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[Illustration: The six-foot rattler had coiled to strike again.]
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
ON A TOUR
WHERE THEY WENT
WHAT THEY SAW
AND WHAT THEY FOUND
BY
GRACE BROOKS HILL
Author of "The Corner House Girls," "The Corner
House Girls Under Canvas," Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
R. EMMETT OWEN
PUBLISHERS
BARSE & CO.
NEW YORK, N. Y. NEWARK, N. J.
Copyright, 1917
By
BARSE & CO.
Corner House Girls on a Tour
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A Red Letter Day Indeed 9
II What Mrs. Heard Heard 22
III What Mrs. Heard Told 34
IV Saleratus Joe 43
V Dot's Awful Adventure 53
VI The Big Tour Is Planned 64
VII What Sammy Did 72
VIII Reforming a "Pirate" 86
IX A Wayside Bivouac 91
X The Passing Automobile 99
XI An Adventure Begins 110
XII Seeking 121
XIII The Green and Orange Petticoat 132
XIV With the Romany Folk 143
XV Another Clue 151
XVI Searching the Barn 161
XVII One Thing After Another 171
XVIII A Very Annoying Situation 179
XIX The Tin Badge of the Law 188
XX Excitement 197
XXI The Unexpected Happens 209
XXII Sammy Investigates 222
XXIII Roughing It 230
XXIV Something Really Exciting 240
XXV Welcome Home 248
ILLUSTRATIONS
The six-foot rattler had coiled to strike again Frontispiece
PAGE
From the apex of these when they were set up,
the kettle was hung 93
"You leetle 'Merican girls come wit' me" 144
"Oh, do help Sammy!" begged Tess, with clasped hands 214
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR
CHAPTER I--A RED LETTER DAY INDEED
There was a deal of bustle and a twittering like an eager flock of
sparrows in the big kitchen of the old Corner House, which stood facing
Main Street in Milton, but with its long side and rear yard and garden
running far back on Willow Street.
The four Kenway girls had the room all to themselves at this early hour
on Saturday morning, for Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah Maltby had not yet
come downstairs, while Linda, the maid, had deserted the kitchen and
pantry altogether for the time being.
Ruth, the eldest and most sedate of the sisters, was filling sandwiches
at the dresser--and such a variety as there was of them!
Chicken, with mayonnaise and a lettuce leaf; pink ham cut thin and
decorated with little golden dabs of mustard; peanut butter sandwiches;
nut and cheese sandwiches, the filling nestling in a salad leaf, too;
tuna fish, with narrow slices of red, red Spanish peppers decorating it;
and of course sardines, carefully split and laid between soda crackers.
What picnic lunch would be complete without sardines?
Agnes, the next oldest to Ruth and the beauty of the family, was slicing
bread as exactly as though it were a problem in geometry and in such
quantity that Tess declared it looked as though they were to feed an
army.
Tess herself was seriously attending to the boiling of two dozen eggs in
a big saucepan.
"Though why you need to watch 'em so closely I can't see," complained
Agnes. "There are other things you might be doing when there is so
_much_ to do--goodness knows! Those eggs won't get away."
"No," joined in Dot, the youngest of the Corner House girls, and quite
seriously, too. "No. It isn't like boiling lobsters."
"Right, Dottums," chuckled Agnes, recovering from her vexation
immediately. "Eggs are an entirely different kind of shellfish."
"Well," said the little girl, explaining, "Mrs. Adams boiled some raw
lobsters the other day, and one hopped right out of the pot on to the
floor and started for the door--it really did!"
"Oo-ee!" gasped Tess, attracted for a moment from the bobbing eggs by
this statement. "The poor thing!"
"Who's a poor thing--Mrs. Adams?" asked Ruth, laughing gayly.
"Why, no," said Tess, who was nothing if not tender-hearted. "The
lobster."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Agnes. "Do you s'pose it hurts a lobster to be
boiled?"
"_Why_ doesn't it?" demanded Tess, promptly.
"'Cause it has a shell," ventured Dot.
"Why--because they always _do_ boil them," said Agnes, rather at a loss
for an answer to Tess' question.
"Sometimes they broil them," said the oldest sister, smiling.
"Well, they're used to it, anyway," declared Agnes, with conviction.
"I--I don't believe anybody could get used to being boiled," observed
Tess, slowly. "Look at Sammy Pinkney."
