The Corner House Girls / How they moved to Milton, what they found, and what they did

“Oh! that horrid dog! Take him away, you Sammy Pinkney!” cried Mrs. Adams. “Come into the yard, girls!”

The gate was open, and the little girls ran in with the basket of kittens. Each kitten, in spite of its youth, was standing stiff-legged in the basket, its tiny back arched, its fur on end, and was “spitting” with all its might.

The mother cat had forgotten her children in this moment of panic. The dancing bulldog outside the fence quite crazed her. She ran out on the first limb of the tree, and leaped from it into the next tree. There was a long row of maples here and the frightened Sandy-face went from one to the other like a squirrel.

“She’s running away! she’s running away!” cried Agnes.

“Where did you get that cat and those kittens, child?” demanded Mrs. Adams.

“At Mr. Stetson’s store,” said Agnes, sadly, as the old cat disappeared.

“She’s going back,” said the lady firmly. “That’s where she is going. A scared cat always will make for home, if she can. And now! what under the canopy are you going to do with that mess of kittens—without a cat to mother them?”

Agnes was stricken dumb for the moment. Tess and Dot were all but in tears. The situation was very complicated indeed, even if the boy had urged his dog away from the gate.

The four little kittens presented a problem to the Corner House girls that was too much for even the ready Agnes to solve. Here were the kittens. The cat had gone back. Agnes had a long scratch on her arm—and it smarted. Tess and Dot were on the verge of tears, while the kittens began to mew and refused to be pacified.

CHAPTER IX—THE VANISHING KITTENS

“What you’ll do with those little tykes, I don’t see,” said Mrs. Adams, who was not much of a comforter, although kind-hearted. “You’d better take them back to Mr. Stetson, Aggie.”

“No-o. I don’t think he’d like that,” said Agnes. “He told Myra to get rid of them and I promised to take them away and keep them.”

“But that old cat’s gone back,” decided the lady.

“I s’pect you’ll have to go after her again, Aggie,” said Tess.

“But I won’t carry her—loose—in my arms,” declared the bigger girl, with emphasis. “See what she did to me,” and she displayed the long, inflamed scratch again.

“Put her in a bag, child,” advised Mrs. Adams. “You little ones come around here to the back stoop and we’ll try to make the kittens drink warm milk. They’re kind of small, but maybe they’re hungry enough to put their tongues into the dish.”

She bustled away with Tess and Dot and the basket of kittens, while Agnes started back along the street toward the grocery store. She had rather lost interest in Sandy-face and her family.

At once Tess and Dot were strongly taken with the possibility of teaching the kittens to drink. Mrs. Adams warmed the milk, poured it into a saucer, and set it down on the top step. Each girl grabbed a kitten and the good lady took the other two.

They thrust the noses of the kittens toward the milk, and immediately the little things backed away, and made great objections to their introduction to this new method of feeding.

The little black one, with the white nose and the spot of white over one eye, got some milk on its whiskers, and immediately sneezed.

“My goodness me!” exclaimed Dot, worriedly, “I believe this kitten’s catching cold. Suppose it has a real hard cold before its mother comes back? What shall we do about it?”

This set Mrs. Adams to laughing so hard that she could scarcely hold her kittens. But she dipped their noses right into the milk, and after they had coughed and sputtered a little, they began to lick their chops and found the warm milk much to their taste.

Only, they did not seem to know how to get at it. They nosed around the edge of the saucer in the most ridiculous way, getting just a wee mite. They found it very good, no doubt, but were unable to discover just where the milk was.

“Did you ever see such particular things?” asked the impatient Mrs. Adams. She suddenly pushed the black and white kitten (the girls had already called it “Spotty”) right up against the dish. Now, no cat—not even a very tiny cat like this one—cares to be pushed, and to save itself from such indignity, Spotty put out one paw and—splash!—it went right into the dish.

Oh! how he shook the wet paw and backed away. Cats do not like to get their feet wet. Spotty began licking the wet paw to dry it and right then and there he discovered something!

The milk on it tasted very good. He sat up in the funniest way and licked it all off, and Dot danced around, delighted to see him.

A little of the milk had been spilled on the step, and one of the speckled kittens found this, and began to lap it up with a tiny pink tongue. With a little urging the other two kittens managed to get some milk, too, but Spotty was the brightest—at least, the girls thought so.

After he had licked his paw dry, he ventured over to the saucer again, smelled around the edge, and then deliberately dipped in his paw and proceeded to lap it dry once more.

“Isn’t he the cunningest little thing that ever was?” demanded Tess, clapping her hands. Dot was so greatly moved that she had to sit down and just watch the black and white kitten. She could not speak for happiness, at first, but when she did speak, she said:

“Isn’t it nice that there’s such things as kittens in the world? I don’t s’pose they are useful at all till they’re cats, but they are awfully pretty!”

“Isn’t she the little, old-fashioned thing?” murmured Mrs. Adams.

Tess and Dot were very much at home and the kittens were curled up in the basket again in apparent contentment, when Agnes returned.

She had Sandy-face in a sack, and it was just about all Agnes could do to carry the cat without getting scratched again. For Sandy’s claws came through the flimsy bag, and she knew not friend from foe in her present predicament.

“I declare! I had no idea cats had so little sense,” Agnes sighed, sitting down, quite heated. “Wouldn’t you think she’d be glad to be taken to a good home—and with her kittens, too?”

“Maybe we wouldn’t have any more sense if we were being carried in a sack,” said Tess, thoughtfully.

“Well!” exclaimed Aggie. “She knew enough to go back to Mr. Stetson’s store, that’s sure. He had to catch her for me, for Myra was out. He says we’ll have to watch her for a few days, but I don’t believe she’d have left her kittens if that bad Sam Pinkney hadn’t come along with his dog—do you, Mrs. Adams?”

“No, deary. I think she’ll stay with the kittens all right,” said the old lady, comfortingly.

“Well, let’s go on home, girls,” said Agnes, rising from the step. “We’ve bothered Mrs. Adams long enough.”

“We’ve had an awfully nice time here,” said Tess, smiling at the old lady, and not forgetful of her manners.

“I’m glad you came, dearies. Come again. I’m going to have a little party here for you Corner House girls, some day, if you’ll come to it.”

“Oh, I just love parties,” declared Dot, her eyes shining. “If Ruth will let us we’ll come—won’t we, Tess?”

“Certainly,” agreed Tess.

“Of course we’ll come, Mrs. Adams,” cried Agnes, as she led the way with the me-owing cat in the sack, while the two smaller girls carried the sleeping kittens with care.

They reached home without any further adventure. Ruth came running from Aunt Sarah’s room to see the kittens. When they let Sandy-face out of the bag in the dining-room, she scurried under the sofa and refused to be coaxed forth.

The children insisted upon taking the kittens up to show Aunt Sarah, and it was determined to keep the old cat in the dining-room till evening, at any rate; so the basket was set down by the sofa. Each girl finally bore a kitten up to Aunt Sarah’s room.

Agnes had chosen Spotty for her very own—and the others said she ought to have her choice, seeing that she had been through so much trouble to get the old mother cat and her family—and received a scratch on her arm, too!

