THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE GREEN UMBRELLA
Nobody had ever called Ruth Kenway pretty. That was, perhaps, because
her next youngest sister, Agnes, was an acknowledged beauty. Everything
is comparative.
Mrs. MacCall said that "handsome is as handsome does." Then, of course,
in the minds of the other members of the Corner House family, Ruth was
very beautiful indeed.
She had a lovely smile, and a low sweet, "mother" voice. She was,
indeed, all the mother Dot had ever known; nor could Tess remember their
"really-truly" mother very clearly.
Ruth had been calling on the other side of town. She went once a week
without fail to have afternoon tea with Mr. Howbridge, their guardian
and the administrator of the Stower estate, and this was the afternoon
for that pleasant duty.
If there was anything of a serious nature to be talked over between the
lawyer and the oldest Corner House girl, it was done in his pleasant
library over the old silver tea service, where there were no "small
pitchers with big ears."
"And so our moneys are growing, Ruth," Mr. Howbridge said thoughtfully,
having ended the discussion of some minor point of business. He admired
Ruth's good sense as well as her character, and so frequently discussed
matters of business with her that he was not obliged by his oath of
office to do.
"In a few months we shall have considerable cash on hand in the bank;
and three and a half per cent. is small interest on a large sum of
money. Somehow we must invest it."
Ruth's eyes twinkled. "I suppose you really _need_ our advice, Mr.
Howbridge? Of course, if you left it to the Corner House girls to invest
it would probably bring in only a high percentage of enjoyment.
"Agnes would have a flock of automobiles. Tessie would spend it all on
making other people happy. Dot would have an entire sanitarium devoted
to the treatment of dolls."
"And you, my dear?" asked the lawyer, smiling.
"Ah, if you want my advice, Mr. Howbridge, you must do as all _your_
clients have to do. You must give me a retainer," and she rose,
laughing, to don her light coat.
"But I will keep my mind on it," she added. "Who knows? Perhaps some
wise thought may fly my way. And all that money! It will really make a
fine investment."
"Remember, you girls will expect your 'dots' out of the estate some
day," chuckled Mr. Howbridge. "Your own dowry will come first, I
presume, Ruth."
"Me? Get married? With the children so dependent upon me?" gasped the
eldest Corner House girl. But she blushed warmly and averted her eyes
from the shrewd gaze of the lawyer. "Now you are talking nonsense, Mr.
Howbridge."
He let her go without comment. But to himself he murmured:
"I never knew it to fail. These girls who are determined to be spinsters
are always the first to be caught in the coil of matrimony."
If Ruth's thoughts lingered upon such a ridiculous suggestion
(ridiculous from her standpoint) after she left the lawyer's house, her
expression of countenance did not show it. She walked cheerfully along
the shaded street toward Milton's railroad station, for the old Corner
House stood upon the corner of Willow and Main Streets, opposite the
Parade Ground, quite on the other side of town.
She crossed the canal and was almost in sight of the station when she
saw a tall figure ahead of her whose singular gait and old-fashioned
manner of dress would have caused comment anywhere.
To wear a "stove-pipe" hat on a hot day like this, with a heavy, dark
frock-coat and gray trousers, with his feet encased in overshoes, seemed
to the casual observer rather ridiculous.
"Why," thought Ruth, "he looks as Seneca Sprague might if he were
dressed up and going to his own wedding," and she laughed to think of
that ridiculous possibility regarding one of the well-known characters
of Milton.
This old gentleman was a stranger to her, Ruth was sure. Milton being a
junction point of two railroads, there were often strangers about the
railroad station waiting for connections on one or the other of the
roads. This man must be, the girl thought, such a marooned passenger.
As he reached the edge of the shade cast by the trees on Pleasant Street
and stepped into the glare of the open square about the railway station,
he unfurled a huge umbrella and raised it to shield himself from the
sun's glare. It was a most astonishing umbrella. The upper side was a
faded green; the under side an age-yellowed white.
"Why," thought Ruth, "it must be an heirloom in his family."
Amused, she continued directly behind the old gentleman as he started to
cross the four tracks which blotted the center of Milton. Accidents had
happened more than once at this grade crossing, and the town councilmen
had been in hot water with the taxpayers for some years regarding the
changing of the railroad's level.
There were drop gates, but only one decrepit watchman here at Pleasant
Street. Ruth always looked both ways when she started to cross the
tracks. And at this time--or about this time--in the afternoon the
so-called Cannon-Ball Express went through. That train did not even
hesitate at Milton.
Quite as a matter of course, the girl halted when she came to the tracks
and looked both east and west. A freight train was backing down past the
station on the third track. The second track was open for passenger
traffic. There was a growing roar from the west.
The old gentleman stopped and peered in that direction. He could easily
have crossed ahead of the slow freight, but like Ruth he was doubtful
regarding the growing clamor of the approaching express, although that
fast-flier was not yet in sight at the curve.
"But it's coming!" murmured Ruth. "He mustn't cross!"
The old gentleman with the green umbrella had no intention of crossing
ahead of the express; but Ruth heard him utter an impatient exclamation
as he stepped back a little from proximity to the second track, the
first track being merely a siding for shunted freight cars.
He was so close to the oldest Corner House girl now that she could view
his countenance easily without appearing to be curious. But she was
curious about the old gentleman. However, being Ruth Kenway, she would
not have shown this in any way to ruffle his feelings; for, despite her
own youth, Ruth had mothered her three orphaned sisters for so long that
she was more sedate and thoughtful than most girls of her age.
