CHAPTER XXI
A BACKYARD CIRCUS
They said afterward that the wreck of the snow castle was heard clear tothe outskirts of the town. The _Morning Post_ said that it wasdisgraceful that the school authorities had allowed it to be built.Parents and guardians were inclined to rail against what they hadpreviously praised the boys for doing.
The fact remained, and the calmer people of the community admitted it,that as soon as there was any danger the boys had warned everybody out.That one headstrong girl--and she, only--was caught in the wreckage, didnot change the fact that the boys had been very careful.
At the moment the roof of the snow castle crashed in, the only thoughtof those in sight of the catastrophe was of Trix Severn.
"Oh! save her! save her!" Ruth Kenway cried.
"She's killed! I _know_ she is!" wept Agnes, wringing her hands.
Joe Eldred and Wib Ketchell were as pale as they could be. None of thelittle group at the entrance moved for a full minute. Then Neale O'Neilbrought them all to life with:
"_She wasn't under that fall!_ Quick! 'round to the rear! We can saveher."
"I tell you she's dead!" avowed Wilbur, hoarsely.
"Come on!" shouted Neale, and seized a shovel that stood leaning againstthe snow wall. "Come on, Joe! The roof's only fallen in the middle. Trixis back of that, I tell you!"
"Neale is right! Neale is right!" screamed Agnes. "Let's dig her out."
She and Ruth started after Neale O'Neil and Joe. Wilbur ran away interror and did much to spread the senseless alarm throughout theneighborhood that half the school children in town were buried beneaththe wreckage of the snow castle!
But it was bad enough--at first. The Corner House girls and their boyfriends were not altogether sure that Trix was only barred from escapeby the falling rubbish.
Neale and Joe attacked the rear wall of the structure with vigor, butthe edge of their shovels was almost turned by the icy mass. Axes andcrowbars would scarcely have made an impression on the hard-packed snow.
It was Ruth who pointed the right way. She picked up a hard lump of snowand sent it crashing through the rear ice-window!
"Trix!" she shouted.
"Oh! get me out! get me out!" the voice of the missing girl replied.
Another huge section of the roof, with the side battlements, cavedinward; but it was a forward section.
The boys knocked out the rest of the broken ice around the window-holeand Neale leaped upon the sill which was more than three feet across.The walls of the castle were toppling, and falling, and the lights hadgone out. But there was a moon and the boy could see what he was about.
The spectators at a distance were helpless during the few minutes whichhad elapsed since the first alarm. Nobody came to the assistance of theCorner House girls and the two boys.
But Trix was able to help herself. Neale saw her hands extended, and heleaned over and seized her wrists, while Joe held him by the feet.
Then with a heave, and wriggle, "that circus boy," as Trix had nicknamedhim, performed the feat of getting her out of the falling castle, andthe Corner House girls received her with open arms.
The peril was over, but rumor fed the excitement for an hour and broughtout as big a crowd as though there had been a fire in the businesssection of the town.
Trix clung to Ruth and Agnes Kenway in an abandonment of terror andthanksgiving, at first. The peril she had suffered quite broke down herhaughtiness, and the rancor she had felt toward the Corner House girlswas dissipated.
"There, there! Don't you cry any more, Trix," urged good-natured Agnes."I'm _so_ glad you got out of that horrid place safely. And we didn'thelp you, you know. It was Neale O'Neil."
"That circus boy" had slunk away as though he had done somethingcriminal; but Joe was blowing a horn of praise for Neale in the crowd,as the Corner House girls led Trix away.
Ruth and Agnes went home with Trix Severn, but they would not go intothe house that evening as Trix desired. The very next morning Trix wasaround before schooltime, to walk to school with Agnes. And within aweek (as Neale laughingly declared to Ruth) Agnes and Trix were "asthick as thieves!"
"Can you beat Aggie?" scoffed Neale. "That Trix girl has been treatingher as mean as she knows how for months, and now you couldn't pry Aggieaway from her with a crowbar."
"I am glad," said Ruth, "that Agnes so soon gets over being mad."
"Huh! Trix is soft just now. But wait till she gets mad again," heprophesied.
However, this intimacy of Agnes with her former enemy continued so longthat winter passed, and spring tiptoed through the woods and fields,flinging her bounties with lavish hand, while still Agnes and Trixremained the best of friends.
As spring advanced, the usual restless spirit of the season pervaded theold Corner House. Especially did the little girls find it infectious.Tess and Dot neglected the nursery and the dolls for the sake of beingout-of-doors.
Old Billy Bumps, who had lived almost the life of a hermit for part ofthe winter, was now allowed the freedom of the premises for a part ofeach day. They kept the gates shut; but the goat had too good a home,and led too much a life of ease here at the Corner House, to wish towander far.
The girls ran out to the rescue of any stranger who came to the WillowStreet gate. It was not everybody that Billy Bumps "took to," but manyhe "took after."
When he took it into his hard old head to bump one, he certainly bumpedhard--as witness Mr. Con Murphy's pig that he had butted through thefence on the second day of his arrival at the old Corner House.
That particular pig had been killed, but there was another young porkernow in the cobbler's sty. Neale O'Neil continued to lodge with Mr. ConMurphy. He was of considerable help to the cobbler, and the littleIrishman was undoubtedly fond of the strange boy.
