Grace Brooks Hill

“ You are the most ridiculous child, Dot Kenway,” concluded Tess, with her most grown-up air.
“Say,” said the quite unabashed Dot, reflectively, “do you know what Sammy Pinkney says?”
“Nothing very good, I am sure,” rejoined her sister, tartly, for just at this time Sammy Pinkney, almost their next-door neighbor, was very much in Tess Kenway’s bad books. “What can you expect of a boy who wants to be a pirate?”
“Well,” Dot proclaimed, “Sammy says he doesn’t believe there is such a person as Santa Claus.” ”

“ Dot said longingly.
“Say! you can have this one for all I care,” declared Mabel. “You don’t know what a nuisance babies are. Everybody else can go out but me. I’ve got to stay and mind the baby. Nasty thing!”
“Oh, Mabel!” said Tess, sorrowfully—for Tess had no objection to boys as small as Bubby Creamer. The baby laughed, and crowed, and stretched out his arms to her. “Isn’t he the cunning little thing, Dot?” cooed Tess.
“He’s the nicest baby I ever saw,” agreed the smallest Corner House girl. ”

“ There are degrees of darkness just as there are of light. Something darker—or more solid—than the atmosphere of the dining room, passed across the line of Agnes’ vision.
The moving figure approached the cupboard in the chimney-place. Agnes knew that the unknown person stood just where Aunt Sarah had stood shortly before.
A tentative hand shook the closet door gently. It rattled; but the old lock was a strong one. Nothing less than a crowbar or a burglar’s jimmy could have forced that door. ”

“ Neale banged to the door behind him and tramped down the hall. They heard him open the outer door and slam that. Then he thumped down the steps and made for the Willow Street gate.
“Oh, Ruth! what have you done?” gasped Agnes, wringing her hands. “Poor Neale!”
“I want that album!” exclaimed Ruth, jumping up.
“It—it can’t be worth anything—that money,” murmured Agnes, but followed her sister.
“It is good money. I’m sure of it!” snapped Ruth.
She hurried to the porch. There was Neale’s old bag in the dark corner. Ruth pounced upon it.
“Oh, Ruth!” cried Agnes. “It’s never there.” ”

“ Dot came to the foot of the stairs, where a single dim gaslight flickered. She pushed open the dining room door.
As she did so, there sounded the faint clink, clink, clink of metal against metal. A spotlight flashed and roved around the room—touching ceiling and walls and floor in its travels. But it did not reveal her figure just inside the door.
She saw no good Kris Kringle standing on the hearth, with his bag of toys. Nothing but a broken brick lay there—probably loosened by Sammy Pinkney in his course down the chimney-well the previous afternoon. ”

“ MacCall a face as black as any negro’s.
“For pity’s sake!” exclaimed the housekeeper. “What d’ you call that, anyway?”
“It—it’s Sammy,” said Tess, boldly.
“If it is Santa Claus,” said Ruth, smiling, “it is one that is not grown.”
“It’s a perfectly savage one,” chuckled Agnes. “This must be a young Santa Claus in his wild and untamed state.” ”

“ The talk she had just overheard assured her that these two circus performers had been conversing about Neale and the old album full of money and bonds that he had taken away with him.
But she caught the disguised Barnabetta watching her very sharply. That girl’s black eyes were like glittering steel points. They seemed to say: “How much does this girl who listened guess—how much does she suspect—how much does she know?”
“We’ve got to work up some kind of patter to go with our act if we strike a job,” said Barnabetta, still with her eyes fixed on the Corner House girl. ”

“ Scruggs are perfectly welcome here.
“And I don’t want you to go away in those boy’s clothes, Barnabetta. You tell me your other clothing is all in your trunk at the express office in Tiverton. Why not send for it? But the frock and other things I let you have, I meant for you to keep.”
“I don’t want ’em,” said Barnabetta, ungratefully. “If we’ve got to tramp it, I can’t be bothered with skirts.”
“But my dear!” cried Ruth, desperately, “your father can’t walk. Of course he can’t!” ”

“ Think of it! We are the losers of all that money.” 229
“No,” Ruth said quickly.
“Why not? What do you mean?” demanded her sister.
“It is a great loss, an irreparable loss, to the real owners of the fortune.”
“Well, who are they?” demanded Agnes. “We don’t know them. I suppose the courts would have to decide. But I guess a part of the money, anyway, would come to us. Enough to buy an automobile.”
“No,” repeated Ruth, shaking her head.
“Why not?” cried her sister. “Of course it’s ours!”
“That’s what I say. But your sister wants to give it all away,” said Barnabetta. ”

