THE END OF THE OUTING
Tess and Dot Kenway had a very serious matter to decide. Ruth had
determined that, as they were all enjoying themselves at Pleasant Cove
so much, the Corner House flag should continue to wave for a time
longer over their tent in the Willowbend Camp.
But there was something at home in Milton, at the old Corner House
itself, that the younger girls thought they _must_ attend to.
“It’s really a _nawful_ state of affairs,” Tess declared, nodding her
sunny head, gravely, and with her lips pursed up. “They are growing
right up without knowing their own names. Why! I don’t see how their
own mother knows them apart.”
“Oh!” gasped Dot, to whom this was a new idea indeed. “I never thought
of that.”
“Well, it’s so,” said Tess. “I—I wish Ruth had sent for them and had
had them brought down here when Rosa and Tom Jonah came.”
“But they couldn’t leave their mother, Tess,” objected Dot. “They’re
too small.”
“I—don’t—know,” said Tess, doubtfully. “At any rate, it’s high time
they were named. You know, Mrs. MacCall says so herself.”
Dot picked up the letter that the kind housekeeper at the old Corner
House had written especially to the two smaller Kenway girls.
“She says they chase their tails all day long and they have had to put
them out in the woodshed to keep them from being under foot,” Dot
said, reading slowly, for Mrs. MacCall’s writing was not like print.
“They must be named,” repeated Tess, with conviction.
“But Ruth won’t let us go home to do it,” quoth Dot.
“And I don’t want to. Do _you_?” demanded Tess, hastily. “I don’t want
to leave the beach now, just when we’re having so much fun.”
Neither did Dot. But the state of the unchristened kittens—the
youngest family of Sandyface—troubled her exceedingly.
Tess, however, suddenly had one of her very brilliant ideas. “I tell
you what let’s do!” she cried.
“What?”
“Let’s write Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus a letter, and ask them to
name Sandyface’s children their own selves.”
“But—but _we_ want to name them,” cried Dot.
“Goosey!” exclaimed Tess. “We’ll choose the names; but Mrs. MacCall
and Uncle Rufus can give them to the kittens. Don’t you see?”
“Oh, Tess! we might,” agreed Dot, delighted.
Tess ran to the tent for paper and pencil, and bespoke the favor of an
envelope addressed in ink to Mrs. MacCall.
“Of course, I’ll address one for you,” said Ruth, kindly. “But what’s
all the hurry about writing home?”
Tess explained the necessity that had arisen. Sandyface’s family of
kittens was growing up without being christened—and something might
happen to them.
“You know,” said Tess, gravely, “it would be dreadful if one of them
died and we didn’t know what to put on the headboard. It would be
dreadful!”
“And what names shall we send Mrs. MacCall?” Dot wanted to know, when
Tess had started the letter “Deare Missus Mcall” and was chewing the
pencil as an aid to further thought.
“Let’s call them by seashore names,” suggested Tess. “Then they’ll
remind us of the fun we had here at Pleasant Cove.”
“Oh-oo! Let’s,” agreed Dot.
“Well, now,” said Tess, promptly. “What will be the very first one?
I’ll write Mrs. MacCall what we want,” and she proceeded to indite the
following paragraph to begin the letter:
“We are having so much fun down here at plesent cove that we cant
find time to come home and name Sandface’s babbies. But we want
you and unc rufs to do it for us and we are going to send you the
names we chose. They are——”
Here Tess’s laboring pencil came to a full stop. “Now, you got the
first name, Dot?” she asked.
“I got two,” declared Dot, confidently.
“What are they!” queried Tess. “Now, we want them to be real
salt-water names. Just like fishes’ names—or boats’ names—or like
that.”
“I got two,” declared Dot, soberly. “Lots of men must be named those
names about here. I hear them hollerin’ to each other when they are
out in the boats.”
“Well, well!” cried Tess, impatiently. “What are the names?”
“One’s ‘Starboard’ and the other’s ‘Port,’” declared Dot, seriously.
“And they are real nice names, _I_ think.”
Tess was rather taken aback. She had a hazy opinion that “Starboard”
and “Port” were not Christian names; they _might_ be, however, and she
had heard them herself a good deal. Besides, she wanted to agree with
Dot if she could, and so she sighed and wrote as follows:
“We got to names alreddy, Missus Mcall, and one’s Starborde and the
other is Port. They are very pretty names, we think and we hope you
an unc rufs and Sandface will like them, to. You give them to the
kittens that they seem to fit the best, pleas.”
