“Goodness, what is it?” cried Nalbro, and she turned toward Hal, not a
very difficult operation as he had been near her all evening.
“Where did it come from, Mrs. MacCall?” asked Ruth, as she observed the
object, which looked like an immense white egg, rolling farther and
farther into the living-room.
“It was in the hall. Hech! Hech! It’s a ghostie, sure! A witch! A
warlock! Lang-nebbied—lang-nebbied!”
“It hasn’t a long nose at all, if that’s what you mean,” declared Agnes,
for she was sufficiently familiar with the housekeeper’s Scotch dialect
to interpret these words.
“Aye, lassie, mebby not the noo. But e’er it’ll gang awa’——”
“Why, it’s a football!” exclaimed Luke. “A football painted white!”
“So it is,” agreed Neale, for many a blown-up pigskin he had help shove
over the goal line.
“Who kicked it in here?” demanded Ruth, but, even as she asked, she
began to suspect Sammy, Dot and Tess.
“’Twas nae kicket,” asserted Mrs. MacCall, who had sunk trembling into a
rocking chair. “’Twas nae kicket. But ’twas rollin’ alang by its
anesel’.”
And, truly, the white football—ghostly enough alone—was making its way
over the floor in a strange fashion, rolling first to one side and then
to the other.
“It moves like one of those Mexican beans with a bug inside,” laughed
Neale.
“Well, a football was made to kick, and here goes!” cried Luke,
advancing toward the pigskin.
“Don’t kick it! Don’t!” cried a voice outside the living-room door, and
from the hall in sprang Sammy Pinkney, followed by the giggling Tess and
Dot, the latter carrying her Alice-doll.
“Why shouldn’t I kick it, young man?” demanded Luke.
“’Cause there’s—now—there’s somethin’ inside,” asserted Sammy.
“What?” was called at him in a chorus.
“My alligator!”
“Alligator!” Again the chorus, but in different-toned voices.
“Yes, I’ll show you.”
Sammy knelt over the white-painted football—for it was that—and began
unlacing it to remove the outer cover of pigskin which inclosed the
rubber bladder within, as an automobile tire is made of a casing and
inner tube.
And from between the blown-up bladder and the outer skin Sammy lifted
his pet Palm Island alligator.
“Sammy Pinkney!” cried Agnes.
“Did you do it on purpose?” demanded Ruth, though she sensed the
futility of the question almost as soon as she had propounded it. Sammy
seldom did anything without a purpose—good or bad.
“I just put Snapper inside the football after I put some whitewash on
it, and——”
Sammy was about to say that Tess and Dot had teased him to do something
“exciting,” and that this was the outcome of the idea that had come to
him during the conference on his porch. But Sammy was, after all, a
gentleman in his own way, and one of the articles of his creed was:
“Never tell on another.”
Therefore he said:
“Yep! I did it.”
But Tess and Dot were not proof against this chivalry and
self-sacrifice. Bravely they faced the music.
“I helped blow up the bladder,” confessed Tess.
“And I—er—I helped stuff Snapper in, because he was all the time
sticking his tail out, and his tail had to go in,” admitted Dot.
“Oh, you children!” sighed Ruth, hardly able to refrain from laughing.
“The puir beastie!” came from Mrs. MacCall. “’Tis a wonder he were nae
smotherit in there.”
“He had plenty of air—he wasn’t inside the bladder!” explained Sammy.
“He was just in the leather part, and there was air he could breathe,
’cause there’s holes for the lace to go through. And I left it loose
enough so he could wiggle.”
“Then I wasn’t far out with my guess about the Mexican bean,” said
Neale.
Doubtless most of you have seen those queer beans, or seeds, which move
so oddly when you place them on the palm of your hand. The movements are
caused by an insect, or worm, that has developed from an egg laid within
the seed.
“The ’gator wiggled inside the ball, and that caused it to roll over and
over in a manner that only a Rugby football can roll,” chuckled Neale.
“I give you credit, Sammy!”
“Don’t!” begged Ruth, in a low voice. “He’ll think he’s being praised
and he’ll try something else.”
“Well, but you’ve got to give him credit,” insisted Neale. “For it was a
clever trick for the kid.”
“Stop it!” commanded Agnes, and she put her hand over his mouth, whereat
he pretended to bite her and the two skylarked about the room to the no
small annoyance of Ruth.
“It’s a mercy I didna’ drapit the lemonade,” said Mrs. MacCall, as she
took the tray from the chair where Luke had placed it and began serving
the refreshments. “I’ll hae a settlement wi ye, syne, Sammy, me lad,”
she promised, and there was more to this than appeared on the surface.
“Well, I didn’t mean any harm,” muttered the boy, as he gathered up the
alligator and football.
Sammy never did mean harm, and, to tell the truth, his tricks and jokes
seldom really harmed any one. Mrs. MacCall had strong nerves, even when
she thought she saw “witches, warlocks an’ lang-nebbied things,” and so
she soon recovered her wonted spirits.
Had Sammy, Tess and Dot not already been supplied with their share of
the ice cream and cake they might have been punished by being deprived
of these dainties. But they must have sensed that something of this
order would be put in operation if they played their joke before the
refreshments had been passed. So they were saved, though Ruth insisted
on her younger sisters going to bed, and, of course, this meant that
Sammy would have to go home.
