Kitabı oku: «The Corner House Girls Growing Up», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XXI
ADVENTURES WITH SCALAWAG

Dot came home to the old Corner House the first day of the school term with what Neale O'Neil would have called "serious trouble in the internal department." She was ravenously hungry; and yet she had eaten a good lunch and did not like to demand of Mrs. MacCall that bite between meals which was so abhorred by the Scotchwoman.

"You have no more right to eat 'twixt one meal and t'other by day than you have to demand a loonch in the middle of the night," was often the good woman's observation when she was asked for a mid-afternoon lunch.

Ruth was easier. She had not been brought up in the rigid, repressive school that had surrounded Mrs. MacCall's childhood. As for Linda, the Finnish girl, if she had her way she would be "stuffing" (to quote Mrs. MacCall) the children all the time.

"You sh'd train your stomach to be your clock, child," Mrs. MacCall declared on this occasion, after Dot had finally mustered up her courage to ask for the lunch.

"I try to, Mrs. Mac," said the smallest Corner House girl apologetically. "But sometimes my stomach's fast."

That started the ball rolling that evening, and the dinner table proved to be a hilarious place. But Ruth was very quiet and her countenance carried a serious cast that might have been noticed had the others not all been so gay and excited. The first day of the term is always an exciting time. Everything about the school – even old things – seems strange.

Dot had of course learned to write as well as to read; and indeed she wrote a very plain and readable hand. Even Mrs. MacCall could see it "without her specs."

"I do abominate these folks whose handwriting is so fine that I have to run to get my glasses to know whether it's an invitation to tea or to tell me some bad news," the housekeeper declared, in discussing Dot's improved writing.

The little girl was passing around a paper on which she had copied a sentence that her teacher had written on the blackboard just before closing hour that day. With an idea of testing the children's knowledge of English, the teacher had written the line and told her class to think it over and, in the morning, bring her the sentence rewritten in different words, but retaining the original meaning.

It was the old proverb: "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse."

"Of course, I know what it means," Dot said. "If a horse is blind he wouldn't see you nodding or winking. And winking isn't polite, anyway – Ruth says it isn't."

"Correct, Dottums," Agnes agreed. "It is very bad and bold to wink – especially at the boys."

"Wouldn't it be impolite to wink at a horse, too, Aggie?" asked the puzzled Dot. "Don't you think Scalawag would feel he was insulted if I wunk at him?"

"Oh, my eye!" gasped Neale, who chanced to be at hand. "Wink, wank, wunk. Great declension, kid."

"Don't call me 'kid'!" cried Dot. "I am sure that is not polite, Neale O 'Neil."

"Discovered, Neale!" chuckled Agnes.

"You are right, Dottie," said the boy, with a twinkle in his eye. "And to repay you for my slip in manners, I will aid you in transposing that sentence so that your teacher will scarcely recognize it."

And he did so. It greatly delighted Dot, for she did so love polysyllables. The other members of the family were convulsed when they read Neale's effort. The little girl carried the paper to school the next day and the amazed teacher read the following paraphrase of "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse:"

"A spasmodic movement of the eye is as adequate as a slight motion of the cranium to an equine quadruped devoid of its visionary capacities."

"Goodness!" Tess declared when she had heard this read over several times. "I don't think you would better read that to Scalawag, Dot. It would make any horse mad."

"Scalawag isn't a horse," responded her sister. "He's a pony. And Neale says he'll never grow up to be a horse. He's just always going to be our cute, cunning little Scalawag!"

"But suppose," sighed Tess, thoughtfully, "that he ever acts like that brown pony of Mrs. Heard's. Jonas, you know."

"Oh, Jonas! He is a bad pony. He gets stuck and won't go," Dot said. "Our Scalawag wouldn't do that."

"He balks, Dot – balks," reproved Tess. "He doesn't get stuck."

"I don't care. You can't push him, and you can't pull him. He just stands."

"Until our Neale whispers something in his ear," suggested Tess.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed her little sister. "Suppose Scalawag should be taken that way. What would we do? We don't know what Neale whispered to Mrs. Heard's pony."

"That's so," agreed Tess. "And Neale won't tell me. I've asked him, and asked him! He was never so mean about anything before."