Neale, and Ruth, and Agnes came along some time afterward and found
the smaller Corner House girls reduced almost to a state of
distraction. They had been unable to decide upon two more names.
“Starboard” and “Port” had been inspired, it seemed. Now they were
“stuck.”
“It _does_ seem as though there should be some other seashore names
that would sound good for kittens,” sighed Tess. “I think ‘Starboard’
and ‘Port’ are real pretty—don’t you, Ruth?”
“Very fine,” agreed her older sister, while Agnes restrained her
giggles.
“Why not call one of the others ‘Hard-a-Lee’?” suggested Neale,
gravely.
“Is _that_ a seashore name?” asked Tess, doubtfully.
“Just as salt as a dried codfish,” declared Neale, confidently.
“I think it is real pretty,” Dot ventured.
“Then we’ll call the third one ‘Hard-a-Lee,’” declared Tess. “I’ll
tell Mrs. MacCall so,” and she laboriously went at the misspelled
letter again.
“But how about the fourth one?” asked Agnes, laughing. “He’s not going
to be a step-child, is he? Isn’t he to have a name?”
“Yes. We must have one more,” Tess said, wearily. “Won’t _you_ give us
one, Aggie?”
“Sure!” said Agnes, promptly. “Main-sheet.’”
“‘Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet.’ Some names, those!”
declared Neale.
“I like them,” Tess said, reflectively. “They don’t sound like other
cats’ names—do they, Ruthie?”
“They most certainly do not,” admitted the oldest Corner House girl.
“And are they pretty, Ruthie?” asked Dot.
“They are better than ‘pretty,’” agreed Ruth, kindly. “If you children
are suited, I am sure everybody else—including the kittens
themselves—will be pleased!”
The labored letter was therefore finished and sent away. As Dot said,
“it lifted a great load from their minds.”
But there was another matter that served to trouble all four of the
Corner House girls for some days. That was what Mr. Reynolds, the
lumberman, was going to do about Tom Jonah.
The girls seldom left their tent now without taking the dog with them.
He was something of a nuisance in the boat when they went crabbing;
but Agnes would not hear of going out without him.
“I know that man will come back here some time and try to get him
away,” she declared. “But Tom Jonah will never go of his own free
will—no, indeed!”
“And he won’t sell him again, he said,” sighed Ruth. “I don’t just see
what we can do.”
However, this trouble did not keep the Corner House girls from having
many good times with their girl friends at the Spoondrift bungalow,
and their boy friends on the beach.
There were fishing trips, and picnics on Wild Goose Island. They
sometimes went outside the cove in bigger boats, and fished on the
“banks,” miles and miles off shore. There was fun in the evenings,
too, at the hotel dances, although the Corner House girls did not
attend any of those held at the Overlook House, for they were not
exactly friendly with Trix Severn.
One day Pearl Harrod’s Uncle Phil arranged to take a big party of the
older girls to Shawmit, which was some miles up the river. Ruth and
Agnes went along and that day they left Tom Jonah at Willowbend to
take care of the smaller girls.
Ruth determined to see Mr. Reynolds, so when they reached Shawmit, she
hunted up the lumberman’s office. She found him in a more amiable mood
than he had been on the morning he drove to Pleasant Cove to get Tom
Jonah.
“Well, Miss!” he said. “How do you feel about giving up that dog?”
“Just the same, sir,” said Ruth, honestly. “But I hope you will tell
me who the man is you sold Tom Jonah to, so that we can go to him and
buy the dog.”
“Do you girls really want old Tom Jonah as much as _that_?” asked Mr.
Reynolds.
“Yes, sir,” said the girl, simply.
“Willing to buy the old rascal? And he’s nothing but a tramp.”
“He’s a gentleman. You said so yourself on his collar,” said Ruth.
The man looked at her seriously and nodded. “I guess you think a whole
lot of him, eh?”
“A great deal, sir,” admitted Ruth.
“Well! I guess I’ll have to tell you,” said the man, smiling. “Old Tom
evidently thinks more of you girls than he does of me. Tell you what:
After I got home the other day I thought it over. I reckon Tom Jonah’s
chosen for himself. I paid my brother-in-law back the money he gave me
for him. So you won’t be bothered again about him.”
