NEALE SUFFERS A SHORTENING PROCESS
Naturally, Neale O'Neil stopped at the old Corner House on his way home
with his new suit of clothes, to display them to Agnes and the others.
In spite of Ruth's pronounced distaste for boys, she could not help
having a secret interest in Neale O'Neil, and Agnes and Mrs. MacCall
were not the only inmates of the Stower mansion that wanted to see the
new suit on the boy, to be sure, before he appeared at church in it the
next Sunday, that it fitted him properly.
"There!" exclaimed the housekeeper, the moment Neale came back from the
bathroom where he had made the change, and she saw how the gray suit
looked. "I never knew that Merriefield, the clothier, to sell a suit but
what either the coat was too big, the vest too long, or the pants out o'
kilter in some way. Look at them pants!" she added, almost tragically.
"Wha--what's the matter with them?" queried Neale, somewhat excited, and
trying to see behind him. He was quite an acrobat, but he could not look
down his spinal column. "Are they torn?"
"Tore? No! Only tore off a mile too long," snorted Mrs. MacCall.
"I declare, Neale," chuckled Agnes, "they are awfully long. They drag at
the heel."
"And I've got 'em pulled up now till I feel as though I was going to be
cut in two," complained the boy.
"Made for a man--made for a man," sniffed Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be
in the sitting room. She did not often take any interest in Neale
O'Neil--or appear to, at least. But she eyed the too long trousers
malevolently. "Ought to be cut off two inches."
"Yes; a good two inches," agreed Mrs. MacCall.
"Leave the pants here, Neale, and some of us will get time to shorten
them for you before next Sunday. You won't want to wear them before
then, will you?" said Ruth.
"Oh, no," returned Neale. "I'm not going to parade these to school,
first off--just as Agnes does every new hair-ribbon she buys."
"Thank you, Mr. Smartie. Hair-ribbons aren't like suits of clothes, I
should hope."
"If they were," chuckled the boy, "I s'pose you'd have a pair of my
trousers tied on your pigtail and hanging down your back."
For that she chased him out of the house and they had a game of romps
down under the grape-arbor and around the garden.
"Dear me!" sighed Ruth, "Neale makes Aggie so tomboyish. I don't know
what to do about it."
"Sho, honey!" observed the housekeeper. "What do you care as long as
she's healthy and pretty and happy? Our Aggie is one of the best."
"Of course she is," rejoined the oldest Corner House girl. "But she's
getting so big--and is so boisterous. And see what trouble she has got
into about that frolic last spring. She can't play in this show that the
others are going to act in."
"That's too bad," said Mrs. MacCall, threading her needle. "If ever
there was a girl cut out to be a mimic and actress, it's Aggie Kenway."
"Don't for pity's sake tell her that!" cried Ruth, in alarm. "It will
just about make her crazy, if you do. She is being punished for raiding
that farmer's field--and it's right she should be punished----"
"Mean man!" snapped Aunt Sarah, suddenly. "Those gals couldn't have eat
many of his old berries."
"Oh! I don't think Mr. Bob Buckham is mean," Ruth observed slowly,
surprised to see Aunt Sarah take up cudgels for Agnes, whom the old lady
often called "hare-brained." "And he is not punishing the girls of the
basket ball team. Mr. Marks is doing that."
"How did Mr. Marks know about it?" put in Aunt Sarah again.
"Well, we suppose Mr. Buckham told him. So Mr. Marks said, I believe."
"Mean man, then!" reiterated the old lady.
That was her only comment upon the matter. But once having expressed her
opinion of the strawberry man, nothing on earth could have changed Aunt
Sarah's mind toward him.
Agnes herself could not hold any hard feeling toward Mr. Buckham. Not
after listening to his story, and being forgiven so frankly and freely
her part in the raid on the strawberry patch.
However much her sisters and the rest of the family felt for Agnes, the
latter suffered more keenly as the week went by. The teachers in each
grade took half an hour a day to read the synopsis of _The Carnation
Countess_ to their pupils and to explain the part such pupils would have
in the production. Also the training of those who had speeches or songs
began. Of course, the preliminary training for the dance steps was left
to the physical culture teachers on Friday afternoon.
Agnes and her fellow culprits had to sit and listen to it all, knowing
full well that they could have no part in the performance.
