The Corner House Girls in a Play

"'First William, the Norman,Then William, the son;Henry, Stephen and – '

I do hope," ruminated Tess, "that that poor Mrs. Eland won't be turned out of her place. Don't you hope so, Ruthie?"

"I am sure it would be a calamity if the hospital were closed," agreed the older sister. "And the matron must be a very lovely lady, as you say, Tess."

"She is awfully nice – isn't she, Dot?" pursued Tess, who usually expected the support of Dorothy.

"Just as nice as she can be," agreed the smallest Corner House girl. "Couldn't she come to live in our house if she can't stay in the horsepistol any longer?"

"At the what, child?" gasped Agnes. "What is it you said?"

"Well – where she lives now," 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!"

"Maybe they were indignant," suggested Tess, too tender hearted to see Dot's ignorance exposed in public, despite her own private criticism of the little one's misuse of the English language. "See how indignant Aunt Sarah is – and she's an old maid."

This amused Ruth and Agnes even more than Dot's observation. It was true that Aunt Sarah Maltby was frequently "an indignant old maid."

But Tess endured the laughter calmly. She was deeply interested in the problem of Mrs. Eland's future, and she said:

"Maybe Uncle Peter ought to have left the hospital some of his money when he died, instead of leaving it all to us and to Aunt Sarah."

"Do you want to give up some of your monthly allowance to help support the hospital, Tess?" demanded Ruth, briskly.

"I – I – Well, I couldn't give much," said the smaller girl, seriously, "for a part of it goes to missions and the Sunday School money box, and part to Sadie Goronofsky's cousin who has a nawful bad felon, and can't work on the paper flowers just now – "

"Why, child!" the oldest Kenway said, with a tender smile, and putting her hand lightly on Tess' head, "I didn't know about that. How much of your pin money goes each month to charity already? You only have a dollar and a half."

"I – I keep half a dollar for myself," confessed Tess. "I could give part of that to the hospital."

"I'll give some of my pin money, too," announced Dot, gravely, "if it will keep Mrs. Eland from being turned out of the horsepistol."

Ruth and Agnes did not chide the little one for her mispronunciation of the hard word this time, but they looked at each other seriously. "I wonder if Uncle Peter was one of those rich people who should have remembered the institution in his will?" Ruth said.

"Goodness!" exclaimed Agnes. "If we go around hunting for duties Uncle Peter Stower left undone, and do them for him, where will we be? There will be no money left for ourselves."

"You need not be afraid," Ruth said, with a smile. "Mr. Howbridge will not let us use our money foolishly. He is answerable for every penny of it to the Court. But maybe he will approve of our giving a proper sum towards a fund for keeping the Women's and Children's Hospital open."

"Is there such a fund?" demanded Agnes.

"There will be, I think. If everybody is interested – "

"And how you going to interest 'em?" asked the skeptical Agnes.

"Talk about it! Publicity! That is what is needed," declared Ruth, vigorously. "Why! we might all do something."

"Who – all? I want to know!" responded her sister. "I don't have a cent more than I need for myself. Only two dollars and a half." Agnes' allowance had been recently increased half a dollar by the observant lawyer.

"All of us can help," said Ruth. "Boys and girls alike, as well as grown people. The schools ought to do something to raise money for the hospital's support."

"Like a fair, maybe – or a bazaar," cried Agnes, eagerly. "That ought to be fun."

"You are always looking for fun," said Ruth.

"I don't care. If we can combine business with pleasure, so much the better," laughed Agnes. "It's easier to do things that are amusing than those that are dead serious."

"There you go!" sighed Ruth. "You are becoming the slangiest girl. I believe you get it all from Neale O'Neil."

"Poor Neale!" sniffed Agnes, regretfully. "He gets blamed for all my sins and his own, too. If I had a wooden arm, Ruth, you'd say I caught it of him, you detest boys so."

Part of this conversation between her older sisters must have made a deep impression on Tess Kenway's mind. She went forth as an apostle for the Women's and Children's Hospital, and for Mrs. Eland in particular. She said to Mr. Stetson, their groceryman, the next morning, with profound gravity:

"Do you know, Mr. Stetson, that the Women's and Children's Hospital has got to be closed?"

"Why, no, Tess – is that so?" he said, staring at her. "What for?"

