[Illustration: Finding the will. In a moment the panel dropped down,
leaving in view a very narrow depository for papers. _Frontispiece._]
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
HOW THEY MOVED TO MILTON
WHAT THEY FOUND
AND WHAT THEY DID
BY
GRACE BROOKS HILL
Author of “The Corner House Girls at School,” “The
Corner House Girls Under Canvas,” etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY_
_R. EMMETT OWEN_
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK, N. Y.—NEWARK, N. J.
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
The Corner House Girls Series
By Grace Brooks Hill
_Illustrated._
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS’ ODD FIND
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR
(_Other volumes in preparation_)
BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers—New York
Copyright, 1915,
by
Barse & Hopkins
_The Corner House Girls_
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
I “Left High and Dry”
II Uncle Peter’s Will
III The Old Corner House
IV Getting Settled
V Getting Acquainted
VI Uncle Rufus
VII Their Circle of Interest Widens
VIII The Cat that Went Back
IX The Vanishing Kittens
X Ruth Sees Something
XI In the Garret
XII Mrs. Kranz Comes to Call
XIII The Maronis
XIV Five Cents’ Worth of Peppermints
XV “A Dish of Gossip”
XVI More Mysteries
XVII “Mrs. Trouble”
XVIII Ruth Does what She Thinks is Right
XIX “Double Trouble”
XX Mr. Howbridge is Perplexed
XXI The Corner House Girls Win Public Approval
XXII Callers—and the Ghost
XXIII Not Entirely Explained
XXIV Aunt Sarah Speaks Out
XXV Laying the Ghost
ILLUSTRATIONS
Finding the will. In a moment the panel dropped down, leaving in view
a very narrow depository for papers
She forgot her kittens and everything else, and scrambled up the tree
for dear life
“Looker yere! Looker yere! Missie Ruth! There’s dem dried apples,
buried in de groun’”
Up came Tommy again, his eyes open, gurgling a cry, and fighting to
keep above the surface
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
CHAPTER I
“LEFT HIGH AND DRY”
“Look out, Dot! You’ll fall off that chair as sure as you live,
child!”
Tess was bustling and important. It was baking day in the Kenway
household. She had the raisins to stone, and the smallest Kenway was
climbing up to put the package of raisins back upon the cupboard
shelf.
There was going to be a cake for the morrow. Ruth was a-flour to her
elbows, and Aggie was stirring the eggs till the beater was just
“a-whiz.”
Crash! Bang! Over went the chair; down came Dot; and the raisins
scattered far and wide over the freshly scrubbed linoleum.
Fortunately the little busy-body was not hurt. “What did I tell you?”
demanded the raisin-seeder, after Ruth had made sure there were no
broken bones, and only a “skinned” place on Dot’s wrist. “What did I
tell you? You are such a careless child!”
Dot’s face began to “cloud up,” but it did not rain, for Aggie said
kindly:
“Don’t mind what she says, Dot. Leave those raisins to me. You run get
your hat on. Tess has finished seeding that cupful. Now it’s time you
two young ones went on that errand. Isn’t that so, Ruth?”
The elder sister agreed as she busily mixed the butter and flour.
Butter was high. She put in what she thought they could afford, and
then she shut her eyes tight, and popped in another lump!
On a bright and sunny day, like this one, the tiny flat at the top of
the Essex Street tenement was a cheerful place. Ruth was a very
capable housekeeper. She had been such for two years previous to their
mother’s death, for Mrs. Kenway had been obliged to go out to work.
Now, at sixteen, Ruth felt herself to be very much grown up. It is
often responsibility and not years that ages one.
If Ruth had “an old head on green shoulders,” there was reason for it.
For almost all the income the Kenways had was their father’s pension.
The tide of misfortune which had threatened the family when the father
was killed in the Philippines, had risen to its flood at Mrs. Kenway’s
death two years before this day, and had now left the Kenway girls
high and dry upon the strand of an ugly tenement, in an ugly street,
of the very ugliest district of Bloomingsburg.
The girls were four—and there was Aunt Sarah Stower. There were no
boys; there never had been any boys in the Kenway family. Ruth said
she was glad; Aggie said _she_ was sorry; and as usual Tess sided with
the elder sister, while Dot agreed with the twelve-year-old Aggie that
a boy to do the chores would be “sort of nice.”
“S’pose he was like that bad Tommy Rooney, who jumps out of the dark
corners on the stairs to scare you, Dot Kenway?” demanded the
ten-year-old Tess, seriously.
“Why, he couldn’t be like Tommy—not if he was _our_ brother,” said
the smallest girl, with conviction.
“Well, he might,” urged Tess, who professed a degree of experience and
knowledge of the world far beyond that of her eight-year-old sister.
“You see, you can’t always sometimes tell about _boys_.”
Tess possessed a strong sense of duty, too. She would not allow Dot,
on this occasion, to leave the raisins scattered over the floor. Down
the two smaller girls got upon their hands and knees and picked up the
very last of the dried fruit before they went for their hats.
