MR. SORBER
Tess had presence of mind enough to holloa "Whoa!" and she kept right on
saying it. Usually it was effective, but on this occasion Billy Bumps
was deaf to his little mistress.
Dot clung to Tess's shoulders and screamed. There was really nothing
else for her to do.
Sammy had grabbed at the goat's horns and was promptly overthrown. They
left him roaring on his back upon the brick walk, while the goat tore
on, dragging the bumping wagon behind him.
Billy Bumps had not earned his name without reason. Having taken aim at
the bulldog jumping up and down against the trunk of the pear tree,
nothing but a solid wall could have stopped him.
There was a crash as one forward wheel of the cart went over a stone.
Out toppled Tess and Dot upon the soft earth.
Billy Bumps went on and collided with Jock, much to that animal's
surprise and pain. The bulldog uttered a single yelp as the goat got him
between his hard horns and the treetrunk.
"You stop that, Billy!" roared Sam, struggling to his feet. "Let my dog
alone."
But Jock was not likely to give the goat a second chance. He limped
away, growling and showing his teeth, while Billy Bumps tried to free
himself of the harness so as to give pursuit.
"Don't you hurt Billy!" Tess screamed at Sam, getting to her feet and
helping Dot to rise.
"I'd like to knock him!" cried Sam.
"You ought to keep your dog out of our yard!" declared Tess. Dot was
crying a little and the older girl was really angry.
"I'll set him onto that Billy Bumps next time I get a chance," growled
Sam.
"You dare!" cried Tess.
But Jock was already outside of the yard. When Sam whistled for him, he
only wagged his stump of a tail; he refused to return to a place where,
it was plain to his doggish intelligence, he was not wanted. Besides,
Jock had not yet gotten a full breath since the goat butted him.
Sammy picked up a clothes-pole and started to punish Billy Bumps as he
thought fit. Just then the goat got free from the cart and started for
Master Pinkney. The latter dropped the pole and got to the gate first,
but only just in time, for Billy crashed head-first into it, breaking a
picket, he was so emphatic!
"You wait! I'll kill your old goat," threatened Sammy, shaking his fist
over the fence. "You see if I don't, Tess Kenway," forgetting, it
seemed, that it had been he who had presented the goat to the Corner
House girl.
Billy trotted back proudly to the girls to be petted, as though he had
done a very meritorious act. Perhaps he had, for Sandyface at once came
down from the tree, to sit on the porch in the sunshine and "wash her
face and hands"; she doubtless considered Billy Bumps very chivalrous.
The great hullabaloo brought most of the family to the scene, as well as
Neale from over the back fence. But the fun was all over and Sammy and
his bulldog were gone when the questioners arrived.
Dot explained volubly: "Billy Bumps wouldn't see poor Sandy abused--no,
he wouldn't! That's why he went for that horrid dog."
"Why," said Ruth, laughing, "Billy must be a regular knight."
"'In days of old, when knights were bold!'" sang Neale.
"I've an improvement on _that_," Agnes said, eagerly. "Listen:
"'Sir Guy, a knight,
In armor bright,
Took tea with Mistress Powsers.
With manner free,
She spilled the tea,
And rusted Guy's best trousers!'"
"Then he certainly must have looked _a guy_!" Neale declared. "I always
wondered how those 'knights of old' got along in their tin uniforms.
After a campaign in wet weather they must have been a pretty rusty
looking bunch."
It was about this time that Neale O'Neil got his name in the local
paper, and the Corner House girls were very proud of him.
Although Neale was so close-mouthed about his life before his arrival in
Milton, the girls knew he was fond of, and had been used to, horses. If
he obtained a job on Saturday helping a teamster, or driving a private
carriage, he enjoyed _that_ day's work, if no other.
On a certain Saturday the girls saw Neale drive by early in the morning
with a handsome pair of young horses, drawing loam to a part of the
Parade ground which was to be re-seeded. The contractor had only
recently bought these young horses from the West, but he trusted Neale
with them, for he knew the boy was careful and seemed able to handle
almost any kind of a team.
The Kenway sisters went shopping that afternoon as usual. The end of
Main Street near Blachstein and Mapes department store, and the Unique
Candy Store, and other shops that the sisters patronized, were filled
with shoppers. Milton was a busy town on Saturdays.
Tess and Dot were crossing the street at Ralph Avenue when a shouting up
Main Street made them turn to look that way. People in the street
scattered and certain vehicles were hastily driven out of the way of a
pair of horses that came charging down the middle of Main Street like
mad.
Ruth saw the danger of her younger sisters, and called to them from the
doorway of the drugstore.
"Tess! Dot! Quick! Come here!"
But Agnes ran from across the street and hustled the smaller girls upon
the sidewalk. Then they could all give their attention to the runaway.
Not until then did they realize that it was the team Neale O'Neil had
been driving. An auto horn had startled them at the Parade Ground, while
Neale was out of the wagon, and downtown they started.