"Because there is no money to pay Mrs. Eland. And now she won't have any home."

"Mrs. Eland?"

"The matron, you know. And she's such a nice lady," pursued Tess. "She taught me the sovereigns of England."

Mr. Stetson might have laughed. He was frequently vastly amused by the queer sayings and doings of the two youngest Corner House girls, as he often told his wife and Myra. But on this occasion Tess was so serious that to laugh at her would have hurt her feelings. Mr. Stetson expressed his regret regarding the calamity which had overtaken Mrs. Eland and the hospital. He had never thought of the institution before, and said to his wife that he supposed they "might spare a trifle toward such a good cause."

Tess carried her tale of woe into another part of the town when she and Dot went with their dolls to call on Mrs. Kranz and Maria Maroni, on Meadow Street, where the Stower tenement property was located.

"Did you know about the Women's and Children's Hospital being shut up, Mrs. Kranz?" Tess asked that huge woman, who kept the neatest and cleanest of delicatessen and grocery stores possible. "And Mrs. Eland can't stay there."

"Ach! you dond't tell me!" exclaimed the German woman. "Ist dodt so? And vor vy do dey close de hospital yedt? Aind't it a goot vun?"

"I think it must be a very good one," Tess said soberly, "for Mrs. Eland is an awfully nice lady, and she is the matron. She taught me the sovereigns of England. I'll recite them for you." This she proceeded to do.

"Very goot! very goot!" announced Mrs. Kranz. "Maria can't say that yedt."

Maria Maroni, the very pretty Italian girl (she was about Agnes' age) who helped Mrs. Kranz in the store, laughed good-naturedly. "I guess I knew them once," she said. "But I have forgotten. I never like any history but 'Merican history, and that of Italy."

"Ach! you foreigners are all alike," Mrs. Kranz protested, considering herself a bred-in-the-bone American, having lived in the country so long.

Although she was scolding her brisk and pretty little assistant most of the time, she really loved Maria Maroni very dearly. Maria's mother and father – with their fast growing family – lived in the cellar of the same building in which was Mrs. Kranz's shop. Joe Maroni, as was shown by the home-made sign at the cellar door, sold

ISE COLE WOOD VGERTABLS

and was a smiling, voluble Italian, in a velveteen suit and cap, with gold rings in his ears, who never set his bright, black eyes upon one of the Corner House girls but he immediately filled a basket with his choicest fruit as a gift for "da leetla padrona," as he called Ruth Kenway. He had an offering ready for Tess and Dot to take home when they reappeared from Mrs. Kranz's back parlor.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Maroni," Tess said, while Dot allowed one of the smaller Maronis to hold the Alice-doll for a blissful minute. "I know Ruthie will be delighted."

"Si! si! dee-lighted!" exclaimed Joe, showing all his very white teeth under his brigand's mustache. "The leetla T'eressa ees seek?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Maroni!" denied Tess, with a sigh. "I am very well. But I feel very bad in my mind. They are going to close the Women's and Children's Hospital and my friend, Mrs. Eland, who is the matron, will have no place to go."

Joe looked a little puzzled, for although Maria and some of her brothers and sisters went to school, their father did not understand or speak English very well. Tess patiently explained about the good work the hospital did and why Mrs. Eland was in danger of losing her position.

"Too bad-a! si! si!" ejaculated the sympathetic Italian. "We mak-a da good mon' now. We geev somet'ing to da hospital for da poor leetla children —si! si!"

"Oh, will you, Mr. Maroni?" cried Tess. "Ruth says there ought to be a fund started for the hospital. I'll tell her you'll give to it."

"Sure! you tell-a leetla padrona. Joe geeve – sure!"

"Oh, Dot! we can int'rest lots of folks – just as Ruth said," Tess declared, as the two little girls wended their way homeward. "We'll talk to everybody we know about the hospital and Mrs. Eland."

To this end Tess even opened the subject with Uncle Rufus' daughter, Petunia Blossom, who chanced to be at the old Corner House when Tess and Dot arrived, delivering the clothes which she washed each week for the Kenways.

Petunia Blossom was an immensely fat negress – and most awfully black. Uncle Rufus often said: "How come Pechunia so brack is de mysteriest mystery dat evah was. She done favah none o' ma folkses, nor her mammy's. She harks back t' some ol' antsistah dat was suttenly mighty brack – yaas'm!"

