The Corner House Girls' Odd Find

“So you’re back again, are you?” was her greeting for Agnes.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d bring help?” shouted the Corner House girl, gaily.

“Humph! I don’t see what help you can be for the like of us,” said the trapeze performer ungraciously.

But Agnes Kenway was not to be balked in her good intentions. “Of course we can help you. I’ve come to take you home,” she declared. “And here’s some lunch.”

“What d’you mean —home? We haven’t got a home, Pop and me.”

“But I have,” Agnes said.

“That’s nothin’ to do with us,” grumbled Barnabetta.

She looked very sullen and unhappy. The clown was crouching close to the fire, but had drawn his shoe and stocking on again. He looked very miserable, and warm-hearted Agnes determined not to allow herself to become angry with Barnabetta.

“Now, Barnabetta,” she said coaxingly, “don’t be cross. I want to be friends with you.”

“What for?” demanded the other girl, sharply.

“I want to take you to my house,” pursued Agnes, without answering the last question. “The Corner House, you know. We’ve plenty of room and I know my sister, Ruth, will be kind to you.”

Barnabetta and her father looked at each other now in stunned surprise. Why Agnes should really want to help them they could not understand.

“Mr. Buckham is kind enough to take us all in his sleigh,” pursued Agnes, after calling to Tom Jonah to stay on the other side of the sleigh, for Barnabetta was a little afraid of the big dog. “We’ll be in Milton in two hours and there your father can be made comfortable.”

“Say! this isn’t a trick?” ejaculated the trapeze performer at last.

“What kind of trick?” asked Agnes, in wonder.

“Well,” said Barnabetta, doubtfully, “you might make us trouble. We’re sort of vagrants. Once, when we were travelin’, Pop and me, we got pulled by a fresh constable, and I was afraid they’d find out I wasn’t a boy.”

“Oh, my!” gasped Agnes, for the romance of Barnabetta’s situation appealed strongly to the Corner House girl.

“You’re not thinkin’ of handin’ us over to the police, are you?” added Barnabetta, shrewdly.

“Great goodness, girl!” gasped Mr. Buckham, “it must ha’ been your fortune to meet mighty mean folks in your short life.”

“Yep, it has,” said the circus girl, drily. “We’ve got plenty good friends in the business. Circus folks are nice folks. Only we got on the outs with the Sorbers. But outside – well, there’s plenty folks down on them that have to tramp it. And we’ve had our experiences,” concluded Barnabetta, nodding her head and pursing her lips.

“Well, these Corner House girls ain’t no bad kind,” said the farmer, earnestly. “If you need help, you’ve come to the right shop for it.”

“I never asked her for help!” flared up the circus girl.

“You need help just the same,” answered Mr. Buckham. “And you’d better take it when it’s kindly offered. You know your father ain’t in no shape to camp out this weather. And it’s getting colder.”

“Well,” said Barnabetta, ungraciously enough. “What do you say, Pop?”

Poor Scruggs was evidently used to “playing second fiddle,” as Mr. Buckham would have himself expressed it. He just nodded, and said:

“I leave it to you, Barney. We’ll do just like you say.”

The circus girl poised herself on one foot and looked doubtful. Her father did not stir.

“You know,” said Agnes, “Neale maybe will be home soon. He’ll know how to help you,” she added, with confidence in her boy chum’s wisdom.

Barnabetta’s black eyes suddenly flashed. “All right,” she said, grumpily enough, and turned away to help her father rise.

Agnes’ heart was suddenly all of a flutter. She could not help wondering if Barnabetta was thinking of the money in the old album that Neale O’Neil was carrying about the country with him. Yet that seemed an ungenerous thought and Agnes put it behind her. Later it was to return in spite of her – and with force.

CHAPTER XVI – SEVERAL ARRIVALS

Perhaps no girl but a Corner House girl would have planned to take two perfect strangers home with her, especially strangers who seemed of a somewhat doubtful character.

It must be confessed that the Corner House girls, with no mother or father to confide in or advise with, sometimes did things on the spur of impulse that ordinary girls would not think of doing.

Agnes Kenway really had serious doubts about the honesty of Barnabetta Scruggs and her father. Just the same she was deeply interested in the circus girl, and she pitied the meek little clown. Barnabetta was quite the most interesting girl Agnes had ever met.

To think of a girl traveling about the country – “tramping it” – dressed as a boy, and so successfully hiding her identity! Why! if she did not speak, nobody would guess her sex, Agnes was sure.

