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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+HOW
+THEY MOVED TO MILTON, WHAT THEY FOUND, AND WHAT THEY DID ***
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Finding the will. In a moment the panel dropped down,
+leaving in view a very narrow depository for papers. _Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+
+  HOW THEY MOVED TO MILTON
+  WHAT THEY FOUND
+  AND WHAT THEY DID
+
+BY
+
+GRACE BROOKS HILL
+
+Author of “The Corner House Girls at School,” “The
+Corner House Girls Under Canvas,” etc.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY_
+
+_R. EMMETT OWEN_
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+NEW YORK, N. Y.—NEWARK, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+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_
+
+Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I “Left High and Dry”
+  II Uncle Peter’s Will
+  III The Old Corner House
+  IV Getting Settled
+  V Getting Acquainted
+  VI Uncle Rufus
+  VII Their Circle of Interest Widens
+  VIII The Cat that Went Back
+  IX The Vanishing Kittens
+  X Ruth Sees Something
+  XI In the Garret
+  XII Mrs. Kranz Comes to Call
+  XIII The Maronis
+  XIV Five Cents’ Worth of Peppermints
+  XV “A Dish of Gossip”
+  XVI More Mysteries
+  XVII “Mrs. Trouble”
+  XVIII Ruth Does what She Thinks is Right
+  XIX “Double Trouble”
+  XX Mr. Howbridge is Perplexed
+  XXI The Corner House Girls Win Public Approval
+  XXII Callers—and the Ghost
+  XXIII Not Entirely Explained
+  XXIV Aunt Sarah Speaks Out
+  XXV Laying the Ghost
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Finding the will. In a moment the panel dropped down, leaving in view
+a very narrow depository for papers
+
+She forgot her kittens and everything else, and scrambled up the tree
+for dear life
+
+“Looker yere! Looker yere! Missie Ruth! There’s dem dried apples,
+buried in de groun’”
+
+Up came Tommy again, his eyes open, gurgling a cry, and fighting to
+keep above the surface
+
+
+
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+“LEFT HIGH AND DRY”
+
+
+“Look out, Dot! You’ll fall off that chair as sure as you live,
+child!”
+
+Tess was bustling and important. It was baking day in the Kenway
+household. She had the raisins to stone, and the smallest Kenway was
+climbing up to put the package of raisins back upon the cupboard
+shelf.
+
+There was going to be a cake for the morrow. Ruth was a-flour to her
+elbows, and Aggie was stirring the eggs till the beater was just
+“a-whiz.”
+
+Crash! Bang! Over went the chair; down came Dot; and the raisins
+scattered far and wide over the freshly scrubbed linoleum.
+
+Fortunately the little busy-body was not hurt. “What did I tell you?”
+demanded the raisin-seeder, after Ruth had made sure there were no
+broken bones, and only a “skinned” place on Dot’s wrist. “What did I
+tell you? You are such a careless child!”
+
+Dot’s face began to “cloud up,” but it did not rain, for Aggie said
+kindly:
+
+“Don’t mind what she says, Dot. Leave those raisins to me. You run get
+your hat on. Tess has finished seeding that cupful. Now it’s time you
+two young ones went on that errand. Isn’t that so, Ruth?”
+
+The elder sister agreed as she busily mixed the butter and flour.
+Butter was high. She put in what she thought they could afford, and
+then she shut her eyes tight, and popped in another lump!
+
+On a bright and sunny day, like this one, the tiny flat at the top of
+the Essex Street tenement was a cheerful place. Ruth was a very
+capable housekeeper. She had been such for two years previous to their
+mother’s death, for Mrs. Kenway had been obliged to go out to work.
+
+Now, at sixteen, Ruth felt herself to be very much grown up. It is
+often responsibility and not years that ages one.
+
+If Ruth had “an old head on green shoulders,” there was reason for it.
+For almost all the income the Kenways had was their father’s pension.
+
+The tide of misfortune which had threatened the family when the father
+was killed in the Philippines, had risen to its flood at Mrs. Kenway’s
+death two years before this day, and had now left the Kenway girls
+high and dry upon the strand of an ugly tenement, in an ugly street,
+of the very ugliest district of Bloomingsburg.
+
+The girls were four—and there was Aunt Sarah Stower. There were no
+boys; there never had been any boys in the Kenway family. Ruth said
+she was glad; Aggie said _she_ was sorry; and as usual Tess sided with
+the elder sister, while Dot agreed with the twelve-year-old Aggie that
+a boy to do the chores would be “sort of nice.”
+
+“S’pose he was like that bad Tommy Rooney, who jumps out of the dark
+corners on the stairs to scare you, Dot Kenway?” demanded the
+ten-year-old Tess, seriously.
+
+“Why, he couldn’t be like Tommy—not if he was _our_ brother,” said
+the smallest girl, with conviction.
+
+“Well, he might,” urged Tess, who professed a degree of experience and
+knowledge of the world far beyond that of her eight-year-old sister.
+“You see, you can’t always sometimes tell about _boys_.”
+
+Tess possessed a strong sense of duty, too. She would not allow Dot,
+on this occasion, to leave the raisins scattered over the floor. Down
+the two smaller girls got upon their hands and knees and picked up the
+very last of the dried fruit before they went for their hats.
+
+“Whistle, Dot—you must whistle,” commanded Tess. “You know, that’s
+the only way not to yield to temptation, when you’re picking up
+raisins.”
+
+“I—I can’t whistle, Tess,” claimed Dot.
+
+“Well! pucker up, anyway,” said Tess. “You can’t do _that_ with
+raisins in your mouth,” and she proceeded to falteringly whistle
+several bars of “Yankee Doodle” herself, to prove to the older girls
+that the scattered raisins _she_ found were going into their proper
+receptacle.
+
+The Kenway girls had to follow many economies, and had learned early
+to be self-denying. Ruth was so busy and so anxious, she declared
+herself, she did not have time to be pretty like other girls of her
+age. She had stringy black hair that never would look soft and wavy,
+as its owner so much desired.
+
+She possessed big, brown eyes—really wonderful eyes, if she had only
+known it. People sometimes said she was intellectual looking; that was
+because of her high, broad brow.
+
+She owned little color, and she had contracted a nervous habit of
+pressing her lips tight together when she was thinking. But she
+possessed a laugh that fairly jumped out at you from her eyes and
+mouth, it was so unexpected.
+
+Ruth Kenway might not attract much attention at first glance, but if
+you looked at her a second time, you were bound to see something in
+her countenance that held you, and interested you.
+
+“Do smile oftener, Ruth,” begged jolly, roly-poly Agnes. “You always
+look just as though you were figuring how many pounds of round steak
+go into a dollar.”
+
+“I guess I _am_ thinking of that most of the time,” sighed the oldest
+Kenway girl.
+
+Agnes was as plump as a partridge. When she tried to keep her face
+straight, the dimples just _would_ peep out. She laughed easily, and
+cried stormily.
+
+She said herself that she had “bushels of molasses colored hair,” and
+her blue eyes could stare a rude boy out of countenance—only she had
+to spoil the effect the next moment by giggling. Another thing, Agnes
+usually averaged two “soul chums” among her girl friends at school,
+per week!
+
+Tess (nobody ever remembered she had been christened Theresa) had some
+of Ruth’s dignity and some of Aggie’s good looks. She was the quick
+girl at her books; she always got along nicely with grown-ups; they
+said she had “tact”; and she had the kindest heart of any girl in the
+world.
+
+Dot, or Dorothy, was the baby, and was a miniature of Ruth, as far as
+seriousness of demeanor, and hair and eyes went. She was a little
+brunette fairy, with the most delicately molded limbs, a faint blush
+in her dark cheeks, and her steady gravity delighted older people.
+They said she was “such an old-fashioned little thing.”
+
+It was Saturday. From the street below shrill voices rose in a
+nightmare of sound that broke in a nerve-racking wave upon the ears.
+Numerous wild Red Indians could make no more savage sounds, if they
+were burning a captive at the stake.
+
+It was the children on the block, who had no other playground. Dot
+shuddered to venture forth into the turmoil of the street, and Tess
+had to acknowledge a faster beating of her own heart.
+
+Dot had her “Alice-doll”—her choicest possession. They were going to
+the green grocer’s, at the corner, and to the drug store.
+
+At the green grocer’s they were to purchase a cabbage, two quarts of
+potatoes, and two pennies’ worth of soup greens. At the drug store
+they would buy the usual nickel’s worth of peppermint drops for Aunt
+Sarah.
+
+Every Saturday since Dot could remember—and since Tess could
+remember—and since Agnes could remember—even every Saturday since
+Ruth could remember, there had been five cents’ worth of peppermint
+drops bought for Aunt Sarah.
+
+The larder might be very nearly bare; shoes might be out at toe and
+stockings out at heel; there might be a dearth of food on the table;
+but Aunt Sarah must not be disappointed in her weekly treat.
+
+“It is the only pleasure the poor creature has,” their mother was wont
+to say. “Why deprive her of it? There is not much that seems to please
+Aunt Sarah, and this is a small thing, children.”
+
+Even Dot was old enough to remember the dear little mother saying
+this. It was truly a sort of sacred bequest, although their mother had
+not made it a mandatory charge upon the girls.
+
+“But mother never forgot the peppermints herself. Why should we forget
+them?” Ruth asked.
+
+Aunt Sarah Stower was a care, too, left to the Kenway girls’ charge.
+Aunt Sarah was an oddity.
+
+She seldom spoke, although her powers of speech were not in the least
+impaired. Moreover, she seldom moved from her chair during the day,
+where she sewed, or crocheted; yet she had the active use of her
+limbs.
+
+Housework Aunt Sarah abhorred. She had never been obliged to do it as
+a girl and young woman; so she had never lifted her hand to aid in
+domestic tasks since coming to live with the Kenways—and Ruth could
+barely remember her coming.
+
+Aunt Sarah was only “Aunt” to the Kenway girls by usage. She was
+merely their mother’s uncle’s half-sister! “And _that’s_ a
+relationship,” as Aggie said, “that would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer
+to figure out.”
+
+As Tess and Dot came down the littered stoop of the tall brick house
+they lived in, a rosy, red-haired boy, with a snub nose and twinkling
+blue eyes, suddenly popped up before them. He was dressed in fringed
+leggings and jacket, and wore a band of feathers about his cap.
+
+“Ugh! Me heap big Injun,” he exclaimed, brandishing a wooden tomahawk
+before the faces of the startled girls. “Scalp white squaw! Kill
+papoose!” and he clutched at the Alice-doll.
+
+Dot screamed—as well she might. The thought of seeing her most
+beloved child in the hands of this horrid apparition——
+
+“Now, you just stop bothering us, Tommy Rooney!” commanded Tess,
+standing quickly in front of her sister. “You go away, or I’ll tell
+your mother.”
+
+“Aw—‘Tell-tale tit! Your tongue shall be split!’” scoffed the dancing
+Indian. “Give me the papoose. Make heap big Injun of it.”
+
+Dot was actually crying. Tess raised her hand threateningly.
+
+“I don’t want to hurt you, Tommy Rooney,” she said, decisively, “but I
+shall slap you, if you don’t let us alone.”
+
+“Aw—would you? would you? Got to catch first,” shouted Tommy, making
+dreadful grimaces. His cheeks were painted in black and red stripes,
+and these decorations added to Dot’s fright. “You can’t scare me!” he
+boasted.
+
+But he kept his distance and Tess hurried Dot along the street. There
+were some girls they knew, for they went to the public school with
+them, but Tess and Dot merely spoke to them and passed right on.
+
+“We’ll go to the drug store first,” said the older girl. “Then we
+won’t be bothered with the vegetable bags while we’re getting Aunt
+Sarah’s peppermints.”
+
+“Say, Tess!” said Dot, gulping down a dry sob.
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Don’t you wish we could get something ’sides those old peppermint
+drops?”
+
+“But Ruthie hasn’t any pennies to spare this week. She told us so.”
+
+“Never _does_ have pennies to spare,” declared Dot, with finality.
+“But I mean I wish Aunt Sarah wanted some other kind of candy besides
+peppermints.”
+
+“Why, Dot Kenway! she always has peppermints. She always takes some in
+her pocket to church on Sunday, and eats them while the minister
+preaches. You know she does.”
+
+“Yes, I know it,” admitted Dot. “And I know she always gives us each
+one before we go to Sunday School. That’s why I wish we could buy her
+some other kind of candy. I’m tired of pep’mints. I think they are a
+most unsat—sat’s_fac_tory candy, Tess.”
+
+“Well! I am amazed at you, Dot Kenway,” declared Tess, with her most
+grown-up air. “You know we couldn’t any more change, and buy
+wintergreen, or clove, or lemon-drops, than we could _fly_. Aunt
+Sarah’s got to have just what she wants.”
+
+“Has she?” queried the smaller girl, doubtfully. “I wonder why?”
+
+“Because she _has_,” retorted Tess, with unshaken belief.
+
+The drops were purchased; the vegetables were purchased; the sisters
+were homeward bound. Walking toward their tenement, they overtook and
+passed a tall, gray haired gentleman in a drab morning coat and hat.
+He was not a doctor, and he was not dressed like a minister; therefore
+he was a curious-looking figure in this part of Bloomingsburg,
+especially at this hour.
+
+Tess looked up slyly at him as she and Dot passed. He was a cleanly
+shaven man with thin, tightly shut lips, and many fine lines about the
+corners of his mouth and about his eyes. He had a high, hooked nose,
+too—so high, and such a barrier to the rest of his face, that his
+sharp gray eyes seemed to be looking at the world in general over a
+high board fence.
+
+Dot was carrying the peppermint drops—and carrying them carefully,
+while Tess’ hands were occupied with the other purchases. So Master
+Tommy Rooney thought he saw his chance.
+
+“Candy! candy!” he yelled, darting out at them from an areaway. “Heap
+big Injun want candy, or take white squaw’s papoose! Ugh!”
+
+Dot screamed. Tess tried to defend her and the white bag of
+peppermints. But she was handicapped with her own bundles. Tommy was
+as quick—and as slippery—as an eel.
+
+Suddenly the gentleman in the silk hat strode forward, thrust his
+gold-headed walking stick between Tommy’s lively legs, and tripped
+that master of mischief into the gutter.
+
+Tommy scrambled up, gave one glance at the tall gentleman and fled,
+affrighted. The gentleman looked down at Tess and Dot.
+
+“Oh, thank you, sir!” said the bigger girl. “We’re much obliged!”
+
+“Yes! A knight to the rescue, eh? Do you live on this block, little
+lady?” he asked, and when he smiled his face was a whole lot
+pleasanter than it was in repose.
+
+“Yes, sir. Right there at Number 80.”
+
+“Number 80?” repeated the gentleman, with some interest. “Is there a
+family in your house named Kenway?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sir! _We’re_ the Kenways—two of them,” declared Tess, while
+Dot was a little inclined to put her finger in her mouth and watch him
+shyly.
+
+“Ha!” exclaimed the stranger. “Two of Leonard Kenway’s daughters? Is
+your mother at home?”
+
+“We—we haven’t any mother—not now, sir,” said Tess, more faintly.
+
+“Not living? I had not heard. Then, who is the head of the household?”
+
+“Oh, you want to see Ruth,” cried Tess. “She’s the biggest. It must be
+Ruth you want to see.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right,” said the gentleman, eyeing the girls
+curiously. “If she is the chief of the clan, it is she I must see. I
+have come to inform her of her Uncle Peter Stower’s death.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+UNCLE PETER’S WILL
+
+
+Tess and Dot were greatly excited. As they climbed up the long and
+semi-dark flights to the little flat at the top of the house, they
+clung tightly to each other’s hands and stared, round-eyed, at each
+other on the landings.
+
+Behind them labored the tall, gray gentleman. They could hear him
+puffing heavily on the last flight.
+
+Dot had breath left to burst open the kitchen door and run to tell
+Ruth of the visitor.
+
+“Oh! oh! Ruthie!” gasped the little girl. “There’s a man dead out here
+and Uncle Peter’s come to tell you all about it!”
+
+“Why, Dot Kenway!” cried Tess, as the elder sister turned in amazement
+at the first wild announcement of the visitor’s coming. “Can’t you get
+anything straight? It isn’t Uncle Peter who wants to see you, Ruth.
+Uncle Peter is dead.”
+
+“Uncle Peter Stower!” exclaimed Aggie, in awe.
+
+He was the Kenway girls’ single wealthy relative. He was considered
+eccentric. He was—or had been—a bachelor and lived in Milton, an
+upstate town some distance from Bloomingsburg, and had occupied,
+almost alone, the old Stower homestead on the corner of Main and
+Willow Streets—locally known as “the Old Corner House.”
+
+“Do take the gentleman to the parlor door,” said Ruth, hastily,
+hearing the footstep of the visitor at the top of the stairs. “Dot, go
+unlock that door, dear.”
+
+“Aunt Sarah’s sitting in there, Ruth,” whispered Aggie, hastily.
+
+“Well, but Aunt Sarah won’t bite him,” said Ruth, hurriedly removing
+her apron and smoothing her hair.
+
+“Just think of Uncle Peter being dead,” repeated Aggie, in a daze.
+
+“And he was Aunt Sarah’s half brother, you know. Of course, neither
+her father nor mother was Uncle Peter’s father or mother—their
+parents were all married twice. And——”
+
+“Oh, don’t!” gasped the plump sister. “We never _can_ figure out the
+relationship—you know we can’t, Ruth. Really, Aunt Sarah isn’t
+blood-kin to us at all.”
+
+“Uncle Peter never would admit it,” said Ruth, slowly. “He was old
+enough to object, mother said, when our grandfather married a second
+time.”
+
+“Of course. I know,” acknowledged Aggie. “Aunt Sarah isn’t really a
+Stower at all!”
+
+“But Aunt Sarah’s always said the property ought to come to her, when
+Uncle Peter died.”
+
+“I hope he _has_ left her something—I do hope so. It would help out a
+lot,” said Aggie, serious for the moment.
+
+“Why—yes. It would be easier for us to get along, if she had her own
+support,” admitted Ruth.
+
+“And we’d save five cents a week for peppermints!” giggled Aggie
+suddenly, seeing the little white bag of candy on the table.
+
+“How you do talk, Ag,” said Ruth, admonishingly, and considering
+herself presentable, she went through the bedroom into the front room,
+or “parlor,” of the flat. Aggie had to stay to watch the cake, which
+was now turning a lovely golden brown in the oven.
+
+The tall, gray gentleman with the sharp eyes and beak-like nose, had
+been ushered in by the two little girls and had thankfully taken a
+seat. He was wiping his perspiring forehead with a checked silk
+handkerchief, and had set the high hat down by his chair.
+
+Those quick, gray eyes of his had taken in all the neat poverty of the
+room. A careful and tasteful young housekeeper was Ruth Kenway.
+Everything was in its place; the pictures on the wall were hung
+straight; there was no dust.
+
+In one of the two rockers sat Aunt Sarah. It was the most comfortable
+rocker, and it was drawn to the window where the sun came in. Aunt
+Sarah had barely looked up when the visitor entered, and of course she
+had not spoken. Her knitting needles continued to flash in the
+sunlight.
+
+She was a withered wisp of a woman, with bright brown eyes under
+rather heavy brows. There were three deep wrinkles between those eyes.
+Otherwise, Aunt Sarah did not show in her countenance many of the
+ravages of time.
+
+Her hair was but slightly grayed; she wore it “crimped” on the sides,
+doing it up carefully in cunning little “pigtails” every night before
+she retired. She was scrupulous in the care of her hands; her plain
+gingham dress was neat in every particular.
+
+Indeed, she was as prim and “old-maidish” as any spinster lady
+possibly could be. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle Aunt Sarah. She lived
+sort of a detached life in the Kenway family. Nothing went on that she
+was not aware of, and often—as even Ruth admitted—she “had a finger
+in the pie” which was not exactly needed!
+
+“I am Mr. Howbridge,” said the visitor, rising and putting out his
+hand to the oldest Kenway girl, and taking in her bright appearance in
+a single shrewd glance.
+
+On her part, Aunt Sarah nodded, and pressed her lips together firmly,
+flashing him another birdlike look, as one who would say: “That is
+what I expected. You could not hide your identity from me.”
+
+“I am—or was,” said the gentleman, clearing his throat and sitting
+down again, but still addressing himself directly to Ruth, “Mr. Peter
+Stower’s attorney and confidant in business—if he could be said to be
+confidential with anybody. Mr. Stower was a very secretive man, young
+lady.”
+
+Aunt Sarah pursed her lips and tossed her head, as though mentally
+saying: “You can’t tell me anything about _that_.”
+
+Ruth said: “I have heard he was peculiar, sir. But I do not remember
+of ever seeing him.”
+
+“You did see him, however,” said Mr. Howbridge. “That was when you
+were a very little girl. If I am not mistaken, it was when this lady,”
+and he bowed to the silent, knitting figure in the rocking-chair, “who
+is known as your Aunt Sarah, came to live with your mother and
+father.”
+
+“Possibly,” said Ruth, hastily. “I do not know.”
+
+“It was one of few events of his life, connected in any way with his
+relatives, of which Mr. Stower spoke to me,” Mr. Howbridge said. “This
+lady expressed a wish to live with your mother, and your Uncle Peter
+brought her. I believe he never contributed to her support?” he added,
+slowly.
+
+Aunt Sarah might have been a graven image, as far as expressing
+herself upon _this_ point went. Her needles merely flashed in the
+sunlight. Ruth felt troubled and somewhat diffident in speaking of the
+matter.
+
+“I do not think either father or mother ever minded _that_,” she said.
+
+“Ah?” returned Mr. Howbridge. “And your mother has been dead how long,
+my dear?” Ruth told him, and he nodded. “Your income was not increased
+by her death? There was no insurance?”
+
+“Oh, no, sir.”
+
+He looked at her for a moment with some embarrassment, and cleared his
+throat again before asking his next question.
+
+“Do you realize, my dear, that you and your sisters are the only
+living, and direct, relatives of Mr. Peter Stower?”
+
+Ruth stared at him. She felt that her throat was dry, and she could
+not bring her tongue into play. She merely shook her head slowly.
+
+“Through your mother, my dear, you and your sisters will inherit your
+Great Uncle Peter’s property. It is considerable. With the old Corner
+House and the tenement property in Milton, bonds and cash in bank, it
+amounts to—approximately—a hundred thousand dollars.”
+
+“But—but——Aunt Sarah!” gasped Ruth, in surprise.
+
+“Ahem! your Aunt Sarah was really no relative of the deceased.”
+
+Here Aunt Sarah spoke up for the first time, her knitting needles
+clicking. “I thank goodness I was not,” she said. “My father was a
+Maltby, but Mr. Stower, Peter’s father, always wished me to be called
+by his name. He always told my mother he should provide for me. I
+have, therefore, looked to the Stower family for my support. It was
+and is my right.”
+
+She tossed her head and pursed her lips again.
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. Howbridge. “I understand that the elder Mr. Stower
+died intestate—without making a will, my dear,” he added, speaking
+again to Ruth. “If he ever expressed his intention of remembering your
+Aunt Sarah with a legacy, Mr. Peter Stower did not consider it
+mandatory upon him.”
+
+“But of course Uncle Peter has remembered Aunt Sarah in _his_ will?”
+questioned the dazed Ruth.
+
+“He most certainly did,” said Mr. Howbridge, more briskly. “His will
+was fully and completely drawn. I drew it myself, and I still have the
+notes in the old man’s handwriting, relating to the bequests.
+Unfortunately,” added the lawyer, with a return to a grave manner,
+“the actual will of Mr. Peter Stower cannot be found.”
+
+Aunt Sarah’s needles clicked sharply, but she did not look up. Ruth
+stared, wide-eyed, at Mr. Howbridge.
+
+“As was his custom with important papers, Mr. Stower would not trust
+even a safety deposit box with the custody of his will. He was
+secretive, as I have said,” began the lawyer again.
+
+Then Aunt Sarah interrupted: “Just like a magpie,” she snapped. “I
+know ’em—the Stowers. Peter was always doing it when he was a young
+man—hidin’ things away—’fraid a body would see something, or know
+something. That’s why he wanted to get _me_ out of the house. Oh, I
+knew his doin’s and his goin’s-on!”
+
+“Miss Maltby has stated the case,” said Mr. Howbridge, bowing
+politely. “Somewhere in the old house, of course, Mr. Stower hid the
+will—and probably other papers of value. They will be found in time,
+we hope. Meanwhile——”
+
+“Yes, sir?” queried Ruth, breathlessly, as the lawyer stopped.
+
+“Mr. Stower has been dead a fortnight,” explained the lawyer, quietly.
+“Nobody knew as much about his affairs as myself. I have presented the
+notes of his last will and testament—made quite a year ago—to the
+Probate Court, and although they have no legal significance, the Court
+agrees with me that the natural heirs of the deceased should enter
+upon possession of the property and hold it until the complications
+arising from the circumstances can be made straight.”
+
+“Oh, Aunt Sarah! I am so glad for you!” cried Ruth, clasping her hands
+and smiling one of her wonderful smiles at the little old lady.
+
+Aunt Sarah tossed her head and pursed her lips, just as though she
+said, “I have always told you so.”
+
+Mr. Howbridge cleared his throat again and spoke hastily: “You do not
+understand, Miss Kenway. You and your sisters are the heirs at law. At
+the best, Miss Maltby would receive only a small legacy under Mr.
+Stower’s will. The residue of the estate reverts to you through your
+mother, and I am nominally your guardian and the executor.”
+
+Ruth stared at him, open mouthed. The two little girls had listened
+without clearly understanding all the particulars. Aggie had crept to
+the doorway (the cake now being on the table and off her mind), and
+she was the only one who uttered a sound. She said “Oh!”
+
+“You children—you four girls—are the heirs in question. I want you
+to get ready to go to Milton as soon as possible. You will live in the
+old Corner House and I shall see, with the Probate Court, that all
+your rights are guarded,” Mr. Howbridge said.
+
+It was Dorothy, the youngest, who seemed first to appreciate the
+significance of this great piece of news. She said, quite composedly:
+
+“Then we _can_ buy some candy ’sides those pep’mint drops for Aunt
+Sarah, on Saturdays.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE OLD CORNER HOUSE
+
+
+“Now,” said Tess, with her most serious air, “shall we take everything
+in our playhouse, Dot, or shall we take only the best things?”
+
+“Oh-oo-ee!” sighed Dot. “It’s so hard to ’cide, Tess, just what _is_
+the best. ’Course, I’m going to take my Alice-doll and all her
+things.”
+
+Tess pursed her lips. “That old cradle she used to sleep in when she
+was little, is dreadfully shabby. And one of the rockers is loose.”
+
+“Oh, but Tess!” cried the younger girl. “It was _hers_. You know, when
+she gets really growed up, she’ll maybe want it for a keepsake. Maybe
+she’ll want dollies of her own to rock in it.”
+
+Dot did not lack imagination. The Alice-doll was a very real
+personality to the smallest Kenway girl.
+
+Dot lived in two worlds—the regular, work-a-day world in which she
+went to school and did her small tasks about the flat; and a much
+larger, more beautiful world, in which the Alice-doll and kindred toys
+had an actual existence.
+
+“And all the clothes she’s outgrown—and shoes—and everything?”
+demanded Tess. Then, with a sigh: “Well, it will be an awful litter,
+and Ruth says the trunks are just squeezed full right now!”
+
+The Kenways were packing up for removal to Milton. Mr. Howbridge had
+arranged everything with Ruth, as soon as he had explained the change
+of fortune that had come to the four sisters.
+
+None of them really understood what the change meant—not even Ruth.
+They had always been used—ever since they could remember—to what
+Aggie called “tight squeezing.” Mr. Howbridge had placed fifty dollars
+in Ruth’s hand before he went away, and had taken a receipt for it.
+None of the Kenways had ever before even _seen_ so much money at one
+time.
+
+They were to abandon most of their poor possessions right here in the
+flat, for their great uncle’s old house was crowded with furniture
+which, although not modern, was much better than any of theirs. Aunt
+Sarah was going to take her special rocker. She insisted upon that.
+
+“I won’t be beholden to Peter for even a chair to sit in!” she had
+said, grimly, and that was all the further comment she made upon the
+astounding statement of the lawyer, that the eccentric old bachelor
+had not seen fit to will all his property to her!
+
+There was a bit of uncertainty and mystery about the will of Uncle
+Peter, and about their right to take over his possessions. Mr.
+Howbridge had explained that fully to Ruth.
+
+There was no doubt in his mind but that the will he had drawn for
+Uncle Peter was still in existence, and that the old gentleman had
+made no subsequent disposal of his property to contradict the terms of
+the will the lawyer remembered.
+
+There were no other known heirs but the four Kenway sisters. Therefore
+the Probate Court had agreed that the lawyer should enter into
+possession of the property on behalf of Ruth and her sisters.
+
+As long as the will was not found, and admitted to probate, and its
+terms clearly established in law, there was doubt and uncertainty
+connected with the girls’ wonderful fortune. Some unexpected claimant
+might appear to demand a share of the property. It was, in fact, now
+allowed by the Court, that Mr. Howbridge and the heirs-at-law should
+occupy the deceased’s home and administer the estate, being answerable
+to the probate judge for all that was done.
+
+To the minds of Tess and Dot, all this meant little. Indeed, even the
+two older girls did not much understand the complications. What Aunt
+Sarah understood she managed, as usual, to successfully hide within
+herself.
+
+There was to be a wonderful change in their affairs—that was the main
+thing that impressed the minds of the four sisters. Dot had been the
+first to express it concretely, when she suggested they might treat
+themselves on Saturdays to something beside the usual five cents’
+worth of peppermint drops.
+
+“I expect,” said Tess, “that we won’t really know how to live, Dot, in
+so big a house. Just think! there’s three stories and an attic!”
+
+“Just as if we were living in this very tenement all, all alone!”
+breathed Dot, with awe.
+
+“Only much better—and bigger—and nicer,” said Tess, eagerly. “Ruth
+remembers going there once with mother. Uncle Peter was sick. She
+didn’t go up stairs, but stayed down with a big colored man—Uncle
+Rufus. She ’members all about it. The room she stayed in was as big as
+all these in our flat, put together.”
+
+This was too wonderful for Dot to really understand. But if Ruth said
+it, it must be so. She finally sighed again, and said:
+
+“I—I guess I’ll be ’fraid in such rooms. And we’ll get lost in the
+house, if it’s so big.”
+
+“No. Of course, we won’t live all over the house. Maybe we’ll live
+days on the first floor, and sleep in bedrooms on the second floor,
+and never go up stairs on the other floors at all.”
+
+“Oh, well!” said Dot, gaining sudden courage—and curiosity. “I guess
+I’d want to see what’s on them, just the same.”
+
+There were people in the big tenement house quite as poor as the
+Kenways themselves. Among these poor families Ruth distributed the
+girls’ possessions that they did not wish to take to Milton. Tommy
+Rooney’s mother was thankful for a bed and some dishes, and the
+kitchen table. She gave Tommy a decisive thrashing, when she caught
+him jumping out of the dark at Dot on the very last day but one,
+before the Kenways left Essex Street for their new home.
+
+Master Tommy was sore in spirit and in body when he met Tess and Dot
+on the sidewalk, later. There were tear-smears on his cheeks, but his
+eyes began to snap as usual, when he saw the girls.
+
+“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m goin’ to run away from here, anyway,
+before long. Just as soon as I get enough food saved up, and can swap
+my alleys and chaneys with Billy Drake for his air-rifle.”
+
+“Why, Tommy Rooney!” exclaimed Tess. “Where are you going to run to?”
+
+“I—I——Well, that don’t matter! I’ll find some place. What sort of a
+place is this you girls are going to? Is it ’way out west? If it is,
+and there’s plenty of Injuns to fight with, and scalp, mebbe I’ll come
+there with you.”
+
+Tess was against this instantly. “I don’t know about the Indians,” she
+said; “but I thought you wanted to be an Indian yourself? You have an
+Indian suit.”
+
+“Aw, I know,” said Master Tommy. “That’s Mom’s fault. I told her I
+wanted to be a cowboy, but she saw them Injun outfits at a bargain and
+she got one instead. I never did want to be an Injun, for when you
+play with the other fellers, the cowboys always have to win the
+battles. Best we Injuns can do is to burn a cowboy at the stake, once
+in a while—like they do in the movin’ pitchers.”
+
+“Well, I’m sure there are not any Indians at Milton,” said Tess. “You
+can’t come there, Tommy. And, anyway, your mother would only bring you
+back and whip you again.”
+
+“She’d have to catch me first!” crowed the imp of mischief, who forgot
+very quickly the smarts of punishment. “Once I get armed and
+provisioned (I got more’n a loaf of bread and a whole tin of sardines
+hid away in a place I won’t tell you where!), I’ll start off and Mom
+won’t never find me—no, sir-ree, sir!”
+
+“You see what a bad, bad boy he is, Dot,” sighed Tess. “I’m so glad we
+haven’t any brother.”
+
+“Oh, but if we did have,” said Dot, with assurance, “he’d be a cowboy
+and not an Indian, from the very start!”
+
+This answer was too much for Tess! She decided to say no more about
+boys, for it seemed as impossible to convince Dot on the subject as it
+was Aggie.
+
+Aggie, meanwhile, was the busiest of the four sisters. There were so
+many girls she had to say good-by to, and weep with, and promise
+undying affection for, and agree to write letters to—at least three a
+week!—and invite to come to Milton to visit them at the old Corner
+House, when they once got settled there.
+
+“If all these girls come at once, Aggie,” said Ruth, mildly
+admonitory, “I am afraid even Uncle Peter’s big house won’t hold
+them.”
+
+“Then we’ll have an overflow meeting on the lawn,” retorted Aggie,
+grinning. Then she clouded up the very next minute and the tears
+flowed: “Oh, dear! I know I’ll never see any of them again, we’re
+going away so far.”
+
+“Well! I wouldn’t boo-hoo over it,” Ruth said. “There will be girls in
+Milton, too. And by next September when you go to school again, you
+will have dozens of spoons.”
+
+“But not girls like these,” said Aggie, sorrowfully. And, actually,
+she believed it!
+
+This is not much yet about the old Corner House that had stood since
+the earliest remembrance of the oldest inhabitant of Milton, on the
+corner of Main and Willow Streets.
+
+Milton was a county seat. Across the great, shaded parade ground from
+the Stower mansion, was the red brick courthouse itself. On this side
+of the parade there were nothing but residences, and none of them had
+been so big and fine in their prime as the Corner House.
+
+In the first place there were three-quarters’ of an acre of ground
+about the big, colonial mansion. It fronted Main Street, but set so
+far back from that thoroughfare, that it seemed very retired. There
+was a large, shady lawn in front, and old-fashioned flower beds, and
+flowering shrubs. For some time past, the grounds had been neglected
+and some of the flowers just grew wild.
+
+The house stood close to the side street, and its upper windows were
+very blank looking. Mr. Peter Stower had lived on the two lower floors
+only. “And that is all you will probably care to take charge of, Miss
+Kenway,” said Mr. Howbridge, with a smile, when he first introduced
+Ruth to the Corner House.
+
+Ruth had only a dim memory of the place from that one visit to it when
+Uncle Peter chanced to be sick. She knew that he had lived here with
+his single negro servant, and that the place had—even to her
+infantile mind—seemed bare and lonely.
+
+Now, however, Ruth knew that she and her sisters would soon liven the
+old house up. It was a delightful change from the city tenement. She
+could not imagine anybody being lonely, or homesick, in the big old
+house.
+
+Six great pillars supported the porch roof, which jutted out above the
+second story windows. The big oak door, studded with strange little
+carvings, was as heavy as that of a jail, or fortress!
+
+Some of the windows had wide sills, and others came right down to the
+floor and opened onto the porch like two-leaved doors.
+
+There was a great main hall in the middle of the house. Out of this a
+wide stairway led upward, branching at the first landing, one flight
+going to the east and the other to the west chambers. There was a
+gallery all around this hall on the second floor.
+
+The back of the Corner House was much less important in appearance
+than the main building. Two wings had been built on, and the floors
+were not on a level with the floors in the front of the house, so that
+one had to go up and down funny, little brief flights of stairs to get
+to the sleeping chambers. There were unexpected windows, with deep
+seats under them, in dark corners, and important looking doors which
+merely opened into narrow linen closets, while smaller doors gave
+entrance upon long and heavily furnished rooms, which one would not
+have really believed were in the house, to look at them from the
+outside.
+
+“Oh-oo-ee!” cried Dot, when she first entered the big front door of
+the Corner House, clutching Tess tightly by the hand. “We _could_ get
+lost in this house.”
+
+Mr. Howbridge laughed. “If you stick close to this wise, big sister of
+yours, little one,” said the lawyer, looking at Ruth, “you will not
+get lost. And I guarantee no other harm will come to you.”
+
+The lawyer had learned to have great respect for the youthful head of
+the Kenway household. Ruth was as excited as she could be about the
+old house, and their new fortune, and all. She had a little color in
+her cheeks, and her beautiful great brown eyes shone, and her lips
+were parted. She was actually pretty!