They remained long enough in Auntie’s room to choose names for all the other three kittens. Ruth’s was named Popocatepetl—of course, “Petl,” for short (pronounced like “petal”) is pretty for a kitten—“reminds one of a flower, I guess,” said Tess.

Tess herself chose for her particular pet the good old fashioned name of “Almira.” “You see,” she said, “it’s sort of in memory of Miss Almira Briggs who was my teacher back in Bloomingsburg, and Myra Stetson, who gave us the cats.”

Dot wavered a long time between “Fairy” and “Elf” as a name for the fourth kitten, and finally she decided on “Bungle”! That was because the little, staggery thing, when put down on the floor, tried to chase Aunt Sarah’s ball of yarn and bungled the matter in a most ridiculous fashion.

So, Spotty, Petl, Almira and Bungle, the kittens became. Aunt Sarah had a soft spot in her heart for cats—what maiden lady has not? She approved of them, and the children told her their whole adventure with Sandy-face and her family.

“Butter her feet,” was the old lady’s single audible comment upon their story, but the girls did not know what for, nor just what Aunt Sarah meant. They seldom ventured to ask her to explain her cryptic sayings, so they carried the kittens downstairs with puzzled minds.

“What do you s’pose she meant, Ruth?” demanded Agnes. “‘Butter her feet,’ indeed. Why, the old cat would get grease all over everything.”

So they merely put the kittens back into the basket, and left the dining-room to Sandy-face and her family, until it was time for Uncle Rufus to set the table for evening dinner.

“Das old cat sho’ done feel ter home now,” said the black man, chuckling. “She done got inter dat basket wid dem kittens an’ dey is havin’ a reg’lar love feast wid each odder, dey is so glad ter be united once mo’. Mebbe dat ol’ speckled cat kin clean out de mice.”

Of course, Uncle Rufus was not really a “black” man, save that he was of pure African blood. He was a brown man—a rich, chocolate color. But his daughter, Petunia Blossom, when she came to get the wash-clothes, certainly proved to be as black—and almost as shiny—as the kitchen range!

“How come she is so dreful brack, I sho’ dunno,” groaned Uncle Rufus. “Her mudder was a well-favored brown lady—not a mite darker dan me—an’ as I ’member my pappy an’ mammy, ’way back dere befo’ de wah, wasn’t none o’ dese common brack negras—no, Ma’am!

“But Pechunia, she done harked back to some ol’ antsister” (he meant “ancestor”) “wot must ha’ been marked mighty permiscuous wid de tarbrush. Does jes’ look lak’ yo’ could rub de soot off Pechunia wid yo’ finger!”

Petunia was enormously fat, too, but she was a pretty colored woman, without Uncle Rufus’ broad, flat features. And she had a great number of bright and cunning pickaninnies.

“How many I got in to-tal, Missie?” she repeated Ruth’s question. “Lor’ bress yo’! Sometimes I scurce remember dem all. Dere’s two merried an’ moved out o’ town. Den dere’s two mo’ wokin’; das four, ain’t it? Den de good Lor’ sen’ me twins twicet—das mak’ eight, ef my ’rithmetickle am cor-rect. An’ dere’s Alfredia, an’ Jackson, and Burne-Jones Whis’ler Blossom (he done been named by Mis’ Holcomb, de artis’ lady, wot I wok fo’) an’ de baby, an’ Louisa Annette, an’ an’—— Bress de Lor’, Missie, I ’spect das ’bout all.”

Ruth had lost count and could only laugh over the names foistered upon the helpless brown babies. Uncle Rufus “snorted” over the catalog of his daughter’s progeny.

“Huh! dem names don’t mean nuthin’, an’ so I tell her,” he grunted. “But yo’ cyan’t put sense in de head ob a flighty negra-woman—no, Ma’am! She called dem by sech circusy names ’cause dey sounds pretty. Sound an’ no sense! Huh!”

Just now, however, the Corner House girls were more deeply interested in the names of the four kittens, and in keeping them straight (for three were marked almost exactly alike), than they were in the names which had been forced upon the helpless family of Petunia Blossom.

Having already had one lesson in lapping milk from a saucer, the kittens were made to go through the training again after dinner, under the ministrations of Tess and Dot.

Sandy-face, who seemed to have become fairly contented by this time, sat by and watched her offspring coughing and sputtering over the warm milk and finally, deciding that they had had enough, came and drank it all up herself.

Dot was rather inclined to think that this was “piggish” on Sandy’s part.

“I don’t think you’re a bit polite, Sandy,” she said, gravely, to the mother cat while the latter calmly washed her face. “You had your dinner, you know, before Mrs. McCall brought in the milk.”

They all trooped out to see Uncle Rufus establish Sandy and her family for the night in the woodshed. The cat seemed to fancy the nest in the old basket, so they did not change it, and when they left the family, shutting the woodshed door tightly, they supposed Sandy and her children would be safe for the night.

In the morning, however, a surprise awaited Tess and Dot, when they ran out to the shed to see how the kittens were. Sandy-face was sleeping soundly in the basket and Spotty and Petl were crawling all over her. Almira and Bungle had disappeared!

The two smallest girls searched all about the shed, and then a wail arose from Dot, when she was assured that her own, and Tess’ kitten, were really not to be found. Dot’s voice brought the whole family, including Uncle Rufus, to the shed door.

“Al-mi-ra and Bungle’s lost-ed!” sobbed Dot. “Somebody came and took them, while poor Sandy was asleep. See!”

It was true. Not a trace of the missing kittens could be found. The shed door had not been opened by any of the family before Tess and Dot arrived. There was only a small window, high up in the end wall of the shed, open a very little way for ventilation.

How could the kittens have gotten away without human help? It did look as though Almira and Bungle had been stolen. At least, they had vanished, and even Dot did not believe that there were kitten fairies who could bewitch Sandy’s children and spirit them away!

Sandy-face herself seemed the least disturbed of anybody over the lost kittens. Uncle Rufus declared that “das cat sho’ nuff cyan’t count. She done t’ink she’s sho’ got all de kittens she ever had.”

“I do believe it was that Sam Pinkney boy,” whispered Tess, to Agnes. “He’s just as bad as Tommy Rooney was—every bit!”

“But how would he know where we had housed the kittens for the night?” demanded Agnes. “I don’t see why anybody should want to take two little, teeny kittens from their mother.”

Tess and Dot watched closely the remainder of Sandy’s family. They believed that the mother cat did discover at last that she was “short” two kittens, for she did not seem satisfied with her home in the woodshed. Twice they caught her with a kitten in her mouth, outside the woodshed door, which had been left open.

“Now, Sandy,” said Dot, seriously, “you mustn’t try to move Spotty and Petl. First thing you know you’ll lose them all; then you won’t have any kittens. And I don’t believe they like being carried by the backs of their necks—I don’t. For they just squall!”

Sandy seemed offended by the girls’ interference, and she went off by herself and remained out of sight for half a day. Tess and Dot began to be worried about the mother cat before Sandy turned up again and snuggled the two remaining kittens in the basket, once more.

That second evening they shut the cat and her two kittens into the shed just as carefully as before. In the morning only Spotty was left! The speckled little Popocatepetl had vanished, too!

CHAPTER X—RUTH SEES SOMETHING

The mystery of the vanishing kittens cast a cloud of gloom over the minds of the younger Corner House girls. Besides, it had rained in the night and was still raining after breakfast. It was a dull, gloomy day.

