“MRS. TROUBLE”
“You girls go through this pantry,” complained Mrs. McCall, “like the
plague of locusts. There isn’t a doughnut left. Nor a sugar cookie. I
managed to save some of the seed-cakes for tea, if you should have
company, by hiding them away.
“I honestly thought I made four apple pies on Monday; I can’t account
but for three of them. A hearty appetite is a good gift; but I should
suggest more bread and butter between meals, and less sweets.”
Ruth took the matter up with the Corner House girls in convention
assembled:
“Here it is only Thursday, and practically all the week’s baking is
gone. We must restrain ourselves, children. Remember how it used to be
a real event, when we could bake a raisin cake on Saturday? We have no
right to indulge our tastes for sweets, as Mrs. McCall says. Who
knows? We may have to go back to the hard fare of Bloomingsburg again,
sometime.”
“Oh, never!” cried Agnes, in alarm.
“You don’t mean that, sister?” asked Tess, worried.
“Then we’d better eat all the good things we can, now,” Dot, the
modern philosopher, declared.
“You don’t mean that, Ruth,” said Agnes, repeating Tess’ words. “There
is no doubt but that Uncle Peter meant us to have this house and all
his money, and we’ll have it for good.”
“Not for bad, I hope, at any rate,” sighed Ruth. “But we must mind
what Mrs. McCall says about putting our hands in the cookie jars.”
“But, if we get hungry?” Agnes declared.
“Then bread and butter will taste good to us,” finished Ruth.
“I am sure I haven’t been at the cookie jar any more than usual this
week,” the twelve-year-old said.
“Nor me,” Tess added.
“Maybe Sandy did it,” suggested Dot. “She ate up all the dolls’
dinner—greedy thing!”
Agnes was puzzled. She said to the oldest Corner House girl when the
little ones were out of earshot:
“I wonder if it _was_ that cat that ate the dolls’ feast yesterday?”
“How else could it have disappeared?” demanded Ruth.
“But a cat eating cream walnuts!”
“I don’t know,” said Ruth. “But of course, it wasn’t Sandy-face that
has been dipping into the cookie jars. We must be good, Agnes. I tell
you that we may be down to short commons again, as we used to be in
Bloomingsburg. We must be careful.”
Just why Ruth seemed to wish to economize, Agnes could not understand.
Her older sister puzzled Agnes. Instead of taking the good things that
had come into their lives here at the old Corner House with joy, Ruth
seemed to be more than ever worried. At least, Agnes was sure that
Ruth smiled even less frequently than had been her wont.
When Ruth chanced to be alone with Miss Titus, instead of her mind
being fixed upon dressmaking details, she was striving to gather from
the seamstress more particulars of those strange claimants to Uncle
Peter’s estate.
Not that Miss Titus had much to tell. She had only surmises to offer.
Mrs. Bean, though claiming to know the people very well, had told the
spinster lady very little about them.
“Their names is Treble, I understand,” said Miss Titus. “I never heard
of no family of Trebles living in Milton here—no, Ma’am! But you
can’t tell. Folks claiming relationship always turn up awful
unexpected where there’s money to be divided.”
“Mother was only half sister to Uncle Peter,” said Ruth, reflectively.
“But Uncle Peter was never married.”
“Not as anybody in Milton ever heard on,” admitted Miss Titus.
“Do you suppose Aunt Sarah would know who these people are?” queried
Ruth.
“You can just take it from me,” said Miss Titus, briskly, “that Sally
Maltby never knew much about Peter’s private affairs. Never half as
much as she claimed to know, and not a quarter of what she’d _liked_
to have known!
“That’s why she had to get out of the old Corner House——”
“Did she _have_ to?” interrupted Ruth, quickly.
“Yes, she did,” said the seamstress, nodding confidently. “Although
old Mr. Stower promised her mother she should have shelter here as
long as Sally lived, he died without making a will. Mrs.
Maltby-that-was, died first. So there wasn’t any legal claim Sally
Maltby could make. She stayed here only by Peter’s sufferance, and she
couldn’t be content.
“Sally learned only one lesson—that of keeping her tongue between her
teeth,” pursued Miss Titus. “Peter declared she was always snooping
around, and watching and listening. Sally always was a stubborn thing,
and she had got it into her head that she had rights here—which of
course, she never had.
“So finally Peter forbade her coming into the front part of the house
at all; then she went to live with your folks, and Peter washed his
hands of her. I expect, like all misers, Peter wanted to hide things
about the old house and didn’t want to be watched. Do you know if
Howbridge found much of the old man’s hidings?”
“I do not know about that,” said Ruth, smiling. “But Uncle Rufus
thinks Uncle Peter used to hide things away in the garret.”
“In the garret?” cried Miss Titus, shrilly. “Well, then! they’d stay
there for all of me. I wouldn’t hunt up there for a pot of gold!”
Nor would Ruth—for she did not expect any such hoard as that had been
hidden away in the garret by Uncle Peter. She often looked curiously
at Aunt Sarah, however, when she sat with the old lady, tempted to ask
her point-blank what she knew about Uncle Peter’s secrets.
