SEVERAL ARRIVALS
Perhaps no girl but a Corner House girl would have planned to take two
perfect strangers home with her, especially strangers who seemed of a
somewhat doubtful character.
It must be confessed that the Corner House girls, with no mother or
father to confide in or advise with, sometimes did things on the spur of
impulse that ordinary girls would not think of doing.
Agnes Kenway really had serious doubts about the honesty of Barnabetta
Scruggs and her father. Just the same she was deeply interested in the
circus girl, and she pitied the meek little clown. Barnabetta was quite
the most interesting girl Agnes had ever met.
To think of a girl traveling about the country--"tramping it"--dressed as
a boy, and so successfully hiding her identity! Why! if she did not
speak, nobody would guess her sex, Agnes was sure.
What lots of adventures she must have had! How free and untrammeled her
life on the road must be! Agnes herself had often longed for the freedom
of trousers. She was jealous of Neale O'Neil because he could do things,
and enjoy fun that she could not partake of because of the skirts she
wore.
And it was nothing new for the next to the oldest Corner House girl to
fall desperately in love with a strange girl at first sight. Neale said,
scornfully, that she was forever getting "new spoons." He added that she
"had a crush" on some girl almost always; but she seldom kept one of
these loves longer than one term of school--sometimes not so long.
Her "very dearest friend" was not always chosen wisely; but while that
one was in vogue, Agnes was as loyal to her as ever Damon was to
Pythias. And it must be admitted that it was usually by no fault of
Agnes' that these friendships were broken off.
For more than one reason did Agnes Kenway contract this sudden and
violent fancy for Barnabetta Scruggs.
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Buckham had raised any objection to Agnes' taking
the two strolling people home to the old Corner House, because of two
very good reasons. First, they were very simple minded people themselves
and it was their rule to do any kindness in their power; and secondly,
Agnes had told them nothing at all about the conversation she had
overheard between Barnabetta and her father regarding the book filled
with money that Neale O'Neil had carried to Tiverton with him.
Agnes helped get the poor circus clown into the straw in the body of the
pung. But she sat on the seat with Mr. Buckham when the colts started
off along the wood road.
Barnabetta sat down in the straw with her father. Tom Jonah careered
about the sleigh and barked. Having seen the two strolling people kindly
treated by his little mistress and Mr. Buckham, he gave over being
suspicious of them.
The short winter day was drawing to a close. On the rough road Mr.
Buckham drove carefully so as not to shake up his passengers, but once
they arrived at the more beaten track of the public highway, he let the
colts out and they sped swiftly townward.
Agnes was afraid Tom Jonah would be left too far behind and she begged
Mr. Buckham to stop so that the old dog might leap into the pung and
crouch at their feet in front. He was, indeed, well spent.
"Not that you deserve to be helped at all, Tom Jonah," Agnes said
sternly. "You disobeyed--and ran away--and followed me. And I declare you
scared me pretty nearly into a fit, so you did!"
But she did not say how glad she was that the big dog had followed her
into the wood. His presence had saved her from a very awkward situation.
Though what Barnabetta and her father could have done with her had they
detained Agnes at their camp, the Corner House girl was unable to
imagine. To be a prisoner of the pair of strollers would have been
romantic, in Agnes' opinion. But--
"I believe I'd have been a white elephant on their hands, if they'd kept
me," she thought, giggling.
The colts swept the party swiftly over the frozen road to the old Corner
House. The bells jingled blithely, the runners creaked, the frost and
the falling darkness came together; and Agnes, at least, felt highly
exhilarated.
How the Scruggses felt she could only suspect. They said nothing. If
they were really astonished by this Samaritan act, perhaps they still
held doubts regarding the end of the ride.
Mr. Scruggs, however, could not move his foot without pain. It would
have been impossible for them to continue their journey to the South
with the member in its present condition.
The two circus people had left a local freight at the water-tank that
morning, intending to wait for a through freight, running south, that
was due late in the evening. They hoped to steal aboard this
train--perhaps to pay some small sum to a dishonest brakeman for a ride,
and so travel a long way toward their destination before being driven
from the train.