What lots of adventures she must have had! How free and untrammeled her life on the road must be! Agnes herself had often longed for the freedom of trousers. She was jealous of Neale O’Neil because he could do things, and enjoy fun that she could not partake of because of the skirts she wore.

And it was nothing new for the next to the oldest Corner House girl to fall desperately in love with a strange girl at first sight. Neale said, scornfully, that she was forever getting “new spoons.” He added that she “had a crush” on some girl almost always; but she seldom kept one of these loves longer than one term of school – sometimes not so long.

Her “very dearest friend” was not always chosen wisely; but while that one was in vogue, Agnes was as loyal to her as ever Damon was to Pythias. And it must be admitted that it was usually by no fault of Agnes’ that these friendships were broken off.

For more than one reason did Agnes Kenway contract this sudden and violent fancy for Barnabetta Scruggs.

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Buckham had raised any objection to Agnes’ taking the two strolling people home to the old Corner House, because of two very good reasons. First, they were very simple minded people themselves and it was their rule to do any kindness in their power; and secondly, Agnes had told them nothing at all about the conversation she had overheard between Barnabetta and her father regarding the book filled with money that Neale O’Neil had carried to Tiverton with him.

Agnes helped get the poor circus clown into the straw in the body of the pung. But she sat on the seat with Mr. Buckham when the colts started off along the wood road.

Barnabetta sat down in the straw with her father. Tom Jonah careered about the sleigh and barked. Having seen the two strolling people kindly treated by his little mistress and Mr. Buckham, he gave over being suspicious of them.

The short winter day was drawing to a close. On the rough road Mr. Buckham drove carefully so as not to shake up his passengers, but once they arrived at the more beaten track of the public highway, he let the colts out and they sped swiftly townward.

Agnes was afraid Tom Jonah would be left too far behind and she begged Mr. Buckham to stop so that the old dog might leap into the pung and crouch at their feet in front. He was, indeed, well spent.

“Not that you deserve to be helped at all, Tom Jonah,” Agnes said sternly. “You disobeyed – and ran away – and followed me. And I declare you scared me pretty nearly into a fit, so you did!”

But she did not say how glad she was that the big dog had followed her into the wood. His presence had saved her from a very awkward situation. Though what Barnabetta and her father could have done with her had they detained Agnes at their camp, the Corner House girl was unable to imagine. To be a prisoner of the pair of strollers would have been romantic, in Agnes’ opinion. But —

“I believe I’d have been a white elephant on their hands, if they’d kept me,” she thought, giggling.

The colts swept the party swiftly over the frozen road to the old Corner House. The bells jingled blithely, the runners creaked, the frost and the falling darkness came together; and Agnes, at least, felt highly exhilarated.

How the Scruggses felt she could only suspect. They said nothing. If they were really astonished by this Samaritan act, perhaps they still held doubts regarding the end of the ride.

Mr. Scruggs, however, could not move his foot without pain. It would have been impossible for them to continue their journey to the South with the member in its present condition.

The two circus people had left a local freight at the water-tank that morning, intending to wait for a through freight, running south, that was due late in the evening. They hoped to steal aboard this train – perhaps to pay some small sum to a dishonest brakeman for a ride, and so travel a long way toward their destination before being driven from the train.

With the clown’s ankle in its present condition, however, they never could have boarded the train. He and Barnabetta had discussed their circumstances, and were really at their wits’ end, when Agnes had returned to them with the farmer and his team.

Whatever may have been their doubts, they could not afford to refuse the help thus proffered them. Even a night in the police station would have been preferable to that which faced them on the snowy hillside overlooking the railroad tracks.

Wonderingly the two strollers arrived at the old Corner House. Willow Street was almost bare of snow; and there was straw laid down there, too. So the farmer brought his team to a stop at the front gate of the Corner House premises.

“Don’t try to get out, mister,” said Bob Buckham, cordially, “till I tie these critters and blanket ’em. Then I’ll help you. You run in and tell your sister she’s goin’ to have comp’ny,” he added to Agnes, saying it that Ruth might have time to adjust her mind to the idea of the strangers coming in.

But this really was not needed, for Ruth was the soul of hospitality. Nor could she ever bear to refuse assistance to those who asked. Had Mrs. MacCall not exercised her shrewd Scotch sense in many cases, the eldest Corner House girl would have been imposed upon by those seeking charity who were quite undeserving.