But Neale, with a reassuring smile, told the little girls that Scalawag would never need to be whispered to. In fact, whispering to the calico pony would merely be a waste of time.

"There's nothing the matter with the old villain but inborn laziness," the youth chuckled. "You have to shout to Scalawag, not whisper to him."

"Oh!" murmured Tess, "don't call him a villain. He is so pretty."

"And cute," added Dot.

Uncle Rufus had built him a nice box stall and Neale took time early each morning to brush and curry the pony until his coat shone and his mane was "crinkly."

Before the week was out, too, the basket phaeton arrived and a very pretty russet, nickel-trimmed harness. Even the circus trimmings had never fitted Scalawag better than this new harness, and he tossed his head and pawed, as he had been trained to do, arching his neck and looking just as though he were anxious to work.

"But it's all in his looks," observed Neale. "He doesn't mean it."

Which seemed to be the truth when the two little girls and Sammy Pinkney got into the phaeton with Neale and took their first drive about the more quiet residential streets of Milton.

Scalawag jogged along under compulsion; but to tell the truth he acted just as though, if he had his own choice, he would never get out of a walk.

"Je-ru-sa-lem!" muttered Sammy. "It's lucky we don't want to go anywhere in a hurry."

It was great fun to drive around the Parade Ground and see the other children stare. When Sammy was allowed to hold the lines he sat up like a real coachman and was actually too proud for speech.

The responsibilities of his position immediately impressed the embryo pirate. Neale taught him carefully how to drive, and what to do in any emergency that might arise. Scalawag was an easy-bitted pony and minded the rein perfectly. The only danger was the pony's slowness in getting into action.

"I reckon," declared Neale, with some disgust, "if there was a bomb dropped behind him, old Scalawag wouldn't get out of the way quick enough, even if there was a five-minute time fuse on the bomb."

"Well, I guess he'll never run away then," said Tess, with a sigh of satisfaction. Nothing could be said about Scalawag that one or the other of the two little girls could not find an excuse for, or even that the criticism was actually praise.

"One thing you want to remember, children," Neale said one day, earnestly. "If you're ever out with Scalawag without me, and you hear a band playing, or anything that sounds like a band, you turn him around and beat it the other way."

"All right," responded the little girls.

"What for?" asked Sammy, at once interested.

"Never mind what for. You promise to do as I say, or it's all off. You'll get no chance to drive the girls alone."

"Sure, I'll do what you say, Neale. Only I wondered what for. Don't he like band music?"

But Neale, considering it safer to say nothing more, merely repeated his warning.

The children drove out every pleasant afternoon when school was over, and within the fortnight Sammy and Tess and Dot were going about Milton with the pony through the shady and quiet streets, as though they had always done so. Therefore the older Corner House girls and Neale could take their friends to drive in the motor-car, without crowding in the two smaller children.

The "newness" of the automobile having worn off for Tess and Dot, they much preferred the basket carriage and the fat pony. They, too, could take their little friends driving, and this added a feeling of importance to their pleasure in the pony.

Had Tess had her way every sick or crippled child in town would have ridden behind the calico pony. She wanted at once to go to the Women's and Children's Hospital, where their very dear friend, Mrs. Eland, had been matron and for the benefit of which The Carnation Countess had been given by the school children of Milton, and take every unfortunate child, one after another, out in the basket carriage.

Their schoolmates especially had to be invited to ride, and Sadie Goronofsky from Meadow Street, and Alfredia Blossom, Uncle Rufus' granddaughter, were not neglected.

"I do declare!" said Aunt Sarah, with some exasperation, as she saw the pony and cart, with its nondescript crew, start off one afternoon for a jog around the Parade Ground. "I do declare! What riffraff Tess manages to pick up. For she certainly must be the biggest influence in gathering every rag, tag and bobtail child in the neighborhood. I never did see such a youngster."

"It isn't that Tessie's tastes are so heterodox," Ruth said, smiling quietly, "but her love for others is so broad."

"Humph!" snapped Aunt Sarah. "It's a wonder to me the child hasn't brought smallpox into the family from going as she does to those awful tenements on Meadow Street."

