The Corner House Girls Growing Up

"It's worth looking into," said Neale with much more confidence than he really felt. "We'll run up to the first lock and see if the lock-keeper noticed anybody save the captain and his little girl on that barge that went through this afternoon. Maybe Dot got friendly with the girl and she and Sammy went along for a ride on the Nancy Hanks. They say this Bill Quigg that owns that canalboat isn't any brighter than the law allows, and he might not think of the kids' folks being scared."

"Oh! it doesn't seem reasonable," Ruth said, shaking her head.

But she did not forbid Neale to make the journey to the lock. The road was good all the way to Durginville and it was a highway the Corner House girls had not traveled in their automobile. At another time they would have all enjoyed the trip immensely in the cool of the evening. And Neale drove just as fast as the law allowed – if not a little faster.

Agnes loved to ride fast in the auto; but this was one occasion when she was too worried to enjoy the motion. As they rushed on over the road, and through the pleasant countryside, they were all rather silent. Every passing minute added to the burden of anxiety upon the minds of the two sisters and Neale; nor were the visitors lacking in sympathy.

After all, little folk like Sammy and Dot are in great danger when out in the world alone, away from the shelter of home. So many, many accidents may happen.

Therefore it was a very serious party indeed that finally stopped at Bumstead Lock to ask if the lock-keeper or his wife, who lived in a tiny cottage and cultivated a small plot of ground near by, had noticed any passengers upon Cap'n Bill Quigg's barge.

"On the Nancy Hanks?" repeated the lock-keeper. "I should say 'no'! young lady," shaking his head emphatically at Ruth's question. "Why, who ever would sail as a passenger on that old ramshackle thing? I reckon it'll fall to pieces some day soon and block traffic on the canal."

Ruth, disappointed, would not have persevered. But Luke Shepard asked:

"Is there much traffic on the canal?"

"Well, sometimes there is and sometimes there ain't. But I see all that goes through here, you may believe."

"How many canalboats went toward Durginville to-day?" the collegian inquired.

"Why – lemme see," drawled the lock-keeper thoughtfully, as though there was so much traffic that it was a trouble to remember all the boats. "Why, I cal'late about one. Yes, sir, one. That was the Nancy Hanks."

"She ought to be a fast boat at that," muttered Neale O'Neil. "Nancy Hanks was some horse."

"So that was the only one?" Luke persevered. "And you spoke with Cap'n Quigg, did you?"

"With Bill Quigg?" snapped the lock-keeper, with some asperity. "I guess not! I ain't wastin' my time with the likes of him."

"Oh-ho," said Luke, while his friends looked interested. "You don't approve of the owner of the Nancy Hanks?"

"I should hope not. I ain't got no use for him."

"Then he is a pretty poor citizen, I take it?"

"I cal'late he's the poorest kind we got. He ain't even wuth sendin' to jail. He'd gone long ago if he was. No. I've no use for Cap'n Bill."

"But you saw there was nobody with him on the boat – no children?"

"Only that gal of his."

"No others?"

"Wal, I dunno. I tell you I didn't stop none to have any doin's with them. I done my duty and that's all. I ain't required by law to gas with all the riffraff that sails this here canal."

"I believe you," agreed Luke mildly. He looked at Neale and grinned. "Not very conclusive, is it?" he asked.

"Not to my mind. Bet the kids were on there with this little girl he speaks of," muttered Neale.

"Oh, do you believe it, Neale?" gasped Agnes, leaning over the back of the seat.

"I am sure we are much obliged to you, sir," Ruth said, sweetly, as the engine began to roar again.

"What's up, anyway?" asked the crabbed lock-keeper. "You got something on that Bill Quigg?"

"Can't tell, Mister," Neale said seriously. "You ask him about it when he comes back."

"Now, Neale, you've started something," declared Ruth, as the automobile sped away. "You just see if you haven't."

CHAPTER XVI

THE RINGMASTER

"Just the same, that old fellow didn't even know whether there was somebody aboard the canalboat with Quigg and his daughter or not," Neale O'Neil said, as they turned back into the Durginville road.

"Oh!" cried Cecile. "Are you going on?"

"We are – just," said her brother. "Until we solve the mystery of the Nancy Hanks."

"Do you suppose that canal boatman is bad enough to have shut the children up on his boat and will keep them for ransom?" demanded Agnes, filled with a new fear.