With the clown's ankle in its present condition, however, they never
could have boarded the train. He and Barnabetta had discussed their
circumstances, and were really at their wits' end, when Agnes had
returned to them with the farmer and his team.
Whatever may have been their doubts, they could not afford to refuse the
help thus proffered them. Even a night in the police station would have
been preferable to that which faced them on the snowy hillside
overlooking the railroad tracks.
Wonderingly the two strollers arrived at the old Corner House. Willow
Street was almost bare of snow; and there was straw laid down there,
too. So the farmer brought his team to a stop at the front gate of the
Corner House premises.
"Don't try to get out, mister," said Bob Buckham, cordially, "till I tie
these critters and blanket 'em. Then I'll help you. You run in and tell
your sister she's goin' to have comp'ny," he added to Agnes, saying it
that Ruth might have time to adjust her mind to the idea of the
strangers coming in.
But this really was not needed, for Ruth was the soul of hospitality.
Nor could she ever bear to refuse assistance to those who asked. Had
Mrs. MacCall not exercised her shrewd Scotch sense in many cases, the
eldest Corner House girl would have been imposed upon by those seeking
charity who were quite undeserving.
Having experienced the squeeze of poverty herself, Ruth Kenway knew well
what it meant. The generous provision of their guardian, Mr. Howbridge,
left a wide margin of money and other means for the Corner House girls
to use in a charitable way, if not enough for the automobile that Agnes
so heartily craved.
When Asa Scruggs hobbled up to the big front door, leaning on Mr.
Buckham on one side and on Barnabetta on the other, the door was wide
open, the lamp-light shone out in a broad, cheerful beam across the
verandah, and Ruth stood in the doorway to welcome the guests.
The eldest Corner House girl, like her sister, treated the poor clown
and his daughter as though they were most honored visitors. Their shabby
clothing, their staves, and their bundles done up in blue denim bags,
were accepted by Ruth as quite a matter of course.
Visions of the police station and cells evaporated from Barnabetta's
active and suspicious brain. _This_ was like entering a fairy castle in
a dream!
She and her father stared at each other. They could not understand it.
They could barely acknowledge Ruth's pleasantly worded welcome.
"Do come right upstairs, folks," said Agnes, fluttering down the
stairway herself, with her hat and coat removed. "I'm so glad you came
in, Mr. Buckham. You can help Barnabetta's father up to his room."
"Sure," agreed the farmer.
"Yes," said Ruth. "Unc' Rufus is rheumatically inclined to-day." Then
she added to Barnabetta: "You and your father shall be in adjoining
rooms. Agnes will show you the bath. And I know you can wear a frock of
mine, if you will?"
Barnabetta could hardly speak. She had to swallow something that felt
like a big lump in her throat. These girls, without any reason whatever,
were treating her as though she were one of themselves. She knew she
never would have been so kind to a stranger as they were to her father
and herself.
Not only a frock did Barnabetta find laid out in her room a little
later--after she had helped her father to bed; but there was linen and
underclothing, and even shoes and stockings. And a hot bath was drawn
for her in the bathroom with soap and towels laid by. Oh! the forlorn
circus girl luxuriated in the bath.
Again and again the girl asked herself why she and the clown were being
treated so kindly.
Had Barnabetta known what Agnes had said to Ruth when she ran in ahead
of the rest of the party, she might not have been so surprised by Ruth's
kindness. Not a word did the younger girl say about Barnabetta and her
father having tried to detain her in the woods.
"Oh, Ruth! these poor folk are circus people. They know Neale O'Neil.
And Neale is with his uncle in Tiverton, where he's lying hurt. The
circus is in winter quarters there. _And the old album is safe!_"
She did not say how she knew this last to be the case; and Ruth was so
busy making the visitors comfortable that she did not ask, but accepted
the good news unquestioningly.
Besides, Ruth had to give some attention to Mr. Bob Buckham. She could
allow no guest to be neglected. The old farmer, however, would not stay
to dinner.