“Just a nice day for us to start cleaning the garret,” Ruth said, trying to put cheer into the hearts of her sisters. “Only Mr. Howbridge, who has been away, has written me to come to his office this forenoon. He wants to arrange about several matters, he says. I’ll have to go and we’ll postpone the garret rummage till I get back.”

“Poor Sandy’s all wet and muddy,” said Dot, who could not get her troubled mind off the cat family. “Just as though she’d been out in the rain. But I don’t see how that could be. She’s washing up now by the kitchen stove.”

They had brought the mother cat and Spotty into the kitchen for safety. Uncle Rufus shook his head over the mysterious disappearance of Petl, Almira and Bungle, too; whispering to Mrs. McCall:

“Do look for sho’ as though rats had got dem kittins. Dunno what else.”

“For goodness sake, don’t tell me there are rats here, Uncle Rufus!” exclaimed the widow, anxiously. “I couldn’t sleep in my bed nights.”

“Dunno whar you’d sleep safer, Mis’ McCall, ter git away from ’em,” chuckled the old colored man. “But I exemplifies de fac’ dat I ain’t seed none ob dere tracks.”

Occasionally Uncle Rufus “threw in a word” in conversation which sounded euphonious in his own ears, but had little to do with the real meaning of his speech.

Nobody whispered “rats” to the little girls; and Tess and Dot scarcely let Sandy and the remaining kitten out of their sight. It was a windy, storm-stricken day, and they took the mother cat and Spotty up to Aunt Sarah’s room to play.

Ruth put on her rain-coat, seized an umbrella, and ventured forth. She knew she could find her way to Mr. Howbridge’s office, down town, although she had never visited it before.

The lawyer was very glad to see the oldest Corner House girl, and told her so. “I am hearing some good reports of you, Miss Kenway,” he said, smiling at her in his odd way, and with his keen eyes looking sharply over the high bridge of his nose, as though he were gazing deep into Ruth’s mind.

“Some of these Milton people think that you girls need closer watching than you are getting. So they say. What do you think? Do you feel the need of a sterner guardian?”

“I think you are a very nice guardian,” admitted Ruth, shyly. “And we are having awfully nice times up there at the old Corner House, Mr. Howbridge. I hope we are not spending too much money?”

He put on his eyeglasses again and scanned the totals of the store bills and other memoranda she had brought him. He shook his head and smiled again:

“I believe you are a born housekeeper. Of course, I knew that Mrs. McCall wouldn’t let you go far wrong. But I see no evidence of a lack of economy on your part. And now, we must see about your spending some more money, Miss Kenway.”

“Oh! it seems like a lot to me,” said Ruth, faintly. “And—and I must tell you something perhaps you won’t like. We—we have an addition to the family.”

“How’s that?” he asked, in surprise.

“We—we have Uncle Rufus,” explained Ruth.

“What! has that old darkey come bothering you?”

“Oh! he isn’t a bother. Not at all. I thought he was too old to do much, but he is so handy—and he finds so many little things to do. And then——Why, Mr. Howbridge! it’s just like home to him.”

“Ha! Undoubtedly. And so he told you? Worked on your feelings? You are going to have the whole family on you, next. You will have more wages to pay out than the estate will stand.”

“Dear me, sir!” cried Ruth. “Don’t say that. I am not paying Uncle Rufus a penny. I told him I couldn’t—until I had seen you about it, at least. And he is willing to stay anyhow—so he says.”

“I don’t know about that old darkey,” said Mr. Howbridge, slowly. “I believe he knew more about Mr. Peter Stower’s private affairs than he seemed willing to tell the time I talked to him after your Uncle Peter’s death. I don’t know about your keeping him there.”

“Do you think he may know where Uncle Peter hid his private papers, sir?” asked Ruth, eagerly.

“Yes, I do. He’s an ignorant old negro. He might get the papers into his hands, and the will might be lost forever.”

“Oh, sir!” cried Ruth, earnestly, “I don’t think Uncle Rufus is at all dishonest. I asked him about Uncle Peter’s hiding away things. He knows what folks say about uncle’s being a miser.”

“Well?” said Mr. Howbridge, questioningly.

“Uncle Rufus says he knows his old master was that way. Aunt Sarah says Uncle Peter was just like a magpie—that he hid away things without any real reason for it.”

“Ha! Miss Maltby was not fond of Mr. Peter Stower. They did not get along well together.”

“No, sir. I fancy not. And of course, Aunt Sarah doesn’t say much, anyway. She is real hurt to think that he did not leave her the house and money instead of leaving it to us,” and Ruth sighed.

“Oh, he left her enough in his will to keep her in comfort for the remainder of her life. She need not be envious,” said the lawyer, carelessly.

“Well,” sighed Ruth, “that isn’t what Aunt Sarah wanted. She feels she ought to own the house. But we can’t help that, can we!”

“No. Do not worry about your Aunt Sarah’s fidgets,” said the lawyer, smiling once more. “But about Uncle Rufus?”

Ruth had opened her bag, and now drew forth the scrap of paper Uncle Rufus had given her. “Who do you think wrote that, sir?” she asked Mr. Howbridge, simply.

The moment the lawyer saw it he scowled. Staring at the paper fixedly for some moments in silence, he finally asked:

“When did the old darkey say he was given this?”

“The day before Uncle Peter died. He said the poor old gentleman couldn’t talk, then, but he managed to write that line. Is it Uncle Peter’s handwriting?”

“It certainly is. Shaky, but plainly Mr. Stower’s own hand.”

“Oh, sir! let us keep Uncle Rufus, then,” begged Ruth, quickly.

“But you understand, Miss Kenway, that this request, unsigned as it is, hasn’t an iota of legal weight?”

“I don’t care!” said Ruth.

“Why didn’t the old man show it to me?”

“He was keeping it to show to the relatives of Uncle Peter who, he expected, would have the old Corner House.”

“Ha! and he was afraid of the lawyer, I suppose?”

“You—you were not very sympathetic, were you?” said Ruth, slowly.

“Right! I wasn’t. I could not be. I did not see my way clear to making any provision for Uncle Rufus, for I knew very well that Mr. Stower had not mentioned the old serving man in his will.”

“Well—you’ll let us keep him?”

“If you like. I’ll see that he has a little money every month, too. And now I must not give you much more time to-day, my dear. But I wish to put this envelope into your hand. In it you will find the amount of money which I consider wise for each of you girls to spend monthly—your allowance, I mean.

“Such dresses as you need, will be paid for separately. You will find that a charge account has been opened for you at this store,” and he passed the surprised Ruth the business card of the largest department store in town. “But buy wisely. If you spend too much, be sure you will hear from me. The monthly allowance is pin-money. Squander it as you please without accounting to me—only to your own consciences,” and he laughed and rose to show her out of his private office.

Ruth thanked him and slipped the bulky envelope into her bag. She could not open it there, or on the street, and she hurried homeward, eager to see just what Mr. Howbridge considered a proper allowance for the Corner House Girls to “squander.”

The east wind was tearing across the parade ground and the trees overhead, as Ruth started over the big common, writhed in the clutch of it. The rain came in fitful dashes. The girl sheltered herself as best she could with the umbrella.