"Where?" demanded Agnes, jumping. "I hope that horrid child isn't coming
over so early. I hoped we'd get away without having him around."
"Oh, my!" murmured Dot. "You know he's just got over the scarlet fever."
"But he hasn't got over being a nuisance," declared the older girl.
"I didn't mean that Sammy was really here--to look at," explained the
serious Tess. "I meant--I meant----"
"Well, what _did_ you mean?" asked Agnes, who was inclined to be
impatient.
"She meant, 'consider Sammy,' didn't you, Tessie?" suggested Ruth,
kindly.
"Why--yes."
"Oh! Were you taking him for an example?" cried Agnes. "But Sammy hasn't
ever been boiled--although maybe he ought to have been."
"No; he hasn't been boiled," said the serious Tess, still watching the
eggs bobbing in the boiling water. "But he's punished lots of times--at
school, I mean. And he doesn't seem to get used to it. He hollers just
as loud now as the first time I ever heard him."
"Did the lobster holler?" chuckled Agnes. "Did it, Dot?"
But Dot--who was not allowed to "mess in" with the lunch--had found
another subject for consideration. She had been looking at Ruth,
dexterously opening a second can of sardines. Now, when the cover was
laid back and the oil drained off, the smallest girl pointed a dimpled
finger at the contents of the can.
"What's the matter, honey?" asked Ruth, smiling down at the serious face
of the fairy-like Dot. "What is it?"
"Why, Ruthie," said Dot, wonderingly, "I was only thinking if that
middle fish wanted to turn over, what a lot of trouble it would have!"
Amid the laughter of the two older girls at this, the door banged open
and a boy with a mop of flaxen hair--a regular "whitehead" and a football
cut at that--burst into the room.
"My goodness me, girls! aren't you ready yet?" he demanded. "And it's
half-past seven."
"The eggs are," Tess declared, the first to speak, for she had not been
laughing.
"Well, then," said the boy, "you and I, Tess, will just take the eggs
and go."
"What's the matter, Neale O'Neil? Won't your horse stand?" drawled
Agnes, tossing her head.
"We would have been ready long ago if it had not been for you, Neale,"
said Ruth, promptly.
"How's that? I've been up since five. And the car's right here at the
side gate. Cracky! it's a scrumptious auto, girls. I don't believe there
ever was a finer."
"When our Mr. Howbridge does anything, he always does it right,"
proclaimed Tess, giving up the guardianship of the eggs to Ruth. "And
Mr. Howbridge had the car built for us."
"But we wouldn't ever have had it," put in Dot, eager to tell all she
knew, "if Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill hadn't given us the money 'cause
we found their Uncle Lemon Aden's money."
"Oh, goodness!" gasped Tess. "_Lem-u-el_, Dot!"
But Dot ignored the correction. "It was awfully nice of them to give us
the car because we found the fortune in our garret."
"Lots _you_ did towards finding it," chuckled Neale O'Neil.
"I'd like to know why I didn't help find it!" cried the smallest Corner
House girl, indignantly. "I saw it first--so there! I opened the book it
was hid in and I thought it was pitchers."
"Say! that isn't getting us anywhere," began the boy again. "Can't you
hurry? Just think! the first ride in your car!"
"Don't remind me," gasped Agnes, cutting a crooked slice. "My nerves are
all jumping now like--like a _delightful toothache_!"
"Glory! listen to her," laughed Neale. "But say, Miss Ruthiford
_Ten_-ways, why do you say that it is my fault that you are not all
ready?"
"Because we have to put up lunch enough to satisfy your appetite," said
Ruth, running cold water on the eggs from the open faucet.
"Well! I like that!" said Neale.
"I fancy you will, sonny," said Agnes, looking at him slyly. "There are
lots of goodies in it."
"Now run and get your hats and wraps, children," commanded Ruth seizing
the last two slices of bread Agnes had cut. "That will do, Aggie. Leave
a little bread for the folks to eat to-day while we're gone. _That_
basket is all packed, Neale, and you may take it out and put it in the
tonneau."
"Oh, my!" gasped Agnes, clasping her hands. "Doesn't that sound fine?"
"What sounds fine!" asked her boy chum, surreptitiously putting the last
crumb of a broken sandwich he had found into his mouth.
