The Corner House Girls' Odd Find / Where they made it, and What the Strange Discovery led to

Then came the girls’ stockings in one-two-three-four order, like a graduated course of bamboo “bells.” Then followed one of Neale’s golf stockings, which he had brought because it held more than a sock, with Linda’s coarse red woollen hose and Uncle Rufus’ huge gray yarn sock at the end.

It was great fun to fill the hose and to tie the wonderfully curious packages on the tree and heap them underneath it. Neale was to get all his presents at the Corner House; so that added to the confusion. There was a special corner in the sitting room where Neale’s gifts had been hidden; and there he was supposed not to look.

Then Agnes had to go into the kitchen while her presents were being unearthed and properly hung. Last of all, Ruth retired, leaving Agnes and Neale to hang those gifts which the Good Saint had brought the eldest sister. Ruth was tired, for she had worked hard; so she went to sleep and had no idea how long her sister sat up, when Neale went home, or at what hour Mrs. MacCall locked the house and went up to bed.

Agnes and Neale had something besides the hanging of Ruth’s presents to interest them. The former found the big, old family album hidden behind the sewing machine in the sitting room. She sat down with Neale to look it over.

CHAPTER VI—TREASURE TROVE

“Goodness! you repeat like a parrot,” snapped Neale.

“And you’re as polite as a—a pirate,” declared Agnes.

“Well, did you ever see anything like this?”

“No. And of course, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. You know very well, Neale, that people don’t leave money around—loose—like this!”

“This isn’t money; it only calls for money,” said the boy.

“I guess it never called very loud for it,” giggled Agnes.

“Must be stage money, then,” laughed Neale. “Hi! here’s more of it.”

He had turned a leaf. There was another of the broad, important looking documents pasted in the old book.

“And good for another thousand dollars!” gasped Agnes.

“Phony—phony,” chuckled Neale, meaning that the certificates were counterfeit.

“But just see how good they look,” Agnes said wistfully.

“And dated more than sixty years ago!” cried Neale. “There were green-goods men in those days, eh? Hello! here’s another.”

“Why, we’re millionaires, Neale,” Agnes declared. “Oh! if it were only real we’d have an automobile.”

“This is treasure trove, sure enough,” her boy chum said.

“What’s that?”

“Whatever you find that seems to belong to nobody. I suppose this has been in the garret for ages. Hard for anybody to prove property now.”

“But it’s not real!”

“Yes—I know. But, if it were—?”

“Oh! if it were!” repeated the girl.

“Wouldn’t that be bully?” agreed the boy. But he was puzzling over the mortgage bonds of a railroad which, if it had ever been built at all, was probably now long since in a receiver’s hands, and the bonds declared valueless.

“And all for a thousand apiece,” Neale muttered, turning the pages of the book and finding more of the documents. “Cracky, Aggie, there’s a slew of them.”

“But shouldn’t they be made out to somebody? Oughtn’t somebody’s name to be on them?” asked Agnes, thoughtfully.

“No, guess not. These must be unregistered bonds. I expect somebody once thought he was awfully rich with all this paper. It totes up quite a fortune, Aggie.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Agnes. “I guess it’s true, Neale: The more you have the more you want. When we were so poor in Bloomingsburg it seemed as though if we had a dollar over at the end of the month, we were rich. Now that we have plenty—all we really need, I s’pose—I wish we were a little bit richer, so that we could have an auto, Neale.”

“Uh-huh!” said Neale, still feasting his eyes on the engraved bonds. “Cracky, Aggie! there’s fifty of ’em.”

“Goodness! Fifty thousand dollars?”

“All in your eye!” grinned Neale. “What do you suppose they ever pasted them into a scrap-book for?”

“That’s just it!” cried Agnes.

“What’s just it?”

“A scrap-book. I didn’t think of it before. They made this old album into a scrap-book.”

“Who did?” demanded the boy, curiously.

“Somebody. Children, maybe. Maybe Aunt Sarah Maltby might tell us something about it. And it will be nice for Tess and Dot to play with.”

“Huh!” grunted Neale.

“Of course that’s it,” added the girl, with more assurance. “It’s a scrap-book—like a postcard album.”

“Huh!” grunted Neale again, still doubtful.

“When Mrs. MacCall was a little girl, she says it was the fad to save advertising cards. She had a big book full.”

“Well—mebbe that’s it,” Neale said grudgingly. “Let’s see what else there is in the old thing.”

He began to flirt the pages toward the back of the book. “Why!” he exclaimed. “Here’s some real stage money. See here!”

“Oh! oh!”

“Doesn’t it look good?” said Neale, slowly.

“Just as though it had just come from the bank. What is it—Confederate money, Neale? Eva Larry has a big collection of Confederate bills. Her grandfather brought it home after the Civil War.”

“Oh! these aren’t Confederate States bills—they’re United States bills. Don’t you see?” cried Neale.

“Oh, Neale!”

“But you can bet they are counterfeit. Of course they are!”

“Oh, dear!”

“Silly! Good money wouldn’t be allowed to lie in a garret the way this was. Somebody’d have found it long ago. Your Uncle Peter, or Unc’ Rufus—or somebody. What is puzzling me is why it was put in a scrap-book.”

“Oh! they’re only pasted in at the corners. There’s one all loose. For ten dollars, Neale!”

“Well, you go out and try to spend it, Aggie,” chuckled her boy chum. “You’d get arrested and Ruth would have to bail you out.”

“It’s just awful,” Agnes declared, “for folks to make such things to fool other folks.”

“It’s a crime. I don’t know but you can be punished for having the stuff in your possession.”

“Goodness me! Then let’s put it in the stove.”

“Hold on! Let’s count it, first,” proposed Neale, laughing.

Neale was turning the leaves carefully and counting. Past the tens, the pages were filled with twenty dollar bills. Then came several pages of fifties. Then hundred dollar notes. In one case—which brought a cry of amazement to Agnes’ lips—a thousand dollar bill faced them from the middle of a page.

“Oh! goodness to gracious, Neale!” cried the Corner House girl. “What does it mean?”

