The Corner House Girls in a Play / How they rehearsed, how they acted, and what the play brought in

I do hope," ruminated Tess, "that that poor Mrs. Eland won't be turned out of her place. Don't you hope so, Ruthie?"

"I am sure it would be a calamity if the hospital were closed," agreed the older sister. "And the matron must be a very lovely lady, as you say, Tess."

"She is awfully nice—isn't she, Dot?" pursued Tess, who usually expected the support of Dorothy.

"Just as nice as she can be," agreed the smallest Corner House girl. "Couldn't she come to live in our house if she can't stay in the horsepistol any longer?"

"At the what, child?" gasped Agnes. "What is it you said?"

"Well—where she lives now," Dot responded, dodging the doubtful word.

"Goodness, dear!" laughed Ruth, "we can't make the old Corner House a refuge for destitute females."

"I don't care!" spoke up Dot, quickly. "Didn't they make the Toomey-Smith house, on High Street into a home for indignant old maids?"

At that the older girls shouted with laughter. "'In-di-gent'—'in-di-gent'! child," corrected Agnes, at last. "That means without means—poor—unable to care for themselves. 'Indignant old maids,' indeed!"

"Maybe they were indignant," suggested Tess, too tender hearted to see Dot's ignorance exposed in public, despite her own private criticism of the little one's misuse of the English language. "See how indignant Aunt Sarah is—and she's an old maid."

This amused Ruth and Agnes even more than Dot's observation. It was true that Aunt Sarah Maltby was frequently "an indignant old maid."

But Tess endured the laughter calmly. She was deeply interested in the problem of Mrs. Eland's future, and she said:

"Maybe Uncle Peter ought to have left the hospital some of his money when he died, instead of leaving it all to us and to Aunt Sarah."

"Do you want to give up some of your monthly allowance to help support the hospital, Tess?" demanded Ruth, briskly.

"I—I—— Well, I couldn't give much," said the smaller girl, seriously, "for a part of it goes to missions and the Sunday School money box, and part to Sadie Goronofsky's cousin who has a nawful bad felon, and can't work on the paper flowers just now——"

"Why, child!" the oldest Kenway said, with a tender smile, and putting her hand lightly on Tess' head, "I didn't know about that. How much of your pin money goes each month to charity already? You only have a dollar and a half."

"I—I keep half a dollar for myself," confessed Tess. "I could give part of that to the hospital."

"I'll give some of my pin money, too," announced Dot, gravely, "if it will keep Mrs. Eland from being turned out of the horsepistol."

Ruth and Agnes did not chide the little one for her mispronunciation of the hard word this time, but they looked at each other seriously. "I wonder if Uncle Peter was one of those rich people who should have remembered the institution in his will?" Ruth said.

"Goodness!" exclaimed Agnes. "If we go around hunting for duties Uncle Peter Stower left undone, and do them for him, where will we be? There will be no money left for ourselves."

"You need not be afraid," Ruth said, with a smile. "Mr. Howbridge will not let us use our money foolishly. He is answerable for every penny of it to the Court. But maybe he will approve of our giving a proper sum towards a fund for keeping the Women's and Children's Hospital open."

"Is there such a fund?" demanded Agnes.

"There will be, I think. If everybody is interested——"

"And how you going to interest 'em?" asked the skeptical Agnes.

"Talk about it! Publicity! That is what is needed," declared Ruth, vigorously. "Why! we might all do something."

"Who—all? I want to know!" responded her sister. "I don't have a cent more than I need for myself. Only two dollars and a half." Agnes' allowance had been recently increased half a dollar by the observant lawyer.

"All of us can help," said Ruth. "Boys and girls alike, as well as grown people. The schools ought to do something to raise money for the hospital's support."

"Like a fair, maybe—or a bazaar," cried Agnes, eagerly. "That ought to be fun."

"You are always looking for fun," said Ruth.

"I don't care. If we can combine business with pleasure, so much the better," laughed Agnes. "It's easier to do things that are amusing than those that are dead serious."

"There you go!" sighed Ruth. "You are becoming the slangiest girl. I believe you get it all from Neale O'Neil."

"Poor Neale!" sniffed Agnes, regretfully. "He gets blamed for all my sins and his own, too. If I had a wooden arm, Ruth, you'd say I caught it of him, you detest boys so."

Part of this conversation between her older sisters must have made a deep impression on Tess Kenway's mind. She went forth as an apostle for the Women's and Children's Hospital, and for Mrs. Eland in particular. She said to Mr. Stetson, their groceryman, the next morning, with profound gravity:

"Do you know, Mr. Stetson, that the Women's and Children's Hospital has got to be closed?"

"Why, no, Tess—is that so?" he said, staring at her. "What for?"

"Because there is no money to pay Mrs. Eland. And now she won't have any home."

"Mrs. Eland?"

"The matron, you know. And she's such a nice lady," pursued Tess. "She taught me the sovereigns of England."

Mr. Stetson might have laughed. He was frequently vastly amused by the queer sayings and doings of the two youngest Corner House girls, as he often told his wife and Myra. But on this occasion Tess was so serious that to laugh at her would have hurt her feelings. Mr. Stetson expressed his regret regarding the calamity which had overtaken Mrs. Eland and the hospital. He had never thought of the institution before, and said to his wife that he supposed they "might spare a trifle toward such a good cause."