“Whistle, Dot—you must whistle,” commanded Tess. “You know, that’s
the only way not to yield to temptation, when you’re picking up
raisins.”
“I—I can’t whistle, Tess,” claimed Dot.
“Well! pucker up, anyway,” said Tess. “You can’t do _that_ with
raisins in your mouth,” and she proceeded to falteringly whistle
several bars of “Yankee Doodle” herself, to prove to the older girls
that the scattered raisins _she_ found were going into their proper
receptacle.
The Kenway girls had to follow many economies, and had learned early
to be self-denying. Ruth was so busy and so anxious, she declared
herself, she did not have time to be pretty like other girls of her
age. She had stringy black hair that never would look soft and wavy,
as its owner so much desired.
She possessed big, brown eyes—really wonderful eyes, if she had only
known it. People sometimes said she was intellectual looking; that was
because of her high, broad brow.
She owned little color, and she had contracted a nervous habit of
pressing her lips tight together when she was thinking. But she
possessed a laugh that fairly jumped out at you from her eyes and
mouth, it was so unexpected.
Ruth Kenway might not attract much attention at first glance, but if
you looked at her a second time, you were bound to see something in
her countenance that held you, and interested you.
“Do smile oftener, Ruth,” begged jolly, roly-poly Agnes. “You always
look just as though you were figuring how many pounds of round steak
go into a dollar.”
“I guess I _am_ thinking of that most of the time,” sighed the oldest
Kenway girl.
Agnes was as plump as a partridge. When she tried to keep her face
straight, the dimples just _would_ peep out. She laughed easily, and
cried stormily.
She said herself that she had “bushels of molasses colored hair,” and
her blue eyes could stare a rude boy out of countenance—only she had
to spoil the effect the next moment by giggling. Another thing, Agnes
usually averaged two “soul chums” among her girl friends at school,
per week!
Tess (nobody ever remembered she had been christened Theresa) had some
of Ruth’s dignity and some of Aggie’s good looks. She was the quick
girl at her books; she always got along nicely with grown-ups; they
said she had “tact”; and she had the kindest heart of any girl in the
world.
Dot, or Dorothy, was the baby, and was a miniature of Ruth, as far as
seriousness of demeanor, and hair and eyes went. She was a little
brunette fairy, with the most delicately molded limbs, a faint blush
in her dark cheeks, and her steady gravity delighted older people.
They said she was “such an old-fashioned little thing.”
It was Saturday. From the street below shrill voices rose in a
nightmare of sound that broke in a nerve-racking wave upon the ears.
Numerous wild Red Indians could make no more savage sounds, if they
were burning a captive at the stake.
It was the children on the block, who had no other playground. Dot
shuddered to venture forth into the turmoil of the street, and Tess
had to acknowledge a faster beating of her own heart.
Dot had her “Alice-doll”—her choicest possession. They were going to
the green grocer’s, at the corner, and to the drug store.
At the green grocer’s they were to purchase a cabbage, two quarts of
potatoes, and two pennies’ worth of soup greens. At the drug store
they would buy the usual nickel’s worth of peppermint drops for Aunt
Sarah.
Every Saturday since Dot could remember—and since Tess could
remember—and since Agnes could remember—even every Saturday since
Ruth could remember, there had been five cents’ worth of peppermint
drops bought for Aunt Sarah.
The larder might be very nearly bare; shoes might be out at toe and
stockings out at heel; there might be a dearth of food on the table;
but Aunt Sarah must not be disappointed in her weekly treat.
“It is the only pleasure the poor creature has,” their mother was wont
to say. “Why deprive her of it? There is not much that seems to please
Aunt Sarah, and this is a small thing, children.”
Even Dot was old enough to remember the dear little mother saying
this. It was truly a sort of sacred bequest, although their mother had
not made it a mandatory charge upon the girls.
“But mother never forgot the peppermints herself. Why should we forget
them?” Ruth asked.
Aunt Sarah Stower was a care, too, left to the Kenway girls’ charge.
Aunt Sarah was an oddity.
She seldom spoke, although her powers of speech were not in the least
impaired. Moreover, she seldom moved from her chair during the day,
where she sewed, or crocheted; yet she had the active use of her
limbs.
Housework Aunt Sarah abhorred. She had never been obliged to do it as
a girl and young woman; so she had never lifted her hand to aid in
domestic tasks since coming to live with the Kenways—and Ruth could
barely remember her coming.
Aunt Sarah was only “Aunt” to the Kenway girls by usage. She was
merely their mother’s uncle’s half-sister! “And _that’s_ a
relationship,” as Aggie said, “that would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer
to figure out.”
As Tess and Dot came down the littered stoop of the tall brick house
they lived in, a rosy, red-haired boy, with a snub nose and twinkling
blue eyes, suddenly popped up before them. He was dressed in fringed
leggings and jacket, and wore a band of feathers about his cap.