Neale, with the stub of a pencil, was figuring up the “treasure” on the margin of a page.

“My cracky! look here, Aggie,” he cried, as he set down the last figure of the sum. “That’s what it is!”

The sum was indeed a fortune. The boy and girl looked at each other, all but speechless. If this were only good money!

“And it’s only good for the children to play with,” wailed Agnes.

Neale’s face grew very red and his eyes flashed. He closed the book fiercely. “If I had so much money,” he gasped, “I’d never have to take a cent from Uncle Bill Sorber again as long as I lived, I could pay for my own education—and go to college, too!”

“Oh! Neale! couldn’t you? And if it were mine we’d have an auto,” repeated Agnes, “and a man to run it.”

“Pooh! I could learn to run it for you,” proposed Neale. But it was plain by the look on his face that he was not thinking of automobiles.

“Say! don’t let’s give it to the kids to play with—not yet,” he added.

“Why not?”

“I—I don’t know,” the boy said frankly. “But don’t do it. Let me take the book.”

“Oh, Neale! you wouldn’t try to pass the money?” gasped Agnes.

“Huh! think I’m a chump?” demanded the boy. “I want to study over it. Maybe I’ll show the bonds to somebody. Who knows—they may still be of some small value.”

“We—ell—of course, the money—”

“That’s phony—sure!” cried Neale, hastily. “But bonds sometimes are worth a little, even when they are as old as these.”

“No-o,” sighed Agnes, shaking her head. “No such good luck.”

“But you don’t mind if I take the book?” Neale urged.

“No. But do take care of it.”

So Neale took the old scrap-book home under his arm, neither he nor Agnes suspecting what trouble and worriment would arise from this simple act.

CHAPTER VII—“GOD REST YE, MERRIE GENTLEMEN”

“Merry Christmas, Tom Jonah!” shouted Dot, skipping over to the chimney-place. Then she squealed: “Oh-ee! He did come, Tess! Santa Claus has been here!”

“Well,” sighed Tess, thankfully, “it’s lucky Tom Jonah didn’t bite him.”

Dot hurried to move a chair up to the hearth, and climbed upon it to reach her stocking. The tree was in the shadow now, and the children did not note the packages tied to its branches.

Dot unhooked her own and her sister’s stockings and then jumped down, a bulky and “knobby” hose under each arm.

“Come on back to bed and see what’s in them,” proposed Tess.

“No!” gasped Dot. “I can’t wait—I really can’t, Tess. I just feel as though I should faint.”

She dropped right down on the floor, holding her own stocking clasped close to her breast. There her gaze fell upon a shiny, smart-looking go-cart, just big enough for her Alice-doll, that had been standing on the hearth underneath the place where her stocking had hung.

“Oh! oh! OH!” shrieked Dot. “I know I shall faint.”

Tess was finding her own treasures; but Tess could never enjoy anything selfishly. She must share her joy with somebody.

“Oh, Dot! Let’s show the others what we’ve got. And Ruthie and Aggie ought to be down, too,” she urged.

“Let’s take our stockings upstairs and show ’em,” Dot agreed.

She piled her toys, helter skelter, into the doll wagon. “My Alice-doll must see this carriage,” she murmured, and started for the door. Tess followed with her things gathered into the lap of her robe. Tom Jonah paced solemnly after them, and so the procession mounted the front stairs—Dot having some difficulty with the carriage.

Ruth heard them coming and called out “Merry Christmas!” to them; but Agnes was hard to awaken, for she had been up late. The chattering and laughter finally aroused the beauty, and she sat up in bed, yawning to the full capacity of her “red, red cavern with its fringe of white pearls all around.”

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” they all shouted at her.

“Oh—dear—me! Merry Christmas!” returned Agnes. “But why be so noisy about it?”

“Come over here, Miss Lazybones,” cried Ruth, “and see what Santa Claus has brought the children.”

“What’s that?” demanded Agnes, as she hopped out of bed. “Who’s going down the back stairs?”

“Linda,” said Ruth. “Can’t you tell those clod-hopper shoes she wears? I wonder if everybody in Finland wears such footgear?”

“Maybe she’s going to look at her stocking,” Tess said. “I hope she likes the handkerchiefs I monogrammed for her.”

But before long the pungent smell of freshly ground coffee came up the back stairway and assured the girls that the serving maid was at work.

“Why so ear—ear—ear-ly?” yawned Agnes, again. “Why! it’s still pitch-dark.”

Uncle Rufus was usually the first astir in the Corner House and Linda was not noted for early rising. But now the girls heard the stairs creak again—this time under Mrs. MacCall’s firm tread.

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Mac!” they all shouted.

The smiling Scotchwoman came to the door with her bedroom candle in her hand.

“Indeed, I hope ’twill be a merry ain for my fower sweethearts,” she said. “Your Mrs. Mac must have a kiss from ever’ ain o’ ye,” and she proceeded to take toll from the quartette.

“Ye make ma heart glad juist wi’ the looks o’ ye,” she added. “And there’s many and many a lonely heart beside mine ma Corner House bairns have made to rejoice. I thank God for ye, ma dearies.”

Mrs. MacCall always spoke more broadly when she was moved by sentiment. She wiped her glasses now and prepared to descend to the kitchen when suddenly a chorus of voices broke out below the bedroom windows, in the side yard toward Willow Street.

“Hech, now! what have we here?” cried the housekeeper, going smartly to the window and throwing up the shade and then the sash. The sound poured in—a full chorus of fresh young voices singing a Christmas carol.

“Cover yersel’s, ma dearies,” advised Mrs. MacCall, “and leesten.”

“Oh, oh!” whispered Agnes, fairly hugging herself as she sat upon the bed with her feet drawn up. “It’s just as though we lived in a castle—and had a moat and drawbridge and fiefs—”

“Oh,” interposed Dot. “That’s Mr. Joe Maroni strumming his guitar. I’ve heard him before.”

“Why!” gasped Ruth. “It’s the children from Meadow Street.”

She ran to the window to peer out. It was a very cold morning, and there was only a narrow band of crimson, pink, and saffron light along the eastern horizon.