"I dunno as I kin spar' anyt'ing fo' dis hospital, honey," Petunia said, seriously, when Tess broached the subject. "It's a-costin' me a lot t' keep up ma dues wid de Daughters of Miriam."

"What's the Daughters of Miriam, Petunia?" asked Agnes, who chanced to overhear this conversation on the back porch. "Is it a lodge?"

"Hit's mo' dan a lodge, Miss Aggie," proclaimed Petunia, with pride. "It's a beneficial ordah – yaas'm!"

"And what benefit do you derive from it?" queried Agnes.

"Why, I doesn't git nottin' f'om it yet awhile, honey," said Petunia, unctiously. "But w'en I's daid, I gits one hunderd an' fifty dollahs. Same time, dey's 'bleeged t' tend ma funeral."

"Dat brack woman suah is a flickaty female," grumbled Uncle Rufus, when he heard Agnes repeating the story of Petunia's "benefit" to the family at dinner that night. When nobody but the immediate family was present at table, Uncle Rufus assumed the privilege of discussing matters with the girls. "She's allus wastin' her money on sech things. Dere, she has got t' die t' git her benefit out'n dem Daughters of Miriam. She's mighty flickaty."

"What does 'flickaty' mean, Uncle Rufus, if you please?" asked Dot, hearing a new word, and rather liking the sound of it.

"Why, chile, dat jes' mean flickaty– das all," returned the old butler, chuckling. "Dah ain't nottin' in de langwidge what kin explanify dat wo'd. Nor dah ain't no woman, brack or w'ite, mo' flickaty dan dat same Pechunia Blossom."

CHAPTER V

THE STONE IN THE POOL

"Great oaks from little acorns grow." Tess Kenway, with her little, serious effort, had no idea what she was starting for the benefit of Mrs. Eland, and incidentally for the neglected Women's and Children's Hospital. And this benefit was not of the unpractical character for which Petunia Blossom was paying premiums into the treasury of the Daughters of Miriam!

Tess' advertisement, wherever she went, of the hospital's need, called the attention of many heretofore thoughtless people to it. Through Mr. Stetson and Mrs. Kranz many people were reminded of the institution that had already done such good work. They said, "It would be a shame to close that hospital. Something ought to be done about it."

Tess Kenway's word was like a stone dropped into a placid pool. The water stirred by the plunge of the stone spreads in wavelets in an ever widening circle till it compasses the entire pool. So with the little Corner House girl's earnest speech regarding the hospital's need of funds.

Tess and Dot did not see the woman in the gray cloak again – not just then, at least; but they thought about her a great deal, and talked about her, too. A bag of the pippins went to the hospital by Neale O'Neil's friendly hand, addressed to Mrs. Eland, and with the names of the two youngest Corner House girls inside.

"I do hope she likes apples," Tess said. "I'm so much obliged to her for the sovereigns of England."

Tess wondered, too, if she should take some of the apples to school that first day of the fall term to present to Miss Pepperill. Dot took her teacher some. Dot was to have the same teacher this term that she had had the last. Tess finally decided that the sharp and red-haired Miss Pepperill might think that she, Tess, was trying to bribe her to forget the sovereigns of England.

"And I am quite sure I know them perfectly. That is, if she doesn't fuss me too much when she asks the question," Tess said to Ruth, with whom she discussed the point. "I won't take her the apples, I guess, until after I have recited the sovereigns."

Despite the declaration that she had learned perfectly the rhyme Mrs. Eland had written out for her, Tess Kenway went into school that first day of the term feeling very sober indeed. Many of the girls in her class looked sober, too. Pupils who had graduated from Miss Pepperill's class had reported the red-haired lady as being "awfully strict."

Indeed, before the scholars were quite settled at their desks, they had a proof of Miss Pepperill's discipline. Some of the boys in Tess' class had reputations to maintain (or thought they had) for "not bein' scart of teacher." Sammy Pinkney often boasted to wondering and wide-eyed little girls that "no old teacher could make him a fraid cat."

"What's your name – you with the black hair and warts on your hands?" demanded the new teacher, sharply and suddenly.

