The Corner House Girls Growing Up

  CHAPTER IV

  SCHOOL IN THE OFFING

  Neale O 'Neil, trained as an acrobat, had never lost his suppleness andskill in trapeze work and other gymnastics since leaving Twomley &Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. There was a fine gymnasium atthe Milton high school which he attended, and Neale had made his mark inthe gymnasium work as well as in the studies he loved.

  It was no trick at all for him to put up the wire attachments to makethe aerial tramway altogether to the satisfaction of Tess and Dot andSammy Pinkney. Before evening the following day the wire was stretchedand in place, the pulleys rigged, and the wire basket, which was used asthe car, was traveling back and forth briskly from the window of Sammy'sbedroom to one of the windows of the large room in the east ell of theold Corner House where Tess and Dot slept and had their dolls andplaythings.

  With lengths of clothesline to pull the wire car back and forth, it waseasy for the children to manipulate it. And the car was roomy enough andstrong enough to hold almost anything they might wish to send betweenthe two houses.

  Of course, it was not exactly an airship of any kind. But for the timeTess Kenway, who was usually modestly satisfied with what was done forher, was perfectly delighted with the arrangement.

  As for Dot, she was so pleased, that she felt compelled to sit rightdown in the middle of the drying green beneath the wire, clasping theAlice-doll close to her breast, and gaze up at the car going back andforth as Sammy and Tess manipulated it.

  "Oh! it's delightsome!" gasped the little girl, quoting one of Agnes'favorite expressions.

  When Sammy came down and looked over the fence at her he said:

  "Say, Dot, let's give your dolls a ride."

  "Sam-my Pink-ney!" shrilled Dot vigorously. "If you ever try to ride myAlice-doll or any of her sisters in that car up there I'll-- I'll neverspeak to you again!"

  And she was so much in earnest and seemed so near to tears that Sammyhastily gave his word of honor--as a man and a pirate--never to treatthe dolls to such an aerial trip.

  Mabel Creamer, who lived next door on Main Street, wheeled her littlebrother over to Willow Street to view the wonder of the aerial tramway.When she heard that Dot and Tess would not allow their dolls to be usedas passengers in the aerial car, she offered to put Bubby up there.

  "Why, Mabel!" gasped Tess. "S'pose he should fall out?"

  "Oh," Mabel replied coolly, "he wouldn't hurt himself. He rolled all theway down the cellar stairs yesterday and didn't do a thing tohimself--only broke the cat's dish, 'cause he landed on it."

  "That's some tough baby," pronounced Neale; but after Mabel had wheeledBubby away Tess confided to Neale that she knew why the Creamer'syoungest was so "tough."

  "Why, you know," Tess said earnestly, "almost everything that couldhappen to a baby has happened to him. Mabel hates to take care of him,and she is always forgetting and leaving him to tumble out of thecarriage, or into something babies aren't supposed to get into."

  "And 'member when he got carried away in the hamper by the laundryman?"broke in Dot. "If it hadn't been for our Agnes following in Joe Eldred'smotor car, Bubby might have been washed and ironed and brought back toMrs. Creamer just as flat as a pancake!"

  "That's the capsheaf," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "Bubby Creamer iscertainly a wonderful kid. What do you say, Aggie?" for the older girlhad just appeared, ready dressed for a shopping excursion.

  "Silk-wool to mend my sweater; pins--two kinds; pearl buttons for Dot'swaists; a celluloid thimble for Linda; a pair of hose for Mrs.Mac--extra tops; Aunt Sarah's peppermints for Sunday service; lace forRuthie's collar; hair ribbons for Tessie; a _love_ of a waist I saw atBlackstein & Mape's! and----"

  "Help! Help!" cried Neale, breaking in at last. "And you expect _me_ toaccompany you on a shopping trip, Aggie, when you've all those femininefolderols to buy?"

  "Why not?" demanded Agnes, making innocent eyes. "I want you to carry mypackages."

  "All right. But you'll hitch me out in front of the store to a hitchingpost like any other beast of burden," returned Neale, following in herfootsteps out of the side gate.