+
+“What a great, great fortune it is for us,” she said. “I—I hope we’ll
+all know how to enjoy it to the best advantage. I hope no harm will
+come of it. I hope Aunt Sarah won’t be really offended, because Uncle
+Peter did not leave it to her.”
+
+Aunt Sarah stalked up the main stairway without a word. She knew her
+way about the Corner House.
+
+She took possession of one of the biggest and finest rooms in the
+front part, on the second floor. When she had lived here as a young
+woman, she had been obliged to sleep in one of the rear rooms which
+was really meant for the occupancy of servants.
+
+Now she established herself in the room of her choice, had the
+expressman bring her rocking-chair up to it, and settled with her
+crocheting in the pleasantest window overlooking Main Street. There
+might be, as Aggie said rather tartly, “bushels of work” to do to
+straighten out the old house and make it homey; Aunt Sarah did not
+propose to lift her hand to such domestic tasks.
+
+Occasionally she was in the habit of interfering in the very things
+the girls did not need, or desire, help in, but in no other way did
+Aunt Sarah show her interest in the family life of the Kenways.
+
+“And we’re all going to have our hands full, Ruth,” said Aggie, in
+some disturbance of mind, “to keep this big place in trim. It isn’t
+like a flat.”
+
+“I know,” admitted Ruth. “There’s a lot to do.”
+
+Even the older sister did not realize as yet what their change of
+fortune meant to them. It seemed to them as though the fifty dollars
+Mr. Howbridge had advanced should be made to last for a long, long
+time.
+
+A hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property was only a series of
+figures as yet in the understanding of Ruth, and Agnes, and Tess, and
+Dot. Besides, there was the uncertainty about Uncle Peter’s will.
+
+The fortune, after all, might disappear from their grasp as suddenly
+as it had been thrust into it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GETTING SETTLED
+
+
+It was the time of the June fruit fall when the Kenway girls came to
+the Old Corner House in Milton. A roistering wind shook the peach
+trees in the side yard and at the back that first night, and at once
+the trees pelted the grass and the flowers beneath their overladen
+branches with the little, hard green pellets that would never now be
+luscious fruit.
+
+“Don’t you s’pose they’re sorry as we are, because they won’t ever be
+good for nothing?” queried Dot, standing on the back porch to view the
+scattered measure of green fruit upon the ground.
+
+“Don’t worry about it, Dot. Those that are left on the trees will be
+all the bigger and sweeter, Ruth says,” advised Tess. “You see, those
+little green things would only have been in the way of the fruit up
+above, growing. The trees had too many children to take care of,
+anyway, and had to shake some off. Like the Old Woman Who Lived in a
+Shoe.”
+
+“But I never _did_ feel that she was a real mother,” said Dot, not
+altogether satisfied. “And it seems too bad that all those pretty,
+little, velvety things couldn’t turn into peaches.”
+
+“Well, for my part,” said Tess, more briskly, “I don’t see how so many
+of them managed to cling on, that old wind blew so! Didn’t you hear it
+tearing at the shutters and squealing because it couldn’t get in, and
+hooting down the chimney?”
+
+“I didn’t want to hear it,” confessed Dot. “It—it sounded worse than
+Tommy Rooney hollering at you on the dark stairs.”
+
+The girls had slept very contentedly in the two great rooms which Ruth
+chose at the back of the house for their bedrooms, and which opened
+into each other and into one of the bathrooms. Aunt Sarah did not mind
+being alone at the front.
+
+“I always intended havin’ this room when I got back into this house,”
+she said, in one of her infrequent confidences to Ruth. “I wanted it
+when I was a gal. It was a guest room. Peter said I shouldn’t have it.
+But I’m back in it now, in spite of him—ain’t I?”
+
+Following Uncle Peter’s death, Mr. Howbridge had hired a woman to
+clean and fix up the rooms in the Corner House, which had been
+occupied in the old man’s lifetime. But there was plenty for Ruth and
+Agnes to do during the first few days.
+
+Although they had no intention of using the parlors, there was quite
+enough for the Kenway girls to do in caring for the big kitchen (in
+which they ate, too), the dining-room, which they used as a general
+sitting-room, the halls and stairs, and the three bedrooms.
+
+The doors of the other rooms on the two floors (and they seemed
+innumerable) Ruth kept closed with the blinds at the windows drawn.
+
+“I don’t like so many shut doors,” Dot confided to Tess, as they were
+dusting the carved balustrade in the big hall, and the big, hair-cloth
+covered pieces of furniture which were set about the lower floor of
+it. “You don’t know what is behind them—ready to pop out!”
+
+“Isn’t anything behind them,” said the practical Tess. “Don’t you be a
+little ‘’fraid-cat,’ Dot.”
+
+Then a door rattled, and a latch clicked, and both girls drew suddenly
+together, while their hearts throbbed tumultuously.
+
+“Of course, that was only the old wind,” whispered Tess, at last.
+
+“Ye-es. But the wind wasn’t ever like that at home in Bloomingsburg,”
+stammered Dot. “I—I don’t believe I am going to like this big house,
+Tess. I—I wish we were home in Essex Street.”
+
+She actually burst out crying and ran to Ruth, who chanced to open the
+dining-room door. Agnes was with her, and the twelve year old demanded
+of Tess:
+
+“What’s the matter with that child? What have you been doing to her?”
+
+“Why, Aggie! You know I wouldn’t do anything to her,” declared Tess, a
+little hurt by the implied accusation.
+
+“Of course you haven’t, dear,” said Ruth, soothing the sobbing Dot.
+“Tell us about it.”
+
+“Dot’s afraid—the house is so big—and the doors rattle,” said Tess.
+
+“Ugh! it _is_ kind of spooky,” muttered Aggie.
+
+“O-o-o!” gasped Tess.
+
+“Hush!” commanded Ruth, quickly.
+
+“What’s ‘spooky’?” demanded Dot, hearing a new word, and feeling that
+its significance was important.
+
+“Never you mind, Baby,” said Aggie, kissing her. “It isn’t anything
+that’s going to bite _you_.”
+
+“I tell you,” said Ruth, with decision, “you take her out into the
+yard to play, Tess. Aggie and I will finish here. We mustn’t let her
+get a dislike for this lovely old house. We’re the Corner House girls,
+you know, and we mustn’t be afraid of our own home,” and she kissed
+Dot again.
+
+“I—I guess I’ll like it by and by,” sobbed Dot, trying hard to
+recover her composure. “But—but it’s so b-b-big and scary.”
+
+“Nothing at all to scare you here, dear,” said Ruth, briskly. “Now,
+run along.”
+
+When the smaller girls had gone for their hats, Ruth said to Aggie:
+“You know, mother always said Dot had too much imagination. She just
+pictures things as so much worse, or so much better, than they really
+are. Now, if she should really ever be frightened here, maybe she’d
+never like the old house to live in at all.”
+
+“Oh, my!” said Aggie. “I hope that won’t happen. For I think this is
+just the very finest house I ever saw. There is none as big in sight
+on this side of the parade ground. We must be awfully rich, Ruth.”
+
+“Why—why I never thought of that,” said the elder sister, slowly. “I
+don’t know whether we are actually rich, or not. Mr. Howbridge said
+something about there being a lot of tenements and money, but, you
+see, as long as Uncle Peter’s will can’t be found, maybe we can’t use
+much of the money.”
+
+“We’ll have to work hard to keep this place clean,” sighed Aggie.
+
+“We haven’t anything else to do this summer, anyway,” said Ruth,
+quickly. “And maybe things will be different by fall.”
+
+“Maybe we can find the will!” exclaimed Aggie, voicing a sudden
+thought.
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Wouldn’t that be great?”
+
+“I’ll ask Mr. Howbridge if we may look. I expect _he_ has looked in
+all the likely places,” Ruth said, after a moment’s reflection.
+
+“Then we’ll look in the unlikely ones,” chuckled Aggie. “You know, you
+read in story books about girls finding money in old stockings, and in
+cracked teapots, and behind pictures in the parlor, and inside the
+stuffing of old chairs, and——”
+
+“Goodness me!” exclaimed Ruth. “You are as imaginative as Dot
+herself.”
+
+Meanwhile Tess and Dot had run out into the yard. They had already
+made a tour of discovery about the neglected garden and the front
+lawn, where the grass was crying-out for the mower.
+
+Ruth said she was going to have some late vegetables, and there was a
+pretty good chicken house and wired run. If they could get a few hens,
+the eggs would help out on the meat-bill. _That_ was the way Ruth
+Kenway still looked at things!
+
+The picket fence about the front of the old Corner House property was
+higher than the heads of the two younger girls. As they went slowly
+along by the front fence, looking out upon Main Street, they saw many
+people look curiously in at them. It doubtless seemed strange in the
+eyes of Milton people to see children running about the yard of the
+old Corner House, which for a generation had been practically shut up.
+
+There were other children, too, who looked in between the pickets, too
+shy to speak, but likewise curious. One boy, rather bigger than Tess,
+stuck a long pole between two of the pickets, and when Dot was not
+looking, he turned the pole suddenly and confined her between it and
+the fence.
+
+Dot squealed—although it did not hurt much, only startled her. Tess
+flew to the rescue.
+
+“Don’t you do that!” she cried. “She’s my sister! I’ll just give it to
+you——”
+
+But there came a much more vigorous rescuer from outside the fence. A
+long legged, hatless colored girl, maybe a year or two older than
+Tess, darted across Main Street from the other side.
+
+“Let go o’ dat! Let go o’ dat, you Sam Pinkney! You’s jes’ de baddes’
+boy in Milton! I done tell your mudder so on’y dis berry
+mawnin’——Yes-sah!”
+
+She fell upon the mischievous Sam and boxed both of his ears soundly,
+dragging the pole out from between the pickets as well, all in a
+flash. She was as quick as could be.
+
+“Don’ you be ’fraid, you lil’ w’ite gals!” said this champion, putting
+her brown, grinning face to an aperture between the pickets, her white
+teeth and the whites of her eyes shining.
+
+“Dat no-’count Sam Pinkney is sho’ a nuisance in dis town—ya-as’m! My
+mudder say so. ’F I see him a-tantalizin’ you-uns again, he’n’ me’ll
+have de gre’tes’ bustification we ever _did_ hab—now, I tell yo’,
+honeys.”
+
+She then burst into a wide-mouthed laugh that made Tess and Dot smile,
+too. The brown girl added:
+
+“You-uns gwine to lib in dat ol’ Co’ner House?”
+
+“Yes,” said Tess. “Our Uncle Peter lived here.”
+
+“Sho’! I know erbout him. My gran’pappy lived yere, too,” said the
+colored girl. “Ma name’s Alfredia Blossom. Ma mammy’s Petunia Blossom,
+an’ she done washin’ for de w’ite folks yere abouts.”
+
+“We’re much obliged to you for chasing that bad boy away,” said Tess,
+politely. “Won’t you come in?”
+
+“I gotter run back home, or mammy’ll wax me good,” grinned Alfredia.
+“But I’s jes’ as much obleeged to yo’. On’y I wouldn’t go inter dat
+old Co’ner House for no money—no, _Ma’am_!”
+
+“Why not?” asked Tess, as the colored girl prepared to depart.
+
+“It’s spooky—dat’s what,” declared Alfredia, and the next moment she
+ran around the corner and disappeared up Willow Street toward one of
+the poorer quarters of the town.
+
+“There!” gasped Dot, grabbing Tess by the hand. “What does _that_
+mean? She says this old Corner House is ‘spooky,’ too. What does
+‘spooky’ mean, Tess?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+GETTING ACQUAINTED
+
+
+By the third day after their arrival in Milton, the Kenway sisters
+were quite used to their new home; but not to their new condition.
+
+“It’s just delightful,” announced Agnes. “I’m going to love this old
+house, Ruth. And to run right out of doors when one wants to—with an
+apron on and without ‘fixing up’—nobody to see one——”
+
+The rear premises of the old Corner House were surrounded by a tight
+fence and a high, straggling hedge. The garden and backyard made a
+playground which delighted Tess and Dot. The latter seemed to have
+gotten over her first awe of the big house and had forgotten to ask
+further questions about the meaning of the mysterious word, “spooky.”
+
+Tess and Dot established their dolls and their belongings in a little
+summer-house in the weed-grown garden, and played there contentedly
+for hours. Ruth and Aggie were working very hard. It was as much as
+Aunt Sarah would do if she made her own bed and brushed up her room.
+
+“When I lived at home before,” she said, grimly, “there were plenty of
+servants in the house. That is, until Father Stower died and Peter
+became the master.”
+
+Mr. Howbridge came on this day and brought a visitor which surprised
+Ruth.
+
+“This is Mrs. McCall, Miss Kenway,” said the lawyer, who insisted upon
+treating Ruth as quite a grown-up young lady. “Mrs. McCall is a
+widowed lady for whom I have a great deal of respect,” continued the
+gentleman, smiling. “And I believe you girls will get along nicely
+with her.”
+
+“I—I am glad to meet Mrs. McCall,” said Ruth, giving the widow one of
+her friendly smiles. Yet she was more than a little puzzled.
+
+“Mrs. McCall,” said Mr. Howbridge, “will take many household cares off
+your shoulders, Miss Kenway. She is a perfectly good housekeeper, as I
+know,” and he laughed, “for she has kept house for me. If you girls
+undertook to take care of even a part of this huge house, you would
+have no time for anything else.”
+
+“But——” began Ruth, in amazement, not to say panic.
+
+“You will find Mrs. McCall just the person whom you need here,” said
+Mr. Howbridge, firmly.
+
+She was a strong looking, brisk woman, with a pleasant face, and Ruth
+_did_ like her at once. But she was troubled.
+
+“I don’t see, Mr. Howbridge, how we can _afford_ anybody to help
+us—just now,” Ruth said. “You see, we have so very little money. And
+we already have borrowed from you, sir, more than we can easily
+repay.”
+
+“Ha! you do not understand,” said the lawyer, quickly. “I see. You
+think that the money I advanced before you left Bloomingsburg was a
+loan?”
+
+“Oh, sir!” gasped Ruth. “We could not accept it as a gift. It would
+not be right——”
+
+“I certainly do admire your independence, Ruth Kenway,” said the
+gentleman, smiling. “But do not fear. I am not lending you money
+without expecting to get full returns. It is an advance against your
+uncle’s personal estate.”
+
+“But suppose his will is never found, sir?” cried Ruth.
+
+“I know of no other heirs of the late Mr. Stower. The court recognizes
+you girls as the legatees in possession. There is not likely to be any
+question of your rights at all. But we hope the will may be found and
+thus a suit in Chancery be avoided.”
+
+“But—but is it _right_ for us to accept all this—and spend money,
+and all that—when there is still this uncertainty about the will?”
+demanded Ruth, desperately.
+
+“I certainly would not advise you to do anything that was wrong either
+legally or morally,” said Mr. Howbridge, gravely. “Don’t you worry. I
+shall pay the bills. You can draw on me for cash within reason.”
+
+“Oh, sir!”
+
+“You all probably need new clothing, and some little luxuries to which
+you have not been always accustomed. I think I must arrange for each
+of you girls to have a small monthly allowance. It is good for young
+people to learn how to use money for themselves.”
+
+“Oh, sir!” gasped Ruth, again.
+
+“The possibility of some other person, or persons, putting in a claim
+to Mr. Peter Stower’s estate, must be put out of your mind, Miss
+Kenway,” pursued the kindly lawyer. “You have borne enough
+responsibility for a young girl, already. Forget it, as the boys say.
+
+“Remember, you girls are very well off. You will be protected in your
+rights by the court. Let Mrs. McCall take hold and do the work, with
+such assistance as you girls may wish to give her.”
+
+It was amazing, but very delightful. “Why, Ruth-_ie_!” cried Agnes,
+when they were alone, fairly dancing around her sister. “Do you
+suppose we are really going to be _rich_?”
+
+To Ruth’s mind a very little more than enough for actual necessities
+was wealth for the Kenways! She felt as though it were too good to be
+true. To lay down the burden of responsibilities which she had carried
+for two years——well! it was a heavenly thought!
+
+Milton was a beautiful old town, with well shaded streets, and green
+lawns. People seemed to have plenty of leisure to chat and be
+sociable; they did not rush by you without a look, or a word, as they
+had in Bloomingsburg.
+
+“So, you’re the Corner House girls, are you? Do tell!” said one old
+lady on Willow Street, who stopped the Kenway sisters the first time
+they all trooped to Sunday School.
+
+“Let’s see; _you_ favor your father’s folks,” she added, pinching
+Agnes’ plump cheek. “I remember Leonard Kenway very well indeed. He
+broke a window for me once—years ago, when he was a boy.
+
+“I didn’t know who did it. But Lenny Kenway never could keep anything
+to himself, and he came to me and owned up. Paid for it, too, by
+helping saw my winter’s wood,” and the old lady laughed gently.
+
+“I’m Mrs. Adams. Come and see me, Corner House girls,” she concluded,
+looking after them rather wistfully. “It’s been many a day since I had
+young folks in my house.”
+
+Already Agnes had become acquainted with a few of the storekeepers,
+for she had done the errands since their arrival in Milton. Now they
+were welcomed by the friendly Sabbath School teachers and soon felt at
+home. Agnes quickly fell in love with a bronze haired girl with brown
+eyes, who sat next to her in class. This was Eva Larry, and Aggie
+confided to Ruth that she was “just lovely.”
+
+They all, even the little girls, strolled about the paths of the
+parade ground before returning home. This seemed to be the usual
+Sunday afternoon promenade of Milton folk. Several people stopped the
+Corner House girls (as they were already known) and spoke kindly to
+them.
+
+Although Leonard Kenway and Julia Stower had moved away from Milton
+immediately upon their marriage, and that had been eighteen years
+before, many of the residents of Milton remembered the sisters’
+parents, and the Corner House girls were welcomed for those parents’
+sake.
+
+“We certainly shall come and call on you,” said the minister’s wife,
+who was a lovely lady, Ruth thought. “It is a blessing to have young
+folk about that gloomy old house.”
+
+“Oh! we don’t think it gloomy at all,” laughed Ruth.
+
+When the lady had gone on, the Larry girl said to Agnes: “I think
+you’re awfully brave. _I_ wouldn’t live in the Old Corner House for
+worlds.”
+
+“Why not?” asked Agnes, puzzled. “I guess you don’t know how nice it
+is inside.”
+
+“I wouldn’t care if it was carpeted with velvet and you ate off of
+solid gold dishes!” exclaimed Eva Larry, with emphasis.
+
+“Oh, Eva! you won’t even come to see us?”
+
+“Of course I shall. I like you. And I think you are awfully plucky to
+live there——”
+
+“What for? What’s the matter with the house?” demanded Agnes, in
+wonder.
+
+“Why, they say such things about it. You’ve heard them, of course?”
+
+“Surely you’re not afraid of it because old Uncle Peter died there?”
+
+“Oh, no! It began long before your Uncle Peter died,” said Eva,
+lowering her voice. “Do you mean to say that Mr. Howbridge—nor
+_anybody_—has not told you about it?”
+
+“Goodness me! No!” cried Agnes. “You give me the shivers.”
+
+“I should think you would shiver, you poor dear,” said Eva, clutching
+at Aggie’s arm. “You oughtn’t to be allowed to go there to live. My
+mother says so herself. She said she thought Mr. Howbridge ought to be
+ashamed of himself——”
+
+“But what _for_?” cried the startled Agnes. “What’s the matter with
+the house?”
+
+“Why, it’s haunted!” declared Eva, solemnly. “Didn’t you ever hear
+about the Corner House Ghost?”
+
+“Oh, Eva!” murmured Agnes. “You are fooling me.”
+
+“No, Ma’am! I’m not.”
+
+“A—a ghost?”
+
+“Yes. Everybody knows about it. It’s been there for years.”
+
+“But—but we haven’t seen it.”
+
+“You wouldn’t likely see it—yet. Unless it was the other night when
+the wind blew so hard. It comes only in a storm.”
+
+“What! the ghost?”
+
+“Yes. In a big storm it is always seen looking out of the windows.”
+
+“Goodness!” whispered Agnes. “What windows?”
+
+“In the garret. I believe that’s where it is always seen. And, of
+course, it is seen from outside. When there is a big wind blowing,
+people coming across the parade here, or walking on this side of
+Willow Street, have looked up there and seen the ghost fluttering and
+beckoning at the windows——”
+
+“How horrid!” gasped Agnes. “Oh, Eva! are you _sure_?”
+
+“I never saw it,” confessed the other. “But I know all about it. So
+does my mother. She says it’s true.”
+
+“Mercy! And in the daytime?”
+
+“Sometimes at night. Of course, I suppose it can be seen at night
+because it is phosphorescent. All ghosts are, aren’t they?”
+
+“I—I never saw one,” quavered Agnes. “And I don’t want to.”
+
+“Well, that’s all about it,” said Eva, with confidence. “And I
+wouldn’t live in the house with a ghost for anything!”
+
+“But we’ve _got_ to,” wailed Agnes. “We haven’t any other place to
+live.”
+
+“It’s dreadful,” sympathized the other girl. “I’ll ask my mother. If
+you are dreadfully frightened about it, I’ll see if you can’t come and
+stay with us.”
+
+This was very kind of Eva, Agnes thought. The story of the Corner
+House Ghost troubled the twelve-year-old very much. She dared not say
+anything before Tess and Dot about it, but she told the whole story to
+Ruth that night, after they were in bed and supposed the little girls
+to be asleep.
+
+“Why, Aggie,” said Ruth, calmly, “I don’t think there _are_ any
+ghosts. It’s just foolish talk of foolish people.”
+
+“Eva says her mother _knows_ it’s true. People have seen it.”
+
+“Up in our garret?”
+
+“Ugh! In the garret of this old house—yes,” groaned Agnes. “Don’t
+call it _our_ house. I guess I don’t like it much, after all.”
+
+“Why, Aggie! How ungrateful.”
+
+“I don’t care. For all of me, Uncle Peter could have kept his old
+house, if he was going to leave a ghost in the garret.”
+
+“Hush! the children will hear you,” whispered Ruth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UNCLE RUFUS
+
+
+That whispered conversation between Ruth and Agnes after they were
+abed that first Sunday night of the Kenways’ occupancy of the Old
+Corner House, bore unexpected fruit. Dot’s ears were sharp, and she
+had not been asleep.
+
+From the room she and Tess occupied, opening out of the chamber in
+which the bigger girls slept, Dot heard enough of the whispered talk
+to get a fixed idea in her head. And when Dot _did_ get an idea, it
+was hard to “shake it loose,” as Agnes declared.
+
+Mrs. McCall kept one eye on Tess and Dot as they played about the
+overgrown garden, for she could see this easily from the kitchen
+windows. Mrs. McCall had already made herself indispensable to the
+family; even Aunt Sarah recognized her worth.
+
+Ruth and Agnes were dusting and making the beds on this Monday
+morning, while Tess and Dot were setting their playhouse to rights.
+
+“I just heard her say so, so now, Tessie Kenway,” Dot was saying. “And
+I know if it’s up there, it’s never had a thing to eat since we came
+here to live.”
+
+“I don’t see how that could be,” said Tess, wonderingly.
+
+“It’s just _so_,” repeated the positive Dot.
+
+“But why doesn’t it make a noise?”
+
+“We-ell,” said the smaller girl, puzzled, too, “maybe we don’t hear it
+’cause it’s too far up—there at the top of the house.”
+
+“I know,” said Tess, thoughtfully. “They eat tin cans, and rubber
+boots, and any old thing. But I always thought that was because they
+couldn’t find any other food. Like those castaway sailors Ruth read to
+us about, who chewed their sealskin boots. Maybe such things stop the
+gnawing feeling you have in your stomach when you’re hungry.”
+
+“I am going to pull some grass and take it up there,” announced the
+stubborn Dot. “I am sure it would be glad of some grass.”
+
+“Maybe Ruth wouldn’t like us to,” objected Tess.
+
+“But it isn’t Ruthie’s!” cried Dot. “It must have belonged to Uncle
+Peter.”
+
+“Why! that’s so,” agreed Tess.
+
+For once she was over-urged by Dot. Both girls pulled great sheafs of
+grass. They held it before them in the skirts of their pinafores, and
+started up the back stairs.
+
+Mrs. McCall chanced to be in the pantry and did not see them. They
+would have reached the garret without Ruth or Agnes being the wiser
+had not Dot, laboring upward, dropped a wisp of grass in the second
+hall.
+
+“What’s all this?” demanded Agnes, coming upon the scattered grass.
+
+“What’s what?” asked Ruth, behind her.
+
+“And on the stairs!” exclaimed Agnes again. “Why, it’s grass, Ruth.”
+
+“Grass growing on the stairs?” demanded her older sister, wonderingly,
+and running to see.
+
+“Of course not _growing_,” declared Agnes. “But who dropped it?
+Somebody has gone up——”
+
+She started up the second flight, and Ruth after her. The trespassers
+were already on the garret flight. There was a tight door at the top
+of those stairs so no view could be obtained of the garret.
+
+“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Agnes. “What are you doing up here?”
+
+“And with grass,” said Ruth. “We’re all going to explore up there
+together some day soon. But you needn’t make your beds up there,” and
+she laughed.
+
+“Not going to make beds,” announced Tess, rather grumpily.
+
+“For pity’s sake, what _are_ you going to do?” asked Agnes.
+
+“We’re going to feed the goat,” said Dot, gravely.
+
+“Going to feed _what_?” shrieked Agnes.
+
+“The goat,” repeated Dot.
+
+“She says there’s one up here,” Tess exclaimed, sullenly.
+
+“A goat in the garret!” gasped Ruth. “How ridiculous. What put such an
+idea into your heads?”
+
+“Aggie said so herself,” said Dot, her lip quivering. “I heard her
+tell you so last night after we were all abed.”
+
+“A—goat—in—the—gar—ret!” murmured Agnes, in wonder.
+
+Ruth saw the meaning of it instantly. She pulled Aggie by the sleeve.
+
+“Be still,” she commanded, in a whisper. “I told you little pitchers
+had big ears. She heard all that foolishness that Larry girl told
+you.” Then to the younger girls she said:
+
+“We’ll go right up and see if we can find any goat there. But I am
+sure Uncle Peter would not have kept a goat in his garret.”
+
+“But you and Aggie _said_ so,” declared Dot, much put out.
+
+“You misunderstood what we said. And you shouldn’t listen to hear what
+other people say—that’s eavesdropping, and is not nice at all. Come.”
+
+Ruth mounted the stairs ahead and threw open the garret door. A great,
+dimly lit, unfinished room was revealed, the entire size of the main
+part of the mansion. Forests of clothing hung from the rafters. There
+were huge trunks and chests, and all manner of odd pieces of
+furniture.
+
+The small windows were curtained with spider’s lacework of the very
+finest pattern. Dust lay thick upon everything. Agnes sneezed.
+
+“Goodness! what a place!” she said.
+
+“I don’t believe there is a goat here, Dot,” said Tess, becoming her
+usual practical self. “He’d—he’d cough himself to death!”
+
+“You can take that grass down stairs,” said Ruth, smiling. But she
+remained behind to whisper to Agnes:
+
+“You’ll have to have a care what you say before that young one, Ag. It
+was ‘the _ghost_ in the garret’ she heard you speak about.”
+
+“Well,” admitted the plump sister, “I could see the whole of that
+dusty old place. It doesn’t seem to me as though _any_ ghost would
+care to live there. I guess that Eva Larry didn’t know what she was
+talking about after all.”
+
+It was not, however, altogether funny. Ruth realized that, if Agnes
+did not.
+
+“I really wish that girl had not told you that silly story,” said the
+elder sister.
+
+“Well, if there should be a ghost——”
+
+“Oh, be still!” exclaimed Ruth. “You know there’s no such thing,
+Aggie.”
+
+“I don’t care,” concluded Aggie. “The old house _is_ dreadfully
+spooky. And that garret——”
+
+“Is a very dusty place,” finished Ruth, briskly, all her housewifely
+instincts aroused. “Some day soon we’ll go up there and have a
+thorough house-cleaning.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“We’ll drive out both the ghost and the goat,” laughed Ruth. “Why,
+that will be a lovely place to play in on rainy days.”
+
+“Boo! it’s spooky,” repeated her sister.
+
+“It won’t be, after we clean it up.”
+
+“And Eva says that’s when the haunt appears—on stormy days.”
+
+“I declare! you’re a most exasperating child,” said Ruth, and that
+shut Agnes’ lips pretty tight for the time being. She did not like to
+be called a child.
+
+It was a day or two later that Mrs. McCall sent for Ruth to come to
+the back door to see an old colored man who stood there, turning his
+battered hat around and around in his hands, the sun shining on his
+bald, brown skull.
+
+“Good mawnin’, Missie,” said he, humbly. “Is yo’ one o’ dese yere
+relatifs of Mars’ Peter, what done come to lib yere in de ol’ Co’ner
+House?”
+
+“Yes,” said Ruth, smiling. “I am Ruth Kenway.”
+
+“Well, Missie, I’s Unc’ Rufus,” said the old man, simply.
+
+“Uncle Rufus?”
+
+“Yes, Missie.”
+
+“Why! you used to work for our Uncle Peter?”
+
+“Endurin’ twenty-four years, Missie,” said the old man.
+
+“Come in, Uncle Rufus,” said Ruth, kindly. “I am glad to see you, I am
+sure. It is nice of you to call.”
+
+“Yes, Missie; I ’lowed you’d be glad tuh see me. Das what I tol’ my
+darter, Pechunia——”
+
+“Petunia?”
+
+“Ya-as. Pechunia Blossom. Das her name, Missie. I been stayin’ wid her
+ever since dey turn me out o’ yere.”
+
+“Oh! I suppose you mean since Uncle Peter died?”
+
+“Ya-as, Missie,” said the old man, following her into the sitting
+room, and staring around with rolling eyes. Then he chuckled, and
+said: “Disher does seem lak’ home tuh me, Missie.”
+
+“I should think so, Uncle Rufus,” said Ruth.
+
+“I done stay here till das lawyer man done tol’ me I wouldn’t be
+wanted no mo’,” said the colored man. “But I sho’ does feel dat de ol’
+Co’ner House cyan’t git erlong widout me no mo’ dan I kin git erlong
+widout _it_. I feels los’, Missie, down dere to Pechunia Blossom’s.”
+
+“Aren’t you happy with your daughter, Uncle Rufus?” asked Ruth,
+sympathetically.
+
+“Sho’ now! how you t’ink Unc’ Rufus gwine tuh be happy wid nottin’ to
+do, an’ sech a raft o’ pickaninnies erbout? Glo-ree! I sho’ feels like
+I was livin’ in a sawmill, wid er boiler fact’ry on one side an’ one
+o’ dese yere stone-crushers on de oder.”
+
+“Why, that’s too bad, Uncle Rufus.”
+
+“Yo’ see, Missie,” pursued the old black man, sitting gingerly on the
+edge of the chair Ruth had pointed out to him, “I done wo’k for Mars’
+Peter so long. I done ev’ryt’ing fo’ him. I done de sweepin’, an’ mak’
+he’s bed, an’ cook fo’ him, an’ wait on him han’ an’ foot—ya-as’m!
+
+“Ain’t nobody suit Mars’ Peter like ol’ Unc’ Rufus. He got so he
+wouldn’t have no wimmen-folkses erbout. I ta’ de wash to Pechunia, an’
+bring hit back; an’ I markets fo’ him, an’ all dat. Oh, I’s spry fo’
+an ol’ feller, Missie. I kin wait on table quite propah—though ’twas
+a long time since Mars’ Peter done have any comp’ny an’ dis dinin’
+room was fixed up for ’em.
+
+“I tak’ care ob de silvah, Missie, an’ de linen, an’ all. Right smart
+of silvah Mars’ Peter hab, Missie. Yo’ sho’ needs Uncle Rufus yere,
+Missie. I don’t see how yo’ git erlong widout him so long.”
+
+“Mercy me!” gasped Ruth, suddenly awakening to what the old man was
+getting at. “You mean to say you want to come back here to _work_?”
+
+“Sho’ly! sho’ly!” agreed Uncle Rufus, nodding his head a great many
+times, and with a wistful smile on his wrinkled old face that went
+straight to Ruth’s heart.
+
+“But, Uncle Rufus! we don’t _need_ you, I’m afraid. We have Mrs.
+McCall—and there are only four of us girls and Aunt Sarah.”
+
+“I ’member Mis’ Sarah very well, Missie,” said Uncle Rufus, nodding.
+“She’ll sho’ly speak a good word fo’ Uncle Rufus, Missie. Yo’ ax her.”
+
+“But—Mr. Howbridge——”
+
+“Das lawyer man,” said Uncle Rufus, “he neber jes’ understood how it
+was,” proposed the old colored man, gently. “He didn’t jes’ see dat
+dis ol’ Co’ner House was my home so long, dat no oder place seems jes’
+_right_ tuh me.”
+
+“I understand,” said Ruth, softly, but much worried.
+
+“Disher w’ite lady yo’ got tuh he’p, _she’ll_ fin’ me mighty
+handy—ya-as’m. I kin bring in de wood fo’ her, an’ git up de coal
+f’om de cellar. I kin mak’ de paf’s neat. I kin mak’ yo’ a leetle bit
+gyarden, Missie—’taint too late fo’ some vegertables. Yo’d oughter
+have de lawn-grass cut.”
+
+The old man’s catalog of activities suggested the need of a much
+younger worker, yet Ruth felt so sorry for him! She was timid about
+taking such a responsibility upon herself. What would Mr. Howbridge
+say?
+
+Meanwhile the old man was fumbling in an inner pocket. He brought
+forth a battered wallet and from it drew a soiled, crumpled strip of
+paper.
+
+“Mars’ Peter didn’t never intend to fo’get me—I know he didn’t,” said
+Uncle Rufus, earnestly. “Disher paper he gib me, Missie, jes’ de day
+befo’ he pass ter Glory. He was a kin’ marster, an’ he lean on Unc’
+Rufus a powerful lot. Jes’ yo’ read dis.”
+
+Ruth took the paper. Upon it, in a feeble scrawl, was written one
+line, and that unsigned:
+
+“Take care of Uncle Rufus.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Who—whom did he tell you to give this to, Uncle Rufus?” asked the
+troubled girl, at last.
+
+“He didn’t say, Missie. He warn’t speakin’ none by den,” said the old
+man. “But I done kep’ it, sho’ly, ’tendin’ tuh sho’ it to his relatifs
+what come yere to lib.”
+
+“And you did right, Uncle Rufus, to bring it to us,” said Ruth, coming
+to a sudden decision. “I’ll see what can be done.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THEIR CIRCLE OF INTEREST WIDENS
+
+
+Uncle Rufus was a tall, thin, brown negro, with a gently deprecating
+air and a smile that suddenly changed his naturally sad features into
+a most humorous cast without an instant’s notice.
+
+Ruth left him still sitting gingerly on the edge of the chair in the
+dining-room, while she slowly went upstairs to Aunt Sarah. It was
+seldom that the oldest Kenway girl confided in, or advised with, Aunt
+Sarah, for the latter was mainly a most unsatisfactory confidante.
+Sometimes you could talk to Aunt Sarah for an hour and she would not
+say a word in return, or appear even to hear you!
+
+Ruth felt deeply about the old colored man. The twist of soiled paper
+in her hand looked to Ruth like a direct command from the dead uncle
+who had bequeathed her and her sisters this house and all that went
+with it.
+
+Since her last interview with Mr. Howbridge, the fact that they were
+so much better off than ever before, had become more real to Ruth.
+They could not only live rather sumptuously, but they could do some
+good to other people by the proper use of Uncle Peter’s money!
+
+Here was a case in point. Ruth did not know but what the old negro
+would be more than a little useless about the Corner House; but it
+would not cost much to keep him, and let him think he was of some
+value to them.
+
+So she opened her heart to Aunt Sarah. And Aunt Sarah listened.
+Indeed, there never was such a good audience as Aunt Sarah in this
+world before!
+
+“Now, what do you think?” asked Ruth, breathlessly, when she had told
+the story and shown the paper. “Is this Uncle Peter’s handwriting?”
+
+Aunt Sarah peered at the scrawl. “Looks like it,” she admitted.
+“Pretty trembly. I wouldn’t doubt, on’y it seems too kind a thought
+for Peter to have. He warn’t given to thinking of that old negro.”
+
+“I suppose Mr. Howbridge would know?”
+
+“That lawyer? Huh!” sniffed Aunt Sarah. “He might. But that wouldn’t
+bring you anything. If he put the old man out once, he would again. No
+heart nor soul in a lawyer. I always _did_ hate the whole tribe!”
+
+Aunt Sarah had taken a great dislike to Mr. Howbridge, because the
+legal gentleman had brought the news of the girls’ legacy, instead of
+telling her _she_ was the heir of Uncle Peter. On the days when there
+chanced to be an east wind and Aunt Sarah felt a twinge of rheumatism,
+she was inclined to rail against Fate for making her a dependent upon
+the “gals’ charity,” as she called it. But she firmly clung to what
+she called “her rights.” If Uncle Peter had not left his property to
+her, he _should_ have done so—that is the way she looked at it.
