Kitabı oku: «The Corner House Girls' Odd Find», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XV – AGNES SHOULDERS RESPONSIBILITY

“Tom Jonah!” screamed Agnes; for in this emergency she recognized the old dog.

He had followed the car from town, had scented out her tracks when she entered the woods, and so had followed Agnes to this spot, afraid to come up with her for fear of being scolded; for, of course, he knew well enough he had disobeyed.

But now the dog’s loyalty to one of his little mistresses had brought Tom Jonah out of hiding. The attempt of Asa Scruggs to hold Agnes was an unfortunate move on the clown’s part.

Tom Jonah shot out of the bushes, growling fiercely, and charged the man. Scruggs let go of Agnes and shrank back, trying to flee – for the dog looked quite as savage as the wolf Agnes had thought was following her.

As he turned, Scruggs slipped and went down. His right foot twisted under him and the dog’s heavy body flung him flat on his back. Tom Jonah held the clown down with both forepaws on his chest and a threatening muzzle at his throat.

Agnes could easily have gotten away now. The clown could not move, and Barnabetta began to cry.

“Oh, Pop! Oh, Pop!” she wailed. “He’s going to eat you up!”

Agnes knew Tom Jonah would not let the man rise unless she commanded him to do so. So she did not leave the spot as she had at first intended. All in an instant, through the interference of the old dog, the tables had been turned.

“If I call him off,” she asked, shakingly, of Barnabetta, “will you leave me alone?”

“You’ve fixed Pop with your nasty old dog – hasn’t she, Pop? That’s his bad ankle. He can’t do anything to you now,” declared the trapeze performer.

“And you let that stick alone,” commanded Agnes. “Tom Jonah will do anything I tell him to,” she added, warningly, and then proved it by calling the old dog to come to her. He came, growling, and showing the red of his eyes as he looked over his shoulder at the prostrate clown. The man seemed unable to rise, but sat up, groaning, and rubbing the twisted ankle.

“Oh, dear, me!” cried Barnabetta; “that fixes us for another two months. You won’t be able to work at all, Pop, even if we get a job. What ever shall we do?”

Agnes began to feel most unhappy. Her excitement once past, she felt that she was somehow partly to blame for the clown’s predicament. And she could not help feeling sorry for him and for this strange girl who was dressed in boy’s apparel.

Besides, Agnes felt a sort of admiration for Barnabetta Scruggs. There was romance attached to her. A girl, not much older than Agnes herself, tramping in boy’s clothing and meeting all sorts of adventures on the road! Agnes failed to remember that right then Barnabetta and her father were meeting with one very unpleasant adventure.

“Dear me,” said the Corner House girl, with sympathy. “Is he really hurt?”

“That’s his sprained ankle hurt again. It’s even worse than just an ordinary sprain,” explained the trapeze performer. “He can’t do any stunts, or joey work on crutches, can he? The doctor told him to be careful for a long time with it. What shall we do?”

“He – he won’t be able to walk, will he?” gasped Agnes.

“Only on a crutch. We can’t do any travelin’ on railroads with him this way. And he can’t walk. How far’s it to Milton?”

“You can get an electric car to town if you follow this woodpath.”

“How far?”

“I’ve been almost an hour and a half walking here from the car.”

“Must be four or five miles then,” murmured Barnabetta.

“Yes.”

“Never can hobble that far – can you, Pop?” asked the circus girl.

“Not yet,” groaned the man. He was taking off his shoe and sock. “Get me some snow, Barnabetta,” he said.

“My, that’s so!” she exclaimed. “We can pack it in snow to take down the swellin’.”

“He’ll get his foot frostbitten sitting here without any shoe on,” said Agnes.

“I’ll keep a good fire goin’,” said the girl, shortly.

“And stay here all night – in the open?” cried Agnes, horror-stricken at such a thought.

“Where else?” snapped Barnabetta. “There’s no place to go. We’ve got no friends, anyway. And we’ve mighty little money. We expected to steal a ride South, and sleep in farmers’ barns, and the like. We’ve done it before. But we’ve never been so bad off as this.”

She said all this too low for her father to hear. She added: “Pop always had his health and strength before.”

“Oh, dear me!” groaned Agnes, impulsively. “I wish Neale were here.”

“Oh!” ejaculated the circus girl, sharply. “What Neale’s that?”

Agnes remained silent, sorry that she had spoken so thoughtlessly.

“I might have known you were one of those girls,” added Barnabetta.

“What girls?” asked Agnes, curiously.

“Those that Neale O’Neil lives with at Milton.”

“He doesn’t live with us. He lives next door to us – with Mr. Con Murphy.”

“Bill Sorber said he lived with some Corner House girls. That’s what he called you,” said Barnabetta.

“Just the same,” said Agnes, boldly; “I wish he were here. He’d know what to do – how to help you.”

But Barnabetta was despondent. “Nobody can’t help us,” she said. “We’re in bad.”

“Oh! I will find some way of helping,” declared Agnes, trying to speak comfortingly.

“Huh! lots of good you can do now,” grumbled the other. “You and that nasty dog has just fixed Pop.”

“It wasn’t Tom Jonah’s fault. And I’m sure it wasn’t my fault. He was only defending me. You and your father shouldn’t have tried to stop me.”

“You hid the dog in the bushes a-purpose,” cried Barnabetta, angrily. “You know you did.”

“No, I didn’t. And he scared me enough, too. I thought he was a wolf,” said Agnes, anxious to explain though why she should be put on the defensive, it would be difficult to tell.

“Well,” concluded Barnabetta, roughly, “you can’t be any good here.”

“I know I can’t. But I believe I can help you just the same.”

“Don’t want your help,” growled the circus girl.

