CHAPTER XVI
MORE MYSTERIES
Some of Miss Ann Titus' gossip was not unkindly, and some of it amusedRuth and Agnes very much.
Miss Titus had known Aunt Sarah when they were both young girls andwhat she told the Corner House girls about Miss Maltby, who had takenthe name of "Stower" of her own accord, satisfied much of thecuriosity the older Kenway girls felt regarding Aunt Sarah and heraffairs.
"I remember when old Mr. Stower married Mrs. Maltby," said the busyMiss Titus, nodding vigorously as she snipped and talked at the sametime. "The goodness knows, Sally Maltby an' her mother was as poor asJob's turkey--an' they say _he_ was sartain-sure a lean fowl. It wasas great a change in their sarcumstances when they came to the ol'Corner House to live, as though they'd been translated straight to thepearly gates--meanin' no irreverence.
"They was sartain-sure dirt poor. I dunno how Mis' Maltby had theheart to stand up an' face the minister long enough for him to say thewords over 'em, her black bombazeen was that shabby! They had me herewith Ma Britton (I was 'prenticed to Ma Britton in them days) forthree solid months, a-makin' both Mrs. Maltby-that-was, an' Sally, fitto be seen.
"An' how Sally _did_ turn her nose up, to be sure--to-be-sure! Ireckon she must ha' soon got a crick in her neck, holdin' it so stiff.An' to see her an' hear her, you'd ha' thought she owned the ol'Corner House.
"They had sarvints here in them days, an' ol' Mr. Stower--he was stillin practice at the law--had lashin's of company. I won't say but thatMrs. Maltby-that-was, made him a good wife, and sat at the foot of histable, and poured tea out o' that big solid silver urn like she'd beento the manner born. But Sally was as sassy and perky as a nuthatch inflytime.
"We other gals couldn't git along with her no-how. Me bein' here somuch right at the first of it," pursued Miss Titus, "sort o' made mean' Sally intimate, as ye might say, whether we'd ever been so before,or not. After Ma Britton got through her big job here Sally wouldsometimes have to come around to our house--Ma Britton left me thatlittle cottage I live in--I ain't ashamed to tell it--I hadn't anyfolks, an' never had, I reckon. Like _Topsy_, I 'jes' growed.' Well!Sally would come around to see me, and she'd invite me to the oldCorner House here.
"She never invited me here when there was any doin's--no, Ma'am!"exclaimed Miss Titus. "I wonder if she remembers them times now? Shesits so grim an' lets me run on ha'f a day at a time, till I fairlyfoam at the mouth 'ith talkin' so much, an' then mebbe all she'll sayis: 'Want your tea now, Ann?' 'Nuff ter give one the fibbertygibbets!
"In them days I speak of, she could talk a blue streak--sartain-sure!And she'd tell me how many folks 'we had to dinner' last night; or how'Judge Perriton and Judge Mercer was both in for whist with us lastevening.' Well! she strutted, and tossed her head, an' bridled, tillone time there was an awful quarrel 'twixt her an' Peter Stower.
"I was here. I heard part of it. Peter Stower was a good bit olderthan Sally Maltby as you gals may have heard. He objected to hisfather's marriage--not because Mrs. Maltby was who she was, but heobjected to anybody's coming into the family. Peter was a bornmiser--yes he was. He didn't want to divide his father's propertyafter the old man's death, with anybody.
"I will say for Peter," added Miss Titus, "going off on a tangent" asshe would have said herself, had she been critically listening to anyother narrator. "I will say for Peter, that after your mother wasborn, gals, he really seemed to warm up. I have seen him carrying yourmother, when she was a little tot, all about these big halls andhummin' to her like a bumblebee.
"But even at that, he influenced his father so that only a smalllegacy came to your mother when the old man died. Peter got most ofthe property into his hands before _that_ happened, anyway. And quiteright, too, I s'pose, for by that time he had increased the estate awhole lot by his own industry and foresight.
"Well, now! I have got to runnin' away with my story, ain't I? It wasabout Sally and that day she and Peter had their big quarrel. WheneverPeter heard, or saw Sally giving herself airs, he'd put in an oar andtake her down a peg, now I tell you!" said Miss Titus, mixing hermetaphors most woefully.