"That would never do--that would _never_ do!" he declared, when Ruth
proposed it. "What would Marm do without me at table? No, sir. I just
wanted to see these folks Aggie has taken such a shine to, right to this
old Corner House. And say, Ruthie!"
"Yes, sir?" was the girl's response.
"I don't know nothin' about who they be. Nor do you, nor Aggie. So have
a care."
"Why, they must be all right, Mr. Buckham," cried Ruth. "Neale knows
them. They are from his uncle's circus."
"Eh? Neale knows 'em? Wal--mebbe so, mebbe so," grunted Mr. Buckham.
"Just the same, I know lots of folks I wouldn't make too free with. Wait
and try 'em out," advised the old farmer.
If Ruth had had any doubts about the trapeze artist and her father, she
was at once disarmed when Barnabetta came down to dinner. And Agnes,
forgetting her first unpleasant introduction to the strollers in the
woods, was delighted with her protégé.
Barnabetta was a dark, glowing beauty. Her curly hair, which made her
look so boyish before, framed her thin, striking features most
becomingly. Her figure was lithe without being lean.
The little girls, who had not seen Barnabetta arrive in her boy's
apparel, were taken with the trapeze artist at once. Agnes had told them
what Barnabetta did in the circus, and of course Dot was extremely
interested.
"Oh, my!" she said, her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed. "Do--do you
climb 'way up on those trapezers at the circus and turn inside outside,
just as we saw once? Oh! that must be just heaveningly--mustn't it,
Tess?"
Tess was quite as excited over the guest herself, and overlooked Dot's
new rendering of certain words for the sake of asking:
"Doesn't it make your head go round and round like a whirligig, to turn
over on the trapeze? It does mine, though Neale showed me how to do it
on the bar he set up in our garret."
The simple kindness and cordiality of the Corner House girls was a
distinct surprise to Barnabetta. At first she showed something of her
doubt of this reception she was accorded by such complete strangers.
They were all so completely different from her, and their manner of life
so entirely strange to her.
The dining room service, the soft lights, the pleasant officiousness of
Unc' Rufus, and the girls' own gay conversation, was all a revelation to
the circus performer. Even Aunt Sarah Maltby's grim magnificence at her
end of the table helped to tame the wildness of Barnabetta Scruggs.
If Mrs. MacCall did not altogether approve of these circus people, she
said nothing and did nothing to show such disapproval. Barnabetta began
to see that these good folk were very simple and kindly, and wished only
to see her at her ease and desired to make her feel at home.
She went back to the clown after dinner, to find that he had been served
with a great tray of food by Linda, and lay back among his pillows,
happy and content.
Mrs. MacCall had insisted upon looking at his ankle. She bandaged it and
anointed it with balsam.
"These folks are mighty good people, Barnabetta," said Asa Scruggs. "I
never knowed there were such good folks outside the circus business."
"I don't know what to make of 'em," confessed the girl.
"Don't have to make nothin' of 'em," said her father, with a sigh of
content. "This is somethin' to be mighty thankful for. Feel the warm air
comin' from that open register, Barnabetta? And I thought we'd haf to
scrouge down over a whisp of fire to-night in the open. Oh, my!" and he
gave an ecstatic wriggle under the bed clothes.
He seemed ready for sleep, and the girl tiptoed out of the room after
turning the gas low. It was while she was in the hall, and before
opening the door of her own room, that she heard a sudden subdued
hullabaloo below stairs. Listen! what had happened?
Startled, Barnabetta crept along the hall to the front stairway.
Somebody had entered by the door from the side porch, bringing in a
great breath of keen air that drifted up the stairway to her. The Corner
House girls were conducting this new arrival into the sitting room.
"Oh, Neale! you mean thing!" cried Agnes' voice. "Where have you been?
Come in and tell us all about it!"
"And what have you done with that old album Agnes let you take?" was
Ruth's anxious question.
Barnabetta strained her ears to distinguish the boy's reply.