+
+Such comment as Ruth could wring from Aunt Sarah seemed to bolster up
+her own resolve to try Uncle Rufus as a retainer, and tell Mr.
+Howbridge about it afterward.
+
+“We’ll skimp a little in some way, to make his wages,” thought Ruth,
+her mind naturally dropping into the old groove of economizing. “I
+don’t think Mr. Howbridge would be _very_ angry. And then—here is the
+paper,” and she put the crumpled scrap that the old colored man had
+given her, safely away.
+
+“Take care of Uncle Rufus.”
+
+She found Agnes and explained the situation to her. Aunt Sarah had
+admitted Uncle Rufus was a “handy negro,” and Agnes at once became
+enthusiastic over the possibility of having such a serving man.
+
+“Just think of him in a black tail-coat and white vest and spats,
+waiting on table!” cried the twelve year old, whose mind was full of
+romantic notions gathered from her miscellaneous reading. “This old
+house just _needs_ a liveried negro servant shuffling about it—you
+_know_ it does, Ruth!”
+
+“That’s what Uncle Rufus thinks, too,” said Ruth, smiling. What had
+appealed to the older girl was Uncle Rufus’ wistful and pleading smile
+as he stated his desire. She went back to the dining-room and said to
+the old man:
+
+“I am afraid we cannot pay you much, Uncle Rufus, for I really do not
+know just how much money Mr. Howbridge will allow us to spend on
+living expenses. But if you wish to come——”
+
+“Glo-ree!” exclaimed the old man, rolling his eyes devoutedly. “Das
+sho’ de good news for disher collud pusson. Nebber min’ payin’ me
+wages, Missie. I jes’ wanter lib an’ die in de Ol’ Co’ner House, w’ich
+same has been my home endurin’ twenty-four years—ya-as’m!”
+
+Mrs. McCall approved of his coming, when Ruth told her. As Uncle Rufus
+said, he was “spry an’ pert,” and there were many little chores that
+he could attend to which relieved both the housekeeper and the Kenway
+girls themselves.
+
+That very afternoon Uncle Rufus reappeared, and in his wake two of
+Petunia Blossom’s pickaninnies, tugging between them a bulging bag
+which contained all the old man’s worldly possessions.
+
+One of these youngsters was the widely smiling Alfredia Blossom, and
+Tess and Dot were glad to see her again, while little Jackson
+Montgomery Simms Blossom wriggled, and grinned, and chuckled in a way
+that assured the Corner House girls of his perfect friendliness.
+
+“Stan’ up—you!” commanded the important Alfredia, eyeing her younger
+brother with scorn. “What you got eatin’ on you, Jackson Montgom’ry?
+De _wiggles_? What yo’ s’pose mammy gwine ter say ter yo’ w’en she
+years you ain’t got yo’ comp’ny manners on, w’en you go ter w’ite
+folkses’ houses? Stan’ up—straight!”
+
+Jackson was bashful and was evidently a trial to his sister, when she
+took him into “w’ite folks’ comp’ny.” Tess, however, rejoiced his
+heart with a big piece of Mrs. McCall’s ginger-cake, and the little
+girls left him munching, while they took Alfredia away to the summer
+house in the garden to show her their dolls and playthings.
+
+Alfredia’s eyes grew big with wonder, for she had few toys of her own,
+and confessed to the possession of “jes’ a ol’ rag tar-baby wot mammy
+done mak’ out o’ a stockin’-heel.”
+
+Tess and Dot looked at each other dubiously when they heard this.
+Their collection of babies suddenly looked to be fairly wicked! Here
+was a girl who had not even a single “boughten” dollie.
+
+Dot gasped and seized the Alice-doll, hugging it close against her
+breast; her action was involuntary, but it did not signal the smallest
+Kenway girl’s selfishness. No, indeed! Of course, she could not have
+given away _that_ possession, but there were others.
+
+She looked down the row of her china playmates—some small, some big,
+some with pretty, fresh faces, and some rather battered and with the
+color in their face “smootchy.”
+
+“Which could we give her, Dot?” whispered Tess, doubtfully. “There’s
+my Mary-Jane——”
+
+The older sister proposed to give up one of her very best dolls; but
+Mary-Jane was not pink and pretty. Dot stepped up sturdily and plucked
+the very pinkest cheeked, and fluffiest haired doll out of her own
+row.
+
+“Why, Dot! that’s Ethelinda!” cried Tess. Ethelinda had been found in
+Dot’s stocking only the previous Christmas, and its purchase had cost
+a deal of scrimping and planning on Ruth’s part. Dot did not know
+that; she had a firm and unshakable belief in Santa Claus.
+
+“I think she’ll just _love_ Alf’edia,” declared Dot, boldly. “I’m sure
+she will,” and she thrust the doll suddenly into the colored girl’s
+open arms. “You’ll just take good care of her—won’t you, Alf’edia?”
+
+“My goodness!” ejaculated Alfredia. “You w’ite gals don’ mean me ter
+_keep_ this be-you-ti-ful doll-baby? You don’t mean _that_?”
+
+“Of course we do,” said Tess, briskly, taking pattern after Dot. “And
+here’s a spangled cloak that belonged to one of my dolls, but she
+hasn’t worn it much—and a hat. See! they both fit Ethelinda
+splendidly.”
+
+Alfredia was speechless for the moment. She hugged her new possessions
+to her heart, and her eyes winked _hard_. Then she grinned. Nobody or
+nothing could quench Alfredia’s grin.
+
+“I gotter git home—I gotter git home ter mammy,” she chattered, at
+last. “I cyan’t nebber t’ank you w’ite chillen enough. Mammy, she done
+gotter thank yo’ for me.”
+
+Uncle Rufus came out and stopped his grandchild, ere she could escape.
+“Whar you done got dat w’ite doll-baby, Alfredia Blossom?” he asked,
+threateningly.
+
+Dot and Tess were right there to explain. Uncle Rufus, however, would
+not let his grandchild go until “Missie Ruth,” as he called the eldest
+Kenway girl, had come to pronounce judgment.
+
+“Why, Dot!” she said, kissing her little sister, “I think it is very
+nice of you to give Alfredia the doll—and Tess, too. Of course, Uncle
+Rufus, she can take the doll home. It is hers to keep.”
+
+Alfredia, and “Jackson And-so-forth,” as Agnes nicknamed the colored
+boy, ran off, delighted. The old man said to Ruth:
+
+“Lor’ bless you, Missie! I done _know_ you is Mars’ Peter’s relatifs;
+but sho’ it don’t seem like you was re’l blood kin to de Stowers. Dey
+ain’t nebber give nawthin’ erway—no Ma’am!”
+
+The Kenway girls had heard something about Uncle Peter’s closeness
+before; he had been counted a miser by the neighbors. His peculiar way
+of living alone, and seldom appearing outside of the door during the
+last few years of his life, had encouraged such gossip regarding him.
+
+On Main Street, adjoining the premises of the Corner House, was a
+pretty cottage in which there lived a family of children, too. These
+neighbors did not attend the same church which the Kenways had gone to
+on Sunday; therefore no opportunity had yet occurred for Tess and Dot
+to become acquainted with the Creamer girls. There were three of them
+of about the same ages as Agnes, Tess and Dot.
+
+“They’re such nice looking little girls,” confessed Tess. “I hope we
+get to know them soon. We could have lots of fun playing house with
+them, Dot, and going visiting, and all.”
+
+“Yes,” agreed Dot. “That one they call Mabel is so pretty! She’s got
+hair like our Agnes—only it’s curly.”
+
+So, with the best intentions in the world, Tess and Dot were inclined
+to gravitate toward the picket fence dividing the two yards, whenever
+they saw the smaller Creamer girls out playing.
+
+Once Tess and Dot stood on their side of the fence, hand in hand,
+watching the three sisters on the other side playing with their dolls
+near the dividing line. The one with the curls looked up and saw them.
+It quite shocked Dot when she saw this pretty little creature twist
+her face into an ugly grimace.
+
+“I hope you see us!” she said, tartly, to Tess and Dot. “What you
+staring at?”
+
+The Kenways were amazed—and silent. The other two Creamer children
+laughed shrilly, and so encouraged the one who had spoken so rudely.
+
+“You can just go away from there and stare at somebody else!” said the
+offended small person, tossing her head. “We don’t want you bothering
+us.”
+
+“O-o-o!” gasped Dot.
+
+“We—we didn’t mean to stare,” stammered Tess. “We—we don’t know any
+little girls in Milton yet. Don’t you want to come over and play with
+us?”
+
+“No, we don’t!” declared the curly head. “We got chased out of that
+old place enough, when we first came to live here, by that old crazy
+man.”
+
+“She means Uncle Peter,” said Tess to Dot.
+
+“Was he crazy?” asked the wondering Dot.
+
+“Of course he wasn’t,” said Tess, sturdily.
+
+“Yes he was, too!” snapped the Creamer girl. “Everybody says so. You
+can ask them. I expect you folks are all crazy. Anyway, we don’t want
+to play with you, and you needn’t stand there and stare at us!”
+
+The smaller Kenway sisters went meekly away. Of course, if Agnes had
+overheard the conversation, she would have given them as good as they
+sent. But Tess and Dot were hurt to the quick.
+
+Dot said to Ruth, at supper: “Was our Uncle Peter crazy, Ruthie?”
+
+“Of course not,” said the bigger girl, wonderingly. “What put such a
+silly idea into your little head?”
+
+The tale came out, then. Agnes bristled up, of course.
+
+“Let me catch them talking to you that way!” she cried. “_I’ll_ tell
+them something!”
+
+“Oh, don’t let us quarrel with them,” urged Ruth, gently. “But you and
+Tess, Dot, had better not put yourselves in their way again.”
+
+“Dey’s berry bad chillen—dem Creamers,” put in Uncle Rufus, who was
+shuffling about the dining-room, serving. Although he was faultless in
+his service, with the privilege of an old retainer when the family was
+alone, he _would_ assist in the general conversation.
+
+In Agnes’ eyes, Uncle Rufus made a perfect picture. Out of his bulging
+traveling bag had appeared just the sort of a costume that she
+imagined he should wear—even to the gray spats!
+
+“It makes me feel just _rich_!” the twelve year old said to Ruth, with
+a contented sigh. “And real silver he got out of the old chest, and
+polished it up—and the cut glass!”
+
+They began to use the dining-room for meals after Uncle Rufus came.
+The old man gently insisted upon it.
+
+“Sho’ly, Missie, you wants ter lib up ter de customs ob de ol’ Co’ner
+House. Mars’ Peter drapped ’em all off latterly; but de time was w’en
+dis was de center ob sassiety in Milton—ya-as’m!”
+
+“But goodness!” ejaculated Ruth, in some timidity, “we do not expect
+to be in society _now_. We don’t know many people yet. And not a soul
+has been inside the door to call upon us since we arrived.”
+
+However, their circle of acquaintance was steadily widening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CAT THAT WENT BACK
+
+
+Agnes put her hand upon it in the pantry and dropped a glass dish
+ker-smash! She screamed so, that Ruth came running, opened the door,
+and, as it scurried to escape into the dining-room, the oldest Kenway
+girl dodged and struck her head with almost stunning force against the
+doorframe. She “saw stars” for a few moments.
+
+“Oh! oh!” screamed Agnes.
+
+“Ow! ow!” cried Ruth.
+
+“Whatever is the matter with you girls?” demanded Mrs. McCall,
+hurrying in from the front hall.
+
+She suddenly saw it, following the baseboard around the room in a
+panic of fear, and Mrs. McCall gathered her skirts close about her
+ankles and called Uncle Rufus.
+
+“He, he!” chuckled the black man, making one swoop for Mrs. Mouse and
+catching her in a towel. “All disher combobberation over a leetle,
+teeny, gray mouse. Glo-ree! s’pose hit had been a rat?”
+
+“The house is just over-run with mice,” complained Mrs. McCall. “And
+traps seem to do no good. I always _would_ jump, if I saw a mouse. I
+can’t help it.”
+
+“Me, too,” cried Agnes. “There’s something so sort of _creepy_ about
+mice. Worse than spiders.”
+
+“Oh, dear!” moaned Ruth, holding the side of her head. “I wish you’d
+find some way of getting rid of them, Uncle Rufus. I’m afraid of them,
+too.”
+
+“Lor’ bress yo’ heart an’ soul, Missie! I done cotched this one fo’
+you-uns, an’ I wisht I could ketch ’em all. But Unc’ Rufus ain’t much
+of a mouser—naw suh! What you-alls wants is a cat.”
+
+“We ought to have a good cat—that’s a fact,” admitted Mrs. McCall.
+
+“I like cats,” said Dot, who had come in to see what the excitement
+was all about. “There’s one runs along our back fence. Do you ’spect
+we could coax her to come in here and hunt mouses? Let’s show her this
+one Uncle Rufus caught, and maybe she’ll follow us in,” added the
+hopeful little girl.
+
+Although this plan for securing a cat did not meet with the family’s
+approval, Agnes was reminded of the cat problem that very afternoon,
+when she had occasion to go to Mr. Stetson’s grocery store, where the
+family traded.
+
+She liked Myra Stetson, the groceryman’s daughter, almost as well as
+she did Eva Larry. And Myra had nothing to say about the “haunt” which
+was supposed to pester the old Corner House.
+
+Myra helped about the store, after school hours and on Saturdays. When
+Agnes entered this day, Mr. Stetson was scolding.
+
+“I declare for’t!” he grumbled. “There’s no room to step around this
+store for the cats. Myra! I can’t stand so many cats—they’re under
+foot all the time. You’ll have to get rid of some of your pets. It’s
+making me poor to feed them all, in the first place!”
+
+“Oh, father!” cried Myra. “They keep away the mice, you know.”
+
+“Yes! Sure! They keep away the mice, because there’s so many cats and
+kittens here, the mice couldn’t crowd in. I tell you I can’t stand
+it—and there’s that old Sandy-face with four kittens in the basket
+behind the flour barrels in the back room. Those kittens have got
+their eyes open. Soon you can’t catch them at all. I tell you, Myra,
+you’ve got to get rid of them.”
+
+“Sandy-face and all?” wailed Myra, aghast.
+
+“Yes,” declared her father. “That’ll be five of ’em gone in a bunch.
+Then maybe we can at least _count_ those that are left.”
+
+“Oh, Myra!” cried Agnes. “Give them to us.”
+
+“What?” asked the store-keeper’s girl. “Not the whole five?”
+
+“Yes,” agreed Agnes, recklessly. “Mrs. McCall says we are over-run
+with mice, and I expect we could feed more than five cats for a long
+time on the mouse supply of the old Corner House.”
+
+“Goodness! Old Sandy-face is a real nice mother cat——”
+
+“Let’s see her,” proposed Agnes, and followed Myra out into the
+store-room of the grocery.
+
+In a broken hand-basket in which some old clothes had been dropped,
+Sandy-face had made her children’s cradle. They looked like four
+spotted, black balls. The old cat herself was with them, and she
+stretched and yawned, and looked up at the two girls with perfect
+trust in her speckled countenance.
+
+Her face looked as though salt and pepper, or sand, had been sprinkled
+upon it. Her body was marked with faint stripes of black and gray,
+which proved her part “tiger” origin. She was “double-toed” on her
+front feet, and her paws were big, soft cushions that could unsheath
+dangerous claws in an instant.
+
+“She ought to be a good mouser,” said Agnes, reflectively. It _did_
+look like a big contract to cart five cats home at once!
+
+“But I wouldn’t feel right to separate the family—especially when the
+kittens are so young,” Myra said. “If your folks will let you take
+them—well! it would be nice,” she added, for she was a born lover of
+cats and could not think, without positive pain, of having any of the
+cunning kittens cut short in their feline careers.
+
+“Oh, Ruth will be glad,” said Agnes, with assurance. “So will Mrs.
+McCall. We need cats—we just actually _need_ them, Myra.”
+
+“But how will you get them home?” asked the other girl, more practical
+than the impulsive Agnes.
+
+“Goodness! I hadn’t thought of that,” confessed Agnes.
+
+“You see, cats are funny creatures,” Myra declared. “Sometimes they
+find their way home again, even if they are carried miles and miles
+away.”
+
+“But if I take the kittens, too—wouldn’t she stay with her own
+kittens?”
+
+“Well—p’r’aps. But the thing _is_, how are you going to carry them
+all?”
+
+“Say! they’re all in this old basket,” said Agnes. “Can’t I carry them
+just as they are?”
+
+She picked the basket up. Old Sandy-face just “mewed” a little, but
+did not offer to jump out.
+
+“Oh!” gasped Agnes. “They’re heavy.”
+
+“You couldn’t carry them all that way. And if Sandy saw a dog——”
+
+“Maybe I’ll have to blindfold her?” suggested Agnes.
+
+“Put her in a bag!” cried Myra.
+
+“But that seems so cruel!”
+
+“I know. She might smother,” admitted Myra.
+
+“Goodness me!” said Agnes, briskly, “if we’re going to have a cat, I
+don’t want one that will always be afraid of me because I popped her
+into a bag. Besides, a cat is a dignified creature, and doing a thing
+like that would hurt her feelings. Don’t you think so?”
+
+“I guess Sandy-face wouldn’t like it,” agreed Myra, laughing at Agnes’
+serious speech and manner.
+
+“I tell you what,” the second-oldest Kenway girl said. “I’ll run home
+with the groceries your father has put up for me, and get the kids to
+come and help. They can certainly carry the kittens, while I take
+Sandy.”
+
+“Of course,” agreed the relieved Myra. She saw a chance of disposing
+of the entire family without hurting her own, or the cats’ feelings,
+and she was much pleased.
+
+As for the impulsive Agnes, when she made up her mind to do a thing,
+she never thought of asking advice. She reached home with the
+groceries and put them into the hands of Uncle Rufus at the back door.
+Then she called Tess and Dot from their play in the garden.
+
+“Are your frocks clean, girls?” she asked them, hurriedly. “I want you
+to go to Mr. Stetson’s store with me.”
+
+“What for, Aggie?” asked Dot, but quite ready to go. By Agnes’
+appearance it was easy to guess that there was something exciting
+afoot.
+
+“Shall I run ask Ruth?” Tess inquired, more thoughtfully.
+
+Uncle Rufus was watching them from the porch. Agnes waved her hand to
+the black man, as she ushered the two smaller girls out of the yard
+onto Willow Street.
+
+“No,” she said to Tess. “Uncle Rufus sees us, and he’ll explain to
+Ruth.” At the moment, she did not remember that Uncle Rufus knew no
+more about their destination than Ruth herself.
+
+The smaller girls were eager to learn the particulars of the affair as
+Agnes hurried them along. But the bigger girl refused to explain,
+until they were in the grocer’s store-room.
+
+“Now! what do you think of them?” she demanded.
+
+Tess and Dot were delighted with the kittens and Sandy-face. When they
+learned that all four kittens and the mother cat were to be their very
+own for the taking away, they could scarcely keep from dancing up and
+down.
+
+Oh, yes! Tess and Dot were sure they could carry the basket of
+kittens. “But won’t that big cat scratch you, when you undertake to
+carry her, Aggie?” asked Tess.
+
+“I won’t let her!” declared Agnes. “Now you take the basket right up
+when I lift out Sandy.”
+
+“I—I’m afraid she’ll hurt you,” said Dot.
+
+“She’s real kind!” Agnes lifted out the mother-cat. Sandy made no
+complaint, but kept her eyes fixed upon the kittens. She was used to
+being handled by Myra. So she quickly snuggled down into Agnes’ arms,
+purring contentedly. The two smaller girls lifted the basket of
+kittens between them.
+
+“Oh, this is nice,” said Tess, delightedly. “We can carry them just as
+easy! Can’t we, Dot?”
+
+“Then go right along. We’ll go out of that side door there, so as not
+to take them through the store,” instructed Agnes.
+
+Sandy made no trouble at all. Agnes was careful to walk so that the
+big cat could look right down into the basket where her four kittens
+squirmed and occasionally squealed their objections to this sort of a
+“moving day.”
+
+The sun was warm and the little things could not be cold, but they
+missed the warmth of their mother’s body, and her fur coat to snuggle
+up against! When they squealed, Sandy-face evinced some disturbance of
+mind, but Agnes managed to quiet her, until they reached Mrs. Adams’
+front gate.
+
+Mrs. Adams was the old lady who had told the Kenways about their
+father breaking one of her windows when he was a boy. She had shown
+much interest in the Corner House girls. Now she was out on her front
+porch and saw them coming along Willow Street.
+
+“Whatever have you girls been up to?” she demanded, pleasantly enough,
+but evincing much curiosity.
+
+“Why, Mrs. Adams,” said Agnes, eagerly. “Don’t you see? We’ve adopted
+a family.”
+
+“Humph! A family? Not those young’uns of Petunia Blossom? I see Uncle
+Rufus back at the old Corner House, and I expect the whole family will
+be there next.”
+
+“Why,” said Agnes, somewhat surprised by this speech, “these are only
+cats.”
+
+“Cats?”
+
+“Yes’m. Cats. That is, _a_ cat and four kittens.”
+
+Mrs. Adams started down the path to see. The girls stopped before her
+gate. At that moment there was a whoop, a scrambling in the road, and
+a boy and a bulldog appeared from around the nearest corner.
+
+With unerring instinct the bulldog, true to his nature, came charging
+for the cat he saw in Agnes’ arms.
+
+Poor old Sandy-face came to life in a hurry. From a condition of calm
+repose, she leaped in a second of time to wild and vociferous
+activity. Matters were on a war basis instantly.
+
+She uttered a single “Yow!” and leaped straight out of Agnes’ arms to
+the bole of a maple tree standing just inside Mrs. Adams’ fence. She
+forgot her kittens and everything else, and scrambled up the tree for
+dear life, while the bulldog, tongue hanging out, and his little red
+eyes all alight with excitement, leaped against the fence as though
+he, too, would scramble over it and up the tree.
+
+[Illustration: She forgot her kittens and everything else, and scrambled
+up the tree for dear life.]
+
+“Oh! that horrid dog! Take him away, you Sammy Pinkney!” cried Mrs.
+Adams. “Come into the yard, girls!”
+
+The gate was open, and the little girls ran in with the basket of
+kittens. Each kitten, in spite of its youth, was standing stiff-legged
+in the basket, its tiny back arched, its fur on end, and was
+“spitting” with all its might.
+
+The mother cat had forgotten her children in this moment of panic. The
+dancing bulldog outside the fence quite crazed her. She ran out on the
+first limb of the tree, and leaped from it into the next tree. There
+was a long row of maples here and the frightened Sandy-face went from
+one to the other like a squirrel.
+
+“She’s running away! she’s running away!” cried Agnes.
+
+“Where did you get that cat and those kittens, child?” demanded Mrs.
+Adams.
+
+“At Mr. Stetson’s store,” said Agnes, sadly, as the old cat
+disappeared.
+
+“She’s going back,” said the lady firmly. “That’s where she is going.
+A scared cat always will make for home, if she can. And now! what
+under the canopy are you going to do with that mess of
+kittens—without a cat to mother them?”
+
+Agnes was stricken dumb for the moment. Tess and Dot were all but in
+tears. The situation was very complicated indeed, even if the boy had
+urged his dog away from the gate.
+
+The four little kittens presented a problem to the Corner House girls
+that was too much for even the ready Agnes to solve. Here were the
+kittens. The cat had gone back. Agnes had a long scratch on her
+arm—and it smarted. Tess and Dot were on the verge of tears, while
+the kittens began to mew and refused to be pacified.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE VANISHING KITTENS
+
+
+“What you’ll do with those little tykes, I don’t see,” said Mrs.
+Adams, who was not much of a comforter, although kind-hearted. “You’d
+better take them back to Mr. Stetson, Aggie.”
+
+“No-o. I don’t think he’d like that,” said Agnes. “He told Myra to get
+rid of them and I promised to take them away and keep them.”
+
+“But that old cat’s gone back,” decided the lady.
+
+“I s’pect you’ll have to go after her again, Aggie,” said Tess.
+
+“But I won’t carry her—loose—in my arms,” declared the bigger girl,
+with emphasis. “See what she did to me,” and she displayed the long,
+inflamed scratch again.
+
+“Put her in a bag, child,” advised Mrs. Adams. “You little ones come
+around here to the back stoop and we’ll try to make the kittens drink
+warm milk. They’re kind of small, but maybe they’re hungry enough to
+put their tongues into the dish.”
+
+She bustled away with Tess and Dot and the basket of kittens, while
+Agnes started back along the street toward the grocery store. She had
+rather lost interest in Sandy-face and her family.
+
+At once Tess and Dot were strongly taken with the possibility of
+teaching the kittens to drink. Mrs. Adams warmed the milk, poured it
+into a saucer, and set it down on the top step. Each girl grabbed a
+kitten and the good lady took the other two.
+
+They thrust the noses of the kittens toward the milk, and immediately
+the little things backed away, and made great objections to their
+introduction to this new method of feeding.
+
+The little black one, with the white nose and the spot of white over
+one eye, got some milk on its whiskers, and immediately sneezed.
+
+“My goodness me!” exclaimed Dot, worriedly, “I believe this kitten’s
+catching cold. Suppose it has a real _hard_ cold before its mother
+comes back? What shall we do about it?”
+
+This set Mrs. Adams to laughing so hard that she could scarcely hold
+her kittens. But she dipped their noses right into the milk, and after
+they had coughed and sputtered a little, they began to lick their
+chops and found the warm milk much to their taste.
+
+Only, they did not seem to know how to get at it. They nosed around
+the edge of the saucer in the most ridiculous way, getting just a wee
+mite. They found it very good, no doubt, but were unable to discover
+just where the milk was.
+
+“Did you ever see such particular things?” asked the impatient Mrs.
+Adams. She suddenly pushed the black and white kitten (the girls had
+already called it “Spotty”) right up against the dish. Now, no
+cat—not even a very tiny cat like this one—cares to be pushed, and
+to save itself from such indignity, Spotty put out one paw
+and—splash!—it went right into the dish.
+
+Oh! how he shook the wet paw and backed away. Cats do not like to get
+their feet wet. Spotty began licking the wet paw to dry it and right
+then and there he discovered something!
+
+The milk on it tasted very good. He sat up in the funniest way and
+licked it all off, and Dot danced around, delighted to see him.
+
+A little of the milk had been spilled on the step, and one of the
+speckled kittens found this, and began to lap it up with a tiny pink
+tongue. With a little urging the other two kittens managed to get some
+milk, too, but Spotty was the brightest—at least, the girls thought
+so.
+
+After he had licked his paw dry, he ventured over to the saucer again,
+smelled around the edge, and then deliberately dipped in his paw and
+proceeded to lap it dry once more.
+
+“Isn’t he the cunningest little thing that ever was?” demanded Tess,
+clapping her hands. Dot was so greatly moved that she had to sit down
+and just watch the black and white kitten. She could not speak for
+happiness, at first, but when she _did_ speak, she said:
+
+“Isn’t it nice that there’s such things as kittens in the world? I
+don’t s’pose they are useful at all till they’re _cats_, but they are
+awfully pretty!”
+
+“Isn’t she the little, old-fashioned thing?” murmured Mrs. Adams.
+
+Tess and Dot were very much at home and the kittens were curled up in
+the basket again in apparent contentment, when Agnes returned.
+
+She had Sandy-face in a sack, and it was just about all Agnes could do
+to carry the cat without getting scratched again. For Sandy’s claws
+came through the flimsy bag, and she knew not friend from foe in her
+present predicament.
+
+“I declare! I had no idea cats had so little sense,” Agnes sighed,
+sitting down, quite heated. “Wouldn’t you think she’d be _glad_ to be
+taken to a good home—and with her kittens, too?”
+
+“Maybe _we_ wouldn’t have any more sense if we were being carried in a
+sack,” said Tess, thoughtfully.
+
+“Well!” exclaimed Aggie. “She knew enough to go back to Mr. Stetson’s
+store, that’s sure. He had to catch her for me, for Myra was out. He
+says we’ll have to watch her for a few days, but I don’t believe she’d
+have left her kittens if that bad Sam Pinkney hadn’t come along with
+his dog—do you, Mrs. Adams?”
+
+“No, deary. I think she’ll stay with the kittens all right,” said the
+old lady, comfortingly.
+
+“Well, let’s go on home, girls,” said Agnes, rising from the step.
+“We’ve bothered Mrs. Adams long enough.”
+
+“We’ve had an awfully nice time here,” said Tess, smiling at the old
+lady, and not forgetful of her manners.
+
+“I’m glad you came, dearies. Come again. I’m going to have a little
+party here for you Corner House girls, some day, if you’ll come to
+it.”
+
+“Oh, I just _love_ parties,” declared Dot, her eyes shining. “If Ruth
+will let us we’ll come—won’t we, Tess?”
+
+“Certainly,” agreed Tess.
+
+“Of course we’ll come, Mrs. Adams,” cried Agnes, as she led the way
+with the me-owing cat in the sack, while the two smaller girls carried
+the sleeping kittens with care.
+
+They reached home without any further adventure. Ruth came running
+from Aunt Sarah’s room to see the kittens. When they let Sandy-face
+out of the bag in the dining-room, she scurried under the sofa and
+refused to be coaxed forth.
+
+The children insisted upon taking the kittens up to show Aunt Sarah,
+and it was determined to keep the old cat in the dining-room till
+evening, at any rate; so the basket was set down by the sofa. Each
+girl finally bore a kitten up to Aunt Sarah’s room.
+
+Agnes had chosen Spotty for her very own—and the others said she
+ought to have her choice, seeing that she had been through so much
+trouble to get the old mother cat and her family—and received a
+scratch on her arm, too!
+
+They remained long enough in Auntie’s room to choose names for all the
+other three kittens. Ruth’s was named Popocatepetl—of course, “Petl,”
+for short (pronounced like “petal”) is pretty for a kitten—“reminds
+one of a flower, I guess,” said Tess.
+
+Tess herself chose for her particular pet the good old fashioned name
+of “Almira.” “You see,” she said, “it’s sort of in memory of Miss
+Almira Briggs who was my teacher back in Bloomingsburg, and Myra
+Stetson, who gave us the cats.”
+
+Dot wavered a long time between “Fairy” and “Elf” as a name for the
+fourth kitten, and finally she decided on “Bungle”! That was because
+the little, staggery thing, when put down on the floor, tried to chase
+Aunt Sarah’s ball of yarn and bungled the matter in a most ridiculous
+fashion.
+
+So, Spotty, Petl, Almira and Bungle, the kittens became. Aunt Sarah
+had a soft spot in her heart for cats—what maiden lady has not? She
+approved of them, and the children told her their whole adventure with
+Sandy-face and her family.
+
+“Butter her feet,” was the old lady’s single audible comment upon
+their story, but the girls did not know what for, nor just what Aunt
+Sarah meant. They seldom ventured to ask her to explain her cryptic
+sayings, so they carried the kittens downstairs with puzzled minds.
+
+“What do you s’pose she meant, Ruth?” demanded Agnes. “‘Butter her
+feet,’ indeed. Why, the old cat would get grease all over everything.”
+
+So they merely put the kittens back into the basket, and left the
+dining-room to Sandy-face and her family, until it was time for Uncle
+Rufus to set the table for evening dinner.
+
+“Das old cat sho’ done feel ter home now,” said the black man,
+chuckling. “She done got inter dat basket wid dem kittens an’ dey is
+havin’ a reg’lar love feast wid each odder, dey is so glad ter be
+united once mo’. Mebbe dat ol’ speckled cat kin clean out de mice.”
+
+Of course, Uncle Rufus was not really a “black” man, save that he was
+of pure African blood. He was a brown man—a rich, chocolate color.
+But his daughter, Petunia Blossom, when she came to get the
+wash-clothes, certainly proved to be as black—and almost as shiny—as
+the kitchen range!
+
+“How come she is so dreful _brack_, I sho’ dunno,” groaned Uncle
+Rufus. “Her mudder was a well-favored brown lady—not a mite darker
+dan me—an’ as I ’member my pappy an’ mammy, ’way back dere befo’ de
+wah, wasn’t none o’ dese common _brack_ negras—no, Ma’am!
+
+“But Pechunia, she done harked back to some ol’ antsister” (he meant
+“ancestor”) “wot must ha’ been marked mighty permiscuous wid de
+tarbrush. Does jes’ look lak’ yo’ could rub de soot off Pechunia wid
+yo’ finger!”
+
+Petunia was enormously fat, too, but she was a pretty colored woman,
+without Uncle Rufus’ broad, flat features. And she had a great number
+of bright and cunning pickaninnies.
+
+“How many I got in to-tal, Missie?” she repeated Ruth’s question.
+“Lor’ bress yo’! Sometimes I scurce remember dem all. Dere’s two
+merried an’ moved out o’ town. Den dere’s two mo’ wokin’; das four,
+ain’t it? Den de good Lor’ sen’ me twins twicet—das mak’ eight, ef my
+’rithmetickle am cor-rect. An’ dere’s Alfredia, an’ Jackson, and
+Burne-Jones Whis’ler Blossom (he done been named by Mis’ Holcomb, de
+artis’ lady, wot I wok fo’) an’ de baby, an’ Louisa Annette, an’
+an’—— Bress de Lor’, Missie, I ’spect das ’bout all.”
+
+Ruth had lost count and could only laugh over the names foistered upon
+the helpless brown babies. Uncle Rufus “snorted” over the catalog of
+his daughter’s progeny.
+
+“Huh! dem names don’t mean nuthin’, an’ so I tell her,” he grunted.
+“But yo’ cyan’t put sense in de head ob a flighty negra-woman—no,
+Ma’am! She called dem by sech _circusy_ names ’cause dey _sounds_
+pretty. Sound an’ no sense! Huh!”
+
+Just now, however, the Corner House girls were more deeply interested
+in the names of the four kittens, and in keeping them straight (for
+three were marked almost exactly alike), than they were in the names
+which had been forced upon the helpless family of Petunia Blossom.
+
+Having already had one lesson in lapping milk from a saucer, the
+kittens were made to go through the training again after dinner, under
+the ministrations of Tess and Dot.
+
+Sandy-face, who seemed to have become fairly contented by this time,
+sat by and watched her offspring coughing and sputtering over the warm
+milk and finally, deciding that they had had enough, came and drank it
+all up herself.
+
+Dot was rather inclined to think that this was “piggish” on Sandy’s
+part.
+
+“I don’t think you’re a bit polite, Sandy,” she said, gravely, to the
+mother cat while the latter calmly washed her face. “You had your
+dinner, you know, before Mrs. McCall brought in the milk.”
+
+They all trooped out to see Uncle Rufus establish Sandy and her family
+for the night in the woodshed. The cat seemed to fancy the nest in the
+old basket, so they did not change it, and when they left the family,
+shutting the woodshed door tightly, they supposed Sandy and her
+children would be safe for the night.
+
+In the morning, however, a surprise awaited Tess and Dot, when they
+ran out to the shed to see how the kittens were. Sandy-face was
+sleeping soundly in the basket and Spotty and Petl were crawling all
+over her. Almira and Bungle had disappeared!
+
+The two smallest girls searched all about the shed, and then a wail
+arose from Dot, when she was assured that her own, and Tess’ kitten,
+were really not to be found. Dot’s voice brought the whole family,
+including Uncle Rufus, to the shed door.
+
+“Al-mi-ra and Bungle’s lost-ed!” sobbed Dot. “Somebody came and took
+them, while poor Sandy was asleep. See!”
+
+It was true. Not a trace of the missing kittens could be found. The
+shed door had not been opened by any of the family before Tess and Dot
+arrived. There was only a small window, high up in the end wall of the
+shed, open a very little way for ventilation.
+
+How could the kittens have gotten away without human help? It did look
+as though Almira and Bungle had been stolen. At least, they had
+vanished, and even Dot did not believe that there were kitten fairies
+who could bewitch Sandy’s children and spirit them away!
+
+Sandy-face herself seemed the least disturbed of anybody over the lost
+kittens. Uncle Rufus declared that “das cat sho’ nuff cyan’t count.
+She done t’ink she’s sho’ got all de kittens she ever had.”
+
+“I do believe it was that Sam Pinkney boy,” whispered Tess, to Agnes.
+“He’s just as bad as Tommy Rooney was—every bit!”
+
+“But how would he know where we had housed the kittens for the night?”
+demanded Agnes. “I don’t see why anybody should want to take two
+little, teeny kittens from their mother.”
+
+Tess and Dot watched closely the remainder of Sandy’s family. They
+believed that the mother cat _did_ discover at last that she was
+“short” two kittens, for she did not seem satisfied with her home in
+the woodshed. Twice they caught her with a kitten in her mouth,
+outside the woodshed door, which had been left open.
+
+“Now, Sandy,” said Dot, seriously, “you mustn’t try to move Spotty and
+Petl. First thing you know you’ll lose them _all_; then you won’t have
+any kittens. And I don’t believe they like being carried by the backs
+of their necks—I don’t. For they just _squall_!”
