CHAPTER VII
NEALE IN DISGUISE
The Parade Ground was in the center of Milton. Its lower end borderedWillow Street, and the old Corner House was right across from thetermination of the Parade's principal shaded walk.
Ranged all around the Parade (which had in colonial days been called"the training ground" where the local militia-hands drilled) were theprincipal public buildings of the town, although the chief businessplaces were situated down Main Street, below the Corner House.
The brick courthouse with its tall, square tower, occupied a prominentsituation on the Parade. The several more important church edifices,too, faced the great, open common. Interspersed were the betterresidences of Milton. Some of these were far more modern than the oldStower homestead, but to the Kenway girls none seemed more homelike inappearance.
At the upper end of the Parade were grouped the schools of the town.There was a handsome new high school that Ruth was going to enter; theold one was now given over to the manual training departments. Thegrammar and primary school was a large, sprawling building with plentyof entrances and exits, and in this structure the other three Kenwaygirls found their grades.
The quartette of Corner House girls were not the only young folk anxiousabout entering the Milton schools for the forthcoming year. There wasNeale O'Neil. The Kenways knew by the way he spoke, that his expectedexperiences at school were uppermost in his thoughts all the time.
Ruth had talked the matter over with Mrs. MacCall, although she had notseen Mr. Howbridge, and they had decided that the boy was a very welcomeaddition to the Corner House household, if he would stay.
But Neale O'Neil did not want charity--nor would he accept anything thatsavored of it for long. Even while he was so busy helping the girlsclean house, he had kept his eyes and ears open for a permanent lodging.And on Saturday morning he surprised Ruth by announcing that he wouldleave them after supper that night.
"Why, Neale! where are you going?" asked the oldest Corner House girl."I am sure there is room enough for you here."
"I know all about that," said Neale, grinning quickly at her. "You folksare the best ever."
"Then, why----?"
"I've made a dicker with Mr. Con Murphy. You see, I won't be far fromyou girls if you want me any time," he pursued.
"You are going to live with Mr. Murphy?"
"Yes. He's got a spare room--and it's very neat and clean. There's awoman comes in and 'does' for him, as he calls it. He needs a chap likeme to give him a hand now and then--taking care of the pig and hisgarden, you know."
"Not in the winter, Neale," said Ruth, gently. "I hope you are notleaving us for any foolish reason. You are perfectly welcome to stay.You ought to know that."
"That is fine of you, Ruth," he said, gratefully. "But you don't _need_me here. I can feel more independent over there at Murphy's. And I shallbe quite all right there, I assure you."
The house was now all to rights--"spick and span," Mrs. MacCallsaid--and Saturday was given up to preparing for the coming school term.It was the last day of the long vacation.
Dot had no loose tooth to worry her and she was busy, with Tess, inpreparing the dolls' winter nursery. All summer the little girls hadplayed in the rustic house in the garden, but now that September hadcome, an out-of-door playroom would soon be too cold.
Although the great garret made a grand playroom for all hands on stormydays, Ruth thought it too far for Dot and Tess to go to the top of thehouse alone to play with their dolls. For her dolls were of as muchimportance to Dot as her own eating or sleeping. She lived in a littleworld of her own with the Alice-doll and all her other "children"; andshe no more thought of neglecting them for a day than she and Tessneglected Billy Bumps or the cats.
There was no means of heating the garret, so a room in the wing withtheir bed chambers, and which was heated from the cellar furnace, wasgiven up to "the kiddies'" nursery.
There were many treasures to be taken indoors, and Dot and Tess toiledout of the garden, and up the porch steps, and through the hall, andclimbed the stairs to the new playroom--oh! so many times.
Mr. Stetson, the groceryman, came with an order just as Dot was toilingalong with an armful to the porch.
"Hello! hello!" he exclaimed. "Don't you want some help with all thatload, Miss Dorothy?" She was a special favorite of his, and he alwaysstopped to talk with her.
"Ruthie says we got to move all by ourselves--Tess and me," said Dot,with a sigh. "I'm just as much obliged to you, but I guess you can'thelp."
She had sat down on the porch steps and Sandyface came, purring, to rubagainst her.
"You can go right away, Sandy!" said Dot, sternly. "I don't likeyou--much. You went and sat right down in the middle of my Alice-doll'sold cradle, and on her best knit coverlet, and went to sleep--and you'remoulting! I'll never get the hairs off of that quilt."
"Moulting, eh!" chuckled Mr. Stetson. "Don't you mean shedding?"
"We--ell, maybe," confessed Dot. "But the hens' feathers are coming outand they're moulting--I heard Ruth say so. So why not cats? Anyway, youcan go away, Sandyface, and stop rubbing them off on _me_."
"What's become of that kitten of yours--Bungle, did you call it?" askedthe groceryman.
"Why, don't you know?" asked Dot, in evident surprise.
"I haven't heard a word," confessed Mr. Stetson. "Did something happento it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Was it poisoned?"
"Oh, no!"