She could easily distinguish the sturdy Italian with his guitar which he touched so lightly in accord with the children’s voices. There were fully a dozen of the little singers—German and Italian, Jew and Gentile—singing the praise of Christ our Lord in an old Christmas carol.

A bulky figure in the background puzzled Ruth at first; but when a hoarse voice commanded: “Now sing de Christ-childt song—coom! Ein—zwei—drei!” she recognized Mrs. Kranz, the proprietor of the delicatessen store.

The lustily caroling children were some of the Maronis, Sadie Goronofski and her half-brothers and sisters, and other children of the tenants in the Meadow Street property from which the Corner House girls collected rents.

“Oh, my!” murmured Agnes again. “Isn’t it great? We ought to throw them largesse—”

“What’s that, Aggie?” demanded Dot. “It—it sounds like a kind of cheese. Mr. Maroni sells it.”

“No, no!” gasped Tess. “That’s gorgonzola—I asked Maria. And—it—smells!”

“Goosey!” laughed Agnes. “Largesse is money. Rich folks used to throw it to the poor.”

“My!” observed Dot. “I guess they don’t do it now. Poor folks have to work for money.”

“It’s just dear of them to come and serenade us,” Ruth declared. “But it’s so cold! Do call them in to get warm, Mrs. Mac.”

Already the housekeeper was scurrying downstairs. She had routed out Linda early to make coffee against this very emergency, for Mrs. MacCall had known that the Corner House girls were to be serenaded on Christmas morning.

The four sisters dressed hastily and ran down to greet their little friends from Meadow Street, as well as Mrs. Kranz and Joe Maroni. The latter had brought “the leetla padrona,” as he called Ruth, his usual offering of a basket of fruit. Mrs. Kranz kissed the Kenway girls all around, declaring:

“Posies growing de garten in iss nodt so sveet like you kinder. Merry, merry Christmas!”

While the carol singers drank cups of hot coffee the Corner House girls brought forth the presents they had intended to send over to Meadow Street later in the day, but now could give in person to each child.

The choristers went away with merry shouts just at sunrise, and then Dot and Tess insisted that the family should troop into the dining room to take down the rest of the stockings.

Breakfast this morning was a “movable feast” and lasted till nine o’clock. Nobody expected to eat any luncheon; indeed, Mrs. MacCall declared she could not take the time to prepare any.

“You bairns must tak’ a ‘bit in your fistie,’ as we used to say, and be patient till dinner time,” she said.

Dinner was to be early. Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill came in the doctor’s automobile soon after noon, and Tess and Dot were at once engaged in entertaining these guests in the sitting room.

It was a real blessing to the little Corner House girls, for it kept them out of the dining room, where they could not keep their eyes off the heavily laden tree, the fruit of which must not be touched until after dinner.

Neale O’Neil had, of course, come over for his stocking and had expressed his gratitude to his friends at the old Corner House. But, as Ruth had been glum the day before, so Neale was silent now. Agnes became quite angry with him and sent him home in the middle of the forenoon.

“And you needn’t come to dinner, sir—nor afterward—if you can’t have a Christmas smile upon your face,” she told him, severely.

It was while the preparations for dinner were in full progress, that Ruth heard voices on the side porch. Rather, a voice, resonant and commanding which said:

“Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye! I proclaim good tidings to all creatures. Come! gather around me and list to my word. I bear gifts, frankincense and myrrh—”

“Goodness me!” cried Agnes. “That’s Seneca Sprague. And look at the cats!”

The girls ran out upon the porch to see a tall, thin, gray-haired man, his abundant hair sweeping his shoulders, dressed in a flapping linen duster and with list slippers on his feet—a queer enough costume indeed for a sharp winter’s day. But Seneca Sprague was never more warmly clad than this, and had been known to plod barefooted through snowdrifts.

“Your humble servant, Miss Ruth,” said the queer old man, doffing the straw hat and bowing low, for he held the oldest Corner House girl in much deference. “I came to bring you good cheer and wish you a multitude of blessings. Verily, verily, I say unto you, they that give of their substance to the poor shall receive again a thousand fold. May your cup of joy be full to overflowing, Miss Ruth.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sprague,” replied the girl, gravely, for she made it a rule never to laugh at the “prophet,” as he was called, and who people said was demented upon religious subjects.

“Thank you for your good wishes,” said Ruth. “And what have you brought the cats?”

For Sandyface and all her progeny had come to meet the prophet and were purring about him and otherwise showing much pleasure. Even Almira had left her young family in the woodshed to come to meet Mr. Seneca Sprague.

From a side pocket of his duster Seneca brought forth a packet. He broke off a little of the pressed herb in the packet and sprinkled it on the stoop. The cats fairly scrambled over each other for a chance to eat some of the catnip, or to roll in it.

They did not quarrel over it. Indeed, the intoxicating qualities of their favorite herb gave the cats quite a Christmas spirit.

Mrs. MacCall brought a shallow pan of milk and some more of the herb was sprinkled in it by the old prophet. The kittens—Starboard, Port, Hard-a-lee and Mainsheet—lapped this up eagerly.

“It’s very kind of you to bring the catnip, Mr. Sprague,” Ruth said. “Won’t you come in and taste Agnes’ Christmas cake? She is getting to be a famous cake baker.”

“With pleasure,” said the queer old man.

After Seneca Sprague’s old hut on the river dock was burned at Thanksgiving, and the Corner House girls had found him a room in one of their tenements to live in, he had become a frequent visitor at the old Corner House. Ruth would have ushered him into the sitting room where Mrs. Eland and her sister were; but Seneca shrank from that.

“I am not a society man—nay, verily,” quoth the prophet. “The sex does not interest me.”

“But it is only Mrs. Eland and her sister, who are our guests to-day for dinner,” Ruth said, as she led him into the dining room, while Agnes sped to get the cake.

“Ha! Those Aden girls,” said Seneca, referring to the hospital matron and the red-haired school teacher by their family name. “I remember Lemuel Aden well—their uncle. A hard man was Lemuel—a hard man.”

