CHAPTER II
SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO
Uncle Rufus was too old and too stiff to get out of bed and down fromhis third-story room in the old Corner House, to be of any assistanceat this midnight incident. But the girls were awakened the moment TomJonah began barking.
"It's a hen thief!" squealed Tess, leaping out of her own warm nest.
"I hope that dog bites him!" cried Agnes, savagely, from the otherroom.
She ran to the window. It was a starlit, but foggy night. She couldsee only vaguely the objects out of doors.
Ruth was scrambling into a skirt and dressing sacque; she thrust herfeet into shoes, too, and started downstairs. Mrs. MacCall's windowwent up with a bang, and the girls heard the housekeeper exclaim:
"Shoo! shoo! Get out of there!"
Whoever it was that had roused Tom Jonah, the person was evidentlyunable to "get out of there." The dog's threatening growls did notcease, and the man's voice which had first been heard when the troublestarted, was protesting.
Agnes followed her older sister downstairs. Of course, Aunt SarahMaltby, who slept in one of the grand front rooms in the main part ofthe house, did not even hear all the disturbance. And there were notany houses really near the Stower Homestead, which Milton people knewby the name of "the old Corner House."
Therefore, the sounds of conflict at the Kenway hennery were notlikely to arouse many people. But when Ruth and Agnes reachedout-of-doors, the younger girl remembered one person who might hearand be of assistance.
"Let's call Neale O'Neil!" she cried to Ruth. "He'll help us."
"We'd better call a policeman," said Ruth, running down the brickpath.
"Huh! you wouldn't find a policeman in Milton at this hour of thenight, if you searched for a week of Sundays," was the younger girl'sambiguous statement. Then she raised her voice and shouted: "Neale!Neale O'Neil! Help!"
Meantime the dog continued his threatening bayings. The fowlsfluttered and squawked. Billy Bumps began to blat and butt thepartition in his pen. Whoever had ventured into the hennery had gotteninto hot quarters and no mistake!
Ruth stopped suddenly in the path and clutched at Agnes' arm. Agneswas as lightly dressed as herself; but it was a warm June night andthere was no danger of their getting cold.
A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clingingwith both hands to the ridge of it.]
"Suppose the dog does not remember us?" the older girl gasped inAgnes' ear. "Maybe--maybe he'll tear us to pieces. How savage hesounds!"
Agnes was frightened; but she had pluck, too. "Come on, Ruth!" shesaid. "He is only mad at the thief."
"If it _is_ a thief," quavered Ruth. "I--I am afraid to go on, Aggie."
At that moment the sound of little feet pattering behind them madeboth girls turn. There were Dot and Tess, both barefooted, and Dotwith merely a doubled-up comforter snatched from her bed, wrapped overher night clothes.
"Mercy me, children!" gasped Ruth. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, we mustn't let Tom Jonah _bite_ that man," Tess declared, andkept right on running toward the henhouse.
"If that dog bites----" screamed Ruth, and ran after her smallersister.
There was the big dog leaping savagely toward the low eaves of thehennery. A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging with bothhands to the ridge of it. The girls obtained a glimpse of a dark face,with flashing teeth, and big gold rings in the marauder's ears.
"Tak' dog away! Tak' dog away!" the man said, in a strangled voice.
"He's one of those Gypsies," whispered Agnes, in an awed voice.
A tribe of the nomads in question had passed through Milton but a dayor two before, and the girls had been frightened by the appearance ofthe men of the tribe who had called at the old Corner House.
Now, whether this marauder belonged to the same people or not, Ruthsaw that he looked like a Gypsy. For another reason, too, her mind wasrelieved at once; Tom Jonah was only savage toward the man on theroof.
When Tess ran right up to the leaping dog, he stopped barking, andwagged his tail, as though satisfied that he had done his duty indrawing the family to the scene. But he still kept his eyes on theman, and occasionally uttered a growl deep in his throat.
"What are you doing up there?" Ruth demanded of the man.
"Tak' away dog!" he whined.
"No. I think I will let the dog hold you till a policeman comes. Youwere trying to rob our henroost."
"Oh, no, Missee! You wrong. No do that," stammered the man.
"What were you doing here, then?"
Before the fellow could manufacture any plausible tale, a shout camefrom beyond the back fence, and somebody was heard to scramble intothe Corner House yard.
"What's the matter, girls?" demanded Neale O'Neil's cheerful voice.
"Oh, come here, Neale!" cried Agnes. "Tom Jonah's caught a Gypsy."
"Tom _Who_?" demanded the tall, pleasant-faced boy of fifteen, whoimmediately approached the henhouse.
"Tom Jonah," announced Tess. "He's just the _nicest_ dog!"