"He's not a brigand I should hope," Cecile Shepard cried.

"Can't tell what he is till we see him," Neale grumbled. "If this old canalboat hasn't been wrecked or sunk, we'll find it and interview Cap'n Quigg before we go back."

"Meanwhile," Ruth said, with more than a little doubt, "the children may be wandering in quite an opposite direction."

"Why, of course, our guess may be wrong, Ruth," Luke said thoughtfully, turning around the better to speak with the oldest Corner House girl. "However, we are traveling so fast that it will not delay us much."

"Pshaw, no!" exclaimed Neale. "We'll be in Durginville in a few minutes."

But they did not get that far. Crossing the canal by a liftbridge they swept along the other side and suddenly coming out of the woods saw before them a tented city.

"Why!" cried Cecile, "it's a circus!"

"I saw the pictures on the billboards," her brother admitted. "If we only had the children with us, and everything was all right, we might go."

"Sure we would," responded Neale, smiling.

"Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, "is it Uncle Bill's?"

"Yes. I have a letter in my pocket now from him that I've had no chance to read."

"You don't suppose Mr. Sorber knows anything about the children?" said Ruth, a little weakly for her.

"How could he?" gasped Agnes. "But we ought to stop and ask."

"And see about the calico pony," chuckled Neale. "Tess and Dot have been hounding me to death about that."

"You don't suppose Dot could have started out to hunt for the circus to get that pony, do you?" suggested Ruth, almost at her wits' end to imagine what had happened to her little sister and her friend.

"We'll know about that shortly," Neale declared.

Suddenly Luke Shepard exclaimed:

"Hullo, what's afire, Neale? See yonder?"

"At the canal," cried his sister, seeing the smoke too.

"Is it a house?" asked Agnes.

"A straw stack!" cried Neale. "Must be. Some farmer is losing the winter's bedding for his cattle."

"It is on the canal," Luke put in. "Don't you see? There's one of those old barges there – and the smoke is coming from it."

"There are the flames. The fire's burst out," Agnes cried.

Suddenly Ruth startled them all by demanding:

"How do we know it isn't the Nancy Hanks?"

"Crickey! We don't," acknowledged Neale, and immediately touched the accelerator. The car leaped ahead. They went roaring on toward the circus grounds and the canal, and people on the road stepped hastily aside at the "Honk! Honk!" of the automobile horn.

Fortunately there were not many vehicles in the road, for most of the farmers' wagons had already reached the grounds, and their mules and horses were hitched beside the right of way. But there was quite a crowd upon the tented field. This crowd had not, however, as Louise Quigg feared "seen everything all up" before the canalboat girl and her father reached the tents.

Louise wanted to see everything to be seen outside before paying over their good money to get into the big show. So they wandered among the tents for some time, without a thought of the old canalboat. Indeed, they were out of sight of it when the mule kicked over the stove on the Nancy Hanks and that pirate craft (according to the first hopes of Sammy Pinkney) caught fire.

Indeed, nobody on the circus grounds was looking canalward. Torches were beginning to flare up here and there in the darkening field. There were all kinds of sideshows and "penny pops" – lifting machines, hammer-throws, a shooting gallery, a baseball alley with a grinning black man dodging the ball at the end – "certainly should like to try to hit that nigger," Pap declared – taffy booths, popcorn machines, soft drink booths, and a dozen other interesting things.

Of course, Louise and her father could only look. They had no money to spend on side issues – or sideshows. But they looked their fill. For once Cap'n Bill appeared to be awake. He was as interested in what there was to be seen as the child clinging to his hairy hand.

They went back of the big tent and there was one with the canvas raised so that they could see the horses and ponies stabled within. Some of the fattest and sleekest horses were being harnessed and trimmed for the "grand entrance," and such a shaking of heads to hear the tiny bells ring, and stamping of oiled hoofs as there was – all the airs of a vain girl before her looking-glass!

Louise was stricken dumb before a pony, all patches of brown and cream color, and with pink like a seashell inside its ears and on its muzzle. The pony's mane was all "crinkly" and its bang was parted and braided with blue ribbons.

"Oh, Pap!" gasped the little girl, breathlessly, "isn't he a dear? I never did see so harnsome a pony."

A short, stout man, with a very red face and a long-lashed whip in his hand who was standing by, heard the canalboat girl and smiled kindly upon her. He was dressed for the ring – shiny top hat, varnished boots, and all, and Louise thought him a most wonderful looking man indeed. If anybody had told her Mr. Bill Sorber was the president of the United States she would have believed it.

