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THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP
[Illustration]
GRACE BROOKS HILL
[Illustration: "Ruth sprang forward and seized the old gentleman's coat"
(_See Page_ 25)]
THE
CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
GROWING UP
WHAT HAPPENED FIRST
WHAT CAME NEXT
AND HOW IT ENDED
BY
GRACE BROOKS HILL
AUTHOR OF "THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS," "THE
CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED BY_
_R. EMMETT OWEN_
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS
NEWARK, N. J.
NEW YORK, N. Y.
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
By Grace Brooks Hill
* * * * *
The Corner House Girls Series
_12mo. Cloth. 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
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
* * * * *
Copyright, 1918,
by
Barse & Hopkins
* * * * *
_The Corner House Girls Growing Up_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ALL UP IN THE AIR 9
II. THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE GREEN UMBRELLA 19
III. THE AERIAL TRAMWAY 29
IV. SCHOOL IN THE OFFING 42
V. THE SHEPARDS 49
VI. NAMING THE NEW BABY 57
VII. A FELINE FUROR 65
VIII. NEIGHBOR 75
IX. EVERYTHING AT SIXES AND AT SEVENS 84
X. ABOARD THE NANCY HANKS 93
XI. AFLOAT ON THE CANAL 105
XII. MISSING 114
XIII. THE HUE AND CRY 122
XIV. AN UNEXPECTED DELIGHT 130
XV. THE PURSUIT 140
XVI. THE RINGMASTER 152
XVII. SCALAWAG GETS A NEW HOME 161
XVIII. A LONG LOOK AHEAD 173
XIX. SCHOOL BEINGS 182
XX. BEARDING THE LION 191
XXI. ADVENTURES WITH SCALAWAG 199
XXII. THE GREEN UMBRELLA AGAIN 211
XXIII. THE MAD DOG SCARE 222
XXIV. IT ENGAGES AUNT SARAH'S ATTENTION 232
XXV. LOOKING AHEAD 246
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Ruth sprang forward and seized the old gentleman's coat"
_Frontispiece_
"Neale reached up with a rake and unhooked the hanging basket" 74
"'I shall begin to believe you are a man-hater,' laughed Luke" 116
"There was a rush for the open hatchway and a chorus of excited
voices" 164
CHAPTER I
ALL UP IN THE AIR
It all began because Tess Kenway became suddenly and deeply interested
in aeroplanes, airships and "all sort of flying things," as Dot, the
smallest Corner House girl, declared.
Perhaps one should modify that "suddenly"; for Tess had begun to think
about flying--as a profession--as long ago as the winter before (and
that was really a long time for a little girl of her age) when she had
acted as Swiftwing the Hummingbird in the children's play of _The
Carnation Countess_.
At any rate she said to Sammy Pinkney, who was almost their next door
neighbor, only he lived "scatecornered" across Willow Street, that she
wished she had an airship.
And there! "Scatecornered" must be explained too; it was an expression
of Uncle Rufus' who was the Corner House girls' chief factotum and
almost an heirloom in the family, for he had long served Uncle Peter
Stower, who in dying had willed the beautiful old homestead in Milton
to his four grand-nieces.
"Just what does 'scatecornered' mean, Uncle Rufus?" asked Dot, who
delighted in polysyllables.
"Why, chile, 'scatecornered' am a pufficly good word, fo' I has used it
all ma life. It's--er--well, it's sort of a short-cut for de meanin' of
slantindicular an crisscrosswise; w'ich means dat it ain't straight an'
ain't crooked, but sort o'--er--scatecornered. Dere, chile, now you
knows."
"Yes, Uncle Rufus; thank you," said Dot, polite if she did feel rather
dizzy after his explanation.
But it was with Tess, who was nearly two years older than Dot and
thought herself vastly more grown up, and with Sammy Pinkney this story
was begun, and one should stick to one's text.
"Yes," murmured Tess, "I wish I had an airship."
Sammy looked at her, rather awed. Lately he was beginning to feel a mite
awed in Tess Kenway's company, anyway. She had always been a thoughtful
child. Aunt Sarah Maltby declared she was uncanny and gave her the
fidgets. Of late even the boy who desired to be a pirate found Tess
puzzling.
"Huh! An airship? What would you do with it? Where would you keep it?"
he finally demanded, his queries being nothing if not practical.
Really Tess had not addressed him directly. She had just audibly
expressed a thought, and one that had long been in her mind in embryo.
So she did not answer the neighbor boy, who was sitting beside her on
the side stoop of the Corner House, rigging a self-whittled ship to sail
in the horse-trough.
