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[Illustration: "The bobsled bumped over these hammocks, gathering
speed."]
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
HOW THEY WENT AWAY
WHAT THEY DISCOVERED
AND HOW IT ENDED
BY GRACE BROOKS HILL
Author of "The Corner House Girls," "The Corner
House Girls on a Tour," Etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY THELMA GOOCH_
NEW YORK
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
By Grace Brooks Hill
The Corner House Girls Series
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated._
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK
Copyright, 1919, by Barse & Hopkins
_The Corner House Girls Snowbound_
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
I--A Ghost and a Goat
II--The Straw Ride
III--Twins--And Trouble
IV--Anticipations
V--Merry Times
VI--On the Wings of the Wind
VII--The Scooter
VIII--The Village on the Ice
IX--A Cold Scent
X--Into the Wilderness
XI--Embers in the Grate
XII--Mystery and Fun
XIII--The Timber Cruiser
XIV--By the Light of the Moon
XV--A Variety of Happenings
XVI--The Key
XVII--All Down Hill
XVIII--Figure It Out
XIX--Sammy Takes the Bit in His Teeth
XX--Following Another Trail
XXI--Rowdy
XXII--In the Cave
XXIII--Anxiety
XXIV--Rafe Is Cross
XXV--Holidays--Conclusion
ILLUSTRATIONS
The bobsled bumped over these hummocks, gathering speed
Even Ruth could scarcely keep a sober face
He fairly dragged her from under the flapping sail
The housekeeping arrangements of the cave were primitive
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
CHAPTER I
A GHOST AND A GOAT
There was a vast amount of tramping up and down stairs, and little
feet, well shod, are noisy. This padding up and down was by the two
flights of back stairs from the entry off the kitchen porch to the big
heated room that was called by the older folks who lived in the old
Corner House, "the nursery."
"But it isn't a nursery," objected Dot Kenway, who really was not yet
big enough to fit the name of "Dorothy." "We never had a nurse, did
we, Tess? Ruthie helped bring us up after our own truly mamma died.
And, then, 'nursery' sounds so _little_."
"Just as though you were kids," put in Master Sammy Pinkney, who lived
in the house across the street, and nearest, on Willow Street, from
the Kenway sisters' beautiful home in Milton, but who felt that he,
too, "belonged" in the old Corner House.
"No. It should be called 'the playroom,'" agreed Tess, who was older
than Dot, and considerably bigger, yet who no more fitted the name she
was christened with than the fairylike Dot fitted hers. Nobody but
Aunt Sarah Maltby--and she only when she was in a most severe
mood--called the next-to-the-youngest Corner House girl "Theresa."
It was Saturday morning, and it had begun to snow; at first in a
desultory fashion before Tess and Dot--or even Sammy Pinkney--were out
of bed. Of course, they had hailed the fleecy, drifting snow with
delight; it looked to be the first real snowstorm of the season.
But by the time breakfast was well over (and breakfast on Saturday
morning at the old Corner House was a "movable feast," for the Kenway
sisters did not all get up so promptly as they did on school days)
Sammy Pinkney waded almost to the top of his rubber boots in coming
from his house to play with the two younger Kenway sisters.
Of course, Sammy had picked out the deepest places to wade in; but the
snow really was gathering very fast. Mrs. MacCall, the Kenways' dear
friend and housekeeper, declared that it was gathering and drifting as
fast as ever she had seen it as a child "at home in the Hielands," as
she expressed it.
"'Tis stay-in-the-hoose weather," the old Scotch woman declared.
"Roughs and toughs, like this Sammy Pinkney boy, can roll in the snow
like porpoises in the sea; but little girls would much better stay
indoor and dance 'Katie Beardie.'"
"Oh, Mrs. Mac!" cried Dot, "what is 'dancing Katie Beardie'?"
So the housekeeper stopped long enough in her oversight of Linda, the
Finnish girl, to repeat the old rhyme one hears to this day amid the
clatter of little clogs upon the pavements of Edinburgh.
"'Katie Beardie had a grice,
It could skate upon the ice;
Wasna that a dainty grice?
Dance, Katie Beardie!
Katie Beardie had a hen,
Cackled but and cackled ben;
Wasna that a dainty hen?
Dance, Katie Beardie!'
And you little ones have been 'cackling but and cackling ben' ever
since breakfast time. Do, children, go upstairs, like good bairns, and
stay awhile."
Tess and Dot understood a good deal of Mrs. MacCall's Scotch, for they
heard it daily. But now she had to explain that a "grice" was a pig
and that "but" and "ben" meant in and out. But even Sammy knew how to
"count out" in Scotch, for they had long since learned Mrs. MacCall's
doggerel for games.
Now they played hide and seek, using one of the counting-out rhymes
the housekeeper had taught them:
Eenerty, feenerty, fickerty, faig,
Ell, dell, domen, aig.
Irky, birky, story, rock,
Ann, tan, touzelt Jock.
And then Sammy disappeared! It was Dot's turn to be "it," and she
counted one hundred five times by the method approved, saying very
rapidly: "Ten, ten, double-ten, forty-five and fifteen!" Then she
began to hunt.
She found Tess in the wardrobe in the hall which led to the other ell
of the big house. But Sammy! Why, it was just as though he had flown
right out of existence!
Tess was soon curious, too, and aided her sister in the search, and
they hunted the three floors of the old Corner House, and it did not
seem as though any small boy could be small enough to hide in half the
places into which the girls looked for Sammy Pinkney!
Dot was a persistent and faithful searcher after more things than one.
If there was anything she really wanted, or wanted to know, she always
stuck to it until she had accomplished her end--or driven everybody
else in the house, as Agnes said, into spasms.
