CHAPTER VII
A FELINE FUROR
Returning to town, the automobile party passed Stout's tobacco barnagain and when it came in sight Dot eagerly began to explain to theolder girls how and where she had found a name for the sailor-baby thatLuke Shepard had given her.
"That is a real pretty name I think," said Ruth, absently. "And quitenew I am sure."
Agnes demanded again where the smallest Corner House girl had seen thename, 'Nosmo' painted. "Why!" she exclaimed, "it says 'king'--that'swhat is painted on that door, children."
"Oh, but, Sister!" exclaimed Tess. "_That_ is the other half of the bigdoor. They've shut the half that was open when we rode along before andopened the other one." But Agnes was not listening to this explanation.She had turned back to Ruth and Cecile.
Dot was eagerly repeating something over and over to herself. Tessturned to demand what it was.
"Oh, Tessie!" the smallest Corner House girl cried, "that soundsb-e-a-u-ti-ful!"
"What does?" demanded her sister.
"I've just the nicest middle name for this sailor-baby," and she huggedher new possession again.
"What is it?" asked the interested Tess.
"Nosmo King Kenway. Isn't that nice?" eagerly cried the little girl."It's--it's so 'ristocratic. Don't you think so, Tess?"
Tess repeated the full name, too. It did sound rather nice. The ofteneryou said it the better it sounded. And--yet--there was something a weebit peculiar about it. But Tess was too kind-hearted to suggest anythingwrong with the name, as long as Dot liked it so much. And she had foundit all her very own self!
"I wonder what Sammy will say to _that_," murmured Dot placidly. "Iguess he'll think it is a nice name, won't he?"
"Well, if he doesn't it won't make any difference," Tess said loftily.
Just at that time, however, (though quite unsuspected by the CornerHouse girls) Sammy Pinkney had his mind quite filled with other and moreimportant matters.
Since his long illness in the spring Sammy had remained something of astranger to his oldtime boy friends. Of course, as soon as he got intoschool again and associated with the boys of his own class once more, hewould get back into the "gang" as he called it. He was not a boy to begibed because he played with girls so much.
However, habit brought him to the side gate of the Corner House on thisafternoon, whether the little girls were at home or not. He was so oftenin and out of the house that neither Mrs. MacCall nor Linda paid muchattention to him; for although Sammy Pinkney was as "full of mischief asa chestnut is of meat" (to quote Mrs. MacCall) he never touched anythingabout the house that was not his, nor wandered into the rooms upstairs,save the one from the window of which the aerial tramway was strung tothe window of his own bedroom "scatecornered" across Willow Street.
His aim was the window of the little girls' big playing and sleepingroom now, for the wire basket chanced to be fastened at this end of theline. He had it in his mind to pull the basket over to his own house,fill it there with some sort of cargo, and draw it back and forth,amusing himself by imagining that he was loading a ship from the dock.
"Or, maybe," Sammy ruminated, "I'll have the old ship wrecked, and thelifesavers will put out the life buoy; and we'll bring the passengersashore. Crickey! that'll be just the thing. I'll save 'em all fromdrownin'--that's what I'll do!"
Then he looked about in some anxiety for the wrecked passengers of thefoundered steamship which he immediately imagined was cast on the reefjust about as far from the Corner House as his own domicile stood.
"Got to have passengers!" cried Sammy. "Oh, crickey! the dolls would bejust the thing. But I promised I wouldn't touch them. Aw, pshaw! afeller can't have much fun after all where there's a lot of girlsaround."
Not that the girls were here to bother Sammy Pinkney now; but he feltthe oppressive effect of Dot's mandatory decree.
"If a fellow had _forty_ dolls he wouldn't be afraid to give them a rideon this aerial tramway!"
Wandering downstairs again and out upon the side porch he foundSandyface lying in the sun, but within sight and hearing of the four newblind babies which were nested upon Uncle Rufus' old coat just withinthe shed door.
"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" gasped Sammy, his eyes big with a sudden idea.
He knelt down beside the little soft balls of fur, and Sandyface came torub around him and worship likewise. But she had no idea of the thoughtthat ran riot in Sammy's head.
"Say! they'd never know they was disturbed," muttered the boy.
He gathered up the old coat, with the four little mites in it, andstarted stealthily for the back stairs. Sandyface, not at all disturbedin her mind, followed, purring, but with no intention of quite losingsight of her babies. The little girls were in the habit of carrying herprogeny all about the place and always brought them back in safety.
Sammy stole up the stairs on tiptoe. He knew very well he was up tomischief and he did not wish to meet Mrs. MacCall, or even Linda. Forthe Finnish girl who helped the housekeeper had her private opinion ofSammy Pinkney--and often expressed it publicly.
"If I haf a boy brudder like him, I sew him up in a bag--oh, yes!" wasone of the mildest threats that Linda ever made regarding Sammy.
Sammy pushed up the screen and placed the coat, with the four kittensasleep on it, carefully in the deep wire basket. Sandyface, interested,leaped upon the window sill, and smelled of the kittens and the basket.Then she craned her neck to look down to the ground.
"You'd better not jump, cat," warned Sammy, unfastening the rope thatran through blocks at both ends and so enabled one to pull the basketback and forth. "It's a long way to the ground."
Sandyface had no such silly idea in her wise old head. As Sammy turnedaway for a moment she stepped gingerly into the basket, moved thesquirming kittens over, and settled down to nurse them. A little thinglike being twenty feet or so up in the air with her babies did notdisturb Sandyface--much.
