and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and
+make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks
+at a bungalow owned by her parents; and the adventures they meet with
+make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and
+adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls.
+
+  1 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS.
+  2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
+  3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS.
+  4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY.
+  5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS’ ODD FIND.
+  6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR.
+  7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP.
+  8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND.
+  9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT.
+  10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES.
+  11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+THE POLLY PENDLETON SERIES
+
+BY DOROTHY WHITEHILL
+
+Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to
+a boarding school on the Hudson River some miles above New York. By
+her pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and
+this she holds right through the course. The account of boarding
+school life is faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in
+her teens.
+
+  1 POLLY’S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  2 POLLY’S SUMMER VACATION
+  3 POLLY’S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR
+  5 POLLY AND LOIS
+  6 POLLY AND BOB
+
+_Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated._
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CHICKEN LITTLE JANE SERIES
+
+By LILY MUNSELL RITCHIE
+
+Chicken Little Jane is a Western prairie girl who lives a happy,
+outdoor life in a country where there is plenty of room to turn
+around. She is a wide-awake, resourceful girl who will instantly win
+her way into the hearts of other girls. And what good times she
+has!—with her pets, her friends, and her many interests. “Chicken
+Little” is the affectionate nickname given to her when she is very,
+very good, but when she misbehaves it is “Jane”—just Jane!
+
+  Adventures of Chicken Little Jane
+  Chicken Little Jane on the “Big John”
+  Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town
+
+_With numerous illustrations in pen and ink_
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+Dorothy Whitehall Series
+
+_For Girls_
+
+Here is a sparkling new series of stories for girls—just what they
+will like, and ask for more of the same kind. It is all about twin
+sisters, who for the first few years in their lives grow up in
+ignorance of each other’s existence. Then they are at last brought
+together and things begin to happen. Janet is an independent go-ahead
+sort of girl; while her sister Phyllis is—but meet the twins for
+yourself and be entertained.
+
+6 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo., Covers in color.
+
+  1. JANET, A TWIN
+  2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN
+  3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST
+  4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
+  5. THE TWINS’ SUMMER VACATION
+  6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARY JANE SERIES
+
+BY CLARA INGRAM JUDSON
+
+Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated.
+
+With picture inlay and wrapper.
+
+Mary Jane is the typical American little girl who bubbles over with
+fun and the good things in life. We meet her here on a visit to her
+grandfather’s farm where she becomes acquainted with farm life and
+farm animals and thoroughly enjoys the experience. We next see her
+going to kindergarten and then on a visit to Florida, and then—but
+read the stories for yourselves.
+
+Exquisitely and charmingly written are these books which every little
+girl from five to nine years old will want from the first book to the
+last.
+
+  1 MARY JANE—HER BOOK
+  2 MARY JANE—HER VISIT
+  3 MARY JANE’S KINDERGARTEN
+  4 MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH
+  5 MARY JANE’S CITY HOME
+  6 MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND
+  7 MARY JANE’S COUNTRY HOME
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by 
+Grace Brooks Hill
+
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diff --git a/old/38742-0.zip b/old/38742-0.zip
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+Project Gutenberg's The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by Grace Brooks Hill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Corner House Girls Under Canvas
+       How they reached Pleasant Cove and what happened afterward
+
+Author: Grace Brooks Hill
+
+Illustrator: R. Emmett Owen
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2012 [EBook #38742]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for
+help, they were out of sight of the camp.]
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE
+
+GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+
+ HOW THEY REACHED PLEASANT COVE
+ AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD
+
+BY
+
+GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Author of "The Corner House Girls,"
+"The Corner House Girls at School," etc.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY_
+
+_R. EMMETT OWEN_
+
+NEW YORK
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+The Corner House Girls Series
+
+By Grace Brooks Hill
+
+_Illustrated._
+
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR
+
+(_Other volumes in preparation_)
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+Publishers--New York
+
+Copyright, 1915,
+
+by
+
+Barse & Hopkins
+
+_The Corner House Girls Under Canvas_
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I. Tom Jonah
+  II. Something to Look Forward To
+  III. The Dance at Carrie Poole's
+  IV. The Mystery of June Wildwood
+  V. Off for the Seaside
+  VI. On the Train
+  VII. Something Ahead
+  VIII. The Gypsy Camp
+  IX. The Spoondrift Bungalow
+  X. Some Excitement
+  XI. The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
+  XII. A Picnic with Agamemnon
+  XIII. The Night of the Big Wind
+  XIV. An Important Arrival
+  XV. Two Girls in a Boat--to Say Nothing of the Dog!
+  XVI. The Gypsies Again
+  XVII. On Wild Goose Island
+  XVIII. The Search
+  XIX. A Startling Meeting
+  XX. The Frankfurter Man
+  XXI. Mrs. Bobster's Mysterious Friend
+  XXII. The Yarn of the "Spanking Sal"
+  XXIII. The Shadow
+  XXIV. Brought to Book
+  XXV. The End of the Outing
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for help,
+they were out of sight of the camp
+
+A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging
+with both hands to the ridge of it
+
+Ruth actually went back, groping through the
+gathering smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled
+out upon the shingles
+
+The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;
+he started back for the girls. He whined and he
+barked
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+TOM JONAH
+
+
+"Come here, Tess! Come quick and look at this poor dog. He's just
+drip-ping-_wet_!"
+
+Dot Kenway stood at a sitting-room window of the old Corner House,
+looking out upon Willow Street. It was a dripping day, and anything or
+anybody that remained out-of-doors and exposed to the downpour for
+half an hour, was sure to be saturated.
+
+Nothing wetter or more miserable looking than the dog in question had
+come within the range of the vision of the two younger Corner House
+girls that Saturday morning.
+
+Tess, who was older than Dot, came running. Anything as frightfully
+despondent and hopeless looking as that dog was bound to touch the
+tender heart of Tess Kenway.
+
+"Let's--let's take him to the porch and feed him, Dot," she cried.
+
+"Will Ruthie let us?" asked Dot.
+
+"Of course. She's gone for her music lesson and won't know, anyway,"
+declared Tess, recklessly.
+
+"But maybe Mrs. MacCall won't like it?"
+
+"She's upstairs and won't know, either. Besides," Tess said,
+bolstering up her own desire, "she says she hasn't ever sent anybody
+away hungry from her door; and that poor dog looks just as hungry as
+any tramp that ever came to the old Corner House."
+
+The girls ran out of the sitting-room into the huge front hall which,
+in itself, was almost big enough for a ballroom. It was finished in
+dark, dark oak; there was a huge front door--like the door of a
+castle; the furniture was walnut, upholstered in haircloth, worn shiny
+by more than three generations of use; and out of the middle of the
+hall a great stairway arose, dividing when half-way up into two
+sections, while a sort of gallery was built all around the hall at the
+second floor, out of which the doors of the principal chambers opened.
+
+There was a third story above, and above that a huge garret--often the
+playroom of the Corner House girls on such days as this. In the rear
+were two wings built on to the house, each three stories in height.
+The house had its "long" side to Willow Street, and only a narrow
+grass plot and brick walk separated the sitting-room windows from the
+boundary fence.
+
+It faced Main Street, at its head, where the Parade Ground began. The
+dripping trees on the Parade were now in full leaf and the lush grass
+beneath them was green. The lawns of the old Corner House needed the
+mower, too; and at the back Uncle Rufus--the general factotum of the
+establishment--had laid out a wonderful kitchen garden which already
+had yielded radishes and tender onions and salad, and promised green
+peas to accompany the spring lamb to the table on the approaching
+Fourth.
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway crossed the big hall of the Corner House, and went
+on through the dining-room with its big table, huge, heavily carved
+sideboard and comfortably armed chairs, through the butler's pantry
+into the kitchen. As Tess had said, Mrs. MacCall, their good-natured
+and lovable housekeeper, was not in sight. Nobody delayed them, and
+they stepped out upon the half-screened porch at the back. The
+woodshed joined it at the far end. The steps faced Willow Street.
+
+On the patch of drying green a goat was tethered, lying down in the
+rain, reflectively chewing a cud. He bleated when he saw the girls,
+but did not offer to rise; the rain did not disturb him in the least.
+
+"Billy Bumps likes the rain," Dot said, thoughtfully.
+
+The dog outside the gate did not seem to be enjoying himself. He had
+dropped down upon the narrow strip of sward between the flagged walk
+and the curbing; his sides heaved as though he had run a long way, and
+his pink tongue lolled out of his mouth and dripped.
+
+"My!" Dot murmured, as she saw this, "the rain's soaked right through
+the poor doggy--hasn't it? And it's just dripping out of him!"
+
+Tess, more practical, if no more earnest in her desire to relieve the
+dog's apparent misery, ran down to the gate through the falling rain
+and called to him:
+
+"Poor, poor doggie! Come in!"
+
+She opened the gate temptingly, but the strange dog merely wagged his
+tail and looked at her out of his beautiful brown eyes. He was a
+Newfoundland dog, with a cross of some breed that gave him patches of
+deep brown in his coat and very fine, long, silky hair that curled up
+at the ends. He was strongly built and had a good muzzle which was
+powdered with the gray hairs of age.
+
+"Come here, old fellow," urged Tess, "_Do_ come in!"
+
+She snapped her fingers and held the gate more invitingly open. He
+staggered to his feet and limped toward her. He did not crouch and
+slink along as a dog does that has been beaten; but he eyed her
+doubtfully as though not sure, after all, of this reception.
+
+He was muddied to his flanks, his coat was matted with green burrs,
+and there was a piece of frayed rope knotted about his neck. The dog
+followed Tess doubtfully to the porch. Billy Bumps climbed to his feet
+and shook his head threateningly, stamping his feet; but the strange
+dog was too exhausted to pay the goat any attention.
+
+The visitor at first refused to mount the steps, but he looked up at
+Dot and wagged his tail in greeting.
+
+"Oh, Tess!" cried the smallest girl. "He thinks he knows me. Do you
+suppose we have ever seen him before?"
+
+"I don't believe so," said Tess, bustling into the woodshed and out
+again with a pan of broken meat that had been put aside for Sandyface
+and her children. "I know I should remember him if I had ever seen him
+before. Come, old fellow! Good doggie! Come up and eat."
+
+She put the pan down on the porch and stood back from it. The brown
+eyes of the dog glowed more brightly. He hesitatingly hobbled up the
+steps.
+
+A single sniff of the tidbits in the pan, and the dog fell to
+wolfishly, not stopping to chew at all, but fairly jerking the meat
+into his throat with savage snaps.
+
+"Oh, don't gobble so!" gasped Dot. "It--it's bad for your
+indigestions--and isn't polite, anyway."
+
+"Guess you wouldn't be polite if you were as hungry as he is," Tess
+observed.
+
+The dog was so tired that he lay right down, after a moment, and ate
+with his nose in the pan. Dot ventured to pat his wet coat and he
+thumped his tail softly on the boards, but did not stop eating.
+
+At this juncture Uncle Rufus came shuffling up the path from the
+hen-coop. Uncle Rufus was a tall, stoop-shouldered, pleasantly brown
+negro, with a very bald crown around which was a narrow growth of
+tight, grizzled "wool." He had a smiling face, and if the whites of
+his eyes were turning amber hued with age he was still "purty
+pert"--to use his own expression--save when the rheumatism laid him
+low.
+
+"Whar' yo' chillen done git dat dawg?" he wanted to know, in
+astonishment.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Rufus!" cried Dot. "He came along looking _so_ wet----"
+
+"And he was _so_ tired and hungry," added Tess.
+
+"I done spec' yo' chillen would take in er wild taggar, ef one come
+erlong lookin' sort o' meachin'," grumbled the colored man.
+
+"But he's so good!" said Tess. "See!" and she put her hand upon the
+handsome head of the bedraggled beast.
+
+"He jes' er tramp dawg," said Uncle Rufus, doubtfully.
+
+"He's only tired and dirty," said Tess, earnestly. "I don't believe he
+wants to be a tramp. He doesn't look at all like the tramps Mrs.
+MacCall feeds at the back door here."
+
+"Nor like those horrid Gypsies that came to the house the other day,"
+added Dot eagerly. "I was afraid of them."
+
+"Well, it suah ain't b'long 'round yere--dat dawg," muttered Uncle
+Rufus. "It done run erway f'om somewhar' an' hit trabbel
+far--ya-as'm!"
+
+He pulled the ears of the big dog himself, in a kindly fashion, and
+the dog pounded the porch harder with his tail and rolled a trusting
+eye up at the little group. Evidently the tramp dog was convinced that
+this would be a good place to remain in, and "rest up."
+
+A pretty girl of twelve or thirteen, with flower-like face, plump, and
+her blue eyes dancing and laughing in spite of her, ran in at the side
+gate. She had a covered basket of groceries on her arm, and was
+swathed in a raincoat with a close hood about her face.
+
+"Agnes!" screamed Dot. "See what we've got! Just the nicest,
+friendfulnest dog----"
+
+"Mercy, Dot! More animals?" was the older sister's first comment.
+
+"But he's such a _nice_ dog," wailed Dot.
+
+"And so hungry and wet," added Tess.
+
+"What fine eyes he has!" exclaimed Agnes, stooping down to pat the
+noble head. Instantly the dog's pink tongue sought her hand and--Agnes
+was won!
+
+"He's splendid! he's a fine old fellow!" she cried. "Of course we'll
+keep him, Dot."
+
+"If Ruthie says so," added Tess, with a loyalty to the oldest Corner
+House girl born of the fact that Ruth had mothered the brood of three
+younger sisters since their real mother had died three years previous.
+
+"I dunno wot yo' chillen want er dawg for," complained Uncle Rufus.
+
+"To keep chicken thieves away," said Agnes, promptly, laughing
+roguishly at the grumbling black man.
+
+"Oh!" cried Tess. "You said yourself, Uncle Rufus, that those Gypsies
+that stopped here might be looking at Ruth's chickens."
+
+"Well, I done guess dat tramp dawg knows when he's well off," said the
+old man, chuckling suddenly. "He's layin' down lak' he's fixin' tuh
+stay--ya-as'm!"
+
+The dog had crept to the most sheltered corner of the porch and curled
+up on an old rag mat Mrs. MacCall had left there for the cats.
+
+"He ought to have that dirty old rope taken off," said Agnes.
+
+Uncle Rufus drew out his clasp knife and opened the blade. He
+approached the weary dog and knelt down to remove the rope.
+
+"Glo-_ree_!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "He done got er collar on him."
+
+It was hidden in the thick hair about the dog's neck. The three girls
+crowded close to see, Uncle Rufus unbuckled it and handed the leather
+strap to Agnes.
+
+"See if there is any name and address on it, Aggie!" gasped Tess. "Oh!
+I hope not. Then, if we don't know where he came from, he's ours for
+keeps."
+
+There was a small brass plate; but no name, address, or license number
+was engraved upon it. Instead, in clear script, it was marked:
+
+                     "THIS IS TOM JONAH. HE IS A
+                              GENTLEMAN."
+
+"There!" cried Dot, as though this settled the controversy. "What did
+I tell you? He _can't_ be any tramp dog. He's a gentleman."
+
+"'Tom Jonah,'" murmured Agnes. "What a funny name!"
+
+When Ruth came home the younger girls bore her off at once to see Tom
+Jonah sleeping comfortably on the porch. The old dog raised his
+grizzled muzzle, wagged his tail, and beamed at her out of his soft
+brown eyes.
+
+"The dear love!" cried Tess, clasping her hands. "Isn't he beautiful,
+Ruthie?"
+
+"Beautifully dirty," said Ruth, doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, but Uncle Rufus says he will wash him to-morrow. He's got some
+insect--insecty-suicide soap like he puts on the henroosts----"
+
+"Insecticide, Dot," admonished Tess. "I wish you wouldn't try to say
+words that you _can't_ say."
+
+Dot pouted. But Ruth patted her head and said, soothingly:
+
+"Never mind, honey. We'll let the poor dog stay till he rests up,
+anyway. He looks like a kind creature."
+
+But she, as well as the adults in the old Corner House, did not expect
+to see Tom Jonah the next morning when they awoke. He was allowed to
+remain on the porch, and despite the objections of Sandyface, the
+mother cat, and the army of younger felines growing up about her, Tom
+Jonah was given a bountiful supper by Mrs. MacCall herself.
+
+Dot and Tess ran to peep at the dog just before going to bed that
+night. He blinked at them in the lampshine from the open door, and
+thumped the porch flooring with his tail.
+
+It was past midnight before anything more was heard of Tom Jonah. Then
+the whole house was aroused--not to say the neighborhood. There was a
+savage salvo of barks from the porch, and down the steps scrambled Tom
+Jonah. They heard him go roaring down the yard.
+
+Then there arose a great confusion at the hen house--a squawking of
+frightened hens, the loud "cut, cut, ca-da-cut!" of the rooster,
+mingling with which was the voice of at least one human being and the
+savage baying of Tom Jonah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO
+
+
+Uncle Rufus was too old and too stiff to get out of bed and down from
+his third-story room in the old Corner House, to be of any assistance
+at this midnight incident. But the girls were awakened the moment Tom
+Jonah began barking.
+
+"It's a hen thief!" squealed Tess, leaping out of her own warm nest.
+
+"I hope that dog bites him!" cried Agnes, savagely, from the other
+room.
+
+She ran to the window. It was a starlit, but foggy night. She could
+see only vaguely the objects out of doors.
+
+Ruth was scrambling into a skirt and dressing sacque; she thrust her
+feet into shoes, too, and started downstairs. Mrs. MacCall's window
+went up with a bang, and the girls heard the housekeeper exclaim:
+
+"Shoo! shoo! Get out of there!"
+
+Whoever it was that had roused Tom Jonah, the person was evidently
+unable to "get out of there." The dog's threatening growls did not
+cease, and the man's voice which had first been heard when the trouble
+started, was protesting.
+
+Agnes followed her older sister downstairs. Of course, Aunt Sarah
+Maltby, who slept in one of the grand front rooms in the main part of
+the house, did not even hear all the disturbance. And there were not
+any houses really near the Stower Homestead, which Milton people knew
+by the name of "the old Corner House."
+
+Therefore, the sounds of conflict at the Kenway hennery were not
+likely to arouse many people. But when Ruth and Agnes reached
+out-of-doors, the younger girl remembered one person who might hear
+and be of assistance.
+
+"Let's call Neale O'Neil!" she cried to Ruth. "He'll help us."
+
+"We'd better call a policeman," said Ruth, running down the brick
+path.
+
+"Huh! you wouldn't find a policeman in Milton at this hour of the
+night, if you searched for a week of Sundays," was the younger girl's
+ambiguous statement. Then she raised her voice and shouted: "Neale!
+Neale O'Neil! Help!"
+
+Meantime the dog continued his threatening bayings. The fowls
+fluttered and squawked. Billy Bumps began to blat and butt the
+partition in his pen. Whoever had ventured into the hennery had gotten
+into hot quarters and no mistake!
+
+Ruth stopped suddenly in the path and clutched at Agnes' arm. Agnes
+was as lightly dressed as herself; but it was a warm June night and
+there was no danger of their getting cold.
+
+[Illustration: A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging
+with both hands to the ridge of it.]
+
+"Suppose the dog does not remember us?" the older girl gasped in
+Agnes' ear. "Maybe--maybe he'll tear us to pieces. How savage he
+sounds!"
+
+Agnes was frightened; but she had pluck, too. "Come on, Ruth!" she
+said. "He is only mad at the thief."
+
+"If it _is_ a thief," quavered Ruth. "I--I am afraid to go on, Aggie."
+
+At that moment the sound of little feet pattering behind them made
+both girls turn. There were Dot and Tess, both barefooted, and Dot
+with merely a doubled-up comforter snatched from her bed, wrapped over
+her night clothes.
+
+"Mercy me, children!" gasped Ruth. "What are you doing here?"
+
+"Oh, we mustn't let Tom Jonah _bite_ that man," Tess declared, and
+kept right on running toward the henhouse.
+
+"If that dog bites----" screamed Ruth, and ran after her smaller
+sister.
+
+There was the big dog leaping savagely toward the low eaves of the
+hennery. A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging with both
+hands to the ridge of it. The girls obtained a glimpse of a dark face,
+with flashing teeth, and big gold rings in the marauder's ears.
+
+"Tak' dog away! Tak' dog away!" the man said, in a strangled voice.
+
+"He's one of those Gypsies," whispered Agnes, in an awed voice.
+
+A tribe of the nomads in question had passed through Milton but a day
+or two before, and the girls had been frightened by the appearance of
+the men of the tribe who had called at the old Corner House.
+
+Now, whether this marauder belonged to the same people or not, Ruth
+saw that he looked like a Gypsy. For another reason, too, her mind was
+relieved at once; Tom Jonah was only savage toward the man on the
+roof.
+
+When Tess ran right up to the leaping dog, he stopped barking, and
+wagged his tail, as though satisfied that he had done his duty in
+drawing the family to the scene. But he still kept his eyes on the
+man, and occasionally uttered a growl deep in his throat.
+
+"What are you doing up there?" Ruth demanded of the man.
+
+"Tak' away dog!" he whined.
+
+"No. I think I will let the dog hold you till a policeman comes. You
+were trying to rob our henroost."
+
+"Oh, no, Missee! You wrong. No do that," stammered the man.
+
+"What were you doing here, then?"
+
+Before the fellow could manufacture any plausible tale, a shout came
+from beyond the back fence, and somebody was heard to scramble into
+the Corner House yard.
+
+"What's the matter, girls?" demanded Neale O'Neil's cheerful voice.
+
+"Oh, come here, Neale!" cried Agnes. "Tom Jonah's caught a Gypsy."
+
+"Tom _Who_?" demanded the tall, pleasant-faced boy of fifteen, who
+immediately approached the henhouse.
+
+"Tom Jonah," announced Tess. "He's just the _nicest_ dog!"
+
+The boy saw the group more clearly then. He looked from the savagely
+growling animal to the man sprawling on the roof, and burst out
+laughing.
+
+"Yes! I guess that fellow up there feels that the dog is very 'nice.'
+Where did you get the dog, and where did _he_ get his name?"
+
+"We'll tell you all about that later, Neale," said Ruth, more gravely.
+"At least, we'll tell you all we know about the dear old dog. Isn't he
+a splendid fellow to catch this man at my hens?"
+
+"And the fellow had some in this bag!" exclaimed Neale, finding a bag
+of flopping poultry at the corner of the hen-run.
+
+"Tak' away dog!" begged the man on the roof again.
+
+"That's all he's afraid of," said Agnes. "I bet he has a knife. Isn't
+he a wicked looking fellow?"
+
+"Regular brigand," agreed Neale. "What we going to do with him?"
+
+"Give him to a policeman," suggested Agnes.
+
+"Do you suppose the policeman would _want_ him?" chuckled Neale. "To
+awaken a Milton officer at this hour of the night would be almost
+sacrilege, wouldn't it?"
+
+"What _shall_ we do?" demanded Agnes.
+
+Ruth had been thinking more sensibly for a few moments. Now she spoke
+up decisively:
+
+"The man did not manage to do any harm. Put the poultry back in the
+house, Neale. If he ever comes again he will know what to expect. He
+thought we had no dog; but he sees we have--and a savage one. Let him
+go."
+
+"Had we better do that, sister?" whispered Agnes. "Oughtn't he to be
+punished?"
+
+"I expect so," Ruth said, grimly. "But for once I am going to shirk my
+duty. We'll take away the dog and let him go."
+
+"Who'll take him away?" demanded Agnes, suddenly.
+
+Neale had taken the sack in which the fowl struggled, to the door of
+the henhouse, opened it, and dumped the fowl out. Tom Jonah evidently
+recognized him for a friend, for he wagged his tail, but still kept
+his eye on the man upon the roof.
+
+"I declare!" said Ruth. "I hadn't thought. Whom will he mind?"
+
+"Come here, Tom Jonah!" said Neale, snapping his fingers.
+
+Tom Jonah still wagged his tail, but he remained ready to receive the
+Gypsy (if such the fellow was) in his jaws, if he descended.
+
+"Come away, Tom!" exclaimed Agnes, confidently. "Come on back to the
+house."
+
+The man on the roof moved and Tom Jonah stiffened. He refused to
+budge.
+
+"Guess you'll have to call a cop after all," said Neale, doubtfully.
+
+"Here, sir!" commanded Ruth. "Come away. You have done enough----"
+
+But the dog did not think so. He held his place and growled.
+
+"I guess you're bound to stay up there, till daylight--or a
+policeman--doth appear, my friend," called up Neale to the besieged.
+
+"Tak' away dog!" begged the frightened fellow.
+
+"Why, Tom Jonah!" exclaimed Tess, walking up to the big dog and
+putting a hand on his collar. "You must come away when you are spoken
+to. You've caught the bad man, and that's enough."
+
+Tom Jonah turned and licked her hand. Then he moved a few steps away
+with her and looked back.
+
+"Come on with me, Tom Jonah," commanded the little girl, firmly. "Let
+the bad man go."
+
+"What do you know about _that_?" demanded Neale.
+
+The next minute the fellow had scrambled up the roof, caught the low
+hanging limb of a shade tree that stood near the fence, and swinging
+himself like a cat into the tree, he got out on another branch that
+overhung the sidewalk, dropped, and ran.
+
+Tom Jonah sprang to the fence with a savage bay; but the man only went
+the faster. The incident was closed in a minute, and the little party
+of half-dressed young folk went back to their beds, while the strange
+dog curled up on his mat in the corner of the porch again and slept
+the sleep of the just till morning.
+
+And now that the excitement is over, let us find out a little
+something about the Corner House girls, their friends, their condition
+in life, and certain interesting facts regarding them.
+
+When Mr. Howbridge, the lawyer from Milton and Uncle Peter Stower's
+man of affairs and the administrator of his estate, came to the little
+tenement on Essex Street, Bloomingsburg, where the four orphaned
+Kenway girls had lived for some years with Aunt Sarah Maltby, he first
+met Tess and Dot returning from the drugstore with Aunt Sarah's weekly
+supply of peppermint drops.
+
+Aunt Sarah had been a burden on the Kenways for many years. The girls
+had only their father's pension to get along on. Aunt Sarah claimed
+that when Uncle Peter died, his great estate would naturally fall to
+her, and then she would return all the benefits she had received from
+the Kenway family.
+
+But the lawyer knew that queer old Uncle Peter Stower had made a will
+leaving practically all his property to the four girls in trust, and
+to Aunt Sarah only a small legacy. But this will had been hidden
+somewhere by the old man before his recent death and had not yet been
+found.
+
+There seemed to be no other claimants to the Stower Estate, however,
+and the court allowed Mr. Howbridge to take the Kenway girls and Aunt
+Sarah to Milton and establish them in the Stower Homestead, known far
+and wide as the old Corner House.
+
+Here, during the year that had passed, many interesting and exciting
+things had happened to Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot.
+
+Ruth was the head of the family, and the lawyer greatly admired her
+good sense and ability. She was not a strikingly pretty girl, for she
+had "stringy" black hair and little color; but her eyes were big and
+brown, and those eyes, and her mouth, laughed suddenly at you and gave
+expression to her whole face. She was now completing her seventeenth
+year.
+
+Agnes was thirteen, a jolly, roly-poly girl, who was fond of jokes, a
+bit of a tomboy, up to all sorts of pranks--who laughed easily and
+cried stormily--had "lots of molasses colored hair" as she said
+herself, and was the possessor of a pair of blue eyes that could stare
+a rude boy out of countenance, but who _would_ spoil the effect of
+this the next instant by giggling; a girl who had a soulmate among her
+girl friends all of the time, but not frequently did one last for long
+in the catalog of her "best friends."
+
+Nobody remembered that Tess had been named Theresa. She was a wise
+little ten-year-old who possessed some of Ruth's dignity and some of
+Agnes' prettiness, and the most tender heart in the world, which made
+her naturally tactful. She was quick at her books and very courageous.
+
+Dorothy, or Dot, was the baby and pet of the family. She was a little
+brunette fairy; and if she was not very wise as yet, she was faithful
+and lovable, and not one of "the Corner House girls," as the Kenways
+were soon called by Milton people, was more beloved than Dot.
+
+The girls' best boy friend lived with the old cobbler, Mr. Con Murphy,
+on the rear street, and in a little house the yard of which adjoined
+the larger grounds of the old Corner House. We have seen how quickly
+Neale O'Neil came to the assistance of the Kenway girls when they were
+in trouble.
+
+Neale had been brought up among circus people, his mother having
+traveled all her life with Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and
+Menagerie. The boy's desire for an education and to win a better place
+in the world for himself, had caused him to run away from his uncle,
+Mr. Sorber, and support himself in Milton while he attended school.
+
+The Corner House girls had befriended Neale and when his uncle finally
+searched him out and found the boy, it was they who influenced the man
+against taking Neale away. Neale had proved himself an excellent
+scholar and had made friends in Milton; now he was about to graduate
+with Agnes from the highest grammar grade to high school.
+
+The particulars of all these happenings have been related in the first
+two volumes of the series, entitled respectively, "The Corner House
+Girls" and "The Corner House Girls at School."
+
+When Agnes woke up in the morning following the unsuccessful raid of
+the Gypsy man on the hennery, she had something of wonderful
+importance to tell Ruth. She had seen her "particular friend," Trix
+Severn, on the street Saturday afternoon and Trix had told her
+something.
+
+"You've heard the girls talking about Pleasant Cove, Ruthie?" said
+Agnes, earnestly. "You know Mr. Terrence Severn owns one of the big
+hotels there?"
+
+"Of course. Trix talks enough about it," said the older Kenway girl.
+
+"Oh! you don't like Trix----"
+
+"I'm not exceedingly fond of her. And there was a time when you
+thought her your very deadliest enemy," laughed Ruth.
+
+"Well! Trix has changed," declared the unsuspicious Agnes, "and she's
+proposed the very nicest thing, Ruth. She says her mother and father
+will let her bring all four of us to the Cove for the first fortnight
+after graduation. The hotel will not be full then, and we will be
+Trix's guests. And we'll have loads of fun."
+
+"I--don't--know-----" began Ruth, but Agnes broke in warmly:
+
+"Now, don't you say 'No,' Ruthie Kenway! Don't you say 'No!' I've just
+made up my mind to go to Pleasant Cove----"
+
+"No need of flying off, Ag," said Ruth, in the cool tone that usually
+brought Agnes "down to earth again." "We have talked of going there
+for a part of the summer. A change to salt air will be beneficial for
+us all--so Dr. Forsythe says. I have talked to Mr. Howbridge, and he
+says 'Yes.'"
+
+"Well, then!"
+
+"But I doubt the advisability of accepting Trix Severn's invitation."
+
+"Now, isn't that mean----"
+
+"Hold your horses," again advised Ruth. "We will go, anyway. If all is
+well we will stay at the hotel a while. Pearl Harrod's uncle owns a
+bungalow there, too; _she_ has asked me to come there for a while, and
+bring you all."
+
+"Well! isn't that nice?" agreed Agnes. "Then we can stay twice as
+long."
+
+"Whether it will be right for us to accept the hospitality offered us
+when we have no means of returning it----"
+
+"Oh, dear me, Ruth! don't be a fuss-cat."
+
+"There is a big tent colony there--quite removed from the hotel,"
+suggested Ruth. "Many of our friends and their folks are going
+_there_. Neale O'Neil is going with a party of the boys for at least
+two weeks."
+
+"Say! we'll have scrumptious times," cried Agnes, with sparkling eyes.
+Her anticipation of every joy in life added immensely to the joy
+itself.
+
+"Yes--if we go," said Ruth, slowly. But it was something for the
+others to look forward to with much pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE DANCE AT CARRIE POOLE'S
+
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway had something of particular interest to hold their
+attention, too, the minute they awoke on this Sunday morning. Dot
+voiced the matter first when she asked:
+
+"Do you suppose that dear Tom Jonah is here yet, Tess?"
+
+"Oh, I hope so!" cried the older girl.
+
+"Let's run see," suggested Dot, and nothing loth Tess slipped into her
+bathrobe and slippers, too, and the two girls pattered downstairs.
+Their baths, always overseen by Ruth, were neglected. They must see,
+they thought, if the good old dog was on the porch.
+
+Nobody was astir downstairs; Mrs. MacCall had not yet left her room,
+and on Sunday mornings even Uncle Rufus allowed himself an extra hour
+in bed. There was the delicious smell of warm baked beans left over
+night in the range oven; the big, steaming pot would be set upon the
+table at breakfast, flanked with golden-brown muffins on one side and
+the sliced "loaf," or brownbread, on the other.
+
+Sandyface came yawning from her basket behind the stove when Tess and
+Dot entered the kitchen. She had four little black and white blind
+babies in that basket which she had found in a barrel in the woodshed
+only a few days before.
+
+Mrs. MacCall said she did not know what was to be done with the four
+kittens. Sandyface's original family was quite grown up, and if these
+four were allowed to live, too, that would make nine cats around the
+old Corner House.
+
+"And the goodness knows!" exclaimed the housekeeper, "that's a whole
+lot more than any family has a business to keep. We're overrun with
+cats."
+
+Tess unlocked the door and she and Dot went out on the porch,
+Sandyface following. There was no sign of the big dog.
+
+"Tom Jonah's gone!" sighed Dot, quaveringly.
+
+"I wouldn't have thought it--when we treated him so nicely," said
+Tess.
+
+Sandyface sniffed suspiciously at the old mat on which the dog had
+lain. Then she looked all about before venturing off the porch.
+
+The sunshine and quiet of a perfect Sunday morning lay all about the
+old Corner House. Robins sought their very souls for music to tell how
+happy they were, in the tops of the cherry trees. Catbirds had not yet
+lost their love songs of the spring; though occasionally one scolded
+harshly when a roaming cat came too near the hidden nest.
+
+Wrens hopped about the path, and even upon the porch steps, secure in
+their knowledge that they were too quick for Sandyface to reach, and
+with unbounded faith in human beings. An oriole burst into melody,
+swinging in the great snowball bush near the Willow Street fence.
+
+There was a moist, warm smell from the garden; the old rooster crowed
+raucously; Billy Bumps bleated a wistful "Good-morning" from his pen.
+Then came a scramble of padded feet, and Sandyface went up the nearest
+tree like a flash of lightning.
+
+"Here is Tom Jonah!" cried Tess, with delight.
+
+From around the corner of the woodshed appeared the big, shaggy dog.
+He cocked one ear and actually smiled when he saw the cat go up the
+tree. But he trotted right up on the porch to meet the delighted
+girls.
+
+His brown eyes were deep pools where golden sparks played. The mud had
+been mostly shaken off his flanks and paws. He was rested, and he
+acted as though he were sure of his position here at the old Corner
+House.
+
+"Good old fellow!" cried Tess, putting out a hand to pat him.
+
+At once Tom Jonah put up his right paw to shake hands. He repeated the
+feat with Dot the next moment, to the delight of both girls.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, "he's a trick dog."
+
+"He's just what his collar says; he's a gentleman," sighed Tess,
+happily. "Oh! I hope his folks won't ever come after him."
+
+Ruth had to come down for Tess and Dot or they would not have been
+bathed and dressed in time for breakfast. The smaller girls were very
+much taken with Tom Jonah.
+
+They found that he had more accomplishments than "shaking hands." When
+Agnes came down and heard about his first manifestation of education,
+she tried him at other "stunts."
+
+He sat up at the word of command. He would hold a bit of meat, or a
+sweet cracker, on his nose any length of time you might name, and
+never offer to eat it until you said, "Now, sir!" or something of the
+kind. Then Tom Jonah would jerk the tidbit into the air and catch it
+in his jaws as it came down.
+
+And those jaws! Powerful indeed, despite some of the teeth having been
+broken and discolored by age. For Tom Jonah was no puppy. Uncle Rufus
+declared him to be at least twelve years old, and perhaps more than
+that.
+
+But he had the physique of a lion--a great, broad chest, and muscles
+in his shoulders that slipped under the skin when he was in action
+like a tiger's. Now that he was somewhat rested from the long journey
+he had evidently taken, he seemed a very powerful, healthy dog.
+
+"And he would have eaten that tramp up, if he'd gotten hold of him,"
+Agnes declared, as they gathered at the breakfast table.
+
+"Oh, no, Aggie; I don't think Tom Jonah would really have _bitten_
+that Gypsy man," Tess hastened to say. "But he might have grabbed his
+coat and held on."
+
+"With those jaws--I guess he would have held on," sighed Agnes.
+
+"Anyway," said Dot, "he saved Ruthie's hens. Didn't he, Ruthie?"
+
+"I'll gladly pay his license fee if he wants to stay with us," said
+Ruth, gaily.
+
+The cornmeal muffins chanced to be a little over-baked that morning;
+at least, one panful was. Dot did not like "crusts"; she had been
+known to hide very hard ones under the edge of her plate.
+
+She played with one of these muffin crusts more than she ate it, and
+Aunt Sarah Maltby (who was a very grim lady indeed with penetrating
+eyes and a habit of seldom speaking) had an accusing eye upon the
+little girl.
+
+"Dorothy," she said, suddenly, "you will see the time, I have no
+doubt, when you will be hungry for that crust. You had better eat it
+now like a nice girl."
+
+"Aunt Sarah, I really do not want it," said Dot, gravely. "And--and if
+I don't, do you think I shall really some day be hungry for just
+_this_ pertic'lar crust?"
+
+"You will. I expect nothing less," snapped Aunt Sarah. "The Kenways
+was allus spend-thrifts. Why! when I was your age, Dorothy, I was glad
+to get dry bread to eat!"
+
+Dot looked at her with serious interest. "You must have been awfully
+poor, Aunt Sarah," she said, sympathetically. "You have a much better
+time living with us, don't you?"
+
+Ruth shook her head admonishingly at the smallest girl; but for once
+Aunt Sarah was rather nonplussed, and nobody heard her speak again
+before she went off to church.
+
+Neale came over later, dressed for Sunday school, and he was as much
+interested in the new boarder at the Corner House as the girls
+themselves.
+
+"If he belongs anywhere around Milton, somebody will surely know about
+him," said the boy. "I'll make inquiries. Wherever he comes from, he
+must be well known in that locality."
+
+"Why so?" demanded Agnes.
+
+"Because of what it says on his collar," laughed Neale O'Neil.
+
+"Because of what it _doesn't_ say, I guess," explained Ruth, seeing
+her sister's puzzled face. "There is no name of owner, or license
+number. Do you see?"
+
+"It--it would be an insult to license a dog like Tom Jonah," sputtered
+Tess. "Just--just like a tag on an automobile!"
+
+"Yo' right, honey," chuckled Uncle Rufus. "He done seem like
+folkses--don' he? I'se gwine tuh give him a reg'lar barf an' cure up
+dem sore feetses ob his. He'll be anudder dawg--sho' will!"
+
+The old man took Tom Jonah to the grass plot near the garden hydrant,
+and soaped him well--with the "insect-suicide" soap Dot had talked
+about--and afterward washed him down with the hose. Tom Jonah stood
+for it all; he had evidently been used to having his toilet attended
+to.
+
+When the girls came home from Sunday school, they found him lying on
+the porch, all warm and dried and his hair "fluffy." They had asked
+everybody they met--almost--about Tom Jonah; but not a soul knew
+anything regarding him.
+
+"He's going to be ours for keeps! He's going to be ours for keeps!"
+sang Tess, with delight.
+
+Sandyface's earlier family--Spotty, Almira, Bungle and
+Popocatepetl--had taken a good look at the big dog, and then backed
+away with swelling tails and muffled objections. But the old cat had
+to attend to the four little blind mites behind the kitchen range, so
+she had grown familiar enough with Tom Jonah to pass him on her way to
+and from the kitchen door.
+
+He was too much of a gentleman, as his collar proclaimed, to pay her
+the least attention save for a friendly wag of his bushy tail. To the
+four half-grown cats he gave little heed. But Tess and Dot thought
+that he ought to become acquainted with the un-named kittens in the
+basket immediately.
+
+"If they get used to him, you know," said Tess, "they'll all live
+together just like a 'happy family.'"
+
+"Like _us_?" suggested Dot, who did not quite understand the
+reference, having forgotten the particular cage thus labeled in the
+circus they had seen the previous summer.
+
+"Why! of course like us!" laughed Tess, and Sandyface being away
+foraging for her brood, Tess seized the basket and carried it out on
+the porch, setting it down before Tom Jonah who was lying in the sun.
+
+The big dog sniffed at the basket but did not offer to disturb the
+sleeping kittens. That would not do for the curious girls. They had to
+delve deeper into the natural lack of affinity between the canine and
+the feline families.
+
+So Tess lifted one little black and white, squirmy kitten--just as its
+mother did, by the back of its neck--and set it upon the porch before
+the dog's nose. The kitten became awake instantly. Blind as it was, it
+stiffened its spine into an arch, backed away from the vicinity of the
+dog precipitately, and "spit" like a tiny teakettle boiling over.
+
+"Oh! oh! the horrid thing," wailed Dot. "And poor Tom Jonah didn't do
+a thing to it!"
+
+"But see him!" gasped Tess, in a gale of giggles.
+
+For really, Tom Jonah looked too funny for anything. He turned away
+his head with a most embarrassed expression of countenance and would
+not look again at the spitting little animal. He evidently felt
+himself in a most ridiculous position and finally got up and went off
+the porch altogether until the girls returned the basket of kittens to
+its proper place behind the stove.
+
+At dinner that Sunday, when Uncle Rufus served the roast, he held the
+swinging door open until Tom Jonah paced in behind him into the
+dining-room. Seeing the roast placed before Mrs. MacCall, Tom Jonah
+sat down beside her chair in a good position to observe the feast; but
+waited his turn in a most gentlemanly manner.
+
+Mrs. MacCall cut some meat for him and put it on a plate. This Uncle
+Rufus put before Tom Jonah; but the big dog did not offer to eat it
+until he was given permission. And now he no longer "gobbled," but ate
+daintily, and sat back when he was finished like any well-bred person,
+waiting for the next course.
+
+Even Aunt Sarah looked with approval upon the new acquisition to the
+family of the old Corner House. She had heard the tale of his rescue
+of Ruth's poultry from the marauding Gypsy, and patted Tom Jonah's
+noble head.
+
+"It's a good thing to have a watch-dog on the premises," she said,
+"with all that old silver and trash you girls insist upon keeping out
+of the plate-safe. Your Uncle Peter would turn in his grave if he knew
+how common you was makin' the Stower plate."
+
+"But what is the good of having a thing if you don't make use of it?"
+queried Ruth, stoutly.
+
+Ruth was a girl with a mind of her own, and not even the carping
+criticisms of Aunt Sarah could turn her from her course if once she
+was convinced that what she did was right. Nor was she frightened by
+her schoolmates' opinions--as note her friendship with Rosa Wildwood.
+
+Bob Wildwood was a "character" in Milton. People smiled at him and
+forgave his peculiarities to a degree; but they could not respect him.
+
+In the first place, Bob was a Southerner--and a Southerner in a New
+England town is just as likely to be misunderstood, as a Northerner in
+a Georgian town.
+
+Bob and his daughter, Rosa, had drifted to Milton a couple of years
+previous. They had been "drifting" for most of the girl's short life;
+but now Rosa was quite big enough to have some influence with her
+shiftless father, and they had taken some sort of root in the harsh
+New England soil, so different from their own rich bottom-lands of the
+South.
+
+Besides, Rosa was in ill health. She was "weakly"; Bob spoke of her as
+having "a mis'ry in her chest." Dr. Forsythe found that the girl had
+weak lungs, but he was sane and old-fashioned enough to scout the idea
+that she was in danger of becoming a victim of tuberculosis.
+
+"If you go to work, Bob, and earn for her decent food and a warm
+shelter, she will pull through and get as hearty and strong as our
+Northern girls," declared the doctor, sternly. "You say you lost her
+twin two years ago----"
+
+"But I didn't done los' Juniper by no sickness," muttered Bob, shaking
+his head.
+
+The Corner House girls thought Bob Wildwood a most amusing man, for he
+talked just like a darky (to their ears); but Uncle Rufus shook his
+head in scorn at Wildwood. "He's jes' no-'count white trash," the old
+colored man observed.
+
+However, spurred by the doctor's threat, Bob let drink alone for the
+most part, and went to work for Rosa, his remaining daughter, who was
+just Ruth's age and was in her class at High--when she was well enough
+to get there. In spite of her blood and bringing up, Rosa Wildwood had
+a quick and retentive mind and stood well in her classes.
+
+Bob became a coal-heaver. He worked for Lovell & Malmsey. He drove a
+pair of mules without lines, ordering them about in a most wonderful
+manner in a tongue entirely strange to Northern teamsters; and he was
+black with coal-dust from week-end to week-end. Ruth said there only
+was one visible white part of Rosa's father; that was the whites of
+his eyes.
+
+The man must have loved his daughter very much, however; for it was
+his nature to be shiftless. He would have gone hungry and ragged
+himself rather than work. He now kept steadily at his job for Rosa's
+sake.
+
+On Monday Rosa was not at school, and coming home to luncheon at noon,
+Ruth ran half a block out of her way to find out what was the matter.
+Not alone was the tenement the Wildwoods occupied a very poor one, but
+Rosa was no housekeeper. It almost disgusted the precise and prim Ruth
+Kenway to go into the three-room tenement.
+
+Rosa had a cold, and of course it had settled on her chest. She was
+just dragging herself around to get something hot for Bob's dinner.
+Ruth made her go back to bed, and she finished the preparations.
+
+When she came to make the tea, the Corner House girl was horrified to
+observe that the metal teapot had probably not been thoroughly washed
+out since the day the Wildwoods had taken up their abode in Milton.
+
+"Paw likes to have the tea set back on the stove," drawled Rosa, with
+her pleasant Southern accent. "When he gets a chance, he runs in and
+'takes a swig,' as he calls it, out of the pot. He says it's good for
+the gnawin' in his stomach--it braces him up an' is _so_ much better
+than when he useter mix toddies," said the girl, gratefully. "We'd
+have had June with us yet, if it hadn't been for paw's toddies."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ruth, startled. "I thought your sister June died?"
+
+Rosa shook her head and the tears flowed into her soft eyes. "Oh, no.
+She went away. She couldn't stand the toddies no more, she said--and
+her slavin' to keep the house nice, and us movin' on all the time.
+June was housekeeper--she was a long sight smarter'n me, Ruth."
+
+"But the teachers at school think you are awfully smart," declared the
+Corner House girl.
+
+"June warn't so smart at her books," said Rosa. "But she could do
+_anything_ with her hands. You'd thunk she was two years older'n me,
+too. She was dark and handsome. She got mad, and run away, and then we
+started lookin' for her; but we've never found her yet," sighed Rosa.
+"And now I've got so miserable that I can't keep traveling with paw.
+So we got to stop here, and maybe we won't ever see June again."
+
+"Oh! I hope you will," cried Ruth. "Now, your father's dinner is all
+ready to dish up. And I'll come back after school this afternoon and
+rid up the house for you; don't you do a thing."
+
+Ruth had time that noon for only a bite at home, and explained to Mrs.
+MacCall that she would be late in returning from school. She carried a
+voluminous apron with her to cover her school frock when she set about
+"ridding up" the Wildwood domicile.
+
+Ruth wanted to help Rosa; she hoped Rosa would keep up with the class
+and be promoted at the end of the term, as she was sure to be herself.
+And she was sorry for sooty, odd-talking Bob Wildwood.
+
+What Rosa had said about her lost twin sister had deeply interested
+Ruth Kenway. She wanted, too, to ask the Southern girl about "June,"
+or Juniper.
+
+"We were the last children maw had," said Rosa. "She just seemed to
+give up after we were born. The others were all sickly--just drooped
+and faded. And they all were girls and had flower names. Maw was right
+fanciful, I reckon.
+
+"I wish June had held on. She'd stuck it out, I know, if she'd
+believed paw could stop drinking toddies. But, you see he _has_. He
+'swigs' an awful lot of tea, though, and I expect it's tanning him
+inside just like he was leather!"
+
+Ruth really thought this was probable--especially with the teapot in
+the condition she had found it. But she had put some washing soda in
+the pot, filled it with boiling water, and set it back on the stove to
+stew some of the "tannin" out of it.
+
+While the Corner House girl was talking with Rosa in the little
+bedroom the girl called her own, Bob brought his mules to a halt
+before the house with an empty wagon, and ran in as usual.
+
+The girls heard him enter the outer room; but Ruth never thought of
+what the man's object might be until Rosa laughed and said:
+
+"There's paw now, for a swig at the teapot. I hope you left it full
+fo' him, Ruthie, dear."
+
+"Oh, goodness mercy me!" cried the Corner House girl, and darted out
+to the kitchen to warn the man.
+
+But she was too late. Already the begrimed Bob Wildwood had the spout
+of the teapot to his lips and several swallows of the scalding and
+acrid mixture gurgled down his throat before he discovered that it was
+not tea!
+
+"Woof! woof! woof!" he sputtered, and flung pot and all away from him.
+"Who done tryin' poison me! Woof! I's scalded with poison!"
+
+He coughed and spluttered over the sink, and then tried a draught of
+cold water from the spigot--which probably did him just as much good
+as anything.
+
+"Oh, dear me, Mr. Wildwood!" gasped Ruth, standing with clasped hands
+and looking at the sooty man, half frightened. "I--I was just boiling
+the teapot out."
+
+"Boilin' it out?"
+
+"Yes, sir. With soda. I--I----It won't poison you, I guess."
+
+"My Lawd!" groaned Bob. "What won't yo' Northerners do nex'? Wash out
+er teapot!" and he grumblingly went forth to his team and drove away.
+
+Ruth felt that her good intentions were misunderstood--to a degree.
+But Rosa thanked her very prettily for what she had done, and the next
+day she was able to come to school again.
+
+It was only a few days later that Carrie Poole invited a number of the
+high school girls and boys--and some of the younger set--to the last
+dance of the season at her home. She lived in a huge old farmhouse,
+some distance out of town on the Buckshot road, and the Corner House
+girls and Neale O'Neil had spent several pleasant evenings there
+during the winter and spring.
+
+The night before this party there was a big wind, and a part of one of
+the chimneys came down into the side yard during the night with a
+noise like thunder; so Ruth had to telephone for a mason before
+breakfast.
+
+Had it not been for this happening, the Corner House girls--at least,
+Ruth and Agnes--and Neale O'Neil, would have escaped rather an
+embarrassing incident at the party.
+
+Neale came over to supper the evening of the party, and he brought his
+pumps in a newspaper under his arm.
+
+"Come on, girls, let's have your dancing slippers," he said to the two
+older Corner House girls, who were going to the dance. "I'll put them
+with mine."
+
+And he did so--rolling the girls' pretty slippers up in the same
+parcel with his own. He left the parcel in the kitchen. Later it was
+discovered that the mason's helper had left a similarly wrapped parcel
+there, too.
+
+When the three young folk started off, it was Agnes who ran back after
+the bundle of dancing slippers. Neale carried it under his arm, and
+they walked briskly out through the suburbs of Milton and on along the
+Buckshot road.
+
+"Are you really going to Pleasant Cove this summer, Neale?" demanded
+Agnes, as they went on together.
+
+"If I can. Joe has asked me. And you girls?"
+
+"Trix says we must come to her father's hotel for two weeks at least,"
+Agnes declared.
+
+"Humph!" said Neale, doubtfully. "Are you going, Ruth?"
+
+"I--don't--know," admitted the older Corner House girl.
+
+"Now, isn't that just too mean?" complained Agnes. "You just say that
+because you don't like Trix."
+
+"I don't know whether Trix will be of the same mind when the time
+comes," said Ruth, firmly.
+
+"I believe you," grunted Neale.
+
+Agnes pouted. "It's just mean of you," she said. "Of course she will
+want us to go." While Agnes was "spoons" with a girl, she was always
+strictly loyal to her. She could not possibly see Trix Severn's faults
+just now.
+
+They arrived at the farmhouse and found a crowd already assembled.
+There was a great deal of talking and laughter, and while Neale stood
+chatting with some of the boys in the hall, Ruth and Agnes came to him
+for their slippers.
+
+"Sure!" said the boy, producing the newspaper-wrapped bundle he
+carried. "Guess I'll put on my own pumps, too."
+
+He unrolled the parcel. Then a yell of derision and laughter arose
+from the onlookers; instead of three pairs of dancing slippers, Neale
+produced two pairs of half-worn and lime-bespattered shoes belonging
+to the masons who had repaired the old Corner House chimney!
+
+"Now we can't dance!" wailed Agnes.
+
+"Oh, Neale!" gasped Ruth, while the young folk about them went off
+into another gale of laughter.
+
+"Well, it wasn't my fault," grumbled Neale. "Aggie went after the
+bundle."
+
+"Shouldn't have left them right there with the masons' bundle--so
+now!" snapped Agnes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MYSTERY OF JUNE WILDWOOD
+
+
+Now, Trix Severn had maneuvered so as to get the very first dance with
+Neale O'Neil. Among all the boys who attended the upper grammar
+grades, and the High, of Milton, the boy who had been brought up in a
+circus was the best dancer. The older girls all were glad to get him
+for a partner.
+
+Time had been when Trix sneered at "that circus boy," but that was
+before he and the two older Corner House girls had saved Trix from a
+collapsing snow palace back in mid-winter.
+
+Since that time she had taken up with Agnes Kenway as her very closest
+chum, and she had visited the old Corner House a good deal. When Agnes
+and her sister arrived at the party on this evening, with Neale as
+escort, Trix determined to have at least _one_ dance with the popular
+boy.
+
+"Oh, Neale!" she whispered, fluttering up to him in her very nicest
+way, "Ruth and Agnes will be half an hour primping, upstairs. The
+music is going to strike up. Do let _us_ have the first dance."
+
+"All right," said Neale, good-naturedly.
+
+It was the moment later that the discovery was made of the masons'
+shoes in the bundle he carried under his arm.
+
+"Now we can't dance," repeated Agnes, when the laughter had somewhat
+subsided.
+
+"Oh, Neale can dance just as well," Trix said, carelessly. "Come on,
+Neale! You know this is _our_ dance."
+
+Of course Neale could dance in his walking shoes. But he saw Agnes'
+woebegone face and he hesitated.
+
+"It's too bad, Aggie," he said. "If it wasn't so far-----"
+
+"Why, Neale O'Neill" snapped Trix, unwisely. "You don't mean to say
+you'd be foolish enough to go clear back to the Corner House for those
+girls' slippers?"
+
+Perhaps it was just this opposition that was needed to start Neale
+off. He pulled his cap from his pocket and turned toward the door,
+with a shrug. "I guess I can get back in an hour, Ag. Don't you and
+Ruth dance much in your heavy shoes until then. You'll tire yourselves
+all out."
+
+"Why, Neale O'Neill" cried Trix. "You won't do it?"
+
+Even Ruth murmured against the boy's making the trip for the slippers.
+"We can get along, Neale," she said, in her quiet way.
+
+"And you promised to dance with me this first dance," declared Trix,
+angrily, as the music began.
+
+Neale did not pay much attention to her--at the moment. "It's my
+fault, I guess," he said, laughing. "I'll go back for them, Ag."
+
+But Trix got right between him and the door. "Now! you sha'n't go off
+and leave me in the lurch that way, Neale O'Neill" she cried, shrilly.
+
+"Aw----There are other dances. Wait till I come back," he said.
+
+"You can dance in the shoes you have on," Trix said, sharply.
+
+"What if?"
+
+"But _we_ can't, Trix," interposed Agnes, much distressed. "Ruth and
+I, you know----"
+
+"I don't care!" interrupted Trix, boiling over at last. "You Corner
+House girls are the most selfish things! You'd spoil his fun for half
+the party----"
+
+"Aw, don't bother!" growled Neale, in much disgust.
+
+"I will bother! You----"
+
+"Guess she thinks she owns you, Neale," chuckled one of the boys,
+adding fuel to the flames. Neale did not feel any too pleasant after
+that. He flung away from Trix Severn's detaining grasp.
+
+"I'm going--it isn't any of _your_ concern," he muttered, to the angry
+girl.
+
+Ruth bore Agnes away. She was half crying. The rift in the intimacy
+between her soulmate and herself was apparent to all.
+
+To make the matter worse--according to Trix's version--when Neale
+finally returned, almost breathless, with the mislaid slippers, he
+insisted, first of all, upon dancing with Ruth and Agnes. Then he
+would have favored Trix (Ruth had advised it), but the angry girl
+would not speak to him.
+
+"He's nothing but a low circus boy, anyway!" she told Lucy Poole. "And
+I don't think really well-bred girls would care to have anything to do
+with him."
+
+Those who heard her laughed. They had known Trix Severn's ways for a
+long time. She had been upon her good behavior; but it did not
+surprise her old acquaintances that she should act like this.
+
+It made a difference to the Corner House girls, however, for it made
+their plans about going to Pleasant Cove uncertain.
+
+The other girls knew that Trix had invited the Corner House girls for
+the first two weeks after graduation, and that Ruth had tentatively
+accepted. Therefore even Pearl Harrod--who wanted Ruth and her
+sisters, herself--scarcely knew whether to put in a claim for them or
+not.
+
+Graduation Day was very near at hand; the very day following the
+closing of the Milton High, several family parties were to leave for
+the seaside resort which was so popular in this part of New England.
+
+They had to pass through Bloomingsburg to get to it, but when the
+Kenways had lived in that city, they had never expected to spend any
+part of the summer season at such a beautiful summer resort as
+Pleasant Cove.
+
+It was a bungalow colony, with several fine hotels, built around a
+tiny, old-fashioned fishing port. There was a still cove, a beautiful
+river emptying into it, and outside, a stretch of rocky Atlantic coast
+on which the ocean played grim tunes during stormy weather.
+
+This was as much as the Corner House girls knew about it as yet. But
+they all looked forward to their first visit to the place with keen
+delight. Tess and Dot were talking about the expected trip a good deal
+of the time they were awake. Most of their doll-play was colored now
+by thoughts of Pleasant Cove.
+
+They were not too busy to help Mrs. MacCall take the last of the
+winter clothing to the garret, however, and see her pack it away in
+the chests there. As she did this the housekeeper sprinkled, with
+lavish hand, the camphor balls among the layers of clothing.
+
+Dot had tentatively tasted one of the hard, white balls, and
+shuddered. "But they _do_ look so much like candy, Tess," she said.
+Then she suddenly had another thought:
+
+"Oh, Mrs. MacCall! what do you suppose the poor moths had to live on
+'way back in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve wore any clothes?"
+
+"Now, can you beat _that_?" demanded the housekeeper, of nobody in
+particular. "What won't that young one get in her head!"
+
+Meanwhile Ruth was helping Rosa Wildwood all she could, so that the
+girl from the South would be able to pass in the necessary
+examinations and stand high enough in the class to be promoted.
+
+Housework certainly "told on" Rosa. Bob said "it jest seems t' take
+th' puckerin' string all out'n her--an' she jest draps down like a
+flower."
+
+"We'll help her, Mr. Wildwood," Ruth said. "But she really ought to
+have a rest."
+
+"Hi Godfrey!" ejaculated the coal heaver. "I tell her she kin let the
+housework go. We don't have no visitors--savin' an' exceptin' _you_,
+ma'am."
+
+"But she wants to keep the place decent, you see," Ruth told him. "And
+she can scarcely do that and keep up with her studies--now. You see,
+she's so weak."
+
+"Hi Godfrey!" exclaimed the man again. "Ain't thar sech a thing as
+bein' a mite _too_ clean?"
+
+But Bob Wildwood had an immense respect for Ruth; likewise he was
+grateful because she showed an interest in his last remaining
+daughter.
+
+"I tell you, sir," the oldest Corner House girl said, gravely. "Rosa
+needs a change and a rest. And all us girls are going to Pleasant Cove
+this summer. Will you let Rosa come down, too, for a while, if I pay
+her way and look out for her?"
+
+The man was somewhat disturbed by the question. "Yuh see, Miss," he
+observed, scratching his head thoughtfully, "she's all I got. I'd
+plumb be lost 'ithout Rosa."
+
+"But only for a week or two."
+
+"I know. And I wouldn't want tuh stand in her way. I crossed her
+sister too much--that's what _I_ did. Juniper was a sight more uppity
+than Rosa--otherwise she wouldn't have flew the coop," said Bob
+Wildwood, shaking his head.
+
+Ruth, all tenderness for his bereavement, hastened to say: "Oh, you'll
+find her again, sir. Surely you don't believe she's dead?"
+
+"No. If she ain't come to a _bad_ end, she's all right somewhar. But
+she'd oughter be home with her sister--and with me. Ye see, she was
+pretty--an' smart. No end smart! She went off in bad comp'ny."
+
+"How do you mean, Mr. Wildwood?" asked Ruth, deeply interested.
+
+"Travelin' folks. They had a van an' a couple team o' mules, an' the
+man sold bitters an' corn-salve. The woman dressed mighty fine, an'
+she took June's eye.
+
+"We follered 'em a long spell, me an' Rosa. But we didn't never ketch
+up to 'em. If we had, I'd sure tuck a hand-holt of that medicine man.
+He an' his woman put all the foolishness inter Juniper's haid.
+
+"An' Rosa misses her sister like poison, too," finished Bob Wildwood,
+slowly shaking his head.
+
+There seemed to be a mystery connected with the disappearance of
+Rosa's sister, and Ruth Kenway was just as curious as she could be
+about it; but she stuck to her subject until Bob Wildwood agreed to
+spare his remaining daughter for at least a week's visit to Pleasant
+Cove, while the Corner House girls would be there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OFF FOR THE SEASIDE
+
+
+The last hours of the school term were busy ones indeed. Even Tess had
+her troublesome "'zaminations." At the study table on the last evening
+before her own grade had its closing exercises, Tess propounded the
+following:
+
+"Ruthie, what's a 'scutcheon?"
+
+"Um--um," said Ruth, far away.
+
+"A _what_, child?" demanded Agnes.
+
+"''Scutcheon?'"
+
+"'Escutcheon,' she means," chuckled Neale, who was present as usual at
+study hour.
+
+"Well, what _is_ it?" begged Tess, plaintively.
+
+"Why?" demanded Ruth, suddenly waking up. "That's a hard word for a
+small girl, Tess."
+
+"It says here," quoth Tess, "that 'There was a blot upon his
+escutcheon.'"
+
+"Oh, yes--sure," drawled Neale, as Ruth hesitated. "That must mean a
+fancy vest, Tess. And he spilled soup on it--sure!"
+
+"Now Neale! how horrid!" admonished Ruth, while Agnes giggled.
+
+"I do think you are all awful mean to me," wailed Tess. "You don't
+tell me a thing. You're almost as mean as Trix Severn was to me
+to-day. I don't want to go to her father's hotel, so there! Have we
+got to, Ruthie?"
+
+"What did she do to you, Tess?" demanded Agnes, with a curiosity she
+could not quench. For, deep as the chasm had grown between her and her
+former chum, she could not ignore Trix.
+
+"She just turned up her nose at me," complained Tess, "when I went by;
+and I heard her say to some girl she was with: 'There goes one of them
+now. They pushed their way into our party, and I s'pose we've got to
+entertain them.' Now, _did_ we push our way in, Ruthie?"
+
+Ruth was angry. It was not often that she displayed indignation, so
+that when she did so, the other girls--and even Neale--were the more
+impressed.
+
+"Of course she was speaking of that wretched invitation she gave us to
+stay at her father's hotel at Pleasant Cove," said Ruth. "Well!"
+
+"Oh, Ruthie! don't say you won't go," begged Agnes.
+
+"I'll never go to that Overlook House unless we pay our way--be sure
+of that," declared the angry Ruth.
+
+"But we _are_ going to the shore, Ruthie?" asked Tess.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Maybe Pearl Harrod will ask us again," murmured Agnes, hopefully.
+
+"I guess we can pay our way and be beholden to nobody," said Ruth,
+shortly. "I will hire one of the tents, if nothing else. And we'll
+start the very day after High closes, just as we planned."
+
+Despite the loss of her "soulmate," Agnes was pretty cheerful. She was
+to graduate from grammar school; and although she was sorry to lose
+Miss Georgiana Shipman as a teacher, she was delighted to get out of
+"the pigtail classes," as she rudely termed the lower grades.
+
+"I'm going to do up my hair, Ruthie, whatever you say," she declared,
+"just as soon as I get into high school next fall. I'm old enough to
+forget braids and hair-ribbons, I should hope!"
+
+"Not yet, my child, not yet," laughed Ruth. "Why! there are more girls
+in High who wear their hair _down_ than _up_."
+
+"But I'm so big----"
+
+"You mean, you'd be big," chuckled Neale, "if you were only rolled
+out," for he was always teasing Agnes about her plumpness.
+
+"Well! I want to celebrate some way," sighed Agnes. "Can't we have a
+specially nice supper that night?"
+
+"Surely, child," said her sedate sister. "What do you want?"
+
+"Well!" repeated Agnes, slowly; "you know I'll never graduate from
+Grammar again. Couldn't we kill some of those nice frying chickens of
+yours, Ruthie?"
+
+"Oh, my!" cried Neale. "What have the poor chickens done that they
+should be slaughtered to make a Roman holiday?"
+
+"Mr. Smartie!" snapped Agnes. "You be good, or you sha'n't have any."
+
+"If that Tom Jonah hadn't been busy on a certain night, none of us
+would have eaten those particular frying chickens," laughed Neale. "I
+wonder if that Gypsy is running yet?"
+
+"He didn't get the frying chickens in the bag," said Agnes. "They were
+in another coop. We hatched them in January and brought them up by
+hand. Say! I don't believe you know much about natural history, Neale,
+anyway."
+
+"I guess he knows more than Sammy Pinkney does," Tess said, again
+drawn into the conversation. "Teacher asked him to tell us two breeds
+of dairy cattle and which gives the most milk. She'd been reading to
+us about it out of a book. So Sammy says:
+
+"'The bull and the cow, Miss Andrews; and the cow gives the most
+milk.'"
+
+Dot's school held its closing exercises one morning, and Tess' in the
+afternoon. Then came the graduation of Agnes and Neale O'Neil from the
+grammar school. Ruth was excused from her own classes at High long
+enough to attend her sister's graduation.
+
+Although the plump Corner House girl was no genius, she always stood
+well in her classes. Ruth saw to that, for what Agnes did not learn at
+school she had to study at home.
+
+So she stood well up in her class, and she _did_ look "too
+distractingly pretty," as Mrs. MacCall declared, when she gave the
+last touches to Agnes' dress before she started for school that last
+day. Miss Ann Titus, Milton's most famous seamstress and
+"gossip-in-ordinary," had outdone herself in making Agnes' dress. No
+girl in her class--not even Trix Severn--was dressed so becomingly.
+
+The envious Trix heard the commendations showered on her former
+friend, and her face grew sourer and her temper sharper. She well knew
+she had invited the Corner House girls to be her guests at Pleasant
+Cove; but she did not want them in her party now. She did not know how
+to get out of "the fix," as she called it in her own mind.
+
+She had intimated to two or three other girls who were going, however,
+that Agnes and Ruth had forced the invitation from her in a moment of
+weakness. If she had to number them of her party, Miss Trix proposed
+to make it just as unpleasant for the Kenway sisters as she could.
+
+High school graduation was on Thursday. On Friday a special through
+train was put on by the railroad from Milton to Pleasant Cove. It was
+scheduled to leave the former station at ten o'clock.
+
+Luckily Mrs. MacCall had insisted upon having all the trunks and bags
+packed the day before, for on this Friday morning the Corner House
+girls had little time for anything but saying "good-bye" to their many
+friends, both human and dumb.
+
+"Whatever will Tom Jonah think?" cried Tess, hugging the big dog that
+had taken up his abode at the Corner House so strangely. "He'll think
+we have run away from him, poor fellow!"
+
+"Oh! _don't_ you think that, Tom Jonah!" begged Dot, seizing the dog
+on the other side. "We all love you so! And we'll come back to you."
+
+"You'll give him just the best care ever, won't you, Uncle Rufus?"
+cried Agnes.
+
+"Sho' will!" agreed the old colored man.
+
+"_Can't_ we take him with us, Ruthie?" asked Dot.
+
+Ruth would have been tempted to do just this had she been sure that
+they would hire a tent in the colony as soon as they reached Pleasant
+Cove. Tom Jonah was just the sort of a protector the Corner House girl
+would have chosen under those circumstances.
+
+But Ruth was puzzled. She had not seen Pearl Harrod, and was not sure
+whether Pearl had completely filled her uncle's bungalow with guests
+or not. Of one thing Ruth was sure: if they went to the Overlook House
+(Mr. Terrence Severn's hotel), they would pay their board and refuse
+to be Trix's guests.
+
+When the carriage came for them, Tom Jonah stood at the gate and
+watched them get in and drive away with a rather depressed air. Dot
+and Tess waved their handkerchiefs from the carriage window at him as
+long as they could see the big dog.
+
+There was much confusion at the station. Many people whom the girls
+knew were on the platform, or in the cars already. Trix Severn was
+very much in evidence. The Kenway sisters saw the other girls who were
+going to accept Miss Severn's hospitality in a group at one side, but
+they hesitated to join this party.
+
+Trix passed the Kenways twice and did not even look at them. Of
+course, she knew the sisters were there, but Ruth believed that the
+mean-spirited girl merely wished them to speak to her so that she
+could snub them publicly.
+
+"Well, Ruthie Kenway!" exclaimed a voice suddenly behind the Corner
+House girls.
+
+It was Pearl Harrod. Pearl was a bright-faced, big girl, jovial and
+kind-hearted. "I've just been looking for you everywhere," pursued
+Pearl. "Here it is the last minute, and you haven't told me whether
+you and the other girls are going to my uncle's house or not."
+
+"Why--if you are sure you want us?" queried Ruth, with a little break
+in her voice.
+
+"I should say yes!" exclaimed Pearl. "But I was afraid you had been
+asked by some one else."
+
+Trix turned and looked the four sisters over scornfully. Then she
+tossed her head. "Waiting like beggars for an invitation from
+_some_body," she said, loudly enough for all the girls nearby to hear.
+"You'd think, if those Corner House girls are as rich as they tell
+about, that they'd pay their way."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ON THE TRAIN
+
+
+"Don't you mind what that mean thing says," whispered Pearl Harrod,
+quickly.
+
+She had seen Ruth flush hotly and the tears spring to Agnes' eyes when
+Trix Severn had spoken so ill-naturedly. The younger Corner House
+girls did not hear, but Ruth and Agnes were hurt to the quick.
+
+"You are very, very kind, Pearl," said Ruth. "But we had thought of
+going to the tent colony----"
+
+"Didn't Trix Severn ask you to her place?" demanded Pearl, hotly. "I
+_know_ she did. And now she insults you. If she hadn't asked you
+first, and seemed so thick with your sister, Ruth, I would have
+insisted long ago that you all come to uncle's bungalow. There's
+plenty of room, for my aunt and the girls won't be down for a
+fortnight."
+
+"But, Pearl----"
+
+"I'll be mad if you don't agree--now I know that Trix has released
+you, Ruth Kenway," cried the good-hearted girl. "Now, don't let's say
+another word about it."
+
+"Oh, don't be angry!" begged Ruth. "But won't it look as though we
+_were_ begging our way--as Trix says?"
+
+"Pooh! who cares for Trix Severn?"
+
+"You--you are very kind," said Ruth, yielding at length.
+
+"Then you come on. Hey, girls!" she shouted, running after her own
+particular friends who were climbing aboard the rear car. "I've gotten
+them to promise. The Corner House girls are going with us--for two
+weeks, anyway."
+
+At once the other girls addressed cheered and gathered the four
+Kenways into their group, with great rejoicing. The sting of Trix
+Severn's unkindness was forgotten.
+
+Mr. Howbridge, their guardian, came to the station to see them off,
+and shook hands with Ruth through the window of the car. When the
+train actually moved away, Neale O'Neil was there in the crowd,
+swinging his cap and wishing them heaps of fun. Neale expected to go
+to Pleasant Cove himself, later in the season.
+
+This last car of the special train was a day coach; but the
+light-hearted girls did not mind the lack of conveniences and comforts
+to be obtained in the chair cars. The train was supposed to arrive at
+Pleasant Cove by three o'clock, and a five hour ride on a hot June day
+was only "fun" for the Corner House girls and their friends.
+
+Ruth first of all got the brakeman to turn over a seat so that she and
+her three sisters could sit facing each other. Mrs. MacCall had put
+them up a nice hamper of luncheon and the older girl knew this would
+be better enjoyed if the seats were thus arranged.
+
+Of course, there was the usual desire of some of the travelers to have
+windows open while others wished them closed. Cinders and dust flew in
+by the peck if the former arrangement prevailed, while the heat was
+intense if the sashes were down.
+
+Tess and Dot were little disturbed by these physical ills. But they
+had their own worries. Dot, who had insisted on carrying the
+Alice-doll in her arms, was troubled mightily to remember whether she
+had packed the whole of the doll's trousseau (this was supposed to be
+a wedding journey for the Alice-doll--a wedding journey in which the
+bridegroom had no part); while Tess wondered what would happen to Tom
+Jonah and Sandyface's young family while they were all gone from the
+old Corner House.
+
+"I feel condemned--I do, indeed, Dot," sighed Tess. "We ought, at
+least, to have named those four kittens before we left. They'll be
+awfully old before the christening--if we don't come back at the end
+of our first two weeks."
+
+"What could happen to them?" demanded Dot.
+
+"Why--croup--or measles--or chicken-pox. They're only babies, you
+know. And if one should die," added Tess, warmly, "we wouldn't even
+know what name to put on its gravestone!"
+
+"My! lots of things can happen in two weeks, I s'pose," agreed Dot.
+"Do you think we ought to stay away from home so long?"
+
+"I guess we'll have to if Ruth and Aggie stay," said Tess. "But I
+shall worry."
+
+Meanwhile Agnes, who sat with her back to the engine beside Ruth, had
+become interested in a couple sitting together not far down the car.
+They were strangers--and strangely dressed, as well.
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" Agnes exclaimed, under her breath, "they look like
+Gypsies."
+
+"If they are, they are much better dressed than any Gypsies we ever
+saw before," observed her sister.
+
+"But how gay!"
+
+This comment was just enough. The older one had shocking taste in
+millinery. She wore, too, long, pendant ear-rings and her fingers were
+covered with gaudy looking jewels. Her garments were rich in texture,
+but oddly made, and the contrasts in color were, as Agnes whispered,
+"fierce!"
+
+"That girl with her is handsome, just the same," Ruth declared.
+
+"Oh! isn't she!" whispered the enthusiastic Agnes. "A perfectly
+stunning brunette."
+
+If she were a Gypsy girl she was a very beautiful one. Her features
+were lovely and her complexion brilliant. When she smiled she flashed
+two rows of perfect teeth upon the beholder. She might have been a
+year or two older than Ruth.
+
+"I don't know--somehow--she reminds me of somebody," murmured the
+latter.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The girl."
+
+"She reminds me of that chicken-thief Tom Jonah treed on the henhouse
+roof," chuckled Agnes.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth; "all Gypsies can't be alike."
+
+"Humph! you never heard a good word said for them," sniffed Agnes.
+
+"But that doesn't prove there are not good ones. They are a wandering
+people and have no particular trade or standing in any community.
+Naturally they have a lot of crimes laid upon their shoulders that
+they never commit," said the just Ruth.
+
+"That was one of them that tried to steal your hens, just the same,"
+said Agnes.
+
+"I suppose so," admitted her sister. "But surely _these_ two cannot
+belong to the same kind of Gypsies. See how richly they are dressed."
+
+"I guess that doesn't make any difference," said Agnes. "They are all
+cut off the same piece of goods," and immediately she lost interest in
+the strange couple when Lucy Poole came up the aisle to speak to her.
+
+Ruth had the gaily dressed woman and her companion on her mind a good
+deal. She often looked at them when they did not notice her. The woman
+must have been forty, but was straight, lithe, and of good figure. She
+sat on the outer end of the seat, having the girl between her and the
+window.
+
+The latter seemed more and more familiar in appearance to Ruth as she
+looked, yet the Corner House girl could not say whom the girl looked
+like.
+
+The latter scarcely spoke to her companion. Indeed, she kept her face
+toward the window for the most part, and seemed to be in a sullen
+mood. She had smiled once at Dot and the Alice-doll, and that was the
+only time Ruth had seen the dark, beautiful face with an attractive
+expression upon it.
+
+The woman seemed talkative enough, but what language she jabbered to
+her companion the Corner House girl could not tell. She frequently
+leaned toward the dark girl, her bejeweled fingers seizing the sleeve
+of her waist, and her speech was both emphatic and loud.
+
+The rattle of the train drowned, however, most of the woman's words.
+Ruth arose and went the length of the car for a drink, just for the
+purpose of overhearing the strange speech of the Gypsy (if such the
+woman was) for she was sure the language was not English.
+
+She heard nothing intelligible. Ruth folded a cup, filled it at the
+ice-water tank, and brought it back for the children. Pearl Harrod was
+sitting directly behind the two strangers, in a seat with Carrie
+Poole.
+
+"Oh, I say, Ruth!" Pearl said, "is it a fact that Rosa Wildwood is
+coming down to the Cove next week?"
+
+Ruth turned to answer. As she did so the girl in the seat with the
+Gypsy sprang to her feet, her face transfigured with amazement, or
+alarm--Ruth did not know which. The woman grabbed her by the elbow and
+pulled her back into the seat, saying something of a threatening
+nature to her companion.
+
+In her excitement the woman knocked the cup of water from Ruth's hand.
+She turned to apologize, and Ruth, looking over her head, saw the
+dark-skinned girl sitting back in her corner quite colorless and
+broken. The Corner House girl was sure, too, that the strange girl's
+lips formed the name "Rosa Wildwood"--but she made no sound.
+
+"It is all right," Ruth assured the Gypsy woman. "No harm done."
+
+"I am the ver' awkward one--eh?" repeated the woman, with a hard
+smile.
+
+"It does not matter," said Ruth. "I can get another cup of water."
+
+She returned to do so. All the while she was wondering what the
+incident meant. It was not merely a chance happening, she was sure.
+Something about the name of her schoolmate, Rosa Wildwood, had
+frightened the beautiful girl who was evidently in the Gypsy woman's
+care.
+
+Ruth grew quite excited as she drew another cup of water, and she
+swiftly planned to discover the mystery, as she started up the aisle
+of the coach a second time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOMETHING AHEAD
+
+
+Pearl Harrod was now busily talking with Carrie Poole again; she had
+probably forgotten about Rosa Wildwood for the time being. But Ruth
+stopped at her seat--the seat directly behind that occupied by the two
+strangers.
+
+"You asked about Rosa, Pearl?" said Ruth, speaking loudly enough, she
+was sure, for the girl in front to hear.
+
+"Oh, hello! don't spill that water again, Ruthie," laughed Pearl.
+"Yes. I asked if she were coming down to the Cove!"
+
+"Yes. Rosa Wildwood expects to come next week. I am going to find her
+a boarding place."
+
+Ruth spoke very distinctly, and she kept her eyes fastened upon the
+back of the strange girl's head. But the latter gave no sign of having
+heard--at least, she appeared not to be interested in the name which
+had before so startled her.
+
+"I don't see how the poor girl can afford it," Carrie Poole said, not
+unkindly. "They say she and her father are very poor."
+
+"Mr. Bob Wildwood works regularly. He doesn't drink any more," Ruth
+explained, intentionally speaking so that those in the forward seat
+could hear if they wished to listen.
+
+"Rosa is an awfully sweet girl," said Carrie.
+
+"I love that little Southern drawl of hers!" cried Pearl. "She says
+'Ah reckon so' in just the _cunningest_ way!"
+
+"She is very frail," Ruth continued, clearly. "I was afraid she would
+break down before the school term closed. Now it has been arranged for
+her to stay at Pleasant Cove until she gains strength. Dr. Forsythe
+says it will do her a world of good."
+
+"We'll give her a good time, all right," declared Pearl. "Wish we
+could have her with us----"
+
+"Not at the bungalow," said Ruth. "Nor at the hotel. We want a quiet
+place for her. I shall find it."
+
+Not a sign did the girl in front give that she heard any of this
+conversation. Yet Ruth believed there was a curious intentness in her
+manner--she held her head very still as though she were secretly
+listening, while apparently giving all her attention to what the train
+passed.
+
+"What does your uncle call his bungalow--where we shall stop?" asked
+Ruth of Pearl.
+
+"Why, the Spoondrift--don't you remember? It's at this end of the
+cove, near the river, and we have bathing rights on the shore. It's a
+fine place. You'll _love_ it, Ruth Kenway."
+
+"I expect to," said Ruth, seriously. "And you were very kind to ask me
+to stay two whole weeks with you," and Ruth passed on.
+
+She had intentionally said enough so that, if the strange girl _were_
+listening, she would learn just where Ruth could be found at Pleasant
+Cove.
+
+For the Corner House girl felt that the dark beauty with the Gypsy
+woman held some keen interest in Rosa Wildwood. Of course--right at
+the start--the story of Rosa's lost sister, June, had come into Ruth's
+mind.
+
+Yet, as the Corner House girl looked at the stranger, she could not
+say truthfully that it was Rosa of whom _this_ girl reminded her. Ruth
+conjured before her mind's eye the fair, delicate beauty of Bob
+Wildwood's daughter; the two girls possessed no feature in common--and
+in complexion they were, of course, diametrically opposed.
+
+This girl was dark enough and savage enough looking to be a Gypsy.
+Ruth scouted the idea that she might be Juniper Wildwood, who had run
+away with a traveling "medicine man" and his wife.
+
+Nevertheless, Ruth believed that the strange girl must know something
+about the lost June Wildwood. She had been startled when Rosa's name
+was mentioned. The Corner House girl was deeply interested in the
+affair; but at present she did not want to take anybody into her
+confidence about it--not even Agnes.
+
+The girls did not remain quietly in their seats, by any manner of
+means. First there was a crowd blocking the aisle in one part of the
+car, then in another. Agnes was in and out of her seat half a dozen
+times between stations. The heat and dust was ignored as the girls
+shouted pleasantries back and forth; the air was vibrant with
+laughter.
+
+"I'm just as anxious to see the ocean as I can be," declared Lucy
+Poole who, like the Corner House girls, had never been to Pleasant
+Cove before.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" scoffed her cousin Carrie. "It's only a big, big pond!
+Our frog pond at home looks like a piece of the ocean--when it's
+calm."
+
+The others laughed and Pearl said: "Guess Lucy wants to see Old Ocean
+in its might, eh? Big storm, whales, great ships----"
+
+"A sea serpent!" cried Agnes.
+
+"Of course--if there is such a thing," admitted Lucy. "A sea serpent
+must be an awfully interesting sight."
+
+"There aren't any more," said Pearl. "Father Neptune's all out of
+stock."
+
+"I guess the sea serpent is something like the _snakes_ alcoholic
+victims think they see," proposed Carrie.
+
+"Oh, no," proclaimed Agnes. "Here's what I read about the sea serpent:
+
+    "'The old sea serpent used to rave
+      And fiercely roam about;
+    He hit a prohibition wave,
+      And that's what knocked him out.'"
+
+"'Perils of the Deep!'" laughed Ruth. "But even if we don't see
+serpents in the ocean, I expect we'll have plenty of adventures down
+there at the shore."
+
+Which prophecy was strangely fulfilled.
+
+The train reached Bloomingsburg about one o'clock, and was immediately
+shifted to the single-tracked branch line that connected that small
+city with Pleasant Cove. The speed of the train after leaving
+Bloomingsburg was not great, for it was often held up for trains
+coming from the shore to pass.
+
+The adult passengers grew impatient and wearied. There were many
+complaints, and the babies began to fret and cry. But our friends in
+the last coach remained in a jolly and--for the most part--kindly
+mood.
+
+Trix Severn had taken her crowd into a forward coach. Her father
+owning one of the big hotels at the Cove, the railroad company had
+presented him with a sheaf of chair coupons. So, as Pearl Harrod
+laughingly said, "Trix's party was as swell as a wet sponge."
+
+"I don't suppose any of that crowd at the Overlook House will talk to
+_us_," said Pearl. "Just the same, I guess I can show you girls a good
+time at Spoondrift. Uncle always lets us do just as we like. He's the
+_dearest_ man."
+
+The train rattled on and on. The alternate pine forests and swamp
+lands seemed interminable. Now and then they went through a cut, the
+railroad bisecting a hickory ridge.
+
+But soon there was a change in the air. When the cinders and dust did
+not sift into the windows, there was a smell of salt marsh. The air
+seemed suddenly cleaner. At one station where they stopped, a salt
+creek came in, and there was a dock, and boats, and barrels of clams
+and fish piled on the platform ready for the next up-train.
+
+"Regular maritime smell----whew!" sighed Carrie Poole, holding her
+nose delicately.
+
+"Oh! The _whole_ of Pleasant Cove doesn't smell like this, does it?"
+demanded her cousin.
+
+"Only the old part of it--the old village."
+
+"Well! that's lucky," said Lucy. "If this odor prevailed I should say
+the place ought to be called _Un_-pleasant Cove."
+
+"How far are we from the jumping-off place?" demanded Agnes. "I'd like
+to get out and run."
+
+Pearl stooped to look out under one of the drawn shades. "Why!" she
+said, "there are only two more stops before we reach the Cove station.
+It's a winding way the railroad follows. But if we got off about here
+and went right through those woods yonder, we'd reach the Spoondrift
+bungalow in an hour. I've walked over here to Jumpertown many a time."
+
+"Jumpertown?"
+
+"Yes. That's what they called it before the real estate speculators
+gave it the fancy name of 'Ridgedale Station.'"
+
+At that moment the train suddenly slowed down. The brakes grated upon
+the wheels and everybody clung to the seats for support. One of the
+brakemen ran through from the front and the girls clamored to know the
+cause of the stoppage.
+
+"Bridge down up front," said the railroad employee. "Tide rose last
+night and loosened the supports. We've got to wait."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" was the general wail. When they could get hold of the
+conductor the girls demanded to know the length of time they would be
+delayed.
+
+"Can't tell you, young ladies," declared the man of the punch.
+"There's a repair gang at work on it now."
+
+"An hour?" demanded Pearl Harrod.
+
+"Oh, longer than that," the conductor assured her.
+
+"But what shall we do? We want to get to the bungalow and air the
+bedclothes, and all that, before dark," she cried.
+
+"Guess you'll have to walk, then," said the conductor, laughing, and
+went away.
+
+"That's just what we'll do," Pearl said to her friends. "Can the
+children walk three miles, Ruth?"
+
+"Surely they can!" Agnes cried. "If they can't, we'll carry them."
+
+Ruth was doubtful of the wisdom of the move, but her opinion was not
+asked.
+
+"Come on! let's get out quietly. We'll fool all these other folks,"
+said Pearl. "We'll get to Pleasant Cove long before they do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE GYPSY CAMP
+
+
+There were two things that encouraged Ruth Kenway, the oldest Corner
+House girl, to accompany Pearl Harrod's party through the woods
+without objection. Pearl told her that when they reached the highway
+on the other side of the timber in all probability they would be
+overtaken by an auto-bus that ran four times a day between a station
+on a rival railroad line and the Cove.
+
+This was one thing. The other reason for Ruth's leaving the train with
+her sisters, and without objection, was the fact that the strangely
+dressed woman and the pretty, dark girl had left it already.
+
+When the train first stopped and the brakeman announced the accident
+ahead, the woman had spoken to the girl and they both had risen and
+left the car. Perhaps nobody had noticed them but Ruth. The strange
+girl had not looked at Ruth when she passed her, but the woman had
+bowed and smiled in a cat-like fashion.
+
+Pearl said they would follow a path through the timber to the road;
+and she pointed out the direction through the window. Ruth saw the
+woman and girl strike into this very path and disappear.
+
+So curiosity, too, led the oldest Corner House girl to agree to
+Pearl's plan. The party of ten girls, including Ruth, Agnes, Tess and
+Dot Kenway, slipped out of the car without being questioned by any of
+the older people there. Nobody observed them enter the cool and
+fragrant woods. Chattering and laughing, they were quickly in the
+shadowy depths and out of sight of the hot train.
+
+"Oh, isn't this heavenly!" cried Agnes, tossing up her hat by the
+ribbons that were supposed to tie it under her plump chin.
+
+The green tunnel of the wood-path stretched a long way before them. It
+was paved with pine needles and last-year's oak leaves.
+
+Ruth looked sharply ahead, but did not see either the woman or the
+girl, in whom she was so much interested. Either they had gone on very
+rapidly, or had turned aside into the wood.
+
+Dot had made no complaint upon being forced to leave the train; but
+she clung very tightly now to the Alice-doll, and finally ventured to
+ask Tess:
+
+"What--what do you think is the chance for _bears_ in this wood, Tess?
+Don't you think there may be some?"
+
+"Bears? Whoever heard the like? Of course not, child," said Tess, in
+her most elder-sisterly way. "What gave you such an idea as that?"
+
+"Well--it's a strange woods, Tess. We aren't really acquainted here."
+
+"But Pearl is," declared Tess, stoutly.
+
+"I don't care. I'd rather have Tom Jonah with us. Suppose a bear
+should jump out and grab Alice?" and she hugged the doll all the
+closer in her arms. For her own safety she evidently was not anxious.
+
+The girls, after their ride in the train, were like young colts let
+loose in a paddock. They sang and laughed and capered; and when they
+came to a softly carpeted hollow, Pearl Harrod led the way and rolled
+down the slope, instead of walking down in a "decorous manner, as high
+school young ladies should," quoth Carrie.
+
+"If our dear, _de-ar_ teachers should see us now!" gasped Pearl
+sitting up at the foot of the slide, with a peck of pine needles in
+her hair and her frock all tousled.
+
+Their only baggage was the lunch baskets and boxes. All other of their
+personal possessions were on the train, in the baggage car. But the
+remains of the luncheons came in very nicely. Before they had gone a
+mile through the wood they were all loudly proclaiming their hunger.
+
+So they found a spring, and camped about it, eating the remainder of
+the lunches to the very last crumb. And such a hilarious "feed" as it
+was!
+
+Ruth forgot all about the Gypsy woman and the girl who had so puzzled
+her by her actions. The rest by the spring refreshed even Dot. She was
+plucky, if she _was_ little; and she made no complaint at all about
+the long walk through the stretch of timber.
+
+The party did not hurry after that rest. It was still early in the
+afternoon and Pearl, referring to her watch, said they would surely
+catch the auto-stage that passed on the main road about four o'clock.
+
+"You see, there are no servants at the bungalow yet," Pearl explained.
+"Uncle has been taking his meals at one of the small boarding-houses
+nearby, that opens early. He is a great fisherman, and always goes
+down early and 'roughs it' at the bungalow until my aunt comes down.
+
+"But she thought we girls would be able to get on all right--with
+Uncle Phil to give us a hand if we need him. We'll have to air
+bedclothes, and get in groceries, and otherwise start housekeeping
+to-night."
+
+"Why! it will be great fun," Ruth said. "Just like playing house
+together."
+
+"Say!" cried Agnes. "We want more than 'play-house' food to eat--now I
+warn you! No sweet crackers and 'cambric tea' for mine, if you
+please!"
+
+"Oh! if I ask him," said Pearl, laughing, "I know Uncle Phil will take
+us to his boarding-house to supper to-night--if we get there late. But
+I want to show him what ten girls can do toward housekeeping."
+
+"There'll be plenty of cooks to spoil the broth," sighed Agnes. "Did
+you ever see _me_ fry an egg?"
+
+Ruth began to laugh. The single occasion when Agnes had tried her hand
+at the breakfast eggs was a day marked for remembrance at the old
+Corner House.
+
+"What can you do to a defenseless egg, Aggie?" Lucy Poole demanded.
+
+"Plenty!" declared Agnes, shaking her head. "When I get through with
+an egg, a lump of butter, and a frying-pan, there is left a residue of
+charred 'what is it?' in the bottom of the pan, an odor of burned
+grease in the kitchen--and me in hysterics! It was an awful occasion
+when I tackled that egg. I've not felt just right about approaching an
+egg since that never-to-be-forgotten day."
+
+"I was left home to cook for my father, once," said Carrie Poole,
+seriously, "and he asked to have boiled rice for supper. Mother never
+let me cook much, and I didn't know a thing about _rice_.
+
+"But I saw the grains were awfully small, and I knew my father liked a
+great, heaping bowlful when he had it, so I told the grocery boy to
+bring two pounds, and I tried to cook it all."
+
+A general laugh hailed this announcement. Agnes asked: "What happened,
+Carrie? I don't know anything about rice myself--'cepting that it's
+good in cakes and you throw it after brides for luck--and--and
+Chinamen live on it."
+
+"Wait!" urged Carrie, solemnly. "It's nothing to laugh at. I began
+cooking it in a four quart saucepan, so as to give it plenty of room;
+and when father came in just before supper time, I had the whole top
+of our big range covered with pots and pans into which I had dipped
+the overflow of that two pounds of rice!
+
+"Oh, yes, I had!" said Carrie, warmly, while the others screamed with
+laughter. "And I had gotten so excited by that time that I begged
+father to go out to the washhouse and bring in the big clothes boiler,
+so's to see if I could keep the stuff from running over onto the
+stove.
+
+"You never saw such a mess," concluded Carrie, shaking her head. "And
+we had to eat rice for a week!"
+
+It was just here that Agnes spied something far ahead beside the
+woodspath.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "are we in sight of the tent colony you tell about,
+so soon?"
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Pearl Harrod. "We're nowhere near the river."
+
+"But there's a tent!" exclaimed Agnes, earnestly.
+
+"And I see the top of another," said Lucy Poole.
+
+"Dirty brown things, both of them. Look more like Indian wigwams,"
+announced Ann Presby.
+
+"My goodness, girls! there are the Gypsies Uncle Phil wrote about,"
+said Pearl, in some excitement. "Let's get our fortunes told."
+
+"Oh, dear me," said Ruth, rather worriedly. "I don't just _like_
+Gypsies."
+
+"Oh, you haven't got to hug and kiss them!" laughed Pearl. "Come on!
+they're lots of fun."
+
+But when the party of girls drew nearer to the Gypsy camp, this
+particular tribe of Nomads did not appear to be "lots of fun," after
+all.
+
+In the first place, the tents--as Ann had said--were very shabby and
+dirty. The two covered wagons were dilapidated, too. Gypsies usually
+have good horses, but those the girls saw feeding in the little glade
+were mere "crowbaits."
+
+Several low-browed, roughly dressed men sat in a group on the grass
+playing cards. They were smoking, and one was tipping a black bottle
+to his lips just as the girls from Milton came near.
+
+"Let's hurry right by, Pearl!" begged Ruth.
+
+Pearl, however, was not as observant as the Corner House girl. She
+failed to see danger in the situation, or in the looks the disturbed
+men cast upon the unprotected party of girls. As several of the
+fellows rose, Pearl called to them:
+
+"Where's your Pythoness? Where is the Queen of the Gypsies? We want
+our fortunes told."
+
+One man--a tall fellow with a scarred face--turned and shouted
+something in a strange tongue at the tents. Ruth recognized the
+language in which the woman had talked to the dark-faced girl on the
+train.
+
+And then, the next moment, Ruth caught sight of the face of the very
+woman in question, peering from between the flaps of one of the dingy
+tents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE SPOONDRIFT BUNGALOW
+
+
+"I don't think these are very nice looking men, do you, Tess?" Dot
+seriously asked her sister as the party halted before the Gypsy camp.
+
+"Why, Dot!" gasped Tess. "That man _there_ is the very fellow who
+tried to steal Ruth's chickens!"
+
+"Oh--o-o!"
+
+"Yes, he is," whispered the amazed Tess. "He's the young man Tom Jonah
+chased up on to the henhouse roof."
+
+"Well," said the philosophical Dot, "he can't steal our chickens
+_here_."
+
+"Just the same I wish Tom Jonah was here with us. I--I'd feel better
+about meeting him," confessed Tess.
+
+The other girls did not hear this conversation between the two
+youngest Kenways. Ruth and Agnes, however, were really troubled by the
+meeting with the Gypsies; the former was, in addition, suspicious of
+the woman who had been on the train with them.
+
+This strange woman did not come out of the tent. Indeed, almost at
+once she disappeared, dropping the curtain. She did not wish to be
+observed by the girls from Milton.
+
+"Oh, come on!" cried the reckless Pearl. "They'll only ask us a dime
+each. 'Cross their palms with silver,' you know. And they do tell the
+_queerest_ things sometimes."
+
+"I don't believe we'd better stop this afternoon, Pearl," ventured
+Ruth, as one of the rough fellows drew nearer to the girls.
+
+"Let the little ladies wait but a short time," said this man. "They
+will have revealed to them all they wish to know."
+
+He had an ugly leer, and had Pearl looked at him she would have been
+frightened by his expression. But she was searching her chain-purse
+for dimes. It did not look to Ruth Kenway as though that purse would
+last long in the company of these evil fellows.
+
+Now the same tent flap was pushed aside again and into the open
+hobbled an old crone. She seemed to be a toothless creature, and
+leaned upon a crutch. Gray strands of coarse hair straggled over her
+wrinkled forehead. She had a hump on her back--or seemed to have, for
+she wore a long cloak, the bedraggled tail of which touched the
+ground.
+
+She hobbled across the lawn toward the girls. Ruth watched her closely
+for, it seemed, she came more hurriedly than seemed necessary.
+
+A dog--one of the mongrels that infested the camp--ran at her, and the
+old crone struck at the creature with her crutch; he ran away yelping.
+She was plainly more vigorous of arm than one would have believed from
+her decrepit appearance.
+
+The grinning fellows separated as the old hag came forward. She did
+not speak to them, but she was muttering to herself.
+
+"Incantations!" whispered Pearl. "Isn't she enough to give you the
+delicious shudders? Oh!"
+
+Pearl was evidently enjoying the adventure to the full, but some of
+the girls besides Ruth and Agnes, did not feel so very pleasant. When
+one of the fellows took hold of Carrie Poole's wrist-watch with a
+grimy finger and thumb, she screamed.
+
+"Don't fear, little lady," said the tall, grim man, and he struck the
+officious fellow with his elbow in the ribs. "He means nothing
+harmful. Here is Zaliska, the Queen of the Romany. She is very old and
+very wise. She will tell you much for a silver shilling; but she will
+tell you more for two-bits."
+
+"He means a quarter," said Pearl, explaining. "But a quarter's too
+much. Show her your palms, girls. This is my treat. I have ten dimes."
+
+The tall man had motioned his fellows back, but they were arranged
+around the party of girls in such a way that, no matter which way they
+turned, one of the ruffians was right before them!
+
+"Oh, Ruth! I am frightened!" whispered Agnes in her sister's ear.
+
+"Sh! don't scare the children," Ruth said, her first thought for Tess
+and Dot.
+
+The old crone hobbled directly to Ruth and put out a brown claw. Ruth
+extended her own right hand tremblingly. The hag was mumbling
+something or other, but Ruth could not hear what she said at first,
+the other girls were chattering so.
+
+Then she noticed that the grip of the old Gypsy was a firm one. The
+back of her hand seemed wrinkled and puckered; but suddenly Ruth knew
+that this was the effect of grease paint!
+
+This was a made-up old woman--not a real old woman, at all!
+
+The discovery frightened the Corner House girl almost as much as the
+rough men frightened her. "Zaliska" was a disguised creature.
+
+She clung to Ruth's hand firmly when the girl would have pulled it
+away, and now Ruth heard her hiss:
+
+"Get you away from this place. Get you away with your friends--quick.
+And do not come back at all."
+
+Ruth was shaking with hysterical terror. The creature clung to her
+hand and mumbled this warning over and over again.
+
+"What's she telling you, Ruth?" demanded the hilarious Pearl.
+
+"Trouble! trouble!" mumbled the supposed fortune-teller, shaking her
+head, but accepting the next girl's dime.
+
+Ruth whispered swiftly to Pearl: "Oh! let us get out of here. These
+men mean to rob us--I am sure."
+
+"They would not dare," began the startled Pearl.
+
+Just then there was a creaking of heavy wheels, and a voice shouting
+to oxen. The Gypsies glanced swiftly and covertly at one another,
+falling back farther from the vicinity of the girls.
+
+Indeed, several of them returned to the card game. The fortune-teller
+mumbled her foolish prophecies quickly. Into the glade, along a
+wood-path from the thicker timber, came two spans of oxen dragging
+three great logs. A pleasant-faced young man swung the ox-goad and
+spoke cheerily to the slow-moving, ponderous animals.
+
+"Let's go at once, Pearl!" begged Ruth. "We'll keep close to this
+lumberman. Dot and Tess can ride on the logs."
+
+"Come on, girls! I think this old woman is a faker," cried Pearl. "She
+can't even tell me whether I'm going to marry a blond man, or a
+brunette!"
+
+"Don't go yet, little ladies," said the tall man, suavely. "Zaliska
+can tell you much----"
+
+"Let's go, girls!" cried Carrie Poole, snatching her hand away from
+the supposed old woman.
+
+Ruth and Agnes had already seized their sisters and were hurrying them
+toward the lumberman.
+
+"Whoa, Buck! Whoa, Bright!" shouted the teamster, cracking the
+whiplash before the leading span of oxen. "Sh-h! Steady. What's the
+matter, girls?"
+
+"Won't you take us to the main road where we can get the stage for
+Pleasant Cove?" cried Ruth.
+
+"Sure, Miss. Going right there. Want to ride?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!" cried the Corner House girls.
+
+"That will be great fun!" shouted some of the others. "Come on!"
+
+They clambered all over the logs, that were chained together and swung
+from the axle of the rear pair of wheels. The Gypsies began gathering
+around and some of them muttered threateningly, but the lumberman
+cracked his whip and the oxen started easily.
+
+"Cling on, girls!" advised the driver. "No skylarking up there. Soon
+have you out to the pike road. And you want to keep away from that
+Gypsy camp. They are a tough lot--very different from the crowd that
+camped there last year and the year before. We farmers are getting
+about ready to run them out, now I tell ye!"
+
+Ruth said nothing--not even to Agnes--about what she had discovered.
+She had penetrated "Queen Zaliska's" disguise. She believed that the
+supposed old crone was the handsome, dark girl whom she had observed
+so narrowly on the train.
+
+Perhaps nobody but Ruth, of the party of ten girls, really understood
+that they had been in peril from the Gypsies. _She_ believed that, had
+they not gotten away from the camp as they had, the men would have
+robbed them.
+
+The Gypsies were afraid of the husky lumberman, and they did not
+follow the girls. Once on the highway, Pearl declared the auto-stage
+would be along in ten minutes or so, and they bade the lumberman
+good-bye with a feeling of perfect safety.
+
+The Gypsies had not dared follow the party. Soon the stage came along,
+and for ten cents each the girls rode into Pleasant Cove. There were
+only a few other passengers, and the party from Milton sat on top and
+had a lot of fun.
+
+Pearl pointed out the byroad that led down to the river beach where
+the tent colony was set up, but the stage went right past Spoondrift
+bungalow, and the girls got down and charged that dwelling "like a
+horde of Huns," Agnes declared.
+
+Uncle Phillip Harrod was at home, and welcomed them kindly. "Help
+yourselves, girls, and go as far as you like," he said, waving both
+hands, and retired to a corner of the piazza with his book and a pipe.
+
+The girls took him at his word. They were very busy till nightfall.
+Then, however, everything was ready for their occupancy of the
+bungalow, and supper was cooking on the kerosene range.
+
+They had forgotten the Gypsies--all but Ruth. She was bound to be
+puzzled by the disguised "queen" and wondered secretly what the
+masquerade meant, and who the beautiful girl was who posed as
+"Zaliska"?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SOME EXCITEMENT
+
+
+"But _why_ 'Spoondrift'?" demanded Lucy. "What does it mean?"
+
+"'Spoondrift' is the spray from the tops of the waves," explained
+Pearl. "We think the name is awfully pretty."
+
+"And so is the bungalow--and the Cove," sighed Ruth.
+
+"And we're going to have a scrumptious time here!" declared Agnes.
+
+Tess and Dot were frankly sleepy, and Lucy begged the privilege of
+seeing them to bed.
+
+"That's real kind of you, I'm sure, Lute," said Agnes.
+
+"Don't you praise her," sniffed Carrie. "I know Lute. She's sleepy,
+herself. You won't see her downstairs again to-night."
+
+"I don't care," yawned Lucy Poole, following Tess and Dot. "I sleep so
+slowly that it takes a long time for me to get a good night's rest."
+
+"Well! of all things!" ejaculated Carrie, as her cousin departed,
+following the two smaller girls. "What do you know about _that_?"
+
+"Almost as stupid as the inhabitants of London," chuckled Agnes.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Ag?" demanded Ann Presby. "The people of
+London aren't any more stupid than those of other cities, are they?"
+
+"I don't know," returned Agnes; "but the book says 'the population of
+London is very dense.'"
+
+"Fine! fine!" cried Carrie Poole, laughing. "Oh! these 'literal' folk.
+You know, my Grandfather Poole has an awfully bald head. He was
+telling us once that in some famous battle of the Civil War in which
+he took part, his head was grazed by a bullet. My little brother Jimmy
+stared at his head thoughtfully for a minute, and then he said:
+
+"'My, Grandpa, there's not much grazing up there now, is there?'"
+
+These stories began the evening. Everybody had some story or joke to
+relate, and finally the girls began to guess riddles. Somebody
+propounded the old one about the wind: "What is it that goes all
+around the house and yet makes no tracks?" and Agnes had a new answer
+for it:
+
+"Germs!" she shouted. "You know, Miss Georgiana gave us a lecture
+about them, and I bet we're just surrounded by deadly bacilli right
+now."
+
+"Those aren't germs--they're mosquitos, Ag!" laughed Pearl, slapping
+vigorously at one of the pests. "Pleasant Cove isn't entirely free
+from them."
+
+"And they are presenting their bills pretty lively, too," yawned Ruth.
+"The bedrooms are screened. I believe we'd all better seek the haven
+of bed unless we want to be splotchy to-morrow from mosquito bites."
+
+In the morning the older girls divided the housework between them, and
+so got it all done in short order. The baggage had come up from the
+station the evening before, and they unpacked.
+
+Then they set forth to explore the fishing port, as well as the more
+modern part of Pleasant Cove.
+
+As they brisked along the walk past Mr. Terrence Severn's Overlook
+House, they spied Trix and her party on the big veranda. The girls
+hailed each other back and forth; only Trix and the Corner House girls
+did not speak.
+
+"We can't speak to her if she won't speak to us," said Ruth to Agnes.
+"Now, never you mind, Aggie. She'll get over her tantrum in time."
+
+The party from Spoondrift bungalow got back in season to get luncheon;
+after which they rested and then bathed. It was the Corner House
+girls' first experience of salt water bathing and they all enjoyed
+it--even Dot.
+
+"It _does_ make you suck in your breath awfully hard when the waves
+lap upon you," she confessed. "But there was the Alice-doll sitting on
+the shore watching me, and so I couldn't let her see that I was
+_afraid_!"
+
+Ruth, more than the other girls, aided Pearl in looking after
+housekeeping affairs. It was she who discovered the broken lamp in the
+front hall.
+
+The bungalow was lighted by oil-lamps, and they used candles in the
+bed chambers; while there was a marvelous "blue-flame" kerosene range
+in the kitchen.
+
+Not all of the girls understood the handling of kerosene lamps, and
+Pearl told a funny story about her own little sister who had never
+seen any lights but gas or electric.
+
+"When she came down here to Uncle Phil's bungalow for the first time,
+she was all excited about the lamps. She told mamma that 'Uncle Phil
+had his 'lectricity in a lamp right on the supper table. It's a queer
+kind of a light, for they fill it with water out of a can.'"
+
+The hanging lamp in the front hall was set inside a melon-shaped
+globe. Finding that, as Ruth pointed out, it could not be used, Pearl
+made another trip to the village before teatime and in the local
+"department store" bought another lamp.
