CHAPTER XIX
"DOUBLE TROUBLE"
"What is the meaning of that horrid condition of your clothing,Lillie?" demanded Mrs. Treble from the open window.
"I fell in the mud, Mamma," said the unabashed Lillie, and glancedaside at Tess and Dot with a sweetly troubled look, as though shefeared they were at fault for her disarray, but did not quite like tosay so!
"Come up here at once!" commanded her mother, who turned to Ruth toadd: "I am afraid your sisters are very rough and rude in their play.Lillie has not been used to such playmates. Of course, left without amother as they were, nothing better can be expected of them."
Meanwhile, Lillie had turned one of her frightful grimaces upon Tessand Dot before starting for the house, and the smaller Kenway girlswere left frozen in their tracks by the ferocity of this partingglare.
Lillie appeared at luncheon dressed in some of Tess' garments and someof Dot's--none of them fitting her very well. She had a sweetlyforgiving air, which bolstered up her mother's opinion that Tess andDot were guilty of leading her angelic child astray.
Mrs. Treble had two trunks at the railway station and Uncle Rufus wassent to get an expressman to bring them up to the Corner House. Ruthpaid the expressman.
"Talk about the _Old Man of the Sea_ that _Sinbad_ had to carry on hisshoulders!" scoffed Agnes, in private, to Ruth. "This Mrs. Trouble isgoing to be a bigger burden for us than he was. And I believe thatgirl is going to be 'Double Trouble.' She looks like butter wouldn'tmelt in her mouth. Uncle Rufus says she got in that messy conditionbefore lunch, chasing the hens out of their seven senses."
"There are only five senses, Aggie," said Ruth, patiently.
"Humph! that's all right for folks, but hens have two more, I reckon,"chuckled the younger girl.
"Well," said Ruth, "we must treat Mrs. Treble politely."
"You act as though you really thought they had some right to come hereand live on us," cried Agnes.
"Perhaps they have a right to some of Uncle Peter's property. We don'tknow."
"I don't believe it! She's the sort of a person--that Mrs.Trouble--who assumes rights wherever she goes."
Ruth had to confess that Mrs. Treble _was_ trying. She criticised Mrs.McCall's cooking and the quantity of food on the table at luncheon.Lillie did not like dried apple pies, and said so bluntly, with ahostile glare at the dessert in question.
"Well, little girl," said Mrs. McCall, "you'll have to learn to likethem. I've just bought quite a lot of dried apples and they've got tobe eaten up."
Lillie made another awful face--but her mother did not see it. Dot wasso awe-stricken by these facial gymnastics of the strange girl thatshe could scarcely eat, and watched Lillie continually.
"That child ought to be cured of staring so," remarked Mrs. Treble,frowning at Dot. "Or is her eyesight bad?"
Mrs. Treble was busy, after her trunks came, in unpacking them andarranging her room to suit herself--as though she expected to make along visit. She had suggested appropriating Uncle Peter's old bedroomin the front of the house, but that suite of rooms was locked, andRuth refrained from telling her that _she_ had the keys.
Meantime the bigger Corner House girls tried to help the smaller onesentertain Lillie. Lillie was not like any normal girl whom they hadever known. She wanted to do only things in which she could lead, andif she was denied her way in any particular, she "wouldn't play" andthreatened to go up stairs and tell her mother.
"Why," said Agnes, first to become exasperated. "You want to be thewhole show--including the drum-major at the head of the procession,and the little boys following the clown's donkey-cart at the end!"
Lillie made a face.
"I think," said Ruth, quietly, "that if I were you, Lillie, and wentto visit, I'd try to make my new friends like me."
"Huh!" said Lillie. "I'm not visiting--don't you fool yourselves. Mymother and I have come here to stay. We're not going to be put outlike we were at Aunt Adeline's and Uncle Noah's. Mother says we've gotmore right to this old house than you Kenways have, and she's going toget her rights."
That made Dot cry, and Tess looked dreadfully serious. Agnes was tooangry to play with the girl any more, and Ruth, even, gave her up asimpossible. Lillie wandered off by herself, for her mother would notbe bothered with her just then.
When Mrs. McCall went out into the kitchen that afternoon to startdinner, she missed the bag of dried apples that had been left on thetable. There had been nearly four pounds of them.
"What under the canopy's become of that bag?" demanded the good lady."This is getting too much, I declare. I _know_ I missed the end of thecorned beef yesterday, and half a loaf of bread. I couldn't be sureabout the cookies and doughnuts, and the pie.
"But there that bag of dried apples stood, and there it _isn't_ now!What do you know about such crazy actions?" she demanded of Ruth, whohad come at her call.