Tess carried her tale of woe into another part of the town when she and Dot went with their dolls to call on Mrs. Kranz and Maria Maroni, on Meadow Street, where the Stower tenement property was located.

"Did you know about the Women's and Children's Hospital being shut up, Mrs. Kranz?" Tess asked that huge woman, who kept the neatest and cleanest of delicatessen and grocery stores possible. "And Mrs. Eland can't stay there."

"Ach! you dond't tell me!" exclaimed the German woman. "Ist dodt so? And vor vy do dey close de hospital yedt? Aind't it a goot vun?"

"I think it must be a very good one," Tess said soberly, "for Mrs. Eland is an awfully nice lady, and she is the matron. She taught me the sovereigns of England. I'll recite them for you." This she proceeded to do.

"Very goot! very goot!" announced Mrs. Kranz. "Maria can't say that yedt."

Maria Maroni, the very pretty Italian girl (she was about Agnes' age) who helped Mrs. Kranz in the store, laughed good-naturedly. "I guess I knew them once," she said. "But I have forgotten. I never like any history but 'Merican history, and that of Italy."

"Ach! you foreigners are all alike," Mrs. Kranz protested, considering herself a bred-in-the-bone American, having lived in the country so long.

Although she was scolding her brisk and pretty little assistant most of the time, she really loved Maria Maroni very dearly. Maria's mother and father—with their fast growing family—lived in the cellar of the same building in which was Mrs. Kranz's shop. Joe Maroni, as was shown by the home-made sign at the cellar door, sold

ISE COLE WOOD VGERTABLS

and was a smiling, voluble Italian, in a velveteen suit and cap, with gold rings in his ears, who never set his bright, black eyes upon one of the Corner House girls but he immediately filled a basket with his choicest fruit as a gift for "da leetla padrona," as he called Ruth Kenway. He had an offering ready for Tess and Dot to take home when they reappeared from Mrs. Kranz's back parlor.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Maroni," Tess said, while Dot allowed one of the smaller Maronis to hold the Alice-doll for a blissful minute. "I know Ruthie will be delighted."

"Si! si! dee-lighted!" exclaimed Joe, showing all his very white teeth under his brigand's mustache. "The leetla T'eressa ees seek?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Maroni!" denied Tess, with a sigh. "I am very well. But I feel very bad in my mind. They are going to close the Women's and Children's Hospital and my friend, Mrs. Eland, who is the matron, will have no place to go."

Joe looked a little puzzled, for although Maria and some of her brothers and sisters went to school, their father did not understand or speak English very well. Tess patiently explained about the good work the hospital did and why Mrs. Eland was in danger of losing her position.

"Too bad-a! si! si!" ejaculated the sympathetic Italian. "We mak-a da good mon' now. We geev somet'ing to da hospital for da poor leetla children—si! si!"

"Oh, will you, Mr. Maroni?" cried Tess. "Ruth says there ought to be a fund started for the hospital. I'll tell her you'll give to it."

"Sure! you tell-a leetla padrona. Joe geeve—sure!"

"Oh, Dot! we can int'rest lots of folks—just as Ruth said," Tess declared, as the two little girls wended their way homeward. "We'll talk to everybody we know about the hospital and Mrs. Eland."

To this end Tess even opened the subject with Uncle Rufus' daughter, Petunia Blossom, who chanced to be at the old Corner House when Tess and Dot arrived, delivering the clothes which she washed each week for the Kenways.

Petunia Blossom was an immensely fat negress—and most awfully black. Uncle Rufus often said: "How come Pechunia so brack is de mysteriest mystery dat evah was. She done favah none o' ma folkses, nor her mammy's. She harks back t' some ol' antsistah dat was suttenly mighty brack—yaas'm!"

"I dunno as I kin spar' anyt'ing fo' dis hospital, honey," Petunia said, seriously, when Tess broached the subject. "It's a-costin' me a lot t' keep up ma dues wid de Daughters of Miriam."

"What's the Daughters of Miriam, Petunia?" asked Agnes, who chanced to overhear this conversation on the back porch. "Is it a lodge?"

"Hit's mo' dan a lodge, Miss Aggie," proclaimed Petunia, with pride. "It's a beneficial ordah—yaas'm!"

"And what benefit do you derive from it?" queried Agnes.

"Why, I doesn't git nottin' f'om it yet awhile, honey," said Petunia, unctiously. "But w'en I's daid, I gits one hunderd an' fifty dollahs. Same time, dey's 'bleeged t' tend ma funeral."

"Dat brack woman suah is a flickaty female," grumbled Uncle Rufus, when he heard Agnes repeating the story of Petunia's "benefit" to the family at dinner that night. When nobody but the immediate family was present at table, Uncle Rufus assumed the privilege of discussing matters with the girls. "She's allus wastin' her money on sech things. Dere, she has got t' die t' git her benefit out'n dem Daughters of Miriam. She's mighty flickaty."

"What does 'flickaty' mean, Uncle Rufus, if you please?" asked Dot, hearing a new word, and rather liking the sound of it.