“Oh! don’t say that,” begged the Corner House girl. “I can go to Mr. Bob Buckham and get his carriage and horses – ”

“We haven’t got any money to pay for a carriage,” said Barnabetta, quickly.

“You won’t have to pay Mr. Buckham for doing an act of Christian charity,” declared Agnes, and she set off immediately, Tom Jonah following closely at her heels.

Barnabetta did not even bid her good-bye. She was all solicitude for her father’s hurt ankle, and was now kneeling by him, packing the snow about the swelling foot. But she was “as hard as nails” toward the Corner House girl.

Agnes hurried right down to the railroad and walked without molestation to the crossing she had spoken of. There, up the snowy lane, she obtained her first glimpse of Mr. Bob Buckham’s house.

She had come a roundabout way to it, indeed. It was now long past noon and she had missed her dinner. Of course, Mr. and Mrs. Buckham had ceased expecting her long ago.

The big girl who worked in Mrs. Buckham’s kitchen – Posey by name and an autocrat to a degree – met Agnes with a cheerful greeting, but refused admission to Tom Jonah.

“No. He can’t come in. I just been scrubbin’ my floor and I can’t ‘low no dog trackin’ it up. You drop your arctics there on the porch, Miss Aggie, and then you can run in to Mrs. Buckham.”

“If Tom Jonah only wore arctics!” sighed the Corner House girl.

“Well, he don’t – more’s the pity,” agreed Posey.

Agnes ran into the invalid’s room, all breathless, but full of her adventure. There sat Mrs. Buckham in her wheel-chair, surrounded by bright worsteds and fancywork, as busy and smiling as though she had not spent twenty years between that chair and her bed.

“Here’s our Corner House girl at last. And why not to dinner?” cried Mrs. Buckham.

“Oh, mercy me! I didn’t even re-mem-ber dinner till just this minute!” Agnes confessed.

“Your poor child! No dinner? Quick, Posey! here’s a starving child – ”

“Dear Mrs. Buckham – wait! Never mind me. I sha’n’t starve yet,” declared the plump Agnes, laughing. “Look at me. Do I seem so frail? And I’ve had the greatest adventure!”

“Well, well!”

“Where is Mr. Buckham? I must tell him all about it, too,” Agnes said, excitedly.

And here came the farmer as she spoke – bewhiskered, grizzled, keen-eyed and always smiling, who cried:

“Here’s the tardy one! Why, I thought you were coming out betimes, young lady? How are all at the Corner House?”

Agnes was too greatly excited to reply in full to that question. Mr. Bob Buckham sat down and the Corner House girl related all that had befallen her since she had left home that morning – save that she said nothing about the mystery of the big album she had found in the Corner House garret, and the Scruggs’ interest in its contents.

Her explanation, therefore, as to why the circus clown and his daughter desired to detain her at their camp in the woods was rather hazy; but the fact of the clown being hurt and the helplessness of the two trampers were sufficient to excite the pity and alarm of the farmer and his wife.

“Tut! tut!” clucked Mr. Buckham. “They can’t stay out there in the snow. It’s going to be mighty cold to-night.”

“It is awful to think of,” agreed Mrs. Buckham. “But Posey’s got her hands full. If I was up and about myself – ”

“Oh, dear, Mrs. Buckham! I wasn’t thinking of such a thing as bringing them here,” Agnes cried. “The man can’t walk to the Milton car. He can scarcely walk at all, with that sprained ankle. But if Mr. Buckham will hitch up and drive over there, and take ’em to the car, I can get ’em from the car to the Corner House.”

“Oh, dear me, child! To your house?” cried Mrs. Buckham.

“Dunno ’bout that,” said Mr. Buckham.

“Of course,” said Agnes. “We’ve plenty of room – and beds enough for a hotel.”

“But what will Ruth say?” asked the farmer’s wife.

“And what will your Mrs. MacCall say, eh?” chuckled the farmer.

“Why, don’t you suppose they will be kind to ’em, too?” cried Agnes. “Ruth would do the same herself. I know these poor folk have very little money and nowhere to go – ”

“Enough said, Robert. We have no right to thwart such unselfish impulses,” Mrs. Buckham said. “Go and harness up the carriage – ”

“No,” said the farmer, “I’ll take the pung. And I’ll fill the body with straw, so ‘t that poor chap won’t get his ankle hurt no more. How’s the streets in town, Aggie? How’s High Street?”

“Why, it’s good sledding,” declared the girl. “We see nothing now but automobiles and sleighs.”

“Strawberry Farm ain’t got quite as fur as an auto yet,” chuckled Mr. Buckham. “But maybe we will in time,” and he went out to hitch up.

Without having been told further, Posey now brought in a cup of hot cocoa and a nice little luncheon. In the midst of eating this welcome feast, Agnes remembered the forlorn party camping amid the railroad ties.

“Oh, dear me! I don’t suppose Mr. Scruggs and Barnabetta have anything at all to eat – poor things!” she cried.

So a big basket was filled with food and a can of coffee, and that Agnes carried out to the sleigh when it appeared at the side porch, and climbed into the great heap of straw with it, and burrowed down. The colts started off briskly, and they left Posey on the porch watching them while Mrs. Buckham waved her hand at the window.

The farmer knew how to drive right to the spot where the Scruggs were encamped, although it was not on his land. When the colts came through the woods, their bells jingling and the snow and ice flying from their sharpened hoofs, Barnabetta appeared suddenly on the pile of ties to see who came.

“Is that the gal?” asked Farmer Buckham of Agnes.

“Yes.”

“She’s a wild lookin’ critter, ain’t she?” was Mr. Buckham’s comment. “And looks for all the world like a boy!”

Barnabetta disappeared in a moment and when he drew the colts in beside the fire, there she stood with her staff, as though to defend the old clown from the newcomers.

“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.