скачать книгу бесплатно
Mr. Howbridge laughed. “If you stick close to this wise, big sister of yours, little one,” said the lawyer, looking at Ruth, “you will not get lost. And I guarantee no other harm will come to you.”
The lawyer had learned to have great respect for the youthful head of the Kenway household. Ruth was as excited as she could be about the old house, and their new fortune, and all. She had a little color in her cheeks, and her beautiful great brown eyes shone, and her lips were parted. She was actually pretty!
“What a great, great fortune it is for us,” she said. “I – I hope we’ll all know how to enjoy it to the best advantage. I hope no harm will come of it. I hope Aunt Sarah won’t be really offended, because Uncle Peter did not leave it to her.”
Aunt Sarah stalked up the main stairway without a word. She knew her way about the Corner House.
She took possession of one of the biggest and finest rooms in the front part, on the second floor. When she had lived here as a young woman, she had been obliged to sleep in one of the rear rooms which was really meant for the occupancy of servants.
Now she established herself in the room of her choice, had the expressman bring her rocking-chair up to it, and settled with her crocheting in the pleasantest window overlooking Main Street. There might be, as Aggie said rather tartly, “bushels of work” to do to straighten out the old house and make it homey; Aunt Sarah did not propose to lift her hand to such domestic tasks.
Occasionally she was in the habit of interfering in the very things the girls did not need, or desire, help in, but in no other way did Aunt Sarah show her interest in the family life of the Kenways.
“And we’re all going to have our hands full, Ruth,” said Aggie, in some disturbance of mind, “to keep this big place in trim. It isn’t like a flat.”
“I know,” admitted Ruth. “There’s a lot to do.”
Even the older sister did not realize as yet what their change of fortune meant to them. It seemed to them as though the fifty dollars Mr. Howbridge had advanced should be made to last for a long, long time.
A hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property was only a series of figures as yet in the understanding of Ruth, and Agnes, and Tess, and Dot. Besides, there was the uncertainty about Uncle Peter’s will.
The fortune, after all, might disappear from their grasp as suddenly as it had been thrust into it.
CHAPTER IV – GETTING SETTLED
It was the time of the June fruit fall when the Kenway girls came to the Old Corner House in Milton. A roistering wind shook the peach trees in the side yard and at the back that first night, and at once the trees pelted the grass and the flowers beneath their overladen branches with the little, hard green pellets that would never now be luscious fruit.
“Don’t you s’pose they’re sorry as we are, because they won’t ever be good for nothing?” queried Dot, standing on the back porch to view the scattered measure of green fruit upon the ground.
“Don’t worry about it, Dot. Those that are left on the trees will be all the bigger and sweeter, Ruth says,” advised Tess. “You see, those little green things would only have been in the way of the fruit up above, growing. The trees had too many children to take care of, anyway, and had to shake some off. Like the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.”
“But I never did feel that she was a real mother,” said Dot, not altogether satisfied. “And it seems too bad that all those pretty, little, velvety things couldn’t turn into peaches.”
“Well, for my part,” said Tess, more briskly, “I don’t see how so many of them managed to cling on, that old wind blew so! Didn’t you hear it tearing at the shutters and squealing because it couldn’t get in, and hooting down the chimney?”
“I didn’t want to hear it,” confessed Dot. “It – it sounded worse than Tommy Rooney hollering at you on the dark stairs.”
The girls had slept very contentedly in the two great rooms which Ruth chose at the back of the house for their bedrooms, and which opened into each other and into one of the bathrooms. Aunt Sarah did not mind being alone at the front.
“I always intended havin’ this room when I got back into this house,” she said, in one of her infrequent confidences to Ruth. “I wanted it when I was a gal. It was a guest room. Peter said I shouldn’t have it. But I’m back in it now, in spite of him – ain’t I?”
Following Uncle Peter’s death, Mr. Howbridge had hired a woman to clean and fix up the rooms in the Corner House, which had been occupied in the old man’s lifetime. But there was plenty for Ruth and Agnes to do during the first few days.
Although they had no intention of using the parlors, there was quite enough for the Kenway girls to do in caring for the big kitchen (in which they ate, too), the dining-room, which they used as a general sitting-room, the halls and stairs, and the three bedrooms.
The doors of the other rooms on the two floors (and they seemed innumerable) Ruth kept closed with the blinds at the windows drawn.
“I don’t like so many shut doors,” Dot confided to Tess, as they were dusting the carved balustrade in the big hall, and the big, hair-cloth covered pieces of furniture which were set about the lower floor of it. “You don’t know what is behind them – ready to pop out!”
“Isn’t anything behind them,” said the practical Tess. “Don’t you be a little ‘’fraid-cat,’ Dot.”
Then a door rattled, and a latch clicked, and both girls drew suddenly together, while their hearts throbbed tumultuously.
“Of course, that was only the old wind,” whispered Tess, at last.
