CHAPTER V
CRACKERS--AND A TOOTHACHE
The arc light at the corner of Main Street vied with a faint moon inilluminating the passages and corridors of the old Corner House. Deepshadows lay in certain corners and at turns in the halls and staircases;but Neale O'Neil was not afraid of the dark.
The distant laughter spurred him to find the girls' room. He wanted toget square with Agnes, whom he believed had put the bag of crackersbeside his bed.
But suddenly a door slammed, and then there was a great silence over thehouse. From the outside Neale could easily have identified the girls'room. He had seen Aggie climb out of one of the windows of the chamberin question that very morning.
But in a couple of minutes he had to acknowledge that he was completelyturned about in this house. He did not know that he had been put tosleep in another wing from that in which the girls' rooms were situated.Only Uncle Rufus slept in this wing besides himself, and he in anotherstory higher.
The white-haired boy came finally to the corridor leading to the mainstaircase. This was more brilliantly lighted by the electric lamp on thestreet. He stepped lightly forward and saw a faint light from a transomover one of the front room doors.
"That's where those girls sleep, I bet!" whispered Neale to himself.
The transom was open. There was a little rustling sound within. Then thelight went out.
Neale broke the string and opened the bag of crackers. They were of thethick, hard variety known in New England as "Boston" crackers. He tookout one and weighed it in his hand. It made a very proper missile.
With a single jerk of his arm he scaled the cracker through the opentransom. There was a slight scuffle within, following the cracker'sfall.
He paused a moment and then threw a second and a third. Each time therustling was repeated, and Neale kept up the bombardment believing that,although the girls did not speak, the shower of crackers was fallingupon the guilty.
One after the other he flung the crackers through the transom until theywere all discharged. Not a sound now from the bombarded quarters.Chuckling, Neale stole away, sure that he would have a big laugh onAgnes in the morning.
But before he got back into his wing of the house, he spied a candlewith a girl in a pink kimono behind it.
"Whatever do you want out here, Neale O'Neil? A drink?"
It was Ruth. Neale was full of tickle over his joke, and he had torelate it.
"I've just been paying off that smart sister of yours in her own coin,"he chuckled.
"Which smart sister?"
"Why, Agnes."
"But how?"
Neale told her how he had found the bag of crackers on the table besidehis bed. "Nobody but Aggie would be up to such a trick, I know,"chuckled Neale. "So I just pitched 'em all through the transom at her."
"What transom?" gasped Ruth, in dismay. "Where did you throw them?"
"Why, right through _that_ one," and Neale pointed. "Isn't that the roomyou and Aggie occupy?"
"My goodness' sakes alive!" cried Ruth, awe-struck. "What _have_ youdone, Neale O'Neil? _That's Aunt Sarah's room._"
Ruth rushed to the door, tried it, found it unbolted, and ran in. Hercandle but dimly revealed the apartment; but it gave light enough toshow that Aunt Sarah was not in evidence.
Almost in the middle of the room stood the big "four-poster," withcanopy and counterpane, the fringe of which reached almost to the ragcarpet that covered the floor. A cracker crunched under Ruth'sslipper-shod foot. Indeed, crackers were everywhere! No part of theroom--save beneath the bed itself--had escaped the bombardment.
"Mercy on us!" gasped Ruth, and ran to the bed. She lifted a corner ofthe counterpane and peered under. A pair of bare heels were revealed andbeyond them--supposedly--was the remainder of Aunt Sarah!
"Aunt Sarah! Aunt Sarah! do come out," begged Ruth.
"The ceilin's fallin', Niece Ruth," croaked the old lady. "This ricketyold shebang is a-fallin' to pieces at last. I allus told your UnclePeter it would."
"No, no, Aunt Sarah, it's all right!" cried Ruth. Then she rememberedNeale and knew if she told the story bluntly, Aunt Sarah would neverforgive the boy.
"Do, _do_ come out," she begged, meanwhile scrambling about, herself, topick up the crackers. She collected most of them that were whole easilyenough. But some had broken and the pieces had scattered far and wide.
With some difficulty the old lady crept out from under the far side ofthe bed. She was ready to retire, her nightcap securely tied under herchin, and all.
When Ruth, much troubled by a desire to laugh, asked her, she explainedthat the first missile had landed upon her head while she was kneelingbeside the bed at her devotions.
