MISSING
Agnes and Cecile had gone down town on a brief shopping trip, and Ruth,
with Luke Shepard, was on the wide veranda of the old Corner House.
The great front yard that had been weed grown and neglected when the
Kenway sisters and Aunt Sarah had come here to live, was now a well kept
lawn, the grass and paths the joint care of Uncle Rufus and Neale
O'Neil. For nowadays Neale had time to do little other work than that of
running the Kenways' car and working about the old Corner House when he
was not at school.
Ruth was busy, of course, with some sewing, for she, like Aunt Sarah,
did not believe in being entirely idle while one gossiped. Whenever Ruth
looked up from her work there was somebody passing along Main Street or
Willow Street whom she knew, and who bowed or spoke to the Corner House
girl.
"You have such hosts of friends, Miss Ruth," Luke Shepard said. "I
believe you Corner House girls must be of that strange breed of folk who
are 'universally popular.' I have rather doubted their existence until
now."
"You are a flatterer," Ruth accused him, smiling. "I am sure you and
Cecile make friends quite as easily as we do."
"But Grantham is not Milton. There are only a handful of people there."
Ruth bit off a thread thoughtfully.
"Cecile was telling us about 'Neighbor' last evening," she said.
Luke flushed quickly and he looked away from the girl for a moment.
"Oh!" he said. "The poor old gentleman is a character."
"But a very good friend of yours?"
"I am not so sure about that," and Luke tried to laugh naturally. "To
tell the truth I'm afraid he's a bit cracked, don't you know."
"Oh, you do not mean that he is really--er--crazy!"
"No. Though they say--somebody has--that we are most of us a little
crazy. Neighbor Northrup is more than a little peculiar. Cecile told you
he is a woman-hater?"
"Yes. And that he carries his hatred to extremes."
"I should say he does!" exclaimed Luke with vast disgust. "He wants me
to promise never to marry."
"Well?"
"My goodness, Miss Ruth! You say that calmly enough. How would you like
to be nagged in such a way continually? It's no fun I can assure you."
Ruth laughed one of her hearty, delightful laughs that made even the
vexed Luke join in.
"It's like Aunt Sarah," confessed Ruth. "She thinks very poorly of men,
and is always advising Agnes and me to 'escape the wrath to come' by
joining the spinster sisterhood."
"But you haven't--you _won't_?" gasped Luke in horror.
At that the oldest Corner House girl laughed again, and Luke found
himself flushing and feeling rather shamefaced.
"Oh, well," he said, "you know what I mean. You girls wouldn't really be
influenced by such foolishness?"
"Doesn't Neighbor influence you?" Ruth asked him quickly.
"No, indeed. Not even when he tries to bribe me. He can keep his old
money."
"But he has been your good friend," the girl said slowly and
thoughtfully. "And Cecile says he has promised to do much for you."
"And if he got tiffed he would refuse to do a thing. Oh, I know
Neighbor!" growled Luke. "Yet you must not think, Miss Ruth," he added
after a moment, "that I do not appreciate what he has already done for
me. He is the kindest old fellow alive, get him off the subject of
women. But he must have been hurt very much by a woman when he was
young--he never speaks about it, but so I surmise--and he cannot forget
his hatred of the sex.
"Why," continued the young man, "if it would do him a bit of good--my
promising never to marry--any good in the world, there'd be some sense
in thinking of it. But it's downright foolishness--and I'll never
agree," and the young fellow shook his head angrily.
"If it would cure him of any disease, or the like, I might be coaxed to
wear blinders so as not to see the pretty girls at all," and Luke tried
to laugh it off again. "But he's wrong--utterly wrong. And old folks
should not be encouraged in wrong doing."
"You feel yourself susceptible to the charms of pretty girls, then,"
suggested Ruth, smiling down at her sewing.
He tried to see her full expression, but could see only the smile
wreathing her lips.
"Well, now, Miss Ruth," he said, in defense, "who isn't made happier by
seeing a pretty and cheerful face?"
"Some of them say they are made miserable for life by such a sight,"
Ruth declared demurely. "Or, is it only a manner of speaking?"
[Illustration: "'I shall begin to believe you are a man-hater,' laughed
Luke"]
"I shall begin to believe you are a man-hater, just as Neighbor is a
woman-hater," laughed Luke.
"I have my doubts," confessed Ruth. "But you, Luke, have your own way to
win in life, and if this man can and will help you, shouldn't you be
willing to give up a little thing like that for policy's sake?"
"A little thing like _what_?" exclaimed Luke Shepard, rather warmly.