Aunt Sarah had always been snobbish in her tendencies, even in her days of poverty; and since she enjoyed the comforts and luxuries of the old Corner House it must be confessed that this unpleasant trait in the old woman's character had been considerably developed.

"The only tenements she goes to on Meadow Street are our own," Ruth replied with vigor. "If they are conducted so badly that diseases become epidemic there, we shall be to blame – shall we not?"

"Oh, don't talk socialism or political economy to me!" said Aunt Sarah. "Thank goodness when I went to school young girls did not fill their heads with such nonsense."

"But when she went to school," Ruth said afterward to Mrs. MacCall, "girls I am sure learned to be charitable and loving. And that is all our Tess is, after all."

"Bless her sweet heart!" exclaimed the housekeeper. "She'll never be hurt by that, it's true. But she does bring awfully queer looking characters to the hoose, Ruth. There's no gainsaying that."

As the children met these other children at the public school, Ruth could not see why the Goronofskys and the Maronis and the Tahnjeans, and even Petunia Blossom's pickaninnies, should not, if they were well behaved, come occasionally to the old Corner House. Nor did she forbid her little sisters taking their schoolmates to ride in the basket phaeton, for the calico pony could easily draw all that could pile into the vehicle.

The children from Meadow Street, and from the other poorer quarters of the town, always appeared at the Kenway domicile dressed in their best, and scrubbed till their faces shone. The parents considered it an honor for their children to be invited over by Tess and Dot.

Sammy, of course, would have found it much more agreeable to drive alone with some of the boys than with a lot of the little girls; but he was very fair about it.

"I can't take you 'nless Tess says so," he said to Iky Goronofsky. "I'm only let to drive this pony; I don't own him. Tess and Dot have the say of it."

"And all the kids is sponging on them," grunted Iky, who always had an eye to the main chance. "You know what I would do if the pony was mine?"

"What would you do, Iky?" asked Sammy.

"I'd nefer let a kid in the cart without I was paid a nickel. Sure! A nickel a ride! And I would soon make the cost of the harness and the cart. That's what my father would do too."

Both of which statements were probably true. But the little Corner House girls had no thought for business. They were bent upon having a good time and giving their friends pleasure.

The pony was not being abused in any sense. The work was good for him. But possibly Uncle Bill Sorber had not looked forward to quite such a busy time for Scalawag when he told him in confidence that he was going to have an easy time of it at the old Corner House. If Scalawag could have seen, and been able to speak with, the old ringmaster just then the pony would doubtless have pointed out an important error in the above statement.

Scalawag was petted and fed and well cared for. But as the fall weather was so pleasant, each afternoon he was put between the shafts and was made to haul noisy, delighted little folk about the Parade Ground.

They did not always have company in these drives, however. Sometimes only Tess and Dot were in the basket carriage, though usually Sammy was along. Once in a while they went on errands for Mrs. MacCall – to the store, or to carry things to sick people. The clatter of Scalawag's little hoofs became well known upon many of the highways and byways of Milton.

Once they drove to the Women's and Children's Hospital with a basket of home-made jellies and jams that Mrs. MacCall had just put up and which Ruth wished to donate to the convalescents in the institution. For after the departure of Mrs. Eland and her sister, Miss Peperill, for the West, the Corner House Girls had not lost their interest in this charitable institution.

At a corner which they were approaching at Scalawag's usual jog trot were several carriages, a hearse with plumes, and some men in uniform. Sammy had the reins on this day.

"Oh, Sammy," said Tess, "we'll have to wait, I guess. It's Mr. Mudge's funeral – Mr. Peter Mudge, you know. He was a Grand Army man, and all the other Grand Army men will help bury him. There! Hear the band!"

Of a sudden, and with a moaning of wind instruments punctuated by the roll of drums, the band struck into a dirge. The procession moved. And all of a sudden Sammy found that Scalawag was marking time just as he had been taught to do in the circus ring to any music.

"Oh, my!" gasped Dot, "what is the matter with Scalawag?"

"Turn him around, Sammy – please do," begged Tess. "Just see him! And he's following the band."

That is just exactly what the pony intended to do. Sammy could not turn him. He would mind neither voice nor the tugging rein. Arching his neck, tossing his mane, and stepping high in time to the droning music, the calico pony turned the corner and followed on at the rear of the procession.