"Why, chile, dat jes' mean flickaty—das all," returned the old butler, chuckling. "Dah ain't nottin' in de langwidge what kin explanify dat wo'd. Nor dah ain't no woman, brack or w'ite, mo' flickaty dan dat same Pechunia Blossom."

CHAPTER V

THE STONE IN THE POOL

Tess and Dot did not see the woman in the gray cloak again—not just then, at least; but they thought about her a great deal, and talked about her, too. A bag of the pippins went to the hospital by Neale O'Neil's friendly hand, addressed to Mrs. Eland, and with the names of the two youngest Corner House girls inside.

"I do hope she likes apples," Tess said. "I'm so much obliged to her for the sovereigns of England."

Tess wondered, too, if she should take some of the apples to school that first day of the fall term to present to Miss Pepperill. Dot took her teacher some. Dot was to have the same teacher this term that she had had the last. Tess finally decided that the sharp and red-haired Miss Pepperill might think that she, Tess, was trying to bribe her to forget the sovereigns of England.

"And I am quite sure I know them perfectly. That is, if she doesn't fuss me too much when she asks the question," Tess said to Ruth, with whom she discussed the point. "I won't take her the apples, I guess, until after I have recited the sovereigns."

Despite the declaration that she had learned perfectly the rhyme Mrs. Eland had written out for her, Tess Kenway went into school that first day of the term feeling very sober indeed. Many of the girls in her class looked sober, too. Pupils who had graduated from Miss Pepperill's class had reported the red-haired lady as being "awfully strict."

Indeed, before the scholars were quite settled at their desks, they had a proof of Miss Pepperill's discipline. Some of the boys in Tess' class had reputations to maintain (or thought they had) for "not bein' scart of teacher." Sammy Pinkney often boasted to wondering and wide-eyed little girls that "no old teacher could make him a fraid cat."

"What's your name—you with the black hair and warts on your hands?" demanded the new teacher, sharply and suddenly.

She pointed directly at the grinning and inattentive Sammy. There was no mistaking Miss Pepperill's meaning and some of the other boys giggled, for Sammy did have warts on his grimy little paws.

"What's your name?" repeated the teacher, with rising inflection.

"Sam—Sam Pinkney," replied Sammy, just a little startled, but trying to appear brave.

"Stand up when you reply to a question!" snapped Miss Pepperill.

Sammy stumbled to his feet.

"Now! What is your name? Again."

"Sam Pinkney."

"Sam-u-e-l?"

"Well—that's 'Sam,' ain't it?" drawled the boy, gaining courage.

But he never spoke so again when Miss Pepperill addressed him. That woman strode down the aisle to Sammy's seat, seized the cringing boy by the lobe of his right ear, and marched him up to her desk. There she sat him down "in the seat of penitence" beside her own chair, saying:

"I'll attend to your case later, young man. Evidently the long vacation has done you no good. You have forgotten how to speak to your teacher."

The girls were much disturbed by this manifestation of the new teacher's sternness. Sadie Goronofsky whispered to Tess:

"Oh! don't she get excited easy?"

The whites of Alfredia Blossom's eyes were fairly enlarged by her surprise and terror at this proceeding on the new teacher's part. After that, Alfredia jumped every time Miss Pepperill spoke.

Miss Pepperill noted none of this cringing terror on the part of her new pupils. Or else she was used to it. She marched up and down the aisles, seating and reseating the pupils until she had them arranged to her satisfaction, and suddenly she pounced on Tess.

"Ah!" she said, stopping before the Corner House girl's desk. "You are Theresa Kenway?"

Tess arose before replying. "Yes, ma'am," she said.

"Ah! Didn't I give you a question to answer this first day?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Tess, trying to speak calmly.

Miss Pepperill evidently expected to find Tess at fault. "What was the question, Theresa?" she asked.

"You told me to be prepared to recite for you the succession of the sovereigns of England."

"Well, are you prepared?" snapped Miss Pepperill.

"Yes, ma'am," Tess said waveringly. "I learned them in a rhyme, Miss Pepperill. It was the only way I could remember them all—and in the proper succession. May I recite them that way?"

"Let me hear the rhyme," commanded the teacher.

Tess began in a shaking voice, but as she progressed she gained confidence in the sound of her own voice, and, knowing the rhyme perfectly, she came through the ordeal well.

"Who taught you that, Theresa?" demanded Miss Pepperill, not unkindly.

"Mrs. Eland wrote it down for me. She said she learned it so when she was a little girl. At least, all but the last four lines. She said they were 'riginal."

"Ah! I should say they were," said Miss Pepperill. "And who is Mrs. Eland?"

"Mrs. Eland is an awfully nice lady," Tess said eagerly, accepting the opening the teacher unwittingly gave her. "She is matron of the Women's and Children's Hospital, and do you know, they say they are going to close the hospital because there aren't enough funds, and poor Mrs. Eland won't have any place to go. We think it's dreadful and, Miss Pepperill,——"

"Well, well!" interposed Miss Pepperill, with a grim smile, "that will do now, Theresa. I have heard all about that. I fancy you must be the little girl who is going around telling everybody about it. I heard Mr. Marks speak this morning about the needs of the Women's and Children's Hospital.

"We'll excuse your further remarks on that subject, Theresa. But you recited the succession of the English sovereigns very well indeed. I, too, learned that rhyme when I was a little girl."