It seemed to the onlookers as though the team traveled faster every
block! Nevertheless Neale had chased and overtaken the wagon not far
below the old Corner House.
He clambered over the tailboard and, as the wagon rocked from side to
side and its noise spurred the maddened horses to greater speed, the boy
plunged forward and climbed into the seat.
The reins had been torn from the whipstock; they were dragging in the
street. It looked for the moment as though Neale had risked his life for
nothing. He could not halt the runaways!
Another boy might have failed, even after getting that far; but not
"that circus boy"!
People along the street set up a shout when they beheld Neale O'Neil
leap right down on the pole of the wagon and stretch out perilously to
seize the reins at the hames. He had them and was back in the seat
before the horses had run another block.
As he passed Ralph Avenue where the Corner House girls stood, he had
lost his hat; his hair, which had grown long again, was blowing back in
the wind, and his white face was a mask of determination.
"Oh! he'll be killed!" whispered Ruth.
"He's going to stop them!" crowed Agnes, with assurance.
And so Neale did. He stopped them as soon as he could get into the seat,
brace his feet, and obtain a purchase on the lines. He knew how to break
the horses' hold on the bits, and sawing at their mouths sharply, he
soon brought them to a stop.
He tried to drive back to his work then without being accosted by the
crowd that quickly gathered. But the reporter from the _Post_ was right
on the spot and the next morning a long article appeared on the front
page of the paper about the runaway and about the youngster who had
played the hero.
Because Neale refused to talk to the reporter himself, other people had
talked for him, and quite a little romance about Neale was woven into
the story. Even the fact that he went by the nickname of "the circus
boy" at school got into the story, and it was likewise told how he had
made a high mark in gymnastics.
Neale seemed terribly cut-up when the girls showed him the article in
the paper. "Why," said Ruth, "you ought to be proud."
"Of that tattling business?" snapped Neale.
"No. Not so much that the paper speaks well of you, but because of your
ability to do such a thing," said the oldest Corner House girl. "It
isn't every boy that could do it."
"I should hope not!" growled Neale, emphatically. "Let me tell you," he
added, angrily, "the reason I can do such things is the reason why I am
such an ignorant fellow--and so far behind other chaps of my age."
And that is the nearest Neale had ever come to saying anything directly
about his old life. That it had been hard, and unpleasant, and that he
had been denied the benefits of schooling were about all the facts the
girls had gathered, even now.
After that Neale seemed more afraid than ever of meeting somebody on the
public streets. Agnes and Ruth knew that he never went out evenings,
save to climb over the fence and come to the old Corner House.
He was spending more time at his books, having earned a nice little sum
during the winter taking care of furnaces and shoveling paths. That work
was past now, and he said he had enough money to keep him comfortably
until the end of the school year.
It was another Saturday. Neale had driven out into the country for a
neighbor, but had promised to come to the old Corner House about four
o'clock. Almost always he took supper Saturday evening with the girls.
Mrs. MacCall usually had fishcakes and baked beans, and Neale was
extravagantly fond of that homely New England combination.
As it chanced, none of the four Kenways but Ruth went shopping that
afternoon. It was warm enough for Tess and Dot to have their dolls out
in the summer-house. They had set up house-keeping there for the season
and were very busy.
Agnes had found a book that she enjoyed immensely, and she was wrapped
up in an old coat and hidden in a crotch of the Baldwin appletree behind
the woodshed. She was so deeply absorbed that she did not wake to the
click of the gate-latch and did not realize there was a stranger in the
yard until she heard a heavy boot on the brick walk.
"Hello, my gal!" said a rough voice. "Ain't none of the folks to home?"
Agnes dropped the book and sprang down from the appletree in a hurry.
There at the corner of the shed stood a man in varnished top boots, with
spurs in the heels--great, cruel looking spurs--velveteen breeches, a
short, dirty white flannel coat, and a hard hat--something between a
stovepipe and a derby. Agnes realized that it was some kind of a riding
costume that he wore, and he lashed his bootleg with his riding whip as
he talked.
He was such a red-faced man, and he was so stout and rough looking, that
Agnes scarcely knew how to speak to him. She noted, too, that he had a
big seal ring on one finger and that a heavy gold watchchain showed
against his waistcoat where the short jacket was cut away.
"Who--who are you?" Agnes managed to stammer at last. "And what do you
want?"
"Why, I'm Sorber, I am," said the man. "Sorber, of Twomley & Sorber's
Herculean Circus and Menagerie. And my errand here is to git hold of a
chap that's run away from me and my partner. I hear he's in Milton, and
I come over from our winter quarters, out o' which we're going to git
instanter, Miss; and they tells me down to that newspaper office that I
kin find him here.
"Now, Miss, where is that 'circus boy' as they call him? Neale
Sorber--that's his name. And I'm goin' to take him away with me."