+
+Sandy seemed offended by the girls’ interference, and she went off by
+herself and remained out of sight for half a day. Tess and Dot began
+to be worried about the mother cat before Sandy turned up again and
+snuggled the two remaining kittens in the basket, once more.
+
+That second evening they shut the cat and her two kittens into the
+shed just as carefully as before. In the morning only Spotty was left!
+The speckled little Popocatepetl had vanished, too!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RUTH SEES SOMETHING
+
+
+The mystery of the vanishing kittens cast a cloud of gloom over the
+minds of the younger Corner House girls. Besides, it had rained in the
+night and was still raining after breakfast. It was a dull, gloomy
+day.
+
+“Just a nice day for us to start cleaning the garret,” Ruth said,
+trying to put cheer into the hearts of her sisters. “Only Mr.
+Howbridge, who has been away, has written me to come to his office
+this forenoon. He wants to arrange about several matters, he says.
+I’ll have to go and we’ll postpone the garret rummage till I get
+back.”
+
+“Poor Sandy’s all wet and muddy,” said Dot, who could not get her
+troubled mind off the cat family. “Just as though _she’d_ been out in
+the rain. But I don’t see how that could be. She’s washing up now by
+the kitchen stove.”
+
+They had brought the mother cat and Spotty into the kitchen for
+safety. Uncle Rufus shook his head over the mysterious disappearance
+of Petl, Almira and Bungle, too; whispering to Mrs. McCall:
+
+“Do look for sho’ as though rats had got dem kittins. Dunno what
+else.”
+
+“For goodness sake, don’t tell me there are rats here, Uncle Rufus!”
+exclaimed the widow, anxiously. “I couldn’t sleep in my bed nights.”
+
+“Dunno whar you’d sleep safer, Mis’ McCall, ter git away from ’em,”
+chuckled the old colored man. “But I exemplifies de fac’ dat I ain’t
+seed none ob dere tracks.”
+
+Occasionally Uncle Rufus “threw in a word” in conversation which
+sounded euphonious in his own ears, but had little to do with the real
+meaning of his speech.
+
+Nobody whispered “rats” to the little girls; and Tess and Dot scarcely
+let Sandy and the remaining kitten out of their sight. It was a windy,
+storm-stricken day, and they took the mother cat and Spotty up to Aunt
+Sarah’s room to play.
+
+Ruth put on her rain-coat, seized an umbrella, and ventured forth. She
+knew she could find her way to Mr. Howbridge’s office, down town,
+although she had never visited it before.
+
+The lawyer was very glad to see the oldest Corner House girl, and told
+her so. “I am hearing some good reports of you, Miss Kenway,” he said,
+smiling at her in his odd way, and with his keen eyes looking sharply
+over the high bridge of his nose, as though he were gazing deep into
+Ruth’s mind.
+
+“Some of these Milton people think that you girls need closer watching
+than you are getting. So they say. What do you think? Do you feel the
+need of a sterner guardian?”
+
+“I think you are a very nice guardian,” admitted Ruth, shyly. “And we
+are having awfully nice times up there at the old Corner House, Mr.
+Howbridge. I hope we are not spending too much money?”
+
+He put on his eyeglasses again and scanned the totals of the store
+bills and other memoranda she had brought him. He shook his head and
+smiled again:
+
+“I believe you are a born housekeeper. Of course, I knew that Mrs.
+McCall wouldn’t let you go far wrong. But I see no evidence of a lack
+of economy on your part. And now, we must see about your spending some
+more money, Miss Kenway.”
+
+“Oh! it seems like a lot to me,” said Ruth, faintly. “And—and I must
+tell you something perhaps you won’t like. We—we have an addition to
+the family.”
+
+“How’s that?” he asked, in surprise.
+
+“We—we have Uncle Rufus,” explained Ruth.
+
+“What! has that old darkey come bothering you?”
+
+“Oh! he isn’t a bother. Not at all. I thought he was too old to do
+much, but he is _so_ handy—and he finds so many little things to do.
+And then——Why, Mr. Howbridge! it’s just like home to him.”
+
+“Ha! Undoubtedly. And so he told you? Worked on your feelings? You are
+going to have the whole family on you, next. You will have more wages
+to pay out than the estate will stand.”
+
+“Dear me, sir!” cried Ruth. “Don’t say that. I am not paying Uncle
+Rufus a penny. I told him I couldn’t—until I had seen you about it,
+at least. And he is willing to stay anyhow—so he says.”
+
+“I don’t know about that old darkey,” said Mr. Howbridge, slowly. “I
+believe he knew more about Mr. Peter Stower’s private affairs than he
+seemed willing to tell the time I talked to him after your Uncle
+Peter’s death. I don’t know about your keeping him there.”
+
+“Do you think he may know where Uncle Peter hid his private papers,
+sir?” asked Ruth, eagerly.
+
+“Yes, I do. He’s an ignorant old negro. He might get the papers into
+his hands, and the will might be lost forever.”
+
+“Oh, sir!” cried Ruth, earnestly, “I don’t think Uncle Rufus is at all
+dishonest. I asked him about Uncle Peter’s hiding away things. He
+knows what folks say about uncle’s being a miser.”
+
+“Well?” said Mr. Howbridge, questioningly.
+
+“Uncle Rufus says he knows his old master was that way. Aunt Sarah
+says Uncle Peter was just like a magpie—that he hid away things
+without any real reason for it.”
+
+“Ha! Miss Maltby was not fond of Mr. Peter Stower. They did not get
+along well together.”
+
+“No, sir. I fancy not. And of course, Aunt Sarah doesn’t say much,
+anyway. She is real hurt to think that he did not leave her the house
+and money instead of leaving it to us,” and Ruth sighed.
+
+“Oh, he left her enough in his will to keep her in comfort for the
+remainder of her life. She need not be envious,” said the lawyer,
+carelessly.
+
+“Well,” sighed Ruth, “that isn’t what Aunt Sarah wanted. She feels she
+ought to own the house. But we can’t help that, can we!”
+
+“No. Do not worry about your Aunt Sarah’s fidgets,” said the lawyer,
+smiling once more. “But about Uncle Rufus?”
+
+Ruth had opened her bag, and now drew forth the scrap of paper Uncle
+Rufus had given her. “Who do you think wrote that, sir?” she asked Mr.
+Howbridge, simply.
+
+The moment the lawyer saw it he scowled. Staring at the paper fixedly
+for some moments in silence, he finally asked:
+
+“When did the old darkey say he was given this?”
+
+“The day before Uncle Peter died. He said the poor old gentleman
+couldn’t talk, then, but he managed to write that line. _Is_ it Uncle
+Peter’s handwriting?”
+
+“It certainly is. Shaky, but plainly Mr. Stower’s own hand.”
+
+“Oh, sir! let us keep Uncle Rufus, then,” begged Ruth, quickly.
+
+“But you understand, Miss Kenway, that this request, unsigned as it
+is, hasn’t an iota of legal weight?”
+
+“I don’t care!” said Ruth.
+
+“Why didn’t the old man show it to me?”
+
+“He was keeping it to show to the relatives of Uncle Peter who, he
+expected, would have the old Corner House.”
+
+“Ha! and he was afraid of the lawyer, I suppose?”
+
+“You—you were not very sympathetic, were you?” said Ruth, slowly.
+
+“Right! I wasn’t. I could not be. I did not see my way clear to making
+any provision for Uncle Rufus, for I knew very well that Mr. Stower
+had not mentioned the old serving man in his will.”
+
+“Well—you’ll let us keep him?”
+
+“If you like. I’ll see that he has a little money every month, too.
+And now I must not give you much more time to-day, my dear. But I wish
+to put this envelope into your hand. In it you will find the amount of
+money which I consider wise for each of you girls to spend
+monthly—your allowance, I mean.
+
+“Such dresses as you need, will be paid for separately. You will find
+that a charge account has been opened for you at this store,” and he
+passed the surprised Ruth the business card of the largest department
+store in town. “But buy wisely. If you spend too much, be sure you
+will hear from me. The monthly allowance is pin-money. Squander it as
+you please without accounting to me—only to your own consciences,”
+and he laughed and rose to show her out of his private office.
+
+Ruth thanked him and slipped the bulky envelope into her bag. She
+could not open it there, or on the street, and she hurried homeward,
+eager to see just what Mr. Howbridge considered a proper allowance for
+the Corner House Girls to “squander.”
+
+The east wind was tearing across the parade ground and the trees
+overhead, as Ruth started over the big common, writhed in the clutch
+of it. The rain came in fitful dashes. The girl sheltered herself as
+best she could with the umbrella.
+
+Such gusts are hard to judge, however. Although she clung to the
+umbrella with both hands, one savage squall swept down upon Ruth
+Kenway and fairly snatched the umbrella from her grasp. It whirled
+away over the wet lawn, and turned inside out!
+
+“No use chasing _that_ thing,” said Ruth, in disgust. “It’s past
+repairing. I’ll just have to face it.”
+
+She hurried on, her head bowed before the slanting rain. She came to
+the Willow Street crossing and glanced up at the old Corner House. Not
+only could she see the great, frowning front of the mansion, with its
+four huge pillars, but she could view, too, the side next to Willow
+Street.
+
+Nobody was looking out of the windows on the watch for her, that she
+could see. The parlors were on this side of the main building, and the
+girls did not use them. Above, on the second floor, were the sleeping
+room and library in which Uncle Peter had spent the last years of his
+life.
+
+Above those blind windows was another row of windows on the third
+floor, with the shades pulled down tightly. And then, above those, in
+the peak of the roof, were several small garret windows.
+
+“That’s where that girl said the ghost came and looked out,” Ruth said
+aloud, stopping suddenly.
+
+And just at that identical moment the ghost _did_ look out!
+
+Ruth saw it. Only for a moment, but just as plain as plain could be! A
+white, fluttering figure—a sort of faceless figure with what seemed
+to be long garments fluttering about it.
+
+Nobody ever has to see a ghost to know just what one looks like.
+People who see ghosts recognize their appearance by intuition. This
+was the garret ghost of the old Corner House, and Ruth was the first
+of the Kenway girls to see it.
+
+She had made fun of Agnes’ belief in things supernatural, but she
+could not control the shaking of her own limbs now. It was visible up
+there at the garret window for only half a minute; yet Ruth knew it
+was no hallucination.
+
+It disappeared with a jump. She did not wait to see if it came back
+again, but scurried across the street and in at the side gate, and so
+to the back porch, with scarcely a breath left in her body.
+
+Ruth was just as scared as she could be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN THE GARRET
+
+
+It would never do to burst into the house and scare the younger girls.
+This thought halted Ruth Kenway, with her hand upon the knob of the
+outer door.
+
+She waited, getting her breath back slowly, and recovering from the
+shock that had set every nerve in her body trembling. Of course she
+did not believe in ghosts! Then, why should she have been so
+frightened by the fluttering figure seen—for only half a minute, or
+so—in the garret window of the old Corner House?
+
+Like the old lady in the fable, she did not believe in ghosts, but she
+was very much afraid of them!
+
+“It’s quite ridiculous, I know,” Ruth told herself, “for a great big
+thing like me to shake and shiver over what I positively _know_ is
+merely imagination. That was an old skirt—or a bag—or a cloak—or
+_something_, waving there at that window.
+
+“Er—er, that’s just it!” breathed Ruth. “It was _something_. And
+until I find out just what it is, I shall not be satisfied. Now, I’m
+going to be brave, and walk in there to the girls and Mrs. McCall, and
+say nothing. But we’ll start cleaning that garret this very
+afternoon,” she concluded, nodding a determined head.
+
+So she ran into the house to find her three sisters in the
+dining-room, with such a peculiar air upon them that Ruth could not
+fail to be shocked. “What under the canopy, as Mrs. McCall says, is
+the matter with you all!” she demanded.
+
+“Well! I am glad you have come home, Ruth,” Agnes began, impulsively.
+“The most mysterious things happen around this house——”
+
+“Hush!” commanded Ruth. “What is it now? You come up stairs to our
+room and tell me while I change my clothes. You little ones stay down
+here till sister comes back.”
+
+Agnes had stopped at her warning, and meekly followed Ruth up stairs.
+In their room the older girl turned on her and demanded:
+
+“What did you see, Aggie?”
+
+“I didn’t—it was Tess saw him,” replied Agnes, quickly.
+
+“_Him?_” gasped Ruth.
+
+“Yes. Of course, it’s foolish. But so many strange things happen in
+this old house. First, you know, what Eva Larry told me about the
+ghost——”
+
+“Sh! you haven’t seen it?”
+
+“The ghost!” squealed Agnes. “I should hope not. If I had——”
+
+She signified by her look and manner that such an apparition would
+have quite overcome her.
+
+“It was Tess,” she said.
+
+“She hasn’t been to the garret?”
+
+“Of course not! You believe in that old ghost, after all, Ruth.”
+
+“What nonsense!”
+
+“Well, if it wasn’t a ghost Tess saw, it was something like it. The
+child is convinced. And coming on top of those vanishing kittens——”
+
+“For mercy’s sake, Aggie Kenway!” screamed Ruth, grabbing her by the
+shoulders and giving Agnes a little shake. “_Do_ be more lucid.”
+
+“Why—ee! I guess I haven’t told you much,” laughed Agnes. “It was
+Tess who looked out of the kitchen window a little while ago and saw
+Tommy Rooney going by the house—on Willow Street.”
+
+“Tommy Rooney?”
+
+“Yes. Tess declares it was. And she’s not imaginative like Dot, you
+know.”
+
+“Not Tommy Rooney, from Bloomingsburg?”
+
+“There isn’t any other Tommy Rooney that we know,” said Agnes, quite
+calm now. “And if _that_ doesn’t make a string of uncanny happenings,
+I don’t know what _would_. First the ghost in the garret——”
+
+“But—but you haven’t seen that?” interrupted Ruth, faintly.
+
+“No, thank goodness! But it’s _there_. And then the vanishing
+kittens——”
+
+“Has Spotty gone?”
+
+“No. But Sandy-face has, and has been gone ever since you went out,
+Ruth. I don’t think much of that mother cat. She doesn’t stay at home
+with her family hardly at all.
+
+“Then this boy who looks like Tommy Rooney,” concluded Agnes. “For of
+course it can’t really _be_ Tommy any more than it can be his spirit.”
+
+“I’m glad to see you have some sense, Ag,” said Ruth, with a sigh.
+“Now let’s go down to the other girls, or they will think we’re hiding
+something from them.”
+
+Ruth carried down stairs in her hand the envelope Mr. Howbridge had
+given to her. The sisters gathered in the dining-room, and Agnes
+picked up Spotty to comfort him while his mother was absent. “Poor
+’ittle s’ing!” she cooed over the funny little kitten. “He don’t know
+wedder him’s got any mudder, or not.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said Dot, gravely, “that Sandy-face must be hunting
+for her lost children. She wouldn’t really neglect this poor little
+Spotty for any other reason—would she?”
+
+“Of course not,” Ruth said, briskly. “Now, girls, look here. Mr.
+Howbridge says we may keep Uncle Rufus, and he will pay him.”
+
+“Oh, goody!” cried Agnes, clapping her hands.
+
+At once Spotty tumbled off her lap and scurried under the sofa. He was
+not used to such actions.
+
+“Now you’ve scared Spotty, I’m afraid,” said Tess.
+
+“He can get over his scare. What’s that in your hand, Ruth?” demanded
+Agnes.
+
+“This is some money Mr. Howbridge gave me for us to spend. He calls it
+our monthly allowance. He says we are to use it just as we
+please—each of us.”
+
+“Is some of it mine?” asked Dot.
+
+“Yes, dearie. We’ll see how much he gives you to spend for your very
+owniest own, first of all.”
+
+Ruth tore open the big envelope and shook out four sealed envelopes of
+smaller size. She sorted them and found the one addressed in Mr.
+Howbridge’s clerkly hand to “Miss Dorothy Kenway.”
+
+“Now open it, Dot,” urged Tess.
+
+The little girl did so, with sparkling eyes and the color flushing
+into her cheeks. From the envelope, when it was opened, she drew a
+crisp, folded dollar bill.
+
+“My!” she murmured. “A whole—new—dollar bill! My! And can I spend it
+all, Ruthie?”
+
+“Surely,” said the elder sister, smiling.
+
+“Then I know just what I’m going to do,” said Dot, nodding her head.
+
+“What’s that?” asked Agnes.
+
+“I’m going to buy some candy on Saturday that’s not pep’mints. I just
+_am_. I’m tired of Aunt Sarah’s old pep’mint drops.”
+
+The other girls laughed loudly at this decision of Dot’s. “You funny
+little thing!” said Ruth. “Of course you shall buy candy—if you want
+to. But I wouldn’t spend the whole dollar for it. Remember, you’ll get
+no more spending money until this time next month.”
+
+“I should hope she’d have sense enough to kind of spread it out
+through the month,” said Agnes. “Hurry up, Ruth. Let’s see what he’s
+given the rest of us.”
+
+Tess opened her envelope and found a dollar and a half. “Oh, I’m
+_rich_!” she declared. “I’m awfully obliged to Mr. Howbridge. I’ll
+tell him so when he comes again.” Then she turned swiftly to Dot and
+hugged her. “You don’t mind if I have half a dollar more than _you_
+do, Dot?” she asked. “I’ll divide it with you.”
+
+That was Tess’ way. She could not bear to think that anybody’s
+feelings were hurt because of her. Ruth intervened:
+
+“Dot knows you are two whole years older than she, Tess. Both of you
+have more money to spend than you ever had before, and I am sure
+neither will be selfish with it.”
+
+Agnes grabbed her envelope. “I’m just as anxious to see as I can be,”
+she confessed.
+
+When she ripped open the envelope she drew forth two crisp dollar
+bills. But in Ruth’s there were five dollars.
+
+“My! it’s a lot of money,” Agnes said. “And I guess you _ought_ to
+have more than us—a great deal more, Ruthie. I’m glad of my two
+dollars. I can treat Eva Larry and Myra Stetson. And I’ll get some new
+ribbons, and a book I saw in a window that I want to read. Then,
+there’s the prettiest pair of buckles for fifty cents in the shoeshop
+window right down Main Street. Did you see them, Ruth? I want them for
+my best slippers. They’ll look scrumptious! And I’d _love_ to have one
+of those embroidered handkerchiefs that they sell at the Lady’s Shop.
+Besides, it’s nice to have a little change to rattle in one’s
+purse——”
+
+“Mercy!” exclaimed Ruth. “You’ve spent your allowance twice over,
+already. And you still hope to rattle it in your purse! You want to
+have your cake, and eat it, too—which is something that nobody ever
+managed to accomplish yet, my dear.”
+
+It was really wonderful for them all to have money of their own that
+need not be accounted for. They came to the luncheon table with very
+bright faces, despite the stormy day. They did not say anything,
+before Aunt Sarah, about the allowance Mr. Howbridge had given them.
+Ruth was afraid that Aunt Sarah might feel hurt about it.
+
+“She _is_ so touchy,” she said to the others, “about Uncle Peter’s
+money. And she ought to know that she is just as welcome to her share
+as she can be!”
+
+“I expect,” the thoughtful Tess said, “that Aunt Sarah would have
+enjoyed giving to us just as much as we enjoy giving to her. Maybe
+_that’s_ what’s the matter with her.”
+
+Perhaps that was partly Aunt Sarah’s trouble. However, there were
+other topics of conversation to keep their tongues busy, if the money
+was tabooed. Tess could not keep from talking about Tommy Rooney.
+
+“I _know_ it was Tommy I saw,” she declared.
+
+“But how could Tommy get here, clear from Bloomingsburg?” Ruth said.
+“You know how long it took us to get here by train.”
+
+“I know, Sister,” Tess said. “But it _was_ Tommy. And he must have had
+an awfully hard time.”
+
+“Do—do you s’pose he is looking for us?” queried Dot.
+
+“Don’t you fret, Dot,” assured Agnes. “He sha’n’t jump out and say
+‘Boo!’ at you any more.”
+
+“It isn’t that. I guess the dark scared me more than Tommy did,”
+confessed Dot. “But say, Tess! Did he have his Indian suit on when he
+went by in the rain?”
+
+“No. Just rags,” declared Tess.
+
+After luncheon Ruth rummaged for brooms, brushes and dustcloths. Mrs.
+McCall asked:
+
+“What under the canopy are you girls going to do now?”
+
+“Garret. Going to clean it,” said Agnes.
+
+“You’re never going up in that garret in a storm?” demanded the widow,
+with a strange look on her face.
+
+“Why not?” asked Agnes, eagerly.
+
+“What do you want to bother with it for?” the good lady asked Ruth
+without making Agnes any reply.
+
+“So we can play there on just such days as this,” said Ruth, firmly.
+“It will make a splendid playroom.”
+
+“Well! I wouldn’t do it for a farm,” declared Mrs. McCall, and at once
+went out of the room, so that the girls could not ask further
+questions. Agnes whispered to Ruth:
+
+“She knows about the ghost, all right!”
+
+“Don’t be so silly,” the older girl said. But her own heart throbbed
+tumultuously as she led the procession up the garret stairs a little
+later. They could hear the wind whistling around the house up here. A
+shutter rattled, and then the wind gurgled deep in the throat of one
+of the unused chimneys.
+
+“Goodness!” gasped Tess. “How many strange voices the storm has,
+hasn’t it? Say, Dot! do you s’pose we’ll find that goat of yours up
+here now?”
+
+“I don’t care,” said the littler girl. “Aggie and Ruth were talking
+about something that sounded like ‘goat’ that night in bed. And they
+won’t tell now what it was.”
+
+“You must never play eavesdropper,” said Ruth, seriously. “It is very
+unlady-like.”
+
+“Then folks shouldn’t whisper,” declared Dot, quickly. “Nobody would
+ever _try_ to listen, if folks spoke right out loud. You say,
+yourself, Ruth, that it’s not polite to whisper.”
+
+They opened the garret door and peered in. Although it was so dull a
+day outside, there was plenty of light up here. The rain beat against
+some of the windows and the wind shook and rattled the sashes.
+
+Ruth’s gaze turned instantly upon the window at which she believed she
+had seen the moving figure from across Willow Street. There was
+nothing hanging near that window that could possibly have shown from
+without.
+
+She forced herself to go directly to the place. It was at the right of
+one of the huge chimneys and she could make no mistake, she thought,
+for it was at the window to the right of this chimney that she had
+seen the specter appear not two hours before!
+
+A large space about this window was cleared. There was nothing near
+enough the window that could have represented the garret ghost. But
+this cleared space before the window seemed to have been made
+especially for the ghostly capers of the “haunt.”
+
+Agnes came gingerly over to where Ruth stood. She whispered in the
+older girl’s ear:
+
+“S’pose that old ghost should appear, Ruth? What would you do? You
+know, Eva said it was seen only on stormy days.”
+
+“Don’t be silly, child,” said Ruth, quite angrily. She was angry as
+much at herself for “feeling so shaky inside,” as she was at Agnes.
+
+She bustled about then, and hurried her sisters, too. They made a good
+beginning within the next two hours. Of course, it was _only_ a
+beginning. Dust and cobwebs lay thick over all. They could brush up
+only the worst of the litter.
+
+“Next clear day,” Ruth declared, “we’ll take all these old clothes
+down and hang what we want to keep on the lines in the yard. Uncle
+Rufus can have the rest. Why do you suppose Uncle Peter kept this old
+stuff?”
+
+“They say he got so he wouldn’t give away a pin, at the last,” said
+Agnes. “And some of these old things must have belonged to people dead
+and gone when Uncle Peter himself was a boy.”
+
+“I expect so,” agreed Ruth.
+
+“What do you suppose is in all these chests and trunks, Ruthie?” asked
+Tess.
+
+“Don’t know, honey. But we’ll find out some day.”
+
+Just then Uncle Rufus’ tones reached them from the stairway. He
+called, in his quavering old voice:
+
+“Missie! An’ you oder chillen. I done got somet’ing ter tell yo’.”
+
+“What is it?” cried Agnes, running to open the door at the top of the
+stairs.
+
+“I done foun’ out what happen ter dem kittens, Missie,” said Uncle
+Rufus. “You-all come ri’ down an’ I’ll show yo’.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MRS. KRANZ COMES TO CALL
+
+
+The girls came down from the garret in a hurry, when they heard this
+news. Uncle Rufus hobbled on before to the kitchen. There was
+Sandy-face and Spotty in front of the range. They were both very wet
+and the old cat was licking the kitten dry.
+
+“Where—where’s the others?” cried Tess. “Did you find Almira?”
+
+“I want my Bungle,” declared Dot. “Didn’t you find my Bungle kitten,
+Uncle Rufus?”
+
+“Sho, chile! I didn’t say I foun’ dem kittens. I on’y say I knowed
+where dey went.”
+
+“Where?” was the chorused demand.
+
+Uncle Rufus rolled his eyes and chuckled deeply. “Das ol’ cat play a
+joke on we-uns,” he declared. “She t’ink she an’ de kittens on’y come
+yere for a visit. And so she lug ’em all back to Mars’ Stetson’s
+store—ya-as’m!”
+
+“Carried them back to the store?” cried Ruth. “Oh! she couldn’t.”
+
+“Ya-as’m. One at a time. In her teef,” said Uncle Rufus, nodding
+confidently. “I jes’ kotch her out on the sidewalk wid dis leetle
+brack kitten, marchin’ straight fo’ de store. Dat how she come go ’way
+an’ stay so long. Nex’ time you go to Mars’ Stetson’s, you find dem
+dere—sho’.”
+
+“But she couldn’t have taken them out of the woodshed,” cried Agnes.
+
+“Ya-as’m, she did. She git out de winder. A cat kin squeeze through a
+moughty small space—so she kin.”
+
+“Why, you foolish Sandy-face!” exclaimed Dot. “And we tried to make
+you feel at home—didn’t we, Ruthie?”
+
+“Butter her feet,” said Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be in the kitchen
+at the moment. “I told you that before,” and she walked out.
+
+“Goodness! we’ll butter all their feet,” cried Agnes, “if that will
+keep them here. Just as soon as it holds up a little, I’ll run over to
+Mr. Stetson’s and see if it is so. The poor old thing! to carry those
+kittens so far. But, me-oh-my! cats haven’t much sense, after all,
+have they?”
+
+Uncle Rufus was proved right—and that before supper time. The rain
+held up, and Agnes scurried over to the store, bringing back, huddled
+in a small covered basket, Popocatepetl, Almira, and Bungle, who all
+seemed very glad to rejoin Spotty. Sandy-face looked absurdly pleased
+to see them—just as though she had not carried them back, one by one,
+to a hiding place behind the flour barrels in Mr. Stetson’s
+store-room!
+
+Agnes insisted upon buttering the mother-cat’s paws. And to make sure
+of it, she buttered the paws of the four kittens as well.
+
+“There,” she said, “when Sandy gets through lapping all that butter
+up, she ought to be _proud_ to stay here, for butter’s forty cents a
+pound right now!”
+
+“You extravagant thing,” sighed Ruth, shaking her head.
+
+“Yes!” cried Agnes. “And it’s so nice to be extravagant. I declare,
+Ruth, I feel that I was just born to be a rich girl. It _tickles_ me
+to be extravagant.”
+
+Since returning from Mr. Howbridge’s office, Ruth had evolved a
+question that she wished to put to Uncle Rufus. The mystery of the
+lost will was ever present in the mind of the oldest of the Corner
+House girls, and this query had to do with that mystery.
+
+“Uncle Rufus,” she asked the old man, after dinner that evening when
+he was carefully putting away the silver and they were alone together
+in the dining-room, “Uncle Rufus, do you know where Uncle Peter used
+to keep his private papers?”
+
+“Sho’, Missie, he kept dem in de safe in his study—ya-as’m. Yo’ know
+dat safe; don’t yo’?”
+
+“But Mr. Howbridge has the key to that safe, and to the desk, and all.
+And there are some things—quite important things—that he can’t find.
+Didn’t Uncle Peter have some other hiding place?”
+
+“Glo-ree, Missie! I ’spect he did,” said Uncle Rufus, rolling his
+eyes. “But I nebber knowed whar dat is.”
+
+“And you lived right here with him all those years?”
+
+“Why, Missie, I tell yo’ how it was,” said Uncle Rufus, dropping his
+voice. “Yo’ see, latterly, Mars’ Peter got pecool’ar—ya-as’m. Yo’
+might call it pecool’ar. I knowed he was superstitious of
+folks—ya-as’m. He used ter send me out on errands—plumb foolish
+errands, Missie; den I reckon he hid t’ings away. But I don’ know
+whar.”
+
+“You haven’t the least suspicion?” asked Ruth, anxiously.
+
+“Well now!” said Uncle Rufus, rubbing the bald spot on his head as
+though to stir his wits into action. “Dar was dat time he got mad at
+me.”
+
+“What about?”
+
+“I warn’t gone so long on an errand, lak’ he ’spected me ter be, I
+reckon. An’ w’en I come back he warn’t in his room, an’ dere he was
+a-comin’ down from de garret with a lighted candle.”
+
+“From the garret?”
+
+“Yes, Missie. An’ he sho’ was mad with ol’ Unc’ Rufus.”
+
+“Perhaps he hid papers, then, in one of those chests, or bureaus up
+there?”
+
+“Cyan’t say, Missie. Mebbe. But yo’ don’ ketch Unc’ Rufus goin’ up dem
+garret stairs much—no’m!”
+
+“Why not, Uncle Rufus?” asked Ruth, quickly. “Are you afraid of the
+garret ghost?”
+
+“Glo-ree! who done tell yo’ erbout _dat_?” demanded the colored man,
+rolling his eyes again. “Don’ talk erbout ghos’es; it’s sho’ baid
+luck.”
+
+That was all Ruth could get out of the old negro. He had all the fear
+of his race for supernatural things.
+
+It was the next day that Mrs. Kranz came to call. The Corner House
+girls had never seen Mrs. Kranz before, but they never could forget
+her after their first view of her!
+
+She was a huge lady, in a purple dress, and with a sweeping gray plume
+on her big hat, and lavender gloves. She had the misfortune to possess
+a hair-mole on one of her cheeks, and Dot could not keep her eyes off
+of that blemish, although she knew it was impolite to stare.
+
+Mrs. Kranz came to the front door of the old Corner House and gave a
+resounding summons on the big, brass knocker that decorated the middle
+panel. Nobody had ventured to approach that door, save Mr. Howbridge,
+since the Corner House girls had come to Milton.
+
+“Goodness! who can that be?” demanded Agnes, when the reverberations
+of the knocker echoed through the big hall.
+
+“Company! I know it’s company!” cried Tess, running to peer out of the
+dining-room window.
+
+Ruth gave a glance about the big room, which they still made their
+sitting room in general, and approached the hall. Dot whispered:
+
+“Oh-ee! I hope there are some little girls coming to call.”
+
+There was nobody but this huge lady, though half a dozen little girls
+might have hidden behind her voluminous skirts. Ruth smiled upon the
+giantess and said, quickly, “Good-morning!”
+
+“Vell!” was the deep-throated reply—almost a grunt. “Vell! iss de
+family home?”
+
+“Certainly,” said Ruth, in her politest way. “Do come in. We are all
+at home,” and she ushered the visitor into the dining-room.
+
+The lady stared hard at all the girls, and then around at the
+old-fashioned furniture; at the plate rail of Delft china which Ruth
+had taken out of a cupboard, where it had been hidden away for years;
+at the ancient cellarette; and at the few pieces of heavy plate with
+which the highboy and the lowboy were both decorated.
+
+“Vell!” exclaimed the visitor, in that exceedingly heavy voice of
+hers, and for the third time. “I hear dere iss only
+madchens—girls—in dis house. Iss dot so—heh?”
+
+“We are the four Kenway girls,” said Ruth, pleasantly. “We have no
+mother or father. But Aunt Sarah——”
+
+“But you own dis house undt all de odder houses vot belonged to dot
+cr-r-ra-zy old mans—heh?”
+
+Ruth flushed a little. She had begun to feel that such references to
+Uncle Peter were both unkind and insulting. “Uncle Peter left his
+property by will to us,” she said.
+
+“Vell, I am Mrs. Kranz,” said the large lady, her little eyes
+sparkling in rather a strange way, Ruth thought.
+
+“We are very glad to meet you—to have you call, Mrs. Kranz,” Ruth
+said. “Not many of our neighbors have been in to see us as yet.”
+
+“I aind’t von of de neighbors, Miss Kenway,” said the visitor. “I am
+choose Mrs. Kranz. I keeps de grocery store on Meadow Street yet.”
+
+“We are just as glad to see you, Mrs. Kranz,” returned Ruth, still
+smiling, “although you do not live very near us,” for she knew that
+Meadow Street was at the other side of the town.
+
+“Vell! maype nodt,” said Mrs. Kranz. “Maype you iss nodt so glad to
+see me yet. I gome to tell you dot I vill nodt stand for dot Joe
+Maroni no longer. He has got to get dot cellar oudt. His r-r-rotten
+vegetables smells in mine nostrils. His young vuns iss in my vay—undt
+dey steal. An’ dey are all very, very dirty.
+
+“I keep a nice shop—eferbody vill tell you so, Miss Kenway. Idt iss a
+clean shop, and them _Eye_-talians dey iss like pigs yet—de vay dey
+lif!” cried Mrs. Kranz, excitedly. “I pay mine rent, undt I haf mine
+rights. I gome to tell you—so-o!”
+
+“Oh, dear me!” breathed Ruth, in surprise. “I—I don’t know what you
+are talking about, Mrs. Kranz. Have—have _we_ got anything to do with
+your trouble?”
+
+“Vell!” exclaimed the large lady. “Hafn’t you say you own de house?”
+
+“So Mr. Howbridge says. We own this house——”
+
+“Undt _mine_ house,” declared Mrs. Kranz. “Undt more houses. Your
+uncle, Herr Stower, own idt. I pay mine rent to him for ten year yet.”
+
+Ruth began to see—and so did Agnes. Of course, the little girls only
+stared and wondered at the woman’s coarse voice and strange
+appearance.
+
+“You were one of uncle’s tenants?” said Ruth, quickly.
+
+“For ten year,” repeated Mrs. Kranz.
+
+“And you are having trouble with another tenant?”
+
+“Mit dot Joe Maroni. He has kinder like steps—von, two, tri, fo’,
+five, six—like _dot_,” and the woman indicated by gestures the height
+of the children in rotation. “Dey swarm all ofer de blace. I cannot
+stand dem—undt de dirt—Ach! idt iss terrible.”
+
+“I am sorry, Mrs. Kranz,” Ruth said, quietly. “I understand that this
+Italian family are likewise tenants of the house?”
+
+“They lif de cellar in—undt sell vegetables, undt coal, undt wood,
+undt ice—undt dirt! heafens, vot dirt!” and the plume on Mrs. Kranz’s
+hat trembled throughout its length, while her red face grew redder,
+and her eyes more sparkling.
+
+“But perhaps, Mrs. Kranz, the poor things know no better,” Ruth
+suggested. “It must be dreadful to have to live in a cellar. They have
+nobody to teach them. Don’t the children go to school—when there is
+school, I mean?”
+
+“Undt I—am _I_ no example to dem yet?” demanded the lady. “Ach! dese
+foreigners! I nefer could get along yet mit foreigners.”
+
+This tickled Agnes so that she laughed, and then coughed to hide it.
+Mrs. Kranz was attracted to the twelve year old.
+
+“Dot iss a pretty madchen,” she said, smiling broadly upon Agnes. “She
+iss your sister, too? Undt de kinder?” her sharp eyes sighting Tess
+and Dot.
+
+“This is Agnes,” Ruth said, gladly changing the subject for a moment.
+“And this is Tess, and _this_, Dot—Dorothy, you know. We have had no
+mother for more than two years.”
+
+“Ach!” said Mrs. Kranz, in a tone denoting sympathy, and she made a
+funny clucking noise in her throat. “De poor kinder! Undt _you_ haf de
+hausmutter been—no?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Ruth. “I have _loved_ to take care of the little ones.
+Agnes is a great help. And now, since we have come here to the old
+Corner House, we have Mrs. McCall and Uncle Rufus. Besides, there has
+always been Aunt Sarah.”
+
+Mrs. Kranz’s big face looked rather blank, but in a moment her thought
+returned to the subject of her visit.
+
+“Vell!” she said. “Undt vot about dot Joe Maroni?”
+
+“Dear Mrs. Kranz,” Ruth said, “I do not know anything about the
+property Uncle Peter left, as yet. I shall speak to Mr. Howbridge
+about it. He is our guardian, you understand, and a lawyer. I am sure
+we can find some way of relieving you.”
+
+Mrs. Kranz grunted: “Vell!”
+
+“I shall come to see you,” promised Ruth. “And I shall see these
+Italians and try to get them to clean up their cellar. I am sorry you
+should be so troubled by them.”
+
+Meanwhile she had whispered to Tess and sent her running to Mrs.
+McCall. Mrs. Kranz gradually lost her offended look. She even took Dot
+upon her broad lap—though that was a precarious position and Dot was
+in danger of sliding off all the time.