"I got up and another of the things hit me on the ear," pursued AuntSarah, short and sharp. "Another landed in the small of my back, and Iwent over into that corner. But pieces of the ceiling were droppin' allover and no matter where I got to, they hit me. So I dove under thebed----"
"Oh! you poor, dear Auntie!"
"If the dratted ceilin's all comin' down, this ain't no place for us tostay," quoth Aunt Sarah.
"I am sure it is all over," urged Ruth. "But if you'd like to go toanother room----?"
"And sleep in a bed that ain't been aired in a dog's age?" snapped AuntSarah. "I guess not."
"Then, will you come and sleep with me? Aggie can go into the children'sroom."
"No. If you are sure there ain't no more goin' to fall?"
"I am positive, Auntie."
"Then I'm going to bed," declared the old lady. "But I allus told Peterthis old place was bound to go to rack and ruin because o' hismiserliness."
Ruth waited till her aunt got into bed, where she almost at once fellasleep. Then the girl scrambled for the remainder of the broken crackersand carried them all out into the hall in the trash basket.
Neale O'Neil was sitting on the top step of the front stairs, waitingfor her appearance.
"Well! I guess I did it that time," he said. "She looked at me savageenough to bite, at supper. What's she going to do now--have me arrestedand hung?" and he grinned suddenly.
"Oh, Neale!" gasped Ruth, overcome with laughter. "How could you?"
"I thought you girls were in there. I was giving Aggie her crackersback," Neale grunted.
Ruth explained to him how the crackers had come to be left in his room.Agnes had had nothing to do with it. "I guess the joke is on you, afterall, Neale," she said, obliged to laugh in the end.
"Or on that terrible old lady."
"But she doesn't know it is a joke. I don't know what she'll sayto-morrow when she sees that none of the ceiling has fallen."
Fortunately Aunt Sarah supplied an explanation herself--and nothingcould have shaken her belief in her own opinion. One of her windows wasdropped down half way from the top. She was sure that some "rascallyboy" outside (she glared at Neale O'Neil when she said it at thebreakfast table) had thrown crackers through the window. She had foundsome of the crumbs.
"And I'll ketch him some day, and then----" She shook her head grimlyand relapsed into her accustomed silence.
So Neale did not have to confess his fault and try to make peace withAunt Sarah. It would have been impossible for him to do this last, Ruthwas sure.
But the story of the bag of crackers delighted Agnes. She teased Nealeabout it unmercifully, and he showed himself to be better-natured andmore patient, than Ruth had at first supposed him to be.
The next few days following the appearance of Neale O'Neil at the oldCorner House were busy ones indeed. School would open the next week andthere was lots to do before that important event.
Brooms searched out dust, long-handled brushes searched out cobwebs, andthe first and second floors of the old Corner House were subjected to athorough renovation.
Above that the girls and Mrs. MacCall decided not to go. The third floorrooms were scarcely ever entered, save by Sandyface and her kittens insearch of mice. As for the great garret that ran the full width of thefront of
the house, _that_ had been cleaned so recently (at the time ofthe "Ghost Party," which is told of in the first volume of this series)that there was no necessity of mounting so high.
The stranger boy who had come to the old Corner House so opportunely,proved himself of inestimable value in the work in hand. Uncle Rufus wassaved many a groan by that lively youth, and Mrs. MacCall and the girlspronounced him a valuable assistant.
The young folk were resting on the back porch on Thursday afternoon,chattering like magpies, when suddenly Neale O'Neil spied a splotch ofbrilliant color coming along Willow Street.
"What do you call this?" demanded he. "Is it a locomotive headlight?"
"Oh! what a ribbon!" gasped Agnes.
"I declare!" said Tess, in her old-fashioned way. "That is AlfrediaBlossom. And what a great bow of ribbon she has tied on her head. It'sbig enough for a sash, Dot."
"Looks like a house afire," commented Neale again.
By this time Alfredia's smiling face was recognizable under the flamingred bow, and Ruth explained:
"She is one of Uncle Rufus' grand-daughters. Her mother, PetuniaBlossom, washes for us, and Alfredia is dragging home the wash in thatlittle wagon."