  This was a Saturday. Ruth had said that if they were to have company allthe following week and school was to open a week from Monday, they hadall better get out their school books on this evening and begin to getfamiliar with the studies they were to go back to so soon.

  "At least, we would better see if we all remember our A B C's," she saiddryly. "You, Sammy, after being out so long last term because of thescarlet fever, will have to make up some studies if you wish to keep upwith your class."

  "Don't care whether I keep up or not," growled Sammy. "I just hateschool. Every time I think of it I feel like going right off and being apirate, without waiting to learn navigation."

  For Mr. Pinkney, who was a very wise man, had explained to Sammy thatthere was scarcely any use in his thinking of being a pirate if he couldnot navigate a ship. And navigation, he further explained, was a formof mathematics that could only be studied after one had graduated fromhigh school and knew all about algebra.

  Nevertheless, Sammy appreciated the fact that he was included in Ruth'sinvitation and could bring his books over to the Corner Housesitting-room where the girls and Neale O'Neil were wont to study almostevery week-day night during the school year.

  Neale usually took supper at the Corner House on Saturday evenings and,considering the way he came back from the shopping expedition laden withbundles, he certainly deserved something for "the inner man," as hehimself expressed it. A truly New England Saturday night supper wasalmost always served by Mrs. MacCall--baked beans, brown bread andcodfish cakes.

  And pudding! Mrs. MacCall was famous for her "whangdoodle pudding andlallygag sauce"--a title she had given once to cottage pudding and itsaccompanying dressing to satisfy little folks' teasing questions as to"what is _that_?" Neale O'Neil was very fond of this delicacy.

  As he passed his plate for a second helping on this occasion he quotedwith becoming reverence: "The woman that maketh a good pudding is betterthan a tart reply."

  "But Mrs. Adams made a tart once," observed Dot seriously, "and insteadof sifting powdered sugar on it she got hold of her sand-shaker, andwhen she gave Margaret Pease and me each a piece it gritted our teethso we couldn't eat it. So then," concluded Dot, "she found out what shehad done."

  "If she'd given it to Sammy Pinkney," Tess said morosely, "I guess he'dhave eaten it right down and never said a word. I saw him drop his breadand butter and 'lasses on the ground once, and he picked it right up andate it. He said the ground was clean!"

  "No wonder Sammy's such a gritty little chap," chuckled Neale.

  "Well," Mrs. MacCall said cheerfully, and with her usual optimism, "it'san old saying that everybody has to eat a peck of dirt before he dies."

  "So 'tis, Mrs. MacCall," Aunt Sarah rejoined from her end of the table,and with a scornful sniff. "But I want to know whose dirt I'm eating.That Sammy Pinkney is nothing but a little animal."

  This puzzled Dot somewhat, and she whispered to Ruth: "Ruthie, are_good_ little boys, then, vegetables!"

  "No, dear," the elder sister said, smiling while the others laughed."Both bad little boys and good little boys, as well as girls, are humanbeings."

  "And," said Tess soberly, trying to recall something she had learned inthe past, "there isn't any difference between bad girls and bad boys,only the boys are of the male sex and the girls are of the feline sex."

  At that statement there was a burst of laughter.

  "You certainly said something that time, Tess," declared Neale. "For ifthere is anything more feline than a girl that's mad--"

  "Nothing like that, Neale O'Neil," interrupted Agnes quickly. "You wouldbetter sing pretty small, young man. Remember you are outnumbered."

  "Yes," said Tess sedately, "you haven't even Sammy here now to take yourpart, you know, Neale."

  "True for you, Tessie," agreed Neale. "I am in an infinitesimalminority."

  Dot's eyes opened wide
as these long words sounded from the boy's lips,and she gulped just as though she were swallowing them down fordigestion. Agnes' eyes twinkled as she asked the smallest girl:

  "Did you get those two, honey?"

  "Don't make fun of her," admonished Ruth, aside.

  "Well," sighed Dot, soberly, "I do hope I'll get into big words in thereading book this next term. I love 'em. Why! Tess is awfully far aheadof me; she can spell words in four cylinders!"

  And that closed the evening meal with a round of laughter that Dot didnot understand.