"Why – why," gasped Dot, "I don't want to go to a funeral. You stop him, Sammy Pinkney."

"Can't we turn him up a side street, Sammy?" whispered Tess.

Everybody was looking from the sidewalk and from the houses they passed. It was a ridiculous situation. The solemn, slow notes of the band seemed just suited to Scalawag's leisurely action. He kept perfect time.

"And they're goin' to march clear out to the Calvary Cemetery!" ejaculated Sammy. "It's four miles!"

CHAPTER XXII
THE GREEN UMBRELLA AGAIN

"Boom! Boom! Boom-te-boom!" rolled the solemn drums, and Scalawag in a sort of decorous dance, keeping perfect time, insisted upon following the procession.

"My goodness me, Sammy Pinkney!" gasped Tess. "This is awful! Everybody's laughing at us! Can't you turn him around?"

"Oh, dear! He won't turn around, or do anything else, till that band stops," declared Sammy. "This is what Neale meant. He thinks he's in the circus again and that he must march to the music."

"I do declare," murmured Dot, "this pony of ours is just as hard to make stop as Mrs. Heard's Jonas-pony is hard to make go. I wish it was Jonas we had here now, don't you, Tess? He'd be glad to stop."

"And Ruthie told us to come right back 'cause there's going to be ice-cream, and we can scrape the paddles," moaned Tess. "Dear me! we'll be a nawful long time going out to this fun'ral!"

The situation was becoming tragic. The thought of the pleasures of scraping the ice-cream freezer paddles was enough to make Sammy turn to desperate invention for release.

"Here, Tess," he commanded. "You hold these reins and don't you let 'em get under Scalawag's heels."

"Oh, Sammy! what are you going to do?" queried Tess excitedly, but obeying him faithfully.

"I'm going to slide out behind and run around and stop him."

"Oh, Sammy! You can't!" Dot cried. "He'll just walk right over you. See him!"

Everybody along the street was laughing now. It really was a funny sight to see that solemnly stepping pony right behind the line of carriages. Sammy would not be deterred. He scrambled out of the phaeton and ran around to Scalawag's head.

"Whoa! Stop, you old nuisance!" ejaculated the boy, seizing the bridle and trying to halt the pony.

But the latter knew his business. He had been taught to keep up his march as long as the band played. If it had suddenly changed to a lively tune, Scalawag would have stood right up on his hind legs and pawed the air!

Therefore, the pony had no idea of stopping while the band played on. He pushed ahead and Sammy had to keep stepping backward or be trod on. It was a funny sight indeed to see the small boy try to hold back the fat pony that plowed along just as though Sammy had no more weight than a fly.

"Oh Sammy! he'll step on you," Tess cried.

"Oh, Sammy! he'll – he'll bite you," gasped Dot.

"Oh, Sammy!" bawled a delighted youngster from the sidewalk, "he'll swaller you whole!"

"Look out for that pony, boy!" called an old man.

"What's the kid trying to do – wrastle him?" laughed another man.

Tess' cheeks were very, very red. Sammy wished that the street might open and swallow him. Dot was too young to feel the smart of ridicule quite so keenly. She hugged up the Alice-doll to her bosom and squealed just as loud as she could.

After all, Dot was the one who saved the situation. Her shrill cry was heard by an old gentleman in the last carriage. He was a very grand looking old gentleman indeed, for when he stood up to look down upon the obstinate pony and the small boy struggling with him, as well as the two little girls in the basket phaeton, they saw that he had medals and ribbons on his breast and a broad sash across the front of his coat.

"Halt!" commanded General MacKenzie, and although he was at the rear of the procession instead of the front, the word was passed swiftly along to the band, and everybody stood still, while the droning of the instruments ceased.

Instantly Scalawag stopped keeping time, and shook his head and coughed. Sammy had pulled at his bit so hard that it interfered with the pony's breathing.

"What under the sun's the matter with that little pony?" demanded the veteran officer, putting on his eyeglasses the better to see Scalawag and the whole outfit.

"If you pl-please, sir," stammered Sammy, "he belongs to a circus and – and he just can't make his feet behave when he hears a band."

"And do you children belong to a circus, too?" asked the old gentleman in vast surprise.