She pointed directly at the grinning and inattentive Sammy. There was no mistaking Miss Pepperill's meaning and some of the other boys giggled, for Sammy did have warts on his grimy little paws.

"What's your name?" repeated the teacher, with rising inflection.

"Sam – Sam Pinkney," replied Sammy, just a little startled, but trying to appear brave.

"Stand up when you reply to a question!" snapped Miss Pepperill.

Sammy stumbled to his feet.

"Now! What is your name? Again."

"Sam Pinkney."

"Sam-u-e-l?"

"Well – that's 'Sam,' ain't it?" drawled the boy, gaining courage.

But he never spoke so again when Miss Pepperill addressed him. That woman strode down the aisle to Sammy's seat, seized the cringing boy by the lobe of his right ear, and marched him up to her desk. There she sat him down "in the seat of penitence" beside her own chair, saying:

"I'll attend to your case later, young man. Evidently the long vacation has done you no good. You have forgotten how to speak to your teacher."

The girls were much disturbed by this manifestation of the new teacher's sternness. Sadie Goronofsky whispered to Tess:

"Oh! don't she get excited easy?"

The whites of Alfredia Blossom's eyes were fairly enlarged by her surprise and terror at this proceeding on the new teacher's part. After that, Alfredia jumped every time Miss Pepperill spoke.

Miss Pepperill noted none of this cringing terror on the part of her new pupils. Or else she was used to it. She marched up and down the aisles, seating and reseating the pupils until she had them arranged to her satisfaction, and suddenly she pounced on Tess.

"Ah!" she said, stopping before the Corner House girl's desk. "You are Theresa Kenway?"

Tess arose before replying. "Yes, ma'am," she said.

"Ah! Didn't I give you a question to answer this first day?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Tess, trying to speak calmly.

Miss Pepperill evidently expected to find Tess at fault. "What was the question, Theresa?" she asked.

"You told me to be prepared to recite for you the succession of the sovereigns of England."

"Well, are you prepared?" snapped Miss Pepperill.

"Yes, ma'am," Tess said waveringly. "I learned them in a rhyme, Miss Pepperill. It was the only way I could remember them all – and in the proper succession. May I recite them that way?"

"Let me hear the rhyme," commanded the teacher.

Tess began in a shaking voice, but as she progressed she gained confidence in the sound of her own voice, and, knowing the rhyme perfectly, she came through the ordeal well.

"Who taught you that, Theresa?" demanded Miss Pepperill, not unkindly.

"Mrs. Eland wrote it down for me. She said she learned it so when she was a little girl. At least, all but the last four lines. She said they were 'riginal."

"Ah! I should say they were," said Miss Pepperill. "And who is Mrs. Eland?"

"Mrs. Eland is an awfully nice lady," Tess said eagerly, accepting the opening the teacher unwittingly gave her. "She is matron of the Women's and Children's Hospital, and do you know, they say they are going to close the hospital because there aren't enough funds, and poor Mrs. Eland won't have any place to go. We think it's dreadful and, Miss Pepperill, – "

"Well, well!" interposed Miss Pepperill, with a grim smile, "that will do now, Theresa. I have heard all about that. I fancy you must be the little girl who is going around telling everybody about it. I heard Mr. Marks speak this morning about the needs of the Women's and Children's Hospital.

"We'll excuse your further remarks on that subject, Theresa. But you recited the succession of the English sovereigns very well indeed. I, too, learned that rhyme when I was a little girl."

Tess thought the bespectacled teacher said this last rather more sympathetically. She felt rebuked, however, and tried to keep a watch on her tongue thereafter in Miss Pepperill's presence.

At least, she felt that she had comported herself well with the rhyme, and settled back into her seat with a feeling of thankfulness.

Miss Pepperill's mention of Mr. Marks' observation before the teachers regarding the little girl who was preaching the gospel of help for the hospital, made no impression at all on Tess Kenway's mind. She had no idea that she had made so many grown people think of the institution's needs.

Before the high school classes early in that first week of school, the principal incorporated in his welcoming remarks something of importance regarding this very thing.

"We open school this term with quite a novel proposal before us. It has not yet been sanctioned by the Board of Education, although I understand that that body is soon to have it under advisement. In several towns of Milton's size and importance, there were last winter presented spectacles and musical plays, mainly by the pupils of the public schools of the several towns, and always for worthy charitable objects.