Tess thought the bespectacled teacher said this last rather more sympathetically. She felt rebuked, however, and tried to keep a watch on her tongue thereafter in Miss Pepperill's presence.

At least, she felt that she had comported herself well with the rhyme, and settled back into her seat with a feeling of thankfulness.

Miss Pepperill's mention of Mr. Marks' observation before the teachers regarding the little girl who was preaching the gospel of help for the hospital, made no impression at all on Tess Kenway's mind. She had no idea that she had made so many grown people think of the institution's needs.

Before the high school classes early in that first week of school, the principal incorporated in his welcoming remarks something of importance regarding this very thing.

"We open school this term with quite a novel proposal before us. It has not yet been sanctioned by the Board of Education, although I understand that that body is soon to have it under advisement. In several towns of Milton's size and importance, there were last winter presented spectacles and musical plays, mainly by the pupils of the public schools of the several towns, and always for worthy charitable objects.

"The benefit to be gained by the schools in general and by the pupils that took part in the plays in particular, looked very doubtful to me at a distance; but this summer I made it my business to examine into the results of such appearances in musical pieces by pupils of other schools. I find it develops their dramatic instinct and an appreciation of music and acting. It gives vent, too, to the natural desire of young people to dance and sing, and to 'act out' a pleasant story, while they are really helping a worthy work of charity.

"One of the most successful of these school plays is called The Carnation Countess. It is a play with music which lends itself to brilliant costuming, spectacular scenery, and offers many minor parts which can easily be filled by you young people. A small company of professional players and singers carry the principal parts in The Carnation Countess; but if we are allowed to take up the production of this play—say in holiday week—I promise you that every one who feels the desire to do so, may have a part in it.

"The matter is all unsettled at present. But it is something to think of. Besides, a very small girl, I understand, a pupil in our grammar grade, is preaching a crusade for Milton's Women's and Children's Hospital. Inspired or not, that child has, during the past few days, awakened many people of this town to their duty towards that very estimable institution.

"The Women's and Children's Hospital is poor. It needs funds. Indeed, it is about to be closed for lack of sufficient means to pay salaries and buy supplies. The Post has several times tried to awaken public interest in the institution, but to no avail.

"Now, this child, as I have said, has done more than the public press. And quite unconsciously, I have no doubt.

"This is the way great things are often done. The seed timidly sown often brings forth the abundant crop. The stone thrown into the middle of the pool starts a wave that reaches the very shore.

"However, if we act the play for the charity proposed or not, there is a matter somewhat connected with it," continued the principal, his face clouding for a moment, "that I am obliged to bring to your attention. Of course, it is understood that only the pupils who do their work satisfactorily to their immediate instructors, will have any share in the production of the play.

"This rule, I am sorry to say, will affect certain members of our athletic teams who, I find, have been anything but correct in their behavior. I shall take this serious matter up in a few days with the culprits in question. At present I will only say that the basket ball match set for next Saturday with the team from the Kenyon school, will be forfeited. All the members, I understand, of our first basket ball team are equally guilty of misbehavior at a time when they were on honor.

"I will see the members of the team in my office after the second session to-day. You are dismissed to your classes, young ladies and gentlemen."

The blow had fallen! Agnes was so amazed and troubled that she failed to connect Mr. Marks' observations about the child who was arousing Milton to its duty towards the Women's and Children's Hospital, with her own little sister, Tess.

CHAPTER VI

JUST OUT OF REACH

"But just supposing Uncle Peter had been 'approached,' as you say, for money for that hospital—and s'pose he knew just how nice Mrs. Eland was—don't you think he would have left them some in his will, Mr. Howbridge?"

"Can't say I do, my dear—considering what I know about Mr. Peter Stower," said the lawyer, drily.

"Well," sighed Tess, "I do wish he had met my Mrs. Eland! I am sure he would have been int'rested in her."

"Do you think so?"

"Oh, yes! For she is the very nicest lady you ever saw, Mr. Howbridge. And I do think you might let us give some of the money to the hospital that Uncle Peter forgot to give—if he had been reminded, of course."

"That child should enter my profession when she grows up," said Mr. Howbridge to Ruth, when Tess had been excused. "She'll split hairs in argument even now. What's started her off on this hospital business?"

Ruth told him. She told, too, what Tess did each month with her own pin money, and the next allowance day Tess was surprised to find an extra half dollar in her envelope.

"Oh—ee!" she cried. "Now I can give something to the hospital fund, can't I, Ruthie?"

Meanwhile, Agnes, with Eva Larry, Myra Stetson, and others of her closest friends (Agnes had a number of bosom chums) waited solemnly in Mr. Marks' office. More than the basket ball team was present in anxious waiting for the principal's appearance.

"Where's Trix Severn?" demanded Eva in a whisper of the other girls. "She ought to be in this."

"In what?" demanded another girl, trying to play the part of innocence.

"Ah-yah!" sneered Eva, very inelegantly. "As though you didn't know what it is all about!"

"Well, I'm sure I don't," snapped this girl. "Mr. Marks sent for me. I don't belong to your old basket ball team."

"No. But you were with us on that car last May," said Agnes, sharply, "You know what we're all called here for."

"No, I don't."

