The Corner House Girls in a Play

The girls looked on in awe. Tom Jonah stood by, panting, his tongue out and his plume waving proudly.

"That's a great dog," said Mr. Bob Buckham.

"And – Why, hullo, son! you used to work for us, didn't you?"

"Yes, Mr. Buckham," replied Neale.

"Ho, ho!" shouted the bushy-headed old man, spying Lycurgus and Sue coming from the edge of the woods. "I beat ye to it that time, Lycurgus. And what was little Sissy doing out there where the old eagle could git his eye on her? I swow! if it hadn't been for the dog, mebbe the eagle would ha' pecked her some – eh?"

"The eagle would have carried her off – the poor little thing," said Ruth, indignantly.

"No!" exclaimed Mr. Buckham.

"I believe it would, sir," Neale said.

"And that isn't the worst of it," went on the wrought up Corner House girl.

"What ain't the worst of it, miss?" asked the farmer.

"That poor little thing was sent out there by her father to attract the eagle."

"What?" roared Bob Buckham, his great face turning red with anger and his deep-set eyes flashing. "You mean to tell me he set little Sissy for eagle bait?"

He strode forward to meet Lycurgus Billet, leaving the dead bird behind him. The chagrined hunter smiled a sickly smile as big Bob Buckham approached.

"The old gun went back on me that time – she sure did, Bob," Billet said. "I would ha' got that critter, else. Hullo! what's the matter?"

For the farmer reached out a ham-like hand and seized the wiry Lycurgus by the shoulder, and shook him.

"Hey! what you doin'?" the smaller man repeated.

"I've a mind to shake the liver-lights out'n you, Lycurgus Billet!" declared the farmer. "To send little Sissy out to be eagle bait fer ye! I – I – That's the worst I ever heard of!"

"Say!" sputtered Lycurgus. "What d'ye mean? I 'spected ter shoot the critter, didn't I?"

"But ye didn't."

"Just the same she warn't hurt. Air you, Sue?" demanded the little girl's father.

Sue shook her head. She hadn't got over her scare, however. "My!" she confessed, "I thought he was a-goin' to grab me – I sure did! And he had sech a wicked eye."

"You hear that?" demanded old Bob Buckham, fiercely, and Lycurgus shrank away from the indignant farmer as though he expected to feel the heavy hand again – and to sterner purpose this time.

"You ain't no business with a young'un like Sissy – you ornery pup!" growled the old man in the culprit's ear. "I wish she was mine. You ain't fitten to own little Sissy."

It was evident that the old farmer thought a good deal of the backwoods' child. Lycurgus said no further word. He walked over to the eagle and looked down at it.

"He's a whopper!" he observed, smiling in his weak way at the Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil.

Ruth only nodded coolly. Agnes turned her back on him, while the little girls stared as wonderingly at Lycurgus Billet as they would had he been a creature from another world.

Bob Buckham and little Sissy, as he called her, were having a talk at one side. Something that shone brightly passed from the farmer's hand into the child's grimed palm.

"Come on, Pap!" said Sue, bruskly. "Let's go home. These folks don't want us here."

"Lazy, shiftless, inconsequential critter," growled Bob Buckham, coming back to the dead eagle, as Lycurgus and his daughter moved slowly away across the field.

But then the old man's face cleared up quickly, though he sighed as he spoke.

"That only goes to show ye! Some folks never 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.

"Got to take that critter home," declared Mr. Bob Buckham, as enthusiastic as a boy over his good luck. "Don't know how I come to lug my old gun along to-day when I started down this way. I never amounted to much as a hunter before. Always have left that to fellers like Lycurgus."

"It was very fortunate for that poor little Sue that you had your rifle," Ruth said warmly.

"Oh, no, ma'am," returned Mr. Buckham. "It was that dog of yourn saved little Sissy. But I reckon I saved the dog."

"And we're awfully much obliged to you for that, sir," spoke up Tess. "Aren't we, Dot?"

"Oh, yes!" agreed the smallest Corner House girl. "I thought poor Tom Jonah was going to be carried right up in the air, and that the aigrets would eat him!"

"The what would eat him?" demanded the farmer, paying close attention to what the little girls said, but puzzled enough at Dot's "association of ideas."

Tess explained. "She means the young eagles. She expects the nest is full of hungry little eagles. It would have been dreadful for Tom Jonah to have been carried off just like a lamb. I've seen a picture of an eagle carrying away a lamb in his claws."

