THE WHITE-HEADED BOY
"The Corner House Girls," as they had come to be known to Milton folk,
and as they are known to the readers of the first volume of this series,
had occupied the great mansion opposite the lower end of the Parade
Ground, since the spring before.
They had come from Bloomingsburg, where their father and mother had
died, leaving them without guardianship. But when Uncle Peter Stower
died and left most of his property to his four nieces, Mr. Howbridge,
the lawyer, had come for the Kenway sisters and established them in the
old Corner House.
Here they had spent the summer getting acquainted with Milton folk
(making themselves liked by most of the neighbors), and gradually
getting used to their changed circumstances.
For in Bloomingsburg the Kenways had lived among very poor people, and
were very poor themselves. Now they were very fortunately conditioned,
having a beautiful home, plenty of money to spend (under the direction
of Mr. Howbridge) and the opportunity of making many friends.
With them, to the old mansion, had come Aunt Sarah Maltby. Really, she
was no relation at all to the Kenway girls, but she had lived with them
ever since they could remember.
In her youth Aunt Sarah had lived in the old Corner House, so this
seemed like home to her. Uncle Rufus had served the aforetime owner of
the place for many years, too; so _he_ was at home here. And as for Mrs.
MacCall, she had come to help Ruth and her sisters soon after their
establishment in the old Corner House, and by this time had grown to be
indispensable.
This was the household, saving Sandyface, the cat, and her four
kittens--Spotty, Almira, Popocatepetl and Bungle. And now there was the
goat, Mr. Billy Bumps.
Ruth was an intellectual looking girl--so people said. She had little
color, and her black hair was "stringy"--which she hated! Now that she
was no longer obliged to consider the expenditure of each dollar so
carefully, the worried look about her big brown eyes, and the
compression of her lips, had relaxed. For two years Ruth had been the
head of the household and it had made her old before her time.
She was only a girl yet, however; her sixteenth birthday was not long
behind her. She liked fun and was glad of the release from much of her
former care. And when she laughed, her eyes were brilliant and her mouth
surprisingly sweet.
The smaller girls--Tess (nobody ever called her Theresa) and
Dorothy--were both pretty and lively. Dot was Ruth in miniature, a
little, fairy-like brunette. Tess, who was ten, had a very kind heart
and was tactful. She had some of Ruth's dignity and more of Agnes' good
looks.
The twelve year old--the fly-away--the irrepressible--what shall we say
about her? That she laughed easily, cried stormily, was always playing
pranks, rather tomboyish, affectionate--utterly thoughtless----
Well, there is Agnes, out of the bedroom window in her bathrobe and
slippers just at dawn, with the birds chirping their first chorus, and
not a soul about (so she supposed) to either see or help her in her
sudden predicament.
She really was in danger; there was no doubt of it. A scream for help
would not bring Ruth in time; and it was doubtful if her older sister
could do anything to help her.
"Oh--_oh_--OH!" gasped Agnes, in crescendo. "I--am--go--ing--to--fall!"
And on the instant--the very sweetest sound Agnes Kenway had ever heard
(she admitted this fact afterward)--a boy's voice ejaculated:
"No you're not! Hang on for one minute!"
The side gate clicked. Feet scurried across the lawn, and under her as
she glanced downward, Agnes saw a slim, white-faced youth appear. He had
white hair, too; he was a regular tow-head. He was dressed in a shiny
black suit that was at least two full sizes too small for him. The
trousers hitched above his shoe-tops and the sleeves of his jacket were
so short that they displayed at least four inches of wrist.
Agnes took in these points on the instant--before she could say another
word. The boy was a stranger to her; she had never seen him before.
But he went to work just as though he had been introduced! He flung off
his cap and stripped off the jacket, too, in a twinkling. It seemed to
Agnes as though he climbed up the tree and reached the limb she clung to
as quickly as any cat.
He flung up his legs, wound them about the butt of the limb like two
black snakes, and seized Agnes' wrists. "Swing free--I've got you!" he
commanded.
Agnes actually obeyed. There was something impelling in his voice; but
likewise she felt that there was sufficient strength in those hands that
grasped her wrists, to hold her.
Her feet slipped from the ledge and she shot down. The white-haired boy
swung out, too, but they did not fall as Agnes agonizingly expected,
after she had trusted herself to the unknown.
There was some little shock, but not much; their bodies swung clear of
the tree--he with his head down, and she with her slippered feet almost
touching the wet grass.
"All right?" demanded the white-head. "Let go!"
He dropped her. She stood upright, and unhurt, but swayed a little,
weakly. The next instant he was down and stood, breathing quickly,
before her.
"Why--why--why!" gasped Agnes. Just like that! "Why, you did that just
like a circus."
Oddly enough the white-haired boy scowled and a dusky color came slowly
into his naturally pale cheek.
"What do you say that for?" he asked, dropping his gaze, and picking up
his cap and jacket. "What do you mean--circus?"
"Why," said Agnes, breathlessly, "just like one of those acrobats that
fly over the heads of the people, and do all those curious things in the
air----Why! you know."
"How do I know?" demanded the boy, quite fiercely.
It became impressed upon Agnes' mind that the stranger was angry. She
did not know why, and she only felt gratitude--and curiosity--toward
him.
"Didn't you ever go to a circus?" she asked, slowly.
The boy hesitated. Then he said, bluntly: "No!" and Agnes knew it was
the truth, for he looked now unwaveringly into her eyes.
"My! you've missed a lot," she breathed. "So did we till this summer.
Then Mr. Howbridge took us to one of those that came to Milton."
"What circus was it you went to?" the boy asked, quickly.