Such gusts are hard to judge, however. Although she clung to the umbrella with both hands, one savage squall swept down upon Ruth Kenway and fairly snatched the umbrella from her grasp. It whirled away over the wet lawn, and turned inside out!

“No use chasing that thing,” said Ruth, in disgust. “It’s past repairing. I’ll just have to face it.”

She hurried on, her head bowed before the slanting rain. She came to the Willow Street crossing and glanced up at the old Corner House. Not only could she see the great, frowning front of the mansion, with its four huge pillars, but she could view, too, the side next to Willow Street.

Nobody was looking out of the windows on the watch for her, that she could see. The parlors were on this side of the main building, and the girls did not use them. Above, on the second floor, were the sleeping room and library in which Uncle Peter had spent the last years of his life.

Above those blind windows was another row of windows on the third floor, with the shades pulled down tightly. And then, above those, in the peak of the roof, were several small garret windows.

“That’s where that girl said the ghost came and looked out,” Ruth said aloud, stopping suddenly.

And just at that identical moment the ghost did look out!

Ruth saw it. Only for a moment, but just as plain as plain could be! A white, fluttering figure—a sort of faceless figure with what seemed to be long garments fluttering about it.

Nobody ever has to see a ghost to know just what one looks like. People who see ghosts recognize their appearance by intuition. This was the garret ghost of the old Corner House, and Ruth was the first of the Kenway girls to see it.

She had made fun of Agnes’ belief in things supernatural, but she could not control the shaking of her own limbs now. It was visible up there at the garret window for only half a minute; yet Ruth knew it was no hallucination.

It disappeared with a jump. She did not wait to see if it came back again, but scurried across the street and in at the side gate, and so to the back porch, with scarcely a breath left in her body.

Ruth was just as scared as she could be.

CHAPTER XI—IN THE GARRET

It would never do to burst into the house and scare the younger girls. This thought halted Ruth Kenway, with her hand upon the knob of the outer door.

She waited, getting her breath back slowly, and recovering from the shock that had set every nerve in her body trembling. Of course she did not believe in ghosts! Then, why should she have been so frightened by the fluttering figure seen—for only half a minute, or so—in the garret window of the old Corner House?

Like the old lady in the fable, she did not believe in ghosts, but she was very much afraid of them!

“It’s quite ridiculous, I know,” Ruth told herself, “for a great big thing like me to shake and shiver over what I positively know is merely imagination. That was an old skirt—or a bag—or a cloak—or something, waving there at that window.

“Er—er, that’s just it!” breathed Ruth. “It was something. And until I find out just what it is, I shall not be satisfied. Now, I’m going to be brave, and walk in there to the girls and Mrs. McCall, and say nothing. But we’ll start cleaning that garret this very afternoon,” she concluded, nodding a determined head.

So she ran into the house to find her three sisters in the dining-room, with such a peculiar air upon them that Ruth could not fail to be shocked. “What under the canopy, as Mrs. McCall says, is the matter with you all!” she demanded.

“Well! I am glad you have come home, Ruth,” Agnes began, impulsively. “The most mysterious things happen around this house——”

“Hush!” commanded Ruth. “What is it now? You come up stairs to our room and tell me while I change my clothes. You little ones stay down here till sister comes back.”

Agnes had stopped at her warning, and meekly followed Ruth up stairs. In their room the older girl turned on her and demanded:

“What did you see, Aggie?”

“I didn’t—it was Tess saw him,” replied Agnes, quickly.

“Him?” gasped Ruth.

“Yes. Of course, it’s foolish. But so many strange things happen in this old house. First, you know, what Eva Larry told me about the ghost——”

“Sh! you haven’t seen it?”

“The ghost!” squealed Agnes. “I should hope not. If I had——”

She signified by her look and manner that such an apparition would have quite overcome her.

“It was Tess,” she said.

“She hasn’t been to the garret?”

“Of course not! You believe in that old ghost, after all, Ruth.”

“What nonsense!”

“Well, if it wasn’t a ghost Tess saw, it was something like it. The child is convinced. And coming on top of those vanishing kittens——”

“For mercy’s sake, Aggie Kenway!” screamed Ruth, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving Agnes a little shake. “Do be more lucid.”

“Why—ee! I guess I haven’t told you much,” laughed Agnes. “It was Tess who looked out of the kitchen window a little while ago and saw Tommy Rooney going by the house—on Willow Street.”

“Tommy Rooney?”

“Yes. Tess declares it was. And she’s not imaginative like Dot, you know.”

“Not Tommy Rooney, from Bloomingsburg?”

“There isn’t any other Tommy Rooney that we know,” said Agnes, quite calm now. “And if that doesn’t make a string of uncanny happenings, I don’t know what would. First the ghost in the garret——”

“But—but you haven’t seen that?” interrupted Ruth, faintly.

“No, thank goodness! But it’s there. And then the vanishing kittens——”

“Has Spotty gone?”

“No. But Sandy-face has, and has been gone ever since you went out, Ruth. I don’t think much of that mother cat. She doesn’t stay at home with her family hardly at all.

“Then this boy who looks like Tommy Rooney,” concluded Agnes. “For of course it can’t really be Tommy any more than it can be his spirit.”

“I’m glad to see you have some sense, Ag,” said Ruth, with a sigh. “Now let’s go down to the other girls, or they will think we’re hiding something from them.”

Ruth carried down stairs in her hand the envelope Mr. Howbridge had given to her. The sisters gathered in the dining-room, and Agnes picked up Spotty to comfort him while his mother was absent. “Poor ’ittle s’ing!” she cooed over the funny little kitten. “He don’t know wedder him’s got any mudder, or not.”

“It seems to me,” said Dot, gravely, “that Sandy-face must be hunting for her lost children. She wouldn’t really neglect this poor little Spotty for any other reason—would she?”

“Of course not,” Ruth said, briskly. “Now, girls, look here. Mr. Howbridge says we may keep Uncle Rufus, and he will pay him.”

“Oh, goody!” cried Agnes, clapping her hands.

At once Spotty tumbled off her lap and scurried under the sofa. He was not used to such actions.

“Now you’ve scared Spotty, I’m afraid,” said Tess.

“He can get over his scare. What’s that in your hand, Ruth?” demanded Agnes.

“This is some money Mr. Howbridge gave me for us to spend. He calls it our monthly allowance. He says we are to use it just as we please—each of us.”

“Is some of it mine?” asked Dot.

“Yes, dearie. We’ll see how much he gives you to spend for your very owniest own, first of all.”

Ruth tore open the big envelope and shook out four sealed envelopes of smaller size. She sorted them and found the one addressed in Mr. Howbridge’s clerkly hand to “Miss Dorothy Kenway.”

“Now open it, Dot,” urged Tess.

The little girl did so, with sparkling eyes and the color flushing into her cheeks. From the envelope, when it was opened, she drew a crisp, folded dollar bill.

“My!” she murmured. “A whole—new—dollar bill! My! And can I spend it all, Ruthie?”

“Surely,” said the elder sister, smiling.

“Then I know just what I’m going to do,” said Dot, nodding her head.

“What’s that?” asked Agnes.