"And many a one I reckon this big critter has stole," agreed the farmer. "Right out of my own flock, perhaps. But your dog was too big a load for him."

"Now, son," he added, briskly to Neale, "you give me a h'ist with the bird. I'm going to take him home across my shoulders. Don't dare leave him here for fear some varmint will git him. I'll send the carcass right to town and have it stuffed." "Goodness!" murmured the startled Tess. "You don't eat eagles, do you, sir?"

"Ho, ho!" laughed the farmer. "No-sir-ree-sir! I mean we'll have the skin stuffed. When Mr. Eagle is mounted, you'll see him looking down from the top of that old corner cupboard of mine in the sittin' room – you remember it, Neale?"

"Yes, sir," said Neale, as he helped lift the heavy bird to the farmer's shoulders.

"What are you and these young ladies doin' around here to-day, Neale?" asked Mr. Buckham.

Neale told him. "Got a team, have you?" said the farmer. "Then drive right around to the house. You know the way, boy. I wanter git better acquainted with these little gals," and he smiled broadly upon Tess and Dot.

Ruth was doubtful. Agnes shook her head behind the old man's back and pouted "No!"

"I see that dog's ear is torn," went on Mr. Buckham. "I wanter doctor it a bit. These eagle's talons may be pizen as nightshade."

So Ruth politely thanked Mr. Bob Buckham and said they would drive to his house. So near was the farmhouse, indeed, that Tess and Dot begged to walk with the farmer and so be assured that Tom Jonah should have "medical attention" immediately. Of course, the old dog would not leave the children to go with the strange man alone.

"We can open the gates, too, for Mr. Buckham," said Tess.

"Run along, then, children," the eldest sister said. "We will soon drive over with the chestnuts." Then she added rather sharply, but under her breath, to Agnes: "I don't see what your objection is to going to Mr. Buckham's house. I think he is a real nice old man."

"Oh, I know he is," wailed her sister. "But you never stole his berries!"

"Aggie's conscience is troubling her," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "But don't you fret, Aggie. Old Bob Buckham won't know that you were one of the raiders last May."

"Of course he will. When he knows my name. Didn't he send my name to Mr. Marks with the others?"

"Did he?" returned Neale. "I wonder!"

CHAPTER X

SOMETHING ABOUT OLD TIMES

By the time Tess and Dot Kenway arrived at the rambling old farmhouse at Ipswitch Curve, where Mr. Buckham lived, they were as chatty and chummy with the man who had shot the eagle as though he were a life-long friend.

Without any doubt Mr. Bob Buckham loved children – little girls especially. And Mrs. Bob Buckham loved them, too.

There was a big-armed, broad-shouldered country girl in the wide, clean kitchen into which the children were first ushered. She was the maid-of-all-work, and she welcomed Tess and Dot kindly, if she did scold Mr. Buckham for tracking up her recently scrubbed floor with his muddy boots.

"Now, you jest hesh, Posy," he told her, good-naturedly. "You know you wouldn't have work enough to keep you interested, if 'twarn't for me. Where's marm?"

"In the sittin' room, Mr. Buckham – and don't you darst to go in there without scrapin' your feet. And do put that nasty, great bird down outside."

"Don't darst to," said Mr. Buckham. "The dogs'll tear it to pieces. I wanter fix this Tom Jonah's ear. He's a brave dog, Posy. If it hadn't been for him, I swow! Lycurgus Billet's Sue would have been kerried off by this old eagle," and he told the wondering girl about the adventure.

"Now, you take these little gals in to marm, while I fix up Tom Jonah," Mr. Buckham urged.

So Tess and Dot were ushered into the sitting room by the big girl, Posy. Mrs. Buckham was not likely to be found anywhere but in her chair, poor woman, as the children very soon learned. She was a gentle, gray-haired, becapped old lady who never left her chair, saving for her bed at night. She was a paralytic and could not walk at all; but her fingers were busy, and she was fairly surrounded by bright colored worsteds and wools, finished pieces of knitting and crocheting, and incompleted work of like character.

Out of this hedge of bright-hued fancy-work, Mrs. Buckham smiled upon the smaller Corner House girls quite as warmly as did Mr. Buckham himself.

"I do declare! this is a pleasure," she cried, drawing one little girl after the other to her to be kissed. "Little flower faces! Aren't they, Posy? Wish I had a garden full o' them – that I do!"

"My mercy, Mrs. Buckham! I'm glad you ain't," laughed the maid. "Not if they all favored Mr. Buckham and brought as much mud in on their feet as he does."