"If you weren't told so publicly as we were to come here, you'll find that he knows all about your being in it," said Eva.

"And that will amount to the same thing in the end, Mary Breeze," groaned Agnes.

"I don't know at all what you are talking about," cried Miss Breeze, tossing her head, and trying to bolster up her own waning courage.

"If you don't know now, you'll never learn, Mary," laughed Myra Stetson. "We are all in the same boat."

"You bet we are!" added the slangy Eva.

"Every girl here was on that car that day coming from Fleeting," announced Agnes, after a moment, having counted noses. "You were in the crowd, Mary."

"What day coming from Fleeting?" snapped the girl, who tried to "bluff," as Neale O'Neil would have termed it.

"The time the car broke down," cried another. "Oh, I remember!"

"Of course you do. So does Mary," Eva said. "We were all in it."

"And, oh, weren't those berries good!" whispered Myra, ecstatically.

"Well, I don't care!" said Mary Breeze, "you started it, Aggie Kenway."

"I know it," admitted Agnes, hopelessly.

"But nobody tied you hand and foot and dragged you into that farmer's strawberry patch—so now, Mary!" cried Eva Larry. "You needn't try to creep out of it."

"Say! Trix seems to be creeping out of it," drawled Myra. "Don't you s'pose Mr. Marks has heard that she was in the party?"

"Sh!" said Agnes, suddenly. "Here he comes."

The principal came in, stepping in his usual quick, nervous way. He was a small, plump man, with rosy cheeks, eyeglasses, and an ever present smile which sometimes masked a series of very sharp and biting remarks. On this occasion the smile covered but briefly the bitter words he had to say.

"Young ladies! Your attention, please! My attention has been called to the fact that, on the twenty-third of last May—a Saturday—when our basket ball team played that of the Fleeting schools, you girls—all of you—on the way back from the game, were guilty of entering Mr. Robert Buckham's field at Ipswitch Curve, and appropriated to your own use, and without permission, a quantity—whether it be small or large—of strawberries growing in that field. The farmer himself furnishes me with the list of your names. I have not seen him personally as yet; but as Mr. Buckham has taken the pains to trace the culprits after all this time has elapsed he must consider the matter serious.

"What particular punishment shall be meted out to you, I have not decided. As a general and lasting rebuke, however, I had thought of forfeiting all the games the team has already won in the county series, and refuse permission to you to play again this year. But by doing that the schools of Milton would be punished in total, for the athletic standing of all would be lowered.

"Now I have considered a more equitable way of making you young ladies pay the penalty of that very unladylike and dishonest proceeding. If the Board of Education sanctions a production of The Carnation Countess by the pupils of the Milton schools, all you young ladies will be debarred from taking any part whatever in the play.

"I see very well," pursued Mr. Marks, "that you who were guilty of robbing Mr. Buckham are girls who would be quite sure of securing prominent parts in the play. You are debarred. That, at present, is all I shall say on this subject. If the farmer claims damages, that will be another matter."

With his rosy face smiling and his eyeglasses sparkling, the principal dismissed the woeful party. They filed out of the office, very glum indeed. And Mary Breeze was more than a little inclined to blame Agnes.

"I don't care! I took only a few berries myself," she complained. "And we none of us would have thought of going over that fence and raiding the strawberry patch if it hadn't been for Agnes."

"Ah-yah!" repeated Eva, with scorn. "What's the use of saying that? Aggie may have been the first one over the fence; but we were all right after her. She may have a little the quickest mind in this crowd, but her limbs are no quicker."

"And how about Trix?" murmured Myra Stetson. "How is it she has escaped the deluge?"

That is what Neale O'Neil asked when he met Agnes just before she reached the old Corner House.

"Oh, Aggie, how did you come out?" he asked soberly. "Was Mr. Marks just as hard on you as he could be?"

"I think so," Agnes replied gravely. "We don't just know yet what he means to do. Only in part. But that part is just awful!"

"Was the row about Buckham's berries?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. What's he going to do to you? Make you forfeit all the games?"

"No. Maybe something worse than that."

"Worse? What is it?" asked Neale, in wonder.

"He says we none of us can act in that play he told about this morning."

"Huh!" muttered the boy, eyeing Agnes' flushed face and tearful eyes in surprise. "Do you care?"

"Oh, Neale! I know I can act. I love it. I've always been crazy for it. And now, when there's maybe a chance, I am not—going—to—be—let!"

"Goodness! do you really feel so bad about it, Aggie?"

"I—I—— Why, my heart will be just broken if I can't act in The Carnation Countess," sobbed the Corner House girl.

"Oh, cricky! Don't turn on the sprinkler again, Aggie," begged Neale, in a panic.

"I—I just can't help it! To think of there being a play acted in this town, and I might be in it!" wailed Agnes. "And now it's just out of my reach! It's too mean for anything, that's what it is!"

She threatened to burst into another flood, and Neale tried to head the tears off by saying:

"Don't cry again, Aggie. Oh, don't! If you won't cry I'll try to find some way of getting you out of the scrape."

"You—you can't, Neale O'Neil!"

"We—ell, I can try."

"And I wouldn't want to get out of it myself unless the other girls escaped punishment, too."