"You know very well it wouldn't go in the garage; and the toolshed and
the henhouse--even Tom Jonah's house--are all too small. Huh! that's
like a girl! Never look ahead to see what they'd do with an airship if
somebody gave 'em one."
"Well, I don't s'pose anybody will," admitted Tess, with a sigh, having
heard at least the last part of Sammy's speech.
"Anybody will _what_?" demanded Sammy, beginning to be somewhat
confused, partly from not knowing what he himself had been saying.
"Give us an airship."
"I should say not!" ejaculated Sammy. "Why, Tess Kenway, an airship
would cost 'most a million dollars!"
"Is that so?" she said, accepting Sammy's slight overestimate of the
price of a flying machine quite placidly.
"And folks don't give away such presents. I should say not!" with scorn.
"Why, Neale O'Neil's Uncle Bill Sorber wants to give Dot and me a calico
pony, and that must be worth a lot of money."
"Huh! What's a calico pony? Like one of these Teddy bears?" sniffed
Sammy. "Stuffed with cotton?"
"No it isn't, Mr. Saucebox!" broke in Agnes Kenway, the second and
prettiest of the Corner House girls, who had just come out on the porch
to brush her sport coat and had overheard the boy's observation. "That
calico pony is well stuffed with good oats and hay if it belongs to
Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. Neale's Uncle Bill
feeds his horses till they are as fat as butter."
"Oh!" murmured Sammy. "A _real_ pony?" and his eyes began to shine. He
had owned a goat (it was now Tess' property) and he now possessed a
bulldog. But he foresaw "larks" if the two smaller Corner House girls
got a pony. The older ones often went out in the motor-car without Tess
and Dot, and the suggestion of the pony may have been a roundabout way
of appeasing the youngsters.
"But say!" the boy added, "why did you call it calico? That's what they
make kids' dresses out of, isn't it?"
"Mine's gingham and I'm not a kid," declared Tess both promptly and with
warmth.
"Aw, well, I didn't mean _you_," explained Sammy. "And why do they call
a pony 'calico'?"
This was too much for Tess and she put it up to Agnes.
"Why--now," began the older sister, "you--you know what a calico cat is,
Sammy Pinkney?"
"Ye-es," Sammy said it rather doubtfully, however. "That's like Miss
Pettingill's got down the street, ain't it?"
"O-o!" cried Tess. "That's _all_ colors, that old cat is!"
"It's sort of mottled and patchy. That's it--patchy!" declared Agnes,
seizing the suggestion of "calico" and "patchwork" to make out her case.
"But," complained Tess, "I didn't think the pony would be as many colors
as Miss Pettingill's cat. You know she calls _him_ Rainbow."
"Why, the pony is only brown and white--or cream color," Agnes said with
more confidence. "And maybe a little pink."
"Ho! ho!" snorted Sammy. "Now you are stringin' us. Who ever heard of a
pink horse?"
Agnes went in without hearing this remark, and perhaps it was as well
for Sammy Pinkney. Tess said severely:
"Our Agnes does not string people, Sammy. If she says the pony is pink,
it is pink, you may be certain sure."
"And chocolate and cream color, too?" sniffed the boy. "Hum! I guess a
pony as funny as that would be, could fly too. So you'll be fixed up all
right, Tess Kenway."
"Dear me," sighed the little girl, coming back to their original topic
of conversation. "I wish we _did_ have something that would fly."
Now, secretly, Sammy was very fond of Tess. When he had had the scarlet
fever that spring and early summer, his little neighbor with the serious
face and dreamy look had been the most attentive friend one could ever
expect to have.
She had called morning and night at his house to get the "bulletin" of
his condition; and when he was up again and the house was what Dot
Kenway had mentioned as "fumigrated," Tess had spent long hours amusing
the boy until he could play out of doors again.
Besides, she had much to do with his accompanying the Corner House girls
on their recent motoring trip, and Sammy's own mother said that that
vacation journey had "made a new boy of Sammy."
This new boy, therefore, did not scorn to put his mind to the problem of
Tess Kenway's distress. But an airship!
"I say, Tess," he said at last with some eagerness, "how'd one of them
airmajigs be that father brought me home from the city once--only a
bigger one?"
"What is an airmajig?" demanded Tess, her curiosity aroused if nothing
more.
"Well, it's a dinky thing--pshaw! you remember. You stretched a wire,
and then wound it up--"
"Wound up the wire?"
"Naw! Oh, jingo! The ship, I mean. It was run by a clock. And you hung
it on the wire when it was wound."
"The clock?" asked Tess, still absent-mindedly.