+
+“Mine oldt man undt I nefer have no kinder,” said Mrs. Kranz, sighing
+windily. “Ve both vor-r-k—Oh! so hard!—ven young we are. Ven we
+marry we are alretty oldt yet. Undt now mine oldt man iss dead for
+sefen year, undt I am all alone.”
+
+Tears came to the good lady’s eyes. Ruth, seeing a propitious moment,
+said a word for Joe Maroni’s children.
+
+“I should think you would like those Italian children, Mrs. Kranz.
+Aren’t they pretty? ’Most always I think they are.”
+
+Mrs. Kranz raised her two hands in a helpless gesture. “Ach! heafens!
+if dey vos clean yet I could lofe dem!” she declared.
+
+Just then Uncle Rufus, in his official coat and spats and white vest,
+arrived with the tray. It was evident that Mrs. Kranz was immensely
+impressed by the presence of the old serving man. She accepted a cup
+of coffee and a piece of cake, and nibbled the one and sipped the
+other amidst a running fire of comment upon the late Mr. Stower, and
+his death, and the affairs of the tenements and stores Uncle Peter had
+owned in her neighborhood.
+
+Ruth learned much about this property that she had never heard before.
+Uncle Peter had once collected his own rents—indeed, it was during
+only the last few years of his life that a clerk from Mr. Howbridge’s
+office had done the collecting.
+
+Uncle Peter had been in touch with his tenants. He had been a hard man
+to get repairs out of, so Mrs. Kranz said, but he had always treated
+the good tenants justly. With a record of ten years of steady rent
+paying behind her, Mrs. Kranz considered that she should be recognized
+and her complaint attended to. As she could get no satisfaction from
+the lawyer’s clerk (for Joe Maroni was a prompt paying tenant, too),
+she had determined to see the owners.
+
+These were the facts leading to the good lady’s visit. Before she went
+away again Mrs. Kranz was much pacified, and openly an admirer of the
+Corner House girls.
+
+“Ach! if I had madchens like you of my own yet!” she said, as she
+descended the porch steps, on her departure.
+
+Agnes gazed after her more seriously than was her wont. She did not
+even laugh at Mrs. Kranz, as Ruth expected.
+
+“And I believe she’s an old dear at that,” Ruth said, reflectively.
+“Maybe we can get her to help those little Italian children—if we can
+once get their parents to clean them up.”
+
+“Well!” breathed Agnes, finally. “I wasn’t thinking particularly about
+her—or of the Joe Maroni kids. I was just thinking that perhaps it is
+not always so nice to be rich, after all. Now! we didn’t have to worry
+about tenement house property, and the quarrels of the tenants, when
+we lived on Essex Street in Bloomingsburg.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE MARONIS
+
+
+It was on this day, too, that Agnes received a letter from
+Bloomingsburg. Kitty Robelle wrote a long and “newsy” letter, for
+Kitty had been one of Agnes’ most cherished friends.
+
+Kitty lived right next door to the house in which the Kenways had
+lived so long, so she had all the news to impart of the old
+neighborhood. One item interested the four Corner House girls
+immensely.
+
+“Little Tommy Rooney has run away and his mother can’t find out what’s
+become of him. He swapped his Indian suit with Patsy Link for a cowboy
+suit, and has been gone a week. The police, even, can’t find him.”
+
+“There now!” cried Tess. “What did I tell you? I _knew_ I saw him go
+past here in the rain.”
+
+“Oh, but, Tess,” said Ruth, “you can’t be sure. And how could he ever
+have gotten to Milton?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said the confident Tess. “But he’s here.”
+
+Dot agreed with her. “You know,” the latter said, gravely, “he said he
+was coming to Milton to shoot Indians.”
+
+“The foolish boy!” exclaimed Ruth. “Indians, indeed!”
+
+“Did he expect to eat them after he shot them?” demanded Agnes. “How
+would he live?”
+
+“Perhaps he’s hungry, poor boy,” said Ruth. “I wish you girls had run
+after him that day—if it was Tommy.”
+
+“He looked awfully ragged,” said Tess, with pity. “Boys must be a
+_naw_ful burden. Isn’t it lucky we haven’t any brothers to look after,
+Ruth?”
+
+“Very fortunate, I think,” agreed the oldest Kenway.
+
+“Well,” sighed Dot, “Tommy was a real bad boy, but Mrs. Rooney thinks
+just as much of him, I s’pose, as though he was a girl.”
+
+“Not a doubt of it,” chuckled Agnes. “And if we find Tommy, we’ll send
+him home to her.”
+
+Having made a promise to Mrs. Kranz, Ruth was not the girl to neglect
+its fulfillment. She was doubtful, however, whether or no she should
+first see Mr. Howbridge.
+
+The lawyer was a busy man; perhaps he would not thank her for bringing
+such complaints as this of the grocery store-keeper to his attention.
+Agnes said:
+
+“He’s got troubles of his own, you may be sure, Ruth. And, honest—I
+don’t see as Mrs. Kranz has any business to bring her complaints to
+us.”
+
+“But I said I’d see what I could do.”
+
+“Of course. And I’ll go with you. I’m awfully eager to see this Joe
+Maroni and his family—especially the ‘kinder like steps,’ as Mrs.
+Kranz says.”
+
+Ruth agreed to let only Aggie go with her after the younger girl had
+given her word not to laugh. “It is nice to have a sense of humor, I
+guess, Ag,” said the older girl, “but you want to have tact with it.
+Don’t hurt people’s feelings by laughing at them.”
+
+“I know,” sighed Agnes. “But Mrs. Kranz was so funny! To hear her say
+she did not like foreigners, when she can scarcely speak English
+herself.”
+
+“You might be a foreigner yourself, Ag, as far as speaking correctly
+goes,” laughed Ruth. “You’re awfully slangy. And Mrs. Kranz has lived
+in this country for many, many years. She happens to be one of those
+unfortunate Germans who can never master English. But I know she has a
+kind heart.“
+
+“She’s dead sore on Joe Maroni and his tribe, just the same,” declared
+Agnes, proving the truth of her sister’s accusation as to her
+slanginess.
+
+The two older Kenways walked the next afternoon across town to Meadow
+Street. It was in the poorer section of Milton, near the silk mills.
+Although the houses were not so tall, and were mostly frame buildings,
+the street reminded Ruth and Agnes of Essex Street, in Bloomingsburg,
+where they had resided before coming to the old Corner House.
+
+Mrs. Kranz had given them her number; and it was not hard to find the
+three-story, brick-front building in which she kept store. Mrs. Kranz
+hired the entire street floor, living in rooms at the back. There were
+tenements above, with a narrow hall and stairway leading to them at
+one side. The cellar was divided, half being used by Mrs. Kranz for a
+store-room.
+
+The other half was the dwelling and store of the Italian, Joe Maroni,
+whose name was painted crookedly on a small sign, and under it his
+goods were enumerated as
+
+                            ISE COLE WOOD VGERTABLS
+
+Joe himself was in evidence as the girls came to the place. He was a
+little, active, curly haired man, in velveteen clothing and cap, gold
+rings in his ears, and a fierce mustache.
+
+“A regular brigand,” whispered Agnes, rather shrinking from his
+vicinity and clinging to Ruth’s hand.
+
+“I’m sure he’s a reformed brigand,” Ruth laughed.
+
+The girls’ own nostrils informed them that part of Mrs. Kranz’s
+complaint must be true, for there was a tall basket beside the
+vegetable and fruit stand into which Joe had thrown decayed vegetable
+leaves and fruit. It was a very warm day and the odor certainly was
+offensive.
+
+Joe came forward smiling, as the girls stopped at the stand. “Want-a
+da orange—da pear—da banan’?” he asked, in a most agreeable way.
+Agnes immediately reversed her opinion and declared he was actually
+_handsome_.
+
+“Nice-a vegetables,” said Joe, eager to display his wares. “All
+fre-esh.”
+
+Ruth took her courage in both hands and smiled at him in return. “We
+haven’t come to buy anything this afternoon, Mr. Maroni,” she said.
+“You see, our Uncle Peter gave us this house when he died. Our name is
+Kenway. We have come to see you——”
+
+“Si! Si!” cried the Italian, understanding them at once. “You da litla
+Padrona wot own all dese,” with a wave of his hand that was both
+graceful and explanatory. “Me, Joe, me hear-a ’bout de litla Padrona.
+Grazias!” and he bowed and lifted his cap.
+
+The children had appeared from the cool depths of the cellar as if by
+magic. They _were_ like a flight of steps in height, and the oldest
+was a very pretty girl, possibly as old as Agnes, but much smaller.
+Joe turned swiftly to this one and said something in his own tongue,
+nothing of which did the visitors understand save the child’s name,
+“Maria.”
+
+Maria darted down the steps again, and immediately Joe fished out a
+basket from under the stand and proceeded to fill it with his very
+choicest fruit.
+
+“For you, Padrona,” he explained, bowing to Ruth again. “You mak-a me
+ver’ hap’ to come see me. Grazias!”
+
+“Oh, but Mr. Maroni!” cried Ruth, rather nervously. “You must not give
+us all that nice fruit. And we did not come just to call. Some—some
+of the other tenants have complained about you.”
+
+The man looked puzzled, and then troubled. “What is that ‘complain’?”
+he asked. “They no lik-a me? They no lik-a my wife? They no lik-a my
+chil’ren?”
+
+“Oh, no! nothing like that,” Ruth said, sympathetically. “They only
+say you do not keep the stand clean. See! that basket of rotting
+vegetables and fruit. You should get rid of it at once. Don’t the
+collectors come through this part of the town for garbage?”
+
+“Si! Si!” cried Joe, shrugging his shoulders. “But sometimes come
+first my poor compatriots—si? They find da orange with da speck; dey
+fin’ potato part good-a—see?” All the time he was showing them the
+specked vegetables and fruit in the basket. Although his hands were
+grimed, Ruth noticed that he was otherwise clean. The children, though
+dirty and ragged, were really beautiful.
+
+“W’en da poor peep’ go, then I put out-a da basket for da cart,”
+pursued Joe, still smiling and still gesturing.
+
+Up the steps at that moment came a smiling, broad Italian woman, with
+a gay clean bandanna over her glossy black hair. She was a pretty
+woman, too, with the same features as little Maria.
+
+“Good-a day! good-a day!” she said, bobbing and courtesying. Then she
+added something in Italian which was a friendly greeting.
+
+Joe smiled on her dazzlingly. She wore heavier earrings than Joe and a
+great gilt brooch to hold the neck of her gown together.
+
+“She no spe’k da English mooch,” explained the man. “But da
+keeds——Oh! dey learn to spe’k fine in da school. We been in dis
+country six year—no? We come here fi’ year ago. We doin’ fine!”
+explained Joe, with enthusiasm.
+
+Agnes was already hugging one of the toddlers, and trying to find a
+clean spot on his pretty face that she could kiss. “Aren’t they little
+darlings?” she said to Ruth.
+
+The older girl agreed with her, but she was having difficulty herself
+in forming the request she wished to make to the Italian. Finally she
+said:
+
+“Joe, you must let the city men take away your spoiled fruit every
+morning. You can pick it over yourself and save what you think your
+poor friends would like. Although, it is very bad to eat decayed fruit
+and vegetables. Bad for the health, you know.”
+
+“Si! Si!” exclaimed Joe, smiling right along. “I understand. It shall
+be as da litla Padrona command. Eh?”
+
+“And let me go down into the cellar, Joe. For your own sake—for your
+children’s health, you know—you must keep everything clean.”
+
+The woman spoke quickly and with energy. Joe nodded a great deal. “Si!
+Si!” he said. “So the good-a doctor say wot come to see da bébé.”
+
+“Oh! have you a baby?” cried Agnes, clasping her hands.
+
+The woman smiled at the eager girl and offered her hand to lead Agnes
+down the broken steps. Ruth followed them. The cellar was damp because
+of the ice blocks covered with a horseblanket at one side. Beyond the
+first partition, in a darker room, there was an old bedstead with ugly
+looking comforters and pillows without cases. Right down in one corner
+was an old wooden cradle with the prettiest little black haired baby
+in the world sleeping in it! At least, so Agnes declared.
+
+Mrs. Maroni was delighted with the girls’ evident admiration for the
+baby. She could tell them by signs and broken words, too, that the
+baby was now better and the doctor had told her to take it out into
+the air and sunshine all day. She could trust some of the older
+children with it; Maria was big enough to help at the stand. _She_ had
+the housework to do.
+
+The Italian woman led the way to her other apartment—if such it could
+be called. The rear cellar had two little, high windows looking into a
+dim little yard. They had no right to the yard. That belonged to the
+tenants above, and Ruth could see very well that the yard would be the
+better for a thorough cleaning-up.
+
+“Perhaps Mr. Howbridge will say we have no right to interfere,”
+thought the oldest of the Corner House girls. “But I’m just going to
+tell him what I think of this place.”
+
+The cellar was not so dirty, only it was _messy_. The Italians’
+possessions were of the cheapest quality, and they had scarcely a
+decent chair to sit on. Whether it was poverty or a lack of knowledge
+of better things, Ruth could not decide.
+
+The little Maria came close to her side and smiled at her. “You speak
+English all right, don’t you?” asked Ruth.
+
+“Oh, yes, Ma’am. I go to school,” said Maria.
+
+“Do you know the lady who has the store up stairs?”
+
+The little girl’s face clouded. “Yes, Ma’am. I guess she’s a nice
+German lady, but she is _so_ cross.”
+
+“I do not think she’d be cross with you if she saw you in a clean
+dress and with your face and hands washed,” said Ruth, with a sudden
+idea. “If you will make yourself tidy, I will take you up stairs with
+me, and we can call on Mrs. Kranz.”
+
+The child’s face brightened in a flash. She said something to her
+mother, who replied in kind. Maria ran behind a curtain that hung in
+one corner, and just then Joe came down.
+
+“You want-a me to feex up, Padrona?” he asked. “I no ask nottin’ since
+w’en I come here. De walls much dirt’—eh?”
+
+“If they were whitewashed I think it would be ever so nice and clean,”
+declared Ruth. “I shall speak to Mr. Howbridge and see if I can get
+him to supply the whitewash. Will you put it on?”
+
+“But surely—si! si!” exclaimed the man. “I lik-a have nice place. I
+keep good-a fruit—good-a vegetable. Da wife, she clean an’
+scr-r-rub—oh, yes! But poor man live in da cellar not lik-a da reech
+dat live in da fine house.”
+
+Ruth sighed. With such little experience as she had had, she knew the
+man’s words to be true. The Kenways had lived among poor people
+themselves and knew how hard it was to keep an old tumble-down
+tenement in nice order.
+
+Maria came dancing out in what was evidently her gala frock. It was
+pretty and neatly made, too. She ran to the sink and washed her face
+and hands. Then she came to Ruth for her approval.
+
+“You’re a pretty girl,” said Ruth, kissing her. “You can help a lot,
+too, by keeping your brothers and sisters clean.”
+
+“Oh, yes, Ma’am! I make them wash up every day before they go to
+school. But there is no school now,” said Maria.
+
+The visitors went out of the cellar with Maria. The other children
+eyed them curiously, but smilingly. Poverty set well upon these
+Italians, for they smiled at it!
+
+“Now we shall go in and see Mrs. Kranz,” said Ruth to Agnes. “Goodness
+only knows what she will say to us. Come, Maria,” and she took the
+little girl’s hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+FIVE CENTS’ WORTH OF PEPPERMINTS
+
+
+“Vell! vell!” was the German lady’s greeting when the girls entered
+the shop. “You gome quick back to see me already, eh? I am glad.”
+
+She came forward and kissed Agnes and then Ruth. But she halted as she
+was about to stoop to Maria.
+
+“Ach! this is nefer von of de kinder I saw yesterday?” she cried.
+
+“Don’t you know this little girl, Mrs. Kranz?” asked Ruth, smiling.
+“This is Maria Maroni.”
+
+“Ach! I nefer did!” exclaimed Mrs. Kranz, using an expression that she
+must have picked up from her American neighbors. “Vell! I lofe _clean_
+kinder,” and she delivered a resounding kiss upon Maria’s darkly
+flushed cheek. “Undt how pretty she iss.”
+
+“I am sure she is quite as good as she is pretty,” said Ruth, smiling.
+“You ought to have just such a little girl as Maria to help you, Mrs.
+Kranz.”
+
+“Ach! I would lofe to have such a girl,” declared the good lady. “Come
+you all right back to mine poller. Iky! ’tend to the store yet,” she
+shouted to a lanky youth lounging on the sidewalk.
+
+“He vill eat up all mine dried apples, yet, undt trink soda-pop, if I
+don’t vatch him. Some day dot Iky iss goin’ to svell right up undt
+bust! But he lifs up stairs undt his mutter iss a hard vorkin’ vidow.”
+
+“As though _that_ excused Iky for stuffing himself with dried apples,”
+whispered Agnes to Ruth. Ruth looked at her admonishingly and Agnes
+subsided.
+
+Mrs. Kranz bustled about to put coffee-cake and other toothsome
+dainties, beside bottles of lemon-soda, before the three visitors. She
+treated Maria just as nicely as she did Ruth and Agnes. Ruth had not
+been mistaken in her judgment of Mrs. Kranz. She _had_ to own such a
+big body to hold her heart!
+
+Ruth told her how they had talked with Maroni and how he had agreed to
+clean up the cellar, and get rid of the decayed vegetables daily. But
+it was, without doubt, Maria’s improved appearance, more than anything
+else, that thawed the good lady.
+
+“Ach! it iss de way de vorld iss made,” sighed Mrs. Kranz. “That Joe
+Maroni, he hass six kinder; I haf none. This mädchen, she shall help
+me in de house, undt in de store. I buy her plenty clean dresses. I’ll
+talk to that Joe. Ven I am madt mit him I can’t talk, for he smile,
+an’ smile——Ach! how can I fight mit a man dot smiles all de time?”
+
+The two older Kenway girls started home feeling that they had
+accomplished something worth while at the Meadow Street tenement
+house. “Only,” said Ruth, “if we really had the right to do so, I can
+see that there are a lot of repairs that would make the house more
+comfortable for the tenants.”
+
+“And I suppose if Uncle Peter had thought of the comfort of the
+tenants, he would never have made so much money out of the houses,”
+observed Agnes, with more thought than she usually displayed.
+
+Just then Joe and Maria came hurrying down the block after them. “No,
+Padrona!” cried the man. “You would not r-r-refuse Joe’s poor litla
+present? Maria shall carry eet for you—si! si! She is a smart
+girl—no? She fin’ her way all over town.”
+
+They thanked Maroni for the basket of fruit, and allowed Maria to
+carry it to the Corner House, for that gave her pleasure, too, Ruth
+could see.
+
+It gave them an opportunity of introducing Maria Maroni to Tess and
+Dot. The younger Kenways were very glad to see her, and Maria was made
+acquainted with the garden playhouse and with the rows of dolls.
+
+“I don’t care so much because the Creamer girls won’t play with us,”
+said Tess, happily, after Maria had run home. “Alfredia and Maria are
+both very nice little girls.”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” said Dot, quickly. But she added, after a moment: “And
+they can’t either of them help being so awful dark complected!”
+
+It had begun to bother Ruth, however, if it did none of the other
+three, that so few people called on them. Of course, the Kenways had
+not been in Milton but four weeks. The people they met at church,
+however, and the girls they had become acquainted with at Sunday
+School, had not called upon them.
+
+Eva Larry was delighted to see Agnes on the street, and had taken her
+home one day with her. Myra Stetson was always jolly and pleasant, but
+no urging by Agnes could get either of these nice girls to visit the
+old Corner House.
+
+“Do you suppose it is the ghost of the garret that keeps them away?”
+demanded Agnes, of Ruth.
+
+“We wouldn’t entertain them in the garret,” responded Ruth, laughing.
+Only she did not feel like laughing. “If that is the trouble, however,
+we’ll soon finish up cleaning out the garret. And we’ll sweep out the
+ghost and all his tribe, too.”
+
+A Saturday intervened before this could be accomplished, however. It
+was the first Saturday after Mr. Howbridge had bestowed upon the
+Corner House girls their monthly allowance.
+
+After the house was spick and span, and the children’s playthings put
+away for over Sunday, and the garden (which was now a trim and
+promising plot) made particularly neat, the four girls dressed in
+their very best and sallied forth. It was after mid-afternoon and the
+shoppers along Main Street were plentiful.
+
+Aunt Sarah never went out except to church on Sunday. Now that the
+weather was so warm, the big front door stood open a part of the time,
+and the girls sat with their sewing and books upon the wide porch.
+Mrs. McCall joined them there; but Aunt Sarah, never.
+
+Because she did not go out, anything Aunt Sarah needed was purchased
+by one of the girls. Particularly, Ruth never forgot the peppermints
+which were bought as regularly now that they lived in the Corner House
+as they were bought in the old days, back in Bloomingsburg.
+
+Sometimes Ruth delegated one of the other girls to buy the
+peppermints, but on this particular occasion she chanced to find
+herself near the candy counter, when she was separated from Agnes in
+Blachstein & Mapes. So she purchased the usual five cents’ worth of
+Aunt Sarah’s favorite Sunday “comfort.”
+
+“No matter how dry the sermon is, or how long-winded the preacher, I
+can stand it, if I’ve got a pep’mint to chew on,” the strange old lady
+once said. That was almost as long a sentence as the girls had ever
+heard her speak!
+
+With the peppermints safe in her bag, Ruth hunted again for Agnes. But
+the latter had those shoe-buckles on her mind and, forgetting Ruth,
+she left the big store and made for the shoeshop.
+
+On the way Agnes passed the Lady’s Shop with its tempting display in
+the show-window, and she ventured in. There were those lovely
+handkerchiefs! Agnes feasted her eyes but she could not gain the
+courage to break one of her dollar bills for the trifle.
+
+So she wandered out and went toward the glittering buckles in the
+shoeshop window. And there she hesitated again. Fifty cents! A quarter
+of her entire monthly allowance. She wanted to find Eva Larry, who
+would be down town, too, and treat her to a sundae. Besides, she must
+buy Myra Stetson some little remembrance.
+
+“I know what I’ll do!” thought Agnes finally, her eye suddenly
+lighting upon a candy store across Main Street. “I can break one of
+these bills by getting Aunt Sarah’s peppermints. Then it won’t seem so
+hard to spend the change.”
+
+Agnes tripped over the crosswalk and purchased the little bag of
+peppermints. These she popped into her own handbag, and a little later
+came across Eva. They went into the drug store on the corner and had a
+sundae apiece. Agnes bought some hairpins (which she certainly could
+not use) and a comb, and some lovely ribbon, and a cunning little red
+strawberry emery-bag for her sewing-box, and several other trifles.
+She found all her change gone and nothing but the dollar bill left in
+her purse. That scared Agnes, and she ran home, refusing to break the
+remaining bill, and much troubled that she should have been so
+reckless in her expenditures the very first time she was out.
+
+Tess and Dot had gone together. There was no reason why two girls, of
+eight and ten respectively, should not shop on Milton’s Main Street.
+The younger Kenway girls had often shopped for Ruth, while they lived
+in Bloomingsburg.
+
+The Five and Ten Cent Store attracted them. There was a toy
+department, and all kinds of cheap fancy goods, and little things for
+presents. Tess roamed among these, using her eyes to good advantage,
+save that she forgot to look for Dot, after a time.
+
+There was a very cute little spool holder for ten cents, and Tess
+bought that for Mrs. McCall. Uncle Rufus she remembered in the
+purchase of a red and black tie for “state and date” occasions. She
+bought a pretty ruching for Ruth’s collar, and a new thimble for
+Agnes, because Agnes was always losing her silver one.
+
+For Dot, Tess bought a tiny doll’s tea-set, and forgetting herself
+entirely, Tess wandered out of the store with her bundles, looking for
+her sister. She did not at once see Dot, but a boy was selling cheap
+candies from a basket, and Tess was smitten with the thought that she
+had forgotten Aunt Sarah!
+
+She bought a bag of white peppermint drops in a hurry. That took all
+of Tess’ half dollar, and she did not want to break into the bill; so
+she went home without satisfying any of her own personal longings.
+
+Dot had found the candy counter in the big store the first thing.
+There were heaps, and heaps of goodies. Dot possessed a sweet tooth,
+and she had never really had enough candy at one time in her life—not
+even at Christmas.
+
+Some of this candy was ten cents a pound, and some ten cents a quarter
+of a pound. Dot knew that if she bought the more expensive kind, her
+dollar bill would not go far. And she really did not want to spend all
+her month’s money just for candy. Ruth would think her extravagant and
+Agnes would laugh at her.
+
+The little girl moved along in front of the counter, feasting her eyes
+upon the variegated sweets. There were chocolates, and bonbons, and
+nut candies, and “kisses,” and many candies of which Dot did not know
+even the names. Finally she came to the end, where the cheaper kinds
+were displayed.
+
+Dot’s eyes grew round and she uttered a half-stifled “Oh!” There was a
+great heap of luscious looking, fat peppermint drops. They looked to
+be so creamy and soft, that Dot was _sure_ they were far superior to
+any drops that Aunt Sarah had ever had in the past.
+
+“Here, little girl,” said the lady behind the counter, seeing Dot
+feasting her eyes upon the heap of peppermints. “Here’s a broken one,”
+and she reached over the screen and passed Dot the crumbly bit of
+candy.
+
+Dot thanked her nicely and popped the broken peppermint drop into her
+mouth. It was every bit as nice as it looked. It was crumbly, and
+creamy, and sweet, with just the right amount of peppermint essence in
+it.
+
+“I’ll buy Aunt Sarah’s peppermints my own self,” decided Dot. Then she
+hesitated, being an honest little thing. She knew that she could not
+resist the temptation of those luscious drops, once they were in her
+hands.
+
+“I’ll take _two_ quarter pounds, if you please, Ma’am,” she said to
+the saleslady. “In two bags. One’s for my Aunt Sarah and the other’s
+for Tess and me.”
+
+Having broken her dollar bill for these two bags of sweets, Dot felt
+rather frightened, and she, too, hurried out of the store.
+
+The four Corner House girls arrived home at about the same time—and
+not long before the usual dinner hour. Dot and Tess had tasted out of
+the special bag of peppermint drops that Dot had bought, in the yard.
+Tess had so many other things to show her smaller sister that neither
+suspected the other’s possession of Aunt Sarah’s peppermints.
+
+Dot ran up to Aunt Sarah’s room as soon as she got inside the door. “I
+got your pep’mint drops, Auntie!” she cried, plumping the bag into the
+old lady’s lap.
+
+“Humph! Good child,” declared Aunt Sarah, and opened the bag
+invitingly. “Have one?”
+
+“No-o, Ma’am,” said Dot, backing away. “I’ve been eating some out of
+_my_ bag,” and she showed Aunt Sarah her other purchase. “Ruth says it
+spoils your appetite to eat too much candy before dinner.”
+
+“Humph!” remarked Aunt Sarah.
+
+As Dot went down the stairway, Tess came dancing along from the
+bathroom, with a fresh ribbon in her hair and her face and hands still
+damp. “Oh, Aunt Sarah!” she cried, “here is your bag of peppermints
+for to-morrow,” and she held up her own purchase. “Shall I put them in
+your room on the bureau?”
+
+“Humph!” exclaimed the old lady, stopping and eyeing Tess curiously.
+“So _you’ve_ got them?”
+
+“Yes, Ma’am,” said Tess, and hopped down stairs by the old lady’s side
+very happily.
+
+There was a neat little box resting on the table beside Aunt Sarah’s
+plate. Agnes said: “There’s your Sunday peppermints, Aunt Sarah. I got
+them at the Unique candy store, and I guess they’re nice ones.”
+
+Aunt Sarah merely glared at her, and remained speechless. That was
+nothing strange; the old lady sometimes acted as though she did not
+hear you speak to her at all.
+
+Mrs. McCall came in from the kitchen and Ruth appeared from up stairs.
+Uncle Rufus arrived with the steaming soup tureen. As Ruth sat down,
+she said to Aunt Sarah:
+
+“You’ll find your peppermints on the hall stand, Aunt Sarah. I forgot
+to bring them up to your room.”
+
+_That_ was too much. The old lady blazed up like a freshly kindled
+fire.
+
+“For the good Land o’ Goshen! I got peppermints enough now to last me
+four meetings. I believe getting your Uncle Peter’s money the way you
+have, has made all you gals silly!”
+
+She refused to say another word to any of them that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+“A DISH OF GOSSIP”
+
+
+The seamstress came on Monday to the old Corner House. Mrs. McCall had
+recommended her, and in Milton Miss Ann Titus was a person of
+considerable importance.
+
+She was a maiden lady well past middle age, but, as she expressed it
+herself, “more than middling spry.” She was, as well, a traveling free
+information bureau.
+
+“Two things I am fond of, gals,” she said to Ruth and Agnes, the first
+day. “A cup of tea, and a dish of gossip.”
+
+She was frank about the last named article of mental diet. She knew
+that most of the people she worked for enjoyed her gossip as much as
+they desired her needle-work.
+
+Ruth had opened and aired a room for her at the back of the house, and
+there she was established with her cutting table and sewing machine.
+She would not hear of remaining at night with them.
+
+“I got an old Tom-cat at home that would yowl his head off, if I
+didn’t give him his supper, and his breakfast in the morning. He can
+forage for himself at noon.”
+
+She lived in a tiny cottage not far from the old Corner House—the
+girls had seen it. She had lived there most of her life, and she had a
+tidy little sum in the savings-bank. Miss Ann Titus might have lived
+without working at her trade.
+
+“But I sartain-sure should die of lonesomeness,” she declared. “A
+cat’s well enough as far as he goes; but you can’t call him right
+inspiritin’ company.”
+
+Ruth went to the big store where Mr. Howbridge had opened a charge
+account for her and bought such goods as Miss Titus wanted. Then the
+capable woman went to work to make up several summer and fall dresses
+for the four girls.
+
+These were busy times at the old Corner House. The sewing room was a
+scene of bustle and hurrying from morning to night. One or the other
+of the girls seemed to be “trying-on” all the time. Ruth and Agnes, to
+say nothing of Mrs. McCall, spent all their spare minutes helping the
+dressmaker.
+
+“You young-uns have sartain-sure got pluck to come to this old place
+to live,” Miss Titus declared on the second day. The wind was rising,
+the shutters shook, and loose casements rattled.
+
+“It’s a very nice house, we think,” said Ruth.
+
+The smaller girls were not present, but Miss Titus lowered her voice:
+“Ain’t you none afraid of what they say’s in the garret?”
+
+“What is in the garret?” asked Ruth, calmly. “We have cleaned it all
+up, and have found nothing more dangerous than old clothes and
+spiders. We play up there on rainy days.”
+
+“I wouldn’t do it for a farm!” gasped Miss Titus.
+
+“So you believe in that ghost story?”
+
+“Yes, I do. They say some man, ’way back before Peter Stower’s father
+lived, hung himself up there.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Ruth. “How wicked it is to repeat such stories.”
+
+“I dunno. I can find you half a dozen good, honest folks, that have
+seen the ghost at the garret window.”
+
+Ruth could not help shivering. She had begun to refuse to acknowledge
+the evidence of her own eyes, and _that_ had helped. But Miss Titus
+seemed so positive.
+
+“Is—is it because they are afraid of ghosts, that so few people have
+come to call on us, do you suppose?” Ruth asked.
+
+The seamstress glanced at her through her spectacles. She had very
+sharp eyes and she snipped off threads with a bite of her sharp teeth,
+and stuck a sharp needle into her work in a very sharp manner.
+Altogether, Miss Ann Titus was a very sharp person.
+
+“I shouldn’t wonder if there was another reason,” she said. “Ain’t the
+minister’s wife been?”
+
+“Oh, yes. And we think she is lovely. But not many of the girls we
+meet at church have called. I thought maybe they were afraid. The
+house has had a bad name, because it was practically shut up so long.”
+
+“Yes,” agreed Miss Titus. “And Peter Stower acted funny, too. They say
+_his_ ghost haunts it.”
+
+“How foolish!” said Ruth, flushing. “If people don’t want to come
+because of _that_——”
+
+“Maybe there _is_ another reason,” said the gossip.
+
+“I’d like to know what it is!” demanded Ruth, determined to learn the
+worst. And Miss Titus _did_ look so knowing and mysterious.
+
+“Well, now,” said Miss Titus, biting off another thread. “Speakin’ for
+myself, I think you gals are just about right, and Mr. Howbridge did
+the right thing to put you into Peter’s house. But there’s them that
+thinks different.”
+
+“What _do_ you mean?” begged the puzzled Ruth.
+
+“There’s been a deal of talk. Mr. Howbridge is blamed. They say he did
+it just to keep the property in his own hands. He must make a good
+speck out of it.”
+
+“But you are puzzling me, more and more,” cried Ruth. “I suppose Mr.
+Howbridge does not handle Uncle Peter’s estate for nothing. How could
+he?”
+
+“Trust Howbridge for feathering his nest all right,” said the
+seamstress, bitingly. “But that ain’t it. You see, there’s them that
+believes other folks than you Kenway gals should have the old Corner
+House and all that goes with it!”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Ruth. “You do not mean Aunt Sarah?”
+
+“Sally Maltby?” snapped Miss Titus. “Well, I should say _not_. She
+ain’t got no rights here at all. Never did have. Never would have, if
+Peter had had his way.”
+
+“I am sure _that_ is not so,” began Ruth. Then she stopped. She
+realized that Miss Titus would carry everything she said to her next
+customer. She did not know that either Mr. Howbridge, or Aunt Sarah,
+would care to have the news bandied about that Uncle Peter had left
+Aunt Sarah a legacy.
+
+“Well, you’re welcome to your own belief, Ruthie,” said Miss Titus,
+curiously eyeing her. “But it ain’t Sally Maltby that folks are
+talking about.”
+
+“Who can possibly have any right here?” queried Ruth. “Mr. Howbridge
+declares there are no other heirs.”
+
+“He ain’t heard of ’em—or else he don’t want to acknowledge ’em,”
+declared Miss Titus. “But these folks live at a distance. They’re
+another branch of the Stower family, I reckon, and ’tis said that
+they’ve got a better right than you gals.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Ruth again.
+
+“That’s why folks don’t come to congratulate you, I reckon. They ain’t
+sure that you’ll stay here long. Maybe them other relatives will come
+on, or begin suit in the courts, or something. And the neighbors don’t
+like to mix in, or take sides, until the matter’s straightened out.”
+
+“Oh, dear, me!” sighed Ruth. “We love staying here at the old Corner
+House, but we never wished to take anybody’s rights away from them.
+Mr. Howbridge assured us that we were the only heirs, and that the
+estate would in time be settled upon us. It makes me feel very
+badly—this news you tell me, Miss Titus.”
+
+“Well! let sleepin’ dogs lie, is _my_ motter,” declared the
+seamstress. “You might as well enjoy what you got, while you got it.”
+
+If Ruth had been troubled before by the circumstances that had brought
+her and her sisters to the old Corner House, she was much more
+troubled now. Uncle Peter had made a will, she had been assured by Mr.
+Howbridge, which left the bulk of the old man’s estate to the Kenway
+girls; but that will was lost. If other claimants came forward, how
+should Ruth and her sisters act toward them?
+
+That was Ruth’s secret trouble. Without the will to make their own
+claim good, did not these other relatives Miss Titus had spoken of
+have as good a right to shelter in the old Corner House, and a share
+of the money left by Uncle Peter, as they had?
+
+Ruth could not talk about it with her sisters—not even with Agnes.
+The latter would only be troubled, while Tess and Dot would not
+understand the situation very well. And Aunt Sarah was no person in
+whom to confide!
+
+Mr. Howbridge had gone away on business again. She had written him a
+note to his office about Joe Maroni and Mrs. Kranz, and Mr. Howbridge
+had sent back word—just before his departure on the sudden trip—that
+she should use her own judgment about pacifying the tenants in the
+Meadow Street houses.
+
+“You know that every dollar you spend on those old shacks reduces the
+revenue from the property. You girls are the ones interested. Now, let
+us test your judgment,” Mr. Howbridge had written.
+
+It put a great responsibility upon Ruth’s shoulders; but the girl of
+sixteen had been bearing responsibilities for some years, and she was
+not averse to accepting the lawyer’s test.
+
+“We want to help those Maronis,” she said to Agnes. “And we want Mrs.
+Kranz to help them, too. We’ll just clean up that old house, and that
+will help all the families in it.”
+
+She ordered the whitewashing materials, and Joe promised to whiten his
+cellar. She hired the boy, Iky, and another, to clean the yard, too,
+and paid them out of her own pocket. Mrs. Kranz smiled broadly, while
+the Maronis considered “the litla Padrona” almost worthy to be their
+patron saint!
+
+Ruth had begged Miss Titus to say nothing before Agnes or the little
+girls regarding those possible claimants to Uncle Peter’s property.
+She was very sorry Mr. Howbridge had gone away before she could see
+him in reference to this gossip the seamstress had brought to the
+house.