"So you like that pony, do you?" asked the ringmaster. "He's some pony. I reckon the little girls he belongs to will like him, too."

"Oh, isn't he a circus pony?" asked Louise, wide-eyed.

"He was. But I'm just going to send him to Milton to live with some little girls I know, and I bet Scalawag will have a lazy time of it for the rest of his natural life. And he'll like that," chuckled Mr. Sorber, deep in his chest, "for Scalawag's the laziest pony I ever tried to handle."

"Oh," murmured Louise, "he seems too nice a horse to be called by such a bad name."

"Bless you! he don't mind it at all," declared the ringmaster. "And it fits him right down to the ground! He's as full of tricks as an egg is of meat – yes ma'am! Ain't you, Scalawag?"

He touched the pony lightly with his whip upon his round rump and the pony flung out his pretty heels and whinnied. Then at a touch under his belly Scalawag stood up on his hind legs and pawed the air to keep his balance.

"Oh!" gasped Louise Quigg, with clasped hands.

"Just as graceful as a barrel, Scalawag," chuckled Mr. Sorber. "He's too fat. But I just can't help feedin' critters well. I like to feed well myself. And I know where he's going to live in Milton he'll be well tended. Hullo! what's going on?"

For suddenly a shout was heard beyond the main tent. Somebody cried, "Fire! Fire!" and there was a roaring of an automobile approaching the circus grounds at a rapid rate.

"What's goin' on?" repeated Mr. Sorber, and started upon an elephantine trot for the canal side of the field.

"Come on, Pap! We don't want to miss nothin'," gasped Louise, seizing the gaping Quigg's hand. She left the calico pony, however, with a backward glance of longing.

The crowd broke for the canal bank. When the captain and his daughter came in sight of the fire the flames were shooting ten feet high out of the cabin roof.

The boat was moored across the canal. Neale, driving down to the bank, saw that the water was between them and the fire, so he halted the car. A heavy man, bearing two empty pails in each hand, and followed closely by another man and a little girl likewise bearing buckets, came gaspingly to the automobile.

"Hi, Mister!" puffed Mr. Bill Sorber, "ast your party to git out and take us over the bridge in that there machine of yours, will you? That canalboat belongs to this here man and his little gal – why, Neale!"

"Hullo, Uncle Bill! Hop in – you and your friends," cried Neale.

"Come in – hurry, Mr. Sorber!" Ruth added her plea. "Oh!" she said to Louise, "is that the Nancy Hanks?"

"Sure as ever was," gulped Louise. "Come on, Pap! John and Jerry will be burnt to a cinder, so they will."

"Tell me, child," Luke said, lifting the girl into his lap as he sat in front with Neale, and crowding over to give the lanky Cap'n Quigg room to sit. "Tell me, are there others aboard the boat?"

"John and Jerry," sobbed Louise.

"Well, well!" Luke soothed. "Don't cry. They can open the door of the cabin and walk out, can't they?"

"Nop. They're chained to stanchions."

"Chained?" gasped the excitable Agnes from the rear. "How awful! Have you got children – "

"Aw, who said anything about children?" demanded Louise snappily. "Only John and Jerry."

"Well?"

"Them's mules," said the child, as Neale drove the car on at increasing speed.

"Tell us," Ruth begged, quite as anxious now as her sister, "have you seen two children – a boy and a girl – this afternoon?"

"Lots of 'em," replied Louise, succinctly.

Here Cap'n Bill put in a word. "If there's anything to see, children, or what not, Lowise seen 'em. She's got the brightest eyes!"

"We are looking for a little girl with a doll in her arms and a boy about ten years old. They were carrying a big paper bag and a basket of fruit, and maybe were near the canal at Milton – right there at the blacksmith shop where you had your mules shod to-day."

This was Luke's speech, and despite the jarring and bouncing of the car he made his earnest words audible to the captain of the canalboat and to his daughter.

"Did they come aboard your boat? Or did you see them?" he added.

"Ain't been nobody aboard our boat but our ownselfs and Beauty," declared Louise.

"And you did not see two children – "

"Holt on!" cried the girl. "I guess I seen 'em when we was waitin' to get the mules shod. They went by."

"Which way were they going?"