“Ugh! Me heap big Injun,” he exclaimed, brandishing a wooden tomahawk
before the faces of the startled girls. “Scalp white squaw! Kill
papoose!” and he clutched at the Alice-doll.
Dot screamed—as well she might. The thought of seeing her most
beloved child in the hands of this horrid apparition——
“Now, you just stop bothering us, Tommy Rooney!” commanded Tess,
standing quickly in front of her sister. “You go away, or I’ll tell
your mother.”
“Aw—‘Tell-tale tit! Your tongue shall be split!’” scoffed the dancing
Indian. “Give me the papoose. Make heap big Injun of it.”
Dot was actually crying. Tess raised her hand threateningly.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Tommy Rooney,” she said, decisively, “but I
shall slap you, if you don’t let us alone.”
“Aw—would you? would you? Got to catch first,” shouted Tommy, making
dreadful grimaces. His cheeks were painted in black and red stripes,
and these decorations added to Dot’s fright. “You can’t scare me!” he
boasted.
But he kept his distance and Tess hurried Dot along the street. There
were some girls they knew, for they went to the public school with
them, but Tess and Dot merely spoke to them and passed right on.
“We’ll go to the drug store first,” said the older girl. “Then we
won’t be bothered with the vegetable bags while we’re getting Aunt
Sarah’s peppermints.”
“Say, Tess!” said Dot, gulping down a dry sob.
“Yes?”
“Don’t you wish we could get something ’sides those old peppermint
drops?”
“But Ruthie hasn’t any pennies to spare this week. She told us so.”
“Never _does_ have pennies to spare,” declared Dot, with finality.
“But I mean I wish Aunt Sarah wanted some other kind of candy besides
peppermints.”
“Why, Dot Kenway! she always has peppermints. She always takes some in
her pocket to church on Sunday, and eats them while the minister
preaches. You know she does.”
“Yes, I know it,” admitted Dot. “And I know she always gives us each
one before we go to Sunday School. That’s why I wish we could buy her
some other kind of candy. I’m tired of pep’mints. I think they are a
most unsat—sat’s_fac_tory candy, Tess.”
“Well! I am amazed at you, Dot Kenway,” declared Tess, with her most
grown-up air. “You know we couldn’t any more change, and buy
wintergreen, or clove, or lemon-drops, than we could _fly_. Aunt
Sarah’s got to have just what she wants.”
“Has she?” queried the smaller girl, doubtfully. “I wonder why?”
“Because she _has_,” retorted Tess, with unshaken belief.
The drops were purchased; the vegetables were purchased; the sisters
were homeward bound. Walking toward their tenement, they overtook and
passed a tall, gray haired gentleman in a drab morning coat and hat.
He was not a doctor, and he was not dressed like a minister; therefore
he was a curious-looking figure in this part of Bloomingsburg,
especially at this hour.
Tess looked up slyly at him as she and Dot passed. He was a cleanly
shaven man with thin, tightly shut lips, and many fine lines about the
corners of his mouth and about his eyes. He had a high, hooked nose,
too—so high, and such a barrier to the rest of his face, that his
sharp gray eyes seemed to be looking at the world in general over a
high board fence.
Dot was carrying the peppermint drops—and carrying them carefully,
while Tess’ hands were occupied with the other purchases. So Master
Tommy Rooney thought he saw his chance.
“Candy! candy!” he yelled, darting out at them from an areaway. “Heap
big Injun want candy, or take white squaw’s papoose! Ugh!”
Dot screamed. Tess tried to defend her and the white bag of
peppermints. But she was handicapped with her own bundles. Tommy was
as quick—and as slippery—as an eel.
Suddenly the gentleman in the silk hat strode forward, thrust his
gold-headed walking stick between Tommy’s lively legs, and tripped
that master of mischief into the gutter.
Tommy scrambled up, gave one glance at the tall gentleman and fled,
affrighted. The gentleman looked down at Tess and Dot.
“Oh, thank you, sir!” said the bigger girl. “We’re much obliged!”
“Yes! A knight to the rescue, eh? Do you live on this block, little
lady?” he asked, and when he smiled his face was a whole lot
pleasanter than it was in repose.
“Yes, sir. Right there at Number 80.”
“Number 80?” repeated the gentleman, with some interest. “Is there a
family in your house named Kenway?”
“Oh, yes, sir! _We’re_ the Kenways—two of them,” declared Tess, while
Dot was a little inclined to put her finger in her mouth and watch him
shyly.
“Ha!” exclaimed the stranger. “Two of Leonard Kenway’s daughters? Is
your mother at home?”
“We—we haven’t any mother—not now, sir,” said Tess, more faintly.
“Not living? I had not heard. Then, who is the head of the household?”
“Oh, you want to see Ruth,” cried Tess. “She’s the biggest. It must be
Ruth you want to see.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the gentleman, eyeing the girls
curiously. “If she is the chief of the clan, it is she I must see. I
have come to inform her of her Uncle Peter Stower’s death.”