"But just think!" Myra Stetson said, as they came out of school on
Thursday. "Just think! Trix Severn is going to be Innocent Delight, that
awfully nice girl who appears in every act. Think of it! She showed me
the part Professor Ware gave her. Think of it--_Innocent Delight_!"
"Oh! oh! oh!" gasped the chorus of unhappy basket ball players.
"And she is every bit as guilty as we are," added Eva Larry.
"Hush!" commanded Agnes. "Somebody'll hear you."
"What if?"
"We don't want Trix to say that we dragged her into our trouble when she
was lucky enough to escape."
"And I'd just like to know how she did escape," murmured Myra.
"I think Mr. Marks is just as mean!" exclaimed Mary Breeze. "Miss
Lederer said I had a good chance to be Bright Thoughts--she would have
picked me for that part. And now I can't be in the play at all!"
"Goodness, no! We can't even 'carry out the dead,' as my brother calls
it," said another girl. "The door is entirely shut to us."
"We all ought to have had a bright thought and have stayed out of that
farmer's field," growled Eva. "Mean old hunks!"
"Who?" cried Agnes.
"That Buckham man."
"No, he isn't!" said the Corner House girl, stoutly. "He's a fine old
man. I've talked with him."
"Oh, Agnes!" cried Myra. "Did you see him and try to beg off for us?"
"No. I didn't do that. I didn't see that that would help us. Mr. Marks
has punished us, not Mr. Bob Buckham."
"I bet she did," said Mary Breeze, unkindly. "At least, I bet she tried
to beg off for herself."
"Now, Mary, you know you don't believe any such thing," Eva said. "We
know what kind of girl Agnes Kenway is. She would not do such a thing.
If she asked, it would be for us all."
"No," said Agnes, shortly. "I did not do that. I just told Mr. Buckham
how sorry I was for taking the berries."
"Oh! What did he say, Aggie?" asked another girl.
"He forgave me. He was real nice about it," Agnes confessed.
"But he told on us. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this pickle," Mary
Breeze said. "I don't call that nice."
Agnes had it on her tongue to say that she did not believe Mr. Bob
Buckham had sent the list of the culprit's names to Mr. Marks. Although
she had said nothing more to Neale O'Neil about it, she knew that the
boy was confident that the list of girls' names reached the principal of
the Milton High through some other channel than that of the farmer.
Agnes herself was assured that Mr. Buckham could not write. Nor did he
and his wife seem like people who would do such a thing. Besides, how
had the farmer obtained the girls' names, in the first place?
Like Neale, too, Agnes had a feeling that Trix Severn somehow held the
key to the mystery. But the Corner House girl would not say so aloud.
Indeed, she had refused to acknowledge this belief to Neale.
So now she kept still and allowed the other girls to do the talking and
surmising.
"Well, say what you may," Myra Stetson said at last. "Trix is one lucky
girl. But she'll make a fine Innocent Delight----"
"I don't think!" finished Eva. "Aggie is the one for that. A blonde. Who
ever but Professor Ware would think of giving such a part to a dark
girl?"
"Let's not criticise," Agnes said, with a sigh. "We can't be in it, but
we mustn't knock."
"Right-oh!" said Myra, the cheery one. "We can go to the show and root
for the others."
"Well!" gasped Eva, "I'd like to see myself applaud Trix Severn as
Innocent Delight! I--guess--not!"
Although Ruth Kenway had not been selected for one of the speaking
parts, she was quite as excited, nevertheless, as those who had been
thus chosen. To keep one's mind upon lessons and _The Carnation
Countess_ at the same time, was difficult even for the steady-minded
Ruth.
Dot went "buzzing" about the house like a veritable bee, singing the
song that was being taught her and her mates. Tess' class were to be
butterflies and hummingbirds. And--actually!--Tess had been given a part
to speak.
It was not very long, but it was of some importance; and her name,
Theresa Kenway, would appear on the programme, as Swiftwing.
It really was a mystery how Tess came to be chosen for the part. She was
such a quiet, unobtrusive child that she never would be noticed in a
crowd of other children of her age. But when Professor Ware, the musical
director, came around to Miss Pepperill's class to "look the talent
over," as he expressed it, he chose Tess without the least hesitancy for
Swiftwing, the hummingbird.
"You lucky dear!" Agnes said. "Well! at least the Kenways will be
represented on the programme, if I can't do anything myself."