"The way Ruth said 'tonneau.' So--so _Frenchy_ and _automobily_!"
"Why, Aggie!" gasped Tess, in amazement, before following Dot out of the
kitchen, "you're making up words just like Dot does."
"I feel like making up words," laughed Agnes, who had been "crazy for a
car" for months and months! "We'll all be talking about 'tonneaus,' and
'carbureters,' and 'gas,' and 'wiring,' and 'differentials,' and----"
"And 'equilaterals,' and 'isosceles triangles,' and all that," scoffed
Neale. "You'll know a hot lot about an automobile, Agamemnon."
"Come, young man!" exclaimed Ruth, tartly, for she was very exact with
boys, feeling sure that she did not approve of them--much, "suppose you
take the basket out to the car--and these wraps--and this coffee--and the
little nursery icebox with the milk bottles--and----"
"Hold on! Hold on!" yelled Neale O'Neil. "What do you think I have--as
many arms as a spider? I can't do it all in one trip."
"Well, you might make a beginning," suggested Ruth. "Come, Aggie. Don't
moon there all day."
"I'm not," said her next youngest sister. "I'm thinking."
"What's the difference?" demanded Neale, filling his arms with several
of the things indicated by Ruth and making for the door.
"I was thinking," said Agnes, quite seriously for her, "what a
difference _this_ is from what we were before we came to Milton and the
old Corner House to live."
Neale had gone out. Ruth looked at her with softer eyes. Ruth was not
exactly pretty, but she had a very sweet face. Everybody said so. Now
she looked her understanding at Agnes.
"I know, dear--I know," she said, in her low, full, sweet voice. "This is
like another world."
"Or a dream," said Agnes. "Do--do you suppose we'll ever wake up, Ruthie,
and find out it's all been make-believe?"
Ruth laughed outright at that and went over and kissed her. "Don't let
your imagination run away with you," the older sister said. "It is all
real--very real indeed. What could be more real than an automobile--and of
our very own?"
Dot came dancing into the room hugging a doll in her arms and cheerfully
humming a school song.
"There!" exclaimed Agnes, coming out of the clouds, "I suppose that
disreputable Alice-doll has got to go along. It does look awful."
Dot stopped her song at once and her lips pouted.
"She _isn't_ dis--disreput'ble--she isn't!" she cried, stormily. "She's
only sick. How would _you_ like it, Aggie Kenway, if you'd been buried
alive--_and_ with dried apples--and had had your complexion spoiled?"
Dot was usually the most peaceful of mortals; but Agnes had touched a
sore spot.
"Never mind; you shall take her, love," Ruth said.
"I suppose if we want to go off on a real tour by and by--this coming
vacation--Dot'll have to lug that Alice-doll," grumbled Agnes. "Suppose
we meet nice people at some of the hotels we stop at, and other little
girls have dolls? Dot's will look as though she came from Meadow
Street." Meadow Street was in a poor section of Milton.
"I don't care," grumbled Dot; "she's going."
"She ought to go a hospital first," declared Agnes.
"Who ought to go to a hospital?" demanded Neale, coming in again.
"My Alice-doll, Neale," cried Dot, running to him, sure of sympathy--of a
kind, at least.
"Well," said the boy, "why not? If folks go to hospitals and get cured,
why not dolls?"
"Oh, Neale O'Neil!" gasped Dot, hugging her cherished doll closer.
"Just think how nice Mrs. Eland was to folks in her hospital," went on
Neale, his eyes twinkling. "And Doctor Forsyth. A hospital is a mighty
fine place."
"But--but what would they do to my Alice-doll?" asked the smallest girl,
seriously.
"Suppose they should give her a new complexion? Make her quite well
again? Wouldn't that be worth while?"
Dot held the really dreadful looking doll away from her and gazed with
loving eyes upon the wreck of her former pink and white beauty.
"She is just as--as _dear_ to me as ever she was," she sighed. "But I
s'pose her complexion is muddy--and her nose is flattened a little--and
her lips aren't red any more--and her eyes are washed out. But--but are
you sure they won't hurt her?"
"We'll have to find a hospital where they agree not to hurt," said Neale
seriously.
"_Now_ you've got yourself in a mess, Neale O 'Neil," whispered Agnes.
"She'll never let you rest."