+
+It seemed that a certain Mrs. Bean, a friend of Miss Ann Titus, who
+did not attend the First Church, but another, knew all about the
+people who claimed relationship with Uncle Peter Stower. Ruth was
+sorely tempted to call on Mrs. Bean, but then, she feared she had no
+business to do so, until she had talked with the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Howbridge had given her a free hand in many things, but this
+matter was too important, it seemed to Ruth, for her to touch without
+his permission. With the expectation of other claimants to the
+property looming before her, Ruth was doubtful if she ought to go
+ahead with the frocks for her sisters and herself, or to increase
+their bills at the stores.
+
+However, their guardian had already approved of these expenditures,
+and Ruth tried to satisfy her conscience by curtailing the number of
+her own frocks and changing the engagement of Miss Titus from three
+weeks to a fortnight only.
+
+“I must confer with Mr. Howbridge first, before we go any farther,”
+the girl thought. “Mercy! the bills for our living expenses here at
+the old Corner House are mounting up enormously.”
+
+Agnes was so delighted over the frocks that were being made for her,
+that she thought of little else, waking, and probably dreamed of them
+in sleep, as well! She did not notice Ruth’s gravity and additional
+thoughtfulness.
+
+As for Tess and Dot, they had their small heads quite full of their
+own affairs. They were having a better time this summer than ever they
+had dreamed of having in all their young lives.
+
+Tess and Dot were not without friends of their own age to play with,
+in spite of the fact that the Creamer girls next door had proved so
+unpleasant. There were two girls next door to Mrs. Adams who were
+nice, and as Mrs. Adams promised, she arranged a little tea party for
+Tess and Dot, and these other girls, one afternoon. The new friends
+were Margaret and Holly Pease.
+
+Mrs. Adams had the tea on her back lawn in the shade of a big tulip
+tree. She had just the sort of cakes girls like best, and strawberries
+and cream, and the “cambric tea,” as Mrs. Adams called it, was rich
+with cream and sugar. Mrs. Adams herself took a cup of tea that had
+brewed much longer; she said she wanted it “strong enough to bite,” or
+it did not give her a mite of comfort.
+
+From where the pleasant little party sat, they could look over the
+fence into the big yard belonging to the Pease place. “Your folks,”
+said Mrs. Adams to her next door neighbors, “are going to have a right
+smart lot of cherries. That tree’s hanging full.”
+
+The tree in question was already aflame with the ripening fruit.
+Margaret said:
+
+“Mother says we’ll have plenty of cherries to do up for once—if the
+birds and the boys don’t do too much damage. There are two nests of
+robins right in that one tree, and they think they own all the fruit.
+And the boys!”
+
+“I expect that Sammy Pinkney has been around,” said Mrs. Adams.
+
+“There’s worse than him,” said Holly Pease, shaking her flaxen head.
+“This morning papa chased an awfully ragged boy out of that tree. The
+sun was scarcely up, and if it hadn’t been for the robins scolding so,
+papa wouldn’t have known the boy was there.”
+
+“A robber boy!” cried Mrs. Adams. “I wager that’s who got my milk. I
+set a two quart can out in the shed last night, because it was cool
+there. And this morning more than half of the milk was gone. The
+little rascal had used the can cover to drink out of.”
+
+“Oh!” said Tess, pityingly, “the poor boy must have been hungry.”
+
+“He’s probably something else by now,” said Mrs. Adams, grimly. “Half
+ripe cherries and milk! My soul and body! Enough to snarl anybody’s
+stomach up into a knot, but a boy’s. I guess boys can eat
+anything—and recover.”
+
+Holly said, quietly: “There was a boy worked for Mrs. Hovey yesterday.
+He was awfully hungry and ragged. I saw him carrying in wood from her
+woodpile. And he just staggered, he was so small and weak. And his
+hair looked so funny——”
+
+“What was the matter with his hair?” asked her sister.
+
+“It was red. Brick red. I never saw such red hair before.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Tess. “Did he have sure enough _red_ hair?” Then she
+turned to Dot. “Do you s’pose it could be Tommy Rooney, Dot?”
+
+“Who’s Tommy Rooney?” asked Mrs. Adams.
+
+The Corner House girls told them all about Tommy, and how he had run
+away from home, and why they half believed he had come here to Milton.
+
+“To shoot Indians!” exclaimed Mrs. Adams. “Whoever heard of such a
+crazy notion? Mercy! boys get worse and worse, every day.”
+
+Perhaps it was because of this conversation that Tess and Dot at once
+thought of Tommy on the way home that evening after the party, when
+they saw a man and a dog chasing a small boy across Willow Street near
+the old Corner House.
+
+“That’s Sammy Pinkney’s bulldog,” declared Tess, in fright. “And it’s
+Sammy’s father, too.”
+
+The boy crawled over the high fence at the back of their garden and
+got through the hedge. When the girls caught up with the man, Tess
+asked:
+
+“Oh, sir! what is the matter?”
+
+“That young rascal has been in my strawberry patch again,” declared
+Mr. Pinkney, wrathfully. He seemed to forget that he had a boy of his
+own who was always up to mischief. “I’d like to wallop him.”
+
+“But the dog might have bit him,” said Dot, trembling, and drawing
+away from the ugly looking animal.
+
+“Oh, no, little girl,” said Mr. Pinkney, more pleasantly. “Jock
+wouldn’t bite anybody. He only scared him.”
+
+“Well, he _looks_ like he’d bite,” said Tess, doubtfully. “And he
+scared our cat, Sandy-face, almost to death.”
+
+“Well, bulldogs always seem to think that cats are their enemies. I am
+sorry he scared your cat, girls.”
+
+Tess and Dot hurried on to their gate. They looked for the boy in the
+garden, but he was nowhere to be found. When they entered the house,
+the back door was open and everybody seemed to be at the front.
+
+The two girls went immediately up the back stairs to the bathroom to
+wash and make themselves tidy for dinner.
+
+“Where do you s’pose he went, Tess?” asked Dot, referring to the
+strange boy.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Tess. Then she stopped to listen in the hall
+outside the bathroom door.
+
+“What’s the matter, Tess?” demanded Dot, quickly. “Did you hear
+something? Up the garret stairs?”
+
+“It sounded like the latch of the garret door,” said Tess. “But I
+guess it was just the wind. Or maybe,” she added, laughing, “it was
+your goat, Dot!”
+
+“Humph!” said the smaller girl, in disgust. “I know there isn’t any
+old goat living up in that garret. That’s silly.”
+
+The girls thought no more about the odd noise at that time, but
+hurried to join the rest of the family down stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MORE MYSTERIES
+
+
+Some of Miss Ann Titus’ gossip was not unkindly, and some of it amused
+Ruth and Agnes very much.
+
+Miss Titus had known Aunt Sarah when they were both young girls and
+what she told the Corner House girls about Miss Maltby, who had taken
+the name of “Stower” of her own accord, satisfied much of the
+curiosity the older Kenway girls felt regarding Aunt Sarah and her
+affairs.
+
+“I remember when old Mr. Stower married Mrs. Maltby,” said the busy
+Miss Titus, nodding vigorously as she snipped and talked at the same
+time. “The goodness knows, Sally Maltby an’ her mother was as poor as
+Job’s turkey—an’ they say _he_ was sartain-sure a lean fowl. It was
+as great a change in their sarcumstances when they came to the ol’
+Corner House to live, as though they’d been translated straight to the
+pearly gates—meanin’ no irreverence.
+
+“They was sartain-sure dirt poor. I dunno how Mis’ Maltby had the
+heart to stand up an’ face the minister long enough for him to say the
+words over ’em, her black bombazeen was that shabby! They had me here
+with Ma Britton (I was ’prenticed to Ma Britton in them days) for
+three solid months, a-makin’ both Mrs. Maltby-that-was, an’ Sally, fit
+to be seen.
+
+“An’ how Sally _did_ turn her nose up, to be sure—to-be-sure! I
+reckon she must ha’ soon got a crick in her neck, holdin’ it so stiff.
+An’ to see her an’ hear her, you’d ha’ thought she owned the ol’
+Corner House.
+
+“They had sarvints here in them days, an’ ol’ Mr. Stower—he was still
+in practice at the law—had lashin’s of company. I won’t say but that
+Mrs. Maltby-that-was, made him a good wife, and sat at the foot of his
+table, and poured tea out o’ that big solid silver urn like she’d been
+to the manner born. But Sally was as sassy and perky as a nuthatch in
+flytime.
+
+“We other gals couldn’t git along with her no-how. Me bein’ here so
+much right at the first of it,” pursued Miss Titus, “sort o’ made me
+an’ Sally intimate, as ye might say, whether we’d ever been so before,
+or not. After Ma Britton got through her big job here Sally would
+sometimes have to come around to our house—Ma Britton left me that
+little cottage I live in—I ain’t ashamed to tell it—I hadn’t any
+folks, an’ never had, I reckon. Like _Topsy_, I ‘jes’ growed.’ Well!
+Sally would come around to see me, and she’d invite me to the old
+Corner House here.
+
+“She never invited me here when there was any doin’s—no, Ma’am!”
+exclaimed Miss Titus. “I wonder if she remembers them times now? She
+sits so grim an’ lets me run on ha’f a day at a time, till I fairly
+foam at the mouth ’ith talkin’ so much, an’ then mebbe all she’ll say
+is: ‘Want your tea now, Ann?’ ’Nuff ter give one the fibbertygibbets!
+
+“In them days I speak of, she could talk a blue streak—sartain-sure!
+And she’d tell me how many folks ‘we had to dinner’ last night; or how
+‘Judge Perriton and Judge Mercer was both in for whist with us last
+evening.’ Well! she strutted, and tossed her head, an’ bridled, till
+one time there was an awful quarrel ’twixt her an’ Peter Stower.
+
+“I was here. I heard part of it. Peter Stower was a good bit older
+than Sally Maltby as you gals may have heard. He objected to his
+father’s marriage—not because Mrs. Maltby was who she was, but he
+objected to anybody’s coming into the family. Peter was a born
+miser—yes he was. He didn’t want to divide his father’s property
+after the old man’s death, with anybody.
+
+“I will say for Peter,” added Miss Titus, “going off on a tangent” as
+she would have said herself, had she been critically listening to any
+other narrator. “I will say for Peter, that after your mother was
+born, gals, he really seemed to warm up. I have seen him carrying your
+mother, when she was a little tot, all about these big halls and
+hummin’ to her like a bumblebee.
+
+“But even at that, he influenced his father so that only a small
+legacy came to your mother when the old man died. Peter got most of
+the property into his hands before _that_ happened, anyway. And quite
+right, too, I s’pose, for by that time he had increased the estate a
+whole lot by his own industry and foresight.
+
+“Well, now! I have got to runnin’ away with my story, ain’t I? It was
+about Sally and that day she and Peter had their big quarrel. Whenever
+Peter heard, or saw Sally giving herself airs, he’d put in an oar and
+take her down a peg, now I tell you!” said Miss Titus, mixing her
+metaphors most woefully.
+
+“I’d been to Sally’s room—it was a small one tucked away back here in
+this ell, and _that_ hurt her like pizen! We was goin’ down stairs to
+the front hall. Sally stops on the landing and points to the ceiling
+overhead, what used to be painted all over with flowers and fat
+cupids, and sech—done by a famous artist they used to say when the
+house was built years before, but gettin’ faded and chipped then.
+
+“So Sally points to the ceilin’ an’ says she:
+
+“‘I hope some day,’ says she, ‘that we will have that painting
+restored. _I_ mean to, I am sure, when I am in a better position to
+have my views carried out here.’
+
+“Of course, she didn’t mean nothin’—just showin’ off in front of me,”
+said Miss Titus, shaking her head and biting at a thread in her queer
+fashion. “But right behind us on the stairs was Peter. We didn’t know
+he was there.
+
+“‘Wal,’ says he, drawlin’ in that nasty, sarcastic way he had, ‘if you
+wait till your views air carried out in _this_ house, Sal Maltby,
+it’ll be never—you hear me! I guarantee,’ sez Peter, ‘that they’ll
+carry _you_ out, feet fust, before they carry out your idees.’
+
+“My! she turns on him like a tiger-cat. Yes, Ma’am! Sartain-sure I
+thought she was going to fly at him, tooth an’ toe-nail! But Peter had
+a temper like ice-water, an’ ice-water—nuff of it, anyway—will put
+out fire ev’ry time.
+
+“He just listened to her rave, he standin’ there so cold an’
+sarcastic. She told him how she was going to live longer than he did,
+anyway, and that in the end she’d have her way in the old Corner House
+in spite of him!
+
+“When she had sort of run-down like, Peter says to her: ‘Brag’s a good
+dog, but Holdfast’s a better,’ sez he. ‘It ain’t people that talks
+gits what they want in this world. If I was you, Sal Maltby, I’d learn
+to hold my teeth on my tongue. It’ll git you farther.’
+
+“And I b’lieve,” concluded Miss Titus, “that just then was the time
+when Sally Maltby begun to get tongue-tied. For you might’s well call
+her that. I know I never heard her ‘blow,’ myself, after that quarrel;
+and gradually she got to be just the funny, silent, grim sort o’
+person she is. Fact is—an’ I admit it—Sally gives _me_ the shivers
+oncet in a while.”
+
+Tess and Dorothy did not always play in the garden, not even when the
+weather was fair. There must be variety to make even play appealing,
+although the dolls were all “at home” in the out-of-door playhouse.
+Dot and Tess must go visiting with their children once in a while.
+
+They had a big room for their sleeping chamber and sometimes they
+came, with a selection of the dolls, and “visited” in the house. Being
+allowed to play in the bedroom, as long as they “tidied up” after the
+play was over, Tess and Dot did so.
+
+Ruth had strictly forbidden them going to the garret to play, unless
+she went along. The excuse Ruth gave for this order was, that in the
+garret the smaller girls were too far away from the rest of the
+family.
+
+Tess and Dot, the morning after Mrs. Adams had made them the tea
+party, had a party for their dolls in the big bedroom. Tess set her
+folding table with the best of the dolls’ china. There were peanut
+butter sandwiches, and a sliced pickle, and a few creamed walnuts that
+Ruth had bought at the Unique Candy Store and divided between the
+younger girls.
+
+They sat the dolls about the table and went down to the kitchen for
+milk and hot water for the “cambric tea,” as Mrs. Adams called the
+beverage. When they came back Tess, who entered first, almost dropped
+the pitcher of hot water.
+
+“My goodness me!” she ejaculated.
+
+“What’s the matter, Tessie?” asked Dot, toiling on behind with milk
+and sugar.
+
+“Some—somebody’s taken our dolls’ luncheon. Oh, dear me!”
+
+“It can’t be!” cried Dot, springing forward and spilling the milk.
+“Why! those walnut-creams! Oh, dear!”
+
+“They haven’t left a crumb,” wailed Tess. “Isn’t that just mean?”
+
+“Who’d ever do such a thing to us?” said Dot, her lip trembling. “It
+_is_ mean.”
+
+“Why! it must be somebody in the house,” declared Tess, her wits
+beginning to work.
+
+“Of course it wasn’t Mrs. McCall. She’s in the kitchen,” Dot declared.
+
+“Or Uncle Rufus. He’s in the garden.”
+
+“And Ruth wouldn’t do such a thing,” added Dot.
+
+“It couldn’t be Aunt Sarah,” said Tess, eliminating another of the
+family group.
+
+“And I don’t think Miss Titus would do such a thing,” hesitated Dot.
+
+“Well!” said Tess.
+
+“Well!” echoed Dot.
+
+Both had come to the same and inevitable conclusion. There was but one
+person left in the house to accuse.
+
+“Aggie’s been playing a joke on us,” both girls stated, with
+conviction.
+
+But Agnes had played no joke. She had been out to the store for Mrs.
+McCall at the time the children were in the kitchen. Besides, Agnes
+“would not fib about it,” as Tess declared.
+
+The disappearance of the dolls’ feast joined hands, it seemed to Dot,
+with that mysterious _something_ that she knew she had heard Ruth and
+Agnes talking about at night, and which the younger girl had thought
+referred to a goat in the garret.
+
+“It’s just the mysteriousest thing,” she began, speaking to Tess, when
+the latter suddenly exclaimed:
+
+“Sandy-face!”
+
+The mother cat was just coming out of the bigger girls’ bedroom. She
+sat down at the head of the main flight of stairs and calmly washed
+her face. Sandy-face had the run of the house and her presence was
+driving out the mice, who had previously gnawed at their pleasure
+behind the wainscoting.
+
+“You—you don’t suppose Sandy-face did that?” gasped Dot.
+
+“Who else?” asked Tess.
+
+“All of those walnuts?” said Dot, in horror. “And those sandwiches?
+And not leave a crumb on the plates?”
+
+“She looks just as though she had,” determined Tess.
+
+“You—you are an awful bad cat, Sandy-face,” said Dot, almost in
+tears. “And I just hope those walnuts will disagree with your
+stomach—so now!”
+
+Tess was quite angry with the cat herself. She stamped her foot and
+cried “Shoo!” Sandy-face leaped away, surprised by such attentions,
+and scrambled up stairs in a hurry. Almost at once the two girls heard
+her utter a surprised yowl, and down she came from the garret, her
+tail as large as three tails, her eyes like saucers, and every
+indication of panic in her movements.
+
+She shot away for the back stairs, and so down to the hall and out of
+doors.
+
+“I don’t care,” exclaimed Dot. “I know those walnuts are disagreeing
+with her right now, and I’m glad. My! but she was punished soon for
+her greediness, wasn’t she, Tess?”
+
+There was something going on at the Creamer cottage, next door to the
+old Corner House. Tess and Dot became aware of this fact at about this
+time, so did not bother their heads much about Sandy’s supposed
+gluttony. Some of the windows on the second floor of the cottage were
+darkened, and every morning a closed carriage stopped before the house
+and a man went in with a black bag in his hand.
+
+Tess and Dot were soon wondering what could be happening to the little
+Creamer girls. The only one they saw was the curly haired one, who had
+spoken so unpleasantly to them on a particular occasion. They saw her
+wandering about the yard, and knew that she did not play, and was
+often crying by herself behind the clumps of bushes.
+
+So Tess, whose heart was opened immediately to any suffering thing,
+ventured near the picket fence again, and at last spoke to the Creamer
+girl.
+
+“What’s the matter, please?” Tess asked. “Did you lose anything? Can
+we help you find it?”
+
+The curly headed girl looked at her in surprise. Her pretty face was
+all streaked with tears.
+
+“You—you want to keep away from me!” she blurted out.
+
+“Oh, dear, me!” said Tess, clinging to Dot’s hand. “I didn’t mean to
+offend you again.”
+
+“Well, you’ll catch it, maybe,” sniffled the Creamer girl, whose name
+was Mabel.
+
+“Catch what?” asked Tess.
+
+“Something dreadful. All my sisters have it.”
+
+“Goodness!” breathed Dot.
+
+“What is it?” asked Tess, bravely standing her ground.
+
+“It’s _quarantine_,” declared Mabel Creamer, solemnly. “And I have to
+sleep in the library, and I can’t go up stairs. Neither does pop. And
+mamma never comes down stairs at all. And I have to play alone here in
+the yard,” sighed Mabel. “It’s just awful!”
+
+“I should think it was,” gasped Tess. “Then, that must be a doctor
+that comes to your house every day?”
+
+“Yes. And he is real mean. He won’t let me see mamma—only she comes
+to the top of the stairs and I have to stay at the bottom.
+Quarantine’s a _nawful_ thing to have in the house.
+
+“So you’d better stand farther off from that fence. I was real mean to
+you girls once, and I’m sorry enough now. But I hadn’t ought to play
+with you, for maybe _I’ll_ have the quarantine, too, and I’ll give it
+to you if you come too close.”
+
+“But we can play games together without coming too near,” said Tess,
+her kind heart desiring to help their neighbor. “We’ll play keep
+house—and there’ll be a river between us—and we can talk over a
+telephone—and all that.” And soon the three little girls were playing
+a satisfying game together and Mabel’s tears were dried and her heart
+comforted for the time being.
+
+That night at dinner, however, Dot waxed curious. “Is quarantine a
+very bad disease? Do folks die of it?” she asked.
+
+So the story came out, and the older girls laughed at the young one’s
+mistake. It was learned that all the Creamer children save Mabel had
+the measles.
+
+Ruth, however, was more puzzled about the novelty of a cat eating
+peanut butter and walnut creams than Dot had been about that wonderful
+disease, “quarantine.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+“MRS. TROUBLE”
+
+
+“You girls go through this pantry,” complained Mrs. McCall, “like the
+plague of locusts. There isn’t a doughnut left. Nor a sugar cookie. I
+managed to save some of the seed-cakes for tea, if you should have
+company, by hiding them away.
+
+“I honestly thought I made four apple pies on Monday; I can’t account
+but for three of them. A hearty appetite is a good gift; but I should
+suggest more bread and butter between meals, and less sweets.”
+
+Ruth took the matter up with the Corner House girls in convention
+assembled:
+
+“Here it is only Thursday, and practically all the week’s baking is
+gone. We must restrain ourselves, children. Remember how it used to be
+a real event, when we could bake a raisin cake on Saturday? We have no
+right to indulge our tastes for sweets, as Mrs. McCall says. Who
+knows? We may have to go back to the hard fare of Bloomingsburg again,
+sometime.”
+
+“Oh, never!” cried Agnes, in alarm.
+
+“You don’t mean that, sister?” asked Tess, worried.
+
+“Then we’d better eat all the good things we can, now,” Dot, the
+modern philosopher, declared.
+
+“You don’t mean that, Ruth,” said Agnes, repeating Tess’ words. “There
+is no doubt but that Uncle Peter meant us to have this house and all
+his money, and we’ll have it for good.”
+
+“Not for bad, I hope, at any rate,” sighed Ruth. “But we must mind
+what Mrs. McCall says about putting our hands in the cookie jars.”
+
+“But, if we get hungry?” Agnes declared.
+
+“Then bread and butter will taste good to us,” finished Ruth.
+
+“I am sure I haven’t been at the cookie jar any more than usual this
+week,” the twelve-year-old said.
+
+“Nor me,” Tess added.
+
+“Maybe Sandy did it,” suggested Dot. “She ate up all the dolls’
+dinner—greedy thing!”
+
+Agnes was puzzled. She said to the oldest Corner House girl when the
+little ones were out of earshot:
+
+“I wonder if it _was_ that cat that ate the dolls’ feast yesterday?”
+
+“How else could it have disappeared?” demanded Ruth.
+
+“But a cat eating cream walnuts!”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Ruth. “But of course, it wasn’t Sandy-face that
+has been dipping into the cookie jars. We must be good, Agnes. I tell
+you that we may be down to short commons again, as we used to be in
+Bloomingsburg. We must be careful.”
+
+Just why Ruth seemed to wish to economize, Agnes could not understand.
+Her older sister puzzled Agnes. Instead of taking the good things that
+had come into their lives here at the old Corner House with joy, Ruth
+seemed to be more than ever worried. At least, Agnes was sure that
+Ruth smiled even less frequently than had been her wont.
+
+When Ruth chanced to be alone with Miss Titus, instead of her mind
+being fixed upon dressmaking details, she was striving to gather from
+the seamstress more particulars of those strange claimants to Uncle
+Peter’s estate.
+
+Not that Miss Titus had much to tell. She had only surmises to offer.
+Mrs. Bean, though claiming to know the people very well, had told the
+spinster lady very little about them.
+
+“Their names is Treble, I understand,” said Miss Titus. “I never heard
+of no family of Trebles living in Milton here—no, Ma’am! But you
+can’t tell. Folks claiming relationship always turn up awful
+unexpected where there’s money to be divided.”
+
+“Mother was only half sister to Uncle Peter,” said Ruth, reflectively.
+“But Uncle Peter was never married.”
+
+“Not as anybody in Milton ever heard on,” admitted Miss Titus.
+
+“Do you suppose Aunt Sarah would know who these people are?” queried
+Ruth.
+
+“You can just take it from me,” said Miss Titus, briskly, “that Sally
+Maltby never knew much about Peter’s private affairs. Never half as
+much as she claimed to know, and not a quarter of what she’d _liked_
+to have known!
+
+“That’s why she had to get out of the old Corner House——”
+
+“Did she _have_ to?” interrupted Ruth, quickly.
+
+“Yes, she did,” said the seamstress, nodding confidently. “Although
+old Mr. Stower promised her mother she should have shelter here as
+long as Sally lived, he died without making a will. Mrs.
+Maltby-that-was, died first. So there wasn’t any legal claim Sally
+Maltby could make. She stayed here only by Peter’s sufferance, and she
+couldn’t be content.
+
+“Sally learned only one lesson—that of keeping her tongue between her
+teeth,” pursued Miss Titus. “Peter declared she was always snooping
+around, and watching and listening. Sally always was a stubborn thing,
+and she had got it into her head that she had rights here—which of
+course, she never had.
+
+“So finally Peter forbade her coming into the front part of the house
+at all; then she went to live with your folks, and Peter washed his
+hands of her. I expect, like all misers, Peter wanted to hide things
+about the old house and didn’t want to be watched. Do you know if
+Howbridge found much of the old man’s hidings?”
+
+“I do not know about that,” said Ruth, smiling. “But Uncle Rufus
+thinks Uncle Peter used to hide things away in the garret.”
+
+“In the garret?” cried Miss Titus, shrilly. “Well, then! they’d stay
+there for all of me. I wouldn’t hunt up there for a pot of gold!”
+
+Nor would Ruth—for she did not expect any such hoard as that had been
+hidden away in the garret by Uncle Peter. She often looked curiously
+at Aunt Sarah, however, when she sat with the old lady, tempted to ask
+her point-blank what she knew about Uncle Peter’s secrets.
+
+When a person is as silent as Aunt Sarah habitually was, it is only
+natural to surmise that the silent one may have much to tell. Ruth had
+not the courage, however, to advance the subject. She, like her
+younger sisters, stood in no little awe of grim Aunt Sarah.
+
+Mr. Howbridge remained away and Miss Titus completed such work as Ruth
+dared have done, and removed her machine and cutting table from the
+old Corner House. The days passed for the Kenway girls in cheerful
+occupations and such simple pleasures as they had been used to all
+their lives.
+
+Agnes would, as she frankly said, have been glad to “make a splurge.”
+She begged to give a party to the few girls they had met but Ruth
+would not listen to any such thing.
+
+“I think it’s mean!” Aggie complained. “We want to get folks to coming
+here. If they think the old house is haunted, we want to prove to them
+that it is haunted only by the Spirit of Hospitality.”
+
+“Very fine! very fine!” laughed Ruth. “But we shall have to wait for
+that, until we are more secure in our footing here.”
+
+“‘More secure!’” repeated Agnes. “When will that ever be? I don’t
+believe Mr. Howbridge will ever find Uncle Peter’s will. I’d like to
+hunt myself for it.”
+
+“And perhaps _that_ might not be a bad idea,” sighed Ruth, to herself.
+“Perhaps we ought to search the old house from cellar to garret for
+Uncle Peter’s hidden papers.”
+
+Something happened, however, before she could carry out this
+half-formed intention. Tess and Dot had gone down Main Street on an
+errand for Ruth. Coming back toward the old Corner House, they saw
+before them a tall, dark lady, dressed in a long summer mantle, a lace
+bonnet, and other bits of finery that marked her as different from the
+ordinary Milton matron doing her morning’s marketing. She had a little
+girl with her.
+
+“I never saw those folks before,” said Dot to Tess.
+
+“No. They must be strangers. That little girl is wearing a pretty
+dress, isn’t she?”
+
+Tess and Dot came abreast of the two. The little girl _was_ very
+showily dressed. Her pink and white face was very angelic in its
+expression—while in repose. But she chanced to look around and see
+the Kenway girls looking at her, and instantly she stuck out her
+tongue and made a face.
+
+“Oh, dear! She’s worse than that Mabel Creamer,” said Tess, and she
+took Dot’s hand and would have hurried by, had the lady not stopped
+them.
+
+“Little girls! little girls!” she said, commandingly. “Tell me where
+the house is, in which Mr. Peter Stower lived. It is up this way
+somewhere they told me at the station.”
+
+“Oh, yes, Ma’am,” said Tess, politely. “It is the old Corner
+House—_our_ house.”
+
+“_Your_ house?” said the tall lady, sharply. “What do you mean by
+that?”
+
+“We live there,” said Tess, bravely. “We are two of the Kenway girls.
+Then there are Ruth and Agnes. And Aunt Sarah. We all live there.”
+
+“You reside in Mr. Peter Stower’s house?” said the lady, with
+emphasis, and looking not at all pleasant, Tess thought. “How long
+have you resided there?”
+
+“Ever since we came to Milton. We were Uncle Peter’s only relations,
+so Mr. Howbridge came for us and put us in the house,” explained Tess,
+gravely.
+
+“Mr. Stower’s only relatives?” repeated the lady, haughtily. “We will
+see about _that_. You may lead on to the house. At least, I am sure we
+have as much right there as a parcel of girls.”
+
+Tess and Dot were troubled, but they led the way. Agnes and Ruth were
+on the big front porch sewing and they saw the procession enter the
+gate.
+
+“Goodness me! who’s this coming?” asked Agnes, eyeing the dark lady
+with startled curiosity. “Looks as though she owned the place.”
+
+“Oh, Agnes!” gasped Ruth, and sprang to her feet. She met the lady at
+the steps.
+
+“Who are you?” asked the stranger, sourly.
+
+“I am Ruth Kenway. Did you—you wish to see me, Ma’am?”
+
+“I don’t care whom I see,” the lady answered decisively, marching
+right up the steps and leading the angel-faced little girl by the
+hand. “I want you to know that I am Mrs. Treble. Mrs. John Augustus
+Treble. My daughter Lillie (stand straight, child!) and I, have been
+living in Michigan. John Augustus has been dead five years. He was
+blown up in a powder-mill explosion, so I can prove his death very
+easily. So, when I heard that my husband’s uncle, Mr. Peter Stower,
+was dead here in Milton, I decided to come on and get Lillie’s share
+of the property.”
+
+“Oh!” murmured Ruth and Agnes, in chorus.
+
+“I am not sure that, as John Augustus Treble’s widow, my claims to the
+estate do not come clearly ahead of _yours_. I understand that you
+Kenway girls are merely here on sufferance, and that the ties of
+relationship between you and Mr. Peter Stower are very scant indeed.
+Of course, I suppose the courts will have to decide the matter, but
+meanwhile you may show me to my room. I don’t care to pay a hotel
+bill, and it looks to me as though there were plenty of rooms, and to
+spare, in this ugly old house.”
+
+Ruth was left breathless. But Agnes was able to whisper in her
+sister’s ear:
+
+“‘Mrs. Treble’ indeed! She looks to me, Ruth, a whole lot like ‘Mrs.
+Trouble.’ What _shall_ we do?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+RUTH DOES WHAT SHE THINKS IS RIGHT
+
+
+Mrs. Treble, as the tall, dark lady called herself, had such an air of
+assurance and command, that Ruth was at a loss what course to take
+with her. Finally the oldest Kenway girl found voice to say:
+
+“Won’t you take one of these comfortable rockers, Mrs. Treble? Perhaps
+we had better first talk the matter over a little.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad to sit down,” admitted Mrs. Treble. “Don’t muss your
+dress, Lillie. We’ve been traveling some ways, as I tell you. Clean
+from Ypsilanti. We came on from Cleveland Junction this morning, and
+it’s a hot day. _Don’t_ rub your shoes together, Lillie.”
+
+“It _is_ very warm,” said Ruth, handing their visitor a fan and
+sending Agnes for a glass of cold water from the icebox.
+
+“Then we’ve been to that lawyer’s office,” pursued Mrs. Treble. “What
+do you call him—Howbridge? Don’t rub your hands on your skirt,
+Lillie.”
+
+“Yes; Mr. Howbridge,” replied Ruth.
+
+“_Don’t_ take off that hat, Lillie. So we’ve been walking in the sun
+some. That’s nice, cool water. Have some, Lillie? Don’t drip it on
+your dress.”
+
+“Wouldn’t your little girl like to go with Tess and Dot to the
+playhouse in the garden?” Ruth suggested. “Then we can talk.”
+
+“Why—yes,” said Mrs. Treble. “Go with the little girls, Lillie. Don’t
+you get a speck of dirt on you, Lillie.”
+
+Ruth did not see the awful face the much admonished Lillie made, as
+she left her mother’s side. It amazed Tess and Dot so that they could
+not speak. Her tongue went into her cheek, and she drew down the
+corners of her mouth and rolled her eyes, leering so terribly, that
+for an instant she looked like nothing human. Then she resumed the
+placidity of her angelic expression, and minced along after the
+younger Kenway girls, and out of sight around a corner of the house.
+
+Meanwhile, Agnes had drawn Ruth aside, and whispered: “What are you
+going to do? She’s raving crazy, isn’t she? Had I better run for a
+doctor—or the police?”
+
+“Sh!” admonished Ruth. “She is by no means crazy. I don’t know _what_
+to do!”
+
+“But she says she has a right to live here, too,” gasped Agnes.
+
+“Perhaps she has.”
+
+“Mr. Howbridge said we were Uncle Peter’s only heirs,” said Agnes,
+doggedly.
+
+“May—maybe he didn’t know about this John Augustus Treble. We must
+find out about it,” said Ruth, much worried. “Of course, we wouldn’t
+want to keep anybody out of the property, if they had a better right
+to it.”
+
+“_What?_” shrilled Agnes. “Give it up? Not—on—your—life!”
+
+In the meantime, Tess and Dot scarcely knew how to talk to Lillie
+Treble. She was such a strange girl! They had never seen anybody at
+all like her before.
+
+Lillie walked around the house, out of her mother’s sight, just as
+mincingly as a peacock struts. Her look of angelic sweetness would
+have misled anybody. She just looked as though she had never done a
+single wrong thing in all her sweet young life!
+
+But Tess and Dot quickly found that Lillie Treble was not at all the
+perfect creature she appeared to the casual observer. Her angelic
+sweetness was all a sham. Away from her mother’s sharp eye, Lillie
+displayed very quickly her true colors.
+
+“Those all your dolls?” she demanded, when she was shown the
+collection of Tess and Dot in the garden house.
+
+“Yes,” said Tess.
+
+“Well, my mother says we’re going to stay here, and if you want me to
+play with you,” said this infantile socialist, “we might as well
+divide them up right now.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Tess.
+
+“I’ll take a third of them. They can be easily divided. I choose
+_this_ one to begin with,” said Lillie, diving for the Alice-doll.
+
+With a shriek of alarm, Dot rescued this—her choicest possession—and
+stood on the defensive, the Alice-doll clasped close to her breast.
+
+“No! you can’t have that,” said Tess, decidedly.
+
+“Why not?” demanded Lillie.
+
+“Why—it’s the doll Dot loves the best.”
+
+“Well,” said Lillie, calmly, “I suppose if I chose one of _yours_,
+you’d holler, too. I never did see such selfish girls. Huh! if I can’t
+have the dolls I want, I won’t choose any. I don’t want to play with
+the old things, anyway!” and she made a most dreadful face at the
+Kenway sisters.
+
+“Oh-oh!” whispered Dot. “I don’t like her at all.”
+
+“Well, I suppose we must amuse her,” said Tess, strong for duty.
+
+“But she says she is going to stay here all the time,” pursued the
+troubled Dot, as Lillie wandered off toward the foot of the garden.
+
+“I don’t believe that can be so,” said Tess, faintly. “But it’s our
+duty to entertain her, while she _is_ here.”
+
+“I don’t see why we should. She’s not a nice girl at all,” Dot
+objected.
+
+“Dot! you know very well Ruth wants us to look out for her,” Tess
+said, with emphasis. “We can’t get out of it.”
+
+So the younger girl, over-ruled by Tess, followed on. At the foot of
+the garden, Lillie caught sight of Ruth’s flock of hens. Uncle Rufus
+had repaired the henhouse and run, and Ruth had bought in the market a
+dozen hens and a rooster of the white Plymouth Rock breed. Mr. Rooster
+strutted around the enclosure very proudly with his family. They were
+all very tame, for the children made pets of them.
+
+“Don’t you ever let them out?” asked Lillie, peering through the
+wire-screen.
+
+“No. Not now, Ruth says. They would get into the garden,” Tess
+replied.
+
+“Huh! you could shoo them out again. I had a pet hen at Ypsilanti. I’d
+rather have hens than dolls, anyway. The hens are alive,” and she
+tried the gate entering upon the hen-run.
+
+“Oh!” exclaimed Tess. “You mustn’t let them out.”
+
+“Who’s letting them out?” demanded Lillie.
+
+“Well, then, you mustn’t go into the yard.”
+
+“Why not?” repeated the visitor.
+
+“Ruth won’t like it.”
+
+“Well, I guess my mother’s got more to say about this place than your
+sister has. She says she’s going to show a parcel of girls how to run
+this house, and run it right. That’s what she told Aunt Adeline and
+Uncle Noah, when we went to live with them in Ypsilanti.”