Having experienced the squeeze of poverty herself, Ruth Kenway knew well what it meant. The generous provision of their guardian, Mr. Howbridge, left a wide margin of money and other means for the Corner House girls to use in a charitable way, if not enough for the automobile that Agnes so heartily craved.

When Asa Scruggs hobbled up to the big front door, leaning on Mr. Buckham on one side and on Barnabetta on the other, the door was wide open, the lamp-light shone out in a broad, cheerful beam across the verandah, and Ruth stood in the doorway to welcome the guests.

The eldest Corner House girl, like her sister, treated the poor clown and his daughter as though they were most honored visitors. Their shabby clothing, their staves, and their bundles done up in blue denim bags, were accepted by Ruth as quite a matter of course.

Visions of the police station and cells evaporated from Barnabetta’s active and suspicious brain. This was like entering a fairy castle in a dream!

She and her father stared at each other. They could not understand it. They could barely acknowledge Ruth’s pleasantly worded welcome.

“Do come right upstairs, folks,” said Agnes, fluttering down the stairway herself, with her hat and coat removed. “I’m so glad you came in, Mr. Buckham. You can help Barnabetta’s father up to his room.”

“Sure,” agreed the farmer.

“Yes,” said Ruth. “Unc’ Rufus is rheumatically inclined to-day.” Then she added to Barnabetta: “You and your father shall be in adjoining rooms. Agnes will show you the bath. And I know you can wear a frock of mine, if you will?”

Barnabetta could hardly speak. She had to swallow something that felt like a big lump in her throat. These girls, without any reason whatever, were treating her as though she were one of themselves. She knew she never would have been so kind to a stranger as they were to her father and herself.

Not only a frock did Barnabetta find laid out in her room a little later – after she had helped her father to bed; but there was linen and underclothing, and even shoes and stockings. And a hot bath was drawn for her in the bathroom with soap and towels laid by. Oh! the forlorn circus girl luxuriated in the bath.

Again and again the girl asked herself why she and the clown were being treated so kindly.

Had Barnabetta known what Agnes had said to Ruth when she ran in ahead of the rest of the party, she might not have been so surprised by Ruth’s kindness. Not a word did the younger girl say about Barnabetta and her father having tried to detain her in the woods.

“Oh, Ruth! these poor folk are circus people. They know Neale O’Neil. And Neale is with his uncle in Tiverton, where he’s lying hurt. The circus is in winter quarters there. And the old album is safe!”

She did not say how she knew this last to be the case; and Ruth was so busy making the visitors comfortable that she did not ask, but accepted the good news unquestioningly.

Besides, Ruth had to give some attention to Mr. Bob Buckham. She could allow no guest to be neglected. The old farmer, however, would not stay to dinner.

“That would never do – that would never do!” he declared, when Ruth proposed it. “What would Marm do without me at table? No, sir. I just wanted to see these folks Aggie has taken such a shine to, right to this old Corner House. And say, Ruthie!”

“Yes, sir?” was the girl’s response.

“I don’t know nothin’ about who they be. Nor do you, nor Aggie. So have a care.”

“Why, they must be all right, Mr. Buckham,” cried Ruth. “Neale knows them. They are from his uncle’s circus.”

“Eh? Neale knows ’em? Wal – mebbe so, mebbe so,” grunted Mr. Buckham. “Just the same, I know lots of folks I wouldn’t make too free with. Wait and try ’em out,” advised the old farmer.

If Ruth had had any doubts about the trapeze artist and her father, she was at once disarmed when Barnabetta came down to dinner. And Agnes, forgetting her first unpleasant introduction to the strollers in the woods, was delighted with her protégé.

Barnabetta was a dark, glowing beauty. Her curly hair, which made her look so boyish before, framed her thin, striking features most becomingly. Her figure was lithe without being lean.

The little girls, who had not seen Barnabetta arrive in her boy’s apparel, were taken with the trapeze artist at once. Agnes had told them what Barnabetta did in the circus, and of course Dot was extremely interested.

“Oh, my!” she said, her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed. “Do – do you climb ‘way up on those trapezers at the circus and turn inside outside, just as we saw once? Oh! that must be just heaveningly – mustn’t it, Tess?”