"Why! it's a mystery," gasped the eldest of the Corner House girls. "Ican't understand it, dear Mrs. McCall. Of course none of us girls havetaken the dried apples. And if you have missed other things from yourpantry of late, I am just as sure we are not at fault. I have warnedthe girls about raiding the cookie jars between meals."
"Well," said Mrs. McCall, with awe, "what can have taken them? And abag of dried apples! Goodness! It's enough to give one the shivers andshakes."
Ruth was deeply mystified, too. She knew very well that Sandy-face,the cat, could not be accused with justice of this loss. Catscertainly do not eat dried apples--and such a quantity!
It began to rain before evening, and Tess and Dot rushed out to rescuetheir dolls and other playthings, for there was wind with the rain andthey were afraid it would blow in upon their treasures.
Here poor Dot received an awful shock. The Alice-doll was gone!
Dot went in crying to Ruth and would not be comforted. She loved themissing doll as though it was a real, live baby--there could be nodoubt of that. And why should a thief take that lovely doll only, andleave all the others?
Mysteries were piling upon mysteries! It was a gloomy night out ofdoors and a gloomy night inside the old Corner House as well. Mrs.Treble's air and conversation were sufficient alone to make the Kenwaygirls down-hearted. Dot cried herself to sleep that night, and noteven Agnes could comfort her.
The wind howled around the house, and tried every latch and shutterfastening. Ruth lay abed and wondered if the thing she had seen at thewindow in the garret on that other windy day was now appearing andvanishing in its spectral way?
And what should she do about Mrs. Treble and her little girl? Whatwould Mr. Howbridge say when he came home again?
Had she any right to spend more of the estate's money in caring forthese two strangers who were (according to the lady herself) withoutany means at all? Ruth Kenway put in two very bad hours that night,before she finally fell asleep.
The sun shone brightly in the morning, however. How much better theworld and all that is in it seems on a clean, sunshiny morning! EvenDot was able to control her tears, as she went out upon the back porchwith Tess, before breakfast.
The rain had saturated everything. The brown dirt path had beenscoured and then gullied by the hard downpour. Right at the corner ofthe woodshed, where the water ran off in a cataract, when it _did_rain, was a funny looking mound.
"Why--why! what's that?" gasped Dot.
"It looks just as though a poor little baby had been buried there,"whispered Tess. "But of course, it isn't! Maybe there's some animaltrying to crawl out of the ground."
"O-o-o!" squealed Dot. "_What_ animal?"
"I don't know. Not a mole. Moles don't make such a big hump in theground."
As the girls wondered, Uncle Rufus came up from the henhouse. He sawthe strange looking mound, too.
"Glo-ree!" he gasped. "How come dat?"
"We don't know, Uncle Rufus," said Tess eagerly. "We just found it."
"Somebody been buryin' a dawg in we-uns back yard? My soul!"
"Oh, it can't be!" cried
Tess.
"And it isn't Sandy-face," Dot declared. "For she's in the kitchenwith all her children."
"Wait er bit--wait er bit," said the old man, solemnly. "Unc' Rufusgwine ter look inter dis yere matter. It sho' is a misery"--meaning"mystery."
He brought a shovel and dug down beside the mound. Lifting out a hugeshovelful of dirt, there were scattered all about the path a greatnumber of swollen and messy brown things that, for a moment, the girlsdid not identify. Then Uncle Rufus lifted up his voice in a roar:
"Looker yere! Looker yere! Missie Ruth! see wot you-all mak' out o'disher monkey-shines. Here's dem dried apples, buried in de groun' andswelled fit ter bust demselves."
"Looker yere! Looker yere! Missie Ruth! Theredem dried apples, buried in de groun'"]
Mrs. McCall as well as the other girls came running to see. It wasAgnes that saw something else under the mound. She darted down thesteps, put her hand into the hole and drew out the Alice-doll!
The poor thing's dress was ruined. Its hair was a mass of plasteredapple, and its face as well. Such a disreputable looking thing!
While the others cried out in wonder and disclaimed all knowledge ofhow the marvel could have happened, Agnes spoke two accusing words.
"Double Trouble!" she cried, pointing her finger at Lillie Treble, whohad just appeared, angelic face and all, at the back door.
"Did that young'un do that?" demanded Mrs. McCall, vigorously.
"She most certainly did," declared Agnes. "She tried to get rid of thedried apples, and the doll Dot wouldn't let her play with, at one andthe same time. Isn't she the mean thing?"
Instantly Lillie's face was convulsed into a mask of rage and dislike."I hate all you girls!" she snarled. "I'll do worse than that to you!"
Mrs. McCall seized her like an eagle pouncing upon a rabbit. Mrs.McCall was very vigorous. She carried Lillie into the kitchen with onehand, and laid her abruptly, face down, over her knee.
What happened during the next few moments was evidently the surpriseof Lillie Treble's young life. Her mother had never corrected her inthat good, old-fashioned way.