Just at this moment the Cannon-Ball Express came tearing into view,
shrieking its warning for the Pleasant Street crossing. The old
gentleman was standing too near the rails, in Ruth's opinion. She
involuntarily put forth her hand and seized hold of his coat. He turned
to glare upon the freshly dressed, sweet-looking girl beside him with
what would have been an audible grunt of disapproval had the oncoming
train not made such a noise and with a look that caused her to drop her
hand immediately.
His face was a marvelous network of wrinkles; he wore amber
dust-goggles; his mouth was a grim slit in his brown face, like the trap
of a letter-box. It did not seem possible that any one could look on
Ruth Kenway's sweet face with such a grim and unkind expression on the
countenance. But the man turned from her with no softening in his look.
The express was now fairly upon them. The suction of such a rapidly
flying train is considerable. And that huge umbrella made the accident
unescapable.
The train shrieked by. Ruth herself felt the wind of it, and her skirts
blew around her body tightly.
The blast got beneath the big umbrella, and Ruth saw the old gentleman
seize hold upon the handle with both hands. The umbrella bellied and
creaked. The last car whisked past, and within the cyclone of flying
sand and gravel which followed it the unfortunate old gentleman was
caught.
Clinging to his umbrella, which was really the cause of all his trouble,
he whirled like a dervish across the second track in the wake of the
express, and stumbling, went to his knees between that set of rails and
the third track, on which the freight train was backing slowly toward
them.
Had he put the umbrella down he would have been all right. But his
stubborn character was displayed to the full by his still gripping the
unwieldy thing and, like "Old Grindstone George," hanging on to the
handle. He staggered to his feet, the umbrella quite hiding the coming
freight train from his view, and stumbled a pace forward, directly
toward the third track.
Ruth, with a startled scream, forgetting self, ignoring the man's former
scowls and harshness, sprang forward and again seized the old
gentleman's coat, this time with firmness and a determination not to
allow herself to be repulsed.
While Ruth Kenway is struggling to save this stranger from accident and
probable death, it is a good time to turn back and give those readers
who are making the acquaintance of the Corner House girls for the first
time in this present volume a little sketch of who these girls are and
of their adventures and pleasures as set forth in the previous volumes
of this series.
In the first book of the series, entitled "The Corner House Girls," the
sisters are introduced as living in a larger city and in very poor
circumstances. Their father and mother being dead, Ruth had to manage
for the family on a very small pension from the Government. Aunt Sarah
Maltby, who was peculiar in more ways than one, was a liability instead
of an asset to the family.
This queer old woman was always expecting that a large fortune would be
left to her when Mr. Peter Stower, of Milton, should die. Mr. Stower had
quarreled with all his relatives. Especially had he quarreled with his
half-sister Sarah. Nevertheless, Aunt Sarah believed his money and the
old homestead would come to her.
Instead, Mr. Stower willed it all to the four Kenway girls, making Mr.
Howbridge the administrator of the estate and the guardian of the girls.
Therefore, Miss Sarah Maltby was still a pensioner on the bounty of the
Corner House girls, and the fact perhaps made her more crabbed of temper
than she otherwise might have been.
Having settled down in the old Corner House to live, with Mrs. MacCall
as housekeeper and Uncle Rufus as man of all work, the girls next took
up the matter of education, as related in "The Corner House Girls at
School." The four sisters got acquainted with their new environment and
made new friends and a few enemies. Particularly they became chummy with
Neale O'Neil, the boy who had run away from a circus to get an
education. Neale became a fixture in the neighborhood, living with Mr.
Con Murphy, the cobbler, on the street back of the Corner House. He
became Agnes Kenway's particular and continual boy chum.
During the summer vacation Ruth and her sisters went to Pleasant Cove
where they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had adventures galore, as
told in the third volume, entitled "The Corner House Girls Under
Canvas."
As has been already mentioned, the sisters had parts in the school play
_The Carnation Countess_, the following winter. Tess was Swiftwing, the
Hummingbird, and Dot, a busy, busy bee, a part that the smallest Corner
House girl acted to perfection. Agnes, who had a bent for theatricals,
was immensely successful as Innocent Delight, and Ruth, of course, did
her part well. In "The Corner House Girls in a Play," the fourth volume,
these adventures and incidents are detailed.
"The Corner House Girls' Odd Find" made two of their very dearest
friends wealthy, and incidentally brought to the sister what Agnes had
longed for more than "anything else in the whole world"--a touring car.
In that they took a long trip, as related in "The Corner House Girls on
a Tour." On that journey, but recently completed, Neale O'Neil had
accompanied the sisters to drive the car. Mrs. Heard, a good friend, had
been their chaperon, and Sammy Pinkney, the boy who was determined to be
a pirate, was what Neale termed "an excrescence on the touring party"
during the exciting trip.
Ruth Kenway had been thinking of something that had occurred during
their automobile trip just before spying the old gentleman with the
green umbrella. She had that very day received a letter from Cecile
Shepard, whom, with her brother Luke, the Corner House girls had met
during their tour. And Ruth hoped that Cecile would spend a week at the
old Corner House before going back in September to the preparatory
school which she attended.
But now the old man's peril, her own alarm and her desire to save the
stranger's life, drove all other thoughts out of the girl's mind.