SCHOOL IN THE OFFING
Neale O 'Neil, trained as an acrobat, had never lost his suppleness and
skill in trapeze work and other gymnastics since leaving Twomley &
Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. There was a fine gymnasium at
the Milton high school which he attended, and Neale had made his mark in
the gymnasium work as well as in the studies he loved.
It was no trick at all for him to put up the wire attachments to make
the aerial tramway altogether to the satisfaction of Tess and Dot and
Sammy Pinkney. Before evening the following day the wire was stretched
and in place, the pulleys rigged, and the wire basket, which was used as
the car, was traveling back and forth briskly from the window of Sammy's
bedroom to one of the windows of the large room in the east ell of the
old Corner House where Tess and Dot slept and had their dolls and
playthings.
With lengths of clothesline to pull the wire car back and forth, it was
easy for the children to manipulate it. And the car was roomy enough and
strong enough to hold almost anything they might wish to send between
the two houses.
Of course, it was not exactly an airship of any kind. But for the time
Tess Kenway, who was usually modestly satisfied with what was done for
her, was perfectly delighted with the arrangement.
As for Dot, she was so pleased, that she felt compelled to sit right
down in the middle of the drying green beneath the wire, clasping the
Alice-doll close to her breast, and gaze up at the car going back and
forth as Sammy and Tess manipulated it.
"Oh! it's delightsome!" gasped the little girl, quoting one of Agnes'
favorite expressions.
When Sammy came down and looked over the fence at her he said:
"Say, Dot, let's give your dolls a ride."
"Sam-my Pink-ney!" shrilled Dot vigorously. "If you ever try to ride my
Alice-doll or any of her sisters in that car up there I'll-- I'll never
speak to you again!"
And she was so much in earnest and seemed so near to tears that Sammy
hastily gave his word of honor--as a man and a pirate--never to treat
the dolls to such an aerial trip.
Mabel Creamer, who lived next door on Main Street, wheeled her little
brother over to Willow Street to view the wonder of the aerial tramway.
When she heard that Dot and Tess would not allow their dolls to be used
as passengers in the aerial car, she offered to put Bubby up there.
"Why, Mabel!" gasped Tess. "S'pose he should fall out?"
"Oh," Mabel replied coolly, "he wouldn't hurt himself. He rolled all the
way down the cellar stairs yesterday and didn't do a thing to
himself--only broke the cat's dish, 'cause he landed on it."
"That's some tough baby," pronounced Neale; but after Mabel had wheeled
Bubby away Tess confided to Neale that she knew why the Creamer's
youngest was so "tough."
"Why, you know," Tess said earnestly, "almost everything that could
happen to a baby has happened to him. Mabel hates to take care of him,
and she is always forgetting and leaving him to tumble out of the
carriage, or into something babies aren't supposed to get into."
"And 'member when he got carried away in the hamper by the laundryman?"
broke in Dot. "If it hadn't been for our Agnes following in Joe Eldred's
motor car, Bubby might have been washed and ironed and brought back to
Mrs. Creamer just as flat as a pancake!"
"That's the capsheaf," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "Bubby Creamer is
certainly a wonderful kid. What do you say, Aggie?" for the older girl
had just appeared, ready dressed for a shopping excursion.
"Silk-wool to mend my sweater; pins--two kinds; pearl buttons for Dot's
waists; a celluloid thimble for Linda; a pair of hose for Mrs.
Mac--extra tops; Aunt Sarah's peppermints for Sunday service; lace for
Ruthie's collar; hair ribbons for Tessie; a _love_ of a waist I saw at
Blackstein & Mape's! and----"
"Help! Help!" cried Neale, breaking in at last. "And you expect _me_ to
accompany you on a shopping trip, Aggie, when you've all those feminine
folderols to buy?"
"Why not?" demanded Agnes, making innocent eyes. "I want you to carry my
packages."
"All right. But you'll hitch me out in front of the store to a hitching
post like any other beast of burden," returned Neale, following in her
footsteps out of the side gate.
