"THAT CIRCUS BOY"
The first Christmas since the Kenway girls had "come into" Uncle Peter's
estate was bound to be a memorable one for Ruth and Agnes and Tess and
Dot.
Mother Kenway, while she had lived, had believed in the old-fashioned
New England Christmas. The sisters had never had a tree, but they always
hung their stockings on a line behind the "base-burner" in the
sitting-room of the Bloomingsburg tenement. So now they hung them in a
row by the dining-room mantelpiece in the old Corner House.
Uncle Rufus took a great deal of interest in this proceeding. He took
out the fire-board from the old-fashioned chimneyplace, so as to give
ingress to Santa Clans when the reindeers of that good saint should land
upon the Corner House roof.
Dot held to her first belief in the personal existence of Saint Nick,
and although Tess had some doubts as to his real identity, she would not
for the world have said anything to weaken Dot's belief.
There was no stove in the way in the dining-room, for the furnace--put
into the cellar by Uncle Peter only shortly before his death--heated the
two lower floors of the main part of the house, as well as the kitchen
wing, in which the girls and Mrs. MacCall slept.
The girls had begged Neale O'Neil to hang up his stocking with theirs,
but he refused--rather gruffly, it must be confessed. Mrs. MacCall and
Uncle Rufus, however, were prevailed upon to add their hose to the line.
Aunt Sarah rather snappishly objected to "exposing her stockings to the
public view, whether on or off the person,"--so she said.
The four Corner House girls felt thankful to the queer old woman, who
was really no relation to them at all, but who accepted all their bounty
and attentions as though they were hers by right.
Indeed, at the time when there seemed some doubt as to whether Mr.
Howbridge could prove for the Kenway girls a clear title to Uncle
Peter's property, Aunt Sarah had furnished the necessary evidence, and
sent away the claimant from Ipsilanti.
There was, too, a soft side to Aunt Sarah's character; only, like the
chestnutburr, one had to get inside her shell to find it. If one of the
children was ill, Aunt Sarah was right there with the old fashioned
remedies, and although some of her "yarb teas" might be nasty to take,
they were efficacious.
Then, she was always knitting, or embroidering, something or other for
the girls. Now that there was plenty of money in the family purse, she
ordered materials just as she pleased, and knit jackets, shawls,
mittens, and "wristlets."
She was a very grim lady and dressed very plainly; although she never
said so, she liked to have the girls sit with her at their sewing. She
took infinite pains to teach them to be good needle-women, as her mother
had doubtless taught her.
So the chief present the girls bought this Christmas for Aunt Sarah was
a handsome sewing table, its drawers well supplied with all manner of
threads, silks, wools, and such like materials.
This the Kenway sisters had all "chipped in" to purchase, and the table
was smuggled into the house and hidden away in one of the spare rooms,
weeks before Christmas. The girls had purchased a new dress for Mrs.
MacCall, and had furnished out Uncle Rufus from top to toe in a suit of
black clothes, with a white vest, in which he could wait at table on
state and date occasions, as well as wear to church on Sundays.
There were, of course, small individual presents from each girl to these
family retainers, and to Aunt Sarah. The stockings bulged most
delightfully in the dining-room when they trooped down to breakfast on
Christmas morning.
Tess and Dot could scarcely eat, their eyes were so fixed upon the
delightfully knobby bundles piled under each of their stockings on the
hearth. Agnes declared Tess tried to drink her buckwheat cakes and eat
her coffee, and that Dot was in danger of sticking her fork into her eye
instead of into her mouth.
But the meal was ended at last and Uncle Rufus wheeled out Aunt Sarah's
beautiful sewing table, with her other smaller presents upon it. Ruth
told her how happy it made them all to give it to her. Aunt Sarah's keen
eye lit up as she was shown all the interesting things about her new
acquisition; but all the verbal comment she made was that she thought
"you gals better be in better business than buying gewgaws for an old
woman like me."
"Just the same, she is pleased as Punch," Mrs. MacCall whispered to
Ruth. "Only, she doesn't like to show it."
The girls quickly came to their own presents. None of the articles they
had bought for each other were of great value intrinsically; but they
all showed love and thoughtfulness. Little things that each had at some
time carelessly expressed a wish for, appeared from the stockings to
delight and warm the heart of the recipient.