“Ye-es. But the wind wasn’t ever like that at home in Bloomingsburg,” stammered Dot. “I – I don’t believe I am going to like this big house, Tess. I – I wish we were home in Essex Street.”
She actually burst out crying and ran to Ruth, who chanced to open the dining-room door. Agnes was with her, and the twelve year old demanded of Tess:
“What’s the matter with that child? What have you been doing to her?”
“Why, Aggie! You know I wouldn’t do anything to her,” declared Tess, a little hurt by the implied accusation.
“Of course you haven’t, dear,” said Ruth, soothing the sobbing Dot. “Tell us about it.”
“Dot’s afraid – the house is so big – and the doors rattle,” said Tess.
“Ugh! it is kind of spooky,” muttered Aggie.
“O-o-o!” gasped Tess.
“Hush!” commanded Ruth, quickly.
“What’s ‘spooky’?” demanded Dot, hearing a new word, and feeling that its significance was important.
“Never you mind, Baby,” said Aggie, kissing her. “It isn’t anything that’s going to bite you.”
“I tell you,” said Ruth, with decision, “you take her out into the yard to play, Tess. 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.”
When the smaller girls had gone for their hats, Ruth said to Aggie: “You know, mother always said Dot had too much imagination. She just pictures things as so much worse, or so much better, than they really are. Now, if she should really ever be frightened here, maybe she’d never like the old house to live in at all.”
“Oh, my!” said Aggie. “I hope that won’t happen. For I think this is just the very finest house I ever saw. There is none as big in sight on this side of the parade ground. We must be awfully rich, Ruth.”
“Why – why I never thought of that,” said the elder sister, slowly. “I don’t know whether we are actually rich, or not. Mr. Howbridge said something about there being a lot of tenements and money, but, you see, as long as Uncle Peter’s will can’t be found, maybe we can’t use much of the money.”
“We’ll have to work hard to keep this place clean,” sighed Aggie.
“We haven’t anything else to do this summer, anyway,” said Ruth, quickly. “And maybe things will be different by fall.”
“Maybe we can find the will!” exclaimed Aggie, voicing a sudden thought.
“Oh!”
“Wouldn’t that be great?”
“I’ll ask Mr. Howbridge if we may look. I expect he has looked in all the likely places,” Ruth said, after a moment’s reflection.
“Then we’ll look in the unlikely ones,” chuckled Aggie. “You know, you read in story books about girls finding money in old stockings, and in cracked teapots, and behind pictures in the parlor, and inside the stuffing of old chairs, and – ”
“Goodness me!” exclaimed Ruth. “You are as imaginative as Dot herself.”
Meanwhile Tess and Dot had run out into the yard. They had already made a tour of discovery about the neglected garden and the front lawn, where the grass was crying-out for the mower.
Ruth said she was going to have some late vegetables, and there was a pretty good chicken house and wired run. If they could get a few hens, the eggs would help out on the meat-bill. That was the way Ruth Kenway still looked at things!
The picket fence about the front of the old Corner House property was higher than the heads of the two younger girls. As they went slowly along by the front fence, looking out upon Main Street, they saw many people look curiously in at them. It doubtless seemed strange in the eyes of Milton people to see children running about the yard of the old Corner House, which for a generation had been practically shut up.
There were other children, too, who looked in between the pickets, too shy to speak, but likewise curious. One boy, rather bigger than Tess, stuck a long pole between two of the pickets, and when Dot was not looking, he turned the pole suddenly and confined her between it and the fence.
Dot squealed – although it did not hurt much, only startled her. Tess flew to the rescue.
“Don’t you do that!” she cried. “She’s my sister! I’ll just give it to you – ”
But there came a much more vigorous rescuer from outside the fence. A long legged, hatless colored girl, maybe a year or two older than Tess, darted across Main Street from the other side.
“Let go o’ dat! Let go o’ dat, you Sam Pinkney! You’s jes’ de baddes’ boy in Milton! I done tell your mudder so on’y dis berry mawnin’ – Yes-sah!”
She fell upon the mischievous Sam and boxed both of his ears soundly, dragging the pole out from between the pickets as well, all in a flash. She was as quick as could be.
“Don’ you be ’fraid, you lil’ w’ite gals!” said this champion, putting her brown, grinning face to an aperture between the pickets, her white teeth and the whites of her eyes shining.
“Dat no-’count Sam Pinkney is sho’ a nuisance in dis town – ya-as’m! My mudder say so. ’F I see him a-tantalizin’ you-uns again, he’n’ me’ll have de gre’tes’ bustification we ever did hab – now, I tell yo’, honeys.”
She then burst into a wide-mouthed laugh that made Tess and Dot smile, too. The brown girl added:
“You-uns gwine to lib in dat ol’ Co’ner House?”
“Yes,” said Tess. “Our Uncle Peter lived here.”
