Corner House girls

“ I don't want any kids out to the house Friday night," said Carrie.
"Do you mean to say you haven't asked Aggie and Ruth?" gasped Pearl.
"Not yet."
"Why not?" demanded Lucy, bluntly.
"Why——I don't know them very well," said Carrie, hastily. "But I do want that Neale O'Neil. So few boys know how to act at a party. And I wager he dances."
"I can tell you right now," said Lucy, "you'll never get him to come unless the Corner House girls are invited. Why! they're the only girls of us all who know him right well."
"I am going to try him," said Carrie Poole, with sudden decision. ”

“ The girls from the old Corner House might have been a little homesick had there not been so much to take up their attention each hour at Pleasant Cove.
They brought Rosa to the little old woman who lived in a shoe, and the moment Mrs. Bobster saw how weak and white she was her sympathy went out to her.
“Tut, tut, tut!” she said, clucking almost as loudly as Agamemnon himself. “We’ll soon fix you up, my dear. If you stay long enough here at the beach, you’ll be as brown and strong as these other gals.”
Rosa put her arm about Ruth’s neck when the Corner House girls were about to leave. ”

“ Dot responded, dodging the doubtful word.
"Goodness, dear!" laughed Ruth, "we can't make the old Corner House a refuge for destitute females."
"I don't care!" spoke up Dot, quickly. "Didn't they make the Toomey-Smith house, on High Street into a home for indignant old maids?"
At that the older girls shouted with laughter. "'In-di-gent'—'in-di-gent'! child," corrected Agnes, at last. "That means without means—poor—unable to care for themselves. 'Indignant old maids,' indeed!" ”

“ Eva Larry and Myra Stetson came in unexpectedly, and the Corner House girls had a very hilarious time.135 Neale was the only boy present; but he was rather used, by this time, to playing squire to "a whole raft of girls."
"And, oh, girls," cried the news-bearer, Eva, "what do you think? The School Board has voted to let us give The Carnation Countess. I heard it to-day. It's straight. The parts will be given out this next week. And, oh! poor us!"
"Miss Lederer said we would have quite important parts in the play," Ruth said complacently. ”

“ Aggie and I will finish here. We mustn’t let her get a dislike for this lovely old house. We’re the Corner House girls, you know, and we mustn’t be afraid of our own home,” and she kissed Dot again.
“I—I guess I’ll like it by and by,” sobbed Dot, trying hard to recover her composure. “But—but it’s so b-b-big and scary.”
“Nothing at all to scare you here, dear,” said Ruth, briskly. “Now, run along.” ”

“ Then she skated straight away and found Ruth and Agnes and invited them for Friday night in a most graceful way.
"I wanted to ask you girls personally instead of sending a formal invite," she said, warmly. "You being new girls, you know. You'll come? That's so kind of you! I shouldn't feel that the party would be a success if you Corner House girls were not there."
So that is how they got the invitation; but at the time the Kenway sisters did not suspect how near they came to not being invited at all to the Christmas party. ”

“ In the second volume of the series, “The Corner House Girls at School,” the girls extended the field of their acquaintance, entered the local schools, and became the friends, and finally the confidants, of Neale O’Neil, the boy who had run away away from Twomley & Sorber’s Herculean Circus and Menagerie, to get an education and “be like other boys.” ”

“ Some folks never109 have no chick nor child and others has got 'em so plentiful that they kin afford ter use 'em for eagle bait."
His lips took a humorous twist at the corners, his eyes sparkled, and altogether his bewhiskered countenance took on a very pleasant expression. The Corner House girls—at least, Ruth and Tess and Dorothy—began to like the old farmer right away. ”

“ But outside—well, there’s plenty folks down on them that have to tramp it. And we’ve had our experiences,” concluded Barnabetta, nodding her head and pursing her lips.
“Well, these Corner House girls ain’t no bad kind,” said the farmer, earnestly. “If you need help, you’ve come to the right shop for it.”
“I never asked her for help!” flared up the circus girl.
“You need help just the same,” answered Mr. Buckham. “And you’d better take it when it’s kindly offered. You know your father ain’t in no shape to camp out this weather. And it’s getting colder.” ”

