CHAPTER XXI
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS WIN PUBLIC APPROVAL
Was it Mr. Howbridge's wish, or her own desire, that set Ruth the verynext day at the task of searching the garret thoroughly? She allowedonly Agnes to go up with her; Tess and Dot were out of the house, Mrs.McCall was busy, and the lady from Ypsilanti was engaged in nursingher little daughter.
These days they were much relieved of Mrs. Treble's interference intheir affairs. Lillie claimed all her mother's attention, and althoughthe child was not very ill, she managed to take up almost every momentof her mother's time.
Agnes was frankly scary about the huge lumber-room at the top of thehouse. Despite Ruth's declaration that they would use the garret toplay in on stormy days, they had not often gone there for that--norfor any other--purpose.
The girls had removed all the ancient garments and aired them. Manywere moth-eaten and past redemption; those went to the ragman. Otherswere given to Petunia Blossom to be fixed over for her growing family.Some of the remainder were hung up again, shrouding one dark corner ofthe garret in which Ruth knew there was neither box, nor chest, nortrunk.
It was the chests of drawers, and boxes, the two girls gave theirattention to on the occasion of this search. Before, Ruth had openedseveral of the old-fashioned receptacles and rummaged in the contents.Now she and Agnes went at the task methodically.
Everything was taken out of the chests, and boxes, and drawers, andshaken out before being put back again. The girls came upon manyunexpected treasures, and Agnes soon forgot her fear of the supposedghostly occupant of the garret.
Ruth, however, would not allow her to stop and try on wonderfulancient garments, or read yellowed letters, bound with faded tape, orexamine the old-fashioned gift-books, between the leaves of which werepressed flowers and herbs, all of which, Agnes was sure, were thesouvenirs of sentiment.
Oh, yes! there were papers--reams and reams of them! But they wereeither letters of no moment to the quest in hand, or ancient documentsof no possible use save for their historical value. They came uponsome papers belonging to the original Peter Stower--the strong,hard-working man who had built this great house in his old age and hadfounded the family.
He had been an orphan and had been sheltered in the Milton poorhouse.Here was his "indenture paper," which bound him to a blacksmith of thetown when he was twelve years old. As Ruth and Agnes read the fadedlines and old-fashioned printing, they realized that the differencebetween an apprentice in those days in the north, and a black slave inthe south, was all in favor of the last named.
But this "bound boy" had worked, studied nights so as to get someeducation, had married his master's daughter, and come in time to beheir to his business. He had taken contracts for furnishing theironwork for government warships, and so, little by little, had risento be a prosperous, then a very wealthy man.
The old Corner House was the fruit of his labor and his desire toestablish in the town of his miserable beginnings, a monument to hisown pluck and endeavor. Where he may have been scorned for the "boundboy" that he was, he took pride in leaving behind him when he died thememory only of a strong, rich, proud man.
The girls found nothing which the last Peter Stower could haveconsidered--whether he were miser, or not--of sufficient value to hideaway. Certainly no recently dated papers came to light, and no will atall, or anything that looked like such a document.
They ransacked every drawer, taking them out of the worm-eaten, shakypieces of furniture, and rummaging behind them for secret panels andthe like. Actually, the only thing the girls found that mystified themat all in their search, was half a doughnut lying on a window sill!
"Whoever left that doughnut there?" demanded Agnes. "I don't believethe girls have been up here alone. Could that Lillie have been here?"
"Perhaps," sighed Ruth. "She was going everywhere about the house,before she was taken down sick."
"It's a blessing she's sick--that's what _I_ say," was Agnes' ratherheartless reply. "But--a doughnut! and all hard and dry."
"Maybe it was Dot's goat?" chuckled Ruth, nervously.
"Don't!" gasped Agnes. "My nerves are all on the jump as it is. Isthere any single place in this whole garret that we haven't looked?"
Ruth chanced to be staring at the doughnut on the window sill, and didnot at first answer. That was the window at the right of the chimneywhere she had seen the ghostly apparition fluttering in the storm. Thespace about the window remained cleared, as it was before.
"Wake up!" commanded Agnes. "Where shall we look now?"
Ruth turned with a sigh and went toward the high and ornateblack-walnut "secretary" that stood almost in the middle of the hugeroom.