“I believe he must have been a very wicked man,” declared Agnes, coming back with a generous slice of cake, and overhearing this. “See how he let people think that his brother was dishonest, while he pocketed money belonging to the clients of Mrs. Eland’s father. Oh! we know all about it.”

“Ah!” said Seneca again, tasting the cake. “Very delicious. I know that you put none of the fat of the accursed swine in your cake as some of these women around here do.”

“Lard, he means,” whispered Ruth, for Seneca followed the rabbinical laws of the Jews and ate no pork.

“Lemuel Aden was a miser,” the prophet announced. “He was worse than your uncle, Peter Stower,” he added bluntly. “All three of us went to school together. They were much older than I, of course; but I came here to the Corner House to see Peter at times. And I was here when Lem Aden came last.”

“We know about that, too,” Agnes said, with some eagerness. “Did—did Uncle Peter really turn him out, and did he wander over into Quoharie Township, and die there in the poorhouse?”

Seneca was silent for a minute, nibbling at the cake thoughtfully. “It comes upon my mind,” he said at last, “that Peter Stower was greatly maligned about that matter. Peter was a hard man, but he had soft spots in him. He was a great sinner, in that he ate much meat—which is verily against the commandment. For I say unto you—”

“But how about Mr. Lemuel Aden and Uncle Peter?” interrupted Ruth, gently; for the old prophet was likely to switch off on some foreign topic if not shrewdly guided in his speech.

“Ah! Lemuel Aden came back here to Milton when he was an old man. Not so old in years, perhaps; but old in wickedness, and aged beyond his years by his own miserliness. We had heard he was rich, but he declared he had nothing—had lost everything in speculation; and he said all he possessed was in the old carpetbag he brought.

“Peter Stower took him in,” Seneca continued. “But Lemuel was a dirty old man and made that colored man a lot of trouble. It was thought by everybody that Lemuel Aden had even more wealth than Peter Stower; but nobody ever knew of his spending a penny. Peter said he had money; and so finally turned him out.”

“How long did he stay here at the old Corner House?” asked Ruth.

“Verily he would have remained until his end; but Peter became angry with him and threatened to hand him over to the town authorities. They quarreled harshly—I was here at the time. The colored man must have heard much of the quarrel, too,” Seneca proceeded.

“I went away in the midst of it. Peace dwelleth with me—yea, verily. I am not a man of wrath. Later I learned that Lemuel Aden went away cursing Peter Stower, and he was never more seen again in Milton.”

“But was he poor?” Ruth asked. “Did Uncle Peter turn him out to suffer?”

Seneca Sprague shook his head. “Nay; I would not charge that to Peter Stower’s account,” he said. “It was believed by everybody, as I say, that Lemuel had much money hidden away. Peter Stower said he knew it.”

“Just the same, he died in the Quoharie poorhouse,” Agnes cried, quickly.

“He would have been cared for here in Milton by the authorities had he asked help. Peter Stower and Lemuel Aden were both misers. It was said of them that each had the first dollar he ever earned.”

“Dear me!” Ruth said, as the old prophet concluded. “If Mr. Aden did have money at any time, it is too bad Mrs. Eland can’t find it. She and her sister need it now, if ever they did,” and she sighed, thinking of Dr. Forsyth’s report upon Miss Pepperill’s condition.

CHAPTER VIII—WHERE IS NEALE O’NEIL?

“It wouldn’t be my fortune,” said Miss Pepperill, lying back wearily in her chair. “And I don’t see how I can go back to those awful youngsters after New Year.”

“Sh!” begged Mrs. Eland.

“Oh, my! is our Tess an awful youngster?” asked Dot, bluntly.

“She is a dear!” declared Mrs. Eland, quickly.

“Theresa is an exception,” admitted Miss Pepperill. “But I certainly have some little tikes in my room.”

“Oh, I know,” said Dot. “Like Sammy Pinkney.”

“Sammy’s sick abed,” Tess said, coming into the room in time to hear his name mentioned. “I went over and asked his mother about him. The doctor won’t say what it is yet; but he’s out of his head.”

“Poor Sammy!” said Agnes. “Falling down our chimney yesterday was too much for him. He’s an unfortunate little chap after all.”

“Oh, my!” Dot observed, “if he is sick and dies, he’ll never get to be a pirate, will he?”

“Hear that child!” murmured Miss Pepperill, eyeing Dot as though she were a strange specimen indeed.

“Don’t speak so, Dottie,” admonished Tess. “That would be dreadful!”

“What? Dreadful if he didn’t get to be a pirate?” Agnes asked lightly.

But Tess was serious. “I don’t believe Sammy Pinkney is fit to die,” she declared.

“For pity’s sake!” exclaimed Miss Pepperill. “She talks like her grandmother. I never heard such a child as you are, Theresa. But perhaps you are right about Sammy. He’s one awful trial.”

“But his mother was crying,” said Tess, softly.

Nobody said anything more to the tender-hearted little girl; but Dot brought her the nicest piece of “Christmas” candy in the dish—a long, curly, striped piece, and Agnes hugged her.

Ruth was worried a little about the dinner arrangements. The meal was almost ready to serve, but Neale O’Neil had not come over from Mr. Con Murphy’s, where he lived.

“You were cross with him, Agnes, and he won’t come back,” she said accusingly to the beauty. “And Mrs. MacCall won’t wait.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t disappoint us!” declared Agnes. “He knows we depend on him. Why, half our fun will be spoiled—”

“He evidently isn’t coming to dinner.”

At that moment Uncle Rufus came to announce that all was ready, and he tucked a twist of paper into Agnes’ hand.

“Oh, Ruthie! look here!” the second sister said. “Read this.”

The oldest Corner House girl saw it was the handwriting of their boy friend.

“‘Don’t worry. Santa Claus will appear according to schedule.’ Oh! that is all right, then,” Ruth said. “He’s not coming till after we get through.”

“Well! I think that’s too mean of him,” cried Agnes.

But Ruth was somewhat relieved. They went in to dinner, a quiet, but really happy party.

The old dining room looked lovely, and the lighted tree in the corner was a brilliant spectacle. Ruth’s idea of lighting the room completely by candles proved a good one. The soft glow of the wax-lights over the ancient silver and sparkling cut-glass was attractive.