"You're a good little sport, Aggie. I always said so," Neale declared, admiringly. "Say, that reminds me!" he added, suddenly. "Were all the girls up before Mr. Marks?"

"All who went over to Fleeting that day, do you mean?"

"Yes. All that were in that car that broke down."

"Why—yes—I think so."

"Huh!" grunted Neale, thoughtfully.

"All but one anyway."

"Hullo! Who was that?"

"The girl who wasn't in Mr. Marks' office?"

"Yes. Who was missing of that bunch of berry raiders?" and Neale grinned.

"Why—Trix," said Agnes, slowly.

"Ah-ha! I smell a mouse!"

"What do you mean by that, Neale O'Neil?" cried the girl.

"Nothing significant in the fact that our festive Beatrice was not there?"

"No. Why should there be?" demanded Agnes.

"And who do you suppose furnished Mr. Marks with his information and the list of you girls' names?"

"Oh, the farmer!"

"Old Buckham?" cried Neale, startled.

"Yes," said Agnes. "Mr. Marks said so."

Neale looked both surprised and doubtful. "Then why didn't Buckham give in Trix's name, too?"

"Oh, I don't know, Neale. No use in blaming her just because she was lucky enough to escape."

"Oh, that's all right. I'll go to my Lady Beatrice, get down on my shin-bones, and beg her pardon, if I wrongfully suspect her," laughed Neale. "But, I say, Aggie! did Mr. Buckham come to see Mr. Marks about it? Did he say?"

"No. I think Mr. Marks said the farmer wrote."

"Wrote?" cried the boy. "Why, I don't believe Bob Buckham can write. He's a smart enough old fellow, but he never had any schooling. He told me so. He's not a bad sort, either. He must have been awfully mad about those strawberries to hold a grudge so long as this. I worked for him a while, you know, Aggie."

"Oh, so you did, Neale."

"Yes. I don't believe he is the sort who would make so much trouble for a bunch of girls. Somebody must have egged him on," said Neale, gloomily.

"There you go again, Neale," groaned Agnes. "Hinting at Beatrice Severn."

"Well," grinned Neale, "you want me to help you out of your scrape, don't you?"

"At nobody else's expense," said Agnes.

"Don't know what to make of it," grumbled Neale. "It looks fishy to me. Mr. Buckham writing Mr. Marks! I'm going to find out about that. Keep up your pluck, Aggie. I'll see what can be done," and Neale, with his cap on the back of his flaxen head and his hands in his pockets, went off whistling.

CHAPTER VII

THE CORE OF THE APPLE

"Why," explained the literal Dot, "it's a string that runs from the back of your head to the bottom of your heels."

At the shout of laughter that welcomed this intelligence, Tess said, comfortingly:

"Don't mind, Dot. That isn't half as bad as what Sammy Pinkney said to Miss Pepperill the other day. She asked us which was the most important to keep clean, your face or your teeth, and Sammy shouted: 'Your teeth, teacher, 'cause they can rot off and your face can't.'"

"And I guess that awful Miss Pepperpot punished him for that," suggested Dot, awed.

"Yes. Sammy is always getting punished," said Tess. "He never does manage to say the right thing. And I think Miss Pepperill is kind of hard on him. But—but she's real nice to me."

"Well, why shouldn't she be, honey?" Ruth said. "You're not to be compared with that rude boy, I am sure," for Ruth Kenway did not much approve of boys, and only tolerated Neale O'Neil because the other children liked him so much.

"I should hope not!" agreed Agnes, who did like boys, but did not like the aforesaid scapegrace, Sammy Pinkney.

"I guess it was the sovereigns of England that makes her nice to me," said Tess, thoughtfully. "I 'spected to have an awfully hard time in Miss Pepperill's class; but she has never been real cross with me. And what do you s'pose?"

"I couldn't guess," Ruth said smilingly.

"To-day she asked me about Mrs. Eland."

"Mrs. Eland?"

"Yes," said Tess, nodding. "She asked me if I'd seen Mrs. Eland lately, and if she'd found her sister. For you see," explained Tess, "I'd told her how poor Mrs. Eland felt so bad about losing her sister when she was a little girl and never being able to find her."

"Oh, yes, I remember," Ruth said.

"But I had to tell Miss Pepperill that I'd only seen her the one time—when she taught me the sovereigns of England. I'd really love to see Mrs. Eland once more. Wouldn't you, Dot?"

"Dear me, yes!" agreed the smaller girl. "I wonder if she ever got those apples?"

"Of course she did," put in Neale. "Didn't I tell you I took them to the hospital myself?"

"We—ell! But she never told us so—did she, Dot?" complained Tess.

However, the very next day the children heard from the bag of apples. A delightfully suspicious package awaited Tess and Dot at the old Corner House after school. It had been delivered by no less a person than Dr. Forsyth himself, who stopped his electric runabout in front of the old Corner House long enough to run in and set the pasteboard box on the sitting room table.

"What forever is that, Doctor?" demanded Mrs. MacCall.

"I hope it's something to make these children sick," declared the doctor, gruffly. "They are too disgracefully healthy for anything."

"Yes, thank our stars!" said the housekeeper.

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried the apparently very savage medical man. "But what would become of all us poor doctors if everybody were as healthy as this family, I'd like to know?" and he tramped out to his car again in much make-believe wrath.