"The benefit to be gained by the schools in general and by the pupils that took part in the plays in particular, looked very doubtful to me at a distance; but this summer I made it my business to examine into the results of such appearances in musical pieces by pupils of other schools. I find it develops their dramatic instinct and an appreciation of music and acting. It gives vent, too, to the natural desire of young people to dance and sing, and to 'act out' a pleasant story, while they are really helping a worthy work of charity.

"One of the most successful of these school plays is called The Carnation Countess. It is a play with music which lends itself to brilliant costuming, spectacular scenery, and offers many minor parts which can easily be filled by you young people. A small company of professional players and singers carry the principal parts in The Carnation Countess; but if we are allowed to take up the production of this play – say in holiday week – I promise you that every one who feels the desire to do so, may have a part in it.

"The matter is all unsettled at present. But it is something to think of. Besides, a very small girl, I understand, a pupil in our grammar grade, is preaching a crusade for Milton's Women's and Children's Hospital. Inspired or not, that child has, during the past few days, awakened many people of this town to their duty towards that very estimable institution.

"The Women's and Children's Hospital is poor. It needs funds. Indeed, it is about to be closed for lack of sufficient means to pay salaries and buy supplies. The Post has several times tried to awaken public interest in the institution, but to no avail.

"Now, this child, as I have said, has done more than the public press. And quite unconsciously, I have no doubt.

"This is the way great things are often done. The seed timidly sown often brings forth the abundant crop. The stone thrown into the middle of the pool starts a wave that reaches the very shore.

"However, if we act the play for the charity proposed or not, there is a matter somewhat connected with it," continued the principal, his face clouding for a moment, "that I am obliged to bring to your attention. Of course, it is understood that only the pupils who do their work satisfactorily to their immediate instructors, will have any share in the production of the play.

"This rule, I am sorry to say, will affect certain members of our athletic teams who, I find, have been anything but correct in their behavior. I shall take this serious matter up in a few days with the culprits in question. At present I will only say that the basket ball match set for next Saturday with the team from the Kenyon school, will be forfeited. All the members, I understand, of our first basket ball team are equally guilty of misbehavior at a time when they were on honor.

"I will see the members of the team in my office after the second session to-day. You are dismissed to your classes, young ladies and gentlemen."

The blow had fallen! Agnes was so amazed and troubled that she failed to connect Mr. Marks' observations about the child who was arousing Milton to its duty towards the Women's and Children's Hospital, with her own little sister, Tess.

CHAPTER VI

JUST OUT OF REACH

Ruth Kenway, however, realized that it was Tess who was the instrument which was being used in arousing public interest in the Women's and Children's Hospital – and likewise in Mrs. Eland, who had given five years of faithful work to the institution.

She was particularly impressed on this very afternoon, when poor Agnes was journeying toward Mr. Marks' office with her fellow-culprits of the basket ball team, with Tess' preachment of the need of money for the hospital. Ruth came home from school to find Mr. Howbridge waiting for her in the sitting room with Tess, who had arrived some time before, entertaining him.

As the door was open into the hall, Ruth heard the murmur of their voices while she was still upstairs at her toilet-table; so when she tripped lightly down the broad front stairs it was not eavesdropping if she continued to listen to her very earnest little sister and the lawyer.

"But just supposing Uncle Peter had been 'approached,' as you say, for money for that hospital – and s'pose he knew just how nice Mrs. Eland was – don't you think he would have left them some in his will, Mr. Howbridge?"

"Can't say I do, my dear – considering what I know about Mr. Peter Stower," said the lawyer, drily.

"Well," sighed Tess, "I do wish he had met my Mrs. Eland! I am sure he would have been int'rested in her."

"Do you think so?"

"Oh, yes! For she is the very nicest lady you ever saw, Mr. Howbridge. And I do think you might let us give some of the money to the hospital that Uncle Peter forgot to give – if he had been reminded, of course."

"That child should enter my profession when she grows up," said Mr. Howbridge to Ruth, when Tess had been excused. "She'll split hairs in argument even now. What's started her off on this hospital business?"

Ruth told him. She told, too, what Tess did each month with her own pin money, and the next allowance day Tess was surprised to find an extra half dollar in her envelope.