Mrs. MacCall presided, as always. The girls would not hear to her only directing the dinner from the kitchen. Aunt Sarah Maltby, in her best black silk and ivory lace, seemed to have imbibed a share of the holiday spirit, for once at least. She was quite talkative and gracious at the other end of the table.

Without Neale O’Neil, Ruth found that the table could be much better balanced. Mrs. Eland sat between Tess and Dot on one side of the long board, while Miss Pepperill’s place was between the two older Corner House girls.

Uncle Rufus came in chuckling toward the close of the meal and whispered something to Ruth. Almost immediately she excused Tess and Dot to run up for their dolls. The presents were to be taken off the tree and there might be some for the Alice-doll and Tess’ most treasured doll, too.

When the little folks returned something had disturbed the green boughs in the chimney-place. Dot had only begun to eye that place of mystery with growing curiosity, when there was a shaking of the branches, two mighty thumps upon the brick hearth, and pushing through the greenery came Santa Claus himself.

“Merry Christmas! And the best of iv’rything to ye!” cried the good saint jovially.

“Oh, my!” gasped Dot. “Is—is it the really truly Santa Claus?”

“I don’t believe that Santa is Irish,” whispered Tess. “This is just in fun!” But she could not imagine, any more than did Dot, who it was behind the mask and great paunch that disguised the Santa Claus.

They all hailed him merrily, however. Even Miss Pepperill and Aunt Sarah entered into the play to a degree. Santa Claus went to the tree and they all sat along the opposite side of the cleared table, facing him. With many a quip and jest he brought the packages and presented them to those whose names were written on the wrappers. At one place quite a little pile of presents were gathered, all addressed to Neale O’Neil.

“Oh, dear me!” sighed Tess, almost overcome with joy, yet thinking of the absent one. “If Neale were only here! I do so want to see how he likes his presents.”

But Neale did not come. The two little girls finally tripped up to bed with their arms full. Then the party broke up and the masquerading Santa Claus took off his paunch and false face in the kitchen.

“Shure I promised the lad I’d do it for him,” said Mr. Con Murphy, accepting a piece of Agnes’ cake and sitting down to enjoy it. “No, he’s not mad wid yez. Shure not!”

“But why didn’t he come to dinner?” demanded Agnes, quickly.

“He ain’t here,” said the cobbler, quietly. “He’s gone away.”

“Do you mean he’s gone away from your house?” asked Ruth, curiously, for Agnes was too much surprised to speak.

“Shure, he’s gone away from Milton entirely,” said the little Irishman.

“What for?” demanded both girls together.

“Begorra! he didn’t say, now,” said Mr. Murphy, slowly. “Come to think of ut, he niver told me. But I knowed the letter puzzled him.”

“What letter?” asked Ruth.

“He never told me he got a letter,” cried Agnes, much put out.

“It was there last evening when he got home. The postman brought it jest before supper,” said Mr. Murphy, reflectively. “Ye, see, Neale was over here all the evening and shure, he didn’t see the letter till he come home.”

“Oh!” was the chorused exclamation.

“I see he was troubled in his mind this mornin’,” said the cobbler. “‘What’s atin’ on yer mind, lad?’ says I to him. But niver a wor’rd did he reply to me till afther he’d been over here and come back again. Then he came downstairs with his bist clo’es on and his bag in his hand.”

“For pity’s sake!” wailed Agnes, “where has he gone?”

“He didn’t say,” returned the old Irishman, shaking his head. “Neale can be as tight-mouthed as a clam—so he can.”

“But he did not go off without saying a word to you?” cried Ruth.

“No, not so. He says: ‘Con, I’ve gotter go. ’Tis me duty. I hate mesilf for going; but I’d hate meself worse if I didn’t go.’ Now! kin ye make head nor tail of that? For shure, I can’t,” finished the cobbler.

The two Corner House girls stared at each other. Neither of them could see into this mystery any deeper than did Mr. Con Murphy.

CHAPTER IX—RUTH IS SUSPICIOUS

“No-o. I guess not. I only wanted to be sure,” Ruth said. “Of course you can’t be mistaken, Mr. Crouch?”

“Mistaken? Of course I can,” he cried. “Did you ever hear of a mere human who wasn’t sometimes mistaken?” and he laughed again.

“About that being a good bill, I mean,” she said, trying to laugh with him.

“I’m so sure that I’m willing to exchange good money for it,” he said, with confidence. “I can say no more than that.”

Ruth gravely folded the bill again and tucked it into one compartment of her purse, by itself. She looked very serious all the way home with her laden basket.

While the eldest Corner House girl was absent Tess and Dot had been very busy in their small way. Life was so “full of a number of things” for the two smallest Corner House girls that they were seldom at a loss for something to do.

First of all that morning Tess insisted upon calling at the Pinkneys’ side door to ask after Sammy. She felt it her duty, she said.

When they approached the porch Dot’s quick eyes caught sight of a brilliantly red card, about four inches square, tacked to the post.

“What do you suppose that is, Tess Kenway?” she demanded, stopping short.

“Goodness! what does it say?” responded Tess, puzzled for the moment.

“Why! it looks just like what was tacked on the front door of the Creamers’ house when Mabel’s sisters had quarantine. Don’t you ‘member?” demanded Dot.

“Oh, dear me!” cried Tess. “It’s scarlet fever. Then Sammy’s really got it!”

“Is—is it catching?” asked Dot, backing away and hugging tighter her Alice-doll, which she had snatched out of the carriage.

“I—guess—so,” said Tess. “Oh, poor Sammy!”

“Do you ‘spect he’ll die?” asked Dot, in awed tone.

“Oh, goodness me! I don’t know!” exclaimed Tess.

“And won’t he ever grow up to be a pirate?” queried Dot, for to the mind of the smallest Corner House girl romance gilded Sammy Pinkney’s proposed career.

“Scarlet fever’s dreadful bad. And we mustn’t go in,” Tess said.

“I’m sorry for Sammy,” observed Dot. “I think he’s a terrible int’resting boy.”