"Why--er--getting married," and Ruth Kenway's eyes danced as she looked
at him again for an instant.
"The greatest thing in the world!" he almost shouted.
"You mean love is the greatest thing in the world," said Ruth still
demurely smiling. "They say marriage hasn't much to do with
that--sometimes."
"I believe you are pessimistic regarding the marriage state."
"I don't know anything about it. Never thought of it, really."
Tess just then came singing through the house, having been to see Miss
Ann Titus, the dressmaker, regarding certain dresses that were to be got
ready for the little girls to wear to school. She had refused to tell
Dot where she was going because one of the dresses was to be a surprise
to the smallest Corner House girl.
It needed no seer to discover that Tess had been to see the seamstress.
She was a polite little girl and she did not like to break in upon other
people's conversation; but she was so chock full of news that some of it
had to spill over.
"D'juno, Ruthie, that Mr. Sauer, the milkman got 'rested because he
didn't have enough milk in his wagon to serve his customers? The
inspector said he didn't have a license to peddle water, and he took
him down to the City Hall."
"I had not heard of it, Tess, no," replied her older sister.
"You know that awfully big man, Mr. Atkins--the awfully fat man, you
know, who is a lawyer, or something, and always walks down town for
exercise, and I s'pose he needs it? He stepped on a banana peel on
Purchase Street the other day and almost fell. And if he had fallen on
that hard walk I 'most guess he'd've exploded."
"Oh, Tessie!" exclaimed Ruth, while Luke laughed openly.
"And d'juno, Ruthie, that they are going to stop people from keeping
pigs inside the city limits? Mr. Con Murphy can't have his any more,
either. For the other day a pig that belonged to Hemstret, the butcher,
got away and scared folks awful on Deering Street, 'cause he looked as
though he had the yaller janders--"
"The _what_?" gasped her sister, while Luke actually roared.
"The yaller janders," repeated Tessie.
"Do you mean the yellow jaundice? Though how a pig could get such a
disease--"
"Maybe. Anyway he was all yellow," Tess went on excitedly. "'Cause some
boys took some ock-er-ra paint out of Mr. Timmins' shop--Timmins, the
lame man, you know--and painted him and then let him out."
"Painted Mr. Timmins--the lame man?" gasped Luke, in the midst of his
laughter.
"No. The pig that I was telling you about," said the small girl. "And
Mrs. Bogert says that the next time Bogert goes to the lodge and stays
till two o'clock in the morning, she's going home to her mother and take
the children with her," and Tess ended this budget of news almost
breathless.
Ruth had to laugh, too, although she did not approve of the children
carrying such gossip. "I should know you had called upon Miss Ann
Titus," she observed. "I hope you didn't hear anything worse than this."
"I heard her canary sing," confessed Tess; "and her little dog, Wopsy,
was snoring dreadfully on the sofa. But I guess I didn't hear anything
else. Where's Dot?"
"I'm sure I do not know," Ruth said placidly, while Luke wiped his eyes,
still chuckling in a subdued way. He saw that he was beginning to hurt
Tess' feelings and he was too kind-hearted to wish to do that. "Dot must
be somewhere about the house."
Tess went to look for her. Her tender conscience punished her for having
spoken to her little sister so shortly when she was starting on her
errand to Miss Ann Titus. But how else could she have gotten rid of the
"tagging" Dorothy!
Just now, however, Dot seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. Nobody
had seen her for more than an hour. Tess went to the fence between their
own and the Creamers' yard and "hoo-hooed" until Mabel appeared.
"Ain't seen her," declared that young person, shaking her head. "I tried
to get you and her over here a long time ago. My mother let me make some
'lasses taffy, and I wanted you and Dot to come and help. But I had to
do it all alone."
"Was it good?" asked Tess, longingly.
"It _looked_ luscious," admitted Mabel scowling. "But that young 'un got
at it when it was cooling on the porch and filled it full of gravel. I
broke a tooth trying to eat a piece. Want some, Tess?"
"No-o," Tess said. "I guess not. I must find Dot."
But she did not find Dot. She wandered back to the front of the Corner
House just as Mrs. Pinkney, rather wild-eyed and disheveled, appeared at
the side fence on Willow Street and called to Ruth:
"Have you seen Sammy?"
"Have you seen Dot?" repeated Tess, quite as earnestly.
Ruth was finally shaken out of her composure. She rose from her seat,
folding the work in her lap, and demanded:
"What do you suppose has become of them? For of course, if neither Sammy
nor Dot can be found, they have gone off somewhere together."