“ But just then a figure appeared at the sitting room window which, on spying the Corner House girls, began to jump up and down and make urgent gestures for them to come in.
“It’s Mabel,” said Tess. “And she must be all alone.”
“Oh, goody! then her sisters can’t boss us,” cried Dot, hurrying to drag her Alice-doll’s new go-cart up the steps.
Mabel, the Creamer girl nearest the little Kenways’ own ages, ran to open the door.
“Oh, hurrah!” she cried. “Come in, do! Tess and Dot Kenway. I’m so lonesome I could kill flies! Dear me! ”

“ And he only comes to good children, anyway. How could you expect Sammy Pinkney to have a Santa Claus?”
“He says,” said Dot, eagerly, “that they are only make believe. Why, there is one in Blachstein & Mapes’, where Ruth trades; and another in Millikin’s; and there’s the Salvation Army Santa Clauses on the streets—”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Tess, tossing her head. “They are only representations of Santa Claus. They’re men dressed up. Why! little boys have Santa Claus suits to play in, just as they have Indian suits and cowboy suits.” ”

“ So he was allowed to pace sedately behind the trio to the corner of Ralph Avenue where Agnes purposed to take the car. This was not far down Main Street from the Parade Ground, and the children could easily find their way home again.
As the three sisters passed the drug store they saw coming out a woman in long, black garments, a veil, and a huge collar and a sort of hood of starched white linen.
Dot’s eyes grew big and round as she watched this figure, and finally she whispered: “Oh, Aggie; who is that?”
“That is a sister of charity,” replied Agnes. ”

“ Working in a circus all her life hasn’t spoiled her; but it isn’t a business that I’d want a daughter of mine to follow.
“And there isn’t a mite of harm in that Asa Scruggs,” added the housekeeper. “Only I never did see such a melancholy looking man. And he a clown!”
Agnes was thinking how strange it was she should have met Barnabetta and her father in the woods and brought them home, when they had come from the Twomley & Sorber Circus, and knew Neale O’Neil. And what would Neale say when he learned that the clown and his daughter were at the old Corner House? ”

“ Agnes was silenced. For once the impulsive Corner House girl was circumspect. Neale’s answer to Joe could mean but one thing. Neale must have carried away with him the old album she had found in the garret of the Corner House.
“Goodness gracious!” thought Agnes, feeling a queer faintness within. “It can’t be that Neale O’Neil really believes that money and the bonds are good! That is too ridiculous! ”

“ Dot said, feeling that her enemy next door should be put under the eye of just such a stern teacher as Miss Grimsby.
“I s’pose she’ll make faces at me to-morrow,” pursued Dot, with a sigh. “And she can make awful faces, you know she can, Tessie.”
“Well, faces won’t ever hurt you,” the other sister said, philosophically.
“No-o,” rejoined Dot. “Not really, of course. But,” she confessed, “it makes you want to make faces, too. And I can’t wriggle my face all up like Mabel Creamer can!”
Now, clothed in a proper frock again, Barnabetta Scruggs made one at the dinner table. ”

“ Ruth hastened to say. “The money belongs to Mr. Aden’s nieces—Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. And they need it so!”
“Oh, my goodness! so it does!”
“And we have lost it!” finished Ruth, in despair.
“Well! they can’t blame us,” Agnes said, swift to be upon the defensive.
“But I blame myself. I should have taken more care of the book, in the first place.”
“Then you don’t blame Neale?” demanded Agnes, quickly.
“He’s to blame for carrying the book off without saying anything about it to us,” said Ruth. “But I am mainly at fault.”
“No,” said Barnabetta suddenly. “I’m to blame. ”

“ But we broke the lock of the closet this afternoon and there it was—the book, I mean—empty!”
Neale was leading her toward the house. “Great Peter’s pipe!” he gasped. “You can talk nineteen to the dozen and no mistake, Aggie. Hush, will you, till we get inside?”
Agnes was rather offended at this. She went up the porch steps ahead and opened the door into the hall. Ruth was just going into the sitting room.
“Oh, Ruthie! are you alone?” whispered Agnes.
“Goodness! how you startled me,” said the older sister. “There’s nobody in the sitting room. What do you want? Oh!” ”

“ Linda admires independence above all other traits of character. She has plenty of that quality herself and she is the kind of girl who not only cheerfully fights her own battles, but those of the weaker who cannot defend themselves. She is “bossy,” lovable, impatient and loyal, a born manager, whose plans invariably work out to satisfactory conclusions, and Linda has a definite plan which gradually unfolds in these books written about her—the sort of plan only a girl without a home and parents of her own could think of and carry to completion. ”

“ If I bite my fingernails mother raps me good; but that kid can swallow his whole foot and they think he’s cute!”
“Oh, Mabel! does he really swallow his foot?” gasped Dot. “I should think it would choke him.”
“Wish it would!” declared the savage sister of the cooing Bubby Creamer. “Then I could get out and play once in a while. Lydia and Peg put it on me, anyway. They get the best of everything.”
“Oh, let’s play right here,” suggested Tess, interrupting this ill-natured tirade. “You get your new doll, Mabel.” ”