This was a Saturday. Ruth had said that if they were to have company all
the following week and school was to open a week from Monday, they had
all better get out their school books on this evening and begin to get
familiar with the studies they were to go back to so soon.
"At least, we would better see if we all remember our A B C's," she said
dryly. "You, Sammy, after being out so long last term because of the
scarlet fever, will have to make up some studies if you wish to keep up
with your class."
"Don't care whether I keep up or not," growled Sammy. "I just hate
school. Every time I think of it I feel like going right off and being a
pirate, without waiting to learn navigation."
For Mr. Pinkney, who was a very wise man, had explained to Sammy that
there was scarcely any use in his thinking of being a pirate if he could
not navigate a ship. And navigation, he further explained, was a form
of mathematics that could only be studied after one had graduated from
high school and knew all about algebra.
Nevertheless, Sammy appreciated the fact that he was included in Ruth's
invitation and could bring his books over to the Corner House
sitting-room where the girls and Neale O'Neil were wont to study almost
every week-day night during the school year.
Neale usually took supper at the Corner House on Saturday evenings and,
considering the way he came back from the shopping expedition laden with
bundles, he certainly deserved something for "the inner man," as he
himself expressed it. A truly New England Saturday night supper was
almost always served by Mrs. MacCall--baked beans, brown bread and
codfish cakes.
And pudding! Mrs. MacCall was famous for her "whangdoodle pudding and
lallygag sauce"--a title she had given once to cottage pudding and its
accompanying dressing to satisfy little folks' teasing questions as to
"what is _that_?" Neale O'Neil was very fond of this delicacy.
As he passed his plate for a second helping on this occasion he quoted
with becoming reverence: "The woman that maketh a good pudding is better
than a tart reply."
"But Mrs. Adams made a tart once," observed Dot seriously, "and instead
of sifting powdered sugar on it she got hold of her sand-shaker, and
when she gave Margaret Pease and me each a piece it gritted our teeth
so we couldn't eat it. So then," concluded Dot, "she found out what she
had done."
"If she'd given it to Sammy Pinkney," Tess said morosely, "I guess he'd
have eaten it right down and never said a word. I saw him drop his bread
and butter and 'lasses on the ground once, and he picked it right up and
ate it. He said the ground was clean!"
"No wonder Sammy's such a gritty little chap," chuckled Neale.
"Well," Mrs. MacCall said cheerfully, and with her usual optimism, "it's
an old saying that everybody has to eat a peck of dirt before he dies."
"So 'tis, Mrs. MacCall," Aunt Sarah rejoined from her end of the table,
and with a scornful sniff. "But I want to know whose dirt I'm eating.
That Sammy Pinkney is nothing but a little animal."
This puzzled Dot somewhat, and she whispered to Ruth: "Ruthie, are
_good_ little boys, then, vegetables!"
"No, dear," the elder sister said, smiling while the others laughed.
"Both bad little boys and good little boys, as well as girls, are human
beings."
"And," said Tess soberly, trying to recall something she had learned in
the past, "there isn't any difference between bad girls and bad boys,
only the boys are of the male sex and the girls are of the feline sex."
At that statement there was a burst of laughter.
"You certainly said something that time, Tess," declared Neale. "For if
there is anything more feline than a girl that's mad--"
"Nothing like that, Neale O'Neil," interrupted Agnes quickly. "You would
better sing pretty small, young man. Remember you are outnumbered."
"Yes," said Tess sedately, "you haven't even Sammy here now to take your
part, you know, Neale."
"True for you, Tessie," agreed Neale. "I am in an infinitesimal
minority."
Dot's eyes opened wide as these long words sounded from the boy's lips,
and she gulped just as though she were swallowing them down for
digestion. Agnes' eyes twinkled as she asked the smallest girl:
"Did you get those two, honey?"
"Don't make fun of her," admonished Ruth, aside.
"Well," sighed Dot, soberly, "I do hope I'll get into big words in the
reading book this next term. I love 'em. Why! Tess is awfully far ahead
of me; she can spell words in four cylinders!"
And that closed the evening meal with a round of laughter that Dot did
not understand.