CHAPTER XVII
"THAT CIRCUS BOY"
The first Christmas since the Kenway girls had "come into" Uncle Peter'sestate was bound to be a memorable one for Ruth and Agnes and Tess andDot.
Mother Kenway, while she had lived, had believed in the old-fashionedNew England Christmas. The sisters had never had a tree, but they alwayshung their stockings on a line behind the "base-burner" in thesitting-room of the Bloomingsburg tenement. So now they hung them in arow by the dining-room mantelpiece in the old Corner House.
Uncle Rufus took a great deal of interest in this proceeding. He tookout the fire-board from the old-fashioned chimneyplace, so as to giveingress to Santa Clans when the reindeers of that good saint should landupon the Corner House roof.
Dot held to her first belief in the personal existence of Saint Nick,and although Tess had some doubts as to his real identity, she would notfor the world have said anything to weaken Dot's belief.
There was no stove in the way in the dining-room, for the furnace--putinto the cellar by Uncle Peter only shortly before his death--heated thetwo lower floors of the main part of the house, as well as the kitchenwing, in which the girls and Mrs. MacCall slept.
The girls had begged Neale O'Neil to hang up his stocking with theirs,but he refused--rather gruffly, it must be confessed. Mrs. MacCall andUncle Rufus, however, were prevailed upon to add their hose to the line.Aunt Sarah rather snappishly objected to "exposing her stockings to thepublic view, whether on or off the person,"--so she said.
The four Corner House girls felt thankful to the queer old woman, whowas really no relation to them at all, but who accepted all their bountyand attentions as though they were hers by right.
Indeed, at the time when there seemed some doubt as to whether Mr.Howbridge could prove for the Kenway girls a clear title to UnclePeter's property, Aunt Sarah had furnished the necessary evidence, andsent away the claimant from Ipsilanti.
There was, too, a soft side to Aunt Sarah's character; only, like thechestnutburr, one had to get inside her shell to find it. If one of thechildren was ill, Aunt Sarah was right there with the old fashionedremedies, and although some of her "yarb teas" might be nasty to take,they were efficacious.
Then, she was always knitting, or embroidering, something or other forthe girls. Now that there was plenty of money in the family purse, sheordered materials just as she pleased, and knit jackets, shawls,mittens, and "wristlets."
She was a very grim lady and dressed very plainly; although she neversaid so, she liked to have the girls sit with her at their sewing. Shetook infinite pains to teach them to be good needle-women, as her motherhad doubtless taught her.
So the chief present the girls bought this Christmas for Aunt Sarah wasa handsome sewing table, its drawers well supplied with all manner ofthreads, silks, wools, and such like materials.
This the Kenway sisters had all "chipped in" to purchase, and the tablewas smuggled into the house and hidden away in one of the spare rooms,weeks before Christmas. The girls had purchased a new dress for Mrs.MacCall, and had furnished out Uncle Rufus from top to toe in a suit ofblack clothes, with a white vest, in which he could wait at table onstate and date occasions, as well as wear to church on Sundays.
There were, of course, small individual presents from each girl to thesefamily retainers, and to Aunt Sarah. The stockings bulged mostdelightfully in the dining-room when they trooped down to breakfast onChristmas morning.
Tess and Dot could scarcely eat, their eyes were so fixed upon thedelightfully knobby bundles piled under each of their stockings on thehearth. Agnes declared Tess tried to drink her buckwheat cakes and eather coffee, and that Dot was in danger of sticking her fork into her eyeinstead of into her mouth.
But the meal was ended at last and Uncle Rufus wheeled out Aunt Sarah'sbeautiful sewing table, with her other smaller presents upon it. Ruthtold her how happy it made them all to give it to her. Aunt Sarah's keeneye lit up as she was shown all the interesting things about her newacquisition; but all the verbal comment she made was that she thought"you gals better be in better business than buying gewgaws for an oldwoman like me."
"Just the same, she is pleased as Punch," Mrs. MacCall whispered toRuth. "Only, she doesn't like to show it."
The girls quickly came to their own presents. None of the articles theyhad bought for each other were of great value intrinsically; but theyall showed love and thoughtfulness. Little things that each had at sometime carelessly expressed a wish for, appeared from the stockings todelight and warm the heart of the recipient.
