The Corner House Girls at School

When Sam Pinkney brought Billy Bumps over to the old Corner House, and tied him by the corner of the woodshed, there was at once a family conclave called. Sam was never known to be into anything but mischief; therefore when he gravely presented the wise looking old goat to Tess, suspicion was instantly aroused in the Kenway household that there was something beside good will behind Master Sam's gift.

"Beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts," Agnes freely translated.

"But you know very well, Aggie, Sammy Pinkney is not a Greek. He's Yankee-like us. That's a Greek man that sells flowers down on Main Street," said Tess, with gravity.

"What I said is allegorical," pronounced Agnes, loftily.

"We know Allie Neuman-Tess and me," ventured Dot, the youngest of the Corner House girls. "She lives on Willow Street beyond Mrs. Adams' house, and she is going to be in my grade at school."

"Oh, fine, Ruth!" cried Agnes, the twelve-year-old, suddenly seizing the eldest sister and dancing her about the big dining-room. "Won't it be just fine to get to school again?"

"Fine for me," admitted Ruth, who had missed nearly two years of school attendance, and was now going to begin again in her proper grade at the Milton High School.

"Eva Larry says we'll have the very nicest teacher there is-Miss Shipman. This is Eva's last year in grammar school, too, you know. We'll graduate together," said Agnes.

Interested as Tess and Dot were in the prospect of attending school in Milton for the first time, just now they had run in to announce the arrival of Mr. Billy Bumps.

"And a very suggestive name, I must say," said Ruth, reflectively. "I don't know about that Pinkney boy. Do you suppose he is playing a joke on you, Tess?"

"Why, no!" cried the smaller girl. "How could he? For the goat's there."

"Maybe that's the joke," suggested Agnes.

"Well, we'll go and see him," said Ruth. "But there must be some reason beside good-will that prompted that boy to give you such a present."

"I know," Dot said, solemnly.

"What is it, Chicken-little?" demanded the oldest sister, pinching the little girl's cheek.

"Their new minister," proclaimed Dot.

"Their what?" gasped Agnes.

"Who, dear?" asked Ruth.

"Mrs. Pinkney's new minister. She goes to the Kaplan Chapel," said Dot, gravely, "and they got a new minister there. He came to call at Mrs. Pinkney's and the goat wasn't acquainted with him."

"Oh-ho!" giggled Agnes. "Light on a dark subject."

"Who told you, child?" asked Tess, rather doubtfully.

"Holly Pease. And she said that Billy Bumps butted the new minister right through the cellar window-the coal window."

"My goodness!" ejaculated Ruth. "Did it hurt him?"

"They'd just put in their winter's coal, and he went head first into that," said Dot. "So he didn't fall far. But he didn't dare go out of the house again until Sam came home after school and shut Billy up. Holly says Billy Bumps camped right outside the front door and kept the minister a prisoner."

The older girls were convulsed with laughter at this tale, but Ruth repeated: "We might as well go and see him. If he is very savage--"

"Oh, he isn't!" cried Tess and Dot together. "He's just as tame!"

The four sisters started for the yard, but in the big kitchen Mrs. MacCall stopped them. Mrs. MacCall was housekeeper and she mothered the orphaned Kenway girls and seemed much nearer to them than Aunt Sarah Maltby, who sat most of her time in the big front room upstairs, seldom speaking to her nieces.

Mrs. MacCall was buxom, gray-haired-and every hair was martialed just so, and all imprisoned in a cap when the good lady was cooking. She was looking out of one of the rear windows when the girls trooped through.

"For the land sakes!" ejaculated Mrs. MacCall. "What's that goat doing in our yard?"

"It's our goat," explained Tess.

"What?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Dot, seriously. "He's a very nice goat. He has a real noble beard-don't you think?"

"A goat!" repeated Mrs. MacCall. "What next? A goat is the very last thing I could ever find a use for in this world. But I s'pose the Creator knew what He was about when He made them."

"I think they're lots of fun," said roly-poly Agnes, giggling again.

"Fun! Ah! what's that he's eatin' this very minute?" screamed Mrs. MacCall, and she started for the door.