+
+"I am afraid you ought not to use that lamp, Pearl," Ruth said, when
+she saw that the chimney was not tall enough to stick out of the top
+of the globe.
+
+"Pooh! why not? Guess it's just as good as the old chimney was," said
+Pearl.
+
+"Seems to me Mrs. MacCall says that chimneys should always be tall
+enough to come up through the globe. I don't know just why----"
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" interrupted Pearl. "It's all right, I fancy."
+
+Neither girl had recourse to "applied physics." Had she done so she
+could easily have discovered just _why_ it was unwise to use a lamp
+with a short chimney inside such a shaped globe as that hanging in
+chains in the front hall of the bungalow.
+
+Ruth forgot the matter. It was Pearl herself who lit the hall lamp
+that evening. As before, they sat on the porch and played games and
+sang or told stories, all the long, bright evening.
+
+Tess and Dot had gone to bed at half after eight. It was an hour later
+that Lucy suddenly said:
+
+"I smell smoke."
+
+"It isn't Mr. Harrod," said Ann. "He's gone down to the Casino."
+
+"It isn't tobacco smoke I smell," declared Lucy, springing up.
+
+"Oh, Lute!" shrieked Agnes. "Look at the door!"
+
+A cloud of black, thick smoke was belching out of the front hall upon
+the veranda. One of the other girls shrieked "Fire!"
+
+Those next few minutes were terribly exciting for all hands at the
+Spoondrift bungalow. A single glance into the hall showed Ruth Kenway
+that the hanging lamp had burst, and the place was all ablaze.
+
+There was but one stairway, and the children were in one of the
+low-ceilinged rooms above. Tess and Dot could only be reached by
+climbing up the long, sloping roof of the bungalow, and getting in at
+the chamber window.
+
+While some of the girls ran for water--which was useless in the
+quantity they could bring from the kitchen tap in pots and pans--and
+others ran screaming along the street for help, Ruth "shinnied" right
+up one of the piazza pillars and squirmed out upon the shingled roof.
+
+She tore her dress, and hurt her knees and hands; but she did not
+think of this havoc at the moment. She got to the window of the room
+in which her sisters slept, and screamed for Tess and Dot, but in
+their first sleep the smaller girls were completely "dead to the
+world."
+
+There was the screen to be reckoned with before the oldest Corner
+House girl could enter. It was set into the window from the inside,
+and she could neither lift the window-sash nor stir the screen. So she
+beat the tough wire in with her fists, and they bled and hurt her
+dreadfully! Nevertheless, she got through, falling into the room just
+as the stifling smoke from below began to pour in around the bedroom
+door.
+
+"Tess! Dot! Hurry up! Get up!" she shrieked, shaking them both.
+
+Tess aroused, whimpering. Ruth seized Dot bodily, flung a blanket
+around her, and put her out of the window upon the roof. Then she
+dragged Tess to the window and made her climb out after her sister.
+
+"Oh, oh!" gasped Tess, alive at last to the cause of the excitement.
+"Save the Alice-doll, Ruthie. Save Dot's Alice-doll!"
+
+And Ruth actually went back, groping through the gathering smoke, for
+the doll. With it she scrambled out upon the shingles.
+
+By that time the street was noisy with shouting people. Mr. Harrod
+came with a fire extinguisher and attacked the flames. Other men came
+and helped the girls down from the roof.
+
+Agnes had fainted when she realized the danger her sisters were in.
+Some of the other girls were quite hysterical. Neighbors took them all
+in for the night.
+
+It was quite an hour before the fire was completely out. Then the
+Spoondrift bungalow certainly was in a mess.
+
+"It will take carpenters and painters a fortnight and more to repair
+the damage," said Mr. Harrod the next morning. "Luckily none of your
+guests lost their clothing, Pearl; but you will all have to go to the
+hotel to finish your visit to Pleasant Cove."
+
+[Illustration: Ruth actually went back, groping through the gathering
+smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled out upon the shingles.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE
+
+
+The Overlook House was nearest. Mr. Harrod made arrangements for the
+girls to go there and occupy several rooms. At least, he presumed he
+had made that arrangement with Mr. Severn when he left on the forenoon
+train for Bloomingsburg to arrange his insurance and hire mechanics to
+at once repair the bungalow.
+
+The Spoondrift cottage was really not fit for occupancy and there
+seemed nothing else for the girls to do but follow his advice and go
+over to the Overlook. But Ruth Kenway had her doubts.
+
+After the excitement of the fire, and the general "stir-about" which
+ensued, Pearl Harrod had quite forgotten that the Corner House girls
+were not on terms of intimacy with Trix Severn, the hotel keeper's
+daughter. It probably never entered her good-natured mind that Trix
+would behave meanly when all hands from the Spoondrift had escaped the
+peril of the fire.
+
+The girls trooped over to the hotel, after repacking their baggage, to
+look at the rooms which had been secured for them. Mr. Severn was not
+there, nor was the clerk on duty. Their schoolmate, Trix, was behind
+the desk.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said carelessly, "I presume we can find rooms for you.
+But father doesn't care much to take in people who won't stay the
+season out--especially at this time of the year. It's a great
+inconvenience."
+
+"Pooh!" said Pearl, frankly, "I guess your father is running his hotel
+for money--not for sport. And Uncle Phil is going to pay him for all
+the accommodation we get."
+
+"Indeed?" returned Trix. "You seem to know a lot about our business,
+Miss Harrod."
+
+"Don't you put on any of your high and mighty airs with me, Miss!"
+snapped Pearl. "For they don't go down, let me tell you! Didn't Uncle
+Phil secure rooms for us?"
+
+"Well--he spoke of your coming here. There is Number 10, and 11, and
+14; they're all three double rooms, so you and Ann can have one, Maud
+and Lulu another, and Carrie and Lucy the third."
+
+"But, goodness gracious! there are ten of us!" cried Pearl. "You know
+that very well."
+
+"Those three rooms," said Trix, with elaborate carelessness, "are all
+your uncle provided."
+
+"Why, Uncle Phil must be crazy! Didn't he get a big room for the
+Kenways?"
+
+"Humph!" said Trix, maliciously. "Are _they_ with you, Miss Harrod?
+Your uncle must have quite overlooked them. All the rooms I know
+anything about his securing for your party are the three I've
+mentioned."
+
+"Well, where's your father----"
+
+"He's gone fishing," said Trix, promptly, and with a flash of
+satisfaction in her eyes. "He won't be back till late to-night."
+
+"Then, where's the clerk?" demanded Pearl, much worried.
+
+"Mr. Cheever doesn't know anything about it. I was here when your
+uncle made his bargain. Nothing was said about those Corner House
+girls--so there! There is no room for them here."
+
+"Well! I call that the meanest thing!" began Pearl, but Ruth, who had
+stood close by, interrupted:
+
+"Don't let it worry you in the least, Pearl. We have plenty of time to
+find accommodations before night."
+
+"You won't find them here, Miss!" snapped Trix.
+
+"Nothing would make me remain under this roof for a night," said Ruth,
+indignantly. "My sisters and I have never done you any harm, Trix;
+quite the contrary, as you would remember had you any gratitude at
+all. This hotel is not the only place at Pleasant Cove where we can
+find shelter, I am sure."
+
+"Oh, Ruth! don't go!" begged Pearl. "This mean girl is not telling the
+truth, I am sure. You'll break up our party," Pearl wailed.
+
+"I couldn't stay here now," the oldest Corner House girl declared. "I
+am going to secure a tent for us. I am quite sure we will be
+comfortable in one. If other people can stand it under canvas, of
+course _we_ can."
+
+She took Agnes by the hand and they went out of the hotel. Tess and
+Dot had not come with them, but had been left at the neighbor's where
+they had all spent the night.
+
+Pearl and the other girls could not very well follow them; they were
+not so independently situated as the Corner House girls. Ruth had a
+well filled pocket-book, as well as checks from Mr. Howbridge and an
+introductory letter to the branch bank at Pleasant Cove.
+
+She had been so used to going ahead, and arranging matters for the
+whole family, during the past three years, that she was not troubled
+much by this emergency. She was sorry that the pleasant party had to
+be broken up, that was all. She was not sure that she and her sisters
+knew any of the campers along the riverside.
+
+There were two men who supplied tents and outfits for those who wished
+to live under canvas, and so there were two distinct tent colonies,
+though they were side by side.
+
+One was called Camp Enterprise, and the other Camp Willowbend. The
+latter was just at the bend of the river, and there were a few willows
+on the low bluff back of it.
+
+There were not more than a dozen tents erected in either camp as yet,
+for it was early in the season. The Corner House girls rode quite a
+mile from the hotel to Willowbend Camp and selected a tent that was
+already erected.
+
+It was a large wall-tent and it was divided in half by a canvas
+partition that made a bedroom of one end and a living-room of the
+front part. In the latter was a small sheetiron cookstove, with a pipe
+that led the smoke outside of the tent. But there was an oilstove,
+too, and Ruth decided that they would make arrangements for buying
+most of their food cooked, so as to reduce the details of
+housekeeping.
+
+Agnes cheered up at once when she saw the tent-cities. And the smaller
+girls were delighted with the prospect of living under canvas.
+
+There were four cots in the tent, with sheets and blankets, and
+apologies for pillows; there was matting laid down on the sand, too,
+in this bedroom part of the tent.
+
+The remainder of the furnishings consisted of four camp-chairs, a
+plain deal table, a chest of drawers that contained the chinaware and
+cooking utensils, and a small icebox. This front apartment had a plank
+floor, made in sections.
+
+It was a rough enough shelter, and the camping arrangements were
+crude; nevertheless, the Corner House girls saw nothing but fun ahead
+of them, and they were as busy as bees all that day "getting settled."
+
+There were pleasant people in the other tents of Camp Willowbend, but
+none of them chanced to be Milton people. There were several girls of
+ages corresponding to those of the Corner House girls, and the latter
+were sure they would find these neighbors good sport.
+
+The Kenways were so busy at noon that they only "took a bite in their
+fists," as good Mrs. MacCall would have expressed it. Ruth had been
+wise enough to buy some cooked food in the village before they came
+over to the camp, but she learned from some of the ladies in the tents
+that there was a woman in the neighborhood who baked bread to sell,
+and sometimes cookies and pies.
+
+"You go to see Mrs. Bobster. She's the nicest old lady!" declared one
+city matron. "Make your arrangements for bread now, Miss Kenway, for
+after she takes orders for as many as she can well supply, she
+wouldn't agree to bake another loaf. She has a real New England
+conscience, and she wouldn't promise to bake a single biscuit more
+than she knows she can get in her oven."
+
+The directions for finding Mrs. Bobster interested and amused the
+Corner House girls.
+
+"She is the little old woman who lives in the shoe," laughed their
+informant. "You can't miss the house, if you go along the beach road
+toward town. It's just beyond the other camp."
+
+"Oh!" cried Dot, eagerly, "_I_ want to see the lady who lives in a
+shoe. She must have lots of children, for they were a great bother."
+
+"And," said Tess, "do you suppose she _does_ whip them all soundly and
+send them to bed with a piece of bread to eat?"
+
+"We'll discover all that," promised Ruth, and soon after luncheon,
+having fixed up the tent, and set to rights their things that the
+expressman had brought over from the Spoondrift bungalow, the four
+sisters set out to find Mrs. Bobster.
+
+The girls had ridden over from the village along the highroad, on
+which they had traveled two days before in the auto-stage. This lower,
+or "beach" road was a much less important thoroughfare. In places it
+followed the line of the shore so closely that the unusual high tides
+that had prevailed that spring, had washed a great deal of white sand
+across the swamp-grass and out upon it.
+
+So, in places, the girls plodded through sand over their shoe tops.
+"Might as well go barefooted," declared Agnes, sitting down for the
+third time to take off her oxfords and shake out the sand.
+
+"You'd find it pretty different, if you tried it," laughed Ruth. "This
+sand is hot."
+
+"It does seem as though you slipped back half a step each time you
+tried to go forward," said Tess, seriously. "Aren't we ever going to
+get there, Ruth?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Dot, suddenly, "isn't that a giraffe? And there's a
+camel!"
+
+"For goodness' sake!" gasped Agnes, plunging to her feet, and hopping
+along after her sisters, trying to get on her left shoe. "Is this the
+African desert?"
+
+"It looks like it," said Ruth, herself amazed.
+
+"And it's hot enough," grumbled Agnes. "Oh! I see! it's a wrecked
+carousel."
+
+There were decrepit lions and tigers, too; the rain-washed and broken
+animals were the remains of a carousel, the machinery of which had
+been taken away. Once somebody had tried to finance a small pleasure
+resort between the real village of Pleasant Cove and the two tent
+colonies, but it had been unsuccessful.
+
+The wreck of a "shoot the chutes," the carousel, a dancing pavilion
+and a short boardwalk with adjacent stands, had been abandoned by the
+unfortunate promoters. There was a tower--now a "leaning" tower;
+broken-down swings; an abandoned moving picture palace; and back from
+the rest of the wreckage, several hundred yards from the sandy shore,
+the girls saw a rusty looking frame structure, shaped like a shoe,
+with a flagstaff sticking out of the roof.
+
+"There it is!" cried Tess, eagerly. "And it _does_ look like a shoe."
+
+Originally the house had been a tiny brown cottage set in the midst of
+a garden. The fence surrounding the place was still well kept. The
+second story of the cottage had been transformed into the semblance of
+a congress-gaiter, with windows in the sides and front. It looked as
+though that huge shoe had been carefully placed upon the rafters of
+the first floor rooms of the cottage.
+
+"What a funny looking place!" exclaimed Agnes. "Did you ever see the
+like, Ruth? I wonder if Mrs. Bobster is as funny as her house."
+
+At that moment a figure bobbed up among the beanpoles in the garden,
+and the girls saw that it was a little woman in a calico sunbonnet.
+Her face was very small and hard and rosy--like a well-shined Baldwin
+apple. She had twinkling blue eyes, as sharp as file-points.
+
+"Shoo!" exclaimed the little woman. "Shoo, Agamemnon! Git aout o' them
+pea-vines like I told you!"
+
+For a moment the Corner House girls did not see Agamemnon; they could
+not imagine who he was.
+
+"Shoo, I tell ye!" exclaimed the little old woman who lived in a shoe,
+and she struck out with the short-handled hoe she was using.
+
+There was a squawk, and out leaped, with awkward stride, a long legged
+rooster--of what "persuasion" it was impossible to tell, for he was
+swathed from neck to spurs in a wonderful garment which had
+undoubtedly been made out of a red flannel undershirt!
+
+Two or three bedraggled tail-feathers appeared at the aperture in the
+back of this garment; otherwise Agamemnon seemed to be quite
+featherless. And when, clear of his mistress' reach, he flapped his
+almost naked wings and crowed, he was the most comical looking object
+the Corner House girls had ever seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A PICNIC WITH AGAMEMNON
+
+
+"You see, gals, Agamemnon's been the most unlucky bird that ever was
+hatched," said the little old woman, coming across the tiny lawn to
+the fence where the Corner House girls were staring, round-eyed, at
+the strange apparition of a rooster in a red-flannel sleeping-suit.
+
+"But he's the pluckiest! Yes, ma'am! He was only a pindling critter
+when he pipped the shell, an' the vi-cis-_si_-tudes that bird's been
+through since he fust scratched would ha' made a human lay right down
+and die.
+
+"The other chickens never would let him raise a pin-feather ter cover
+his nakedness; they picked on him suthin' _awful_. I shet him up till
+his wings and tail growed, an' a rat got in an' gnawed the feathers
+right off him in one night; but Agamemnon picked and clawed so't the
+old rat didn't bleed him much.
+
+"And now here, lately, a neighbor got a half-breed game rooster, an'
+thet pesky fightin' bird got down here an' sasses Agamemnon on his own
+premises.
+
+"Ag wouldn't stand for that," said the old lady, her blue eyes fairly
+crackling. "He sailed right inter that game chicken--an' Neighbor
+Lincoln et his rooster the nex' Sunday for dinner. 'Twas all he could
+do with the critter after Agamemnon got through with him.
+
+"But that game rooster had tore ev'ry _important_ feather off'n poor
+Agamemnon's carcass. I had to do suthin'. 'Twarn't decent for him to
+go 'round bare. So I made him that smock out of one o' poor Eddie's
+old shirts. And there ye be!" she finished breathlessly, smiling
+broadly upon the interested Corner House girls.
+
+"I guess you are Mrs. Bobster?" asked Ruth, smiling in return.
+
+"Are you _really_ the--the lady who lives in the shoe?" asked Dot,
+round-eyed.
+
+"That's what they call me, pet," said Mrs. Bobster, smiling at the
+smallest Kenway. "I'm the only little old woman who lives in _this_
+shoe. Poor Eddie thought we'd make a mint of money if we built over
+the top of our house like that, and I sold gingercakes and sweeties to
+the children who came down here to the beach. Eddie was allus mighty
+smart in thinkin' up schemes for me to make money. But the Beach
+Company went up in smoke, as the sayin' is; so we didn't make our
+fortun' after all."
+
+She laughed. Indeed, this little, apple-faced old lady was almost
+always laughing, it seemed.
+
+"Poor Eddie!" she added. "I guess the Beach Company failin' took about
+all the tuck out o' him. He said himself it was the last straw on the
+camel's back. He jest settled right down inter his chair, like; and he
+didn't last that winter out. He was allus weakly, Eddie was."
+
+The Corner House girls knew she must be speaking of her husband. So
+now she was all alone in the house that had such a grotesque upper
+story.
+
+"No. There ain't no children here--only them that comes in to see me,"
+Mrs. Bobster said in answer to a question from Tess. "We never did
+have no children; but we allus loved 'em."
+
+Meanwhile she had opened the gate and invited the Corner House girls
+into the yard. There was an arbor which was already shaded by
+quick-growing vines. The little kitchen garden, with its border of
+gooseberries and currants, was as neat as it could be.
+
+"I gotter cow of my own out back, and hens, too. I make a bare livin'
+in winter, and put frills onto it in summer," and the old lady
+laughed. "These folks from the city that come livin' in tents here,
+like my bread and cookies."
+
+"That is what we have come to arrange for, Mrs. Bobster," said Ruth.
+
+"I dunno. Most all I can comferbly bake three times a week, is
+bespoke," said the little old woman who lived in a shoe. "How many is
+there in your fam'bly, Miss?"
+
+When she heard that there were just four of them--these girls
+alone--and that they were to live by themselves in a tent, she grew
+greatly interested.
+
+"Surely I'll bake for you--and cookies, too. Maybe a fruit pie oncet
+in a while--'specially if you'll go over beyond the bend when berries
+is ripe and pick 'em yourself. And you gals a-livin' all alone? Sho!
+I'd think you'd be scaret to death."
+
+"Why, no!" said Ruth. "Why should we?"
+
+"After dark," said the old woman, shaking her hand.
+
+"Who would hurt us?" asked the Corner House girl in wonder.
+
+"Can't most always sometimes tell," said the old woman, shaking her
+head.
+
+"But _you_ live here alone!"
+
+"No," she said, quickly. "Not after dark. I ain't never alone. Oh,
+no!"
+
+She spoke as though she were afraid Ruth might not believe her, and
+repeated the denial several times.
+
+Tess and Dot were very anxious to go upstairs and see the rooms in the
+"shoe," and they made the request to Ruth in an audible whisper.
+
+"For sure!" cried Mrs. Bobster. "All the children that come here want
+to go upstairs. If I had 'em of my own, that's where I'd put 'em all
+to bed after I'd fed 'em bread and 'whipped 'em all soundly,'" and she
+laughed.
+
+"I don't believe you'd have whipped the children, if you'd been the
+really truly little old woman that lived in the shoe," quoth Dot,
+putting a confiding hand into the apple-faced lady's hard palm.
+
+"I bet _you_ wouldn't have had to be whipped," laughed Mrs. Bobster,
+leading Dot away, with Tess following.
+
+Later the hostess of the shoe-house brought out a pitcher of milk and
+glasses with a heaping plate of ginger cookies--the old-fashioned kind
+that just _melt_ on your tongue!
+
+"Sho!" she said, when Ruth praised them. "It's easy enough to make
+good merlasses cookies. But ye don't wanter have no conscience when it
+comes to butter--no, indeed!"
+
+Agamemnon came to the feast. In his ridiculous red flannel suit he
+waddled up to his mistress and pecked crumbs off her lap when she sat
+down on the bench in the arbor.
+
+"He looks just like a person ready to go in swimming," chuckled Agnes.
+"It's a red bathing suit."
+
+"That's one thing Agamemnon can't stand. He don't like water," said
+Mrs. Bobster. "But if I let him out at low tide he'll beau a flock of
+hens right down to the clamflats. But now, poor thing! they won't go
+with him."
+
+"Who--the hens!" asked Ruth, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes. They don't think he looks jest right, I s'pose. If he chass�s up
+to one of my old biddies, she tries to tear that flannel suit right
+off'n him. It's hard on poor Agamemnon; but until his feathers start
+to grow good again, I don't dare have him go without it. He'd git
+sunburned like a brick, in the fust place."
+
+This tickled Agnes so that she almost fell off the bench.
+
+"But I should think the red flannel would tickle him awfully,"
+murmured Tess, quite seriously disturbed over the plight of the
+rooster.
+
+"Sho! keeps away rheumatics. So poor Eddie allus said," declared the
+widow. "That's why he wore red flannel for forty year--and he never
+had a mite of rheumatism. Agamemnon ought to be satisfied he's alive,
+after all he's been through."
+
+It was really very funny to see the rooster strutting about the yard
+in what Agnes called his red bathing suit.
+
+The Corner House girls remained for some time with Mrs. Bobster. When
+they went back to the camp at the bend they carried their first supply
+of bread and cookies.
+
+They arrived at their tent to find a wagonette Pearl had hired in the
+port, and all the other girls who had been at the Spoondrift bungalow
+had come visiting.
+
+The crowd was delighted with the way Ruth and her sisters were
+situated. It looked as though to live under canvas would be great fun
+indeed.
+
+"Wish I'd spoken to Uncle Phil about it, and gotten him to hire tents
+instead of putting us up at that old hotel," declared Pearl. "And do
+you know, girls, that Trix Severn told a story?"
+
+"I didn't suppose she'd be above being untruthful," Ruth said, rather
+indignantly.
+
+"And you're quite right. We found out that her father set aside a big,
+double-bedded room for you four girls. Trix says she did not know
+anything about it. But of course Uncle Phil would not have forgotten
+you."
+
+"Never mind," said Agnes. "I'm glad she acted so. We're a whole lot
+better off here."
+
+"I believe you!" said Carrie Poole.
+
+"You going to have Rosa Wildwood here in the tent with you when she
+comes?" asked Ann Presby.
+
+"I'm afraid she ought to have a better place," said Ruth. "And I
+believe I know just where she would get the attention--and food--that
+she needs," and the oldest Corner House girl told the crowd about Mrs.
+Bobster--the little old lady who lived in a shoe.
+
+"If I can get the dear old thing to take Rosa to board, I know she'll
+give her just what she needs--good food, plenty of it, well cooked,
+and Rosa will be in a quiet place where she can rest all she wants
+to," said Ruth.
+
+She had no idea at the time of the strange adventure that would arise
+out of this plan of hers to bring Rosa Wildwood to stay for a part of
+the summer with the little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NIGHT OF THE BIG WIND
+
+
+"Ruthie! there's another man wants to sell you a boat."
+
+"Ruthie! there's another man wants to sell an elephant--and it's _so_
+cute!"
+
+"For the land's sake!" gasped Ruth, throwing down a sputtering pen,
+where she was writing on the chest of drawers in the tent. "_How_ can
+a body write? And an elephant, no less!"
+
+She rushed out to see Dot's elephant, as that seemed more important
+than Tess' announcement that a man had merely a boat for sale. Dot's
+man was a gangling young fellow with a covered basket from which he
+was selling sugar cakes made into fancy shapes. So Dot had her
+elephant for the Alice-doll (almost everything that appealed to Dot
+was bought for that pampered child of hers!) and was appeased.
+
+But the man with the boat was a different matter. He proved to be a
+boat owner and he wanted to hire one of his craft to the Corner House
+girls by the week. Agnes was just crazy (so she said) to add rowing to
+her accomplishments, and Ruth thought it would be a good thing
+herself.
+
+The boat was a safe, cedar craft, with two pairs of light oars and a
+portable kerosene engine and propeller to use if the girls got tired
+of rowing. Ruth made the bargain after thoroughly looking over the
+boat, which had had only one season's use.
+
+There was a chain and padlock for mooring it to a post at the edge of
+the water just below the tent.
+
+The older girls had already learned to swim in the school gymnasium at
+Milton. Milton was pretty well up to date in its school arrangements.
+
+Tess had been taught to "strike out" and could be left safely to
+paddle by herself in shallow water while Ruth and Agnes taught little
+Dot.
+
+The latter refused to own to any fear of the water. Up here in the
+river the waves were seldom of any consequence, and of course on
+stormy days the girls would not go bathing at all.
+
+Others of the Willowbend campers had rowboats for the season; and some
+even owned their own motorboats. The girls were well advised regarding
+fishing-tackle and the like. Crabbing was a favorite sport just then,
+for several small creeks emptied into the river nearby and soft-shell
+crabs and shedders were plentiful.
+
+"I'd be afraid of these crabs if their teeth were hard," Dot declared,
+for she insisted that the "pincers" of the crustaceans were teeth.
+
+"They are dreadfully _squirmy_, anyway," sighed Tess. "Just like
+spiders. And yet, we eat them!"
+
+"But--but I always shut my eyes when I eat them; just as I do when I
+swallow raw oysters," confessed Dot. "They taste so much better than
+they look!"
+
+Having the boat, the Corner House girls rowed to the village for their
+supplies and to visit their friends. They did not go to the Overlook
+House; but Pearl Harrod and her party were at the burned bungalow
+almost all day. They always bathed there, and the Corner House girls
+went down to bathe with them. The beach was better there than at the
+camp.
+
+It was Monday when Ruth Kenway and her sisters were established in
+their tent. On Thursday of that week they rowed over to Spoondrift
+bungalow in the morning. Pearl greeted them before they got ashore
+with:
+
+"Oh, Ruth! The funniest thing has happened. You'd never guess."
+
+"Trix Severn has the mumps!" exclaimed Agnes. "I knew she was all
+swelled up."
+
+"Not as good as _that_," laughed Pearl. "But worse may happen to that
+girl than mumps. However, it's nothing to do with Trix."
+
+"What is it?" asked Ruth, calmly. "I'm not a good guesser, Pearl."
+
+"You remember those Gypsies?"
+
+"That are camped up in the woods!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"If they _are_ Gypsies," said Ruth, doubtfully.
+
+"Of course they are!" cried Pearl. "Well, they've been around here
+looking for you."
+
+"For goodness' sake!" gasped Agnes. "What for?"
+
+Ruth herself looked startled. But Pearl began to laugh again.
+
+"At least, that queer old woman has been asking for you," she
+explained.
+
+"Zaliska!" exclaimed Ruth, although she was very sure that was not the
+person's name. Of course the name was part of the strange girl's
+masquerade.
+
+"It was this morning," Pearl went on to say. "We didn't see many of
+the women of the tribe when we came past that camp last week. But a
+number of them came down into the village this morning--selling
+baskets and telling fortunes from door to door. We saw them over by
+the hotel--didn't we, girls?"
+
+"Yes. I bought a basket from one of them," admitted Carrie Poole.
+
+"But when we came up here to the bungalow," pursued Pearl, "one of the
+men working here asked me if I'd seen 'my friend, the Gypsy queen'?
+So, I said 'No,' of course.
+
+"Then he told me that that Zaliska had asked him where the girl was
+who was called Ruth Kenway. He told her that after the bungalow got
+afire, all the girls went to the hotel."
+
+"Then she'll never find you there, Ruth," interposed Agnes, with
+satisfaction.
+
+Ruth was not sure that she did not wish the supposed Gypsy queen to
+find her. She knew that "Zaliska" was really the very pretty,
+dark-skinned girl whom she had been so much interested in on the train
+coming down from Milton.
+
+And that strange girl was interested in Rosa Wildwood. Of that Ruth
+was as sure as she could be.
+
+"Maybe she'll follow you up to the camp," said Lucy Poole. "I'd be
+afraid to live all alone in that tent if I were you girls."
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed Agnes. "What's going to hurt us!"
+
+"The crabs might come up the beach at night and pinch your toes,"
+laughed Maud Everts.
+
+"I don't know," Pearl said, seriously. "I wouldn't want those Gyps
+interested in _me_."
+
+"Now you are trying to frighten us," laughed Ruth. "We have plenty of
+neighbors. Don't you come up there and try to play tricks on us in the
+tent. You might get hurt."
+
+"Bet she has a gatling gun," chuckled Carrie Poole.
+
+"I'm going to have something better than that," declared Ruth,
+smiling. But she refused to tell them _what_.
+
+Ruth remembered that the little old woman who lived in a shoe had
+spoken of being afraid, too; so the oldest Corner House girl made her
+plans accordingly, but kept them to herself.
+
+After their bath the sisters dressed in the Harrod tent that had been
+pitched on the lawn behind the bungalow, and then went on to the
+village. Ruth and Agnes rowed very nicely, for the former, at least,
+had had some practise at this sport before coming to Pleasant Cove.
+
+They tied the painter of their boat to a ring in one of the wharf
+stringers, and went "up town" to the stores. The village of Pleasant
+Cove was never a bustling business center. There were but few people
+on the main street, and most of those were visitors.
+
+"There are two of those Gypsy women, Ruth!" hissed Agnes in her
+sister's ear, as they came out of a store.
+
+Ruth looked up to see the woman who had been in the train, and
+another. They were both humbly dressed, but in gay colors. Ruth looked
+up and down the street for the disguised figure of the young girl, but
+_she_ was not in sight.
+
+"My goodness, Ruth!" said Agnes, "what do you suppose that old hag of
+a Gypsy wants you for?"
+
+"She isn't----" began Ruth. Then she thought better of taking Agnes
+into her confidence just then and did not finish her impulsively begun
+speech, but said:
+
+"We won't bother about it. She probably won't find us up at Willowbend
+Camp."
+
+"I should hope _not_!" cried Agnes. "I don't want to get any better
+acquainted with those Gyps."
+
+The matter, however, caused Ruth to think more particularly of Rosa
+Wildwood. She had not yet found a boarding place for the Southern
+girl, and Rosa was to come down to Pleasant Cove the next Monday.
+
+Ruth wanted to see Mrs. Bobster, and she did so that very afternoon.
+On their way back to the camp they tied the boat up at the foot of the
+wrecked pleasure park and walked up the broken boardwalk to the
+shoe-house.
+
+"Here's your bread, girls--warm from the oven," said the brisk little
+woman. "And if you want a pan of seed cookies----"
+
+"Oh! don't we, just!" sighed Agnes.
+
+The girls sat down to eat some of the delicacies right then and there,
+and Mrs. Bobster brought a pitcher of cool milk from the well-curb.
+Ruth at once opened the subject of getting board for Rosa with the
+little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+"Wal, I re'lly don't know what ter say to ye," declared Mrs. Bobster.
+"I ain't never kalkerlated ter run a boardin' house----
+
+"But one young lady! I dunno. They wanted me to take old Mr. Kendricks
+ter board last winter; the town selectmen did. But I told 'em 'No.' I
+warn't runnin' a boardin' house--nor yet the poorfarm."
+
+"Poorfarm?" questioned Ruth, puzzled by the reference.
+
+"Yep. Ye see, there ain't been no town poor here in Pleasant Cove for
+a number o' years. Last winter old Mr. Kendricks see fit to let the
+town board him. He's spry enough to go clammin' in the summer; an' he
+kin steer a boat when his rheumatics ain't so bad. But winters is
+gittin' hard on him.
+
+"It didn't seem good jedgment," Mrs. Bobster said, reflectively, "to
+open the poorfarm jest for _him_. B'sides, they'd got the old farm let
+to good advantage for another year to Silas Holcomb. So they come to
+me.
+
+"Now, Mr. Kendricks is as nice an old man as ever you'd wish ter see,"
+pursued Mrs. Bobster. "He comes of good folks--jest as good as my poor
+Eddie's folks.
+
+"The town selectmen had consid'rable trouble gettin' Mr. Kendricks
+took, 'count o' his being so pertic'lar. Yeast bread seemed ter be his
+chief objection. He couldn't make up his mind to it on account of
+havin' had sour milk biscuit all his life; but finally, after I'd said
+'No,' they got Mis' Ann 'Liza Cobbles to agree to give him hot bread
+three times a day like he was used to.
+
+"But, lawsy me! She ain't a com-_plete_ cook--no, indeed! Mr.
+Kendricks said her cookin' warn't up to the mark, an' if he has to go
+on the town this comin' winter he shouldn't go to Mis' Cobbles.
+
+"The selectmen may be driv' to open the poorfarm ag'in, an' to gittin'
+somebody ter do for Mr. Kendricks proper.
+
+"Maybe it's a sort of lesson to the folks of Pleasant Cove," sighed
+Mrs. Bobster, "for bein' sort o' proud-like through reason of not
+havin' no town poor for endurin' of ten years. I view it that way
+myself.
+
+"Mr. Kendricks says he feels as if he was meant ter be a notice to
+'em; ter be ready an' waitin' ter help people in a proper way; not to
+be boardin' of 'em 'round where they might git dyspepsia fastened on
+'em through eatin' of unproper food."
+
+Agnes was giggling; but Ruth managed to get the talkative old lady
+back into the track she wanted her in. The Corner House girl
+expatiated upon how little trouble Rosa would be, and what a nice girl
+she was.
+
+"Well!" said Mrs. Bobster, "I might try her. You offer awful temptin'
+money, Miss. And poor Eddie allus said I'd do anything for money!"
+
+It had been fortunate for the deceased Mr. Bobster, as Ruth had
+learned, that his wife _had_ been willing to earn money in any honest
+way; for Mr. Bobster himself seldom had done a day's work after his
+marriage to the brisk little woman.
+
+So the matter of Rosa Wildwood's board and lodging was arranged, and
+the Kenways went back to their boat. Evening was approaching, and with
+it dark clouds had rolled up from the horizon, threatening a bad
+night.
+
+Ruth and Agnes found a head wind to contend with when they pushed off
+the cedar boat. Ruth had learned to run the little motor propeller,
+and she started it at once. Otherwise they would have a hard time
+pulling up to Willowbend Camp.
+
+During the week there were few men at the tent colonies. On Saturdays
+and Sundays the husbands and fathers were present in force; but now
+there was not a handful of adult males in either the Enterprise or
+Willowbend encampments.
+
+The Corner House girls were helped ashore, however, and they hauled
+their boat clear up to the front of their tent. There was quite a
+swell on, and the waves ran far up the beach, hissing and spattering
+spray into the air. The wind swept this spray against the tents in
+gusts, like rain.
+
+But there was no rain--only wind. The black clouds threatened, but
+there was no downpour. There was no such thing as having a coal fire,
+however; the wind blew right down the stack and filled the tent with
+choking smoke.
+
+They lit a lantern and ate a cold supper. The flaps of the tent were
+laced down, for they had been warned against letting the wind get
+under. Now and then, however, a chill draught blew over them and the
+partition creaked.
+
+"It's just like a storm at sea," said Agnes, rather fearfully, yet
+enjoying the novel sensation. "We might as well be on a sailing ship."
+
+"Not much!" exclaimed Ruth. "At least, we're on an even keel."
+
+They agreed to go to bed early. Lying in the cots, well covered with
+the blankets, seemed the safest place on such a night. There was no
+shouting back and forth from tent to tent, and no visiting.
+
+Lights went out early. The wind shrieked in the treetops back from the
+shore, and in the lulls the girls could hear the breakers booming on
+the rocks outside the cove.
+
+Tess and Dot went to sleep--tired with the day's activities. Not so
+the older girls. They lay and listened, and shivered as the booming
+voice of the wind grew in volume, and the water seemed to drive
+farther and farther up the beaches.
+
+Forever after, this night was known at Pleasant Cove as "the night of
+the big wind." But as yet it had only begun and the Corner House girls
+had no idea of what was in store for them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN IMPORTANT ARRIVAL
+
+
+Agnes _did_ fall asleep; but Ruth only dozed, if she closed her eyes
+at all. The rumble of the storm shook the nerves of the oldest Corner
+House girl--and no wonder!
+
+Ruth felt the weight of responsibility for her sisters' safety. If
+anything happened while they were under canvas she knew that she would
+be blamed.
+
+Sometimes the spray swept in from the river and spattered on the
+canvas like a drenching shower. The walls of the tent shook. She heard
+many sounds without that she could not explain--and some of these
+sounds frightened her.
+
+Suppose the tent should blow down? The way the wind sometimes shook it
+reminded Ruth of a dog shaking a bit of rag.
+
+Then, when the wind held its breath for a moment, the roaring of the
+sea in the distance was a savage sound to which the girl's ears were
+not attuned.
+
+She had left the lantern lit and it swung from a rope tied to the
+ridgepole of the tent, and beyond the half partition of canvas. Its
+flickering light cast weird shadows upon the canvas roof.
+
+Now and then the spray beat against the front of the tent, while the
+roof shook and shivered as though determined to tear away from the
+walls. Ruth wished she had gone all around the tent before dark to
+make sure the pegs were driven well into the sand.
+
+Occasionally children cried shrilly, for the noise of the elements
+frightened them; Ruth was thankful that Tess and Dot slept on.
+
+She slept herself at last; how long she did not know, for when she
+awoke she was too greatly frightened to look at her watch. The wind
+seemed suddenly to have increased. It seemed struggling to tear the
+tent up by the roots!
+
+And as the canvas shook, and swelled, and strove to burst its
+fastenings, there came a sudden snap on one side and one of the pegs
+flew high in the air at the end of its rope, coming down slap on the
+roof of the tent!
+
+"The peg has pulled out!" gasped Ruth, sitting up in her cot and
+throwing off the blanket.
+
+The canvas was straining and bellying fearfully at the point where the
+peg had drawn. It was likely to draw the pegs on either side. Ruth
+very well knew that if a broad enough opening was made for the wind to
+get under, the tent would be torn from its fastenings.
+
+She hopped out upon the matting and shook Agnes by the shoulder.
+
+"Get up! Get up, Ag!" she called, breathlessly. "Help me."
+
+She ran to the front of the tent for the maul--a long-handled,
+heavy-headed croquet-mallet. When she returned with it, Agnes was
+trying to rub her eyes open.
+
+"Come quick, Ag! We'll be blown away," declared Ruth.
+
+"I--I----What'll we do?" whimpered Agnes.
+
+"We must hold the tent down. Come on! Get into your mackintosh. I'll
+get the lantern."
+
+Around the upright pole in the sleeping part of the tent were hung the
+girls' outer garments. Ruth got into her own raincoat and buttoned it
+to her ankles. She left Agnes struggling with hers while she ran to
+unhang the lantern. She knew the night must be as black as a pocket
+outside.
+
+"Wha--what you going to do?" stuttered Agnes.
+
+"Drive the pegs in deeper. One of them pulled out."
+
+"Oh, dear! _Can_ we?"
+
+"I guess we'll have to, if we don't want to lose our tent. Hear that
+wind?"
+
+"It--it sounds like cannon roaring."
+
+"Come on!"
+
+"But that isn't the front flap----"
+
+"Think I'm going to unlace that front flap when the wind's blowing
+right into it?"
+
+"Can't we get out yonder, where the peg has been pulled?"
+
+"But how'll we get in again when all the stakes are driven down hard?"
+snapped Ruth, beginning to unlace the flaps of the rear wall of the
+tent.
+
+"Oh! oh!" moaned Agnes. "Hear that wind?"
+
+"I wouldn't care if it only _hollered_," gasped Ruth. "It's what it
+will do if it ever gets under this tent, that troubles me!"
+
+She unlaced the flaps only a little way. "Come along with that
+lantern, Ag. We've got to crawl under."
+
+"'Get down and get under,'" giggled Agnes, hysterically.
+
+But she brought the lantern and followed Ruth out of the tent, on
+hands and knees. When they stood up and tried to go around to that
+side of the tent where the peg had pulled out, the wind almost knocked
+them down.
+
+"And how the sleet cuts!" gasped Agnes, her arm across her eyes for
+protection.
+
+"It's sand," explained Ruth. "I thought it was spray from the river.
+But a good deal of it is sand--just like a sand-storm in the desert."
+
+"Well!" grumbled Agnes, "I hope it's killing a lot of those sandfleas
+that bother us so. I don't see how they can live and be blown about
+this way."
+
+Ruth tackled the first post at the corner and beat it down as hard as
+she could, Agnes holding the lantern so that the older girl could see
+where to strike.
+
+They went from one peg to the next, taking each in rotation. And when
+they reached the one that had pulled out entirely, Ruth drove that
+into the ground just as far as it would go.
+
+Strangely enough, throughout all this business, Tess and Dot did not
+awake. Ruth went clear around the tent, driving the stakes. The wind
+howled; the sand and spray blew; and the voices of the Night and of
+the Storm seemed fairly to yell at them. Still the smaller Corner
+House girls slept through it all. Ruth and Agnes crept back into the
+tent and laced the flaps down in safety.
+
+A little later, before either of them fell asleep again, they heard
+shouting and confusion at a distance. In the morning they learned that
+two of the tents in the Enterprise Camp had blown down.
+
+The shore was strewn with wreckage, too, when daybreak came; but the
+wind seemed to have blown itself out. Many small craft had come
+ashore, and some were damaged. It was not often that the summer
+visitors at Pleasant Cove saw any such gale as this had been.
+
+Everything was all right with the Corner House girls, and Ruth decided
+they would stick to the tent, in spite of the fact that some of the
+camping families were frightened away from the tent colonies by this
+disgraceful exhibition of Mr. Wind!
+
+The smaller Kenways, as well as the bigger girls, were enjoying the
+out-of-door life immensely. They were already as brown as berries.
+They ran all day, bare-headed and bare-legged, on the sands. It was
+plain to be seen that the change from Milton to Pleasant Cove was
+doing all the Corner House girls a world of good.
+
+And during the extremely pleasant days that immediately followed the
+night of the big wind, many new colonists came to the tents. Two big
+tents were erected in the Willowbend Camp, for Joe Eldred and _his_
+friends--and that included, of course, Neale O'Neil. But the Milton
+boys would not arrive until the next week.
+
+On Monday afternoon the Corner House girls walked down to the railroad
+station to greet Rosa Wildwood. It had been a very hot day in town and
+it was really hot at Pleasant Cove, as well.
+
+"Oh! you poor thing!" gasped Ruth, receiving Rosa in her strong arms
+as she stumbled off the car steps with her bag.
+
+"I'm as thin as the last run of shad, am I not?" asked Rosa, laughing.
+"That train was _awful_! I am baked. It's never like this down South.
+The air is so much dryer there; there isn't this humidity. Oh!"
+
+"Well, you're here all right now, Rosa," cried Ruth. "We have a nice,
+easy carriage for you to ride in. And the _dearest_ place for you to
+live!"
+
+"And scrumptious eating, Rose," added Agnes.
+
+"With the little old woman who lives in a shoe," declared Tess, eager
+to add her bit of information.
+
+Dot's finger had strayed to the corner of her mouth, as she stared.
+For she had never met Rosa before, and she was naturally rather a
+bashful child.
+
+"Now!" cried Ruth, again. "Where is he?"
+
+"Who?" demanded Agnes, staring all about. "Neale didn't come, did he?"
+
+"Oh, he's up in the baggage-car ahead," said Rosa, laughing.
+
+"You sit right down here till I get him," Ruth commanded.
+
+"Here's the check," Rosa said, and to the amazement of the other
+Corner House girls Ruth ran right away toward the head of the train
+with the baggage check, and without saying another word.
+
+There were two baggage cars on the long train and from the open door
+of the first one the man was throwing trunks and bags onto the big
+wheel-truck.
+
+So Ruth ran on to the other car. The side-door was wheeled back just
+as she arrived, and a glad bark welcomed her appearance.
+
+Tom Jonah stood in the doorway, straining at his leash held in the
+hands of the baggageman. His tongue lolled out on his chest like a red
+necktie, and he was laughing just as plainly as ever a dog _did_
+laugh.
+
+"I see he knows you, Miss," said the man. "You don't have to prove
+property. He sure is glad to see you," and he accepted the check.
+
+"No gladder than I am to see him," said Ruth. "Let him jump down,
+please."
+
+She caught the leather strap as the baggageman tossed it toward her,
+and Tom Jonah bounded about her in an ecstasy of delight.
+
+"Down, sir!" she commanded. "Now, Tom Jonah, come and see the girls.
+But behave."
+
+He barked loudly, but trotted along beside her most sedately. Tess and
+Dot had heard him, and deserting Rosa and Agnes, they came flying up
+the platform to meet Ruth and the big dog.
+
+The two younger Corner House girls hugged Tom Jonah, and he licked
+their hands in greeting. Agnes was as extravagantly glad to see him as
+were the others.
+
+"How did you come to send for him, Ruthie?" Agnes cried.
+
+"I thought we might need a chaperon at the tent," laughed Ruth.
+
+"The Gyps!" exclaimed Agnes, under her breath. "Let them come now, if
+they want to. You're a smart girl, Ruthie."
+
+"Sh!" commanded the older sister. "Don't let the children hear."
+
+They helped Rosa into the wagonette and then climbed in after her.
+Ruth had taken off Tom Jonah's leash and the good old dog trotted
+after the carriage as it rolled through Main Street and out upon the
+Shore Road toward the tent colonies.
+
+Rosa brought all the news of home to the Corner House girls and many
+messages from Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus. Of course, they could
+expect no word from Aunt Sarah, for it was not her way to be
+sympathetic or show any deep interest in what her adopted nieces were
+doing.
+
+The girls from the old Corner House might have been a little homesick
+had there not been so much to take up their attention each hour at
+Pleasant Cove.
+
+They brought Rosa to the little old woman who lived in a shoe, and the
+moment Mrs. Bobster saw how weak and white she was her sympathy went
+out to her.
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!" she said, clucking almost as loudly as Agamemnon
+himself. "We'll soon fix you up, my dear. If you stay long enough here
+at the beach, you'll be as brown and strong as these other gals."
+
+Rosa put her arm about Ruth's neck when the Corner House girls were
+about to leave.
+
+"This is a heavenly place, Ruth Kenway, and you are an angel for
+bringing me down heah. I don't know what greater thing anybody could
+do fo' me--and you aren't even kin!"
+
+"Don't bother, Rosa. I haven't done much----"
+
+"There's nothing in the world--but one thing--that could make me
+happier."
+
+Ruth looked at her curiously, and Rosa added:
+
+"To find June. I hope to find her some day--yes, I do."
+
+"And suppose I should help you do _that_?" laughed the oldest Corner
+House girl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TWO GIRLS IN A BOAT--TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG!
+
+
+"Oh, Dot! do come here. Did you ever see such a funny thing in all
+your life?"
+
+Tess Kenway was just as earnest as though the discovery she had made
+was really of great moment. The two bare-legged girls were on the
+sands below the tent colony of Willowbend, and the tide was out.
+
+The receding waves had just left this wet flat bare. Here and there
+the sand still dimpled to the heave of the tide, and little rivers of
+water ran into the hollows and out again.
+
+"What is the matter, Tess?" asked Dot, wonderingly.
+
+"See!"
+
+Tess pointed down at her feet--where the drab, wet sand showed
+lighter-colored under the pressure of her weight.
+
+"What is it?" gasped the amazed Dot.
+
+There was a tiny round hole in the sand--just like an ant hole, only
+there was no "hill" thrown up about it. As Tess tip-tilted on her toes
+to bring more pressure to bear near the orifice in the sand, a little
+fountain of water spurted into the air--shot as though from a fairy
+gun buried in the sand.
+
+"Goodness!" gasped Dot again. "What _is_ that?"
+
+"That's what I say," responded Tess. "Did you ever see the like?"
+
+"Oh! here's another," cried Dorothy, who chanced to step near a
+similar vent. "See it squirt, Tess! See it squirt!"
+
+"What kind of a creature do you suppose can be down there?" asked the
+bigger girl.
+
+"It--it can't be anything very big," suggested Dot. "At least, it must
+be awfully narrow to get down through the little hole, and pull itself
+'way out of sight."
+
+This suggestion certainly opened a puzzling vista of possibilities to
+the minds of both inland-bred girls. What sort of an animal could
+possibly crawl into such a small aperture--and yet throw such a
+comparatively powerful stream of water into the air?
+
+They found several more of the little air-holes. Whenever they stamped
+upon the sand beside one, up would spring the fountain!
+
+"Just like the books say a whale squirts water through its nose,"
+declared Tess, who had rather a rough-and-ready knowledge of some
+facts of natural history.
+
+A man with a basket on his arm and a four-pronged, short-handled rake
+in his hand, was working his way across the flats; sometimes stooping
+and digging quickly with his rake, when he would pick something up and
+toss it into his basket.
+
+He drew near to two Corner House girls, and Dot whispered to Tess:
+
+"Do you suppose he'd know what these holes are for? You ask him,
+Tess."
+
+"And he's digging out something, himself. Do you suppose he's
+collecting clams? Ruth says clams grow here on the shore and folks dig
+them," Tess replied.
+
+"Let's ask about the holes," determined Dot, who was persistent
+whether the cause was good or bad.
+
+The two girls approached the clam-digger, hand in hand. Dot hugged
+tight in the crook of one arm her Alice-doll.
+
+"Please, sir," Tess ventured, "will you tell us what grows down under
+this sand and squirts water up at us through such a teeny, weeny
+hole?"
+
+The man was a very weather-beaten looking person, with his shirt open
+at the neck displaying a brawny chest. He smiled down upon the girls.
+
+"How's that, shipmet?" he asked, in a very husky voice. "Show me them
+same holes."
+
+The sisters led the way, and the very saltish man followed. It was not
+until then that Tess and Dot noticed that one of his legs was of wood,
+and he stumped along in a most awkward manner.
+
+"Hel-_lo_!" growled the man, seeing the apertures in the sand. "Them's
+clams, an' jest what I'm arter. By your lief----"
+
+He struck the rake down into the sand just beyond one of the holes and
+dug quickly for half a minute. Then he tossed out of the hole he had
+dug a nice, fat clam.
+
+"There he be, shipmets," declared the clam-digger, who probably had a
+habit of addressing everybody as "shipmate."
+
+"Oh--but--did _he_ squirt the water up at us, sir?" gasped Dot.
+
+The wooden-legged man grinned again and seized the clam between a firm
+finger and thumb. When he pinched it, the bivalve squirted through its
+snout a fine spray.
+
+"Oh, mercy!" exclaimed Tess, drawing back.
+
+"But--but _how_ did he get down into the sand and only leave such a
+tiny hole behind him?" demanded Dot, bent upon getting information.
+
+"Ah, shipmet! there ye have it. I ain't a l'arned man. I ain't never
+been to school. I went ter sea all my days till I got this here leg
+shot off me and had to take to wearin' a timber-toe. I couldn't tell
+ye, shipmets, how a clam does go down his hole an' yet pulls the hole
+down arter him."
+
+"Oh!" sighed Dot, disappointedly.
+
+"It's one o' them wonders of natur' ye hear tell on. I never could
+understand it myself--like some ignerant landlubbers believin' the
+world is flat! I know it's round, 'cos I been down one side o' it an'
+come up the other!
+
+"As for science, an' them things, shipmets, I don't know nothin' 'bout
+'em. I digs clams; I don't pester none erbout how they grows----"
+
+And he promptly dug another and then a third. The girls watched him,
+fascinated at his skill. Nor did the "peg-leg" seem to trouble him at
+all in his work.
+
+"Please, sir," asked Tess, after some moments, "how did you come to
+lose your leg--your really truly one, I mean?"
+
+"Pi-_rats_," declared the man, with an unmoved countenance.
+"Pi-_rats_, shipmet--on the Spanish Main."
+
+"Oh!" breathed both girls together. Somehow that expression was
+faintly reminiscent to them. Agnes had a book about pirates, and she
+had read out loud in the evenings at the sitting-room table, at the
+old Corner House. Tess and Dot were not aware that "the Spanish Main"
+had been cleared of pirates, some years before this husky-voiced old
+clam-digger was born.
+
+The clam-digger offered no details about his loss, and Tess and Dot
+felt some delicacy about asking further questions. Besides, Tom Jonah
+came along just then and evinced some distaste for the company of the
+roughly dressed one-legged man. Of course, he could not dig clams in
+his best clothes, as Tess pointed out; but Tom Jonah had confirmed
+doubts about all ill-dressed people. So the girls accompanied the dog
+back towards the tents.
+
+The big girls had been out in the boat and Ruth had left Agnes to
+bring up the oars and crab nets, as well as to moor the boat, while
+she hastened to get dinner.
+
+The tide being on the turn they could not very well pull the boat up
+to the mooring post; but there was a long painter by which it could be
+tied to the post. Agnes, however, carried the oars up to the tent and
+then forgot about the rest of her task as she dipped into a new book.
+
+Tess and Dot came to the empty boat and at once climbed in. Tom Jonah
+objected at first. He ran about on the sand--even plunged into the
+water a bit, and put both front paws on the gunwale.
+
+If ever a dog said, "Please, _please_, little mistresses, get out of
+the boat!" old Tom Jonah said it!
+
+But the younger Corner House girls paid no attention to him. They went
+out to the stern, which was in quite deep water, and began clawing
+overboard with the crab nets. With a whine, the dog leaped into the
+craft.
+
+Now, whether the jar the dog gave it as he jumped into the boat, or
+his weight when he joined the girls in the stern, set the cedar boat
+afloat, will never be known. However, it slid into the water and
+floated free.
+
+"We can catch some crabs, too, maybe, Tess," Dot said.
+
+Neither of them noticed that the oars were gone, but had they been in
+the boat, Tess or Dot could not have used them--much. And surely Tom
+Jonah could not row.
+
+They did not even notice that they were afloat until the tide, which
+was just at the turn, twisted the boat's nose about and they began
+drifting up the river.
+
+"Oh, my, Dot!" gasped Tess. "Where are we going?"
+
+"Oh-oo-ee!" squealed Dot, raking wildly with one of the nets. "I
+almost caught one."
+
+"But we're adrift, Dot!" cried Tess.
+
+The younger girl was not so much impressed at first. "Oh, I guess
+they'll come for us," she said.
+
+"But Ruth and Aggie can't reach us--'nless they swim."
+
+"Won't we float ashore again? We floated out here," said Dot.
+
+She refused to be frightened, and Tess bethought her that she had no
+right to let her little sister be disturbed too much. She was old
+enough herself, however, to see that there was peril in this
+involuntary voyage. The tide was coming in strongly and the boat was
+quickly passing the bend. Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out
+for help, they were out of sight of the camp and there was nobody to
+whom to call.
+
+Tom Jonah had crouched down in the stern, with his head on his paws.
+He felt that he had done his duty. He had not allowed the two small
+girls to go without him on this voyage. He was with them; what harm
+could befall?
+
+"I--I guess Alice would like to go ashore, Tess," hesitated Dot, at
+last, having seized her doll and sat down upon one of the seats. The
+boat was jumping a good deal as the little waves slapped her, first on
+one side and then on the other. Without anybody steering she made a
+hard passage of it.
+
+"I'd like to get ashore myself, child," snapped Tess. "But I don't see
+how we are going to do it."
+
+"Oh, Tess! are we going to be carried 'way out to sea?"
+
+"Don't be a goosey! We're going _up_ the river, not _down_," said the
+more observant Tess.
+
+"Well, then!" sighed Dot, relieved. "It isn't so bad, is it? Of
+course, we'll stop somewhere."
+
+"But it will soon be dinnertime," said her sister. "And I guess Ruth
+and Aggie won't know where we've gone to."
+
+In fact, nobody about the tent colony had noticed the cedar boat
+floating away with the two girls in it--to say nothing of the dog!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE GYPSIES AGAIN
+
+
+When Ruth shouted to Agnes from the kitchen, where she was frying
+crabs, to call the children, Agnes dropped the book she had been
+reading and remembered for the first time that she had neglected to
+tie the boat.
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" she shrieked. "See what I've done!"
+
+Ruth came to the opening in the front of the tent, flushed and
+disheveled, demanding:
+
+"Well, _what_? This old fat snaps so!"
+
+"The boat!" cried Agnes.
+
+Ruth stared up and down the shore. There were other boats drawn up on
+the sand and a few moored beyond low-water mark; but their boat was
+not in sight.
+
+"Have you let it get away, Agnes Kenway?" Ruth demanded.
+
+"Well! you don't suppose I went down there and pushed it off, do you?"
+
+"This is no laughing matter----"
+
+"I guess I--I'm not laughing," gulped Agnes. "It--it's go-o-one! See!
+the tide is flowing in and I forgot to tie it."
+
+She was a little mixed here; it was the boat she had forgotten to tie.
+
+"So," murmured Ruth; "if the boat had been tied, the tide wouldn't
+have carried it away," and she had no intention of punning, either!
+"_Now_ what shall we do? That boat cost seventy-five dollars, the man
+said."
+
+"Oh, Ruthie!"
+
+"What will Mr. Howbridge say?"
+
+"Oh, Ruthie!"
+
+"No use crying about it," said the oldest Corner House girl, with
+decision. "_That_ won't help."
+
+"But--but it's gone out to sea."
+
+"Nonsense! The tide has taken it up the river. It's gone round the
+bend. I hope it won't be smashed on the rocks, that's all. We must go
+after it."
+
+"How?" asked the tearful Agnes.
+
+"Get another boat, of course. But let's eat. The children will be
+hungry, and---- My goodness! the crabs are burning up!" and she ran
+back into the tent. "Get Tess and Dot, and tell them to hurry!" she
+called from inside.
+
+But Tess and Dot were not to be found. The beach just then was
+practically deserted. It was the dinner hour and the various campers
+all had the sort of appetites that demands meals served promptly on
+time.
+
+Agnes ran to the other tents in Camp Willowbend; but her small sisters
+were not with any of the neighbors. It was strange. They had been
+forbidden to go out of sight of their own tent when neither Ruth nor
+Agnes was with them; and Tess and Dot were remarkably obedient
+children.
+
+"I certainly do not understand it," Ruth said, when Agnes brought back
+the news.
+
+At that moment a shuffling step sounded outside the tent and a husky
+voice demanded:
+
+"Any clams terday, lady? Fresh clams--jest dug. Ten cents a dozen;
+two-bits for fifty; half a dollar a hundred. Fresh clams!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Agnes, springing to the tent entrance so suddenly that the
+wooden-legged clam-man started back in surprise. "Oh! have you seen my
+sisters anywhere on the beach?"
+
+"Hel-_lo_!" growled the startled man. "I dunno 'bout thet thar,
+shipmet. What kind o' sisters be they?"
+
+"Two little girls," said Ruth, eagerly, joining Agnes at the opening.
+"One of them carried a doll in her arms. She is dark. The bigger one
+is fair."
+
+The saltish old fellow chuckled deep in his hairy throat. "Guess I
+seen 'em, shipmets," he said. "Them's the leetle gals that didn't know
+clam-holes."
+
+"Well! what became of them?" demanded the impatient Agnes.
+
+"Why----I dug 'em, shipmet, an' they air in this i-den-ti-cal basket
+now," declared the clam-digger.
+
+"Well!" gasped Agnes, behind her hand. "Maybe the children didn't know
+clam-holes; but _he_ doesn't know beans!"
+
+Ruth asked again: "We mean, what became of the girls, sir?"
+
+"I couldn't tell ye, shipmet. D'ye want any clams?" pursued this man
+of one idea. "Ten cents a dozen; two-bits for----"
+
+"I'll buy some clams--yes," cried Ruth, in some desperation. "But tell
+us where you last saw our sisters, sir?"
+
+"How many you want, shipmet?" demanded the quite unmoved old fellow.
+
+"Two!" cried Agnes. "There were only two of them. Two little
+girls----Oh!"
+
+Ruth had pinched her, and now said, calmly: "Please count out a
+hundred for us, sir. Here is fifty cents. And please tell us where you
+saw our little sisters?"
+
+"I seed two small gals, shipmet, down on the flats yonder," said the
+clam digger, setting down his basket and squatting with the wooden leg
+stretched out before him. He began to busily count the clams onto the
+little platform before the tent.
+
+"Where did they go, sir?" asked Ruth.
+
+"I didn't take no pertic'lar notice of 'em, shipmet. They had a
+dratted dog with them----"
+
+"Oh! Tom Jonah is with them. Then they _can't_ be lost," gasped Agnes.
+
+"Las' time I 'member of cockin' me eye at 'em," declared the old clam
+digger, "they was inter a boat right down here below this tent. The
+dog was with 'em."
+
+He counted out the last clam, took his fifty cents, and departed. The
+two older Corner House girls looked at each other. Agnes was very
+white.
+
+"Do--do you suppose they drifted away in the boat?" she whispered.
+
+"I expect so," agreed Ruth. "Come on, Ag. We'll go up beyond the bend
+and see if we can sight the boat."
+
+"Oh! if they fall overboard----"
+
+"Tom Jonah would bring them both ashore if they did, I believe," said
+Ruth, though her voice shook a little. "Do you want something to eat
+before you go?"
+
+Agnes looked at her scornfully. "I don't ever want to eat again if Dot
+and Tess aren't found," she sobbed. "Come on!"
+
+"We'll take something along to eat, if you don't want to eat here,"
+Ruth said, sensibly. "The children will be hungry enough when we find
+them, you may be sure."
+
+"_If_ we find them," suggested the desperate Agnes.
+
+"Don't talk like a goose, Ag!" exclaimed the older sister. "Of course
+we'll find them. They've only drifted away."
+
+"But you said yourself the boat might be smashed against the rocks."
+
+"Tom Jonah's with them," said Ruth, confidently. "He could live in the
+water altogether, you know. Don't be worried about the children being
+drowned---- Oh, Agnes!"
+
+The change in her sister's voice startled Agnes, who had gone into the
+back part of the tent. She ran out to where Ruth was wrapping the
+fried soft-shell crabs in a sheet of brown paper.
+
+Ruth was staring through the open flap of the tent. Outside, about
+where the clam digger had stood a few moments before, was the tall,
+scarred-faced Gypsy tramp that they had seen at the nomads' camp the
+day they came to Pleasant Cove!
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" echoed Agnes, coming to Ruth's side.
+
+But the older sister quickly recovered her self-possession. Her first
+thought was:
+
+"If Tom Jonah were only here!"
+
+Ruth went to the door. The man leered at her and doffed his old cap.
+
+"Good day, little lady," he said. "She remember me--Big Jim--heh?"
+
+"I remember you," Ruth said, shortly.
+
+"Ver' proud," declared the Gypsy, bowing again.
+
+"What do you want?" asked the oldest Corner House girl, with much more
+apparent courage than she really felt.
+
+"You remember Zaliska--heh?" asked the man, shrewdly.
+
+"I remember her," said Ruth.
+
+"Little lady seen Zaliska since that day--heh?"
+
+"What do you want to know for?" demanded Ruth, puzzled, yet standing
+her ground. She remembered in a flash all her suspicions regarding the
+young girl who masqueraded as the Gypsy Queen.
+
+"Zaliska come here, heh?" said the man, doggedly, and with something
+besides curiosity in his narrow eyes.
+
+"I don't know why I should tell you if she had been here," declared
+Ruth, while Agnes clung to her arm in fear.
+
+"The little lady would fool Big Jim. No! We want find Zaliska."
+
+"Don't come here for her," said Ruth, sharply. "She's not here."
+
+"But she been here--heh?" repeated the fellow. "She come here like she
+was dressed at the camp--heh? Then she go away different--heh?"
+
+Ruth knew well enough what he meant. He hinted that the masquerading
+girl had come here to see Ruth, and discarded her queen's garments and
+slipped away in her own more youthful character.
+
+"I'm not sure that I know what you mean," she said to the evil-faced
+man. "But one thing I can tell you--and you can believe it. I have not
+seen Zaliska since that day we girls came by your camp."
+
+"Ha! she come here to see you----"
+
+"No. She went to the hotel and to a friend's house in the village,"
+said Ruth, "asking for me. I did not see her. She has not come here."
+
+"Huh!" grunted the man, and backed away, doubtfully.
+
+"Now we are busy and you must not trouble us any more," declared Ruth,
+hurriedly. "Come, Agnes!"
+
+"He'll come in the tent and search it," whispered Agnes, in her
+sister's ear.
+
+"I will speak to Mr. Stryver. He is here to-day," said Ruth,
+mentioning a neighbor in the camp.
+
+"Big Jim," as the Gypsy called himself, had backed away from the tent,
+but he watched the departing girls with lowering gaze. At Mr.
+Stryver's tent Ruth halted long enough to tell the gentleman to keep
+his eye on the Gypsy man who was hanging about the camp.
+
+"The women were here to sell baskets and such like truck while you
+girls were off crabbing, this morning," said Mrs. Stryver. "It gives
+me the shivers to have those folks around. I think we ought to have
+these tent camps policed."
+
+"I'll 'tend to this fellow," promised Mr. Stryver, who was a burly
+man, and not afraid of anything.
+
+Ruth hurried Agnes away toward the bend without another word.
+
+"Why didn't you tell them Tess and Dot were lost?" asked Agnes,
+gulping down a sob.
+
+"I don't want anybody to know it, if we can help," returned Ruth. "It
+just looks as though we didn't take sufficient care of them."
+
+"It--it was all my fault," choked Agnes. "If I had tied the boat as
+you told me----"
+
+"It doesn't matter whose fault it is," said Ruth, quickly. "Or, if it
+is anybody's fault! We don't want folks to say that the Corner House
+girls from Milton don't know enough to take care of each other while
+they are under canvas."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ON WILD GOOSE ISLAND
+
+
+"My!" Tess gasped, sitting in the stern of the drifting boat, "how
+fast the shores go past, Dot! We're going up the river awfully quick."
+
+"And so j-j-jerky!" exclaimed her sister, clinging to the Alice-doll.
+
+"You aren't really afraid, are you, Dot?"
+
+"No-o. Only for Alice. She's always been weakly, you know, since that
+awful time she got buried alive," said Dot, seriously. "And if she
+should get wet and catch her death of cold----"
+
+"But you mustn't drop her overboard," warned Tess.
+
+"Do you s'pose I _would_, Tess Kenway?" demanded Dot, quite hurt by
+the suggestion.
+
+"If she did fall overboard, Tom Jonah would save her, of course," went
+on Tess.
+
+"Oh! don't you say such things," cried Dot. "And _do_, please, stop
+the boat from jerking so!"
+
+"I--I guess it wants to be steered," Tess said.
+
+The tiller ropes were at hand and Tess had observed Ruth and Agnes use
+them. She began experimenting with them and soon got the hang of using
+the rudder. But as the boat was propelled, only by the tide, it
+_would_ "wabble."
+
+Tom Jonah watched all the small girls did with his keen eyes. But he
+scarcely moved. The boat floated on and on. Tess did not know how to
+work the boat ashore--indeed, caught as the craft was in the strong
+tide-rip, it would have taken considerable exertion with the oars to
+have driven it to land.
+
+There chanced to be no other boats beyond the bend on this day. On
+either hand there were farms, but the houses were too far from the
+shores for the dwellers therein to notice the plight of the two small
+girls and the big dog in the bobbing cedar boat.
+
+The shores at the river's edge were wooded for the most part, as was
+the long and narrow island in the middle of the river, not far ahead.
+This latter was called Wild Goose Island, as Tess and Dot knew.
+
+"Maybe the boat will go ashore there," said Dot, more cheerfully.
+
+"There are berries on that island," cried Tess. "Only they were not
+ripe when we were there last week." She was beginning to feel hungry;
+it was past midday.
+
+"But we can't walk back to the tent from there," objected Dot.
+
+"No-o," admitted Tess. "It'll be land, just the same!"
+
+But the tide swept the cedar boat out from the lower end of the island
+and up the northern channel. It was this fact that hid the drifting
+boat from the anxious eyes of Ruth and Agnes when they came around the
+bend, expecting to see the missing craft. The island hid it.
+
+Wild Goose Island was more than half a mile long. In the channel where
+the boat floated, the current of the river and the inflowing tide
+began to battle.
+
+There were eddies that seized the boat and swept it in circles. The
+surface of the channel was rippled by small waves. The boat bobbed
+every-which-way, for Tess could not control the rudder.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" gasped Dot. "I--I am afraid my Alice-doll will be sick.
+Do--don't you s'pose we can get ashore, Tess?"
+
+But Tess did not see how they could do that, although the boat was now
+and then swept very close to the shore of the island.
+
+The island was a famous picnicking place; but there were no pleasure
+seekers there to-day. The shore seemed deserted as the girls were
+swept on by the resistless tide.
+
+Suddenly Dot stood right up and squealed--pointing at the island. Tom
+Jonah lifted his head and barked.
+
+"There's somebody, Tess!" declared Dot.
+
+The bigger Corner House girl had seen the face break through the
+fringe of bushes on the island shore. It was a dark, beautiful face,
+and it was a girl's.
+
+"Oh! oh! Let's call her," gasped Tess. "She'll help us."
+
+The two small Kenways had a strong belief in the goodness of humanity
+at large. They expected that anybody who saw their plight would come
+to their rescue if possible.
+
+For fully a minute, however, the girl in the bushes of Wild Goose
+Island did not come out into the open. Tess and Dot shouted again and
+again, while Tom Jonah lifted up his head and bayed most mournfully.
+
+If the girl on the island did not want general attention attracted to
+the place, it behooved her to come out of concealment and try to
+pacify the drifting trio in the cedar boat.
+
+Her face was very red when she reappeared in an open place on the
+shore. The distance between her and the boat, which was now caught in
+a small eddy, was only a few yards.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" she demanded, in rather a sharp tone.
+
+"We--we can't stop the boat," responded Tess.
+
+"We want to get ashore," added Dorothy,
+
+"How did you get out there?" asked the strange girl. She was older
+than Ruth, and although she was very pretty, Tess and Dot were quite
+sure they did not like her--much!
+
+"We got in it, and it floated away with us," said Tess.
+
+"Where from?" asked the girl on shore.
+
+"Oh! 'way down the river. 'Round that turn. We live at Willowbend Camp
+with Ruth and Aggie."
+
+"Ruth _Who_?" the other demanded, sharply.
+
+"Our sister, Ruth Kenway," said Tess.
+
+The girl on the island was silent for a moment, while the boat turned
+lazily in the eddy. It now was headed up stream again, when she said:
+
+"Is that dog good for anything?"
+
+"Tom Jonah?" cried Tess and Dot together. "Why, he's the best dog that
+ever _was_," Dot added.
+
+"Does he know anything?" insisted the strange girl.
+
+"Uncle Rufus says he's just as knowin' as any human," Tess said,
+impressively.
+
+"Does he mind?" pursued the girl on the shore.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Tess. "He'll sit up and beg--and shakes hands--and
+lies down and rolls over--and----"
+
+"Say! those tricks won't help you any," cried the other. "Can you make
+him swim ashore here?"
+
+"Why--ee--I don't know," stammered Tess.
+
+"We wouldn't want to let you have Tom Jonah," Dorothy hastened to
+explain.
+
+"Goodness knows, _I_ don't want him," said the big girl, still tartly.
+"But if he can swim ashore with the end of that rope you have coiled
+there in the bow of your boat, tied to his collar, he may be of some
+use."
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Tess, scrambling toward the bow at once.
+
+"See that the other end is fast to your boat," commanded the girl on
+the island.
+
+It was. Tess quickly knotted the free end of the long painter to Tom
+Jonah's collar.
+
+"Now send him ashore, child!" cried the big girl.
+
+Tom Jonah was looking up at Tess with his wonderfully intelligent
+eyes. He seemed to understand just what was expected of him when the
+rope was tied to his collar.
+
+"Go on, Tom Jonah! Overboard!" cried Tess, firmly.
+
+"He--he'll get all wet, Tess," objected Dot, plaintively.
+
+"That won't hurt him, Dot," explained her sister. "You know he loves
+the water."
+
+"Come on, here!" cried the girl on the island, snapping her fingers.
+"Push him overboard."
+
+But Tom Jonah did not need such urging. With his forepaws on the
+gunwale of the boat he barked several times. The boat tipped a little
+and Dot screamed, clutching the Alice-doll tighter to her bosom.
+
+"Go on, Tom Jonah!" shouted Tess. "You're rocking the boat!"
+
+The big dog leaped over the gunwale into the river, leaving the light
+craft tossing in a most exciting fashion. Some water even slopped over
+the side.
+
+"Come on, sir! come on!" shouted the girl ashore.
+
+Tom Jonah swam directly for the beach where she stood. The line
+uncoiled freely behind him, slipping into the water. It was long
+enough to reach the shore where the big girl stood; but none too long.
+
+The sag of the rope in the water began to trouble Tom Jonah, strong as
+he was. Quickly the girl drew off her shoes and stockings and waded in
+to meet the laboring dog.
+
+"Come on, sir! now we'll get them!" she urged, laying hold of the
+line.
+
+The dog scrambled ashore, barking loudly. The line was taut and the
+boat had swung around, tugging on the other end like a thing of life.
+
+"Now we have them!" cried the girl.
+
+She pulled hard on the rope. Tom Jonah, seeing what she was doing,
+caught the rope in his strong jaws, and set back to pull, too. Tess
+and Dot screamed with delight.
+
+As the big girl slowly drew in the rope the dog backed up the beach,
+and so the cedar boat, with its two remaining passengers, came to
+land.
+
+"Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!" gasped Dot, standing in the bow of the
+boat. "I'm so glad to get ashore. And so's my Alice-doll," she added,
+seriously.
+
+Tess helped her sister to jump down upon the sand and then followed,
+herself. Tom Jonah dropped the rope and bounded about them, barking
+his satisfaction. But the strange girl was looking up and down the
+river, and over at the opposite shore, with a mind plainly disturbed.
+
+"Come on, now!" she said, sharply. "Unfasten the rope from that dog's
+collar. We'll keep _that_. It may come in handy."
+
+"Don't you want it to pull the boat up on the beach?" asked Tess, as
+she obeyed the command.
+
+The strange girl was already unfastening the rope from the ring in the
+bow of the boat. She threw the line ashore and then pushed the boat
+off with such vigor that she ran knee deep into the river again.
+
+"Oh! oh!" squealed Dot. "You'll lose our boat."
+
+"I want to lose it," declared the girl, coming back very red in the
+face from her exertions. "I got you kids ashore, 'cause you might have
+been tipped over, or hurt in some way. I'm not going to be bothered by
+that boat."
+
+"But that's Ruthie's boat," exclaimed Tess.
+
+"I can't help it! You young ones go into the bushes there and sit
+down. Keep quiet, too. Take the dog with you and keep _him_ quiet.
+Don't let him run about, or bark. If he does I'll tie him to a tree
+and muzzle him."
+
+"Why--why, I don't think that's very nice of you," said Tess, who was
+too polite, and had too deep a sense of gratitude, to say just what
+she really thought of this conduct on the part of the strange girl.
+"We might have saved the boat for Ruth."
+
+"And it would give me dead away," declared the big girl, angrily. "You
+children be satisfied that I took you ashore. Now keep still!"
+
+"I--I don't believe I like her very much, Tess," Dot whispered again.
+
+The older Corner House girl was not only puzzled by the strange girl's
+actions and words, but she was somewhat frightened. She and Dot sat
+down among the bushes, where they were completely hidden from the
+river and the opposite shore, and called Tom Jonah to them.
+
+He lay at their feet. He had shaken himself comparatively dry, and now
+he put his head on his paws and went to sleep.
+
+"Well," sighed Tess, caressing the dog's head. "I'm glad we have him
+with us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SEARCH
+
+
+Ruth and Agnes went around the wooded point, called "Willowbend," and
+looked up the river. As we already know, the drifting boat, with Tess
+and Dot and Tom Jonah in it, had gone out of sight on the other side
+of Wild Goose Island.
+
+"It never came this way, Ruth!" groaned the frightened Agnes. "They've
+drifted out to sea, just as I said."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," Ruth declared, bound to keep up her sister's
+courage, and knowing well that her conscience was punishing her
+cruelly. "The tide is coming in. They were bound to float up the
+river. But maybe the boat's gone ashore somewhere."
+
+"Or it's sunk," said the lugubrious Agnes.
+
+"Now you stop that, Aggie Kenway!" cried Ruth, stamping her foot. "I
+won't have it. With Tom Jonah those children would not easily get into
+trouble."
+
+"They could fall out of the boat," urged Agnes, wiping her eyes.
+
+"They'd not be foolish enough to rock the boat. It's all right, I tell
+you. I _did_ expect to see the boat from this spot; but it's floated
+into some cove somewhere. The children are safe enough----"
+
+"You don't know!" blubbered Agnes.
+
+"Keep still! Yes, I _do_ know--I know as well as I want to. But we'll
+have to ask for help to find them."
+
+"What kind of help?" asked Agnes.
+
+"We'll get Mr. Stryver's motorboat," said the oldest Corner House
+girl, with decision.
+
+As they went back around the bend they heard a chorus of shouts from
+the camp. Agnes was startled, being in a nervous state, anyway.
+
+"What is that, Ruth? The Gypsies?" she demanded.
+
+"If it is, then the Gypsies have adopted the Milton high school yell.
+Don't you recognize it?" returned Ruth. "The boys have arrived."
+
+"Neale O'Neil!"
+
+"I suppose Neale is with them."
+
+"He will help us," cried the delighted Agnes, sure in the ability of
+Neale O'Neil to do almost anything.
+
+"Well--I suppose he may," admitted Ruth, slowly.
+
+Ruth had made no mistake in identifying the school yell of their boy
+friends. There was a crowd of boys at the two big tents reserved for
+Joe Eldred and his friends. They had just come on the auto-stage.
+
+Already an American flag and the school pennant were being raised on
+the flag-pole before the tents. The scene at Willowbend Camp had been
+a most quiet one ten minutes before; now it seemed to be alive in
+every part, and the boys from Milton were all over it.
+
+They were like a herd of young colts let loose in a new pasture. They
+got the flags up before the girls came back, and then began running
+races, and playing leap-frog on the sand. The midday heat made no
+difference to them.
+
+"Doesn't that water look inviting?" shouted Ben Truman to Joe and some
+of the bigger boys. "When do we go in swimming, Joe?"
+
+"_You_ can go when you like, Bennie," returned Eldred.
+
+"I'd like right now," declared the youngster.
+
+"Clothes and all, I suppose, Ben?" drawled Neale O'Neil.
+
+"What's clothes? I'm not afraid to go in just as I am."
+
+"I dare you, Ben!" shouted another of the boys, knowing the spirit of
+Truman.
+
+"Done!" exclaimed Ben, and sprang away toward the in-coming tide. He
+splashed half-knee deep into the river before the others could call
+him back. He probably had no intention of going any deeper; but
+inadvertently he stepped into one of the holes the wooden-legged man
+had recently made when he dug for clams there, and over Ben pitched
+upon his nose!
+
+There was a great shout of laughter. Ben was submerged--every bit! He
+came up blowing like a porpoise.
+
+"Come on in, fellows! the water's fine!" he gasped, not embarrassed by
+the accident.
+
+"Thank you. We'll wait till the bathing suits arrive," returned Neale.
+"Hello! Here are the Corner House girls--two of them, at least."
+
+He hurried forward to greet Ruth and Agnes. The other boys simmered
+down a little when they observed the girls; most of them doffed their
+caps politely, but only Joe and Neale knew Ruth and Agnes very well.
+
+"Oh, Neale!" was the latter's greeting to her boy friend. "Don't tell
+the other fellows, but Tess and Dot are lost."
+
+"Great goodness, Ag! You don't mean it?" cried Neale, keenly troubled
+by her statement.
+
+"It's not as bad as _that_," Ruth interposed. "They are out in our
+boat with Tom Jonah."
+
+"I knew you had him down here. He'll take care of them," said Neale,
+with confidence.
+
+"Yes, I know," agreed Ruth. "But they all got in the boat unbeknown to
+Aggie and me, and the tide's carried them up the river."
+
+"You don't _know_!" burst out Agnes.
+
+"Well, they couldn't have drifted out into the cove, that's sure!"
+returned the older Corner House girl. "I'm going to get Mr. Stryver's
+motorboat. Will you take us out in it and look for the children,
+Neale? You can run a motorboat, can't you?"
+
+"Sure! And I'll do anything I can to help find the children," declared
+Neale O'Neil. "Now, don't you girls turn on the sprinklers----"
+
+"Who's crying?" gulped Agnes, angrily.
+
+"You are--pretty nearly. And your eyes are all red."
+
+"Hay fever," sniffed Agnes, trying to joke.
+
+"I'm going to get the boat right away. Come on, Neale," cried Ruth,
+and she started for the Stryver tent. "I'm worried about those
+children," she added, over her shoulder. "There are Gypsies about."
+
+She hurried on and Neale took Agnes by the elbow and led her out of
+all possible earshot of the other boys.
+
+"Buck up, Aggie," he said, gruffly, as a boy will. "You've been a good
+little sport--always. Don't blubber about it."
+
+"But it was I who forgot to tie the boat," Agnes said.
+
+"Tell me about it," urged Neale. So Agnes gave him the particulars.
+"Funny how the boat should have drifted out of sight so quickly," was
+the boy's comment.
+
+"Isn't it? But it's go-o-one----"
+
+"There, there! We'll find it and the children will be all right," he
+assured her.
+
+Ruth came running with the key to the padlock that moored the _Nimble
+Shanks_ to the mooring stake. They got out to her--just the two girls
+and Neale--in a dory.
+
+The _Nimble Shanks_ was a blue boat with a high prow and long,
+sweeping lines to the low stern. It was not a large boat, but was
+built for speed. The engine and steering-gear were amidships and were
+arranged so that one man could handle the craft.
+
+Neale was naturally of a mechanical turn, as well as an athlete. He
+had built a kerosene engine during the winter, with some assistance
+from Mr. Con Murphy, the shoemaker with whom he lived in Milton.
+Moreover, he had driven a boat just like this one of Mr. Stryver's on
+the Milton river.
+
+While Ruth was unlocking the chain of the _Nimble Shanks_, and
+fastening the dory in its place, Neale whirled the fly-wheel and
+caught the ignition spark; immediately the exhaust began to pop and
+Neale shouted:
+
+"All free, there, Ruth?"
+
+"Let her go, Neale!" returned Agnes, eagerly. "I can't wait, it seems
+to me."
+
+"Sit tight, then, ladies," said Neale, as Ruth scrambled aft. "I
+believe this craft can be made to travel."
+
+The girls obeyed as the _Nimble Shanks_ started. She shot right out
+into the middle of the river, and the wave thrown up by her wedge-like
+bow rose higher and higher on either hand. Actually, when the
+motorboat had been running for five minutes, the girls in the
+sternsheets seemed sitting at a much lower level than the surface of
+the river.
+
+"Goodness! if this boat stopped suddenly we'd be drowned by that
+wave," gasped Ruth.
+
+Neale headed up the river in a grand curve. They could see the shores
+on either hand. The boys ashore cheered their departure, though they
+did not know their errand.
+
+They shot by the wooded bend like an express train. The girls kept
+watch on either hand for the boat. They hoped to see her rocking in
+some cove along one shore or the other.
+
+But it was Neale himself who first sighted the drifting craft. The
+motorboat took the south channel in passing Wild Goose Island. Neale
+suddenly brought the speed of the craft down to one-half.
+
+"There's a boat ahead," he said to the girls. "It appears to be empty.
+Stand up and see if it's the one."
+
+Ruth rose and clung to Agnes' shoulder to steady herself. She saw the
+empty cedar boat, bobbing on the little waves beyond the far point of
+Wild Goose Island.
+
+"It's her!" she said, breathlessly. "But where are the children?"
+
+"We'll find out," said Neale, quickly. "Sit down again."
+
+"And Tom Jonah?" urged Ruth.
+
+"Make up your mind that wherever the children are, _he_ is, too," said
+Neale, and he let the _Nimble Shanks_ out again, and Ruth tumbled
+promptly into her seat.
+
+The motorboat fairly leaped ahead. In five minutes they were near the
+empty boat, and Neale shut off the engine entirely. Under the momentum
+she had gained she slid right up beside the tossing cedar boat.
+
+"Oh, oh!" groaned Agnes. "Where _have_ they gone?"
+
+"Not overboard, that's sure," said Neale, cheerfully. "They would have
+overturned the boat."
+
+"I--don't--know," began Ruth.
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" shrieked Agnes. "Maybe they were not in her after all."
+
+"But that clam man said he saw them."
+
+"He didn't see them in the boat when it was afloat," said Agnes,
+clinging to the safer possibility.
+
+"I know. But where else did they go?"
+
+"Down the beach, maybe," said Neale, slowly.
+
+"The Gypsies have gotten them!" exclaimed Agnes, in despair.
+
+"Stop it, Ag!" cried Ruth, shaking her sister. "You can think up the
+most perfectly awful things----"
+
+"Bet they got out of the boat on the shore somewhere, and let it drift
+away again," suggested Neale, rather feebly.
+
+"It wouldn't be like Tess to do such a foolish thing," said Ruth,
+shaking her head.
+
+"They didn't have anything to tie the boat up with. There's no painter
+in her," said the observant Neale.
+
+"Of course there's a painter!" cried Agnes, jumping up. "A nice long
+one----"
+
+"Where is it?" demanded the boy.
+
+"Oh, Ruth! _That's_ gone!" gasped Agnes.
+
+"Say!" said Neale, very seriously; "ropes don't come untied of
+themselves. Sure it was fastened to the boat?"
+
+"To that ring," Ruth declared, confidently.
+
+"And little Tess, or Dot, wouldn't think to untie it themselves--I'm
+sure," the boy observed. "They are with somebody who has taken them
+out of the boat--be sure of that."
+
+"You only--only say so to comfort us," sobbed Agnes.
+
+"Oh, Ag! stop being a 'leaky vessel'!" cried Neale, with a boy's
+exasperation at a girl's tears. "Crying won't help you any."
+
+Ruth had been examining the cedar boat, carefully. There was a little
+water in the bottom of it. She knew it did not leak. And floating on
+the water was a tiny russet leather slipper.
+
+"That belongs to Dot's Alice-doll!" she cried, leaning over the
+gunwale and fishing for the slipper. "They _were_ in the boat."
+
+"We knew that before. The clam man said so," sniffed Agnes.
+
+"But they got out in a hurry. Otherwise Dot would have noticed that
+the doll had lost her slipper."
+
+"That seems reasonable," admitted Neale O'Neil. "But what's become of
+them? Where did they go? Where are they now?"
+
+He was staring all about the river, while the two boats gently rubbed
+together, bobbing and courtesying on the tide.
+
+"Don't see anybody on the shores--and not another boat in sight," the
+boy added.
+
+"Maybe they went ashore on the island?" suggested Agnes, looking back.
+
+"There's nobody there," said her sister, looking back, too. "Not a
+soul."
+
+"Guess you're right. If there were anybody besides the girls there
+they'd have some kind of a boat, and we'd see it."
+
+"That's so, Neale," Ruth said. "And surely any grown person who
+rescued the girls wouldn't have let the boat drift away again."
+
+The trio of searchers gazed at each other in trouble and amazement.
+They could not explain this mystery in any satisfactory way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A STARTLING MEETING
+
+
+Tess and Dot, sitting in the middle of a brush clump on Wild Goose
+Island, never saw the blue motorboat with their sisters and Neale
+O'Neil in it, fly past.
+
+But the dark-faced girl, dressed in her bedraggled Gypsy finery, saw
+the _Nimble Shanks_, for she was on the watch at one side or the other
+of the island, all the time.
+
+She observed the motorboat overtake the drifting craft, and saw Neale
+carry a line aboard the latter and then start up the engine of the
+power boat again. The two boats went up the lake at a fair pace; but
+the searching party could not travel so fast now, for fear of swamping
+the towed boat.
+
+"I don't think this is much fun," said Dot, plaintively, when the big
+girl came back to them. "It's hot here--and I'm hungry--and my
+Alice-doll has lost one of her shoes."
+
+"We'll go up into the woods and pick some berries," said the strange
+girl, not unkindly. "I know where there are some strawberries--and
+they're just as sweet."
+
+"Oh! that will be fine. I _do_ love strawberries," declared Dot,
+easily appeased.
+
+Tess was more troubled than her sister by this strange situation. She
+felt, somehow, as though the big girl were holding them prisoners. Yet
+she could not understand _why_.
+
+She got up from the ground and at once Tom Jonah started up, barking
+and bounding about.
+
+"Stop that dog!" exclaimed the big girl, crossly. "Make him walk
+beside you. I'll tie him up," she threatened.
+
+"Then he'll howl _awful_," cried Dot. "We tried that once at home.
+Don't you 'member, Tess?"
+
+"Well, you keep him still," snapped the big girl.
+
+At a word from Tess the old dog drooped his tail and fell in behind
+them, in a most subdued manner. They went up through the thick woods
+to the higher part of the island. At no point could the little
+procession have been seen from the water.
+
+There was a hillock up there, bare of trees, the southern side of
+which was sown thickly with strawberries. The bed was rich in berries,
+and how sweet and delicate was their flavor!
+
+"Oh, _so_ much nicer than boughten berries!" Tess declared, forgetting
+for the time all her anxiety.
+
+Indeed, both of the Corner House girls were so busy satisfying their
+appetites with strawberries that they forgot about the unpleasant side
+to their adventure. Nor did they see the girl who had helped them
+ashore from the boat, creep over the knoll to watch the motorboat and
+its tow going down the river again, by way of the northern channel.
+
+It was fully half past one. While Tess and Dot feasted in the wild
+strawberry patch, their sisters and Neale O'Neil munched cold, fried
+crabs on the _Nimble Shanks_.
+
+It took a lot of berries to satisfy the healthy appetites of two girls
+like Tess and Dot whose dinner had been indefinitely postponed. Dot
+finally rolled right over in the shade, fast asleep, her dress and
+fingers berry-stained and the last plump one she had picked between
+her rosy lips!
+
+The big girl came back and Tess whispered: "We'd best not wake her,
+for she usually takes a nap afternoons. When she wakes up, I guess
+we'd best be going. Ruth and Agnes will be _awfully_ scared for us.
+And we've lost Ruth's boat, too," she added, disconsolately.
+
+"How do you expect to get off this island?" demanded the strange girl.
+
+"Why! how did you get _on_?" returned Tess.
+
+"I paddled myself over on a raft of logs, early this morning before
+anybody else was up," said the girl, after a minute. "I wasn't going
+back till night. But if I keep you children all day there'll be a big
+row, I s'pose," she added, sullenly.
+
+"I expect there will," was Tess' calm response.
+
+"They'd get me for kidnapping, like enough," said the girl, as though
+talking to herself. "Wish I hadn't taken you out of that boat. But you
+and the dog were raising an awful noise."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Tess, politely, "if we have been a nuisance. But of
+course we've got to get back to the tent before dark."
+
+"I s'pose so," admitted the older girl.
+
+"It's funny Ruth hasn't been up here before now looking for us," Tess
+observed.
+
+The big girl turned her head so Tess should not see her face. "Suppose
+she did not know you went sailing in the boat?" she said.
+
+"Why! perhaps that is the reason," Tess agreed. "They couldn't have
+seen us; for if they had, Ruth would have been after the boat in a
+hurry."
+
+"Well," said the strange girl, "I'll have to get you across to the
+river bank. I wasn't going till night. But----"
+
+"We are very much obliged to you," Tess hastened to say. "But we
+_couldn't_ stay that long."
+
+"Oh, well! I'll leave you children at a farmer's over there. They'll
+have a telephone and they'll get word to your sisters. You'll get back
+by suppertime."
+
+"Thank you," Tess said, simply.
+
+But she was more than a little disturbed in her mind. A raft of logs
+did not encourage her to look forward to the trip to the mainland with
+much pleasure.
+
+Besides, the mystery regarding this pretty girl made Tess feel
+_un_comfortable. Tess Kenway was quite old enough to know the
+difference between right and wrong; and there was something about the
+strange girl that was decidedly wrong!
+
+Why had she come out here to Wild Goose Island in the early
+morning--before anybody in the neighborhood was up? Was she a runaway?
+Had she done something really _naughty_? and was she afraid to have
+her folks find her?
+
+It was all a great puzzle and Tess sighed and shook her head. Finally
+she asked: "If you please, where _is_ the raft of logs?"
+
+"Right down there," said the girl, pointing to the southern side of
+the island. "You can't see it. I dragged it into shallow water and
+covered it up with branches and brush."
+
+"Is--is it safe?" queried Tess.
+
+"Well, it didn't drown me coming over," said the girl, with a short,
+hard laugh. "But the logs came near parting."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I'll fix 'em before we start back. That painter off your boat will
+help. We will be all right," said the big girl, carelessly.
+
+Dot awoke after a little, and so did Tom Jonah. The whole party went
+down to the brush-fringed shore. Tess saw that the girl had hidden her
+raft very ingeniously. And it was evident, too, that she hated to
+leave the island so long before evening.
+
+"Got myself in a nice mess!" the Corner House girl heard her mutter,
+as she went about binding the three logs together more tightly with
+the strong rope from the cedar boat.
+
+She worked hard for half an hour, standing almost waist deep in the
+water as she made the logs secure. It was not a heavy raft--nor was it
+very safe looking, to Tess' mind.
+
+But fortunately Dot thought it would be great fun to ride on such a
+craft, and Tess was too brave to say anything that would really
+frighten Dorothy.
+
+Tom Jonah became restless and wanted to wander about; but the big girl
+was very sharp with him. "If he were my dog I'd make him mind better!"
+she threatened. "If anything gives us away, it will be that dog."
+
+Tess did not understand this; and like Dot she felt hurt when anybody
+criticised Tom Jonah. "Love me, love my dog" was the motto of the
+younger Kenway sisters.
+
+Finally the big girl pronounced the raft strong enough, and she waded
+out of the water and put on her skirts again. "Now, get aboard there,"
+she commanded. "If we've got to go, we might as well start. The tide
+will be less strong now."
+
+Dot skipped aboard the raft with her Alice-doll, in great glee; Tess
+followed more slowly. But when Tom Jonah tried to come, too, the big
+girl, with the broken oar she used for a paddle, drove him back.
+
+"It won't hold him up, too!" she cried. "Get out!"
+
+"Oh! don't hurt Tom Jonah!" wailed Dot, shrilly. "Don't!"
+
+"You look out!" warned Tess. "He'll grab you!"
+
+Tom Jonah certainly _did_ grab the paddle. And he nearly wrenched it
+from the hands of the big girl, strong as she was.
+
+"He'll tip us all over!" declared the girl, angrily, flushed and
+breathing heavily. "Don't you see how deep in the water we are? Any
+little wave will come right over the logs and wet us."
+
+"Well!" cried Tess. "We're barefooted. And we can't leave Tom Jonah
+behind."
+
+"He can swim, can't he? Silly!" exclaimed the big girl. She pushed off
+the raft suddenly, leaving the troubled dog on the bank. The current
+caught the raft instantly and headed it down stream. The big girl
+hurried to dip her paddle in the water on the lower side and swerve
+the head of the raft around.
+
+"Oh, Tom Jonah! Come! Come!" cried Dot, fearful that the dog would be
+lost.
+
+He plunged right in and swam to the rear of the raft. He did not try
+to climb aboard, but he rested his nose on the logs and paddled
+quietly behind. The big girl paid him no further attention. She had
+her hands full as it was, keeping the raft from being swept down
+stream.
+
+The current of the river had now conquered the inflowing tide. The
+force of the latter was spent; but the channel on this side of the
+island was not rough. The little waves did not break over their feet
+as yet.
+
+The passage of the river was not, however, so hard. The handsome dark
+girl was strong, and she plied the broken oar with vigor. In half an
+hour they drew near to the tree-fringed southern bank.
+
+The girls saw nobody along the shore, nor had any boat put out to meet
+them. It was a day when all the farmers seemed to be busy in their
+fields, and this was a wild spot toward which the raft had been aimed.
+
+At last the end of the logs touched a shelving, narrow beach. The big
+girl leaped off and commanded Tess and Dot to follow immediately.
+Already Tom Jonah had scrambled ashore and was shaking himself, as a
+dog will.
+
+Suddenly the big dog uttered a throaty growl. None of the three girls
+paid any attention. The strange girl was busy helping Tess and Dot to
+land.
+
+Again Tom Jonah uttered his warning, and then barked sharply.
+
+"Shut up!" commanded the big girl, turning on him fiercely.
+
+At that moment a man walked out of the wood. He was a fierce little
+fellow with a black mustache and a dirty red tie. His velveteen suit
+was worn and greasy and his hat broken.
+
+The strange girl turned suddenly and saw him. She uttered a stifled
+scream and the fellow folded his arms and said something to her
+sternly in a language that afterwards Tess said "sounded like
+powder-crackers exploding!"
+
+The girl was terrified in the extreme. She looked from side to side as
+though contemplating escape. The fellow took another stride toward
+her.
+
+And then Tom Jonah intervened. The big dog sprang with an awful growl,
+hurling himself straight at the man's chest. The fellow went over
+backward and Tom Jonah held him down with both paws on his chest and
+his bared teeth at the victim's brown throat!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE FRANKFURTER MAN
+
+
+Dot screamed shrilly; but Tess said, with conviction: "Well! I think
+it serves him right. Let him holler. He had no business trying to
+steal Ruthie's chickens."
+
+For the young man that Tom Jonah held on the ground, and threatened so
+dreadfully, was the very Gypsy that had gotten into the hen-coop at
+the old Corner House in Milton, weeks before.
+
+"Now, don't you be afraid for him, Dot," added Tess, quite calmly.
+"Tom Jonah won't really _bite_ him--not as long as he keeps still and
+doesn't try to get up----"
+
+The fellow was moaning and begging just as he had when the big dog
+"treed" him on the henhouse roof.
+
+"Tak' away dog! Tak' away dog!" he begged.
+
+"I don't know why we should--do you, Dot?" pursued Tess, undisturbed.
+"He was going to hurt _her_----"
+
+Tess turned around. The strange girl who had helped them out of the
+cedar boat and later had brought them to the river bank from Wild
+Goose Island, had disappeared like a shadow!
+
+"Why--why," stammered Tess. "And she never said 'Good-bye'!"
+
+"I guess she was afraid of this man," Dot said, eyeing the prostrate
+and miserable victim of Tom Jonah's attack without much pity. "What
+shall we do with him?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Tess, with a sudden sharp idea. "She _was_ afraid of him.
+Let us help her. She helped us."
+
+"How will we?" inquired the smaller girl.
+
+"Just let Tom Jonah hold him where he is. We will give that pretty
+girl a good chance to get away. Won't we?"
+
+"That will be just the thing," agreed Dot. "We can sit down and wait.
+I hope it isn't too long a walk to the camp, Tess. Somehow those
+strawberries didn't stay by me--much. I'm hungry right now!"
+
+"We'll keep him here a few minutes. Then we'll find the road and start
+right back home. I know the direction," said Tess, with confidence.
+
+The frightened Gypsy moaned and begged for them to call off the dog;
+and Tom Jonah growled most frightfully every time the man squirmed.
+Under other circumstances the girls would have been quite stricken
+with pity for the poor man; but he had tried to steal Ruth's hens, and
+he had now frightened their new friend away, and, as Dot whispered,
+"it served him right."
+
+Of course, they knew that the big dog would not really harm the
+fellow.
+
+After some fifteen minutes Tess got up and motioned Dot to do the
+same. "We'd better start. The afternoon is going," she said to her
+younger sister. "And I guess it's a long walk home. Come on, Tom
+Jonah."
+
+The old dog lifted his head enquiringly. The muscles of his shoulders
+and fore-paws relaxed.
+
+"Come on!" commanded Tess. "Leave him alone. Let him up, Tom Jonah! I
+guess he has been punished enough. Don't you think so, Dot?"
+
+The smaller girl nodded seriously, staring at the trembling Gypsy. "I
+hope you won't ever try to steal our Ruthie's hens again," she said,
+pointedly.
+
+The moment the fellow knew he was free, he scrambled up and dodged
+into the bushes. He did not stay for a word.
+
+"That big girl must have gotten away by this time," Tess said,
+cheerfully. "And he is too scared to catch her, anyway."
+
+Which was probably true. The two small girls walked away from the
+river bank in the direction where they knew the auto-stage road lay.
+Tom Jonah paced beside them, looking about suspiciously, and licking
+his lips now and then with his red tongue.
+
+It was remarkable how ferocious he had been with that Gypsy, and how
+perfectly kind he was to the small Kenways. And nothing much could
+have overtaken them just then that Tom Jonah would not have attacked.
+
+They came out of the fringe of wood that bordered the river and
+crossed a farmer's fields. But the house was at a distance, and in the
+other direction from Pleasant Cove and the camps; so the girls did not
+go to that house.
+
+In fact, Tess felt quite brave now that she was again on the mainland.
+She was sure that they could easily find Willowbend Camp.
+
+They came out into the hot, dusty road. It stretched before them as
+bare as a tennis-court and as hot as a sea-beach. The trees that
+bordered it were white with dust far up their trunks and the leaves of
+their lower branches, too, were dust-covered.
+
+This was the result of rapidly passing automobiles on the road; but
+none of these vehicles was in sight now. The road seemed deserted.
+
+Save for just one thing. Dot saw it before Tess.
+
+"Oh, look!" the smaller girl cried. "Isn't that a peanut man, Tess?
+Don't you wish you had a nickel?"
+
+"He isn't a peanut man," said Tess, after a sharp look at the man
+pushing the little wagon along the road before them.
+
+"Isn't he?" returned Dot, disappointedly.
+
+"It's a hot-frankfurter man," declared Tess.
+
+"Oh, Tess! a nickel would buy two frankfurter sandwiches," gasped Dot.
+"And I'm _so_ hungry."
+
+So was Tess. The thought of the steaming sausages lying on the split
+Vienna roll, with a spoonful of mustard on each half-sausage, was
+enough to make _any_ hungry person's mouth water. At least, any hungry
+person of the age of Tess and Dot Kenway.
+
+Where the frankfurter man had been with his wagon away up this country
+road, the girls did not know; but before they overtook him they
+smelled the warm sausages and saw that the top of his boxlike wagon
+was covered over with a glass case and that everything was clean about
+his outfit.
+
+So eager and hungry were they that Tess and Dot fairly trotted through
+the hot dust to overtake the man. He was a short, sturdy man in a blue
+shirt, khaki trousers, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. When Tom Jonah
+bounded along beside him, sniffing in a friendly fashion, he turned
+around and saw the girls.
+
+"How-de-do!" he said, smiling. "You want a hot frankfurter, little
+girls?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Dot, frankly.
+
+"Oh, we can't, sir--not till we get to Willowbend Camp," Tess hastened
+to say, squeezing Dot's hand admonishingly.
+
+Dot's lower lip trembled and the man asked:
+
+"Why can't you have 'em now?"
+
+"We--we should have to ask Ruthie," said Tess, slowly.
+
+"Who's she?"
+
+"Our sister. We--we don't carry any money in these old clothes. She's
+afraid we'll lose it out of our pockets," said Tess, honestly.
+
+"Oh-ho!" exclaimed the man.
+
+"But we're awful hungry," ventured Dot. "And so's my Alice-doll. We
+been shipwrecked, you see."
+
+"Shipwrecked?" asked the man, wonderingly.
+
+"Not just _that_, Dot," said Tess, doubtfully. "We were sort of
+castaways."
+
+"Well, we lost our boat, didn't we?" demanded Dot. "And isn't that
+being shipwrecked?" She was just hungry and tired enough to be rather
+"touchy."
+
+"Tell me about it," said the frankfurter man, as the girls and Tom
+Jonah trotted along beside his little wagon.
+
+So Tess--with much assistance from Dot--related their exciting
+adventures since the wooden-legged clam-digger had shown them what it
+was that squirted water up through the tiny holes on the clam-flat.
+
+Sometimes the frankfurter man laughed, or chuckled; at other times he
+looked quite grave. And finally he insisted upon stopping under a
+broad, shady tree beside the road, and resting while he listened to
+the remainder of the story.
+
+Meanwhile he opened the glass case and took out a couple of paper
+napkins and two rolls which were as white as snow when he split them
+with a very sharp knife. He buttered both sides of these rolls
+lavishly.
+
+Then he opened the steaming frankfurter pot and oh! how the luscious
+steam gushed out! Dot grabbed Tess' hand hard. She thought she was
+going to faint, for a moment--it smelled so good!
+
+He selected two fat frankfurters and split them evenly. He placed them
+on the buttered rolls. He put on mustard with a lavish hand. And then
+he closed the rolls and wrapped the napkins about them.
+
+Suddenly he saw Tom Jonah standing, too, watching him with wistful
+intentness, his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. If ever a dog's
+countenance expressed hunger, it was shown now in Tom Jonah's face.
+But he was too much of a gentleman, just as his collar said, to bark.
+
+So the frankfurter man, without saying a word, opened the pot again
+and took out a third sausage. This he did not split or put mustard on.
+
+"Would you little girls like to eat a lunch now and pay me for it the
+next time you see me?" he asked, smiling at Tess and Dot.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, clasping her hands and almost letting the Alice-doll
+fall.
+
+"You--you are _so_ kind!" said Tess, her voice fairly trembling.
+
+He passed the two wrapped sandwiches over with a polite bow. "You are
+very welcome," he said. "And I am going to give your dog one for
+himself because he grabbed that Gypsy. He's a brave dog and deserves
+one."
+
+"Oh! if you would be so good!" cried Tess.
+
+Tom Jonah made one mouthful of the frankfurter. You see, _he_ had not
+cared at all for the strawberries!
+
+"Now," said the frankfurter man, as the girls walked on beside him
+again, munching their sandwiches, "that road yonder to the left leads
+right down to the beach and to those tents. You can see the flags
+flying above them now--see?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!" returned Tess and Dot, in delight.
+
+"Then you can easy find your way. Good-day, young ladies. I know your
+sisters will be anxious to see you."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Tess said, not forgetting her manners. "And we shall
+not forget that we owe you for the sausages."
+
+"That's right. Always pay your debts," said the man, laughing, and
+trundled his cart on through the dust, while the Kenway sisters
+trudged down the shadier road toward the beach.
+
+In fifteen minutes they were seen coming. The entire encampment had
+turned out to search for the lost children. The boys from Milton had
+gone in all directions to look for Tess and Dot.
+
+It was only to Ruth and Agnes that the small girls related the details
+of their surprising adventure. And Agnes did not understand entirely,
+and was much troubled over the identity of the girl who had befriended
+her sisters in so strange a fashion.
+
+Ruth had no difficulty in guessing who she was. It was the girl with
+the Gypsies who had masqueraded as the queen. The oldest Corner House
+girl was sure that it was she. And Ruth understood that she must be
+striving to get away from the Gypsies.
+
+"I hope she won't go so far from here that I shall never see her
+again," thought Ruth. "For she was interested in Rosa Wildwood, I am
+sure; and it might be that she could tell me something about Rosa's
+missing sister."
+
+While Agnes put forth many "guesses" and "supposin's" about the
+strange girl, Dot had quite another problem in her enquiring mind. And
+finally, as they were getting ready for bed that night, she threw out
+a leading question which attracted the immediate attention of her
+three sisters:
+
+"Say, Ruthie," she asked, "how do frankfurters grow?"
+
+"What?" gasped Agnes, and clapped a hand over her own mouth to keep
+from laughing.
+
+"How do they _grow_, dear?" returned Ruth, rather taken aback herself.
+
+"Goodness gracious, child!" exclaimed Tess. "They don't grow on bushes
+like pea-pods."
+
+"Oh, no, of course not!" ejaculated Dot, who did not like to be
+considered ignorant. "A frankfurter flies, doesn't it?"
+
+"Mercy!" murmured Ruth. "Hear her!"
+
+"Oh! I mean it crawls--it _creeps_. Of course," Dot hurried to add.