"Aaron Wall's Magnificent Double Show," repeated Agnes, carefully.
"There was another came--Twomley & Sorter's Herculean Circus and
Menagerie; but we didn't see that one."
The boy listened as though he considered the answer of some importance.
At the end he sighed. "No; I never went to a circus," he repeated.
"But you're just wonderful," Agnes declared. "I never saw a boy like
you."
"And I never saw a girl like you," returned the white-haired boy, and
his quick grin made him look suddenly friendly. "What did you crawl out
of that window for?"
"To get a peach."
"Did you get it?"
"No. It was just out of reach, after all. And then I leaned too far."
The boy was looking up quizzically at the high-hung fruit. "If you want
it awfully bad?" he suggested.
"There's more than one," said Agnes, giggling. "And you're welcome to
all you can pick."
"Do you mean it?" he shot in, at once casting cap and jacket on the
ground again.
"Yes. Help yourself. Only toss me down one."
"This isn't a joke, now?" the boy asked. "You've got a _right_ to tell
me to take 'em?"
"Oh, mercy! Yes!" ejaculated Agnes. "Do you think I'd tell a story?"
"I don't know," he said, bluntly.
"Well! I like _that_!" cried Agnes, with some vexation.
"I don't know you and you don't know me," said the boy. "Everybody that
I meet doesn't tell me the truth. So now!"
"Do _you_ always tell the truth?" demanded Agnes, shrewdly.
Again the boy flushed, but there was roguishness in his brown eyes. "I
don't _dare_ tell it--sometimes," he said.
"Well, there's nobody to scare _me_ into story-telling," said Agnes,
loftily, deciding that she did not like this boy so well, after all.
"Oh, I'll risk it--for the peaches," said the white-haired boy, coming
back to the--to him--principal subject of discussion, and immediately he
climbed up the tree.
Agnes gasped again. "My goodness!" she thought. "I know Sandyface
couldn't go up that tree any quicker--not even with Sam Pinkney's
bulldog after her."
He was a slim boy and the limbs scarcely bent under his weight--not even
when he was in the top of the tree. He seemed to know just how to
balance himself, while standing there, and fearlessly used both hands to
pick the remaining fruit.
Two of the biggest, handsomest peaches he dropped, one after the other,
into the lap of Agnes' thick bath-gown as she held it up before her. The
remainder of the fruit he bestowed about his own person, dropping it
through the neck of his shirt until the peaches quite swelled out its
fullness all about his waist. His trousers were held in place by a stout
strap, instead of by suspenders.
He came down from the tree as easily as he had climbed it--and with the
peaches intact.
"They must have a fine gymnasium at the school where you go," said
Agnes, admiringly.
"I never went to school," said the boy, and blushed again.
Agnes was very curious. She had already established herself on the porch
step, wrapped the robe closely around her, shook her two plaits back
over her shoulders, and now sunk her teeth into the first peach. With
her other hand she beckoned the white-haired boy to sit down beside her.
"Come and eat them," she said. "Breakfast won't be ready for ever and
ever so long yet."
The boy removed the peaches he had picked, and made a little pyramid of
them on the step. Then he put on his jacket and cap before he accepted
her invitation. Meanwhile Agnes was eating the peach and contemplating
him gravely.
She had to admit, now that she more closely inspected them, that the
white-haired boy's garments were extremely shabby. Jacket and trousers
were too small for him, as she had previously observed. His shirt was
faded, very clean, and the elbows were patched. His shoes were broken,
but polished brightly.
When he bit into the first peach his eye brightened and he ate the fruit
greedily. Agnes believed he must be very hungry, and for once the
next-to-the-oldest Kenway girl showed some tact.
"Will you stay to breakfast with us?" she asked. "Mrs. MacCall always
gets up at six o'clock. And Ruth will want to see you, too. Ruth's the
oldest of us Kenways."
"Is this a boarding-house?" asked the boy, seriously.
"Oh, no!"
"It's big enough."
"I 'spect it is," said Agnes. "There are lots of rooms we never use."
"Could--could a feller get to stay here?" queried the white-haired boy.
"Oh! I don't know," gasped Agnes. "You--you'd have to ask Ruth. And Mr.
Howbridge, perhaps."
"Who's he?" asked the boy, suspiciously.
"Our lawyer."
"Does he live here?"
"Oh, no. There isn't any man here but Uncle Rufus. He's a colored man
who lived with Uncle Peter who used to own this house. Uncle Peter gave
it to us Kenway girls when he died."
"Oh! then you own it?" asked the boy.
"Mr. Howbridge is the executor of the estate; but we four Kenway
girls--and Aunt Sarah--have the income from it. And we came to live in
this old Corner House almost as soon as Uncle Peter Stower died."
"Then you could take boarders if you wanted to?" demanded the
white-haired boy, sticking to his proposition like a leech.
"Why--maybe--I'd ask Ruth----"
"I'd pay my way," said the boy, sharply, and flushing again. She could
see that he was a very proud boy, in spite of his evident poverty.
"I've got some money saved. I'd earn more--after school. I'm going to
school across the Parade Ground there--when it opens. I've already seen
the superintendent of schools. He says I belong in the highest grammar
grade."
"Why!" cried Agnes, "that's the grade _I_ am going into."
"I'm older than you are," said the boy, with that quick, angry flush
mounting into his cheeks. "I'm fifteen. But I never had a chance to go
to school."
"That is too bad," said Agnes, sympathetically. She saw that he was
eager to enter school and sympathized with him on that point, for she
was eager herself.
"We'll have an awfully nice teacher," she told him. "Miss Shipman."
Just then Ruth appeared at the upper window and looked down upon them.