She led the way to the porch, and immediately plunged down the steps into the yard. "My stocking!" she shrieked. "The very best pair I own. Oh, dear! Didn't I say a goat was a perfectly useless thing?"

It was a fact that a limp bit of black rag hung out of the side of Billy Bumps' mouth. A row of stockings hung on a line stretched from the corner of the woodshed and the goat had managed to reach the first in the row.

"Give it up, you beast!" exclaimed Mrs. MacCall, and grabbed the toe of the stocking just as it was about to disappear.

She yanked and Billy disgorged the hose. He had chewed it to pulp, evidently liking the taste of the dye. Mrs. MacCall threw the thing from her savagely and Billy lowered his head, stamped his feet, and threatened her with his horns.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs. MacCall!" cried Ruth, soothingly.

"That won't bring back my stocking," declared the housekeeper. "Half a pair of stockings-humph! that's no good to anybody, unless it's a person with a wooden leg."

"I'll get you a new pair, Mrs. MacCall," said Tess. "Of course, I'm sort of responsible for Billy, for he was given to me."

"You'll be bankrupt, I'm afraid, Tess," chuckled Agnes, "if you try to make good for all the damage a goat can do."

"But it won't cost much to keep him," said Tess, eagerly. "You know, they live on tin cans, and scraps, and thistles, and all sorts of cheap things."

"Those stockings weren't cheap," declared the housekeeper as she took her departure. "They cost seventy-five cents."

"Half your month's allowance, Tess," Dot reminded her, with awe. "Oh, dear, me! Maybe Billy Bumps will be expensive, after all."

"Say! Ruth hasn't said you can keep him yet," said Agnes. "He looks dangerous to me. He has a bad eye."

"Why! he's just as kind!" cried Tess, and immediately walked up to the old goat. At once Billy stopped shaking his head, looked up, and bleated softly. He was evidently assured of the quality of Tess Kenway's kindness.

"He likes me," declared Tess, with conviction.

"Glo-ree!" ejaculated a deep and unctuous voice, on the heels of Tess' declaration. "Wha's all dis erbout-heh! Glo-ree! Who done let dat goat intuh disher yard? Ain' dat Sam Pinkney's ol' Billy?"

A white-haired, broadly smiling old negro, stooped and a bit lame with rheumatism, but otherwise spry, came from the rear premises of the old Corner House, and stopped to roll his eyes, first glancing at the children and then at the goat.

"Whuffor all disher combobberation? Missee Ruth! Sho' ain' gwine tuh take dat ole goat tuh boa'd, is yo'?"

"I don't know what to do, Uncle Rufus," declared Ruth Kenway, laughing, yet somewhat disturbed in her mind. She was a dark, straight-haired girl, with fine eyes and a very intelligent face. She was not pretty like Agnes; yet she was a very attractive girl.

"Oh! we want to keep him!" wailed Dot. She, too, boldly approached Billy Bumps. It seemed as though the goat knew both the smaller Kenway girls, for he did not offer to draw away from them.

"I 'spect Mr. Pinkney made dat Sam git rid ob de ole goat," grumbled Uncle Rufus, who was a very trustworthy servant and had lived for years at the old Corner House before the four Kenway sisters came to dwell there. "I reckon he's a bad goat," added the old man.

"He doesn't look very wicked just now," suggested Agnes.

"But where can we keep a goat?" demanded Ruth.

"Dot used to think one lived in the garret," said Tess, smiling. "But it was only a ghost folks thought lived there-and we know there aren't any such things as ghosts now."

"Don' yo' go tuh 'spressin' ob you' 'pinion too frequent erbout sperits, chile," warned Uncle Rufus, rolling his eyes again. "Dere may hab been no ghos' in de garret; but dere's ghos'es somewhars-ya-as'm. Sho' is!"

"I don't really see how we can keep him," said Ruth again.

"Oh, sister!" cried Tess.

"Poor, dear Billy Bumps!" exclaimed Dot, with an arm around the short, thick neck of the goat.