"Oh, no, sir," Tess put in. "And Scalawag doesn't belong to one now. But he can't forget. If you'll have your band wait, please, until we can drive up this other street, Scalawag will forget all about it."

"Please do, sir," begged Dot. "For we don't really want to go to the seminary; we go to school here in Milton," which peculiar association of ideas rather stagged General MacKenzie.

However, amid the subdued hilarity of the people on the sidewalks, Sammy managed at last to turn Scalawag's head and drive him up Buchan Terrace, and out of hearing of the droning of the band when the funeral procession started again. But it certainly was a memorable occasion for the little mistresses of Scalawag and for Sammy.

Thereafter, when they were driving out, they were continually on the watch for a band, or any other music; and Dot even feared that the old man on the corner who attracted attention to his infirmities, as well as to the pencils he sold, with a small organette, would play some tune that would remind Scalawag of his circus days.

Neale O'Neil would sometimes bring the pony around to the front of the house and have Agnes start a band record on the music machine in the parlor. Immediately Scalawag would try to go through his old tricks to the delight of the neighborhood children.

"Well! it doesn't much matter, I suppose," Ruth sighed. "Every day is circus day at the old Corner House. We have gained a reputation for doing queer things, and living not at all like other folks. I wonder that nice people here in Milton allow their children to play with our little girls."

"Hech!" exclaimed Mrs. MacCall. "I should like to know why not? They're the best behaved bairns anywhere, if their heids are fu' o' maggots," using the word, however, in the meaning of "crotchets" or "queer ideas."

Ruth was no "nagger." She was strict about some things with the smaller ones; but she never interfered with their plays or amusements as long as they were safe and did not annoy anybody. And with their multitude of pets and toys, to say nothing of dolls galore, Tess and Dot Kenway were as happy little girls as could be found in a day's march.

Besides, there was always Sammy Pinkney to give them a jolt of surprise; although Sammy's mother said he was behaving this term almost like an angel and she feared a relapse of the fever he had suffered the spring before.

Neale O'Neil felt of the boy's shoulder blades solemnly and pronounced no sign yet of sprouting wings.

"You are in no danger of dying young because of your goodness striking in, Sammy," he said. "Don't lose heart."

"Aw —you!" grunted Sammy.

Ruth, seeing the practicability of it, was taking lessons in driving the automobile and was to get a license shortly. Agnes felt quite put out that she was not allowed to do likewise; but to tell the truth the older folk feared to let the fly-away sister handle the car without Neale, or somebody more experienced, in the seat with her.

"I don't care, Neale has killed a hen, scared innumerable dogs sleeping in the road-dust, and come near running down Mrs. Privett. You know he has! I believe I wouldn't do much worse."

Ruth pointed out that she need not do much worse in Mrs. Privett's case to have a very bad accident indeed.

"The difference between almost running a person down, and actually hitting him, can be measured only before a magistrate," the older sister said.

Ruth took her lessons from the man at the garage after luncheon, for she did not attend school in the afternoon this term, taking the few studies she desired in the morning.

One afternoon she drove over to Mr. Howbridge's house for tea, and as the car jounced over the railroad crossing at Pleasant Street she suddenly spied a familiar looking object bobbing along the sidewalk. It was a huge green umbrella, and beneath it was the rather shambling figure of the old gentleman whom she had saved from possible accident at this very crossing some weeks before.

He was dressed quite as he had been when Ruth first saw him. If he saw her, the car passed so rapidly that she did not see him bow. At Mr. Howbridge's house she lingered for some time, for the lawyer always enjoyed these little visits of his oldest ward.

Ruth did not return to the old Corner House until almost time for the children to come home from school. Mrs. MacCall was in an excited state when the oldest Corner House girl appeared.

"Hech, ma lassie!" cried the housekeeper. "Ye hae fair missed the crankiest old body I've set my eyes on in mony a day!"

"Whom do you mean, Mrs. Mac?" asked Ruth, in surprise.

"Let me tell 't ye! I should be fu' used to quare bodies coomin' here, for 'tis you bairns bring 'em. But this time 'twas ane o' your friends, Ruthie – "

"But who was he?"