"Hey, you!" exclaimed Sammy, grabbing the old cat away before thesnuffling little kittens had really found she was with them. "Can'ttake the whole crew and all the passengers off the wreck at once. You'lloverload the lifecar. Scat!" and he put her down upon the floor.
But the kittens began to whine now; they were being cheated, theythought, and they desired their mother very much. Sandyface replied tothem and jumped upon the window sill again.
"Hey!" Sammy said, "didn't I tell you to wait till the next load? Aw!look at that cat!"
For the mother cat had stepped into the basket again, purring, and oncemore settled down.
"All right, then," ejaculated Sammy in disgust, "if you're bound to goalong! But don't blame _me_ if you're so heavy that the old carrierbusts."
He carefully drew the basket out upon the wire, away from the house.Sandyface lifted her head; but as she was very comfortable and had herfamily with her, she made no great objection as the basket swung outinto space.
"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" gasped Sammy, with fearful joy. "Bet that old basketwould hold all the other cats too. Wish I had the bunch of 'em--Spotty,and Almira, and Popocatepetl, and Bungle, and Starboard, Port,Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet! And Almira's got four kittens of her ownsomewhere. And so's Popocatepetl. Whew! that makes--makes--"
But Sammy did not like arithmetic enough to figure up this sum; and hedid not seem to have fingers enough just then to count them. So he gaveit up. A cat and four kittens swinging out over Willow Street, with allthe winds of heaven blowing about them, should have satisfied even SammyPinkney.
The boy pulled the basket cautiously to the extreme end of thewire--until the carrier bumped against the clapboards under his ownbedroom window. He saw Sandyface raise her head again and glare around.Half asleep until this time she had not realized that she and her babieswere being so marvelously transported from their own home to the cottagewhere Sammy resided.
"Crickey!" exclaimed the boy suddenly. "If mother comes out and sees'em--or if that there bulldog Buster hears those cats meowing, there'llbe trouble over there."
> He started anxiously to draw the cats and the carrier back to the CornerHouse. In some way the line by which he drew the basket became fouled atthe other end; or the pulleys on the wire became chocked. Sammy couldnot tell just what the trouble was, anyway.
But to his dismay the basket stuck midway of the line. High over themiddle of Willow Street it stopped, and Sandyface was now standing upand telling the neighborhood just how scared she felt for her babies andherself.
"Lie down, cat!" the perturbed Sammy cried to her. "You'll falloverboard and drown--I mean, break your silly neck! S-st! Lie down!"
Tom Jonah, the old house dog, appeared suddenly below and began to bark.Billy Bumps came galloping around the house, shook his horns indisapproval, and "bla-ated" loudly.
Linda came to the kitchen door, beheld the cat in the basket high on thewire, and seemed to understand the cause of the trouble with uncannycertainty.
"That iss the Pinkney boy!" she cried. "If he was _my_ brudder--"
Mrs. MacCall, called by the clatter, ran out. Aunt Sarah Maltby, even,appeared at the door, while Uncle Rufus limped up from the hen housesmildly demanding:
"What's done happen' to dem cats? Don't I hear dem prognosticatin'about, somewhar's?"
"Sammy Pinkney!" cried Mrs. MacCall, the first to spy the boy at thewindow of the little girls' play-room, "what are you doing up there?"
"He's got the cat and the kittens in that basket. Did you ever?"exclaimed Aunt Sarah.
"You naughty boy!" commanded Mrs. MacCall, "you pull that thing rightback here and let poor Sandyface out."
"I can't, Mrs. MacCall," woefully declared the boy who wanted to be apirate.
"Then pull it over to your house," said the housekeeper.
"I--I can't do that either," confessed Sammy.
"Why not, I should admire to know?" demanded Aunt Sarah.
"'Cause it's stuck," gloomily explained Sammy. "I can't pull it one way,nor yet the other. Oh, dear! I wish that cat would stop yowling!"
What he feared happened at that moment. His mother, hearing thecommotion in the street and seeing a crowd beginning to gather, ran outof the house. She was always expecting something to happen to Sammy; andif a crowd gathered anywhere near the house she surmised the mostdreadful peril for her son.
"Sammy! Sammy!" she shrieked. "What has become of Sammy?"
"Here I am, Ma," replied Sammy, with disgust.
"What's the matter with you? Come home this minute!" commanded Mrs.Pinkney, who was a rather near-sighted woman, and having run out withouther glasses she did not spy her son in the window of the Corner House.
"I--I can't," confessed the boy, rather shaken.
At that moment Mrs. Pinkney saw the neighbors pointing upward, andhearing them say: "See up there? In the basket! The poor thing!" shenaturally thought they referred to the peril of her young son.
"Oh, Sammy Pinkney! But you just wait till your father gets hometo-night!" she cried, trying to peer up at the wire. "I knew you'd getinto mischief with that thing Neale O'Neil strung up there. Whatever hasthe boy tried to do? Walk tight-rope?"
"It's in the basket," somebody tried to explain to her.
That was too much for the excitable Mrs. Pinkney.
"He'll fall out of it! Of course he will. And break his precious neck!Oh, get a blanket! Some of you run for the fire ladders! How will we gethim down?"
She sat down on the grass, threw her apron over her head, and refused tolook upward at the wire carrier in which Sandyface and her kittens weresuspended, and out of which she expected her reckless son to fall at anymoment.
It was at this exciting moment, and into the hubbub made by theneighbors and Sandyface, that the automobile party whizzed around thecorner. Neale brought the car to a sudden stop and everybody screamed.
"That Sammy Pinkney!" gasped Tess, in despair. "I just _knew_ he'd getinto something!"