The ribbon, Alfredia wore was at least four inches wide and it was tiedin front at the roots of her kinky hair into a bow, the wings of whichstuck out on each side like a pair of elephant ears.
The little colored girl came in at the side gate, drawing thewash-basket after her.
"How-do, Miss Ruthie--and Miss Aggie? How-do, Tessie and Dottie? You-allgwine to school on Monday?"
"All of us are going, Alfredia," proclaimed Tess. "Are you going?"
"Mammy done said I could," said Alfredia, rolling her eyes. "But I dunnofo' sho'."
"Why don't you know?" asked Agnes, the curious.
"Dunno as I got propah clo'es to wear, honey. Got ter look mightyfetchin' ter go ter school--ya-as'm!"
"Is that why you've got that great bow on your head?" giggled Agnes. "Tomake you look 'fetching'?"
"Naw'm. I put dat ol' red sash-bow up dar to 'tract 'tention."
"To attract attention?" repeated Ruth. "Why do you want to attractattention?"
"I don't _wanter_, Miss Ruthie."
"Then why do you wear it?"
"So folkses will look at my haid."
Agnes and Neale were vastly amused, but Ruth pursued her inquiry. Shewished to get to the bottom of the mystery:
"Why do you want folks to look at your head, Alfredia?"
"So dey won't look at my feet. I done got holes in my shoes--an' dey isMammy's shoes, anyway. Do you 'spects I kin git by wid 'em onMonday--for dey's de on'iest shoes I got ter wear?"
The Kenways laughed--they couldn't help it. But Ruth did not let thecolored girl go away without a pair of half-worn footwear of Agnes' thatcame somewhere near fitting Alfredia.
"It's just so nice to have so many things that we can afford to givesome away," sighed Agnes. "My! my! but we ought to be four happy girls."
One of the Corner House girls was far from happy the next day. Dot camedown to breakfast with a most woebegone face, and tenderly caressing herjaw. She had a toothache, and a plate of mush satisfied her completelyat the table.
"I--I can't che-e-e-ew!" she wailed, when she tried a bit of toast.
"I am ashamed of you, Dot," said Tess, earnestly. "That tooth is just alittle wabbly one, and you ought to have it pulled."
"Ow! don't you touch it!" shrieked Dot.
"I'm not going to," said Tess. "I was reaching for some more butter formy toast--not for your tooth."
"We-ell!" confessed the smallest Kenway; "it just _jumps_ when anybodycomes toward it."
"Be a brave little girl and go with sister to the dentist," begged Ruth.
"No--please--Ruthie! I can't," wailed Dot.
"Let sister tie a stout thread around it, and you pull it out yourself,"suggested Ruth, as a last resort.
Finally Dot agreed to this. That is, she agreed to have the thread tiedon. Neale climbed the back fence into Mr. Murphy's premises and obtaineda waxed-end of the cobbler. This, he said, would not slip, and Ruthmanaged to fasten the thread to the root of the little tooth.
"One good jerk, and it's all over!" proclaimed Agnes.
But this seemed horrible to Dot. The tender little gum was sore, and thenerve telegraphed a sense of acute pain to Dot's mind whenever shetouched the tooth. One good jerk, indeed!
"I tell you what to do," said Neale to the little girl. "You tie theother end of that waxed-end to a doorknob, and sit down and wait.Somebody will come through the door after a while and jerk the toothright out!"
"Oh!" gasped Dot.
"Go ahead and try it, Dot," urged Agnes. "I'm afraid you are a littlecoward."
This accusation from her favorite sister made Dot feel very badly. Shebetook herself to another part of the house, the black thread hangingfrom her lips.
"What door are you going to sit behind, Dot?" whispered Tess. "I'll comeand do it--_just as easy!_"
"No, you sha'n't!" cried Dot. "You sha'n't know. And I don't want toknow who is going to j-j-jerk it out," and she ran away, sobbing.
Being so busy that morning, the others really forgot the little girl.None of them saw her take a hassock, put it behind the sitting-room doorthat was seldom opened, and after tying the string to the knob, seatherself upon the hassock and wait for something to happen.
She waited. Nobody came near that room. The sun shone warmly in at thewindows, the bees buzzed, and Dot grew drowsy. Finally she fell fastasleep with her tooth tied to the doorknob.