"Never mind, Posy," cried the very jolly invalid. "I don't track up your clean floors – and that's a blessing, isn't it?"

Dot looked rather askance at the bright-colored afghan that hid the crippled legs of the good woman. The legs were so still, and the afghan covered them so completely, that to the little girl's mind it seemed as though she had no lower limbs at all!

She and Tess, however, were soon quite friendly with the invalid. Posy bustled about between kitchen and sitting room, laying a round table in the latter room for tea for the expected guests. Mr. Buckham, having scraped his boots, came in.

"Well, how be ye, Marm?" he asked his wife, kissing her as though he had just returned from a long journey.

"Just the same, Bob," she replied, laughing. "I ain't been fur from my chair since you was gone."

Mr. Buckham chuckled hugely at this old pleasantry between them. They both seemed to accept her affliction as though it were a joke, or a matter of small importance. Yet Mrs. Buckham had been confined to her chair and her bed for twenty years.

Before Ruth and Agnes, with Neale O'Neil, reached the farmhouse, driving over from Lycurgus Billet's chestnut woods, Tess and Dot were having a most delightful visit. Dot was amusing Mrs. Buckham with her chatter, and likewise holding a hank of yarn for the invalid to wind off in a ball; while Tess, of course, had got upon her favorite topic of conversation, and was telling Mr. Buckham all about the need of the Women's and Children's Hospital, and about Mrs. Eland.

"You see, she's such an awfully nice lady – and so pretty," said Tess, warmly. "It would be an awful thing if she had to go away – and she hasn't any place to go. But the hospital's got to have money!"

"Eland – Eland?" repeated Mr. Bob Buckham, reflectively. "Isn't that name sort o' familiar, Marm?" he asked his wife.

"The Aden girl married an Eland," said Mrs. Buckham, quickly. "He died soon after and left her a widow. Is it the same? Marion Aden?"

"Mrs. Eland's name is Marion," said Tess, confidently. "She signed it to a note to us. Didn't she, Dot?"

"In the apple," replied Dot, promptly.

"What does the child mean – 'in the apple'?" queried the laughing Mrs. Buckham.

"That's how she sent us our invitation to her party," said Dot.

"Only to an afternoon tea, child!" exclaimed Tess, quickly. "That isn't a party." Then she explained to Mrs. Buckham about the apples and the one that came back with the note inside. Meanwhile the farmer was very quiet and thoughtful.

"So," finished Tess, breathlessly, "we're going to stop at the hospital on our way home from school next Monday afternoon. Aren't we, Dot?"

"Ye-es," said the smaller girl, this time doubtfully. "If Mrs. MacCall finishes my Alice-doll's new cloak. Otherwise she can't go, and of course I can't go without her. She hasn't a thing fit to wear, now it's come fall."

"You ask Mrs. Eland," broke in Mr. Buckham, "if she happens to be any relation to Lemuel Aden."

"Now, Bob!" said his wife in an admonitory undertone, "never mind raking up dead and gone happenings."

"But I'm just curious – just curious," said the farmer. "Nothing to be done now about it – "

"Bob!"

"Well," subsided the farmer, "a man can't help thinkin' about money that he's lost. And that five hundred dollars was stole from us as sure as you're alive to-day, Marm."

"Never mind," his wife said lightly. "You've earned several five hundreds since that happened – you know you have, Bob Buckham. What's the good of worrying?"

"Ain't worrying," denied the farmer, quickly. "But I do despise a thief. I was brought up on the motter:

"''Tis a sinTo steal a pin;'Tis a greaterTo steal a' 'tater!'

Ain't that so, children?" he concluded, chuckling.

Now, Ruth and Agnes were being ushered into the room by the broadly smiling Posy just as Mr. Buckham recited this old jingle. Agnes flushed to the roots of her hair, and then paled with alarm. She expected, then and there, to be accused with the heinous offence of having picked strawberries without permission in Mr. Bob Buckham's field!

"Oh! what a pretty girl!" cried the invalid. "Come here, my dear, and let me pinch those cheeks. You need not blush so; I'm sure you've been told you were pretty before – and I hope it hasn't spoiled you," and Mrs. Buckham laughed heartily.

"I should know you were little Theresa's sister," continued the lady, as Agnes tremblingly approached. "She will be just such another when she gets to be as old as you, I am sure.

"And of course, this is Ruth," and she welcomed the oldest Corner House girl, too. "Four such splendid girls must make their mother's heart glad."

"I hope we did make her glad when she was with us," Ruth said quietly. "But we have no mother now; and no father."