“You shouldn’t be interested in the boys,” declared prudish Tess.

“Huh! you wanted to come here to see how he was,” responded the smallest Corner House girl, shrewdly.

“But I don’t think of him as a boy. I’m just sorry for him ’cause he’s a human being,” declared Tess, loftily.

“Oh!”

“I’d be sorry for anybody who had scarlet fever.”

“Well,” Dot said, rather weary of the subject, “let’s go over to see Mabel Creamer. Now we’re out with our doll carriages, we ought to call somewhere.”

Tess agreed to this and the little girls wheeled their baby carriages around the corner to their next door neighbor’s, on the other side of the old Corner House.

The Creamer cottage seemed wonderfully quiet and deserted in appearance as they went in at the gate and pushed their doll carriages up to the side porch.

“Do you s’pose they’re all away?” worried Tess.

“Maybe they’ve got the scarlet fever, too,” murmured Dot, in awe.

But just then a figure appeared at the sitting room window which, on spying the Corner House girls, began to jump up and down and make urgent gestures for them to come in.

“It’s Mabel,” said Tess. “And she must be all alone.”

“Oh, goody! then her sisters can’t boss us,” cried Dot, hurrying to drag her Alice-doll’s new go-cart up the steps.

Mabel, the Creamer girl nearest the little Kenways’ own ages, ran to open the door.

“Oh, hurrah!” she cried. “Come in, do! Tess and Dot Kenway. I’m so lonesome I could kill flies! Dear me! how glad I am to see you,” and she hugged them both and then danced around them again.

“Are you all alone, Mabel?” asked Dot, struggling with her hood and coat in the warm hall.

“Well, Minnie” (that was the maid’s name) “has just run down to the store. She won’t be gone long. But I might as well be all alone. Mother’s gone to Aunt Em’s and Lydia’s taken Peg to have a tooth pulled.”

“But the baby?” asked Tess. “Didn’t I just hear him?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mabel, scowling. “I’ve got to mind the baby. I told Lydia I’d go have a tooth pulled and Peg could mind him. I’d rather.”

“Oh!” cried Dot, in awe, while Tess marched straight into the sitting room to see if the Creamers’ youngest was all right.

“You don’t deserve to have a baby brother, Mabel Creamer,” Tess said severely.

“Oh, I wish we could have one!” Dot said longingly.

“Say! you can have this one for all I care,” declared Mabel. “You don’t know what a nuisance babies are. Everybody else can go out but me. I’ve got to stay and mind the baby. Nasty thing!”

“Oh, Mabel!” said Tess, sorrowfully—for Tess had no objection to boys as small as Bubby Creamer. The baby laughed, and crowed, and stretched out his arms to her. “Isn’t he the cunning little thing, Dot?” cooed Tess.

“He’s the nicest baby I ever saw,” agreed the smallest Corner House girl.

“Oh, yes,” growled Mabel, who had been the baby in the family herself for a long time before Bubby came. “Oh, yes, he’s so cunning! Look at him now—trying to get his foot in his mouth. If I bite my fingernails mother raps me good; but that kid can swallow his whole foot and they think he’s cute!”

“Oh, Mabel! does he really swallow his foot?” gasped Dot. “I should think it would choke him.”

“Wish it would!” declared the savage sister of the cooing Bubby Creamer. “Then I could get out and play once in a while. Lydia and Peg put it on me, anyway. They get the best of everything.”

“Oh, let’s play right here,” suggested Tess, interrupting this ill-natured tirade. “You get your new doll, Mabel.”

“No. If I do he’ll want it. See! he’s trying to grab your Alice-doll right now, Dot Kenway.”

“Oh! he can’t have her,” Dot gasped, in alarm. “Haven’t you an old dolly you can let him play with, Mabel?”

“He’s got one of his own—a black boy. As black as your Uncle Rufus. I’ll hunt around for it,” said the ungracious Mabel.

Afterward, when the little Kenways were on their way home, after bidding Mabel and Bubby good-bye, Dot confessed to her sister:

“I don’t so much like to go to see Mabel Creamer, after all. She’s always so scoldy.”

“I know,” agreed Tess. “And she’s real inquisitive, too. Did you hear her asking ’bout Neale?”

“I didn’t notice,” Dot said.

“Why, she says they saw Neale O’Neil going through our yard with a heavy traveling bag yesterday morning, and he went out our front gate. She asked where he was going.”

“But you don’t know where Neale has gone,” said Dot, complacently, “so she didn’t find out anything. And I’d like to know where he’s gone, too. There’s all his presents off the Christmas tree; and we can’t see them till he comes back, Ruthie says.”

More than Dot expressed a desire to see Neale at the old Corner House. Agnes had gone about all the morning openly wondering where Neale could have gone, and what he had gone for.

“I think he’s just too mean for anything,” she said to Ruth, querulously, when the older girl came home from market.

“Who is mean?” Ruth returned absently.

“Neale. To go off and never say a word to us. I am offended.”

Had Agnes’ mind not been so strongly set upon the subject of Neale O’Neil’s defection she would surely have noticed how Ruth’s hands trembled and how her face flushed and paled by turns.

“Never mind about Neale O’Neil,” the older sister said, rather impatiently for her.

“Well, I just do mind!” Agnes declared. “He has no business to have secrets from us. Aren’t we his best friends?”

“Perhaps he doesn’t consider us such,” said Ruth, who would have been amused by her sister’s seriousness at another time. “There’s Joe Eldred. Perhaps he knows where Neale has gone.”

“Joe Eldred!” cried Agnes. “If I thought Neale had taken a mere boy into his confidence and hadn’t told me, I’d never speak to him again! At least,” she temporized, knowing her own failing, “I never would forgive him!”

“Never mind worrying about Neale,” Ruth said again. “Come into the sitting room. I want to show you something.”

Agnes followed her rather grumpily. To her mind there was nothing just then so important as Neale O’Neil’s absence and the mystery thereof.

Ruth turned to her when the door was closed and started to open her purse and her lips at the same time. Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks were deeply flushed. She looked just as eager and excited as ever quiet, composed Ruth Kenway could look.