+
+Agnes exploded here. She could not keep in any longer.
+
+"Well, I think you're real mean!" complained Dot. "You won't tell me.
+I guess it's a fish, then. Does it _swim_?"
+
+"Goodness!" cried Tess.
+
+"Then they come in bunches like bananas!" declared the frantic Dot.
+
+_This_ was the worst yet. Agnes rolled on the matting of the bedroom
+and almost choked. Ruth herself was laughing heartily at her small
+sister as she gathered her into her arms and told her just how the
+sausage-meat was stuffed into the frankfurters' skins.
+
+"Well!" murmured Dot, at last, and rather sleepily. "I don't care. I
+believe they are the very _nicest_ things there are to eat--so there!
+Those the frankfurter man gave us were perfectly lovely."
+
+That was what suggested the Frankfurter Party, and the Frankfurter
+Party was one of the very happiest thoughts that Ruth Kenway ever
+evolved. We shall have to hear about it, in another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+MRS. BOBSTER'S MYSTERIOUS FRIEND
+
+
+Rosa Wildwood quickly showed improvement after her arrival at Pleasant
+Cove. Under the ministrations of the little old woman who lived in a
+shoe the Southern girl could not help feeling a measure of
+contentment, if nothing else.
+
+Her hostess was such a cheerful body! And, as Agnes had promised, Rosa
+was supplied with good, hearty food--and plenty of it.
+
+There was a glass of warm milk, fresh from the cow, on the stand
+beside the head of her little chintz-hung bed every morning when Rosa
+awoke. For Mrs. Bobster was up and about by daybreak.
+
+When Rosa came down to the sunlit kitchen, breakfast was ready and the
+little old woman who lived in a shoe declared she had all her
+"outside" chores done, saving her regular work in her garden.
+
+Rosa sometimes helped about the housework. The doctor had told her
+that certain forms of housework would be good for her. But she had to
+be very exact and careful in doing the work about the shoe-house, for
+Mrs. Bobster was a New England housekeeper of the old school and was
+as methodical as Grandfather's Clock.
+
+The girls from Milton did not neglect Rosa Wildwood. At least, the
+Corner House girls and their friends did not. Pearl Harrod and the
+girls at Spoondrift Bungalow came with a wagonette and took her
+driving. The repairs had been made upon the bungalow and Pearl's party
+was there again--all but the Corner House girls.
+
+Ruth had decided to stick to the tent for the remainder of their stay
+at Pleasant Cove. And Willowbend Camp was becoming the liveliest spot
+along the entire beach-front.
+
+Ruth and her sisters came after Rosa and took her out in their boat.
+The boys who were living at Willowbend, too, took an interest in the
+frail Southern girl. For Rosa Wildwood, with the color stealing back
+into her cheeks and lips, and her eyes bright again, was a very
+attractive girl indeed!
+
+Dot Kenway's birthday came at this time, and that was the date set for
+the Frankfurter Party. Dot's guesses about the origin and nature of
+the hearty and inviting, if not delicate, frankfurter, had delighted
+the campers who heard the story; and Dot's sisters and Neale spent
+some time and a good deal of ingenuity in preparing for the festive
+occasion.
+
+Rosa came over to the tent colony and helped the girls prepare for the
+party. Moreover, she had a secret to impart to Ruth.
+
+"Don't let the other girls hear, Ruth Kenway," she said, with much
+mystery. "But Mrs. Bobster is the oddest thing!"
+
+"Well! I guess she is," laughed Ruth. "But she's _good_."
+
+"Good as gold," agreed Rosa. "But she has some funny ways. Of course I
+go to bed early. The doctor told me I should."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You'd think she'd go to bed early, too, when she's up so soon in the
+morning?"
+
+"Well----I suppose that's a matter of taste," Ruth observed.
+
+"Anyway, you know how lonesome it is over there?"
+
+"I guess there are not many people about--after dark."
+
+"That's just it!" cried Rosa. "Mrs. Bobster scurries around and does
+all her out of doors chores before dark. And she locks and bolts all
+the doors. She is really afraid after dark."
+
+Ruth nodded. She remembered how once the little old woman who lived in
+a shoe had spoken to her about being afraid.
+
+"Well, she locks and bolts the doors," said Rosa, "and then we have
+supper and I go to bed. Sometimes, like a good child, I go right to
+sleep. Sometimes, like a bad child, I _don't_."
+
+"Well--what then?"
+
+"Then I hear Mrs. Bobster talking. She has company. I never hear the
+company come in, or go out; but she has it every night."
+
+"And never says anything about it?"
+
+"Not a word," said Rosa. "I hinted once or twice that she must have
+company every night, and all she said was that she didn't like sitting
+alone."
+
+"Is it a man or a woman?" asked Ruth.
+
+"I don't know," laughed Rosa. "That's one of the funny things about
+it. Although I hear Mrs. Bobster sometimes chattering like a magpie, I
+never hear an answer."
+
+"What?" gasped Ruth, in amazement.
+
+"That's right," said Rosa, nodding confidently. "Whoever it is talks
+so low that I haven't heard his, or her, voice yet!"
+
+"A dumb person?" suggested Ruth.
+
+"Maybe. At any rate, I couldn't tell you for the life of me whether it
+is a man or a woman that comes to see the little old woman who lives
+in a shoe. Isn't it odd, Ruth?"
+
+"I should say it was," admitted Ruth.
+
+"But she treats me well," sighed Rosa. "I wouldn't do her any harm for
+the world. But I _am_ awfully curious!"
+
+It was this day, too--the day of Dot's party--that the wooden-legged
+clam-digger came along through the Willowbend tent colony again. He
+always came to the tent of the Corner House girls when he appeared;
+Ruth was a regular customer, for she and her sisters were fond of
+shellfish.
+
+"I'll have fifty to-day, Mr. Kuk," she said to the saltish individual
+when he hailed her from outside the tent. Ruth had learned that his
+name was Habakuk Somes; everybody along the beach called him "Kuk,"
+and Ruth, to be polite, tagged him with "Mister" in addition.
+
+Tom Jonah appeared and showed his disapproval of the clam man by a
+throaty growl. "That thar dawg don't like me none too well," said the
+clam man. "What d'yeou call him?"
+
+"Tom Jonah."
+
+"Thet's enough to sink him," said the man with a grin. "How'd ye come
+ter call him that?"
+
+"It's his name," said Ruth. "It was engraved on his collar when he
+came to our house in Milton."
+
+"Oh! then he ain't allus been your dawg, shipmet?" demanded the man.
+
+"No. He came to us. We don't know where from. But he is a gentleman,
+and he is going to stay with us as long as he will."
+
+The clam man blinked, and said nothing more. But he cast more than one
+glance at Tom Jonah before he went away.
+
+The preparations made for the birthday party included the purchase of
+a good many pounds of first quality frankfurters. And when they were
+delivered to the Corner House girls' tent, the fun began.
+
+Tess and Dot were sent away for the morning to play with some of the
+children at Enterprise Camp. Then Ruth and Agnes and Rosa and Neale
+set to work to make frankfurters into the very funniest looking things
+that you could imagine!
+
+With bits of tinsel and colored paper and pins and other small wares,
+the young folks set to work. They made frankfurters look like
+caricatures of all kinds of beasts and birds, and insects as well. One
+was the body of a huge, gaily-winged butterfly. Another was striped
+and horned like a worm of ferocious aspect.
+
+They were made into fishes, with tails and fins. Neale made a nest
+with several "young" frankfurters poking their heads out for food,
+while the mother frankfurter was just poised upon the edge of the
+nest, her wings spread to balance her.
+
+There were short-legged frankfurters, with long, flapping ears, like
+dachshunds, and long, stiff-legged frankfurters, with abbreviated
+tails, and appearing to gambol like lambs. There were several linked
+together and apparently creeping about like a species of jointed,
+horrid caterpillar.
+
+Then they actually _were_ bunched like bananas! while some grew,
+husked, like sweetcorn, and some had the green, fluffy tops of carrots
+cunningly fastened to them and were tied together as carrots are
+bunched in the market.
+
+Neale's ingenuity, however, rose to its height when he stretched a
+slanting wire across the tent, higher than the partition, and made
+several "aeroplanes" with bodies of the succulent sausage, which he
+could start at one end of the wire to "fly" to the other end.
+
+The young folks came to Willowbend Camp about five o'clock to enjoy
+the festivities. The older Corner House girls, with the help of some
+of their friends, served the crowd a hearty supper, the main course of
+which was hot frankfurters, prepared by the "frankfurter man" whose
+acquaintance Tess and Dot had made.
+
+When the fun was over the guests took the fancy-dressed sausages home
+as souvenirs.
+
+Neale and Agnes and Ruth went home with Rosa, for it was a long walk,
+and part of the way it was lonely. One of the ladies who had
+chaperoned the party remained with Tess and Dot while their sisters
+were absent.
+
+The young folk had a pleasant walk, for there was a moon. Coming
+finally in sight of the home of the little old woman who lived in a
+shoe, Ruth said to Rosa, who walked with her:
+
+"It is a lonely spot, isn't it?"
+
+"But I never feel afraid. Only I'm curious about Mrs. Bobster's
+friend----There! See it?" she cried, suddenly, but under her breath.
+
+"See what?" Ruth asked.
+
+"The shadow on the curtain," said Rosa.
+
+At the same moment Agnes said: "Hello! Mrs. Bobster has company."
+
+There was a lamp lit in the tiny front room of the cottage. Plainly
+silhouetted upon the white shade was a man sitting in a chair.
+
+"What! With his hat on?" exclaimed Ruth. "Who can it be?"
+
+"He isn't very polite, whoever he is," said Neale.
+
+"Let's see about it," suggested Agnes. "Do you know anything about
+him, Rosa?"
+
+"I only know she has had a visitor sometimes--after I'm in bed," said
+the Southern girl.
+
+"Come on! let's go in the side door," said Agnes, in a low voice.
+
+But when they had tiptoed to the door they found it locked. Rosa
+laughed. "I tell you she never leaves a door or window unfastened
+after dark," she said.
+
+They heard the little old woman who lived in a shoe coming to the door
+to let them in. But Rosa had to assure her who it was before Mrs.
+Bobster unlocked the door.
+
+"But you had company?" said Agnes, rather pertly.
+
+"Eh?" returned Mrs. Bobster, setting the broom behind the hall door.
+"Oh, yes! I don't never kalkerlate ter be alone many evenings."
+
+"Is he here now?" demanded Neale, laughing.
+
+"Who? _Him?_ No," said the widow, calmly. "He's bashful. He went out
+jest as you young folks come in. Sit right down, children, an' I'll
+find a pitcher of milk an' some cookies."
+
+The Corner House girls and Rosa--to say nothing of Neale O'Neil--were
+amazed. They looked at each other wonderingly as the widow bustled out
+to the pantry.
+
+"I'd give a penny," murmured Rosa Wildwood, "to know who her
+mysterious friend is."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE YARN OF THE "SPANKING SAL"
+
+
+The wooden-legged clam digger, Habakuk Somes, seemed suddenly to have
+acquired a great interest in Tom Jonah.
+
+He appeared almost every day at the tent of the Corner House girls and
+did his best to become friendly with the dog. Tom Jonah grew used to
+his presence, but he would allow no familiarities from the dilapidated
+waterside character.
+
+The girls thought "Kuk" Somes only queer; the boys "joshed" him a good
+deal. Nobody minded having him around, considering merely that he was
+a peculiar fellow, and harmless.
+
+His tales of sea-going and sea-roving were wonderful indeed. How much
+of them was truth and how much pure invention, the older Corner House
+girls and Neale O'Neil did not know. However, they forgave his
+"historical inaccuracies" because of the entertainment they derived
+from his yarns.
+
+Tess and Dot listened to the old fellow with perfect confidence in his
+achievements. Had he not known--in a moment--what it was that shot
+water up through the holes in the clam flat? The smaller girls
+listened to old Kuk Somes with unshaken confidence.
+
+"And how did the pirates get your leg, Mr. Kuk?" asked Tess. "Your
+really truly leg, I mean."
+
+She and Dot were sitting on the edge of the tent-platform, under the
+awning, with their bare feet in the sand, with Tom Jonah lying
+comfortably between them. The dog had a brooding eye upon the clam
+digger, who sat on a broken lobster trap a few feet away.
+
+"Huh! them pi-_rats_?" queried the clam digger. "Well--er--now, did I
+say it was pi-_rats_ as got my leg, shipmet?"
+
+"Yes, you did, sir." Dot hastened to bolster up her sister's statement
+of fact. "And you said it was on the Spanish Main."
+
+"Well!" declared the old man, "so it was, an' so they did. Pi-_rats_
+it was, shipmet. An' I'll tell yer the how of it.
+
+"I was carpenter's mate on the _Spankin' Sal_, what sailed from
+Bosting to Rio, touchin' at some West Injy ports on the
+way--pertic'larly Porto Rico, which is a big merlasses port. We had a
+good part of our upper holt stowed with warmin' pans for the merlasses
+planters----"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kuk!" ejaculated Tess in rather a pained voice. "Isn't that a
+mistake? _Warming pans?_"
+
+"Not by a joblot it ain't no mistake!" returned the old man. "Warming
+pans I sez, an' warming pans I sticks to."
+
+"But my geogoraphy," Tess ventured, timidly, and mispronouncing the
+word as usual, "says that the West Indies are tropical. Porto Rico is
+near the Equator."
+
+"Now, ain't that wonderful--jest wonderful?" declared the clam digger,
+smiting his knee with his palm. "Shows what it is to be book l'arned,
+shipmet.
+
+"'Course, _I_ knowed them was tropical places, but I didn't know 'twas
+all writ down in books--joggerfries, do they call 'em?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Tess, seriously. "And it is so hot down there they
+couldn't possibly need warming pans."
+
+"Now, ye'd think that, wouldn't ye, shipmet? And I'd think it. But the
+skipper of the _Spankin' Sal_, he knowed dif'rent.
+
+"A master brainy man was Captain Roebuck. That was his name--Roebuck,"
+declared the clam digger, solemnly. "Hev you ever seen a warming pan,
+shipmet--an old-fashioned warmin' pan?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Tess and Dot together. "There's one hangs over the
+mantelpiece in the sitting-room of the old Corner House," added Tess.
+"That's where we live when we're at home in Milton.
+
+"And it is a round brass pan, with a cover that has holes in it, and a
+long handle. Mrs. MacCall says folks used to put live coals in it and
+iron the beds before folks went to bed, in the cold weather. But we
+got furnace heat now, and don't need the warming pan."
+
+"Surely, surely, shipmet," agreed the clam digger. "Them's the things.
+And Cap'n Roebuck of the _Spankin' Sal_, plagued near crammed the
+upper holt with them.
+
+"It looks right foolish, shipmet; but that skipper got a chancet ter
+buy up a whole lot o' them brass warmin' pans cheap. If he'd seen 'em
+cheap enough, he'd bought up a hull cargo of secon' hand hymn books,
+and he'd took 'em out to the heathen in the South Seas and made a
+profit on 'em--he would that!" pursued Kuk, confidently.
+
+"He must have been a wonderful man, sir," said Tess, while Dot sat
+round-eyed and listened.
+
+"Wonderful! wonderful!" agreed the clam digger. "But about them
+warmin' pans. When we got ter Porto Rico we broke out the first of
+them things. Looked right foolish. All them dons in Panama hats and
+white pants, an' barefooted comin' aboard to look over samples of
+tradin' stock, an' all they can see is warmin' pans.
+
+"'What's them things for?' axed the first planter, in the Spanish
+lingo.
+
+"'Them's skimmers,' says Cap'n Roebuck, knowin' it warn't no manner o'
+use to try to explain the exact truth to a man what ain't never seed
+snow, or knowed there was a zero mark on the almanack.
+
+"He grabbed up one o' them warmin' pans and made a swing with it like
+you'd use a crab-net. 'See! See!' says the dons. 'Skim-a da
+merlasses.' That's Spanish for 'Yes, yes! skim the merlasses,'"
+explained Kuk, seriously.
+
+"'But what's the cover for?' axed the don. 'Ye don't hafter have no
+cover,' says Cap'n Roebuck, and he yanks the cover off the warmin' pan
+an' throws it away.
+
+"And there them dons had the finest merlasses dipper that ever went
+inter the islan's. Cap'n Roebuck seen their eyes snap an' put a good,
+stiff price on the things, and inside of a week there warn't a warmin'
+pan left on the _Spankin' Sal_.
+
+"Then," pursued the clam digger, "we stowed away in our upper holt
+goods what would bring a fancy price at Rio, and laid our course for
+the Amazon.
+
+"But we was all hands mighty worritted," admitted Kuk, lowering his
+voice mysteriously. "Ye see, ye never could tell in them old days, an'
+in the West Injies, who it was safe to trust, an' who it was safe ter
+_dis_-trust.
+
+"Yer see, so many of them snaky Spanish planters was hand an' glove
+with the pi-_rats_. And ev'rybody on the island knowed the _Spankin'
+Sal_ was takin' away a great treasure that had been exchanged for them
+warmin' pans. We was a fair mark, as ye might say, for them
+pi-_rats_."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, hugging her Alice-doll the tighter.
+
+"How much treasure was there, Mr. Kuk?" asked the ever-practical Tess.
+
+"A chist full," announced the clam digger without a moment's
+hesitation. "A reg'lar treasure-chist full. All them planters hadn't
+had ready cash money to pay for the warmin' pans, and they'd give in
+exchange di'monds and other jools--and the exchange rates for American
+money was high anyway. So the _Spankin' Sal_ was a mighty good ketch
+if the pi-_rats_ ketched her.
+
+"So, when we sailed from Porto Rico we kep' a weather eye open for
+black-painted schooners with rakin' masts an' skulls and shinbones on
+their flags. When we seed them signs we'd know they was pi-_rats_,"
+declared Kuk, gravely.
+
+The small Corner House girls sighed in unison--and in delight! "The
+plot thickens!" whispered Agnes to Ruth behind the flap of the tent
+where they were listening, likewise, though unbeknown to Kuk and the
+children.
+
+"Go on, please, Mr. Kuk," breathed Tess.
+
+"Oh, do!" said Dot.
+
+"Well, shipmets," said the old clam digger, "bein' peaceful
+merchantmen, as ye might say, we hadn't shipped aboard the _Spankin'
+Sal_ to fight no pi-_rats_," declared Kuk, with energy. "We wasn't no
+sogers, and we told the skipper so.
+
+"'We'll fight,' says I. Bein' an officer--carpenter's mate, as I told
+ye--I was spokesman for the crew. 'But we wants ter fight with weepons
+as we air fermiliar with. Let you and the ossifers fire the cannon,
+skipper,' says I, 'and give us fellers that was bred along shore an'
+on the farms some o' them scythes out'n the lower holt.
+
+"'Cutlasses an' muskets,' says I, 'is all right for them as has been
+brought up with 'em,' says I, 'but, skipper, me an' my shipmets has
+been better used ter cuttin' swamp-grass an' mowin' oats. Give us the
+weepons we air fermiliar with.'
+
+"And he done it," declared Kuk, wagging his sinful old head. "We broke
+out some cases of scythes and fixed 'em onto their handles after
+grindin' of 'em sharp as razers on the grin'stone in the waist of the
+_Spankin' Sal_.
+
+"Pretty soon we seen one o' them black-hulled schooners comin'. She
+couldn't be mistook for anythin' but a pi-_rat_, although she didn't
+fly no black flag yet.
+
+"'Let 'em come to close quarters, skipper,' says I. 'Let 'em board us.
+Then me an' my shipmets can git 'em on the short laig. We'll mow 'em
+down like weeds along a roadside ditch.'
+
+"He done it, an' we did," pursued Kuk, rather heated now with the
+interest of his own narrative. "When they run their schooner alongside
+of us and the two ships clinched, and they broke out the black flag at
+their peak, me an' my shipmets stood there ready to repel boarders.
+
+"Them pi-_rats_," proceeded Kuk, "fought like a passel of cats--tooth
+an' nail! They come over aour bulwarks jest like peas pourin' out o' a
+sack. 'Steady, lads!' I sings out. 'Take a long, sweepin' stroke, an'
+each o' ye cut a good swath!'
+
+"An' we done so," the clam digger said, nodding. "Our scythes was
+longer than the cutlasses of them pi-_rats_; and before they could git
+at us, we'd reach 'em with a side-swipe of the scythes, and mow 'em
+down like ripe hay."
+
+"Oh, dear, me!" gasped Dot.
+
+"How awful!" murmured Tess.
+
+"'Twas sartain sure a bloody field of battle," declared the clam
+digger, nodding again. "If it hadn't been for my leg I wouldn't never
+have fought no pi-_rats_ again. A man has his feelin's, ye see. Our
+scuppers run blood. The enemy was piled along the deck under our
+bulwarks in a reg'lar windrow."
+
+"And did you kill them _all_--every one?" demanded Tess, in amazement.
+
+"No. We jest cut 'em down for the most part," explained Kuk. "Ye see,
+we cut a low swath with our scythes; mostly we mowed off their feet
+and mebbe their legs purty near to their knees. After that there
+battle there was a most awful lot o' wooden legged pi-_rats_ on the
+Spanish Main.
+
+"An' _that_," declared the clam digger, rising and getting ready to
+move on, "was the main reason why I left the sea; leastwise I never
+wanted to go sailin' much in them parts again.
+
+"In the scrimmage I got a shot in this leg as busted my knee-cap. I
+kep' hoppin' 'round on that busted leg as long as there was any
+pi-_rats_ to mow down; and I did the knee a lot of harm the doctors in
+the horspital said.
+
+"So I had ter have the leg ampertated. That made folks down that-a-way
+ax me was I a pi-_rat_, too. I'm a sensitive man," said Kuk, wagging
+his head, "an' it hurt my feelin's to be classed in with all them
+wooden-legged fellers as we mowed down in the _Spankin' Sal_. So I
+come hum an' left the sea for good and all," concluded Habakuk Somes,
+and at once pegged off with his clam basket on his arm.
+
+"What an awful, _awful_ story!" cried Dot.
+
+"Too awful to believe," answered Tess, wisely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+The four Corner House girls planned to start for town one morning
+early, and they were going by road instead of by boat.
+
+Agnes ran over to the boys' tents to ask Neale O'Neil to see that
+their fresh fish was put upon the ice in the icebox when the fishman
+came; and she found Neale doing duty on the housekeeping staff that
+morning, being busily engaged in shaking up the pillows and beating
+mattresses in the sun. The latter exertion was particularly for the
+dislodgment of the ubiquitous sandflea!
+
+"Hello, Ag! What's the good word?" cried Neale.
+
+Agnes told him what they were going to do and asked the favor.
+
+"I'll see that you get the fish all right," Neale agreed. "But what
+about the iceman? He'll never come near your tent with Tom Jonah
+there."
+
+"Tom Jonah is going with us," Agnes said, promptly. "Did you suppose
+we'd leave him all day alone, poor fellow?"
+
+When they started Tom Jonah showed his delight at being included in
+the girls' outing by the most extravagant gyrations. As they went up
+the shaded lane toward the auto-stage road, he chased half a dozen
+imaginary rabbits into the woods in as many minutes.
+
+It was right at the head of the lane that they met the man. He was not
+a bad looking man at all, and he was driving a nice horse to a
+rubber-tired runabout.
+
+He drew in the horse, that seemed to have already traveled some miles
+that morning, and looked hard at Tom Jonah.
+
+"Well," he said, cheerfully, "there's the old tramp himself. How long
+have you girls had him?"
+
+The four Corner House girls stood stock-still, and even Ruth was
+smitten dumb for the moment.
+
+"Tom Jonah, you rascal!" said the man, not unkindly. "Don't you know
+your old master?"
+
+At first the dog had not seen him; but the moment he heard the man's
+voice, he halted and his whole body stiffened. The plume of his tail
+began to wave; his jaws stretched wide in a doggish smile. Then, as
+the man playfully snapped the whip at him, Tom Jonah barked loudly.
+
+"Where did you get him!" the man repeated, looking at the Corner House
+girls again.
+
+Tess and Dot were clinging to each other's hands. Agnes stared at the
+man belligerently. Ruth said--and her voice was not quite steady:
+
+"Do you think you know Tom Jonah, sir?"
+
+"What do you think yourself, Miss?" responded the man, rather gruffly.
+"I guess there's no mistake about whether he knows me and I know him."
+
+"No, sir," said Ruth, bravely. "But lots of people may know him."
+
+"Do you mean to put in a claim for the dog?" interrupted the man,
+quickly.
+
+"Tom Jonah came to our house in Milton," began Ruth, when again the
+man interrupted with:
+
+"Of course. He was on his way home to me. I sold him to a man who
+lives forty miles beyond Milton."
+
+"Then you do _not_ own him?" Ruth said, with a feeling of relief.
+
+The man looked at her steadily for a minute. Ruth had recovered her
+self-possession. Tess and Dot were now on either side of Tom Jonah,
+with their arms about the dog's neck. Agnes was very angry, but
+remained silent.
+
+"I raised that dog from a pup, Miss. I owned his mother. I raised him.
+I put his name on his collar. He has it there yet, hasn't he?"
+
+"Yes, sir," admitted Ruth.
+
+"He's always been a good dog. He's a gentleman if ever a dog was! He
+had the run of the house. My wife and the girls made a great pet of
+him. But by and by they said he was too big and clumsy for the house.
+They have a couple of little _fice_--lap-poodles, or the like. Tom
+Jonah was put out, and he got jealous. Yes, sir!" and the man laughed.
+"Just as jealous as a human."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Agnes. She _disliked_ that man!
+
+"My name's Reynolds," said the man. "Everybody knows me about Shawmit.
+I run a lumber-yard there.
+
+"Well! Tom Jonah got to running away to the neighbors. Stayed a while
+with one, then with another. Always liked kids, Tom Jonah did, and
+he'd stay longest where there were kids in the family.
+
+"But it got to be a nuisance. I didn't know whether the dog belonged
+to me or somebody else. So I sold him to a relative of my wife's who
+came on visiting us, and took a fancy to Tom Jonah, and who lives--as
+I said--forty miles beyond Milton. So the old fellow was on his way
+back home when you took him in, eh?"
+
+"He came to us at Milton," Ruth replied. "He wanted to stay. I brought
+him down here to take care of my little sisters. We're living in a
+tent down on the shore yonder----"
+
+"And we're going to keep him!" interrupted Agnes, angrily.
+
+"Hush! Be still, Aggie!" begged Ruth, in a low tone.
+
+"You don't claim you bought him, I suppose?" said the man who called
+himself Reynolds.
+
+"But we _will_!" cried Ruth, instantly. "We will gladly pay for him."
+
+"Oh, he's not for sale again," laughed the man. "I sold him once and
+he wouldn't stay sold, you see."
+
+"Then he doesn't belong to you now, any more than he does to us,
+really," Ruth hastened to say.
+
+"Well----that's so, I suppose," admitted the man.
+
+"We won't give Tom Jonah up to anybody," said Agnes again.
+
+Dot was crying and Tess could scarcely keep from following her lead.
+Tom Jonah stood solemnly, his eyes very bright, his tail waving
+slowly. He looked from the girls to the man in the runabout, and back
+again. He knew they were discussing him; but he did not know just what
+it was all about.
+
+"If we have to," said Ruth, with much more confidence in her voice
+than she felt in her heart, "we will give Tom Jonah up to the person
+who really owns him. We do not know you, sir. We do not know if what
+you say is true. You must prove it."
+
+"Well! I like that!" said the man in a tone that showed he did not
+like it at all. "You are a pretty pert young lady, you are. I guess
+I'll take my own dog home. I heard he was over here to the beach and I
+drove over particularly to get him."
+
+"Take him, then!" exclaimed Ruth, desperately. "If Tom Jonah will go
+with you, all right. You call him."
+
+"Come here, boy!" commanded the man.
+
+Tom Jonah did not move. Ruth took a hand of each of the smaller girls
+and led them away from the big dog.
+
+"Come, children," she said. "We'll go on. If Tom Jonah really loves
+us, he'll come, too."
+
+The dog whined. He looked from the red-faced, angry man to the four
+girls who loved him so well.
+
+"Come here, Tom Jonah!" commanded the man again. He had turned his
+horse and was evidently headed for home. "Come, sir!"
+
+The Corner House girls were moving sadly away. Agnes glanced back and
+actually made a face at the man in the runabout. Fortunately he did
+not see it.
+
+"Come on, Tom Jonah!" said the man for the third time.
+
+The dog was perplexed. He showed it plainly. He started after the man;
+he started back for the girls. He whined and he barked. He was torn by
+the conflicting emotions in his doggish soul.
+
+"What's the matter with him?" exclaimed the man, and snapped his
+whiplash at Tom Jonah.
+
+At that, Dot uttered a shriek of anguish. Tess burst into tears. Agnes
+started back as though to protect the dog. Even Ruth could not forbear
+to utter a cry.
+
+"Here, Tom Jonah! here, sir!" Agnes shouted. "Come on, you dear old
+fellow."
+
+The dog barked, circled the moving carriage once, and then raced down
+the road toward the Corner House girls. The man shouted and snapped
+his whip. Tom Jonah did not even look back at him when he caught up
+with the girls.
+
+[Illustration: The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;
+started back for the girls. He whined and he barked.]
+
+"Hurry up! let's run with him, Ruthie," begged Agnes.
+
+But there was no need of that. The man did not turn his horse and
+follow. He was quickly out of sight and Tom Jonah gave no sign of
+wishing to follow his old master.
+
+The incident troubled the Corner House girls vastly. Even Ruth was
+devoted to the good old dog by this time. If he were taken away by
+this Mr. Reynolds, it would be like losing one of the Corner House
+family.
+
+Ruth feared that Mr. Reynolds would find some legal way of getting
+possession of Tom Jonah. She wished Mr. Howbridge were here to advise
+them what to do. She even wished now that she had not brought Tom
+Jonah to Pleasant Cove to act as their "chaperon."
+
+The smaller girls dried their eyes after a time. Agnes, "breathing
+threatenings," as Ruth said, promised Tess and Dot that the man never
+should take Tom Jonah away. But Ruth wondered what they would do about
+it if Mr. Reynolds came to Willowbend Camp with a police constable and
+a warrant for the dog?
+
+And, too, who had sent Mr. Reynolds word that Tom Jonah was at the
+beach? He particularly said that he had been informed of the fact. It
+seemed to Ruth that the informer must be their enemy.
+
+Then, out of a dust cloud that had been drawing near the Corner House
+girls for some few moments, appeared the forefront of a big touring
+car. In it were Trix Severn and some of her friends from the Overlook
+House.
+
+"Oh! there's Trix!" murmured Agnes to her older sister.
+
+The hotel-keeper's daughter would not look at the Corner House girls.
+She, certainly, had proved herself their enemy. Ruth wondered if Trix
+had had anything to do with bringing Mr. Reynolds to Pleasant Cove,
+searching for his dog.
+
+Ruth knew that the hotel-keeper's daughter often rode over to Shawmit;
+she was probably on her way there now with her party. And after the
+way Trix had acted at the time the Spoondrift bungalow was burned, one
+might expect anything mean of Trix. For once Ruth allowed her
+suspicions to color her thoughts.
+
+"She has awfully good times, just the same," murmured Agnes.
+
+"Who does?" demanded Ruth, tartly.
+
+"Trix."
+
+"I declare!" exclaimed Ruth, with more vexation than she usually
+displayed. "I'd be ashamed that I ever knew her after the way she's
+acted. And I believe, Agnes, that we can thank her for setting that
+man after Tom Jonah."
+
+"Oh, Ruth! Do you believe so?"
+
+"I do," said the older Corner House girl, and she explained why she
+thought so.
+
+Mr. Severn bought many of his supplies in Shawmit, and Trix was
+forever running over there in the car. It did not strain one's
+imagination very much to picture Trix hearing about Mr. Reynolds' dog
+and recognizing Tom Jonah from the description. Besides, the Severns
+had been coming to Pleasant Cove for several seasons, and Trix might
+easily have seen the dog when he lived with his first master.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" sighed Agnes. "It does seem too bad that one's very
+_best_ friends sometimes turn out to be one's enemies. Who'd have
+thought Trix Severn would do such a thing?"
+
+"Of course, we don't _know_," admitted Ruth, trying to be fair. "But
+who else could have told Mr. Reynolds about Tom Jonah?"
+
+Ruth went into the first store in the village that sold such things
+and bought a new leash. This she snapped into the ring of his collar
+and made the old dog walk beside them more decorously.
+
+Tess and Dot could scarcely keep from hugging him all the time; they
+wanted Ruth to agree to take the very next train back to Milton, for
+they thought with the dog once at the old Corner House, nobody could
+take him away from them.
+
+"I didn't like that man at all, anyway," Tess declared. "He had red
+whiskers."
+
+"Is--is that a sign that a man's real mean if he has red whiskers,
+Tess?" asked Dot, wonderingly.
+
+"It's a sign Tess doesn't like him," laughed Agnes. "But I don't like
+that Reynolds man myself. Do you, Ruthie?"
+
+"We're all agreed on that point I should hope," said Ruth. "But we
+won't run away with Tom Jonah. If that man comes for him again, I'll
+find some way to circumvent him. The good old dog belongs to us, if he
+does to anybody. And as long as he wants to live with us, he shall. So
+now!"
+
+The other Corner House girls finally forgot their worriment about Tom
+Jonah. Ruth warned them not to talk about it to the girls they met.
+They did their errands in the village and then went on to Spoondrift
+bungalow where they spent a very enjoyable day.
+
+Neale O'Neil and Joe Eldred came after supper to escort the Corner
+House girls back to Willowbend Camp. Tess and Dot had taken a nap
+during the afternoon, so were not a drag on the procession, going
+home.
+
+They went around by the home of the little old woman who lived in the
+shoe. Ruth and Agnes had been talking with the boys about the mystery
+of the strange girl who had shared in the adventures of Tess and Dot
+on Wild Goose Island. They all agreed she must be a Gypsy; but Ruth
+had kept to herself the knowledge of the girl's identity as the Gypsy
+"queen."
+
+"I saw several of the Gypsies about the beach to-day," Joe Eldred
+said. "That snaky, scarred-faced fellow was one of them."
+
+"He's the ring-leader, I believe," Ruth hastened to say.
+
+"Can't just see what they are after, hanging about here," Neale
+observed. "There isn't much to steal. Everybody's brought just the
+oldest things they own down here to the beach."
+
+"And there are no hens to steal," chuckled Agnes.
+
+"I bet none of them will come near the tents while Tom Jonah is on
+guard," Neale added, snapping his fingers for the dog who was running
+ahead in the moonlit path.
+
+Suddenly Tom Jonah stopped and growled. They had arrived in sight of
+the queer little cottage where Rosa Wildwood lived with Mrs. Bobster.
+The young folk could even see the drawn shade of the sitting-room
+window.
+
+"There's that man again!" exclaimed Agnes.
+
+"What man?" Joe Eldred asked.
+
+"Mrs. Bobster's mysterious friend," giggled Agnes. "See his shadow on
+the curtain?"
+
+"And he's sitting there with his hat on," murmured Neale.
+
+But it was Ruth who saw the other--and more important--shadow. This
+was the figure of a tall man slipping along the outer side of Mrs.
+Bobster's picket fence. It was _this_ shadow at which Tom Jonah was
+growling.
+
+The man came to the gate, opened it softly, and stole in. His furtive
+movements gave the big dog his cue. He leaped forward, barking
+vociferously, leaped the fence, and followed the running figure around
+the corner of the house.
+
+Mrs. Bobster shrieked--the young folk outside could hear her. But her
+"company" did not move. He still sat there with his derby hat on.
+
+The boys started after the dog. The girls stood, clinging to one
+another's hands, at the corner of the fence.
+
+From around the house appeared another running figure; but this was a
+girl. She flung herself headlong over the fence, and her skirt caught
+on a picket. Ruth ran forward to release her.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" she gasped. "Where did you come from?"
+
+It was the girl she had first noticed in the train with the Gypsy
+woman--the very girl who had been on Wild Goose Island with Tess and
+Dot. It was she who had masqueraded as Zaliska, the Gypsy queen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BROUGHT TO BOOK
+
+
+"Let me go! Let me go!" gasped the girl in Ruth's arms. "He will get
+me."
+
+"Who'll get you?" demanded the wondering Agnes.
+
+"Big Jim, the Gypsy. He's after me," said the strange girl.
+
+"And Tom Jonah and the boys are after _him_," declared Ruth. "Don't
+you fret; Big Jim won't come back here."
+
+"Who _is_ she, Ruth?" asked Agnes.
+
+"Never mind who I am," said the girl, rather sharply. "Let me go."
+
+"I know why you were lurking about here," Ruth said, calmly. "You
+heard that Rosa Wildwood is stopping here."
+
+"Well?" demanded the other.
+
+"Then you are June Wildwood. You're her sister. I don't know how you
+came to be with those Gypsies, and masquerading as an old woman----"
+
+"My goodness!" gasped Agnes. "Was _she_ that Gypsy queen?"
+
+"Yes," Ruth said, confidently. "Now, weren't you?" to the strange
+girl. "And aren't you Rosa's sister who ran away two years ago?"
+
+"Oh, I am! I am!" groaned the girl.
+
+"Well, Rosa's just crazy to see you. And your father has been
+searching for you everywhere," said Ruth, quickly. "You must come in
+and see Rosa. There's Mrs. Bobster opening the front door."
+
+The shadow of the man with the derby hat on his head still was
+motionless upon the shade; but the widow had opened the front door on
+its chain, and now demanded:
+
+"Who's there? what do you want?"
+
+"It's only me, Mrs. Bobster," cried Ruth.
+
+Tess and Dot were already running toward the cottage door. "Oh, Mrs.
+Bobster!" Tess cried, "here's the girl that helped us on the
+island--me and Dot."
+
+"And my Alice-doll," concluded Dot, likewise excited. "And Ruthie says
+she's Rosa's sister."
+
+"For the good land of liberty's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Bobster,
+throwing wide the door. "Come in! Come in!"
+
+The girl whom Ruth had seized hesitated for a moment. Ruth whispered
+in her ear:
+
+"Rosa is wearing her heart out for you, June Wildwood. And your father
+isn't drinking any more. He has a steady job. You come back to them
+and you needn't be afraid of those Gypsies."
+
+"They'll try to get me back. Doc. Raynes' wife was one of them. The
+old doctor died a year ago, and since then I've been with that gang,"
+said June Wildwood.
+
+"Were the doctor and his wife the folks you ran away with?"
+
+"Yes. I danced and sang and dressed up in character to help entertain
+their audiences when he sold bitters and salve," the girl explained.
+"The old doctor treated me all right. But these thieving Gypsies are
+different. Mrs. Doc. Raynes is Big Jim's sister."
+
+"Don't you be afraid of them any more. We'll set the police after
+them," Ruth declared. "Where have you been since the day my sisters
+were with you?"
+
+"I've been washing dishes at a hotel here in Pleasant Cove. But I kept
+under cover. I was afraid of them," said the girl.
+
+They reached the door then, and went into the cottage. Mrs. Bobster
+ushered them right into the sitting-room and at once all the girls
+halted in amazement. There was an armchair standing between the window
+and the center table, where the lamp sat. Leaning against the chair
+was the broom, and on the business end of that very useful household
+implement was a hat that had probably once belonged to the husband of
+the little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+"My goodness sake!" ejaculated Agnes, the first to get her breath.
+"Then it was not company you had at all, Mrs. Bobster?"
+
+"No," said the widow, in a business-like way, removing the hat from
+the broom and standing the latter in the corner. "But I didn't want
+folks to know it. There's some stragglers around here after dark, and
+I wanted 'em to think there was a man in the house."
+
+At that moment Rosa Wildwood came running downstairs in wrapper and
+slippers. "I heard her! I heard her!" she shrieked, and the next
+moment the two sisters were hugging each other frantically.
+
+Explanations were in order; and it took some time for the little old
+lady who lived in a shoe to understand the reunion of her boarder and
+the girl who had lived with the Gypsies.
+
+The boys and Tom Jonah came back, having chased the lurking Big Jim
+for quite a mile through the woods. "And Tom Jonah brought back a
+piece of his coat-tail," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "He can consider
+himself lucky that the dog didn't bite deeper!"
+
+"I guess that dog doesn't like Gypsies," said June Wildwood, patting
+Tom Jonah's head.
+
+The boys were just as much interested as their girl friends in the
+reunion of Rosa and her sister. Meanwhile Mrs. Bobster bustled about
+and found the usual pitcher of cool milk and a great platter of
+cookies. The young folk feasted beyond reason while they all talked.
+
+Ruth arranged with the little old woman who lived in a shoe to let
+June stay with her sister, and she promised June, as well, that if she
+would return to Milton with Rosa, employment would be found for her so
+that she could be self-supporting, yet live at home with Rosa and Bob
+Wildwood.
+
+The Corner House girls offered to leave Tom Jonah to guard the
+premises for that night. But Mrs. Bobster said:
+
+"I reckon I won't be scaret none with two great girls in the house
+with me. Besides, when I am asleep, being lonesome don't bother me
+none--no, ma'am!"
+
+"Well, we don't know how long we're going to have old Tom Jonah
+ourselves," sighed Agnes, as the party bound for the tent colony
+started on again.
+
+"How's that!" demanded Neale, quickly.
+
+They told him about the man named Reynolds, from Shawmit, and the
+claim he had made to the big dog. Neale was equally troubled with the
+Corner House girls over this, and he advised Ruth and Agnes to take
+the dog wherever they went.
+
+"Don't give the fellow a chance to find Tom Jonah alone, or with the
+little girls," said Neale. "I don't believe he can get the dog legally
+without considerable trouble. And Tom Jonah has shown whom he likes
+best."
+
+This uncertainty about Tom Jonah, however, did not keep the Corner
+House girls from continuing their good times at Pleasant Cove. With
+one of the ladies of the tent colony for chaperon the girls and their
+boy friends had many a "junket"--up the river, down the bay, and even
+outside upon the open sea.
+
+It was on one of these latter occasions that Ruth and Agnes joined
+Neale and his friends on the "double-ender," _Hattie G._, and with her
+crew spent a night and a day chasing the elusive swordfish.
+
+That _was_ an adventure; and one not soon to be forgotten by the older
+Corner House girls. Of course Tess and Dot were too small to go on
+this trip and they were fast asleep in one of the neighboring tents
+when Neale O'Neil came and scratched on the canvas of that in which
+Ruth and Agnes slept.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Agnes. "What's that!"
+
+"Is that you, Neale?" demanded Ruth, calmly.
+
+"Of course. Get a bustle on," advised the boy. "The motorboat will be
+ready in ten minutes."
+
+"Mercy!" ejaculated Agnes, giggling. "You know we don't wear bustles,
+Neale. They are too old-fashioned for anything."
+
+She and Ruth quickly dressed. There wasn't much "prinking and
+preening" before the mirror on this morning, that was sure. In ten
+minutes the two Corner House girls were running down the beach, with
+their bags (packed over-night) and their rain-coats over their arms.
+Tom Jonah raced after them.
+
+Everywhere save on the beach itself the shadows lay deep. There was no
+moon and the stars twinkled high overhead--spangles sewed on the
+black-velvet robe of Night.
+
+Out upon the quietly heaving waters sounded voices--then the pop of a
+launch engine.
+
+"Come on!" urged Neale's voice. "They're getting the boat ready,
+girls."
+
+"But we're not going out to the banks in the _Nimble Shanks_--surely!"
+cried Agnes.
+
+"No. But we're going down the cove in her to catch the _Hattie G._
+Skipper Joline sent up a rocket for us half an hour ago. The tide's
+going out. He won't wait long, I assure you."
+
+"It would be lots more comfortable to go all the way in the
+motorboat--wouldn't it?" asked Ruth, stepping into the skiff after
+Agnes and the dog.
+
+"Skipper Joline would have a fit," laughed Joe Eldred. "A motorboat
+engine would scare every swordfish within a league of the Banks--so
+_he_ says. He declares _that_ is what makes them so hard to catch the
+last few seasons. These motorboats running about the sea are a greater
+nuisance than the motor cars ashore--so he declares."
+
+"I suppose the swordfish shy at the motorboats just like the horses
+shy at automobiles!" giggled Agnes, as Neale and Joe pushed off and
+seized the oars.
+
+"Yep," grunted Neale O'Neil. "And the motorboats have frightened all
+the horse-mackerel away. That's a joke. I'll tell the Skipper _that_."
+
+Several shadowy figures--being those of the other boys and Mr. and
+Mrs. Stryver, who were members of the swordfishing party, too--were
+spied about the deck and cockpit of the _Nimble Shanks_. The boys shot
+the skiff in beside the motorboat and helped the girls aboard. Then
+they moored the skiff to the motorboat's buoy and soon the _Nimble
+Shanks_ was away, down the cove.
+
+It was past two o'clock--the darkest minutes of a summer's morning.
+Seaward, a light haze hung over the water--seemingly a veil of mist
+let down from the sky to shut out the view of all distant objects from
+the out-sailing mariners.
+
+As the party neared the fishing fleet, voices carried flatly across
+the water, and now and then a dog barked. Tom Jonah answered these
+canines ashore with explosive growls. He stood forward, his paws
+planted firmly on the deck, and snuffing the sea air. Tom Jonah was a
+good sailor.
+
+"Got your scare?" a voice came out of the darkness, quavering across
+the cove. "Going to be thick outside."
+
+Neale grabbed the fish-horn and blew a mighty blast on it. Similar
+horns answered from all about the fleet.
+
+A towering mast, with its big sail bending to the breeze, shot past
+them--the big cat-boat, _Susie_, bound for her lines of lobster-pots
+just off the mouth of the cove. Her crew hailed the launch and her
+party--four sturdy young fellows in jerseys and high sea-boots.
+
+"Whew!" said Joe. "Smell that lobster bait! I'd hate to go for a
+pleasure trip on the _Susie_."
+
+The _Hattie G._ was just ahead and Mr. Stryver shut off the engine.
+The drab, dirty looking old craft tugged sharply at her taut mooring
+cable. She had two short masts, and on these heavy canvas was being
+spread by the crew, which consisted of five men and a boy.
+
+One of the men was the skipper, another the mate, a third the cook;
+but all hands had to turn to to make sail. There were several sweeps
+(heavy oars) held in bights of rope along the rail. Both ends of the
+_Hattie G._ were sharp; in other words she had two bows. Thus the
+name, "double-ender"--a build of craft now almost extinct save in a
+few New England ports out of which ply the swordfishermen.
+
+Skipper Joline came to the rail. He was a hoarse, red-faced man with a
+white beard, cut like a paintbrush, on his chin.
+
+"Climb aboard, folks," he said. "Steve will get breakfast shortly.
+There's a bit of fog and some swell outside. Better all lay in a good
+foundation of scouse and sody biscuit. Ye'll need it later."
+
+"That sounds rather suggestive, Ruth," whispered Agnes. "Do you
+suppose he expects us landlubbers to be really _sick_?"
+
+"I hope not," replied her sister. "But I don't care! I'm going to eat
+that breakfast if it kills me! I was never so hungry in all my life
+before."
+
+They left the _Nimble Shanks_ moored at the double-ender's
+anchor-buoy, and the latter lurched away on the short leg of her tack
+for the entrance to the cove. There was a fresh breeze and the water
+began to sing under the sharp bows of the _Hattie G._
+
+The cook got busy in the galley and the fragrance of coffee and fried
+fish smothered all other smells about the craft--for it must be
+confessed that the double-ender had an ancient and fishy smell of her
+own that was not altogether pleasant to the nostrils of a fastidious
+person.
+
+These hearty boys and girls were out for fun, however, and they had
+been long enough at Pleasant Cove to get used to most fishy odors.
+Before breakfast was over the _Hattie G._ had run through the
+"Breach," as the cove entrance was called, and they were sailing
+straight out to sea.
+
+The mournful wail of a horn in the fog now and then announced the
+location of some lobsterman. The _Hattie G._ answered these "scares"
+with her own horn and swept on through the fog.
+
+But now the mist began to lift. A golden glow rose, increased, and
+spread all along the eastern horizon. Suddenly they shot out of the
+fog and sailed right into the bright path of the rising sun.
+
+This wonderful sight of sunrise at sea delighted Ruth and Agnes
+intensely. It was just as though they had sailed suddenly into a new
+world.
+
+The fog masked the land astern. Ahead was nothing but the heaving,
+greenish-gray waves, foam-streaked at their crowns to the distant
+skyline, with only a few sails crossing the line of vision. Not a
+speck of land marred the seascape.
+
+Later, when the _Hattie G._ reached the Banks, there was something
+beside the view to interest and excite the Corner House girls.
+
+The big sails were lowered and only a riding sail spread to keep the
+_Hattie G._ on an even keel. A "pulpit" was set up on each of her
+short booms--both fore and aft.
+
+At the top of a mast was rigged a barrel-like thing in which the
+lookout stood with a glass, on the watch for the swordfish.
+
+These can only be caught asleep on the surface of the sea. When one is
+sighted either the sails are hoisted, or the sweeps are used, to bring
+the vessel near enough for the skipper or his mate to make a cast of
+the harpoon.
+
+Once one of the huge fish was spied, everybody aboard the _Hattie G._
+was on the _qui vive_. The boys climbed the ratlines to see. The girls
+borrowed the cook's old-fashioned spyglass to get a better view of the
+creature.
+
+The _Hattie G._ was brought softly near the fish. Skipper Joline had
+warned his guests to keep quiet. Ruth kept her hand upon Tom Jonah's
+collar so that he should not disturb the proceedings.
+
+The skipper stepped into the pulpit--a framework of iron against which
+he leaned when he cast the harpoon. All was ready for the supreme
+moment.
+
+The coil of the line was laid behind him. The crew brought the _Hattie
+G._ just to the spot Skipper Joline indicated with a wave of his hand.
+
+Back swung the mighty arm of the skipper, the muscles swelling like
+cables under the sleeve of his blue jersey.
+
+"Now!" breathed the mate, as eager as any of the boys or girls among
+the spectators.
+
+Ping!
+
+The skipper had let drive. The harpoon sank deeply into the fish. For
+a brief instant they saw blood spurt out and dye the sea.
+
+Then the huge fish leaped almost its length from the sea. The crew
+drove the _Hattie G._ back. Good reason why the swordfishing craft are
+built sharp at both ends!
+
+How the fish thrashed and fought! Its sword beat the water to foam.
+Had it found the double-ender, the latter's bottom-planks would have
+been no protection against the creature's blows.
+
+A swordfish has been known to thrust its weapon through the bottom of
+a boat and break it off in its struggles to get free.
+
+"Oh, Agnes!" gasped Ruth, when the fight was over and the huge fish
+killed. "Who would ever believe, while buying a slice of swordfish,
+that it was so dangerous to capture one of the creatures?"
+
+The crew of the _Hattie G._ got four ere they set sail for Pleasant
+Cove again, and the Corner House girls became quite used to the
+methods of the fishermen and the tactics of the swordfish on being
+struck.
+
+They sailed back to Pleasant Cove with what was called the prize catch
+of the season. When a fish is as big as a good-sized dining-table and
+sells for twenty-five cents a pound, retail, it does not take many to
+make a good catch.
+
+Ruth and Agnes, and Neale and the other boys, were glad they went on
+the trip. They arrived at the camp late in the evening, filled with
+enthusiasm over the adventures of the day.
+
+And Skipper Joline presented the Corner House girls with a four-foot
+sword which, later, occupied a place of honor over the sitting-room
+mantelpiece in the old Corner House at Milton.
+
+Ruth took Tom Jonah up to see the Wildwood girls with her the very
+next time she went to call.
+
+The Corner House girl found Rosa and June shelling peas under the
+arbor, while Mrs. Bobster was talking with Kuk Somes over a "mess" of
+clams she had bought.
+
+"You ain't honest enough to count out a hunderd clams, Kuk," declared
+the plain-spoken old lady. "Ye got such a high-powered imagination
+that ye can't count straight."
+
+"Now, Mis' Bobster, thet thar's a hard statement ter make," said Kuk,
+shaking his head, but grinning. "Don't make me out so 'fore these here
+young ladies."
+
+"I reckon they know ye!" cried the widow. "If they've ever hearn ye
+spin one o' yer sea-farin' yarns----"
+
+"And we have," interposed Ruth, smiling. "He's told us about how he
+sailed in the _Spanking Sal_ and lost his leg fighting pirates."
+
+"For the good land o' liberty!" gasped Mrs. Bobster. "He never told ye
+_that_?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It was very interesting," laughed Ruth.
+
+"Why," said the widow, angrily, "that fellow never sailed in a
+deep-water craft in his life. The only time he ever went out in a
+double-ender as fur as the swordfish banks, he was so sick they had
+ter bring him ashore on a stretcher!"
+
+"Now, Mis' Bobster----" began the clam digger, faintly.
+
+"Ain't that _so_? Ye daren't deny it," she declared. "He ain't no
+sailor. He's jest an old beach-comber. Don't never go in _any_ boat
+outside of the cove. Lost his leg fightin' pirates, did he? Huh!"
+
+"So he told us," said the much amused Ruth.
+
+"Why, th' ridiculous old thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobster, laughing
+herself now. "He lost that leg in Mr. Reynolds' sawmill at
+Shawmit--that's how he did it. And he was tipsy at the time or he
+wouldn't never have got hurt."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ruth, staring at the sheepish clam digger.
+
+"And he goes over there to Shawmit ev'ry month an' collects ten
+dollars from Reynolds, who's good-natured and helps him out with a
+pension. Ain't that so, Kuk Somes!"
+
+The wooden-legged clam digger nodded. "Whar's the harm?" he murmured.
+"Ye know these city folks likes ter hear my yarns. An' it don't hurt
+'em none."
+
+"But that's how Mr. Reynolds heard about our having Tom Jonah,"
+declared Ruth, accusingly. "You told him."
+
+"Yep. That's his old dawg," said Kuk.
+
+"Well, you've made us a lot of trouble," said Ruth, sadly. "For I am
+afraid that Mr. Reynolds will try to take Tom Jonah away. And," she
+added, in secret, "how wrong I was to accuse Trix Severn, without
+stronger evidence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE END OF THE OUTING
+
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway had a very serious matter to decide. Ruth had
+determined that, as they were all enjoying themselves at Pleasant Cove
+so much, the Corner House flag should continue to wave for a time
+longer over their tent in the Willowbend Camp.
+
+But there was something at home in Milton, at the old Corner House
+itself, that the younger girls thought they _must_ attend to.
+
+"It's really a _nawful_ state of affairs," Tess declared, nodding her
+sunny head, gravely, and with her lips pursed up. "They are growing
+right up without knowing their own names. Why! I don't see how their
+own mother knows them apart."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, to whom this was a new idea indeed. "I never thought
+of that."
+
+"Well, it's so," said Tess. "I--I wish Ruth had sent for them and had
+had them brought down here when Rosa and Tom Jonah came."
+
+"But they couldn't leave their mother, Tess," objected Dot. "They're
+too small."
+
+"I--don't--know," said Tess, doubtfully. "At any rate, it's high time
+they were named. You know, Mrs. MacCall says so herself."
+
+Dot picked up the letter that the kind housekeeper at the old Corner
+House had written especially to the two smaller Kenway girls.
+
+"She says they chase their tails all day long and they have had to put
+them out in the woodshed to keep them from being under foot," Dot
+said, reading slowly, for Mrs. MacCall's writing was not like print.
+
+"They must be named," repeated Tess, with conviction.
+
+"But Ruth won't let us go home to do it," quoth Dot.
+
+"And I don't want to. Do _you_?" demanded Tess, hastily. "I don't want
+to leave the beach now, just when we're having so much fun."
+
+Neither did Dot. But the state of the unchristened kittens--the
+youngest family of Sandyface--troubled her exceedingly.
+
+Tess, however, suddenly had one of her very brilliant ideas. "I tell
+you what let's do!" she cried.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Let's write Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus a letter, and ask them to
+name Sandyface's children their own selves."
+
+"But--but _we_ want to name them," cried Dot.
+
+"Goosey!" exclaimed Tess. "We'll choose the names; but Mrs. MacCall
+and Uncle Rufus can give them to the kittens. Don't you see?"
+
+"Oh, Tess! we might," agreed Dot, delighted.
+
+Tess ran to the tent for paper and pencil, and bespoke the favor of an
+envelope addressed in ink to Mrs. MacCall.
+
+"Of course, I'll address one for you," said Ruth, kindly. "But what's
+all the hurry about writing home?"
+
+Tess explained the necessity that had arisen. Sandyface's family of
+kittens was growing up without being christened--and something might
+happen to them.
+
+"You know," said Tess, gravely, "it would be dreadful if one of them
+died and we didn't know what to put on the headboard. It would be
+dreadful!"
+
+"And what names shall we send Mrs. MacCall?" Dot wanted to know, when
+Tess had started the letter "Deare Missus Mcall" and was chewing the
+pencil as an aid to further thought.
+
+"Let's call them by seashore names," suggested Tess. "Then they'll
+remind us of the fun we had here at Pleasant Cove."
+
+"Oh-oo! Let's," agreed Dot.
+
+"Well, now," said Tess, promptly. "What will be the very first one?
+I'll write Mrs. MacCall what we want," and she proceeded to indite the
+following paragraph to begin the letter:
+
+  "We are having so much fun down here at plesent cove that we cant
+  find time to come home and name Sandface's babbies. But we want
+  you and unc rufs to do it for us and we are going to send you the
+  names we chose. They are----"
+
+Here Tess's laboring pencil came to a full stop. "Now, you got the
+first name, Dot?" she asked.
+
+"I got two," declared Dot, confidently.
+
+"What are they!" queried Tess. "Now, we want them to be real
+salt-water names. Just like fishes' names--or boats' names--or like
+that."
+
+"I got two," declared Dot, soberly. "Lots of men must be named those
+names about here. I hear them hollerin' to each other when they are
+out in the boats."
+
+"Well, well!" cried Tess, impatiently. "What are the names?"
+
+"One's 'Starboard' and the other's 'Port,'" declared Dot, seriously.
+"And they are real nice names, _I_ think."
+
+Tess was rather taken aback. She had a hazy opinion that "Starboard"
+and "Port" were not Christian names; they _might_ be, however, and she
+had heard them herself a good deal. Besides, she wanted to agree with
+Dot if she could, and so she sighed and wrote as follows:
+
+   "We got to names alreddy, Missus Mcall, and one's Starborde and the
+   other is Port. They are very pretty names, we think and we hope you
+   an unc rufs and Sandface will like them, to. You give them to the
+   kittens that they seem to fit the best, pleas."
+
+Neale, and Ruth, and Agnes came along some time afterward and found
+the smaller Corner House girls reduced almost to a state of
+distraction. They had been unable to decide upon two more names.
+"Starboard" and "Port" had been inspired, it seemed. Now they were
+"stuck."
+
+"It _does_ seem as though there should be some other seashore names
+that would sound good for kittens," sighed Tess. "I think 'Starboard'
+and 'Port' are real pretty--don't you, Ruth?"
+
+"Very fine," agreed her older sister, while Agnes restrained her
+giggles.
+
+"Why not call one of the others 'Hard-a-Lee'?" suggested Neale,
+gravely.
+
+"Is _that_ a seashore name?" asked Tess, doubtfully.
+
+"Just as salt as a dried codfish," declared Neale, confidently.
+
+"I think it is real pretty," Dot ventured.
+
+"Then we'll call the third one 'Hard-a-Lee,'" declared Tess. "I'll
+tell Mrs. MacCall so," and she laboriously went at the misspelled
+letter again.
+
+"But how about the fourth one?" asked Agnes, laughing. "He's not going
+to be a step-child, is he? Isn't he to have a name?"
+
+"Yes. We must have one more," Tess said, wearily. "Won't _you_ give us
+one, Aggie?"
+
+"Sure!" said Agnes, promptly. "Main-sheet.'"
+
+"'Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet.' Some names, those!"
+declared Neale.
+
+"I like them," Tess said, reflectively. "They don't sound like other
+cats' names--do they, Ruthie?"
+
+"They most certainly do not," admitted the oldest Corner House girl.
+
+"And are they pretty, Ruthie?" asked Dot.
+
+"They are better than 'pretty,'" agreed Ruth, kindly. "If you children
+are suited, I am sure everybody else--including the kittens
+themselves--will be pleased!"
+
+The labored letter was therefore finished and sent away. As Dot said,
+"it lifted a great load from their minds."
+
+But there was another matter that served to trouble all four of the
+Corner House girls for some days. That was what Mr. Reynolds, the
+lumberman, was going to do about Tom Jonah.
+
+The girls seldom left their tent now without taking the dog with them.
+He was something of a nuisance in the boat when they went crabbing;
+but Agnes would not hear of going out without him.
+
+"I know that man will come back here some time and try to get him
+away," she declared. "But Tom Jonah will never go of his own free
+will--no, indeed!"
+
+"And he won't sell him again, he said," sighed Ruth. "I don't just see
+what we can do."
+
+However, this trouble did not keep the Corner House girls from having
+many good times with their girl friends at the Spoondrift bungalow,
+and their boy friends on the beach.
+
+There were fishing trips, and picnics on Wild Goose Island. They
+sometimes went outside the cove in bigger boats, and fished on the
+"banks," miles and miles off shore. There was fun in the evenings,
+too, at the hotel dances, although the Corner House girls did not
+attend any of those held at the Overlook House, for they were not
+exactly friendly with Trix Severn.
+
+One day Pearl Harrod's Uncle Phil arranged to take a big party of the
+older girls to Shawmit, which was some miles up the river. Ruth and
+Agnes went along and that day they left Tom Jonah at Willowbend to
+take care of the smaller girls.
+
+Ruth determined to see Mr. Reynolds, so when they reached Shawmit, she
+hunted up the lumberman's office. She found him in a more amiable mood
+than he had been on the morning he drove to Pleasant Cove to get Tom
+Jonah.
+
+"Well, Miss!" he said. "How do you feel about giving up that dog?"
+
+"Just the same, sir," said Ruth, honestly. "But I hope you will tell
+me who the man is you sold Tom Jonah to, so that we can go to him and
+buy the dog."
+
+"Do you girls really want old Tom Jonah as much as _that_?" asked Mr.
+Reynolds.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the girl, simply.
+
+"Willing to buy the old rascal? And he's nothing but a tramp."
+
+"He's a gentleman. You said so yourself on his collar," said Ruth.
+
+The man looked at her seriously and nodded. "I guess you think a whole
+lot of him, eh?"
+
+"A great deal, sir," admitted Ruth.
+
+"Well! I guess I'll have to tell you," said the man, smiling. "Old Tom
+evidently thinks more of you girls than he does of me. Tell you what:
+After I got home the other day I thought it over. I reckon Tom Jonah's
+chosen for himself. I paid my brother-in-law back the money he gave me
+for him. So you won't be bothered again about him."
+
+"Oh, sir----"
+
+"You keep him. Rather, let Tom Jonah stay as long as he wants to. But
+if he comes back to me I sha'n't let him go again. No! I don't want
+money for him. I guess the old dog likes it where he is, and his days
+of usefulness are pretty nearly over anyway. I'm convinced he'll have
+a good home with you Corner House girls."
+
+"Just as long as he lives!" declared Ruth, fervently.
+
+So Mr. Reynolds did not prove to be a hardhearted man, after all.
+Agnes and Tess and Dot were delighted. There was a regular celebration
+over Tom Jonah that evening after Ruth got home and told the news.
+
+It is doubtful if Tom Jonah understood when Dot informed him that he
+was going to be their dog "for keeps." But he barked very
+intelligently and the two smaller girls were quite convinced that he
+understood every word that was said to him.
+
+"Of course, he can't talk back," Tess said. "Dogs don't speak our
+language. But if we could understand the _barking language_, I am sure
+we would hear him say he was glad."
+
+And as our story of the Corner House girls' visit to Pleasant Cove
+began with Tom Jonah, we may safely end it with the assurance that the
+good old dog will spend the rest of his life with Ruth and Agnes and
+Tess and Dot, at the old Corner House in Milton.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+CHARMING STORIES FOR GIRLS
+
+(From eight to twelve years old)
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES
+
+BY GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a
+rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he
+occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find
+and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and
+make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks
+at a bungalow owned by her parents; and the adventures they meet with
+make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and
+adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls.
+
+  1 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS.
+  2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
+  3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS.
+  4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY.
+  5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND.
+  6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR.
+  7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP.
+  8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND.
+  9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT.
+  10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES.
+  11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+THE POLLY PENDLETON SERIES
+
+BY DOROTHY WHITEHILL
+
+Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to
+a boarding school on the Hudson River some miles above New York. By
+her pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and
+this she holds right through the course. The account of boarding
+school life is faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in
+her teens.
+
+  1 POLLY'S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  2 POLLY'S SUMMER VACATION
+  3 POLLY'S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR
+  5 POLLY AND LOIS
+  6 POLLY AND BOB
+
+_Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated._
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CHICKEN LITTLE JANE SERIES
+
+By LILY MUNSELL RITCHIE
+
+Chicken Little Jane is a Western prairie girl who lives a happy,
+outdoor life in a country where there is plenty of room to turn
+around. She is a wide-awake, resourceful girl who will instantly win
+her way into the hearts of other girls. And what good times she
+has!--with her pets, her friends, and her many interests. "Chicken
+Little" is the affectionate nickname given to her when she is very,
+very good, but when she misbehaves it is "Jane"--just Jane!
+
+  Adventures of Chicken Little Jane
+  Chicken Little Jane on the "Big John"
+  Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town
+
+_With numerous illustrations in pen and ink_
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+Dorothy Whitehall Series
+
+_For Girls_
+
+Here is a sparkling new series of stories for girls--just what they
+will like, and ask for more of the same kind. It is all about twin
+sisters, who for the first few years in their lives grow up in
+ignorance of each other's existence. Then they are at last brought
+together and things begin to happen. Janet is an independent go-ahead
+sort of girl; while her sister Phyllis is--but meet the twins for
+yourself and be entertained.
+
+6 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo., Covers in color.
+
+  1. JANET, A TWIN
+  2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN
+  3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST
+  4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
+  5. THE TWINS' SUMMER VACATION
+  6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARY JANE SERIES
+
+BY CLARA INGRAM JUDSON
+
+Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated.
+
+With picture inlay and wrapper.
+
+Mary Jane is the typical American little girl who bubbles over with
+fun and the good things in life. We meet her here on a visit to her
+grandfather's farm where she becomes acquainted with farm life and
+farm animals and thoroughly enjoys the experience. We next see her
+going to kindergarten and then on a visit to Florida, and then--but
+read the stories for yourselves.
+
+Exquisitely and charmingly written are these books which every little
+girl from five to nine years old will want from the first book to the
+last.
+
+  1 MARY JANE--HER BOOK
+  2 MARY JANE--HER VISIT
+  3 MARY JANE'S KINDERGARTEN
+  4 MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH
+  5 MARY JANE'S CITY HOME
+  6 MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND
+  7 MARY JANE'S COUNTRY HOME
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by 
+Grace Brooks Hill
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 38742-8.txt or 38742-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/7/4/38742/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
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diff --git a/old/38742-8.zip b/old/38742-8.zip
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@@ -0,0 +1,9547 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
+  <meta name="generator" content="pph (1.18)"/>
+  <meta name="title" content="The Corner House Girls Under Canvas"/>
+  <meta name="author" content="Grace Brooks Hill"/>
+  <meta name="date" content="1915"/>
+  <title>The Corner House Girls Under Canvas</title>
+  <style type="text/css">
+      p.center       {text-align:center}
+      p.caption      {text-align:center; margin-left:20%; margin-right:20%;}
+      h2.chapter     {font-size:1.2em; text-align:center; margin: 2em auto 1em auto; font-weight:normal}
+      div.bq         {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%;}
+  </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by Grace Brooks Hill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Corner House Girls Under Canvas
+       How they reached Pleasant Cove and what happened afterward
+
+Author: Grace Brooks Hill
+
+Illustrator: R. Emmett Owen
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2012 [EBook #38742]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>
+<img id='ilink01' src='images/illus-001.jpg' alt=''/>
+<p class='caption'>Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for help, they were out of sight of the camp.</p>
+</div>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.4em;margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:0em;'>THE CORNER HOUSE</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.4em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:2em;'>GIRLS UNDER CANVAS</p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+HOW THEY REACHED PLEASANT COVE<br/>
+AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:0;'>BY</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>GRACE BROOKS HILL</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:0.8em;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Author of “The Corner House Girls,”</span></p>
+<p class='center' style='font-size:0.8em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:2em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>“The Corner House Girls at School,” etc.</span></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>ILLUSTRATED BY</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>R. EMMETT OWEN</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:0em;'>NEW YORK</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:0em;'>BARSE &amp; HOPKINS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:2em;'>PUBLISHERS</p>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:0;'>BOOKS FOR GIRLS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>The Corner House Girls Series</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>By Grace Brooks Hill</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>Illustrated.</i></p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS<br/>
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL<br/>
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS<br/>
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY<br/>
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS’ ODD FIND<br/>
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>(<i>Other volumes in preparation</i>)</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>BARSE &amp; HOPKINS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Publishers—New York</span></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:0;'>Copyright, 1915,</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>by</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>Barse &amp; Hopkins</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>The Corner House Girls Under Canvas</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>Printed in U. S. A.</p>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>CONTENTS</p>
+
+<table id='toc' style='margin:auto' summary='TOC'>
+<tr><td>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink01'>I. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Tom Jonah</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink02'>II. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Something to Look Forward To</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink03'>III. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Dance at Carrie Poole’s</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink04'>IV. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Mystery of June Wildwood</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink05'>V. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Off for the Seaside</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink06'>VI. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>On the Train</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink07'>VII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Something Ahead</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink08'>VIII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Gypsy Camp</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink09'>IX. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Spoondrift Bungalow</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink10'>X. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Some Excitement</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink11'>XI. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink12'>XII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Picnic with Agamemnon</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink13'>XIII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Night of the Big Wind</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink14'>XIV. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>An Important Arrival</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink15'>XV. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Two Girls in a Boat—to Say Nothing of the Dog!</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink16'>XVI. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Gypsies Again</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink17'>XVII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>On Wild Goose Island</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink18'>XVIII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Search</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink19'>XIX. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Startling Meeting</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink20'>XX. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Frankfurter Man</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink21'>XXI. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Mrs. Bobster’s Mysterious Friend</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink22'>XXII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Yarn of the “Spanking Sal”</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink23'>XXIII. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Shadow</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink24'>XXIV. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Brought to Book</span></a><br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='#clink25'>XXV. <span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The End of the Outing</span></a><br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>ILLUSTRATIONS</p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for help,<br/>
+they were out of sight of the camp<br/>
+<br/>
+A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging<br/>
+with both hands to the ridge of it<br/>
+<br/>
+Ruth actually went back, groping through the<br/>
+gathering smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled<br/>
+out upon the shingles<br/>
+<br/>
+The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;<br/>
+he started back for the girls. He whined and he<br/>
+barked<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.4em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink01'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER I—TOM JONAH</a></h2>
+
+<p>“Come here, Tess! Come quick and look at
+this poor dog. He’s just drip-ping-<i>wet</i>!”</p>
+
+<p>Dot Kenway stood at a sitting-room window
+of the old Corner House, looking out upon Willow
+Street. It was a dripping day, and anything or
+anybody that remained out-of-doors and exposed
+to the downpour for half an hour, was sure to be
+saturated.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing wetter or more miserable looking than
+the dog in question had come within the range of
+the vision of the two younger Corner House girls
+that Saturday morning.</p>
+
+<p>Tess, who was older than Dot, came running.
+Anything as frightfully despondent and hopeless
+looking as that dog was bound to touch the tender
+heart of Tess Kenway.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s—let’s take him to the porch and feed
+him, Dot,” she cried.</p>
+
+<p>“Will Ruthie let us?” asked Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. She’s gone for her music lesson
+and won’t know, anyway,” declared Tess, recklessly.</p>
+
+<p>“But maybe Mrs. MacCall won’t like it?”</p>
+
+<p>“She’s upstairs and won’t know, either. Besides,”
+Tess said, bolstering up her own desire,
+“she says she hasn’t ever sent anybody away
+hungry from her door; and that poor dog looks
+just as hungry as any tramp that ever came to
+the old Corner House.”</p>
+
+<p>The girls ran out of the sitting-room into the
+huge front hall which, in itself, was almost big
+enough for a ballroom. It was finished in dark,
+dark oak; there was a huge front door—like the
+door of a castle; the furniture was walnut, upholstered
+in haircloth, worn shiny by more than
+three generations of use; and out of the middle
+of the hall a great stairway arose, dividing when
+half-way up into two sections, while a sort of
+gallery was built all around the hall at the second
+floor, out of which the doors of the principal chambers
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>There was a third story above, and above that
+a huge garret—often the playroom of the Corner
+House girls on such days as this. In the rear
+were two wings built on to the house, each three
+stories in height. The house had its “long” side
+to Willow Street, and only a narrow grass plot
+and brick walk separated the sitting-room windows
+from the boundary fence.</p>
+
+<p>It faced Main Street, at its head, where the
+Parade Ground began. The dripping trees on
+the Parade were now in full leaf and the lush
+grass beneath them was green. The lawns of the
+old Corner House needed the mower, too; and at
+the back Uncle Rufus—the general factotum of
+the establishment—had laid out a wonderful
+kitchen garden which already had yielded radishes
+and tender onions and salad, and promised
+green peas to accompany the spring lamb to the
+table on the approaching Fourth.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot Kenway crossed the big hall of
+the Corner House, and went on through the dining-room
+with its big table, huge, heavily carved sideboard
+and comfortably armed chairs, through the
+butler’s pantry into the kitchen. As Tess had
+said, Mrs. MacCall, their good-natured and lovable
+housekeeper, was not in sight. Nobody delayed
+them, and they stepped out upon the half-screened
+porch at the back. The woodshed
+joined it at the far end. The steps faced Willow
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>On the patch of drying green a goat was
+tethered, lying down in the rain, reflectively chewing
+a cud. He bleated when he saw the girls,
+but did not offer to rise; the rain did not disturb
+him in the least.</p>
+
+<p>“Billy Bumps likes the rain,” Dot said, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>The dog outside the gate did not seem to be
+enjoying himself. He had dropped down upon
+the narrow strip of sward between the flagged
+walk and the curbing; his sides heaved as though
+he had run a long way, and his pink tongue lolled
+out of his mouth and dripped.</p>
+
+<p>“My!” Dot murmured, as she saw this, “the
+rain’s soaked right through the poor doggy—hasn’t
+it? And it’s just dripping out of him!”</p>
+
+<p>Tess, more practical, if no more earnest in her
+desire to relieve the dog’s apparent misery, ran
+down to the gate through the falling rain and
+called to him:</p>
+
+<p>“Poor, poor doggie! Come in!”</p>
+
+<p>She opened the gate temptingly, but the strange
+dog merely wagged his tail and looked at her out
+of his beautiful brown eyes. He was a Newfoundland
+dog, with a cross of some breed that
+gave him patches of deep brown in his coat and
+very fine, long, silky hair that curled up at the
+ends. He was strongly built and had a good
+muzzle which was powdered with the gray hairs
+of age.</p>
+
+<p>“Come here, old fellow,” urged Tess, “<i>Do</i>
+come in!”</p>
+
+<p>She snapped her fingers and held the gate more
+invitingly open. He staggered to his feet and
+limped toward her. He did not crouch and slink
+along as a dog does that has been beaten; but
+he eyed her doubtfully as though not sure, after
+all, of this reception.</p>
+
+<p>He was muddied to his flanks, his coat was
+matted with green burrs, and there was a piece
+of frayed rope knotted about his neck. The dog
+followed Tess doubtfully to the porch. Billy
+Bumps climbed to his feet and shook his head
+threateningly, stamping his feet; but the strange
+dog was too exhausted to pay the goat any attention.</p>
+
+<p>The visitor at first refused to mount the steps,
+but he looked up at Dot and wagged his tail in
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Tess!” cried the smallest girl. “He
+thinks he knows me. Do you suppose we have
+ever seen him before?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe so,” said Tess, bustling into
+the woodshed and out again with a pan of broken
+meat that had been put aside for Sandyface and
+her children. “I know I should remember him
+if I had ever seen him before. Come, old fellow!
+Good doggie! Come up and eat.”</p>
+
+<p>She put the pan down on the porch and stood
+back from it. The brown eyes of the dog glowed
+more brightly. He hesitatingly hobbled up the
+steps.</p>
+
+<p>A single sniff of the tidbits in the pan, and the
+dog fell to wolfishly, not stopping to chew at all,
+but fairly jerking the meat into his throat with
+savage snaps.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, don’t gobble so!” gasped Dot. “It—it’s
+bad for your indigestions—and isn’t polite, anyway.”</p>
+
+<p>“Guess you wouldn’t be polite if you were as
+hungry as he is,” Tess observed.</p>
+
+<p>The dog was so tired that he lay right down,
+after a moment, and ate with his nose in the pan.
+Dot ventured to pat his wet coat and he thumped
+his tail softly on the boards, but did not stop eating.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Uncle Rufus came shuffling up
+the path from the hen-coop. Uncle Rufus was a
+tall, stoop-shouldered, pleasantly brown negro,
+with a very bald crown around which was a narrow
+growth of tight, grizzled “wool.” He had
+a smiling face, and if the whites of his eyes were
+turning amber hued with age he was still “purty
+pert”—to use his own expression—save when the
+rheumatism laid him low.</p>
+
+<p>“Whar’ yo’ chillen done git dat dawg?” he
+wanted to know, in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Uncle Rufus!” cried Dot. “He came
+along looking <i>so</i> wet——”</p>
+
+<p>“And he was <i>so</i> tired and hungry,” added Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“I done spec’ yo’ chillen would take in er
+wild taggar, ef one come erlong lookin’ sort o’
+meachin’,” grumbled the colored man.</p>
+
+<p>“But he’s so good!” said Tess. “See!” and
+she put her hand upon the handsome head of the
+bedraggled beast.</p>
+
+<p>“He jes’ er tramp dawg,” said Uncle Rufus,
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s only tired and dirty,” said Tess, earnestly.
+“I don’t believe he wants to be a tramp.
+He doesn’t look at all like the tramps Mrs. MacCall
+feeds at the back door here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nor like those horrid Gypsies that came to
+the house the other day,” added Dot eagerly. “I
+was afraid of them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it suah ain’t b’long ’round yere—dat
+dawg,” muttered Uncle Rufus. “It done run
+erway f’om somewhar’ an’ hit trabbel far—ya-as’m!”</p>
+
+<p>He pulled the ears of the big dog himself, in
+a kindly fashion, and the dog pounded the porch
+harder with his tail and rolled a trusting eye up
+at the little group. Evidently the tramp dog was
+convinced that this would be a good place to remain
+in, and “rest up.”</p>
+
+<p>A pretty girl of twelve or thirteen, with flower-like
+face, plump, and her blue eyes dancing and
+laughing in spite of her, ran in at the side gate.
+She had a covered basket of groceries on her arm,
+and was swathed in a raincoat with a close hood
+about her face.</p>
+
+<p>“Agnes!” screamed Dot. “See what we’ve
+got! Just the nicest, friendfulnest dog——”</p>
+
+<p>“Mercy, Dot! More animals?” was the older
+sister’s first comment.</p>
+
+<p>“But he’s such a <i>nice</i> dog,” wailed Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“And so hungry and wet,” added Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“What fine eyes he has!” exclaimed Agnes,
+stooping down to pat the noble head. Instantly
+the dog’s pink tongue sought her hand and—Agnes
+was won!</p>
+
+<p>“He’s splendid! he’s a fine old fellow!” she
+cried. “Of course we’ll keep him, Dot.”</p>
+
+<p>“If Ruthie says so,” added Tess, with a loyalty
+to the oldest Corner House girl born of the fact
+that Ruth had mothered the brood of three
+younger sisters since their real mother had died
+three years previous.</p>
+
+<p>“I dunno wot yo’ chillen want er dawg for,”
+complained Uncle Rufus.</p>
+
+<p>“To keep chicken thieves away,” said Agnes,
+promptly, laughing roguishly at the grumbling
+black man.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” cried Tess. “You said yourself, Uncle
+Rufus, that those Gypsies that stopped here
+might be looking at Ruth’s chickens.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I done guess dat tramp dawg knows
+when he’s well off,” said the old man, chuckling
+suddenly. “He’s layin’ down lak’ he’s fixin’ tuh
+stay—ya-as’m!”</p>
+
+<p>The dog had crept to the most sheltered corner
+of the porch and curled up on an old rag mat
+Mrs. MacCall had left there for the cats.</p>
+
+<p>“He ought to have that dirty old rope taken
+off,” said Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Rufus drew out his clasp knife and opened
+the blade. He approached the weary dog and
+knelt down to remove the rope.</p>
+
+<p>“Glo-<i>ree</i>!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “He
+done got er collar on him.”</p>
+
+<p>It was hidden in the thick hair about the dog’s
+neck. The three girls crowded close to see,
+Uncle Rufus unbuckled it and handed the leather
+strap to Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“See if there is any name and address on it,
+Aggie!” gasped Tess. “Oh! I hope not. Then,
+if we don’t know where he came from, he’s ours
+for keeps.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a small brass plate; but no name,
+address, or license number was engraved upon it.
+Instead, in clear script, it was marked:</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>“THIS IS TOM JONAH. HE IS A</p>
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>GENTLEMAN.”</p>
+
+<p>“There!” cried Dot, as though this settled the
+controversy. “What did I tell you? He <i>can’t</i>
+be any tramp dog. He’s a gentleman.”</p>
+
+<p>“‘Tom Jonah,’” murmured Agnes. “What
+a funny name!”</p>
+
+<p>When Ruth came home the younger girls bore
+her off at once to see Tom Jonah sleeping comfortably
+on the porch. The old dog raised his
+grizzled muzzle, wagged his tail, and beamed at
+her out of his soft brown eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“The dear love!” cried Tess, clasping her
+hands. “Isn’t he beautiful, Ruthie?”</p>
+
+<p>“Beautifully dirty,” said Ruth, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, but Uncle Rufus says he will wash him
+to-morrow. He’s got some insect—insecty-suicide
+soap like he puts on the henroosts——”</p>
+
+<p>“Insecticide, Dot,” admonished Tess. “I wish
+you wouldn’t try to say words that you <i>can’t</i>
+say.”</p>
+
+<p>Dot pouted. But Ruth patted her head and
+said, soothingly:</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind, honey. We’ll let the poor dog
+stay till he rests up, anyway. He looks like a
+kind creature.”</p>
+
+<p>But she, as well as the adults in the old Corner
+House, did not expect to see Tom Jonah the next
+morning when they awoke. He was allowed to
+remain on the porch, and despite the objections of
+Sandyface, the mother cat, and the army of
+younger felines growing up about her, Tom Jonah
+was given a bountiful supper by Mrs. MacCall
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>Dot and Tess ran to peep at the dog just before
+going to bed that night. He blinked at them
+in the lampshine from the open door, and thumped
+the porch flooring with his tail.</p>
+
+<p>It was past midnight before anything more was
+heard of Tom Jonah. Then the whole house was
+aroused—not to say the neighborhood. There
+was a savage salvo of barks from the porch, and
+down the steps scrambled Tom Jonah. They
+heard him go roaring down the yard.</p>
+
+<p>Then there arose a great confusion at the hen
+house—a squawking of frightened hens, the loud
+“cut, cut, ca-da-cut!” of the rooster, mingling
+with which was the voice of at least one human
+being and the savage baying of Tom Jonah.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink02'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER II—SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO</a></h2>
+
+<p>Uncle Rufus was too old and too stiff to get
+out of bed and down from his third-story room
+in the old Corner House, to be of any assistance
+at this midnight incident. But the girls were
+awakened the moment Tom Jonah began barking.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a hen thief!” squealed Tess, leaping out
+of her own warm nest.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope that dog bites him!” cried Agnes, savagely,
+from the other room.</p>
+
+<p>She ran to the window. It was a starlit, but
+foggy night. She could see only vaguely the objects
+out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was scrambling into a skirt and dressing
+sacque; she thrust her feet into shoes, too, and
+started downstairs. Mrs. MacCall’s window
+went up with a bang, and the girls heard the
+housekeeper exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>“Shoo! shoo! Get out of there!”</p>
+
+<p>Whoever it was that had roused Tom Jonah,
+the person was evidently unable to “get out of
+there.” The dog’s threatening growls did not
+cease, and the man’s voice which had first been
+heard when the trouble started, was protesting.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes followed her older sister downstairs.
+Of course, Aunt Sarah Maltby, who slept in one
+of the grand front rooms in the main part of the
+house, did not even hear all the disturbance.
+And there were not any houses really near the
+Stower Homestead, which Milton people knew by
+the name of “the old Corner House.”</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, the sounds of conflict at the Kenway
+hennery were not likely to arouse many people.
+But when Ruth and Agnes reached out-of-doors,
+the younger girl remembered one person
+who might hear and be of assistance.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s call Neale O’Neil!” she cried to Ruth.
+“He’ll help us.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’d better call a policeman,” said Ruth,
+running down the brick path.</p>
+
+<p>“Huh! you wouldn’t find a policeman in Milton
+at this hour of the night, if you searched for a
+week of Sundays,” was the younger girl’s ambiguous
+statement. Then she raised her voice and
+shouted: “Neale! Neale O’Neil! Help!”</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the dog continued his threatening
+bayings. The fowls fluttered and squawked.
+Billy Bumps began to blat and butt the partition
+in his pen. Whoever had ventured into the hennery
+had gotten into hot quarters and no mistake!</p>
+
+<p>Ruth stopped suddenly in the path and clutched
+at Agnes’ arm. Agnes was as lightly dressed
+as herself; but it was a warm June night and
+there was no danger of their getting cold.</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>
+<img id='ilink02' src='images/illus-002.jpg' alt=''/>
+<p class='caption'>A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging with both hands to the ridge of it.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Suppose the dog does not remember us?” the
+older girl gasped in Agnes’ ear. “Maybe—maybe
+he’ll tear us to pieces. How savage he
+sounds!”</p>
+
+<p>Agnes was frightened; but she had pluck, too.
+“Come on, Ruth!” she said. “He is only mad
+at the thief.”</p>
+
+<p>“If it <i>is</i> a thief,” quavered Ruth. “I—I am
+afraid to go on, Aggie.”</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the sound of little feet pattering
+behind them made both girls turn. There
+were Dot and Tess, both barefooted, and Dot with
+merely a doubled-up comforter snatched from
+her bed, wrapped over her night clothes.</p>
+
+<p>“Mercy me, children!” gasped Ruth. “What
+are you doing here?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, we mustn’t let Tom Jonah <i>bite</i> that man,”
+Tess declared, and kept right on running toward
+the henhouse.</p>
+
+<p>“If that dog bites——” screamed Ruth, and
+ran after her smaller sister.</p>
+
+<p>There was the big dog leaping savagely toward
+the low eaves of the hennery. A kicking figure
+was sprawled on the roof, clinging with both
+hands to the ridge of it. The girls obtained a
+glimpse of a dark face, with flashing teeth, and
+big gold rings in the marauder’s ears.</p>
+
+<p>“Tak’ dog away! Tak’ dog away!” the man
+said, in a strangled voice.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s one of those Gypsies,” whispered Agnes,
+in an awed voice.</p>
+
+<p>A tribe of the nomads in question had passed
+through Milton but a day or two before, and the
+girls had been frightened by the appearance of
+the men of the tribe who had called at the old
+Corner House.</p>
+
+<p>Now, whether this marauder belonged to the
+same people or not, Ruth saw that he looked like
+a Gypsy. For another reason, too, her mind was
+relieved at once; Tom Jonah was only savage
+toward the man on the roof.</p>
+
+<p>When Tess ran right up to the leaping dog, he
+stopped barking, and wagged his tail, as though
+satisfied that he had done his duty in drawing
+the family to the scene. But he still kept his eyes
+on the man, and occasionally uttered a growl deep
+in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>“What are you doing up there?” Ruth demanded
+of the man.</p>
+
+<p>“Tak’ away dog!” he whined.</p>
+
+<p>“No. I think I will let the dog hold you till a
+policeman comes. You were trying to rob our
+henroost.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no, Missee! You wrong. No do that,”
+stammered the man.</p>
+
+<p>“What were you doing here, then?”</p>
+
+<p>Before the fellow could manufacture any plausible
+tale, a shout came from beyond the back
+fence, and somebody was heard to scramble into
+the Corner House yard.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the matter, girls?” demanded Neale
+O’Neil’s cheerful voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, come here, Neale!” cried Agnes. “Tom
+Jonah’s caught a Gypsy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tom <i>Who</i>?” demanded the tall, pleasant-faced
+boy of fifteen, who immediately approached the
+henhouse.</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah,” announced Tess. “He’s just
+the <i>nicest</i> dog!”</p>
+
+<p>The boy saw the group more clearly then. He
+looked from the savagely growling animal to the
+man sprawling on the roof, and burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes! I guess that fellow up there feels that
+the dog is very ‘nice.’ Where did you get the
+dog, and where did <i>he</i> get his name?”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll tell you all about that later, Neale,”
+said Ruth, more gravely. “At least, we’ll tell
+you all we know about the dear old dog. Isn’t
+he a splendid fellow to catch this man at my
+hens?”</p>
+
+<p>“And the fellow had some in this bag!” exclaimed
+Neale, finding a bag of flopping poultry
+at the corner of the hen-run.</p>
+
+<p>“Tak’ away dog!” begged the man on the roof
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s all he’s afraid of,” said Agnes. “I
+bet he has a knife. Isn’t he a wicked looking fellow?”</p>
+
+<p>“Regular brigand,” agreed Neale. “What we
+going to do with him?”</p>
+
+<p>“Give him to a policeman,” suggested Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you suppose the policeman would <i>want</i>
+him?” chuckled Neale. “To awaken a Milton
+officer at this hour of the night would be almost
+sacrilege, wouldn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“What <i>shall</i> we do?” demanded Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had been thinking more sensibly for a few
+moments. Now she spoke up decisively:</p>
+
+<p>“The man did not manage to do any harm.
+Put the poultry back in the house, Neale. If he
+ever comes again he will know what to expect.
+He thought we had no dog; but he sees we have—and
+a savage one. Let him go.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had we better do that, sister?” whispered
+Agnes. “Oughtn’t he to be punished?”</p>
+
+<p>“I expect so,” Ruth said, grimly. “But for
+once I am going to shirk my duty. We’ll take
+away the dog and let him go.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who’ll take him away?” demanded Agnes,
+suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Neale had taken the sack in which the fowl
+struggled, to the door of the henhouse, opened
+it, and dumped the fowl out. Tom Jonah evidently
+recognized him for a friend, for he wagged
+his tail, but still kept his eye on the man upon
+the roof.</p>
+
+<p>“I declare!” said Ruth. “I hadn’t thought.
+Whom will he mind?”</p>
+
+<p>“Come here, Tom Jonah!” said Neale, snapping
+his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah still wagged his tail, but he remained
+ready to receive the Gypsy (if such the
+fellow was) in his jaws, if he descended.</p>
+
+<p>“Come away, Tom!” exclaimed Agnes, confidently.
+“Come on back to the house.”</p>
+
+<p>The man on the roof moved and Tom Jonah
+stiffened. He refused to budge.</p>
+
+<p>“Guess you’ll have to call a cop after all,”
+said Neale, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Here, sir!” commanded Ruth. “Come away.
+You have done enough——”</p>
+
+<p>But the dog did not think so. He held his
+place and growled.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess you’re bound to stay up there, till daylight—or
+a policeman—doth appear, my friend,”
+called up Neale to the besieged.</p>
+
+<p>“Tak’ away dog!” begged the frightened fellow.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Tom Jonah!” exclaimed Tess, walking
+up to the big dog and putting a hand on his collar.
+“You must come away when you are spoken
+to. You’ve caught the bad man, and that’s
+enough.”</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah turned and licked her hand. Then
+he moved a few steps away with her and looked
+back.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on with me, Tom Jonah,” commanded
+the little girl, firmly. “Let the bad man go.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you know about <i>that</i>?” demanded
+Neale.</p>
+
+<p>The next minute the fellow had scrambled up
+the roof, caught the low hanging limb of a shade
+tree that stood near the fence, and swinging himself
+like a cat into the tree, he got out on another
+branch that overhung the sidewalk, dropped, and
+ran.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah sprang to the fence with a savage
+bay; but the man only went the faster. The incident
+was closed in a minute, and the little
+party of half-dressed young folk went back to
+their beds, while the strange dog curled up on
+his mat in the corner of the porch again and slept
+the sleep of the just till morning.</p>
+
+<p>And now that the excitement is over, let us
+find out a little something about the Corner House
+girls, their friends, their condition in life, and
+certain interesting facts regarding them.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Howbridge, the lawyer from Milton
+and Uncle Peter Stower’s man of affairs and the
+administrator of his estate, came to the little tenement
+on Essex Street, Bloomingsburg, where the
+four orphaned Kenway girls had lived for some
+years with Aunt Sarah Maltby, he first met Tess
+and Dot returning from the drugstore with Aunt
+Sarah’s weekly supply of peppermint drops.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Sarah had been a burden on the Kenways
+for many years. The girls had only their
+father’s pension to get along on. Aunt Sarah
+claimed that when Uncle Peter died, his great
+estate would naturally fall to her, and then she
+would return all the benefits she had received
+from the Kenway family.</p>
+
+<p>But the lawyer knew that queer old Uncle
+Peter Stower had made a will leaving practically
+all his property to the four girls in trust, and to
+Aunt Sarah only a small legacy. But this will
+had been hidden somewhere by the old man before
+his recent death and had not yet been found.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be no other claimants to the
+Stower Estate, however, and the court allowed
+Mr. Howbridge to take the Kenway girls and
+Aunt Sarah to Milton and establish them in the
+Stower Homestead, known far and wide as the
+old Corner House.</p>
+
+<p>Here, during the year that had passed, many
+interesting and exciting things had happened to
+Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was the head of the family, and the lawyer
+greatly admired her good sense and ability. She
+was not a strikingly pretty girl, for she had
+“stringy” black hair and little color; but her
+eyes were big and brown, and those eyes, and her
+mouth, laughed suddenly at you and gave expression
+to her whole face. She was now completing
+her seventeenth year.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes was thirteen, a jolly, roly-poly girl, who
+was fond of jokes, a bit of a tomboy, up to all
+sorts of pranks—who laughed easily and cried
+stormily—had “lots of molasses colored hair”
+as she said herself, and was the possessor of a pair
+of blue eyes that could stare a rude boy out of
+countenance, but who <i>would</i> spoil the effect of
+this the next instant by giggling; a girl who had
+a soulmate among her girl friends all of the time,
+but not frequently did one last for long in the
+catalog of her “best friends.”</p>
+
+<p>Nobody remembered that Tess had been named
+Theresa. She was a wise little ten-year-old who
+possessed some of Ruth’s dignity and some of
+Agnes’ prettiness, and the most tender heart in
+the world, which made her naturally tactful.
+She was quick at her books and very courageous.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy, or Dot, was the baby and pet of the
+family. She was a little brunette fairy; and if
+she was not very wise as yet, she was faithful and
+lovable, and not one of “the Corner House girls,”
+as the Kenways were soon called by Milton people,
+was more beloved than Dot.</p>
+
+<p>The girls’ best boy friend lived with the old
+cobbler, Mr. Con Murphy, on the rear street, and
+in a little house the yard of which adjoined the
+larger grounds of the old Corner House. We
+have seen how quickly Neale O’Neil came to the
+assistance of the Kenway girls when they were
+in trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Neale had been brought up among circus people,
+his mother having traveled all her life with
+Twomley &amp; Sorber’s Herculean Circus and Menagerie.
+The boy’s desire for an education and
+to win a better place in the world for himself,
+had caused him to run away from his uncle, Mr.
+Sorber, and support himself in Milton while he
+attended school.</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls had befriended Neale
+and when his uncle finally searched him out and
+found the boy, it was they who influenced the
+man against taking Neale away. Neale had
+proved himself an excellent scholar and had made
+friends in Milton; now he was about to graduate
+with Agnes from the highest grammar grade to
+high school.</p>
+
+<p>The particulars of all these happenings have
+been related in the first two volumes of the series,
+entitled respectively, “The Corner House Girls”
+and “The Corner House Girls at School.”</p>
+
+<p>When Agnes woke up in the morning following
+the unsuccessful raid of the Gypsy man on the
+hennery, she had something of wonderful importance
+to tell Ruth. She had seen her “particular
+friend,” Trix Severn, on the street Saturday
+afternoon and Trix had told her something.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ve heard the girls talking about Pleasant
+Cove, Ruthie?” said Agnes, earnestly. “You
+know Mr. Terrence Severn owns one of the big
+hotels there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. Trix talks enough about it,” said
+the older Kenway girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! you don’t like Trix——”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not exceedingly fond of her. And there
+was a time when you thought her your very deadliest
+enemy,” laughed Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Well! Trix has changed,” declared the unsuspicious
+Agnes, “and she’s proposed the very
+nicest thing, Ruth. She says her mother and
+father will let her bring all four of us to the Cove
+for the first fortnight after graduation. The
+hotel will not be full then, and we will be Trix’s
+guests. And we’ll have loads of fun.”</p>
+
+<p>“I—don’t—know——-” began Ruth, but Agnes
+broke in warmly:</p>
+
+<p>“Now, don’t you say ‘No,’ Ruthie Kenway!
+Don’t you say ‘No!’ I’ve just made up my mind
+to go to Pleasant Cove——”</p>
+
+<p>“No need of flying off, Ag,” said Ruth, in the
+cool tone that usually brought Agnes “down to
+earth again.” “We have talked of going there
+for a part of the summer. A change to salt air
+will be beneficial for us all—so Dr. Forsythe says.
+I have talked to Mr. Howbridge, and he says
+‘Yes.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then!”</p>
+
+<p>“But I doubt the advisability of accepting Trix
+Severn’s invitation.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, isn’t that mean——”</p>
+
+<p>“Hold your horses,” again advised Ruth. “We
+will go, anyway. If all is well we will stay at the
+hotel a while. Pearl Harrod’s uncle owns a
+bungalow there, too; <i>she</i> has asked me to come
+there for a while, and bring you all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! isn’t that nice?” agreed Agnes. “Then
+we can stay twice as long.”</p>
+
+<p>“Whether it will be right for us to accept the
+hospitality offered us when we have no means
+of returning it——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me, Ruth! don’t be a fuss-cat.”</p>
+
+<p>“There is a big tent colony there—quite removed
+from the hotel,” suggested Ruth. “Many
+of our friends and their folks are going <i>there</i>.
+Neale O’Neil is going with a party of the boys
+for at least two weeks.”</p>
+
+<p>“Say! we’ll have scrumptious times,” cried
+Agnes, with sparkling eyes. Her anticipation of
+every joy in life added immensely to the joy itself.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—if we go,” said Ruth, slowly. But it
+was something for the others to look forward to
+with much pleasure.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink03'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER III—THE DANCE AT CARRIE POOLE’S</a></h2>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot Kenway had something of particular
+interest to hold their attention, too, the
+minute they awoke on this Sunday morning. Dot
+voiced the matter first when she asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Do you suppose that dear Tom Jonah is here
+yet, Tess?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I hope so!” cried the older girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s run see,” suggested Dot, and nothing
+loth Tess slipped into her bathrobe and slippers,
+too, and the two girls pattered downstairs.
+Their baths, always overseen by Ruth, were neglected.
+They must see, they thought, if the good
+old dog was on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody was astir downstairs; Mrs. MacCall
+had not yet left her room, and on Sunday mornings
+even Uncle Rufus allowed himself an extra
+hour in bed. There was the delicious smell of
+warm baked beans left over night in the range
+oven; the big, steaming pot would be set upon the
+table at breakfast, flanked with golden-brown
+muffins on one side and the sliced “loaf,” or
+brownbread, on the other.</p>
+
+<p>Sandyface came yawning from her basket
+behind the stove when Tess and Dot entered the
+kitchen. She had four little black and white blind
+babies in that basket which she had found in a
+barrel in the woodshed only a few days before.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. MacCall said she did not know what was
+to be done with the four kittens. Sandyface’s
+original family was quite grown up, and if these
+four were allowed to live, too, that would make
+nine cats around the old Corner House.</p>
+
+<p>“And the goodness knows!” exclaimed the
+housekeeper, “that’s a whole lot more than any
+family has a business to keep. We’re overrun
+with cats.”</p>
+
+<p>Tess unlocked the door and she and Dot went
+out on the porch, Sandyface following. There
+was no sign of the big dog.</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah’s gone!” sighed Dot, quaveringly.</p>
+
+<p>“I wouldn’t have thought it—when we treated
+him so nicely,” said Tess.</p>
+
+<p>Sandyface sniffed suspiciously at the old mat
+on which the dog had lain. Then she looked all
+about before venturing off the porch.</p>
+
+<p>The sunshine and quiet of a perfect Sunday
+morning lay all about the old Corner House.
+Robins sought their very souls for music to tell
+how happy they were, in the tops of the cherry
+trees. Catbirds had not yet lost their love songs
+of the spring; though occasionally one scolded
+harshly when a roaming cat came too near the
+hidden nest.</p>
+
+<p>Wrens hopped about the path, and even upon
+the porch steps, secure in their knowledge that
+they were too quick for Sandyface to reach, and
+with unbounded faith in human beings. An oriole
+burst into melody, swinging in the great snowball
+bush near the Willow Street fence.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moist, warm smell from the garden;
+the old rooster crowed raucously; Billy
+Bumps bleated a wistful “Good-morning” from
+his pen. Then came a scramble of padded feet,
+and Sandyface went up the nearest tree like a
+flash of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>“Here is Tom Jonah!” cried Tess, with delight.</p>
+
+<p>From around the corner of the woodshed appeared
+the big, shaggy dog. He cocked one ear
+and actually smiled when he saw the cat go up
+the tree. But he trotted right up on the porch to
+meet the delighted girls.</p>
+
+<p>His brown eyes were deep pools where golden
+sparks played. The mud had been mostly shaken
+off his flanks and paws. He was rested, and he
+acted as though he were sure of his position here
+at the old Corner House.</p>
+
+<p>“Good old fellow!” cried Tess, putting out a
+hand to pat him.</p>
+
+<p>At once Tom Jonah put up his right paw to
+shake hands. He repeated the feat with Dot the
+next moment, to the delight of both girls.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” gasped Dot, “he’s a trick dog.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s just what his collar says; he’s a
+gentleman,” sighed Tess, happily. “Oh! I hope his
+folks won’t ever come after him.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had to come down for Tess and Dot or
+they would not have been bathed and dressed in
+time for breakfast. The smaller girls were very
+much taken with Tom Jonah.</p>
+
+<p>They found that he had more accomplishments
+than “shaking hands.” When Agnes came down
+and heard about his first manifestation of education,
+she tried him at other “stunts.”</p>
+
+<p>He sat up at the word of command. He would
+hold a bit of meat, or a sweet cracker, on his nose
+any length of time you might name, and never
+offer to eat it until you said, “Now, sir!” or something
+of the kind. Then Tom Jonah would jerk
+the tidbit into the air and catch it in his jaws as
+it came down.</p>
+
+<p>And those jaws! Powerful indeed, despite
+some of the teeth having been broken and discolored
+by age. For Tom Jonah was no puppy.
+Uncle Rufus declared him to be at least twelve
+years old, and perhaps more than that.</p>
+
+<p>But he had the physique of a lion—a great,
+broad chest, and muscles in his shoulders that
+slipped under the skin when he was in action like
+a tiger’s. Now that he was somewhat rested
+from the long journey he had evidently taken, he
+seemed a very powerful, healthy dog.</p>
+
+<p>“And he would have eaten that tramp up, if
+he’d gotten hold of him,” Agnes declared, as they
+gathered at the breakfast table.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no, Aggie; I don’t think Tom Jonah would
+really have <i>bitten</i> that Gypsy man,” Tess hastened
+to say. “But he might have grabbed his
+coat and held on.”</p>
+
+<p>“With those jaws—I guess he would have held
+on,” sighed Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Anyway,” said Dot, “he saved Ruthie’s hens.
+Didn’t he, Ruthie?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll gladly pay his license fee if he wants to
+stay with us,” said Ruth, gaily.</p>
+
+<p>The cornmeal muffins chanced to be a little
+over-baked that morning; at least, one panful
+was. Dot did not like “crusts”; she had been
+known to hide very hard ones under the edge of
+her plate.</p>
+
+<p>She played with one of these muffin crusts more
+than she ate it, and Aunt Sarah Maltby (who was
+a very grim lady indeed with penetrating eyes
+and a habit of seldom speaking) had an accusing
+eye upon the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Dorothy,” she said, suddenly, “you will see
+the time, I have no doubt, when you will be
+hungry for that crust. You had better eat it now
+like a nice girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Sarah, I really do not want it,” said
+Dot, gravely. “And—and if I don’t, do you
+think I shall really some day be hungry for just
+<i>this</i> pertic’lar crust?”</p>
+
+<p>“You will. I expect nothing less,” snapped
+Aunt Sarah. “The Kenways was allus
+spend-thrifts. Why! when I was your age, Dorothy, I
+was glad to get dry bread to eat!”</p>
+
+<p>Dot looked at her with serious interest. “You
+must have been awfully poor, Aunt Sarah,” she
+said, sympathetically. “You have a much better
+time living with us, don’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth shook her head admonishingly at the
+smallest girl; but for once Aunt Sarah was rather
+nonplussed, and nobody heard her speak again
+before she went off to church.</p>
+
+<p>Neale came over later, dressed for Sunday
+school, and he was as much interested in the new
+boarder at the Corner House as the girls themselves.</p>
+
+<p>“If he belongs anywhere around Milton, somebody
+will surely know about him,” said the boy.
+“I’ll make inquiries. Wherever he comes from,
+he must be well known in that locality.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why so?” demanded Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Because of what it says on his collar,”
+laughed Neale O’Neil.</p>
+
+<p>“Because of what it <i>doesn’t</i> say, I guess,” explained
+Ruth, seeing her sister’s puzzled face.
+“There is no name of owner, or license number.
+Do you see?”</p>
+
+<p>“It—it would be an insult to license a dog like
+Tom Jonah,” sputtered Tess. “Just—just like
+a tag on an automobile!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yo’ right, honey,” chuckled Uncle Rufus.
+“He done seem like folkses—don’ he? I’se gwine
+tuh give him a reg’lar barf an’ cure up dem sore
+feetses ob his. He’ll be anudder dawg—sho’
+will!”</p>
+
+<p>The old man took Tom Jonah to the grass plot
+near the garden hydrant, and soaped him well—with
+the “insect-suicide” soap Dot had talked
+about—and afterward washed him down with the
+hose. Tom Jonah stood for it all; he had evidently
+been used to having his toilet attended to.</p>
+
+<p>When the girls came home from Sunday school,
+they found him lying on the porch, all warm and
+dried and his hair “fluffy.” They had asked
+everybody they met—almost—about Tom Jonah;
+but not a soul knew anything regarding him.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s going to be ours for keeps! He’s going
+to be ours for keeps!” sang Tess, with delight.</p>
+
+<p>Sandyface’s earlier family—Spotty, Almira,
+Bungle and Popocatepetl—had taken a good look
+at the big dog, and then backed away with swelling
+tails and muffled objections. But the old
+cat had to attend to the four little blind mites behind
+the kitchen range, so she had grown familiar
+enough with Tom Jonah to pass him on her
+way to and from the kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>He was too much of a gentleman, as his collar
+proclaimed, to pay her the least attention save
+for a friendly wag of his bushy tail. To the four
+half-grown cats he gave little heed. But Tess
+and Dot thought that he ought to become acquainted
+with the un-named kittens in the basket
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p>“If they get used to him, you know,” said Tess,
+“they’ll all live together just like a ‘happy
+family.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Like <i>us</i>?” suggested Dot, who did not quite
+understand the reference, having forgotten the
+particular cage thus labeled in the circus they
+had seen the previous summer.</p>
+
+<p>“Why! of course like us!” laughed Tess, and
+Sandyface being away foraging for her brood,
+Tess seized the basket and carried it out on the
+porch, setting it down before Tom Jonah who
+was lying in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The big dog sniffed at the basket but did not
+offer to disturb the sleeping kittens. That would
+not do for the curious girls. They had to delve
+deeper into the natural lack of affinity between
+the canine and the feline families.</p>
+
+<p>So Tess lifted one little black and white,
+squirmy kitten—just as its mother did, by the
+back of its neck—and set it upon the porch before
+the dog’s nose. The kitten became awake instantly.