But the boy only grinned at her. Tess came back. Ruth brought the hats
of Agnes and herself and their outer wraps. Everything that they could
possibly need for the day's outing was gathered together and taken out
to the big, shiny, seven-passenger touring car that stood gloriously in
the morning sunshine before the Willow Street door of the old Corner
House.
Tom Jonah, the old Newfoundland dog, and the guardian of the premises,
evidently desired to accompany the merry party; but Ruth vetoed that,
although he might have ridden in the front seat with Neale.
"And I'm going to ride there myself," declared Agnes, firmly. "I've got
to learn to run this car right away. If Neale could learn, and get a
license, _I_ can. By the way, Neale, where is your license?"
"Oh, I've got it with me," returned the boy. "D' you want me to have it
pasted on the back of my coat?"
"Tom Jonah must stay at home--and the kittens, too," said Tess, looking
at the troop of cats and kittens lingering about the side porch, waiting
for their morning meal.
"And Billy Bumps," added Dot, referring to the solemn old goat grazing
on the drying green.
Uncle Rufus, the black factotum of the Corner House, came up from the
garden, grinning widely at them.
"Don' yo' chillun run down nothin'--nor run _up_ nothin'--w'ile yo' is
gone. I dunno 'bout dat contraption. Ah hopes yo' git back widout more'n
a dozen laigs broke."
"Goodness, Uncle Rufus!" cried Agnes. "What do you think we
are--centipedes?"
"Dunno nottin' 'bout dem 'er," declared the old colored man, chuckling.
"Don't hab center-pigs in Virginny, whar I done come from. Dey uses
razorbacks fo' de mos' part in makin' po'k."
The car started amid a gale of laughter at this. Mrs. MacCall waved her
cap from an open second story window. Some of the neighbors took a deep
interest in their departure, too. It was certainly a fact that the
Corner House girls had suddenly become of much importance since it was
known that they had a car.
Ruth and the others looked up at Aunt Sarah Maltby's windows at the
front of the house as the car jounced delightfully across the tracks on
Main Street. But the old lady kept her curtains drawn. She would not
even look out at them.
They sped along so easily, the strong springs and shock-absorbers taking
the jar at the crossings, that even Ruth sighed ecstatically. Agnes
murmured:
"_This_ is life. Oh, Neale! it's the most delightful way to travel."
"Is it better than riding horses in a circus, Neale?" demanded Tess,
from the tonneau.
Neale laughed. He had been circus born and bred, and the little girls
still believed that such a life must be one round of pleasure and
excitement. They never could understand why Neale had run away from
Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie.
Suddenly Agnes, the volatile, thought of another thing. "Oh, me! Oh,
my!" she cried. "What ever should we do?"
"Goodness! what's the matter with you now?" demanded her older sister.
"Suppose our auto should be stolen like Mr. Collinger's!"
"Don't say that, Aggie!" wailed Tess.
"They couldn't steal our auto," declared Dot, with emphasis.
"Why not?" asked Neale, curiously.
"'Cause Tom Jonah wouldn't let 'em," said the smallest girl.
"Then we should have brought Tom Jonah with us," Agnes said. "We'll have
to let him watch the car all the time."
"Mr. Collinger's car was taken right away from the front of the County
Court House. Those thieves were bold," said Ruth. "I heard Mr. Howbridge
say that there was something behind that affair. He doubts if the car
was stolen by any common thieves."
"Common or uncommon," cried Agnes, "we don't want ours stolen!"
"Better set a watch at the garage door at night," chuckled Neale.
They were out in the country now and had entered a smooth, but "woodsy,"
road that passed through a rather thick forest. The road was very narrow
in places and there were only a few houses along the track for some
miles.
Suddenly they sighted just ahead a basket phaeton and a brown, fat pony
hitched to it. Neale slowed down quickly, for the turnout was standing
still. The driver was a middle-aged woman with a good many fussy looking
ribbons in her bonnet and otherwise dressed quite gaily. The fat brown
pony was standing still, flicking flies with his tail and wagging his
ears comfortably. He was in the very middle of the road and by no
possibility could the car be steered around the turnout.
The woman looked around at the car and its passengers and her face
displayed a most exasperated expression.
"I don't know what you'll do!" she cried, in a rather shrill voice. "I
can't make him budge. He's been standing here this way for fifteen
minutes, and sometimes he balks for hours!"