“Oh, Aggie!” she quavered.

“Well!” said Agnes, querulously. “I don’t care. He—”

“Never mind Neale O’Neil!” cried Ruth, for a third time, and quite exasperated with her sister.

She closed her purse again and ran across the room. She looked behind the machine. Then she pulled the machine away from the wall so that she could get down on her knees and creep behind it.

“What’s the matter with you, Ruthie?” asked Agnes, finally awakening to her sister’s strange behavior. “What are you looking for?”

“Where—where is it? Where has it gone?” gasped Ruth, still on hands and knees.

“What are you after, Ruth Kenway?” cried Agnes again. “Oh! are you looking for that old scrap-book I found upstairs in the garret?”

“Yes,” answered Ruth, quaveringly.

“Why? Did you see what was in it?” demanded her sister.

“Yes,” Ruth said again.

“Wasn’t it funny? All that counterfeit money and those old bonds. Neale and I looked at it Christmas Eve.”

“Neale?” gasped Ruth, getting upon her feet, but sitting down in a chair quickly as though her knees were too weak to bear her up.

“Oh, dear me!” rattled on Agnes. “Wouldn’t it have been great if the money and bonds were good? Why! it would have been a fortune. Neale added it all up.”

“But what became of the book?” Ruth finally got a chance to ask again.

“Oh! Neale took it.”

“Neale took it?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“Why, I don’t know. He was curious. He said maybe the bonds were worth something and he’d find out. Of course, that is silly,” said Agnes, lightly, “and I told him so.”

“And didn’t he bring all that money back?” gasped Ruth.

“‘All that money,’” repeated Agnes, with laughter. “How tragic you sound—just as though it were not stage money. And I wish it were not!”

“He—he didn’t return the book?” asked Ruth, controlling herself with difficulty.

“Not yet. He went away so suddenly. Mean thing! I’d just like to know where he’s gone.”

Agnes was quite unaware of her sister’s trouble. Her own mind reverted to Neale’s strange absence as of more importance. Ruth began to be troubled by that same query, too. Where was Neale O’Neil? And what had he done with the old album found in the Corner House garret?

The ten dollar bill Ruth had had examined at the bank that morning was one she had taken out of the old volume!

CHAPTER X—WHAT MR. CON MURPHY DID NOT KNOW

“Mrs. MacCall,” she asked, “what is a epidermis? Dr. Forsyth doesn’t want one.”

“Well, that’s ‘no skin off your nose,’ Dot,” said Agnes, giggling at her own fun.

“If the doctor had no epidermis he’d be a rare lookin’ object,” said the housekeeper, “for that’s his skin, just as your sister says.”

“He said ‘epidemic,’” Tess declared, with disgust. “Dot! you do make the greatest mistakes.”

“Well, has Sammy got that too?” cried Dot, horrified by the possibility of such a complication of diseases. “Has he got scarlet fever, and quarantine, and ep—epic—well, that other thing, too?”

Ruth came through the kitchen dressed to go out. Her face was very grave and her eyes suspiciously red; but she pulled her veil down over her face and so hid the traces of her emotion from the family.

“Where are you going, Ruthie?” asked Dot, eagerly.

“Sister’s going out on an errand,” replied Ruth.

“Oh! let me go?” cried the smallest Corner House girl.

“Not this time,” said Ruth, quietly. “I can’t take you to-day, Dot.”

Dot began to pout. “Oh, come along, Dot,” said Tess, who never could bear to see her little sister with a frown. “Let us go upstairs and dress all the dolls in their best clothes, and have a party.”

“No,” said Dot. “I can’t. Muriel has spoiled her party dress. She spilled tea on it, you know. Bonnie-Betty’s broken her arm and it’s in splints. And you know Ann Eliza and Eliza Ann, the twins, are all spotted up, and I don’t know yet whether it’s measles or smallpox.”

“For goodness’ sake!” gasped Mrs. MacCall. “If they need a quarantine anywhere I should think ’twould be in that nursery.”

Ruth went out, leaving them all laughing at Dorothy. She was in no mood for laughter herself. Since she and her sisters had come to live at the old Corner House, Ruth had never felt more troubled.

She said nothing further to Agnes either about the absence of Neale O’Neil, or the disappearance of the old album. The next to the oldest Corner House girl had noted nothing strange in Ruth’s manner or speech. Agnes Kenway was not very observant.

Ruth went out the side gate and along Willow Street. Beyond Mrs. Adam’s little cottage there was a narrow lane called Willow Wythe, which ran back, in a sort of L-shaped passage to the rear street on which Mr. Con Murphy had his tiny house and shop.

Neale always came to the Corner House by a ‘short cut’—over the fence into the back premises from Mr. Murphy’s yard; and Agnes had been known to come and go by the same route. It was several minutes’ walk by way of Willow Street and Willow Wythe to the door of the cobbler’s little shop.

Neale O’Neil had lived here with Mr. Murphy, occupying an upstairs room, almost ever since he had come to Milton to go to school. Mr. Murphy’s pig had served as an introduction between Neale and the cobbler. Mr. Murphy always thought a good deal of his pig. Later he thought so much of Neale that he offered to buy the boy’s services from his Uncle Bill Sorber, when that gentleman had tried to take Neale back to the circus.

“Shure,” Mr. Murphy had said, “there’s more to a bye than to a pig, afther all—though there’s much to be said in favor of the pig, by the same token!”

However, either the cobbler’s generosity, or something else, had shamed Mr. Sorber into agreeing to let Neale have his chance for an education; and he was willing to pay the boy’s expenses while he went to school, too. But Neale worked hard to help support himself, for he disliked being a burden on his uncle.

The old cobbler was a queer character, but with a heart of gold. He tapped away all day at the broken footgear of all the neighbors, ever ready for a bit of gossip, yet exuding a kindly philosophy all his own in dealing with neighborhood topics, or human frailties in general.

“There’s so little good in the best of us, and so little bad in the worst of us, that it behooves the most of us to take care how we speak ill of the rest of us,” was the sum and substance of Mr. Con Murphy’s creed.