+Blind as it was, it stiffened its spine
+into an arch, backed away from the vicinity of the
+dog precipitately, and “spit” like a tiny teakettle
+boiling over.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! oh! the horrid thing,” wailed Dot. “And
+poor Tom Jonah didn’t do a thing to it!”</p>
+
+<p>“But see him!” gasped Tess, in a gale of giggles.</p>
+
+<p>For really, Tom Jonah looked too funny for
+anything. He turned away his head with a most
+embarrassed expression of countenance and
+would not look again at the spitting little animal.
+He evidently felt himself in a most ridiculous
+position and finally got up and went off the porch
+altogether until the girls returned the basket of
+kittens to its proper place behind the stove.</p>
+
+<p>At dinner that Sunday, when Uncle Rufus
+served the roast, he held the swinging door open
+until Tom Jonah paced in behind him into the
+dining-room. Seeing the roast placed before
+Mrs. MacCall, Tom Jonah sat down beside her
+chair in a good position to observe the feast; but
+waited his turn in a most gentlemanly manner.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. MacCall cut some meat for him and put
+it on a plate. This Uncle Rufus put before Tom
+Jonah; but the big dog did not offer to eat it
+until he was given permission. And now he no
+longer “gobbled,” but ate daintily, and sat back
+when he was finished like any well-bred person,
+waiting for the next course.</p>
+
+<p>Even Aunt Sarah looked with approval upon
+the new acquisition to the family of the old Corner
+House. She had heard the tale of his rescue
+of Ruth’s poultry from the marauding Gypsy,
+and patted Tom Jonah’s noble head.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a good thing to have a watch-dog on the
+premises,” she said, “with all that old silver and
+trash you girls insist upon keeping out of the
+plate-safe. Your Uncle Peter would turn in his
+grave if he knew how common you was makin’ the
+Stower plate.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what is the good of having a thing if you
+don’t make use of it?” queried Ruth, stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was a girl with a mind of her own, and
+not even the carping criticisms of Aunt Sarah
+could turn her from her course if once she was
+convinced that what she did was right. Nor was
+she frightened by her schoolmates’ opinions—as
+note her friendship with Rosa Wildwood.</p>
+
+<p>Bob Wildwood was a “character” in Milton.
+People smiled at him and forgave his peculiarities
+to a degree; but they could not respect him.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, Bob was a Southerner—and
+a Southerner in a New England town is just as
+likely to be misunderstood, as a Northerner in
+a Georgian town.</p>
+
+<p>Bob and his daughter, Rosa, had drifted to
+Milton a couple of years previous. They had
+been “drifting” for most of the girl’s short life;
+but now Rosa was quite big enough to have some
+influence with her shiftless father, and they
+had taken some sort of root in the harsh New
+England soil, so different from their own rich
+bottom-lands of the South.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, Rosa was in ill health. She was
+“weakly”; Bob spoke of her as having “a mis’ry
+in her chest.” Dr. Forsythe found that the girl
+had weak lungs, but he was sane and old-fashioned
+enough to scout the idea that she was in
+danger of becoming a victim of tuberculosis.</p>
+
+<p>“If you go to work, Bob, and earn for her
+decent food and a warm shelter, she will pull
+through and get as hearty and strong as our
+Northern girls,” declared the doctor, sternly.
+“You say you lost her twin two years ago——”</p>
+
+<p>“But I didn’t done los’ Juniper by no sickness,”
+muttered Bob, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls thought Bob Wildwood
+a most amusing man, for he talked just like a
+darky (to their ears); but Uncle Rufus shook his
+head in scorn at Wildwood. “He’s jes’ no-’count
+white trash,” the old colored man observed.</p>
+
+<p>However, spurred by the doctor’s threat, Bob
+let drink alone for the most part, and went to
+work for Rosa, his remaining daughter, who was
+just Ruth’s age and was in her class at High—when
+she was well enough to get there. In spite
+of her blood and bringing up, Rosa Wildwood had
+a quick and retentive mind and stood well in her
+classes.</p>
+
+<p>Bob became a coal-heaver. He worked for
+Lovell &amp; Malmsey. He drove a pair of mules
+without lines, ordering them about in a most wonderful
+manner in a tongue entirely strange to
+Northern teamsters; and he was black with coal-dust
+from week-end to week-end. Ruth said there
+only was one visible white part of Rosa’s father;
+that was the whites of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The man must have loved his daughter very
+much, however; for it was his nature to be shiftless.
+He would have gone hungry and ragged
+himself rather than work. He now kept steadily
+at his job for Rosa’s sake.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday Rosa was not at school, and coming
+home to luncheon at noon, Ruth ran half a
+block out of her way to find out what was the
+matter. Not alone was the tenement the Wildwoods
+occupied a very poor one, but Rosa was no
+housekeeper. It almost disgusted the precise
+and prim Ruth Kenway to go into the three-room
+tenement.</p>
+
+<p>Rosa had a cold, and of course it had settled
+on her chest. She was just dragging herself
+around to get something hot for Bob’s dinner.
+Ruth made her go back to bed, and she finished
+the preparations.</p>
+
+<p>When she came to make the tea, the Corner
+House girl was horrified to observe that the metal
+teapot had probably not been thoroughly washed
+out since the day the Wildwoods had taken up
+their abode in Milton.</p>
+
+<p>“Paw likes to have the tea set back on the
+stove,” drawled Rosa, with her pleasant Southern
+accent. “When he gets a chance, he runs in
+and ‘takes a swig,’ as he calls it, out of the pot.
+He says it’s good for the gnawin’ in his stomach—it
+braces him up an’ is <i>so</i> much better than
+when he useter mix toddies,” said the girl, gratefully.
+“We’d have had June with us yet, if it
+hadn’t been for paw’s toddies.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” cried Ruth, startled. “I thought your
+sister June died?”</p>
+
+<p>Rosa shook her head and the tears flowed into
+her soft eyes. “Oh, no. She went away. She
+couldn’t stand the toddies no more, she said—and
+her slavin’ to keep the house nice, and us
+movin’ on all the time. June was housekeeper—she
+was a long sight smarter’n me, Ruth.”</p>
+
+<p>“But the teachers at school think you are
+awfully smart,” declared the Corner House girl.</p>
+
+<p>“June warn’t so smart at her books,” said
+Rosa. “But she could do <i>anything</i> with her
+hands. You’d thunk she was two years older’n
+me, too. She was dark and handsome. She got
+mad, and run away, and then we started lookin’
+for her; but we’ve never found her yet,” sighed
+Rosa. “And now I’ve got so miserable that I
+can’t keep traveling with paw. So we got to stop
+here, and maybe we won’t ever see June again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! I hope you will,” cried Ruth. “Now,
+your father’s dinner is all ready to dish up. And
+I’ll come back after school this afternoon and rid
+up the house for you; don’t you do a thing.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had time that noon for only a bite at home,
+and explained to Mrs. MacCall that she would be
+late in returning from school. She carried a
+voluminous apron with her to cover her school
+frock when she set about “ridding up” the Wildwood
+domicile.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth wanted to help Rosa; she hoped Rosa
+would keep up with the class and be promoted at
+the end of the term, as she was sure to be herself.
+And she was sorry for sooty, odd-talking Bob
+Wildwood.</p>
+
+<p>What Rosa had said about her lost twin sister
+had deeply interested Ruth Kenway. She
+wanted, too, to ask the Southern girl about
+“June,” or Juniper.</p>
+
+<p>“We were the last children maw had,” said
+Rosa. “She just seemed to give up after we were
+born. The others were all sickly—just drooped
+and faded. And they all were girls and had
+flower names. Maw was right fanciful, I reckon.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish June had held on. She’d stuck it out,
+I know, if she’d believed paw could stop drinking
+toddies. But, you see he <i>has</i>. He ‘swigs’ an
+awful lot of tea, though, and I expect it’s tanning
+him inside just like he was leather!”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth really thought this was probable—especially
+with the teapot in the condition she had
+found it. But she had put some washing soda in
+the pot, filled it with boiling water, and set it
+back on the stove to stew some of the “tannin”
+out of it.</p>
+
+<p>While the Corner House girl was talking with
+Rosa in the little bedroom the girl called her own,
+Bob brought his mules to a halt before the house
+with an empty wagon, and ran in as usual.</p>
+
+<p>The girls heard him enter the outer room; but
+Ruth never thought of what the man’s object
+might be until Rosa laughed and said:</p>
+
+<p>“There’s paw now, for a swig at the teapot.
+I hope you left it full fo’ him, Ruthie, dear.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, goodness mercy me!” cried the Corner
+House girl, and darted out to the kitchen to warn
+the man.</p>
+
+<p>But she was too late. Already the begrimed
+Bob Wildwood had the spout of the teapot to
+his lips and several swallows of the scalding and
+acrid mixture gurgled down his throat before he
+discovered that it was not tea!</p>
+
+<p>“Woof! woof! woof!” he sputtered, and flung
+pot and all away from him. “Who done tryin’
+poison me! Woof! I’s scalded with poison!”</p>
+
+<p>He coughed and spluttered over the sink, and
+then tried a draught of cold water from the spigot—which
+probably did him just as much good as
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me, Mr. Wildwood!” gasped Ruth,
+standing with clasped hands and looking at the
+sooty man, half frightened. “I—I was just boiling
+the teapot out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Boilin’ it out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir. With soda. I—I——It won’t
+poison you, I guess.”</p>
+
+<p>“My Lawd!” groaned Bob. “What won’t yo’
+Northerners do nex’? Wash out er teapot!”
+and he grumblingly went forth to his team and
+drove away.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth felt that her good intentions were misunderstood—to
+a degree. But Rosa thanked her
+very prettily for what she had done, and the next
+day she was able to come to school again.</p>
+
+<p>It was only a few days later that Carrie Poole
+invited a number of the high school girls and
+boys—and some of the younger set—to the last
+dance of the season at her home. She lived in a
+huge old farmhouse, some distance out of town
+on the Buckshot road, and the Corner House
+girls and Neale O’Neil had spent several pleasant
+evenings there during the winter and spring.</p>
+
+<p>The night before this party there was a big
+wind, and a part of one of the chimneys came
+down into the side yard during the night with
+a noise like thunder; so Ruth had to telephone for
+a mason before breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for this happening, the Corner
+House girls—at least, Ruth and Agnes—and
+Neale O’Neil, would have escaped rather an embarrassing
+incident at the party.</p>
+
+<p>Neale came over to supper the evening of the
+party, and he brought his pumps in a newspaper
+under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, girls, let’s have your dancing slippers,”
+he said to the two older Corner House
+girls, who were going to the dance. “I’ll put
+them with mine.”</p>
+
+<p>And he did so—rolling the girls’ pretty slippers
+up in the same parcel with his own. He
+left the parcel in the kitchen. Later it was discovered
+that the mason’s helper had left a similarly
+wrapped parcel there, too.</p>
+
+<p>When the three young folk started off, it was
+Agnes who ran back after the bundle of dancing
+slippers. Neale carried it under his arm, and
+they walked briskly out through the suburbs of
+Milton and on along the Buckshot road.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you really going to Pleasant Cove this
+summer, Neale?” demanded Agnes, as they went
+on together.</p>
+
+<p>“If I can. Joe has asked me. And you
+girls?”</p>
+
+<p>“Trix says we must come to her father’s hotel
+for two weeks at least,” Agnes declared.</p>
+
+<p>“Humph!” said Neale, doubtfully. “Are you
+going, Ruth?”</p>
+
+<p>“I—don’t—know,” admitted the older Corner
+House girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, isn’t that just too mean?” complained
+Agnes. “You just say that because you don’t
+like Trix.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know whether Trix will be of the same
+mind when the time comes,” said Ruth, firmly.</p>
+
+<p>“I believe you,” grunted Neale.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes pouted. “It’s just mean of you,” she
+said. “Of course she will want us to go.”
+While Agnes was “spoons” with a girl, she was
+always strictly loyal to her. She could not possibly
+see Trix Severn’s faults just now.</p>
+
+<p>They arrived at the farmhouse and found a
+crowd already assembled. There was a great
+deal of talking and laughter, and while Neale
+stood chatting with some of the boys in the hall,
+Ruth and Agnes came to him for their slippers.</p>
+
+<p>“Sure!” said the boy, producing the newspaper-wrapped
+bundle he carried. “Guess I’ll put on
+my own pumps, too.”</p>
+
+<p>He unrolled the parcel. Then a yell of derision
+and laughter arose from the onlookers; instead of
+three pairs of dancing slippers, Neale produced
+two pairs of half-worn and lime-bespattered shoes
+belonging to the masons who had repaired the
+old Corner House chimney!</p>
+
+<p>“Now we can’t dance!” wailed Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Neale!” gasped Ruth, while the young
+folk about them went off into another gale of
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it wasn’t my fault,” grumbled Neale.
+“Aggie went after the bundle.”</p>
+
+<p>“Shouldn’t have left them right there with the
+masons’ bundle—so now!” snapped Agnes.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink04'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER IV—THE MYSTERY OF JUNE WILDWOOD</a></h2>
+
+<p>Now, Trix Severn had maneuvered so as to get
+the very first dance with Neale O’Neil. Among
+all the boys who attended the upper grammar
+grades, and the High, of Milton, the boy who had
+been brought up in a circus was the best dancer.
+The older girls all were glad to get him for a
+partner.</p>
+
+<p>Time had been when Trix sneered at “that
+circus boy,” but that was before he and the two
+older Corner House girls had saved Trix from
+a collapsing snow palace back in mid-winter.</p>
+
+<p>Since that time she had taken up with Agnes
+Kenway as her very closest chum, and she had
+visited the old Corner House a good deal. When
+Agnes and her sister arrived at the party on this
+evening, with Neale as escort, Trix determined
+to have at least <i>one</i> dance with the popular boy.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Neale!” she whispered, fluttering up to
+him in her very nicest way, “Ruth and Agnes will
+be half an hour primping, upstairs. The music
+is going to strike up. Do let <i>us</i> have the first
+dance.”</p>
+
+<p>“All right,” said Neale, good-naturedly.</p>
+
+<p>It was the moment later that the discovery was
+made of the masons’ shoes in the bundle he carried
+under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Now we can’t dance,” repeated Agnes, when
+the laughter had somewhat subsided.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Neale can dance just as well,” Trix said,
+carelessly. “Come on, Neale! You know this is
+<i>our</i> dance.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course Neale could dance in his walking
+shoes. But he saw Agnes’ woebegone face and
+he hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s too bad, Aggie,” he said. “If it wasn’t
+so far——-”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Neale O’Neill” snapped Trix, unwisely.
+“You don’t mean to say you’d be foolish enough
+to go clear back to the Corner House for those
+girls’ slippers?”</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was just this opposition that was
+needed to start Neale off. He pulled his cap
+from his pocket and turned toward the door, with
+a shrug. “I guess I can get back in an hour,
+Ag. Don’t you and Ruth dance much in your
+heavy shoes until then. You’ll tire yourselves all
+out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Neale O’Neill” cried Trix. “You
+won’t do it?”</p>
+
+<p>Even Ruth murmured against the boy’s making
+the trip for the slippers. “We can get along,
+Neale,” she said, in her quiet way.</p>
+
+<p>“And you promised to dance with me this first
+dance,” declared Trix, angrily, as the music began.</p>
+
+<p>Neale did not pay much attention to her—at the
+moment. “It’s my fault, I guess,” he said,
+laughing. “I’ll go back for them, Ag.”</p>
+
+<p>But Trix got right between him and the door.
+“Now! you sha’n’t go off and leave me in the
+lurch that way, Neale O’Neill” she cried, shrilly.</p>
+
+<p>“Aw——There are other dances. Wait till I
+come back,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“You can dance in the shoes you have on,”
+Trix said, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>“What if?”</p>
+
+<p>“But <i>we</i> can’t, Trix,” interposed Agnes, much
+distressed. “Ruth and I, you know——”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care!” interrupted Trix, boiling over
+at last. “You Corner House girls are the most
+selfish things! You’d spoil his fun for half the
+party——”</p>
+
+<p>“Aw, don’t bother!” growled Neale, in much
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>“I will bother! You——”</p>
+
+<p>“Guess she thinks she owns you, Neale,”
+chuckled one of the boys, adding fuel to the flames.
+Neale did not feel any too pleasant after that.
+He flung away from Trix Severn’s detaining
+grasp.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going—it isn’t any of <i>your</i> concern,” he
+muttered, to the angry girl.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth bore Agnes away. She was half crying.
+The rift in the intimacy between her soulmate and
+herself was apparent to all.</p>
+
+<p>To make the matter worse—according to Trix’s
+version—when Neale finally returned, almost
+breathless, with the mislaid slippers, he insisted,
+first of all, upon dancing with Ruth and Agnes.
+Then he would have favored Trix (Ruth had advised
+it), but the angry girl would not speak to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s nothing but a low circus boy, anyway!”
+she told Lucy Poole. “And I don’t think really
+well-bred girls would care to have anything to
+do with him.”</p>
+
+<p>Those who heard her laughed. They had
+known Trix Severn’s ways for a long time. She
+had been upon her good behavior; but it did not
+surprise her old acquaintances that she should
+act like this.</p>
+
+<p>It made a difference to the Corner House girls,
+however, for it made their plans about going to
+Pleasant Cove uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>The other girls knew that Trix had invited the
+Corner House girls for the first two weeks after
+graduation, and that Ruth had tentatively accepted.
+Therefore even Pearl Harrod—who
+wanted Ruth and her sisters, herself—scarcely
+knew whether to put in a claim for them or not.</p>
+
+<p>Graduation Day was very near at hand; the
+very day following the closing of the Milton High,
+several family parties were to leave for the seaside
+resort which was so popular in this part of
+New England.</p>
+
+<p>They had to pass through Bloomingsburg to
+get to it, but when the Kenways had lived in that
+city, they had never expected to spend any part
+of the summer season at such a beautiful summer
+resort as Pleasant Cove.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bungalow colony, with several fine
+hotels, built around a tiny, old-fashioned fishing
+port. There was a still cove, a beautiful river
+emptying into it, and outside, a stretch of rocky
+Atlantic coast on which the ocean played grim
+tunes during stormy weather.</p>
+
+<p>This was as much as the Corner House girls
+knew about it as yet. But they all looked forward
+to their first visit to the place with keen delight.
+Tess and Dot were talking about the expected
+trip a good deal of the time they were
+awake. Most of their doll-play was colored now
+by thoughts of Pleasant Cove.</p>
+
+<p>They were not too busy to help Mrs. MacCall
+take the last of the winter clothing to the garret,
+however, and see her pack it away in the chests
+there. As she did this the housekeeper sprinkled,
+with lavish hand, the camphor balls among the
+layers of clothing.</p>
+
+<p>Dot had tentatively tasted one of the hard,
+white balls, and shuddered. “But they <i>do</i> look
+so much like candy, Tess,” she said. Then she
+suddenly had another thought:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Mrs. MacCall! what do you suppose the
+poor moths had to live on ’way back in the Garden
+of Eden before Adam and Eve wore any
+clothes?”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, can you beat <i>that</i>?” demanded the
+housekeeper, of nobody in particular. “What
+won’t that young one get in her head!”</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Ruth was helping Rosa Wildwood
+all she could, so that the girl from the South would
+be able to pass in the necessary examinations and
+stand high enough in the class to be promoted.</p>
+
+<p>Housework certainly “told on” Rosa. Bob
+said “it jest seems t’ take th’ puckerin’ string
+all out’n her—an’ she jest draps down like a
+flower.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll help her, Mr. Wildwood,” Ruth said.
+“But she really ought to have a rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hi Godfrey!” ejaculated the coal heaver. “I
+tell her she kin let the housework go. We don’t
+have no visitors—savin’ an’ exceptin’ <i>you</i>,
+ma’am.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she wants to keep the place decent, you
+see,” Ruth told him. “And she can scarcely do
+that and keep up with her studies—now. You
+see, she’s so weak.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hi Godfrey!” exclaimed the man again.
+“Ain’t thar sech a thing as bein’ a mite <i>too</i>
+clean?”</p>
+
+<p>But Bob Wildwood had an immense respect
+for Ruth; likewise he was grateful because she
+showed an interest in his last remaining daughter.</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you, sir,” the oldest Corner House girl
+said, gravely. “Rosa needs a change and a rest.
+And all us girls are going to Pleasant Cove this
+summer. Will you let Rosa come down, too, for
+a while, if I pay her way and look out for her?”</p>
+
+<p>The man was somewhat disturbed by the question.
+“Yuh see, Miss,” he observed, scratching
+his head thoughtfully, “she’s all I got. I’d
+plumb be lost ’ithout Rosa.”</p>
+
+<p>“But only for a week or two.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know. And I wouldn’t want tuh stand in
+her way. I crossed her sister too much—that’s
+what <i>I</i> did. Juniper was a sight more uppity
+than Rosa—otherwise she wouldn’t have flew the
+coop,” said Bob Wildwood, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth, all tenderness for his bereavement, hastened
+to say: “Oh, you’ll find her again, sir.
+Surely you don’t believe she’s dead?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. If she ain’t come to a <i>bad</i> end, she’s all
+right somewhar. But she’d oughter be home
+with her sister—and with me. Ye see, she was
+pretty—an’ smart. No end smart! She went
+off in bad comp’ny.”</p>
+
+<p>“How do you mean, Mr. Wildwood?” asked
+Ruth, deeply interested.</p>
+
+<p>“Travelin’ folks. They had a van an’ a couple
+team o’ mules, an’ the man sold bitters an’ corn-salve.
+The woman dressed mighty fine, an’ she
+took June’s eye.</p>
+
+<p>“We follered ’em a long spell, me an’ Rosa.
+But we didn’t never ketch up to ’em. If we had,
+I’d sure tuck a hand-holt of that medicine man.
+He an’ his woman put all the foolishness inter
+Juniper’s haid.</p>
+
+<p>“An’ Rosa misses her sister like poison, too,”
+finished Bob Wildwood, slowly shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be a mystery connected with
+the disappearance of Rosa’s sister, and Ruth
+Kenway was just as curious as she could be about
+it; but she stuck to her subject until Bob Wildwood
+agreed to spare his remaining daughter for
+at least a week’s visit to Pleasant Cove, while
+the Corner House girls would be there.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink05'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER V—OFF FOR THE SEASIDE</a></h2>
+
+<p>The last hours of the school term were busy
+ones indeed. Even Tess had her troublesome
+“’zaminations.” At the study table on the last
+evening before her own grade had its closing exercises,
+Tess propounded the following:</p>
+
+<p>“Ruthie, what’s a ’scutcheon?”</p>
+
+<p>“Um—um,” said Ruth, far away.</p>
+
+<p>“A <i>what</i>, child?” demanded Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“‘’Scutcheon?’”</p>
+
+<p>“‘Escutcheon,’ she means,” chuckled Neale,
+who was present as usual at study hour.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what <i>is</i> it?” begged Tess, plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>“Why?” demanded Ruth, suddenly waking up.
+“That’s a hard word for a small girl, Tess.”</p>
+
+<p>“It says here,” quoth Tess, “that ‘There was
+a blot upon his escutcheon.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes—sure,” drawled Neale, as Ruth hesitated.
+“That must mean a fancy vest, Tess.
+And he spilled soup on it—sure!”</p>
+
+<p>“Now Neale! how horrid!” admonished Ruth,
+while Agnes giggled.</p>
+
+<p>“I do think you are all awful mean to me,”
+wailed Tess. “You don’t tell me a thing.
+You’re almost as mean as Trix Severn was to
+me to-day. I don’t want to go to her father’s
+hotel, so there! Have we got to, Ruthie?”</p>
+
+<p>“What did she do to you, Tess?” demanded
+Agnes, with a curiosity she could not quench.
+For, deep as the chasm had grown between her
+and her former chum, she could not ignore Trix.</p>
+
+<p>“She just turned up her nose at me,” complained
+Tess, “when I went by; and I heard her
+say to some girl she was with: ‘There goes one
+of them now. They pushed their way into our
+party, and I s’pose we’ve got to entertain them.’
+Now, <i>did</i> we push our way in, Ruthie?”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was angry. It was not often that she displayed
+indignation, so that when she did so, the
+other girls—and even Neale—were the more impressed.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course she was speaking of that wretched
+invitation she gave us to stay at her father’s
+hotel at Pleasant Cove,” said Ruth. “Well!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruthie! don’t say you won’t go,” begged
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll never go to that Overlook House unless
+we pay our way—be sure of that,” declared the
+angry Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“But we <i>are</i> going to the shore, Ruthie?”
+asked Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe Pearl Harrod will ask us again,” murmured
+Agnes, hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess we can pay our way and be beholden
+to nobody,” said Ruth, shortly. “I will hire one
+of the tents, if nothing else. And we’ll start the
+very day after High closes, just as we planned.”</p>
+
+<p>Despite the loss of her “soulmate,” Agnes
+was pretty cheerful. She was to graduate from
+grammar school; and although she was sorry to
+lose Miss Georgiana Shipman as a teacher, she
+was delighted to get out of “the pigtail classes,”
+as she rudely termed the lower grades.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going to do up my hair, Ruthie, whatever
+you say,” she declared, “just as soon as I
+get into high school next fall. I’m old enough
+to forget braids and hair-ribbons, I should hope!”</p>
+
+<p>“Not yet, my child, not yet,” laughed Ruth.
+“Why! there are more girls in High who wear
+their hair <i>down</i> than <i>up</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I’m so big——”</p>
+
+<p>“You mean, you’d be big,” chuckled Neale, “if
+you were only rolled out,” for he was always
+teasing Agnes about her plumpness.</p>
+
+<p>“Well! I want to celebrate some way,” sighed
+Agnes. “Can’t we have a specially nice supper
+that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Surely, child,” said her sedate sister.
+“What do you want?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” repeated Agnes, slowly; “you know
+I’ll never graduate from Grammar again.
+Couldn’t we kill some of those nice frying
+chickens of yours, Ruthie?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my!” cried Neale. “What have the poor
+chickens done that they should be slaughtered to
+make a Roman holiday?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Smartie!” snapped Agnes. “You be
+good, or you sha’n’t have any.”</p>
+
+<p>“If that Tom Jonah hadn’t been busy on a
+certain night, none of us would have eaten those
+particular frying chickens,” laughed Neale. “I
+wonder if that Gypsy is running yet?”</p>
+
+<p>“He didn’t get the frying chickens in the bag,”
+said Agnes. “They were in another coop. We
+hatched them in January and brought them up
+by hand. Say! I don’t believe you know much
+about natural history, Neale, anyway.”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess he knows more than Sammy Pinkney
+does,” Tess said, again drawn into the conversation.
+“Teacher asked him to tell us two breeds
+of dairy cattle and which gives the most milk.
+She’d been reading to us about it out of a book.
+So Sammy says:</p>
+
+<p>“‘The bull and the cow, Miss Andrews; and
+the cow gives the most milk.’”</p>
+
+<p>Dot’s school held its closing exercises one
+morning, and Tess’ in the afternoon. Then came
+the graduation of Agnes and Neale O’Neil from
+the grammar school. Ruth was excused from
+her own classes at High long enough to attend
+her sister’s graduation.</p>
+
+<p>Although the plump Corner House girl was
+no genius, she always stood well in her classes.
+Ruth saw to that, for what Agnes did not learn
+at school she had to study at home.</p>
+
+<p>So she stood well up in her class, and she <i>did</i>
+look “too distractingly pretty,” as Mrs. MacCall
+declared, when she gave the last touches to Agnes’
+dress before she started for school that last day.
+Miss Ann Titus, Milton’s most famous seamstress
+and “gossip-in-ordinary,” had outdone
+herself in making Agnes’ dress. No girl in her
+class—not even Trix Severn—was dressed so becomingly.</p>
+
+<p>The envious Trix heard the commendations
+showered on her former friend, and her face grew
+sourer and her temper sharper. She well knew
+she had invited the Corner House girls to be her
+guests at Pleasant Cove; but she did not want
+them in her party now. She did not know how to
+get out of “the fix,” as she called it in her own
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>She had intimated to two or three other girls
+who were going, however, that Agnes and Ruth
+had forced the invitation from her in a moment of
+weakness. If she had to number them of her
+party, Miss Trix proposed to make it just as unpleasant
+for the Kenway sisters as she could.</p>
+
+<p>High school graduation was on Thursday. On
+Friday a special through train was put on by the
+railroad from Milton to Pleasant Cove. It was
+scheduled to leave the former station at ten
+o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily Mrs. MacCall had insisted upon having
+all the trunks and bags packed the day before, for
+on this Friday morning the Corner House girls
+had little time for anything but saying
+“good-bye” to their many friends, both human and
+dumb.</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever will Tom Jonah think?” cried
+Tess, hugging the big dog that had taken up his
+abode at the Corner House so strangely. “He’ll
+think we have run away from him, poor fellow!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! <i>don’t</i> you think that, Tom Jonah!”
+begged Dot, seizing the dog on the other side.
+“We all love you so! And we’ll come back to
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll give him just the best care ever, won’t
+you, Uncle Rufus?” cried Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Sho’ will!” agreed the old colored man.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Can’t</i> we take him with us, Ruthie?” asked
+Dot.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth would have been tempted to do just this
+had she been sure that they would hire a tent in
+the colony as soon as they reached Pleasant Cove.
+Tom Jonah was just the sort of a protector the
+Corner House girl would have chosen under those
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>But Ruth was puzzled. She had not seen
+Pearl Harrod, and was not sure whether Pearl
+had completely filled her uncle’s bungalow with
+guests or not. Of one thing Ruth was sure: if
+they went to the Overlook House (Mr. Terrence
+Severn’s hotel), they would pay their board and
+refuse to be Trix’s guests.</p>
+
+<p>When the carriage came for them, Tom Jonah
+stood at the gate and watched them get in and
+drive away with a rather depressed air. Dot and
+Tess waved their handkerchiefs from the carriage
+window at him as long as they could see the big
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>There was much confusion at the station.
+Many people whom the girls knew were on the
+platform, or in the cars already. Trix Severn
+was very much in evidence. The Kenway sisters
+saw the other girls who were going to accept Miss
+Severn’s hospitality in a group at one side, but
+they hesitated to join this party.</p>
+
+<p>Trix passed the Kenways twice and did not
+even look at them. Of course, she knew the sisters
+were there, but Ruth believed that the mean-spirited
+girl merely wished them to speak to her
+so that she could snub them publicly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ruthie Kenway!” exclaimed a voice
+suddenly behind the Corner House girls.</p>
+
+<p>It was Pearl Harrod. Pearl was a bright-faced,
+big girl, jovial and kind-hearted. “I’ve
+just been looking for you everywhere,” pursued
+Pearl. “Here it is the last minute, and you
+haven’t told me whether you and the other girls
+are going to my uncle’s house or not.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why—if you are sure you want us?” queried
+Ruth, with a little break in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>“I should say yes!” exclaimed Pearl. “But
+I was afraid you had been asked by some one
+else.”</p>
+
+<p>Trix turned and looked the four sisters over
+scornfully. Then she tossed her head.
+“Waiting like beggars for an invitation from <i>some</i>body,”
+she said, loudly enough for all the girls
+nearby to hear. “You’d think, if those Corner
+House girls are as rich as they tell about, that
+they’d pay their way.”</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink06'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER VI—ON THE TRAIN</a></h2>
+
+<p>“Don’t you mind what that mean thing says,”
+whispered Pearl Harrod, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>She had seen Ruth flush hotly and the tears
+spring to Agnes’ eyes when Trix Severn had
+spoken so ill-naturedly. The younger Corner
+House girls did not hear, but Ruth and Agnes
+were hurt to the quick.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very, very kind, Pearl,” said Ruth.
+“But we had thought of going to the tent
+colony——”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t Trix Severn ask you to her place?”
+demanded Pearl, hotly. “I <i>know</i> she did. And
+now she insults you. If she hadn’t asked you
+first, and seemed so thick with your sister, Ruth,
+I would have insisted long ago that you all come
+to uncle’s bungalow. There’s plenty of room,
+for my aunt and the girls won’t be down for a
+fortnight.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, Pearl——”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be mad if you don’t agree—now I know
+that Trix has released you, Ruth Kenway,” cried
+the good-hearted girl. “Now, don’t let’s say
+another word about it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, don’t be angry!” begged Ruth. “But
+won’t it look as though we <i>were</i> begging our way—as
+Trix says?”</p>
+
+<p>“Pooh! who cares for Trix Severn?”</p>
+
+<p>“You—you are very kind,” said Ruth, yielding
+at length.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you come on. Hey, girls!” she shouted,
+running after her own particular friends who
+were climbing aboard the rear car. “I’ve gotten
+them to promise. The Corner House girls
+are going with us—for two weeks, anyway.”</p>
+
+<p>At once the other girls addressed cheered and
+gathered the four Kenways into their group, with
+great rejoicing. The sting of Trix Severn’s unkindness
+was forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Howbridge, their guardian, came to the
+station to see them off, and shook hands with Ruth
+through the window of the car. When the train
+actually moved away, Neale O’Neil was there in
+the crowd, swinging his cap and wishing them
+heaps of fun. Neale expected to go to Pleasant
+Cove himself, later in the season.</p>
+
+<p>This last car of the special train was a day
+coach; but the light-hearted girls did not mind
+the lack of conveniences and comforts to be obtained
+in the chair cars. The train was supposed
+to arrive at Pleasant Cove by three o’clock, and
+a five hour ride on a hot June day was only “fun”
+for the Corner House girls and their friends.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth first of all got the brakeman to turn over
+a seat so that she and her three sisters could
+sit facing each other. Mrs. MacCall had put
+them up a nice hamper of luncheon and the older
+girl knew this would be better enjoyed if the
+seats were thus arranged.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, there was the usual desire of some
+of the travelers to have windows open while
+others wished them closed. Cinders and dust
+flew in by the peck if the former arrangement prevailed,
+while the heat was intense if the sashes
+were down.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot were little disturbed by these
+physical ills. But they had their own worries.
+Dot, who had insisted on carrying the Alice-doll
+in her arms, was troubled mightily to remember
+whether she had packed the whole of the doll’s
+trousseau (this was supposed to be a wedding
+journey for the Alice-doll—a wedding journey in
+which the bridegroom had no part); while Tess
+wondered what would happen to Tom Jonah and
+Sandyface’s young family while they were all
+gone from the old Corner House.</p>
+
+<p>“I feel condemned—I do, indeed, Dot,” sighed
+Tess. “We ought, at least, to have named those
+four kittens before we left. They’ll be awfully
+old before the christening—if we don’t come back
+at the end of our first two weeks.”</p>
+
+<p>“What could happen to them?” demanded Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“Why—croup—or measles—or chicken-pox.
+They’re only babies, you know. And if one
+should die,” added Tess, warmly, “we wouldn’t
+even know what name to put on its gravestone!”</p>
+
+<p>“My! lots of things can happen in two weeks,
+I s’pose,” agreed Dot. “Do you think we ought
+to stay away from home so long?”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess we’ll have to if Ruth and Aggie stay,”
+said Tess. “But I shall worry.”</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Agnes, who sat with her back to
+the engine beside Ruth, had become interested in
+a couple sitting together not far down the car.
+They were strangers—and strangely dressed, as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth!” Agnes exclaimed, under her
+breath, “they look like Gypsies.”</p>
+
+<p>“If they are, they are much better dressed than
+any Gypsies we ever saw before,” observed her
+sister.</p>
+
+<p>“But how gay!”</p>
+
+<p>This comment was just enough. The older
+one had shocking taste in millinery. She wore,
+too, long, pendant ear-rings and her fingers were
+covered with gaudy looking jewels. Her garments
+were rich in texture, but oddly made, and
+the contrasts in color were, as Agnes whispered,
+“fierce!”</p>
+
+<p>“That girl with her is handsome, just the
+same,” Ruth declared.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! isn’t she!” whispered the enthusiastic
+Agnes. “A perfectly stunning brunette.”</p>
+
+<p>If she were a Gypsy girl she was a very beautiful
+one. Her features were lovely and her complexion
+brilliant. When she smiled she flashed
+two rows of perfect teeth upon the beholder. She
+might have been a year or two older than Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know—somehow—she reminds me of
+somebody,” murmured the latter.</p>
+
+<p>“Who?”</p>
+
+<p>“The girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“She reminds me of that chicken-thief Tom
+Jonah treed on the henhouse roof,” chuckled
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth; “all Gypsies can’t be
+alike.”</p>
+
+<p>“Humph! you never heard a good word said
+for them,” sniffed Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“But that doesn’t prove there are not good
+ones. They are a wandering people and have no
+particular trade or standing in any community.
+Naturally they have a lot of crimes laid upon
+their shoulders that they never commit,” said the
+just Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“That was one of them that tried to steal your
+hens, just the same,” said Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose so,” admitted her sister. “But
+surely <i>these</i> two cannot belong to the same kind
+of Gypsies. See how richly they are dressed.”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess that doesn’t make any difference,”
+said Agnes. “They are all cut off the same piece
+of goods,” and immediately she lost interest in
+the strange couple when Lucy Poole came up the
+aisle to speak to her.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had the gaily dressed woman and her
+companion on her mind a good deal. She often
+looked at them when they did not notice her. The
+woman must have been forty, but was straight,
+lithe, and of good figure. She sat on the outer
+end of the seat, having the girl between her and
+the window.</p>
+
+<p>The latter seemed more and more familiar in
+appearance to Ruth as she looked, yet the Corner
+House girl could not say whom the girl looked
+like.</p>
+
+<p>The latter scarcely spoke to her companion.
+Indeed, she kept her face toward the window for
+the most part, and seemed to be in a sullen mood.
+She had smiled once at Dot and the Alice-doll,
+and that was the only time Ruth had seen the
+dark, beautiful face with an attractive expression
+upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The woman seemed talkative enough, but what
+language she jabbered to her companion the Corner
+House girl could not tell. She frequently
+leaned toward the dark girl, her bejeweled fingers
+seizing the sleeve of her waist, and her speech
+was both emphatic and loud.</p>
+
+<p>The rattle of the train drowned, however, most
+of the woman’s words. Ruth arose and went the
+length of the car for a drink, just for the purpose
+of overhearing the strange speech of the
+Gypsy (if such the woman was) for she was sure
+the language was not English.</p>
+
+<p>She heard nothing intelligible. Ruth folded a
+cup, filled it at the ice-water tank, and brought it
+back for the children. Pearl Harrod was sitting
+directly behind the two strangers, in a seat with
+Carrie Poole.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I say, Ruth!” Pearl said, “is it a fact
+that Rosa Wildwood is coming down to the Cove
+next week?”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth turned to answer. As she did so the girl
+in the seat with the Gypsy sprang to her feet,
+her face transfigured with amazement, or alarm—Ruth
+did not know which. The woman grabbed
+her by the elbow and pulled her back into the
+seat, saying something of a threatening nature to
+her companion.</p>
+
+<p>In her excitement the woman knocked the cup
+of water from Ruth’s hand. She turned to apologize,
+and Ruth, looking over her head, saw the
+dark-skinned girl sitting back in her corner quite
+colorless and broken. The Corner House girl
+was sure, too, that the strange girl’s lips formed
+the name “Rosa Wildwood”—but she made no
+sound.</p>
+
+<p>“It is all right,” Ruth assured the Gypsy
+woman. “No harm done.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am the ver’ awkward one—eh?” repeated
+the woman, with a hard smile.</p>
+
+<p>“It does not matter,” said Ruth. “I can get
+another cup of water.”</p>
+
+<p>She returned to do so. All the while she was
+wondering what the incident meant. It was not
+merely a chance happening, she was sure. Something
+about the name of her schoolmate, Rosa
+Wildwood, had frightened the beautiful girl who
+was evidently in the Gypsy woman’s care.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth grew quite excited as she drew another
+cup of water, and she swiftly planned to discover
+the mystery, as she started up the aisle of the
+coach a second time.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink07'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER VII—SOMETHING AHEAD</a></h2>
+
+<p>Pearl Harrod was now busily talking with
+Carrie Poole again; she had probably forgotten
+about Rosa Wildwood for the time being. But
+Ruth stopped at her seat—the seat directly behind
+that occupied by the two strangers.</p>
+
+<p>“You asked about Rosa, Pearl?” said Ruth,
+speaking loudly enough, she was sure, for the girl
+in front to hear.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, hello! don’t spill that water again,
+Ruthie,” laughed Pearl. “Yes. I asked if she
+were coming down to the Cove!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. Rosa Wildwood expects to come next
+week. I am going to find her a boarding place.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth spoke very distinctly, and she kept her
+eyes fastened upon the back of the strange girl’s
+head. But the latter gave no sign of having
+heard—at least, she appeared not to be interested
+in the name which had before so startled her.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t see how the poor girl can afford it,”
+Carrie Poole said, not unkindly. “They say she
+and her father are very poor.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Bob Wildwood works regularly. He
+doesn’t drink any more,” Ruth explained,
+intentionally speaking so that those in the forward
+seat could hear if they wished to listen.</p>
+
+<p>“Rosa is an awfully sweet girl,” said Carrie.</p>
+
+<p>“I love that little Southern drawl of hers!”
+cried Pearl. “She says ‘Ah reckon so’ in just
+the <i>cunningest</i> way!”</p>
+
+<p>“She is very frail,” Ruth continued, clearly.
+“I was afraid she would break down before the
+school term closed. Now it has been arranged for
+her to stay at Pleasant Cove until she gains
+strength. Dr. Forsythe says it will do her a
+world of good.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll give her a good time, all right,” declared
+Pearl. “Wish we could have her with
+us——”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at the bungalow,” said Ruth. “Nor at
+the hotel. We want a quiet place for her. I
+shall find it.”</p>
+
+<p>Not a sign did the girl in front give that she
+heard any of this conversation. Yet Ruth believed
+there was a curious intentness in her manner—she
+held her head very still as though she
+were secretly listening, while apparently giving
+all her attention to what the train passed.</p>
+
+<p>“What does your uncle call his bungalow—where
+we shall stop?” asked Ruth of Pearl.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, the Spoondrift—don’t you remember?
+It’s at this end of the cove, near the river, and
+we have bathing rights on the shore. It’s a fine
+place. You’ll <i>love</i> it, Ruth Kenway.”</p>
+
+<p>“I expect to,” said Ruth, seriously. “And you
+were very kind to ask me to stay two whole weeks
+with you,” and Ruth passed on.</p>
+
+<p>She had intentionally said enough so that, if
+the strange girl <i>were</i> listening, she would learn
+just where Ruth could be found at Pleasant Cove.</p>
+
+<p>For the Corner House girl felt that the dark
+beauty with the Gypsy woman held some keen interest
+in Rosa Wildwood. Of course—right at
+the start—the story of Rosa’s lost sister, June,
+had come into Ruth’s mind.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, as the Corner House girl looked at the
+stranger, she could not say truthfully that it was
+Rosa of whom <i>this</i> girl reminded her. Ruth conjured
+before her mind’s eye the fair, delicate
+beauty of Bob Wildwood’s daughter; the two
+girls possessed no feature in common—and in
+complexion they were, of course, diametrically
+opposed.</p>
+
+<p>This girl was dark enough and savage enough
+looking to be a Gypsy. Ruth scouted the idea
+that she might be Juniper Wildwood, who had run
+away with a traveling “medicine man” and his
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Ruth believed that the strange
+girl must know something about the lost June
+Wildwood. She had been startled when Rosa’s
+name was mentioned. The Corner House girl
+was deeply interested in the affair; but at present
+she did not want to take anybody into her confidence
+about it—not even Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>The girls did not remain quietly in their seats,
+by any manner of means. First there was a
+crowd blocking the aisle in one part of the car,
+then in another. Agnes was in and out of her
+seat half a dozen times between stations. The
+heat and dust was ignored as the girls shouted
+pleasantries back and forth; the air was vibrant
+with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m just as anxious to see the ocean as I can
+be,” declared Lucy Poole who, like the Corner
+House girls, had never been to Pleasant Cove before.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me!” scoffed her cousin Carrie.
+“It’s only a big, big pond! Our frog pond at
+home looks like a piece of the ocean—when it’s
+calm.”</p>
+
+<p>The others laughed and Pearl said: “Guess
+Lucy wants to see Old Ocean in its might, eh?
+Big storm, whales, great ships——”</p>
+
+<p>“A sea serpent!” cried Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course—if there is such a thing,” admitted
+Lucy. “A sea serpent must be an awfully interesting
+sight.”</p>
+
+<p>“There aren’t any more,” said Pearl. “Father
+Neptune’s all out of stock.”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess the sea serpent is something like the
+<i>snakes</i> alcoholic victims think they see,” proposed
+Carrie.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no,” proclaimed Agnes. “Here’s what
+I read about the sea serpent:</p>
+
+<p>
+&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;    “‘The old sea serpent used to rave<br/>
+&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;      And fiercely roam about;<br/>
+&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;    He hit a prohibition wave,<br/>
+&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;      And that’s what knocked him out.’”<br/>
+</p>
+
+<p>“‘Perils of the Deep!’” laughed Ruth. “But
+even if we don’t see serpents in the ocean, I expect
+we’ll have plenty of adventures down there
+at the shore.”</p>
+
+<p>Which prophecy was strangely fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>The train reached Bloomingsburg about one
+o’clock, and was immediately shifted to the single-tracked
+branch line that connected that small city
+with Pleasant Cove. The speed of the train after
+leaving Bloomingsburg was not great, for it was
+often held up for trains coming from the shore
+to pass.</p>
+
+<p>The adult passengers grew impatient and
+wearied. There were many complaints, and the
+babies began to fret and cry. But our friends in
+the last coach remained in a jolly and—for the
+most part—kindly mood.</p>
+
+<p>Trix Severn had taken her crowd into a forward
+coach. Her father owning one of the big
+hotels at the Cove, the railroad company had
+presented him with a sheaf of chair coupons.
+So, as Pearl Harrod laughingly said, “Trix’s
+party was as swell as a wet sponge.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t suppose any of that crowd at the Overlook
+House will talk to <i>us</i>,” said Pearl. “Just
+the same, I guess I can show you girls a good time
+at Spoondrift. Uncle always lets us do just as
+we like. He’s the <i>dearest</i> man.”</p>
+
+<p>The train rattled on and on. The alternate
+pine forests and swamp lands seemed interminable.
+Now and then they went through a cut,
+the railroad bisecting a hickory ridge.</p>
+
+<p>But soon there was a change in the air. When
+the cinders and dust did not sift into the windows,
+there was a smell of salt marsh. The air
+seemed suddenly cleaner. At one station where
+they stopped, a salt creek came in, and there was
+a dock, and boats, and barrels of clams and fish
+piled on the platform ready for the next up-train.</p>
+
+<p>“Regular maritime smell——whew!” sighed
+Carrie Poole, holding her nose delicately.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! The <i>whole</i> of Pleasant Cove doesn’t
+smell like this, does it?” demanded her cousin.</p>
+
+<p>“Only the old part of it—the old village.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! that’s lucky,” said Lucy. “If this
+odor prevailed I should say the place ought to
+be called <i>Un</i>-pleasant Cove.”</p>
+
+<p>“How far are we from the jumping-off place?”
+demanded Agnes. “I’d like to get out and run.”</p>
+
+<p>Pearl stooped to look out under one of the
+drawn shades. “Why!” she said, “there are
+only two more stops before we reach the Cove
+station. It’s a winding way the railroad follows.
+But if we got off about here and went right
+through those woods yonder, we’d reach the
+Spoondrift bungalow in an hour. I’ve walked
+over here to Jumpertown many a time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Jumpertown?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. That’s what they called it before the
+real estate speculators gave it the fancy name of
+‘Ridgedale Station.’”</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the train suddenly slowed
+down. The brakes grated upon the wheels and
+everybody clung to the seats for support. One
+of the brakemen ran through from the front and
+the girls clamored to know the cause of the stoppage.</p>
+
+<p>“Bridge down up front,” said the railroad employee.
+“Tide rose last night and loosened the
+supports. We’ve got to wait.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me!” was the general wail. When
+they could get hold of the conductor the girls demanded
+to know the length of time they would
+be delayed.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t tell you, young ladies,” declared the
+man of the punch. “There’s a repair gang at
+work on it now.”</p>
+
+<p>“An hour?” demanded Pearl Harrod.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, longer than that,” the conductor assured
+her.</p>
+
+<p>“But what shall we do? We want to get to the
+bungalow and air the bedclothes, and all that,
+before dark,” she cried.</p>
+
+<p>“Guess you’ll have to walk, then,” said the
+conductor, laughing, and went away.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s just what we’ll do,” Pearl said to her
+friends. “Can the children walk three miles,
+Ruth?”</p>
+
+<p>“Surely they can!” Agnes cried. “If they
+can’t, we’ll carry them.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was doubtful of the wisdom of the move,
+but her opinion was not asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on! let’s get out quietly. We’ll fool all
+these other folks,” said Pearl. “We’ll get to
+Pleasant Cove long before they do.”</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink08'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER VIII—THE GYPSY CAMP</a></h2>
+
+<p>There were two things that encouraged Ruth
+Kenway, the oldest Corner House girl, to accompany
+Pearl Harrod’s party through the
+woods without objection. Pearl told her that
+when they reached the highway on the other side
+of the timber in all probability they would be
+overtaken by an auto-bus that ran four times a
+day between a station on a rival railroad line
+and the Cove.</p>
+
+<p>This was one thing. The other reason for
+Ruth’s leaving the train with her sisters, and
+without objection, was the fact that the strangely
+dressed woman and the pretty, dark girl had left
+it already.</p>
+
+<p>When the train first stopped and the brakeman
+announced the accident ahead, the woman had
+spoken to the girl and they both had risen and
+left the car. Perhaps nobody had noticed them
+but Ruth. The strange girl had not looked at
+Ruth when she passed her, but the woman had
+bowed and smiled in a cat-like fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Pearl said they would follow a path through
+the timber to the road; and she pointed out the
+direction through the window. Ruth saw the
+woman and girl strike into this very path and
+disappear.</p>
+
+<p>So curiosity, too, led the oldest Corner House
+girl to agree to Pearl’s plan. The party of ten
+girls, including Ruth, Agnes, Tess and Dot Kenway,
+slipped out of the car without being questioned
+by any of the older people there. Nobody
+observed them enter the cool and fragrant
+woods. Chattering and laughing, they were
+quickly in the shadowy depths and out of sight
+of the hot train.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, isn’t this heavenly!” cried Agnes, tossing
+up her hat by the ribbons that were supposed to
+tie it under her plump chin.</p>
+
+<p>The green tunnel of the wood-path stretched a
+long way before them. It was paved with pine
+needles and last-year’s oak leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth looked sharply ahead, but did not see
+either the woman or the girl, in whom she was
+so much interested. Either they had gone on
+very rapidly, or had turned aside into the wood.</p>
+
+<p>Dot had made no complaint upon being forced
+to leave the train; but she clung very tightly now
+to the Alice-doll, and finally ventured to ask
+Tess:</p>
+
+<p>“What—what do you think is the chance for
+<i>bears</i> in this wood, Tess? Don’t you think there
+may be some?”</p>
+
+<p>“Bears? Whoever heard the like? Of course
+not, child,” said Tess, in her most elder-sisterly
+way. “What gave you such an idea as that?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well—it’s a strange woods, Tess. We aren’t
+really acquainted here.”</p>
+
+<p>“But Pearl is,” declared Tess, stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care. I’d rather have Tom Jonah
+with us. Suppose a bear should jump out and
+grab Alice?” and she hugged the doll all the
+closer in her arms. For her own safety she evidently
+was not anxious.</p>
+
+<p>The girls, after their ride in the train, were
+like young colts let loose in a paddock. They
+sang and laughed and capered; and when they
+came to a softly carpeted hollow, Pearl Harrod
+led the way and rolled down the slope, instead
+of walking down in a “decorous manner, as high
+school young ladies should,” quoth Carrie.</p>
+
+<p>“If our dear, <i>de-ar</i> teachers should see us
+now!” gasped Pearl sitting up at the foot of the
+slide, with a peck of pine needles in her hair and
+her frock all tousled.</p>
+
+<p>Their only baggage was the lunch baskets and
+boxes. All other of their personal possessions
+were on the train, in the baggage car. But the
+remains of the luncheons came in very nicely.
+Before they had gone a mile through the wood
+they were all loudly proclaiming their hunger.</p>
+
+<p>So they found a spring, and camped about it,
+eating the remainder of the lunches to the very
+last crumb. And such a hilarious “feed” as it
+was!</p>
+
+<p>Ruth forgot all about the Gypsy woman and the
+girl who had so puzzled her by her actions. The
+rest by the spring refreshed even Dot. She was
+plucky, if she <i>was</i> little; and she made no complaint
+at all about the long walk through the
+stretch of timber.</p>
+
+<p>The party did not hurry after that rest. It
+was still early in the afternoon and Pearl, referring
+to her watch, said they would surely
+catch the auto-stage that passed on the main road
+about four o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>“You see, there are no servants at the bungalow
+yet,” Pearl explained. “Uncle has been taking
+his meals at one of the small boarding-houses
+nearby, that opens early. He is a great fisherman,
+and always goes down early and ‘roughs
+it’ at the bungalow until my aunt comes down.</p>
+
+<p>“But she thought we girls would be able to get
+on all right—with Uncle Phil to give us a hand
+if we need him. We’ll have to air bedclothes,
+and get in groceries, and otherwise start housekeeping
+to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why! it will be great fun,” Ruth said. “Just
+like playing house together.”</p>
+
+<p>“Say!” cried Agnes. “We want more than
+‘play-house’ food to eat—now I warn you! No
+sweet crackers and ‘cambric tea’ for mine, if you
+please!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! if I ask him,” said Pearl, laughing, “I
+know Uncle Phil will take us to his boarding-house
+to supper to-night—if we get there late.
+But I want to show him what ten girls can do
+toward housekeeping.”</p>
+
+<p>“There’ll be plenty of cooks to spoil the broth,”
+sighed Agnes. “Did you ever see <i>me</i> fry an
+egg?”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth began to laugh. The single occasion when
+Agnes had tried her hand at the breakfast eggs
+was a day marked for remembrance at the old
+Corner House.</p>
+
+<p>“What can you do to a defenseless egg,
+Aggie?” Lucy Poole demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Plenty!” declared Agnes, shaking her head.
+“When I get through with an egg, a lump of butter,
+and a frying-pan, there is left a residue of
+charred ‘what is it?’ in the bottom of the pan,
+an odor of burned grease in the kitchen—and me
+in hysterics! It was an awful occasion when I
+tackled that egg. I’ve not felt just right about
+approaching an egg since that never-to-be-forgotten
+day.”</p>
+
+<p>“I was left home to cook for my father, once,”
+said Carrie Poole, seriously, “and he asked to
+have boiled rice for supper. Mother never let
+me cook much, and I didn’t know a thing about
+<i>rice</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“But I saw the grains were awfully small, and
+I knew my father liked a great, heaping bowlful
+when he had it, so I told the grocery boy to bring
+two pounds, and I tried to cook it all.”</p>
+
+<p>A general laugh hailed this announcement.
+Agnes asked: “What happened, Carrie? I
+don’t know anything about rice myself—’cepting
+that it’s good in cakes and you throw it after
+brides for luck—and—and Chinamen live on it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wait!” urged Carrie, solemnly. “It’s nothing
+to laugh at. I began cooking it in a four
+quart saucepan, so as to give it plenty of room;
+and when father came in just before supper time,
+I had the whole top of our big range covered
+with pots and pans into which I had dipped the
+overflow of that two pounds of rice!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, I had!” said Carrie, warmly, while
+the others screamed with laughter. “And I had
+gotten so excited by that time that I begged father
+to go out to the washhouse and bring in the big
+clothes boiler, so’s to see if I could keep the stuff
+from running over onto the stove.</p>
+
+<p>“You never saw such a mess,” concluded Carrie,
+shaking her head. “And we had to eat rice
+for a week!”</p>
+
+<p>It was just here that Agnes spied something
+far ahead beside the woodspath.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” she cried, “are we in sight of the tent
+colony you tell about, so soon?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nonsense!” exclaimed Pearl Harrod. “We’re
+nowhere near the river.”</p>
+
+<p>“But there’s a tent!” exclaimed Agnes, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>“And I see the top of another,” said Lucy
+Poole.</p>
+
+<p>“Dirty brown things, both of them. Look
+more like Indian wigwams,” announced Ann
+Presby.</p>
+
+<p>“My goodness, girls! there are the Gypsies
+Uncle Phil wrote about,” said Pearl, in some excitement.
+“Let’s get our fortunes told.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me,” said Ruth, rather worriedly.
+“I don’t just <i>like</i> Gypsies.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you haven’t got to hug and kiss them!”
+laughed Pearl. “Come on! they’re lots of fun.”</p>
+
+<p>But when the party of girls drew nearer to the
+Gypsy camp, this particular tribe of Nomads did
+not appear to be “lots of fun,” after all.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the tents—as Ann had said—were
+very shabby and dirty. The two covered
+wagons were dilapidated, too. Gypsies usually
+have good horses, but those the girls saw feeding
+in the little glade were mere “crowbaits.”</p>
+
+<p>Several low-browed, roughly dressed men sat
+in a group on the grass playing cards. They
+were smoking, and one was tipping a black bottle
+to his lips just as the girls from Milton came
+near.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s hurry right by, Pearl!” begged Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>Pearl, however, was not as observant as the
+Corner House girl. She failed to see danger in
+the situation, or in the looks the disturbed men
+cast upon the unprotected party of girls. As
+several of the fellows rose, Pearl called to them:</p>
+
+<p>“Where’s your Pythoness? Where is the
+Queen of the Gypsies? We want our fortunes
+told.”</p>
+
+<p>One man—a tall fellow with a scarred face—turned
+and shouted something in a strange tongue
+at the tents. Ruth recognized the language in
+which the woman had talked to the dark-faced girl
+on the train.</p>
+
+<p>And then, the next moment, Ruth caught sight
+of the face of the very woman in question, peering
+from between the flaps of one of the dingy
+tents.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink09'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER IX—THE SPOONDRIFT BUNGALOW</a></h2>
+
+<p>“I don’t think these are very nice looking men,
+do you, Tess?” Dot seriously asked her sister as
+the party halted before the Gypsy camp.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Dot!” gasped Tess. “That man <i>there</i>
+is the very fellow who tried to steal Ruth’s
+chickens!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh—o-o!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, he is,” whispered the amazed Tess.
+“He’s the young man Tom Jonah chased up on
+to the henhouse roof.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said the philosophical Dot, “he can’t
+steal our chickens <i>here</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Just the same I wish Tom Jonah was here
+with us. I—I’d feel better about meeting him,”
+confessed Tess.</p>
+
+<p>The other girls did not hear this conversation
+between the two youngest Kenways. Ruth and
+Agnes, however, were really troubled by the meeting
+with the Gypsies; the former was, in addition,
+suspicious of the woman who had been on the
+train with them.</p>
+
+<p>This strange woman did not come out of the
+tent. Indeed, almost at once she disappeared,
+dropping the curtain. She did not wish to be
+observed by the girls from Milton.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, come on!” cried the reckless Pearl.
+“They’ll only ask us a dime each. ‘Cross their
+palms with silver,’ you know. And they do tell
+the <i>queerest</i> things sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe we’d better stop this afternoon,
+Pearl,” ventured Ruth, as one of the rough
+fellows drew nearer to the girls.</p>
+
+<p>“Let the little ladies wait but a short time,”
+said this man. “They will have revealed to them
+all they wish to know.”</p>
+
+<p>He had an ugly leer, and had Pearl looked at
+him she would have been frightened by his expression.
+But she was searching her chain-purse
+for dimes. It did not look to Ruth Kenway as
+though that purse would last long in the company
+of these evil fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Now the same tent flap was pushed aside again
+and into the open hobbled an old crone. She
+seemed to be a toothless creature, and leaned
+upon a crutch. Gray strands of coarse hair
+straggled over her wrinkled forehead. She had
+a hump on her back—or seemed to have, for she
+wore a long cloak, the bedraggled tail of which
+touched the ground.</p>
+
+<p>She hobbled across the lawn toward the girls.
+Ruth watched her closely for, it seemed, she came
+more hurriedly than seemed necessary.</p>
+
+<p>A dog—one of the mongrels that infested the
+camp—ran at her, and the old crone struck at the
+creature with her crutch; he ran away yelping.
+She was plainly more vigorous of arm than one
+would have believed from her decrepit appearance.</p>
+
+<p>The grinning fellows separated as the old hag
+came forward. She did not speak to them, but
+she was muttering to herself.</p>
+
+<p>“Incantations!” whispered Pearl. “Isn’t she
+enough to give you the delicious shudders? Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>Pearl was evidently enjoying the adventure to
+the full, but some of the girls besides Ruth and
+Agnes, did not feel so very pleasant. When
+one of the fellows took hold of Carrie Poole’s
+wrist-watch with a grimy finger and thumb, she
+screamed.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t fear, little lady,” said the tall, grim
+man, and he struck the officious fellow with his
+elbow in the ribs. “He means nothing harmful.
+Here is Zaliska, the Queen of the Romany. She
+is very old and very wise. She will tell you much
+for a silver shilling; but she will tell you more for
+two-bits.”</p>
+
+<p>“He means a quarter,” said Pearl, explaining.
+“But a quarter’s too much. Show her your
+palms, girls. This is my treat. I have ten
+dimes.”</p>
+
+<p>The tall man had motioned his fellows back,
+but they were arranged around the party of girls
+in such a way that, no matter which way they
+turned, one of the ruffians was right before them!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth! I am frightened!” whispered
+Agnes in her sister’s ear.</p>
+
+<p>“Sh! don’t scare the children,” Ruth said, her
+first thought for Tess and Dot.</p>
+
+<p>The old crone hobbled directly to Ruth and put
+out a brown claw. Ruth extended her own right
+hand tremblingly. The hag was mumbling something
+or other, but Ruth could not hear what she
+said at first, the other girls were chattering so.</p>
+
+<p>Then she noticed that the grip of the old Gypsy
+was a firm one. The back of her hand seemed
+wrinkled and puckered; but suddenly Ruth knew
+that this was the effect of grease paint!</p>
+
+<p>This was a made-up old woman—not a real old
+woman, at all!</p>
+
+<p>The discovery frightened the Corner House
+girl almost as much as the rough men frightened
+her. “Zaliska” was a disguised creature.</p>
+
+<p>She clung to Ruth’s hand firmly when the girl
+would have pulled it away, and now Ruth heard
+her hiss:</p>
+
+<p>“Get you away from this place. Get you away
+with your friends—quick. And do not come back
+at all.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was shaking with hysterical terror. The
+creature clung to her hand and mumbled this
+warning over and over again.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s she telling you, Ruth?” demanded the
+hilarious Pearl.</p>
+
+<p>“Trouble! trouble!” mumbled the supposed
+fortune-teller, shaking her head, but accepting the
+next girl’s dime.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth whispered swiftly to Pearl: “Oh! let us
+get out of here. These men mean to rob us—I
+am sure.”</p>
+
+<p>“They would not dare,” began the startled
+Pearl.</p>
+
+<p>Just then there was a creaking of heavy
+wheels, and a voice shouting to oxen. The
+Gypsies glanced swiftly and covertly at one another,
+falling back farther from the vicinity of
+the girls.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, several of them returned to the card
+game. The fortune-teller mumbled her foolish
+prophecies quickly. Into the glade, along a wood-path
+from the thicker timber, came two spans of
+oxen dragging three great logs. A pleasant-faced
+young man swung the ox-goad and spoke
+cheerily to the slow-moving, ponderous animals.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s go at once, Pearl!” begged Ruth.
+“We’ll keep close to this lumberman. Dot and
+Tess can ride on the logs.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, girls! I think this old woman is
+a faker,” cried Pearl. “She can’t even tell me
+whether I’m going to marry a blond man, or a
+brunette!”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t go yet, little ladies,” said the tall man,
+suavely. “Zaliska can tell you much——”</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s go, girls!” cried Carrie Poole, snatching
+her hand away from the supposed old woman.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth and Agnes had already seized their sisters
+and were hurrying them toward the lumberman.</p>
+
+<p>“Whoa, Buck! Whoa, Bright!” shouted the
+teamster, cracking the whiplash before the leading
+span of oxen. “Sh-h! Steady. What’s the
+matter, girls?”</p>
+
+<p>“Won’t you take us to the main road where we
+can get the stage for Pleasant Cove?” cried Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Sure, Miss. Going right there. Want to
+ride?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, sir!” cried the Corner House girls.</p>
+
+<p>“That will be great fun!” shouted some of the
+others. “Come on!”</p>
+
+<p>They clambered all over the logs, that were
+chained together and swung from the axle of the
+rear pair of wheels. The Gypsies began gathering
+around and some of them muttered threateningly,
+but the lumberman cracked his whip and
+the oxen started easily.</p>
+
+<p>“Cling on, girls!” advised the driver. “No
+skylarking up there. Soon have you out to the
+pike road. And you want to keep away from that
+Gypsy camp. They are a tough lot—very different
+from the crowd that camped there last
+year and the year before. We farmers are getting
+about ready to run them out, now I tell ye!”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth said nothing—not even to Agnes—about
+what she had discovered. She had penetrated
+“Queen Zaliska’s” disguise. She believed that
+the supposed old crone was the handsome, dark
+girl whom she had observed so narrowly on the
+train.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps nobody but Ruth, of the party of ten
+girls, really understood that they had been in
+peril from the Gypsies. <i>She</i> believed that, had
+they not gotten away from the camp as they had,
+the men would have robbed them.</p>
+
+<p>The Gypsies were afraid of the husky lumberman,
+and they did not follow the girls. Once on
+the highway, Pearl declared the auto-stage would
+be along in ten minutes or so, and they bade the
+lumberman good-bye with a feeling of perfect
+safety.</p>
+
+<p>The Gypsies had not dared follow the party.
+Soon the stage came along, and for ten cents each
+the girls rode into Pleasant Cove. There were
+only a few other passengers, and the party from
+Milton sat on top and had a lot of fun.</p>
+
+<p>Pearl pointed out the byroad that led down to
+the river beach where the tent colony was set up,
+but the stage went right past Spoondrift bungalow,
+and the girls got down and charged that
+dwelling “like a horde of Huns,” Agnes declared.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Phillip Harrod was at home, and welcomed
+them kindly. “Help yourselves, girls,
+and go as far as you like,” he said, waving both
+hands, and retired to a corner of the piazza with
+his book and a pipe.</p>
+
+<p>The girls took him at his word. They were
+very busy till nightfall. Then, however,
+everything was ready for their occupancy of the bungalow,
+and supper was cooking on the kerosene
+range.</p>
+
+<p>They had forgotten the Gypsies—all but Ruth.
+She was bound to be puzzled by the disguised
+“queen” and wondered secretly what the masquerade
+meant, and who the beautiful girl was
+who posed as “Zaliska”?</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink10'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER X—SOME EXCITEMENT</a></h2>
+
+<p>“But <i>why</i> ‘Spoondrift’?” demanded Lucy.
+“What does it mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“‘Spoondrift’ is the spray from the tops of the
+waves,” explained Pearl. “We think the name
+is awfully pretty.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so is the bungalow—and the Cove,”
+sighed Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“And we’re going to have a scrumptious time
+here!” declared Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot were frankly sleepy, and Lucy
+begged the privilege of seeing them to bed.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s real kind of you, I’m sure, Lute,” said
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you praise her,” sniffed Carrie. “I
+know Lute. She’s sleepy, herself. You won’t
+see her downstairs again to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care,” yawned Lucy Poole, following
+Tess and Dot. “I sleep so slowly that it takes
+a long time for me to get a good night’s rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! of all things!” ejaculated Carrie, as
+her cousin departed, following the two smaller
+girls. “What do you know about <i>that</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>“Almost as stupid as the inhabitants of London,”
+chuckled Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you mean by that, Ag?” demanded
+Ann Presby. “The people of London aren’t
+any more stupid than those of other cities, are
+they?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” returned Agnes; “but the
+book says ‘the population of London is very
+dense.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Fine! fine!” cried Carrie Poole, laughing.
+“Oh! these ‘literal’ folk. You know, my Grandfather
+Poole has an awfully bald head. He was
+telling us once that in some famous battle of the
+Civil War in which he took part, his head was
+grazed by a bullet. My little brother Jimmy
+stared at his head thoughtfully for a minute, and
+then he said:</p>
+
+<p>“‘My, Grandpa, there’s not much grazing up
+there now, is there?’”</p>
+
+<p>These stories began the evening. Everybody
+had some story or joke to relate, and finally the
+girls began to guess riddles. Somebody propounded
+the old one about the wind: “What
+is it that goes all around the house and yet makes
+no tracks?” and Agnes had a new answer for
+it:</p>
+
+<p>“Germs!” she shouted. “You know, Miss
+Georgiana gave us a lecture about them, and I
+bet we’re just surrounded by deadly bacilli right
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Those aren’t germs—they’re mosquitos,
+Ag!” laughed Pearl, slapping vigorously at one
+of the pests. “Pleasant Cove isn’t entirely free
+from them.”</p>
+
+<p>“And they are presenting their bills pretty
+lively, too,” yawned Ruth. “The bedrooms are
+screened. I believe we’d all better seek the haven
+of bed unless we want to be splotchy to-morrow
+from mosquito bites.”</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the older girls divided the
+housework between them, and so got it all done
+in short order. The baggage had come up from
+the station the evening before, and they unpacked.</p>
+
+<p>Then they set forth to explore the fishing port,
+as well as the more modern part of Pleasant Cove.</p>
+
+<p>As they brisked along the walk past Mr. Terrence
+Severn’s Overlook House, they spied Trix
+and her party on the big veranda. The girls
+hailed each other back and forth; only Trix and
+the Corner House girls did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>“We can’t speak to her if she won’t speak to
+us,” said Ruth to Agnes. “Now, never you
+mind, Aggie. She’ll get over her tantrum in
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>The party from Spoondrift bungalow got back
+in season to get luncheon; after which they rested
+and then bathed. It was the Corner House girls’
+first experience of salt water bathing and they
+all enjoyed it—even Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“It <i>does</i> make you suck in your breath awfully
+hard when the waves lap upon you,” she confessed.
+“But there was the Alice-doll sitting on
+the shore watching me, and so I couldn’t let her
+see that I was <i>afraid</i>!”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth, more than the other girls, aided Pearl
+in looking after housekeeping affairs. It was
+she who discovered the broken lamp in the front
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>The bungalow was lighted by oil-lamps, and
+they used candles in the bed chambers; while
+there was a marvelous “blue-flame” kerosene
+range in the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>Not all of the girls understood the handling of
+kerosene lamps, and Pearl told a funny story
+about her own little sister who had never seen
+any lights but gas or electric.</p>
+
+<p>“When she came down here to Uncle Phil’s
+bungalow for the first time, she was all excited
+about the lamps. She told mamma that ‘Uncle
+Phil had his ’lectricity in a lamp right on the
+supper table. It’s a queer kind of a light, for
+they fill it with water out of a can.’”</p>
+
+<p>The hanging lamp in the front hall was set
+inside a melon-shaped globe. Finding that, as
+Ruth pointed out, it could not be used, Pearl made
+another trip to the village before teatime and in
+the local “department store” bought another
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid you ought not to use that lamp,
+Pearl,” Ruth said, when she saw that the chimney
+was not tall enough to stick out of the top of
+the globe.</p>
+
+<p>“Pooh! why not? Guess it’s just as good as
+the old chimney was,” said Pearl.</p>
+
+<p>“Seems to me Mrs. MacCall says that chimneys
+should always be tall enough to come up
+through the globe. I don’t know just why——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, pshaw!” interrupted Pearl. “It’s all
+right, I fancy.”</p>
+
+<p>Neither girl had recourse to “applied physics.”
+Had she done so she could easily have discovered
+just <i>why</i> it was unwise to use a lamp with a short
+chimney inside such a shaped globe as that hanging
+in chains in the front hall of the bungalow.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth forgot the matter. It was Pearl herself
+who lit the hall lamp that evening. As before,
+they sat on the porch and played games and sang
+or told stories, all the long, bright evening.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot had gone to bed at half after
+eight. It was an hour later that Lucy suddenly
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“I smell smoke.”</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t Mr. Harrod,” said Ann. “He’s gone
+down to the Casino.”</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t tobacco smoke I smell,” declared
+Lucy, springing up.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Lute!” shrieked Agnes. “Look at the
+door!”</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of black, thick smoke was belching out
+of the front hall upon the veranda. One of the
+other girls shrieked “Fire!”</p>
+
+<p>Those next few minutes were terribly exciting
+for all hands at the Spoondrift bungalow. A
+single glance into the hall showed Ruth Kenway
+that the hanging lamp had burst, and the place
+was all ablaze.</p>
+
+<p>There was but one stairway, and the children
+were in one of the low-ceilinged rooms above.
+Tess and Dot could only be reached by climbing up
+the long, sloping roof of the bungalow, and getting
+in at the chamber window.</p>
+
+<p>While some of the girls ran for water—which
+was useless in the quantity they could bring from
+the kitchen tap in pots and pans—and others ran
+screaming along the street for help, Ruth “shinnied”
+right up one of the piazza pillars and
+squirmed out upon the shingled roof.</p>
+
+<p>She tore her dress, and hurt her knees and
+hands; but she did not think of this havoc at the
+moment. She got to the window of the room in
+which her sisters slept, and screamed for Tess
+and Dot, but in their first sleep the smaller girls
+were completely “dead to the world.”</p>
+
+<p>There was the screen to be reckoned with before
+the oldest Corner House girl could enter.
+It was set into the window from the inside, and
+she could neither lift the window-sash nor stir
+the screen. So she beat the tough wire in with
+her fists, and they bled and hurt her dreadfully!
+Nevertheless, she got through, falling into the
+room just as the stifling smoke from below began
+to pour in around the bedroom door.</p>
+
+<p>“Tess! Dot! Hurry up! Get up!” she
+shrieked, shaking them both.</p>
+
+<p>Tess aroused, whimpering. Ruth seized Dot
+bodily, flung a blanket around her, and put her
+out of the window upon the roof. Then she
+dragged Tess to the window and made her climb
+out after her sister.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, oh!” gasped Tess, alive at last to the
+cause of the excitement. “Save the Alice-doll,
+Ruthie. Save Dot’s Alice-doll!”</p>
+
+<p>And Ruth actually went back, groping through
+the gathering smoke, for the doll. With it she
+scrambled out upon the shingles.</p>
+
+<p>By that time the street was noisy with shouting
+people. Mr. Harrod came with a fire extinguisher
+and attacked the flames. Other men
+came and helped the girls down from the roof.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes had fainted when she realized the danger
+her sisters were in. Some of the other girls
+were quite hysterical. Neighbors took them all
+in for the night.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite an hour before the fire was completely
+out. Then the Spoondrift bungalow certainly
+was in a mess.</p>
+
+<p>“It will take carpenters and painters a fortnight
+and more to repair the damage,” said Mr.
+Harrod the next morning. “Luckily none of
+your guests lost their clothing, Pearl; but you
+will all have to go to the hotel to finish your visit
+to Pleasant Cove.”</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>
+<img id='ilink03' src='images/illus-003.jpg' alt=''/>
+<p class='caption'>Ruth actually went back, groping through the gathering smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled out upon the shingles.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink11'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XI—THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE</a></h2>
+
+<p>The Overlook House was nearest. Mr. Harrod
+made arrangements for the girls to go there
+and occupy several rooms. At least, he presumed
+he had made that arrangement with Mr.
+Severn when he left on the forenoon train for
+Bloomingsburg to arrange his insurance and hire
+mechanics to at once repair the bungalow.</p>
+
+<p>The Spoondrift cottage was really not fit for
+occupancy and there seemed nothing else for the
+girls to do but follow his advice and go over to
+the Overlook. But Ruth Kenway had her doubts.</p>
+
+<p>After the excitement of the fire, and the general
+“stir-about” which ensued, Pearl Harrod had
+quite forgotten that the Corner House girls were
+not on terms of intimacy with Trix Severn, the
+hotel keeper’s daughter. It probably never entered
+her good-natured mind that Trix would behave
+meanly when all hands from the Spoondrift
+had escaped the peril of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The girls trooped over to the hotel, after repacking
+their baggage, to look at the rooms which
+had been secured for them. Mr. Severn was not
+there, nor was the clerk on duty. Their schoolmate,
+Trix, was behind the desk.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes,” she said carelessly, “I presume we
+can find rooms for you. But father doesn’t care
+much to take in people who won’t stay the season
+out—especially at this time of the year. It’s
+a great inconvenience.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pooh!” said Pearl, frankly, “I guess your
+father is running his hotel for money—not for
+sport. And Uncle Phil is going to pay him for
+all the accommodation we get.”</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed?” returned Trix. “You seem to
+know a lot about our business, Miss Harrod.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you put on any of your high and mighty
+airs with me, Miss!” snapped Pearl. “For they
+don’t go down, let me tell you! Didn’t Uncle
+Phil secure rooms for us?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well—he spoke of your coming here. There
+is Number 10, and 11, and 14; they’re all three
+double rooms, so you and Ann can have one,
+Maud and Lulu another, and Carrie and Lucy the
+third.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, goodness gracious! there are ten of us!”
+cried Pearl. “You know that very well.”</p>
+
+<p>“Those three rooms,” said Trix, with elaborate
+carelessness, “are all your uncle provided.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Uncle Phil must be crazy! Didn’t he
+get a big room for the Kenways?”</p>
+
+<p>“Humph!” said Trix, maliciously. “Are <i>they</i>
+with you, Miss Harrod? Your uncle must have
+quite overlooked them. All the rooms I know
+anything about his securing for your party are
+the three I’ve mentioned.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, where’s your father——”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s gone fishing,” said Trix, promptly, and
+with a flash of satisfaction in her eyes. “He
+won’t be back till late to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then, where’s the clerk?” demanded Pearl,
+much worried.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cheever doesn’t know anything about it.
+I was here when your uncle made his bargain.
+Nothing was said about those Corner House girls—so
+there! There is no room for them here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! I call that the meanest thing!” began
+Pearl, but Ruth, who had stood close by, interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t let it worry you in the least, Pearl.
+We have plenty of time to find accommodations
+before night.”</p>
+
+<p>“You won’t find them here, Miss!” snapped
+Trix.</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing would make me remain under this
+roof for a night,” said Ruth, indignantly. “My
+sisters and I have never done you any harm,
+Trix; quite the contrary, as you would remember
+had you any gratitude at all. This hotel is not
+the only place at Pleasant Cove where we can
+find shelter, I am sure.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth! don’t go!” begged Pearl. “This
+mean girl is not telling the truth, I am sure.
+You’ll break up our party,” Pearl wailed.</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t stay here now,” the oldest Corner
+House girl declared. “I am going to secure a
+tent for us. I am quite sure we will be
+comfortable in one. If other people can stand it
+under canvas, of course <i>we</i> can.”</p>
+
+<p>She took Agnes by the hand and they went out
+of the hotel. Tess and Dot had not come with
+them, but had been left at the neighbor’s where
+they had all spent the night.</p>
+
+<p>Pearl and the other girls could not very well
+follow them; they were not so independently situated
+as the Corner House girls. Ruth had a
+well filled pocket-book, as well as checks from
+Mr. Howbridge and an introductory letter to the
+branch bank at Pleasant Cove.</p>
+
+<p>She had been so used to going ahead, and arranging
+matters for the whole family, during the
+past three years, that she was not troubled much
+by this emergency. She was sorry that the pleasant
+party had to be broken up, that was all. She
+was not sure that she and her sisters knew any
+of the campers along the riverside.</p>
+
+<p>There were two men who supplied tents and
+outfits for those who wished to live under canvas,
+and so there were two distinct tent colonies,
+though they were side by side.</p>
+
+<p>One was called Camp Enterprise, and the other
+Camp Willowbend. The latter was just at the
+bend of the river, and there were a few willows
+on the low bluff back of it.</p>
+
+<p>There were not more than a dozen tents erected
+in either camp as yet, for it was early in the season.
+The Corner House girls rode quite a mile
+from the hotel to Willowbend Camp and selected
+a tent that was already erected.</p>
+
+<p>It was a large wall-tent and it was divided in
+half by a canvas partition that made a bedroom
+of one end and a living-room of the front part.
+In the latter was a small sheetiron cookstove,
+with a pipe that led the smoke outside of the tent.
+But there was an oilstove, too, and Ruth decided
+that they would make arrangements for buying
+most of their food cooked, so as to reduce the
+details of housekeeping.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes cheered up at once when she saw the
+tent-cities. And the smaller girls were delighted
+with the prospect of living under canvas.</p>
+
+<p>There were four cots in the tent, with sheets
+and blankets, and apologies for pillows; there was
+matting laid down on the sand, too, in this bedroom
+part of the tent.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the furnishings consisted of
+four camp-chairs, a plain deal table, a chest of
+drawers that contained the chinaware and cooking
+utensils, and a small icebox. This front
+apartment had a plank floor, made in sections.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rough enough shelter, and the camping
+arrangements were crude; nevertheless, the
+Corner House girls saw nothing but fun ahead
+of them, and they were as busy as bees all that
+day “getting settled.”</p>
+
+<p>There were pleasant people in the other tents
+of Camp Willowbend, but none of them chanced
+to be Milton people. There were several girls
+of ages corresponding to those of the Corner
+House girls, and the latter were sure they would
+find these neighbors good sport.</p>
+
+<p>The Kenways were so busy at noon that they
+only “took a bite in their fists,” as good Mrs.
+MacCall would have expressed it. Ruth had been
+wise enough to buy some cooked food in the village
+before they came over to the camp, but she
+learned from some of the ladies in the tents that
+there was a woman in the neighborhood who
+baked bread to sell, and sometimes cookies and
+pies.</p>
+
+<p>“You go to see Mrs. Bobster. She’s the nicest
+old lady!” declared one city matron. “Make
+your arrangements for bread now, Miss Kenway,
+for after she takes orders for as many as she can
+well supply, she wouldn’t agree to bake another
+loaf. She has a real New England conscience,
+and she wouldn’t promise to bake a single biscuit
+more than she knows she can get in her
+oven.”</p>
+
+<p>The directions for finding Mrs. Bobster interested
+and amused the Corner House girls.</p>
+
+<p>“She is the little old woman who lives in the
+shoe,” laughed their informant. “You can’t
+miss the house, if you go along the beach road
+toward town. It’s just beyond the other camp.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” cried Dot, eagerly, “<i>I</i> want to see the
+lady who lives in a shoe. She must have lots of
+children, for they were a great bother.”</p>
+
+<p>“And,” said Tess, “do you suppose she <i>does</i>
+whip them all soundly and send them to bed with
+a piece of bread to eat?”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll discover all that,” promised Ruth, and
+soon after luncheon, having fixed up the tent, and
+set to rights their things that the expressman had
+brought over from the Spoondrift bungalow, the
+four sisters set out to find Mrs. Bobster.</p>
+
+<p>The girls had ridden over from the village
+along the highroad, on which they had traveled
+two days before in the auto-stage. This lower,
+or “beach” road was a much less important
+thoroughfare. In places it followed the line of
+the shore so closely that the unusual high tides
+that had prevailed that spring, had washed a
+great deal of white sand across the swamp-grass
+and out upon it.</p>
+
+<p>So, in places, the girls plodded through sand
+over their shoe tops. “Might as well go barefooted,”
+declared Agnes, sitting down for the
+third time to take off her oxfords and shake out
+the sand.</p>
+
+<p>“You’d find it pretty different, if you tried it,”
+laughed Ruth. “This sand is hot.”</p>
+
+<p>“It does seem as though you slipped back half
+a step each time you tried to go forward,” said
+Tess, seriously. “Aren’t we ever going to get
+there, Ruth?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” cried Dot, suddenly, “isn’t that a giraffe?
+And there’s a camel!”</p>
+
+<p>“For goodness’ sake!” gasped Agnes,
+plunging to her feet, and hopping along after her sisters,
+trying to get on her left shoe. “Is this the
+African desert?”</p>
+
+<p>“It looks like it,” said Ruth, herself amazed.</p>
+
+<p>“And it’s hot enough,” grumbled Agnes.
+“Oh! I see! it’s a wrecked carousel.”</p>
+
+<p>There were decrepit lions and tigers, too; the
+rain-washed and broken animals were the remains
+of a carousel, the machinery of which had been
+taken away. Once somebody had tried to finance
+a small pleasure resort between the real village
+of Pleasant Cove and the two tent colonies, but
+it had been unsuccessful.</p>
+
+<p>The wreck of a “shoot the chutes,” the carousel,
+a dancing pavilion and a short boardwalk
+with adjacent stands, had been abandoned by the
+unfortunate promoters. There was a tower—now
+a “leaning” tower; broken-down swings; an
+abandoned moving picture palace; and back from
+the rest of the wreckage, several hundred yards
+from the sandy shore, the girls saw a rusty looking
+frame structure, shaped like a shoe, with a
+flagstaff sticking out of the roof.</p>
+
+<p>“There it is!” cried Tess, eagerly. “And it
+<i>does</i> look like a shoe.”</p>
+
+<p>Originally the house had been a tiny brown
+cottage set in the midst of a garden. The fence
+surrounding the place was still well kept. The
+second story of the cottage had been transformed
+into the semblance of a congress-gaiter, with windows
+in the sides and front. It looked as though
+that huge shoe had been carefully placed upon the
+rafters of the first floor rooms of the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>“What a funny looking place!” exclaimed
+Agnes. “Did you ever see the like, Ruth? I
+wonder if Mrs. Bobster is as funny as her
+house.”</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a figure bobbed up among the
+beanpoles in the garden, and the girls saw that
+it was a little woman in a calico sunbonnet. Her
+face was very small and hard and rosy—like
+a well-shined Baldwin apple. She had twinkling
+blue eyes, as sharp as file-points.</p>
+
+<p>“Shoo!” exclaimed the little woman. “Shoo,
+Agamemnon! Git aout o’ them pea-vines like I
+told you!”</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the Corner House girls did not
+see Agamemnon; they could not imagine who he
+was.</p>
+
+<p>“Shoo, I tell ye!” exclaimed the little old
+woman who lived in a shoe, and she struck out
+with the short-handled hoe she was using.</p>
+
+<p>There was a squawk, and out leaped, with awkward
+stride, a long legged rooster—of what “persuasion”
+it was impossible to tell, for he was
+swathed from neck to spurs in a wonderful garment
+which had undoubtedly been made out of a
+red flannel undershirt!</p>
+
+<p>Two or three bedraggled tail-feathers appeared
+at the aperture in the back of this garment; otherwise
+Agamemnon seemed to be quite featherless.
+And when, clear of his mistress’ reach, he flapped
+his almost naked wings and crowed, he was the
+most comical looking object the Corner House
+girls had ever seen.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink12'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XII—A PICNIC WITH AGAMEMNON</a></h2>
+
+<p>“You see, gals, Agamemnon’s been the most
+unlucky bird that ever was hatched,” said the little
+old woman, coming across the tiny lawn to the
+fence where the Corner House girls were staring,
+round-eyed, at the strange apparition of a
+rooster in a red-flannel sleeping-suit.</p>
+
+<p>“But he’s the pluckiest! Yes, ma’am! He
+was only a pindling critter when he pipped the
+shell, an’ the vi-cis-<i>si</i>-tudes that bird’s been
+through since he fust scratched would ha’ made
+a human lay right down and die.</p>
+
+<p>“The other chickens never would let him raise
+a pin-feather ter cover his nakedness; they picked
+on him suthin’ <i>awful</i>. I shet him up till his
+wings and tail growed, an’ a rat got in an’ gnawed
+the feathers right off him in one night; but
+Agamemnon picked and clawed so’t the old rat
+didn’t bleed him much.</p>
+
+<p>“And now here, lately, a neighbor got a half-breed
+game rooster, an’ thet pesky fightin’ bird
+got down here an’ sasses Agamemnon on his own
+premises.</p>
+
+<p>“Ag wouldn’t stand for that,” said the old
+lady, her blue eyes fairly crackling. “He sailed
+right inter that game chicken—an’ Neighbor
+Lincoln et his rooster the nex’ Sunday for dinner.
+’Twas all he could do with the critter after
+Agamemnon got through with him.</p>
+
+<p>“But that game rooster had tore ev’ry <i>important</i>
+feather off’n poor Agamemnon’s carcass.
+I had to do suthin’. ’Twarn’t decent for him to
+go ’round bare. So I made him that smock out
+of one o’ poor Eddie’s old shirts. And there ye
+be!” she finished breathlessly, smiling broadly
+upon the interested Corner House girls.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess you are Mrs. Bobster?” asked Ruth,
+smiling in return.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you <i>really</i> the—the lady who lives in the
+shoe?” asked Dot, round-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s what they call me, pet,” said Mrs.
+Bobster, smiling at the smallest Kenway. “I’m
+the only little old woman who lives in <i>this</i> shoe.
+Poor Eddie thought we’d make a mint of money
+if we built over the top of our house like that,
+and I sold gingercakes and sweeties to the children
+who came down here to the beach. Eddie
+was allus mighty smart in thinkin’ up schemes
+for me to make money. But the Beach Company
+went up in smoke, as the sayin’ is; so we didn’t
+make our fortun’ after all.”</p>
+
+<p>She laughed. Indeed, this little, apple-faced old
+lady was almost always laughing, it seemed.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Eddie!” she added. “I guess the
+Beach Company failin’ took about all the tuck
+out o’ him. He said himself it was the last straw
+on the camel’s back. He jest settled right down
+inter his chair, like; and he didn’t last that winter
+out. He was allus weakly, Eddie was.”</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls knew she must be
+speaking of her husband. So now she was all
+alone in the house that had such a grotesque upper
+story.</p>
+
+<p>“No. There ain’t no children here—only them
+that comes in to see me,” Mrs. Bobster said in
+answer to a question from Tess. “We never did
+have no children; but we allus loved ’em.”</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile she had opened the gate and invited
+the Corner House girls into the yard.
+There was an arbor which was already shaded
+by quick-growing vines. The little kitchen garden,
+with its border of gooseberries and currants,
+was as neat as it could be.</p>
+
+<p>“I gotter cow of my own out back, and hens,
+too. I make a bare livin’ in winter, and put frills
+onto it in summer,” and the old lady laughed.
+“These folks from the city that come livin’ in
+tents here, like my bread and cookies.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is what we have come to arrange for,
+Mrs. Bobster,” said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“I dunno. Most all I can comferbly bake three
+times a week, is bespoke,” said the little old
+woman who lived in a shoe. “How many is
+there in your fam’bly, Miss?”</p>
+
+<p>When she heard that there were just four of
+them—these girls alone—and that they were to
+live by themselves in a tent, she grew greatly interested.</p>
+
+<p>“Surely I’ll bake for you—and cookies, too.
+Maybe a fruit pie oncet in a while—’specially if
+you’ll go over beyond the bend when berries is
+ripe and pick ’em yourself. And you gals a-livin’
+all alone? Sho! I’d think you’d be scaret to
+death.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, no!” said Ruth. “Why should we?”</p>
+
+<p>“After dark,” said the old woman, shaking her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Who would hurt us?” asked the Corner House
+girl in wonder.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t most always sometimes tell,” said the
+old woman, shaking her head.</p>
+
+<p>“But <i>you</i> live here alone!”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” she said, quickly. “Not after dark. I
+ain’t never alone. Oh, no!”</p>
+
+<p>She spoke as though she were afraid Ruth
+might not believe her, and repeated the denial
+several times.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot were very anxious to go upstairs
+and see the rooms in the “shoe,” and they made
+the request to Ruth in an audible whisper.</p>
+
+<p>“For sure!” cried Mrs. Bobster. “All the
+children that come here want to go upstairs. If
+I had ’em of my own, that’s where I’d put ’em
+all to bed after I’d fed ’em bread and ‘whipped
+’em all soundly,’” and she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe you’d have whipped the children,
+if you’d been the really truly little old
+woman that lived in the shoe,” quoth Dot, putting
+a confiding hand into the apple-faced lady’s
+hard palm.</p>
+
+<p>“I bet <i>you</i> wouldn’t have had to be whipped,”
+laughed Mrs. Bobster, leading Dot away, with
+Tess following.</p>
+
+<p>Later the hostess of the shoe-house brought out
+a pitcher of milk and glasses with a heaping plate
+of ginger cookies—the old-fashioned kind that
+just <i>melt</i> on your tongue!</p>
+
+<p>“Sho!” she said, when Ruth praised them.
+“It’s easy enough to make good merlasses cookies.
+But ye don’t wanter have no conscience
+when it comes to butter—no, indeed!”</p>
+
+<p>Agamemnon came to the feast. In his ridiculous
+red flannel suit he waddled up to his mistress
+and pecked crumbs off her lap when she sat
+down on the bench in the arbor.</p>
+
+<p>“He looks just like a person ready to go in
+swimming,” chuckled Agnes. “It’s a red bathing
+suit.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s one thing Agamemnon can’t stand.
+He don’t like water,” said Mrs. Bobster. “But
+if I let him out at low tide he’ll beau a flock of
+hens right down to the clamflats. But now, poor
+thing! they won’t go with him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who—the hens!” asked Ruth, wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. They don’t think he looks jest right,
+I s’pose. If he chassés up to one of my old biddies,
+she tries to tear that flannel suit right off’n
+him. It’s hard on poor Agamemnon; but until
+his feathers start to grow good again, I don’t
+dare have him go without it. He’d git sunburned
+like a brick, in the fust place.”</p>
+
+<p>This tickled Agnes so that she almost fell off
+the bench.</p>
+
+<p>“But I should think the red flannel would tickle
+him awfully,” murmured Tess, quite seriously
+disturbed over the plight of the rooster.</p>
+
+<p>“Sho! keeps away rheumatics. So poor Eddie
+allus said,” declared the widow. “That’s why
+he wore red flannel for forty year—and he never
+had a mite of rheumatism. Agamemnon ought
+to be satisfied he’s alive, after all he’s been
+through.”</p>
+
+<p>It was really very funny to see the rooster
+strutting about the yard in what Agnes called
+his red bathing suit.</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls remained for some
+time with Mrs. Bobster. When they went back
+to the camp at the bend they carried their first
+supply of bread and cookies.</p>
+
+<p>They arrived at their tent to find a wagonette
+Pearl had hired in the port, and all the other girls
+who had been at the Spoondrift bungalow had
+come visiting.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd was delighted with the way Ruth
+and her sisters were situated. It looked as
+though to live under canvas would be great fun
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>“Wish I’d spoken to Uncle Phil about it, and
+gotten him to hire tents instead of putting us up
+at that old hotel,” declared Pearl. “And do you
+know, girls, that Trix Severn told a story?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t suppose she’d be above being untruthful,”
+Ruth said, rather indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>“And you’re quite right. We found out that
+her father set aside a big, double-bedded room
+for you four girls. Trix says she did not know
+anything about it. But of course Uncle Phil
+would not have forgotten you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind,” said Agnes. “I’m glad she
+acted so. We’re a whole lot better off here.”</p>
+
+<p>“I believe you!” said Carrie Poole.</p>
+
+<p>“You going to have Rosa Wildwood here in the
+tent with you when she comes?” asked Ann
+Presby.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid she ought to have a better place,”
+said Ruth. “And I believe I know just where she
+would get the attention—and food—that she
+needs,” and the oldest Corner House girl told
+the crowd about Mrs. Bobster—the little old lady
+who lived in a shoe.</p>
+
+<p>“If I can get the dear old thing to take Rosa
+to board, I know she’ll give her just what she
+needs—good food, plenty of it, well cooked, and
+Rosa will be in a quiet place where she can rest
+all she wants to,” said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>She had no idea at the time of the strange adventure
+that would arise out of this plan of
+hers to bring Rosa Wildwood to stay for a part
+of the summer with the little old woman who lived
+in a shoe.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink13'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XIII—THE NIGHT OF THE BIG WIND</a></h2>
+
+<p>“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell you
+a boat.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell an
+elephant—and it’s <i>so</i> cute!”</p>
+
+<p>“For the land’s sake!” gasped Ruth, throwing
+down a sputtering pen, where she was writing on
+the chest of drawers in the tent. “<i>How</i> can a
+body write? And an elephant, no less!”</p>
+
+<p>She rushed out to see Dot’s elephant, as that
+seemed more important than Tess’ announcement
+that a man had merely a boat for sale.
+Dot’s man was a gangling young fellow with a
+covered basket from which he was selling sugar
+cakes made into fancy shapes. So Dot had her
+elephant for the Alice-doll (almost everything
+that appealed to Dot was bought for that pampered
+child of hers!) and was appeased.</p>
+
+<p>But the man with the boat was a different matter.
+He proved to be a boat owner and he wanted
+to hire one of his craft to the Corner House girls
+by the week. Agnes was just crazy (so she said)
+to add rowing to her accomplishments, and Ruth
+thought it would be a good thing herself.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was a safe, cedar craft, with two pairs
+of light oars and a portable kerosene engine and
+propeller to use if the girls got tired of rowing.
+Ruth made the bargain after thoroughly looking
+over the boat, which had had only one season’s
+use.</p>
+
+<p>There was a chain and padlock for mooring it
+to a post at the edge of the water just below the
+tent.</p>
+
+<p>The older girls had already learned to swim
+in the school gymnasium at Milton. Milton was
+pretty well up to date in its school arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>Tess had been taught to “strike out” and could
+be left safely to paddle by herself in shallow
+water while Ruth and Agnes taught little Dot.</p>
+
+<p>The latter refused to own to any fear of the
+water. Up here in the river the waves were seldom
+of any consequence, and of course on stormy
+days the girls would not go bathing at all.</p>
+
+<p>Others of the Willowbend campers had rowboats
+for the season; and some even owned their
+own motorboats. The girls were well advised regarding
+fishing-tackle and the like. Crabbing
+was a favorite sport just then, for several small
+creeks emptied into the river nearby and soft-shell
+crabs and shedders were plentiful.</p>
+
+<p>“I’d be afraid of these crabs if their teeth were
+hard,” Dot declared, for she insisted that the
+“pincers” of the crustaceans were teeth.</p>
+
+<p>“They are dreadfully <i>squirmy</i>, anyway,”
+sighed Tess. “Just like spiders. And yet, we
+eat them!”</p>
+
+<p>“But—but I always shut my eyes when I eat
+them; just as I do when I swallow raw oysters,”
+confessed Dot. “They taste so much better than
+they look!”</p>
+
+<p>Having the boat, the Corner House girls rowed
+to the village for their supplies and to visit their
+friends. They did not go to the Overlook House;
+but Pearl Harrod and her party were at the
+burned bungalow almost all day. They always
+bathed there, and the Corner House girls went
+down to bathe with them. The beach was better
+there than at the camp.</p>
+
+<p>It was Monday when Ruth Kenway and her sisters
+were established in their tent. On Thursday
+of that week they rowed over to Spoondrift
+bungalow in the morning. Pearl greeted them
+before they got ashore with:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth! The funniest thing has happened.
+You’d never guess.”</p>
+
+<p>“Trix Severn has the mumps!” exclaimed
+Agnes. “I knew she was all swelled up.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not as good as <i>that</i>,” laughed Pearl. “But
+worse may happen to that girl than mumps.
+However, it’s nothing to do with Trix.”</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” asked Ruth, calmly. “I’m not
+a good guesser, Pearl.”</p>
+
+<p>“You remember those Gypsies?”</p>
+
+<p>“That are camped up in the woods!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“If they <i>are</i> Gypsies,” said Ruth, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course they are!” cried Pearl. “Well,
+they’ve been around here looking for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“For goodness’ sake!” gasped Agnes. “What
+for?”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth herself looked startled. But Pearl began
+to laugh again.</p>
+
+<p>“At least, that queer old woman has been asking
+for you,” she explained.</p>
+
+<p>“Zaliska!” exclaimed Ruth, although she was
+very sure that was not the person’s name. Of
+course the name was part of the strange girl’s
+masquerade.</p>
+
+<p>“It was this morning,” Pearl went on to say.
+“We didn’t see many of the women of the tribe
+when we came past that camp last week. But a
+number of them came down into the village this
+morning—selling baskets and telling fortunes
+from door to door. We saw them over by the
+hotel—didn’t we, girls?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. I bought a basket from one of them,”
+admitted Carrie Poole.</p>
+
+<p>“But when we came up here to the bungalow,”
+pursued Pearl, “one of the men working here
+asked me if I’d seen ‘my friend, the Gypsy
+queen’? So, I said ‘No,’ of course.</p>
+
+<p>“Then he told me that that Zaliska had asked
+him where the girl was who was called Ruth Kenway.
+He told her that after the bungalow got
+afire, all the girls went to the hotel.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then she’ll never find you there, Ruth,” interposed
+Agnes, with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was not sure that she did not wish the
+supposed Gypsy queen to find her. She knew
+that “Zaliska” was really the very pretty, dark-skinned
+girl whom she had been so much interested
+in on the train coming down from Milton.</p>
+
+<p>And that strange girl was interested in Rosa
+Wildwood. Of that Ruth was as sure as she
+could be.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe she’ll follow you up to the camp,”
+said Lucy Poole. “I’d be afraid to live all alone
+in that tent if I were you girls.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pooh!” exclaimed Agnes. “What’s going
+to hurt us!”</p>
+
+<p>“The crabs might come up the beach at night
+and pinch your toes,” laughed Maud Everts.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” Pearl said, seriously. “I
+wouldn’t want those Gyps interested in <i>me</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now you are trying to frighten us,” laughed
+Ruth. “We have plenty of neighbors. Don’t
+you come up there and try to play tricks on us
+in the tent. You might get hurt.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bet she has a gatling gun,” chuckled Carrie
+Poole.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going to have something better than
+that,” declared Ruth, smiling. But she refused
+to tell them <i>what</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth remembered that the little old woman who
+lived in a shoe had spoken of being afraid, too;
+so the oldest Corner House girl made her plans
+accordingly, but kept them to herself.</p>
+
+<p>After their bath the sisters dressed in the
+Harrod tent that had been pitched on the lawn behind
+the bungalow, and then went on to the village.
+Ruth and Agnes rowed very nicely, for the
+former, at least, had had some practise at this
+sport before coming to Pleasant Cove.</p>
+
+<p>They tied the painter of their boat to a ring
+in one of the wharf stringers, and went “up
+town” to the stores. The village of Pleasant
+Cove was never a bustling business center.
+There were but few people on the main street,
+and most of those were visitors.</p>
+
+<p>“There are two of those Gypsy women, Ruth!”
+hissed Agnes in her sister’s ear, as they came
+out of a store.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth looked up to see the woman who had been
+in the train, and another. They were both humbly
+dressed, but in gay colors. Ruth looked up
+and down the street for the disguised figure of
+the young girl, but <i>she</i> was not in sight.</p>
+
+<p>“My goodness, Ruth!” said Agnes, “what do
+you suppose that old hag of a Gypsy wants you
+for?”</p>
+
+<p>“She isn’t——” began Ruth. Then she
+thought better of taking Agnes into her confidence
+just then and did not finish her impulsively
+begun speech, but said:</p>
+
+<p>“We won’t bother about it. She probably
+won’t find us up at Willowbend Camp.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should hope <i>not</i>!” cried Agnes. “I don’t
+want to get any better acquainted with those
+Gyps.”</p>
+
+<p>The matter, however, caused Ruth to think
+more particularly of Rosa Wildwood. She had
+not yet found a boarding place for the Southern
+girl, and Rosa was to come down to Pleasant
+Cove the next Monday.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth wanted to see Mrs. Bobster, and she did
+so that very afternoon. On their way back to
+the camp they tied the boat up at the foot of the
+wrecked pleasure park and walked up the broken
+boardwalk to the shoe-house.</p>
+
+<p>“Here’s your bread, girls—warm from the
+oven,” said the brisk little woman. “And if you
+want a pan of seed cookies——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! don’t we, just!” sighed Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>The girls sat down to eat some of the delicacies
+right then and there, and Mrs. Bobster brought
+a pitcher of cool milk from the well-curb. Ruth
+at once opened the subject of getting board for
+Rosa with the little old woman who lived in a
+shoe.</p>
+
+<p>“Wal, I re’lly don’t know what ter say to ye,”
+declared Mrs. Bobster. “I ain’t never kalkerlated
+ter run a boardin’ house——</p>
+
+<p>“But one young lady! I dunno. They wanted
+me to take old Mr. Kendricks ter board last winter;
+the town selectmen did. But I told ’em ‘No.’
+I warn’t runnin’ a boardin’ house—nor yet the
+poorfarm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Poorfarm?” questioned Ruth, puzzled by the
+reference.</p>
+
+<p>“Yep. Ye see, there ain’t been no town poor
+here in Pleasant Cove for a number o’ years.
+Last winter old Mr. Kendricks see fit to let the
+town board him. He’s spry enough to go clammin’
+in the summer; an’ he kin steer a boat when
+his rheumatics ain’t so bad. But winters is
+gittin’ hard on him.</p>
+
+<p>“It didn’t seem good jedgment,” Mrs. Bobster
+said, reflectively, “to open the poorfarm jest for
+<i>him</i>. B’sides, they’d got the old farm let to good
+advantage for another year to Silas Holcomb.
+So they come to me.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Mr. Kendricks is as nice an old man as
+ever you’d wish ter see,” pursued Mrs. Bobster.
+“He comes of good folks—jest as good as my
+poor Eddie’s folks.</p>
+
+<p>“The town selectmen had consid’rable trouble
+gettin’ Mr. Kendricks took, ’count o’ his being so
+pertic’lar. Yeast bread seemed ter be his chief
+objection. He couldn’t make up his mind to it
+on account of havin’ had sour milk biscuit all his
+life; but finally, after I’d said ‘No,’ they got Mis’
+Ann ’Liza Cobbles to agree to give him hot bread
+three times a day like he was used to.</p>
+
+<p>“But, lawsy me! She ain’t a com-<i>plete</i> cook—no,
+indeed! Mr. Kendricks said her cookin’
+warn’t up to the mark, an’ if he has to go on the
+town this comin’ winter he shouldn’t go to Mis’
+Cobbles.</p>
+
+<p>“The selectmen may be driv’ to open the poorfarm
+ag’in, an’ to gittin’ somebody ter do for Mr.
+Kendricks proper.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe it’s a sort of lesson to the folks of
+Pleasant Cove,” sighed Mrs. Bobster, “for bein’
+sort o’ proud-like through reason of not havin’
+no town poor for endurin’ of ten years. I view
+it that way myself.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Kendricks says he feels as if he was
+meant ter be a notice to ’em; ter be ready an’
+waitin’ ter help people in a proper way; not to
+be boardin’ of ’em ’round where they might git
+dyspepsia fastened on ’em through eatin’ of unproper
+food.”</p>
+
+<p>Agnes was giggling; but Ruth managed to get
+the talkative old lady back into the track she
+wanted her in. The Corner House girl expatiated
+upon how little trouble Rosa would be,
+and what a nice girl she was.</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” said Mrs. Bobster, “I might try her.