“Sho’! I know erbout him. My gran’pappy lived yere, too,” said the colored girl. “Ma name’s Alfredia Blossom. Ma mammy’s Petunia Blossom, an’ she done washin’ for de w’ite folks yere abouts.”
“We’re much obliged to you for chasing that bad boy away,” said Tess, politely. “Won’t you come in?”
“I gotter run back home, or mammy’ll wax me good,” grinned Alfredia. “But I’s jes’ as much obleeged to yo’. On’y I wouldn’t go inter dat old Co’ner House for no money – no, Ma’am!”
“Why not?” asked Tess, as the colored girl prepared to depart.
“It’s spooky – dat’s what,” declared Alfredia, and the next moment she ran around the corner and disappeared up Willow Street toward one of the poorer quarters of the town.
“There!” gasped Dot, grabbing Tess by the hand. “What does that mean? She says this old Corner House is ‘spooky,’ too. What does ‘spooky’ mean, Tess?”
CHAPTER V – GETTING ACQUAINTED
By the third day after their arrival in Milton, the Kenway sisters were quite used to their new home; but not to their new condition.
“It’s just delightful,” announced Agnes. “I’m going to love this old house, Ruth. And to run right out of doors when one wants to – with an apron on and without ‘fixing up’ – nobody to see one – ”
The rear premises of the old Corner House were surrounded by a tight fence and a high, straggling hedge. The garden and backyard made a playground which delighted Tess and Dot. The latter seemed to have gotten over her first awe of the big house and had forgotten to ask further questions about the meaning of the mysterious word, “spooky.”
Tess and Dot established their dolls and their belongings in a little summer-house in the weed-grown garden, and played there contentedly for hours. Ruth and Aggie were working very hard. It was as much as Aunt Sarah would do if she made her own bed and brushed up her room.
“When I lived at home before,” she said, grimly, “there were plenty of servants in the house. That is, until Father Stower died and Peter became the master.”
Mr. Howbridge came on this day and brought a visitor which surprised Ruth.
“This is Mrs. McCall, Miss Kenway,” said the lawyer, who insisted upon treating Ruth as quite a grown-up young lady. “Mrs. McCall is a widowed lady for whom I have a great deal of respect,” continued the gentleman, smiling. “And I believe you girls will get along nicely with her.”
“I – I am glad to meet Mrs. McCall,” said Ruth, giving the widow one of her friendly smiles. Yet she was more than a little puzzled.
“Mrs. McCall,” said Mr. Howbridge, “will take many household cares off your shoulders, Miss Kenway. She is a perfectly good housekeeper, as I know,” and he laughed, “for she has kept house for me. If you girls undertook to take care of even a part of this huge house, you would have no time for anything else.”
“But – ” began Ruth, in amazement, not to say panic.
“You will find Mrs. McCall just the person whom you need here,” said Mr. Howbridge, firmly.
She was a strong looking, brisk woman, with a pleasant face, and Ruth did like her at once. But she was troubled.
“I don’t see, Mr. Howbridge, how we can afford anybody to help us – just now,” Ruth said. “You see, we have so very little money. And we already have borrowed from you, sir, more than we can easily repay.”
“Ha! you do not understand,” said the lawyer, quickly. “I see. You think that the money I advanced before you left Bloomingsburg was a loan?”
“Oh, sir!” gasped Ruth. “We could not accept it as a gift. It would not be right – ”
“I certainly do admire your independence, Ruth Kenway,” said the gentleman, smiling. “But do not fear. I am not lending you money without expecting to get full returns. It is an advance against your uncle’s personal estate.”
“But suppose his will is never found, sir?” cried Ruth.
“I know of no other heirs of the late Mr. Stower. The court recognizes you girls as the legatees in possession. There is not likely to be any question of your rights at all. But we hope the will may be found and thus a suit in Chancery be avoided.”
“But – but is it right for us to accept all this – and spend money, and all that – when there is still this uncertainty about the will?” demanded Ruth, desperately.
“I certainly would not advise you to do anything that was wrong either legally or morally,” said Mr. Howbridge, gravely. “Don’t you worry. I shall pay the bills. You can draw on me for cash within reason.”
“Oh, sir!”
“You all probably need new clothing, and some little luxuries to which you have not been always accustomed. I think I must arrange for each of you girls to have a small monthly allowance. It is good for young people to learn how to use money for themselves.”
“Oh, sir!” gasped Ruth, again.
“The possibility of some other person, or persons, putting in a claim to Mr. Peter Stower’s estate, must be put out of your mind, Miss Kenway,” pursued the kindly lawyer. “You have borne enough responsibility for a young girl, already. Forget it, as the boys say.
“Remember, you girls are very well off. You will be protected in your rights by the court. Let Mrs. McCall take hold and do the work, with such assistance as you girls may wish to give her.”
It was amazing, but very delightful. “Why, Ruth-ie!” cried Agnes, when they were alone, fairly dancing around her sister. “Do you suppose we are really going to be rich?”