+
+Thus speaking, Lillie opened the gate and walked into the poultry
+yard. At once there was great excitement in the flock. Lillie plunged
+at the nearest hen and missed her. The rooster uttered a startled and
+admonitory “Cut! cut! ca-dar-cut!” and led the procession of
+frightened hens about the yard.
+
+“Aren’t hens foolish?” demanded Lillie, calmly. “I am not going to
+hurt her.”
+
+She made another dive for the hen. The rooster uttered another shriek
+of warning and went through the watering-pan, flapping his wings like
+mad. The water was spilled, and the next attempt Lillie made to seize
+a hen, she was precipitated into the puddle!
+
+Both hands, one knee, and the front of her frock were immediately
+streaked with mud. Lillie shrieked her anger, and plunged after the
+frightened hens again. She was a determined girl. Tess and Dot added
+their screams to the general hullabaloo.
+
+Round and round went the hens, led by the gallant rooster. Finally the
+inevitable happened. Lillie got both hands upon one of the white hens.
+
+“Now I got you—silly!” shrieked Lillie.
+
+But she spoke too quickly and too confidently. It was only the
+tail-feathers Lillie grabbed. With a wild squawk, the hen flew
+straight away, leaving the bulk of her plumage in the naughty girl’s
+hands!
+
+The girls outside the fence continued to scream, and so did the flock
+of hens. The rooster, who was a heavy bird, came around the yard
+again, on another lap, and wildly leaped upon Lillie’s back.
+
+He scrambled over her, his great spurs and claws tearing her frock,
+and his wings beating her breathlessly to the ground. Just then Uncle
+Rufus came hobbling along.
+
+“Glo-ree! who dat chile in dat hen-cage?” he demanded. “Dat ol’
+rooster’ll put her eyes out for her—dat he will!”
+
+He opened the gate, went in, and grabbed up Lillie Treble from the
+ground. When he set her on her feet outside the fence, she was a sight
+to behold!
+
+“Glo-ree!” gasped Uncle Rufus. “What you doin’ in dar, chile?”
+
+“Mind your own business!” exclaimed Lillie. “You’re only a black man.
+I don’t have to mind _you_, I hope.”
+
+She was covered with mud and dust, and her frock was in great
+disarray, but she was self-contained—and as saucy as ever. Tess and
+Dot were horrified by her language.
+
+“I dunno who yo’ is, gal!” exclaimed Uncle Rufus. “But yo’ let Missie
+Ruth’s chickens erlone, or I’ll see ter yuh, lak’ yer was one o’ my
+own gran’chillen.”
+
+Lillie was sullen—and just a little frightened of Uncle Rufus. The
+disaster made but slight impression upon her mind.
+
+“What—what will your mother say?” gasped Tess, when the three girls
+were alone again.
+
+“She won’t say anything—till she sees me,” sniffed Lillie. And to put
+that evil hour off, she began to inquire as to further possibilities
+for action about the old Corner House.
+
+“What do you girls do?” she asked.
+
+“Why,” said Tess, “we play house; and play go visiting; and—and roll
+hoop; and sometimes skip rope——”
+
+“Huh! that’s dreadful tame. Don’t you ever _do_ anything——Oh!
+there’s my mother!” A window had opened in one of the wings of the big
+house, on the second floor. It was a window of a room that the Kenway
+family had not before used. Tess and Dot saw Ruth as well as Mrs.
+Treble at the window.
+
+Ruth was doing what she thought was right. Mrs. Treble had confessed
+to the oldest of the Corner House girls that she had arrived at Milton
+with scarcely any money. She could not pay her board even at the very
+cheapest hotel. Mr. Howbridge was away, Ruth knew, and nothing could
+be done to straighten out this tangle in affairs until the lawyer came
+back.
+
+So she had offered Mrs. Treble shelter for the present. Moreover, the
+lady, with a confidence equaled only by Aunt Sarah’s, demanded in
+quite a high and mighty way to be housed and fed. Yet she had calmed
+down, and actually thanked Ruth for her hospitality, when she found
+that the girl was not to be intimidated, but was acting the part of a
+Good Samaritan from a sense of duty.
+
+Agnes was too angry for words. She could not understand why Ruth
+should cater to this “Mrs. Trouble,” as she insisted, in secret, upon
+calling the woman from Ypsilanti.
+
+Ruth was showing the visitor a nice room on the same floor with those
+chambers occupied by the girls themselves, and Mrs. Treble was
+approving, when she chanced to look out of the window and behold her
+angelic Lillie in the condition related above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+“DOUBLE TROUBLE”
+
+
+“What is the meaning of that horrid condition of your clothing,
+Lillie?” demanded Mrs. Treble from the open window.
+
+“I fell in the mud, Mamma,” said the unabashed Lillie, and glanced
+aside at Tess and Dot with a sweetly troubled look, as though she
+feared they were at fault for her disarray, but did not quite like to
+say so!
+
+“Come up here at once!” commanded her mother, who turned to Ruth to
+add: “I am afraid your sisters are very rough and rude in their play.
+Lillie has not been used to such playmates. Of course, left without a
+mother as they were, nothing better can be expected of them.”
+
+Meanwhile, Lillie had turned one of her frightful grimaces upon Tess
+and Dot before starting for the house, and the smaller Kenway girls
+were left frozen in their tracks by the ferocity of this parting
+glare.
+
+Lillie appeared at luncheon dressed in some of Tess’ garments and some
+of Dot’s—none of them fitting her very well. She had a sweetly
+forgiving air, which bolstered up her mother’s opinion that Tess and
+Dot were guilty of leading her angelic child astray.
+
+Mrs. Treble had two trunks at the railway station and Uncle Rufus was
+sent to get an expressman to bring them up to the Corner House. Ruth
+paid the expressman.
+
+“Talk about the _Old Man of the Sea_ that _Sinbad_ had to carry on his
+shoulders!” scoffed Agnes, in private, to Ruth. “This Mrs. Trouble is
+going to be a bigger burden for us than he was. And I believe that
+girl is going to be ‘Double Trouble.’ She looks like butter wouldn’t
+melt in her mouth. Uncle Rufus says she got in that messy condition
+before lunch, chasing the hens out of their seven senses.”
+
+“There are only five senses, Aggie,” said Ruth, patiently.
+
+“Humph! that’s all right for folks, but hens have two more, I reckon,”
+chuckled the younger girl.
+
+“Well,” said Ruth, “we must treat Mrs. Treble politely.”
+
+“You act as though you really thought they had some right to come here
+and live on us,” cried Agnes.
+
+“Perhaps they have a right to some of Uncle Peter’s property. We don’t
+know.”
+
+“I don’t believe it! She’s the sort of a person—that Mrs.
+Trouble—who assumes rights wherever she goes.”
+
+Ruth had to confess that Mrs. Treble _was_ trying. She criticised Mrs.
+McCall’s cooking and the quantity of food on the table at luncheon.
+Lillie did not like dried apple pies, and said so bluntly, with a
+hostile glare at the dessert in question.
+
+“Well, little girl,” said Mrs. McCall, “you’ll have to learn to like
+them. I’ve just bought quite a lot of dried apples and they’ve got to
+be eaten up.”
+
+Lillie made another awful face—but her mother did not see it. Dot was
+so awe-stricken by these facial gymnastics of the strange girl that
+she could scarcely eat, and watched Lillie continually.
+
+“That child ought to be cured of staring so,” remarked Mrs. Treble,
+frowning at Dot. “Or is her eyesight bad?”
+
+Mrs. Treble was busy, after her trunks came, in unpacking them and
+arranging her room to suit herself—as though she expected to make a
+long visit. She had suggested appropriating Uncle Peter’s old bedroom
+in the front of the house, but that suite of rooms was locked, and
+Ruth refrained from telling her that _she_ had the keys.
+
+Meantime the bigger Corner House girls tried to help the smaller ones
+entertain Lillie. Lillie was not like any normal girl whom they had
+ever known. She wanted to do only things in which she could lead, and
+if she was denied her way in any particular, she “wouldn’t play” and
+threatened to go up stairs and tell her mother.
+
+“Why,” said Agnes, first to become exasperated. “You want to be the
+whole show—including the drum-major at the head of the procession,
+and the little boys following the clown’s donkey-cart at the end!”
+
+Lillie made a face.
+
+“I think,” said Ruth, quietly, “that if I were you, Lillie, and went
+to visit, I’d try to make my new friends like me.”
+
+“Huh!” said Lillie. “I’m not visiting—don’t you fool yourselves. My
+mother and I have come here to stay. We’re not going to be put out
+like we were at Aunt Adeline’s and Uncle Noah’s. Mother says we’ve got
+more right to this old house than you Kenways have, and she’s going to
+get her rights.”
+
+That made Dot cry, and Tess looked dreadfully serious. Agnes was too
+angry to play with the girl any more, and Ruth, even, gave her up as
+impossible. Lillie wandered off by herself, for her mother would not
+be bothered with her just then.
+
+When Mrs. McCall went out into the kitchen that afternoon to start
+dinner, she missed the bag of dried apples that had been left on the
+table. There had been nearly four pounds of them.
+
+“What under the canopy’s become of that bag?” demanded the good lady.
+“This is getting too much, I declare. I _know_ I missed the end of the
+corned beef yesterday, and half a loaf of bread. I couldn’t be sure
+about the cookies and doughnuts, and the pie.
+
+“But there that bag of dried apples stood, and there it _isn’t_ now!
+What do you know about such crazy actions?” she demanded of Ruth, who
+had come at her call.
+
+“Why! it’s a mystery,” gasped the eldest of the Corner House girls. “I
+can’t understand it, dear Mrs. McCall. Of course none of us girls have
+taken the dried apples. And if you have missed other things from your
+pantry of late, I am just as sure we are not at fault. I have warned
+the girls about raiding the cookie jars between meals.”
+
+“Well,” said Mrs. McCall, with awe, “what can have taken them? And a
+bag of dried apples! Goodness! It’s enough to give one the shivers and
+shakes.”
+
+Ruth was deeply mystified, too. She knew very well that Sandy-face,
+the cat, could not be accused with justice of this loss. Cats
+certainly do not eat dried apples—and such a quantity!
+
+It began to rain before evening, and Tess and Dot rushed out to rescue
+their dolls and other playthings, for there was wind with the rain and
+they were afraid it would blow in upon their treasures.
+
+Here poor Dot received an awful shock. The Alice-doll was gone!
+
+Dot went in crying to Ruth and would not be comforted. She loved the
+missing doll as though it was a real, live baby—there could be no
+doubt of that. And why should a thief take that lovely doll only, and
+leave all the others?
+
+Mysteries were piling upon mysteries! It was a gloomy night out of
+doors and a gloomy night inside the old Corner House as well. Mrs.
+Treble’s air and conversation were sufficient alone to make the Kenway
+girls down-hearted. Dot cried herself to sleep that night, and not
+even Agnes could comfort her.
+
+The wind howled around the house, and tried every latch and shutter
+fastening. Ruth lay abed and wondered if the thing she had seen at the
+window in the garret on that other windy day was now appearing and
+vanishing in its spectral way?
+
+And what should she do about Mrs. Treble and her little girl? What
+would Mr. Howbridge say when he came home again?
+
+Had she any right to spend more of the estate’s money in caring for
+these two strangers who were (according to the lady herself) without
+any means at all? Ruth Kenway put in two very bad hours that night,
+before she finally fell asleep.
+
+The sun shone brightly in the morning, however. How much better the
+world and all that is in it seems on a clean, sunshiny morning! Even
+Dot was able to control her tears, as she went out upon the back porch
+with Tess, before breakfast.
+
+The rain had saturated everything. The brown dirt path had been
+scoured and then gullied by the hard downpour. Right at the corner of
+the woodshed, where the water ran off in a cataract, when it _did_
+rain, was a funny looking mound.
+
+“Why—why! what’s that?” gasped Dot.
+
+“It looks just as though a poor little baby had been buried there,”
+whispered Tess. “But of course, it isn’t! Maybe there’s some animal
+trying to crawl out of the ground.”
+
+“O-o-o!” squealed Dot. “_What_ animal?”
+
+“I don’t know. Not a mole. Moles don’t make such a big hump in the
+ground.”
+
+As the girls wondered, Uncle Rufus came up from the henhouse. He saw
+the strange looking mound, too.
+
+“Glo-ree!” he gasped. “How come dat?”
+
+“We don’t know, Uncle Rufus,” said Tess eagerly. “We just found it.”
+
+“Somebody been buryin’ a dawg in we-uns back yard? My soul!”
+
+“Oh, it can’t be!” cried Tess.
+
+“And it isn’t Sandy-face,” Dot declared. “For she’s in the kitchen
+with all her children.”
+
+“Wait er bit—wait er bit,” said the old man, solemnly. “Unc’ Rufus
+gwine ter look inter dis yere matter. It sho’ is a misery”—meaning
+“mystery.”
+
+He brought a shovel and dug down beside the mound. Lifting out a huge
+shovelful of dirt, there were scattered all about the path a great
+number of swollen and messy brown things that, for a moment, the girls
+did not identify. Then Uncle Rufus lifted up his voice in a roar:
+
+“Looker yere! Looker yere! Missie Ruth! see wot you-all mak’ out o’
+disher monkey-shines. Here’s dem dried apples, buried in de groun’ and
+swelled fit ter bust demselves.”
+
+[Illustration: “Looker yere! Looker yere! Missie Ruth! There
+dem dried apples, buried in de groun’”]
+
+Mrs. McCall as well as the other girls came running to see. It was
+Agnes that saw something else under the mound. She darted down the
+steps, put her hand into the hole and drew out the Alice-doll!
+
+The poor thing’s dress was ruined. Its hair was a mass of plastered
+apple, and its face as well. Such a disreputable looking thing!
+
+While the others cried out in wonder and disclaimed all knowledge of
+how the marvel could have happened, Agnes spoke two accusing words.
+
+“Double Trouble!” she cried, pointing her finger at Lillie Treble, who
+had just appeared, angelic face and all, at the back door.
+
+“Did that young’un do that?” demanded Mrs. McCall, vigorously.
+
+“She most certainly did,” declared Agnes. “She tried to get rid of the
+dried apples, and the doll Dot wouldn’t let her play with, at one and
+the same time. Isn’t she the mean thing?”
+
+Instantly Lillie’s face was convulsed into a mask of rage and dislike.
+“I hate all you girls!” she snarled. “I’ll do worse than that to you!”
+
+Mrs. McCall seized her like an eagle pouncing upon a rabbit. Mrs.
+McCall was very vigorous. She carried Lillie into the kitchen with one
+hand, and laid her abruptly, face down, over her knee.
+
+What happened during the next few moments was evidently the surprise
+of Lillie Treble’s young life. Her mother had never corrected her in
+that good, old-fashioned way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+MR. HOWBRIDGE IS PERPLEXED
+
+
+Tess and Dot went out that morning, when the sun had dried the grass,
+to play with the lonely little Creamer girl, and they did not invite
+Lillie Treble to go with them.
+
+Nobody could blame them for that breach of politeness. Dot could not
+overlook the dreadful thing Lillie had done to the Alice-doll.
+Fortunately, the doll was not wholly ruined—but “no thanks to
+Lillie,” as Agnes said.
+
+She never _would_ look like the same doll again. “She is so pale now,”
+said Dot, hugging the doll tightly; “she looks as though she had been
+through a dreadful illness. Doesn’t she, Tess?”
+
+“And her beautiful dress and cap all ruined,” groaned Tess. “It was
+awfully mean of Lillie.”
+
+“I don’t care so much about the dress,” murmured Dot. “But the color
+ran so in her cheeks, and one of her eyes is ever so much lighter blue
+than the other.”
+
+“We’ll play she _has_ been sick,” said Tess. “She’s had the measles,
+like Mabel’s sisters.”
+
+“Oh, no!” cried Dot, who believed in the verities of play-life. “Oh,
+no! it would not be nice to have all the other dolls quarantined, like
+Mabel is.”
+
+Mabel was not very happy on this morning, it proved. Her face was
+flushed when she came to the fence, and she spoke to the Kenway girls
+hoarsely, as though she suffered from a cold.
+
+“Come on over here and play. I’m tired of playing so at arm’s length
+like we’ve been doing.”
+
+“Oh, we couldn’t,” said Tess, shaking her head vigorously.
+
+“Why not? _You_ haven’t quarantine at your house,” said Mabel,
+pouting.
+
+“Mrs. McCall says we mustn’t—nor you mustn’t come over here.”
+
+“I don’t care,” began Mabel, but Tess broke in cheerfully, with:
+
+“Oh, let’s keep on using the make-believe telephone. And let’s make
+believe the river’s in a flood between us, and the bridges are all
+carried away, and——”
+
+“No! I won’t play that way,” cried Mabel, passionately, and with a
+stamp of her foot. “I want you to come over here.”
+
+“We can’t,” said Tess, quite as firmly.
+
+“You’re mean things—there now! I never did like you, anyway. I want
+you to play in my yard——”
+
+“_I’ll_ come over and play with you,” interposed a cool, sweet voice,
+and there was Lillie Treble, looking just as angelic as she could
+look.
+
+“Oh, Lillie!” gasped Tess. But Mabel broke in with:
+
+“Come on. There’s a loose picket yonder. You can push it aside. Come
+on over here, little girl, and we’ll have a good time. I never did
+like those stuck-up Kenway girls, anyway.”
+
+Lillie turned once to give Tess and Dot the full benefit of one of the
+worst grimaces she could possibly make. Then she joined the Creamer
+girl in the other yard. She remained over there all the morning, and
+for some reason Mabel and Lillie got along very nicely together.
+Lillie could be real nice, if she wanted to be.
+
+That afternoon Mabel did not appear in her yard and Lillie wandered
+about alone, having sworn eternal enmity against Tess and Dot. The
+next morning Mrs. Creamer put her head out of an upstairs window of
+the cottage and told Mrs. McCall, who chanced to be near the
+line-fence between the two places, that Mabel had “come down” with the
+measles, after all the precautions they had taken with her.
+
+“It’s lucky those two little girls over there didn’t come into our
+yard to play with her,” said Mrs. Creamer. “The other young ones are
+just beginning to get around, and now Mabel will have to have a spell.
+She always was an obstinate child; she couldn’t even have measles at a
+proper and convenient time.”
+
+Mrs. Treble, meantime, was feeling herself more and more at home in
+the old Corner House. She did not offer to help in the general
+housework in the least, and did nothing but “rid up” her own room.
+There could be nothing done, or nothing talked of in the family, that
+Mrs. Treble was not right there to interfere, or advise, or change, or
+in some way “put her oar in,” as Agnes disrespectfully said, to the
+complete vexation of the person most concerned.
+
+In addition, morning, noon and night she was forever dinning the fact
+into the ears of the girls, or Mrs. McCall, or Aunt Sarah, or Uncle
+Rufus, that her husband’s mother was Uncle Peter Stower’s own sister.
+“John Augustus Treble talked a lot about Uncle Peter—always,” she
+said. “I had a little property, when I married John Augustus. It was
+cash money left from my father’s life insurance.
+
+“He wasn’t a very good business man, John Augustus. But he meant
+well,” she continued. “He took my money and started a little store
+with it. He took a lease of the store for three years. There was a
+shoe factory right across the street, and a box shop on one hand and a
+knitting mill on the other. Looked like a variety store ought to pay
+in such a neighborhood.
+
+“But what happened?” demanded Mrs. Treble, in her most complaining
+tone. “Why, the shoe factory moved to Chicago. The box shop burned
+down. The knitting mill was closed up by the sheriff. Then the
+landlord took all John Augustus’ stock for payment of the rent.
+
+“So he had to go to work in the powder mill, and that finally blew him
+up. But he always said to me: ‘Now, don’t you fuss, Emily, don’t you
+fuss. When Uncle Peter Stower dies, there’ll be plenty coming to us,
+and you’ll live like a lady the rest of _your_ life.’ Poor fellow! If
+I hadn’t seen him go to work that morning, I’d never have believed it
+was the same man they put into his coffin.”
+
+When she told this version of the tale to Aunt Sarah, and many more
+details, Aunt Sarah never said a word, or even looked as though she
+heard Mrs. Treble. The old lady’s silence and grimness finally riled
+Mrs. Treble’s temper.
+
+“Say!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you say something? John Augustus’
+mother came from Milton when she was a girl. You must have known her.
+Why don’t you say something?”
+
+At last Aunt Sarah opened her lips. It was the second time in their
+lives that the Kenway girls had ever heard the old lady say more than
+two sentences consecutively.
+
+“You want me to say something? Then I will!” declared Aunt Sarah,
+grimly, and her eyes flashing. “You say your husband’s mother was
+Peter Stower’s sister, do ye? Well! old Mr. Stower never had but one
+child by his first wife, before he married my mother, and that child
+was Peter. Peter didn’t have any sister but these gals’ mother, and
+myself. You ain’t got no more right in this house than you would have
+in the palace of the King of England—and if Ruth Kenway wasn’t
+foolish, she’d put you out.”
+
+Agnes was delighted at this outbreak. It seemed that Aunt Sarah must
+speak with authority. Ruth was doubtful; she did not know which lady
+to believe. Mrs. Treble merely tossed her head, and said it was no
+more than she had expected. Of course, Aunt Sarah would back up these
+Kenway girls in their ridiculous claim to the estate.
+
+“Oh, dear me! I do wish Mr. Howbridge would return home,” groaned
+Ruth.
+
+“I’d put them both out,” declared Agnes, who could scarcely control
+her dislike for the lady from Ypsilanti and her bothersome little
+girl.
+
+The neighbors and those acquaintances whom the girls had made before
+began to take sides in the matter. Of course, Miss Titus had spread
+the tidings of the coming of Mrs. Treble, and what she had come for.
+The lady herself was not at all backward in putting her story before
+any person who might chance to call upon the Corner House girls.
+
+Some of these people evidently thought Mrs. Treble had the better
+right to Uncle Peter’s property. It was well known by now, that no
+will had been offered for probate. Others were sure, like Aunt Sarah,
+that Uncle Peter had had no sister save the girls’ mother.
+
+The minister’s wife came to call—heard both sides of the
+argument—and told Ruth she was doing just right. “It was a kindly
+thing to do, Ruth,” she said, kissing the girl, warmly. “I do not
+believe she has any claim upon the estate. There is a mistake
+somewhere. But you are a good girl, and Mr. Howbridge will straighten
+the matter out, when he comes—never fear.”
+
+But before the lawyer came, something occurred which seemed to make it
+quite impossible for Ruth to ask Mrs. Treble to go, even had she so
+desired. Lillie came down with the measles!
+
+She had caught the disease that morning she had played with Mabel
+Creamer, and to Dot’s horror, “quarantine” came into the old Corner
+House. Ruth was dreadfully afraid that Dot and Tess might catch the
+disease, too, for neither of them had had it. Although the doctor said
+that Lillie had the disease in a light form, Ruth kept the younger
+girls as far away from the Trebles’ apartment as she could, and even
+insisted upon Mrs. Treble taking her meals up stairs.
+
+Mr. Howbridge came home at last. Ruth had left a note at his office
+explaining her trouble, and the lawyer came over to the old Corner
+House the day following his return.
+
+He listened to Ruth’s story without comment. Then he went up stairs
+and talked with Mrs. Treble. From the sound of Mrs. Treble’s
+high-pitched voice, that must have been rather a stormy interview. Mr.
+Howbridge was quite calm when he came down to the girls again.
+
+“Oh, sir!” Agnes cried, unable to restrain herself any longer. “You
+are not going to let her put us out of this dear old house, are you!”
+
+“I wouldn’t worry about that, my dear. Not yet, at least,” returned
+Mr. Howbridge, kindly. But to Ruth he said: “It is an utterly
+unexpected situation. I am not prepared to give an opinion upon the
+woman’s claim.
+
+“However, I think you are a brave girl, Miss Kenway, and I approve of
+all you have done. You have made a good impression upon the people
+here in Milton, I am sure. Yes; you did quite right. Don’t worry about
+money matters. All the bills shall be paid.
+
+“But, my dear, I wish more than ever that we could find that will.
+That would settle affairs immediately, and unless she tried to break
+the will in the courts, she would have no standing at all. Of course,
+it is for the little girl she claims a part of Mr. Peter Stower’s
+property. She, personally, has no rights herself, even if her tale is
+true.”
+
+Ruth knew that he was perplexed, however, so her own heart was but
+little relieved by the lawyer’s visit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS WIN PUBLIC APPROVAL
+
+
+Was it Mr. Howbridge’s wish, or her own desire, that set Ruth the very
+next day at the task of searching the garret thoroughly? She allowed
+only Agnes to go up with her; Tess and Dot were out of the house, Mrs.
+McCall was busy, and the lady from Ypsilanti was engaged in nursing
+her little daughter.
+
+These days they were much relieved of Mrs. Treble’s interference in
+their affairs. Lillie claimed all her mother’s attention, and although
+the child was not very ill, she managed to take up almost every moment
+of her mother’s time.
+
+Agnes was frankly scary about the huge lumber-room at the top of the
+house. Despite Ruth’s declaration that they would use the garret to
+play in on stormy days, they had not often gone there for that—nor
+for any other—purpose.
+
+The girls had removed all the ancient garments and aired them. Many
+were moth-eaten and past redemption; those went to the ragman. Others
+were given to Petunia Blossom to be fixed over for her growing family.
+Some of the remainder were hung up again, shrouding one dark corner of
+the garret in which Ruth knew there was neither box, nor chest, nor
+trunk.
+
+It was the chests of drawers, and boxes, the two girls gave their
+attention to on the occasion of this search. Before, Ruth had opened
+several of the old-fashioned receptacles and rummaged in the contents.
+Now she and Agnes went at the task methodically.
+
+Everything was taken out of the chests, and boxes, and drawers, and
+shaken out before being put back again. The girls came upon many
+unexpected treasures, and Agnes soon forgot her fear of the supposed
+ghostly occupant of the garret.
+
+Ruth, however, would not allow her to stop and try on wonderful
+ancient garments, or read yellowed letters, bound with faded tape, or
+examine the old-fashioned gift-books, between the leaves of which were
+pressed flowers and herbs, all of which, Agnes was sure, were the
+souvenirs of sentiment.
+
+Oh, yes! there were papers—reams and reams of them! But they were
+either letters of no moment to the quest in hand, or ancient documents
+of no possible use save for their historical value. They came upon
+some papers belonging to the original Peter Stower—the strong,
+hard-working man who had built this great house in his old age and had
+founded the family.
+
+He had been an orphan and had been sheltered in the Milton poorhouse.
+Here was his “indenture paper,” which bound him to a blacksmith of the
+town when he was twelve years old. As Ruth and Agnes read the faded
+lines and old-fashioned printing, they realized that the difference
+between an apprentice in those days in the north, and a black slave in
+the south, was all in favor of the last named.
+
+But this “bound boy” had worked, studied nights so as to get some
+education, had married his master’s daughter, and come in time to be
+heir to his business. He had taken contracts for furnishing the
+ironwork for government warships, and so, little by little, had risen
+to be a prosperous, then a very wealthy man.
+
+The old Corner House was the fruit of his labor and his desire to
+establish in the town of his miserable beginnings, a monument to his
+own pluck and endeavor. Where he may have been scorned for the “bound
+boy” that he was, he took pride in leaving behind him when he died the
+memory only of a strong, rich, proud man.
+
+The girls found nothing which the last Peter Stower could have
+considered—whether he were miser, or not—of sufficient value to hide
+away. Certainly no recently dated papers came to light, and no will at
+all, or anything that looked like such a document.
+
+They ransacked every drawer, taking them out of the worm-eaten, shaky
+pieces of furniture, and rummaging behind them for secret panels and
+the like. Actually, the only thing the girls found that mystified them
+at all in their search, was half a doughnut lying on a window sill!
+
+“Whoever left that doughnut there?” demanded Agnes. “I don’t believe
+the girls have been up here alone. Could that Lillie have been here?”
+
+“Perhaps,” sighed Ruth. “She was going everywhere about the house,
+before she was taken down sick.”
+
+“It’s a blessing she’s sick—that’s what _I_ say,” was Agnes’ rather
+heartless reply. “But—a doughnut! and all hard and dry.”
+
+“Maybe it was Dot’s goat?” chuckled Ruth, nervously.
+
+“Don’t!” gasped Agnes. “My nerves are all on the jump as it is. Is
+there any single place in this whole garret that we haven’t looked?”
+
+Ruth chanced to be staring at the doughnut on the window sill, and did
+not at first answer. That was the window at the right of the chimney
+where she had seen the ghostly apparition fluttering in the storm. The
+space about the window remained cleared, as it was before.
+
+“Wake up!” commanded Agnes. “Where shall we look now?”
+
+Ruth turned with a sigh and went toward the high and ornate
+black-walnut “secretary” that stood almost in the middle of the huge
+room.
+
+“Goodness to gracious!” ejaculated the younger girl. “We’ve tried that
+old thing again and again. I’ve almost knocked the backboards off,
+pounding to see if there were secret places in it. It’s as empty as it
+is ugly.”
+
+“I suppose so,” sighed Ruth. “It’s strange, though, that Uncle Peter
+did not keep papers in it, for that is what it was intended for.
+Almost every drawer and cupboard in it locks with a different key.”
+
+She had been given a huge bunch of keys by Mr. Howbridge when they
+first came to the Corner House; and she had used these keys freely in
+searching the garret furniture.
+
+As they went hopelessly down to the third floor, at last, Ruth noticed
+that one of the small chambers on this floor, none of which the family
+had used since coming to Milton, had been opened. The door now stood
+ajar.
+
+“I suppose that snoopy Mrs. Treble has been up here,” said Agnes,
+sharply. “I thought all these doors were locked, Ruth?”
+
+“Not all of them had keys. But they were all shut tightly,” and she
+went to this particular room and peered in.
+
+The bed was a walnut four-poster—one of the old-fashioned kind that
+was “roped”—and the feather-bed lay upon it, covered with an
+old-fashioned quilt.
+
+“Why! it looks just as though somebody had been sleeping here,” gasped
+Ruth, after a moment.
+
+“What?” cried Agnes. “Impossible!”
+
+“Doesn’t that look like the imprint of a body on the bed? Not a big
+person. Somebody as big as Tess, perhaps?”
+
+“It wasn’t Tess, I am quite sure,” declared Agnes.
+
+“Could it have been Sandy-face?”
+
+“Of course not! No cat would make such a big hollow, lying down in a
+bed. I know! it was that Lillie Treble—‘Double Trouble’! Of course,”
+concluded Agnes, with assurance.
+
+So Ruth came out and closed the door carefully. Had it not been for
+her sister’s assurance at just this moment, Ruth might have made a
+surprising discovery, there and then!
+
+She had to report to Mr. Howbridge, by note, that a thorough search of
+the garret had revealed nothing which Uncle Peter Stower could have
+hidden away.
+
+While Lillie was under the doctor’s care, Mrs. Treble was out of the
+way. Affairs at the old Corner House went on in a more tranquil way.
+The Creamer girls who had first been ill, were allowed out of doors,
+and became very friendly with Tess and Dot—over the fence. The
+quarantine bars were not, as yet, altogether down.
+
+Maria Maroni came to see them frequently, and Alfredia Blossom brought
+her shining black face to the old Corner House regularly, on Mondays
+and Thursdays. Usually she could not stop to play on Monday, when she
+and Jackson came for the soiled clothes, but if Petunia got the
+ironing done early enough on Thursday, Alfredia visited for a while.
+
+“I don’t believe Alfredia could be any nicer, if she was bleached
+white,” Dot said, seriously, on one occasion. “But I know she’d like
+to be like us—and other folks, Tess.”
+
+“I expect she would,” agreed Tess. “But we must treat her just as
+though her skin was like ours. Ruth says she is sure Alfredia’s heart
+is white.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Dot. “And they showed us in school before we left
+Bloomingsburg, pictures of folks’ hearts, and lungs, and livers—don’t
+you remember? And the heart was painted _red_.”
+
+“I don’t expect they were photographs,” said Tess, decidedly. “And
+there aren’t any pictures exact but photographs—and movies.”
+
+The Pease girls came frequently to play with Tess and Dot, and the
+younger Kenways went to _their_ house. None of the Corner House girls
+could go out on the street now without being spoken to by the Milton
+people. Many of these friendly advances were made by comparative
+strangers to the four sisters.
+
+The tangle of Uncle Peter Stower’s affairs had gotten even into the
+local newspapers, and one newspaper reporter came to Ruth for what he
+called “an interview.” Ruth sent him to Mr. Howbridge and never heard
+anything more of it.
+
+The friends Agnes had made among the girls of her own, and Ruth’s, age
+began to come to call more frequently. Eva Larry admitted she felt
+shivery, whenever she approached the old house, and she could not be
+hired to come on a stormy day. Just the same, she was so sorry for the
+girls, and liked Agnes so much, that she just _had_ to run in and
+cheer them up a bit.
+
+Older people came, too. Ruth’s head might have been turned, had she
+been a less sensible girl. The manner in which she handled the
+situation which had risen out of Mrs. Treble’s coming east to demand a
+share of the property left by Peter Stower, seemed to have become
+public knowledge, and the public of Milton approved.
+
+Nobody called on Mrs. Treble. Perhaps that was because she was
+quarantined upstairs, with Lillie convalescent from her attack of the
+measles. However, the Corner House girls, as they were now generally
+called, seemed to be making friends rapidly.
+
+Public approval had set its seal upon their course.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CALLERS—AND THE GHOST
+
+
+“I do wonder!” said Tess, with a sigh.
+
+“What do you wonder?” asked Ruth, mildly.
+
+“Sounds like a game,” Agnes observed, briskly. The Corner House girls
+were sitting on the porch with their sewing, and it was a very warm
+August forenoon. “‘Cumjucum—what do you come by? I come by the letter
+T’—which stands for ‘Tess’ and ‘Trouble,’ which last is the
+expression on Tess’ face,” concluded Agnes, with a laugh.
+
+Tess’ train of thought was not to be sidetracked so easily. “I wonder
+whatever became of Tommy Rooney?” she said.
+
+“You don’t really believe that was Tommy you saw the day it rained so
+hard?” cried Agnes.
+
+“Yes, I do. And we know that Tommy stole cherries from Mr. Pease, and
+milk from Mrs. Adams. Didn’t he, Dot? And then, we saw Mr. Pinkney and
+that bulldog chasing him.”
+
+“He ran into our yard to escape the dog,” said Dot, seriously.
+
+“Well,” said Ruth, “if it was Tommy, I wish he had come to the house,
+so we could have fed him. Mrs. Rooney must be awfully worried about
+him. It’s been a month since we heard he had run away.”
+
+“And he’d been gone a week, then,” added Agnes.
+
+“Well,” said Tess, “I guess he hasn’t killed any Indians here in
+Milton, or we would have heard about it.”
+
+“I guess not,” chuckled Agnes.
+
+“I always look for him, when I’m on the street,” said Dot.
+
+“We’ll look for him to-day,” said Tess, “when we go to see Maria.”
+
+Tess and Dot were going over to Meadow Street that afternoon to call
+on the Maronis and Mrs. Kranz. The condition of the Maronis had
+greatly improved during these weeks. Not only Joe and Maria, but the
+whole family had begun to be proud of living “like Americans.”
+
+Mrs. Kranz, out of the kindness of her heart, had helped them a great
+deal. Maria helped the good German lady each forenoon, and was
+learning to be a careful little housekeeper.
+
+“She iss a goot mädchen,” declared the large lady. “Aind’t idt
+vonderful how soon dese foreigners gets to be respectable, ven dey iss
+learndt yet?”
+
+Tess and Dot went up stairs to make themselves ready for their visit,
+before luncheon. Upon their departure, Eva Larry and Myra Stetson
+appeared at the front gate.
+
+“Oh, do come in, girls!” shouted Agnes, dropping her sewing.
+
+“We will, if you’ll tie up your ghost,” said Eva, laughing.
+
+“Hush!” commanded Ruth. “Don’t say such things—not out loud, please.”
+
+“Well,” Eva said, as she and Myra joined them on the porch, “I
+understand you have ransacked that old garret. Did you chase out Mr.
+Ghost?”
+
+“What is that?” demanded Mrs. Treble’s shrill voice in the doorway.
+“What does that girl mean by ‘ghost’?”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Treble!” cried the teasing Eva. “Haven’t you heard of the
+famous Garret Ghost of the old Corner House—and you here so long?”
+
+“Oh, don’t!” begged Ruth, sotto voce.
+
+Mrs. Treble was not to be denied. Something evidently had escaped her
+curiosity, and she felt cheated of a sensation. “Go on and tell me,
+girl,” she commanded Eva.
+
+Eva, really nothing loath, related the story of the supposed
+supernatural occupant of the garret. “And it appears on stormy, windy
+days. At least, that’s when it’s been seen. It comes to the window up
+there and bows, and flutters its grave clothes—and—and all that.”
+
+“How ridiculous!” murmured Ruth. But her face was troubled and Mrs.
+Treble studied her accusingly.
+
+“That’s why you forbade my Lillie going up there,” she said. “A ghost,
+indeed! I guess you have something hidden up there, my girl, that you
+don’t want other folks to see. You can’t fool me about ghosts. I don’t
+believe in them,” concluded the lady from Ypsilanti.