+You offer awful temptin’ money, Miss. And
+poor Eddie allus said I’d do anything for
+money!”</p>
+
+<p>It had been fortunate for the deceased Mr.
+Bobster, as Ruth had learned, that his wife <i>had</i>
+been willing to earn money in any honest way;
+for Mr. Bobster himself seldom had done a day’s
+work after his marriage to the brisk little woman.</p>
+
+<p>So the matter of Rosa Wildwood’s board and
+lodging was arranged, and the Kenways went
+back to their boat. Evening was approaching,
+and with it dark clouds had rolled up from the
+horizon, threatening a bad night.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth and Agnes found a head wind to contend
+with when they pushed off the cedar boat. Ruth
+had learned to run the little motor propeller, and
+she started it at once. Otherwise they would
+have a hard time pulling up to Willowbend
+Camp.</p>
+
+<p>During the week there were few men at the
+tent colonies. On Saturdays and Sundays the
+husbands and fathers were present in force; but
+now there was not a handful of adult males in
+either the Enterprise or Willowbend encampments.</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls were helped ashore,
+however, and they hauled their boat clear up to
+the front of their tent. There was quite a swell
+on, and the waves ran far up the beach, hissing
+and spattering spray into the air. The wind
+swept this spray against the tents in gusts, like
+rain.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no rain—only wind. The black
+clouds threatened, but there was no downpour.
+There was no such thing as having a coal fire,
+however; the wind blew right down the stack and
+filled the tent with choking smoke.</p>
+
+<p>They lit a lantern and ate a cold supper. The
+flaps of the tent were laced down, for they had
+been warned against letting the wind get under.
+Now and then, however, a chill draught blew over
+them and the partition creaked.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s just like a storm at sea,” said Agnes,
+rather fearfully, yet enjoying the novel sensation.
+“We might as well be on a sailing ship.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not much!” exclaimed Ruth. “At least,
+we’re on an even keel.”</p>
+
+<p>They agreed to go to bed early. Lying in the
+cots, well covered with the blankets, seemed the
+safest place on such a night. There was no shouting
+back and forth from tent to tent, and no
+visiting.</p>
+
+<p>Lights went out early. The wind shrieked in
+the treetops back from the shore, and in the lulls
+the girls could hear the breakers booming on the
+rocks outside the cove.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot went to sleep—tired with the
+day’s activities. Not so the older girls. They
+lay and listened, and shivered as the booming
+voice of the wind grew in volume, and the water
+seemed to drive farther and farther up the
+beaches.</p>
+
+<p>Forever after, this night was known at Pleasant
+Cove as “the night of the big wind.” But as
+yet it had only begun and the Corner House girls
+had no idea of what was in store for them.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink14'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XIV—AN IMPORTANT ARRIVAL</a></h2>
+
+<p>Agnes <i>did</i> fall asleep; but Ruth only dozed, if
+she closed her eyes at all. The rumble of the
+storm shook the nerves of the oldest Corner
+House girl—and no wonder!</p>
+
+<p>Ruth felt the weight of responsibility for her
+sisters’ safety. If anything happened while they
+were under canvas she knew that she would be
+blamed.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the spray swept in from the river
+and spattered on the canvas like a drenching
+shower. The walls of the tent shook. She heard
+many sounds without that she could not explain—and
+some of these sounds frightened her.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose the tent should blow down? The way
+the wind sometimes shook it reminded Ruth of a
+dog shaking a bit of rag.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when the wind held its breath for a
+moment, the roaring of the sea in the distance
+was a savage sound to which the girl’s ears were
+not attuned.</p>
+
+<p>She had left the lantern lit and it swung from
+a rope tied to the ridgepole of the tent, and beyond
+the half partition of canvas. Its flickering
+light cast weird shadows upon the canvas roof.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then the spray beat against the front
+of the tent, while the roof shook and shivered as
+though determined to tear away from the walls.
+Ruth wished she had gone all around the tent
+before dark to make sure the pegs were driven
+well into the sand.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally children cried shrilly, for the
+noise of the elements frightened them; Ruth was
+thankful that Tess and Dot slept on.</p>
+
+<p>She slept herself at last; how long she did not
+know, for when she awoke she was too greatly
+frightened to look at her watch. The wind
+seemed suddenly to have increased. It seemed
+struggling to tear the tent up by the roots!</p>
+
+<p>And as the canvas shook, and swelled, and
+strove to burst its fastenings, there came a sudden
+snap on one side and one of the pegs flew
+high in the air at the end of its rope, coming
+down slap on the roof of the tent!</p>
+
+<p>“The peg has pulled out!” gasped Ruth, sitting
+up in her cot and throwing off the blanket.</p>
+
+<p>The canvas was straining and bellying fearfully
+at the point where the peg had drawn. It
+was likely to draw the pegs on either side. Ruth
+very well knew that if a broad enough opening
+was made for the wind to get under, the tent
+would be torn from its fastenings.</p>
+
+<p>She hopped out upon the matting and shook
+Agnes by the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“Get up! Get up, Ag!” she called, breathlessly.
+“Help me.”</p>
+
+<p>She ran to the front of the tent for the maul—a
+long-handled, heavy-headed croquet-mallet.
+When she returned with it, Agnes was trying to
+rub her eyes open.</p>
+
+<p>“Come quick, Ag! We’ll be blown away,” declared
+Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I——What’ll we do?” whimpered Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“We must hold the tent down. Come on! Get
+into your mackintosh. I’ll get the lantern.”</p>
+
+<p>Around the upright pole in the sleeping part
+of the tent were hung the girls’ outer garments.
+Ruth got into her own raincoat and buttoned it
+to her ankles. She left Agnes struggling with
+hers while she ran to unhang the lantern. She
+knew the night must be as black as a pocket outside.</p>
+
+<p>“Wha—what you going to do?” stuttered
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Drive the pegs in deeper. One of them pulled
+out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear! <i>Can</i> we?”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess we’ll have to, if we don’t want to
+lose our tent. Hear that wind?”</p>
+
+<p>“It—it sounds like cannon roaring.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come on!”</p>
+
+<p>“But that isn’t the front flap——”</p>
+
+<p>“Think I’m going to unlace that front flap
+when the wind’s blowing right into it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t we get out yonder, where the peg has
+been pulled?”</p>
+
+<p>“But how’ll we get in again when all the stakes
+are driven down hard?” snapped Ruth, beginning
+to unlace the flaps of the rear wall of the tent.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! oh!” moaned Agnes. “Hear that
+wind?”</p>
+
+<p>“I wouldn’t care if it only <i>hollered</i>,” gasped
+Ruth. “It’s what it will do if it ever gets under
+this tent, that troubles me!”</p>
+
+<p>She unlaced the flaps only a little way. “Come
+along with that lantern, Ag. We’ve got to crawl
+under.”</p>
+
+<p>“‘Get down and get under,’” giggled Agnes,
+hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>But she brought the lantern and followed Ruth
+out of the tent, on hands and knees. When they
+stood up and tried to go around to that side of
+the tent where the peg had pulled out, the wind
+almost knocked them down.</p>
+
+<p>“And how the sleet cuts!” gasped Agnes, her
+arm across her eyes for protection.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s sand,” explained Ruth. “I thought it
+was spray from the river. But a good deal of it
+is sand—just like a sand-storm in the desert.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” grumbled Agnes, “I hope it’s killing
+a lot of those sandfleas that bother us so. I don’t
+see how they can live and be blown about this
+way.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth tackled the first post at the corner and
+beat it down as hard as she could, Agnes holding
+the lantern so that the older girl could see where
+to strike.</p>
+
+<p>They went from one peg to the next, taking
+each in rotation. And when they reached the one
+that had pulled out entirely, Ruth drove that into
+the ground just as far as it would go.</p>
+
+<p>Strangely enough, throughout all this business,
+Tess and Dot did not awake. Ruth went clear
+around the tent, driving the stakes. The wind
+howled; the sand and spray blew; and the voices
+of the Night and of the Storm seemed fairly to
+yell at them. Still the smaller Corner House
+girls slept through it all. Ruth and Agnes crept
+back into the tent and laced the flaps down in
+safety.</p>
+
+<p>A little later, before either of them fell asleep
+again, they heard shouting and confusion at a
+distance. In the morning they learned that two
+of the tents in the Enterprise Camp had blown
+down.</p>
+
+<p>The shore was strewn with wreckage, too, when
+daybreak came; but the wind seemed to have
+blown itself out. Many small craft had come
+ashore, and some were damaged. It was not
+often that the summer visitors at Pleasant Cove
+saw any such gale as this had been.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was all right with the Corner
+House girls, and Ruth decided they would stick
+to the tent, in spite of the fact that some of the
+camping families were frightened away from the
+tent colonies by this disgraceful exhibition of
+Mr. Wind!</p>
+
+<p>The smaller Kenways, as well as the bigger
+girls, were enjoying the out-of-door life immensely.
+They were already as brown as berries.
+They ran all day, bare-headed and bare-legged,
+on the sands. It was plain to be seen that
+the change from Milton to Pleasant Cove was doing
+all the Corner House girls a world of good.</p>
+
+<p>And during the extremely pleasant days that
+immediately followed the night of the big wind,
+many new colonists came to the tents. Two big
+tents were erected in the Willowbend Camp, for
+Joe Eldred and <i>his</i> friends—and that included,
+of course, Neale O’Neil. But the Milton boys
+would not arrive until the next week.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday afternoon the Corner House girls
+walked down to the railroad station to greet Rosa
+Wildwood. It had been a very hot day in town
+and it was really hot at Pleasant Cove, as well.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! you poor thing!” gasped Ruth, receiving
+Rosa in her strong arms as she stumbled off
+the car steps with her bag.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m as thin as the last run of shad, am I not?”
+asked Rosa, laughing. “That train was <i>awful</i>!
+I am baked. It’s never like this down South.
+The air is so much dryer there; there isn’t this
+humidity. Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you’re here all right now, Rosa,” cried
+Ruth. “We have a nice, easy carriage for you
+to ride in. And the <i>dearest</i> place for you to
+live!”</p>
+
+<p>“And scrumptious eating, Rose,” added Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“With the little old woman who lives in a
+shoe,” declared Tess, eager to add her bit of information.</p>
+
+<p>Dot’s finger had strayed to the corner of her
+mouth, as she stared. For she had never met
+Rosa before, and she was naturally rather a
+bashful child.</p>
+
+<p>“Now!” cried Ruth, again. “Where is he?”</p>
+
+<p>“Who?” demanded Agnes, staring all about.
+“Neale didn’t come, did he?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, he’s up in the baggage-car ahead,” said
+Rosa, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>“You sit right down here till I get him,” Ruth
+commanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Here’s the check,” Rosa said, and to the
+amazement of the other Corner House girls Ruth
+ran right away toward the head of the train with
+the baggage check, and without saying another
+word.</p>
+
+<p>There were two baggage cars on the long train
+and from the open door of the first one the man
+was throwing trunks and bags onto the big wheel-truck.</p>
+
+<p>So Ruth ran on to the other car. The side-door
+was wheeled back just as she arrived, and
+a glad bark welcomed her appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah stood in the doorway, straining at
+his leash held in the hands of the baggageman.
+His tongue lolled out on his chest like a red necktie,
+and he was laughing just as plainly as ever a
+dog <i>did</i> laugh.</p>
+
+<p>“I see he knows you, Miss,” said the man.
+“You don’t have to prove property. He sure is
+glad to see you,” and he accepted the check.</p>
+
+<p>“No gladder than I am to see him,” said Ruth.
+“Let him jump down, please.”</p>
+
+<p>She caught the leather strap as the baggageman
+tossed it toward her, and Tom Jonah
+bounded about her in an ecstasy of delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Down, sir!” she commanded. “Now, Tom
+Jonah, come and see the girls. But behave.”</p>
+
+<p>He barked loudly, but trotted along beside her
+most sedately. Tess and Dot had heard him,
+and deserting Rosa and Agnes, they came flying
+up the platform to meet Ruth and the big dog.</p>
+
+<p>The two younger Corner House girls hugged
+Tom Jonah, and he licked their hands in greeting.
+Agnes was as extravagantly glad to see him as
+were the others.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you come to send for him, Ruthie?”
+Agnes cried.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought we might need a chaperon at the
+tent,” laughed Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“The Gyps!” exclaimed Agnes, under her
+breath. “Let them come now, if they want to.
+You’re a smart girl, Ruthie.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sh!” commanded the older sister. “Don’t
+let the children hear.”</p>
+
+<p>They helped Rosa into the wagonette and then
+climbed in after her. Ruth had taken off Tom
+Jonah’s leash and the good old dog trotted after
+the carriage as it rolled through Main Street and
+out upon the Shore Road toward the tent colonies.</p>
+
+<p>Rosa brought all the news of home to the Corner
+House girls and many messages from Mrs.
+MacCall and Uncle Rufus. Of course, they could
+expect no word from Aunt Sarah, for it was not
+her way to be sympathetic or show any deep interest
+in what her adopted nieces were doing.</p>
+
+<p>The girls from the old Corner House might
+have been a little homesick had there not been
+so much to take up their attention each hour at
+Pleasant Cove.</p>
+
+<p>They brought Rosa to the little old woman who
+lived in a shoe, and the moment Mrs. Bobster saw
+how weak and white she was her sympathy went
+out to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Tut, tut, tut!” she said, clucking almost as
+loudly as Agamemnon himself. “We’ll soon fix
+you up, my dear. If you stay long enough here
+at the beach, you’ll be as brown and strong as
+these other gals.”</p>
+
+<p>Rosa put her arm about Ruth’s neck when the
+Corner House girls were about to leave.</p>
+
+<p>“This is a heavenly place, Ruth Kenway, and
+you are an angel for bringing me down heah. I
+don’t know what greater thing anybody could do
+fo’ me—and you aren’t even kin!”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t bother, Rosa. I haven’t done
+much——”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s nothing in the world—but one thing—that
+could make me happier.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth looked at her curiously, and Rosa added:</p>
+
+<p>“To find June. I hope to find her some day—yes,
+I do.”</p>
+
+<p>“And suppose I should help you do <i>that</i>?”
+laughed the oldest Corner House girl.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink15'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XV—TWO GIRLS IN A BOAT—TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG!</a></h2>
+
+<p>“Oh, Dot! do come here. Did you ever see
+such a funny thing in all your life?”</p>
+
+<p>Tess Kenway was just as earnest as though
+the discovery she had made was really of great
+moment. The two bare-legged girls were on the
+sands below the tent colony of Willowbend, and
+the tide was out.</p>
+
+<p>The receding waves had just left this wet flat
+bare. Here and there the sand still dimpled to
+the heave of the tide, and little rivers of water
+ran into the hollows and out again.</p>
+
+<p>“What is the matter, Tess?” asked Dot, wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“See!”</p>
+
+<p>Tess pointed down at her feet—where the drab,
+wet sand showed lighter-colored under the pressure
+of her weight.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” gasped the amazed Dot.</p>
+
+<p>There was a tiny round hole in the sand—just
+like an ant hole, only there was no “hill” thrown
+up about it. As Tess tip-tilted on her toes to
+bring more pressure to bear near the orifice in
+the sand, a little fountain of water spurted into
+the air—shot as though from a fairy gun buried
+in the sand.</p>
+
+<p>“Goodness!” gasped Dot again. “What <i>is</i>
+that?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s what I say,” responded Tess. “Did
+you ever see the like?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! here’s another,” cried Dorothy, who
+chanced to step near a similar vent. “See it
+squirt, Tess! See it squirt!”</p>
+
+<p>“What kind of a creature do you suppose can
+be down there?” asked the bigger girl.</p>
+
+<p>“It—it can’t be anything very big,” suggested
+Dot. “At least, it must be awfully narrow to get
+down through the little hole, and pull itself ’way
+out of sight.”</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion certainly opened a puzzling
+vista of possibilities to the minds of both inland-bred
+girls. What sort of an animal could possibly
+crawl into such a small aperture—and yet
+throw such a comparatively powerful stream of
+water into the air?</p>
+
+<p>They found several more of the little air-holes.
+Whenever they stamped upon the sand beside one,
+up would spring the fountain!</p>
+
+<p>“Just like the books say a whale squirts water
+through its nose,” declared Tess, who had rather
+a rough-and-ready knowledge of some facts of
+natural history.</p>
+
+<p>A man with a basket on his arm and a four-pronged,
+short-handled rake in his hand, was
+working his way across the flats; sometimes
+stooping and digging quickly with his rake, when
+he would pick something up and toss it into his
+basket.</p>
+
+<p>He drew near to two Corner House girls, and
+Dot whispered to Tess:</p>
+
+<p>“Do you suppose he’d know what these holes
+are for? You ask him, Tess.”</p>
+
+<p>“And he’s digging out something, himself. Do
+you suppose he’s collecting clams? Ruth says
+clams grow here on the shore and folks dig them,”
+Tess replied.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s ask about the holes,” determined Dot,
+who was persistent whether the cause was good or
+bad.</p>
+
+<p>The two girls approached the clam-digger, hand
+in hand. Dot hugged tight in the crook of one
+arm her Alice-doll.</p>
+
+<p>“Please, sir,” Tess ventured, “will you tell us
+what grows down under this sand and squirts
+water up at us through such a teeny, weeny hole?”</p>
+
+<p>The man was a very weather-beaten looking
+person, with his shirt open at the neck displaying
+a brawny chest. He smiled down upon the girls.</p>
+
+<p>“How’s that, shipmet?” he asked, in a very
+husky voice. “Show me them same holes.”</p>
+
+<p>The sisters led the way, and the very saltish
+man followed. It was not until then that Tess
+and Dot noticed that one of his legs was of wood,
+and he stumped along in a most awkward manner.</p>
+
+<p>“Hel-<i>lo</i>!” growled the man, seeing the apertures
+in the sand. “Them’s clams, an’ jest what
+I’m arter. By your lief——”</p>
+
+<p>He struck the rake down into the sand just beyond
+one of the holes and dug quickly for half
+a minute. Then he tossed out of the hole he had
+dug a nice, fat clam.</p>
+
+<p>“There he be, shipmets,” declared the clam-digger,
+who probably had a habit of addressing
+everybody as “shipmate.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh—but—did <i>he</i> squirt the water up at us,
+sir?” gasped Dot.</p>
+
+<p>The wooden-legged man grinned again and
+seized the clam between a firm finger and thumb.
+When he pinched it, the bivalve squirted through
+its snout a fine spray.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Tess, drawing back.</p>
+
+<p>“But—but <i>how</i> did he get down into the sand
+and only leave such a tiny hole behind him?” demanded
+Dot, bent upon getting information.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, shipmet! there ye have it. I ain’t a
+l’arned man. I ain’t never been to school. I
+went ter sea all my days till I got this here leg
+shot off me and had to take to wearin’ a timber-toe.
+I couldn’t tell ye, shipmets, how a clam does
+go down his hole an’ yet pulls the hole down arter
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” sighed Dot, disappointedly.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s one o’ them wonders of natur’ ye hear
+tell on. I never could understand it myself—like
+some ignerant landlubbers believin’ the world is
+flat! I know it’s round, ’cos I been down one side
+o’ it an’ come up the other!</p>
+
+<p>“As for science, an’ them things, shipmets, I
+don’t know nothin’ ’bout ’em. I digs clams; I
+don’t pester none erbout how they grows——”</p>
+
+<p>And he promptly dug another and then a third.
+The girls watched him, fascinated at his skill.
+Nor did the “peg-leg” seem to trouble him at
+all in his work.</p>
+
+<p>“Please, sir,” asked Tess, after some moments,
+“how did you come to lose your leg—your really
+truly one, I mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“Pi-<i>rats</i>,” declared the man, with an unmoved
+countenance. “Pi-<i>rats</i>, shipmet—on the Spanish
+Main.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” breathed both girls together. Somehow
+that expression was faintly reminiscent to
+them. Agnes had a book about pirates, and she
+had read out loud in the evenings at the sitting-room
+table, at the old Corner House. Tess and
+Dot were not aware that “the Spanish Main” had
+been cleared of pirates, some years before this
+husky-voiced old clam-digger was born.</p>
+
+<p>The clam-digger offered no details about his
+loss, and Tess and Dot felt some delicacy about
+asking further questions. Besides, Tom Jonah
+came along just then and evinced some distaste
+for the company of the roughly dressed one-legged
+man. Of course, he could not dig clams
+in his best clothes, as Tess pointed out; but Tom
+Jonah had confirmed doubts about all ill-dressed
+people. So the girls accompanied the dog back
+towards the tents.</p>
+
+<p>The big girls had been out in the boat and Ruth
+had left Agnes to bring up the oars and crab nets,
+as well as to moor the boat, while she hastened
+to get dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The tide being on the turn they could not very
+well pull the boat up to the mooring post; but
+there was a long painter by which it could be tied
+to the post. Agnes, however, carried the oars
+up to the tent and then forgot about the rest of
+her task as she dipped into a new book.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot came to the empty boat and at
+once climbed in. Tom Jonah objected at first.
+He ran about on the sand—even plunged into the
+water a bit, and put both front paws on the gunwale.</p>
+
+<p>If ever a dog said, “Please, <i>please</i>, little mistresses,
+get out of the boat!” old Tom Jonah said
+it!</p>
+
+<p>But the younger Corner House girls paid no attention
+to him. They went out to the stern, which
+was in quite deep water, and began clawing overboard
+with the crab nets. With a whine, the dog
+leaped into the craft.</p>
+
+<p>Now, whether the jar the dog gave it as he
+jumped into the boat, or his weight when he joined
+the girls in the stern, set the cedar boat afloat,
+will never be known. However, it slid into the
+water and floated free.</p>
+
+<p>“We can catch some crabs, too, maybe, Tess,”
+Dot said.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them noticed that the oars were gone,
+but had they been in the boat, Tess or Dot could
+not have used them—much. And surely Tom
+Jonah could not row.</p>
+
+<p>They did not even notice that they were afloat
+until the tide, which was just at the turn, twisted
+the boat’s nose about and they began drifting up
+the river.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my, Dot!” gasped Tess. “Where are we
+going?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh-oo-ee!” squealed Dot, raking wildly with
+one of the nets. “I almost caught one.”</p>
+
+<p>“But we’re adrift, Dot!” cried Tess.</p>
+
+<p>The younger girl was not so much impressed at
+first. “Oh, I guess they’ll come for us,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“But Ruth and Aggie can’t reach us—’nless
+they swim.”</p>
+
+<p>“Won’t we float ashore again? We floated out
+here,” said Dot.</p>
+
+<p>She refused to be frightened, and Tess bethought
+her that she had no right to let her little
+sister be disturbed too much. She was old
+enough herself, however, to see that there was
+peril in this involuntary voyage. The tide was
+coming in strongly and the boat was quickly passing
+the bend. Before either Tess or Dot thought
+to cry out for help, they were out of sight of the
+camp and there was nobody to whom to call.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah had crouched down in the stern,
+with his head on his paws. He felt that he had
+done his duty. He had not allowed the two small
+girls to go without him on this voyage. He was
+with them; what harm could befall?</p>
+
+<p>“I—I guess Alice would like to go ashore,
+Tess,” hesitated Dot, at last, having seized her
+doll and sat down upon one of the seats. The
+boat was jumping a good deal as the little waves
+slapped her, first on one side and then on the
+other. Without anybody steering she made a
+hard passage of it.</p>
+
+<p>“I’d like to get ashore myself, child,” snapped
+Tess. “But I don’t see how we are going to do
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Tess! are we going to be carried ’way out
+to sea?”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be a goosey! We’re going <i>up</i> the river,
+not <i>down</i>,” said the more observant Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then!” sighed Dot, relieved. “It isn’t
+so bad, is it? Of course, we’ll stop somewhere.”</p>
+
+<p>“But it will soon be dinnertime,” said her sister.
+“And I guess Ruth and Aggie won’t know
+where we’ve gone to.”</p>
+
+<p>In fact, nobody about the tent colony had noticed
+the cedar boat floating away with the two
+girls in it—to say nothing of the dog!</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink16'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XVI—THE GYPSIES AGAIN</a></h2>
+
+<p>When Ruth shouted to Agnes from the kitchen,
+where she was frying crabs, to call the children,
+Agnes dropped the book she had been reading and
+remembered for the first time that she had neglected
+to tie the boat.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth!” she shrieked. “See what I’ve
+done!”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth came to the opening in the front of the
+tent, flushed and disheveled, demanding:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, <i>what</i>? This old fat snaps so!”</p>
+
+<p>“The boat!” cried Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth stared up and down the shore. There
+were other boats drawn up on the sand and a few
+moored beyond low-water mark; but their boat
+was not in sight.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you let it get away, Agnes Kenway?”
+Ruth demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Well! you don’t suppose I went down there
+and pushed it off, do you?”</p>
+
+<p>“This is no laughing matter——”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess I—I’m not laughing,” gulped Agnes.
+“It—it’s go-o-one! See! the tide is flowing in
+and I forgot to tie it.”</p>
+
+<p>She was a little mixed here; it was the boat she
+had forgotten to tie.</p>
+
+<p>“So,” murmured Ruth; “if the boat had been
+tied, the tide wouldn’t have carried it away,” and
+she had no intention of punning, either! “<i>Now</i>
+what shall we do? That boat cost seventy-five
+dollars, the man said.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruthie!”</p>
+
+<p>“What will Mr. Howbridge say?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruthie!”</p>
+
+<p>“No use crying about it,” said the oldest Corner
+House girl, with decision. “<i>That</i> won’t help.”</p>
+
+<p>“But—but it’s gone out to sea.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nonsense! The tide has taken it up the river.
+It’s gone round the bend. I hope it won’t be
+smashed on the rocks, that’s all. We must go
+after it.”</p>
+
+<p>“How?” asked the tearful Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Get another boat, of course. But let’s eat.
+The children will be hungry, and—— My goodness!
+the crabs are burning up!” and she ran
+back into the tent. “Get Tess and Dot, and tell
+them to hurry!” she called from inside.</p>
+
+<p>But Tess and Dot were not to be found. The
+beach just then was practically deserted. It was
+the dinner hour and the various campers all had
+the sort of appetites that demands meals served
+promptly on time.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes ran to the other tents in Camp Willowbend;
+but her small sisters were not with any of
+the neighbors. It was strange. They had been
+forbidden to go out of sight of their own tent
+when neither Ruth nor Agnes was with them; and
+Tess and Dot were remarkably obedient children.</p>
+
+<p>“I certainly do not understand it,” Ruth said,
+when Agnes brought back the news.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a shuffling step sounded outside
+the tent and a husky voice demanded:</p>
+
+<p>“Any clams terday, lady? Fresh clams—jest
+dug. Ten cents a dozen; two-bits for fifty; half a
+dollar a hundred. Fresh clams!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” cried Agnes, springing to the tent entrance
+so suddenly that the wooden-legged clam-man
+started back in surprise. “Oh! have you
+seen my sisters anywhere on the beach?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hel-<i>lo</i>!” growled the startled man. “I dunno
+’bout thet thar, shipmet. What kind o’ sisters
+be they?”</p>
+
+<p>“Two little girls,” said Ruth, eagerly, joining
+Agnes at the opening. “One of them carried a
+doll in her arms. She is dark. The bigger one
+is fair.”</p>
+
+<p>The saltish old fellow chuckled deep in his
+hairy throat. “Guess I seen ’em, shipmets,” he
+said. “Them’s the leetle gals that didn’t know
+clam-holes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! what became of them?” demanded the
+impatient Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Why——I dug ’em, shipmet, an’ they air in
+this i-den-ti-cal basket now,” declared the clam-digger.</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” gasped Agnes, behind her hand.
+“Maybe the children didn’t know clam-holes; but
+<i>he</i> doesn’t know beans!”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth asked again: “We mean, what became
+of the girls, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t tell ye, shipmet. D’ye want any
+clams?” pursued this man of one idea. “Ten
+cents a dozen; two-bits for——”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll buy some clams—yes,” cried Ruth, in
+some desperation. “But tell us where you last
+saw our sisters, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“How many you want, shipmet?” demanded
+the quite unmoved old fellow.</p>
+
+<p>“Two!” cried Agnes. “There were only two
+of them. Two little girls——Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had pinched her, and now said, calmly:
+“Please count out a hundred for us, sir. Here is
+fifty cents. And please tell us where you saw our
+little sisters?”</p>
+
+<p>“I seed two small gals, shipmet, down on the
+flats yonder,” said the clam digger, setting down
+his basket and squatting with the wooden leg
+stretched out before him. He began to busily
+count the clams onto the little platform before
+the tent.</p>
+
+<p>“Where did they go, sir?” asked Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t take no pertic’lar notice of ’em, shipmet.
+They had a dratted dog with them——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Tom Jonah is with them. Then they
+<i>can’t</i> be lost,” gasped Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Las’ time I ’member of cockin’ me eye at
+’em,” declared the old clam digger, “they was
+inter a boat right down here below this tent. The
+dog was with ’em.”</p>
+
+<p>He counted out the last clam, took his fifty
+cents, and departed. The two older Corner
+House girls looked at each other. Agnes was
+very white.</p>
+
+<p>“Do—do you suppose they drifted away in the
+boat?” she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>“I expect so,” agreed Ruth. “Come on, Ag.
+We’ll go up beyond the bend and see if we can
+sight the boat.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! if they fall overboard——”</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah would bring them both ashore if
+they did, I believe,” said Ruth, though her voice
+shook a little. “Do you want something to eat
+before you go?”</p>
+
+<p>Agnes looked at her scornfully. “I don’t ever
+want to eat again if Dot and Tess aren’t found,”
+she sobbed. “Come on!”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll take something along to eat, if you
+don’t want to eat here,” Ruth said, sensibly.
+“The children will be hungry enough when we
+find them, you may be sure.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>If</i> we find them,” suggested the desperate
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk like a goose, Ag!” exclaimed the
+older sister. “Of course we’ll find them.
+They’ve only drifted away.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you said yourself the boat might be
+smashed against the rocks.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah’s with them,” said Ruth,
+confidently. “He could live in the water altogether,
+you know. Don’t be worried about the children
+being drowned—— Oh, Agnes!”</p>
+
+<p>The change in her sister’s voice startled
+Agnes, who had gone into the back part of the
+tent. She ran out to where Ruth was wrapping
+the fried soft-shell crabs in a sheet of brown paper.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was staring through the open flap of the
+tent. Outside, about where the clam digger had
+stood a few moments before, was the tall, scarred-faced
+Gypsy tramp that they had seen at the
+nomads’ camp the day they came to Pleasant
+Cove!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth!” echoed Agnes, coming to Ruth’s
+side.</p>
+
+<p>But the older sister quickly recovered her self-possession.
+Her first thought was:</p>
+
+<p>“If Tom Jonah were only here!”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth went to the door. The man leered at her
+and doffed his old cap.</p>
+
+<p>“Good day, little lady,” he said. “She remember
+me—Big Jim—heh?”</p>
+
+<p>“I remember you,” Ruth said, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>“Ver’ proud,” declared the Gypsy, bowing
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you want?” asked the oldest Corner
+House girl, with much more apparent courage
+than she really felt.</p>
+
+<p>“You remember Zaliska—heh?” asked the man,
+shrewdly.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember her,” said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Little lady seen Zaliska since that day—heh?”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you want to know for?” demanded
+Ruth, puzzled, yet standing her ground. She remembered
+in a flash all her suspicions regarding
+the young girl who masqueraded as the Gypsy
+Queen.</p>
+
+<p>“Zaliska come here, heh?” said the man, doggedly,
+and with something besides curiosity in his
+narrow eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know why I should tell you if she had
+been here,” declared Ruth, while Agnes clung to
+her arm in fear.</p>
+
+<p>“The little lady would fool Big Jim. No!
+We want find Zaliska.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t come here for her,” said Ruth, sharply.
+“She’s not here.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she been here—heh?” repeated the fellow.
+“She come here like she was dressed at the
+camp—heh? Then she go away different—heh?”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth knew well enough what he meant. He
+hinted that the masquerading girl had come here
+to see Ruth, and discarded her queen’s garments
+and slipped away in her own more youthful character.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not sure that I know what you mean,” she
+said to the evil-faced man. “But one thing I can
+tell you—and you can believe it. I have not seen
+Zaliska since that day we girls came by your
+camp.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ha! she come here to see you——”</p>
+
+<p>“No. She went to the hotel and to a friend’s
+house in the village,” said Ruth, “asking for me.
+I did not see her. She has not come here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Huh!” grunted the man, and backed away,
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Now we are busy and you must not trouble us
+any more,” declared Ruth, hurriedly. “Come,
+Agnes!”</p>
+
+<p>“He’ll come in the tent and search it,” whispered
+Agnes, in her sister’s ear.</p>
+
+<p>“I will speak to Mr. Stryver. He is here to-day,”
+said Ruth, mentioning a neighbor in the
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>“Big Jim,” as the Gypsy called himself, had
+backed away from the tent, but he watched the
+departing girls with lowering gaze. At Mr.
+Stryver’s tent Ruth halted long enough to tell
+the gentleman to keep his eye on the Gypsy man
+who was hanging about the camp.</p>
+
+<p>“The women were here to sell baskets and such
+like truck while you girls were off crabbing, this
+morning,” said Mrs. Stryver. “It gives me the
+shivers to have those folks around. I think we
+ought to have these tent camps policed.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll ’tend to this fellow,” promised Mr.
+Stryver, who was a burly man, and not afraid of
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth hurried Agnes away toward the bend without
+another word.</p>
+
+<p>“Why didn’t you tell them Tess and Dot were
+lost?” asked Agnes, gulping down a sob.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t want anybody to know it, if we can
+help,” returned Ruth. “It just looks as though
+we didn’t take sufficient care of them.”</p>
+
+<p>“It—it was all my fault,” choked Agnes. “If
+I had tied the boat as you told me——”</p>
+
+<p>“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” said Ruth,
+quickly. “Or, if it is anybody’s fault! We don’t
+want folks to say that the Corner House girls
+from Milton don’t know enough to take care of
+each other while they are under canvas.”</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink17'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XVII—ON WILD GOOSE ISLAND</a></h2>
+
+<p>“My!” Tess gasped, sitting in the stern of the
+drifting boat, “how fast the shores go past, Dot!
+We’re going up the river awfully quick.”</p>
+
+<p>“And so j-j-jerky!” exclaimed her sister, clinging
+to the Alice-doll.</p>
+
+<p>“You aren’t really afraid, are you, Dot?”</p>
+
+<p>“No-o. Only for Alice. She’s always been
+weakly, you know, since that awful time she got
+buried alive,” said Dot, seriously. “And if she
+should get wet and catch her death of cold——”</p>
+
+<p>“But you mustn’t drop her overboard,” warned
+Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you s’pose I <i>would</i>, Tess Kenway?” demanded
+Dot, quite hurt by the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>“If she did fall overboard, Tom Jonah would
+save her, of course,” went on Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! don’t you say such things,” cried Dot.
+“And <i>do</i>, please, stop the boat from jerking so!”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I guess it wants to be steered,” Tess said.</p>
+
+<p>The tiller ropes were at hand and Tess had observed
+Ruth and Agnes use them. She began experimenting
+with them and soon got the hang of
+using the rudder. But as the boat was propelled,
+only by the tide, it <i>would</i> “wabble.”</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah watched all the small girls did with
+his keen eyes. But he scarcely moved. The boat
+floated on and on. Tess did not know how to
+work the boat ashore—indeed, caught as the craft
+was in the strong tide-rip, it would have taken
+considerable exertion with the oars to have driven
+it to land.</p>
+
+<p>There chanced to be no other boats beyond the
+bend on this day. On either hand there were
+farms, but the houses were too far from the
+shores for the dwellers therein to notice the plight
+of the two small girls and the big dog in the bobbing
+cedar boat.</p>
+
+<p>The shores at the river’s edge were wooded for
+the most part, as was the long and narrow island
+in the middle of the river, not far ahead. This
+latter was called Wild Goose Island, as Tess and
+Dot knew.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe the boat will go ashore there,” said
+Dot, more cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>“There are berries on that island,” cried Tess.
+“Only they were not ripe when we were there
+last week.” She was beginning to feel hungry;
+it was past midday.</p>
+
+<p>“But we can’t walk back to the tent from
+there,” objected Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“No-o,” admitted Tess. “It’ll be land, just
+the same!”</p>
+
+<p>But the tide swept the cedar boat out from the
+lower end of the island and up the northern channel.
+It was this fact that hid the drifting boat
+from the anxious eyes of Ruth and Agnes when
+they came around the bend, expecting to see the
+missing craft. The island hid it.</p>
+
+<p>Wild Goose Island was more than half a mile
+long. In the channel where the boat floated, the
+current of the river and the inflowing tide began
+to battle.</p>
+
+<p>There were eddies that seized the boat and
+swept it in circles. The surface of the channel
+was rippled by small waves. The boat bobbed
+every-which-way, for Tess could not control the
+rudder.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot. “I—I am afraid
+my Alice-doll will be sick. Do—don’t you s’pose
+we can get ashore, Tess?”</p>
+
+<p>But Tess did not see how they could do that,
+although the boat was now and then swept very
+close to the shore of the island.</p>
+
+<p>The island was a famous picnicking place; but
+there were no pleasure seekers there to-day.
+The shore seemed deserted as the girls were
+swept on by the resistless tide.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Dot stood right up and squealed—pointing
+at the island. Tom Jonah lifted his head
+and barked.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s somebody, Tess!” declared Dot.</p>
+
+<p>The bigger Corner House girl had seen the face
+break through the fringe of bushes on the island
+shore. It was a dark, beautiful face, and it was
+a girl’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! oh! Let’s call her,” gasped Tess.
+“She’ll help us.”</p>
+
+<p>The two small Kenways had a strong belief in
+the goodness of humanity at large. They expected
+that anybody who saw their plight would
+come to their rescue if possible.</p>
+
+<p>For fully a minute, however, the girl in the
+bushes of Wild Goose Island did not come out into
+the open. Tess and Dot shouted again and again,
+while Tom Jonah lifted up his head and bayed
+most mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>If the girl on the island did not want general
+attention attracted to the place, it behooved her
+to come out of concealment and try to pacify the
+drifting trio in the cedar boat.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was very red when she reappeared in
+an open place on the shore. The distance between
+her and the boat, which was now caught in
+a small eddy, was only a few yards.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded,
+in rather a sharp tone.</p>
+
+<p>“We—we can’t stop the boat,” responded Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“We want to get ashore,” added Dorothy,</p>
+
+<p>“How did you get out there?” asked the strange
+girl. She was older than Ruth, and although she
+was very pretty, Tess and Dot were quite sure
+they did not like her—much!</p>
+
+<p>“We got in it, and it floated away with us,”
+said Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Where from?” asked the girl on shore.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! ’way down the river. ’Round that turn.
+We live at Willowbend Camp with Ruth and
+Aggie.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ruth <i>Who</i>?” the other demanded, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>“Our sister, Ruth Kenway,” said Tess.</p>
+
+<p>The girl on the island was silent for a moment,
+while the boat turned lazily in the eddy. It now
+was headed up stream again, when she said:</p>
+
+<p>“Is that dog good for anything?”</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah?” cried Tess and Dot together.
+“Why, he’s the best dog that ever <i>was</i>,” Dot
+added.</p>
+
+<p>“Does he know anything?” insisted the strange
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Uncle Rufus says he’s just as knowin’ as any
+human,” Tess said, impressively.</p>
+
+<p>“Does he mind?” pursued the girl on the shore.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes,” said Tess. “He’ll sit up and beg—and
+shakes hands—and lies down and rolls over—and——”</p>
+
+<p>“Say! those tricks won’t help you any,” cried
+the other. “Can you make him swim ashore
+here?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why—ee—I don’t know,” stammered Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“We wouldn’t want to let you have Tom
+Jonah,” Dorothy hastened to explain.</p>
+
+<p>“Goodness knows, <i>I</i> don’t want him,” said the
+big girl, still tartly. “But if he can swim ashore
+with the end of that rope you have coiled there in
+the bow of your boat, tied to his collar, he may
+be of some use.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes!” cried Tess, scrambling toward the
+bow at once.</p>
+
+<p>“See that the other end is fast to your boat,”
+commanded the girl on the island.</p>
+
+<p>It was. Tess quickly knotted the free end of
+the long painter to Tom Jonah’s collar.</p>
+
+<p>“Now send him ashore, child!” cried the big
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah was looking up at Tess with his
+wonderfully intelligent eyes. He seemed to understand
+just what was expected of him when the
+rope was tied to his collar.</p>
+
+<p>“Go on, Tom Jonah! Overboard!” cried Tess,
+firmly.</p>
+
+<p>“He—he’ll get all wet, Tess,” objected Dot,
+plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>“That won’t hurt him, Dot,” explained her
+sister. “You know he loves the water.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, here!” cried the girl on the island,
+snapping her fingers. “Push him overboard.”</p>
+
+<p>But Tom Jonah did not need such urging.
+With his forepaws on the gunwale of the boat he
+barked several times. The boat tipped a little
+and Dot screamed, clutching the Alice-doll tighter
+to her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>“Go on, Tom Jonah!” shouted Tess. “You’re
+rocking the boat!”</p>
+
+<p>The big dog leaped over the gunwale into the
+river, leaving the light craft tossing in a most
+exciting fashion. Some water even slopped over
+the side.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, sir! come on!” shouted the girl
+ashore.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah swam directly for the beach where
+she stood. The line uncoiled freely behind him,
+slipping into the water. It was long enough to
+reach the shore where the big girl stood; but none
+too long.</p>
+
+<p>The sag of the rope in the water began to
+trouble Tom Jonah, strong as he was. Quickly
+the girl drew off her shoes and stockings and
+waded in to meet the laboring dog.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, sir! now we’ll get them!” she urged,
+laying hold of the line.</p>
+
+<p>The dog scrambled ashore, barking loudly.
+The line was taut and the boat had swung around,
+tugging on the other end like a thing of life.</p>
+
+<p>“Now we have them!” cried the girl.</p>
+
+<p>She pulled hard on the rope. Tom Jonah, seeing
+what she was doing, caught the rope in his
+strong jaws, and set back to pull, too. Tess and
+Dot screamed with delight.</p>
+
+<p>As the big girl slowly drew in the rope the dog
+backed up the beach, and so the cedar boat, with
+its two remaining passengers, came to land.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot,
+standing in the bow of the boat. “I’m so glad
+to get ashore. And so’s my Alice-doll,” she
+added, seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Tess helped her sister to jump down upon the
+sand and then followed, herself. Tom Jonah
+dropped the rope and bounded about them, barking
+his satisfaction. But the strange girl was
+looking up and down the river, and over at the
+opposite shore, with a mind plainly disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, now!” she said, sharply. “Unfasten
+the rope from that dog’s collar. We’ll
+keep <i>that</i>. It may come in handy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you want it to pull the boat up on the
+beach?” asked Tess, as she obeyed the command.</p>
+
+<p>The strange girl was already unfastening the
+rope from the ring in the bow of the boat. She
+threw the line ashore and then pushed the boat
+off with such vigor that she ran knee deep into the
+river again.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! oh!” squealed Dot. “You’ll lose our
+boat.”</p>
+
+<p>“I want to lose it,” declared the girl, coming
+back very red in the face from her exertions. “I
+got you kids ashore, ’cause you might have been
+tipped over, or hurt in some way. I’m not going
+to be bothered by that boat.”</p>
+
+<p>“But that’s Ruthie’s boat,” exclaimed Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t help it! You young ones go into the
+bushes there and sit down. Keep quiet, too.
+Take the dog with you and keep <i>him</i> quiet.
+Don’t let him run about, or bark. If he does I’ll
+tie him to a tree and muzzle him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why—why, I don’t think that’s very nice of
+you,” said Tess, who was too polite, and had too
+deep a sense of gratitude, to say just what she
+really thought of this conduct on the part of the
+strange girl. “We might have saved the boat
+for Ruth.”</p>
+
+<p>“And it would give me dead away,” declared
+the big girl, angrily. “You children be satisfied
+that I took you ashore. Now keep still!”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I don’t believe I like her very much, Tess,”
+Dot whispered again.</p>
+
+<p>The older Corner House girl was not only
+puzzled by the strange girl’s actions and words,
+but she was somewhat frightened. She and Dot
+sat down among the bushes, where they were completely
+hidden from the river and the opposite
+shore, and called Tom Jonah to them.</p>
+
+<p>He lay at their feet. He had shaken himself
+comparatively dry, and now he put his head on
+his paws and went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” sighed Tess, caressing the dog’s head.
+“I’m glad we have him with us.”</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink18'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XVIII—THE SEARCH</a></h2>
+
+<p>Ruth and Agnes went around the wooded
+point, called “Willowbend,” and looked up the
+river. As we already know, the drifting boat,
+with Tess and Dot and Tom Jonah in it, had gone
+out of sight on the other side of Wild Goose
+Island.</p>
+
+<p>“It never came this way, Ruth!” groaned the
+frightened Agnes. “They’ve drifted out to sea,
+just as I said.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing of the kind,” Ruth declared, bound
+to keep up her sister’s courage, and knowing well
+that her conscience was punishing her cruelly.
+“The tide is coming in. They were bound to
+float up the river. But maybe the boat’s gone
+ashore somewhere.”</p>
+
+<p>“Or it’s sunk,” said the lugubrious Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Now you stop that, Aggie Kenway!” cried
+Ruth, stamping her foot. “I won’t have it.
+With Tom Jonah those children would not easily
+get into trouble.”</p>
+
+<p>“They could fall out of the boat,” urged Agnes,
+wiping her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“They’d not be foolish enough to rock the boat.
+It’s all right, I tell you. I <i>did</i> expect to see
+the boat from this spot; but it’s floated into
+some cove somewhere. The children are safe
+enough——”</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t know!” blubbered Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Keep still! Yes, I <i>do</i> know—I know as well
+as I want to. But we’ll have to ask for help to
+find them.”</p>
+
+<p>“What kind of help?” asked Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll get Mr. Stryver’s motorboat,” said the
+oldest Corner House girl, with decision.</p>
+
+<p>As they went back around the bend they heard
+a chorus of shouts from the camp. Agnes was
+startled, being in a nervous state, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>“What is that, Ruth? The Gypsies?” she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“If it is, then the Gypsies have adopted the
+Milton high school yell. Don’t you recognize it?”
+returned Ruth. “The boys have arrived.”</p>
+
+<p>“Neale O’Neil!”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose Neale is with them.”</p>
+
+<p>“He will help us,” cried the delighted Agnes,
+sure in the ability of Neale O’Neil to do almost
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>“Well—I suppose he may,” admitted Ruth,
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had made no mistake in identifying the
+school yell of their boy friends. There was a
+crowd of boys at the two big tents reserved for
+Joe Eldred and his friends. They had just come
+on the auto-stage.</p>
+
+<p>Already an American flag and the school pennant
+were being raised on the flag-pole before the
+tents. The scene at Willowbend Camp had been
+a most quiet one ten minutes before; now it
+seemed to be alive in every part, and the boys
+from Milton were all over it.</p>
+
+<p>They were like a herd of young colts let loose
+in a new pasture. They got the flags up before
+the girls came back, and then began running
+races, and playing leap-frog on the sand. The
+midday heat made no difference to them.</p>
+
+<p>“Doesn’t that water look inviting?” shouted
+Ben Truman to Joe and some of the bigger boys.
+“When do we go in swimming, Joe?”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>You</i> can go when you like, Bennie,” returned
+Eldred.</p>
+
+<p>“I’d like right now,” declared the youngster.</p>
+
+<p>“Clothes and all, I suppose, Ben?” drawled
+Neale O’Neil.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s clothes? I’m not afraid to go in just
+as I am.”</p>
+
+<p>“I dare you, Ben!” shouted another of the
+boys, knowing the spirit of Truman.</p>
+
+<p>“Done!” exclaimed Ben, and sprang away
+toward the in-coming tide. He splashed half-knee
+deep into the river before the others could
+call him back. He probably had no intention of
+going any deeper; but inadvertently he stepped
+into one of the holes the wooden-legged man had
+recently made when he dug for clams there, and
+over Ben pitched upon his nose!</p>
+
+<p>There was a great shout of laughter. Ben was
+submerged—every bit! He came up blowing like
+a porpoise.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on in, fellows! the water’s fine!” he
+gasped, not embarrassed by the accident.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you. We’ll wait till the bathing suits
+arrive,” returned Neale. “Hello! Here are
+the Corner House girls—two of them, at least.”</p>
+
+<p>He hurried forward to greet Ruth and Agnes.
+The other boys simmered down a little when they
+observed the girls; most of them doffed their
+caps politely, but only Joe and Neale knew Ruth
+and Agnes very well.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Neale!” was the latter’s greeting to her
+boy friend. “Don’t tell the other fellows, but
+Tess and Dot are lost.”</p>
+
+<p>“Great goodness, Ag! You don’t mean it?”
+cried Neale, keenly troubled by her statement.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not as bad as <i>that</i>,” Ruth interposed.
+“They are out in our boat with Tom Jonah.”</p>
+
+<p>“I knew you had him down here. He’ll take
+care of them,” said Neale, with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I know,” agreed Ruth. “But they all
+got in the boat unbeknown to Aggie and me, and
+the tide’s carried them up the river.”</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t <i>know</i>!” burst out Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, they couldn’t have drifted out into the
+cove, that’s sure!” returned the older Corner
+House girl. “I’m going to get Mr. Stryver’s
+motorboat. Will you take us out in it and look
+for the children, Neale? You can run a motorboat,
+can’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sure! And I’ll do anything I can to help find
+the children,” declared Neale O’Neil. “Now,
+don’t you girls turn on the sprinklers——”</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s crying?” gulped Agnes, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>“You are—pretty nearly. And your eyes are
+all red.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hay fever,” sniffed Agnes, trying to joke.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going to get the boat right away. Come
+on, Neale,” cried Ruth, and she started for the
+Stryver tent. “I’m worried about those children,”
+she added, over her shoulder. “There are
+Gypsies about.”</p>
+
+<p>She hurried on and Neale took Agnes by the
+elbow and led her out of all possible earshot of
+the other boys.</p>
+
+<p>“Buck up, Aggie,” he said, gruffly, as a boy
+will. “You’ve been a good little sport—always.
+Don’t blubber about it.”</p>
+
+<p>“But it was I who forgot to tie the boat,”
+Agnes said.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me about it,” urged Neale. So Agnes
+gave him the particulars. “Funny how the boat
+should have drifted out of sight so quickly,” was
+the boy’s comment.</p>
+
+<p>“Isn’t it? But it’s go-o-one——”</p>
+
+<p>“There, there! We’ll find it and the children
+will be all right,” he assured her.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth came running with the key to the padlock
+that moored the <i>Nimble Shanks</i> to the mooring
+stake. They got out to her—just the two girls
+and Neale—in a dory.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Nimble Shanks</i> was a blue boat with a high
+prow and long, sweeping lines to the low stern.
+It was not a large boat, but was built for speed.
+The engine and steering-gear were amidships and
+were arranged so that one man could handle the
+craft.</p>
+
+<p>Neale was naturally of a mechanical turn, as
+well as an athlete. He had built a kerosene engine
+during the winter, with some assistance from
+Mr. Con Murphy, the shoemaker with whom he
+lived in Milton. Moreover, he had driven a boat
+just like this one of Mr. Stryver’s on the Milton
+river.</p>
+
+<p>While Ruth was unlocking the chain of the
+<i>Nimble Shanks</i>, and fastening the dory in its
+place, Neale whirled the fly-wheel and caught the
+ignition spark; immediately the exhaust began to
+pop and Neale shouted:</p>
+
+<p>“All free, there, Ruth?”</p>
+
+<p>“Let her go, Neale!” returned Agnes, eagerly.
+“I can’t wait, it seems to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sit tight, then, ladies,” said Neale, as Ruth
+scrambled aft. “I believe this craft can be made
+to travel.”</p>
+
+<p>The girls obeyed as the <i>Nimble Shanks</i> started.
+She shot right out into the middle of the river,
+and the wave thrown up by her wedge-like bow
+rose higher and higher on either hand. Actually,
+when the motorboat had been running for five
+minutes, the girls in the sternsheets seemed sitting
+at a much lower level than the surface of the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>“Goodness! if this boat stopped suddenly we’d
+be drowned by that wave,” gasped Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>Neale headed up the river in a grand curve.
+They could see the shores on either hand. The
+boys ashore cheered their departure, though they
+did not know their errand.</p>
+
+<p>They shot by the wooded bend like an express
+train. The girls kept watch on either hand for
+the boat. They hoped to see her rocking in some
+cove along one shore or the other.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Neale himself who first sighted the
+drifting craft. The motorboat took the south
+channel in passing Wild Goose Island. Neale
+suddenly brought the speed of the craft down to
+one-half.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s a boat ahead,” he said to the girls.
+“It appears to be empty. Stand up and see if it’s
+the one.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth rose and clung to Agnes’ shoulder to
+steady herself. She saw the empty cedar boat,
+bobbing on the little waves beyond the far point
+of Wild Goose Island.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s her!” she said, breathlessly. “But
+where are the children?”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll find out,” said Neale, quickly. “Sit
+down again.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Tom Jonah?” urged Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Make up your mind that wherever the children
+are, <i>he</i> is, too,” said Neale, and he let the
+<i>Nimble Shanks</i> out again, and Ruth tumbled
+promptly into her seat.</p>
+
+<p>The motorboat fairly leaped ahead. In five
+minutes they were near the empty boat, and Neale
+shut off the engine entirely. Under the momentum
+she had gained she slid right up beside the
+tossing cedar boat.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, oh!” groaned Agnes. “Where <i>have</i> they
+gone?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not overboard, that’s sure,” said Neale,
+cheerfully. “They would have overturned the
+boat.”</p>
+
+<p>“I—don’t—know,” began Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth!” shrieked Agnes. “Maybe they
+were not in her after all.”</p>
+
+<p>“But that clam man said he saw them.”</p>
+
+<p>“He didn’t see them in the boat when it was
+afloat,” said Agnes, clinging to the safer possibility.</p>
+
+<p>“I know. But where else did they go?”</p>
+
+<p>“Down the beach, maybe,” said Neale, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“The Gypsies have gotten them!” exclaimed
+Agnes, in despair.</p>
+
+<p>“Stop it, Ag!” cried Ruth, shaking her sister.
+“You can think up the most perfectly awful
+things——”</p>
+
+<p>“Bet they got out of the boat on the shore
+somewhere, and let it drift away again,” suggested
+Neale, rather feebly.</p>
+
+<p>“It wouldn’t be like Tess to do such a foolish
+thing,” said Ruth, shaking her head.</p>
+
+<p>“They didn’t have anything to tie the boat up
+with. There’s no painter in her,” said the observant
+Neale.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course there’s a painter!” cried Agnes,
+jumping up. “A nice long one——”</p>
+
+<p>“Where is it?” demanded the boy.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth! <i>That’s</i> gone!” gasped Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Say!” said Neale, very seriously; “ropes
+don’t come untied of themselves. Sure it was
+fastened to the boat?”</p>
+
+<p>“To that ring,” Ruth declared, confidently.</p>
+
+<p>“And little Tess, or Dot, wouldn’t think to untie
+it themselves—I’m sure,” the boy observed.
+“They are with somebody who has taken them
+out of the boat—be sure of that.”</p>
+
+<p>“You only—only say so to comfort us,” sobbed
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ag! stop being a ‘leaky vessel’!” cried
+Neale, with a boy’s exasperation at a girl’s tears.
+“Crying won’t help you any.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had been examining the cedar boat, carefully.
+There was a little water in the bottom of
+it. She knew it did not leak. And floating on
+the water was a tiny russet leather slipper.</p>
+
+<p>“That belongs to Dot’s Alice-doll!” she cried,
+leaning over the gunwale and fishing for the slipper.
+“They <i>were</i> in the boat.”</p>
+
+<p>“We knew that before. The clam man said
+so,” sniffed Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“But they got out in a hurry. Otherwise Dot
+would have noticed that the doll had lost her
+slipper.”</p>
+
+<p>“That seems reasonable,” admitted Neale
+O’Neil. “But what’s become of them? Where
+did they go? Where are they now?”</p>
+
+<p>He was staring all about the river, while the
+two boats gently rubbed together, bobbing and
+courtesying on the tide.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t see anybody on the shores—and not
+another boat in sight,” the boy added.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe they went ashore on the island?” suggested
+Agnes, looking back.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s nobody there,” said her sister, looking
+back, too. “Not a soul.”</p>
+
+<p>“Guess you’re right. If there were anybody
+besides the girls there they’d have some kind of a
+boat, and we’d see it.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s so, Neale,” Ruth said. “And surely
+any grown person who rescued the girls wouldn’t
+have let the boat drift away again.”</p>
+
+<p>The trio of searchers gazed at each other in
+trouble and amazement. They could not explain
+this mystery in any satisfactory way.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink19'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XIX—A STARTLING MEETING</a></h2>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot, sitting in the middle of a brush
+clump on Wild Goose Island, never saw the blue
+motorboat with their sisters and Neale O’Neil in
+it, fly past.</p>
+
+<p>But the dark-faced girl, dressed in her bedraggled
+Gypsy finery, saw the <i>Nimble Shanks</i>, for
+she was on the watch at one side or the other of
+the island, all the time.</p>
+
+<p>She observed the motorboat overtake the drifting
+craft, and saw Neale carry a line aboard the
+latter and then start up the engine of the power
+boat again. The two boats went up the lake at
+a fair pace; but the searching party could not
+travel so fast now, for fear of swamping the
+towed boat.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think this is much fun,” said Dot,
+plaintively, when the big girl came back to them.
+“It’s hot here—and I’m hungry—and my Alice-doll
+has lost one of her shoes.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll go up into the woods and pick some
+berries,” said the strange girl, not unkindly. “I
+know where there are some strawberries—and
+they’re just as sweet.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! that will be fine. I <i>do</i> love strawberries,”
+declared Dot, easily appeased.</p>
+
+<p>Tess was more troubled than her sister by this
+strange situation. She felt, somehow, as though
+the big girl were holding them prisoners. Yet
+she could not understand <i>why</i>.</p>
+
+<p>She got up from the ground and at once Tom
+Jonah started up, barking and bounding about.</p>
+
+<p>“Stop that dog!” exclaimed the big girl,
+crossly. “Make him walk beside you. I’ll tie
+him up,” she threatened.</p>
+
+<p>“Then he’ll howl <i>awful</i>,” cried Dot. “We
+tried that once at home. Don’t you ’member,
+Tess?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you keep him still,” snapped the big
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>At a word from Tess the old dog drooped his
+tail and fell in behind them, in a most subdued
+manner. They went up through the thick woods
+to the higher part of the island. At no point
+could the little procession have been seen from
+the water.</p>
+
+<p>There was a hillock up there, bare of trees,
+the southern side of which was sown thickly with
+strawberries. The bed was rich in berries, and
+how sweet and delicate was their flavor!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, <i>so</i> much nicer than boughten berries!”
+Tess declared, forgetting for the time all her
+anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, both of the Corner House girls were
+so busy satisfying their appetites with
+strawberries that they forgot about the unpleasant side
+to their adventure. Nor did they see the girl
+who had helped them ashore from the boat, creep
+over the knoll to watch the motorboat and its tow
+going down the river again, by way of the northern
+channel.</p>
+
+<p>It was fully half past one. While Tess and
+Dot feasted in the wild strawberry patch, their
+sisters and Neale O’Neil munched cold, fried
+crabs on the <i>Nimble Shanks</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It took a lot of berries to satisfy the healthy
+appetites of two girls like Tess and Dot whose
+dinner had been indefinitely postponed. Dot
+finally rolled right over in the shade, fast asleep,
+her dress and fingers berry-stained and the last
+plump one she had picked between her rosy lips!</p>
+
+<p>The big girl came back and Tess whispered:
+“We’d best not wake her, for she usually takes
+a nap afternoons. When she wakes up, I guess
+we’d best be going. Ruth and Agnes will be
+<i>awfully</i> scared for us. And we’ve lost Ruth’s
+boat, too,” she added, disconsolately.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you expect to get off this island?”
+demanded the strange girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Why! how did you get <i>on</i>?” returned Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“I paddled myself over on a raft of logs, early
+this morning before anybody else was up,” said
+the girl, after a minute. “I wasn’t going back
+till night. But if I keep you children all day
+there’ll be a big row, I s’pose,” she added, sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>“I expect there will,” was Tess’ calm response.</p>
+
+<p>“They’d get me for kidnapping, like enough,”
+said the girl, as though talking to herself.
+“Wish I hadn’t taken you out of that boat. But
+you and the dog were raising an awful noise.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry,” said Tess, politely, “if we have
+been a nuisance. But of course we’ve got to get
+back to the tent before dark.”</p>
+
+<p>“I s’pose so,” admitted the older girl.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s funny Ruth hasn’t been up here before
+now looking for us,” Tess observed.</p>
+
+<p>The big girl turned her head so Tess should
+not see her face. “Suppose she did not know you
+went sailing in the boat?” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Why! perhaps that is the reason,” Tess
+agreed. “They couldn’t have seen us; for if
+they had, Ruth would have been after the boat
+in a hurry.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said the strange girl, “I’ll have to
+get you across to the river bank. I wasn’t going
+till night. But——”</p>
+
+<p>“We are very much obliged to you,” Tess hastened
+to say. “But we <i>couldn’t</i> stay that long.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well! I’ll leave you children at a farmer’s
+over there. They’ll have a telephone and they’ll
+get word to your sisters. You’ll get back by
+suppertime.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you,” Tess said, simply.</p>
+
+<p>But she was more than a little disturbed in her
+mind. A raft of logs did not encourage her to
+look forward to the trip to the mainland with
+much pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, the mystery regarding this pretty girl
+made Tess feel <i>un</i>comfortable. Tess Kenway
+was quite old enough to know the difference between
+right and wrong; and there was something
+about the strange girl that was decidedly wrong!</p>
+
+<p>Why had she come out here to Wild Goose
+Island in the early morning—before anybody in
+the neighborhood was up? Was she a runaway?
+Had she done something really <i>naughty</i>? and was
+she afraid to have her folks find her?</p>
+
+<p>It was all a great puzzle and Tess sighed and
+shook her head. Finally she asked: “If you
+please, where <i>is</i> the raft of logs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Right down there,” said the girl, pointing to
+the southern side of the island. “You can’t see
+it. I dragged it into shallow water and covered
+it up with branches and brush.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is—is it safe?” queried Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it didn’t drown me coming over,” said
+the girl, with a short, hard laugh. “But the logs
+came near parting.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll fix ’em before we start back. That painter
+off your boat will help. We will be all right,”
+said the big girl, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>Dot awoke after a little, and so did Tom Jonah.
+The whole party went down to the brush-fringed
+shore. Tess saw that the girl had hidden her
+raft very ingeniously. And it was evident, too,
+that she hated to leave the island so long before
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>“Got myself in a nice mess!” the Corner
+House girl heard her mutter, as she went about
+binding the three logs together more tightly with
+the strong rope from the cedar boat.</p>
+
+<p>She worked hard for half an hour, standing
+almost waist deep in the water as she made the
+logs secure. It was not a heavy raft—nor was
+it very safe looking, to Tess’ mind.</p>
+
+<p>But fortunately Dot thought it would be great
+fun to ride on such a craft, and Tess was too
+brave to say anything that would really frighten
+Dorothy.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah became restless and wanted to wander
+about; but the big girl was very sharp with
+him. “If he were my dog I’d make him mind
+better!” she threatened. “If anything gives us
+away, it will be that dog.”</p>
+
+<p>Tess did not understand this; and like Dot she
+felt hurt when anybody criticised Tom Jonah.
+“Love me, love my dog” was the motto of the
+younger Kenway sisters.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the big girl pronounced the raft strong
+enough, and she waded out of the water and put
+on her skirts again. “Now, get aboard there,”
+she commanded. “If we’ve got to go, we might
+as well start. The tide will be less strong now.”</p>
+
+<p>Dot skipped aboard the raft with her Alice-doll,
+in great glee; Tess followed more slowly.
+But when Tom Jonah tried to come, too, the big
+girl, with the broken oar she used for a paddle,
+drove him back.</p>
+
+<p>“It won’t hold him up, too!” she cried. “Get
+out!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! don’t hurt Tom Jonah!” wailed Dot,
+shrilly. “Don’t!”</p>
+
+<p>“You look out!” warned Tess. “He’ll grab
+you!”</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah certainly <i>did</i> grab the paddle.
+And he nearly wrenched it from the hands of the
+big girl, strong as she was.</p>
+
+<p>“He’ll tip us all over!” declared the girl, angrily,
+flushed and breathing heavily. “Don’t you
+see how deep in the water we are? Any little
+wave will come right over the logs and wet us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” cried Tess. “We’re barefooted.
+And we can’t leave Tom Jonah behind.”</p>
+
+<p>“He can swim, can’t he? Silly!” exclaimed
+the big girl. She pushed off the raft suddenly,
+leaving the troubled dog on the bank. The current
+caught the raft instantly and headed it down
+stream. The big girl hurried to dip her paddle
+in the water on the lower side and swerve the
+head of the raft around.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Tom Jonah! Come! Come!” cried Dot,
+fearful that the dog would be lost.</p>
+
+<p>He plunged right in and swam to the rear of the
+raft. He did not try to climb aboard, but he rested
+his nose on the logs and paddled quietly behind.
+The big girl paid him no further attention. She
+had her hands full as it was, keeping the raft
+from being swept down stream.</p>
+
+<p>The current of the river had now conquered the
+inflowing tide. The force of the latter was
+spent; but the channel on this side of the island
+was not rough. The little waves did not break
+over their feet as yet.</p>
+
+<p>The passage of the river was not, however, so
+hard. The handsome dark girl was strong, and
+she plied the broken oar with vigor. In half an
+hour they drew near to the tree-fringed southern
+bank.</p>
+
+<p>The girls saw nobody along the shore, nor had
+any boat put out to meet them. It was a day
+when all the farmers seemed to be busy in their
+fields, and this was a wild spot toward which the
+raft had been aimed.</p>
+
+<p>At last the end of the logs touched a shelving,
+narrow beach. The big girl leaped off and commanded
+Tess and Dot to follow immediately.
+Already Tom Jonah had scrambled ashore and
+was shaking himself, as a dog will.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the big dog uttered a throaty growl.
+None of the three girls paid any attention. The
+strange girl was busy helping Tess and Dot to
+land.</p>
+
+<p>Again Tom Jonah uttered his warning, and
+then barked sharply.</p>
+
+<p>“Shut up!” commanded the big girl, turning
+on him fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a man walked out of the wood.
+He was a fierce little fellow with a black mustache
+and a dirty red tie. His velveteen suit was
+worn and greasy and his hat broken.</p>
+
+<p>The strange girl turned suddenly and saw him.
+She uttered a stifled scream and the fellow folded
+his arms and said something to her sternly in
+a language that afterwards Tess said “sounded
+like powder-crackers exploding!”</p>
+
+<p>The girl was terrified in the extreme. She
+looked from side to side as though contemplating
+escape. The fellow took another stride toward
+her.</p>
+
+<p>And then Tom Jonah intervened. The big
+dog sprang with an awful growl, hurling himself
+straight at the man’s chest. The fellow went
+over backward and Tom Jonah held him down
+with both paws on his chest and his bared teeth
+at the victim’s brown throat!</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink20'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XX—THE FRANKFURTER MAN</a></h2>
+
+<p>Dot screamed shrilly; but Tess said, with conviction:
+“Well! I think it serves him right.
+Let him holler. He had no business trying to
+steal Ruthie’s chickens.”</p>
+
+<p>For the young man that Tom Jonah held on the
+ground, and threatened so dreadfully, was the
+very Gypsy that had gotten into the hen-coop at
+the old Corner House in Milton, weeks before.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, don’t you be afraid for him, Dot,”
+added Tess, quite calmly. “Tom Jonah won’t
+really <i>bite</i> him—not as long as he keeps still and
+doesn’t try to get up——”</p>
+
+<p>The fellow was moaning and begging just as
+he had when the big dog “treed” him on the henhouse
+roof.</p>
+
+<p>“Tak’ away dog! Tak’ away dog!” he begged.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know why we should—do you, Dot?”
+pursued Tess, undisturbed. “He was going to
+hurt <i>her</i>——”</p>
+
+<p>Tess turned around. The strange girl who
+had helped them out of the cedar boat and later
+had brought them to the river bank from Wild
+Goose Island, had disappeared like a shadow!</p>
+
+<p>“Why—why,” stammered Tess. “And she
+never said ‘Good-bye’!”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess she was afraid of this man,” Dot
+said, eyeing the prostrate and miserable victim of
+Tom Jonah’s attack without much pity. “What
+shall we do with him?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” cried Tess, with a sudden sharp idea.
+“She <i>was</i> afraid of him. Let us help her. She
+helped us.”</p>
+
+<p>“How will we?” inquired the smaller girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Just let Tom Jonah hold him where he is.
+We will give that pretty girl a good chance to
+get away. Won’t we?”</p>
+
+<p>“That will be just the thing,” agreed Dot.
+“We can sit down and wait. I hope it isn’t too
+long a walk to the camp, Tess. Somehow those
+strawberries didn’t stay by me—much. I’m
+hungry right now!”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll keep him here a few minutes. Then
+we’ll find the road and start right back home. I
+know the direction,” said Tess, with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>The frightened Gypsy moaned and begged for
+them to call off the dog; and Tom Jonah growled
+most frightfully every time the man squirmed.
+Under other circumstances the girls would have
+been quite stricken with pity for the poor man;
+but he had tried to steal Ruth’s hens, and he had
+now frightened their new friend away, and, as
+Dot whispered, “it served him right.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course, they knew that the big dog would
+not really harm the fellow.</p>
+
+<p>After some fifteen minutes Tess got up and
+motioned Dot to do the same. “We’d better
+start. The afternoon is going,” she said to her
+younger sister. “And I guess it’s a long walk
+home. Come on, Tom Jonah.”</p>
+
+<p>The old dog lifted his head enquiringly. The
+muscles of his shoulders and fore-paws relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on!” commanded Tess. “Leave him
+alone. Let him up, Tom Jonah! I guess he has
+been punished enough. Don’t you think so,
+Dot?”</p>
+
+<p>The smaller girl nodded seriously, staring at
+the trembling Gypsy. “I hope you won’t ever
+try to steal our Ruthie’s hens again,” she said,
+pointedly.</p>
+
+<p>The moment the fellow knew he was free, he
+scrambled up and dodged into the bushes. He
+did not stay for a word.</p>
+
+<p>“That big girl must have gotten away by this
+time,” Tess said, cheerfully. “And he is too
+scared to catch her, anyway.”</p>
+
+<p>Which was probably true. The two small girls
+walked away from the river bank in the direction
+where they knew the auto-stage road lay. Tom
+Jonah paced beside them, looking about suspiciously,
+and licking his lips now and then with
+his red tongue.</p>
+
+<p>It was remarkable how ferocious he had been
+with that Gypsy, and how perfectly kind he was to
+the small Kenways. And nothing much could
+have overtaken them just then that Tom Jonah
+would not have attacked.</p>
+
+<p>They came out of the fringe of wood that bordered
+the river and crossed a farmer’s fields.
+But the house was at a distance, and in the other
+direction from Pleasant Cove and the camps; so
+the girls did not go to that house.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Tess felt quite brave now that she was
+again on the mainland. She was sure that they
+could easily find Willowbend Camp.</p>
+
+<p>They came out into the hot, dusty road. It
+stretched before them as bare as a tennis-court
+and as hot as a sea-beach. The trees that bordered
+it were white with dust far up their trunks
+and the leaves of their lower branches, too, were
+dust-covered.</p>
+
+<p>This was the result of rapidly passing automobiles
+on the road; but none of these vehicles
+was in sight now. The road seemed deserted.</p>
+
+<p>Save for just one thing. Dot saw it before
+Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, look!” the smaller girl cried. “Isn’t
+that a peanut man, Tess? Don’t you wish you
+had a nickel?”</p>
+
+<p>“He isn’t a peanut man,” said Tess, after a
+sharp look at the man pushing the little wagon
+along the road before them.</p>
+
+<p>“Isn’t he?” returned Dot, disappointedly.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a hot-frankfurter man,” declared Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Tess! a nickel would buy two frankfurter
+sandwiches,” gasped Dot. “And I’m <i>so</i> hungry.”</p>
+
+<p>So was Tess. The thought of the steaming
+sausages lying on the split Vienna roll, with a
+spoonful of mustard on each half-sausage, was
+enough to make <i>any</i> hungry person’s mouth
+water. At least, any hungry person of the age
+of Tess and Dot Kenway.</p>
+
+<p>Where the frankfurter man had been with his
+wagon away up this country road, the girls did
+not know; but before they overtook him they
+smelled the warm sausages and saw that the top
+of his boxlike wagon was covered over with a
+glass case and that everything was clean about
+his outfit.</p>
+
+<p>So eager and hungry were they that Tess and
+Dot fairly trotted through the hot dust to overtake
+the man. He was a short, sturdy man in
+a blue shirt, khaki trousers, and a broad-brimmed
+straw hat. When Tom Jonah bounded along beside
+him, sniffing in a friendly fashion, he turned
+around and saw the girls.</p>
+
+<p>“How-de-do!” he said, smiling. “You want
+a hot frankfurter, little girls?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” said Dot, frankly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, we can’t, sir—not till we get to Willowbend
+Camp,” Tess hastened to say, squeezing
+Dot’s hand admonishingly.</p>
+
+<p>Dot’s lower lip trembled and the man asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Why can’t you have ’em now?”</p>
+
+<p>“We—we should have to ask Ruthie,” said
+Tess, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s she?”</p>
+
+<p>“Our sister. We—we don’t carry any money
+in these old clothes. She’s afraid we’ll lose it
+out of our pockets,” said Tess, honestly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh-ho!” exclaimed the man.</p>
+
+<p>“But we’re awful hungry,” ventured Dot.
+“And so’s my Alice-doll. We been shipwrecked,
+you see.”</p>
+
+<p>“Shipwrecked?” asked the man, wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“Not just <i>that</i>, Dot,” said Tess, doubtfully.
+“We were sort of castaways.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we lost our boat, didn’t we?” demanded
+Dot. “And isn’t that being shipwrecked?”
+She was just hungry and tired
+enough to be rather “touchy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me about it,” said the frankfurter man,
+as the girls and Tom Jonah trotted along beside
+his little wagon.</p>
+
+<p>So Tess—with much assistance from Dot—related
+their exciting adventures since the wooden-legged
+clam-digger had shown them what it was
+that squirted water up through the tiny holes
+on the clam-flat.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the frankfurter man laughed, or
+chuckled; at other times he looked quite grave.
+And finally he insisted upon stopping under a
+broad, shady tree beside the road, and resting
+while he listened to the remainder of the story.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he opened the glass case and took
+out a couple of paper napkins and two rolls which
+were as white as snow when he split them with
+a very sharp knife. He buttered both sides of
+these rolls lavishly.</p>
+
+<p>Then he opened the steaming frankfurter pot
+and oh! how the luscious steam gushed out! Dot
+grabbed Tess’ hand hard. She thought she was
+going to faint, for a moment—it smelled so good!</p>
+
+<p>He selected two fat frankfurters and split them
+evenly. He placed them on the buttered rolls.
+He put on mustard with a lavish hand. And then
+he closed the rolls and wrapped the napkins about
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he saw Tom Jonah standing, too,
+watching him with wistful intentness, his pink
+tongue hanging out of his mouth. If ever a dog’s
+countenance expressed hunger, it was shown now
+in Tom Jonah’s face. But he was too much of
+a gentleman, just as his collar said, to bark.</p>
+
+<p>So the frankfurter man, without saying a word,
+opened the pot again and took out a third sausage.
+This he did not split or put mustard on.</p>
+
+<p>“Would you little girls like to eat a lunch now
+and pay me for it the next time you see me?”
+he asked, smiling at Tess and Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” gasped Dot, clasping her hands and almost
+letting the Alice-doll fall.</p>
+
+<p>“You—you are <i>so</i> kind!” said Tess, her voice
+fairly trembling.</p>
+
+<p>He passed the two wrapped sandwiches over
+with a polite bow. “You are very welcome,” he
+said. “And I am going to give your dog one for
+himself because he grabbed that Gypsy. He’s a
+brave dog and deserves one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! if you would be so good!” cried Tess.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah made one mouthful of the frankfurter.
+You see, <i>he</i> had not cared at all for the
+strawberries!</p>
+
+<p>“Now,” said the frankfurter man, as the girls
+walked on beside him again, munching their sandwiches,
+“that road yonder to the left leads right
+down to the beach and to those tents. You can
+see the flags flying above them now—see?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, sir!” returned Tess and Dot, in delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you can easy find your way. Good-day,
+young ladies. I know your sisters will be anxious
+to see you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, sir,” Tess said, not forgetting
+her manners. “And we shall not forget that we
+owe you for the sausages.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s right. Always pay your debts,” said
+the man, laughing, and trundled his cart on
+through the dust, while the Kenway sisters
+trudged down the shadier road toward the beach.</p>
+
+<p>In fifteen minutes they were seen coming. The
+entire encampment had turned out to search for
+the lost children. The boys from Milton had
+gone in all directions to look for Tess and Dot.</p>
+
+<p>It was only to Ruth and Agnes that the small
+girls related the details of their surprising adventure.
+And Agnes did not understand entirely,
+and was much troubled over the identity
+of the girl who had befriended her sisters in so
+strange a fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had no difficulty in guessing who she was.
+It was the girl with the Gypsies who had masqueraded
+as the queen. The oldest Corner
+House girl was sure that it was she. And Ruth
+understood that she must be striving to get away
+from the Gypsies.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope she won’t go so far from here that I
+shall never see her again,” thought Ruth. “For
+she was interested in Rosa Wildwood, I am sure;
+and it might be that she could tell me something
+about Rosa’s missing sister.”</p>
+
+<p>While Agnes put forth many “guesses” and
+“supposin’s” about the strange girl, Dot had
+quite another problem in her enquiring mind.
+And finally, as they were getting ready for bed
+that night, she threw out a leading question which
+attracted the immediate attention of her three
+sisters:</p>
+
+<p>“Say, Ruthie,” she asked, “how do frankfurters
+grow?”</p>
+
+<p>“What?” gasped Agnes, and clapped a hand
+over her own mouth to keep from laughing.</p>
+
+<p>“How do they <i>grow</i>, dear?” returned Ruth,
+rather taken aback herself.</p>
+
+<p>“Goodness gracious, child!” exclaimed Tess.
+“They don’t grow on bushes like pea-pods.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no, of course not!” ejaculated Dot, who
+did not like to be considered ignorant. “A frankfurter
+flies, doesn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mercy!” murmured Ruth. “Hear her!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! I mean it crawls—it <i>creeps</i>. Of
+course,” Dot hurried to add.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes exploded here. She could not keep in
+any longer.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I think you’re real mean!” complained
+Dot. “You won’t tell me. I guess it’s a fish,
+then. Does it <i>swim</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>“Goodness!” cried Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Then they come in bunches like bananas!”
+declared the frantic Dot.</p>
+
+<p><i>This</i> was the worst yet. Agnes rolled on the
+matting of the bedroom and almost choked.
+Ruth herself was laughing heartily at her small
+sister as she gathered her into her arms and told
+her just how the sausage-meat was stuffed into
+the frankfurters’ skins.</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” murmured Dot, at last, and rather
+sleepily. “I don’t care. I believe they are the
+very <i>nicest</i> things there are to eat—so there!
+Those the frankfurter man gave us were perfectly
+lovely.”</p>
+
+<p>That was what suggested the Frankfurter
+Party, and the Frankfurter Party was one of the
+very happiest thoughts that Ruth Kenway ever
+evolved. We shall have to hear about it, in
+another chapter.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink21'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XXI—MRS. BOBSTER’S MYSTERIOUS FRIEND</a></h2>
+
+<p>Rosa Wildwood quickly showed improvement
+after her arrival at Pleasant Cove. Under the
+ministrations of the little old woman who lived
+in a shoe the Southern girl could not help feeling
+a measure of contentment, if nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>Her hostess was such a cheerful body! And,
+as Agnes had promised, Rosa was supplied with
+good, hearty food—and plenty of it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a glass of warm milk, fresh from the
+cow, on the stand beside the head of her little
+chintz-hung bed every morning when Rosa awoke.
+For Mrs. Bobster was up and about by daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>When Rosa came down to the sunlit kitchen,
+breakfast was ready and the little old woman who
+lived in a shoe declared she had all her “outside”
+chores done, saving her regular work in her garden.</p>
+
+<p>Rosa sometimes helped about the housework.
+The doctor had told her that certain forms of
+housework would be good for her. But she had
+to be very exact and careful in doing the work
+about the shoe-house, for Mrs. Bobster was a
+New England housekeeper of the old school and
+was as methodical as Grandfather’s Clock.</p>
+
+<p>The girls from Milton did not neglect Rosa
+Wildwood. At least, the Corner House girls and
+their friends did not. Pearl Harrod and the girls
+at Spoondrift Bungalow came with a wagonette
+and took her driving. The repairs had been
+made upon the bungalow and Pearl’s party was
+there again—all but the Corner House girls.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had decided to stick to the tent for the
+remainder of their stay at Pleasant Cove. And
+Willowbend Camp was becoming the liveliest spot
+along the entire beach-front.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth and her sisters came after Rosa and took
+her out in their boat. The boys who were living
+at Willowbend, too, took an interest in the frail
+Southern girl. For Rosa Wildwood, with the
+color stealing back into her cheeks and lips, and
+her eyes bright again, was a very attractive girl
+indeed!</p>
+
+<p>Dot Kenway’s birthday came at this time, and
+that was the date set for the Frankfurter Party.
+Dot’s guesses about the origin and nature of the
+hearty and inviting, if not delicate, frankfurter,
+had delighted the campers who heard the story;
+and Dot’s sisters and Neale spent some time and
+a good deal of ingenuity in preparing for the
+festive occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Rosa came over to the tent colony and helped
+the girls prepare for the party. Moreover, she
+had a secret to impart to Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t let the other girls hear, Ruth Kenway,”
+she said, with much mystery. “But Mrs. Bobster
+is the oddest thing!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! I guess she is,” laughed Ruth. “But
+she’s <i>good</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good as gold,” agreed Rosa. “But she has
+some funny ways. Of course I go to bed early.
+The doctor told me I should.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well?”</p>
+
+<p>“You’d think she’d go to bed early, too, when
+she’s up so soon in the morning?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well——I suppose that’s a matter of taste,”
+Ruth observed.</p>
+
+<p>“Anyway, you know how lonesome it is over
+there?”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess there are not many people about—after
+dark.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s just it!” cried Rosa. “Mrs. Bobster
+scurries around and does all her out of doors
+chores before dark. And she locks and bolts all
+the doors. She is really afraid after dark.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth nodded. She remembered how once the
+little old woman who lived in a shoe had spoken
+to her about being afraid.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, she locks and bolts the doors,” said
+Rosa, “and then we have supper and I go to bed.
+Sometimes, like a good child, I go right to sleep.
+Sometimes, like a bad child, I <i>don’t</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well—what then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I hear Mrs. Bobster talking. She has
+company. I never hear the company come in,
+or go out; but she has it every night.”</p>
+
+<p>“And never says anything about it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not a word,” said Rosa. “I hinted once or
+twice that she must have company every night,
+and all she said was that she didn’t like sitting
+alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it a man or a woman?” asked Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” laughed Rosa. “That’s one
+of the funny things about it. Although I hear
+Mrs. Bobster sometimes chattering like a magpie,
+I never hear an answer.”</p>
+
+<p>“What?” gasped Ruth, in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s right,” said Rosa, nodding confidently.
+“Whoever it is talks so low that I haven’t heard
+his, or her, voice yet!”</p>
+
+<p>“A dumb person?” suggested Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe. At any rate, I couldn’t tell you for
+the life of me whether it is a man or a woman that
+comes to see the little old woman who lives in a
+shoe. Isn’t it odd, Ruth?”</p>
+
+<p>“I should say it was,” admitted Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“But she treats me well,” sighed Rosa. “I
+wouldn’t do her any harm for the world. But I
+<i>am</i> awfully curious!”</p>
+
+<p>It was this day, too—the day of Dot’s party—that
+the wooden-legged clam-digger came along
+through the Willowbend tent colony again. He
+always came to the tent of the Corner House girls
+when he appeared; Ruth was a regular customer,
+for she and her sisters were fond of shellfish.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll have fifty to-day, Mr. Kuk,” she said to
+the saltish individual when he hailed her from
+outside the tent. Ruth had learned that his name
+was Habakuk Somes; everybody along the beach
+called him “Kuk,” and Ruth, to be polite, tagged
+him with “Mister” in addition.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah appeared and showed his disapproval
+of the clam man by a throaty growl.
+“That thar dawg don’t like me none too well,”
+said the clam man. “What d’yeou call him?”</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thet’s enough to sink him,” said the man with
+a grin. “How’d ye come ter call him that?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s his name,” said Ruth. “It was engraved
+on his collar when he came to our house in Milton.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! then he ain’t allus been your dawg, shipmet?”
+demanded the man.</p>
+
+<p>“No. He came to us. We don’t know where
+from. But he is a gentleman, and he is going to
+stay with us as long as he will.”</p>
+
+<p>The clam man blinked, and said nothing more.
+But he cast more than one glance at Tom Jonah
+before he went away.</p>
+
+<p>The preparations made for the birthday party
+included the purchase of a good many pounds of
+first quality frankfurters. And when they were
+delivered to the Corner House girls’ tent, the fun
+began.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot were sent away for the morning
+to play with some of the children at Enterprise
+Camp. Then Ruth and Agnes and Rosa and
+Neale set to work to make frankfurters into the
+very funniest looking things that you could imagine!</p>
+
+<p>With bits of tinsel and colored paper and pins
+and other small wares, the young folks set to work.
+They made frankfurters look like caricatures of
+all kinds of beasts and birds, and insects as well.
+One was the body of a huge, gaily-winged butterfly.
+Another was striped and horned like a worm
+of ferocious aspect.</p>
+
+<p>They were made into fishes, with tails and fins.
+Neale made a nest with several “young” frankfurters
+poking their heads out for food, while the
+mother frankfurter was just poised upon the
+edge of the nest, her wings spread to balance her.</p>
+
+<p>There were short-legged frankfurters, with
+long, flapping ears, like dachshunds, and long,
+stiff-legged frankfurters, with abbreviated tails,
+and appearing to gambol like lambs. There were
+several linked together and apparently creeping
+about like a species of jointed, horrid caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>Then they actually <i>were</i> bunched like bananas!
+while some grew, husked, like sweetcorn, and
+some had the green, fluffy tops of carrots cunningly
+fastened to them and were tied together
+as carrots are bunched in the market.</p>
+
+<p>Neale’s ingenuity, however, rose to its height
+when he stretched a slanting wire across the tent,
+higher than the partition, and made several
+“aeroplanes” with bodies of the succulent sausage,
+which he could start at one end of the wire
+to “fly” to the other end.</p>
+
+<p>The young folks came to Willowbend Camp
+about five o’clock to enjoy the festivities. The
+older Corner House girls, with the help of some
+of their friends, served the crowd a hearty supper,
+the main course of which was hot frankfurters,
+prepared by the “frankfurter man”
+whose acquaintance Tess and Dot had made.</p>
+
+<p>When the fun was over the guests took the
+fancy-dressed sausages home as souvenirs.</p>
+
+<p>Neale and Agnes and Ruth went home with
+Rosa, for it was a long walk, and part of the way
+it was lonely. One of the ladies who had chaperoned
+the party remained with Tess and Dot
+while their sisters were absent.</p>
+
+<p>The young folk had a pleasant walk, for there
+was a moon. Coming finally in sight of the home
+of the little old woman who lived in a shoe, Ruth
+said to Rosa, who walked with her:</p>
+
+<p>“It is a lonely spot, isn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“But I never feel afraid. Only I’m curious
+about Mrs. Bobster’s friend——There! See it?”
+she cried, suddenly, but under her breath.</p>
+
+<p>“See what?” Ruth asked.</p>
+
+<p>“The shadow on the curtain,” said Rosa.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Agnes said: “Hello!
+Mrs. Bobster has company.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a lamp lit in the tiny front room of
+the cottage. Plainly silhouetted upon the white
+shade was a man sitting in a chair.</p>
+
+<p>“What! With his hat on?” exclaimed Ruth.
+“Who can it be?”</p>
+
+<p>“He isn’t very polite, whoever he is,” said
+Neale.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s see about it,” suggested Agnes. “Do
+you know anything about him, Rosa?”</p>
+
+<p>“I only know she has had a visitor sometimes—after
+I’m in bed,” said the Southern girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on! let’s go in the side door,” said
+Agnes, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>But when they had tiptoed to the door they
+found it locked. Rosa laughed. “I tell you she
+never leaves a door or window unfastened after
+dark,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>They heard the little old woman who lived in
+a shoe coming to the door to let them in. But
+Rosa had to assure her who it was before Mrs.
+Bobster unlocked the door.</p>
+
+<p>“But you had company?” said Agnes, rather
+pertly.</p>
+
+<p>“Eh?” returned Mrs. Bobster, setting the
+broom behind the hall door. “Oh, yes! I don’t
+never kalkerlate ter be alone many evenings.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is he here now?” demanded Neale, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>“Who? <i>Him?</i> No,” said the widow, calmly.
+“He’s bashful. He went out jest as you young
+folks come in. Sit right down, children, an’ I’ll
+find a pitcher of milk an’ some cookies.”</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls and Rosa—to say nothing
+of Neale O’Neil—were amazed. They looked
+at each other wonderingly as the widow bustled
+out to the pantry.</p>
+
+<p>“I’d give a penny,” murmured Rosa Wildwood,
+“to know who her mysterious friend is.”</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink22'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XXII—THE YARN OF THE “SPANKING SAL”</a></h2>
+
+<p>The wooden-legged clam digger, Habakuk
+Somes, seemed suddenly to have acquired a great
+interest in Tom Jonah.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared almost every day at the tent of
+the Corner House girls and did his best to become
+friendly with the dog. Tom Jonah grew
+used to his presence, but he would allow no familiarities
+from the dilapidated waterside character.</p>
+
+<p>The girls thought “Kuk” Somes only queer;
+the boys “joshed” him a good deal. Nobody
+minded having him around, considering merely
+that he was a peculiar fellow, and harmless.</p>
+
+<p>His tales of sea-going and sea-roving were wonderful
+indeed. How much of them was truth and
+how much pure invention, the older Corner House
+girls and Neale O’Neil did not know. However,
+they forgave his “historical inaccuracies” because
+of the entertainment they derived from his
+yarns.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot listened to the old fellow with
+perfect confidence in his achievements. Had he
+not known—in a moment—what it was that shot
+water up through the holes in the clam flat? The
+smaller girls listened to old Kuk Somes with unshaken
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>“And how did the pirates get your leg, Mr.
+Kuk?” asked Tess. “Your really truly leg, I
+mean.”</p>
+
+<p>She and Dot were sitting on the edge of the
+tent-platform, under the awning, with their bare
+feet in the sand, with Tom Jonah lying comfortably
+between them. The dog had a brooding eye
+upon the clam digger, who sat on a broken lobster
+trap a few feet away.</p>
+
+<p>“Huh! them pi-<i>rats</i>?” queried the clam digger.
+“Well—er—now, did I say it was pi-<i>rats</i>
+as got my leg, shipmet?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you did, sir.” Dot hastened to bolster
+up her sister’s statement of fact. “And you said
+it was on the Spanish Main.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well!” declared the old man, “so it was, an’
+so they did. Pi-<i>rats</i> it was, shipmet. An’ I’ll
+tell yer the how of it.</p>
+
+<p>“I was carpenter’s mate on the <i>Spankin’ Sal</i>,
+what sailed from Bosting to Rio, touchin’ at some
+West Injy ports on the way—pertic’larly Porto
+Rico, which is a big merlasses port. We had a
+good part of our upper holt stowed with warmin’
+pans for the merlasses planters——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Mr. Kuk!” ejaculated Tess in rather a
+pained voice. “Isn’t that a mistake? <i>Warming
+pans?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Not by a joblot it ain’t no mistake!” returned
+the old man. “Warming pans I sez, an’
+warming pans I sticks to.”</p>
+
+<p>“But my geogoraphy,” Tess ventured, timidly,
+and mispronouncing the word as usual, “says
+that the West Indies are tropical. Porto Rico
+is near the Equator.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, ain’t that wonderful—jest wonderful?”
+declared the clam digger, smiting his knee with
+his palm. “Shows what it is to be book l’arned,
+shipmet.</p>
+
+<p>“’Course, <i>I</i> knowed them was tropical places,
+but I didn’t know ’twas all writ down in books—joggerfries,
+do they call ’em?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” said Tess, seriously. “And it is
+so hot down there they couldn’t possibly need
+warming pans.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, ye’d think that, wouldn’t ye, shipmet?
+And I’d think it. But the skipper of the <i>Spankin’
+Sal</i>, he knowed dif’rent.</p>
+
+<p>“A master brainy man was Captain Roebuck.
+That was his name—Roebuck,” declared the clam
+digger, solemnly. “Hev you ever seen a warming
+pan, shipmet—an old-fashioned warmin’
+pan?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes!” cried Tess and Dot together.
+“There’s one hangs over the mantelpiece in the
+sitting-room of the old Corner House,” added
+Tess. “That’s where we live when we’re at
+home in Milton.</p>
+
+<p>“And it is a round brass pan, with a cover
+that has holes in it, and a long handle. Mrs. MacCall
+says folks used to put live coals in it and
+iron the beds before folks went to bed, in the cold
+weather. But we got furnace heat now, and
+don’t need the warming pan.”</p>
+
+<p>“Surely, surely, shipmet,” agreed the clam
+digger. “Them’s the things. And Cap’n Roebuck
+of the <i>Spankin’ Sal</i>, plagued near crammed
+the upper holt with them.</p>
+
+<p>“It looks right foolish, shipmet; but that skipper
+got a chancet ter buy up a whole lot o’ them
+brass warmin’ pans cheap. If he’d seen ’em
+cheap enough, he’d bought up a hull cargo of
+secon’ hand hymn books, and he’d took ’em out
+to the heathen in the South Seas and made a profit
+on ’em—he would that!” pursued Kuk, confidently.</p>
+
+<p>“He must have been a wonderful man, sir,”
+said Tess, while Dot sat round-eyed and listened.</p>
+
+<p>“Wonderful! wonderful!” agreed the clam
+digger. “But about them warmin’ pans. When
+we got ter Porto Rico we broke out the first of
+them things. Looked right foolish. All them
+dons in Panama hats and white pants, an’ barefooted
+comin’ aboard to look over samples of
+tradin’ stock, an’ all they can see is warmin’ pans.</p>
+
+<p>“‘What’s them things for?’ axed the first
+planter, in the Spanish lingo.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Them’s skimmers,’ says Cap’n Roebuck,
+knowin’ it warn’t no manner o’ use to try to explain
+the exact truth to a man what ain’t never
+seed snow, or knowed there was a zero mark on
+the almanack.</p>
+
+<p>“He grabbed up one o’ them warmin’ pans and
+made a swing with it like you’d use a crab-net.
+‘See! See!’ says the dons. ‘Skim-a da merlasses.’
+That’s Spanish for ‘Yes, yes! skim the
+merlasses,’” explained Kuk, seriously.</p>
+
+<p>“‘But what’s the cover for?’ axed the don.
+‘Ye don’t hafter have no cover,’ says Cap’n Roebuck,
+and he yanks the cover off the warmin’ pan
+an’ throws it away.</p>
+
+<p>“And there them dons had the finest merlasses
+dipper that ever went inter the islan’s. Cap’n
+Roebuck seen their eyes snap an’ put a good, stiff
+price on the things, and inside of a week there
+warn’t a warmin’ pan left on the <i>Spankin’ Sal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“Then,” pursued the clam digger, “we stowed
+away in our upper holt goods what would bring
+a fancy price at Rio, and laid our course for the
+Amazon.</p>
+
+<p>“But we was all hands mighty worritted,” admitted
+Kuk, lowering his voice mysteriously.
+“Ye see, ye never could tell in them old days, an’
+in the West Injies, who it was safe to trust, an’
+who it was safe ter <i>dis</i>-trust.</p>
+
+<p>“Yer see, so many of them snaky Spanish
+planters was hand an’ glove with the pi-<i>rats</i>.
+And ev’rybody on the island knowed the <i>Spankin’
+Sal</i> was takin’ away a great treasure that had been
+exchanged for them warmin’ pans. We was a
+fair mark, as ye might say, for them pi-<i>rats</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” gasped Dot, hugging her Alice-doll the
+tighter.</p>
+
+<p>“How much treasure was there, Mr. Kuk?”
+asked the ever-practical Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“A chist full,” announced the clam digger without
+a moment’s hesitation. “A reg’lar treasure-chist
+full. All them planters hadn’t had ready
+cash money to pay for the warmin’ pans, and
+they’d give in exchange di’monds and other jools—and
+the exchange rates for American money was
+high anyway. So the <i>Spankin’ Sal</i> was a mighty
+good ketch if the pi-<i>rats</i> ketched her.</p>
+
+<p>“So, when we sailed from Porto Rico we kep’ a
+weather eye open for black-painted schooners with
+rakin’ masts an’ skulls and shinbones on their
+flags. When we seed them signs we’d know they
+was pi-<i>rats</i>,” declared Kuk, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>The small Corner House girls sighed in unison—and
+in delight! “The plot thickens!” whispered
+Agnes to Ruth behind the flap of the tent
+where they were listening, likewise, though unbeknown
+to Kuk and the children.</p>
+
+<p>“Go on, please, Mr. Kuk,” breathed Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, do!” said Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, shipmets,” said the old clam digger,
+“bein’ peaceful merchantmen, as ye might say, we
+hadn’t shipped aboard the <i>Spankin’ Sal</i> to fight no
+pi-<i>rats</i>,” declared Kuk, with energy. “We wasn’t
+no sogers, and we told the skipper so.</p>
+
+<p>“‘We’ll fight,’ says I. Bein’ an officer—carpenter’s
+mate, as I told ye—I was spokesman for
+the crew. ‘But we wants ter fight with weepons
+as we air fermiliar with. Let you and the ossifers
+fire the cannon, skipper,’ says I, ‘and give us
+fellers that was bred along shore an’ on the farms
+some o’ them scythes out’n the lower holt.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Cutlasses an’ muskets,’ says I, ‘is all right
+for them as has been brought up with ’em,’ says I,
+‘but, skipper, me an’ my shipmets has been better
+used ter cuttin’ swamp-grass an’ mowin’ oats.
+Give us the weepons we air fermiliar with.’</p>
+
+<p>“And he done it,” declared Kuk, wagging his
+sinful old head. “We broke out some cases of
+scythes and fixed ’em onto their handles after
+grindin’ of ’em sharp as razers on the grin’stone
+in the waist of the <i>Spankin’ Sal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“Pretty soon we seen one o’ them black-hulled
+schooners comin’. She couldn’t be mistook for
+anythin’ but a pi-<i>rat</i>, although she didn’t fly no
+black flag yet.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Let ’em come to close quarters, skipper,’ says
+I. ‘Let ’em board us. Then me an’ my shipmets
+can git ’em on the short laig. We’ll mow ’em
+down like weeds along a roadside ditch.’</p>
+
+<p>“He done it, an’ we did,” pursued Kuk, rather
+heated now with the interest of his own narrative.
+“When they run their schooner alongside of us
+and the two ships clinched, and they broke out the
+black flag at their peak, me an’ my shipmets stood
+there ready to repel boarders.</p>
+
+<p>“Them pi-<i>rats</i>,” proceeded Kuk, “fought like
+a passel of cats—tooth an’ nail! They come over
+aour bulwarks jest like peas pourin’ out o’ a sack.
+‘Steady, lads!’ I sings out. ‘Take a long, sweepin’
+stroke, an’ each o’ ye cut a good swath!’</p>
+
+<p>“An’ we done so,” the clam digger said, nodding.
+“Our scythes was longer than the cutlasses
+of them pi-<i>rats</i>; and before they could git at us,
+we’d reach ’em with a side-swipe of the scythes,
+and mow ’em down like ripe hay.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear, me!” gasped Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“How awful!” murmured Tess.</p>
+
+<p>“’Twas sartain sure a bloody field of battle,”
+declared the clam digger, nodding again. “If it
+hadn’t been for my leg I wouldn’t never have
+fought no pi-<i>rats</i> again. A man has his feelin’s,
+ye see. Our scuppers run blood. The enemy was
+piled along the deck under our bulwarks in a reg’lar
+windrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did you kill them <i>all</i>—every one?” demanded
+Tess, in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>“No. We jest cut ’em down for the most part,”
+explained Kuk. “Ye see, we cut a low swath with
+our scythes; mostly we mowed off their feet and
+mebbe their legs purty near to their knees. After
+that there battle there was a most awful lot o’
+wooden legged pi-<i>rats</i> on the Spanish Main.</p>
+
+<p>“An’ <i>that</i>,” declared the clam digger, rising and
+getting ready to move on, “was the main reason
+why I left the sea; leastwise I never wanted to go
+sailin’ much in them parts again.</p>
+
+<p>“In the scrimmage I got a shot in this leg as
+busted my knee-cap. I kep’ hoppin’ ’round on
+that busted leg as long as there was any pi-<i>rats</i>
+to mow down; and I did the knee a lot of harm the
+doctors in the horspital said.</p>
+
+<p>“So I had ter have the leg ampertated. That
+made folks down that-a-way ax me was I a pi-<i>rat</i>,
+too. I’m a sensitive man,” said Kuk, wagging
+his head, “an’ it hurt my feelin’s to be classed in
+with all them wooden-legged fellers as we mowed
+down in the <i>Spankin’ Sal</i>. So I come hum an’ left
+the sea for good and all,” concluded Habakuk
+Somes, and at once pegged off with his clam basket
+on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>“What an awful, <i>awful</i> story!” cried Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“Too awful to believe,” answered Tess, wisely.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink23'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XXIII—THE SHADOW</a></h2>
+
+<p>The four Corner House girls planned to start
+for town one morning early, and they were going
+by road instead of by boat.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes ran over to the boys’ tents to ask Neale
+O’Neil to see that their fresh fish was put upon
+the ice in the icebox when the fishman came;
+and she found Neale doing duty on the housekeeping
+staff that morning, being busily engaged in
+shaking up the pillows and beating mattresses in
+the sun. The latter exertion was particularly for
+the dislodgment of the ubiquitous sandflea!</p>
+
+<p>“Hello, Ag! What’s the good word?” cried
+Neale.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes told him what they were going to do and
+asked the favor.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll see that you get the fish all right,” Neale
+agreed. “But what about the iceman? He’ll
+never come near your tent with Tom Jonah there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah is going with us,” Agnes said,
+promptly. “Did you suppose we’d leave him all
+day alone, poor fellow?”</p>
+
+<p>When they started Tom Jonah showed his delight
+at being included in the girls’ outing by the
+most extravagant gyrations. As they went up the
+shaded lane toward the auto-stage road, he chased
+half a dozen imaginary rabbits into the woods in as
+many minutes.</p>
+
+<p>It was right at the head of the lane that they
+met the man. He was not a bad looking man at
+all, and he was driving a nice horse to a rubber-tired
+runabout.</p>
+
+<p>He drew in the horse, that seemed to have already
+traveled some miles that morning, and
+looked hard at Tom Jonah.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” he said, cheerfully, “there’s the old
+tramp himself. How long have you girls had
+him?”</p>
+
+<p>The four Corner House girls stood stock-still,
+and even Ruth was smitten dumb for the moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah, you rascal!” said the man, not
+unkindly. “Don’t you know your old master?”</p>
+
+<p>At first the dog had not seen him; but the moment
+he heard the man’s voice, he halted and his
+whole body stiffened. The plume of his tail began
+to wave; his jaws stretched wide in a doggish
+smile. Then, as the man playfully snapped the
+whip at him, Tom Jonah barked loudly.</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you get him!” the man repeated,
+looking at the Corner House girls again.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot were clinging to each other’s
+hands. Agnes stared at the man belligerently.
+Ruth said—and her voice was not quite steady:</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think you know Tom Jonah, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think yourself, Miss?” responded
+the man, rather gruffly. “I guess there’s no mistake
+about whether he knows me and I know him.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir,” said Ruth, bravely. “But lots of
+people may know him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean to put in a claim for the dog?”
+interrupted the man, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>“Tom Jonah came to our house in Milton,” began
+Ruth, when again the man interrupted with:</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. He was on his way home to me.
+I sold him to a man who lives forty miles beyond
+Milton.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then you do <i>not</i> own him?” Ruth said, with a
+feeling of relief.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at her steadily for a minute.
+Ruth had recovered her self-possession. Tess and
+Dot were now on either side of Tom Jonah, with
+their arms about the dog’s neck. Agnes was very
+angry, but remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>“I raised that dog from a pup, Miss. I owned
+his mother. I raised him. I put his name on his
+collar. He has it there yet, hasn’t he?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” admitted Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s always been a good dog. He’s a gentleman
+if ever a dog was! He had the run of the
+house. My wife and the girls made a great pet
+of him. But by and by they said he was too big
+and clumsy for the house. They have a couple of
+little <i>fice</i>—lap-poodles, or the like. Tom Jonah
+was put out, and he got jealous. Yes, sir!” and
+the man laughed. “Just as jealous as a human.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” gasped Agnes. She <i>disliked</i> that man!</p>
+
+<p>“My name’s Reynolds,” said the man. “Everybody
+knows me about Shawmit. I run a lumber-yard
+there.</p>
+
+<p>“Well! Tom Jonah got to running away to
+the neighbors. Stayed a while with one, then with
+another. Always liked kids, Tom Jonah did, and
+he’d stay longest where there were kids in the
+family.</p>
+
+<p>“But it got to be a nuisance. I didn’t know
+whether the dog belonged to me or somebody else.
+So I sold him to a relative of my wife’s who came
+on visiting us, and took a fancy to Tom Jonah, and
+who lives—as I said—forty miles beyond Milton.
+So the old fellow was on his way back home when
+you took him in, eh?”</p>
+
+<p>“He came to us at Milton,” Ruth replied. “He
+wanted to stay. I brought him down here to take
+care of my little sisters. We’re living in a tent
+down on the shore yonder——”</p>
+
+<p>“And we’re going to keep him!” interrupted
+Agnes, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>“Hush! Be still, Aggie!” begged Ruth, in a
+low tone.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t claim you bought him, I suppose?”
+said the man who called himself Reynolds.</p>
+
+<p>“But we <i>will</i>!” cried Ruth, instantly. “We
+will gladly pay for him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, he’s not for sale again,” laughed the man.
+“I sold him once and he wouldn’t stay sold, you
+see.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then he doesn’t belong to you now, any more
+than he does to us, really,” Ruth hastened to say.</p>
+
+<p>“Well——that’s so, I suppose,” admitted the
+man.</p>
+
+<p>“We won’t give Tom Jonah up to anybody,”
+said Agnes again.</p>
+
+<p>Dot was crying and Tess could scarcely keep
+from following her lead. Tom Jonah stood solemnly,
+his eyes very bright, his tail waving slowly.
+He looked from the girls to the man in the runabout,
+and back again. He knew they were discussing
+him; but he did not know just what it was
+all about.</p>
+
+<p>“If we have to,” said Ruth, with much more
+confidence in her voice than she felt in her heart,
+“we will give Tom Jonah up to the person who
+really owns him. We do not know you, sir. We
+do not know if what you say is true. You must
+prove it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! I like that!” said the man in a tone
+that showed he did not like it at all. “You are a
+pretty pert young lady, you are. I guess I’ll take
+my own dog home. I heard he was over here to
+the beach and I drove over particularly to get
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Take him, then!” exclaimed Ruth, desperately.