Others, besides her immediate girl friends, said abroad that Agnes
Kenway should be Innocent Delight. She was just fitted for the part.
Miss Shipman, Agnes' old teacher, joined Miss Lederer in petitioning
that the second oldest Corner House girl be given the part instead of
Trix Severn. Trix, as a very pronounced brunette, would much better be
given a part like Tom-o'-Dreams or Starlight.
But Mr. Marks was obdurate. None of the girls who had entered into the
reprehensible prank on the way back from the basket ball game at
Fleeting could have any part in the performance of _The Carnation
Countess_.
"The farmer wrote me of their stealing the berries in such a strain that
I fear he may take legal action against the parents of the foolish
girls. It would be a lasting disgrace for any of the names of these
girls to appear on our programme and in court proceedings at the same
time," added the principal, though smiling at this conceit. "I do not
see how I can change my ruling."
But Agnes could not understand Mr. Bob Buckham. His letter to Mr. Marks
must have been really vindictive; yet he did not seem to be at all the
sort of person who would be so stern and uncompromising.
Just what Neale had done toward getting his girl chum out of "the mess,"
as he called it, Agnes did not know. At this time Neale suffered
something which quite took up his attention.
Those trousers that were too long!
Saturday of this very busy week came, and Agnes, in dusting the
sitting-room, found Neale's new gray trousers, neatly folded, on Ruth's
sewing-table.
"Oh, Ruthie!" she said. "You never fixed these pants."
"I'm going to," her sister replied, and sat right down, there and then,
carefully ripped the hem at the bottom of each trouser-leg, cut off two
inches and stitched a new hem very carefully, putting back the
stiffening and sewing on the "heel-strap" in a very workmanlike manner.
Agnes ran to the kitchen for an iron and pressed the bottom of the
trouser-legs to conform with the tailor's creases. "There! that's done,"
she said, "and done right."
It most certainly was done, whether right or not, the sequel was to
show. After supper Neale started for home and Agnes gave him the new
trousers.
"I suppose you'll want to wear that fancy suit of yours to church
to-morrow morning," she said.
"Bet you!" he replied cheerfully. "Did you cut 'em down?"
"Ruthie did," said Agnes.
"Good for her! Tell her 'Thanks'!"
As he went through the front hall Aunt Sarah put her head over the
balustrade and asked:
"Did you get them pants, boy?"
She never by any possibility called Neale by his right name, and her
voice now was just as sharp as ever.
"Yes, ma'am--thank you," Neale said politely.
In the kitchen Mrs. MacCall said, with a smile: "The pants all right,
Neale?"
"Sure they are," he declared, as he went out. Then he thought: "Dear me!
seems as though everybody has a lot of interest in my new clothes."
In the morning, early, when he put the suit on to display it to the old
cobbler with whom Neale lived, the boy experienced a sudden and
surprising interest in the trousers himself.
The Corner House girls were at breakfast when, with a great clatter,
Neale rushed in at the back door, through the kitchen, and into the
dining room. He had on his new jacket and vest, but around his waist was
tied a voluminous kitchen apron that Mr. Con Murphy wore when he
cooked, which covered Neale to his insteps.
"Dear me! what is the matter, Neale?" asked Ruth, with some vexation.
"Matter? Matter enough!" cried the white-haired boy, very red in the
face. "_Look what you did to my pants!_"
He lifted the apron and displayed a wealth of blue yarn sock above his
shoe-tops, and hose supporters as well.
"For the good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Aunt Sarah.
"I _never_--in all my life!" cried Mrs. MacCall.
"Ma soul an' body!" chuckled Uncle Rufus from the background. "Somebody
done sawed off dat boy's pants too short, for suah!"
"Dear suz!" added the housekeeper. "I'm sure I never did _that_."
"You can't tell me 'twas _me_ done it," snapped Aunt Sarah.
"Oh, Neale!" wailed Ruth. "I didn't cut off but two inches."
"_You_, Niece Ruth?" exclaimed Aunt Sarah.
"That's what _I_ done."
"Oh, oh!" sharply cried Mrs. MacCall. "I cut 'em off, too!"
Uncle Rufus almost dropped the dish of ham and eggs he was serving.
Agnes shouted:
"Oh, my heart alive! _Six inches off the bottom of those trousers!_ You
have gone back into short pants, Neale O'Neil, that's sure!"