Dot came first from school and was shown the box. It was only about six inches square and it had a card tied to it addressed to both her and Tess. Dot eyed it with the roundest of round eyes, when she heard who had brought it.

"Why don't you open it, child?" demanded Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be downstairs. "Bring it here and I'll snip the string for you with my scissors."

"Oh! I couldn't, Aunt Sarah!" Dot declared.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" snapped the old lady. "It's not too heavy for you to carry, I should hope?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. But I can't open it till Tess comes," said Dot.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" repeated Aunt Sarah, in her jerky way.

"Why, it wouldn't be fair," said the smallest Corner House girl, gravely.

"Huh!" snorted the old lady.

"Tess wouldn't do that to me," Dot said, with assurance.

Agnes chanced to get home next. "What ever do you s'pose is in it, Dottums?" she cried. "There's no name on it except yours and Tess'. And the doctor brought it!"

"Yes. But I know it isn't pills," declared Dot, seriously.

"How do you know that?" laughed Agnes.

"The box is too big," was the prompt reply. "He brings pills in just the cunningest little boxes."

"Maybe it's charlotte russe," suggested Agnes. "They put them in boxes like this at the bakery."

"Oh! do you think so?" gasped Dot, scarcely able to contain herself.

"If they are charlotte rushings," chuckled Neale, who had brought home Agnes' books for her, "be careful and not be so piggish as the country boy who ate the pasteboard containers as well as the cake and cream of the charlotte russe. He said he liked them fine, only the crust was tough."

"Mercy!" ejaculated Agnes. "That's like a boy."

"I do hope Tess comes pretty quick!" murmured Dot. "I—I'm just about going crazy!"

Tess came finally; but at first she was so excited by something that had happened in school that she could not listen to Dot's pleading that she should "come and look at the box."

Of course, Sammy Pinkney was in difficulties with the teacher again. And Tess could not see for once why he should be punished.

"I'm sure," she said earnestly, "Sammy did his best. And I brought the composition he wrote home for you to see, Ruthie. Sammy dropped it out of his book and I will give it to him to-morrow.

"But Miss Pepperill acted just like she thought Sammy had misbehaved himself. She said she hoped she hadn't a 'humorist in embryo' in her class. What did she mean by that, Ruthie? What's a humorist in embryo!"

"A sprouting funny man," said Agnes, laughing. "Maybe Sammy Pinkney will grow up to write for the funny columns in the newspapers."

"Let us see the paper, Tess," said Ruth. "Maybe that will explain just what Miss Pepperill meant."

"And poor Sammy's got to stay after school for a week," said Tess, sympathetically, producing a much smudged and wrinkled sheet of composition paper.

"Do come and see the box!" wailed Dot.

Tess went with her smaller sister then, leaving Ruth to read aloud for the delight of the rest of the family Sammy Pinkney's composition on

"THE DUCK

"The duck is a low heavyset bird he is a mighty poor singer having a coarse voice like crows only worse caused by getting to many frogs in his neck. He is parshal to water and aks like hed swallowed a toy balloon that keeps him from sinking the best he can do is to sink his head straight down but his tail fethers is always above water. Duks has only two legs and they is set so far back on his running gears by Nachur that they come pretty near missin' his body altogether. Some ducks when they get big curls on their tails is called drakes and don't have to set or hatch but just loaf and go swimming and eat ev'rything in sight so if I had to be a duck I'd ruther be a drake. There toes are set close together the web skin puts them in a poor way of scratching but they have a wide bill for a spade and they walk like they was tipsy. They bounce and bump from side to side and if you scare them they flap there wings and try to make a pass at singing which is pore work. That is all about ducks."

"Do you suppose," cried Agnes in wonder, "that that boy doesn't know any better than that composition sounds?"

"Evidently Miss Pepperill thinks he does," laughed Ruth. "But it is funny. I wonder what will happen to Sammy Pinkney when he grows up?"

"The question is, what will happen to him before he grows up," chuckled Neale. "That kid is a public nuisance. I don't know but that the dog-catchers will get him yet."

Meanwhile the two little girls had secured the paper box and opened it. Their squeals drew all the others to the sitting room. Inside the neatly wrapped box was a round object in silver and gold foil, and when this was carefully unwound, a big, splendid golden pippin lay on the table.

"Why!" cried Dot, "it's one of our own apples."

"It is surely off our pippin tree," agreed Agnes.

"Who could have sent it?" Tess surmised. "And Dr. Forsyth brought it."

"Bringing coals to Newcastle," chuckled Neale.

But when Tess took up the apple, it broke in half. It had been cunningly cut through and through, and then the core scooped out, and the halves of the apple fastened together again.

"Oo-ee!" squealed Dot again.

For in the core of the apple was a wad of paper, and Tess spread this out on the table. It was a note and the reading of it delighted the two smaller girls immensely:

"My dear Lesser Half of the Corner House Quartette," it began. "Your kindness in sending me the nice bag of apples has not been overlooked. I wanted to come and see you, and thank you in person; but my duties at present will not allow me to do so. We are short-handed here at the Women's and Children's Hospital and I can not spare the time for even an afternoon call.