"Oh, my dear!" cried the invalid, in quite a shocked tone. "I had no idea – "

"We miss our mother and our father. Even Dot can remember them both," said Ruth, still calmly. "But it happened so long ago that we do not cry about it any more – do we, girls?"

As the oldest sister spoke, the other three seemed to be involuntarily drawn to her. Dot took one hand and snuggled it against her soft, dark cheek. Tess put both arms about Ruth's neck and warmly kissed her. Agnes already had her arm around her elder sister's waist.

"I see," said Mrs. Buckham, with sudden appreciation. "The others do not miss the lost and gone mother, for a very good reason. I am sure you have done your duty, Ruth Kenway."

"I have tried to," Ruth said simply. "And they have all been good children, and helped."

"I ain't a doubt of it – I ain't a doubt of it," repeated Mrs. Buckham, briskly.

Agnes was watching the changing expression of the old lady's face, wondering if – as Neale had said – Mr. Buckham could not write, the invalid had sent in the list of girls' names to the principal of the Milton High. The old farmer himself might be unlettered; but Mrs. Buckham, Agnes was sure, must have had some book education.

Right at the invalid's hand, indeed, were two shelves fastened under the window sill, filled with books – mostly of a religious character. And their bindings showed frequent handling.

Posy brought in the steaming tea urn. "Come on now, folks," said Mrs. Buckham. "I'm just a honin' for a cup of comfort. That's what I call it. Tea is my favorite tipple – and I expect I'm just as eager for it as a poor drunkard is after liquor. Dear me! I never could blame them that has the habit for drink. I love my cup of comfort too well."

Posy was putting Tess and Dot into their chairs. The farmer awoke from his brown study, got up, stretched himself, and, with a smile, wheeled his wife's chair to the table.

"There ye be, Marm," he said. "All right?"

"All right, Bob," she assured him.

"Yes," the farmer said, turning to the children with a broader smile, "you ask your friend, Mrs. Eland, if she's related to Lemuel Aden. Seems to me she is his brother Abe's darter. Lem was a sharper; but Abe was a right out an' out – "

"Now, Bob!" interposed his wife. "That's all gone and done for."

"Well, so 'tis, Marm. But I can't never forget it. I was a boy and my marm was a widder woman. The five hundred dollars was all we had – every cent we had in the world," he added, looking about at the interested faces of his visitors.

"Abe Aden was a lawyer, or suthin' like that. He was a dabster at most things, includin' horse-tradin'. My father had put all the money he had in the world in Abe's hands, in some trade or other. We tried to git it back when father was kill't so sudden in the sawmill.

"Just erbout then Abe got inter trouble in a horse-trade. He was a good deal of a Gyp – so 'twas said. He left everything in Lem's hands and skedaddled out West. But he didn't leave no five hundred dollars in Lem's hands for us– no, sir!" and the old man shook his head ruminatively.

"No, sir. He likely got away with that five hundred to pay his fare, and so escaped jail."

"You don't know that, Bob," said his wife, gravely.

"No. I don't know it. But I know that my marm and I suffered all that winter because of losin' the five hundred. I was only a boy. I hadn't got my growth. She overworked because of that rascal's dishonesty, and it broke her down and killed her. I loved my marm," he added simply.

"'Course you did – 'course you did, Bob," said his wife, briskly. Then she smiled about at the tableful of young folk, and confessed: "He begun callin' me 'marm,' like he did his mother, right away when we was married. She'd been dead since he was a little boy, and I considered it the sweetest compliment Bob could pay me. I've been 'marm' to him ever since."

"You sure have," declared Mr. Buckham, stoutly. "But that ain't bringin' my poor old marm back – nor the five hundred dollars. We never did hear direct from Abe Aden; but by and by a leetle gal wandered back here to the neighborhood. Said she was Abe's darter. He and her mother was lost in a big fire in some Western city; and she'd lost her sister, too."

"Poor child!" sighed the old lady. "You couldn't hold a grudge against the child, Bob."

"Who says I done so?" demanded the farmer. "No, sir! I never even seed the child more'n once or twice. But I know her name was Marion. And I heard her tell her story. The Chicago fire was a nine days' wonder, and this fire the gal's parents were lost in, was much similar, I should say. She'd seen her father and mother and the house they lived in, all swept away together – in a moment, almost. She and her sister escaped, but were separated in the refugees' camp and she couldn't never find the other child again. This Marion was old enough to remember about her Uncle Lem, and where he used to live; so the Relief Committee sent her here – glad ter git rid of her on sech easy terms, I s'pose. But Lem Aden had drapped out o' sight before then, and none of us folks knowed where he'd gone to."