“ That’s his bad ankle. He can’t do anything to you now,” declared the trapeze performer.
“And you let that stick alone,” commanded Agnes. “Tom Jonah will do anything I tell him to,” she added, warningly, and then proved it by calling the old dog to come to her. He came, growling, and showing the red of his eyes as he looked over his shoulder at the prostrate clown. The man seemed unable to rise, but sat up, groaning, and rubbing the twisted ankle.
“Oh, dear, me!” cried Barnabetta; “that fixes us for another two months. You won’t be able to work at all, Pop, even if we get a job. ”

“ Let us run down and get the book out of the closet. And don’t dare leave this house, either of you!” she commanded, running down the back stairs.
Barnabetta helped her father back to his room. Then she went down the front flight and met the excited Ruth and the quite amazed Agnes in the dining room. Ruth had the heavy kitchen poker.
“What under the sun are you going to do with that poker, Ruth Kenway?” demanded Agnes.
“Oh, Aggie! Think of it! That old album is locked in that closet.”
“Well! didn’t I just begin to believe so myself?” ejaculated the second Corner House girl. ”

“ Crouch at the bank; or she should have locked the old album away in a perfectly safe place until the value of the paper could be determined.
It is only human nature to look for some scapegoat for our sins. Knowing herself to have neglected proper precautions, it was quite natural that Ruth should blame Neale. But now she blamed herself. Poor Mrs. Eland! And poor Miss Pepperill! In her heart of hearts Ruth had longed to do something worth while to help the two unfortunate ladies. And all the time a fortune belonging to them was hid away in the garret of the old Corner House. ”

“ Dot did not know whether to laugh at, or be horrified by, such depravity as this. But she was glad that Mabel was free to go home with her at this time, for Tess had been kept after school.
“We’ve got four of just the cunningest kittens,” Dot said, to her visitor. “Of course, they are really Almira’s. Santa Claus got them for her. But we call them ours.”
“My! isn’t that fine?” cried Mabel. “We’ve got two cats, but they’re lazy old things. They never have any kittens. We call them Paul and Timothy.” ”

“ Barnabetta stared at her, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
“What’s that you’re sayin’, Miss Ruth?” asked the clown.
“Why, don’t you see?” cried Ruth, laughing and sobbing together. “I thought the book was really lost—that we’d never recover it. And I’ve just discovered that all that money and those bonds in it belong to our dear friend, Mrs. Eland, and her sister, who is in the hospital. Oh! and they need the money so badly!
“Just think! it is a fortune. There’s fifty thousand dollars in money besides the bonds. ”

“ So Dot told her all that she had seen of the strange transaction.
“Why, that was the laundryman, of course!” declared Tess. “The baby is not stolen at all—at least he never meant to take it. I know the laundryman, and he’s got seven children of his own. I don’t believe he’d steal another.”
The whole neighborhood was aroused. Agnes ran out into the yard to learn what the trouble was, and Tess and Dot, with great verbosity, related their version of the occurrence.
“Oh, children! we must tell Mrs. Creamer,” Agnes said. “Of course the laundryman wouldn’t have stolen the baby! ”

“ Seneca proceeded.
“I went away in the midst of it. Peace dwelleth with me—yea, verily. I am not a man of wrath. Later I learned that Lemuel Aden went away cursing Peter Stower, and he was never more seen again in Milton.”
“But was he poor?” Ruth asked. “Did Uncle Peter turn him out to suffer?”
Seneca Sprague shook his head. “Nay; I would not charge that to Peter Stower’s account,” he said. “It was believed by everybody, as I say, that Lemuel had much money hidden away. Peter Stower said he knew it.”
“Just the same, he died in the Quoharie poorhouse,” Agnes cried, quickly. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Put down that 131 stick, Barney. This is my son, Barney, and I’m Asa Scruggs. I’m a joey when I’m in luck, and Barney—he’s a trapeze artist. He’s good.”
“Oh, Pop!” shrilled the youthful trapeze artist, “might’s well tell the truth this time. She’s nothing but a girl herself.”
“And that’s what you are!” cried Agnes, with excitement.
“Yes. I’m Barnabetta, not Barney, Scruggs. Nice name, isn’t it?” scoffed the strange girl. “My mother was Pennsylvania Dutch; that’s where I got my name, Barnabetta. But it’s safer to travel as a boy, so I’m Barney on the road. ”

“ He is only sure that your Uncle Peter never owned the bonds or the cash.”
“He didn’t,” sighed Agnes, “more’s the pity. Oh, no, Ruthie. I am not sorry Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill are going to be rich. But we could have made good use of some of that money.”
“Buying an automobile, for instance?” suggested Neale, chuckling.
“Be careful, young man,” Agnes warned him. “If you carry a joke too far, you shall never be allowed to run the Corner House automobile when we do get it.” ”