“I’m going to buy some candy on Saturday that’s not pep’mints. I just am. I’m tired of Aunt Sarah’s old pep’mint drops.”

The other girls laughed loudly at this decision of Dot’s. “You funny little thing!” said Ruth. “Of course you shall buy candy—if you want to. But I wouldn’t spend the whole dollar for it. Remember, you’ll get no more spending money until this time next month.”

“I should hope she’d have sense enough to kind of spread it out through the month,” said Agnes. “Hurry up, Ruth. Let’s see what he’s given the rest of us.”

Tess opened her envelope and found a dollar and a half. “Oh, I’m rich!” she declared. “I’m awfully obliged to Mr. Howbridge. I’ll tell him so when he comes again.” Then she turned swiftly to Dot and hugged her. “You don’t mind if I have half a dollar more than you do, Dot?” she asked. “I’ll divide it with you.”

That was Tess’ way. She could not bear to think that anybody’s feelings were hurt because of her. Ruth intervened:

“Dot knows you are two whole years older than she, Tess. Both of you have more money to spend than you ever had before, and I am sure neither will be selfish with it.”

Agnes grabbed her envelope. “I’m just as anxious to see as I can be,” she confessed.

When she ripped open the envelope she drew forth two crisp dollar bills. But in Ruth’s there were five dollars.

“My! it’s a lot of money,” Agnes said. “And I guess you ought to have more than us—a great deal more, Ruthie. I’m glad of my two dollars. I can treat Eva Larry and Myra Stetson. And I’ll get some new ribbons, and a book I saw in a window that I want to read. Then, there’s the prettiest pair of buckles for fifty cents in the shoeshop window right down Main Street. Did you see them, Ruth? I want them for my best slippers. They’ll look scrumptious! And I’d love to have one of those embroidered handkerchiefs that they sell at the Lady’s Shop. Besides, it’s nice to have a little change to rattle in one’s purse——”

“Mercy!” exclaimed Ruth. “You’ve spent your allowance twice over, already. And you still hope to rattle it in your purse! You want to have your cake, and eat it, too—which is something that nobody ever managed to accomplish yet, my dear.”

It was really wonderful for them all to have money of their own that need not be accounted for. They came to the luncheon table with very bright faces, despite the stormy day. They did not say anything, before Aunt Sarah, about the allowance Mr. Howbridge had given them. Ruth was afraid that Aunt Sarah might feel hurt about it.

“She is so touchy,” she said to the others, “about Uncle Peter’s money. And she ought to know that she is just as welcome to her share as she can be!”

“I expect,” the thoughtful Tess said, “that Aunt Sarah would have enjoyed giving to us just as much as we enjoy giving to her. Maybe that’s what’s the matter with her.”

Perhaps that was partly Aunt Sarah’s trouble. However, there were other topics of conversation to keep their tongues busy, if the money was tabooed. Tess could not keep from talking about Tommy Rooney.

“I know it was Tommy I saw,” she declared.

“But how could Tommy get here, clear from Bloomingsburg?” Ruth said. “You know how long it took us to get here by train.”

“I know, Sister,” Tess said. “But it was Tommy. And he must have had an awfully hard time.”

“Do—do you s’pose he is looking for us?” queried Dot.

“Don’t you fret, Dot,” assured Agnes. “He sha’n’t jump out and say ‘Boo!’ at you any more.”

“It isn’t that. I guess the dark scared me more than Tommy did,” confessed Dot. “But say, Tess! Did he have his Indian suit on when he went by in the rain?”

“No. Just rags,” declared Tess.

After luncheon Ruth rummaged for brooms, brushes and dustcloths. Mrs. McCall asked:

“What under the canopy are you girls going to do now?”

“Garret. Going to clean it,” said Agnes.

“You’re never going up in that garret in a storm?” demanded the widow, with a strange look on her face.

“Why not?” asked Agnes, eagerly.

“What do you want to bother with it for?” the good lady asked Ruth without making Agnes any reply.

“So we can play there on just such days as this,” said Ruth, firmly. “It will make a splendid playroom.”

“Well! I wouldn’t do it for a farm,” declared Mrs. McCall, and at once went out of the room, so that the girls could not ask further questions. Agnes whispered to Ruth:

“She knows about the ghost, all right!”

“Don’t be so silly,” the older girl said. But her own heart throbbed tumultuously as she led the procession up the garret stairs a little later. They could hear the wind whistling around the house up here. A shutter rattled, and then the wind gurgled deep in the throat of one of the unused chimneys.

“Goodness!” gasped Tess. “How many strange voices the storm has, hasn’t it? Say, Dot! do you s’pose we’ll find that goat of yours up here now?”

“I don’t care,” said the littler girl. “Aggie and Ruth were talking about something that sounded like ‘goat’ that night in bed. And they won’t tell now what it was.”

“You must never play eavesdropper,” said Ruth, seriously. “It is very unlady-like.”

“Then folks shouldn’t whisper,” declared Dot, quickly. “Nobody would ever try to listen, if folks spoke right out loud. You say, yourself, Ruth, that it’s not polite to whisper.”

They opened the garret door and peered in. Although it was so dull a day outside, there was plenty of light up here. The rain beat against some of the windows and the wind shook and rattled the sashes.

Ruth’s gaze turned instantly upon the window at which she believed she had seen the moving figure from across Willow Street. There was nothing hanging near that window that could possibly have shown from without.

She forced herself to go directly to the place. It was at the right of one of the huge chimneys and she could make no mistake, she thought, for it was at the window to the right of this chimney that she had seen the specter appear not two hours before!

A large space about this window was cleared. There was nothing near enough the window that could have represented the garret ghost. But this cleared space before the window seemed to have been made especially for the ghostly capers of the “haunt.”

Agnes came gingerly over to where Ruth stood. She whispered in the older girl’s ear:

“S’pose that old ghost should appear, Ruth? What would you do? You know, Eva said it was seen only on stormy days.”

“Don’t be silly, child,” said Ruth, quite angrily. She was angry as much at herself for “feeling so shaky inside,” as she was at Agnes.

She bustled about then, and hurried her sisters, too. They made a good beginning within the next two hours. Of course, it was only a beginning. Dust and cobwebs lay thick over all. They could brush up only the worst of the litter.

“Next clear day,” Ruth declared, “we’ll take all these old clothes down and hang what we want to keep on the lines in the yard. Uncle Rufus can have the rest. Why do you suppose Uncle Peter kept this old stuff?”

“They say he got so he wouldn’t give away a pin, at the last,” said Agnes. “And some of these old things must have belonged to people dead and gone when Uncle Peter himself was a boy.”

“I expect so,” agreed Ruth.

“What do you suppose is in all these chests and trunks, Ruthie?” asked Tess.

“Don’t know, honey. But we’ll find out some day.”

Just then Uncle Rufus’ tones reached them from the stairway. He called, in his quavering old voice:

“Missie! An’ you oder chillen. I done got somet’ing ter tell yo’.”

“What is it?” cried Agnes, running to open the door at the top of the stairs.

“I done foun’ out what happen ter dem kittens, Missie,” said Uncle Rufus. “You-all come ri’ down an’ I’ll show yo’.”