+“If Tom Jonah will go with you, all right. You
+call him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come here, boy!” commanded the man.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Jonah did not move. Ruth took a hand
+of each of the smaller girls and led them away
+from the big dog.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, children,” she said. “We’ll go on. If
+Tom Jonah really loves us, he’ll come, too.”</p>
+
+<p>The dog whined. He looked from the red-faced,
+angry man to the four girls who loved him so well.</p>
+
+<p>“Come here, Tom Jonah!” commanded the man
+again. He had turned his horse and was evidently
+headed for home. “Come, sir!”</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls were moving sadly
+away. Agnes glanced back and actually made a
+face at the man in the runabout. Fortunately he
+did not see it.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, Tom Jonah!” said the man for the
+third time.</p>
+
+<p>The dog was perplexed. He showed it plainly.
+He started after the man; he started back for the
+girls. He whined and he barked. He was torn
+by the conflicting emotions in his doggish soul.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the matter with him?” exclaimed the
+man, and snapped his whiplash at Tom Jonah.</p>
+
+<p>At that, Dot uttered a shriek of anguish. Tess
+burst into tears. Agnes started back as though
+to protect the dog. Even Ruth could not forbear
+to utter a cry.</p>
+
+<p>“Here, Tom Jonah! here, sir!” Agnes shouted.
+“Come on, you dear old fellow.”</p>
+
+<p>The dog barked, circled the moving carriage
+once, and then raced down the road toward the
+Corner House girls. The man shouted and
+snapped his whip. Tom Jonah did not even look
+back at him when he caught up with the girls.</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>
+<img id='ilink04' src='images/illus-004.jpg' alt=''/>
+<p class='caption'>The dog was perplexed. He started after the man; started back for the girls. He whined and he barked.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Hurry up! let’s run with him, Ruthie,” begged
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no need of that. The man did not
+turn his horse and follow. He was quickly out of
+sight and Tom Jonah gave no sign of wishing to
+follow his old master.</p>
+
+<p>The incident troubled the Corner House girls
+vastly. Even Ruth was devoted to the good old
+dog by this time. If he were taken away by this
+Mr. Reynolds, it would be like losing one of the
+Corner House family.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth feared that Mr. Reynolds would find some
+legal way of getting possession of Tom Jonah.
+She wished Mr. Howbridge were here to advise
+them what to do. She even wished now that she
+had not brought Tom Jonah to Pleasant Cove to
+act as their “chaperon.”</p>
+
+<p>The smaller girls dried their eyes after a time.
+Agnes, “breathing threatenings,” as Ruth said,
+promised Tess and Dot that the man never should
+take Tom Jonah away. But Ruth wondered what
+they would do about it if Mr. Reynolds came to
+Willowbend Camp with a police constable and a
+warrant for the dog?</p>
+
+<p>And, too, who had sent Mr. Reynolds word that
+Tom Jonah was at the beach? He particularly
+said that he had been informed of the fact. It
+seemed to Ruth that the informer must be their
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Then, out of a dust cloud that had been drawing
+near the Corner House girls for some few moments,
+appeared the forefront of a big touring
+car. In it were Trix Severn and some of her
+friends from the Overlook House.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! there’s Trix!” murmured Agnes to her
+older sister.</p>
+
+<p>The hotel-keeper’s daughter would not look at
+the Corner House girls. She, certainly, had
+proved herself their enemy. Ruth wondered if
+Trix had had anything to do with bringing Mr.
+Reynolds to Pleasant Cove, searching for his dog.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth knew that the hotel-keeper’s daughter often
+rode over to Shawmit; she was probably on
+her way there now with her party. And after the
+way Trix had acted at the time the Spoondrift
+bungalow was burned, one might expect anything
+mean of Trix. For once Ruth allowed her suspicions
+to color her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>“She has awfully good times, just the same,”
+murmured Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Who does?” demanded Ruth, tartly.</p>
+
+<p>“Trix.”</p>
+
+<p>“I declare!” exclaimed Ruth, with more vexation
+than she usually displayed. “I’d be ashamed
+that I ever knew her after the way she’s acted.
+And I believe, Agnes, that we can thank her for
+setting that man after Tom Jonah.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ruth! Do you believe so?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do,” said the older Corner House girl, and
+she explained why she thought so.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Severn bought many of his supplies in
+Shawmit, and Trix was forever running over there
+in the car. It did not strain one’s imagination
+very much to picture Trix hearing about Mr.
+Reynolds’ dog and recognizing Tom Jonah from
+the description. Besides, the Severns had been
+coming to Pleasant Cove for several seasons, and
+Trix might easily have seen the dog when he lived
+with his first master.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear me!” sighed Agnes. “It does seem
+too bad that one’s very <i>best</i> friends sometimes
+turn out to be one’s enemies. Who’d have
+thought Trix Severn would do such a thing?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, we don’t <i>know</i>,” admitted Ruth,
+trying to be fair. “But who else could have told
+Mr. Reynolds about Tom Jonah?”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth went into the first store in the village that
+sold such things and bought a new leash. This
+she snapped into the ring of his collar and made
+the old dog walk beside them more decorously.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot could scarcely keep from hugging
+him all the time; they wanted Ruth to agree to
+take the very next train back to Milton, for they
+thought with the dog once at the old Corner
+House, nobody could take him away from them.</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t like that man at all, anyway,” Tess
+declared. “He had red whiskers.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is—is that a sign that a man’s real mean if he
+has red whiskers, Tess?” asked Dot, wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a sign Tess doesn’t like him,” laughed
+Agnes. “But I don’t like that Reynolds man
+myself. Do you, Ruthie?”</p>
+
+<p>“We’re all agreed on that point I should hope,”
+said Ruth. “But we won’t run away with Tom
+Jonah. If that man comes for him again, I’ll find
+some way to circumvent him. The good old dog
+belongs to us, if he does to anybody. And as long
+as he wants to live with us, he shall. So now!”</p>
+
+<p>The other Corner House girls finally forgot
+their worriment about Tom Jonah. Ruth
+warned them not to talk about it to the girls they
+met. They did their errands in the village and
+then went on to Spoondrift bungalow where they
+spent a very enjoyable day.</p>
+
+<p>Neale O’Neil and Joe Eldred came after supper
+to escort the Corner House girls back to Willowbend
+Camp. Tess and Dot had taken a nap during
+the afternoon, so were not a drag on the procession,
+going home.</p>
+
+<p>They went around by the home of the little old
+woman who lived in the shoe. Ruth and Agnes
+had been talking with the boys about the mystery
+of the strange girl who had shared in the adventures
+of Tess and Dot on Wild Goose Island.
+They all agreed she must be a Gypsy; but Ruth
+had kept to herself the knowledge of the girl’s
+identity as the Gypsy “queen.”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw several of the Gypsies about the beach
+to-day,” Joe Eldred said. “That snaky, scarred-faced
+fellow was one of them.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s the ring-leader, I believe,” Ruth hastened
+to say.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t just see what they are after, hanging
+about here,” Neale observed. “There isn’t much
+to steal. Everybody’s brought just the oldest
+things they own down here to the beach.”</p>
+
+<p>“And there are no hens to steal,” chuckled
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“I bet none of them will come near the tents
+while Tom Jonah is on guard,” Neale added, snapping
+his fingers for the dog who was running
+ahead in the moonlit path.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Tom Jonah stopped and growled.
+They had arrived in sight of the queer little cottage
+where Rosa Wildwood lived with Mrs. Bobster.
+The young folk could even see the drawn
+shade of the sitting-room window.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s that man again!” exclaimed Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“What man?” Joe Eldred asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Bobster’s mysterious friend,” giggled
+Agnes. “See his shadow on the curtain?”</p>
+
+<p>“And he’s sitting there with his hat on,” murmured
+Neale.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Ruth who saw the other—and more
+important—shadow. This was the figure of a tall
+man slipping along the outer side of Mrs. Bobster’s
+picket fence. It was <i>this</i> shadow at which
+Tom Jonah was growling.</p>
+
+<p>The man came to the gate, opened it softly, and
+stole in. His furtive movements gave the big dog
+his cue. He leaped forward, barking vociferously,
+leaped the fence, and followed the running figure
+around the corner of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bobster shrieked—the young folk outside
+could hear her. But her “company” did not
+move. He still sat there with his derby hat on.</p>
+
+<p>The boys started after the dog. The girls stood,
+clinging to one another’s hands, at the corner of
+the fence.</p>
+
+<p>From around the house appeared another running
+figure; but this was a girl. She flung herself
+headlong over the fence, and her skirt caught on a
+picket. Ruth ran forward to release her.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my dear!” she gasped. “Where did you
+come from?”</p>
+
+<p>It was the girl she had first noticed in the train
+with the Gypsy woman—the very girl who had
+been on Wild Goose Island with Tess and Dot. It
+was she who had masqueraded as Zaliska, the
+Gypsy queen.</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink24'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XXIV—BROUGHT TO BOOK</a></h2>
+
+<p>“Let me go! Let me go!” gasped the girl in
+Ruth’s arms. “He will get me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who’ll get you?” demanded the wondering
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Big Jim, the Gypsy. He’s after me,” said the
+strange girl.</p>
+
+<p>“And Tom Jonah and the boys are after <i>him</i>,”
+declared Ruth. “Don’t you fret; Big Jim won’t
+come back here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who <i>is</i> she, Ruth?” asked Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind who I am,” said the girl, rather
+sharply. “Let me go.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know why you were lurking about here,”
+Ruth said, calmly. “You heard that Rosa Wildwood
+is stopping here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” demanded the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you are June Wildwood. You’re her sister.
+I don’t know how you came to be with those
+Gypsies, and masquerading as an old woman——”</p>
+
+<p>“My goodness!” gasped Agnes. “Was <i>she</i>
+that Gypsy queen?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Ruth said, confidently. “Now, weren’t
+you?” to the strange girl. “And aren’t you
+Rosa’s sister who ran away two years ago?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I am! I am!” groaned the girl.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Rosa’s just crazy to see you. And your
+father has been searching for you everywhere,”
+said Ruth, quickly. “You must come in and see
+Rosa. There’s Mrs. Bobster opening the front
+door.”</p>
+
+<p>The shadow of the man with the derby hat on
+his head still was motionless upon the shade; but
+the widow had opened the front door on its chain,
+and now demanded:</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s there? what do you want?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s only me, Mrs. Bobster,” cried Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot were already running toward the
+cottage door. “Oh, Mrs. Bobster!” Tess cried,
+“here’s the girl that helped us on the island—me
+and Dot.”</p>
+
+<p>“And my Alice-doll,” concluded Dot, likewise
+excited. “And Ruthie says she’s Rosa’s sister.”</p>
+
+<p>“For the good land of liberty’s sake!” ejaculated
+Mrs. Bobster, throwing wide the door.
+“Come in! Come in!”</p>
+
+<p>The girl whom Ruth had seized hesitated for a
+moment. Ruth whispered in her ear:</p>
+
+<p>“Rosa is wearing her heart out for you, June
+Wildwood. And your father isn’t drinking any
+more. He has a steady job. You come back to
+them and you needn’t be afraid of those Gypsies.”</p>
+
+<p>“They’ll try to get me back. Doc. Raynes’ wife
+was one of them. The old doctor died a year ago,
+and since then I’ve been with that gang,” said
+June Wildwood.</p>
+
+<p>“Were the doctor and his wife the folks you ran
+away with?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. I danced and sang and dressed up in
+character to help entertain their audiences when
+he sold bitters and salve,” the girl explained.
+“The old doctor treated me all right. But these
+thieving Gypsies are different. Mrs. Doc. Raynes
+is Big Jim’s sister.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you be afraid of them any more. We’ll
+set the police after them,” Ruth declared.
+“Where have you been since the day my sisters
+were with you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve been washing dishes at a hotel here in
+Pleasant Cove. But I kept under cover. I was
+afraid of them,” said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the door then, and went into the
+cottage. Mrs. Bobster ushered them right into
+the sitting-room and at once all the girls halted in
+amazement. There was an armchair standing between
+the window and the center table, where the
+lamp sat. Leaning against the chair was the
+broom, and on the business end of that very useful
+household implement was a hat that had probably
+once belonged to the husband of the little old
+woman who lived in a shoe.</p>
+
+<p>“My goodness sake!” ejaculated Agnes, the
+first to get her breath. “Then it was not company
+you had at all, Mrs. Bobster?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said the widow, in a business-like way,
+removing the hat from the broom and standing the
+latter in the corner. “But I didn’t want folks to
+know it. There’s some stragglers around here
+after dark, and I wanted ’em to think there was a
+man in the house.”</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Rosa Wildwood came running
+downstairs in wrapper and slippers. “I heard
+her! I heard her!” she shrieked, and the next
+moment the two sisters were hugging each other
+frantically.</p>
+
+<p>Explanations were in order; and it took some
+time for the little old lady who lived in a shoe to
+understand the reunion of her boarder and the girl
+who had lived with the Gypsies.</p>
+
+<p>The boys and Tom Jonah came back, having
+chased the lurking Big Jim for quite a mile
+through the woods. “And Tom Jonah brought
+back a piece of his coat-tail,” chuckled Neale
+O’Neil. “He can consider himself lucky that the
+dog didn’t bite deeper!”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess that dog doesn’t like Gypsies,” said
+June Wildwood, patting Tom Jonah’s head.</p>
+
+<p>The boys were just as much interested as their
+girl friends in the reunion of Rosa and her sister.
+Meanwhile Mrs. Bobster bustled about and found
+the usual pitcher of cool milk and a great platter
+of cookies. The young folk feasted beyond reason
+while they all talked.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth arranged with the little old woman who
+lived in a shoe to let June stay with her sister, and
+she promised June, as well, that if she would return
+to Milton with Rosa, employment would be
+found for her so that she could be self-supporting,
+yet live at home with Rosa and Bob Wildwood.</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girls offered to leave Tom
+Jonah to guard the premises for that night. But
+Mrs. Bobster said:</p>
+
+<p>“I reckon I won’t be scaret none with two great
+girls in the house with me. Besides, when I am
+asleep, being lonesome don’t bother me none—no,
+ma’am!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we don’t know how long we’re going to
+have old Tom Jonah ourselves,” sighed Agnes, as
+the party bound for the tent colony started on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“How’s that!” demanded Neale, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>They told him about the man named Reynolds,
+from Shawmit, and the claim he had made to the
+big dog. Neale was equally troubled with the Corner
+House girls over this, and he advised Ruth and
+Agnes to take the dog wherever they went.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t give the fellow a chance to find Tom
+Jonah alone, or with the little girls,” said Neale.
+“I don’t believe he can get the dog legally without
+considerable trouble. And Tom Jonah has shown
+whom he likes best.”</p>
+
+<p>This uncertainty about Tom Jonah, however,
+did not keep the Corner House girls from continuing
+their good times at Pleasant Cove. With
+one of the ladies of the tent colony for chaperon
+the girls and their boy friends had many a “junket”—up
+the river, down the bay, and even outside
+upon the open sea.</p>
+
+<p>It was on one of these latter occasions that
+Ruth and Agnes joined Neale and his friends on
+the “double-ender,” <i>Hattie G.</i>, and with her crew
+spent a night and a day chasing the elusive swordfish.</p>
+
+<p>That <i>was</i> an adventure; and one not soon to be
+forgotten by the older Corner House girls. Of
+course Tess and Dot were too small to go on this
+trip and they were fast asleep in one of the neighboring
+tents when Neale O’Neil came and
+scratched on the canvas of that in which Ruth and
+Agnes slept.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” gasped Agnes. “What’s that!”</p>
+
+<p>“Is that you, Neale?” demanded Ruth, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. Get a bustle on,” advised the boy.
+“The motorboat will be ready in ten minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mercy!” ejaculated Agnes, giggling. “You
+know we don’t wear bustles, Neale. They are too
+old-fashioned for anything.”</p>
+
+<p>She and Ruth quickly dressed. There wasn’t
+much “prinking and preening” before the mirror
+on this morning, that was sure. In ten minutes
+the two Corner House girls were running down
+the beach, with their bags (packed over-night) and
+their rain-coats over their arms. Tom Jonah
+raced after them.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere save on the beach itself the shadows
+lay deep. There was no moon and the stars
+twinkled high overhead—spangles sewed on the
+black-velvet robe of Night.</p>
+
+<p>Out upon the quietly heaving waters sounded
+voices—then the pop of a launch engine.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on!” urged Neale’s voice. “They’re
+getting the boat ready, girls.”</p>
+
+<p>“But we’re not going out to the banks in the
+<i>Nimble Shanks</i>—surely!” cried Agnes.</p>
+
+<p>“No. But we’re going down the cove in her to
+catch the <i>Hattie G.</i> Skipper Joline sent up a
+rocket for us half an hour ago. The tide’s going
+out. He won’t wait long, I assure you.”</p>
+
+<p>“It would be lots more comfortable to go all the
+way in the motorboat—wouldn’t it?” asked Ruth,
+stepping into the skiff after Agnes and the dog.</p>
+
+<p>“Skipper Joline would have a fit,” laughed Joe
+Eldred. “A motorboat engine would scare every
+swordfish within a league of the Banks—so <i>he</i>
+says. He declares <i>that</i> is what makes them so
+hard to catch the last few seasons. These motorboats
+running about the sea are a greater nuisance
+than the motor cars ashore—so he declares.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose the swordfish shy at the motorboats
+just like the horses shy at automobiles!” giggled
+Agnes, as Neale and Joe pushed off and seized the
+oars.</p>
+
+<p>“Yep,” grunted Neale O’Neil. “And the motorboats
+have frightened all the horse-mackerel
+away. That’s a joke. I’ll tell the Skipper <i>that</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Several shadowy figures—being those of the
+other boys and Mr. and Mrs. Stryver, who were
+members of the swordfishing party, too—were
+spied about the deck and cockpit of the <i>Nimble
+Shanks</i>. The boys shot the skiff in beside the
+motorboat and helped the girls aboard. Then
+they moored the skiff to the motorboat’s buoy and
+soon the <i>Nimble Shanks</i> was away, down the cove.</p>
+
+<p>It was past two o’clock—the darkest minutes of
+a summer’s morning. Seaward, a light haze hung
+over the water—seemingly a veil of mist let down
+from the sky to shut out the view of all distant
+objects from the out-sailing mariners.</p>
+
+<p>As the party neared the fishing fleet, voices carried
+flatly across the water, and now and then a
+dog barked. Tom Jonah answered these canines
+ashore with explosive growls. He stood forward,
+his paws planted firmly on the deck, and snuffing
+the sea air. Tom Jonah was a good sailor.</p>
+
+<p>“Got your scare?” a voice came out of the darkness,
+quavering across the cove. “Going to be
+thick outside.”</p>
+
+<p>Neale grabbed the fish-horn and blew a mighty
+blast on it. Similar horns answered from all
+about the fleet.</p>
+
+<p>A towering mast, with its big sail bending to the
+breeze, shot past them—the big cat-boat, <i>Susie</i>,
+bound for her lines of lobster-pots just off the
+mouth of the cove. Her crew hailed the launch
+and her party—four sturdy young fellows in jerseys
+and high sea-boots.</p>
+
+<p>“Whew!” said Joe. “Smell that lobster bait!
+I’d hate to go for a pleasure trip on the <i>Susie</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Hattie G.</i> was just ahead and Mr. Stryver
+shut off the engine. The drab, dirty looking old
+craft tugged sharply at her taut mooring cable.
+She had two short masts, and on these heavy canvas
+was being spread by the crew, which consisted
+of five men and a boy.</p>
+
+<p>One of the men was the skipper, another the
+mate, a third the cook; but all hands had to turn
+to to make sail. There were several sweeps
+(heavy oars) held in bights of rope along the rail.
+Both ends of the <i>Hattie G.</i> were sharp; in other
+words she had two bows. Thus the name, “double-ender”—a
+build of craft now almost extinct
+save in a few New England ports out of which ply
+the swordfishermen.</p>
+
+<p>Skipper Joline came to the rail. He was a
+hoarse, red-faced man with a white beard, cut like
+a paintbrush, on his chin.</p>
+
+<p>“Climb aboard, folks,” he said. “Steve will
+get breakfast shortly. There’s a bit of fog and
+some swell outside. Better all lay in a good
+foundation of scouse and sody biscuit. Ye’ll need
+it later.”</p>
+
+<p>“That sounds rather suggestive, Ruth,” whispered
+Agnes. “Do you suppose he expects us
+landlubbers to be really <i>sick</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope not,” replied her sister. “But I don’t
+care! I’m going to eat that breakfast if it kills
+me! I was never so hungry in all my life before.”</p>
+
+<p>They left the <i>Nimble Shanks</i> moored at the double-ender’s
+anchor-buoy, and the latter lurched
+away on the short leg of her tack for the entrance
+to the cove. There was a fresh breeze and the
+water began to sing under the sharp bows of the
+<i>Hattie G.</i></p>
+
+<p>The cook got busy in the galley and the fragrance
+of coffee and fried fish smothered all
+other smells about the craft—for it must be confessed
+that the double-ender had an ancient and
+fishy smell of her own that was not altogether
+pleasant to the nostrils of a fastidious person.</p>
+
+<p>These hearty boys and girls were out for fun,
+however, and they had been long enough at Pleasant
+Cove to get used to most fishy odors. Before
+breakfast was over the <i>Hattie G.</i> had run through
+the “Breach,” as the cove entrance was called,
+and they were sailing straight out to sea.</p>
+
+<p>The mournful wail of a horn in the fog now and
+then announced the location of some lobsterman.
+The <i>Hattie G.</i> answered these “scares” with her
+own horn and swept on through the fog.</p>
+
+<p>But now the mist began to lift. A golden glow
+rose, increased, and spread all along the eastern
+horizon. Suddenly they shot out of the fog and
+sailed right into the bright path of the rising sun.</p>
+
+<p>This wonderful sight of sunrise at sea delighted
+Ruth and Agnes intensely. It was just as
+though they had sailed suddenly into a new world.</p>
+
+<p>The fog masked the land astern. Ahead was
+nothing but the heaving, greenish-gray waves,
+foam-streaked at their crowns to the distant skyline,
+with only a few sails crossing the line of
+vision. Not a speck of land marred the seascape.</p>
+
+<p>Later, when the <i>Hattie G.</i> reached the Banks,
+there was something beside the view to interest
+and excite the Corner House girls.</p>
+
+<p>The big sails were lowered and only a riding
+sail spread to keep the <i>Hattie G.</i> on an even keel.
+A “pulpit” was set up on each of her short booms—both
+fore and aft.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of a mast was rigged a barrel-like
+thing in which the lookout stood with a glass, on
+the watch for the swordfish.</p>
+
+<p>These can only be caught asleep on the surface
+of the sea. When one is sighted either the sails
+are hoisted, or the sweeps are used, to bring the
+vessel near enough for the skipper or his mate to
+make a cast of the harpoon.</p>
+
+<p>Once one of the huge fish was spied, everybody
+aboard the <i>Hattie G.</i> was on the <i>qui vive</i>. The
+boys climbed the ratlines to see. The girls borrowed
+the cook’s old-fashioned spyglass to get a
+better view of the creature.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Hattie G.</i> was brought softly near the fish.
+Skipper Joline had warned his guests to keep
+quiet. Ruth kept her hand upon Tom Jonah’s collar
+so that he should not disturb the proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>The skipper stepped into the pulpit—a framework
+of iron against which he leaned when he cast
+the harpoon. All was ready for the supreme moment.</p>
+
+<p>The coil of the line was laid behind him. The
+crew brought the <i>Hattie G.</i> just to the spot Skipper
+Joline indicated with a wave of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Back swung the mighty arm of the skipper, the
+muscles swelling like cables under the sleeve of
+his blue jersey.</p>
+
+<p>“Now!” breathed the mate, as eager as any of
+the boys or girls among the spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Ping!</p>
+
+<p>The skipper had let drive. The harpoon sank
+deeply into the fish. For a brief instant they saw
+blood spurt out and dye the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Then the huge fish leaped almost its length from
+the sea. The crew drove the <i>Hattie G.</i> back.
+Good reason why the swordfishing craft are built
+sharp at both ends!</p>
+
+<p>How the fish thrashed and fought! Its sword
+beat the water to foam. Had it found the double-ender,
+the latter’s bottom-planks would have been
+no protection against the creature’s blows.</p>
+
+<p>A swordfish has been known to thrust its weapon
+through the bottom of a boat and break it off in its
+struggles to get free.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Agnes!” gasped Ruth, when the fight was
+over and the huge fish killed. “Who would ever
+believe, while buying a slice of swordfish, that it
+was so dangerous to capture one of the creatures?”</p>
+
+<p>The crew of the <i>Hattie G.</i> got four ere they set
+sail for Pleasant Cove again, and the Corner
+House girls became quite used to the methods of
+the fishermen and the tactics of the swordfish on
+being struck.</p>
+
+<p>They sailed back to Pleasant Cove with what
+was called the prize catch of the season. When
+a fish is as big as a good-sized dining-table and
+sells for twenty-five cents a pound, retail, it does
+not take many to make a good catch.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth and Agnes, and Neale and the other boys,
+were glad they went on the trip. They arrived at
+the camp late in the evening, filled with enthusiasm
+over the adventures of the day.</p>
+
+<p>And Skipper Joline presented the Corner House
+girls with a four-foot sword which, later, occupied
+a place of honor over the sitting-room mantelpiece
+in the old Corner House at Milton.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth took Tom Jonah up to see the Wildwood
+girls with her the very next time she went to call.</p>
+
+<p>The Corner House girl found Rosa and June
+shelling peas under the arbor, while Mrs. Bobster
+was talking with Kuk Somes over a “mess” of
+clams she had bought.</p>
+
+<p>“You ain’t honest enough to count out a hunderd
+clams, Kuk,” declared the plain-spoken old
+lady. “Ye got such a high-powered imagination
+that ye can’t count straight.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Mis’ Bobster, thet thar’s a hard statement
+ter make,” said Kuk, shaking his head, but
+grinning. “Don’t make me out so ’fore these here
+young ladies.”</p>
+
+<p>“I reckon they know ye!” cried the widow. “If
+they’ve ever hearn ye spin one o’ yer sea-farin’
+yarns——”</p>
+
+<p>“And we have,” interposed Ruth, smiling.
+“He’s told us about how he sailed in the <i>Spanking
+Sal</i> and lost his leg fighting pirates.”</p>
+
+<p>“For the good land o’ liberty!” gasped Mrs.
+Bobster. “He never told ye <i>that</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes. It was very interesting,” laughed
+Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said the widow, angrily, “that fellow
+never sailed in a deep-water craft in his life. The
+only time he ever went out in a double-ender as
+fur as the swordfish banks, he was so sick they had
+ter bring him ashore on a stretcher!”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Mis’ Bobster——” began the clam digger,
+faintly.</p>
+
+<p>“Ain’t that <i>so</i>? Ye daren’t deny it,” she declared.
+“He ain’t no sailor. He’s jest an old
+beach-comber. Don’t never go in <i>any</i> boat outside
+of the cove. Lost his leg fightin’ pirates, did he?
+Huh!”</p>
+
+<p>“So he told us,” said the much amused Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, th’ ridiculous old thing!” exclaimed
+Mrs. Bobster, laughing herself now. “He lost
+that leg in Mr. Reynolds’ sawmill at Shawmit—that’s
+how he did it. And he was tipsy at the
+time or he wouldn’t never have got hurt.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” cried Ruth, staring at the sheepish clam
+digger.</p>
+
+<p>“And he goes over there to Shawmit ev’ry
+month an’ collects ten dollars from Reynolds,
+who’s good-natured and helps him out with a pension.
+Ain’t that so, Kuk Somes!”</p>
+
+<p>The wooden-legged clam digger nodded.
+“Whar’s the harm?” he murmured. “Ye know
+these city folks likes ter hear my yarns. An’ it
+don’t hurt ’em none.”</p>
+
+<p>“But that’s how Mr. Reynolds heard about our
+having Tom Jonah,” declared Ruth, accusingly.
+“You told him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yep. That’s his old dawg,” said Kuk.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you’ve made us a lot of trouble,” said
+Ruth, sadly. “For I am afraid that Mr. Reynolds
+will try to take Tom Jonah away. And,” she
+added, in secret, “how wrong I was to accuse Trix
+Severn, without stronger evidence.”</p>
+
+<h2 class='chapter' id='clink25'><a href='#toc'>CHAPTER XXV—THE END OF THE OUTING</a></h2>
+
+<p>Tess and Dot Kenway had a very serious matter
+to decide. Ruth had determined that, as they
+were all enjoying themselves at Pleasant Cove so
+much, the Corner House flag should continue to
+wave for a time longer over their tent in the Willowbend
+Camp.</p>
+
+<p>But there was something at home in Milton, at
+the old Corner House itself, that the younger girls
+thought they <i>must</i> attend to.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s really a <i>nawful</i> state of affairs,” Tess declared,
+nodding her sunny head, gravely, and with
+her lips pursed up. “They are growing right up
+without knowing their own names. Why! I don’t
+see how their own mother knows them apart.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” gasped Dot, to whom this was a new idea
+indeed. “I never thought of that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it’s so,” said Tess. “I—I wish Ruth
+had sent for them and had had them brought down
+here when Rosa and Tom Jonah came.”</p>
+
+<p>“But they couldn’t leave their mother, Tess,”
+objected Dot. “They’re too small.”</p>
+
+<p>“I—don’t—know,” said Tess, doubtfully. “At
+any rate, it’s high time they were named. You
+know, Mrs. MacCall says so herself.”</p>
+
+<p>Dot picked up the letter that the kind housekeeper
+at the old Corner House had written especially
+to the two smaller Kenway girls.</p>
+
+<p>“She says they chase their tails all day long
+and they have had to put them out in the woodshed
+to keep them from being under foot,” Dot said,
+reading slowly, for Mrs. MacCall’s writing was
+not like print.</p>
+
+<p>“They must be named,” repeated Tess, with
+conviction.</p>
+
+<p>“But Ruth won’t let us go home to do it,” quoth
+Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“And I don’t want to. Do <i>you</i>?” demanded
+Tess, hastily. “I don’t want to leave the beach
+now, just when we’re having so much fun.”</p>
+
+<p>Neither did Dot. But the state of the unchristened
+kittens—the youngest family of Sandyface—troubled
+her exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>Tess, however, suddenly had one of her very
+brilliant ideas. “I tell you what let’s do!” she
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>“What?”</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s write Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus a
+letter, and ask them to name Sandyface’s children
+their own selves.”</p>
+
+<p>“But—but <i>we</i> want to name them,” cried Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“Goosey!” exclaimed Tess. “We’ll choose the
+names; but Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus can
+give them to the kittens. Don’t you see?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Tess! we might,” agreed Dot, delighted.</p>
+
+<p>Tess ran to the tent for paper and pencil, and
+bespoke the favor of an envelope addressed in ink
+to Mrs. MacCall.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, I’ll address one for you,” said Ruth,
+kindly. “But what’s all the hurry about writing
+home?”</p>
+
+<p>Tess explained the necessity that had arisen.
+Sandyface’s family of kittens was growing up
+without being christened—and something might
+happen to them.</p>
+
+<p>“You know,” said Tess, gravely, “it would be
+dreadful if one of them died and we didn’t know
+what to put on the headboard. It would be dreadful!”</p>
+
+<p>“And what names shall we send Mrs. MacCall?”
+Dot wanted to know, when Tess had started the
+letter “Deare Missus Mcall” and was chewing the
+pencil as an aid to further thought.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s call them by seashore names,” suggested
+Tess. “Then they’ll remind us of the fun we had
+here at Pleasant Cove.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh-oo! Let’s,” agreed Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, now,” said Tess, promptly. “What will
+be the very first one? I’ll write Mrs. MacCall
+what we want,” and she proceeded to indite the
+following paragraph to begin the letter:</p>
+
+<div class='bq'>
+<p>“We are having so much fun down here at plesent cove that we cant
+find time to come home and name Sandface’s babbies. But we want
+you and unc rufs to do it for us and we are going to send you the
+names we chose. They are——”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Here Tess’s laboring pencil came to a full stop.
+“Now, you got the first name, Dot?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I got two,” declared Dot, confidently.</p>
+
+<p>“What are they!” queried Tess. “Now, we
+want them to be real salt-water names. Just like
+fishes’ names—or boats’ names—or like that.”</p>
+
+<p>“I got two,” declared Dot, soberly. “Lots of
+men must be named those names about here. I
+hear them hollerin’ to each other when they are
+out in the boats.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, well!” cried Tess, impatiently. “What
+are the names?”</p>
+
+<p>“One’s ‘Starboard’ and the other’s ‘Port,’”
+declared Dot, seriously. “And they are real nice
+names, <i>I</i> think.”</p>
+
+<p>Tess was rather taken aback. She had a hazy
+opinion that “Starboard” and “Port” were not
+Christian names; they <i>might</i> be, however, and she
+had heard them herself a good deal. Besides, she
+wanted to agree with Dot if she could, and so she
+sighed and wrote as follows:</p>
+
+<div class='bq'>
+<p>“We got to names alreddy, Missus Mcall, and one’s Starborde and the
+other is Port. They are very pretty names, we think and we hope you
+an unc rufs and Sandface will like them, to. You give them to the
+kittens that they seem to fit the best, pleas.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Neale, and Ruth, and Agnes came along some
+time afterward and found the smaller Corner
+House girls reduced almost to a state of
+distraction. They had been unable to decide upon two
+more names. “Starboard” and “Port” had been
+inspired, it seemed. Now they were “stuck.”</p>
+
+<p>“It <i>does</i> seem as though there should be some
+other seashore names that would sound good for
+kittens,” sighed Tess. “I think ‘Starboard’ and
+‘Port’ are real pretty—don’t you, Ruth?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very fine,” agreed her older sister, while
+Agnes restrained her giggles.</p>
+
+<p>“Why not call one of the others ‘Hard-a-Lee’?”
+suggested Neale, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>“Is <i>that</i> a seashore name?” asked Tess, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Just as salt as a dried codfish,” declared
+Neale, confidently.</p>
+
+<p>“I think it is real pretty,” Dot ventured.</p>
+
+<p>“Then we’ll call the third one ‘Hard-a-Lee,’”
+declared Tess. “I’ll tell Mrs. MacCall so,” and
+she laboriously went at the misspelled letter again.</p>
+
+<p>“But how about the fourth one?” asked Agnes,
+laughing. “He’s not going to be a step-child, is
+he? Isn’t he to have a name?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. We must have one more,” Tess said,
+wearily. “Won’t <i>you</i> give us one, Aggie?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sure!” said Agnes, promptly. “Main-sheet.’”</p>
+
+<p>“‘Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet.’
+Some names, those!” declared Neale.</p>
+
+<p>“I like them,” Tess said, reflectively. “They
+don’t sound like other cats’ names—do they,
+Ruthie?”</p>
+
+<p>“They most certainly do not,” admitted the
+oldest Corner House girl.</p>
+
+<p>“And are they pretty, Ruthie?” asked Dot.</p>
+
+<p>“They are better than ‘pretty,’” agreed Ruth,
+kindly. “If you children are suited, I am sure
+everybody else—including the kittens themselves—will
+be pleased!”</p>
+
+<p>The labored letter was therefore finished and
+sent away. As Dot said, “it lifted a great load
+from their minds.”</p>
+
+<p>But there was another matter that served to
+trouble all four of the Corner House girls for some
+days. That was what Mr. Reynolds, the lumberman,
+was going to do about Tom Jonah.</p>
+
+<p>The girls seldom left their tent now without
+taking the dog with them. He was something of a
+nuisance in the boat when they went crabbing; but
+Agnes would not hear of going out without him.</p>
+
+<p>“I know that man will come back here some time
+and try to get him away,” she declared. “But
+Tom Jonah will never go of his own free will—no,
+indeed!”</p>
+
+<p>“And he won’t sell him again, he said,” sighed
+Ruth. “I don’t just see what we can do.”</p>
+
+<p>However, this trouble did not keep the Corner
+House girls from having many good times with
+their girl friends at the Spoondrift bungalow, and
+their boy friends on the beach.</p>
+
+<p>There were fishing trips, and picnics on Wild
+Goose Island. They sometimes went outside the
+cove in bigger boats, and fished on the “banks,”
+miles and miles off shore. There was fun in the
+evenings, too, at the hotel dances, although the
+Corner House girls did not attend any of those
+held at the Overlook House, for they were not exactly
+friendly with Trix Severn.</p>
+
+<p>One day Pearl Harrod’s Uncle Phil arranged to
+take a big party of the older girls to Shawmit,
+which was some miles up the river. Ruth and
+Agnes went along and that day they left Tom
+Jonah at Willowbend to take care of the smaller
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth determined to see Mr. Reynolds, so when
+they reached Shawmit, she hunted up the lumberman’s
+office. She found him in a more amiable
+mood than he had been on the morning he drove
+to Pleasant Cove to get Tom Jonah.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Miss!” he said. “How do you feel
+about giving up that dog?”</p>
+
+<p>“Just the same, sir,” said Ruth, honestly.
+“But I hope you will tell me who the man is you
+sold Tom Jonah to, so that we can go to him and
+buy the dog.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you girls really want old Tom Jonah as
+much as <i>that</i>?” asked Mr. Reynolds.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” said the girl, simply.</p>
+
+<p>“Willing to buy the old rascal? And he’s nothing
+but a tramp.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s a gentleman. You said so yourself on
+his collar,” said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at her seriously and nodded.
+“I guess you think a whole lot of him, eh?”</p>
+
+<p>“A great deal, sir,” admitted Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>“Well! I guess I’ll have to tell you,” said the
+man, smiling. “Old Tom evidently thinks more
+of you girls than he does of me. Tell you what:
+After I got home the other day I thought it over.
+I reckon Tom Jonah’s chosen for himself. I paid
+my brother-in-law back the money he gave me for
+him. So you won’t be bothered again about him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, sir——”</p>
+
+<p>“You keep him. Rather, let Tom Jonah stay as
+long as he wants to. But if he comes back to me
+I sha’n’t let him go again. No! I don’t want
+money for him. I guess the old dog likes it where
+he is, and his days of usefulness are pretty nearly
+over anyway. I’m convinced he’ll have a good
+home with you Corner House girls.”</p>
+
+<p>“Just as long as he lives!” declared Ruth, fervently.</p>
+
+<p>So Mr. Reynolds did not prove to be a hardhearted
+man, after all. Agnes and Tess and Dot
+were delighted. There was a regular celebration
+over Tom Jonah that evening after Ruth got home
+and told the news.</p>
+
+<p>It is doubtful if Tom Jonah understood when
+Dot informed him that he was going to be their
+dog “for keeps.” But he barked very intelligently
+and the two smaller girls were quite convinced
+that he understood every word that was
+said to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, he can’t talk back,” Tess said.
+“Dogs don’t speak our language. But if we could
+understand the <i>barking language</i>, I am sure we
+would hear him say he was glad.”</p>
+
+<p>And as our story of the Corner House girls’
+visit to Pleasant Cove began with Tom Jonah, we
+may safely end it with the assurance that the good
+old dog will spend the rest of his life with Ruth
+and Agnes and Tess and Dot, at the old Corner
+House in Milton.</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>THE END</p>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>CHARMING STORIES FOR GIRLS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:0.8em;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:1em;'>(From eight to twelve years old)</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>BY GRACE BROOKS HILL</p>
+
+<p>Four girls from eight to fourteen
+years of age receive word that a rich
+bachelor uncle has died, leaving them
+the old Corner House he occupied.
+They move into it and then the fun
+begins. What they find and do will
+provoke many a hearty laugh. Later,
+they enter school and make many
+friends. One of these invites the
+girls to spend a few weeks at a bungalow
+owned by her parents; and the
+adventures they meet with make very
+interesting reading. Clean, wholesome
+stories of humor and adventure,
+sure to appeal to all young girls.</p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+1 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS.<br/>
+2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.<br/>
+3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS.<br/>
+4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY.<br/>
+5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS’ ODD FIND.<br/>
+6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR.<br/>
+7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP.<br/>
+8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND.<br/>
+9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT.<br/>
+10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES.<br/>
+11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND.<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0;'>BARSE &amp; HOPKINS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.</p>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>THE POLLY PENDLETON SERIES</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>BY DOROTHY WHITEHILL</p>
+
+<p>Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake
+American girl who goes to a boarding
+school on the Hudson River some miles
+above New York. By her pluck and resourcefulness,
+she soon makes a place for
+herself and this she holds right through the
+course. The account of boarding school
+life is faithful and pleasing and will attract
+every girl in her teens.</p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+1 POLLY’S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL<br/>
+2 POLLY’S SUMMER VACATION<br/>
+3 POLLY’S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL<br/>
+4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR<br/>
+5 POLLY AND LOIS<br/>
+6 POLLY AND BOB<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated.</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0;'>BARSE &amp; HOPKINS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>PUBLISHERS</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.</p>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>CHICKEN LITTLE JANE SERIES</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>By LILY MUNSELL RITCHIE</p>
+
+<p>Chicken Little Jane is a
+Western prairie girl who
+lives a happy, outdoor life
+in a country where there
+is plenty of room to turn
+around. She is a wide-awake,
+resourceful girl
+who will instantly win her
+way into the hearts of
+other girls. And what
+good times she has!—with
+her pets, her friends, and
+her many interests.
+“Chicken Little” is the affectionate
+nickname given to her when she is
+very, very good, but when she misbehaves it is
+“Jane”—just Jane!</p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+Adventures of Chicken Little Jane<br/>
+Chicken Little Jane on the “Big John”<br/>
+Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>With numerous illustrations in pen and ink</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0;'>BARSE &amp; HOPKINS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>PUBLISHERS</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.</p>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>Dorothy Whitehall Series</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>For Girls</i></p>
+
+<p>Here is a sparkling new
+series of stories for girls—just
+what they will like,
+and ask for more of the
+same kind. It is all about
+twin sisters, who for the
+first few years in their
+lives grow up in ignorance
+of each other’s existence.
+Then they are at
+last brought together and
+things begin to happen.
+Janet is an independent
+go-ahead sort of girl;
+while her sister Phyllis is—but meet the twins
+for yourself and be entertained.</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:1em;'>6 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo., Covers in color.</p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+1. JANET, A TWIN<br/>
+2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN<br/>
+3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST<br/>
+4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH<br/>
+5. THE TWINS’ SUMMER VACATION<br/>
+6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0;'>BARSE &amp; HOPKINS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>PUBLISHERS</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.</p>
+<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:70%; margin:2em auto' />
+
+<p class='center' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>THE MARY JANE SERIES</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>BY CLARA INGRAM JUDSON</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated.</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>With picture inlay and wrapper.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Jane is the typical American little
+girl who bubbles over with fun and the
+good things in life. We meet her here on
+a visit to her grandfather’s farm where she
+becomes acquainted with farm life and farm
+animals and thoroughly enjoys the experience.
+We next see her going to
+kindergarten and then on a visit to Florida, and then—but
+read the stories for yourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Exquisitely and charmingly written are these books which
+every little girl from five to nine years old will want from the
+first book to the last.</p>
+
+<table style='margin:auto' summary=''>
+<tr><td>
+1 MARY JANE—HER BOOK<br/>
+2 MARY JANE—HER VISIT<br/>
+3 MARY JANE’S KINDERGARTEN<br/>
+4 MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH<br/>
+5 MARY JANE’S CITY HOME<br/>
+6 MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND<br/>
+7 MARY JANE’S COUNTRY HOME<br/>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0;'>BARSE &amp; HOPKINS</p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'><i>PUBLISHERS</i></p>
+
+<p class='center' style='margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;'>NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by 
+Grace Brooks Hill
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by Grace Brooks Hill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Corner House Girls Under Canvas
+       How they reached Pleasant Cove and what happened afterward
+
+Author: Grace Brooks Hill
+
+Illustrator: R. Emmett Owen
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2012 [EBook #38742]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for
+help, they were out of sight of the camp.]
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE
+
+GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+
+ HOW THEY REACHED PLEASANT COVE
+ AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD
+
+BY
+
+GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Author of "The Corner House Girls,"
+"The Corner House Girls at School," etc.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY_
+
+_R. EMMETT OWEN_
+
+NEW YORK
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+The Corner House Girls Series
+
+By Grace Brooks Hill
+
+_Illustrated._
+
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND
+  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR
+
+(_Other volumes in preparation_)
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+Publishers--New York
+
+Copyright, 1915,
+
+by
+
+Barse & Hopkins
+
+_The Corner House Girls Under Canvas_
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I. Tom Jonah
+  II. Something to Look Forward To
+  III. The Dance at Carrie Poole's
+  IV. The Mystery of June Wildwood
+  V. Off for the Seaside
+  VI. On the Train
+  VII. Something Ahead
+  VIII. The Gypsy Camp
+  IX. The Spoondrift Bungalow
+  X. Some Excitement
+  XI. The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
+  XII. A Picnic with Agamemnon
+  XIII. The Night of the Big Wind
+  XIV. An Important Arrival
+  XV. Two Girls in a Boat--to Say Nothing of the Dog!
+  XVI. The Gypsies Again
+  XVII. On Wild Goose Island
+  XVIII. The Search
+  XIX. A Startling Meeting
+  XX. The Frankfurter Man
+  XXI. Mrs. Bobster's Mysterious Friend
+  XXII. The Yarn of the "Spanking Sal"
+  XXIII. The Shadow
+  XXIV. Brought to Book
+  XXV. The End of the Outing
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for help,
+they were out of sight of the camp
+
+A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging
+with both hands to the ridge of it
+
+Ruth actually went back, groping through the
+gathering smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled
+out upon the shingles
+
+The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;
+he started back for the girls. He whined and he
+barked
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+TOM JONAH
+
+
+"Come here, Tess! Come quick and look at this poor dog. He's just
+drip-ping-_wet_!"
+
+Dot Kenway stood at a sitting-room window of the old Corner House,
+looking out upon Willow Street. It was a dripping day, and anything or
+anybody that remained out-of-doors and exposed to the downpour for
+half an hour, was sure to be saturated.
+
+Nothing wetter or more miserable looking than the dog in question had
+come within the range of the vision of the two younger Corner House
+girls that Saturday morning.
+
+Tess, who was older than Dot, came running. Anything as frightfully
+despondent and hopeless looking as that dog was bound to touch the
+tender heart of Tess Kenway.
+
+"Let's--let's take him to the porch and feed him, Dot," she cried.
+
+"Will Ruthie let us?" asked Dot.
+
+"Of course. She's gone for her music lesson and won't know, anyway,"
+declared Tess, recklessly.
+
+"But maybe Mrs. MacCall won't like it?"
+
+"She's upstairs and won't know, either. Besides," Tess said,
+bolstering up her own desire, "she says she hasn't ever sent anybody
+away hungry from her door; and that poor dog looks just as hungry as
+any tramp that ever came to the old Corner House."
+
+The girls ran out of the sitting-room into the huge front hall which,
+in itself, was almost big enough for a ballroom. It was finished in
+dark, dark oak; there was a huge front door--like the door of a
+castle; the furniture was walnut, upholstered in haircloth, worn shiny
+by more than three generations of use; and out of the middle of the
+hall a great stairway arose, dividing when half-way up into two
+sections, while a sort of gallery was built all around the hall at the
+second floor, out of which the doors of the principal chambers opened.
+
+There was a third story above, and above that a huge garret--often the
+playroom of the Corner House girls on such days as this. In the rear
+were two wings built on to the house, each three stories in height.
+The house had its "long" side to Willow Street, and only a narrow
+grass plot and brick walk separated the sitting-room windows from the
+boundary fence.
+
+It faced Main Street, at its head, where the Parade Ground began. The
+dripping trees on the Parade were now in full leaf and the lush grass
+beneath them was green. The lawns of the old Corner House needed the
+mower, too; and at the back Uncle Rufus--the general factotum of the
+establishment--had laid out a wonderful kitchen garden which already
+had yielded radishes and tender onions and salad, and promised green
+peas to accompany the spring lamb to the table on the approaching
+Fourth.
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway crossed the big hall of the Corner House, and went
+on through the dining-room with its big table, huge, heavily carved
+sideboard and comfortably armed chairs, through the butler's pantry
+into the kitchen. As Tess had said, Mrs. MacCall, their good-natured
+and lovable housekeeper, was not in sight. Nobody delayed them, and
+they stepped out upon the half-screened porch at the back. The
+woodshed joined it at the far end. The steps faced Willow Street.
+
+On the patch of drying green a goat was tethered, lying down in the
+rain, reflectively chewing a cud. He bleated when he saw the girls,
+but did not offer to rise; the rain did not disturb him in the least.
+
+"Billy Bumps likes the rain," Dot said, thoughtfully.
+
+The dog outside the gate did not seem to be enjoying himself. He had
+dropped down upon the narrow strip of sward between the flagged walk
+and the curbing; his sides heaved as though he had run a long way, and
+his pink tongue lolled out of his mouth and dripped.
+
+"My!" Dot murmured, as she saw this, "the rain's soaked right through
+the poor doggy--hasn't it? And it's just dripping out of him!"
+
+Tess, more practical, if no more earnest in her desire to relieve the
+dog's apparent misery, ran down to the gate through the falling rain
+and called to him:
+
+"Poor, poor doggie! Come in!"
+
+She opened the gate temptingly, but the strange dog merely wagged his
+tail and looked at her out of his beautiful brown eyes. He was a
+Newfoundland dog, with a cross of some breed that gave him patches of
+deep brown in his coat and very fine, long, silky hair that curled up
+at the ends. He was strongly built and had a good muzzle which was
+powdered with the gray hairs of age.
+
+"Come here, old fellow," urged Tess, "_Do_ come in!"
+
+She snapped her fingers and held the gate more invitingly open. He
+staggered to his feet and limped toward her. He did not crouch and
+slink along as a dog does that has been beaten; but he eyed her
+doubtfully as though not sure, after all, of this reception.
+
+He was muddied to his flanks, his coat was matted with green burrs,
+and there was a piece of frayed rope knotted about his neck. The dog
+followed Tess doubtfully to the porch. Billy Bumps climbed to his feet
+and shook his head threateningly, stamping his feet; but the strange
+dog was too exhausted to pay the goat any attention.
+
+The visitor at first refused to mount the steps, but he looked up at
+Dot and wagged his tail in greeting.
+
+"Oh, Tess!" cried the smallest girl. "He thinks he knows me. Do you
+suppose we have ever seen him before?"
+
+"I don't believe so," said Tess, bustling into the woodshed and out
+again with a pan of broken meat that had been put aside for Sandyface
+and her children. "I know I should remember him if I had ever seen him
+before. Come, old fellow! Good doggie! Come up and eat."
+
+She put the pan down on the porch and stood back from it. The brown
+eyes of the dog glowed more brightly. He hesitatingly hobbled up the
+steps.
+
+A single sniff of the tidbits in the pan, and the dog fell to
+wolfishly, not stopping to chew at all, but fairly jerking the meat
+into his throat with savage snaps.
+
+"Oh, don't gobble so!" gasped Dot. "It--it's bad for your
+indigestions--and isn't polite, anyway."
+
+"Guess you wouldn't be polite if you were as hungry as he is," Tess
+observed.
+
+The dog was so tired that he lay right down, after a moment, and ate
+with his nose in the pan. Dot ventured to pat his wet coat and he
+thumped his tail softly on the boards, but did not stop eating.
+
+At this juncture Uncle Rufus came shuffling up the path from the
+hen-coop. Uncle Rufus was a tall, stoop-shouldered, pleasantly brown
+negro, with a very bald crown around which was a narrow growth of
+tight, grizzled "wool." He had a smiling face, and if the whites of
+his eyes were turning amber hued with age he was still "purty
+pert"--to use his own expression--save when the rheumatism laid him
+low.
+
+"Whar' yo' chillen done git dat dawg?" he wanted to know, in
+astonishment.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Rufus!" cried Dot. "He came along looking _so_ wet----"
+
+"And he was _so_ tired and hungry," added Tess.
+
+"I done spec' yo' chillen would take in er wild taggar, ef one come
+erlong lookin' sort o' meachin'," grumbled the colored man.
+
+"But he's so good!" said Tess. "See!" and she put her hand upon the
+handsome head of the bedraggled beast.
+
+"He jes' er tramp dawg," said Uncle Rufus, doubtfully.
+
+"He's only tired and dirty," said Tess, earnestly. "I don't believe he
+wants to be a tramp. He doesn't look at all like the tramps Mrs.
+MacCall feeds at the back door here."
+
+"Nor like those horrid Gypsies that came to the house the other day,"
+added Dot eagerly. "I was afraid of them."
+
+"Well, it suah ain't b'long 'round yere--dat dawg," muttered Uncle
+Rufus. "It done run erway f'om somewhar' an' hit trabbel
+far--ya-as'm!"
+
+He pulled the ears of the big dog himself, in a kindly fashion, and
+the dog pounded the porch harder with his tail and rolled a trusting
+eye up at the little group. Evidently the tramp dog was convinced that
+this would be a good place to remain in, and "rest up."
+
+A pretty girl of twelve or thirteen, with flower-like face, plump, and
+her blue eyes dancing and laughing in spite of her, ran in at the side
+gate. She had a covered basket of groceries on her arm, and was
+swathed in a raincoat with a close hood about her face.
+
+"Agnes!" screamed Dot. "See what we've got! Just the nicest,
+friendfulnest dog----"
+
+"Mercy, Dot! More animals?" was the older sister's first comment.
+
+"But he's such a _nice_ dog," wailed Dot.
+
+"And so hungry and wet," added Tess.
+
+"What fine eyes he has!" exclaimed Agnes, stooping down to pat the
+noble head. Instantly the dog's pink tongue sought her hand and--Agnes
+was won!
+
+"He's splendid! he's a fine old fellow!" she cried. "Of course we'll
+keep him, Dot."
+
+"If Ruthie says so," added Tess, with a loyalty to the oldest Corner
+House girl born of the fact that Ruth had mothered the brood of three
+younger sisters since their real mother had died three years previous.
+
+"I dunno wot yo' chillen want er dawg for," complained Uncle Rufus.
+
+"To keep chicken thieves away," said Agnes, promptly, laughing
+roguishly at the grumbling black man.
+
+"Oh!" cried Tess. "You said yourself, Uncle Rufus, that those Gypsies
+that stopped here might be looking at Ruth's chickens."
+
+"Well, I done guess dat tramp dawg knows when he's well off," said the
+old man, chuckling suddenly. "He's layin' down lak' he's fixin' tuh
+stay--ya-as'm!"
+
+The dog had crept to the most sheltered corner of the porch and curled
+up on an old rag mat Mrs. MacCall had left there for the cats.
+
+"He ought to have that dirty old rope taken off," said Agnes.
+
+Uncle Rufus drew out his clasp knife and opened the blade. He
+approached the weary dog and knelt down to remove the rope.
+
+"Glo-_ree_!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "He done got er collar on him."
+
+It was hidden in the thick hair about the dog's neck. The three girls
+crowded close to see, Uncle Rufus unbuckled it and handed the leather
+strap to Agnes.
+
+"See if there is any name and address on it, Aggie!" gasped Tess. "Oh!
+I hope not. Then, if we don't know where he came from, he's ours for
+keeps."
+
+There was a small brass plate; but no name, address, or license number
+was engraved upon it. Instead, in clear script, it was marked:
+
+                     "THIS IS TOM JONAH. HE IS A
+                              GENTLEMAN."
+
+"There!" cried Dot, as though this settled the controversy. "What did
+I tell you? He _can't_ be any tramp dog. He's a gentleman."
+
+"'Tom Jonah,'" murmured Agnes. "What a funny name!"
+
+When Ruth came home the younger girls bore her off at once to see Tom
+Jonah sleeping comfortably on the porch. The old dog raised his
+grizzled muzzle, wagged his tail, and beamed at her out of his soft
+brown eyes.
+
+"The dear love!" cried Tess, clasping her hands. "Isn't he beautiful,
+Ruthie?"
+
+"Beautifully dirty," said Ruth, doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, but Uncle Rufus says he will wash him to-morrow. He's got some
+insect--insecty-suicide soap like he puts on the henroosts----"
+
+"Insecticide, Dot," admonished Tess. "I wish you wouldn't try to say
+words that you _can't_ say."
+
+Dot pouted. But Ruth patted her head and said, soothingly:
+
+"Never mind, honey. We'll let the poor dog stay till he rests up,
+anyway. He looks like a kind creature."
+
+But she, as well as the adults in the old Corner House, did not expect
+to see Tom Jonah the next morning when they awoke. He was allowed to
+remain on the porch, and despite the objections of Sandyface, the
+mother cat, and the army of younger felines growing up about her, Tom
+Jonah was given a bountiful supper by Mrs. MacCall herself.
+
+Dot and Tess ran to peep at the dog just before going to bed that
+night. He blinked at them in the lampshine from the open door, and
+thumped the porch flooring with his tail.
+
+It was past midnight before anything more was heard of Tom Jonah. Then
+the whole house was aroused--not to say the neighborhood. There was a
+savage salvo of barks from the porch, and down the steps scrambled Tom
+Jonah. They heard him go roaring down the yard.
+
+Then there arose a great confusion at the hen house--a squawking of
+frightened hens, the loud "cut, cut, ca-da-cut!" of the rooster,
+mingling with which was the voice of at least one human being and the
+savage baying of Tom Jonah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO
+
+
+Uncle Rufus was too old and too stiff to get out of bed and down from
+his third-story room in the old Corner House, to be of any assistance
+at this midnight incident. But the girls were awakened the moment Tom
+Jonah began barking.
+
+"It's a hen thief!" squealed Tess, leaping out of her own warm nest.
+
+"I hope that dog bites him!" cried Agnes, savagely, from the other
+room.
+
+She ran to the window. It was a starlit, but foggy night. She could
+see only vaguely the objects out of doors.
+
+Ruth was scrambling into a skirt and dressing sacque; she thrust her
+feet into shoes, too, and started downstairs. Mrs. MacCall's window
+went up with a bang, and the girls heard the housekeeper exclaim:
+
+"Shoo! shoo! Get out of there!"
+
+Whoever it was that had roused Tom Jonah, the person was evidently
+unable to "get out of there." The dog's threatening growls did not
+cease, and the man's voice which had first been heard when the trouble
+started, was protesting.
+
+Agnes followed her older sister downstairs. Of course, Aunt Sarah
+Maltby, who slept in one of the grand front rooms in the main part of
+the house, did not even hear all the disturbance. And there were not
+any houses really near the Stower Homestead, which Milton people knew
+by the name of "the old Corner House."
+
+Therefore, the sounds of conflict at the Kenway hennery were not
+likely to arouse many people. But when Ruth and Agnes reached
+out-of-doors, the younger girl remembered one person who might hear
+and be of assistance.
+
+"Let's call Neale O'Neil!" she cried to Ruth. "He'll help us."
+
+"We'd better call a policeman," said Ruth, running down the brick
+path.
+
+"Huh! you wouldn't find a policeman in Milton at this hour of the
+night, if you searched for a week of Sundays," was the younger girl's
+ambiguous statement. Then she raised her voice and shouted: "Neale!
+Neale O'Neil! Help!"
+
+Meantime the dog continued his threatening bayings. The fowls
+fluttered and squawked. Billy Bumps began to blat and butt the
+partition in his pen. Whoever had ventured into the hennery had gotten
+into hot quarters and no mistake!
+
+Ruth stopped suddenly in the path and clutched at Agnes' arm. Agnes
+was as lightly dressed as herself; but it was a warm June night and
+there was no danger of their getting cold.
+
+[Illustration: A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging
+with both hands to the ridge of it.]
+
+"Suppose the dog does not remember us?" the older girl gasped in
+Agnes' ear. "Maybe--maybe he'll tear us to pieces. How savage he
+sounds!"
+
+Agnes was frightened; but she had pluck, too. "Come on, Ruth!" she
+said. "He is only mad at the thief."
+
+"If it _is_ a thief," quavered Ruth. "I--I am afraid to go on, Aggie."
+
+At that moment the sound of little feet pattering behind them made
+both girls turn. There were Dot and Tess, both barefooted, and Dot
+with merely a doubled-up comforter snatched from her bed, wrapped over
+her night clothes.
+
+"Mercy me, children!" gasped Ruth. "What are you doing here?"
+
+"Oh, we mustn't let Tom Jonah _bite_ that man," Tess declared, and
+kept right on running toward the henhouse.
+
+"If that dog bites----" screamed Ruth, and ran after her smaller
+sister.
+
+There was the big dog leaping savagely toward the low eaves of the
+hennery. A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging with both
+hands to the ridge of it. The girls obtained a glimpse of a dark face,
+with flashing teeth, and big gold rings in the marauder's ears.
+
+"Tak' dog away! Tak' dog away!" the man said, in a strangled voice.
+
+"He's one of those Gypsies," whispered Agnes, in an awed voice.
+
+A tribe of the nomads in question had passed through Milton but a day
+or two before, and the girls had been frightened by the appearance of
+the men of the tribe who had called at the old Corner House.
+
+Now, whether this marauder belonged to the same people or not, Ruth
+saw that he looked like a Gypsy. For another reason, too, her mind was
+relieved at once; Tom Jonah was only savage toward the man on the
+roof.
+
+When Tess ran right up to the leaping dog, he stopped barking, and
+wagged his tail, as though satisfied that he had done his duty in
+drawing the family to the scene. But he still kept his eyes on the
+man, and occasionally uttered a growl deep in his throat.
+
+"What are you doing up there?" Ruth demanded of the man.
+
+"Tak' away dog!" he whined.
+
+"No. I think I will let the dog hold you till a policeman comes. You
+were trying to rob our henroost."
+
+"Oh, no, Missee! You wrong. No do that," stammered the man.
+
+"What were you doing here, then?"
+
+Before the fellow could manufacture any plausible tale, a shout came
+from beyond the back fence, and somebody was heard to scramble into
+the Corner House yard.
+
+"What's the matter, girls?" demanded Neale O'Neil's cheerful voice.
+
+"Oh, come here, Neale!" cried Agnes. "Tom Jonah's caught a Gypsy."
+
+"Tom _Who_?" demanded the tall, pleasant-faced boy of fifteen, who
+immediately approached the henhouse.
+
+"Tom Jonah," announced Tess. "He's just the _nicest_ dog!"
+
+The boy saw the group more clearly then. He looked from the savagely
+growling animal to the man sprawling on the roof, and burst out
+laughing.
+
+"Yes! I guess that fellow up there feels that the dog is very 'nice.'
+Where did you get the dog, and where did _he_ get his name?"
+
+"We'll tell you all about that later, Neale," said Ruth, more gravely.
+"At least, we'll tell you all we know about the dear old dog. Isn't he
+a splendid fellow to catch this man at my hens?"
+
+"And the fellow had some in this bag!" exclaimed Neale, finding a bag
+of flopping poultry at the corner of the hen-run.
+
+"Tak' away dog!" begged the man on the roof again.
+
+"That's all he's afraid of," said Agnes. "I bet he has a knife. Isn't
+he a wicked looking fellow?"
+
+"Regular brigand," agreed Neale. "What we going to do with him?"
+
+"Give him to a policeman," suggested Agnes.
+
+"Do you suppose the policeman would _want_ him?" chuckled Neale. "To
+awaken a Milton officer at this hour of the night would be almost
+sacrilege, wouldn't it?"
+
+"What _shall_ we do?" demanded Agnes.
+
+Ruth had been thinking more sensibly for a few moments. Now she spoke
+up decisively:
+
+"The man did not manage to do any harm. Put the poultry back in the
+house, Neale. If he ever comes again he will know what to expect. He
+thought we had no dog; but he sees we have--and a savage one. Let him
+go."
+
+"Had we better do that, sister?" whispered Agnes. "Oughtn't he to be
+punished?"
+
+"I expect so," Ruth said, grimly. "But for once I am going to shirk my
+duty. We'll take away the dog and let him go."
+
+"Who'll take him away?" demanded Agnes, suddenly.
+
+Neale had taken the sack in which the fowl struggled, to the door of
+the henhouse, opened it, and dumped the fowl out. Tom Jonah evidently
+recognized him for a friend, for he wagged his tail, but still kept
+his eye on the man upon the roof.
+
+"I declare!" said Ruth. "I hadn't thought. Whom will he mind?"
+
+"Come here, Tom Jonah!" said Neale, snapping his fingers.
+
+Tom Jonah still wagged his tail, but he remained ready to receive the
+Gypsy (if such the fellow was) in his jaws, if he descended.
+
+"Come away, Tom!" exclaimed Agnes, confidently. "Come on back to the
+house."
+
+The man on the roof moved and Tom Jonah stiffened. He refused to
+budge.
+
+"Guess you'll have to call a cop after all," said Neale, doubtfully.
+
+"Here, sir!" commanded Ruth. "Come away. You have done enough----"
+
+But the dog did not think so. He held his place and growled.
+
+"I guess you're bound to stay up there, till daylight--or a
+policeman--doth appear, my friend," called up Neale to the besieged.
+
+"Tak' away dog!" begged the frightened fellow.
+
+"Why, Tom Jonah!" exclaimed Tess, walking up to the big dog and
+putting a hand on his collar. "You must come away when you are spoken
+to. You've caught the bad man, and that's enough."
+
+Tom Jonah turned and licked her hand. Then he moved a few steps away
+with her and looked back.
+
+"Come on with me, Tom Jonah," commanded the little girl, firmly. "Let
+the bad man go."
+
+"What do you know about _that_?" demanded Neale.
+
+The next minute the fellow had scrambled up the roof, caught the low
+hanging limb of a shade tree that stood near the fence, and swinging
+himself like a cat into the tree, he got out on another branch that
+overhung the sidewalk, dropped, and ran.
+
+Tom Jonah sprang to the fence with a savage bay; but the man only went
+the faster. The incident was closed in a minute, and the little party
+of half-dressed young folk went back to their beds, while the strange
+dog curled up on his mat in the corner of the porch again and slept
+the sleep of the just till morning.
+
+And now that the excitement is over, let us find out a little
+something about the Corner House girls, their friends, their condition
+in life, and certain interesting facts regarding them.
+
+When Mr. Howbridge, the lawyer from Milton and Uncle Peter Stower's
+man of affairs and the administrator of his estate, came to the little
+tenement on Essex Street, Bloomingsburg, where the four orphaned
+Kenway girls had lived for some years with Aunt Sarah Maltby, he first
+met Tess and Dot returning from the drugstore with Aunt Sarah's weekly
+supply of peppermint drops.
+
+Aunt Sarah had been a burden on the Kenways for many years. The girls
+had only their father's pension to get along on. Aunt Sarah claimed
+that when Uncle Peter died, his great estate would naturally fall to
+her, and then she would return all the benefits she had received from
+the Kenway family.
+
+But the lawyer knew that queer old Uncle Peter Stower had made a will
+leaving practically all his property to the four girls in trust, and
+to Aunt Sarah only a small legacy. But this will had been hidden
+somewhere by the old man before his recent death and had not yet been
+found.
+
+There seemed to be no other claimants to the Stower Estate, however,
+and the court allowed Mr. Howbridge to take the Kenway girls and Aunt
+Sarah to Milton and establish them in the Stower Homestead, known far
+and wide as the old Corner House.
+
+Here, during the year that had passed, many interesting and exciting
+things had happened to Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot.
+
+Ruth was the head of the family, and the lawyer greatly admired her
+good sense and ability. She was not a strikingly pretty girl, for she
+had "stringy" black hair and little color; but her eyes were big and
+brown, and those eyes, and her mouth, laughed suddenly at you and gave
+expression to her whole face. She was now completing her seventeenth
+year.
+
+Agnes was thirteen, a jolly, roly-poly girl, who was fond of jokes, a
+bit of a tomboy, up to all sorts of pranks--who laughed easily and
+cried stormily--had "lots of molasses colored hair" as she said
+herself, and was the possessor of a pair of blue eyes that could stare
+a rude boy out of countenance, but who _would_ spoil the effect of
+this the next instant by giggling; a girl who had a soulmate among her
+girl friends all of the time, but not frequently did one last for long
+in the catalog of her "best friends."
+
+Nobody remembered that Tess had been named Theresa. She was a wise
+little ten-year-old who possessed some of Ruth's dignity and some of
+Agnes' prettiness, and the most tender heart in the world, which made
+her naturally tactful. She was quick at her books and very courageous.
+
+Dorothy, or Dot, was the baby and pet of the family. She was a little
+brunette fairy; and if she was not very wise as yet, she was faithful
+and lovable, and not one of "the Corner House girls," as the Kenways
+were soon called by Milton people, was more beloved than Dot.
+
+The girls' best boy friend lived with the old cobbler, Mr. Con Murphy,
+on the rear street, and in a little house the yard of which adjoined
+the larger grounds of the old Corner House. We have seen how quickly
+Neale O'Neil came to the assistance of the Kenway girls when they were
+in trouble.
+
+Neale had been brought up among circus people, his mother having
+traveled all her life with Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and
+Menagerie. The boy's desire for an education and to win a better place
+in the world for himself, had caused him to run away from his uncle,
+Mr. Sorber, and support himself in Milton while he attended school.
+
+The Corner House girls had befriended Neale and when his uncle finally
+searched him out and found the boy, it was they who influenced the man
+against taking Neale away. Neale had proved himself an excellent
+scholar and had made friends in Milton; now he was about to graduate
+with Agnes from the highest grammar grade to high school.
+
+The particulars of all these happenings have been related in the first
+two volumes of the series, entitled respectively, "The Corner House
+Girls" and "The Corner House Girls at School."
+
+When Agnes woke up in the morning following the unsuccessful raid of
+the Gypsy man on the hennery, she had something of wonderful
+importance to tell Ruth. She had seen her "particular friend," Trix
+Severn, on the street Saturday afternoon and Trix had told her
+something.
+
+"You've heard the girls talking about Pleasant Cove, Ruthie?" said
+Agnes, earnestly. "You know Mr. Terrence Severn owns one of the big
+hotels there?"
+
+"Of course. Trix talks enough about it," said the older Kenway girl.
+
+"Oh! you don't like Trix----"
+
+"I'm not exceedingly fond of her. And there was a time when you
+thought her your very deadliest enemy," laughed Ruth.
+
+"Well! Trix has changed," declared the unsuspicious Agnes, "and she's
+proposed the very nicest thing, Ruth. She says her mother and father
+will let her bring all four of us to the Cove for the first fortnight
+after graduation. The hotel will not be full then, and we will be
+Trix's guests. And we'll have loads of fun."
+
+"I--don't--know-----" began Ruth, but Agnes broke in warmly:
+
+"Now, don't you say 'No,' Ruthie Kenway! Don't you say 'No!' I've just
+made up my mind to go to Pleasant Cove----"
+
+"No need of flying off, Ag," said Ruth, in the cool tone that usually
+brought Agnes "down to earth again." "We have talked of going there
+for a part of the summer. A change to salt air will be beneficial for
+us all--so Dr. Forsythe says. I have talked to Mr. Howbridge, and he
+says 'Yes.'"
+
+"Well, then!"
+
+"But I doubt the advisability of accepting Trix Severn's invitation."
+
+"Now, isn't that mean----"
+
+"Hold your horses," again advised Ruth. "We will go, anyway. If all is
+well we will stay at the hotel a while. Pearl Harrod's uncle owns a
+bungalow there, too; _she_ has asked me to come there for a while, and
+bring you all."
+
+"Well! isn't that nice?" agreed Agnes. "Then we can stay twice as
+long."
+
+"Whether it will be right for us to accept the hospitality offered us
+when we have no means of returning it----"
+
+"Oh, dear me, Ruth! don't be a fuss-cat."
+
+"There is a big tent colony there--quite removed from the hotel,"
+suggested Ruth. "Many of our friends and their folks are going
+_there_. Neale O'Neil is going with a party of the boys for at least
+two weeks."
+
+"Say! we'll have scrumptious times," cried Agnes, with sparkling eyes.
+Her anticipation of every joy in life added immensely to the joy
+itself.
+
+"Yes--if we go," said Ruth, slowly. But it was something for the
+others to look forward to with much pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE DANCE AT CARRIE POOLE'S
+
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway had something of particular interest to hold their
+attention, too, the minute they awoke on this Sunday morning. Dot
+voiced the matter first when she asked:
+
+"Do you suppose that dear Tom Jonah is here yet, Tess?"
+
+"Oh, I hope so!" cried the older girl.
+
+"Let's run see," suggested Dot, and nothing loth Tess slipped into her
+bathrobe and slippers, too, and the two girls pattered downstairs.
+Their baths, always overseen by Ruth, were neglected. They must see,
+they thought, if the good old dog was on the porch.
+
+Nobody was astir downstairs; Mrs. MacCall had not yet left her room,
+and on Sunday mornings even Uncle Rufus allowed himself an extra hour
+in bed. There was the delicious smell of warm baked beans left over
+night in the range oven; the big, steaming pot would be set upon the
+table at breakfast, flanked with golden-brown muffins on one side and
+the sliced "loaf," or brownbread, on the other.
+
+Sandyface came yawning from her basket behind the stove when Tess and
+Dot entered the kitchen. She had four little black and white blind
+babies in that basket which she had found in a barrel in the woodshed
+only a few days before.
+
+Mrs. MacCall said she did not know what was to be done with the four
+kittens. Sandyface's original family was quite grown up, and if these
+four were allowed to live, too, that would make nine cats around the
+old Corner House.
+
+"And the goodness knows!" exclaimed the housekeeper, "that's a whole
+lot more than any family has a business to keep. We're overrun with
+cats."
+
+Tess unlocked the door and she and Dot went out on the porch,
+Sandyface following. There was no sign of the big dog.
+
+"Tom Jonah's gone!" sighed Dot, quaveringly.
+
+"I wouldn't have thought it--when we treated him so nicely," said
+Tess.
+
+Sandyface sniffed suspiciously at the old mat on which the dog had
+lain. Then she looked all about before venturing off the porch.
+
+The sunshine and quiet of a perfect Sunday morning lay all about the
+old Corner House. Robins sought their very souls for music to tell how
+happy they were, in the tops of the cherry trees. Catbirds had not yet
+lost their love songs of the spring; though occasionally one scolded
+harshly when a roaming cat came too near the hidden nest.
+
+Wrens hopped about the path, and even upon the porch steps, secure in
+their knowledge that they were too quick for Sandyface to reach, and
+with unbounded faith in human beings. An oriole burst into melody,
+swinging in the great snowball bush near the Willow Street fence.
+
+There was a moist, warm smell from the garden; the old rooster crowed
+raucously; Billy Bumps bleated a wistful "Good-morning" from his pen.
+Then came a scramble of padded feet, and Sandyface went up the nearest
+tree like a flash of lightning.
+
+"Here is Tom Jonah!" cried Tess, with delight.
+
+From around the corner of the woodshed appeared the big, shaggy dog.
+He cocked one ear and actually smiled when he saw the cat go up the
+tree. But he trotted right up on the porch to meet the delighted
+girls.
+
+His brown eyes were deep pools where golden sparks played. The mud had
+been mostly shaken off his flanks and paws. He was rested, and he
+acted as though he were sure of his position here at the old Corner
+House.
+
+"Good old fellow!" cried Tess, putting out a hand to pat him.
+
+At once Tom Jonah put up his right paw to shake hands. He repeated the
+feat with Dot the next moment, to the delight of both girls.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, "he's a trick dog."
+
+"He's just what his collar says; he's a gentleman," sighed Tess,
+happily. "Oh! I hope his folks won't ever come after him."
+
+Ruth had to come down for Tess and Dot or they would not have been
+bathed and dressed in time for breakfast. The smaller girls were very
+much taken with Tom Jonah.
+
+They found that he had more accomplishments than "shaking hands." When
+Agnes came down and heard about his first manifestation of education,
+she tried him at other "stunts."
+
+He sat up at the word of command. He would hold a bit of meat, or a
+sweet cracker, on his nose any length of time you might name, and
+never offer to eat it until you said, "Now, sir!" or something of the
+kind. Then Tom Jonah would jerk the tidbit into the air and catch it
+in his jaws as it came down.
+
+And those jaws! Powerful indeed, despite some of the teeth having been
+broken and discolored by age. For Tom Jonah was no puppy. Uncle Rufus
+declared him to be at least twelve years old, and perhaps more than
+that.
+
+But he had the physique of a lion--a great, broad chest, and muscles
+in his shoulders that slipped under the skin when he was in action
+like a tiger's. Now that he was somewhat rested from the long journey
+he had evidently taken, he seemed a very powerful, healthy dog.
+
+"And he would have eaten that tramp up, if he'd gotten hold of him,"
+Agnes declared, as they gathered at the breakfast table.
+
+"Oh, no, Aggie; I don't think Tom Jonah would really have _bitten_
+that Gypsy man," Tess hastened to say. "But he might have grabbed his
+coat and held on."
+
+"With those jaws--I guess he would have held on," sighed Agnes.
+
+"Anyway," said Dot, "he saved Ruthie's hens. Didn't he, Ruthie?"
+
+"I'll gladly pay his license fee if he wants to stay with us," said
+Ruth, gaily.
+
+The cornmeal muffins chanced to be a little over-baked that morning;
+at least, one panful was. Dot did not like "crusts"; she had been
+known to hide very hard ones under the edge of her plate.
+
+She played with one of these muffin crusts more than she ate it, and
+Aunt Sarah Maltby (who was a very grim lady indeed with penetrating
+eyes and a habit of seldom speaking) had an accusing eye upon the
+little girl.
+
+"Dorothy," she said, suddenly, "you will see the time, I have no
+doubt, when you will be hungry for that crust. You had better eat it
+now like a nice girl."
+
+"Aunt Sarah, I really do not want it," said Dot, gravely. "And--and if
+I don't, do you think I shall really some day be hungry for just
+_this_ pertic'lar crust?"
+
+"You will. I expect nothing less," snapped Aunt Sarah. "The Kenways
+was allus spend-thrifts. Why! when I was your age, Dorothy, I was glad
+to get dry bread to eat!"
+
+Dot looked at her with serious interest. "You must have been awfully
+poor, Aunt Sarah," she said, sympathetically. "You have a much better
+time living with us, don't you?"
+
+Ruth shook her head admonishingly at the smallest girl; but for once
+Aunt Sarah was rather nonplussed, and nobody heard her speak again
+before she went off to church.
+
+Neale came over later, dressed for Sunday school, and he was as much
+interested in the new boarder at the Corner House as the girls
+themselves.
+
+"If he belongs anywhere around Milton, somebody will surely know about
+him," said the boy. "I'll make inquiries. Wherever he comes from, he
+must be well known in that locality."
+
+"Why so?" demanded Agnes.
+
+"Because of what it says on his collar," laughed Neale O'Neil.
+
+"Because of what it _doesn't_ say, I guess," explained Ruth, seeing
+her sister's puzzled face. "There is no name of owner, or license
+number. Do you see?"
+
+"It--it would be an insult to license a dog like Tom Jonah," sputtered
+Tess. "Just--just like a tag on an automobile!"
+
+"Yo' right, honey," chuckled Uncle Rufus. "He done seem like
+folkses--don' he? I'se gwine tuh give him a reg'lar barf an' cure up
+dem sore feetses ob his. He'll be anudder dawg--sho' will!"
+
+The old man took Tom Jonah to the grass plot near the garden hydrant,
+and soaped him well--with the "insect-suicide" soap Dot had talked
+about--and afterward washed him down with the hose. Tom Jonah stood
+for it all; he had evidently been used to having his toilet attended
+to.
+
+When the girls came home from Sunday school, they found him lying on
+the porch, all warm and dried and his hair "fluffy." They had asked
+everybody they met--almost--about Tom Jonah; but not a soul knew
+anything regarding him.
+
+"He's going to be ours for keeps! He's going to be ours for keeps!"
+sang Tess, with delight.
+
+Sandyface's earlier family--Spotty, Almira, Bungle and
+Popocatepetl--had taken a good look at the big dog, and then backed
+away with swelling tails and muffled objections. But the old cat had
+to attend to the four little blind mites behind the kitchen range, so
+she had grown familiar enough with Tom Jonah to pass him on her way to
+and from the kitchen door.
+
+He was too much of a gentleman, as his collar proclaimed, to pay her
+the least attention save for a friendly wag of his bushy tail. To the
+four half-grown cats he gave little heed. But Tess and Dot thought
+that he ought to become acquainted with the un-named kittens in the
+basket immediately.
+
+"If they get used to him, you know," said Tess, "they'll all live
+together just like a 'happy family.'"
+
+"Like _us_?" suggested Dot, who did not quite understand the
+reference, having forgotten the particular cage thus labeled in the
+circus they had seen the previous summer.
+
+"Why! of course like us!" laughed Tess, and Sandyface being away
+foraging for her brood, Tess seized the basket and carried it out on
+the porch, setting it down before Tom Jonah who was lying in the sun.
+
+The big dog sniffed at the basket but did not offer to disturb the
+sleeping kittens. That would not do for the curious girls. They had to
+delve deeper into the natural lack of affinity between the canine and
+the feline families.
+
+So Tess lifted one little black and white, squirmy kitten--just as its
+mother did, by the back of its neck--and set it upon the porch before
+the dog's nose. The kitten became awake instantly. Blind as it was, it
+stiffened its spine into an arch, backed away from the vicinity of the
+dog precipitately, and "spit" like a tiny teakettle boiling over.
+
+"Oh! oh! the horrid thing," wailed Dot. "And poor Tom Jonah didn't do
+a thing to it!"
+
+"But see him!" gasped Tess, in a gale of giggles.
+
+For really, Tom Jonah looked too funny for anything. He turned away
+his head with a most embarrassed expression of countenance and would
+not look again at the spitting little animal. He evidently felt
+himself in a most ridiculous position and finally got up and went off
+the porch altogether until the girls returned the basket of kittens to
+its proper place behind the stove.
+
+At dinner that Sunday, when Uncle Rufus served the roast, he held the
+swinging door open until Tom Jonah paced in behind him into the
+dining-room. Seeing the roast placed before Mrs. MacCall, Tom Jonah
+sat down beside her chair in a good position to observe the feast; but
+waited his turn in a most gentlemanly manner.
+
+Mrs. MacCall cut some meat for him and put it on a plate. This Uncle
+Rufus put before Tom Jonah; but the big dog did not offer to eat it
+until he was given permission. And now he no longer "gobbled," but ate
+daintily, and sat back when he was finished like any well-bred person,
+waiting for the next course.
+
+Even Aunt Sarah looked with approval upon the new acquisition to the
+family of the old Corner House. She had heard the tale of his rescue
+of Ruth's poultry from the marauding Gypsy, and patted Tom Jonah's
+noble head.
+
+"It's a good thing to have a watch-dog on the premises," she said,
+"with all that old silver and trash you girls insist upon keeping out
+of the plate-safe. Your Uncle Peter would turn in his grave if he knew
+how common you was makin' the Stower plate."
+
+"But what is the good of having a thing if you don't make use of it?"
+queried Ruth, stoutly.
+
+Ruth was a girl with a mind of her own, and not even the carping
+criticisms of Aunt Sarah could turn her from her course if once she
+was convinced that what she did was right. Nor was she frightened by
+her schoolmates' opinions--as note her friendship with Rosa Wildwood.
+
+Bob Wildwood was a "character" in Milton. People smiled at him and
+forgave his peculiarities to a degree; but they could not respect him.
+
+In the first place, Bob was a Southerner--and a Southerner in a New
+England town is just as likely to be misunderstood, as a Northerner in
+a Georgian town.
+
+Bob and his daughter, Rosa, had drifted to Milton a couple of years
+previous. They had been "drifting" for most of the girl's short life;
+but now Rosa was quite big enough to have some influence with her
+shiftless father, and they had taken some sort of root in the harsh
+New England soil, so different from their own rich bottom-lands of the
+South.
+
+Besides, Rosa was in ill health. She was "weakly"; Bob spoke of her as
+having "a mis'ry in her chest." Dr. Forsythe found that the girl had
+weak lungs, but he was sane and old-fashioned enough to scout the idea
+that she was in danger of becoming a victim of tuberculosis.
+
+"If you go to work, Bob, and earn for her decent food and a warm
+shelter, she will pull through and get as hearty and strong as our
+Northern girls," declared the doctor, sternly. "You say you lost her
+twin two years ago----"
+
+"But I didn't done los' Juniper by no sickness," muttered Bob, shaking
+his head.
+
+The Corner House girls thought Bob Wildwood a most amusing man, for he
+talked just like a darky (to their ears); but Uncle Rufus shook his
+head in scorn at Wildwood. "He's jes' no-'count white trash," the old
+colored man observed.
+
+However, spurred by the doctor's threat, Bob let drink alone for the
+most part, and went to work for Rosa, his remaining daughter, who was
+just Ruth's age and was in her class at High--when she was well enough
+to get there. In spite of her blood and bringing up, Rosa Wildwood had
+a quick and retentive mind and stood well in her classes.
+
+Bob became a coal-heaver. He worked for Lovell & Malmsey. He drove a
+pair of mules without lines, ordering them about in a most wonderful
+manner in a tongue entirely strange to Northern teamsters; and he was
+black with coal-dust from week-end to week-end. Ruth said there only
+was one visible white part of Rosa's father; that was the whites of
+his eyes.
+
+The man must have loved his daughter very much, however; for it was
+his nature to be shiftless. He would have gone hungry and ragged
+himself rather than work. He now kept steadily at his job for Rosa's
+sake.
+
+On Monday Rosa was not at school, and coming home to luncheon at noon,
+Ruth ran half a block out of her way to find out what was the matter.
+Not alone was the tenement the Wildwoods occupied a very poor one, but
+Rosa was no housekeeper. It almost disgusted the precise and prim Ruth
+Kenway to go into the three-room tenement.
+
+Rosa had a cold, and of course it had settled on her chest. She was
+just dragging herself around to get something hot for Bob's dinner.
+Ruth made her go back to bed, and she finished the preparations.
+
+When she came to make the tea, the Corner House girl was horrified to
+observe that the metal teapot had probably not been thoroughly washed
+out since the day the Wildwoods had taken up their abode in Milton.
+
+"Paw likes to have the tea set back on the stove," drawled Rosa, with
+her pleasant Southern accent. "When he gets a chance, he runs in and
+'takes a swig,' as he calls it, out of the pot. He says it's good for
+the gnawin' in his stomach--it braces him up an' is _so_ much better
+than when he useter mix toddies," said the girl, gratefully. "We'd
+have had June with us yet, if it hadn't been for paw's toddies."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ruth, startled. "I thought your sister June died?"
+
+Rosa shook her head and the tears flowed into her soft eyes. "Oh, no.
+She went away. She couldn't stand the toddies no more, she said--and
+her slavin' to keep the house nice, and us movin' on all the time.
+June was housekeeper--she was a long sight smarter'n me, Ruth."
+
+"But the teachers at school think you are awfully smart," declared the
+Corner House girl.
+
+"June warn't so smart at her books," said Rosa. "But she could do
+_anything_ with her hands. You'd thunk she was two years older'n me,
+too. She was dark and handsome. She got mad, and run away, and then we
+started lookin' for her; but we've never found her yet," sighed Rosa.
+"And now I've got so miserable that I can't keep traveling with paw.
+So we got to stop here, and maybe we won't ever see June again."
+
+"Oh! I hope you will," cried Ruth. "Now, your father's dinner is all
+ready to dish up. And I'll come back after school this afternoon and
+rid up the house for you; don't you do a thing."
+
+Ruth had time that noon for only a bite at home, and explained to Mrs.
+MacCall that she would be late in returning from school. She carried a
+voluminous apron with her to cover her school frock when she set about
+"ridding up" the Wildwood domicile.
+
+Ruth wanted to help Rosa; she hoped Rosa would keep up with the class
+and be promoted at the end of the term, as she was sure to be herself.
+And she was sorry for sooty, odd-talking Bob Wildwood.
+
+What Rosa had said about her lost twin sister had deeply interested
+Ruth Kenway. She wanted, too, to ask the Southern girl about "June,"
+or Juniper.
+
+"We were the last children maw had," said Rosa. "She just seemed to
+give up after we were born. The others were all sickly--just drooped
+and faded. And they all were girls and had flower names. Maw was right
+fanciful, I reckon.
+
+"I wish June had held on. She'd stuck it out, I know, if she'd
+believed paw could stop drinking toddies. But, you see he _has_. He
+'swigs' an awful lot of tea, though, and I expect it's tanning him
+inside just like he was leather!"
+
+Ruth really thought this was probable--especially with the teapot in
+the condition she had found it. But she had put some washing soda in
+the pot, filled it with boiling water, and set it back on the stove to
+stew some of the "tannin" out of it.
+
+While the Corner House girl was talking with Rosa in the little
+bedroom the girl called her own, Bob brought his mules to a halt
+before the house with an empty wagon, and ran in as usual.
+
+The girls heard him enter the outer room; but Ruth never thought of
+what the man's object might be until Rosa laughed and said:
+
+"There's paw now, for a swig at the teapot. I hope you left it full
+fo' him, Ruthie, dear."
+
+"Oh, goodness mercy me!" cried the Corner House girl, and darted out
+to the kitchen to warn the man.
+
+But she was too late. Already the begrimed Bob Wildwood had the spout
+of the teapot to his lips and several swallows of the scalding and
+acrid mixture gurgled down his throat before he discovered that it was
+not tea!
+
+"Woof! woof! woof!" he sputtered, and flung pot and all away from him.
+"Who done tryin' poison me! Woof! I's scalded with poison!"
+
+He coughed and spluttered over the sink, and then tried a draught of
+cold water from the spigot--which probably did him just as much good
+as anything.
+
+"Oh, dear me, Mr. Wildwood!" gasped Ruth, standing with clasped hands
+and looking at the sooty man, half frightened. "I--I was just boiling
+the teapot out."
+
+"Boilin' it out?"
+
+"Yes, sir. With soda. I--I----It won't poison you, I guess."
+
+"My Lawd!" groaned Bob. "What won't yo' Northerners do nex'? Wash out
+er teapot!" and he grumblingly went forth to his team and drove away.
+
+Ruth felt that her good intentions were misunderstood--to a degree.
+But Rosa thanked her very prettily for what she had done, and the next
+day she was able to come to school again.
+
+It was only a few days later that Carrie Poole invited a number of the
+high school girls and boys--and some of the younger set--to the last
+dance of the season at her home. She lived in a huge old farmhouse,
+some distance out of town on the Buckshot road, and the Corner House
+girls and Neale O'Neil had spent several pleasant evenings there
+during the winter and spring.
+
+The night before this party there was a big wind, and a part of one of
+the chimneys came down into the side yard during the night with a
+noise like thunder; so Ruth had to telephone for a mason before
+breakfast.
+
+Had it not been for this happening, the Corner House girls--at least,
+Ruth and Agnes--and Neale O'Neil, would have escaped rather an
+embarrassing incident at the party.
+
+Neale came over to supper the evening of the party, and he brought his
+pumps in a newspaper under his arm.
+
+"Come on, girls, let's have your dancing slippers," he said to the two
+older Corner House girls, who were going to the dance. "I'll put them
+with mine."
+
+And he did so--rolling the girls' pretty slippers up in the same
+parcel with his own. He left the parcel in the kitchen. Later it was
+discovered that the mason's helper had left a similarly wrapped parcel
+there, too.
+
+When the three young folk started off, it was Agnes who ran back after
+the bundle of dancing slippers. Neale carried it under his arm, and
+they walked briskly out through the suburbs of Milton and on along the
+Buckshot road.
+
+"Are you really going to Pleasant Cove this summer, Neale?" demanded
+Agnes, as they went on together.
+
+"If I can. Joe has asked me. And you girls?"
+
+"Trix says we must come to her father's hotel for two weeks at least,"
+Agnes declared.
+
+"Humph!" said Neale, doubtfully. "Are you going, Ruth?"
+
+"I--don't--know," admitted the older Corner House girl.
+
+"Now, isn't that just too mean?" complained Agnes. "You just say that
+because you don't like Trix."
+
+"I don't know whether Trix will be of the same mind when the time
+comes," said Ruth, firmly.
+
+"I believe you," grunted Neale.
+
+Agnes pouted. "It's just mean of you," she said. "Of course she will
+want us to go." While Agnes was "spoons" with a girl, she was always
+strictly loyal to her. She could not possibly see Trix Severn's faults
+just now.
+
+They arrived at the farmhouse and found a crowd already assembled.
+There was a great deal of talking and laughter, and while Neale stood
+chatting with some of the boys in the hall, Ruth and Agnes came to him
+for their slippers.
+
+"Sure!" said the boy, producing the newspaper-wrapped bundle he
+carried. "Guess I'll put on my own pumps, too."
+
+He unrolled the parcel. Then a yell of derision and laughter arose
+from the onlookers; instead of three pairs of dancing slippers, Neale
+produced two pairs of half-worn and lime-bespattered shoes belonging
+to the masons who had repaired the old Corner House chimney!
+
+"Now we can't dance!" wailed Agnes.
+
+"Oh, Neale!" gasped Ruth, while the young folk about them went off
+into another gale of laughter.
+
+"Well, it wasn't my fault," grumbled Neale. "Aggie went after the
+bundle."
+
+"Shouldn't have left them right there with the masons' bundle--so
+now!" snapped Agnes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MYSTERY OF JUNE WILDWOOD
+
+
+Now, Trix Severn had maneuvered so as to get the very first dance with
+Neale O'Neil. Among all the boys who attended the upper grammar
+grades, and the High, of Milton, the boy who had been brought up in a
+circus was the best dancer. The older girls all were glad to get him
+for a partner.
+
+Time had been when Trix sneered at "that circus boy," but that was
+before he and the two older Corner House girls had saved Trix from a
+collapsing snow palace back in mid-winter.
+
+Since that time she had taken up with Agnes Kenway as her very closest
+chum, and she had visited the old Corner House a good deal. When Agnes
+and her sister arrived at the party on this evening, with Neale as
+escort, Trix determined to have at least _one_ dance with the popular
+boy.
+
+"Oh, Neale!" she whispered, fluttering up to him in her very nicest
+way, "Ruth and Agnes will be half an hour primping, upstairs. The
+music is going to strike up. Do let _us_ have the first dance."
+
+"All right," said Neale, good-naturedly.
+
+It was the moment later that the discovery was made of the masons'
+shoes in the bundle he carried under his arm.
+
+"Now we can't dance," repeated Agnes, when the laughter had somewhat
+subsided.
+
+"Oh, Neale can dance just as well," Trix said, carelessly. "Come on,
+Neale! You know this is _our_ dance."
+
+Of course Neale could dance in his walking shoes. But he saw Agnes'
+woebegone face and he hesitated.
+
+"It's too bad, Aggie," he said. "If it wasn't so far-----"
+
+"Why, Neale O'Neill" snapped Trix, unwisely. "You don't mean to say
+you'd be foolish enough to go clear back to the Corner House for those
+girls' slippers?"
+
+Perhaps it was just this opposition that was needed to start Neale
+off. He pulled his cap from his pocket and turned toward the door,
+with a shrug. "I guess I can get back in an hour, Ag. Don't you and
+Ruth dance much in your heavy shoes until then. You'll tire yourselves
+all out."
+
+"Why, Neale O'Neill" cried Trix. "You won't do it?"
+
+Even Ruth murmured against the boy's making the trip for the slippers.
+"We can get along, Neale," she said, in her quiet way.
+
+"And you promised to dance with me this first dance," declared Trix,
+angrily, as the music began.
+
+Neale did not pay much attention to her--at the moment. "It's my
+fault, I guess," he said, laughing. "I'll go back for them, Ag."
+
+But Trix got right between him and the door. "Now! you sha'n't go off
+and leave me in the lurch that way, Neale O'Neill" she cried, shrilly.
+
+"Aw----There are other dances. Wait till I come back," he said.
+
+"You can dance in the shoes you have on," Trix said, sharply.
+
+"What if?"
+
+"But _we_ can't, Trix," interposed Agnes, much distressed. "Ruth and
+I, you know----"
+
+"I don't care!" interrupted Trix, boiling over at last. "You Corner
+House girls are the most selfish things! You'd spoil his fun for half
+the party----"
+
+"Aw, don't bother!" growled Neale, in much disgust.
+
+"I will bother! You----"
+
+"Guess she thinks she owns you, Neale," chuckled one of the boys,
+adding fuel to the flames. Neale did not feel any too pleasant after
+that. He flung away from Trix Severn's detaining grasp.
+
+"I'm going--it isn't any of _your_ concern," he muttered, to the angry
+girl.
+
+Ruth bore Agnes away. She was half crying. The rift in the intimacy
+between her soulmate and herself was apparent to all.
+
+To make the matter worse--according to Trix's version--when Neale
+finally returned, almost breathless, with the mislaid slippers, he
+insisted, first of all, upon dancing with Ruth and Agnes. Then he
+would have favored Trix (Ruth had advised it), but the angry girl
+would not speak to him.
+
+"He's nothing but a low circus boy, anyway!" she told Lucy Poole. "And
+I don't think really well-bred girls would care to have anything to do
+with him."
+
+Those who heard her laughed. They had known Trix Severn's ways for a
+long time. She had been upon her good behavior; but it did not
+surprise her old acquaintances that she should act like this.
+
+It made a difference to the Corner House girls, however, for it made
+their plans about going to Pleasant Cove uncertain.
+
+The other girls knew that Trix had invited the Corner House girls for
+the first two weeks after graduation, and that Ruth had tentatively
+accepted. Therefore even Pearl Harrod--who wanted Ruth and her
+sisters, herself--scarcely knew whether to put in a claim for them or
+not.
+
+Graduation Day was very near at hand; the very day following the
+closing of the Milton High, several family parties were to leave for
+the seaside resort which was so popular in this part of New England.
+
+They had to pass through Bloomingsburg to get to it, but when the
+Kenways had lived in that city, they had never expected to spend any
+part of the summer season at such a beautiful summer resort as
+Pleasant Cove.
+
+It was a bungalow colony, with several fine hotels, built around a
+tiny, old-fashioned fishing port. There was a still cove, a beautiful
+river emptying into it, and outside, a stretch of rocky Atlantic coast
+on which the ocean played grim tunes during stormy weather.
+
+This was as much as the Corner House girls knew about it as yet. But
+they all looked forward to their first visit to the place with keen
+delight. Tess and Dot were talking about the expected trip a good deal
+of the time they were awake. Most of their doll-play was colored now
+by thoughts of Pleasant Cove.
+
+They were not too busy to help Mrs. MacCall take the last of the
+winter clothing to the garret, however, and see her pack it away in
+the chests there. As she did this the housekeeper sprinkled, with
+lavish hand, the camphor balls among the layers of clothing.
+
+Dot had tentatively tasted one of the hard, white balls, and
+shuddered. "But they _do_ look so much like candy, Tess," she said.
+Then she suddenly had another thought:
+
+"Oh, Mrs. MacCall! what do you suppose the poor moths had to live on
+'way back in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve wore any clothes?"
+
+"Now, can you beat _that_?" demanded the housekeeper, of nobody in
+particular. "What won't that young one get in her head!"
+
+Meanwhile Ruth was helping Rosa Wildwood all she could, so that the
+girl from the South would be able to pass in the necessary
+examinations and stand high enough in the class to be promoted.
+
+Housework certainly "told on" Rosa. Bob said "it jest seems t' take
+th' puckerin' string all out'n her--an' she jest draps down like a
+flower."
+
+"We'll help her, Mr. Wildwood," Ruth said. "But she really ought to
+have a rest."
+
+"Hi Godfrey!" ejaculated the coal heaver. "I tell her she kin let the
+housework go. We don't have no visitors--savin' an' exceptin' _you_,
+ma'am."
+
+"But she wants to keep the place decent, you see," Ruth told him. "And
+she can scarcely do that and keep up with her studies--now. You see,
+she's so weak."
+
+"Hi Godfrey!" exclaimed the man again. "Ain't thar sech a thing as
+bein' a mite _too_ clean?"
+
+But Bob Wildwood had an immense respect for Ruth; likewise he was
+grateful because she showed an interest in his last remaining
+daughter.
+
+"I tell you, sir," the oldest Corner House girl said, gravely. "Rosa
+needs a change and a rest. And all us girls are going to Pleasant Cove
+this summer. Will you let Rosa come down, too, for a while, if I pay
+her way and look out for her?"
+
+The man was somewhat disturbed by the question. "Yuh see, Miss," he
+observed, scratching his head thoughtfully, "she's all I got. I'd
+plumb be lost 'ithout Rosa."
+
+"But only for a week or two."
+
+"I know. And I wouldn't want tuh stand in her way. I crossed her
+sister too much--that's what _I_ did. Juniper was a sight more uppity
+than Rosa--otherwise she wouldn't have flew the coop," said Bob
+Wildwood, shaking his head.
+
+Ruth, all tenderness for his bereavement, hastened to say: "Oh, you'll
+find her again, sir. Surely you don't believe she's dead?"
+
+"No. If she ain't come to a _bad_ end, she's all right somewhar. But
+she'd oughter be home with her sister--and with me. Ye see, she was
+pretty--an' smart. No end smart! She went off in bad comp'ny."
+
+"How do you mean, Mr. Wildwood?" asked Ruth, deeply interested.
+
+"Travelin' folks. They had a van an' a couple team o' mules, an' the
+man sold bitters an' corn-salve. The woman dressed mighty fine, an'
+she took June's eye.
+
+"We follered 'em a long spell, me an' Rosa. But we didn't never ketch
+up to 'em. If we had, I'd sure tuck a hand-holt of that medicine man.
+He an' his woman put all the foolishness inter Juniper's haid.
+
+"An' Rosa misses her sister like poison, too," finished Bob Wildwood,
+slowly shaking his head.
+
+There seemed to be a mystery connected with the disappearance of
+Rosa's sister, and Ruth Kenway was just as curious as she could be
+about it; but she stuck to her subject until Bob Wildwood agreed to
+spare his remaining daughter for at least a week's visit to Pleasant
+Cove, while the Corner House girls would be there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OFF FOR THE SEASIDE
+
+
+The last hours of the school term were busy ones indeed. Even Tess had
+her troublesome "'zaminations." At the study table on the last evening
+before her own grade had its closing exercises, Tess propounded the
+following:
+
+"Ruthie, what's a 'scutcheon?"
+
+"Um--um," said Ruth, far away.
+
+"A _what_, child?" demanded Agnes.
+
+"''Scutcheon?'"
+
+"'Escutcheon,' she means," chuckled Neale, who was present as usual at
+study hour.
+
+"Well, what _is_ it?" begged Tess, plaintively.
+
+"Why?" demanded Ruth, suddenly waking up. "That's a hard word for a
+small girl, Tess."
+
+"It says here," quoth Tess, "that 'There was a blot upon his
+escutcheon.'"
+
+"Oh, yes--sure," drawled Neale, as Ruth hesitated. "That must mean a
+fancy vest, Tess. And he spilled soup on it--sure!"
+
+"Now Neale! how horrid!" admonished Ruth, while Agnes giggled.
+
+"I do think you are all awful mean to me," wailed Tess. "You don't
+tell me a thing. You're almost as mean as Trix Severn was to me
+to-day. I don't want to go to her father's hotel, so there! Have we
+got to, Ruthie?"
+
+"What did she do to you, Tess?" demanded Agnes, with a curiosity she
+could not quench. For, deep as the chasm had grown between her and her
+former chum, she could not ignore Trix.
+
+"She just turned up her nose at me," complained Tess, "when I went by;
+and I heard her say to some girl she was with: 'There goes one of them
+now. They pushed their way into our party, and I s'pose we've got to
+entertain them.' Now, _did_ we push our way in, Ruthie?"
+
+Ruth was angry. It was not often that she displayed indignation, so
+that when she did so, the other girls--and even Neale--were the more
+impressed.
+
+"Of course she was speaking of that wretched invitation she gave us to
+stay at her father's hotel at Pleasant Cove," said Ruth. "Well!"
+
+"Oh, Ruthie! don't say you won't go," begged Agnes.
+
+"I'll never go to that Overlook House unless we pay our way--be sure
+of that," declared the angry Ruth.
+
+"But we _are_ going to the shore, Ruthie?" asked Tess.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Maybe Pearl Harrod will ask us again," murmured Agnes, hopefully.
+
+"I guess we can pay our way and be beholden to nobody," said Ruth,
+shortly. "I will hire one of the tents, if nothing else. And we'll
+start the very day after High closes, just as we planned."
+
+Despite the loss of her "soulmate," Agnes was pretty cheerful. She was
+to graduate from grammar school; and although she was sorry to lose
+Miss Georgiana Shipman as a teacher, she was delighted to get out of
+"the pigtail classes," as she rudely termed the lower grades.
+
+"I'm going to do up my hair, Ruthie, whatever you say," she declared,
+"just as soon as I get into high school next fall. I'm old enough to
+forget braids and hair-ribbons, I should hope!"
+
+"Not yet, my child, not yet," laughed Ruth. "Why! there are more girls
+in High who wear their hair _down_ than _up_."
+
+"But I'm so big----"
+
+"You mean, you'd be big," chuckled Neale, "if you were only rolled
+out," for he was always teasing Agnes about her plumpness.
+
+"Well! I want to celebrate some way," sighed Agnes. "Can't we have a
+specially nice supper that night?"
+
+"Surely, child," said her sedate sister. "What do you want?"
+
+"Well!" repeated Agnes, slowly; "you know I'll never graduate from
+Grammar again. Couldn't we kill some of those nice frying chickens of
+yours, Ruthie?"
+
+"Oh, my!" cried Neale. "What have the poor chickens done that they
+should be slaughtered to make a Roman holiday?"
+
+"Mr. Smartie!" snapped Agnes. "You be good, or you sha'n't have any."
+
+"If that Tom Jonah hadn't been busy on a certain night, none of us
+would have eaten those particular frying chickens," laughed Neale. "I
+wonder if that Gypsy is running yet?"
+
+"He didn't get the frying chickens in the bag," said Agnes. "They were
+in another coop. We hatched them in January and brought them up by
+hand. Say! I don't believe you know much about natural history, Neale,
+anyway."
+
+"I guess he knows more than Sammy Pinkney does," Tess said, again
+drawn into the conversation. "Teacher asked him to tell us two breeds
+of dairy cattle and which gives the most milk. She'd been reading to
+us about it out of a book. So Sammy says:
+
+"'The bull and the cow, Miss Andrews; and the cow gives the most
+milk.'"
+
+Dot's school held its closing exercises one morning, and Tess' in the
+afternoon. Then came the graduation of Agnes and Neale O'Neil from the
+grammar school. Ruth was excused from her own classes at High long
+enough to attend her sister's graduation.
+
+Although the plump Corner House girl was no genius, she always stood
+well in her classes. Ruth saw to that, for what Agnes did not learn at
+school she had to study at home.
+
+So she stood well up in her class, and she _did_ look "too
+distractingly pretty," as Mrs. MacCall declared, when she gave the
+last touches to Agnes' dress before she started for school that last
+day. Miss Ann Titus, Milton's most famous seamstress and
+"gossip-in-ordinary," had outdone herself in making Agnes' dress. No
+girl in her class--not even Trix Severn--was dressed so becomingly.
+
+The envious Trix heard the commendations showered on her former
+friend, and her face grew sourer and her temper sharper. She well knew
+she had invited the Corner House girls to be her guests at Pleasant
+Cove; but she did not want them in her party now. She did not know how
+to get out of "the fix," as she called it in her own mind.
+
+She had intimated to two or three other girls who were going, however,
+that Agnes and Ruth had forced the invitation from her in a moment of
+weakness. If she had to number them of her party, Miss Trix proposed
+to make it just as unpleasant for the Kenway sisters as she could.
+
+High school graduation was on Thursday. On Friday a special through
+train was put on by the railroad from Milton to Pleasant Cove. It was
+scheduled to leave the former station at ten o'clock.
