CHAPTER X
THE ICE STORM
The four girls followed Popocatepetl out of the house in a hurry. Theirshrill voices aroused Neale O'Neil where he was spading up a piece ofMr. Con Murphy's garden for a planting of winter spinach. He came overthe fence in a hurry and ran up the long yard.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he shouted.
The chorus of explanation was so confused that Neale might never havelearned the difficulty to this very moment, had he not looked up intothe bare branches of the Keifer pear tree and seen an object clingingclose to a top limb.
"For pity's sake!" he gasped. "What is that?"
"It's Petal," shrilled Dot. "An' she's felled into the merlasses and gotherself all feathers."
At that her sisters burst out laughing. It was too bad the little catwas so frightened, but it _was_ too comical for anything!
"You don't call that a cat?" demanded Neale, when he could control hisown risibilities.
"Of course it's a cat," said Tess, rather warmly. "You know Ruthie'sPopocatepetl, Neale--you know you do."
"But a thing with feathers, roosting in a tree, must be some kind of afowl--yes?" asked Neale, with gravity.
"It's a cat-bird," announced Agnes.
The younger girls could not see any fun in the situation. Poor Petal,clinging to the high branch of the tree, and faintly mewing, touchedtheir hearts, so Neale went up like a professional acrobat and aftersome difficulty brought the frightened cat down.
"She'll have to be plucked just like a chicken," declared Ruth. "Did you_ever_ see such a mess in all your life?"
Neale held the cat so she could not scratch, and Agnes and Ruth"plucked" her and wiped off the molasses as best they could. But it wasseveral days before Popocatepetl was herself again.
By this time, too, Neale O'Neil's green halo was beginning to wear off.As Mr. Con Murphy said, he looked less like "a blushin' grane onion"than he had immediately after the concoction the drugstore clerk hadsold him took effect.
"And 'tis hopin' 'twill be a lesson ye'll allus remimber," pursued theold cobbler. "Niver thrust too much to whativer comes in a bottle!Remimber 'tis not the label ye air to use. The only r'ally honest labelthat kems out of a drug-sthore is thim that has the skull and crossboneson 'em. You kin be sure of them; they're pizen an' no mistake!"
Neale had to listen to a good deal that was harder to bear than any ofMr. Murphy's quaint philosophy. But he restrained himself and did notfight any boy going to school.
In the first place, Neale O'Neil was going to school for just onepurpose. He wished to learn. To boys and girls who had always had theadvantages of school, this desire seemed strange enough. They could notunderstand Neale.
And because of his earnestness about study, and because he refused totell anything about himself, they counted Neale odd. The Corner Housegirls were the only real friends the boy had in Milton among the youngfolk. But some older people began to count Neale as a boy of promise.
Green as his head was dyed, it was a perfectly good head when it came tostudy, as he had assured Mr. Marks. The principal watched the youngsterand formed a better opinion of him than he had at first borne. MissShipman found him a perfectly satisfactory scholar.
The people he worked for at odd jobs, after and before school, learnedthat he was faithful and smart. Mr. Con Murphy had a good word for theboy to everybody who came into his shop.
Yet, withal, he could not make close friends. One must give confidencefor confidence if one wishes to make warm friendships. And Neale was assecretive as he could be.
Neale kept close to the neighborhood of the cobbler's and the old CornerHouse. Agnes told Ruth that she believed Neale never turned a cornerwithout first peeking around it! He was always on the _quivive_--expecting to meet somebody of whom he was afraid. And everymorning he ran over to the Corner House early and looked at the firstcolumn on the front page of the _Morning Post_, as it lay on the bigveranda.
The four Corner House girls all achieved some distinction in theirschool grades within the first few weeks of the fall term. Ruth madefriends as she always did wherever she went. Other girls did not get asudden "crush" on Ruth Kenway, and then as quickly forget her.Friendship for her was based upon respect and admiration for her senseand fine qualities of character.
Agnes fought her way as usual to the semi-leadership of her class, TrixSevern to the contrary notwithstanding. She was not quite as goodfriends with Eva Larry as she had been, and had soon cooled a trifletoward Myra Stetson, but there were dozens of other girls to pick andchoose from, and in rotation Agnes became interested in most of those inher grade.