CHAPTER XII—MRS. KRANZ COMES TO CALL

The girls came down from the garret in a hurry, when they heard this news. Uncle Rufus hobbled on before to the kitchen. There was Sandy-face and Spotty in front of the range. They were both very wet and the old cat was licking the kitten dry.

“Where—where’s the others?” cried Tess. “Did you find Almira?”

“I want my Bungle,” declared Dot. “Didn’t you find my Bungle kitten, Uncle Rufus?”

“Sho, chile! I didn’t say I foun’ dem kittens. I on’y say I knowed where dey went.”

“Where?” was the chorused demand.

Uncle Rufus rolled his eyes and chuckled deeply. “Das ol’ cat play a joke on we-uns,” he declared. “She t’ink she an’ de kittens on’y come yere for a visit. And so she lug ’em all back to Mars’ Stetson’s store—ya-as’m!”

“Carried them back to the store?” cried Ruth. “Oh! she couldn’t.”

“Ya-as’m. One at a time. In her teef,” said Uncle Rufus, nodding confidently. “I jes’ kotch her out on the sidewalk wid dis leetle brack kitten, marchin’ straight fo’ de store. Dat how she come go ’way an’ stay so long. Nex’ time you go to Mars’ Stetson’s, you find dem dere—sho’.”

“But she couldn’t have taken them out of the woodshed,” cried Agnes.

“Ya-as’m, she did. She git out de winder. A cat kin squeeze through a moughty small space—so she kin.”

“Why, you foolish Sandy-face!” exclaimed Dot. “And we tried to make you feel at home—didn’t we, Ruthie?”

“Butter her feet,” said Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be in the kitchen at the moment. “I told you that before,” and she walked out.

“Goodness! we’ll butter all their feet,” cried Agnes, “if that will keep them here. Just as soon as it holds up a little, I’ll run over to Mr. Stetson’s and see if it is so. The poor old thing! to carry those kittens so far. But, me-oh-my! cats haven’t much sense, after all, have they?”

Uncle Rufus was proved right—and that before supper time. The rain held up, and Agnes scurried over to the store, bringing back, huddled in a small covered basket, Popocatepetl, Almira, and Bungle, who all seemed very glad to rejoin Spotty. Sandy-face looked absurdly pleased to see them—just as though she had not carried them back, one by one, to a hiding place behind the flour barrels in Mr. Stetson’s store-room!

Agnes insisted upon buttering the mother-cat’s paws. And to make sure of it, she buttered the paws of the four kittens as well.

“There,” she said, “when Sandy gets through lapping all that butter up, she ought to be proud to stay here, for butter’s forty cents a pound right now!”

“You extravagant thing,” sighed Ruth, shaking her head.

“Yes!” cried Agnes. “And it’s so nice to be extravagant. I declare, Ruth, I feel that I was just born to be a rich girl. It tickles me to be extravagant.”

Since returning from Mr. Howbridge’s office, Ruth had evolved a question that she wished to put to Uncle Rufus. The mystery of the lost will was ever present in the mind of the oldest of the Corner House girls, and this query had to do with that mystery.

“Uncle Rufus,” she asked the old man, after dinner that evening when he was carefully putting away the silver and they were alone together in the dining-room, “Uncle Rufus, do you know where Uncle Peter used to keep his private papers?”

“Sho’, Missie, he kept dem in de safe in his study—ya-as’m. Yo’ know dat safe; don’t yo’?”

“But Mr. Howbridge has the key to that safe, and to the desk, and all. And there are some things—quite important things—that he can’t find. Didn’t Uncle Peter have some other hiding place?”

“Glo-ree, Missie! I ’spect he did,” said Uncle Rufus, rolling his eyes. “But I nebber knowed whar dat is.”

“And you lived right here with him all those years?”

“Why, Missie, I tell yo’ how it was,” said Uncle Rufus, dropping his voice. “Yo’ see, latterly, Mars’ Peter got pecool’ar—ya-as’m. Yo’ might call it pecool’ar. I knowed he was superstitious of folks—ya-as’m. He used ter send me out on errands—plumb foolish errands, Missie; den I reckon he hid t’ings away. But I don’ know whar.”

“You haven’t the least suspicion?” asked Ruth, anxiously.

“Well now!” said Uncle Rufus, rubbing the bald spot on his head as though to stir his wits into action. “Dar was dat time he got mad at me.”

“What about?”

“I warn’t gone so long on an errand, lak’ he ’spected me ter be, I reckon. An’ w’en I come back he warn’t in his room, an’ dere he was a-comin’ down from de garret with a lighted candle.”

“From the garret?”

“Yes, Missie. An’ he sho’ was mad with ol’ Unc’ Rufus.”

“Perhaps he hid papers, then, in one of those chests, or bureaus up there?”

“Cyan’t say, Missie. Mebbe. But yo’ don’ ketch Unc’ Rufus goin’ up dem garret stairs much—no’m!”

“Why not, Uncle Rufus?” asked Ruth, quickly. “Are you afraid of the garret ghost?”

“Glo-ree! who done tell yo’ erbout dat?” demanded the colored man, rolling his eyes again. “Don’ talk erbout ghos’es; it’s sho’ baid luck.”

That was all Ruth could get out of the old negro. He had all the fear of his race for supernatural things.

It was the next day that Mrs. Kranz came to call. The Corner House girls had never seen Mrs. Kranz before, but they never could forget her after their first view of her!

She was a huge lady, in a purple dress, and with a sweeping gray plume on her big hat, and lavender gloves. She had the misfortune to possess a hair-mole on one of her cheeks, and Dot could not keep her eyes off of that blemish, although she knew it was impolite to stare.

Mrs. Kranz came to the front door of the old Corner House and gave a resounding summons on the big, brass knocker that decorated the middle panel. Nobody had ventured to approach that door, save Mr. Howbridge, since the Corner House girls had come to Milton.

“Goodness! who can that be?” demanded Agnes, when the reverberations of the knocker echoed through the big hall.

“Company! I know it’s company!” cried Tess, running to peer out of the dining-room window.

Ruth gave a glance about the big room, which they still made their sitting room in general, and approached the hall. Dot whispered:

“Oh-ee! I hope there are some little girls coming to call.”

There was nobody but this huge lady, though half a dozen little girls might have hidden behind her voluminous skirts. Ruth smiled upon the giantess and said, quickly, “Good-morning!”

“Vell!” was the deep-throated reply—almost a grunt. “Vell! iss de family home?”

“Certainly,” said Ruth, in her politest way. “Do come in. We are all at home,” and she ushered the visitor into the dining-room.

The lady stared hard at all the girls, and then around at the old-fashioned furniture; at the plate rail of Delft china which Ruth had taken out of a cupboard, where it had been hidden away for years; at the ancient cellarette; and at the few pieces of heavy plate with which the highboy and the lowboy were both decorated.

“Vell!” exclaimed the visitor, in that exceedingly heavy voice of hers, and for the third time. “I hear dere iss only madchens—girls—in dis house. Iss dot so—heh?”

“We are the four Kenway girls,” said Ruth, pleasantly. “We have no mother or father. But Aunt Sarah——”

“But you own dis house undt all de odder houses vot belonged to dot cr-r-ra-zy old mans—heh?”

Ruth flushed a little. She had begun to feel that such references to Uncle Peter were both unkind and insulting. “Uncle Peter left his property by will to us,” she said.