“ Now, if he only has word of my father!”
“We’ll find him, sooner or later,” declared the guardian of the Corner House girls. “But now, since the mules seem to be doing their duty, suppose we take account of stock and see if we need anything. If we do, we ought to stop and get it at one of the places through which we pass, because we may tie up at night near some small village where they don’t keep hair pins and—er—whatever else you young ladies need,” and he smiled quizzically at Ruth. ”

“ Before the party got away from the pound, Ruth came racing down in the automobile. Returning from her first drive alone as a licensed chauffeur, she had heard of the family's migration to the pound and had come in haste to the rescue of Tom Jonah—and the remainder of the Corner House party.
"For goodness' sake! do get into the automobile and act as though we'd just come for a ride," exclaimed the oldest Corner House girl. "Did ever any one hear of such ridiculous things as happen to us?" ”

“ Pease, a Willow Street neighbor of the Corner House girls.
“And I must say that Mrs. Pease, for a woman of her age, has young idees about dress,” Miss Titus confided to Mrs. McCall and Agnes, who were in the sewing room. Aunt Sarah “couldn’t a-bear” Miss Ann Titus, so they did not invite the seamstress to go upstairs. ”

“ Tess and Dot had gone down Main Street on an errand for Ruth. Coming back toward the old Corner House, they saw before them a tall, dark lady, dressed in a long summer mantle, a lace bonnet, and other bits of finery that marked her as different from the ordinary Milton matron doing her morning’s marketing. She had a little girl with her.
“I never saw those folks before,” said Dot to Tess.
“No. They must be strangers. That little girl is wearing a pretty dress, isn’t she?” ”

“ And if they had all been "buzzing" as indefatigably as the smallest Corner House girl at home and abroad, it was not surprising that they were letter perfect.
The dancing was another matter entirely. To teach a few pupils at a time certain steps, and then to try to combine those companies in a single regiment, each individual of which must keep perfect time, is a greater task than the inexperienced would imagine.
The training of the girls and boys to whom had been assigned the rôles of the more or less important characters in the play, was an unhappy task in some instances. ”

“ Neale O'Neil would sometimes bring the pony around to the front of the house and have Agnes start a band record on the music machine in the parlor. Immediately Scalawag would try to go through his old tricks to the delight of the neighborhood children.
"Well! it doesn't much matter, I suppose," Ruth sighed. "Every day is circus day at the old Corner House. We have gained a reputation for doing queer things, and living not at all like other folks. I wonder that nice people here in Milton allow their children to play with our little girls." ”

“ All hungry and sore-eyed kittens appealed to Tess and Dot; the wag of a dog's tail was sufficient to interest them in its owner; each horse at the curb held a particular interest, too. They were trusting of nature, these little girls, and they trusted everybody and everything.
In coming home from school one afternoon Neale was in a hurry to do an errand, and he left the little folk at the corner, hurrying around to Con Murphy's on the back street, where he lived. Ruth was away from home and Agnes had not yet arrived at the Corner House. ”

“ You can git out, ma’am, I’m sure,” he added, to Mrs. Heard, as Ruth jumped from the car. “Get out your baggage too—this here little shaver can help at that,” and he rumpled Sammy’s hair with his big hand.
“But—but——Do you mean we can stay here?” gasped Mrs. Heard.
Ruth had scarcely reached the door when it was opened from within. A comfortable figure of a woman, with spectacles and gray hair, faced the oldest Corner House girl.
“Well, well!” said “Mother,” in just the hearty tone of voice a mother should possess. “An automobile party? Well, well! ”

“ And—it—smells!”
“Goosey!” laughed Agnes. “Largesse is money. Rich folks used to throw it to the poor.”
“My!” observed Dot. “I guess they don’t do it now. Poor folks have to work for money.”
“It’s just dear of them to come and serenade us,” Ruth declared. “But it’s so cold! Do call them in to get warm, Mrs. Mac.”
Already the housekeeper was scurrying downstairs. She had routed out Linda early to make coffee against this very emergency, for Mrs. MacCall had known that the Corner House girls were to be serenaded on Christmas morning. ”