"Goodness to gracious!" ejaculated the younger girl. "We've tried thatold thing again and again. I've almost knocked the backboards off,pounding to see if there were secret places in it. It's as empty as itis ugly."
"I suppose so," sighed Ruth. "It's strange, though, that Uncle Peterdid not keep papers in it, for that is what it was intended for.Almost every drawer and cupboard in it locks with a different key."
She had been given a huge bunch of keys by Mr. Howbridge when theyfirst came to the Corner House; and she had used these keys freely insearching the garret furniture.
As they went hopelessly down to the third floor, at last, Ruth noticedthat one of the small chambers on this floor, none of which the familyhad used since coming to Milton, had been opened. The door now stoodajar.
"I suppose that snoopy Mrs. Treble has been up here," said Agnes,sharply. "I thought all these doors were locked, Ruth?"
"Not all of them had keys. But they were all shut tightly," and shewent to this particular room and peered in.
The bed was a walnut four-poster--one of the old-fashioned kind thatwas "roped"--and the feather-bed lay upon it, covered with anold-fashioned quilt.
"Why! it looks just as though somebody had been sleeping here," gaspedRuth, after a moment.
"What?" cried Agnes. "Impossible!"
"Doesn't that look like the imprint of a body on the bed? Not a bigperson. Somebody as big as Tess, perhaps?"
"It wasn't Tess, I am quite sure," declared Agnes.
"Could it have been Sandy-face?"
"Of course not! No cat would make such a big hollow, lying down in abed. I know! it was that Lillie Treble--'Double Trouble'! Of course,"concluded Agnes, with assurance.
So Ruth came out and closed the door carefully. Had it not been forher sister's assurance at just this moment, Ruth might have made asurprising discovery, there and then!
She had to report to Mr. Howbridge, by note, that a thorough search ofthe garret had revealed nothing which Uncle Peter Stower could havehidden away.
While Lillie was under the doctor's care, Mrs. Treble was out of theway. Affairs at the old Corner House went on in a more tranquil way.The Creamer girls who had first been ill, were allowed out of doors,and became very friendly with Tess and Dot--over the fence. Thequarantine bars were not, as yet, altogether down.
Maria Maroni came to see them frequently, and Alfredia Blossom broughther shining black face to the old Corner House regularly, on Mondaysand Thursdays. Usually she could not stop to play on Monday, when sheand Jackson came for the soiled clothes, but if Petunia got theironing done early enough on Thursday, Alfredia visited for a while.
"I don't believe Alfredia could be any nicer, if she was bleachedwhite," Dot said, seriously, on one occasion. "But I know she'd liketo be like us--and other folks, Tess."
"I expect she would," agreed Tess. "But we must treat her just asthough her skin was like ours. Ruth says she is sure Alfredia's heartis white."
"Oh!" gasped Dot. "And they showed us in school before we leftBloomingsburg, pictures of folks' hearts, and lungs, and livers--don'tyou remember? And the heart was painted _red_."
"I don't expect they were photographs," said Tess, decidedly. "Andthere aren't any pictures exact but photographs--and movies."
The Pease girls came frequently to pla
y with Tess and Dot, and theyounger Kenways went to _their_ house. None of the Corner House girlscould go out on the street now without being spoken to by the Miltonpeople. Many of these friendly advances were made by comparativestrangers to the four sisters.
The tangle of Uncle Peter Stower's affairs had gotten even into thelocal newspapers, and one newspaper reporter came to Ruth for what hecalled "an interview." Ruth sent him to Mr. Howbridge and never heardanything more of it.
The friends Agnes had made among the girls of her own, and Ruth's, agebegan to come to call more frequently. Eva Larry admitted she feltshivery, whenever she approached the old house, and she could not behired to come on a stormy day. Just the same, she was so sorry for thegirls, and liked Agnes so much, that she just _had_ to run in andcheer them up a bit.
Older people came, too. Ruth's head might have been turned, had shebeen a less sensible girl. The manner in which she handled thesituation which had risen out of Mrs. Treble's coming east to demand ashare of the property left by Peter Stower, seemed to have becomepublic knowledge, and the public of Milton approved.
Nobody called on Mrs. Treble. Perhaps that was because she wasquarantined upstairs, with Lillie convalescent from her attack of themeasles. However, the Corner House girls, as they were now generallycalled, seemed to be making friends rapidly.
Public approval had set its seal upon their course.