There was nobody, of course, to give the two older girls any veryvaluable gifts; but there was a pretty locket and chain for Ruth whichshe had seen in the jewelry-store window and expressed a fondness for,while the desire of Agnes' eyes was satisfied when she found a certainbracelet in the toe of her stocking.
Tess had a bewildering number of books and school paraphernalia, as wellas additions to her dolls' paraphernalia; but it was Dot who sat downbreathlessly in the middle of the floor under a perfect avalanche oftreasures, all connected with her "children's" comfort and her personalhouse-keeping arrangements.
It would have been almost sacrilege to have presented Dot with anotherdoll; for the Alice-doll that had come the Christmas before and had onlylately been graduated into short clothes, still held the largest placein the little girl's affections.
Battered by adversity as the Alice-doll was, Dot's heart could neverhave warmed toward another "child" as it did toward the unfortunate that"Double Trouble"--that angel-faced young one from Ipsilanti--had buriedwith the dried apples. But Dot's sisters had showered upon her everyimaginable comfort and convenience for the use of a growing family ofdolls, as well as particular presents to the Alice-doll herself.
"What's the matter, child?" asked Mrs. MacCall, seeing the expression onDot's face as she sat among her possessions. "Don't they suit?"
"Mrs. MacCall," declared Dot, gravely, "I think I shall faint. Myheart's just jumping. If gladness could kill anybody, I know I'd have todie to show how happy I am. And I know my Alice-doll will feel just as Ido."
Uncle Rufus' daughter, Petunia Blossom, came after breakfast withseveral of her brood--and the laundry cart--to take away the good thingsthat had been gathered for her and her family.
Petunia was "fast brack," as her father declared--an enormously fat,jetty-black negress, with a pretty face, and a superabundance ofchildren. To enumerate the Blossom family, as Petunia had once done forRuth's information, there were:
"Two married and moved away; two at work; twins twice makes eight;Alfredia; Jackson Montgomery Simms; Burne-Jones Whistler; the baby; andLouisa Annette."
Ruth and her sisters had purchased, or made, small and unimportantpresents for Neale O'Neil. Neale had remembered each of them with gifts,all the work of his own hands; a wooden berry dish and ladle for Tess'doll's tea-table; a rustic armchair for the Alice-doll, for Dot; aneatly made pencil box for Agnes; and for Ruth a new umbrella handle,beautifully carved and polished, for Ruth had a favorite umbrella thehandle of which she had broken that winter.
Neale was ingenious in more ways than one. He showed this at school,too, on several occasions. It was just after the midwinter holidays thatMr. Marks, the grammar school principal, wished to raise the school flagon the roof flag-staff, and it was found that the halyard and block hadbeen torn away by the wind.
The janitor was too old a man to make the repair and it looked as thougha professional rigger must be sent for, when Neale volunteered.
Perhaps Mr. Marks knew something about the boy's prowess, for he did nothesitate to give his permission. Neale went up to the roof and mountedthe staff with the halyard rove through the block, and hooked the latterin place with ease. It took but a few minutes; but half the school stoodbelow and held its breath, watching the slim figure swinging sorecklessly on the flag-staff.
His mates cheered him when he came down, for they had grown fond ofNeale O'Neil. The Corner House girls too, were proud of him.
But TrixSevern, who disliked Neale because he paid her no attention, hearingAgnes praising the boy's courage and skill, exclaimed in her sneeringway:
"That circus boy! Why wouldn't he be able to do all sorts of tricks likethat? It was what he was brought up to, no doubt."
"What do you mean by that, Trix Severn?" demanded Agnes, immediatelyaccepting her enemy's challenge. "Neale is not a circus boy."
"Oh! he isn't?"
"No. He's never even _seen_ a circus," the positive Agnes declared.
"He told you that, did he?" laughed Trix, airily.
"He said he had never been to see a circus in his life," Agnes repeated."And Neale wouldn't lie."
"That's all you know about him, then," said Trix. "And I thought youCorner House girls were such friends with Neale O'Neil," and she walkedoff laughing again, refusing to explain her insinuations.
But the nickname of "circus boy" stuck to Neale O'Neil after that and heearnestly wished he had not volunteered to fix the flag rigging. _Why_it troubled him so, however, he did not explain to the Corner Housegirls.