"I'd been to Sally's room--it was a small one tucked away back here inthis ell, and _that_ hurt her like pizen! We was goin' down stairs tothe front hall. Sally stops on the landing and points to the ceilingoverhead, what used to be painted all over with flowers and fatcupids, and sech--done by a famous artist they used to say when thehouse was built years before, but gettin' faded and chipped then.
"So Sally points to the ceilin' an' says she:
"'I hope some day,' says she, 'that we will have that paintingrestored. _I_ mean to, I am sure, when I am in a better position tohave my views carried out here.'
"Of course, she didn't mean nothin'--just showin' off in front of me,"said Miss Titus, shaking her head and biting at a thread in her queerfashion. "But right behind us on the stairs was Peter. We didn't knowhe was there.
"'Wal,' says he, drawlin' in that nasty, sarcastic way he had, 'if youwait till your views air carried out in _this_ house, Sal Maltby,it'll be never--you hear me! I guarantee,' sez Peter, 'that they'llcarry _you_ out, feet fust, before they carry out your idees.'
"My! she turns on him like a tiger-cat. Yes, Ma'am! Sartain-sure Ithought she was going to fly at him, tooth an' toe-nail! But Peter hada temper like ice-water, an' ice-water--nuff of it, anyway--will putout fire ev'ry time.
"He just listened to her rave, he standin' there so cold an'sarcastic. She told him how she was going to live longer than he did,anyway, and that in the end she'd have her way in the old Corner Housein spite of him!
"When she had sort of run-down like, Peter says to her: 'Brag's a gooddog, but Holdfast's a better,' sez he. 'It ain't people that talksgits what they want in this world. If I was you, Sal Maltby, I'd learnto hold my teeth on my tongue. It'll git you farther.'
"And I b'lieve," concluded Miss Titus, "that just then was the timewhen Sally Maltby begun to get tongue-tied. For you might's well callher that. I know I never heard her 'blow,' myself, after that quarrel;and gradually she got to be just the funny, silent, grim sort o'person she is. Fact is--an' I admit it--Sally gives _me_ the shiversoncet in a while."
Tess and Dorothy did not always play in the garden, not even when theweather was fair. There must be variety to make even play appealing,although the dolls were all "at home" in the out-of-door playhouse.Dot and Tess must go visiting with their children once in a while.
They had a big room for their sleeping chamber and sometimes theycame, with a selection of the dolls, and "visited" in the house. Beingallowed to play in the bedroom, as long as they "tidied up" after theplay was over, Tess and Dot did so.
Ruth had strictly forbidden them going to the garret to play, unlessshe went along. The excuse Ruth gave for this order was, that in thegarret the smaller girls were too far away from the rest of thefamily.
Tess and Dot, the morning after Mrs. Adams had made them the teaparty, had a party for their dolls in the big bedroom. Tess set herfolding table with the best of the dolls' china. There were peanutbutter sandwiches, and a sliced pickle, and a few creamed walnuts thatRuth had bought at the Unique Candy Store and divided between theyounger girls.
They sat the dolls about the table and went down to the kitchen formilk and hot water for the "cambric tea," as Mrs. Adams called thebeverage. When they came back Tess, who entered first, almost droppedthe pitcher of hot water.
"My goodness me!" she ejaculated.
"What's the matter, Tessie?" asked Dot, toiling on behind with milkand sugar.
"Some--somebody's taken our dolls' luncheon. Oh, dear me!"
"It can't be!" cried Dot, springing forward and spilling the milk."Why! those walnut-creams! Oh, dear!"
"They haven't left a crumb," wailed Tess. "Isn't that just mean?"
"Who'd ever do such a thing to us?" said Dot, her lip trembling. "It_is_ mean."
"Why! it must be somebody in the house," declared Tess, her witsbeginning to work.
"Of
course it wasn't Mrs. McCall. She's in the kitchen," Dot declared.
"Or Uncle Rufus. He's in the garden."
"And Ruth wouldn't do such a thing," added Dot.
"It couldn't be Aunt Sarah," said Tess, eliminating another of thefamily group.
"And I don't think Miss Titus would do such a thing," hesitated Dot.
"Well!" said Tess.
"Well!" echoed Dot.
Both had come to the same and inevitable conclusion. There was but oneperson left in the house to accuse.
"Aggie's been playing a joke on us," both girls stated, withconviction.
But Agnes had played no joke. She had been out to the store for Mrs.McCall at the time the children were in the kitchen. Besides, Agnes"would not fib about it," as Tess declared.