+
+“Now you’ve done it, Eva,” said Agnes, in a low voice, when Mrs.
+Treble had departed. “There isn’t a place in this house that she
+hasn’t tried to put her nose in _but_ the garret. Now she’ll go up
+there.”
+
+“Hush,” begged Ruth, again. “Don’t get her angry, Agnes.”
+
+“Oh! here comes Mr. Howbridge!” exclaimed the other Kenway girl, glad
+to change the subject.
+
+Ruth jumped up to welcome him, and ushered him into the dining-room,
+while the other girls remained upon the porch. As she closed the door,
+she did not notice that Mrs. Treble stood in the shadow under the
+front stairs.
+
+“I have been to see this Mrs. Bean,” said the lawyer, to Ruth, when
+they were seated. “She is an old lady whose memory of what happened
+when she was young seems very clear indeed. She does not know this
+Mrs. Treble and her child personally. Mrs. Treble has not been to see
+her, since she came to Milton.”
+
+“No. Mrs. Treble has not been out at all,” admitted Ruth.
+
+“Mrs. Bean,” pursued Mr. Howbridge, “declares that she knew Mr.
+Treble’s mother very well, as a girl. She says that the said mother of
+John Augustus Treble went west when she was a young woman—before she
+married. She left behind a brother—Peter Stower. Mrs. Bean has always
+lived just outside of Milton and has not, I believe, lived a very
+active life, or been much in touch with the town’s affairs. To her
+mind, Milton is still a village.
+
+“She claims,” said Mr. Howbridge, “to have heard frequently of this
+Peter Stower, and when she heard he had died, she wrote to the
+daughter-in-law of her former friend. That is her entire connection
+with the matter. She said one very odd thing. That is, she clearly
+remembers of having hired Peter Stower once to clean up her yard and
+make her garden. She says he was in the habit of doing such work at
+one time, and she talked with him about this sister who had gone
+west.”
+
+“Oh!” gasped Ruth.
+
+“It does not seem reasonable,” said Mr. Howbridge. “There is a mixup
+of identities somewhere. I am pretty sure that, as much as Mr. Peter
+Stower loved money, he did not have to earn any of it in such a humble
+way. It’s a puzzle. But the solving of the problem would be very easy,
+if we could find that lost will.”
+
+Ruth told him how she and Agnes had thoroughly examined the garret and
+the contents of the boxes and furniture stowed away there.
+
+“Well,” sighed the lawyer. “We may have to go into chancery to have
+the matter settled. That would be a costly procedure, and I dislike to
+take that way.”
+
+Directly after luncheon Tess and Dot started off for Meadow Street
+with the convalescent Alice-doll pushed before them in Dot’s
+doll-carriage. Mrs. Treble, who had begun to eat down stairs again,
+although Lillie was not allowed out of her room as yet, marched
+straight up stairs, and, after seeing that Lillie was in order,
+tiptoed along the hall, and proceeded up the other two flights to the
+garret door.
+
+When she opened this door and peered into the dimly lit garret, she
+could not repress a shudder.
+
+“It is a spooky place,” she muttered.
+
+But her curiosity had been aroused, and if Mrs. Treble had one
+phrenological bump well developed, it was that of curiosity! In she
+stepped, closed the door behind her, and advanced toward the middle of
+the huge, littered room.
+
+A lost will! Undoubtedly hidden somewhere in these old chests of
+drawers—or in that tall old desk yonder. Either the Kenway girls have
+been very stupid, or Ruth has not told that lawyer the truth! These
+were Mrs. Treble’s unspoken thoughts.
+
+What was that noise? A rat? Mrs. Treble half turned to flee. She was
+afraid of rats.
+
+There was another scramble. One of the rows of old coats and the like,
+hanging from nails in the rafters overhead, moved more than a little.
+A rat could not have done that.
+
+The ghost? Mrs. Treble was not at all afraid of such silly things as
+ghosts!
+
+“I see you there!” she cried, and strode straight for the corner.
+
+There was another scramble, one of the Revolutionary uniform coats was
+pulled off the hook on which it had hung, and seemed, of its own
+volition, to pitch toward her.
+
+Mrs. Treble screamed, but she advanced. The coat seemed to muffle a
+small figure which tried to dodge her.
+
+“I have you!” cried Mrs. Treble, and clutched at the coat.
+
+She secured the coat itself, but a small, ragged, red haired, and much
+frightened boy slid out of its smothering folds and plunged toward the
+door of the garret. In trying to seize this astonishing apparition,
+Mrs. Treble missed her footing and came down upon her knees.
+
+The boy, with a stifled shout, reached the door. He wrenched it open
+and dove down the stairway. His bare feet made little sound upon the
+bare steps, or upon the carpeted halls below. He seemed to know his
+way about the house very well indeed.
+
+When Mrs. Treble reached the stairs and came down, heavily, shrieking
+the alarm, nobody in the house saw the mysterious red haired boy. But
+Uncle Rufus, called from his work in the garden, was amazed to see a
+small figure squeezing through a cellar window into the side-yard. In
+a minute the said figure flew across to the street fence, scrambled
+over it, and disappeared up Willow Street, running almost as fast as a
+dog.
+
+“Glo-ree!” declared the black man, breathlessly. “If dat boy keeps on
+runnin’ like he’s done started, he’ll go clean ’round de worl’ an’ be
+back fo’ supper!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+NOT ENTIRELY EXPLAINED
+
+
+Joe Maroni smiled at Tess and Dot broadly, and the little gold rings
+in his ears twinkled, when the girls approached his fruit stand.
+
+“De litla ladies mak’ Joe ver’ hap’—come to see-a he’s Maria. Maria,
+she got da craz’ in da head to wait for to see you.”
+
+“Oh, I hope not, Mr. Maroni,” said Tess, in her most grown-up way. “I
+guess Maria isn’t crazy, only glad.”
+
+“Glad a—si, si! Here she come.”
+
+Maria, who always was clean and neat of dress now, appeared from the
+cellar. She was helping her mother draw out the new baby carriage that
+Joe had bought—a grand piece of furniture, with glistening wheels,
+varnished body, and a basket top that tipped any way, so as to keep
+the sun out of the baby’s eyes.
+
+The baby was fat again and very well. He crowed, and put his arms out
+to Tess and Dot, and the latter was so delighted with him that she
+almost neglected the Alice-doll in _her_ carriage.
+
+The little Maronis thought that big doll and its carriage were,
+indeed, very wonderful possessions. Two of the smaller Maronis were
+going walking with the visitors, and Maria and the baby.
+
+Joe filled the front of the baby carriage with fruit, so that the
+children would not be hungry while away from the house. Off the
+procession started, for they had agreed to go several blocks to the
+narrow little park that skirted the canal.
+
+It was a shady park, and the Kenway girls and the clean, pretty Maroni
+children had a very nice time. Maria was very kind and patient with
+her sisters and with the baby, and nothing happened to mar the
+afternoon’s enjoyment until just as the children were about to wheel
+the baby—and the doll—back to Meadow Street.
+
+What happened was really no fault of any of this little party in whom
+we are interested. They had set off along the canal path, when there
+suddenly darted out of some bushes a breathless, hatless boy, whose
+tangled hair was fiery red!
+
+Tess shrieked aloud. “Why! Tommy Rooney! Whatever are you doing here?”
+
+The boy whirled and stared at Tess and Dot, with frightened
+countenance. Their appearance in this place evidently amazed him. He
+stumbled backward, and appeared to intend running away; but his foot
+tripped and he went down the canal bank head-first!
+
+Splash he went into the murky water, and disappeared. The girls all
+screamed then; there were no grown folk near—no men at all in sight.
+
+When Tommy Rooney came to the surface he was choking and coughing, and
+paddled for only a moment, feebly, before going under again. It was
+plain that he could not swim.
+
+“Oh, oh!” cried Dot. “He’ll be drowned. Tommy Rooney will be drowned!
+And what will his mother say to _that_?”
+
+Tess wrung her hands and screamed for help. But there _was_ no help.
+
+That is, there would have been none for poor Tommy, if it had not been
+for quick-witted Maria Maroni. Quickly she snatched the baby from the
+carriage and put him into Tess’ arms. Then she flung out the pillows
+and wrappings, and ran the carriage to the brow of the canal-bank.
+
+Up came Tommy again, his eyes open, gurgling a cry, and fighting to
+keep above the surface.
+
+[Illustration: Up came Tommy again, his eyes open, gurgling a cry,
+and fighting to keep above the surface.]
+
+“Look out, boy!” cried Maria, and she ran the baby carriage right down
+the bank, letting it go free.
+
+The carriage wheeled into the water and floated, as Maria knew it
+would. It was within the reach of Tommy’s still sturdy hands. He
+grabbed it, and although it dipped some, it bore up his weight so that
+he did not sink again.
+
+By that time men had heard their cries, and came running from the
+lock. They soon fished out Master Tommy and the baby carriage, too.
+
+“You’re a smart little kid,” said one of the men, to Maria, and he
+gave her a silver dollar. Meanwhile the other man turned Tommy across
+his knee to empty the water out of his lungs. Tommy thought he was
+going to get a spanking, and he began to struggle and plead with the
+man.
+
+“Aw, don’t, Mister! I didn’t mean to fall into your old canal,” he
+begged, half strangling. “I didn’t hurt the water none.”
+
+The men laughed. “You ought to get it—and get it good,” he said. “But
+perhaps the dip in the canal was punishment enough for you. I’ll leave
+it to your mother to finish the job right.”
+
+“Say! does he belong to these little girls?” asked the other man.
+“He’s no Italian.”
+
+“Well, here’s two girls who are not Italians, either,” said the other
+rescuer.
+
+“He’ll go home with us,” declared Tess, with confidence. “If he
+doesn’t, we’ll tell his mother, and she’ll send a policeman after
+Tommy.”
+
+“Guess the little lady knows what she’s about,” laughed the man. “Come
+on, Jim. The boy’s so water-soaked that it’s pretty near put his hair
+out. No danger of much fire there now.”
+
+Maria was afraid of what her father would do and say when he saw the
+condition of the new baby carriage. She carried the baby home in her
+arms, while her little sisters carried the pillows and other things.
+Tess ordered Tommy Rooney to push the carriage.
+
+Tess was very stern with Tommy, and the latter was very meek.
+Naturally, he was much subdued after his involuntary bath; and he was
+worried, too.
+
+“You—you going to make me go clear home with you, Tess Kenway?” he
+finally asked.
+
+“Yes, I am.”
+
+“Well,” said the boy, with a sigh, “they’ll just about kill me there.”
+
+“What for?” demanded Tess and Dot, in chorus.
+
+“Guess you warn’t at home an hour ago?” said Tommy, a faint grin
+dawning on his face.
+
+“No. We came over here right after lunch,” said Tess.
+
+“Wow! wait till you hear about it,” groaned Tommy. “Just wait!” and he
+refused to explain further.
+
+At the Meadow Street fruit stand, there was great excitement when the
+procession appeared. Mrs. Maroni feared that it was the baby who had
+fallen into the canal and she ran out, screaming.
+
+Such a chattering Tess and Dot had never heard before. Joe and his
+wife and all the children—including Maria and the baby—screeched at
+the top of their voices. Somehow an understanding of the facts was
+gathered by Mr. and Mrs. Maroni, and they began to calm down.
+
+Then Tess put in a good word for Maria, and told Joe that she had
+saved the life of Tommy, who was a friend of theirs—and a friend of
+the “litla Padrona,” as Joe insisted upon calling Ruth.
+
+So the excitable Italian was pacified, and without visiting Mrs. Kranz
+on this occasion, Tess and Dot bade the Maronis good-by, kissed the
+baby, and with Tommy Rooney started for home.
+
+As they approached the old Corner House, Tommy grew more and more
+disturbed. He was not likely to get cold, if his garments _were_ wet,
+for the day was very warm. Anyway, he wore so few garments, and they
+were so ragged, that it did not seem to matter much, whether he
+removed them in going in swimming, or not!
+
+“You girls better go ahead and tell ’em,” suggested Tommy, at last.
+
+“Tell ’em what?” demanded Tess.
+
+“Tell ’em——Well, tell ’em I’m coming. I wouldn’t want to frighten
+your sisters—and—and that woman.”
+
+“No, we won’t,” said Tess. “You are fixing to run away again. Don’t
+you dare even _start_, Tommy Rooney.”
+
+“Well,” grunted Tommy. “There’s something going to happen, when we get
+there.”
+
+“Nothing’s going to happen. How you talk!”
+
+“Oh, yes there is. I scared that woman pretty near into fits.”
+
+“What woman?” demanded Tess and Dot, together.
+
+Tommy refused to be more explicit. They came in sight of the Corner
+House. As they entered by the back gate, Ruth and Agnes rushed out
+upon the rear porch, having caught sight of Tommy’s disreputable
+figure.
+
+“There he is!” they shrieked.
+
+Mrs. McCall was visible behind them. She said something far more
+practical. She demanded: “Is that the boy that’s been stealing my pies
+and doughnuts?”
+
+Tommy shrank back and turned to flee. But Uncle Rufus darted out from
+behind the woodshed and caught him.
+
+“Glo-ree! is dis de leetle rapscallion I done see squeezin’ out of dat
+cellar winder? An’ I declar’! I didn’t t’ink nobody more’n a cat could
+git in an out o’ dat winder.”
+
+A window opened above, and Mrs. Treble put out her head. “Hold him
+till I come down there,” she ordered. “That little tyke tried to play
+ghost and scare me. I’ll fix him.”
+
+She banged the window again, and was evidently hastening down stairs.
+Even Dot turned upon the truant:
+
+“Have you been living in our garret, Tommy Rooney?” she cried.
+
+Tommy nodded, too full for utterance at that moment.
+
+“And we thought it was a goat!” declared Dot.
+
+“And you ate the cookies and doughnuts Mrs. McCall missed,” accused
+Agnes.
+
+Tommy nodded.
+
+“And the dolls’ dinner out of our room,” cried Dot. “And we thought it
+was Sandy-face.”
+
+“Ah—well——I was starvin’,” confessed Tommy.
+
+At this point Tess came to the front again. She stood before Tommy,
+and even put Uncle Rufus firmly, though gently, aside.
+
+“Stop!” she said to the wrathful Mrs. Treble, when that lady appeared.
+“Tommy is a friend of ours. And he’s been ’most drowned. You wouldn’t
+want to punish him any more to-day. Dot and I invited him home, and
+you mustn’t all _pounce_ on him this way. You know, his mother’s a
+long way from here, and he hasn’t seen her lately, and—and he’s sorry
+anyway. And it must be just _awful_ to be so hungry that you have to
+_steal_.”
+
+At this point gentle Tess’ eyes ran over, and she turned to take the
+red haired boy’s hand. To her amazement, Tommy’s grimy face was
+likewise streaked with tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+AUNT SARAH SPEAKS OUT
+
+
+Tommy Rooney’s capture explained some of the mysterious happenings
+about the old Corner House, but he could not satisfy Ruth regarding
+the figure she had seen appear at the garret window. For _that_
+happened before Tommy had ever been in the house.
+
+They were all kind to Tommy, however—all but Mrs. Treble—after Tess
+had pleaded for him. Mrs. McCall washed his face and hands, and even
+kissed him—on the sly—and then set him down to a very satisfying
+meal. For as often as he had raided Mrs. McCall’s pantry at night
+since taking up his abode in the garret of the old Corner House, he
+had not had a real “_square_” meal for a month.
+
+The house was so big that, by keeping to the two upper floors of the
+main part during the daytime, and venturing out-of-doors by way of the
+cellar window only at night, Master Tommy had been able to avoid the
+family for weeks.
+
+He had entered the house first on that evening when he was chased by
+Mr. Pinkney and the bulldog. Finding the back door open, he had run up
+the back stairs, and so climbed higher, and higher, until he reached
+the garret.
+
+Nobody said anything to Master Tommy about the ghost, although Agnes
+wanted to. Ruth forbade her to broach the subject to the runaway.
+
+Tommy had made a nest behind the old clothes, but some nights he had
+slept in a bed on the third floor. The day Ruth and Agnes ransacked
+the garret for Uncle Peter’s will, he had been down in that third
+floor room. When Ruth discovered the print of his body on the
+feather-bed, he was on the floor, under that bed, hidden by the
+comforter which hung down all around it.
+
+He was pretty tired of the life he had been leading. He admitted to
+the Corner House girls that he had not seen a single Indian in all his
+wanderings. He was ready to go home—even if his mother thrashed him.
+
+So Ruth telegraphed Mrs. Rooney. She took Tommy to a nearby store and
+dressed him neatly, if cheaply, and then bought his ticket and put him
+in the care of the conductor of the Bloomingsburg train. Tommy, much
+wiser than he had been, and quite contrite, went home.
+
+“I s’pose he’s a dreadful bad boy,” sighed Dot. “But my! no girl would
+ever have such things happen to her—would she?”
+
+“Would you want to be chased by bulldogs, and live in garrets, and
+steal just enough to keep alive—and—and never have on anything
+clean, Dot Kenway?” demanded Tess, in horror.
+
+“No, I don’t s’pose I would,” confessed Dot. Then she sighed, and
+added: “It’s _awful_ commonplace, just the same, bein’ a girl, isn’t
+it?”
+
+“I agree with you, Dot-ums,” cried Agnes, who heard her. “Nothing ever
+happens to us.”
+
+Almost on the heels of that statement, however, something happened to
+them that satisfied even Agnes’ longing for romance, for some time
+thereafter.
+
+It was on Saturday that Tommy Rooney went home to his anxious mother.
+The weather had been of a threatening character for several days. That
+night the wind shrieked and moaned again around the old Corner House
+and the rain beat with impotent hands against the panes.
+
+A rainy Sunday is not often a cheerful day. Ruth Kenway always tried
+to interest her sisters on such occasions in books and papers; or they
+had quiet talks about “when mother was with us,” or those more ancient
+times “before father went away.”
+
+If they could possibly get to Sabbath School on such stormy days, they
+did so. This particular mid-August Sunday was no exception.
+
+The rain ceased for a while about noon and the four set forth, under
+two umbrellas, and reached the church in season. They were glad they
+had come, so few scholars were there, and they helped swell the
+attendance.
+
+Coming home, it rained a little, and their umbrellas were welcome.
+Tess and Dot were under the smaller umbrella and the older girls had
+the larger one. Coming across the parade ground, the path they
+followed approached the old Corner House from the side.
+
+“Oh, see there!” cried Tess, suddenly. “Somebody’s waving to us from
+the window.”
+
+“What window?” demanded Agnes, with sudden nervousness, trying to tip
+up the big umbrella, so that she could see, too.
+
+“Why!” cried Tess. “It’s in the garret.”
+
+“Oh, I see it!” agreed Dot.
+
+“Oh! mercy me!” groaned Agnes.
+
+“Stop that!” gasped Ruth, shaking her by the arm. “You want to scare
+those children?”
+
+“It’s—it’s the ghost,” whispered Agnes, too afraid to look again.
+
+Tess and Dot were merely curious. Ruth had seen the waving figure.
+Immediately it seemed to leap upward and disappear.
+
+“Do you suppose it was Lillie?” asked Tess.
+
+“We’ll find out when we go in,” said Ruth, in a shaken voice.
+
+Agnes was almost in tears. She clung to Ruth’s arm and moaned in a
+faint voice:
+
+“I don’t want to go in! I never want to go into that horrid old house
+again.”
+
+“What nonsense you do talk, Ag,” said Ruth, as the little girls ran
+ahead. “We have been all over that garret. We know there is really
+nothing there——”
+
+“That’s just it,” groaned Agnes. “It _must_ be a ghost.”
+
+Ruth, unhappy as she felt, determined to discover the meaning of that
+spectral figure. “Let’s go right up there and find out about it,” she
+said.
+
+“Oh, Ruth!”
+
+“I mean it. Come on,” said the older sister, as they entered the big
+hall.
+
+Tess and Dot heard her, and clamored to go, too, but Ruth sent the
+smaller girls back. At the head of the front stairs, they met Mrs.
+Treble.
+
+“Have you, or Lillie, been up in the attic?” asked Ruth, sharply.
+“There was something at the window up there——”
+
+“What are you trying to do, girl?” demanded the lady from Ypsilanti,
+scornfully. “Trying to scare me with a ridiculous ghost story?”
+
+“I don’t know what it is,” said Ruth. “I mean to find out. Were you up
+there?”
+
+“I should have gone to the garret had I wished,” Mrs. Treble said,
+scornfully. “You must have something hidden away there, that you don’t
+want me to see. I wonder what it is?”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Treble!” began Ruth, and just then she saw that Aunt Sarah’s
+door was open. Aunt Sarah stood at the opening.
+
+“Niece Ruth!” exclaimed the old lady, harshly, “why don’t you send
+that woman away? She’s got no business here.”
+
+“I’ve more right here than _you_ have, I should hope,” cried Mrs.
+Treble, loudly. “And more right than these girls. You’ll all find out
+when the courts take the matter up.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Treble! We none of us know——”
+
+“Yes we do, too,” declared the lady from Ypsilanti, interrupting Ruth.
+“My husband’s mother was Peter Stower’s sister. Perhaps my Lillie
+shall have _all_ the property—and this ugly old house, too. I tell
+you what I’ll do first thing, when it comes into my hands as guardian
+of my child.”
+
+Ruth and Agnes were speechless. Mrs. Treble was more passionate than
+she had ever been before.
+
+“I shall tear this ugly old house down—that’s what I’ll do,” Mrs.
+Treble declared. “I’ll raze it to the ground——”
+
+Aunt Sarah suddenly advanced into the hall. Her black eyes flashed as
+though there were sparks in them.
+
+“You will do _what_?” she asked, in a low, hoarse voice.
+
+“I’ll tear down the house. It is no good.”
+
+“This beautiful old house!” groaned Agnes, forgetting about the ghost
+at that moment.
+
+Aunt Sarah’s wrath was rising. It broke the bonds she had put upon her
+tongue so many years before.
+
+“You will tear this house down?” she repeated. “Niece Ruth! is there
+any chance of this woman getting control of Peter’s property?”
+
+“We don’t know,” said Ruth desperately. “If we can’t find Uncle
+Peter’s will that Mr. Howbridge made, and which leaves the estate to
+you and us girls, Aunt Sarah—”
+
+“There never was such a will,” put in Mrs. Treble.
+
+“Mr. Howbridge says there was. He thinks Mr. Stower must have hidden
+it away with other papers, somewhere in the house——”
+
+“And I know where,” said Aunt Sarah, speaking out at last. “Peter
+never thought I knew where he hid things. But I did. You gals come
+with me.”
+
+She stalked toward the stairs that led upward. Ruth and Agnes, half
+awed by her manner and speech, followed her. So did Mrs. Treble.
+
+Aunt Sarah went directly to the garret. Agnes forgot to be scared of
+the ghost they had seen from outside, in her interest in this affair.
+
+Aunt Sarah went to the old secretary, or desk, standing in the middle
+of the garret floor.
+
+“Oh, we’ve looked all through _that_,” whispered Agnes.
+
+“You did not look in the right place,” said Aunt Sarah.
+
+Quite calmly she tapped with her fingers upon a panel in one end of
+the old desk. In a moment the panel dropped down, leaving in view a
+very narrow depository for papers. It was crammed with documents of
+several different kinds.
+
+Mrs. Treble sprang forward, with a cry. But Aunt Sarah got in front of
+her. She seized her skirts with both hands and advanced upon the lady
+from Ypsilanti with belligerence.
+
+“Shoo!” said Aunt Sarah. “Shoo!”
+
+As Mrs. Treble retreated, Aunt Sarah advanced, and, as though she were
+“shooing” a refractory chicken, she drove the lady from Ypsilanti out
+of the garret and closed the door firmly in her face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+LAYING THE GHOST
+
+
+Mr. Howbridge came by request to the Corner House the next morning.
+Ruth had slept all night with the papers found in the old secretary
+under her pillow.
+
+Mr. Howbridge came into the dining-room where the four Corner House
+girls were assembled, smiling and evidently in right good humor. “I
+understand you have made a wonderful discovery, Miss Kenway?” he said.
+
+“It was Aunt Sarah,” said Agnes, excitedly. “_She_ knew where the
+papers were.”
+
+“Indeed?” said the lawyer, interested.
+
+“We have found some of Uncle Peter’s papers, that is sure,” said Ruth.
+“And among them is one that I think must be the will you spoke of.”
+
+“Good! we shall hope it is the paper we have been looking for,” said
+Mr. Howbridge, accepting the packet Ruth handed him. “And _I_ have
+made a discovery, too.”
+
+“What is that, sir?” asked Ruth, politely.
+
+“It refers to Mrs. Treble’s claim to the estate of Mr. Peter Stower.”
+
+“If little Lillie bears any relationship to Uncle Peter, she must have
+her just share of the estate. We could agree to nothing else,” Ruth
+hastened to say.
+
+“Oh, Ruth!” exclaimed Agnes.
+
+Mr. Howbridge adjusted his glasses and looked at Ruth quizzically.
+“Miss Kenway,” he said, “you are a remarkable girl. Lillie Treble is
+the daughter of John Augustus Treble, without a doubt. _His_ mother
+went west from Milton, years ago, as is claimed. But she was _not_
+Peter Stower’s sister.”
+
+“Oh, goody!” ejaculated Agnes, clapping her hands.
+
+“Who was she?” asked Ruth.
+
+Mr. Howbridge laughed softly. “She was the sister of a man named Peter
+_Stover_. The names are similar, but there is a difference of one
+letter—and many other differences, it seems. Peter Stover was a poor
+man all his days. He was an ‘odd job’ man most of his life, working
+about the farms on the outskirts of Milton, until he grew infirm. He
+died last winter at the poorfarm.
+
+“Mrs. Bean, even, remembers the name right now. These Trebles
+evidently heard of the wealth of your Uncle Peter, and thought he was
+_their_ Uncle Peter. The names were so much alike, you see.”
+
+“Then—then Mrs. Treble and Lillie have no claim upon Uncle Peter’s
+estate at all?” asked Ruth.
+
+“No more than the Man in the Moon,” said Mr. Howbridge, still smiling.
+
+“And you know _he_ isn’t any relation,” whispered Tess, to Dot, with
+great importance.
+
+“The poor things!” Ruth sighed. “Whatever will they do?”
+
+“Why, Ruth Kenway!” exclaimed Agnes, in great excitement. “What are
+you thinking of? I should think you had done enough for them.”
+
+Ruth only looked at her, and went on talking to the lawyer. “You see,
+sir,” she said, “they are quite penniless. I know, for Mrs. Treble
+broke down and cried about it last night, when I read to her the
+provisions of what I supposed to be Uncle Peter’s will.
+
+“She spent the last money she had in getting here from Ypsilanti. She
+has thoroughly believed that Lillie was to come into the money. Now,
+what _can_ she do?”
+
+“Go back to Ypsilanti,” put in Agnes, sharply.
+
+“I wonder if her relatives will take her in again if she goes back?”
+said Ruth slowly.
+
+“Ahem!” said Mr. Howbridge, clearing his throat. “I have been in
+correspondence with a Mr. Noah Presley, her brother-in-law. He says he
+was opposed to her coming east without knowing more of the situation
+here and her own rights. Now he says she and Lillie may come back,
+if——wait! I will read you exactly what he says,” and Mr. Howbridge
+drew forth the letter in question. He cleared his throat again and
+read:
+
+“‘Tell Emily she can come back here if she wants, providing she’ll
+mind her own business and keep that dratted young one of hers from
+turning the house upside down. I can’t pay her fare to Ypsilanti, but
+I won’t refuse her a home.’”
+
+“You can easily see what _he_ thinks of them,” declared Agnes, grimly.
+
+“Do hush, dear,” begged Ruth. “Then you will pay their fare back for
+them, will you not, Mr. Howbridge?” pursued Ruth. “And we shall see
+that they are comfortably clothed. I do not think they have _many_
+frocks.”
+
+“You are really a very remarkable girl, Miss Kenway,” said Mr.
+Howbridge again. That was the settlement of the Trebles’ affairs. Two
+weeks later the Corner House girls saw the Ypsilanti lady and her
+troublesome little girl off on the train for the west.
+
+At this particular Monday morning conference, the lawyer made it clear
+to the Kenway girls that, now the will had been found, the matters of
+the estate would all be straightened out. Unless they objected, he
+would be appointed guardian as well as administrator of the estate.
+There was plenty of cash in the bank, and they were warranted in
+living upon a somewhat better scale than they had been living since
+coming to the old Corner House.
+
+Besides, Ruth, as well as the other girls, was to go to school in the
+autumn, and she looked forward to this change with delight. What she
+and her sisters did at school, the new friends they made, and how they
+bound old friends to them with closer ties, will be set forth in
+another volume, to be called “The Corner House Girls at School.”
+
+A great many things happened to them before schooldays came around. As
+Tess declared:
+
+“I never did see such a busy time in this family—did you, Dot? Seems
+to me we don’t have time to turn around, before something new
+happens!”
+
+“Well, I’m glad things happen,” quoth Dot, gravely. “Suppose nothing
+ever _did_ happen to us? We just might as well be asleep all the
+time.”
+
+First of all, with the mystery of Uncle Peter’s will cleared away, and
+the status of Mrs. Treble and Lillie decided, Ruth went at the mystery
+which had frightened them so in the garret. Even Agnes became brave
+enough on that particular Monday to go “ghost hunting.”
+
+They clambered to the garret and examined the window at which they
+thought they had seen the flapping, jumping figure in the storm. There
+was positively nothing hanging near the window to suggest such a
+spectral form as the girls had seen from the parade ground.
+
+“And this is the window,” said Ruth, thoughtfully. “To the right of
+the chimney——Oh! goodness me, what a foolish mistake!”
+
+“What’s the matter now?” asked the nervous Agnes, who did not dare
+approach very near the window.
+
+“Why, it wasn’t this window at all,” Ruth said. “Don’t you see? It was
+to the right of the chimney _from the outside_! So it is on the left
+of the chimney up here. It is the other window.”
+
+She marched around the big bulge of the chimney. Agnes held to her
+sleeve.
+
+“I don’t care,” she said, faintly. “It was a ghost just the same——”
+
+There was another window just like the one they had formerly looked
+at. Only, above the window frame was a narrow shelf on which lay a
+big, torn, home-made kite—the cloth it was covered with yellowed with
+age, and the string still fastened to it. In cleaning the garret, this
+kite had been so high up that none of them had lifted it down. Indeed,
+the string was fastened to a nail driven into a rafter, above.
+
+Even now there was a draught of air sucking in around the loose window
+frame, and the kite rustled and wabbled on its perch. Ruth ran forward
+and knocked it off the shelf.
+
+“Oh, oh!” shrieked Agnes.
+
+The kite dangled and jumped right before the window in such a manner
+that it must have looked positively weird from the outside. It was
+more than half as tall as a man and its crazy motions might well be
+taken for a human figure, from a distance.
+
+Suddenly the boisterous wind seized it again and jerked it back to its
+perch on the shelf. There it lay quivering, until the next gust of
+wind should make it perform its ghostly dance before the garret
+casement.
+
+“Oh, isn’t that great!” gasped Agnes. “And it must have been there for
+years and years—ever since Uncle Peter was a boy, perhaps. Now! what
+do you suppose Eva Larry will say?”
+
+“And other people who have been afraid to come to the old Corner
+House?” laughed Ruth. “Oh, I know! we’ll give a ghost party up here in
+the garret.”
+
+“Ruth!” screamed Agnes in delight. “That will be just scrumptious!”
+
+“We shall celebrate the laying of the ghost. No! don’t touch it,
+Agnes. We’ll show the girls when they come just what made all the
+trouble.”
+
+This the Corner House girls did. They invited every girl they had
+become acquainted with in Milton—little and big. Even Alfredia
+Blossom came and helped Uncle Rufus and Petunia Blossom wait upon the
+table.
+
+For the first time in years, the old Corner House resounded to the
+laughter and conversation of a great company. There was music, too,
+and Ruth opened the parlors for the first time. They all danced in
+those big rooms.
+
+Mr. Howbridge proved to be a very nice guardian indeed. He allowed
+Ruth to do pretty much everything she wanted. But, then, Ruth Kenway
+was not a girl to desire anything that was not good and sensible.
+
+“It’s dreadfully nice to feel _settled_,” said Tess to Dot and Maria
+Maroni, and Margaret and Holly Pease, and the three Creamer girls, as
+they all crowded into the summer house the afternoon of the ghost
+laying party.
+
+“Now we _know_ we’re going to stay here, so we can make plans for the
+future,” pursued Tess.
+
+“Yes,” observed Dot. “I’m going right to work to make my Alice-doll a
+new dress. She hasn’t had anything fit to wear since that awful time
+she was buried alive.”
+
+“Buried alive!” shrieked Mabel Creamer. “How was _that_?”
+
+“Yes. And they buried her with some dried apples,” sighed Dot. “She’s
+never been the same since. You see, her eyes are bad. I ought to take
+her to an eye and ear infernery, I s’pose; but maybe even the doctors
+there couldn’t help her.”
+
+“I don’t think it’s _infernery_, Dot,” said Tess, slowly. “That
+doesn’t sound just right. It sounds more like a conservatory than a
+hospital.”
+
+“Well, _hospital_, then!” exclaimed Dot. “And poor Alice! I don’t
+suppose she ever _will_ get the color back into her cheeks.”
+
+“Shouldn’t think she would, if she’s been buried alive,” said Mabel,
+blankly.
+
+The two youngest Kenways had been very glad to see Lillie Treble go
+away, but this was almost the only comment they ever made upon that
+angel-faced child, before company. Tess and Dot _were_ polite!
+
+That was a lovely day, and the Corner House girls all enjoyed the
+party immensely. Good Mrs. McCall was delighted, too. She had come to
+love Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot, almost as though they were her
+own. Ruth had already engaged a strong girl to help about the kitchen
+work, and the widow had a much easier time at the old Corner House
+than she had at first had.
+
+Aunt Sarah appeared at the party, when the dancing began, in a new cap
+and with her knitting. She had subsided into her old self again,
+immediately after her discovery of Uncle Peter’s secret panel in the
+old secretary in the garret. She talked no more than had been her
+wont, and her knitting needles clicked quite as sharply. Perhaps,
+however, she took a more kindly interest in the affairs of the Corner
+House girls.
+
+She was not alone in that. All the neighbors, and the church
+people—indeed everybody in Milton who knew Ruth Kenway and her
+sisters at all—had a deep interest in the fortunes of the Corner
+House girls.
+
+“They are a town institution,” said Mr. Howbridge. “There is no
+character sweeter and finer than that of Ruth Kenway. Her sisters,
+too, in their several ways, are equally charming.
+
+“Ruth—Agnes—Tess—Dot! For an old bachelor like me, who has known no
+family—to secure the confidence and liking of such a quartette of
+young folk, is a privilege I fully appreciate. I am proud of them!”
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Charming Stories for Girls
+
+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.
+  12 THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+THE POLLY PENDELTON 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
+  7 POLLY’S REUNION
+
+Cloth. Large 12mo. Illustrated.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+Publishers
+
+New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+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_
+
+_By_ CHARLES D. HUBBARD
+
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARY JANE SERIES
+
+By CLARA INGRAM JUDSON
+
+Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated.
+
+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
+  8 MARY JANE AT SCHOOL
+  9 MARY JANE IN CANADA
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+Publishers
+
+New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+DOROTHY WHITEHILL 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.
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS AMERICANS FOR YOUNG READERS
+
+“Life Stories with the Charm of Fiction”
+
+“This new series is timely. As an urgent civic need, our
+schools should be vivified more by the spirit of the founders
+and builders of the Republic.”
+
+            WALTER E. RANGER, Commissioner of Education, Rhode Island.
+
+“I regard the series one of rare usefulness for young
+readers, and trust it will become a formidable rival for much
+of the fiction now in circulation among the young.”
+
+                               JOHNSON BRIGHAM, State Librarian, Iowa.
+
+Titles Ready
+
+  “GEORGE WASHINGTON”                    Joseph Walker
+  “JOHN PAUL JONES”                      Chelsea C. Fraser
+  “BENJAMIN FRANKLIN”                    Clara Tree Major
+  “DAVID CROCKETT”                       Jane Corby
+  “THOMAS JEFFERSON”                     Gene Stone
+  “ABRAHAM LINCOLN”                      J. Walker McSpadden
+  “ROBERT FULTON”                        Inez N. McFee
+  “THOMAS A. EDISON”                     Inez N. McFee
+  “HARRIET BEECHER STOWE”                Ruth Brown MacArthur
+  “MARY LYON”                            H. Oxley Stengel
+  “THEODORE ROOSEVELT”                   J. Walker McSpadden
+
+Illustrated. Size 5-1/8 × 7-5/8. Cloth.
+
+OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+
+Publishers
+
+New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
+HOW THEY
+MOVED TO MILTON, WHAT THEY FOUND, AND WHAT THEY DID ***
\ No newline at end of file