"Toward the canal – they was. And our boat was in sight. But I didn't see 'em after."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Ruth, from the tonneau, "they could not possibly be shut up anywhere on your boat?"

"Why, they wasn't in the cabin, of course – nor the mules' stable," drawled the captain. "Warn't nowhere else."

The automobile roared down toward the burning canalboat. The crowd from the circus field lined up along the other bank; but the towpath was deserted where the Nancy Hanks lay. The flames were rapidly destroying the boat amidships.

CHAPTER XVII

SCALAWAG GETS A NEW HOME

A dog barking aroused Sammy. He must, after all, have fallen into a light doze. With Dot sleeping contentedly on the bag of potatoes and his coat, and the only nearby sounds the rustling noise that he had finally become scornful of, the boy could not be greatly blamed for losing himself in sleep.

But he thought the dog barking must be either his Buster or old Tom Jonah, the Corner House girls' dog. Were they coming to search for him and Dot?

"Oh, wake up, Dot! Wake up!" cried Sammy, shaking the little girl. "There's something doing."

"I wish you wouldn't, Tess," complained the smallest Corner House girl. "I don't want to get up so early. I – I've just come asleep," and she would have settled her cheek again into Sammy's jacket had the boy not shaken her.

"Oh, Dot! Wake up!" urged the boy, now desperately frightened. "There's – there's smoke."

"Oe-ee!" gasped Dot, sitting up. "What's happened? Is the chimney leaking?"

"There's something afire. Hear that pounding! And the dog!"

It was the desperate kicking of the mules, John and Jerry, they heard. And the kicking and the barking of Beauty, the hound, continued until the Corner House automobile, with the bucket brigade aboard, roared down to the canalboat and stopped.

The fire was under great headway, and every person in the party helped to quench it. The girls, as well as the men and boys, rushed to the work. To see the old boat burn when it was the whole living of the Quiggs, gained the sympathy of all.

Neale leaped right down into the water and filled buckets and handed them up as fast as possible. Luke and the girls carried the full pails and either threw the contents on the flames or set the pails down for Mr. Sorber to handle.

The ringmaster was in his element, for he loved to direct. His shouted commands would have made an impression upon an organized fire department. And he let it be known, in true showman's style, that the Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie was doing all in its power to put out the fire.

Cap'n Bill Quigg and Louise ran to loosen the mules. It was a wonder the canalboat girl was not kicked to death she was so fearless. And the mules by this time were wildly excited.

Fortunately the fire had burned an outlet through the roof of the cabin and had not spread to the stable. But the heat was growing in intensity and the smoke was blinding. Especially after Mr. Sorber began to throw on water to smother the blaze.

The mules were released without either the girl or her father being hurt. But John and Jerry could not be held. Immediately they tore away, raced over the narrow gangplank, and started across somebody's ploughed field at full gallop. They never had shown such speed since they had become known on the towpath.

Then Louise and her father could help put out the fire. Cap'n Bill, as well as the mules, actually showed some speed. He handed up buckets of water with Neale, and amid the encouraging shouts of the crowd across the canal, the fire was finally quenched. Mr. Sorber immediately seized the occasion as a good showman, or "ballyhoo," should.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he shouted, standing at the rail and bowing, flourishing his arm as though he were snapping the long whip lash he took into the ring with him, "this little exciting episode – this epicurean taste of the thrills to follow in the big tent – although of an impromptu nature, merely goes to show the versatility of Twomley and Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie, and our ability, when the unexpected happens, to grapple with circumstances and throw them, sir – throw them! That is what we did in this present thrilling happening. The fire is out. Every spark is smothered. The Fire Demon no longer seeks to devour its prey. Ahem! Another and a more quenching element has driven the Fire Demon back to its last spark and cinder – and then quenched the spark and cinder! Now, ladies and gentlemen, having viewed this entirely impromptu and nevertheless exciting manifestation of Fire and Water, we hope that your attention will be recalled to the glories of the Twomley and Sorber Herculean Circus and Menagerie. The big show will begin in exactly twenty-two minutes, ladies and gentlemen. At that time I shall be happy to see you all in your places in our comfortable seats as I enter the ring for the grand entrance. I thank you, one and all!"

He bowed gracefully and retired a step just as Cap'n Bill Quigg kicked off the forward hatch-cover to let the smoke out of the hold. He let out something else – and so surprised was the canalboatman, that he actually sprang back.