The disappearance of the dolls' feast joined hands, it seemed to Dot,with that mysterious _something_ that she knew she had heard Ruth andAgnes talking about at night, and which the younger girl had thoughtreferred to a goat in the garret.
"It's just the mysteriousest thing," she began, speaking to Tess, whenthe latter suddenly exclaimed:
"Sandy-face!"
The mother cat was just coming out of the bigger girls' bedroom. Shesat down at the head of the main flight of stairs and calmly washedher face. Sandy-face had the run of the house and her presence wasdriving out the mice, who had previously gnawed at their pleasurebehind the wainscoting.
"You--you don't suppose Sandy-face did that?" gasped Dot.
"Who else?" asked Tess.
"All of those walnuts?" said Dot, in horror. "And those sandwiches?And not leave a crumb on the plates?"
"She looks just as though she had," determined Tess.
"You--you are an awful bad cat, Sandy-face," said Dot, almost intears. "And I just hope those walnuts will disagree with yourstomach---so now!"
Tess was quite angry with the cat herself. She stamped her foot andcried "Shoo!" Sandy-face leaped away, surprised by such attentions,and scrambled up stairs in a hurry. Almost at once the two girls heardher utter a surprised yowl, and down she came from the garret, hertail as large as three tails, her eyes like saucers, and everyindication of panic in her movements.
She shot away for the back stairs, and so down to the hall and out ofdoors.
"I don't care," exclaimed Dot. "I know those walnuts are disagreeingwith her right now, and I'm glad. My! but she was punished soon forher greediness, wasn't she, Tess?"
There was something going on at the Creamer cottage, next door to theold Corner House. Tess and Dot became aware of this fact at about thistime, so did not bother their heads much about Sandy's supposedgluttony. Some of the windows on the second floor of the cottage weredarkened, and every morning a closed carriage stopped before the houseand a man went in with a black bag in his hand.
Tess and Dot were soon wondering what could be happening to the littleCreamer girls. The only one they saw was the curly haired one, who hadspoken so unpleasantly to them on a particular occasion. They saw herwandering about the yard, and knew that she did not play, and wasoften crying by herself behind the clumps of bushes.
So Tess, whose heart was opened immediately to any suffering thing,ventured near the picket fence again, and at last spoke to the Creamergirl.
"What's the matter, please?" Tess asked. "Did you lose anything? Canwe help you find it?"
The curly headed girl looked at her in surprise. Her pretty face wasall streaked with tears.
"You--you want to keep away from me!" she blurted out.
"Oh, dear, me!" said Tess, clinging to Dot's hand. "I didn't mean tooffend you again."
"Well, you'll catch it, maybe," sniffled the Creamer girl, whose namewas Mabel.
"Catch what?" asked Tess.
"Something dreadful. All my sisters have it."
"Goodness!" breathed Dot.
"What is it?" asked Tess, bravely standing her ground.
"It's _quarantine_," declared Mabel Creamer, solemnly. "And I have tosleep in the library, and I can't go up stairs. Neither does pop. Andmamma never comes down stairs at all. And I have to play alone here inthe yard," sighed Mabel. "It's just awful!"
"I should think it was," gasped Tess. "Then, that must be a doctorthat comes to your house every day?"
"Yes. And he is real mean. He won't let me see mamma--only she comesto the top of the stairs and I have to stay at the bottom.Quarantine's a _nawful_ thing to have in the house.
"So you'd better stand farther off from that fence. I was real mean toyou girls once, and I'm sorry enough now. But I hadn't ought to playwith you, for maybe _I'll_ have the quarantine, too, and I'll give itto you if you come too close."
"But we can play games together without coming too near," said Tess,her kind heart desiring to help their neighbor. "We'll play keephouse--and there'll be a river between us--and we can talk over atelephone--and all that." And soon the three little girls were playinga satisfying game together and Mabel's tears were dried and her heartcomforted for the time being.
That night at dinner, however, Dot waxed curious. "Is quarantine avery bad disease? Do folks die of it?" she asked.
So the story came out, and the older girls laughed at the young one'smistake. It was learned that all the Creamer children save Mabel hadthe measles.
Ruth, however, was more puzzled about the novelty of a cat eatingpeanut butter and walnut creams than Dot had been about that wonderfuldisease, "quarantine."