But he did not go willingly, for when he saw that the older boys and
girls were settling themselves for an evening of talk, music, and the
playing of games, he wistfully inquired:
“Is there anythin’ you’d like me to do?”
“Thank you, no, Sammy,” replied Ruth, with sarcastic sweetness. “You
have done full and plenty for one evening.”
But Agnes, with ever a soft spot in her heart for the children, slipped
Sammy a large piece of chocolate cake, unobserved, as she let him out of
the side door to go to his own home.
“And don’t let Dot and Tess lead you into mischief again,” warned Agnes,
giggling.
“No’m, thank you,” answered Sammy. The thanks, be it known, were for the
cake, not for the well-meant warning.
The Corner House, for some time rather silent and gloomy following the
death of Uncle Peter Stower, now rang with laughter and the singing of
the merry voices of young people. Certainly it was a jolly crowd that
Ruth and Agnes had gathered about them, and Nalbro was very glad she had
accepted the invitation. As for Hal—he was always glad to be where Nally
was, and Luke and Neale were satisfied with their choices.
Perhaps, just for a moment or two, Ruth and Agnes might have felt some
twinges of jealousy, especially when Nalbro offered to do some
“second-sight” experiments and offered to tell what a person was
thinking of.
To do this, she declared, it was necessary that she hold the hand of the
person on whom she was experimenting, and as soon as this was announced
three eager young men pressed forward, clamoring to be the first
subject.
“I think she could just as well have done it some other way, don’t you?”
asked Agnes of Ruth, when they were getting ready for bed later. “She
took a very long time with Luke, I notice, and he asked her to take
_both_ his hands.”
“Oh—it—it didn’t mean anything,” declared Ruth. “It was all in fun.”
“Well, I told Neale what I thought of _him_,” said Agnes, the least bit
sharply.
“Was that wise?” asked Ruth, quietly.
“I don’t care whether it was or not!” came the quick retort. “She is
pretty and her clothes are a lot better than ours. I’m never going to
Ann Titus again! She has no more style——”
“I think you are tired, Aggie,” said Ruth, stroking her sister’s head.
“And you must remember that Nally is our guest.”
“Oh, yes, I know I’m just horrid. But——”
However, the first little affair passed off most successfully, even with
the mysterious white football, and when Uncle Rufus was locking up,
after Neale and Luke and the others had gone, he chuckled as he said:
“Dish suah am laik ole times when Massa Stower done hab parties his own
self.”
“They’re a gay bonnie lot of lads an’ lassies!” said Mrs. MacCall. “Aw,
it’s a gran’ thing to be young!”
“It suah am!” chuckled Uncle Rufus. “An’ if I was as spry as dey are I
suah would hab tuck after dem cellar men dat day dey wuz heah makin’
believe mend a pipe.”
“Ye hae na seen them ag’in, hae ye?” asked the housekeeper, quickly,
with a startled look down the hall.
“No’m, Miss Mac, I hasn’t,” replied Uncle Rufus. “But if I does——” And
he shook his black fist suggestively as he shuffled off to his own
quarters.
Hal and Nalbro smiled at each other across the breakfast table the next
morning, and Ruth and Agnes, if they felt any little jealousy against
their pretty girl guest, did not show it.
“Did you rest well, Nally?” inquired Ruth.
“Wonderfully!”
“Like a top!” was Hal’s description. “And what wild round of gayeties do
we indulge in to-day?” he asked, with a grin.
“Nothing very strenuous, I hope,” said Miss Hastings, with rather a
drawl that she was “affecting,” Agnes declared, since her lisp had gone.
“But of course I’m ready for anything,” she added quickly, lest it be
thought she intended to cast a wet blanket on the festivities.
“We planned an auto ride to the Glen,” said Ruth. “It’s a beautiful
place, and we can eat lunch there.”
“Sounds good to me,” declared Hal. “Especially that lunch part. I’m with
you.”
“It will be delightful,” said the Boston girl.
“Neale will run the car. He’ll be here about ten o’clock,” announced
Agnes.
“Oh, I think Neale’s the dearest boy!” declared Nally.
“What about me?” demanded Hal brazenly.
“Oh, you don’t count. You’re one of the family!” laughed the Boston
girl.
And so with merry quip and laughter the breakfast proceeded.
Luke was to be a member of the auto party that would go to the Glen, and
he and Neale arrived at the Corner House together, for Luke was staying
with Neale at Con Murphy’s. The two lads, with Hal, were about to go out
to the garage to see that the car was in readiness when suddenly Ruth,
who was looking from the window toward the street, cried:
“There they are again!”
“Who?” demanded Agnes, impressed by something in her sister’s voice.
“Those two queer men who were in our cellar! I really believe they are
spying on us. They were sneaking around the side entrance. Quick!
Luke—Neale—see them!”
“I see them!” exclaimed Neale.
“Those men!” cried Luke, as Ruth pointed to two ragged, shiftless
figures hastening down the street, for they had changed their intentions
on seeing Ruth at the window. “Why, I remember them!”
“You remember them!” repeated Ruth. “What do you mean?”
“Tell you later. Come on, Neale, let’s see if we can’t round them up!”
cried Luke, and, without answering Ruth’s question, he dashed from the
house in pursuit of the mysterious individuals, Neale at his heels.