With her Alice-doll hugged in the crook of one arm--the Alice-doll was
her chiefest treasure--Dot hunted high and low for the elusive Sammy
Pinkney. Of course, occasional household happenings interfered with
the search; but Dot took up the quest again as soon as these little
happenings were over, for Sammy still remained in hiding.
For instance, Alfredia Blossom and one of her brothers came with the
family wash in a big basket with which they had struggled through the
snowdrifts. Of course they had to be taken into the kitchen and warmed
and fed on seed cookies. The little boy began to play with Mainsheet,
one of the cats, but Alfredia, the little girls took upstairs with
them in their continued hunt for Sammy.
"Wha' fur all dis traipsin' an' traipsin' up dese stairs?" demanded a
deep and unctuous voice from the dark end of the hall where the
uncarpeted stairs rose to the garret landing.
"Oh, Uncle Rufus!" chorused the little white girls, and:
"Howdy, Gran'pop?" said Alfredia, her face one broad grin.
"Well, if dat ain' de beatenes'!" declared the aged negro who was the
Kenways' man-of-all-work. "Heah you chillen is behin' me, an' I sho'
thought yo' all mus' be on ahaid of me. I sho' did!"
"Why, no, Uncle Rufus; _here_ we are," said Dot.
"I see yo' is, honey. I see yo'," he returned, chuckling gleefully.
"How's Pechunia, Alfredia? Spry?"
"Yes, sir," said his grandchild, bobbing her head on which the tightly
braided "pigtails" stood out like the rays of a very black sun.
"Mammy's all right."
"But who's been trackin' up all dese stairs, if 'twasn't yo' chillen?"
demanded the negro, returning to the source of his complaint. "Snow
jes' eberywhere! Wha's dat Sam Pinkney?" he added suddenly.
"We don't know, Uncle Rufus," said Tess slowly.
"Sammy went and hid from us, and we can't find him," explained Dot.
Uncle Rufus pointed a gnarled finger dramatically at a blob of snow on
the carpet at the foot of the garret stairs.
"Dah he is!" he exclaimed.
"Oh!" gasped Tess.
"Where, Uncle Rufus?" begged Dorothy, somewhat startled.
"Fo' de lan's sake!" murmured Alfredia, her eyes shining. "He mus' a
done melted most away."
"Dah's his feetsteps, chillen," declared the old man. "An' dey come
all de way up de two flights from de back do'. I been gadderin' up
lumps o' snow in dis here shovel--"
He halted with a sharp intake of breath, and raised his head to look
up the garret stairs. It was very dark up there, for the door that
opened into the great, open room extending the full width of the main
part of the old Corner House was closed. In winter the children seldom
went up there to play; and Uncle Rufus never mounted to the garret at
all if he could help it.
"What's dat?" he suddenly whispered.
"Tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap!" went the sound that had caught the old
man's attention. It receded, then drew nearer, then receded. Uncle
Rufus turned a face that had suddenly become gray toward the three
little girls.
"Dat's--dat's de same noise used to be up in dat garret befo' your
Unc' Stower die, chillen. Ma mercy me!"
"Oh!" squealed Alfredia, turning to run. "Dat's de garret ghos'! I's
heard ma mammy tell 'bout dat ol' ha'nt."
But Tess seized her and would not let her go.
"That is perfect nonsense, Alfredia!" she said very sternly. "There is
no such thing as a ghost."
"Don' you be too uppity, chile!" murmured Uncle Rufus.
"A ghost!" cried Dot, coming nearer to the attic stairs. "Oh, my! What
I thought was a goat when I was a very little girl? I remember!"
"Dat's jest de same noise," murmured Uncle Rufus, as the tapping sound
was repeated.
"But Ruthie laid that old ghost," said Tess with scorn. "And it wasn't
anything--much. But this--"
Dot, who had examined the wet marks and lumps of snow on the lower
treads of the garret stairs, suddenly squealed:
"Oh, looky here! 'Tisn't a ghost, but 'tis a goat! Those are Billy
Bumps' footsteps! Of course they are!"
"Sammy Pinkney!" was the chorus of voices, even Uncle Rufus joining
in. Then he added:
"Dat boy is de beatenes'! How come he make dat goat climb all dese
stairs?"
"Why," said Dot, "Billy Bumps can climb right up on the roof of the
hen houses. He can climb just like a--a--well, just like a goat!
Coming upstairs isn't anything hard for Billy Bumps."
"Sammy Pinkney, you come down from there with that goat!" commanded
Tess sternly. "What do you suppose Ruthie or Mrs. MacCall will say?"
The door swung open above, and the wan daylight which entered by the
small garret windows revealed Sammy Pinkney, plump, sturdy and
freckled, stooping to look down at the startled group at the top of
the stairs.
"I spy Sammy!" cried Dot shrilly, just remembering that they were
playing hide and seek--or had been.
But somebody else spied Sammy at that moment, too. The mischievous boy
had led Billy Bumps, the goat, up three long flights of stairs and
turned him loose to go tap, tap, tapping about the bare attic floor on
his hard little hoofs.
Billy spied Sammy as the youth stooped to grin down the stairs at
Uncle Rufus and the little girls. Billy had a hair-trigger temper. He
did not recognize Sammy from the rear, and he instantly charged.
Just as Sammy was going to tell those below how happy he was because
he had startled them, Billy Bumps dashed out of the garret and butted
the unsuspicious boy. Sammy sailed right into the air, arms and legs
spread like a jumping frog, and dived down the stairway, while Billy
stood blatting and shaking his horns at the head of the flight.