“Vell, I am Mrs. Kranz,” said the large lady, her little eyes sparkling in rather a strange way, Ruth thought.

“We are very glad to meet you—to have you call, Mrs. Kranz,” Ruth said. “Not many of our neighbors have been in to see us as yet.”

“I aind’t von of de neighbors, Miss Kenway,” said the visitor. “I am choose Mrs. Kranz. I keeps de grocery store on Meadow Street yet.”

“We are just as glad to see you, Mrs. Kranz,” returned Ruth, still smiling, “although you do not live very near us,” for she knew that Meadow Street was at the other side of the town.

“Vell! maype nodt,” said Mrs. Kranz. “Maype you iss nodt so glad to see me yet. I gome to tell you dot I vill nodt stand for dot Joe Maroni no longer. He has got to get dot cellar oudt. His r-r-rotten vegetables smells in mine nostrils. His young vuns iss in my vay—undt dey steal. An’ dey are all very, very dirty.

“I keep a nice shop—eferbody vill tell you so, Miss Kenway. Idt iss a clean shop, and them Eye-talians dey iss like pigs yet—de vay dey lif!” cried Mrs. Kranz, excitedly. “I pay mine rent, undt I haf mine rights. I gome to tell you—so-o!”

“Oh, dear me!” breathed Ruth, in surprise. “I—I don’t know what you are talking about, Mrs. Kranz. Have—have we got anything to do with your trouble?”

“Vell!” exclaimed the large lady. “Hafn’t you say you own de house?”

“So Mr. Howbridge says. We own this house——”

“Undt mine house,” declared Mrs. Kranz. “Undt more houses. Your uncle, Herr Stower, own idt. I pay mine rent to him for ten year yet.”

Ruth began to see—and so did Agnes. Of course, the little girls only stared and wondered at the woman’s coarse voice and strange appearance.

“You were one of uncle’s tenants?” said Ruth, quickly.

“For ten year,” repeated Mrs. Kranz.

“And you are having trouble with another tenant?”

“Mit dot Joe Maroni. He has kinder like steps—von, two, tri, fo’, five, six—like dot,” and the woman indicated by gestures the height of the children in rotation. “Dey swarm all ofer de blace. I cannot stand dem—undt de dirt—Ach! idt iss terrible.”

“I am sorry, Mrs. Kranz,” Ruth said, quietly. “I understand that this Italian family are likewise tenants of the house?”

“They lif de cellar in—undt sell vegetables, undt coal, undt wood, undt ice—undt dirt! heafens, vot dirt!” and the plume on Mrs. Kranz’s hat trembled throughout its length, while her red face grew redder, and her eyes more sparkling.

“But perhaps, Mrs. Kranz, the poor things know no better,” Ruth suggested. “It must be dreadful to have to live in a cellar. They have nobody to teach them. Don’t the children go to school—when there is school, I mean?”

“Undt I—am I no example to dem yet?” demanded the lady. “Ach! dese foreigners! I nefer could get along yet mit foreigners.”

This tickled Agnes so that she laughed, and then coughed to hide it. Mrs. Kranz was attracted to the twelve year old.

“Dot iss a pretty madchen,” she said, smiling broadly upon Agnes. “She iss your sister, too? Undt de kinder?” her sharp eyes sighting Tess and Dot.

“This is Agnes,” Ruth said, gladly changing the subject for a moment. “And this is Tess, and this, Dot—Dorothy, you know. We have had no mother for more than two years.”

“Ach!” said Mrs. Kranz, in a tone denoting sympathy, and she made a funny clucking noise in her throat. “De poor kinder! Undt you haf de hausmutter been—no?”

“Yes,” replied Ruth. “I have loved to take care of the little ones. Agnes is a great help. And now, since we have come here to the old Corner House, we have Mrs. McCall and Uncle Rufus. Besides, there has always been Aunt Sarah.”

Mrs. Kranz’s big face looked rather blank, but in a moment her thought returned to the subject of her visit.

“Vell!” she said. “Undt vot about dot Joe Maroni?”

“Dear Mrs. Kranz,” Ruth said, “I do not know anything about the property Uncle Peter left, as yet. I shall speak to Mr. Howbridge about it. He is our guardian, you understand, and a lawyer. I am sure we can find some way of relieving you.”

Mrs. Kranz grunted: “Vell!”

“I shall come to see you,” promised Ruth. “And I shall see these Italians and try to get them to clean up their cellar. I am sorry you should be so troubled by them.”

Meanwhile she had whispered to Tess and sent her running to Mrs. McCall. Mrs. Kranz gradually lost her offended look. She even took Dot upon her broad lap—though that was a precarious position and Dot was in danger of sliding off all the time.

“Mine oldt man undt I nefer have no kinder,” said Mrs. Kranz, sighing windily. “Ve both vor-r-k—Oh! so hard!—ven young we are. Ven we marry we are alretty oldt yet. Undt now mine oldt man iss dead for sefen year, undt I am all alone.”

Tears came to the good lady’s eyes. Ruth, seeing a propitious moment, said a word for Joe Maroni’s children.

“I should think you would like those Italian children, Mrs. Kranz. Aren’t they pretty? ’Most always I think they are.”

Mrs. Kranz raised her two hands in a helpless gesture. “Ach! heafens! if dey vos clean yet I could lofe dem!” she declared.

Just then Uncle Rufus, in his official coat and spats and white vest, arrived with the tray. It was evident that Mrs. Kranz was immensely impressed by the presence of the old serving man. She accepted a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, and nibbled the one and sipped the other amidst a running fire of comment upon the late Mr. Stower, and his death, and the affairs of the tenements and stores Uncle Peter had owned in her neighborhood.

Ruth learned much about this property that she had never heard before. Uncle Peter had once collected his own rents—indeed, it was during only the last few years of his life that a clerk from Mr. Howbridge’s office had done the collecting.

Uncle Peter had been in touch with his tenants. He had been a hard man to get repairs out of, so Mrs. Kranz said, but he had always treated the good tenants justly. With a record of ten years of steady rent paying behind her, Mrs. Kranz considered that she should be recognized and her complaint attended to. As she could get no satisfaction from the lawyer’s clerk (for Joe Maroni was a prompt paying tenant, too), she had determined to see the owners.

These were the facts leading to the good lady’s visit. Before she went away again Mrs. Kranz was much pacified, and openly an admirer of the Corner House girls.

“Ach! if I had madchens like you of my own yet!” she said, as she descended the porch steps, on her departure.

Agnes gazed after her more seriously than was her wont. She did not even laugh at Mrs. Kranz, as Ruth expected.

“And I believe she’s an old dear at that,” Ruth said, reflectively. “Maybe we can get her to help those little Italian children—if we can once get their parents to clean them up.”

“Well!” breathed Agnes, finally. “I wasn’t thinking particularly about her—or of the Joe Maroni kids. I was just thinking that perhaps it is not always so nice to be rich, after all. Now! we didn’t have to worry about tenement house property, and the quarrels of the tenants, when we lived on Essex Street in Bloomingsburg.”

CHAPTER XIII—THE MARONIS

It was on this day, too, that Agnes received a letter from Bloomingsburg. Kitty Robelle wrote a long and “newsy” letter, for Kitty had been one of Agnes’ most cherished friends.