When a person is as silent as Aunt Sarah habitually was, it is only
natural to surmise that the silent one may have much to tell. Ruth had
not the courage, however, to advance the subject. She, like her
younger sisters, stood in no little awe of grim Aunt Sarah.
Mr. Howbridge remained away and Miss Titus completed such work as Ruth
dared have done, and removed her machine and cutting table from the
old Corner House. The days passed for the Kenway girls in cheerful
occupations and such simple pleasures as they had been used to all
their lives.
Agnes would, as she frankly said, have been glad to “make a splurge.”
She begged to give a party to the few girls they had met but Ruth
would not listen to any such thing.
“I think it’s mean!” Aggie complained. “We want to get folks to coming
here. If they think the old house is haunted, we want to prove to them
that it is haunted only by the Spirit of Hospitality.”
“Very fine! very fine!” laughed Ruth. “But we shall have to wait for
that, until we are more secure in our footing here.”
“‘More secure!’” repeated Agnes. “When will that ever be? I don’t
believe Mr. Howbridge will ever find Uncle Peter’s will. I’d like to
hunt myself for it.”
“And perhaps _that_ might not be a bad idea,” sighed Ruth, to herself.
“Perhaps we ought to search the old house from cellar to garret for
Uncle Peter’s hidden papers.”
Something happened, however, before she could carry out this
half-formed intention. Tess and Dot had gone down Main Street on an
errand for Ruth. Coming back toward the old Corner House, they saw
before them a tall, dark lady, dressed in a long summer mantle, a lace
bonnet, and other bits of finery that marked her as different from the
ordinary Milton matron doing her morning’s marketing. She had a little
girl with her.
“I never saw those folks before,” said Dot to Tess.
“No. They must be strangers. That little girl is wearing a pretty
dress, isn’t she?”
Tess and Dot came abreast of the two. The little girl _was_ very
showily dressed. Her pink and white face was very angelic in its
expression—while in repose. But she chanced to look around and see
the Kenway girls looking at her, and instantly she stuck out her
tongue and made a face.
“Oh, dear! She’s worse than that Mabel Creamer,” said Tess, and she
took Dot’s hand and would have hurried by, had the lady not stopped
them.
“Little girls! little girls!” she said, commandingly. “Tell me where
the house is, in which Mr. Peter Stower lived. It is up this way
somewhere they told me at the station.”
“Oh, yes, Ma’am,” said Tess, politely. “It is the old Corner
House—_our_ house.”
“_Your_ house?” said the tall lady, sharply. “What do you mean by
that?”
“We live there,” said Tess, bravely. “We are two of the Kenway girls.
Then there are Ruth and Agnes. And Aunt Sarah. We all live there.”
“You reside in Mr. Peter Stower’s house?” said the lady, with
emphasis, and looking not at all pleasant, Tess thought. “How long
have you resided there?”
“Ever since we came to Milton. We were Uncle Peter’s only relations,
so Mr. Howbridge came for us and put us in the house,” explained Tess,
gravely.
“Mr. Stower’s only relatives?” repeated the lady, haughtily. “We will
see about _that_. You may lead on to the house. At least, I am sure we
have as much right there as a parcel of girls.”
Tess and Dot were troubled, but they led the way. Agnes and Ruth were
on the big front porch sewing and they saw the procession enter the
gate.
“Goodness me! who’s this coming?” asked Agnes, eyeing the dark lady
with startled curiosity. “Looks as though she owned the place.”
“Oh, Agnes!” gasped Ruth, and sprang to her feet. She met the lady at
the steps.
“Who are you?” asked the stranger, sourly.
“I am Ruth Kenway. Did you—you wish to see me, Ma’am?”
“I don’t care whom I see,” the lady answered decisively, marching
right up the steps and leading the angel-faced little girl by the
hand. “I want you to know that I am Mrs. Treble. Mrs. John Augustus
Treble. My daughter Lillie (stand straight, child!) and I, have been
living in Michigan. John Augustus has been dead five years. He was
blown up in a powder-mill explosion, so I can prove his death very
easily. So, when I heard that my husband’s uncle, Mr. Peter Stower,
was dead here in Milton, I decided to come on and get Lillie’s share
of the property.”
“Oh!” murmured Ruth and Agnes, in chorus.
“I am not sure that, as John Augustus Treble’s widow, my claims to the
estate do not come clearly ahead of _yours_. I understand that you
Kenway girls are merely here on sufferance, and that the ties of
relationship between you and Mr. Peter Stower are very scant indeed.
Of course, I suppose the courts will have to decide the matter, but
meanwhile you may show me to my room. I don’t care to pay a hotel
bill, and it looks to me as though there were plenty of rooms, and to
spare, in this ugly old house.”
Ruth was left breathless. But Agnes was able to whisper in her
sister’s ear:
“‘Mrs. Treble’ indeed! She looks to me, Ruth, a whole lot like ‘Mrs.
Trouble.’ What _shall_ we do?”