“Oh, sir——”
“You keep him. Rather, let Tom Jonah stay as long as he wants to. But
if he comes back to me I sha’n’t let him go again. No! I don’t want
money for him. I guess the old dog likes it where he is, and his days
of usefulness are pretty nearly over anyway. I’m convinced he’ll have
a good home with you Corner House girls.”
“Just as long as he lives!” declared Ruth, fervently.
So Mr. Reynolds did not prove to be a hardhearted man, after all.
Agnes and Tess and Dot were delighted. There was a regular celebration
over Tom Jonah that evening after Ruth got home and told the news.
It is doubtful if Tom Jonah understood when Dot informed him that he
was going to be their dog “for keeps.” But he barked very
intelligently and the two smaller girls were quite convinced that he
understood every word that was said to him.
“Of course, he can’t talk back,” Tess said. “Dogs don’t speak our
language. But if we could understand the _barking language_, I am sure
we would hear him say he was glad.”
And as our story of the Corner House girls’ visit to Pleasant Cove
began with Tom Jonah, we may safely end it with the assurance that the
good old dog will spend the rest of his life with Ruth and Agnes and
Tess and Dot, at the old Corner House in Milton.
THE END
CHARMING STORIES FOR GIRLS
(From eight to twelve years old)
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES
BY GRACE BROOKS HILL
Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a
rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he
occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find
and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and
make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks
at a bungalow owned by her parents; and the adventures they meet with
make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and
adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls.
1 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS.
2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS.
4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY.
5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS’ ODD FIND.
6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR.
7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP.
8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND.
9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT.
10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES.
11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND.
BARSE & HOPKINS
NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
THE POLLY PENDLETON SERIES
BY DOROTHY WHITEHILL
Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to
a boarding school on the Hudson River some miles above New York. By
her pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and
this she holds right through the course. The account of boarding
school life is faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in
her teens.
1 POLLY’S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
2 POLLY’S SUMMER VACATION
3 POLLY’S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR
5 POLLY AND LOIS
6 POLLY AND BOB
_Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated._
BARSE & HOPKINS
_PUBLISHERS_
NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
CHICKEN LITTLE JANE SERIES
By LILY MUNSELL RITCHIE
Chicken Little Jane is a Western prairie girl who lives a happy,
outdoor life in a country where there is plenty of room to turn
around. She is a wide-awake, resourceful girl who will instantly win
her way into the hearts of other girls. And what good times she
has!—with her pets, her friends, and her many interests. “Chicken
Little” is the affectionate nickname given to her when she is very,
very good, but when she misbehaves it is “Jane”—just Jane!
Adventures of Chicken Little Jane
Chicken Little Jane on the “Big John”
Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town
_With numerous illustrations in pen and ink_
BARSE & HOPKINS
_PUBLISHERS_
NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
Dorothy Whitehall Series
_For Girls_
Here is a sparkling new series of stories for girls—just what they
will like, and ask for more of the same kind. It is all about twin
sisters, who for the first few years in their lives grow up in
ignorance of each other’s existence. Then they are at last brought
together and things begin to happen. Janet is an independent go-ahead
sort of girl; while her sister Phyllis is—but meet the twins for
yourself and be entertained.
6 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo., Covers in color.
1. JANET, A TWIN
2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN
3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST
4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
5. THE TWINS’ SUMMER VACATION
6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.
BARSE & HOPKINS
_PUBLISHERS_
NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.
THE MARY JANE SERIES
BY CLARA INGRAM JUDSON
Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated.
With picture inlay and wrapper.
Mary Jane is the typical American little girl who bubbles over with
fun and the good things in life. We meet her here on a visit to her
grandfather’s farm where she becomes acquainted with farm life and
farm animals and thoroughly enjoys the experience. We next see her
going to kindergarten and then on a visit to Florida, and then—but
read the stories for yourselves.
Exquisitely and charmingly written are these books which every little
girl from five to nine years old will want from the first book to the
last.
1 MARY JANE—HER BOOK
2 MARY JANE—HER VISIT
3 MARY JANE’S KINDERGARTEN
4 MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH
5 MARY JANE’S CITY HOME
6 MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND
7 MARY JANE’S COUNTRY HOME
BARSE & HOPKINS
_PUBLISHERS_
NEWARK, N. J.—NEW YORK, N. Y.