Tess was the one who came home with the most adventures to tell. Therealways seemed to be "something doing" in Miss Andrews' room.
"We're all going to save our money toward a Christmas tree for ourroom," Tess announced, long before cold weather had set in "for keeps.""Miss Andrews says we can have one, but those that aren't good can havenothing to do with it. I'm afraid," added Tess, seriously, "that notmany of the boys in our grade will have anything to do with that tree."
"Is Miss Andrews so dreadfully strict?" asked Dot, round-eyed.
"Yes, she is--awful!"
"I hope she'll get married, then, and leave school before I get into hergrade."
"But maybe she won't ever marry," Tess declared.
"Don't all ladies marry--some time?" queried Dot, in surprise.
"Aunt Sarah never did, for one."
"Oh--well----Don't you suppose there's enough men to go 'round, Tess?"cried Dot, in some alarm. "Wouldn't it be dreadful to grow up like AuntSarah--or your Miss Andrews?"
Tess tossed her head. "I am going to be a suffragette," she announced."They don't have to have husbands. Anyway, if they have them," qualifiedTess, "they don't never bother about them much!"
Tess' mind, however, was full of that proposed Christmas tree. MariaMaroni was going to bring an orange for each pupil--girls and boysalike--to be hung on the tree. Her father had promised her that.
Alfredia Blossom, Jackson Montgomery Simms Blossom, and Burne-JonesWhistler Blossom had stored bushels of hickory nuts and butternuts inthe cockloft of their mother's cabin, and they had promised to help fillthe stockings that the girls' sewing class was to make.
Every girl of Tess' acquaintance was going to do something "lovely," andshe wanted to know what _she_ could do?
"Why, Sadie Goronofsky says maybe she'll _buy_ something to hang on thetree. She is going to have a lot of money saved by Christmas time,"declared Tess.
"Why, Tess," said Agnes, "isn't Sadie Goronofsky Mrs. Goronofsky'slittle girl that lives in one of our tenements on Meadow Street?"
"No. She's _Mister_ Goronofsky's little girl. The lady Mr. Goronofskymarried is only Sadie's step-mother. She told me so."
"But they are very poor people," Ruth said. "I know, for they canscarcely pay their rent some months. Mr. Howbridge told me so."
"There are a lot of little children in the family," said Agnes.
"And Sadie is the oldest," Tess said. "You see, she told me how it was.She has to go home nights and wash and dry the dishes, and sweep, andtake care of the baby--and lots of things. She never has any time toplay.
"But on Friday night--that's just like our Saturday night, you know,"explained Tess, "for they celebrate Saturday as Sunday--they're Jewishpeople. Well, on Friday night, Sadie tells me, her step-mother puts aquarter for her in a big red bank in their kitchen."
"Puts a quarter each week in Sarah's bank?" said Ruth. "Why, that'sfine!"
"Yes. It's because Sadie washes the dishes and takes care of the baby sonice. And before Christmas the bank is going to be opened. Then Sadie isgoing to get something nice for all her little step-brothers andsisters, and something nice for our tree, too."
"She'll have a lot of money," said Agnes. "Must be they're not so pooras they make out, Ruth."
"Mr. Goronofsky has a little tailor business, and that's all," Ruthsaid, gravely. "I--I sha'n't tell Mr. Howbri
dge about Sadie and herbank."
Thanksgiving came and went--and it was a real Thanksgiving for theCorner House girls. They had never had such a fine time on that nationalfestival before, although they were all alone--just the regularfamily--at the table.
Neale was to have helped eat the plump hen turkey that Mrs. MacCallroasted, but the very night before Thanksgiving he came to Ruth andbegged off.
"I got to talking with Mr. Murphy this afternoon," said Neale, rathershamefacedly, "and he said he hadn't eaten a Thanksgiving dinner sincehis wife and child drowned in the Johnstown flood--and that was yearsand years ago, you know.
"So I asked him if he'd have a good dinner if I stayed and ate it withhim, and the old fellow said he would," Neale continued. "And Mrs. JudyRoach--the widow woman who does the extra cleaning for him--will come tocook the dinner.