Kitty lived right next door to the house in which the Kenways had lived so long, so she had all the news to impart of the old neighborhood. One item interested the four Corner House girls immensely.

“Little Tommy Rooney has run away and his mother can’t find out what’s become of him. He swapped his Indian suit with Patsy Link for a cowboy suit, and has been gone a week. The police, even, can’t find him.”

“There now!” cried Tess. “What did I tell you? I knew I saw him go past here in the rain.”

“Oh, but, Tess,” said Ruth, “you can’t be sure. And how could he ever have gotten to Milton?”

“I don’t know,” said the confident Tess. “But he’s here.”

Dot agreed with her. “You know,” the latter said, gravely, “he said he was coming to Milton to shoot Indians.”

“The foolish boy!” exclaimed Ruth. “Indians, indeed!”

“Did he expect to eat them after he shot them?” demanded Agnes. “How would he live?”

“Perhaps he’s hungry, poor boy,” said Ruth. “I wish you girls had run after him that day—if it was Tommy.”

“He looked awfully ragged,” said Tess, with pity. “Boys must be a nawful burden. Isn’t it lucky we haven’t any brothers to look after, Ruth?”

“Very fortunate, I think,” agreed the oldest Kenway.

“Well,” sighed Dot, “Tommy was a real bad boy, but Mrs. Rooney thinks just as much of him, I s’pose, as though he was a girl.”

“Not a doubt of it,” chuckled Agnes. “And if we find Tommy, we’ll send him home to her.”

Having made a promise to Mrs. Kranz, Ruth was not the girl to neglect its fulfillment. She was doubtful, however, whether or no she should first see Mr. Howbridge.

The lawyer was a busy man; perhaps he would not thank her for bringing such complaints as this of the grocery store-keeper to his attention. Agnes said:

“He’s got troubles of his own, you may be sure, Ruth. And, honest—I don’t see as Mrs. Kranz has any business to bring her complaints to us.”

“But I said I’d see what I could do.”

“Of course. And I’ll go with you. I’m awfully eager to see this Joe Maroni and his family—especially the ‘kinder like steps,’ as Mrs. Kranz says.”

Ruth agreed to let only Aggie go with her after the younger girl had given her word not to laugh. “It is nice to have a sense of humor, I guess, Ag,” said the older girl, “but you want to have tact with it. Don’t hurt people’s feelings by laughing at them.”

“I know,” sighed Agnes. “But Mrs. Kranz was so funny! To hear her say she did not like foreigners, when she can scarcely speak English herself.”

“You might be a foreigner yourself, Ag, as far as speaking correctly goes,” laughed Ruth. “You’re awfully slangy. And Mrs. Kranz has lived in this country for many, many years. She happens to be one of those unfortunate Germans who can never master English. But I know she has a kind heart.“

“She’s dead sore on Joe Maroni and his tribe, just the same,” declared Agnes, proving the truth of her sister’s accusation as to her slanginess.

The two older Kenways walked the next afternoon across town to Meadow Street. It was in the poorer section of Milton, near the silk mills. Although the houses were not so tall, and were mostly frame buildings, the street reminded Ruth and Agnes of Essex Street, in Bloomingsburg, where they had resided before coming to the old Corner House.

Mrs. Kranz had given them her number; and it was not hard to find the three-story, brick-front building in which she kept store. Mrs. Kranz hired the entire street floor, living in rooms at the back. There were tenements above, with a narrow hall and stairway leading to them at one side. The cellar was divided, half being used by Mrs. Kranz for a store-room.

The other half was the dwelling and store of the Italian, Joe Maroni, whose name was painted crookedly on a small sign, and under it his goods were enumerated as

ISE COLE WOOD VGERTABLS

Joe himself was in evidence as the girls came to the place. He was a little, active, curly haired man, in velveteen clothing and cap, gold rings in his ears, and a fierce mustache.

“A regular brigand,” whispered Agnes, rather shrinking from his vicinity and clinging to Ruth’s hand.

“I’m sure he’s a reformed brigand,” Ruth laughed.

The girls’ own nostrils informed them that part of Mrs. Kranz’s complaint must be true, for there was a tall basket beside the vegetable and fruit stand into which Joe had thrown decayed vegetable leaves and fruit. It was a very warm day and the odor certainly was offensive.

Joe came forward smiling, as the girls stopped at the stand. “Want-a da orange—da pear—da banan’?” he asked, in a most agreeable way. Agnes immediately reversed her opinion and declared he was actually handsome.

“Nice-a vegetables,” said Joe, eager to display his wares. “All fre-esh.”

Ruth took her courage in both hands and smiled at him in return. “We haven’t come to buy anything this afternoon, Mr. Maroni,” she said. “You see, our Uncle Peter gave us this house when he died. Our name is Kenway. We have come to see you——”

“Si! Si!” cried the Italian, understanding them at once. “You da litla Padrona wot own all dese,” with a wave of his hand that was both graceful and explanatory. “Me, Joe, me hear-a ’bout de litla Padrona. Grazias!” and he bowed and lifted his cap.

The children had appeared from the cool depths of the cellar as if by magic. They were like a flight of steps in height, and the oldest was a very pretty girl, possibly as old as Agnes, but much smaller. Joe turned swiftly to this one and said something in his own tongue, nothing of which did the visitors understand save the child’s name, “Maria.”

Maria darted down the steps again, and immediately Joe fished out a basket from under the stand and proceeded to fill it with his very choicest fruit.

“For you, Padrona,” he explained, bowing to Ruth again. “You mak-a me ver’ hap’ to come see me. Grazias!”

“Oh, but Mr. Maroni!” cried Ruth, rather nervously. “You must not give us all that nice fruit. And we did not come just to call. Some—some of the other tenants have complained about you.”

The man looked puzzled, and then troubled. “What is that ‘complain’?” he asked. “They no lik-a me? They no lik-a my wife? They no lik-a my chil’ren?”

“Oh, no! nothing like that,” Ruth said, sympathetically. “They only say you do not keep the stand clean. See! that basket of rotting vegetables and fruit. You should get rid of it at once. Don’t the collectors come through this part of the town for garbage?”

“Si! Si!” cried Joe, shrugging his shoulders. “But sometimes come first my poor compatriots—si? They find da orange with da speck; dey fin’ potato part good-a—see?” All the time he was showing them the specked vegetables and fruit in the basket. Although his hands were grimed, Ruth noticed that he was otherwise clean. The children, though dirty and ragged, were really beautiful.

“W’en da poor peep’ go, then I put out-a da basket for da cart,” pursued Joe, still smiling and still gesturing.

Up the steps at that moment came a smiling, broad Italian woman, with a gay clean bandanna over her glossy black hair. She was a pretty woman, too, with the same features as little Maria.

“Good-a day! good-a day!” she said, bobbing and courtesying. Then she added something in Italian which was a friendly greeting.

Joe smiled on her dazzlingly. She wore heavier earrings than Joe and a great gilt brooch to hold the neck of her gown together.

“She no spe’k da English mooch,” explained the man. “But da keeds——Oh! dey learn to spe’k fine in da school. We been in dis country six year—no? We come here fi’ year ago. We doin’ fine!” explained Joe, with enthusiasm.