"And that little girl was Mrs. Eland?" Ruth ventured to ask, for the farmer's remembrances of old times did not interest the little girls. Posy was heaping their plates with good things to eat. The picnic dinner in the woods had been forgotten.

"Yes. I reckon so," Mr. Buckham said, in answer to Ruth's inquiry. "She was kep' to help by some good people around here – just as we took Posy, marm and me. The child drifted away later. She got some schoolin'. I guess she went to a hospital and l'arned to be a nurse. Then she married a man named Eland, but he was sickly. I dunno as she ever did see her Uncle Lem."

CHAPTER XI

THE STRAWBERRY MARK

Agnes Kenway had never been so uncomfortable in her life as she was sitting at that pleasant tea-table, at which the invalid, Mrs. Buckham, presided. And for once her usually cheerful tongue was stilled.

"What's the matter with Aggie?" asked Neale O'Neil. "Lost your tongue?"

"I believe our pretty one is bashful," suggested Mrs. Buckham, smiling upon the next to the oldest Corner House girl.

"Well, if she is, it's the first time," murmured Neale. But he said no more. Neale suddenly guessed what was troubling his girl friend, and had tact enough to keep his lips closed.

Agnes was just as honest a girl at heart as ever breathed. She did not need the reminder of the farmer's old doggerel to keep her from touching that which was not hers.

At the time when she had led the raid of the basket ball team and their friends upon Mr. Buckham's strawberry patch, she had been inspired by mere thoughtlessness and high spirits. The idea that she was trespassing – actually stealing – never entered her helter-skelter thoughts until afterward.

The field was so large, there were so many berries, and she and her mates took so few, that it really did not seem like stealing to thoughtless Agnes – no, indeed! It was just a prank.

And now to hear Bob Buckham express his horror of a thief!

"And that's what I am!" thought the bitterly repentant Agnes. "No, not a thief now. But I was at the time I took those berries. I am awfully sorry that I did such a thing. I – I wish I could tell him so."

That thought took fast hold upon the girl's mind. Her appreciation of the enormity of her offence had not been so great before – not even when Mr. Marks, the principal of the Milton High School, was talking so seriously to the girls about their frolic.

Then she had felt mainly the keen disappointment the punishment for her wrong-doing had brought. Not to be allowed to take part in the play which she felt sure would be enacted by the pupils of the Milton schools for the benefit of the Women's and Children's Hospital was a bitter disappointment, and that thought filled her mind.

Now she felt a different pang – far different. Shame for her act, and sorrow for the wrong she had done, bore Agnes' spirit down. Little wonder that she was all but dumb, and that her flowerlike face was overcast.

Tea was over and Mr. Buckham drew his wife's wheel-chair back to its usual place by the window. The light was fading even there, and Ruth said that they must start for home.

"Don't run away, sis," said the old farmer. "Marm and me don't have many visitors like you; an' we're glad to have ye."

"I fear that Mrs. MacCall will be afraid for us if we remain away much after dark," Ruth said cheerfully. She had already explained about Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah, and even about Uncle Rufus.

"But we all have had such a nice time," Ruth added. "I know we shall only be too glad to come again."

"That's a good word," declared the invalid. "You can't come too often."

"Thank you," said Ruth. "If Neale will get the ponies ready – "

"And while he's doin' so, I'll take a look at that dog's ear again," said Mr. Buckham, cheerfully. "Wouldn't want nothin' bad to happen to such a brave dog as Tom Jonah."

"He's layin' out behind my kitchen stove, and he behaves like a Christian," Posy declared.

"He's a gentleman, Tom Jonah is," said Tess, proudly. "It says so on his collar," and she proceeded to tell the good-natured maid-of-all-work Tom Jonah's history – how he had first come to the old Corner House, and all that he had done, and how his old master had once unsuccessfully tried to win him back.

"But he wouldn't leave us at all. Would he, Dot?" she concluded.

"Of course not," said the smallest girl. "Why should he? Aren't we just as nice to him as we can be? And he sleeps in the kitchen when it's cold, for Mrs. MacCall says he's too old to take his chances out of doors these sharp nights."

"That's very thoughtful of your Mrs. MacCall, I do allow," agreed the jolly invalid. "And do you suppose she will get your doll's cloak done in time for your call on Mrs. Eland?"