“Happy the day when yer shadder falls across the threshold, Miss Ruth,” was the Irishman’s greeting as she pushed inward the door of his shop which was in what had been the parlor of the tiny house. “Bless yer swate face! what’s needed?”

“We want to know what’s become of Neale, Mr. Murphy,” said Ruth, sitting down in the customer’s chair.

“Shure, miss, as I told ye, I’d like to l’arn that same meself.”

“You have no idea where he’s gone?”

“Not the laist. He give me no warnin’ that he was thinkin’ of goin’ till he walked downstairs, wid the travelin’ bag in his hand, and bade me good-bye.”

“And he said nothing about where he was going?”

“Not a wor-rd.”

“Nor how long he would stay?”

“Not a wor-rd.”

“Well!” cried Ruth, with some vigor, “it is the strangest thing! How could he act so? And you have been so kind to him!”

“He was troubled in his mind, Miss Ruth. I kin see you are troubled in yours. Kin old Con help ye?” asked the cobbler, shrewdly.

“I don’t know,” Ruth said, all of a flutter. “I am dreadfully anxious about Neale O’Neil’s going away so abruptly.”

“He’s a smart boy for his age. He’ll get into no trouble, I belave.”

“I’m not so much disturbed by that thought,” admitted Ruth. “I am really selfish. I want to see him. Agnes let Neale take something we found in our garret, on Christmas Eve, and—and—well, it’s something valuable, I believe, and I must show it to Mr. Howbridge as soon as possible.”

“Something vallible, is ut?” observed Mr. Murphy, with his head on one side.

“I—I have reason to believe so,” replied Ruth, with hesitation.

“What is it?” was the cobbler’s direct question.

“A—a sort of scrap-book. An old album. A big, heavy book, Mr. Murphy. Oh! it doesn’t seem possible that Neale would have taken it away. Have you seen it anywhere about, sir?”

“He brought it home Christmas Eve, ye say?” was the noncommittal reply.

“That is when Agnes let him have it—yes,” said the girl, earnestly.

“I did not see him when he came home that night. I was abed. I told ye he got a letter. I left it on his bureau when I went to me own bed. Shure, he might have brought in an elephant for all I’d knowed about it afther I got to sleep,” declared the cobbler, shaking his head. “Old Murphy-us himself, him as was the god of sleep, niver slept sounder nor me, Miss Ruth. He must have been the father of all us Murphies, for we were all sound sleepers, praise the pigs!”

“Perhaps the book is in his room,” Ruth said, with final desperation.

“A big book, is ut?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Have you seen it?”

“I have not. But I’ll go up and look for ut this instant,” Mr. Murphy said, rising briskly.

Ruth told him carefully what to look for—as far as the outside of the volume appeared. She devoutly hoped he would not be curious enough to open it.

For no matter who really owned the old album—and to whom its wonderful contents would be finally awarded—the oldest Corner House girl felt herself to be responsible for the safety of the book and its contents. How it came in the garret, why it was hidden there, and who now had the first right to it, she did not know; but Ruth was sure that the odd find was of great value and that it would be a temptation to almost anybody.

Neale might have gone away for an entirely different reason; yet he had the treasure trove in his possession last, and Ruth would not feel relieved until she had recovered it.

In five minutes Con came downstairs again, but without the book.

“I seen nawthin’ of the kind,” he said. “But here’s the envelope of the letter he resaved.”

He handed it to Ruth. The address was written by a hand that certainly was not used to holding a pen. The scarcely decipherable address was to “Mist. Nele O. Sorber.”

“Shure the postman skurce knew whether to bring it here, or no,” Mr. Murphy explained.

“I—I would like to take this,” Ruth said slowly.

“Shure ye may. I brought it down ter ye,” said Mr. Murphy, taking up his hammer once more.

“But where do you suppose he could have put that book of ours?” Ruth asked, faintly.

“Shure, ma’am, I dunno. Would he be takin’ it away wid him to read?”

“Oh, but could he?” gasped Ruth. “It was heavy.”

“So was his bag heavy. I knowed by the way he carried it. And I see it’s few of his clo’es he took, by the same token, for they are all hangin’ in his closet, save the ones he’s got on.”

Ruth’s thoughts fairly terrified her. She got up and was scarcely able to thank Mr. Murphy. She had to get out into the air and recover her self-control.

Neale! The boy whom they had befriended and helped and trusted! Under temptation, Neale had fallen!

For Ruth knew well how the ex-circus boy disliked taking money from his Uncle Bill Sorber, or being beholden to him in any way. Neale worked hard—very hard indeed for a boy of his age—in order to use as little as possible of Mr. Sorber’s money.

Sorber held Neale’s long-lost father in light repute, and could not understand the boy’s desiring an education and wishing to be something besides a circus performer. To the mind of the old circus man it was an honor to be connected with such an aggregation as Twomley & Sorber’s Herculean Circus and Menagerie. And Neale’s father had left the company years before in search of a better fortune.

Ruth’s mind was filled with suspicion regarding Neale now. Knowing his longing for independence, why should she not believe that seeing a chance to obtain a great sum of money with no effort at all he had fallen before the temptation and run away with the old album and its wonderful contents?

Ruth knew there was a fortune in that old and shabby volume which must have lain long in the garret of the old Corner House. If one of the notes was good, why not all the others—and the bonds, too?

She opened her purse and withdrew the folded ten-dollar bill. At the same moment another banknote fell to the ground—another of the same denomination.

“Oh!” she said aloud. “That’s the bill Mr. Howbridge gave me when he went away, saying I might need something extra.”

She picked it up. It was folded exactly like the other one; but it never entered Ruth’s mind that she might have handed Mr. Crouch the wrong bill to examine.

Ruth replaced the banknotes in her purse and walked home with a face still troubled. She could take nobody into her confidence—least of all Agnes—regarding the missing album. It might be, of course, that Neale O’Neil had only hidden away the old book until his return. Possibly it was perfectly safe, and Neale O’Neil might have no more idea that the money was good than had Agnes.

But oh! if Mr. Howbridge were only at home! That was the burden of Ruth’s troubled thought.