The boy saw the group more clearly then. He looked from the savagelygrowling animal to the man sprawling on the roof, and burst outlaughing.
"Yes! I guess that fellow up there feels that the dog is very 'nice.'Where did you get the dog, and where did _he_ get his name?"
"We'll tell you all about that later, Neale," said Ruth, more gravely."At least, we'll tell you all we know about the dear old dog. Isn't hea splendid fellow to catch this man at my hens?"
"And the fellow had some in this bag!" exclaimed Neale, finding a bagof flopping poultry at the corner of the hen-run.
"Tak' away dog!" begged the man on the roof again.
"That's all he's afraid of," said Agnes. "I bet he has a knife. Isn'the a wicked looking fellow?"
"Regular brigand," agreed Neale. "What we going to do with him?"
"Give him to a policeman," suggested Agnes.
"Do you suppose the policeman would _want_ him?" chuckled Neale. "Toawaken a Milton officer at this hour of the night would be almostsacrilege, wouldn't it?"
"What _shall_ we do?" demanded Agnes.
Ruth had been thinking more sensibly for a few moments. Now she spokeup decisively:
"The man did not manage to do any harm. Put the poultry back in thehouse, Neale. If he ever comes again he will know what to expect. Hethought we had no dog; but he sees we have--and a savage one. Let himgo."
"Had we better do that, sister?" whispered Agnes. "Oughtn't he to bepunished?"
"I expect so," Ruth said, grimly. "But for once I am going to shirk myduty. We'll take away the dog and let him go."
"Who'll take him away?" demanded Agnes, suddenly.
Neale had taken the sack in which the fowl struggled, to the door ofthe henhouse, opened it, and dumped the fowl out. Tom Jonah evidentlyrecognized him for a friend, for he wagged his tail, but still kepthis eye on the man upon the roof.
"I declare!" said Ruth. "I hadn't thought. Whom will he mind?"
"Come here, Tom Jonah!" said Neale, snapping his fingers.
Tom Jonah still wagged his tail, but he remained ready to receive theGypsy (if such the fellow was) in his jaws, if he descended.
"Come away, Tom!" exclaimed Agnes, confidently. "Come on back to thehouse."
The man on the roof moved and Tom Jonah stiffened. He refused tobudge.
"Guess you'll have to call a cop after all," said Neale, doubtfully.
"Here, sir!" commanded Ruth. "Come away. You have done enough----"
But the dog did not think so. He held his place and growled.
"I guess you're bound to stay up there, till daylight--or apoliceman--doth appear, my friend," called up Neale to the besieged.
"Tak' away dog!" begged the frightened fellow.
"Why, Tom Jonah!" exclaimed Tess, walking up to the big dog andputting a hand on his collar. "You must come away when you are spokento. You've caught the bad man, and that's enough."
Tom Jonah turned
and licked her hand. Then he moved a few steps awaywith her and looked back.
"Come on with me, Tom Jonah," commanded the little girl, firmly. "Letthe bad man go."
"What do you know about _that_?" demanded Neale.
The next minute the fellow had scrambled up the roof, caught the lowhanging limb of a shade tree that stood near the fence, and swinginghimself like a cat into the tree, he got out on another branch thatoverhung the sidewalk, dropped, and ran.
Tom Jonah sprang to the fence with a savage bay; but the man only wentthe faster. The incident was closed in a minute, and the little partyof half-dressed young folk went back to their beds, while the strangedog curled up on his mat in the corner of the porch again and sleptthe sleep of the just till morning.
And now that the excitement is over, let us find out a littlesomething about the Corner House girls, their friends, their conditionin life, and certain interesting facts regarding them.
When Mr. Howbridge, the lawyer from Milton and Uncle Peter Stower'sman of affairs and the administrator of his estate, came to the littletenement on Essex Street, Bloomingsburg, where the four orphanedKenway girls had lived for some years with Aunt Sarah Maltby, he firstmet Tess and Dot returning from the drugstore with Aunt Sarah's weeklysupply of peppermint drops.
Aunt Sarah had been a burden on the Kenways for many years. The girlshad only their father's pension to get along on. Aunt Sarah claimedthat when Uncle Peter died, his great estate would naturally fall toher, and then she would return all the benefits she had received fromthe Kenway family.
But the lawyer knew that queer old Uncle Peter Stower had made a willleaving practically all his property to the four girls in trust, andto Aunt Sarah only a small legacy. But this will had been hiddensomewhere by the old man before his recent death and had not yet beenfound.
There seemed to be no other claimants to the Stower Estate, however,and the court allowed Mr. Howbridge to take the Kenway girls and AuntSarah to Milton and establish them in the Stower Homestead, known farand wide as the old Corner House.