For Neale _did_ remain a stranger, even to his cobbler friend, as Mr.Murphy told Ruth and Agnes, when they called on him on one occasion.
"An oyster is a garrulous bir-r-rd beside that same Neale O'Neil. I knowas much about his past now as I did whin he kem to me--which same isjist nawthin' at all, at all!"
"I don't believe he _has_ a past!" cried Agnes, eager to defend herhero.
"Sure, d'ye think the bye is a miracle?" demanded Con Murphy. "That hehas no beginning and no ending? Never fear! He has enough to tell us ifhe would, and some day the dam of his speech will go busted, and we'llhear it all."
"Is he afraid to tell us who he really is?" asked Ruth, doubtfully.
"I think so, Miss," said the cobbler. "He is fearin' something--that Iknow. But phat that same is, I dunno!"
Neale O'Neil had made good at school. He had gained the respect of Mr.Marks and of course Miss Georgiana liked him. With the boys and girls ofgrade six, grammar, he was very popular, and he seemed destined tograduate into high school in June with flying colors.
June was still a long way off when, one day, Tess and Dot begged Nealeto harness Billy Bumps to the wagon for them. Uncle Rufus had fashioneda strong harness and the wagon to which the old goat was attached hadtwo seats. He was a sturdy animal and had been well broken; so, if hewished to do so, he could trot all around the big yard with Tess and Dotin the cart.
Sometimes Billy Bumps did not care to play pony; then it was quiteimpossible to do anything with him. But he was never rough with, oroffered to butt, Tess and Dot. They could manage his goatship whennobody else could.
Sometimes Billy Bumps' old master, Sammy Pinkney, came over to see hisformer pet, but the bulldog, Jock, remained outside the gate. BillyBumps did not like Jock, and he was never slow to show his antagonismtoward the dog.
On this occasion that Neale harnessed the goat to the wagon, there wasno trouble at first. Billy Bumps was feeling well and not too lazy. Tessand Dot got aboard, and the mistress of the goat seized the reins andclucked to him.
Billy Bumps drove just like a pony--and was quite as well trained. Thelittle girls guided him all around the garden, and then around thehouse, following the bricked path down to
the front gate.
They never went outside with Billy unless either Neale, or Uncle Rufus,was with them, for there was still a well developed doubt in the mindsof the older folk as to what Billy Bumps might do if he took it into hishead to have a "tantrum."
"As though our dear old Billy Bumps would do anything naughty!" Dotsaid. "But, as you say, Tess, we can't go out on Main Street with himunless we ask."
"And Uncle Rufus is busy," said Tess, turning the goat around.
They drove placidly around the house again to the rear, following thepath along the Willow Street side.
"There's Sammy Pinkney," said Dot.
"Well, I hope he doesn't come in," said Tess, busy with the reins. "Heis too rough with Billy Bumps."
But Sammy came in whistling, with his cap very far back on his closelycropped head, and the usual mischievous grin on his face. Jock was athis heels and Billy Bumps immediately stopped and shook his head.
"Now, you send that dog right back, Sammy," commanded Tess. "You knowBilly Bumps doesn't like him."
"Aw, I didn't know Jock was following me," explained Sammy, and he drovethe bulldog out of the yard. But he failed to latch the gate, and Jockwas too faithful to go far away.
Billy Bumps was still stamping his feet and shaking his head. Sam cameup and began to rub his ears--an attention for which the goat did notcare.
"Don't tease him, Sammy," begged Dot.
"Aw, I'm not," declared Sammy.
"He doesn't like that--you know he doesn't," admonished Tess.
"He ought to have gotten used to it by this time," Sammy declared."Jinks! what's that?"
Unnoticed by the children, Sandyface, the old mother cat, had gravelywalked down the path to the street gate. She was quite oblivious of thepresence, just outside, of Jock, who crouched with the very tip of hisred tongue poked out and looking just as amiable as it is ever possiblefor a bulldog to look.
Suddenly Jock spied Sandyface. The dog was instantly allattention--quivering muzzle, twitching ears, sides heaving, even hisabbreviated tail vibrating with delighted anticipation. Jock consideredcats his rightful prey, and Sammy was not the master to teach himbetter.
The dog sprang for the gate, and it swung open. Sandyface saw her enemywhile he was in midair.
She flew across the backyard to the big pear-tree. Jock was right behindher, his tongue lolling out and the joy of the chase strongly exhibitedin his speaking countenance.
In his usual foolish fashion, the bulldog tried to climb the tree afterthe cat. Jock could never seem to learn that he was not fitted by naturefor such exploits, and wherever the game led, he tried to follow.
His interest being so completely centered in Sandyface and his attemptto get her, peril in the rear never crossed Jock's doggish mind.
Old Billy Bumps uttered a challenging "blat" almost upon the tail ofSammy's shout; then he started headlong for his ancient enemy. He gavehis lady passengers no time to disembark, but charged across the yard,head down, and aimed directly at the leaping bulldog.
The latter, quite unconscious of impending peril, continued to try tocatch Sandyface, who looked down upon his foolish gyrations from abranch near the top of the tree. Perhaps she divined what was about tohappen to the naughty Jock, for she did not even meow!