"Fegs! He'd never tell 't me," Mrs. MacCall declared, shaking her head. "He juist kep' sayin' he had a reason for wishin' tae see ye. Ye could nae tell from lookin' into his winter-apple face, whether 'twas guid news or bad he brought."

"Oh, Mrs. Mac!" cried Ruth suddenly, "did he carry a green umbrella!"

"He did juist that," declared the woman, vigorously nodding. "And a most disreputable umbrella it looked tae be. 'Gin ye judged the mon by his umbrella, ye'd think he was come tae buy rags."

"Isn't he a character?" laughed Ruth.

"He's as inquisitive as a chippin'-sparrow," said the housekeeper, with some disgust. "He wanted tae know ev'rything that had happened tae ye since ye was weaned."

"Oh, dear! I'm rather glad I wasn't here then."

"Aw, but fash not yerself he'll nae be back. For he wull."

"No!"

"Yes, I tell 't ye. I seen it in the gleam of his hard eye when he went. I gave him nae satisfaction as tae when ye might be home, not knowin' who he was nor what he wanted o' ye."

"Oh, Mrs. MacCall, don't you remember?" and Ruth recounted the incident at the railroad crossing nearly a month before.

"Huh, that's why he was so cur'ous, then. You saved his life," went on the housekeeper dropping the broad Scotch burr, now that her excitement was cooling.

"I don't know that I did. But perhaps he came to thank me for what I tried to do."

"It seems as though he must want to know every little thing about you," the housekeeper declared. "And how he could corner you with his questions! He should ha' made a lawyer-body. He made me tell him more than I should about the family's private affairs, I have no doot."

"Oh, Mrs Mac! what do you suppose he wants!"

"To see you, belike. And he'll be back again."

"Goodness! I'm not sure I want to talk with him. He looked very odd to me that day I met him. And so cross!"

"No doot of it. He's an ugly looking man. And from his speech it's easy to see he's no friend of womenkind."

"He must be like that Neighbor Cecile was telling us about," sighed Ruth and with that dropped the subject of the strange old man with the green umbrella.

Ruth had heard from Cecile Shepard since she had gone back to the preparatory school – in fact, had received two letters. They were not such bright epistles as Cecile usually wrote; but they were full of her brother. Not that Cecile mentioned Luke's differences with Neighbor, or the reason thereof; but she seemed unable to keep from writing about Luke.

Ruth was secretly as anxious to hear about the young man as his sister was to write about him.

Ruth was heart-hungry. She felt that Luke might have taken her into his confidence to a greater degree; and yet she suspected why he had not done so.

Mr. Howbridge's talk of dowries for the sisters was always in Ruth's mind. Of course, she knew that the Stower estate was rapidly increasing in value. In a few years property that Peter Stower had purchased for a song would be worth a fortune. The Kenways were likely to be very rich.

What if Luke Shepard had no money when he graduated from college? That seemed a very small thing to Ruth. She would have plenty when she came of age, and why could not her money set Luke up in some line of business that he was fitted for?

Yet, there was a whisper in her heart that told Ruth that was not the right way to begin life. If Luke was ambitious he must find a better way. Nor could she help him, it seemed, in the least, for the young man had given her no right to do so.

"Oh, dear me," Ruth finally decided, "it is awfully hard being a girl – sometimes!"

No such questions and doubts troubled Agnes and Neale. Their course through life seemed a smooth road before them. They told each other their aspirations, and everything they planned to do in the future – that glorious future after school should end – had a part for each in it.

Neale O'Neil did not hope to do anything in life which would shut Agnes out; and the girl's thought marched side-by-side with his intentions. Everything hereafter was to be in partnership.

"For you know, Neale, no matter what Ruth says, I really couldn't get along without you."

"Crickey!" exclaimed the boy, "this old world certainly would be what Unc' Rufus calls 'de valley ob tribulation' if you weren't right here with me."

She smiled upon him gloriously, and used that emphatic ejaculation that always horrified Ruth:

"You bet!"

"You're a good pal, Aggie," said the boy, with feeling.

"And since that morning I first saw you and we both tumbled out of the peach tree," Agnes declared solemnly – "do you remember, Neale?"

"I should say I did!"

"Well, I thought you were awfully nice then. Now, I know you are."

So, perhaps Agnes and Neale were growing up, too.