There was nobody, of course, to give the two older girls any very
valuable gifts; but there was a pretty locket and chain for Ruth which
she had seen in the jewelry-store window and expressed a fondness for,
while the desire of Agnes' eyes was satisfied when she found a certain
bracelet in the toe of her stocking.
Tess had a bewildering number of books and school paraphernalia, as well
as additions to her dolls' paraphernalia; but it was Dot who sat down
breathlessly in the middle of the floor under a perfect avalanche of
treasures, all connected with her "children's" comfort and her personal
house-keeping arrangements.
It would have been almost sacrilege to have presented Dot with another
doll; for the Alice-doll that had come the Christmas before and had only
lately been graduated into short clothes, still held the largest place
in the little girl's affections.
Battered by adversity as the Alice-doll was, Dot's heart could never
have warmed toward another "child" as it did toward the unfortunate that
"Double Trouble"--that angel-faced young one from Ipsilanti--had buried
with the dried apples. But Dot's sisters had showered upon her every
imaginable comfort and convenience for the use of a growing family of
dolls, as well as particular presents to the Alice-doll herself.
"What's the matter, child?" asked Mrs. MacCall, seeing the expression on
Dot's face as she sat among her possessions. "Don't they suit?"
"Mrs. MacCall," declared Dot, gravely, "I think I shall faint. My
heart's just jumping. If gladness could kill anybody, I know I'd have to
die to show how happy I am. And I know my Alice-doll will feel just as I
do."
Uncle Rufus' daughter, Petunia Blossom, came after breakfast with
several of her brood--and the laundry cart--to take away the good things
that had been gathered for her and her family.
Petunia was "fast brack," as her father declared--an enormously fat,
jetty-black negress, with a pretty face, and a superabundance of
children. To enumerate the Blossom family, as Petunia had once done for
Ruth's information, there were:
"Two married and moved away; two at work; twins twice makes eight;
Alfredia; Jackson Montgomery Simms; Burne-Jones Whistler; the baby; and
Louisa Annette."
Ruth and her sisters had purchased, or made, small and unimportant
presents for Neale O'Neil. Neale had remembered each of them with gifts,
all the work of his own hands; a wooden berry dish and ladle for Tess'
doll's tea-table; a rustic armchair for the Alice-doll, for Dot; a
neatly made pencil box for Agnes; and for Ruth a new umbrella handle,
beautifully carved and polished, for Ruth had a favorite umbrella the
handle of which she had broken that winter.
Neale was ingenious in more ways than one. He showed this at school,
too, on several occasions. It was just after the midwinter holidays that
Mr. Marks, the grammar school principal, wished to raise the school flag
on the roof flag-staff, and it was found that the halyard and block had
been torn away by the wind.
The janitor was too old a man to make the repair and it looked as though
a professional rigger must be sent for, when Neale volunteered.
Perhaps Mr. Marks knew something about the boy's prowess, for he did not
hesitate to give his permission. Neale went up to the roof and mounted
the staff with the halyard rove through the block, and hooked the latter
in place with ease. It took but a few minutes; but half the school stood
below and held its breath, watching the slim figure swinging so
recklessly on the flag-staff.
His mates cheered him when he came down, for they had grown fond of
Neale O'Neil. The Corner House girls too, were proud of him. But Trix
Severn, who disliked Neale because he paid her no attention, hearing
Agnes praising the boy's courage and skill, exclaimed in her sneering
way:
"That circus boy! Why wouldn't he be able to do all sorts of tricks like
that? It was what he was brought up to, no doubt."
"What do you mean by that, Trix Severn?" demanded Agnes, immediately
accepting her enemy's challenge. "Neale is not a circus boy."
"Oh! he isn't?"
"No. He's never even _seen_ a circus," the positive Agnes declared.
"He told you that, did he?" laughed Trix, airily.
"He said he had never been to see a circus in his life," Agnes repeated.
"And Neale wouldn't lie."
"That's all you know about him, then," said Trix. "And I thought you
Corner House girls were such friends with Neale O'Neil," and she walked
off laughing again, refusing to explain her insinuations.
But the nickname of "circus boy" stuck to Neale O'Neil after that and he
earnestly wished he had not volunteered to fix the flag rigging. _Why_
it troubled him so, however, he did not explain to the Corner House
girls.