"He's gone out to buy the turkey--the biggest gobbler he can get, hetold me--for Mrs. Judy has a raft of young ones, 'all av thim widappetites like a famine in ould Ireland,' he told me."
"Oh, Neale!" cried Ruth, with tears in her eyes.
"He's a fine old man," declared Neale, "when you get under the skin.Mrs. Judy Roach and her brood will get a square meal for once in theirlives--believe me."
So Neale stayed at the cobbler's and helped do the honors of thatThanksgiving dinner. He reported to the Corner House girls later how it"went off."
"'For phat we are about to resave,' as Father Dooley says--Aloysius, yespalpane! ye have an eye open, squintin' at the tur-r-rkey!--'lit us betrooly thankful,'" observed Mr. Con Murphy, standing up to carve thehuge, brown bird. "Kape your elbows off the table, Aloysius Roach--yeair too old ter hev such bad manners. What par-r-rt of the bir-r-d willye have, Aloysius?"
"A drumstick," announced Aloysius.
"A drumstick it is--polish that now, ye spalpane, and polish it well.And Alice, me dear, phat will _youse_ hev?" pursued Mr. Murphy.
"I'll take a leg, too, Mr. Murphy," said the oldest Roach girl.
"Quite right. Iv'ry par-r-rt stringthens a par-r-rt--an' 'tis aspindle-shanks I notice ye air, Alice. And you, Patrick Sarsfield?" tothe next boy.
"Leg," said Patrick Sarsfield, succinctly.
Mr. Murphy dropped the carver and fork, and made a splotch of gravy onthe table.
"_What?_" he shouted. "Hev ye not hear-r-rd two legs already bespoke,Patrick Sarsfield, an' ye come back at me for another? Phat for kind ofa baste do ye think this is? I'm not carvin' a cinterpede, I'd hev yeknow!"
At last the swarm of hungry Roaches was satisfied, and, according toNeale's report, the dinner went off very well indeed, save that hismother feared she would have to grease and roll Patrick Sarsfield beforethe fire to keep him from bursting, he ate so much!
It was shortly after Thanksgiving that Milton suffered from its famousice-storm. The trees and foliage in general suffered greatly, and the_Post_ said there would probably be little fruit the next year. For theyoung folk of the town it brought great sport.
The Corner House girls awoke on that Friday morning to see everythingout-of-doors a glare of ice. The shade trees on the Parade were bornedown by the weight of the ice that covered even the tiniest twig onevery tree. Each blade of grass was stiff with an armor of ice. And ascum of it lay upon all the ground.
The big girls put on their skates and dragged Tess and Dot to school.Almost all the older scholars who attended school that day went onsteel. At recess and after the session the Parade was the scene of racesand impromptu games of hockey.
The girls of the sixth grade, grammar, held races of their own. TrixSevern was noted for her skating, and heretofore had been champion ofall the girls of her own age, or younger. She was fourteen--nearly twoyears older than Agnes Kenway.
But Agnes was a vigorous and graceful skater. She skated with NealeO'Neil (who at once proved himself as good as any boy on the ice) and_that_ offended Trix, for she had wished to skate with Neale herself.
Since the green tinge had faded out of Neale's hair, and it had grown toa respectable length, the girls had all cast approving glances at him.Oddly enough, his hair had grown out a darker shade than before. Itcould not be the effect of the dye, but he certainly was no longer "thewhite-haired boy."
Well! Trix was real cross because Agnes Kenway skated with Neale. Then,when the sixth grade, grammar, girls got up the impromptu races, Trixfound that Agnes was one of her closest competitors.
While the boys played hockey at the upper end of the Parade, the girlsraced 'way to Willow Street and back again. Best two out of three trialsit was, and the first trial was won by Agnes--and she did it easily!
"Why! you've beaten Trix," Eva Larry cried to Agnes. "However did you doit? She always beats us skating."
"Oh, I broke a strap," announced Trix, quickly. "Come on! we'll try itagain, and I'll show you."
"I believe Agnes can beat you every time, Trix," laughed Eva, lightly.
Trix flew into a passion at this. And of course, all her venom was aimedat Agnes.
"I'll show that upstart Corner House girl that she sha'n't ride over_me_," she declared, angrily, as the contestants gathered for the secondtrial of speed.