Here, during the year that had passed, many interesting and excitingthings had happened to Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot.
Ruth was the head of the family, and the lawyer greatly admired hergood sense and ability. She was not a strikingly pretty girl, for shehad "stringy" black hair and little color; but her eyes were big andbrown, and those eyes, and her mouth, laughed suddenly at you and gaveexpression to her whole face. She was now completing her seventeenthyear.
Agnes was thirteen, a jolly, roly-poly girl, who was fond of jokes, abit of a tomboy, up to all sorts of pranks--who laughed easily andcried stormily--had "lots of molasses colored hair" as she saidherself, and was the possessor of a pair of blue eyes that could starea rude boy out of countenance, but who _would_ spoil the effect ofthis the next instant by giggling; a girl who had a soulmate among hergirl friends all of the time, but not frequently did one last for longin the catalog of her "best friends."
Nobody remembered that Tess had been named Theresa. She was a wiselittle ten-year-old who possessed some of Ruth's dignity and some ofAgnes' prettiness, and the most tender heart in the world, which madeher naturally tactful. She was quick at her books and very courageous.
Dorothy, or Dot, was the baby and pet of the family. She was a littlebrunette fairy; and if she was not very wise as yet, she was faithfuland lovable, and not one of "the Corner House girls," as the Kenwayswere soon called by Milton people, was more beloved than Dot.
The girls' best boy friend lived with the old cobbler, Mr. Con Murphy,on the rear street, and in a little house the yard of which adjoinedthe larger grounds of the old Corner House. We have seen how quicklyNeale O'Neil came to the assistance of the Kenway girls when they werein trouble.
Neale had been brought up among circus people, his mother havingtraveled all her life with Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus andMenagerie. The boy's desire for an education and to win a better placein the world for himself, had caused him to run away from his uncle,Mr. Sorber, and support himself in Milton while he attended school.
The Corner House girls had befriended Neale and when his uncle finallysearched him out and found the boy, it was they who influenced the managainst taking Neale away. Neale had proved himself an excellentscholar and had made friends in Milton; now he was about to graduatewith Agnes from the highest grammar grade to high school.
The particulars of all these happenings have been related in the firsttwo volumes of the series, entitled respectively, "The Corner HouseGirls" and "The Corner House Girls at School."
When Agnes woke up in the morning following the unsuccessful raid ofthe Gypsy man on the hennery, she had something of wonderfulimportance to tell Ruth. She had seen her "particular friend," TrixSevern, on the street Saturday afternoon and Trix had told hersomething.
"You've heard the girls talking about Pleasant Cove, Ruthie?" saidAgnes, earnestly. "You know Mr. Terrence Severn owns one of the bighotels there?"
"Of course. Trix talks enough about it," said the older Kenway girl.
"Oh! you don't like Trix----"
"I'm not exceedingly fond of her. And there was a time when youthought her your very deadliest enemy," laughed Ruth.
"Well! Trix has changed," declared the unsuspicious Agnes, "and she'sproposed the very nicest thing, Ruth. She says her mother and fatherwill let her bring all four of us to the Cove for the first fortnightafter graduation. The hotel will not be full then, and we will beTrix's guests. And we'll have loads of fun."
"I--don't--know-----" began Ruth, but Agnes broke in warmly:
"Now, don't you say 'No,' Ruthie Kenway! Don't you say 'No!' I've justmade up my mind to go to Pleasant Cove----"
"No need of flying off, Ag," said Ruth, in the cool tone that usuallybrought Agnes "down to earth again." "We have talked of going therefor a part of the summer. A change to salt air will be beneficial forus all--so Dr. Forsythe says. I have talked to Mr. Howbridge, and hesays 'Yes.'"
"Well, then!"
"But I doubt the advisability of accepting Trix Severn's invitation."
"Now, isn't that mean----"
"Hold your horses," again advised Ruth. "We will go, anyway. If all iswell we will stay at the hotel a while. Pearl Harrod's uncle owns abungalow there, too; _she_ has asked me to come there for a while, andbring you all."
"Well! isn't that nice?" agreed Agnes. "Then we can stay twice aslong."
"Whether it will be right for us to accept the hospitality offered uswhen we have no means of returning it----"
"Oh, dear me, Ruth! don't be a fuss-cat."
"There is a big tent colony there--quite removed from the hotel,"suggested Ruth. "Many of our friends and their folks are going_there_. Neale O'Neil is going with a party of the boys for at leasttwo weeks."
"Say! we'll have scrumptious times," cried Agnes, with sparkling eyes.Her anticipation of every joy in life added immensely to the joyitself.
"Yes--if we go," said Ruth, slowly. But it was something for theothers to look forward to with much pleasure.