Tess was quite as excited over the guest herself, and overlooked Dot’s new rendering of certain words for the sake of asking:

“Doesn’t it make your head go round and round like a whirligig, to turn over on the trapeze? It does mine, though Neale showed me how to do it on the bar he set up in our garret.”

The simple kindness and cordiality of the Corner House girls was a distinct surprise to Barnabetta. At first she showed something of her doubt of this reception she was accorded by such complete strangers. They were all so completely different from her, and their manner of life so entirely strange to her.

The dining room service, the soft lights, the pleasant officiousness of Unc’ Rufus, and the girls’ own gay conversation, was all a revelation to the circus performer. Even Aunt Sarah Maltby’s grim magnificence at her end of the table helped to tame the wildness of Barnabetta Scruggs.

If Mrs. MacCall did not altogether approve of these circus people, she said nothing and did nothing to show such disapproval. Barnabetta began to see that these good folk were very simple and kindly, and wished only to see her at her ease and desired to make her feel at home.

She went back to the clown after dinner, to find that he had been served with a great tray of food by Linda, and lay back among his pillows, happy and content.

Mrs. MacCall had insisted upon looking at his ankle. She bandaged it and anointed it with balsam.

“These folks are mighty good people, Barnabetta,” said Asa Scruggs. “I never knowed there were such good folks outside the circus business.”

“I don’t know what to make of ’em,” confessed the girl.

“Don’t have to make nothin’ of ’em,” said her father, with a sigh of content. “This is somethin’ to be mighty thankful for. Feel the warm air comin’ from that open register, Barnabetta? And I thought we’d haf to scrouge down over a whisp of fire to-night in the open. Oh, my!” and he gave an ecstatic wriggle under the bed clothes.

He seemed ready for sleep, and the girl tiptoed out of the room after turning the gas low. It was while she was in the hall, and before opening the door of her own room, that she heard a sudden subdued hullabaloo below stairs. Listen! what had happened?

Startled, Barnabetta crept along the hall to the front stairway. Somebody had entered by the door from the side porch, bringing in a great breath of keen air that drifted up the stairway to her. The Corner House girls were conducting this new arrival into the sitting room.

“Oh, Neale! you mean thing!” cried Agnes’ voice. “Where have you been? Come in and tell us all about it!”

“And what have you done with that old album Agnes let you take?” was Ruth’s anxious question.

Barnabetta strained her ears to distinguish the boy’s reply.

CHAPTER XVII – AT CROSS PURPOSES

Tess had been over to see how Sammy Pinkney was after dinner. That was her usual evening task now. She would go into the Pinkney yard and yodle.

“Ee-yow! ee-yow! ee-yow!” That was the way in which Sammy himself usually announced his coming to the old Corner House, and Tess had learned it from him.

Then Mrs. Pinkney would come to the side door to speak to the little girl.

“How is Sammy to-night, Mrs. Pinkney?” Tess would query. “We hope he’s better.”

And Mrs. Pinkney would tell her. In the morning on her way to school, Tess would repeat the inquiry. For a week the reports were very grave indeed. Sammy knew nobody – not even his father and mother. The poor little “pirate” was quite delirious; his temperature was very high; and Dr. Forsyth could give the parents little encouragement.

But this evening, for the first time, Tess’ shrill little “Ee-yow! ee-yow! ee-yow!” was heard by the boy inside, and recognized. Mrs. Pinkney came running to the door.

“I do wish I dared run out and kiss you, Tessie Kenway!” she cried, and there were tears of thankfulness in her eyes. “Sammy heard you. He’s better. Bless you, dear! He is better. Yodle for him again.”

So Tess did, and right away there was an unexpected answer. Somebody repeated “Ee-yow! ee-yow! ee-yow!” behind her in Willow Street.

“Goodness gracious!” squealed Tess, running wildly out of the gate, “is that you, Neale O’Neil?”

“That’s who it is, honey,” said the white-haired boy, cheerfully.

“Oh, Neale! so much has happened since you’ve been gone. Sammy’s got scarlet fever; but he’s better. And Almira’s got four kittens. And we’ve got visitors, and one of ’em’s a girl and she can turn on the trapeze – so easy! And you’ve got a whole heap of Christmas presents in the sitting room that you’ve never seen yet.”

“All right. I’ll go in and see ’em right now,” Neale said, and took her hand in his free one. When they mounted the porch steps and Agnes and Ruth and Dot came running to the door to meet him, he dropped his heavy bag in a corner and did not take it into the house. He had just come from the railroad station.