Two childish voices were shouting as loud as possible: "Let us out! Oh, let – us – o-o-out!"

"Come on, Dot!" Sammy Pinkney cried, seeing the opening above their heads. "We can get out now."

"And we'll get right off this horrid boat, Sammy," declared Dot. "I don't ever mean to go off and be pirates with you again – never. Me and my Alice-doll don't like it at all."

There was a rush for the open hatchway and a chorus of excited voices.

"Oh, Dot, Dot! Are you there, dear?" cried Ruth.

"You little plague, Sammy Pinkney!" gasped Agnes. "I've a mind to box your ears for you!"

"Easy, easy," advised Neale, who was dripping wet from his waist down. "Let us see if they are whole and hearty before we turn on the punishment works. Give us your hands, Dottie."

He lifted the little girl, still hugging her Alice-doll, out of the hold and kissed her himself before he put her into Ruth's arms.

"Come on up, now, Sammy, and take your medicine," Neale urged, stooping over the hatchway.

"Huh! Don't you kiss me, Neale O'Neil," growled Sammy, trying to bring the potatoes and the basket of fruit both up the ladder with him. "I'll get slobbered over enough when I get home – first."

"And what second?" asked Luke, vastly amused as well as relieved.

But Sammy was silent on that score. Nor did he ever reveal to the Corner House girls and their friends just what happened to him when he got back to his own home.

Mr. Sorber was shaking hands with them all in congratulatory mood. Cap'n Bill Quigg was lighting his pipe and settling down against the scorched side of the cabin to smoke. Dot was passed around like a doll, from hand to hand. Louise looked on in mild amazement.

"If I'd knowed that little girl was down in the hold, I sure would have had her out," she said to Neale. "My! ain't she pretty. And what a scrumptious doll!"

Dot saw the canalboat girl in her faded dress, and the lanky boatman, and she had to express her curiosity.

"Oh, please!" she cried. "Are you and that man pirates, like Sammy and me!"

"No," said Louise, wonderingly. "Pap's a Lutheran and I went to a 'piscopalean Sunday-school last winter."

The laugh raised by the excited party from the Corner House quenched any further curiosity on Dot's part. And just here Mr. Sorber suggested a most delightful thing.

"Now, Neale wants to come over to the dressing tent and put on something dry," said the ringmaster. "And on the way you can stop at that house yonder by the bridge and telephone home that you are all right and the young'uns have been found. Then you'll all be my guests at Twomley and Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. The big show will commence in just fourteen minutes. Besides Scalawag wants to see his little mistress."

"Who is Scalawag?" was the chorused question.

"That pony, Uncle Bill?" asked Neale.

"Oh!" gasped Sammy Pinkney, quite himself once more. "The calico pony with pink on him! Je-ru-sa-lem!"

"Exactly," agreed Mr. Sorber, answering all the queries with one word. Then he turned to little Louise Quigg, to add:

"That means you and your dad. You will be guests of the circus, too. Come on, now, Neale, turn your car around and hurry. I'm due to get into another ring suit – I always keep a fresh one handy in case of accident – and walk out before the audience in just – le's see – eleven minutes, now!"

That was surely a busy eleven minutes for all concerned. The Quiggs had to be urged a little to leave their canal boat again; but Beauty had faithfully remained aboard, even if she had gone to sleep at her post; so they shut her into the partly burned cabin to guard the few possessions that remained to them.

"We never did have much, and we ain't likely to ever have much," said the philosophical Louise. "We can bunk to-night in the hold, Pap. We couldn't find John and Jerry till morning, anyway. We might's well celebrate 'cause the old Nancy Hanks didn't all go up in smoke."

Luke telephoned the good news to the old Corner House that Dot and Sammy were found, safe and sound, and that they were all going to the circus. Poor Tess had to be satisfied with the promise that the long-expected pony would be at Milton in a few days. News of the runaways' safety was carried quickly to the Pinkney cottage across Willow Street.

"It strikes me that these kids are getting rewarded instead of punished for running away," Luke observed to Ruth, when he returned from telephoning.

"But what can we do?" the girl asked him. "I am so glad to get Dot back that I could not possibly punish her. And I don't know that she did anything so very wrong. Nor do I believe she will do anything like it again."

"How about Sammy?" the collegian asked.

"To tell the truth," said honest Ruth, "from what they both say I fancy Dot urged Sammy to run away. I can't blame him if I don't blame her, can I?"