+
+Luckily Mrs. MacCall had insisted upon having all the trunks and bags
+packed the day before, for on this Friday morning the Corner House
+girls had little time for anything but saying "good-bye" to their many
+friends, both human and dumb.
+
+"Whatever will Tom Jonah think?" cried Tess, hugging the big dog that
+had taken up his abode at the Corner House so strangely. "He'll think
+we have run away from him, poor fellow!"
+
+"Oh! _don't_ you think that, Tom Jonah!" begged Dot, seizing the dog
+on the other side. "We all love you so! And we'll come back to you."
+
+"You'll give him just the best care ever, won't you, Uncle Rufus?"
+cried Agnes.
+
+"Sho' will!" agreed the old colored man.
+
+"_Can't_ we take him with us, Ruthie?" asked Dot.
+
+Ruth would have been tempted to do just this had she been sure that
+they would hire a tent in the colony as soon as they reached Pleasant
+Cove. Tom Jonah was just the sort of a protector the Corner House girl
+would have chosen under those circumstances.
+
+But Ruth was puzzled. She had not seen Pearl Harrod, and was not sure
+whether Pearl had completely filled her uncle's bungalow with guests
+or not. Of one thing Ruth was sure: if they went to the Overlook House
+(Mr. Terrence Severn's hotel), they would pay their board and refuse
+to be Trix's guests.
+
+When the carriage came for them, Tom Jonah stood at the gate and
+watched them get in and drive away with a rather depressed air. Dot
+and Tess waved their handkerchiefs from the carriage window at him as
+long as they could see the big dog.
+
+There was much confusion at the station. Many people whom the girls
+knew were on the platform, or in the cars already. Trix Severn was
+very much in evidence. The Kenway sisters saw the other girls who were
+going to accept Miss Severn's hospitality in a group at one side, but
+they hesitated to join this party.
+
+Trix passed the Kenways twice and did not even look at them. Of
+course, she knew the sisters were there, but Ruth believed that the
+mean-spirited girl merely wished them to speak to her so that she
+could snub them publicly.
+
+"Well, Ruthie Kenway!" exclaimed a voice suddenly behind the Corner
+House girls.
+
+It was Pearl Harrod. Pearl was a bright-faced, big girl, jovial and
+kind-hearted. "I've just been looking for you everywhere," pursued
+Pearl. "Here it is the last minute, and you haven't told me whether
+you and the other girls are going to my uncle's house or not."
+
+"Why--if you are sure you want us?" queried Ruth, with a little break
+in her voice.
+
+"I should say yes!" exclaimed Pearl. "But I was afraid you had been
+asked by some one else."
+
+Trix turned and looked the four sisters over scornfully. Then she
+tossed her head. "Waiting like beggars for an invitation from
+_some_body," she said, loudly enough for all the girls nearby to hear.
+"You'd think, if those Corner House girls are as rich as they tell
+about, that they'd pay their way."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ON THE TRAIN
+
+
+"Don't you mind what that mean thing says," whispered Pearl Harrod,
+quickly.
+
+She had seen Ruth flush hotly and the tears spring to Agnes' eyes when
+Trix Severn had spoken so ill-naturedly. The younger Corner House
+girls did not hear, but Ruth and Agnes were hurt to the quick.
+
+"You are very, very kind, Pearl," said Ruth. "But we had thought of
+going to the tent colony----"
+
+"Didn't Trix Severn ask you to her place?" demanded Pearl, hotly. "I
+_know_ she did. And now she insults you. If she hadn't asked you
+first, and seemed so thick with your sister, Ruth, I would have
+insisted long ago that you all come to uncle's bungalow. There's
+plenty of room, for my aunt and the girls won't be down for a
+fortnight."
+
+"But, Pearl----"
+
+"I'll be mad if you don't agree--now I know that Trix has released
+you, Ruth Kenway," cried the good-hearted girl. "Now, don't let's say
+another word about it."
+
+"Oh, don't be angry!" begged Ruth. "But won't it look as though we
+_were_ begging our way--as Trix says?"
+
+"Pooh! who cares for Trix Severn?"
+
+"You--you are very kind," said Ruth, yielding at length.
+
+"Then you come on. Hey, girls!" she shouted, running after her own
+particular friends who were climbing aboard the rear car. "I've gotten
+them to promise. The Corner House girls are going with us--for two
+weeks, anyway."
+
+At once the other girls addressed cheered and gathered the four
+Kenways into their group, with great rejoicing. The sting of Trix
+Severn's unkindness was forgotten.
+
+Mr. Howbridge, their guardian, came to the station to see them off,
+and shook hands with Ruth through the window of the car. When the
+train actually moved away, Neale O'Neil was there in the crowd,
+swinging his cap and wishing them heaps of fun. Neale expected to go
+to Pleasant Cove himself, later in the season.
+
+This last car of the special train was a day coach; but the
+light-hearted girls did not mind the lack of conveniences and comforts
+to be obtained in the chair cars. The train was supposed to arrive at
+Pleasant Cove by three o'clock, and a five hour ride on a hot June day
+was only "fun" for the Corner House girls and their friends.
+
+Ruth first of all got the brakeman to turn over a seat so that she and
+her three sisters could sit facing each other. Mrs. MacCall had put
+them up a nice hamper of luncheon and the older girl knew this would
+be better enjoyed if the seats were thus arranged.
+
+Of course, there was the usual desire of some of the travelers to have
+windows open while others wished them closed. Cinders and dust flew in
+by the peck if the former arrangement prevailed, while the heat was
+intense if the sashes were down.
+
+Tess and Dot were little disturbed by these physical ills. But they
+had their own worries. Dot, who had insisted on carrying the
+Alice-doll in her arms, was troubled mightily to remember whether she
+had packed the whole of the doll's trousseau (this was supposed to be
+a wedding journey for the Alice-doll--a wedding journey in which the
+bridegroom had no part); while Tess wondered what would happen to Tom
+Jonah and Sandyface's young family while they were all gone from the
+old Corner House.
+
+"I feel condemned--I do, indeed, Dot," sighed Tess. "We ought, at
+least, to have named those four kittens before we left. They'll be
+awfully old before the christening--if we don't come back at the end
+of our first two weeks."
+
+"What could happen to them?" demanded Dot.
+
+"Why--croup--or measles--or chicken-pox. They're only babies, you
+know. And if one should die," added Tess, warmly, "we wouldn't even
+know what name to put on its gravestone!"
+
+"My! lots of things can happen in two weeks, I s'pose," agreed Dot.
+"Do you think we ought to stay away from home so long?"
+
+"I guess we'll have to if Ruth and Aggie stay," said Tess. "But I
+shall worry."
+
+Meanwhile Agnes, who sat with her back to the engine beside Ruth, had
+become interested in a couple sitting together not far down the car.
+They were strangers--and strangely dressed, as well.
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" Agnes exclaimed, under her breath, "they look like
+Gypsies."
+
+"If they are, they are much better dressed than any Gypsies we ever
+saw before," observed her sister.
+
+"But how gay!"
+
+This comment was just enough. The older one had shocking taste in
+millinery. She wore, too, long, pendant ear-rings and her fingers were
+covered with gaudy looking jewels. Her garments were rich in texture,
+but oddly made, and the contrasts in color were, as Agnes whispered,
+"fierce!"
+
+"That girl with her is handsome, just the same," Ruth declared.
+
+"Oh! isn't she!" whispered the enthusiastic Agnes. "A perfectly
+stunning brunette."
+
+If she were a Gypsy girl she was a very beautiful one. Her features
+were lovely and her complexion brilliant. When she smiled she flashed
+two rows of perfect teeth upon the beholder. She might have been a
+year or two older than Ruth.
+
+"I don't know--somehow--she reminds me of somebody," murmured the
+latter.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The girl."
+
+"She reminds me of that chicken-thief Tom Jonah treed on the henhouse
+roof," chuckled Agnes.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth; "all Gypsies can't be alike."
+
+"Humph! you never heard a good word said for them," sniffed Agnes.
+
+"But that doesn't prove there are not good ones. They are a wandering
+people and have no particular trade or standing in any community.
+Naturally they have a lot of crimes laid upon their shoulders that
+they never commit," said the just Ruth.
+
+"That was one of them that tried to steal your hens, just the same,"
+said Agnes.
+
+"I suppose so," admitted her sister. "But surely _these_ two cannot
+belong to the same kind of Gypsies. See how richly they are dressed."
+
+"I guess that doesn't make any difference," said Agnes. "They are all
+cut off the same piece of goods," and immediately she lost interest in
+the strange couple when Lucy Poole came up the aisle to speak to her.
+
+Ruth had the gaily dressed woman and her companion on her mind a good
+deal. She often looked at them when they did not notice her. The woman
+must have been forty, but was straight, lithe, and of good figure. She
+sat on the outer end of the seat, having the girl between her and the
+window.
+
+The latter seemed more and more familiar in appearance to Ruth as she
+looked, yet the Corner House girl could not say whom the girl looked
+like.
+
+The latter scarcely spoke to her companion. Indeed, she kept her face
+toward the window for the most part, and seemed to be in a sullen
+mood. She had smiled once at Dot and the Alice-doll, and that was the
+only time Ruth had seen the dark, beautiful face with an attractive
+expression upon it.
+
+The woman seemed talkative enough, but what language she jabbered to
+her companion the Corner House girl could not tell. She frequently
+leaned toward the dark girl, her bejeweled fingers seizing the sleeve
+of her waist, and her speech was both emphatic and loud.
+
+The rattle of the train drowned, however, most of the woman's words.
+Ruth arose and went the length of the car for a drink, just for the
+purpose of overhearing the strange speech of the Gypsy (if such the
+woman was) for she was sure the language was not English.
+
+She heard nothing intelligible. Ruth folded a cup, filled it at the
+ice-water tank, and brought it back for the children. Pearl Harrod was
+sitting directly behind the two strangers, in a seat with Carrie
+Poole.
+
+"Oh, I say, Ruth!" Pearl said, "is it a fact that Rosa Wildwood is
+coming down to the Cove next week?"
+
+Ruth turned to answer. As she did so the girl in the seat with the
+Gypsy sprang to her feet, her face transfigured with amazement, or
+alarm--Ruth did not know which. The woman grabbed her by the elbow and
+pulled her back into the seat, saying something of a threatening
+nature to her companion.
+
+In her excitement the woman knocked the cup of water from Ruth's hand.
+She turned to apologize, and Ruth, looking over her head, saw the
+dark-skinned girl sitting back in her corner quite colorless and
+broken. The Corner House girl was sure, too, that the strange girl's
+lips formed the name "Rosa Wildwood"--but she made no sound.
+
+"It is all right," Ruth assured the Gypsy woman. "No harm done."
+
+"I am the ver' awkward one--eh?" repeated the woman, with a hard
+smile.
+
+"It does not matter," said Ruth. "I can get another cup of water."
+
+She returned to do so. All the while she was wondering what the
+incident meant. It was not merely a chance happening, she was sure.
+Something about the name of her schoolmate, Rosa Wildwood, had
+frightened the beautiful girl who was evidently in the Gypsy woman's
+care.
+
+Ruth grew quite excited as she drew another cup of water, and she
+swiftly planned to discover the mystery, as she started up the aisle
+of the coach a second time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOMETHING AHEAD
+
+
+Pearl Harrod was now busily talking with Carrie Poole again; she had
+probably forgotten about Rosa Wildwood for the time being. But Ruth
+stopped at her seat--the seat directly behind that occupied by the two
+strangers.
+
+"You asked about Rosa, Pearl?" said Ruth, speaking loudly enough, she
+was sure, for the girl in front to hear.
+
+"Oh, hello! don't spill that water again, Ruthie," laughed Pearl.
+"Yes. I asked if she were coming down to the Cove!"
+
+"Yes. Rosa Wildwood expects to come next week. I am going to find her
+a boarding place."
+
+Ruth spoke very distinctly, and she kept her eyes fastened upon the
+back of the strange girl's head. But the latter gave no sign of having
+heard--at least, she appeared not to be interested in the name which
+had before so startled her.
+
+"I don't see how the poor girl can afford it," Carrie Poole said, not
+unkindly. "They say she and her father are very poor."
+
+"Mr. Bob Wildwood works regularly. He doesn't drink any more," Ruth
+explained, intentionally speaking so that those in the forward seat
+could hear if they wished to listen.
+
+"Rosa is an awfully sweet girl," said Carrie.
+
+"I love that little Southern drawl of hers!" cried Pearl. "She says
+'Ah reckon so' in just the _cunningest_ way!"
+
+"She is very frail," Ruth continued, clearly. "I was afraid she would
+break down before the school term closed. Now it has been arranged for
+her to stay at Pleasant Cove until she gains strength. Dr. Forsythe
+says it will do her a world of good."
+
+"We'll give her a good time, all right," declared Pearl. "Wish we
+could have her with us----"
+
+"Not at the bungalow," said Ruth. "Nor at the hotel. We want a quiet
+place for her. I shall find it."
+
+Not a sign did the girl in front give that she heard any of this
+conversation. Yet Ruth believed there was a curious intentness in her
+manner--she held her head very still as though she were secretly
+listening, while apparently giving all her attention to what the train
+passed.
+
+"What does your uncle call his bungalow--where we shall stop?" asked
+Ruth of Pearl.
+
+"Why, the Spoondrift--don't you remember? It's at this end of the
+cove, near the river, and we have bathing rights on the shore. It's a
+fine place. You'll _love_ it, Ruth Kenway."
+
+"I expect to," said Ruth, seriously. "And you were very kind to ask me
+to stay two whole weeks with you," and Ruth passed on.
+
+She had intentionally said enough so that, if the strange girl _were_
+listening, she would learn just where Ruth could be found at Pleasant
+Cove.
+
+For the Corner House girl felt that the dark beauty with the Gypsy
+woman held some keen interest in Rosa Wildwood. Of course--right at
+the start--the story of Rosa's lost sister, June, had come into Ruth's
+mind.
+
+Yet, as the Corner House girl looked at the stranger, she could not
+say truthfully that it was Rosa of whom _this_ girl reminded her. Ruth
+conjured before her mind's eye the fair, delicate beauty of Bob
+Wildwood's daughter; the two girls possessed no feature in common--and
+in complexion they were, of course, diametrically opposed.
+
+This girl was dark enough and savage enough looking to be a Gypsy.
+Ruth scouted the idea that she might be Juniper Wildwood, who had run
+away with a traveling "medicine man" and his wife.
+
+Nevertheless, Ruth believed that the strange girl must know something
+about the lost June Wildwood. She had been startled when Rosa's name
+was mentioned. The Corner House girl was deeply interested in the
+affair; but at present she did not want to take anybody into her
+confidence about it--not even Agnes.
+
+The girls did not remain quietly in their seats, by any manner of
+means. First there was a crowd blocking the aisle in one part of the
+car, then in another. Agnes was in and out of her seat half a dozen
+times between stations. The heat and dust was ignored as the girls
+shouted pleasantries back and forth; the air was vibrant with
+laughter.
+
+"I'm just as anxious to see the ocean as I can be," declared Lucy
+Poole who, like the Corner House girls, had never been to Pleasant
+Cove before.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" scoffed her cousin Carrie. "It's only a big, big pond!
+Our frog pond at home looks like a piece of the ocean--when it's
+calm."
+
+The others laughed and Pearl said: "Guess Lucy wants to see Old Ocean
+in its might, eh? Big storm, whales, great ships----"
+
+"A sea serpent!" cried Agnes.
+
+"Of course--if there is such a thing," admitted Lucy. "A sea serpent
+must be an awfully interesting sight."
+
+"There aren't any more," said Pearl. "Father Neptune's all out of
+stock."
+
+"I guess the sea serpent is something like the _snakes_ alcoholic
+victims think they see," proposed Carrie.
+
+"Oh, no," proclaimed Agnes. "Here's what I read about the sea serpent:
+
+    "'The old sea serpent used to rave
+      And fiercely roam about;
+    He hit a prohibition wave,
+      And that's what knocked him out.'"
+
+"'Perils of the Deep!'" laughed Ruth. "But even if we don't see
+serpents in the ocean, I expect we'll have plenty of adventures down
+there at the shore."
+
+Which prophecy was strangely fulfilled.
+
+The train reached Bloomingsburg about one o'clock, and was immediately
+shifted to the single-tracked branch line that connected that small
+city with Pleasant Cove. The speed of the train after leaving
+Bloomingsburg was not great, for it was often held up for trains
+coming from the shore to pass.
+
+The adult passengers grew impatient and wearied. There were many
+complaints, and the babies began to fret and cry. But our friends in
+the last coach remained in a jolly and--for the most part--kindly
+mood.
+
+Trix Severn had taken her crowd into a forward coach. Her father
+owning one of the big hotels at the Cove, the railroad company had
+presented him with a sheaf of chair coupons. So, as Pearl Harrod
+laughingly said, "Trix's party was as swell as a wet sponge."
+
+"I don't suppose any of that crowd at the Overlook House will talk to
+_us_," said Pearl. "Just the same, I guess I can show you girls a good
+time at Spoondrift. Uncle always lets us do just as we like. He's the
+_dearest_ man."
+
+The train rattled on and on. The alternate pine forests and swamp
+lands seemed interminable. Now and then they went through a cut, the
+railroad bisecting a hickory ridge.
+
+But soon there was a change in the air. When the cinders and dust did
+not sift into the windows, there was a smell of salt marsh. The air
+seemed suddenly cleaner. At one station where they stopped, a salt
+creek came in, and there was a dock, and boats, and barrels of clams
+and fish piled on the platform ready for the next up-train.
+
+"Regular maritime smell----whew!" sighed Carrie Poole, holding her
+nose delicately.
+
+"Oh! The _whole_ of Pleasant Cove doesn't smell like this, does it?"
+demanded her cousin.
+
+"Only the old part of it--the old village."
+
+"Well! that's lucky," said Lucy. "If this odor prevailed I should say
+the place ought to be called _Un_-pleasant Cove."
+
+"How far are we from the jumping-off place?" demanded Agnes. "I'd like
+to get out and run."
+
+Pearl stooped to look out under one of the drawn shades. "Why!" she
+said, "there are only two more stops before we reach the Cove station.
+It's a winding way the railroad follows. But if we got off about here
+and went right through those woods yonder, we'd reach the Spoondrift
+bungalow in an hour. I've walked over here to Jumpertown many a time."
+
+"Jumpertown?"
+
+"Yes. That's what they called it before the real estate speculators
+gave it the fancy name of 'Ridgedale Station.'"
+
+At that moment the train suddenly slowed down. The brakes grated upon
+the wheels and everybody clung to the seats for support. One of the
+brakemen ran through from the front and the girls clamored to know the
+cause of the stoppage.
+
+"Bridge down up front," said the railroad employee. "Tide rose last
+night and loosened the supports. We've got to wait."
+
+"Oh, dear me!" was the general wail. When they could get hold of the
+conductor the girls demanded to know the length of time they would be
+delayed.
+
+"Can't tell you, young ladies," declared the man of the punch.
+"There's a repair gang at work on it now."
+
+"An hour?" demanded Pearl Harrod.
+
+"Oh, longer than that," the conductor assured her.
+
+"But what shall we do? We want to get to the bungalow and air the
+bedclothes, and all that, before dark," she cried.
+
+"Guess you'll have to walk, then," said the conductor, laughing, and
+went away.
+
+"That's just what we'll do," Pearl said to her friends. "Can the
+children walk three miles, Ruth?"
+
+"Surely they can!" Agnes cried. "If they can't, we'll carry them."
+
+Ruth was doubtful of the wisdom of the move, but her opinion was not
+asked.
+
+"Come on! let's get out quietly. We'll fool all these other folks,"
+said Pearl. "We'll get to Pleasant Cove long before they do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE GYPSY CAMP
+
+
+There were two things that encouraged Ruth Kenway, the oldest Corner
+House girl, to accompany Pearl Harrod's party through the woods
+without objection. Pearl told her that when they reached the highway
+on the other side of the timber in all probability they would be
+overtaken by an auto-bus that ran four times a day between a station
+on a rival railroad line and the Cove.
+
+This was one thing. The other reason for Ruth's leaving the train with
+her sisters, and without objection, was the fact that the strangely
+dressed woman and the pretty, dark girl had left it already.
+
+When the train first stopped and the brakeman announced the accident
+ahead, the woman had spoken to the girl and they both had risen and
+left the car. Perhaps nobody had noticed them but Ruth. The strange
+girl had not looked at Ruth when she passed her, but the woman had
+bowed and smiled in a cat-like fashion.
+
+Pearl said they would follow a path through the timber to the road;
+and she pointed out the direction through the window. Ruth saw the
+woman and girl strike into this very path and disappear.
+
+So curiosity, too, led the oldest Corner House girl to agree to
+Pearl's plan. The party of ten girls, including Ruth, Agnes, Tess and
+Dot Kenway, slipped out of the car without being questioned by any of
+the older people there. Nobody observed them enter the cool and
+fragrant woods. Chattering and laughing, they were quickly in the
+shadowy depths and out of sight of the hot train.
+
+"Oh, isn't this heavenly!" cried Agnes, tossing up her hat by the
+ribbons that were supposed to tie it under her plump chin.
+
+The green tunnel of the wood-path stretched a long way before them. It
+was paved with pine needles and last-year's oak leaves.
+
+Ruth looked sharply ahead, but did not see either the woman or the
+girl, in whom she was so much interested. Either they had gone on very
+rapidly, or had turned aside into the wood.
+
+Dot had made no complaint upon being forced to leave the train; but
+she clung very tightly now to the Alice-doll, and finally ventured to
+ask Tess:
+
+"What--what do you think is the chance for _bears_ in this wood, Tess?
+Don't you think there may be some?"
+
+"Bears? Whoever heard the like? Of course not, child," said Tess, in
+her most elder-sisterly way. "What gave you such an idea as that?"
+
+"Well--it's a strange woods, Tess. We aren't really acquainted here."
+
+"But Pearl is," declared Tess, stoutly.
+
+"I don't care. I'd rather have Tom Jonah with us. Suppose a bear
+should jump out and grab Alice?" and she hugged the doll all the
+closer in her arms. For her own safety she evidently was not anxious.
+
+The girls, after their ride in the train, were like young colts let
+loose in a paddock. They sang and laughed and capered; and when they
+came to a softly carpeted hollow, Pearl Harrod led the way and rolled
+down the slope, instead of walking down in a "decorous manner, as high
+school young ladies should," quoth Carrie.
+
+"If our dear, _de-ar_ teachers should see us now!" gasped Pearl
+sitting up at the foot of the slide, with a peck of pine needles in
+her hair and her frock all tousled.
+
+Their only baggage was the lunch baskets and boxes. All other of their
+personal possessions were on the train, in the baggage car. But the
+remains of the luncheons came in very nicely. Before they had gone a
+mile through the wood they were all loudly proclaiming their hunger.
+
+So they found a spring, and camped about it, eating the remainder of
+the lunches to the very last crumb. And such a hilarious "feed" as it
+was!
+
+Ruth forgot all about the Gypsy woman and the girl who had so puzzled
+her by her actions. The rest by the spring refreshed even Dot. She was
+plucky, if she _was_ little; and she made no complaint at all about
+the long walk through the stretch of timber.
+
+The party did not hurry after that rest. It was still early in the
+afternoon and Pearl, referring to her watch, said they would surely
+catch the auto-stage that passed on the main road about four o'clock.
+
+"You see, there are no servants at the bungalow yet," Pearl explained.
+"Uncle has been taking his meals at one of the small boarding-houses
+nearby, that opens early. He is a great fisherman, and always goes
+down early and 'roughs it' at the bungalow until my aunt comes down.
+
+"But she thought we girls would be able to get on all right--with
+Uncle Phil to give us a hand if we need him. We'll have to air
+bedclothes, and get in groceries, and otherwise start housekeeping
+to-night."
+
+"Why! it will be great fun," Ruth said. "Just like playing house
+together."
+
+"Say!" cried Agnes. "We want more than 'play-house' food to eat--now I
+warn you! No sweet crackers and 'cambric tea' for mine, if you
+please!"
+
+"Oh! if I ask him," said Pearl, laughing, "I know Uncle Phil will take
+us to his boarding-house to supper to-night--if we get there late. But
+I want to show him what ten girls can do toward housekeeping."
+
+"There'll be plenty of cooks to spoil the broth," sighed Agnes. "Did
+you ever see _me_ fry an egg?"
+
+Ruth began to laugh. The single occasion when Agnes had tried her hand
+at the breakfast eggs was a day marked for remembrance at the old
+Corner House.
+
+"What can you do to a defenseless egg, Aggie?" Lucy Poole demanded.
+
+"Plenty!" declared Agnes, shaking her head. "When I get through with
+an egg, a lump of butter, and a frying-pan, there is left a residue of
+charred 'what is it?' in the bottom of the pan, an odor of burned
+grease in the kitchen--and me in hysterics! It was an awful occasion
+when I tackled that egg. I've not felt just right about approaching an
+egg since that never-to-be-forgotten day."
+
+"I was left home to cook for my father, once," said Carrie Poole,
+seriously, "and he asked to have boiled rice for supper. Mother never
+let me cook much, and I didn't know a thing about _rice_.
+
+"But I saw the grains were awfully small, and I knew my father liked a
+great, heaping bowlful when he had it, so I told the grocery boy to
+bring two pounds, and I tried to cook it all."
+
+A general laugh hailed this announcement. Agnes asked: "What happened,
+Carrie? I don't know anything about rice myself--'cepting that it's
+good in cakes and you throw it after brides for luck--and--and
+Chinamen live on it."
+
+"Wait!" urged Carrie, solemnly. "It's nothing to laugh at. I began
+cooking it in a four quart saucepan, so as to give it plenty of room;
+and when father came in just before supper time, I had the whole top
+of our big range covered with pots and pans into which I had dipped
+the overflow of that two pounds of rice!
+
+"Oh, yes, I had!" said Carrie, warmly, while the others screamed with
+laughter. "And I had gotten so excited by that time that I begged
+father to go out to the washhouse and bring in the big clothes boiler,
+so's to see if I could keep the stuff from running over onto the
+stove.
+
+"You never saw such a mess," concluded Carrie, shaking her head. "And
+we had to eat rice for a week!"
+
+It was just here that Agnes spied something far ahead beside the
+woodspath.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "are we in sight of the tent colony you tell about,
+so soon?"
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Pearl Harrod. "We're nowhere near the river."
+
+"But there's a tent!" exclaimed Agnes, earnestly.
+
+"And I see the top of another," said Lucy Poole.
+
+"Dirty brown things, both of them. Look more like Indian wigwams,"
+announced Ann Presby.
+
+"My goodness, girls! there are the Gypsies Uncle Phil wrote about,"
+said Pearl, in some excitement. "Let's get our fortunes told."
+
+"Oh, dear me," said Ruth, rather worriedly. "I don't just _like_
+Gypsies."
+
+"Oh, you haven't got to hug and kiss them!" laughed Pearl. "Come on!
+they're lots of fun."
+
+But when the party of girls drew nearer to the Gypsy camp, this
+particular tribe of Nomads did not appear to be "lots of fun," after
+all.
+
+In the first place, the tents--as Ann had said--were very shabby and
+dirty. The two covered wagons were dilapidated, too. Gypsies usually
+have good horses, but those the girls saw feeding in the little glade
+were mere "crowbaits."
+
+Several low-browed, roughly dressed men sat in a group on the grass
+playing cards. They were smoking, and one was tipping a black bottle
+to his lips just as the girls from Milton came near.
+
+"Let's hurry right by, Pearl!" begged Ruth.
+
+Pearl, however, was not as observant as the Corner House girl. She
+failed to see danger in the situation, or in the looks the disturbed
+men cast upon the unprotected party of girls. As several of the
+fellows rose, Pearl called to them:
+
+"Where's your Pythoness? Where is the Queen of the Gypsies? We want
+our fortunes told."
+
+One man--a tall fellow with a scarred face--turned and shouted
+something in a strange tongue at the tents. Ruth recognized the
+language in which the woman had talked to the dark-faced girl on the
+train.
+
+And then, the next moment, Ruth caught sight of the face of the very
+woman in question, peering from between the flaps of one of the dingy
+tents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE SPOONDRIFT BUNGALOW
+
+
+"I don't think these are very nice looking men, do you, Tess?" Dot
+seriously asked her sister as the party halted before the Gypsy camp.
+
+"Why, Dot!" gasped Tess. "That man _there_ is the very fellow who
+tried to steal Ruth's chickens!"
+
+"Oh--o-o!"
+
+"Yes, he is," whispered the amazed Tess. "He's the young man Tom Jonah
+chased up on to the henhouse roof."
+
+"Well," said the philosophical Dot, "he can't steal our chickens
+_here_."
+
+"Just the same I wish Tom Jonah was here with us. I--I'd feel better
+about meeting him," confessed Tess.
+
+The other girls did not hear this conversation between the two
+youngest Kenways. Ruth and Agnes, however, were really troubled by the
+meeting with the Gypsies; the former was, in addition, suspicious of
+the woman who had been on the train with them.
+
+This strange woman did not come out of the tent. Indeed, almost at
+once she disappeared, dropping the curtain. She did not wish to be
+observed by the girls from Milton.
+
+"Oh, come on!" cried the reckless Pearl. "They'll only ask us a dime
+each. 'Cross their palms with silver,' you know. And they do tell the
+_queerest_ things sometimes."
+
+"I don't believe we'd better stop this afternoon, Pearl," ventured
+Ruth, as one of the rough fellows drew nearer to the girls.
+
+"Let the little ladies wait but a short time," said this man. "They
+will have revealed to them all they wish to know."
+
+He had an ugly leer, and had Pearl looked at him she would have been
+frightened by his expression. But she was searching her chain-purse
+for dimes. It did not look to Ruth Kenway as though that purse would
+last long in the company of these evil fellows.
+
+Now the same tent flap was pushed aside again and into the open
+hobbled an old crone. She seemed to be a toothless creature, and
+leaned upon a crutch. Gray strands of coarse hair straggled over her
+wrinkled forehead. She had a hump on her back--or seemed to have, for
+she wore a long cloak, the bedraggled tail of which touched the
+ground.
+
+She hobbled across the lawn toward the girls. Ruth watched her closely
+for, it seemed, she came more hurriedly than seemed necessary.
+
+A dog--one of the mongrels that infested the camp--ran at her, and the
+old crone struck at the creature with her crutch; he ran away yelping.
+She was plainly more vigorous of arm than one would have believed from
+her decrepit appearance.
+
+The grinning fellows separated as the old hag came forward. She did
+not speak to them, but she was muttering to herself.
+
+"Incantations!" whispered Pearl. "Isn't she enough to give you the
+delicious shudders? Oh!"
+
+Pearl was evidently enjoying the adventure to the full, but some of
+the girls besides Ruth and Agnes, did not feel so very pleasant. When
+one of the fellows took hold of Carrie Poole's wrist-watch with a
+grimy finger and thumb, she screamed.
+
+"Don't fear, little lady," said the tall, grim man, and he struck the
+officious fellow with his elbow in the ribs. "He means nothing
+harmful. Here is Zaliska, the Queen of the Romany. She is very old and
+very wise. She will tell you much for a silver shilling; but she will
+tell you more for two-bits."
+
+"He means a quarter," said Pearl, explaining. "But a quarter's too
+much. Show her your palms, girls. This is my treat. I have ten dimes."
+
+The tall man had motioned his fellows back, but they were arranged
+around the party of girls in such a way that, no matter which way they
+turned, one of the ruffians was right before them!
+
+"Oh, Ruth! I am frightened!" whispered Agnes in her sister's ear.
+
+"Sh! don't scare the children," Ruth said, her first thought for Tess
+and Dot.
+
+The old crone hobbled directly to Ruth and put out a brown claw. Ruth
+extended her own right hand tremblingly. The hag was mumbling
+something or other, but Ruth could not hear what she said at first,
+the other girls were chattering so.
+
+Then she noticed that the grip of the old Gypsy was a firm one. The
+back of her hand seemed wrinkled and puckered; but suddenly Ruth knew
+that this was the effect of grease paint!
+
+This was a made-up old woman--not a real old woman, at all!
+
+The discovery frightened the Corner House girl almost as much as the
+rough men frightened her. "Zaliska" was a disguised creature.
+
+She clung to Ruth's hand firmly when the girl would have pulled it
+away, and now Ruth heard her hiss:
+
+"Get you away from this place. Get you away with your friends--quick.
+And do not come back at all."
+
+Ruth was shaking with hysterical terror. The creature clung to her
+hand and mumbled this warning over and over again.
+
+"What's she telling you, Ruth?" demanded the hilarious Pearl.
+
+"Trouble! trouble!" mumbled the supposed fortune-teller, shaking her
+head, but accepting the next girl's dime.
+
+Ruth whispered swiftly to Pearl: "Oh! let us get out of here. These
+men mean to rob us--I am sure."
+
+"They would not dare," began the startled Pearl.
+
+Just then there was a creaking of heavy wheels, and a voice shouting
+to oxen. The Gypsies glanced swiftly and covertly at one another,
+falling back farther from the vicinity of the girls.
+
+Indeed, several of them returned to the card game. The fortune-teller
+mumbled her foolish prophecies quickly. Into the glade, along a
+wood-path from the thicker timber, came two spans of oxen dragging
+three great logs. A pleasant-faced young man swung the ox-goad and
+spoke cheerily to the slow-moving, ponderous animals.
+
+"Let's go at once, Pearl!" begged Ruth. "We'll keep close to this
+lumberman. Dot and Tess can ride on the logs."
+
+"Come on, girls! I think this old woman is a faker," cried Pearl. "She
+can't even tell me whether I'm going to marry a blond man, or a
+brunette!"
+
+"Don't go yet, little ladies," said the tall man, suavely. "Zaliska
+can tell you much----"
+
+"Let's go, girls!" cried Carrie Poole, snatching her hand away from
+the supposed old woman.
+
+Ruth and Agnes had already seized their sisters and were hurrying them
+toward the lumberman.
+
+"Whoa, Buck! Whoa, Bright!" shouted the teamster, cracking the
+whiplash before the leading span of oxen. "Sh-h! Steady. What's the
+matter, girls?"
+
+"Won't you take us to the main road where we can get the stage for
+Pleasant Cove?" cried Ruth.
+
+"Sure, Miss. Going right there. Want to ride?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!" cried the Corner House girls.
+
+"That will be great fun!" shouted some of the others. "Come on!"
+
+They clambered all over the logs, that were chained together and swung
+from the axle of the rear pair of wheels. The Gypsies began gathering
+around and some of them muttered threateningly, but the lumberman
+cracked his whip and the oxen started easily.
+
+"Cling on, girls!" advised the driver. "No skylarking up there. Soon
+have you out to the pike road. And you want to keep away from that
+Gypsy camp. They are a tough lot--very different from the crowd that
+camped there last year and the year before. We farmers are getting
+about ready to run them out, now I tell ye!"
+
+Ruth said nothing--not even to Agnes--about what she had discovered.
+She had penetrated "Queen Zaliska's" disguise. She believed that the
+supposed old crone was the handsome, dark girl whom she had observed
+so narrowly on the train.
+
+Perhaps nobody but Ruth, of the party of ten girls, really understood
+that they had been in peril from the Gypsies. _She_ believed that, had
+they not gotten away from the camp as they had, the men would have
+robbed them.
+
+The Gypsies were afraid of the husky lumberman, and they did not
+follow the girls. Once on the highway, Pearl declared the auto-stage
+would be along in ten minutes or so, and they bade the lumberman
+good-bye with a feeling of perfect safety.
+
+The Gypsies had not dared follow the party. Soon the stage came along,
+and for ten cents each the girls rode into Pleasant Cove. There were
+only a few other passengers, and the party from Milton sat on top and
+had a lot of fun.
+
+Pearl pointed out the byroad that led down to the river beach where
+the tent colony was set up, but the stage went right past Spoondrift
+bungalow, and the girls got down and charged that dwelling "like a
+horde of Huns," Agnes declared.
+
+Uncle Phillip Harrod was at home, and welcomed them kindly. "Help
+yourselves, girls, and go as far as you like," he said, waving both
+hands, and retired to a corner of the piazza with his book and a pipe.
+
+The girls took him at his word. They were very busy till nightfall.
+Then, however, everything was ready for their occupancy of the
+bungalow, and supper was cooking on the kerosene range.
+
+They had forgotten the Gypsies--all but Ruth. She was bound to be
+puzzled by the disguised "queen" and wondered secretly what the
+masquerade meant, and who the beautiful girl was who posed as
+"Zaliska"?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SOME EXCITEMENT
+
+
+"But _why_ 'Spoondrift'?" demanded Lucy. "What does it mean?"
+
+"'Spoondrift' is the spray from the tops of the waves," explained
+Pearl. "We think the name is awfully pretty."
+
+"And so is the bungalow--and the Cove," sighed Ruth.
+
+"And we're going to have a scrumptious time here!" declared Agnes.
+
+Tess and Dot were frankly sleepy, and Lucy begged the privilege of
+seeing them to bed.
+
+"That's real kind of you, I'm sure, Lute," said Agnes.
+
+"Don't you praise her," sniffed Carrie. "I know Lute. She's sleepy,
+herself. You won't see her downstairs again to-night."
+
+"I don't care," yawned Lucy Poole, following Tess and Dot. "I sleep so
+slowly that it takes a long time for me to get a good night's rest."
+
+"Well! of all things!" ejaculated Carrie, as her cousin departed,
+following the two smaller girls. "What do you know about _that_?"
+
+"Almost as stupid as the inhabitants of London," chuckled Agnes.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Ag?" demanded Ann Presby. "The people of
+London aren't any more stupid than those of other cities, are they?"
+
+"I don't know," returned Agnes; "but the book says 'the population of
+London is very dense.'"
+
+"Fine! fine!" cried Carrie Poole, laughing. "Oh! these 'literal' folk.
+You know, my Grandfather Poole has an awfully bald head. He was
+telling us once that in some famous battle of the Civil War in which
+he took part, his head was grazed by a bullet. My little brother Jimmy
+stared at his head thoughtfully for a minute, and then he said:
+
+"'My, Grandpa, there's not much grazing up there now, is there?'"
+
+These stories began the evening. Everybody had some story or joke to
+relate, and finally the girls began to guess riddles. Somebody
+propounded the old one about the wind: "What is it that goes all
+around the house and yet makes no tracks?" and Agnes had a new answer
+for it:
+
+"Germs!" she shouted. "You know, Miss Georgiana gave us a lecture
+about them, and I bet we're just surrounded by deadly bacilli right
+now."
+
+"Those aren't germs--they're mosquitos, Ag!" laughed Pearl, slapping
+vigorously at one of the pests. "Pleasant Cove isn't entirely free
+from them."
+
+"And they are presenting their bills pretty lively, too," yawned Ruth.
+"The bedrooms are screened. I believe we'd all better seek the haven
+of bed unless we want to be splotchy to-morrow from mosquito bites."
+
+In the morning the older girls divided the housework between them, and
+so got it all done in short order. The baggage had come up from the
+station the evening before, and they unpacked.
+
+Then they set forth to explore the fishing port, as well as the more
+modern part of Pleasant Cove.
+
+As they brisked along the walk past Mr. Terrence Severn's Overlook
+House, they spied Trix and her party on the big veranda. The girls
+hailed each other back and forth; only Trix and the Corner House girls
+did not speak.
+
+"We can't speak to her if she won't speak to us," said Ruth to Agnes.
+"Now, never you mind, Aggie. She'll get over her tantrum in time."
+
+The party from Spoondrift bungalow got back in season to get luncheon;
+after which they rested and then bathed. It was the Corner House
+girls' first experience of salt water bathing and they all enjoyed
+it--even Dot.
+
+"It _does_ make you suck in your breath awfully hard when the waves
+lap upon you," she confessed. "But there was the Alice-doll sitting on
+the shore watching me, and so I couldn't let her see that I was
+_afraid_!"
+
+Ruth, more than the other girls, aided Pearl in looking after
+housekeeping affairs. It was she who discovered the broken lamp in the
+front hall.
+
+The bungalow was lighted by oil-lamps, and they used candles in the
+bed chambers; while there was a marvelous "blue-flame" kerosene range
+in the kitchen.
+
+Not all of the girls understood the handling of kerosene lamps, and
+Pearl told a funny story about her own little sister who had never
+seen any lights but gas or electric.
+
+"When she came down here to Uncle Phil's bungalow for the first time,
+she was all excited about the lamps. She told mamma that 'Uncle Phil
+had his 'lectricity in a lamp right on the supper table. It's a queer
+kind of a light, for they fill it with water out of a can.'"
+
+The hanging lamp in the front hall was set inside a melon-shaped
+globe. Finding that, as Ruth pointed out, it could not be used, Pearl
+made another trip to the village before teatime and in the local
+"department store" bought another lamp.
+
+"I am afraid you ought not to use that lamp, Pearl," Ruth said, when
+she saw that the chimney was not tall enough to stick out of the top
+of the globe.
+
+"Pooh! why not? Guess it's just as good as the old chimney was," said
+Pearl.
+
+"Seems to me Mrs. MacCall says that chimneys should always be tall
+enough to come up through the globe. I don't know just why----"
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" interrupted Pearl. "It's all right, I fancy."
+
+Neither girl had recourse to "applied physics." Had she done so she
+could easily have discovered just _why_ it was unwise to use a lamp
+with a short chimney inside such a shaped globe as that hanging in
+chains in the front hall of the bungalow.
+
+Ruth forgot the matter. It was Pearl herself who lit the hall lamp
+that evening. As before, they sat on the porch and played games and
+sang or told stories, all the long, bright evening.
+
+Tess and Dot had gone to bed at half after eight. It was an hour later
+that Lucy suddenly said:
+
+"I smell smoke."
+
+"It isn't Mr. Harrod," said Ann. "He's gone down to the Casino."
+
+"It isn't tobacco smoke I smell," declared Lucy, springing up.
+
+"Oh, Lute!" shrieked Agnes. "Look at the door!"
+
+A cloud of black, thick smoke was belching out of the front hall upon
+the veranda. One of the other girls shrieked "Fire!"
+
+Those next few minutes were terribly exciting for all hands at the
+Spoondrift bungalow. A single glance into the hall showed Ruth Kenway
+that the hanging lamp had burst, and the place was all ablaze.
+
+There was but one stairway, and the children were in one of the
+low-ceilinged rooms above. Tess and Dot could only be reached by
+climbing up the long, sloping roof of the bungalow, and getting in at
+the chamber window.
+
+While some of the girls ran for water--which was useless in the
+quantity they could bring from the kitchen tap in pots and pans--and
+others ran screaming along the street for help, Ruth "shinnied" right
+up one of the piazza pillars and squirmed out upon the shingled roof.
+
+She tore her dress, and hurt her knees and hands; but she did not
+think of this havoc at the moment. She got to the window of the room
+in which her sisters slept, and screamed for Tess and Dot, but in
+their first sleep the smaller girls were completely "dead to the
+world."
+
+There was the screen to be reckoned with before the oldest Corner
+House girl could enter. It was set into the window from the inside,
+and she could neither lift the window-sash nor stir the screen. So she
+beat the tough wire in with her fists, and they bled and hurt her
+dreadfully! Nevertheless, she got through, falling into the room just
+as the stifling smoke from below began to pour in around the bedroom
+door.
+
+"Tess! Dot! Hurry up! Get up!" she shrieked, shaking them both.
+
+Tess aroused, whimpering. Ruth seized Dot bodily, flung a blanket
+around her, and put her out of the window upon the roof. Then she
+dragged Tess to the window and made her climb out after her sister.
+
+"Oh, oh!" gasped Tess, alive at last to the cause of the excitement.
+"Save the Alice-doll, Ruthie. Save Dot's Alice-doll!"
+
+And Ruth actually went back, groping through the gathering smoke, for
+the doll. With it she scrambled out upon the shingles.
+
+By that time the street was noisy with shouting people. Mr. Harrod
+came with a fire extinguisher and attacked the flames. Other men came
+and helped the girls down from the roof.
+
+Agnes had fainted when she realized the danger her sisters were in.
+Some of the other girls were quite hysterical. Neighbors took them all
+in for the night.
+
+It was quite an hour before the fire was completely out. Then the
+Spoondrift bungalow certainly was in a mess.
+
+"It will take carpenters and painters a fortnight and more to repair
+the damage," said Mr. Harrod the next morning. "Luckily none of your
+guests lost their clothing, Pearl; but you will all have to go to the
+hotel to finish your visit to Pleasant Cove."
+
+[Illustration: Ruth actually went back, groping through the gathering
+smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambled out upon the shingles.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE
+
+
+The Overlook House was nearest. Mr. Harrod made arrangements for the
+girls to go there and occupy several rooms. At least, he presumed he
+had made that arrangement with Mr. Severn when he left on the forenoon
+train for Bloomingsburg to arrange his insurance and hire mechanics to
+at once repair the bungalow.
+
+The Spoondrift cottage was really not fit for occupancy and there
+seemed nothing else for the girls to do but follow his advice and go
+over to the Overlook. But Ruth Kenway had her doubts.
+
+After the excitement of the fire, and the general "stir-about" which
+ensued, Pearl Harrod had quite forgotten that the Corner House girls
+were not on terms of intimacy with Trix Severn, the hotel keeper's
+daughter. It probably never entered her good-natured mind that Trix
+would behave meanly when all hands from the Spoondrift had escaped the
+peril of the fire.
+
+The girls trooped over to the hotel, after repacking their baggage, to
+look at the rooms which had been secured for them. Mr. Severn was not
+there, nor was the clerk on duty. Their schoolmate, Trix, was behind
+the desk.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said carelessly, "I presume we can find rooms for you.
+But father doesn't care much to take in people who won't stay the
+season out--especially at this time of the year. It's a great
+inconvenience."
+
+"Pooh!" said Pearl, frankly, "I guess your father is running his hotel
+for money--not for sport. And Uncle Phil is going to pay him for all
+the accommodation we get."
+
+"Indeed?" returned Trix. "You seem to know a lot about our business,
+Miss Harrod."
+
+"Don't you put on any of your high and mighty airs with me, Miss!"
+snapped Pearl. "For they don't go down, let me tell you! Didn't Uncle
+Phil secure rooms for us?"
+
+"Well--he spoke of your coming here. There is Number 10, and 11, and
+14; they're all three double rooms, so you and Ann can have one, Maud
+and Lulu another, and Carrie and Lucy the third."
+
+"But, goodness gracious! there are ten of us!" cried Pearl. "You know
+that very well."
+
+"Those three rooms," said Trix, with elaborate carelessness, "are all
+your uncle provided."
+
+"Why, Uncle Phil must be crazy! Didn't he get a big room for the
+Kenways?"
+
+"Humph!" said Trix, maliciously. "Are _they_ with you, Miss Harrod?
+Your uncle must have quite overlooked them. All the rooms I know
+anything about his securing for your party are the three I've
+mentioned."
+
+"Well, where's your father----"
+
+"He's gone fishing," said Trix, promptly, and with a flash of
+satisfaction in her eyes. "He won't be back till late to-night."
+
+"Then, where's the clerk?" demanded Pearl, much worried.
+
+"Mr. Cheever doesn't know anything about it. I was here when your
+uncle made his bargain. Nothing was said about those Corner House
+girls--so there! There is no room for them here."
+
+"Well! I call that the meanest thing!" began Pearl, but Ruth, who had
+stood close by, interrupted:
+
+"Don't let it worry you in the least, Pearl. We have plenty of time to
+find accommodations before night."
+
+"You won't find them here, Miss!" snapped Trix.
+
+"Nothing would make me remain under this roof for a night," said Ruth,
+indignantly. "My sisters and I have never done you any harm, Trix;
+quite the contrary, as you would remember had you any gratitude at
+all. This hotel is not the only place at Pleasant Cove where we can
+find shelter, I am sure."
+
+"Oh, Ruth! don't go!" begged Pearl. "This mean girl is not telling the
+truth, I am sure. You'll break up our party," Pearl wailed.
+
+"I couldn't stay here now," the oldest Corner House girl declared. "I
+am going to secure a tent for us. I am quite sure we will be
+comfortable in one. If other people can stand it under canvas, of
+course _we_ can."
+
+She took Agnes by the hand and they went out of the hotel. Tess and
+Dot had not come with them, but had been left at the neighbor's where
+they had all spent the night.
+
+Pearl and the other girls could not very well follow them; they were
+not so independently situated as the Corner House girls. Ruth had a
+well filled pocket-book, as well as checks from Mr. Howbridge and an
+introductory letter to the branch bank at Pleasant Cove.
+
+She had been so used to going ahead, and arranging matters for the
+whole family, during the past three years, that she was not troubled
+much by this emergency. She was sorry that the pleasant party had to
+be broken up, that was all. She was not sure that she and her sisters
+knew any of the campers along the riverside.
+
+There were two men who supplied tents and outfits for those who wished
+to live under canvas, and so there were two distinct tent colonies,
+though they were side by side.
+
+One was called Camp Enterprise, and the other Camp Willowbend. The
+latter was just at the bend of the river, and there were a few willows
+on the low bluff back of it.
+
+There were not more than a dozen tents erected in either camp as yet,
+for it was early in the season. The Corner House girls rode quite a
+mile from the hotel to Willowbend Camp and selected a tent that was
+already erected.
+
+It was a large wall-tent and it was divided in half by a canvas
+partition that made a bedroom of one end and a living-room of the
+front part. In the latter was a small sheetiron cookstove, with a pipe
+that led the smoke outside of the tent. But there was an oilstove,
+too, and Ruth decided that they would make arrangements for buying
+most of their food cooked, so as to reduce the details of
+housekeeping.
+
+Agnes cheered up at once when she saw the tent-cities. And the smaller
+girls were delighted with the prospect of living under canvas.
+
+There were four cots in the tent, with sheets and blankets, and
+apologies for pillows; there was matting laid down on the sand, too,
+in this bedroom part of the tent.
+
+The remainder of the furnishings consisted of four camp-chairs, a
+plain deal table, a chest of drawers that contained the chinaware and
+cooking utensils, and a small icebox. This front apartment had a plank
+floor, made in sections.
+
+It was a rough enough shelter, and the camping arrangements were
+crude; nevertheless, the Corner House girls saw nothing but fun ahead
+of them, and they were as busy as bees all that day "getting settled."
+
+There were pleasant people in the other tents of Camp Willowbend, but
+none of them chanced to be Milton people. There were several girls of
+ages corresponding to those of the Corner House girls, and the latter
+were sure they would find these neighbors good sport.
+
+The Kenways were so busy at noon that they only "took a bite in their
+fists," as good Mrs. MacCall would have expressed it. Ruth had been
+wise enough to buy some cooked food in the village before they came
+over to the camp, but she learned from some of the ladies in the tents
+that there was a woman in the neighborhood who baked bread to sell,
+and sometimes cookies and pies.
+
+"You go to see Mrs. Bobster. She's the nicest old lady!" declared one
+city matron. "Make your arrangements for bread now, Miss Kenway, for
+after she takes orders for as many as she can well supply, she
+wouldn't agree to bake another loaf. She has a real New England
+conscience, and she wouldn't promise to bake a single biscuit more
+than she knows she can get in her oven."
+
+The directions for finding Mrs. Bobster interested and amused the
+Corner House girls.
+
+"She is the little old woman who lives in the shoe," laughed their
+informant. "You can't miss the house, if you go along the beach road
+toward town. It's just beyond the other camp."
+
+"Oh!" cried Dot, eagerly, "_I_ want to see the lady who lives in a
+shoe. She must have lots of children, for they were a great bother."
+
+"And," said Tess, "do you suppose she _does_ whip them all soundly and
+send them to bed with a piece of bread to eat?"
+
+"We'll discover all that," promised Ruth, and soon after luncheon,
+having fixed up the tent, and set to rights their things that the
+expressman had brought over from the Spoondrift bungalow, the four
+sisters set out to find Mrs. Bobster.
+
+The girls had ridden over from the village along the highroad, on
+which they had traveled two days before in the auto-stage. This lower,
+or "beach" road was a much less important thoroughfare. In places it
+followed the line of the shore so closely that the unusual high tides
+that had prevailed that spring, had washed a great deal of white sand
+across the swamp-grass and out upon it.
+
+So, in places, the girls plodded through sand over their shoe tops.
+"Might as well go barefooted," declared Agnes, sitting down for the
+third time to take off her oxfords and shake out the sand.
+
+"You'd find it pretty different, if you tried it," laughed Ruth. "This
+sand is hot."
+
+"It does seem as though you slipped back half a step each time you
+tried to go forward," said Tess, seriously. "Aren't we ever going to
+get there, Ruth?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Dot, suddenly, "isn't that a giraffe? And there's a
+camel!"
+
+"For goodness' sake!" gasped Agnes, plunging to her feet, and hopping
+along after her sisters, trying to get on her left shoe. "Is this the
+African desert?"
+
+"It looks like it," said Ruth, herself amazed.
+
+"And it's hot enough," grumbled Agnes. "Oh! I see! it's a wrecked
+carousel."
+
+There were decrepit lions and tigers, too; the rain-washed and broken
+animals were the remains of a carousel, the machinery of which had
+been taken away. Once somebody had tried to finance a small pleasure
+resort between the real village of Pleasant Cove and the two tent
+colonies, but it had been unsuccessful.
+
+The wreck of a "shoot the chutes," the carousel, a dancing pavilion
+and a short boardwalk with adjacent stands, had been abandoned by the
+unfortunate promoters. There was a tower--now a "leaning" tower;
+broken-down swings; an abandoned moving picture palace; and back from
+the rest of the wreckage, several hundred yards from the sandy shore,
+the girls saw a rusty looking frame structure, shaped like a shoe,
+with a flagstaff sticking out of the roof.
+
+"There it is!" cried Tess, eagerly. "And it _does_ look like a shoe."
+
+Originally the house had been a tiny brown cottage set in the midst of
+a garden. The fence surrounding the place was still well kept. The
+second story of the cottage had been transformed into the semblance of
+a congress-gaiter, with windows in the sides and front. It looked as
+though that huge shoe had been carefully placed upon the rafters of
+the first floor rooms of the cottage.
+
+"What a funny looking place!" exclaimed Agnes. "Did you ever see the
+like, Ruth? I wonder if Mrs. Bobster is as funny as her house."
+
+At that moment a figure bobbed up among the beanpoles in the garden,
+and the girls saw that it was a little woman in a calico sunbonnet.
+Her face was very small and hard and rosy--like a well-shined Baldwin
+apple. She had twinkling blue eyes, as sharp as file-points.
+
+"Shoo!" exclaimed the little woman. "Shoo, Agamemnon! Git aout o' them
+pea-vines like I told you!"
+
+For a moment the Corner House girls did not see Agamemnon; they could
+not imagine who he was.
+
+"Shoo, I tell ye!" exclaimed the little old woman who lived in a shoe,
+and she struck out with the short-handled hoe she was using.
+
+There was a squawk, and out leaped, with awkward stride, a long legged
+rooster--of what "persuasion" it was impossible to tell, for he was
+swathed from neck to spurs in a wonderful garment which had
+undoubtedly been made out of a red flannel undershirt!
+
+Two or three bedraggled tail-feathers appeared at the aperture in the
+back of this garment; otherwise Agamemnon seemed to be quite
+featherless. And when, clear of his mistress' reach, he flapped his
+almost naked wings and crowed, he was the most comical looking object
+the Corner House girls had ever seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A PICNIC WITH AGAMEMNON
+
+
+"You see, gals, Agamemnon's been the most unlucky bird that ever was
+hatched," said the little old woman, coming across the tiny lawn to
+the fence where the Corner House girls were staring, round-eyed, at
+the strange apparition of a rooster in a red-flannel sleeping-suit.
+
+"But he's the pluckiest! Yes, ma'am! He was only a pindling critter
+when he pipped the shell, an' the vi-cis-_si_-tudes that bird's been
+through since he fust scratched would ha' made a human lay right down
+and die.
+
+"The other chickens never would let him raise a pin-feather ter cover
+his nakedness; they picked on him suthin' _awful_. I shet him up till
+his wings and tail growed, an' a rat got in an' gnawed the feathers
+right off him in one night; but Agamemnon picked and clawed so't the
+old rat didn't bleed him much.
+
+"And now here, lately, a neighbor got a half-breed game rooster, an'
+thet pesky fightin' bird got down here an' sasses Agamemnon on his own
+premises.
+
+"Ag wouldn't stand for that," said the old lady, her blue eyes fairly
+crackling. "He sailed right inter that game chicken--an' Neighbor
+Lincoln et his rooster the nex' Sunday for dinner. 'Twas all he could
+do with the critter after Agamemnon got through with him.
+
+"But that game rooster had tore ev'ry _important_ feather off'n poor
+Agamemnon's carcass. I had to do suthin'. 'Twarn't decent for him to
+go 'round bare. So I made him that smock out of one o' poor Eddie's
+old shirts. And there ye be!" she finished breathlessly, smiling
+broadly upon the interested Corner House girls.
+
+"I guess you are Mrs. Bobster?" asked Ruth, smiling in return.
+
+"Are you _really_ the--the lady who lives in the shoe?" asked Dot,
+round-eyed.
+
+"That's what they call me, pet," said Mrs. Bobster, smiling at the
+smallest Kenway. "I'm the only little old woman who lives in _this_
+shoe. Poor Eddie thought we'd make a mint of money if we built over
+the top of our house like that, and I sold gingercakes and sweeties to
+the children who came down here to the beach. Eddie was allus mighty
+smart in thinkin' up schemes for me to make money. But the Beach
+Company went up in smoke, as the sayin' is; so we didn't make our
+fortun' after all."
+
+She laughed. Indeed, this little, apple-faced old lady was almost
+always laughing, it seemed.
+
+"Poor Eddie!" she added. "I guess the Beach Company failin' took about
+all the tuck out o' him. He said himself it was the last straw on the
+camel's back. He jest settled right down inter his chair, like; and he
+didn't last that winter out. He was allus weakly, Eddie was."
+
+The Corner House girls knew she must be speaking of her husband. So
+now she was all alone in the house that had such a grotesque upper
+story.
+
+"No. There ain't no children here--only them that comes in to see me,"
+Mrs. Bobster said in answer to a question from Tess. "We never did
+have no children; but we allus loved 'em."
+
+Meanwhile she had opened the gate and invited the Corner House girls
+into the yard. There was an arbor which was already shaded by
+quick-growing vines. The little kitchen garden, with its border of
+gooseberries and currants, was as neat as it could be.
+
+"I gotter cow of my own out back, and hens, too. I make a bare livin'
+in winter, and put frills onto it in summer," and the old lady
+laughed. "These folks from the city that come livin' in tents here,
+like my bread and cookies."
+
+"That is what we have come to arrange for, Mrs. Bobster," said Ruth.
+
+"I dunno. Most all I can comferbly bake three times a week, is
+bespoke," said the little old woman who lived in a shoe. "How many is
+there in your fam'bly, Miss?"
+
+When she heard that there were just four of them--these girls
+alone--and that they were to live by themselves in a tent, she grew
+greatly interested.
+
+"Surely I'll bake for you--and cookies, too. Maybe a fruit pie oncet
+in a while--'specially if you'll go over beyond the bend when berries
+is ripe and pick 'em yourself. And you gals a-livin' all alone? Sho!
+I'd think you'd be scaret to death."
+
+"Why, no!" said Ruth. "Why should we?"
+
+"After dark," said the old woman, shaking her hand.
+
+"Who would hurt us?" asked the Corner House girl in wonder.
+
+"Can't most always sometimes tell," said the old woman, shaking her
+head.
+
+"But _you_ live here alone!"
+
+"No," she said, quickly. "Not after dark. I ain't never alone. Oh,
+no!"
+
+She spoke as though she were afraid Ruth might not believe her, and
+repeated the denial several times.
+
+Tess and Dot were very anxious to go upstairs and see the rooms in the
+"shoe," and they made the request to Ruth in an audible whisper.
+
+"For sure!" cried Mrs. Bobster. "All the children that come here want
+to go upstairs. If I had 'em of my own, that's where I'd put 'em all
+to bed after I'd fed 'em bread and 'whipped 'em all soundly,'" and she
+laughed.
+
+"I don't believe you'd have whipped the children, if you'd been the
+really truly little old woman that lived in the shoe," quoth Dot,
+putting a confiding hand into the apple-faced lady's hard palm.
+
+"I bet _you_ wouldn't have had to be whipped," laughed Mrs. Bobster,
+leading Dot away, with Tess following.
+
+Later the hostess of the shoe-house brought out a pitcher of milk and
+glasses with a heaping plate of ginger cookies--the old-fashioned kind
+that just _melt_ on your tongue!
+
+"Sho!" she said, when Ruth praised them. "It's easy enough to make
+good merlasses cookies. But ye don't wanter have no conscience when it
+comes to butter--no, indeed!"
+
+Agamemnon came to the feast. In his ridiculous red flannel suit he
+waddled up to his mistress and pecked crumbs off her lap when she sat
+down on the bench in the arbor.
+
+"He looks just like a person ready to go in swimming," chuckled Agnes.
+"It's a red bathing suit."
+
+"That's one thing Agamemnon can't stand. He don't like water," said
+Mrs. Bobster. "But if I let him out at low tide he'll beau a flock of
+hens right down to the clamflats. But now, poor thing! they won't go
+with him."
+
+"Who--the hens!" asked Ruth, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes. They don't think he looks jest right, I s'pose. If he chasses up
+to one of my old biddies, she tries to tear that flannel suit right
+off'n him. It's hard on poor Agamemnon; but until his feathers start
+to grow good again, I don't dare have him go without it. He'd git
+sunburned like a brick, in the fust place."
+
+This tickled Agnes so that she almost fell off the bench.
+
+"But I should think the red flannel would tickle him awfully,"
+murmured Tess, quite seriously disturbed over the plight of the
+rooster.
+
+"Sho! keeps away rheumatics. So poor Eddie allus said," declared the
+widow. "That's why he wore red flannel for forty year--and he never
+had a mite of rheumatism. Agamemnon ought to be satisfied he's alive,
+after all he's been through."
+
+It was really very funny to see the rooster strutting about the yard
+in what Agnes called his red bathing suit.
+
+The Corner House girls remained for some time with Mrs. Bobster. When
+they went back to the camp at the bend they carried their first supply
+of bread and cookies.
+
+They arrived at their tent to find a wagonette Pearl had hired in the
+port, and all the other girls who had been at the Spoondrift bungalow
+had come visiting.
+
+The crowd was delighted with the way Ruth and her sisters were
+situated. It looked as though to live under canvas would be great fun
+indeed.
+
+"Wish I'd spoken to Uncle Phil about it, and gotten him to hire tents
+instead of putting us up at that old hotel," declared Pearl. "And do
+you know, girls, that Trix Severn told a story?"
+
+"I didn't suppose she'd be above being untruthful," Ruth said, rather
+indignantly.
+
+"And you're quite right. We found out that her father set aside a big,
+double-bedded room for you four girls. Trix says she did not know
+anything about it. But of course Uncle Phil would not have forgotten
+you."
+
+"Never mind," said Agnes. "I'm glad she acted so. We're a whole lot
+better off here."
+
+"I believe you!" said Carrie Poole.
+
+"You going to have Rosa Wildwood here in the tent with you when she
+comes?" asked Ann Presby.
+
+"I'm afraid she ought to have a better place," said Ruth. "And I
+believe I know just where she would get the attention--and food--that
+she needs," and the oldest Corner House girl told the crowd about Mrs.
+Bobster--the little old lady who lived in a shoe.
+
+"If I can get the dear old thing to take Rosa to board, I know she'll
+give her just what she needs--good food, plenty of it, well cooked,
+and Rosa will be in a quiet place where she can rest all she wants
+to," said Ruth.
+
+She had no idea at the time of the strange adventure that would arise
+out of this plan of hers to bring Rosa Wildwood to stay for a part of
+the summer with the little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NIGHT OF THE BIG WIND
+
+
+"Ruthie! there's another man wants to sell you a boat."
+
+"Ruthie! there's another man wants to sell an elephant--and it's _so_
+cute!"
+
+"For the land's sake!" gasped Ruth, throwing down a sputtering pen,
+where she was writing on the chest of drawers in the tent. "_How_ can
+a body write? And an elephant, no less!"
+
+She rushed out to see Dot's elephant, as that seemed more important
+than Tess' announcement that a man had merely a boat for sale. Dot's
+man was a gangling young fellow with a covered basket from which he
+was selling sugar cakes made into fancy shapes. So Dot had her
+elephant for the Alice-doll (almost everything that appealed to Dot
+was bought for that pampered child of hers!) and was appeased.
+
+But the man with the boat was a different matter. He proved to be a
+boat owner and he wanted to hire one of his craft to the Corner House
+girls by the week. Agnes was just crazy (so she said) to add rowing to
+her accomplishments, and Ruth thought it would be a good thing
+herself.
+
+The boat was a safe, cedar craft, with two pairs of light oars and a
+portable kerosene engine and propeller to use if the girls got tired
+of rowing. Ruth made the bargain after thoroughly looking over the
+boat, which had had only one season's use.
+
+There was a chain and padlock for mooring it to a post at the edge of
+the water just below the tent.
+
+The older girls had already learned to swim in the school gymnasium at
+Milton. Milton was pretty well up to date in its school arrangements.
+
+Tess had been taught to "strike out" and could be left safely to
+paddle by herself in shallow water while Ruth and Agnes taught little
+Dot.
+
+The latter refused to own to any fear of the water. Up here in the
+river the waves were seldom of any consequence, and of course on
+stormy days the girls would not go bathing at all.
+
+Others of the Willowbend campers had rowboats for the season; and some
+even owned their own motorboats. The girls were well advised regarding
+fishing-tackle and the like. Crabbing was a favorite sport just then,
+for several small creeks emptied into the river nearby and soft-shell
+crabs and shedders were plentiful.
+
+"I'd be afraid of these crabs if their teeth were hard," Dot declared,
+for she insisted that the "pincers" of the crustaceans were teeth.
+
+"They are dreadfully _squirmy_, anyway," sighed Tess. "Just like
+spiders. And yet, we eat them!"
+
+"But--but I always shut my eyes when I eat them; just as I do when I
+swallow raw oysters," confessed Dot. "They taste so much better than
+they look!"
+
+Having the boat, the Corner House girls rowed to the village for their
+supplies and to visit their friends. They did not go to the Overlook
+House; but Pearl Harrod and her party were at the burned bungalow
+almost all day. They always bathed there, and the Corner House girls
+went down to bathe with them. The beach was better there than at the
+camp.
+
+It was Monday when Ruth Kenway and her sisters were established in
+their tent. On Thursday of that week they rowed over to Spoondrift
+bungalow in the morning. Pearl greeted them before they got ashore
+with:
+
+"Oh, Ruth! The funniest thing has happened. You'd never guess."
+
+"Trix Severn has the mumps!" exclaimed Agnes. "I knew she was all
+swelled up."
+
+"Not as good as _that_," laughed Pearl. "But worse may happen to that
+girl than mumps. However, it's nothing to do with Trix."
+
+"What is it?" asked Ruth, calmly. "I'm not a good guesser, Pearl."
+
+"You remember those Gypsies?"
+
+"That are camped up in the woods!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"If they _are_ Gypsies," said Ruth, doubtfully.
+
+"Of course they are!" cried Pearl. "Well, they've been around here
+looking for you."
+
+"For goodness' sake!" gasped Agnes. "What for?"
+
+Ruth herself looked startled. But Pearl began to laugh again.
+
+"At least, that queer old woman has been asking for you," she
+explained.
+
+"Zaliska!" exclaimed Ruth, although she was very sure that was not the
+person's name. Of course the name was part of the strange girl's
+masquerade.
+
+"It was this morning," Pearl went on to say. "We didn't see many of
+the women of the tribe when we came past that camp last week. But a
+number of them came down into the village this morning--selling
+baskets and telling fortunes from door to door. We saw them over by
+the hotel--didn't we, girls?"
+
+"Yes. I bought a basket from one of them," admitted Carrie Poole.
+
+"But when we came up here to the bungalow," pursued Pearl, "one of the
+men working here asked me if I'd seen 'my friend, the Gypsy queen'?
+So, I said 'No,' of course.
+
+"Then he told me that that Zaliska had asked him where the girl was
+who was called Ruth Kenway. He told her that after the bungalow got
+afire, all the girls went to the hotel."
+
+"Then she'll never find you there, Ruth," interposed Agnes, with
+satisfaction.
+
+Ruth was not sure that she did not wish the supposed Gypsy queen to
+find her. She knew that "Zaliska" was really the very pretty,
+dark-skinned girl whom she had been so much interested in on the train
+coming down from Milton.
+
+And that strange girl was interested in Rosa Wildwood. Of that Ruth
+was as sure as she could be.
+
+"Maybe she'll follow you up to the camp," said Lucy Poole. "I'd be
+afraid to live all alone in that tent if I were you girls."
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed Agnes. "What's going to hurt us!"
+
+"The crabs might come up the beach at night and pinch your toes,"
+laughed Maud Everts.
+
+"I don't know," Pearl said, seriously. "I wouldn't want those Gyps
+interested in _me_."
+
+"Now you are trying to frighten us," laughed Ruth. "We have plenty of
+neighbors. Don't you come up there and try to play tricks on us in the
+tent. You might get hurt."
+
+"Bet she has a gatling gun," chuckled Carrie Poole.
+
+"I'm going to have something better than that," declared Ruth,
+smiling. But she refused to tell them _what_.
+
+Ruth remembered that the little old woman who lived in a shoe had
+spoken of being afraid, too; so the oldest Corner House girl made her
+plans accordingly, but kept them to herself.
+
+After their bath the sisters dressed in the Harrod tent that had been
+pitched on the lawn behind the bungalow, and then went on to the
+village. Ruth and Agnes rowed very nicely, for the former, at least,
+had had some practise at this sport before coming to Pleasant Cove.
+
+They tied the painter of their boat to a ring in one of the wharf
+stringers, and went "up town" to the stores. The village of Pleasant
+Cove was never a bustling business center. There were but few people
+on the main street, and most of those were visitors.
+
+"There are two of those Gypsy women, Ruth!" hissed Agnes in her
+sister's ear, as they came out of a store.
+
+Ruth looked up to see the woman who had been in the train, and
+another. They were both humbly dressed, but in gay colors. Ruth looked
+up and down the street for the disguised figure of the young girl, but
+_she_ was not in sight.
+
+"My goodness, Ruth!" said Agnes, "what do you suppose that old hag of
+a Gypsy wants you for?"
+
+"She isn't----" began Ruth. Then she thought better of taking Agnes
+into her confidence just then and did not finish her impulsively begun
+speech, but said:
+
+"We won't bother about it. She probably won't find us up at Willowbend
+Camp."
+
+"I should hope _not_!" cried Agnes. "I don't want to get any better
+acquainted with those Gyps."
+
+The matter, however, caused Ruth to think more particularly of Rosa
+Wildwood. She had not yet found a boarding place for the Southern
+girl, and Rosa was to come down to Pleasant Cove the next Monday.
+
+Ruth wanted to see Mrs. Bobster, and she did so that very afternoon.
+On their way back to the camp they tied the boat up at the foot of the
+wrecked pleasure park and walked up the broken boardwalk to the
+shoe-house.
+
+"Here's your bread, girls--warm from the oven," said the brisk little
+woman. "And if you want a pan of seed cookies----"
+
+"Oh! don't we, just!" sighed Agnes.
+
+The girls sat down to eat some of the delicacies right then and there,
+and Mrs. Bobster brought a pitcher of cool milk from the well-curb.
+Ruth at once opened the subject of getting board for Rosa with the
+little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+"Wal, I re'lly don't know what ter say to ye," declared Mrs. Bobster.
+"I ain't never kalkerlated ter run a boardin' house----
+
+"But one young lady! I dunno. They wanted me to take old Mr. Kendricks
+ter board last winter; the town selectmen did. But I told 'em 'No.' I
+warn't runnin' a boardin' house--nor yet the poorfarm."
+
+"Poorfarm?" questioned Ruth, puzzled by the reference.
+
+"Yep. Ye see, there ain't been no town poor here in Pleasant Cove for
+a number o' years. Last winter old Mr. Kendricks see fit to let the
+town board him. He's spry enough to go clammin' in the summer; an' he
+kin steer a boat when his rheumatics ain't so bad. But winters is
+gittin' hard on him.
+
+"It didn't seem good jedgment," Mrs. Bobster said, reflectively, "to
+open the poorfarm jest for _him_. B'sides, they'd got the old farm let
+to good advantage for another year to Silas Holcomb. So they come to
+me.
+
+"Now, Mr. Kendricks is as nice an old man as ever you'd wish ter see,"
+pursued Mrs. Bobster. "He comes of good folks--jest as good as my poor
+Eddie's folks.
+
+"The town selectmen had consid'rable trouble gettin' Mr. Kendricks
+took, 'count o' his being so pertic'lar. Yeast bread seemed ter be his
+chief objection. He couldn't make up his mind to it on account of
+havin' had sour milk biscuit all his life; but finally, after I'd said
+'No,' they got Mis' Ann 'Liza Cobbles to agree to give him hot bread
+three times a day like he was used to.
+
+"But, lawsy me! She ain't a com-_plete_ cook--no, indeed! Mr.
+Kendricks said her cookin' warn't up to the mark, an' if he has to go
+on the town this comin' winter he shouldn't go to Mis' Cobbles.
+
+"The selectmen may be driv' to open the poorfarm ag'in, an' to gittin'
+somebody ter do for Mr. Kendricks proper.
+
+"Maybe it's a sort of lesson to the folks of Pleasant Cove," sighed
+Mrs. Bobster, "for bein' sort o' proud-like through reason of not
+havin' no town poor for endurin' of ten years. I view it that way
+myself.
+
+"Mr. Kendricks says he feels as if he was meant ter be a notice to
+'em; ter be ready an' waitin' ter help people in a proper way; not to
+be boardin' of 'em 'round where they might git dyspepsia fastened on
+'em through eatin' of unproper food."
+
+Agnes was giggling; but Ruth managed to get the talkative old lady
+back into the track she wanted her in. The Corner House girl
+expatiated upon how little trouble Rosa would be, and what a nice girl
+she was.
+
+"Well!" said Mrs. Bobster, "I might try her. You offer awful temptin'
+money, Miss. And poor Eddie allus said I'd do anything for money!"
+
+It had been fortunate for the deceased Mr. Bobster, as Ruth had
+learned, that his wife _had_ been willing to earn money in any honest
+way; for Mr. Bobster himself seldom had done a day's work after his
+marriage to the brisk little woman.
+
+So the matter of Rosa Wildwood's board and lodging was arranged, and
+the Kenways went back to their boat. Evening was approaching, and with
+it dark clouds had rolled up from the horizon, threatening a bad
+night.
+
+Ruth and Agnes found a head wind to contend with when they pushed off
+the cedar boat. Ruth had learned to run the little motor propeller,
+and she started it at once. Otherwise they would have a hard time
+pulling up to Willowbend Camp.
+
+During the week there were few men at the tent colonies. On Saturdays
+and Sundays the husbands and fathers were present in force; but now
+there was not a handful of adult males in either the Enterprise or
+Willowbend encampments.
+
+The Corner House girls were helped ashore, however, and they hauled
+their boat clear up to the front of their tent. There was quite a
+swell on, and the waves ran far up the beach, hissing and spattering
+spray into the air. The wind swept this spray against the tents in
+gusts, like rain.
+
+But there was no rain--only wind. The black clouds threatened, but
+there was no downpour. There was no such thing as having a coal fire,
+however; the wind blew right down the stack and filled the tent with
+choking smoke.
+
+They lit a lantern and ate a cold supper. The flaps of the tent were
+laced down, for they had been warned against letting the wind get
+under. Now and then, however, a chill draught blew over them and the
+partition creaked.
+
+"It's just like a storm at sea," said Agnes, rather fearfully, yet
+enjoying the novel sensation. "We might as well be on a sailing ship."
+
+"Not much!" exclaimed Ruth. "At least, we're on an even keel."
+
+They agreed to go to bed early. Lying in the cots, well covered with
+the blankets, seemed the safest place on such a night. There was no
+shouting back and forth from tent to tent, and no visiting.
+
+Lights went out early. The wind shrieked in the treetops back from the
+shore, and in the lulls the girls could hear the breakers booming on
+the rocks outside the cove.
+
+Tess and Dot went to sleep--tired with the day's activities. Not so
+the older girls. They lay and listened, and shivered as the booming
+voice of the wind grew in volume, and the water seemed to drive
+farther and farther up the beaches.
+
+Forever after, this night was known at Pleasant Cove as "the night of
+the big wind." But as yet it had only begun and the Corner House girls
+had no idea of what was in store for them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN IMPORTANT ARRIVAL
+
+
+Agnes _did_ fall asleep; but Ruth only dozed, if she closed her eyes
+at all. The rumble of the storm shook the nerves of the oldest Corner
+House girl--and no wonder!
+
+Ruth felt the weight of responsibility for her sisters' safety. If
+anything happened while they were under canvas she knew that she would
+be blamed.
+
+Sometimes the spray swept in from the river and spattered on the
+canvas like a drenching shower. The walls of the tent shook. She heard
+many sounds without that she could not explain--and some of these
+sounds frightened her.
+
+Suppose the tent should blow down? The way the wind sometimes shook it
+reminded Ruth of a dog shaking a bit of rag.
+
+Then, when the wind held its breath for a moment, the roaring of the
+sea in the distance was a savage sound to which the girl's ears were
+not attuned.
+
+She had left the lantern lit and it swung from a rope tied to the
+ridgepole of the tent, and beyond the half partition of canvas. Its
+flickering light cast weird shadows upon the canvas roof.
+
+Now and then the spray beat against the front of the tent, while the
+roof shook and shivered as though determined to tear away from the
+walls. Ruth wished she had gone all around the tent before dark to
+make sure the pegs were driven well into the sand.
+
+Occasionally children cried shrilly, for the noise of the elements
+frightened them; Ruth was thankful that Tess and Dot slept on.
+
+She slept herself at last; how long she did not know, for when she
+awoke she was too greatly frightened to look at her watch. The wind
+seemed suddenly to have increased. It seemed struggling to tear the
+tent up by the roots!
+
+And as the canvas shook, and swelled, and strove to burst its
+fastenings, there came a sudden snap on one side and one of the pegs
+flew high in the air at the end of its rope, coming down slap on the
+roof of the tent!
+
+"The peg has pulled out!" gasped Ruth, sitting up in her cot and
+throwing off the blanket.
+
+The canvas was straining and bellying fearfully at the point where the
+peg had drawn. It was likely to draw the pegs on either side. Ruth
+very well knew that if a broad enough opening was made for the wind to
+get under, the tent would be torn from its fastenings.
+
+She hopped out upon the matting and shook Agnes by the shoulder.
+
+"Get up! Get up, Ag!" she called, breathlessly. "Help me."
+
+She ran to the front of the tent for the maul--a long-handled,
+heavy-headed croquet-mallet. When she returned with it, Agnes was
+trying to rub her eyes open.
+
+"Come quick, Ag! We'll be blown away," declared Ruth.
+
+"I--I----What'll we do?" whimpered Agnes.
+
+"We must hold the tent down. Come on! Get into your mackintosh. I'll
+get the lantern."
+
+Around the upright pole in the sleeping part of the tent were hung the
+girls' outer garments. Ruth got into her own raincoat and buttoned it
+to her ankles. She left Agnes struggling with hers while she ran to
+unhang the lantern. She knew the night must be as black as a pocket
+outside.
+
+"Wha--what you going to do?" stuttered Agnes.
+
+"Drive the pegs in deeper. One of them pulled out."
+
+"Oh, dear! _Can_ we?"
+
+"I guess we'll have to, if we don't want to lose our tent. Hear that
+wind?"
+
+"It--it sounds like cannon roaring."
+
+"Come on!"
+
+"But that isn't the front flap----"
+
+"Think I'm going to unlace that front flap when the wind's blowing
+right into it?"
+
+"Can't we get out yonder, where the peg has been pulled?"
+
+"But how'll we get in again when all the stakes are driven down hard?"
+snapped Ruth, beginning to unlace the flaps of the rear wall of the
+tent.
+
+"Oh! oh!" moaned Agnes. "Hear that wind?"
+
+"I wouldn't care if it only _hollered_," gasped Ruth. "It's what it
+will do if it ever gets under this tent, that troubles me!"
+
+She unlaced the flaps only a little way. "Come along with that
+lantern, Ag. We've got to crawl under."
+
+"'Get down and get under,'" giggled Agnes, hysterically.
+
+But she brought the lantern and followed Ruth out of the tent, on
+hands and knees. When they stood up and tried to go around to that
+side of the tent where the peg had pulled out, the wind almost knocked
+them down.
+
+"And how the sleet cuts!" gasped Agnes, her arm across her eyes for
+protection.
+
+"It's sand," explained Ruth. "I thought it was spray from the river.
+But a good deal of it is sand--just like a sand-storm in the desert."
+
+"Well!" grumbled Agnes, "I hope it's killing a lot of those sandfleas
+that bother us so. I don't see how they can live and be blown about
+this way."
+
+Ruth tackled the first post at the corner and beat it down as hard as
+she could, Agnes holding the lantern so that the older girl could see
+where to strike.
+
+They went from one peg to the next, taking each in rotation. And when
+they reached the one that had pulled out entirely, Ruth drove that
+into the ground just as far as it would go.
+
+Strangely enough, throughout all this business, Tess and Dot did not
+awake. Ruth went clear around the tent, driving the stakes. The wind
+howled; the sand and spray blew; and the voices of the Night and of
+the Storm seemed fairly to yell at them. Still the smaller Corner
+House girls slept through it all. Ruth and Agnes crept back into the
+tent and laced the flaps down in safety.
+
+A little later, before either of them fell asleep again, they heard
+shouting and confusion at a distance. In the morning they learned that
+two of the tents in the Enterprise Camp had blown down.
+
+The shore was strewn with wreckage, too, when daybreak came; but the
+wind seemed to have blown itself out. Many small craft had come
+ashore, and some were damaged. It was not often that the summer
+visitors at Pleasant Cove saw any such gale as this had been.
+
+Everything was all right with the Corner House girls, and Ruth decided
+they would stick to the tent, in spite of the fact that some of the
+camping families were frightened away from the tent colonies by this
+disgraceful exhibition of Mr. Wind!
+
+The smaller Kenways, as well as the bigger girls, were enjoying the
+out-of-door life immensely. They were already as brown as berries.
+They ran all day, bare-headed and bare-legged, on the sands. It was
+plain to be seen that the change from Milton to Pleasant Cove was
+doing all the Corner House girls a world of good.
+
+And during the extremely pleasant days that immediately followed the
+night of the big wind, many new colonists came to the tents. Two big
+tents were erected in the Willowbend Camp, for Joe Eldred and _his_
+friends--and that included, of course, Neale O'Neil. But the Milton
+boys would not arrive until the next week.
+
+On Monday afternoon the Corner House girls walked down to the railroad
+station to greet Rosa Wildwood. It had been a very hot day in town and
+it was really hot at Pleasant Cove, as well.
+
+"Oh! you poor thing!" gasped Ruth, receiving Rosa in her strong arms
+as she stumbled off the car steps with her bag.
+
+"I'm as thin as the last run of shad, am I not?" asked Rosa, laughing.
+"That train was _awful_! I am baked. It's never like this down South.
+The air is so much dryer there; there isn't this humidity. Oh!"
+
+"Well, you're here all right now, Rosa," cried Ruth. "We have a nice,
+easy carriage for you to ride in. And the _dearest_ place for you to
+live!"
+
+"And scrumptious eating, Rose," added Agnes.
+
+"With the little old woman who lives in a shoe," declared Tess, eager
+to add her bit of information.
+
+Dot's finger had strayed to the corner of her mouth, as she stared.
+For she had never met Rosa before, and she was naturally rather a
+bashful child.
+
+"Now!" cried Ruth, again. "Where is he?"
+
+"Who?" demanded Agnes, staring all about. "Neale didn't come, did he?"
+
+"Oh, he's up in the baggage-car ahead," said Rosa, laughing.
+
+"You sit right down here till I get him," Ruth commanded.
+
+"Here's the check," Rosa said, and to the amazement of the other
+Corner House girls Ruth ran right away toward the head of the train
+with the baggage check, and without saying another word.
+
+There were two baggage cars on the long train and from the open door
+of the first one the man was throwing trunks and bags onto the big
+wheel-truck.
+
+So Ruth ran on to the other car. The side-door was wheeled back just
+as she arrived, and a glad bark welcomed her appearance.
+
+Tom Jonah stood in the doorway, straining at his leash held in the
+hands of the baggageman. His tongue lolled out on his chest like a red
+necktie, and he was laughing just as plainly as ever a dog _did_
+laugh.
+
+"I see he knows you, Miss," said the man. "You don't have to prove
+property. He sure is glad to see you," and he accepted the check.
+
+"No gladder than I am to see him," said Ruth. "Let him jump down,
+please."
+
+She caught the leather strap as the baggageman tossed it toward her,
+and Tom Jonah bounded about her in an ecstasy of delight.
+
+"Down, sir!" she commanded. "Now, Tom Jonah, come and see the girls.
+But behave."
+
+He barked loudly, but trotted along beside her most sedately. Tess and
+Dot had heard him, and deserting Rosa and Agnes, they came flying up
+the platform to meet Ruth and the big dog.
+
+The two younger Corner House girls hugged Tom Jonah, and he licked
+their hands in greeting. Agnes was as extravagantly glad to see him as
+were the others.
+
+"How did you come to send for him, Ruthie?" Agnes cried.
+
+"I thought we might need a chaperon at the tent," laughed Ruth.
+
+"The Gyps!" exclaimed Agnes, under her breath. "Let them come now, if
+they want to. You're a smart girl, Ruthie."
+
+"Sh!" commanded the older sister. "Don't let the children hear."
+
+They helped Rosa into the wagonette and then climbed in after her.
+Ruth had taken off Tom Jonah's leash and the good old dog trotted
+after the carriage as it rolled through Main Street and out upon the
+Shore Road toward the tent colonies.
+
+Rosa brought all the news of home to the Corner House girls and many
+messages from Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus. Of course, they could
+expect no word from Aunt Sarah, for it was not her way to be
+sympathetic or show any deep interest in what her adopted nieces were
+doing.
+
+The girls from the old Corner House might have been a little homesick
+had there not been so much to take up their attention each hour at
+Pleasant Cove.
+
+They brought Rosa to the little old woman who lived in a shoe, and the
+moment Mrs. Bobster saw how weak and white she was her sympathy went
+out to her.
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!" she said, clucking almost as loudly as Agamemnon
+himself. "We'll soon fix you up, my dear. If you stay long enough here
+at the beach, you'll be as brown and strong as these other gals."
+
+Rosa put her arm about Ruth's neck when the Corner House girls were
+about to leave.
+
+"This is a heavenly place, Ruth Kenway, and you are an angel for
+bringing me down heah. I don't know what greater thing anybody could
+do fo' me--and you aren't even kin!"
+
+"Don't bother, Rosa. I haven't done much----"
+
+"There's nothing in the world--but one thing--that could make me
+happier."
+
+Ruth looked at her curiously, and Rosa added:
+
+"To find June. I hope to find her some day--yes, I do."
+
+"And suppose I should help you do _that_?" laughed the oldest Corner
+House girl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TWO GIRLS IN A BOAT--TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG!
+
+
+"Oh, Dot! do come here. Did you ever see such a funny thing in all
+your life?"
+
+Tess Kenway was just as earnest as though the discovery she had made
+was really of great moment. The two bare-legged girls were on the
+sands below the tent colony of Willowbend, and the tide was out.
+
+The receding waves had just left this wet flat bare. Here and there
+the sand still dimpled to the heave of the tide, and little rivers of
+water ran into the hollows and out again.
+
+"What is the matter, Tess?" asked Dot, wonderingly.
+
+"See!"
+
+Tess pointed down at her feet--where the drab, wet sand showed
+lighter-colored under the pressure of her weight.
+
+"What is it?" gasped the amazed Dot.
+
+There was a tiny round hole in the sand--just like an ant hole, only
+there was no "hill" thrown up about it. As Tess tip-tilted on her toes
+to bring more pressure to bear near the orifice in the sand, a little
+fountain of water spurted into the air--shot as though from a fairy
+gun buried in the sand.
+
+"Goodness!" gasped Dot again. "What _is_ that?"
+
+"That's what I say," responded Tess. "Did you ever see the like?"
+
+"Oh! here's another," cried Dorothy, who chanced to step near a
+similar vent. "See it squirt, Tess! See it squirt!"
+
+"What kind of a creature do you suppose can be down there?" asked the
+bigger girl.
+
+"It--it can't be anything very big," suggested Dot. "At least, it must
+be awfully narrow to get down through the little hole, and pull itself
+'way out of sight."
+
+This suggestion certainly opened a puzzling vista of possibilities to
+the minds of both inland-bred girls. What sort of an animal could
+possibly crawl into such a small aperture--and yet throw such a
+comparatively powerful stream of water into the air?
+
+They found several more of the little air-holes. Whenever they stamped
+upon the sand beside one, up would spring the fountain!
+
+"Just like the books say a whale squirts water through its nose,"
+declared Tess, who had rather a rough-and-ready knowledge of some
+facts of natural history.
+
+A man with a basket on his arm and a four-pronged, short-handled rake
+in his hand, was working his way across the flats; sometimes stooping
+and digging quickly with his rake, when he would pick something up and
+toss it into his basket.
+
+He drew near to two Corner House girls, and Dot whispered to Tess:
+
+"Do you suppose he'd know what these holes are for? You ask him,
+Tess."
+
+"And he's digging out something, himself. Do you suppose he's
+collecting clams? Ruth says clams grow here on the shore and folks dig
+them," Tess replied.
+
+"Let's ask about the holes," determined Dot, who was persistent
+whether the cause was good or bad.
+
+The two girls approached the clam-digger, hand in hand. Dot hugged
+tight in the crook of one arm her Alice-doll.
+
+"Please, sir," Tess ventured, "will you tell us what grows down under
+this sand and squirts water up at us through such a teeny, weeny
+hole?"
+
+The man was a very weather-beaten looking person, with his shirt open
+at the neck displaying a brawny chest. He smiled down upon the girls.
+
+"How's that, shipmet?" he asked, in a very husky voice. "Show me them
+same holes."
+
+The sisters led the way, and the very saltish man followed. It was not
+until then that Tess and Dot noticed that one of his legs was of wood,
+and he stumped along in a most awkward manner.
+
+"Hel-_lo_!" growled the man, seeing the apertures in the sand. "Them's
+clams, an' jest what I'm arter. By your lief----"
+
+He struck the rake down into the sand just beyond one of the holes and
+dug quickly for half a minute. Then he tossed out of the hole he had
+dug a nice, fat clam.
+
+"There he be, shipmets," declared the clam-digger, who probably had a
+habit of addressing everybody as "shipmate."
+
+"Oh--but--did _he_ squirt the water up at us, sir?" gasped Dot.
+
+The wooden-legged man grinned again and seized the clam between a firm
+finger and thumb. When he pinched it, the bivalve squirted through its
+snout a fine spray.
+
+"Oh, mercy!" exclaimed Tess, drawing back.
+
+"But--but _how_ did he get down into the sand and only leave such a
+tiny hole behind him?" demanded Dot, bent upon getting information.
+
+"Ah, shipmet! there ye have it. I ain't a l'arned man. I ain't never
+been to school. I went ter sea all my days till I got this here leg
+shot off me and had to take to wearin' a timber-toe. I couldn't tell
+ye, shipmets, how a clam does go down his hole an' yet pulls the hole
+down arter him."
+
+"Oh!" sighed Dot, disappointedly.
+
+"It's one o' them wonders of natur' ye hear tell on. I never could
+understand it myself--like some ignerant landlubbers believin' the
+world is flat! I know it's round, 'cos I been down one side o' it an'
+come up the other!
+
+"As for science, an' them things, shipmets, I don't know nothin' 'bout
+'em. I digs clams; I don't pester none erbout how they grows----"
+
+And he promptly dug another and then a third. The girls watched him,
+fascinated at his skill. Nor did the "peg-leg" seem to trouble him at
+all in his work.
+
+"Please, sir," asked Tess, after some moments, "how did you come to
+lose your leg--your really truly one, I mean?"
+
+"Pi-_rats_," declared the man, with an unmoved countenance.
+"Pi-_rats_, shipmet--on the Spanish Main."
+
+"Oh!" breathed both girls together. Somehow that expression was
+faintly reminiscent to them. Agnes had a book about pirates, and she
+had read out loud in the evenings at the sitting-room table, at the
+old Corner House. Tess and Dot were not aware that "the Spanish Main"
+had been cleared of pirates, some years before this husky-voiced old
+clam-digger was born.
+
+The clam-digger offered no details about his loss, and Tess and Dot
+felt some delicacy about asking further questions. Besides, Tom Jonah
+came along just then and evinced some distaste for the company of the
+roughly dressed one-legged man. Of course, he could not dig clams in
+his best clothes, as Tess pointed out; but Tom Jonah had confirmed
+doubts about all ill-dressed people. So the girls accompanied the dog
+back towards the tents.
+
+The big girls had been out in the boat and Ruth had left Agnes to
+bring up the oars and crab nets, as well as to moor the boat, while
+she hastened to get dinner.
+
+The tide being on the turn they could not very well pull the boat up
+to the mooring post; but there was a long painter by which it could be
+tied to the post. Agnes, however, carried the oars up to the tent and
+then forgot about the rest of her task as she dipped into a new book.
+
+Tess and Dot came to the empty boat and at once climbed in. Tom Jonah
+objected at first. He ran about on the sand--even plunged into the
+water a bit, and put both front paws on the gunwale.
+
+If ever a dog said, "Please, _please_, little mistresses, get out of
+the boat!" old Tom Jonah said it!
+
+But the younger Corner House girls paid no attention to him. They went
+out to the stern, which was in quite deep water, and began clawing
+overboard with the crab nets. With a whine, the dog leaped into the
+craft.
+
+Now, whether the jar the dog gave it as he jumped into the boat, or
+his weight when he joined the girls in the stern, set the cedar boat
+afloat, will never be known. However, it slid into the water and
+floated free.
+
+"We can catch some crabs, too, maybe, Tess," Dot said.
+
+Neither of them noticed that the oars were gone, but had they been in
+the boat, Tess or Dot could not have used them--much. And surely Tom
+Jonah could not row.
+
+They did not even notice that they were afloat until the tide, which
+was just at the turn, twisted the boat's nose about and they began
+drifting up the river.
+
+"Oh, my, Dot!" gasped Tess. "Where are we going?"
+
+"Oh-oo-ee!" squealed Dot, raking wildly with one of the nets. "I
+almost caught one."
+
+"But we're adrift, Dot!" cried Tess.
+
+The younger girl was not so much impressed at first. "Oh, I guess
+they'll come for us," she said.
+
+"But Ruth and Aggie can't reach us--'nless they swim."
+
+"Won't we float ashore again? We floated out here," said Dot.
+
+She refused to be frightened, and Tess bethought her that she had no
+right to let her little sister be disturbed too much. She was old
+enough herself, however, to see that there was peril in this
+involuntary voyage. The tide was coming in strongly and the boat was
+quickly passing the bend. Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out
+for help, they were out of sight of the camp and there was nobody to
+whom to call.
+
+Tom Jonah had crouched down in the stern, with his head on his paws.
+He felt that he had done his duty. He had not allowed the two small
+girls to go without him on this voyage. He was with them; what harm
+could befall?
+
+"I--I guess Alice would like to go ashore, Tess," hesitated Dot, at
+last, having seized her doll and sat down upon one of the seats. The
+boat was jumping a good deal as the little waves slapped her, first on
+one side and then on the other. Without anybody steering she made a
+hard passage of it.
+
+"I'd like to get ashore myself, child," snapped Tess. "But I don't see
+how we are going to do it."
+
+"Oh, Tess! are we going to be carried 'way out to sea?"
+
+"Don't be a goosey! We're going _up_ the river, not _down_," said the
+more observant Tess.
+
+"Well, then!" sighed Dot, relieved. "It isn't so bad, is it? Of
+course, we'll stop somewhere."
+
+"But it will soon be dinnertime," said her sister. "And I guess Ruth
+and Aggie won't know where we've gone to."
+
+In fact, nobody about the tent colony had noticed the cedar boat
+floating away with the two girls in it--to say nothing of the dog!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE GYPSIES AGAIN
+
+
+When Ruth shouted to Agnes from the kitchen, where she was frying
+crabs, to call the children, Agnes dropped the book she had been
+reading and remembered for the first time that she had neglected to
+tie the boat.
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" she shrieked. "See what I've done!"
+
+Ruth came to the opening in the front of the tent, flushed and
+disheveled, demanding:
+
+"Well, _what_? This old fat snaps so!"
+
+"The boat!" cried Agnes.
+
+Ruth stared up and down the shore. There were other boats drawn up on
+the sand and a few moored beyond low-water mark; but their boat was
+not in sight.
+
+"Have you let it get away, Agnes Kenway?" Ruth demanded.
+
+"Well! you don't suppose I went down there and pushed it off, do you?"
+
+"This is no laughing matter----"
+
+"I guess I--I'm not laughing," gulped Agnes. "It--it's go-o-one! See!
+the tide is flowing in and I forgot to tie it."
+
+She was a little mixed here; it was the boat she had forgotten to tie.
+
+"So," murmured Ruth; "if the boat had been tied, the tide wouldn't
+have carried it away," and she had no intention of punning, either!
+"_Now_ what shall we do? That boat cost seventy-five dollars, the man
+said."
+
+"Oh, Ruthie!"
+
+"What will Mr. Howbridge say?"
+
+"Oh, Ruthie!"
+
+"No use crying about it," said the oldest Corner House girl, with
+decision. "_That_ won't help."
+
+"But--but it's gone out to sea."
+
+"Nonsense! The tide has taken it up the river. It's gone round the
+bend. I hope it won't be smashed on the rocks, that's all. We must go
+after it."
+
+"How?" asked the tearful Agnes.
+
+"Get another boat, of course. But let's eat. The children will be
+hungry, and---- My goodness! the crabs are burning up!" and she ran
+back into the tent. "Get Tess and Dot, and tell them to hurry!" she
+called from inside.
+
+But Tess and Dot were not to be found. The beach just then was
+practically deserted. It was the dinner hour and the various campers
+all had the sort of appetites that demands meals served promptly on
+time.
+
+Agnes ran to the other tents in Camp Willowbend; but her small sisters
+were not with any of the neighbors. It was strange. They had been
+forbidden to go out of sight of their own tent when neither Ruth nor
+Agnes was with them; and Tess and Dot were remarkably obedient
+children.
+
+"I certainly do not understand it," Ruth said, when Agnes brought back
+the news.
+
+At that moment a shuffling step sounded outside the tent and a husky
+voice demanded:
+
+"Any clams terday, lady? Fresh clams--jest dug. Ten cents a dozen;
+two-bits for fifty; half a dollar a hundred. Fresh clams!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Agnes, springing to the tent entrance so suddenly that the
+wooden-legged clam-man started back in surprise. "Oh! have you seen my
+sisters anywhere on the beach?"
+
+"Hel-_lo_!" growled the startled man. "I dunno 'bout thet thar,
+shipmet. What kind o' sisters be they?"
+
+"Two little girls," said Ruth, eagerly, joining Agnes at the opening.
+"One of them carried a doll in her arms. She is dark. The bigger one
+is fair."
+
+The saltish old fellow chuckled deep in his hairy throat. "Guess I
+seen 'em, shipmets," he said. "Them's the leetle gals that didn't know
+clam-holes."
+
+"Well! what became of them?" demanded the impatient Agnes.
+
+"Why----I dug 'em, shipmet, an' they air in this i-den-ti-cal basket
+now," declared the clam-digger.
+
+"Well!" gasped Agnes, behind her hand. "Maybe the children didn't know
+clam-holes; but _he_ doesn't know beans!"
+
+Ruth asked again: "We mean, what became of the girls, sir?"
+
+"I couldn't tell ye, shipmet. D'ye want any clams?" pursued this man
+of one idea. "Ten cents a dozen; two-bits for----"
+
+"I'll buy some clams--yes," cried Ruth, in some desperation. "But tell
+us where you last saw our sisters, sir?"
+
+"How many you want, shipmet?" demanded the quite unmoved old fellow.
+
+"Two!" cried Agnes. "There were only two of them. Two little
+girls----Oh!"
+
+Ruth had pinched her, and now said, calmly: "Please count out a
+hundred for us, sir. Here is fifty cents. And please tell us where you
+saw our little sisters?"
+
+"I seed two small gals, shipmet, down on the flats yonder," said the
+clam digger, setting down his basket and squatting with the wooden leg
+stretched out before him. He began to busily count the clams onto the
+little platform before the tent.
+
+"Where did they go, sir?" asked Ruth.
+
+"I didn't take no pertic'lar notice of 'em, shipmet. They had a
+dratted dog with them----"
+
+"Oh! Tom Jonah is with them. Then they _can't_ be lost," gasped Agnes.
+
+"Las' time I 'member of cockin' me eye at 'em," declared the old clam
+digger, "they was inter a boat right down here below this tent. The
+dog was with 'em."
+
+He counted out the last clam, took his fifty cents, and departed. The
+two older Corner House girls looked at each other. Agnes was very
+white.
+
+"Do--do you suppose they drifted away in the boat?" she whispered.
+
+"I expect so," agreed Ruth. "Come on, Ag. We'll go up beyond the bend
+and see if we can sight the boat."
+
+"Oh! if they fall overboard----"
+
+"Tom Jonah would bring them both ashore if they did, I believe," said
+Ruth, though her voice shook a little. "Do you want something to eat
+before you go?"
+
+Agnes looked at her scornfully. "I don't ever want to eat again if Dot
+and Tess aren't found," she sobbed. "Come on!"
+
+"We'll take something along to eat, if you don't want to eat here,"
+Ruth said, sensibly. "The children will be hungry enough when we find
+them, you may be sure."
+
+"_If_ we find them," suggested the desperate Agnes.
+
+"Don't talk like a goose, Ag!" exclaimed the older sister. "Of course
+we'll find them. They've only drifted away."
+
+"But you said yourself the boat might be smashed against the rocks."
+
+"Tom Jonah's with them," said Ruth, confidently. "He could live in the
+water altogether, you know. Don't be worried about the children being
+drowned---- Oh, Agnes!"
+
+The change in her sister's voice startled Agnes, who had gone into the
+back part of the tent. She ran out to where Ruth was wrapping the
+fried soft-shell crabs in a sheet of brown paper.
+
+Ruth was staring through the open flap of the tent. Outside, about
+where the clam digger had stood a few moments before, was the tall,
+scarred-faced Gypsy tramp that they had seen at the nomads' camp the
+day they came to Pleasant Cove!
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" echoed Agnes, coming to Ruth's side.
+
+But the older sister quickly recovered her self-possession. Her first
+thought was:
+
+"If Tom Jonah were only here!"
+
+Ruth went to the door. The man leered at her and doffed his old cap.
+
+"Good day, little lady," he said. "She remember me--Big Jim--heh?"
+
+"I remember you," Ruth said, shortly.
+
+"Ver' proud," declared the Gypsy, bowing again.
+
+"What do you want?" asked the oldest Corner House girl, with much more
+apparent courage than she really felt.
+
+"You remember Zaliska--heh?" asked the man, shrewdly.
+
+"I remember her," said Ruth.
+
+"Little lady seen Zaliska since that day--heh?"
+
+"What do you want to know for?" demanded Ruth, puzzled, yet standing
+her ground. She remembered in a flash all her suspicions regarding the
+young girl who masqueraded as the Gypsy Queen.
+
+"Zaliska come here, heh?" said the man, doggedly, and with something
+besides curiosity in his narrow eyes.
+
+"I don't know why I should tell you if she had been here," declared
+Ruth, while Agnes clung to her arm in fear.
+
+"The little lady would fool Big Jim. No! We want find Zaliska."
+
+"Don't come here for her," said Ruth, sharply. "She's not here."
+
+"But she been here--heh?" repeated the fellow. "She come here like she
+was dressed at the camp--heh? Then she go away different--heh?"
+
+Ruth knew well enough what he meant. He hinted that the masquerading
+girl had come here to see Ruth, and discarded her queen's garments and
+slipped away in her own more youthful character.
+
+"I'm not sure that I know what you mean," she said to the evil-faced
+man. "But one thing I can tell you--and you can believe it. I have not
+seen Zaliska since that day we girls came by your camp."
+
+"Ha! she come here to see you----"
+
+"No. She went to the hotel and to a friend's house in the village,"
+said Ruth, "asking for me. I did not see her. She has not come here."
+
+"Huh!" grunted the man, and backed away, doubtfully.
+
+"Now we are busy and you must not trouble us any more," declared Ruth,
+hurriedly. "Come, Agnes!"
+
+"He'll come in the tent and search it," whispered Agnes, in her
+sister's ear.
+
+"I will speak to Mr. Stryver. He is here to-day," said Ruth,
+mentioning a neighbor in the camp.
+
+"Big Jim," as the Gypsy called himself, had backed away from the tent,
+but he watched the departing girls with lowering gaze. At Mr.
+Stryver's tent Ruth halted long enough to tell the gentleman to keep
+his eye on the Gypsy man who was hanging about the camp.
+
+"The women were here to sell baskets and such like truck while you
+girls were off crabbing, this morning," said Mrs. Stryver. "It gives
+me the shivers to have those folks around. I think we ought to have
+these tent camps policed."
+
+"I'll 'tend to this fellow," promised Mr. Stryver, who was a burly
+man, and not afraid of anything.
+
+Ruth hurried Agnes away toward the bend without another word.
+
+"Why didn't you tell them Tess and Dot were lost?" asked Agnes,
+gulping down a sob.
+
+"I don't want anybody to know it, if we can help," returned Ruth. "It
+just looks as though we didn't take sufficient care of them."
+
+"It--it was all my fault," choked Agnes. "If I had tied the boat as
+you told me----"
+
+"It doesn't matter whose fault it is," said Ruth, quickly. "Or, if it
+is anybody's fault! We don't want folks to say that the Corner House
+girls from Milton don't know enough to take care of each other while
+they are under canvas."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ON WILD GOOSE ISLAND
+
+
+"My!" Tess gasped, sitting in the stern of the drifting boat, "how
+fast the shores go past, Dot! We're going up the river awfully quick."
+
+"And so j-j-jerky!" exclaimed her sister, clinging to the Alice-doll.
+
+"You aren't really afraid, are you, Dot?"
+
+"No-o. Only for Alice. She's always been weakly, you know, since that
+awful time she got buried alive," said Dot, seriously. "And if she
+should get wet and catch her death of cold----"
+
+"But you mustn't drop her overboard," warned Tess.
+
+"Do you s'pose I _would_, Tess Kenway?" demanded Dot, quite hurt by
+the suggestion.
+
+"If she did fall overboard, Tom Jonah would save her, of course," went
+on Tess.
+
+"Oh! don't you say such things," cried Dot. "And _do_, please, stop
+the boat from jerking so!"
+
+"I--I guess it wants to be steered," Tess said.
+
+The tiller ropes were at hand and Tess had observed Ruth and Agnes use
+them. She began experimenting with them and soon got the hang of using
+the rudder. But as the boat was propelled, only by the tide, it
+_would_ "wabble."
+
+Tom Jonah watched all the small girls did with his keen eyes. But he
+scarcely moved. The boat floated on and on. Tess did not know how to
+work the boat ashore--indeed, caught as the craft was in the strong
+tide-rip, it would have taken considerable exertion with the oars to
+have driven it to land.
+
+There chanced to be no other boats beyond the bend on this day. On
+either hand there were farms, but the houses were too far from the
+shores for the dwellers therein to notice the plight of the two small
+girls and the big dog in the bobbing cedar boat.