“You see,” Neale said, when he was hustled into the warm sitting room by the four Corner House girls, and even before he took off his coat and cap and gloves, “I got a letter about Uncle Bill Sorber from one of the other Sorbers. He was hurt two months ago – badly burned, poor old fellow! – when the circus arrived at winter quarters.

“They always give a last performance there at Tiverton, and another when they start out in the spring. There was an accident this time. A tank of gasoline fell from aloft, and got afire, and Uncle Bill was hurt badly. The doctors gave him up at last, and so they sent for me.”

“I know about it,” said Agnes, nodding.

“How’d you know? Must have seen it in the paper, I s’pose,” said Neale. “Well, I missed it. I didn’t know a thing about his being hurt till I found that letter at home Christmas Eve.”

“But why did you go away without telling us?” Ruth asked earnestly.

“I didn’t want to bother you girls, then. And you expected me to help you at that Christmas tree business, too. So I only left the note with Unc’ Rufus and told him not to give it to you till just before dinner. I fixed it with Con Murphy to take my place. He did, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” the eager Agnes said.

The little girls had danced off to the kitchen on some errand. The boy continued:

“Well! I got up there to the winter quarters and found Uncle Bill better. But the poor old fellow had been asking for me. I don’t suppose we ever will understand each other,” sighed Neale. “He can’t see why I want to be something different from a circus performer; and an education doesn’t mean a thing to him but foolishness.

“But I guess he really does have some interest in me – ”

“Of course he does, Neale,” interposed Ruth, admonishingly. “I could tell that the time he was here and I talked with him.”

“Just the same, I wish I had money myself, so’s not to have to take any from him,” the boy said stubbornly.

“Well,” burst out Ruth, “you have had plenty of money with you lately, Neale O’Neil, whether you know it or not! What under the sun have you done with that great old book Aggie found in the garret?”

“Oh, mercy, yes, Neale!” put in Agnes. “What did you do with it? Ruth’s just about worried her heart and soul out about it.”

“What for?” asked Neale, flushing deeply.

“Well, goodness!” cried Agnes. “I believe that Ruth believes that old book is full of money.”

“What of it?” asked Neale, still looking red and angry.

“Why, Neale, we’d like to know what you’ve done with it,” Ruth said, seriously. “Aggie had no right to let you take the book.”

“Why not?” snapped the boy again.

“Because it was not hers. It does not belong to us. It should not have gone out of my care. It – ”

“Well! why didn’t you take care of it, then?” demanded the boy, sharply.

“I – I didn’t know what was in it. I couldn’t believe it!” declared Ruth, with clasped hands.

“For pity’s sake! what is the matter with you, Ruth Kenway?” cried Agnes, feeling that they were all at cross purposes. “If it was real money or counterfeit, either one, of course Neale was to be trusted with it, I should hope.”

“If!” ejaculated Ruth, desperately. “You don’t know what you say, Agnes. There’s no ‘if’ about it. It is real money.”

“No?” gasped the astounded Agnes, who had never really believed this was so. “How do you know that, Ruth Kenway? It is preposterous.”

“It is so,” repeated Ruth, more calmly. “I took one of the ten dollar bills and had it examined at the bank. Mr. Crouch says it is good money. I didn’t believe it myself till he said so. Then I came back to find the book and lock it away somewhere. And you had given it to Neale.”

“Oh, Neale!” gasped Agnes, sitting down suddenly.

“Well! what if I did have it? And what if it is good money?” repeated the white-haired boy, still standing as though on the defensive. “Do you think I’d run away with it, Ruth Kenway?”

“You did go away with it, didn’t you?” returned Ruth, a little sharp herself, now. “I have been worried to death.”

“But of course it’s all right,” Agnes hastened to put in, trying to throw oil on the troubled waters. “You brought the old album back with you, didn’t you, Neale?”

“Yes, I did,” Neale admitted. “But I’d like to know what Ruth means by what she says. If there had been a hundred thousand dollars in that book do you s’pose I’d steal it?”

“A hundred thousand dollars!” murmured Agnes. “Oh – dear – me!”

“I didn’t know what to think,” Ruth said slowly. “I have worried – oh! so much!” and she sobbed.

“Because I carried away that old book?” repeated Neale.

“Yes. Oh! it would have been just the same if anybody had carried it off. I don’t know who all that fortune belongs to; but we must take care of it till Mr. Howbridge comes.”