"Oh! Je-ru-sa-_lem_! Girls don't know nothin' about mechanics," snarled
Sammy. "What's the use!"
Tess asked in an apologetic voice, after a moment of silence:
"What happened, Sammy?"
"What happened to _what_?"
"The airmajig?"
"Why, it traveled right along the wire--hanging to it, you know,"
explained the little boy with more enthusiasm. "It would go as far as
the wire was long. Why, I bet, Tess Kenway, that it would run from your
house to mine. And it wiggled its wings just like a bird. And there was
a tin man in it. But pshaw! that was just for kids. It was a toy. But a
bigger one--"
"Oh, Sammy! big enough to carry us?" gasped Tess, clasping her hands.
"Er--well--now," hesitated Sammy, whose own imagination was hampered by
a very practical streak in his character. "That would be some airship,
wouldn't it? To carry us. It would have to be pretty big, and the wire'd
have to be awful strong."
"Oh, it wouldn't be flying, then," sighed Tess.
"But say!" he exclaimed more eagerly, "couldn't we fly your dolls in
it--yours and Dot's?"
"Oh!"
"That would be great!"
The screen door slammed behind them. "No," declared a serious and very
decisive voice. "You sha'n't fly my Alice-doll like a kite, Sammy
Pinkney. So there!"
They turned to the dark, fairy-like little girl who had appeared fresh
from her afternoon toilet at the hands of Mrs. MacCall, the old Scotch
housekeeper who loved the Corner House girls as though they were her
own.
Dot, as usual, clung tightly to the pink-faced, fair-haired doll which
of all her "children" was her favorite. The Alice-doll had been through
so many adventures, and suffered such peril and disaster, that Dot could
scarcely bear that she should be out of her sight for fear some new
calamity would happen to her.
Therefore Dot said quite firmly:
"No, Sammy Pinkney. You're not going to fly my Alice-doll. And I should
think you'd be 'shamed, Tessie Kenway, to let him even talk about it."
"Aw, who's goin' to hurt your old doll?" growled Sammy.
"She's _not_ an old doll, I'd have you know, Sammy Pinkney!" responded
Dot, ready to argue the point with anybody. "She's just been made over.
Didn't Neale O'Neil have her taken to the hospital? And didn't they make
over her face just like society ladies get _theirs_ done by a
der--der-ma-olywog?"
"Mercy, child!" gasped Tess. "'Dermatologist' the word is. Ruth told
us."
"And they bleached her hair," concluded the excited Dot. "So there! Lots
of ladies have their hair bleached. It's quite fashioningble."
"Dot! Dot!" begged the purist, Tess, "do get your words right if you
will use such long ones."
Dot haughtily overlooked any such interruptions. "So," said she, "you
sha'n't make a kite out of my Alice-doll," and she hugged the child to
her bosom with emphasis.
"It isn't a kite," explained Tess, indulgently. "Sammy was talking about
airships. He had one that had a clock in it and it flew on a wire--"
"Oo-ee!" squealed Dot suddenly. "I 'member about that, Sammy Pinkney.
And your mother said you shouldn't _ever_ have such a contraption in the
house again. It busted the parlor lamp."
"Oh, dear! I wish you'd say 'bursted,'" sighed her sister.
"But if it had been out of doors," Sammy grumbled, "where there weren't
any lamps and things, it would have worked fine. I tell you, Tess, we
could string it from your house to mine, and the carrier could be loaded
up at one station and unloaded and loaded again at the other. Crickey,
it would be fun!"
"But maybe Ruthie wouldn't let us do it," suggested Tess, beginning to
be enamored of the boy's idea, yet having her doubts about the
feasibility of the plan. "It would knock people's hats off."
"What would!" gasped Sammy.
"The wire--or the airship traveling back and forth."
"Oh, Je-ru-sa-_lem_,'" again exploded Sammy. "You wanted an airship,
didn't you? 'Way up in the air--not so's you can reach it from the
ground. Why, we'll string the wire from my bedroom window to one of the
windows of the room you and Dot sleep in."
"Oh!" cried Dot, beginning to visualize the scheme now. "Just like the
cash-carriers in the Five and Ten Cent Store."
"But Ruthie wouldn't let us, I'm afraid," murmured Tess, still doubtful.
"Let's ask her," said Sammy.
"Oh, let's!" cried Dot.
But when they hunted for Ruth, the eldest of the four Corner House
girls, she was not to be found on the premises; and if the children had
but known it just at that time Ruth Kenway was having an adventure of
her own which was, later, to prove of immense interest to all the Corner
House family.