"Drowned?"
"No, sir."
"Did somebody steal it?" queried Mr. Stetson.
"No, indeed!"
"Was it hurt in any way?"
"No, sir."
"Well, then," said the groceryman, "I can't guess. What _did_ happen toBungle?"
"Why," said Dot, "he growed into a cat!"
That amused Mr. Stetson immensely, and he went away, laughing. "It seemsto me," Dot said, seriously, to Tess, "that it don't take so much tomake grown-up people laugh. Is it funny for a kitten to grow into acat?"
Neale disappeared for some time right after dinner. He had done all hecould to help Uncle Rufus and Mrs. MacCall that forenoon, and hadpromised Ruth to come back for supper. "I wouldn't miss Mrs. MacCall'sbeans and fishcakes for a farm!" he declared, laughing.
But he did not laugh as much as he had when he first came to the oldCorner House. Ruth, at least, noticed the change in him, and, "harkingback," she began to realize that the change had begun just after Nealehad been so startled by the advertisment he had read in the _MorningPost_.
The two older Kenway girls had errands to do at some of the Main Streetstores that afternoon. It was Agnes who came across Neale O'Neil in thebig pharmacy on the corner of Ralph Street. He was busily engaged with aclerk at the rear of the store.
"Hello, Neale!" cried Agnes. "What you buying?" Sometimes Agnes'curiosity went beyond her good manners.
"I'll take this kind," said Neale, hurriedly, touching a bottle atrandom, and then turned his back on the counter to greet Agnes. "Anounce of question-powders to make askits," he said to her, with a graveand serious air. "_You_ don't need any, do you?"
"Funny!"
"But I don't _look_ as funny as you do," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "That'sthe most preposterous looking hat I ever saw, Aggie. And thoserabbit-ears on it!"
"Tow-head!" responded Agnes, with rather crude repartee.
Neale did not usually mind being tweaked about his flaxen hair--atleast, not by the Corner House girls, but Agnes saw his expressionchange suddenly, and he turned back to the clerk and received hispackage without a word.
"Oh, you needn't get mad," she said, quickly.
"I'm not," responded Neale, briefly, but he paid for his purchase andhurried away without further remark. Agnes chanced to notice that theother bottles the clerk was returning to the shelves were all samples ofdyes and "hair-restorers."
"Maybe he's buying something for Mr. Murphy. Mr. Murphy is awfully baldon top," thought Agnes, and that's all she _did_ thi
nk about it untilthe next day.
The girls had invited Neale to go to their church, with them and he hadpromised to be there. But when they filed in just before the sermon theysaw nothing of the white-haired boy standing about the porch with theother boys.
"There's somebody in our pew," whispered Tess to Ruth.
"Aunt Sarah?"
"No. Aunt Sarah is in her own seat across the aisle," said Agnes. "Why!it's a boy."
"It's Neale O'Neil," gasped Ruth. "But _what_ has he done to his hair?"
A glossy brown head showed just above the tall back of the old-fashionedpew. The sun shining through the long windows on the side of the churchshone upon Neale's thick thatch of hair with iridescent glory. Wheneverhe moved his head, the hue of the hair seemed to change--like a piece ofchangeable silk!
"That can't be him," said Agnes, with awe. "Where's all his lovelyflaxen hair?"
"The foolish boy! He's dyed it," said Ruth, and then they reached thepew and could say no more.
Neale had taken the far corner of the pew, so the girls and Mrs. MacCallfiled in without disturbing him. Agnes punched Neale with her elbow andscowled at him.
"What did you want to do that for?" she hissed.
"Do what for?" he responded, trying to look unconscious.
"You know. Fix your hair like that?"
"Because you called me 'tow-head,'" he whispered, grinning.
When Mrs. MacCall caught her first glimpse of him when they got up tosing, she started, stared, and almost expressed her opinion aloud.
"What under the canopy's the matter with that boy's head?" she whisperedto Ruth when they were seated again.
And there was reason for asking! As the service proceeded and Neale'shair grew dryer, the sun shining upon his head revealed a wealth ofiridescence that attracted more attention than the minister's sermon.
The glossy brown gave way before a greenish tinge that changed to purpleat the roots. The dye would have been a success for an Easter egg, butas an application to the hair, it was not an unqualified delight--atleast, not to the user.
The more youthful and thoughtless of the congregation--especially thosebehind the unconscious Neale--found amusement enough in the exhibition.The pastor discovered it harder than ever that morning to hold theattention of certain irreverent ones, and being a near-sighted man, hewas at fault as to the reason for the bustle that increased as hissermon proceeded.
The Corner House girls--especially Ruth and Agnes--began to feel thematter acutely. Neale was quite unconscious of the result of the dyeupon his hair. As the minutes passed and the rainbow effect became moreand more visible, the disturbance became more pronounced.
Suddenly there sounded the important creaking of Deacon Abel's bootsdown the aisle. Agnes flashed a look over her shoulder. The stern olddeacon was aiming straight for their pew!