"I would, however, dearly love to have you little girls, Theresa and Dorothy, both come to call on me, and take tea, some afternoon—the time to be set by your elder sister, Miss Ruth. Ask her to write to me when you may come—on your way home from school, if you like.

"Hoping I shall have the pleasure of entertaining you soon, I am,

"Your loving and sincere friend,

Marion Eland."

"I think that is just too sweet for anything of her," sighed Tess, ecstatically. "To call and take tea with her! Won't that be fine, Dot?"

"Fine!" echoed Dot. She bit tentatively into her half of the apple which had contained the invitation. "This—this apple isn't hurt a mite, Tess," she added and immediately proceeded to eat it.

CHAPTER VIII

LYCURGUS BILLET'S EAGLE BAIT

Not that Ruth had anything against the white-haired boy. In spite of the fact that Neale was brought up in a circus—his uncle was Mr. Bill Sorber of Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie—he was quite the nicest boy the Corner House girls knew. But Ruth did not approve of boys at all; and she thought Agnes rude and slangy enough at times without having her so much in the company of a real boy like Neale.

She suggested a drive into the country for this late September Saturday, chestnuts being their main object, there having been a sharp frost. Of course Neale had to arrange for the hiring of the livery team, and the stableman refused to let them have a spirited span of horses unless Neale drove.

"Well, get an automobile then!" exclaimed Agnes. "It's only three dollars an hour, with a man to drive, at Acton's garage. Goodness knows I'm just crazy to ride in an auto—one of those big, beautiful seven-passenger touring cars. I wish we could have one, Ruthie!"

"I wish we could," said Ruth, for she, too, was automobile hungry like the rest of the world.

"Do! do! ask Mr. Howbridge," begged Agnes.

"Not for the world," returned Ruth, decidedly. "He'd think we were crazy, indeed. There is money enough to educate us, and clothe and feed us; but I do not believe that Uncle Peter's estate will stand the drain of automobiles—no indeed!"

"Well," sighed Agnes. "We're lucky to have Neale about. You know very well if it were not for him the livery man would give us a pair of dead-and-alive old things. Mr. Skinner knows Neale is to be trusted with any horse in his stable."

This was true enough; but it added Neale O'Neil to the party. When they were about to depart from the old Corner House there was another unexpected member added to the company.

Tess and Dot were squeezed in beside Neale on the front seat. Ruth and Agnes occupied the back of the carriage with wraps and boxes and baskets of eatables. This was to be an all day outing with a picnic dinner in the chestnut woods.

"All aboard?" queried Neale, flourishing the whip. "Got everything? Haven't left anything good to eat behind, have you?"

"Oh, you boys!" groaned Ruth. "Always thinking of your stomachs."

"Well! why were stomachs put in front of us, if not to be thought of and considered?" Neale demanded. "If not, they might as well have been stuck on behind like a knapsack, or like our shoulder-blades.

"I say, Mrs. MacCall," proceeded the irrepressible boy. "Plenty of baked beans and fishcakes for supper to-night. I see very plainly that these girls have brought very little to eat along of a solid character. I shall be hungry when we get back."

At that moment Tess cried: "Oh, poor Tom Jonah!" And Dot echoed her: "Poor Tom Jonah!"

"Look how eager he is!" cried Agnes.

The big dog stood at the gate. Old as he was, the idea of an outing pleased him immensely. He was always delighted to go picnicking with the Corner House girls; but as the legend on his collar proclaimed, Tom Jonah was a gentleman, and nobody had invited him to go on this occasion.

"Oh, Ruth! let him come!" cried the three younger girls in chorus.

"Why not?" added Agnes.

"Well, I don't know," said Ruth.

"It will be a long march for him," said Neale, doubtfully. "He'll get left behind. The horses are fast."

"Well, you are the one to see that he isn't left behind, Neale O'Neil," asserted Ruth.

"All right," said the boy, meekly, but winking at Uncle Rufus and Mrs. MacCall. Neale had wanted the old dog to go all the time, and his remark had turned the scale in Tom Jonah's favor.

"Come, boy! you can go, too," Ruth announced as the horses started.

Tom Jonah uttered a joyful bark, circled the carriage and pair two or three times in the exuberance of his delight, and then settled down to a steady pace under the rear axle. Neale saw to it that the lively ponies did not travel too fast for the old dog.

The carriage rattled across Main Street and out High Street. The town was soon left behind, Neale following the automobile road along which ran the interurban electric tracks to Fleeting and beyond.

"Oh, yes!" said Agnes, gloomily. "I know this is the way to Fleeting, Neale O'Neil. Wish I'd never been there."

"Has Mr. Marks ever said anything further to you girls about Bob Buckham's strawberries?" asked her boy friend.

"No. But you see, we haven't played any more outside games, either. And I know they'll give The Carnation Countess this winter and we won't any of us be allowed to play in it."

"I'm going to be a bee," announced Dot, seriously, "if they have the play. I'll have wings and a buzzer."

"A buzzer?" demanded Tess. "What's that?"

"Well, bees buzz, don't they? If they make bees out of us, as teacher says they will, we'll have to buzz, won't we? We're learning a buzzing song now."

"Goodness! and you'll be provided with a stinger, too, I suppose!" exclaimed Agnes.

"Oh! we shall be tame bees," Dot said. "Not at all wild. The song says so.