+
+The shores at the river's edge were wooded for the most part, as was
+the long and narrow island in the middle of the river, not far ahead.
+This latter was called Wild Goose Island, as Tess and Dot knew.
+
+"Maybe the boat will go ashore there," said Dot, more cheerfully.
+
+"There are berries on that island," cried Tess. "Only they were not
+ripe when we were there last week." She was beginning to feel hungry;
+it was past midday.
+
+"But we can't walk back to the tent from there," objected Dot.
+
+"No-o," admitted Tess. "It'll be land, just the same!"
+
+But the tide swept the cedar boat out from the lower end of the island
+and up the northern channel. It was this fact that hid the drifting
+boat from the anxious eyes of Ruth and Agnes when they came around the
+bend, expecting to see the missing craft. The island hid it.
+
+Wild Goose Island was more than half a mile long. In the channel where
+the boat floated, the current of the river and the inflowing tide
+began to battle.
+
+There were eddies that seized the boat and swept it in circles. The
+surface of the channel was rippled by small waves. The boat bobbed
+every-which-way, for Tess could not control the rudder.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" gasped Dot. "I--I am afraid my Alice-doll will be sick.
+Do--don't you s'pose we can get ashore, Tess?"
+
+But Tess did not see how they could do that, although the boat was now
+and then swept very close to the shore of the island.
+
+The island was a famous picnicking place; but there were no pleasure
+seekers there to-day. The shore seemed deserted as the girls were
+swept on by the resistless tide.
+
+Suddenly Dot stood right up and squealed--pointing at the island. Tom
+Jonah lifted his head and barked.
+
+"There's somebody, Tess!" declared Dot.
+
+The bigger Corner House girl had seen the face break through the
+fringe of bushes on the island shore. It was a dark, beautiful face,
+and it was a girl's.
+
+"Oh! oh! Let's call her," gasped Tess. "She'll help us."
+
+The two small Kenways had a strong belief in the goodness of humanity
+at large. They expected that anybody who saw their plight would come
+to their rescue if possible.
+
+For fully a minute, however, the girl in the bushes of Wild Goose
+Island did not come out into the open. Tess and Dot shouted again and
+again, while Tom Jonah lifted up his head and bayed most mournfully.
+
+If the girl on the island did not want general attention attracted to
+the place, it behooved her to come out of concealment and try to
+pacify the drifting trio in the cedar boat.
+
+Her face was very red when she reappeared in an open place on the
+shore. The distance between her and the boat, which was now caught in
+a small eddy, was only a few yards.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" she demanded, in rather a sharp tone.
+
+"We--we can't stop the boat," responded Tess.
+
+"We want to get ashore," added Dorothy,
+
+"How did you get out there?" asked the strange girl. She was older
+than Ruth, and although she was very pretty, Tess and Dot were quite
+sure they did not like her--much!
+
+"We got in it, and it floated away with us," said Tess.
+
+"Where from?" asked the girl on shore.
+
+"Oh! 'way down the river. 'Round that turn. We live at Willowbend Camp
+with Ruth and Aggie."
+
+"Ruth _Who_?" the other demanded, sharply.
+
+"Our sister, Ruth Kenway," said Tess.
+
+The girl on the island was silent for a moment, while the boat turned
+lazily in the eddy. It now was headed up stream again, when she said:
+
+"Is that dog good for anything?"
+
+"Tom Jonah?" cried Tess and Dot together. "Why, he's the best dog that
+ever _was_," Dot added.
+
+"Does he know anything?" insisted the strange girl.
+
+"Uncle Rufus says he's just as knowin' as any human," Tess said,
+impressively.
+
+"Does he mind?" pursued the girl on the shore.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Tess. "He'll sit up and beg--and shakes hands--and
+lies down and rolls over--and----"
+
+"Say! those tricks won't help you any," cried the other. "Can you make
+him swim ashore here?"
+
+"Why--ee--I don't know," stammered Tess.
+
+"We wouldn't want to let you have Tom Jonah," Dorothy hastened to
+explain.
+
+"Goodness knows, _I_ don't want him," said the big girl, still tartly.
+"But if he can swim ashore with the end of that rope you have coiled
+there in the bow of your boat, tied to his collar, he may be of some
+use."
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Tess, scrambling toward the bow at once.
+
+"See that the other end is fast to your boat," commanded the girl on
+the island.
+
+It was. Tess quickly knotted the free end of the long painter to Tom
+Jonah's collar.
+
+"Now send him ashore, child!" cried the big girl.
+
+Tom Jonah was looking up at Tess with his wonderfully intelligent
+eyes. He seemed to understand just what was expected of him when the
+rope was tied to his collar.
+
+"Go on, Tom Jonah! Overboard!" cried Tess, firmly.
+
+"He--he'll get all wet, Tess," objected Dot, plaintively.
+
+"That won't hurt him, Dot," explained her sister. "You know he loves
+the water."
+
+"Come on, here!" cried the girl on the island, snapping her fingers.
+"Push him overboard."
+
+But Tom Jonah did not need such urging. With his forepaws on the
+gunwale of the boat he barked several times. The boat tipped a little
+and Dot screamed, clutching the Alice-doll tighter to her bosom.
+
+"Go on, Tom Jonah!" shouted Tess. "You're rocking the boat!"
+
+The big dog leaped over the gunwale into the river, leaving the light
+craft tossing in a most exciting fashion. Some water even slopped over
+the side.
+
+"Come on, sir! come on!" shouted the girl ashore.
+
+Tom Jonah swam directly for the beach where she stood. The line
+uncoiled freely behind him, slipping into the water. It was long
+enough to reach the shore where the big girl stood; but none too long.
+
+The sag of the rope in the water began to trouble Tom Jonah, strong as
+he was. Quickly the girl drew off her shoes and stockings and waded in
+to meet the laboring dog.
+
+"Come on, sir! now we'll get them!" she urged, laying hold of the
+line.
+
+The dog scrambled ashore, barking loudly. The line was taut and the
+boat had swung around, tugging on the other end like a thing of life.
+
+"Now we have them!" cried the girl.
+
+She pulled hard on the rope. Tom Jonah, seeing what she was doing,
+caught the rope in his strong jaws, and set back to pull, too. Tess
+and Dot screamed with delight.
+
+As the big girl slowly drew in the rope the dog backed up the beach,
+and so the cedar boat, with its two remaining passengers, came to
+land.
+
+"Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!" gasped Dot, standing in the bow of the
+boat. "I'm so glad to get ashore. And so's my Alice-doll," she added,
+seriously.
+
+Tess helped her sister to jump down upon the sand and then followed,
+herself. Tom Jonah dropped the rope and bounded about them, barking
+his satisfaction. But the strange girl was looking up and down the
+river, and over at the opposite shore, with a mind plainly disturbed.
+
+"Come on, now!" she said, sharply. "Unfasten the rope from that dog's
+collar. We'll keep _that_. It may come in handy."
+
+"Don't you want it to pull the boat up on the beach?" asked Tess, as
+she obeyed the command.
+
+The strange girl was already unfastening the rope from the ring in the
+bow of the boat. She threw the line ashore and then pushed the boat
+off with such vigor that she ran knee deep into the river again.
+
+"Oh! oh!" squealed Dot. "You'll lose our boat."
+
+"I want to lose it," declared the girl, coming back very red in the
+face from her exertions. "I got you kids ashore, 'cause you might have
+been tipped over, or hurt in some way. I'm not going to be bothered by
+that boat."
+
+"But that's Ruthie's boat," exclaimed Tess.
+
+"I can't help it! You young ones go into the bushes there and sit
+down. Keep quiet, too. Take the dog with you and keep _him_ quiet.
+Don't let him run about, or bark. If he does I'll tie him to a tree
+and muzzle him."
+
+"Why--why, I don't think that's very nice of you," said Tess, who was
+too polite, and had too deep a sense of gratitude, to say just what
+she really thought of this conduct on the part of the strange girl.
+"We might have saved the boat for Ruth."
+
+"And it would give me dead away," declared the big girl, angrily. "You
+children be satisfied that I took you ashore. Now keep still!"
+
+"I--I don't believe I like her very much, Tess," Dot whispered again.
+
+The older Corner House girl was not only puzzled by the strange girl's
+actions and words, but she was somewhat frightened. She and Dot sat
+down among the bushes, where they were completely hidden from the
+river and the opposite shore, and called Tom Jonah to them.
+
+He lay at their feet. He had shaken himself comparatively dry, and now
+he put his head on his paws and went to sleep.
+
+"Well," sighed Tess, caressing the dog's head. "I'm glad we have him
+with us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SEARCH
+
+
+Ruth and Agnes went around the wooded point, called "Willowbend," and
+looked up the river. As we already know, the drifting boat, with Tess
+and Dot and Tom Jonah in it, had gone out of sight on the other side
+of Wild Goose Island.
+
+"It never came this way, Ruth!" groaned the frightened Agnes. "They've
+drifted out to sea, just as I said."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," Ruth declared, bound to keep up her sister's
+courage, and knowing well that her conscience was punishing her
+cruelly. "The tide is coming in. They were bound to float up the
+river. But maybe the boat's gone ashore somewhere."
+
+"Or it's sunk," said the lugubrious Agnes.
+
+"Now you stop that, Aggie Kenway!" cried Ruth, stamping her foot. "I
+won't have it. With Tom Jonah those children would not easily get into
+trouble."
+
+"They could fall out of the boat," urged Agnes, wiping her eyes.
+
+"They'd not be foolish enough to rock the boat. It's all right, I tell
+you. I _did_ expect to see the boat from this spot; but it's floated
+into some cove somewhere. The children are safe enough----"
+
+"You don't know!" blubbered Agnes.
+
+"Keep still! Yes, I _do_ know--I know as well as I want to. But we'll
+have to ask for help to find them."
+
+"What kind of help?" asked Agnes.
+
+"We'll get Mr. Stryver's motorboat," said the oldest Corner House
+girl, with decision.
+
+As they went back around the bend they heard a chorus of shouts from
+the camp. Agnes was startled, being in a nervous state, anyway.
+
+"What is that, Ruth? The Gypsies?" she demanded.
+
+"If it is, then the Gypsies have adopted the Milton high school yell.
+Don't you recognize it?" returned Ruth. "The boys have arrived."
+
+"Neale O'Neil!"
+
+"I suppose Neale is with them."
+
+"He will help us," cried the delighted Agnes, sure in the ability of
+Neale O'Neil to do almost anything.
+
+"Well--I suppose he may," admitted Ruth, slowly.
+
+Ruth had made no mistake in identifying the school yell of their boy
+friends. There was a crowd of boys at the two big tents reserved for
+Joe Eldred and his friends. They had just come on the auto-stage.
+
+Already an American flag and the school pennant were being raised on
+the flag-pole before the tents. The scene at Willowbend Camp had been
+a most quiet one ten minutes before; now it seemed to be alive in
+every part, and the boys from Milton were all over it.
+
+They were like a herd of young colts let loose in a new pasture. They
+got the flags up before the girls came back, and then began running
+races, and playing leap-frog on the sand. The midday heat made no
+difference to them.
+
+"Doesn't that water look inviting?" shouted Ben Truman to Joe and some
+of the bigger boys. "When do we go in swimming, Joe?"
+
+"_You_ can go when you like, Bennie," returned Eldred.
+
+"I'd like right now," declared the youngster.
+
+"Clothes and all, I suppose, Ben?" drawled Neale O'Neil.
+
+"What's clothes? I'm not afraid to go in just as I am."
+
+"I dare you, Ben!" shouted another of the boys, knowing the spirit of
+Truman.
+
+"Done!" exclaimed Ben, and sprang away toward the in-coming tide. He
+splashed half-knee deep into the river before the others could call
+him back. He probably had no intention of going any deeper; but
+inadvertently he stepped into one of the holes the wooden-legged man
+had recently made when he dug for clams there, and over Ben pitched
+upon his nose!
+
+There was a great shout of laughter. Ben was submerged--every bit! He
+came up blowing like a porpoise.
+
+"Come on in, fellows! the water's fine!" he gasped, not embarrassed by
+the accident.
+
+"Thank you. We'll wait till the bathing suits arrive," returned Neale.
+"Hello! Here are the Corner House girls--two of them, at least."
+
+He hurried forward to greet Ruth and Agnes. The other boys simmered
+down a little when they observed the girls; most of them doffed their
+caps politely, but only Joe and Neale knew Ruth and Agnes very well.
+
+"Oh, Neale!" was the latter's greeting to her boy friend. "Don't tell
+the other fellows, but Tess and Dot are lost."
+
+"Great goodness, Ag! You don't mean it?" cried Neale, keenly troubled
+by her statement.
+
+"It's not as bad as _that_," Ruth interposed. "They are out in our
+boat with Tom Jonah."
+
+"I knew you had him down here. He'll take care of them," said Neale,
+with confidence.
+
+"Yes, I know," agreed Ruth. "But they all got in the boat unbeknown to
+Aggie and me, and the tide's carried them up the river."
+
+"You don't _know_!" burst out Agnes.
+
+"Well, they couldn't have drifted out into the cove, that's sure!"
+returned the older Corner House girl. "I'm going to get Mr. Stryver's
+motorboat. Will you take us out in it and look for the children,
+Neale? You can run a motorboat, can't you?"
+
+"Sure! And I'll do anything I can to help find the children," declared
+Neale O'Neil. "Now, don't you girls turn on the sprinklers----"
+
+"Who's crying?" gulped Agnes, angrily.
+
+"You are--pretty nearly. And your eyes are all red."
+
+"Hay fever," sniffed Agnes, trying to joke.
+
+"I'm going to get the boat right away. Come on, Neale," cried Ruth,
+and she started for the Stryver tent. "I'm worried about those
+children," she added, over her shoulder. "There are Gypsies about."
+
+She hurried on and Neale took Agnes by the elbow and led her out of
+all possible earshot of the other boys.
+
+"Buck up, Aggie," he said, gruffly, as a boy will. "You've been a good
+little sport--always. Don't blubber about it."
+
+"But it was I who forgot to tie the boat," Agnes said.
+
+"Tell me about it," urged Neale. So Agnes gave him the particulars.
+"Funny how the boat should have drifted out of sight so quickly," was
+the boy's comment.
+
+"Isn't it? But it's go-o-one----"
+
+"There, there! We'll find it and the children will be all right," he
+assured her.
+
+Ruth came running with the key to the padlock that moored the _Nimble
+Shanks_ to the mooring stake. They got out to her--just the two girls
+and Neale--in a dory.
+
+The _Nimble Shanks_ was a blue boat with a high prow and long,
+sweeping lines to the low stern. It was not a large boat, but was
+built for speed. The engine and steering-gear were amidships and were
+arranged so that one man could handle the craft.
+
+Neale was naturally of a mechanical turn, as well as an athlete. He
+had built a kerosene engine during the winter, with some assistance
+from Mr. Con Murphy, the shoemaker with whom he lived in Milton.
+Moreover, he had driven a boat just like this one of Mr. Stryver's on
+the Milton river.
+
+While Ruth was unlocking the chain of the _Nimble Shanks_, and
+fastening the dory in its place, Neale whirled the fly-wheel and
+caught the ignition spark; immediately the exhaust began to pop and
+Neale shouted:
+
+"All free, there, Ruth?"
+
+"Let her go, Neale!" returned Agnes, eagerly. "I can't wait, it seems
+to me."
+
+"Sit tight, then, ladies," said Neale, as Ruth scrambled aft. "I
+believe this craft can be made to travel."
+
+The girls obeyed as the _Nimble Shanks_ started. She shot right out
+into the middle of the river, and the wave thrown up by her wedge-like
+bow rose higher and higher on either hand. Actually, when the
+motorboat had been running for five minutes, the girls in the
+sternsheets seemed sitting at a much lower level than the surface of
+the river.
+
+"Goodness! if this boat stopped suddenly we'd be drowned by that
+wave," gasped Ruth.
+
+Neale headed up the river in a grand curve. They could see the shores
+on either hand. The boys ashore cheered their departure, though they
+did not know their errand.
+
+They shot by the wooded bend like an express train. The girls kept
+watch on either hand for the boat. They hoped to see her rocking in
+some cove along one shore or the other.
+
+But it was Neale himself who first sighted the drifting craft. The
+motorboat took the south channel in passing Wild Goose Island. Neale
+suddenly brought the speed of the craft down to one-half.
+
+"There's a boat ahead," he said to the girls. "It appears to be empty.
+Stand up and see if it's the one."
+
+Ruth rose and clung to Agnes' shoulder to steady herself. She saw the
+empty cedar boat, bobbing on the little waves beyond the far point of
+Wild Goose Island.
+
+"It's her!" she said, breathlessly. "But where are the children?"
+
+"We'll find out," said Neale, quickly. "Sit down again."
+
+"And Tom Jonah?" urged Ruth.
+
+"Make up your mind that wherever the children are, _he_ is, too," said
+Neale, and he let the _Nimble Shanks_ out again, and Ruth tumbled
+promptly into her seat.
+
+The motorboat fairly leaped ahead. In five minutes they were near the
+empty boat, and Neale shut off the engine entirely. Under the momentum
+she had gained she slid right up beside the tossing cedar boat.
+
+"Oh, oh!" groaned Agnes. "Where _have_ they gone?"
+
+"Not overboard, that's sure," said Neale, cheerfully. "They would have
+overturned the boat."
+
+"I--don't--know," began Ruth.
+
+"Oh, Ruth!" shrieked Agnes. "Maybe they were not in her after all."
+
+"But that clam man said he saw them."
+
+"He didn't see them in the boat when it was afloat," said Agnes,
+clinging to the safer possibility.
+
+"I know. But where else did they go?"
+
+"Down the beach, maybe," said Neale, slowly.
+
+"The Gypsies have gotten them!" exclaimed Agnes, in despair.
+
+"Stop it, Ag!" cried Ruth, shaking her sister. "You can think up the
+most perfectly awful things----"
+
+"Bet they got out of the boat on the shore somewhere, and let it drift
+away again," suggested Neale, rather feebly.
+
+"It wouldn't be like Tess to do such a foolish thing," said Ruth,
+shaking her head.
+
+"They didn't have anything to tie the boat up with. There's no painter
+in her," said the observant Neale.
+
+"Of course there's a painter!" cried Agnes, jumping up. "A nice long
+one----"
+
+"Where is it?" demanded the boy.
+
+"Oh, Ruth! _That's_ gone!" gasped Agnes.
+
+"Say!" said Neale, very seriously; "ropes don't come untied of
+themselves. Sure it was fastened to the boat?"
+
+"To that ring," Ruth declared, confidently.
+
+"And little Tess, or Dot, wouldn't think to untie it themselves--I'm
+sure," the boy observed. "They are with somebody who has taken them
+out of the boat--be sure of that."
+
+"You only--only say so to comfort us," sobbed Agnes.
+
+"Oh, Ag! stop being a 'leaky vessel'!" cried Neale, with a boy's
+exasperation at a girl's tears. "Crying won't help you any."
+
+Ruth had been examining the cedar boat, carefully. There was a little
+water in the bottom of it. She knew it did not leak. And floating on
+the water was a tiny russet leather slipper.
+
+"That belongs to Dot's Alice-doll!" she cried, leaning over the
+gunwale and fishing for the slipper. "They _were_ in the boat."
+
+"We knew that before. The clam man said so," sniffed Agnes.
+
+"But they got out in a hurry. Otherwise Dot would have noticed that
+the doll had lost her slipper."
+
+"That seems reasonable," admitted Neale O'Neil. "But what's become of
+them? Where did they go? Where are they now?"
+
+He was staring all about the river, while the two boats gently rubbed
+together, bobbing and courtesying on the tide.
+
+"Don't see anybody on the shores--and not another boat in sight," the
+boy added.
+
+"Maybe they went ashore on the island?" suggested Agnes, looking back.
+
+"There's nobody there," said her sister, looking back, too. "Not a
+soul."
+
+"Guess you're right. If there were anybody besides the girls there
+they'd have some kind of a boat, and we'd see it."
+
+"That's so, Neale," Ruth said. "And surely any grown person who
+rescued the girls wouldn't have let the boat drift away again."
+
+The trio of searchers gazed at each other in trouble and amazement.
+They could not explain this mystery in any satisfactory way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A STARTLING MEETING
+
+
+Tess and Dot, sitting in the middle of a brush clump on Wild Goose
+Island, never saw the blue motorboat with their sisters and Neale
+O'Neil in it, fly past.
+
+But the dark-faced girl, dressed in her bedraggled Gypsy finery, saw
+the _Nimble Shanks_, for she was on the watch at one side or the other
+of the island, all the time.
+
+She observed the motorboat overtake the drifting craft, and saw Neale
+carry a line aboard the latter and then start up the engine of the
+power boat again. The two boats went up the lake at a fair pace; but
+the searching party could not travel so fast now, for fear of swamping
+the towed boat.
+
+"I don't think this is much fun," said Dot, plaintively, when the big
+girl came back to them. "It's hot here--and I'm hungry--and my
+Alice-doll has lost one of her shoes."
+
+"We'll go up into the woods and pick some berries," said the strange
+girl, not unkindly. "I know where there are some strawberries--and
+they're just as sweet."
+
+"Oh! that will be fine. I _do_ love strawberries," declared Dot,
+easily appeased.
+
+Tess was more troubled than her sister by this strange situation. She
+felt, somehow, as though the big girl were holding them prisoners. Yet
+she could not understand _why_.
+
+She got up from the ground and at once Tom Jonah started up, barking
+and bounding about.
+
+"Stop that dog!" exclaimed the big girl, crossly. "Make him walk
+beside you. I'll tie him up," she threatened.
+
+"Then he'll howl _awful_," cried Dot. "We tried that once at home.
+Don't you 'member, Tess?"
+
+"Well, you keep him still," snapped the big girl.
+
+At a word from Tess the old dog drooped his tail and fell in behind
+them, in a most subdued manner. They went up through the thick woods
+to the higher part of the island. At no point could the little
+procession have been seen from the water.
+
+There was a hillock up there, bare of trees, the southern side of
+which was sown thickly with strawberries. The bed was rich in berries,
+and how sweet and delicate was their flavor!
+
+"Oh, _so_ much nicer than boughten berries!" Tess declared, forgetting
+for the time all her anxiety.
+
+Indeed, both of the Corner House girls were so busy satisfying their
+appetites with strawberries that they forgot about the unpleasant side
+to their adventure. Nor did they see the girl who had helped them
+ashore from the boat, creep over the knoll to watch the motorboat and
+its tow going down the river again, by way of the northern channel.
+
+It was fully half past one. While Tess and Dot feasted in the wild
+strawberry patch, their sisters and Neale O'Neil munched cold, fried
+crabs on the _Nimble Shanks_.
+
+It took a lot of berries to satisfy the healthy appetites of two girls
+like Tess and Dot whose dinner had been indefinitely postponed. Dot
+finally rolled right over in the shade, fast asleep, her dress and
+fingers berry-stained and the last plump one she had picked between
+her rosy lips!
+
+The big girl came back and Tess whispered: "We'd best not wake her,
+for she usually takes a nap afternoons. When she wakes up, I guess
+we'd best be going. Ruth and Agnes will be _awfully_ scared for us.
+And we've lost Ruth's boat, too," she added, disconsolately.
+
+"How do you expect to get off this island?" demanded the strange girl.
+
+"Why! how did you get _on_?" returned Tess.
+
+"I paddled myself over on a raft of logs, early this morning before
+anybody else was up," said the girl, after a minute. "I wasn't going
+back till night. But if I keep you children all day there'll be a big
+row, I s'pose," she added, sullenly.
+
+"I expect there will," was Tess' calm response.
+
+"They'd get me for kidnapping, like enough," said the girl, as though
+talking to herself. "Wish I hadn't taken you out of that boat. But you
+and the dog were raising an awful noise."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Tess, politely, "if we have been a nuisance. But of
+course we've got to get back to the tent before dark."
+
+"I s'pose so," admitted the older girl.
+
+"It's funny Ruth hasn't been up here before now looking for us," Tess
+observed.
+
+The big girl turned her head so Tess should not see her face. "Suppose
+she did not know you went sailing in the boat?" she said.
+
+"Why! perhaps that is the reason," Tess agreed. "They couldn't have
+seen us; for if they had, Ruth would have been after the boat in a
+hurry."
+
+"Well," said the strange girl, "I'll have to get you across to the
+river bank. I wasn't going till night. But----"
+
+"We are very much obliged to you," Tess hastened to say. "But we
+_couldn't_ stay that long."
+
+"Oh, well! I'll leave you children at a farmer's over there. They'll
+have a telephone and they'll get word to your sisters. You'll get back
+by suppertime."
+
+"Thank you," Tess said, simply.
+
+But she was more than a little disturbed in her mind. A raft of logs
+did not encourage her to look forward to the trip to the mainland with
+much pleasure.
+
+Besides, the mystery regarding this pretty girl made Tess feel
+_un_comfortable. Tess Kenway was quite old enough to know the
+difference between right and wrong; and there was something about the
+strange girl that was decidedly wrong!
+
+Why had she come out here to Wild Goose Island in the early
+morning--before anybody in the neighborhood was up? Was she a runaway?
+Had she done something really _naughty_? and was she afraid to have
+her folks find her?
+
+It was all a great puzzle and Tess sighed and shook her head. Finally
+she asked: "If you please, where _is_ the raft of logs?"
+
+"Right down there," said the girl, pointing to the southern side of
+the island. "You can't see it. I dragged it into shallow water and
+covered it up with branches and brush."
+
+"Is--is it safe?" queried Tess.
+
+"Well, it didn't drown me coming over," said the girl, with a short,
+hard laugh. "But the logs came near parting."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I'll fix 'em before we start back. That painter off your boat will
+help. We will be all right," said the big girl, carelessly.
+
+Dot awoke after a little, and so did Tom Jonah. The whole party went
+down to the brush-fringed shore. Tess saw that the girl had hidden her
+raft very ingeniously. And it was evident, too, that she hated to
+leave the island so long before evening.
+
+"Got myself in a nice mess!" the Corner House girl heard her mutter,
+as she went about binding the three logs together more tightly with
+the strong rope from the cedar boat.
+
+She worked hard for half an hour, standing almost waist deep in the
+water as she made the logs secure. It was not a heavy raft--nor was it
+very safe looking, to Tess' mind.
+
+But fortunately Dot thought it would be great fun to ride on such a
+craft, and Tess was too brave to say anything that would really
+frighten Dorothy.
+
+Tom Jonah became restless and wanted to wander about; but the big girl
+was very sharp with him. "If he were my dog I'd make him mind better!"
+she threatened. "If anything gives us away, it will be that dog."
+
+Tess did not understand this; and like Dot she felt hurt when anybody
+criticised Tom Jonah. "Love me, love my dog" was the motto of the
+younger Kenway sisters.
+
+Finally the big girl pronounced the raft strong enough, and she waded
+out of the water and put on her skirts again. "Now, get aboard there,"
+she commanded. "If we've got to go, we might as well start. The tide
+will be less strong now."
+
+Dot skipped aboard the raft with her Alice-doll, in great glee; Tess
+followed more slowly. But when Tom Jonah tried to come, too, the big
+girl, with the broken oar she used for a paddle, drove him back.
+
+"It won't hold him up, too!" she cried. "Get out!"
+
+"Oh! don't hurt Tom Jonah!" wailed Dot, shrilly. "Don't!"
+
+"You look out!" warned Tess. "He'll grab you!"
+
+Tom Jonah certainly _did_ grab the paddle. And he nearly wrenched it
+from the hands of the big girl, strong as she was.
+
+"He'll tip us all over!" declared the girl, angrily, flushed and
+breathing heavily. "Don't you see how deep in the water we are? Any
+little wave will come right over the logs and wet us."
+
+"Well!" cried Tess. "We're barefooted. And we can't leave Tom Jonah
+behind."
+
+"He can swim, can't he? Silly!" exclaimed the big girl. She pushed off
+the raft suddenly, leaving the troubled dog on the bank. The current
+caught the raft instantly and headed it down stream. The big girl
+hurried to dip her paddle in the water on the lower side and swerve
+the head of the raft around.
+
+"Oh, Tom Jonah! Come! Come!" cried Dot, fearful that the dog would be
+lost.
+
+He plunged right in and swam to the rear of the raft. He did not try
+to climb aboard, but he rested his nose on the logs and paddled
+quietly behind. The big girl paid him no further attention. She had
+her hands full as it was, keeping the raft from being swept down
+stream.
+
+The current of the river had now conquered the inflowing tide. The
+force of the latter was spent; but the channel on this side of the
+island was not rough. The little waves did not break over their feet
+as yet.
+
+The passage of the river was not, however, so hard. The handsome dark
+girl was strong, and she plied the broken oar with vigor. In half an
+hour they drew near to the tree-fringed southern bank.
+
+The girls saw nobody along the shore, nor had any boat put out to meet
+them. It was a day when all the farmers seemed to be busy in their
+fields, and this was a wild spot toward which the raft had been aimed.
+
+At last the end of the logs touched a shelving, narrow beach. The big
+girl leaped off and commanded Tess and Dot to follow immediately.
+Already Tom Jonah had scrambled ashore and was shaking himself, as a
+dog will.
+
+Suddenly the big dog uttered a throaty growl. None of the three girls
+paid any attention. The strange girl was busy helping Tess and Dot to
+land.
+
+Again Tom Jonah uttered his warning, and then barked sharply.
+
+"Shut up!" commanded the big girl, turning on him fiercely.
+
+At that moment a man walked out of the wood. He was a fierce little
+fellow with a black mustache and a dirty red tie. His velveteen suit
+was worn and greasy and his hat broken.
+
+The strange girl turned suddenly and saw him. She uttered a stifled
+scream and the fellow folded his arms and said something to her
+sternly in a language that afterwards Tess said "sounded like
+powder-crackers exploding!"
+
+The girl was terrified in the extreme. She looked from side to side as
+though contemplating escape. The fellow took another stride toward
+her.
+
+And then Tom Jonah intervened. The big dog sprang with an awful growl,
+hurling himself straight at the man's chest. The fellow went over
+backward and Tom Jonah held him down with both paws on his chest and
+his bared teeth at the victim's brown throat!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE FRANKFURTER MAN
+
+
+Dot screamed shrilly; but Tess said, with conviction: "Well! I think
+it serves him right. Let him holler. He had no business trying to
+steal Ruthie's chickens."
+
+For the young man that Tom Jonah held on the ground, and threatened so
+dreadfully, was the very Gypsy that had gotten into the hen-coop at
+the old Corner House in Milton, weeks before.
+
+"Now, don't you be afraid for him, Dot," added Tess, quite calmly.
+"Tom Jonah won't really _bite_ him--not as long as he keeps still and
+doesn't try to get up----"
+
+The fellow was moaning and begging just as he had when the big dog
+"treed" him on the henhouse roof.
+
+"Tak' away dog! Tak' away dog!" he begged.
+
+"I don't know why we should--do you, Dot?" pursued Tess, undisturbed.
+"He was going to hurt _her_----"
+
+Tess turned around. The strange girl who had helped them out of the
+cedar boat and later had brought them to the river bank from Wild
+Goose Island, had disappeared like a shadow!
+
+"Why--why," stammered Tess. "And she never said 'Good-bye'!"
+
+"I guess she was afraid of this man," Dot said, eyeing the prostrate
+and miserable victim of Tom Jonah's attack without much pity. "What
+shall we do with him?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Tess, with a sudden sharp idea. "She _was_ afraid of him.
+Let us help her. She helped us."
+
+"How will we?" inquired the smaller girl.
+
+"Just let Tom Jonah hold him where he is. We will give that pretty
+girl a good chance to get away. Won't we?"
+
+"That will be just the thing," agreed Dot. "We can sit down and wait.
+I hope it isn't too long a walk to the camp, Tess. Somehow those
+strawberries didn't stay by me--much. I'm hungry right now!"
+
+"We'll keep him here a few minutes. Then we'll find the road and start
+right back home. I know the direction," said Tess, with confidence.
+
+The frightened Gypsy moaned and begged for them to call off the dog;
+and Tom Jonah growled most frightfully every time the man squirmed.
+Under other circumstances the girls would have been quite stricken
+with pity for the poor man; but he had tried to steal Ruth's hens, and
+he had now frightened their new friend away, and, as Dot whispered,
+"it served him right."
+
+Of course, they knew that the big dog would not really harm the
+fellow.
+
+After some fifteen minutes Tess got up and motioned Dot to do the
+same. "We'd better start. The afternoon is going," she said to her
+younger sister. "And I guess it's a long walk home. Come on, Tom
+Jonah."
+
+The old dog lifted his head enquiringly. The muscles of his shoulders
+and fore-paws relaxed.
+
+"Come on!" commanded Tess. "Leave him alone. Let him up, Tom Jonah! I
+guess he has been punished enough. Don't you think so, Dot?"
+
+The smaller girl nodded seriously, staring at the trembling Gypsy. "I
+hope you won't ever try to steal our Ruthie's hens again," she said,
+pointedly.
+
+The moment the fellow knew he was free, he scrambled up and dodged
+into the bushes. He did not stay for a word.
+
+"That big girl must have gotten away by this time," Tess said,
+cheerfully. "And he is too scared to catch her, anyway."
+
+Which was probably true. The two small girls walked away from the
+river bank in the direction where they knew the auto-stage road lay.
+Tom Jonah paced beside them, looking about suspiciously, and licking
+his lips now and then with his red tongue.
+
+It was remarkable how ferocious he had been with that Gypsy, and how
+perfectly kind he was to the small Kenways. And nothing much could
+have overtaken them just then that Tom Jonah would not have attacked.
+
+They came out of the fringe of wood that bordered the river and
+crossed a farmer's fields. But the house was at a distance, and in the
+other direction from Pleasant Cove and the camps; so the girls did not
+go to that house.
+
+In fact, Tess felt quite brave now that she was again on the mainland.
+She was sure that they could easily find Willowbend Camp.
+
+They came out into the hot, dusty road. It stretched before them as
+bare as a tennis-court and as hot as a sea-beach. The trees that
+bordered it were white with dust far up their trunks and the leaves of
+their lower branches, too, were dust-covered.
+
+This was the result of rapidly passing automobiles on the road; but
+none of these vehicles was in sight now. The road seemed deserted.
+
+Save for just one thing. Dot saw it before Tess.
+
+"Oh, look!" the smaller girl cried. "Isn't that a peanut man, Tess?
+Don't you wish you had a nickel?"
+
+"He isn't a peanut man," said Tess, after a sharp look at the man
+pushing the little wagon along the road before them.
+
+"Isn't he?" returned Dot, disappointedly.
+
+"It's a hot-frankfurter man," declared Tess.
+
+"Oh, Tess! a nickel would buy two frankfurter sandwiches," gasped Dot.
+"And I'm _so_ hungry."
+
+So was Tess. The thought of the steaming sausages lying on the split
+Vienna roll, with a spoonful of mustard on each half-sausage, was
+enough to make _any_ hungry person's mouth water. At least, any hungry
+person of the age of Tess and Dot Kenway.
+
+Where the frankfurter man had been with his wagon away up this country
+road, the girls did not know; but before they overtook him they
+smelled the warm sausages and saw that the top of his boxlike wagon
+was covered over with a glass case and that everything was clean about
+his outfit.
+
+So eager and hungry were they that Tess and Dot fairly trotted through
+the hot dust to overtake the man. He was a short, sturdy man in a blue
+shirt, khaki trousers, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. When Tom Jonah
+bounded along beside him, sniffing in a friendly fashion, he turned
+around and saw the girls.
+
+"How-de-do!" he said, smiling. "You want a hot frankfurter, little
+girls?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Dot, frankly.
+
+"Oh, we can't, sir--not till we get to Willowbend Camp," Tess hastened
+to say, squeezing Dot's hand admonishingly.
+
+Dot's lower lip trembled and the man asked:
+
+"Why can't you have 'em now?"
+
+"We--we should have to ask Ruthie," said Tess, slowly.
+
+"Who's she?"
+
+"Our sister. We--we don't carry any money in these old clothes. She's
+afraid we'll lose it out of our pockets," said Tess, honestly.
+
+"Oh-ho!" exclaimed the man.
+
+"But we're awful hungry," ventured Dot. "And so's my Alice-doll. We
+been shipwrecked, you see."
+
+"Shipwrecked?" asked the man, wonderingly.
+
+"Not just _that_, Dot," said Tess, doubtfully. "We were sort of
+castaways."
+
+"Well, we lost our boat, didn't we?" demanded Dot. "And isn't that
+being shipwrecked?" She was just hungry and tired enough to be rather
+"touchy."
+
+"Tell me about it," said the frankfurter man, as the girls and Tom
+Jonah trotted along beside his little wagon.
+
+So Tess--with much assistance from Dot--related their exciting
+adventures since the wooden-legged clam-digger had shown them what it
+was that squirted water up through the tiny holes on the clam-flat.
+
+Sometimes the frankfurter man laughed, or chuckled; at other times he
+looked quite grave. And finally he insisted upon stopping under a
+broad, shady tree beside the road, and resting while he listened to
+the remainder of the story.
+
+Meanwhile he opened the glass case and took out a couple of paper
+napkins and two rolls which were as white as snow when he split them
+with a very sharp knife. He buttered both sides of these rolls
+lavishly.
+
+Then he opened the steaming frankfurter pot and oh! how the luscious
+steam gushed out! Dot grabbed Tess' hand hard. She thought she was
+going to faint, for a moment--it smelled so good!
+
+He selected two fat frankfurters and split them evenly. He placed them
+on the buttered rolls. He put on mustard with a lavish hand. And then
+he closed the rolls and wrapped the napkins about them.
+
+Suddenly he saw Tom Jonah standing, too, watching him with wistful
+intentness, his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. If ever a dog's
+countenance expressed hunger, it was shown now in Tom Jonah's face.
+But he was too much of a gentleman, just as his collar said, to bark.
+
+So the frankfurter man, without saying a word, opened the pot again
+and took out a third sausage. This he did not split or put mustard on.
+
+"Would you little girls like to eat a lunch now and pay me for it the
+next time you see me?" he asked, smiling at Tess and Dot.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, clasping her hands and almost letting the Alice-doll
+fall.
+
+"You--you are _so_ kind!" said Tess, her voice fairly trembling.
+
+He passed the two wrapped sandwiches over with a polite bow. "You are
+very welcome," he said. "And I am going to give your dog one for
+himself because he grabbed that Gypsy. He's a brave dog and deserves
+one."
+
+"Oh! if you would be so good!" cried Tess.
+
+Tom Jonah made one mouthful of the frankfurter. You see, _he_ had not
+cared at all for the strawberries!
+
+"Now," said the frankfurter man, as the girls walked on beside him
+again, munching their sandwiches, "that road yonder to the left leads
+right down to the beach and to those tents. You can see the flags
+flying above them now--see?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!" returned Tess and Dot, in delight.
+
+"Then you can easy find your way. Good-day, young ladies. I know your
+sisters will be anxious to see you."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Tess said, not forgetting her manners. "And we shall
+not forget that we owe you for the sausages."
+
+"That's right. Always pay your debts," said the man, laughing, and
+trundled his cart on through the dust, while the Kenway sisters
+trudged down the shadier road toward the beach.
+
+In fifteen minutes they were seen coming. The entire encampment had
+turned out to search for the lost children. The boys from Milton had
+gone in all directions to look for Tess and Dot.
+
+It was only to Ruth and Agnes that the small girls related the details
+of their surprising adventure. And Agnes did not understand entirely,
+and was much troubled over the identity of the girl who had befriended
+her sisters in so strange a fashion.
+
+Ruth had no difficulty in guessing who she was. It was the girl with
+the Gypsies who had masqueraded as the queen. The oldest Corner House
+girl was sure that it was she. And Ruth understood that she must be
+striving to get away from the Gypsies.
+
+"I hope she won't go so far from here that I shall never see her
+again," thought Ruth. "For she was interested in Rosa Wildwood, I am
+sure; and it might be that she could tell me something about Rosa's
+missing sister."
+
+While Agnes put forth many "guesses" and "supposin's" about the
+strange girl, Dot had quite another problem in her enquiring mind. And
+finally, as they were getting ready for bed that night, she threw out
+a leading question which attracted the immediate attention of her
+three sisters:
+
+"Say, Ruthie," she asked, "how do frankfurters grow?"
+
+"What?" gasped Agnes, and clapped a hand over her own mouth to keep
+from laughing.
+
+"How do they _grow_, dear?" returned Ruth, rather taken aback herself.
+
+"Goodness gracious, child!" exclaimed Tess. "They don't grow on bushes
+like pea-pods."
+
+"Oh, no, of course not!" ejaculated Dot, who did not like to be
+considered ignorant. "A frankfurter flies, doesn't it?"
+
+"Mercy!" murmured Ruth. "Hear her!"
+
+"Oh! I mean it crawls--it _creeps_. Of course," Dot hurried to add.
+
+Agnes exploded here. She could not keep in any longer.
+
+"Well, I think you're real mean!" complained Dot. "You won't tell me.
+I guess it's a fish, then. Does it _swim_?"
+
+"Goodness!" cried Tess.
+
+"Then they come in bunches like bananas!" declared the frantic Dot.
+
+_This_ was the worst yet. Agnes rolled on the matting of the bedroom
+and almost choked. Ruth herself was laughing heartily at her small
+sister as she gathered her into her arms and told her just how the
+sausage-meat was stuffed into the frankfurters' skins.
+
+"Well!" murmured Dot, at last, and rather sleepily. "I don't care. I
+believe they are the very _nicest_ things there are to eat--so there!
+Those the frankfurter man gave us were perfectly lovely."
+
+That was what suggested the Frankfurter Party, and the Frankfurter
+Party was one of the very happiest thoughts that Ruth Kenway ever
+evolved. We shall have to hear about it, in another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+MRS. BOBSTER'S MYSTERIOUS FRIEND
+
+
+Rosa Wildwood quickly showed improvement after her arrival at Pleasant
+Cove. Under the ministrations of the little old woman who lived in a
+shoe the Southern girl could not help feeling a measure of
+contentment, if nothing else.
+
+Her hostess was such a cheerful body! And, as Agnes had promised, Rosa
+was supplied with good, hearty food--and plenty of it.
+
+There was a glass of warm milk, fresh from the cow, on the stand
+beside the head of her little chintz-hung bed every morning when Rosa
+awoke. For Mrs. Bobster was up and about by daybreak.
+
+When Rosa came down to the sunlit kitchen, breakfast was ready and the
+little old woman who lived in a shoe declared she had all her
+"outside" chores done, saving her regular work in her garden.
+
+Rosa sometimes helped about the housework. The doctor had told her
+that certain forms of housework would be good for her. But she had to
+be very exact and careful in doing the work about the shoe-house, for
+Mrs. Bobster was a New England housekeeper of the old school and was
+as methodical as Grandfather's Clock.
+
+The girls from Milton did not neglect Rosa Wildwood. At least, the
+Corner House girls and their friends did not. Pearl Harrod and the
+girls at Spoondrift Bungalow came with a wagonette and took her
+driving. The repairs had been made upon the bungalow and Pearl's party
+was there again--all but the Corner House girls.
+
+Ruth had decided to stick to the tent for the remainder of their stay
+at Pleasant Cove. And Willowbend Camp was becoming the liveliest spot
+along the entire beach-front.
+
+Ruth and her sisters came after Rosa and took her out in their boat.
+The boys who were living at Willowbend, too, took an interest in the
+frail Southern girl. For Rosa Wildwood, with the color stealing back
+into her cheeks and lips, and her eyes bright again, was a very
+attractive girl indeed!
+
+Dot Kenway's birthday came at this time, and that was the date set for
+the Frankfurter Party. Dot's guesses about the origin and nature of
+the hearty and inviting, if not delicate, frankfurter, had delighted
+the campers who heard the story; and Dot's sisters and Neale spent
+some time and a good deal of ingenuity in preparing for the festive
+occasion.
+
+Rosa came over to the tent colony and helped the girls prepare for the
+party. Moreover, she had a secret to impart to Ruth.
+
+"Don't let the other girls hear, Ruth Kenway," she said, with much
+mystery. "But Mrs. Bobster is the oddest thing!"
+
+"Well! I guess she is," laughed Ruth. "But she's _good_."
+
+"Good as gold," agreed Rosa. "But she has some funny ways. Of course I
+go to bed early. The doctor told me I should."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You'd think she'd go to bed early, too, when she's up so soon in the
+morning?"
+
+"Well----I suppose that's a matter of taste," Ruth observed.
+
+"Anyway, you know how lonesome it is over there?"
+
+"I guess there are not many people about--after dark."
+
+"That's just it!" cried Rosa. "Mrs. Bobster scurries around and does
+all her out of doors chores before dark. And she locks and bolts all
+the doors. She is really afraid after dark."
+
+Ruth nodded. She remembered how once the little old woman who lived in
+a shoe had spoken to her about being afraid.
+
+"Well, she locks and bolts the doors," said Rosa, "and then we have
+supper and I go to bed. Sometimes, like a good child, I go right to
+sleep. Sometimes, like a bad child, I _don't_."
+
+"Well--what then?"
+
+"Then I hear Mrs. Bobster talking. She has company. I never hear the
+company come in, or go out; but she has it every night."
+
+"And never says anything about it?"
+
+"Not a word," said Rosa. "I hinted once or twice that she must have
+company every night, and all she said was that she didn't like sitting
+alone."
+
+"Is it a man or a woman?" asked Ruth.
+
+"I don't know," laughed Rosa. "That's one of the funny things about
+it. Although I hear Mrs. Bobster sometimes chattering like a magpie, I
+never hear an answer."
+
+"What?" gasped Ruth, in amazement.
+
+"That's right," said Rosa, nodding confidently. "Whoever it is talks
+so low that I haven't heard his, or her, voice yet!"
+
+"A dumb person?" suggested Ruth.
+
+"Maybe. At any rate, I couldn't tell you for the life of me whether it
+is a man or a woman that comes to see the little old woman who lives
+in a shoe. Isn't it odd, Ruth?"
+
+"I should say it was," admitted Ruth.
+
+"But she treats me well," sighed Rosa. "I wouldn't do her any harm for
+the world. But I _am_ awfully curious!"
+
+It was this day, too--the day of Dot's party--that the wooden-legged
+clam-digger came along through the Willowbend tent colony again. He
+always came to the tent of the Corner House girls when he appeared;
+Ruth was a regular customer, for she and her sisters were fond of
+shellfish.
+
+"I'll have fifty to-day, Mr. Kuk," she said to the saltish individual
+when he hailed her from outside the tent. Ruth had learned that his
+name was Habakuk Somes; everybody along the beach called him "Kuk,"
+and Ruth, to be polite, tagged him with "Mister" in addition.
+
+Tom Jonah appeared and showed his disapproval of the clam man by a
+throaty growl. "That thar dawg don't like me none too well," said the
+clam man. "What d'yeou call him?"
+
+"Tom Jonah."
+
+"Thet's enough to sink him," said the man with a grin. "How'd ye come
+ter call him that?"
+
+"It's his name," said Ruth. "It was engraved on his collar when he
+came to our house in Milton."
+
+"Oh! then he ain't allus been your dawg, shipmet?" demanded the man.
+
+"No. He came to us. We don't know where from. But he is a gentleman,
+and he is going to stay with us as long as he will."
+
+The clam man blinked, and said nothing more. But he cast more than one
+glance at Tom Jonah before he went away.
+
+The preparations made for the birthday party included the purchase of
+a good many pounds of first quality frankfurters. And when they were
+delivered to the Corner House girls' tent, the fun began.
+
+Tess and Dot were sent away for the morning to play with some of the
+children at Enterprise Camp. Then Ruth and Agnes and Rosa and Neale
+set to work to make frankfurters into the very funniest looking things
+that you could imagine!
+
+With bits of tinsel and colored paper and pins and other small wares,
+the young folks set to work. They made frankfurters look like
+caricatures of all kinds of beasts and birds, and insects as well. One
+was the body of a huge, gaily-winged butterfly. Another was striped
+and horned like a worm of ferocious aspect.
+
+They were made into fishes, with tails and fins. Neale made a nest
+with several "young" frankfurters poking their heads out for food,
+while the mother frankfurter was just poised upon the edge of the
+nest, her wings spread to balance her.
+
+There were short-legged frankfurters, with long, flapping ears, like
+dachshunds, and long, stiff-legged frankfurters, with abbreviated
+tails, and appearing to gambol like lambs. There were several linked
+together and apparently creeping about like a species of jointed,
+horrid caterpillar.
+
+Then they actually _were_ bunched like bananas! while some grew,
+husked, like sweetcorn, and some had the green, fluffy tops of carrots
+cunningly fastened to them and were tied together as carrots are
+bunched in the market.
+
+Neale's ingenuity, however, rose to its height when he stretched a
+slanting wire across the tent, higher than the partition, and made
+several "aeroplanes" with bodies of the succulent sausage, which he
+could start at one end of the wire to "fly" to the other end.
+
+The young folks came to Willowbend Camp about five o'clock to enjoy
+the festivities. The older Corner House girls, with the help of some
+of their friends, served the crowd a hearty supper, the main course of
+which was hot frankfurters, prepared by the "frankfurter man" whose
+acquaintance Tess and Dot had made.
+
+When the fun was over the guests took the fancy-dressed sausages home
+as souvenirs.
+
+Neale and Agnes and Ruth went home with Rosa, for it was a long walk,
+and part of the way it was lonely. One of the ladies who had
+chaperoned the party remained with Tess and Dot while their sisters
+were absent.
+
+The young folk had a pleasant walk, for there was a moon. Coming
+finally in sight of the home of the little old woman who lived in a
+shoe, Ruth said to Rosa, who walked with her:
+
+"It is a lonely spot, isn't it?"
+
+"But I never feel afraid. Only I'm curious about Mrs. Bobster's
+friend----There! See it?" she cried, suddenly, but under her breath.
+
+"See what?" Ruth asked.
+
+"The shadow on the curtain," said Rosa.
+
+At the same moment Agnes said: "Hello! Mrs. Bobster has company."
+
+There was a lamp lit in the tiny front room of the cottage. Plainly
+silhouetted upon the white shade was a man sitting in a chair.
+
+"What! With his hat on?" exclaimed Ruth. "Who can it be?"
+
+"He isn't very polite, whoever he is," said Neale.
+
+"Let's see about it," suggested Agnes. "Do you know anything about
+him, Rosa?"
+
+"I only know she has had a visitor sometimes--after I'm in bed," said
+the Southern girl.
+
+"Come on! let's go in the side door," said Agnes, in a low voice.
+
+But when they had tiptoed to the door they found it locked. Rosa
+laughed. "I tell you she never leaves a door or window unfastened
+after dark," she said.
+
+They heard the little old woman who lived in a shoe coming to the door
+to let them in. But Rosa had to assure her who it was before Mrs.
+Bobster unlocked the door.
+
+"But you had company?" said Agnes, rather pertly.
+
+"Eh?" returned Mrs. Bobster, setting the broom behind the hall door.
+"Oh, yes! I don't never kalkerlate ter be alone many evenings."
+
+"Is he here now?" demanded Neale, laughing.
+
+"Who? _Him?_ No," said the widow, calmly. "He's bashful. He went out
+jest as you young folks come in. Sit right down, children, an' I'll
+find a pitcher of milk an' some cookies."
+
+The Corner House girls and Rosa--to say nothing of Neale O'Neil--were
+amazed. They looked at each other wonderingly as the widow bustled out
+to the pantry.
+
+"I'd give a penny," murmured Rosa Wildwood, "to know who her
+mysterious friend is."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE YARN OF THE "SPANKING SAL"
+
+
+The wooden-legged clam digger, Habakuk Somes, seemed suddenly to have
+acquired a great interest in Tom Jonah.
+
+He appeared almost every day at the tent of the Corner House girls and
+did his best to become friendly with the dog. Tom Jonah grew used to
+his presence, but he would allow no familiarities from the dilapidated
+waterside character.
+
+The girls thought "Kuk" Somes only queer; the boys "joshed" him a good
+deal. Nobody minded having him around, considering merely that he was
+a peculiar fellow, and harmless.
+
+His tales of sea-going and sea-roving were wonderful indeed. How much
+of them was truth and how much pure invention, the older Corner House
+girls and Neale O'Neil did not know. However, they forgave his
+"historical inaccuracies" because of the entertainment they derived
+from his yarns.
+
+Tess and Dot listened to the old fellow with perfect confidence in his
+achievements. Had he not known--in a moment--what it was that shot
+water up through the holes in the clam flat? The smaller girls
+listened to old Kuk Somes with unshaken confidence.
+
+"And how did the pirates get your leg, Mr. Kuk?" asked Tess. "Your
+really truly leg, I mean."
+
+She and Dot were sitting on the edge of the tent-platform, under the
+awning, with their bare feet in the sand, with Tom Jonah lying
+comfortably between them. The dog had a brooding eye upon the clam
+digger, who sat on a broken lobster trap a few feet away.
+
+"Huh! them pi-_rats_?" queried the clam digger. "Well--er--now, did I
+say it was pi-_rats_ as got my leg, shipmet?"
+
+"Yes, you did, sir." Dot hastened to bolster up her sister's statement
+of fact. "And you said it was on the Spanish Main."
+
+"Well!" declared the old man, "so it was, an' so they did. Pi-_rats_
+it was, shipmet. An' I'll tell yer the how of it.
+
+"I was carpenter's mate on the _Spankin' Sal_, what sailed from
+Bosting to Rio, touchin' at some West Injy ports on the
+way--pertic'larly Porto Rico, which is a big merlasses port. We had a
+good part of our upper holt stowed with warmin' pans for the merlasses
+planters----"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Kuk!" ejaculated Tess in rather a pained voice. "Isn't that a
+mistake? _Warming pans?_"
+
+"Not by a joblot it ain't no mistake!" returned the old man. "Warming
+pans I sez, an' warming pans I sticks to."
+
+"But my geogoraphy," Tess ventured, timidly, and mispronouncing the
+word as usual, "says that the West Indies are tropical. Porto Rico is
+near the Equator."
+
+"Now, ain't that wonderful--jest wonderful?" declared the clam digger,
+smiting his knee with his palm. "Shows what it is to be book l'arned,
+shipmet.
+
+"'Course, _I_ knowed them was tropical places, but I didn't know 'twas
+all writ down in books--joggerfries, do they call 'em?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Tess, seriously. "And it is so hot down there they
+couldn't possibly need warming pans."
+
+"Now, ye'd think that, wouldn't ye, shipmet? And I'd think it. But the
+skipper of the _Spankin' Sal_, he knowed dif'rent.
+
+"A master brainy man was Captain Roebuck. That was his name--Roebuck,"
+declared the clam digger, solemnly. "Hev you ever seen a warming pan,
+shipmet--an old-fashioned warmin' pan?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Tess and Dot together. "There's one hangs over the
+mantelpiece in the sitting-room of the old Corner House," added Tess.
+"That's where we live when we're at home in Milton.
+
+"And it is a round brass pan, with a cover that has holes in it, and a
+long handle. Mrs. MacCall says folks used to put live coals in it and
+iron the beds before folks went to bed, in the cold weather. But we
+got furnace heat now, and don't need the warming pan."
+
+"Surely, surely, shipmet," agreed the clam digger. "Them's the things.
+And Cap'n Roebuck of the _Spankin' Sal_, plagued near crammed the
+upper holt with them.
+
+"It looks right foolish, shipmet; but that skipper got a chancet ter
+buy up a whole lot o' them brass warmin' pans cheap. If he'd seen 'em
+cheap enough, he'd bought up a hull cargo of secon' hand hymn books,
+and he'd took 'em out to the heathen in the South Seas and made a
+profit on 'em--he would that!" pursued Kuk, confidently.
+
+"He must have been a wonderful man, sir," said Tess, while Dot sat
+round-eyed and listened.
+
+"Wonderful! wonderful!" agreed the clam digger. "But about them
+warmin' pans. When we got ter Porto Rico we broke out the first of
+them things. Looked right foolish. All them dons in Panama hats and
+white pants, an' barefooted comin' aboard to look over samples of
+tradin' stock, an' all they can see is warmin' pans.
+
+"'What's them things for?' axed the first planter, in the Spanish
+lingo.
+
+"'Them's skimmers,' says Cap'n Roebuck, knowin' it warn't no manner o'
+use to try to explain the exact truth to a man what ain't never seed
+snow, or knowed there was a zero mark on the almanack.
+
+"He grabbed up one o' them warmin' pans and made a swing with it like
+you'd use a crab-net. 'See! See!' says the dons. 'Skim-a da
+merlasses.' That's Spanish for 'Yes, yes! skim the merlasses,'"
+explained Kuk, seriously.
+
+"'But what's the cover for?' axed the don. 'Ye don't hafter have no
+cover,' says Cap'n Roebuck, and he yanks the cover off the warmin' pan
+an' throws it away.
+
+"And there them dons had the finest merlasses dipper that ever went
+inter the islan's. Cap'n Roebuck seen their eyes snap an' put a good,
+stiff price on the things, and inside of a week there warn't a warmin'
+pan left on the _Spankin' Sal_.
+
+"Then," pursued the clam digger, "we stowed away in our upper holt
+goods what would bring a fancy price at Rio, and laid our course for
+the Amazon.
+
+"But we was all hands mighty worritted," admitted Kuk, lowering his
+voice mysteriously. "Ye see, ye never could tell in them old days, an'
+in the West Injies, who it was safe to trust, an' who it was safe ter
+_dis_-trust.
+
+"Yer see, so many of them snaky Spanish planters was hand an' glove
+with the pi-_rats_. And ev'rybody on the island knowed the _Spankin'
+Sal_ was takin' away a great treasure that had been exchanged for them
+warmin' pans. We was a fair mark, as ye might say, for them
+pi-_rats_."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, hugging her Alice-doll the tighter.
+
+"How much treasure was there, Mr. Kuk?" asked the ever-practical Tess.
+
+"A chist full," announced the clam digger without a moment's
+hesitation. "A reg'lar treasure-chist full. All them planters hadn't
+had ready cash money to pay for the warmin' pans, and they'd give in
+exchange di'monds and other jools--and the exchange rates for American
+money was high anyway. So the _Spankin' Sal_ was a mighty good ketch
+if the pi-_rats_ ketched her.
+
+"So, when we sailed from Porto Rico we kep' a weather eye open for
+black-painted schooners with rakin' masts an' skulls and shinbones on
+their flags. When we seed them signs we'd know they was pi-_rats_,"
+declared Kuk, gravely.
+
+The small Corner House girls sighed in unison--and in delight! "The
+plot thickens!" whispered Agnes to Ruth behind the flap of the tent
+where they were listening, likewise, though unbeknown to Kuk and the
+children.
+
+"Go on, please, Mr. Kuk," breathed Tess.
+
+"Oh, do!" said Dot.
+
+"Well, shipmets," said the old clam digger, "bein' peaceful
+merchantmen, as ye might say, we hadn't shipped aboard the _Spankin'
+Sal_ to fight no pi-_rats_," declared Kuk, with energy. "We wasn't no
+sogers, and we told the skipper so.
+
+"'We'll fight,' says I. Bein' an officer--carpenter's mate, as I told
+ye--I was spokesman for the crew. 'But we wants ter fight with weepons
+as we air fermiliar with. Let you and the ossifers fire the cannon,
+skipper,' says I, 'and give us fellers that was bred along shore an'
+on the farms some o' them scythes out'n the lower holt.
+
+"'Cutlasses an' muskets,' says I, 'is all right for them as has been
+brought up with 'em,' says I, 'but, skipper, me an' my shipmets has
+been better used ter cuttin' swamp-grass an' mowin' oats. Give us the
+weepons we air fermiliar with.'
+
+"And he done it," declared Kuk, wagging his sinful old head. "We broke
+out some cases of scythes and fixed 'em onto their handles after
+grindin' of 'em sharp as razers on the grin'stone in the waist of the
+_Spankin' Sal_.
+
+"Pretty soon we seen one o' them black-hulled schooners comin'. She
+couldn't be mistook for anythin' but a pi-_rat_, although she didn't
+fly no black flag yet.
+
+"'Let 'em come to close quarters, skipper,' says I. 'Let 'em board us.
+Then me an' my shipmets can git 'em on the short laig. We'll mow 'em
+down like weeds along a roadside ditch.'
+
+"He done it, an' we did," pursued Kuk, rather heated now with the
+interest of his own narrative. "When they run their schooner alongside
+of us and the two ships clinched, and they broke out the black flag at
+their peak, me an' my shipmets stood there ready to repel boarders.
+
+"Them pi-_rats_," proceeded Kuk, "fought like a passel of cats--tooth
+an' nail! They come over aour bulwarks jest like peas pourin' out o' a
+sack. 'Steady, lads!' I sings out. 'Take a long, sweepin' stroke, an'
+each o' ye cut a good swath!'
+
+"An' we done so," the clam digger said, nodding. "Our scythes was
+longer than the cutlasses of them pi-_rats_; and before they could git
+at us, we'd reach 'em with a side-swipe of the scythes, and mow 'em
+down like ripe hay."
+
+"Oh, dear, me!" gasped Dot.
+
+"How awful!" murmured Tess.
+
+"'Twas sartain sure a bloody field of battle," declared the clam
+digger, nodding again. "If it hadn't been for my leg I wouldn't never
+have fought no pi-_rats_ again. A man has his feelin's, ye see. Our
+scuppers run blood. The enemy was piled along the deck under our
+bulwarks in a reg'lar windrow."
+
+"And did you kill them _all_--every one?" demanded Tess, in amazement.
+
+"No. We jest cut 'em down for the most part," explained Kuk. "Ye see,
+we cut a low swath with our scythes; mostly we mowed off their feet
+and mebbe their legs purty near to their knees. After that there
+battle there was a most awful lot o' wooden legged pi-_rats_ on the
+Spanish Main.
+
+"An' _that_," declared the clam digger, rising and getting ready to
+move on, "was the main reason why I left the sea; leastwise I never
+wanted to go sailin' much in them parts again.
+
+"In the scrimmage I got a shot in this leg as busted my knee-cap. I
+kep' hoppin' 'round on that busted leg as long as there was any
+pi-_rats_ to mow down; and I did the knee a lot of harm the doctors in
+the horspital said.
+
+"So I had ter have the leg ampertated. That made folks down that-a-way
+ax me was I a pi-_rat_, too. I'm a sensitive man," said Kuk, wagging
+his head, "an' it hurt my feelin's to be classed in with all them
+wooden-legged fellers as we mowed down in the _Spankin' Sal_. So I
+come hum an' left the sea for good and all," concluded Habakuk Somes,
+and at once pegged off with his clam basket on his arm.
+
+"What an awful, _awful_ story!" cried Dot.
+
+"Too awful to believe," answered Tess, wisely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+The four Corner House girls planned to start for town one morning
+early, and they were going by road instead of by boat.
+
+Agnes ran over to the boys' tents to ask Neale O'Neil to see that
+their fresh fish was put upon the ice in the icebox when the fishman
+came; and she found Neale doing duty on the housekeeping staff that
+morning, being busily engaged in shaking up the pillows and beating
+mattresses in the sun. The latter exertion was particularly for the
+dislodgment of the ubiquitous sandflea!
+
+"Hello, Ag! What's the good word?" cried Neale.
+
+Agnes told him what they were going to do and asked the favor.
+
+"I'll see that you get the fish all right," Neale agreed. "But what
+about the iceman? He'll never come near your tent with Tom Jonah
+there."
+
+"Tom Jonah is going with us," Agnes said, promptly. "Did you suppose
+we'd leave him all day alone, poor fellow?"
+
+When they started Tom Jonah showed his delight at being included in
+the girls' outing by the most extravagant gyrations. As they went up
+the shaded lane toward the auto-stage road, he chased half a dozen
+imaginary rabbits into the woods in as many minutes.
+
+It was right at the head of the lane that they met the man. He was not
+a bad looking man at all, and he was driving a nice horse to a
+rubber-tired runabout.
+
+He drew in the horse, that seemed to have already traveled some miles
+that morning, and looked hard at Tom Jonah.
+
+"Well," he said, cheerfully, "there's the old tramp himself. How long
+have you girls had him?"
+
+The four Corner House girls stood stock-still, and even Ruth was
+smitten dumb for the moment.
+
+"Tom Jonah, you rascal!" said the man, not unkindly. "Don't you know
+your old master?"
+
+At first the dog had not seen him; but the moment he heard the man's
+voice, he halted and his whole body stiffened. The plume of his tail
+began to wave; his jaws stretched wide in a doggish smile. Then, as
+the man playfully snapped the whip at him, Tom Jonah barked loudly.
+
+"Where did you get him!" the man repeated, looking at the Corner House
+girls again.
+
+Tess and Dot were clinging to each other's hands. Agnes stared at the
+man belligerently. Ruth said--and her voice was not quite steady:
+
+"Do you think you know Tom Jonah, sir?"
+
+"What do you think yourself, Miss?" responded the man, rather gruffly.
+"I guess there's no mistake about whether he knows me and I know him."
+
+"No, sir," said Ruth, bravely. "But lots of people may know him."
+
+"Do you mean to put in a claim for the dog?" interrupted the man,
+quickly.
+
+"Tom Jonah came to our house in Milton," began Ruth, when again the
+man interrupted with:
+
+"Of course. He was on his way home to me. I sold him to a man who
+lives forty miles beyond Milton."
+
+"Then you do _not_ own him?" Ruth said, with a feeling of relief.
+
+The man looked at her steadily for a minute. Ruth had recovered her
+self-possession. Tess and Dot were now on either side of Tom Jonah,
+with their arms about the dog's neck. Agnes was very angry, but
+remained silent.
+
+"I raised that dog from a pup, Miss. I owned his mother. I raised him.
+I put his name on his collar. He has it there yet, hasn't he?"
+
+"Yes, sir," admitted Ruth.
+
+"He's always been a good dog. He's a gentleman if ever a dog was! He
+had the run of the house. My wife and the girls made a great pet of
+him. But by and by they said he was too big and clumsy for the house.
+They have a couple of little _fice_--lap-poodles, or the like. Tom
+Jonah was put out, and he got jealous. Yes, sir!" and the man laughed.
+"Just as jealous as a human."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Agnes. She _disliked_ that man!
+
+"My name's Reynolds," said the man. "Everybody knows me about Shawmit.
+I run a lumber-yard there.
+
+"Well! Tom Jonah got to running away to the neighbors. Stayed a while
+with one, then with another. Always liked kids, Tom Jonah did, and
+he'd stay longest where there were kids in the family.
+
+"But it got to be a nuisance. I didn't know whether the dog belonged
+to me or somebody else. So I sold him to a relative of my wife's who
+came on visiting us, and took a fancy to Tom Jonah, and who lives--as
+I said--forty miles beyond Milton. So the old fellow was on his way
+back home when you took him in, eh?"
+
+"He came to us at Milton," Ruth replied. "He wanted to stay. I brought
+him down here to take care of my little sisters. We're living in a
+tent down on the shore yonder----"
+
+"And we're going to keep him!" interrupted Agnes, angrily.
+
+"Hush! Be still, Aggie!" begged Ruth, in a low tone.
+
+"You don't claim you bought him, I suppose?" said the man who called
+himself Reynolds.
+
+"But we _will_!" cried Ruth, instantly. "We will gladly pay for him."
+
+"Oh, he's not for sale again," laughed the man. "I sold him once and
+he wouldn't stay sold, you see."
+
+"Then he doesn't belong to you now, any more than he does to us,
+really," Ruth hastened to say.
+
+"Well----that's so, I suppose," admitted the man.
+
+"We won't give Tom Jonah up to anybody," said Agnes again.
+
+Dot was crying and Tess could scarcely keep from following her lead.
+Tom Jonah stood solemnly, his eyes very bright, his tail waving
+slowly. He looked from the girls to the man in the runabout, and back
+again. He knew they were discussing him; but he did not know just what
+it was all about.
+
+"If we have to," said Ruth, with much more confidence in her voice
+than she felt in her heart, "we will give Tom Jonah up to the person
+who really owns him. We do not know you, sir. We do not know if what
+you say is true. You must prove it."
+
+"Well! I like that!" said the man in a tone that showed he did not
+like it at all. "You are a pretty pert young lady, you are. I guess
+I'll take my own dog home. I heard he was over here to the beach and I
+drove over particularly to get him."
+
+"Take him, then!" exclaimed Ruth, desperately. "If Tom Jonah will go
+with you, all right. You call him."
+
+"Come here, boy!" commanded the man.
+
+Tom Jonah did not move. Ruth took a hand of each of the smaller girls
+and led them away from the big dog.
+
+"Come, children," she said. "We'll go on. If Tom Jonah really loves
+us, he'll come, too."
+
+The dog whined. He looked from the red-faced, angry man to the four
+girls who loved him so well.
+
+"Come here, Tom Jonah!" commanded the man again. He had turned his
+horse and was evidently headed for home. "Come, sir!"
+
+The Corner House girls were moving sadly away. Agnes glanced back and
+actually made a face at the man in the runabout. Fortunately he did
+not see it.
+
+"Come on, Tom Jonah!" said the man for the third time.
+
+The dog was perplexed. He showed it plainly. He started after the man;
+he started back for the girls. He whined and he barked. He was torn by
+the conflicting emotions in his doggish soul.
+
+"What's the matter with him?" exclaimed the man, and snapped his
+whiplash at Tom Jonah.
+
+At that, Dot uttered a shriek of anguish. Tess burst into tears. Agnes
+started back as though to protect the dog. Even Ruth could not forbear
+to utter a cry.
+
+"Here, Tom Jonah! here, sir!" Agnes shouted. "Come on, you dear old
+fellow."
+
+The dog barked, circled the moving carriage once, and then raced down
+the road toward the Corner House girls. The man shouted and snapped
+his whip. Tom Jonah did not even look back at him when he caught up
+with the girls.
+
+[Illustration: The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;
+started back for the girls. He whined and he barked.]
+
+"Hurry up! let's run with him, Ruthie," begged Agnes.
+
+But there was no need of that. The man did not turn his horse and
+follow. He was quickly out of sight and Tom Jonah gave no sign of
+wishing to follow his old master.
+
+The incident troubled the Corner House girls vastly. Even Ruth was
+devoted to the good old dog by this time. If he were taken away by
+this Mr. Reynolds, it would be like losing one of the Corner House
+family.
+
+Ruth feared that Mr. Reynolds would find some legal way of getting
+possession of Tom Jonah. She wished Mr. Howbridge were here to advise
+them what to do. She even wished now that she had not brought Tom
+Jonah to Pleasant Cove to act as their "chaperon."
+
+The smaller girls dried their eyes after a time. Agnes, "breathing
+threatenings," as Ruth said, promised Tess and Dot that the man never
+should take Tom Jonah away. But Ruth wondered what they would do about
+it if Mr. Reynolds came to Willowbend Camp with a police constable and
+a warrant for the dog?
+
+And, too, who had sent Mr. Reynolds word that Tom Jonah was at the
+beach? He particularly said that he had been informed of the fact. It
+seemed to Ruth that the informer must be their enemy.
+
+Then, out of a dust cloud that had been drawing near the Corner House
+girls for some few moments, appeared the forefront of a big touring
+car. In it were Trix Severn and some of her friends from the Overlook
+House.
+
+"Oh! there's Trix!" murmured Agnes to her older sister.
+
+The hotel-keeper's daughter would not look at the Corner House girls.
+She, certainly, had proved herself their enemy. Ruth wondered if Trix
+had had anything to do with bringing Mr. Reynolds to Pleasant Cove,
+searching for his dog.
+
+Ruth knew that the hotel-keeper's daughter often rode over to Shawmit;
+she was probably on her way there now with her party. And after the
+way Trix had acted at the time the Spoondrift bungalow was burned, one
+might expect anything mean of Trix. For once Ruth allowed her
+suspicions to color her thoughts.
+
+"She has awfully good times, just the same," murmured Agnes.
+
+"Who does?" demanded Ruth, tartly.
+
+"Trix."
+
+"I declare!" exclaimed Ruth, with more vexation than she usually
+displayed. "I'd be ashamed that I ever knew her after the way she's
+acted. And I believe, Agnes, that we can thank her for setting that
+man after Tom Jonah."
+
+"Oh, Ruth! Do you believe so?"
+
+"I do," said the older Corner House girl, and she explained why she
+thought so.
+
+Mr. Severn bought many of his supplies in Shawmit, and Trix was
+forever running over there in the car. It did not strain one's
+imagination very much to picture Trix hearing about Mr. Reynolds' dog
+and recognizing Tom Jonah from the description. Besides, the Severns
+had been coming to Pleasant Cove for several seasons, and Trix might
+easily have seen the dog when he lived with his first master.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" sighed Agnes. "It does seem too bad that one's very
+_best_ friends sometimes turn out to be one's enemies. Who'd have
+thought Trix Severn would do such a thing?"
+
+"Of course, we don't _know_," admitted Ruth, trying to be fair. "But
+who else could have told Mr. Reynolds about Tom Jonah?"
+
+Ruth went into the first store in the village that sold such things
+and bought a new leash. This she snapped into the ring of his collar
+and made the old dog walk beside them more decorously.
+
+Tess and Dot could scarcely keep from hugging him all the time; they
+wanted Ruth to agree to take the very next train back to Milton, for
+they thought with the dog once at the old Corner House, nobody could
+take him away from them.
+
+"I didn't like that man at all, anyway," Tess declared. "He had red
+whiskers."
+
+"Is--is that a sign that a man's real mean if he has red whiskers,
+Tess?" asked Dot, wonderingly.
+
+"It's a sign Tess doesn't like him," laughed Agnes. "But I don't like
+that Reynolds man myself. Do you, Ruthie?"
+
+"We're all agreed on that point I should hope," said Ruth. "But we
+won't run away with Tom Jonah. If that man comes for him again, I'll
+find some way to circumvent him. The good old dog belongs to us, if he
+does to anybody. And as long as he wants to live with us, he shall. So
+now!"
+
+The other Corner House girls finally forgot their worriment about Tom
+Jonah. Ruth warned them not to talk about it to the girls they met.
+They did their errands in the village and then went on to Spoondrift
+bungalow where they spent a very enjoyable day.
+
+Neale O'Neil and Joe Eldred came after supper to escort the Corner
+House girls back to Willowbend Camp. Tess and Dot had taken a nap
+during the afternoon, so were not a drag on the procession, going
+home.
+
+They went around by the home of the little old woman who lived in the
+shoe. Ruth and Agnes had been talking with the boys about the mystery
+of the strange girl who had shared in the adventures of Tess and Dot
+on Wild Goose Island. They all agreed she must be a Gypsy; but Ruth
+had kept to herself the knowledge of the girl's identity as the Gypsy
+"queen."
+
+"I saw several of the Gypsies about the beach to-day," Joe Eldred
+said. "That snaky, scarred-faced fellow was one of them."
+
+"He's the ring-leader, I believe," Ruth hastened to say.
+
+"Can't just see what they are after, hanging about here," Neale
+observed. "There isn't much to steal. Everybody's brought just the
+oldest things they own down here to the beach."
+
+"And there are no hens to steal," chuckled Agnes.
+
+"I bet none of them will come near the tents while Tom Jonah is on
+guard," Neale added, snapping his fingers for the dog who was running
+ahead in the moonlit path.
+
+Suddenly Tom Jonah stopped and growled. They had arrived in sight of
+the queer little cottage where Rosa Wildwood lived with Mrs. Bobster.
+The young folk could even see the drawn shade of the sitting-room
+window.
+
+"There's that man again!" exclaimed Agnes.
+
+"What man?" Joe Eldred asked.
+
+"Mrs. Bobster's mysterious friend," giggled Agnes. "See his shadow on
+the curtain?"
+
+"And he's sitting there with his hat on," murmured Neale.
+
+But it was Ruth who saw the other--and more important--shadow. This
+was the figure of a tall man slipping along the outer side of Mrs.
+Bobster's picket fence. It was _this_ shadow at which Tom Jonah was
+growling.
+
+The man came to the gate, opened it softly, and stole in. His furtive
+movements gave the big dog his cue. He leaped forward, barking
+vociferously, leaped the fence, and followed the running figure around
+the corner of the house.
+
+Mrs. Bobster shrieked--the young folk outside could hear her. But her
+"company" did not move. He still sat there with his derby hat on.
+
+The boys started after the dog. The girls stood, clinging to one
+another's hands, at the corner of the fence.
+
+From around the house appeared another running figure; but this was a
+girl. She flung herself headlong over the fence, and her skirt caught
+on a picket. Ruth ran forward to release her.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" she gasped. "Where did you come from?"
+
+It was the girl she had first noticed in the train with the Gypsy
+woman--the very girl who had been on Wild Goose Island with Tess and
+Dot. It was she who had masqueraded as Zaliska, the Gypsy queen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BROUGHT TO BOOK
+
+
+"Let me go! Let me go!" gasped the girl in Ruth's arms. "He will get
+me."
+
+"Who'll get you?" demanded the wondering Agnes.
+
+"Big Jim, the Gypsy. He's after me," said the strange girl.
+
+"And Tom Jonah and the boys are after _him_," declared Ruth. "Don't
+you fret; Big Jim won't come back here."
+
+"Who _is_ she, Ruth?" asked Agnes.
+
+"Never mind who I am," said the girl, rather sharply. "Let me go."
+
+"I know why you were lurking about here," Ruth said, calmly. "You
+heard that Rosa Wildwood is stopping here."
+
+"Well?" demanded the other.
+
+"Then you are June Wildwood. You're her sister. I don't know how you
+came to be with those Gypsies, and masquerading as an old woman----"
+
+"My goodness!" gasped Agnes. "Was _she_ that Gypsy queen?"
+
+"Yes," Ruth said, confidently. "Now, weren't you?" to the strange
+girl. "And aren't you Rosa's sister who ran away two years ago?"
+
+"Oh, I am! I am!" groaned the girl.
+
+"Well, Rosa's just crazy to see you. And your father has been
+searching for you everywhere," said Ruth, quickly. "You must come in
+and see Rosa. There's Mrs. Bobster opening the front door."
+
+The shadow of the man with the derby hat on his head still was
+motionless upon the shade; but the widow had opened the front door on
+its chain, and now demanded:
+
+"Who's there? what do you want?"
+
+"It's only me, Mrs. Bobster," cried Ruth.
+
+Tess and Dot were already running toward the cottage door. "Oh, Mrs.
+Bobster!" Tess cried, "here's the girl that helped us on the
+island--me and Dot."
+
+"And my Alice-doll," concluded Dot, likewise excited. "And Ruthie says
+she's Rosa's sister."
+
+"For the good land of liberty's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Bobster,
+throwing wide the door. "Come in! Come in!"
+
+The girl whom Ruth had seized hesitated for a moment. Ruth whispered
+in her ear:
+
+"Rosa is wearing her heart out for you, June Wildwood. And your father
+isn't drinking any more. He has a steady job. You come back to them
+and you needn't be afraid of those Gypsies."
+
+"They'll try to get me back. Doc. Raynes' wife was one of them. The
+old doctor died a year ago, and since then I've been with that gang,"
+said June Wildwood.
+
+"Were the doctor and his wife the folks you ran away with?"
+
+"Yes. I danced and sang and dressed up in character to help entertain
+their audiences when he sold bitters and salve," the girl explained.
+"The old doctor treated me all right. But these thieving Gypsies are
+different. Mrs. Doc. Raynes is Big Jim's sister."
+
+"Don't you be afraid of them any more. We'll set the police after
+them," Ruth declared. "Where have you been since the day my sisters
+were with you?"
+
+"I've been washing dishes at a hotel here in Pleasant Cove. But I kept
+under cover. I was afraid of them," said the girl.
+
+They reached the door then, and went into the cottage. Mrs. Bobster
+ushered them right into the sitting-room and at once all the girls
+halted in amazement. There was an armchair standing between the window
+and the center table, where the lamp sat. Leaning against the chair
+was the broom, and on the business end of that very useful household
+implement was a hat that had probably once belonged to the husband of
+the little old woman who lived in a shoe.
+
+"My goodness sake!" ejaculated Agnes, the first to get her breath.
+"Then it was not company you had at all, Mrs. Bobster?"
+
+"No," said the widow, in a business-like way, removing the hat from
+the broom and standing the latter in the corner. "But I didn't want
+folks to know it. There's some stragglers around here after dark, and
+I wanted 'em to think there was a man in the house."
+
+At that moment Rosa Wildwood came running downstairs in wrapper and
+slippers. "I heard her! I heard her!" she shrieked, and the next
+moment the two sisters were hugging each other frantically.
+
+Explanations were in order; and it took some time for the little old
+lady who lived in a shoe to understand the reunion of her boarder and
+the girl who had lived with the Gypsies.
+
+The boys and Tom Jonah came back, having chased the lurking Big Jim
+for quite a mile through the woods. "And Tom Jonah brought back a
+piece of his coat-tail," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "He can consider
+himself lucky that the dog didn't bite deeper!"
+
+"I guess that dog doesn't like Gypsies," said June Wildwood, patting
+Tom Jonah's head.
+
+The boys were just as much interested as their girl friends in the
+reunion of Rosa and her sister. Meanwhile Mrs. Bobster bustled about
+and found the usual pitcher of cool milk and a great platter of
+cookies. The young folk feasted beyond reason while they all talked.
+
+Ruth arranged with the little old woman who lived in a shoe to let
+June stay with her sister, and she promised June, as well, that if she
+would return to Milton with Rosa, employment would be found for her so
+that she could be self-supporting, yet live at home with Rosa and Bob
+Wildwood.
+
+The Corner House girls offered to leave Tom Jonah to guard the
+premises for that night. But Mrs. Bobster said:
+
+"I reckon I won't be scaret none with two great girls in the house
+with me. Besides, when I am asleep, being lonesome don't bother me
+none--no, ma'am!"
+
+"Well, we don't know how long we're going to have old Tom Jonah
+ourselves," sighed Agnes, as the party bound for the tent colony
+started on again.
+
+"How's that!" demanded Neale, quickly.
+
+They told him about the man named Reynolds, from Shawmit, and the
+claim he had made to the big dog. Neale was equally troubled with the
+Corner House girls over this, and he advised Ruth and Agnes to take
+the dog wherever they went.
+
+"Don't give the fellow a chance to find Tom Jonah alone, or with the
+little girls," said Neale. "I don't believe he can get the dog legally
+without considerable trouble. And Tom Jonah has shown whom he likes
+best."
+
+This uncertainty about Tom Jonah, however, did not keep the Corner
+House girls from continuing their good times at Pleasant Cove. With
+one of the ladies of the tent colony for chaperon the girls and their
+boy friends had many a "junket"--up the river, down the bay, and even
+outside upon the open sea.
+
+It was on one of these latter occasions that Ruth and Agnes joined
+Neale and his friends on the "double-ender," _Hattie G._, and with her
+crew spent a night and a day chasing the elusive swordfish.
+
+That _was_ an adventure; and one not soon to be forgotten by the older
+Corner House girls. Of course Tess and Dot were too small to go on
+this trip and they were fast asleep in one of the neighboring tents
+when Neale O'Neil came and scratched on the canvas of that in which
+Ruth and Agnes slept.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Agnes. "What's that!"
+
+"Is that you, Neale?" demanded Ruth, calmly.
+
+"Of course. Get a bustle on," advised the boy. "The motorboat will be
+ready in ten minutes."
+
+"Mercy!" ejaculated Agnes, giggling. "You know we don't wear bustles,
+Neale. They are too old-fashioned for anything."
+
+She and Ruth quickly dressed. There wasn't much "prinking and
+preening" before the mirror on this morning, that was sure. In ten
+minutes the two Corner House girls were running down the beach, with
+their bags (packed over-night) and their rain-coats over their arms.
+Tom Jonah raced after them.
+
+Everywhere save on the beach itself the shadows lay deep. There was no
+moon and the stars twinkled high overhead--spangles sewed on the
+black-velvet robe of Night.
+
+Out upon the quietly heaving waters sounded voices--then the pop of a
+launch engine.
+
+"Come on!" urged Neale's voice. "They're getting the boat ready,
+girls."
+
+"But we're not going out to the banks in the _Nimble Shanks_--surely!"
+cried Agnes.
+
+"No. But we're going down the cove in her to catch the _Hattie G._
+Skipper Joline sent up a rocket for us half an hour ago. The tide's
+going out. He won't wait long, I assure you."
+
+"It would be lots more comfortable to go all the way in the
+motorboat--wouldn't it?" asked Ruth, stepping into the skiff after
+Agnes and the dog.
+
+"Skipper Joline would have a fit," laughed Joe Eldred. "A motorboat
+engine would scare every swordfish within a league of the Banks--so
+_he_ says. He declares _that_ is what makes them so hard to catch the
+last few seasons. These motorboats running about the sea are a greater
+nuisance than the motor cars ashore--so he declares."
+
+"I suppose the swordfish shy at the motorboats just like the horses
+shy at automobiles!" giggled Agnes, as Neale and Joe pushed off and
+seized the oars.
+
+"Yep," grunted Neale O'Neil. "And the motorboats have frightened all
+the horse-mackerel away. That's a joke. I'll tell the Skipper _that_."
+
+Several shadowy figures--being those of the other boys and Mr. and
+Mrs. Stryver, who were members of the swordfishing party, too--were
+spied about the deck and cockpit of the _Nimble Shanks_. The boys shot
+the skiff in beside the motorboat and helped the girls aboard. Then
+they moored the skiff to the motorboat's buoy and soon the _Nimble
+Shanks_ was away, down the cove.
+
+It was past two o'clock--the darkest minutes of a summer's morning.
+Seaward, a light haze hung over the water--seemingly a veil of mist
+let down from the sky to shut out the view of all distant objects from
+the out-sailing mariners.
+
+As the party neared the fishing fleet, voices carried flatly across
+the water, and now and then a dog barked. Tom Jonah answered these
+canines ashore with explosive growls. He stood forward, his paws
+planted firmly on the deck, and snuffing the sea air. Tom Jonah was a
+good sailor.
+
+"Got your scare?" a voice came out of the darkness, quavering across
+the cove. "Going to be thick outside."
+
+Neale grabbed the fish-horn and blew a mighty blast on it. Similar
+horns answered from all about the fleet.
+
+A towering mast, with its big sail bending to the breeze, shot past
+them--the big cat-boat, _Susie_, bound for her lines of lobster-pots
+just off the mouth of the cove. Her crew hailed the launch and her
+party--four sturdy young fellows in jerseys and high sea-boots.
+
+"Whew!" said Joe. "Smell that lobster bait! I'd hate to go for a
+pleasure trip on the _Susie_."
+
+The _Hattie G._ was just ahead and Mr. Stryver shut off the engine.
+The drab, dirty looking old craft tugged sharply at her taut mooring
+cable. She had two short masts, and on these heavy canvas was being
+spread by the crew, which consisted of five men and a boy.
+
+One of the men was the skipper, another the mate, a third the cook;
+but all hands had to turn to to make sail. There were several sweeps
+(heavy oars) held in bights of rope along the rail. Both ends of the
+_Hattie G._ were sharp; in other words she had two bows. Thus the
+name, "double-ender"--a build of craft now almost extinct save in a
+few New England ports out of which ply the swordfishermen.
+
+Skipper Joline came to the rail. He was a hoarse, red-faced man with a
+white beard, cut like a paintbrush, on his chin.
+
+"Climb aboard, folks," he said. "Steve will get breakfast shortly.
+There's a bit of fog and some swell outside. Better all lay in a good
+foundation of scouse and sody biscuit. Ye'll need it later."
+
+"That sounds rather suggestive, Ruth," whispered Agnes. "Do you
+suppose he expects us landlubbers to be really _sick_?"
+
+"I hope not," replied her sister. "But I don't care! I'm going to eat
+that breakfast if it kills me! I was never so hungry in all my life
+before."
+
+They left the _Nimble Shanks_ moored at the double-ender's
+anchor-buoy, and the latter lurched away on the short leg of her tack
+for the entrance to the cove. There was a fresh breeze and the water
+began to sing under the sharp bows of the _Hattie G._
+
+The cook got busy in the galley and the fragrance of coffee and fried
+fish smothered all other smells about the craft--for it must be
+confessed that the double-ender had an ancient and fishy smell of her
+own that was not altogether pleasant to the nostrils of a fastidious
+person.
+
+These hearty boys and girls were out for fun, however, and they had
+been long enough at Pleasant Cove to get used to most fishy odors.
+Before breakfast was over the _Hattie G._ had run through the
+"Breach," as the cove entrance was called, and they were sailing
+straight out to sea.
+
+The mournful wail of a horn in the fog now and then announced the
+location of some lobsterman. The _Hattie G._ answered these "scares"
+with her own horn and swept on through the fog.
+
+But now the mist began to lift. A golden glow rose, increased, and
+spread all along the eastern horizon. Suddenly they shot out of the
+fog and sailed right into the bright path of the rising sun.
+
+This wonderful sight of sunrise at sea delighted Ruth and Agnes
+intensely. It was just as though they had sailed suddenly into a new
+world.
+
+The fog masked the land astern. Ahead was nothing but the heaving,
+greenish-gray waves, foam-streaked at their crowns to the distant
+skyline, with only a few sails crossing the line of vision. Not a
+speck of land marred the seascape.
+
+Later, when the _Hattie G._ reached the Banks, there was something
+beside the view to interest and excite the Corner House girls.
+
+The big sails were lowered and only a riding sail spread to keep the
+_Hattie G._ on an even keel. A "pulpit" was set up on each of her
+short booms--both fore and aft.
+
+At the top of a mast was rigged a barrel-like thing in which the
+lookout stood with a glass, on the watch for the swordfish.
+
+These can only be caught asleep on the surface of the sea. When one is
+sighted either the sails are hoisted, or the sweeps are used, to bring
+the vessel near enough for the skipper or his mate to make a cast of
+the harpoon.
+
+Once one of the huge fish was spied, everybody aboard the _Hattie G._
+was on the _qui vive_. The boys climbed the ratlines to see. The girls
+borrowed the cook's old-fashioned spyglass to get a better view of the
+creature.
+
+The _Hattie G._ was brought softly near the fish. Skipper Joline had
+warned his guests to keep quiet. Ruth kept her hand upon Tom Jonah's
+collar so that he should not disturb the proceedings.
+
+The skipper stepped into the pulpit--a framework of iron against which
+he leaned when he cast the harpoon. All was ready for the supreme
+moment.
+
+The coil of the line was laid behind him. The crew brought the _Hattie
+G._ just to the spot Skipper Joline indicated with a wave of his hand.
+
+Back swung the mighty arm of the skipper, the muscles swelling like
+cables under the sleeve of his blue jersey.
+
+"Now!" breathed the mate, as eager as any of the boys or girls among
+the spectators.
+
+Ping!
+
+The skipper had let drive. The harpoon sank deeply into the fish. For
+a brief instant they saw blood spurt out and dye the sea.
+
+Then the huge fish leaped almost its length from the sea. The crew
+drove the _Hattie G._ back. Good reason why the swordfishing craft are
+built sharp at both ends!
+
+How the fish thrashed and fought! Its sword beat the water to foam.
+Had it found the double-ender, the latter's bottom-planks would have
+been no protection against the creature's blows.
+
+A swordfish has been known to thrust its weapon through the bottom of
+a boat and break it off in its struggles to get free.
+
+"Oh, Agnes!" gasped Ruth, when the fight was over and the huge fish
+killed. "Who would ever believe, while buying a slice of swordfish,
+that it was so dangerous to capture one of the creatures?"
+
+The crew of the _Hattie G._ got four ere they set sail for Pleasant
+Cove again, and the Corner House girls became quite used to the
+methods of the fishermen and the tactics of the swordfish on being
+struck.
+
+They sailed back to Pleasant Cove with what was called the prize catch
+of the season. When a fish is as big as a good-sized dining-table and
+sells for twenty-five cents a pound, retail, it does not take many to
+make a good catch.
+
+Ruth and Agnes, and Neale and the other boys, were glad they went on
+the trip. They arrived at the camp late in the evening, filled with
+enthusiasm over the adventures of the day.
+
+And Skipper Joline presented the Corner House girls with a four-foot
+sword which, later, occupied a place of honor over the sitting-room
+mantelpiece in the old Corner House at Milton.
+
+Ruth took Tom Jonah up to see the Wildwood girls with her the very
+next time she went to call.
+
+The Corner House girl found Rosa and June shelling peas under the
+arbor, while Mrs. Bobster was talking with Kuk Somes over a "mess" of
+clams she had bought.
+
+"You ain't honest enough to count out a hunderd clams, Kuk," declared
+the plain-spoken old lady. "Ye got such a high-powered imagination
+that ye can't count straight."
+
+"Now, Mis' Bobster, thet thar's a hard statement ter make," said Kuk,
+shaking his head, but grinning. "Don't make me out so 'fore these here
+young ladies."
+
+"I reckon they know ye!" cried the widow. "If they've ever hearn ye
+spin one o' yer sea-farin' yarns----"
+
+"And we have," interposed Ruth, smiling. "He's told us about how he
+sailed in the _Spanking Sal_ and lost his leg fighting pirates."
+
+"For the good land o' liberty!" gasped Mrs. Bobster. "He never told ye
+_that_?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It was very interesting," laughed Ruth.
+
+"Why," said the widow, angrily, "that fellow never sailed in a
+deep-water craft in his life. The only time he ever went out in a
+double-ender as fur as the swordfish banks, he was so sick they had
+ter bring him ashore on a stretcher!"
+
+"Now, Mis' Bobster----" began the clam digger, faintly.
+
+"Ain't that _so_? Ye daren't deny it," she declared. "He ain't no
+sailor. He's jest an old beach-comber. Don't never go in _any_ boat
+outside of the cove. Lost his leg fightin' pirates, did he? Huh!"
+
+"So he told us," said the much amused Ruth.
+
+"Why, th' ridiculous old thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobster, laughing
+herself now. "He lost that leg in Mr. Reynolds' sawmill at
+Shawmit--that's how he did it. And he was tipsy at the time or he
+wouldn't never have got hurt."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ruth, staring at the sheepish clam digger.
+
+"And he goes over there to Shawmit ev'ry month an' collects ten
+dollars from Reynolds, who's good-natured and helps him out with a
+pension. Ain't that so, Kuk Somes!"
+
+The wooden-legged clam digger nodded. "Whar's the harm?" he murmured.
+"Ye know these city folks likes ter hear my yarns. An' it don't hurt
+'em none."
+
+"But that's how Mr. Reynolds heard about our having Tom Jonah,"
+declared Ruth, accusingly. "You told him."
+
+"Yep. That's his old dawg," said Kuk.
+
+"Well, you've made us a lot of trouble," said Ruth, sadly. "For I am
+afraid that Mr. Reynolds will try to take Tom Jonah away. And," she
+added, in secret, "how wrong I was to accuse Trix Severn, without
+stronger evidence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE END OF THE OUTING
+
+
+Tess and Dot Kenway had a very serious matter to decide. Ruth had
+determined that, as they were all enjoying themselves at Pleasant Cove
+so much, the Corner House flag should continue to wave for a time
+longer over their tent in the Willowbend Camp.
+
+But there was something at home in Milton, at the old Corner House
+itself, that the younger girls thought they _must_ attend to.
+
+"It's really a _nawful_ state of affairs," Tess declared, nodding her
+sunny head, gravely, and with her lips pursed up. "They are growing
+right up without knowing their own names. Why! I don't see how their
+own mother knows them apart."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Dot, to whom this was a new idea indeed. "I never thought
+of that."
+
+"Well, it's so," said Tess. "I--I wish Ruth had sent for them and had
+had them brought down here when Rosa and Tom Jonah came."
+
+"But they couldn't leave their mother, Tess," objected Dot. "They're
+too small."
+
+"I--don't--know," said Tess, doubtfully. "At any rate, it's high time
+they were named. You know, Mrs. MacCall says so herself."
+
+Dot picked up the letter that the kind housekeeper at the old Corner
+House had written especially to the two smaller Kenway girls.
+
+"She says they chase their tails all day long and they have had to put
+them out in the woodshed to keep them from being under foot," Dot
+said, reading slowly, for Mrs. MacCall's writing was not like print.
+
+"They must be named," repeated Tess, with conviction.
+
+"But Ruth won't let us go home to do it," quoth Dot.
+
+"And I don't want to. Do _you_?" demanded Tess, hastily. "I don't want
+to leave the beach now, just when we're having so much fun."
+
+Neither did Dot. But the state of the unchristened kittens--the
+youngest family of Sandyface--troubled her exceedingly.
+
+Tess, however, suddenly had one of her very brilliant ideas. "I tell
+you what let's do!" she cried.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Let's write Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus a letter, and ask them to
+name Sandyface's children their own selves."
+
+"But--but _we_ want to name them," cried Dot.
+
+"Goosey!" exclaimed Tess. "We'll choose the names; but Mrs. MacCall
+and Uncle Rufus can give them to the kittens. Don't you see?"
+
+"Oh, Tess! we might," agreed Dot, delighted.
+
+Tess ran to the tent for paper and pencil, and bespoke the favor of an
+envelope addressed in ink to Mrs. MacCall.
+
+"Of course, I'll address one for you," said Ruth, kindly. "But what's
+all the hurry about writing home?"
+
+Tess explained the necessity that had arisen. Sandyface's family of
+kittens was growing up without being christened--and something might
+happen to them.
+
+"You know," said Tess, gravely, "it would be dreadful if one of them
+died and we didn't know what to put on the headboard. It would be
+dreadful!"
+
+"And what names shall we send Mrs. MacCall?" Dot wanted to know, when
+Tess had started the letter "Deare Missus Mcall" and was chewing the
+pencil as an aid to further thought.
+
+"Let's call them by seashore names," suggested Tess. "Then they'll
+remind us of the fun we had here at Pleasant Cove."
+
+"Oh-oo! Let's," agreed Dot.
+
+"Well, now," said Tess, promptly. "What will be the very first one?
+I'll write Mrs. MacCall what we want," and she proceeded to indite the
+following paragraph to begin the letter:
+
+  "We are having so much fun down here at plesent cove that we cant
+  find time to come home and name Sandface's babbies. But we want
+  you and unc rufs to do it for us and we are going to send you the
+  names we chose. They are----"
+
+Here Tess's laboring pencil came to a full stop. "Now, you got the
+first name, Dot?" she asked.
+
+"I got two," declared Dot, confidently.
+
+"What are they!" queried Tess. "Now, we want them to be real
+salt-water names. Just like fishes' names--or boats' names--or like
+that."
+
+"I got two," declared Dot, soberly. "Lots of men must be named those
+names about here. I hear them hollerin' to each other when they are
+out in the boats."
+
+"Well, well!" cried Tess, impatiently. "What are the names?"
+
+"One's 'Starboard' and the other's 'Port,'" declared Dot, seriously.
+"And they are real nice names, _I_ think."
+
+Tess was rather taken aback. She had a hazy opinion that "Starboard"
+and "Port" were not Christian names; they _might_ be, however, and she
+had heard them herself a good deal. Besides, she wanted to agree with
+Dot if she could, and so she sighed and wrote as follows:
+
+   "We got to names alreddy, Missus Mcall, and one's Starborde and the
+   other is Port. They are very pretty names, we think and we hope you
+   an unc rufs and Sandface will like them, to. You give them to the
+   kittens that they seem to fit the best, pleas."
+
+Neale, and Ruth, and Agnes came along some time afterward and found
+the smaller Corner House girls reduced almost to a state of
+distraction. They had been unable to decide upon two more names.
+"Starboard" and "Port" had been inspired, it seemed. Now they were
+"stuck."
+
+"It _does_ seem as though there should be some other seashore names
+that would sound good for kittens," sighed Tess. "I think 'Starboard'
+and 'Port' are real pretty--don't you, Ruth?"
+
+"Very fine," agreed her older sister, while Agnes restrained her
+giggles.
+
+"Why not call one of the others 'Hard-a-Lee'?" suggested Neale,
+gravely.
+
+"Is _that_ a seashore name?" asked Tess, doubtfully.
+
+"Just as salt as a dried codfish," declared Neale, confidently.
+
+"I think it is real pretty," Dot ventured.
+
+"Then we'll call the third one 'Hard-a-Lee,'" declared Tess. "I'll
+tell Mrs. MacCall so," and she laboriously went at the misspelled
+letter again.
+
+"But how about the fourth one?" asked Agnes, laughing. "He's not going
+to be a step-child, is he? Isn't he to have a name?"
+
+"Yes. We must have one more," Tess said, wearily. "Won't _you_ give us
+one, Aggie?"
+
+"Sure!" said Agnes, promptly. "Main-sheet.'"
+
+"'Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet.' Some names, those!"
+declared Neale.
+
+"I like them," Tess said, reflectively. "They don't sound like other
+cats' names--do they, Ruthie?"
+
+"They most certainly do not," admitted the oldest Corner House girl.
+
+"And are they pretty, Ruthie?" asked Dot.
+
+"They are better than 'pretty,'" agreed Ruth, kindly. "If you children
+are suited, I am sure everybody else--including the kittens
+themselves--will be pleased!"
+
+The labored letter was therefore finished and sent away. As Dot said,
+"it lifted a great load from their minds."
+
+But there was another matter that served to trouble all four of the
+Corner House girls for some days. That was what Mr. Reynolds, the
+lumberman, was going to do about Tom Jonah.
+
+The girls seldom left their tent now without taking the dog with them.
+He was something of a nuisance in the boat when they went crabbing;
+but Agnes would not hear of going out without him.
+
+"I know that man will come back here some time and try to get him
+away," she declared. "But Tom Jonah will never go of his own free
+will--no, indeed!"
+
+"And he won't sell him again, he said," sighed Ruth. "I don't just see
+what we can do."
+
+However, this trouble did not keep the Corner House girls from having
+many good times with their girl friends at the Spoondrift bungalow,
+and their boy friends on the beach.
+
+There were fishing trips, and picnics on Wild Goose Island. They
+sometimes went outside the cove in bigger boats, and fished on the
+"banks," miles and miles off shore. There was fun in the evenings,
+too, at the hotel dances, although the Corner House girls did not
+attend any of those held at the Overlook House, for they were not
+exactly friendly with Trix Severn.
+
+One day Pearl Harrod's Uncle Phil arranged to take a big party of the
+older girls to Shawmit, which was some miles up the river. Ruth and
+Agnes went along and that day they left Tom Jonah at Willowbend to
+take care of the smaller girls.
+
+Ruth determined to see Mr. Reynolds, so when they reached Shawmit, she
+hunted up the lumberman's office. She found him in a more amiable mood
+than he had been on the morning he drove to Pleasant Cove to get Tom
+Jonah.
+
+"Well, Miss!" he said. "How do you feel about giving up that dog?"
+
+"Just the same, sir," said Ruth, honestly. "But I hope you will tell
+me who the man is you sold Tom Jonah to, so that we can go to him and
+buy the dog."
+
+"Do you girls really want old Tom Jonah as much as _that_?" asked Mr.
+Reynolds.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the girl, simply.
+
+"Willing to buy the old rascal? And he's nothing but a tramp."
+
+"He's a gentleman. You said so yourself on his collar," said Ruth.
+
+The man looked at her seriously and nodded. "I guess you think a whole
+lot of him, eh?"
+
+"A great deal, sir," admitted Ruth.
+
+"Well! I guess I'll have to tell you," said the man, smiling. "Old Tom
+evidently thinks more of you girls than he does of me. Tell you what:
+After I got home the other day I thought it over. I reckon Tom Jonah's
+chosen for himself. I paid my brother-in-law back the money he gave me
+for him. So you won't be bothered again about him."
+
+"Oh, sir----"
+
+"You keep him. Rather, let Tom Jonah stay as long as he wants to. But
+if he comes back to me I sha'n't let him go again. No! I don't want
+money for him. I guess the old dog likes it where he is, and his days
+of usefulness are pretty nearly over anyway. I'm convinced he'll have
+a good home with you Corner House girls."
+
+"Just as long as he lives!" declared Ruth, fervently.
+
+So Mr. Reynolds did not prove to be a hardhearted man, after all.
+Agnes and Tess and Dot were delighted. There was a regular celebration
+over Tom Jonah that evening after Ruth got home and told the news.
+
+It is doubtful if Tom Jonah understood when Dot informed him that he
+was going to be their dog "for keeps." But he barked very
+intelligently and the two smaller girls were quite convinced that he
+understood every word that was said to him.
+
+"Of course, he can't talk back," Tess said. "Dogs don't speak our
+language. But if we could understand the _barking language_, I am sure
+we would hear him say he was glad."
+
+And as our story of the Corner House girls' visit to Pleasant Cove
+began with Tom Jonah, we may safely end it with the assurance that the
+good old dog will spend the rest of his life with Ruth and Agnes and
+Tess and Dot, at the old Corner House in Milton.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+CHARMING STORIES FOR GIRLS
+
+(From eight to twelve years old)
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES
+
+BY GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a
+rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he
+occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find
+and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and
+make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks
+at a bungalow owned by her parents; and the adventures they meet with
+make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and
+adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls.
+
+  1 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS.
+  2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
+  3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS.
+  4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY.
+  5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND.
+  6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR.
+  7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP.
+  8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND.
+  9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT.
+  10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES.
+  11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+THE POLLY PENDLETON SERIES
+
+BY DOROTHY WHITEHILL
+
+Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to
+a boarding school on the Hudson River some miles above New York. By
+her pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and
+this she holds right through the course. The account of boarding
+school life is faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in
+her teens.
+
+  1 POLLY'S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  2 POLLY'S SUMMER VACATION
+  3 POLLY'S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+  4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR
+  5 POLLY AND LOIS
+  6 POLLY AND BOB
+
+_Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated._
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CHICKEN LITTLE JANE SERIES
+
+By LILY MUNSELL RITCHIE
+
+Chicken Little Jane is a Western prairie girl who lives a happy,
+outdoor life in a country where there is plenty of room to turn
+around. She is a wide-awake, resourceful girl who will instantly win
+her way into the hearts of other girls. And what good times she
+has!--with her pets, her friends, and her many interests. "Chicken
+Little" is the affectionate nickname given to her when she is very,
+very good, but when she misbehaves it is "Jane"--just Jane!
+
+  Adventures of Chicken Little Jane
+  Chicken Little Jane on the "Big John"
+  Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town
+
+_With numerous illustrations in pen and ink_
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+Dorothy Whitehall Series
+
+_For Girls_
+
+Here is a sparkling new series of stories for girls--just what they
+will like, and ask for more of the same kind. It is all about twin
+sisters, who for the first few years in their lives grow up in
+ignorance of each other's existence. Then they are at last brought
+together and things begin to happen. Janet is an independent go-ahead
+sort of girl; while her sister Phyllis is--but meet the twins for
+yourself and be entertained.
+
+6 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo., Covers in color.
+
+  1. JANET, A TWIN
+  2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN
+  3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST
+  4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
+  5. THE TWINS' SUMMER VACATION
+  6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARY JANE SERIES
+
+BY CLARA INGRAM JUDSON
+
+Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated.
+
+With picture inlay and wrapper.
+
+Mary Jane is the typical American little girl who bubbles over with
+fun and the good things in life. We meet her here on a visit to her
+grandfather's farm where she becomes acquainted with farm life and
+farm animals and thoroughly enjoys the experience. We next see her
+going to kindergarten and then on a visit to Florida, and then--but
+read the stories for yourselves.
+
+Exquisitely and charmingly written are these books which every little
+girl from five to nine years old will want from the first book to the
+last.
+
+  1 MARY JANE--HER BOOK
+  2 MARY JANE--HER VISIT
+  3 MARY JANE'S KINDERGARTEN
+  4 MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH
+  5 MARY JANE'S CITY HOME
+  6 MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND
+  7 MARY JANE'S COUNTRY HOME
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+_PUBLISHERS_
+
+NEWARK, N. J.--NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Corner House Girls Under Canvas, by
+Grace Brooks Hill
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 38742.txt or 38742.zip *****
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