"If yo' lets me 'spressify maself," said Uncle Rufus, slowly, "I'd say dat mebbe I could put him in one oh de hen runs. We don't need 'em both jest now."

"Goody!" cried Tess and Dot, clapping their hands. "Let's, Ruthie!"

The older sister's doubts were overborne. She agreed to the proposal, while Agnes said:

"We might as well have a goat. We have a pig 'most every day. That pig of Mr. Con Murphy's is always coming under the fence and tearing up the garden. A goat could do no more harm."

"But we don't want the place a menagerie," objected Ruth.

Dot said, gravely, "Maybe the goat and the pig will play together, and so the pig won't do so much damage."

"The next time that pig comes in here, I'm going right around to Mr. Con Murphy and complain," declared Agnes, with emphasis.

"Oh! we don't want to have trouble with any neighbor," objected Ruth, quickly.

"My! you'd let folks ride right over you," said Agnes, with scorn for Ruth's timidity.

"I don't think that poor cobbler, Mr. Murphy, will ride over me-unless he rides on his pig," laughed Ruth, as she followed Mrs. MacCall indoors.

Tess had an idea and she was frank to express it. "Uncle Rufus, this goat is very strong. Can't you fashion a harness and some kind of a cart for him so that we can take turns riding-Dot and me? He used to draw Sam Pinkney."

"Glo-ree!" grumbled the colored man again. "I kin see where I got my han's full wid disher goat-I do!"

"But you can, Uncle Rufus?" said Tess.

"Oh, yes, chile. I s'pect so. But fust off let me git him shut up in de hen-yard, else he'll be eatin' up de hull ob Mis' MacCall's wash-ya'as'm!"

The poultry pens were fenced with strong woven wire, and one of them was not in use. Into this enclosure Mr. Billy Bumps was led. When the strap was taken off, he made a dive for Uncle Rufus, but the darky was nimble, despite his years.

"Yo' butt me, yo' horned scalawag!" gasped the old colored man, when once safe on the outside of the pen, "an' I won't gib yo' nottin' ter chew on but an old rubber boot fo' de nex' week-dat's what I'll do."

The old Corner House, as the Stower homestead was known to Milton folk, stood facing Main Street, its side yard running back a long way on Willow Street. It was a huge colonial mansion, with big pillars in front, and two wings thrown out behind. For years before the Kenway girls and Aunt Sarah Maltby had come here to live, the premises outside-if not within-had been sadly neglected.

But energetic Ruth Kenway had insisted upon trimming the lawn and hedges, planting a garden, repairing the summer-house, and otherwise making neat the appearance of the dilapidated old place.

On the Main Street side of the estate the property of Mr. Creamer joined the Corner House yard, but the Creamer property did not extend back as far as that of the Stower place. In the corner at the rear the tiny yard of Con Murphy touched the big place. Mr. Murphy was a cobbler, who held title to a small house and garden on a back street.

This man owned a pig-a very friendly pig. Of that pig, more later!

Perhaps it was the fruit that attracted the pig into the Stower yard. The Kenway girls had had plenty of cherries, peaches, apples, pears, and small fruit all through the season. There were still some late peaches ripening, and when Agnes Kenway happened to open her eyes early, the very next morning after the goat came to live with them, she saw the blushing beauty of these peaches through the open window of the ell room she shared with Ruth.

Never had peaches looked so tempting! The tree was a tall seedling, and the upper branches hung their burden near the open window.

All the lower limbs had been stripped by Uncle Rufus. But the old man could not reach these at the top of the tree.

"It will be a mean shame for them to get ripe and fall off," thought Agnes. "I believe I can reach them."

Up she hopped and slipped into her bathrobe. Just enough cool air entered the room to urge her to pull on her hose and slip her feet into slippers.

The window was at the back of the big house, away from the Willow Street side, and well protected from observation (so Agnes thought) by the shrubbery.

Below the window was a narrow ledge which ran around the house under the second story windows. It took the reckless girl but a moment to get out upon this ledge. To tell the truth she had tried this caper before-but never at such an early hour.

Clinging to the window frame, she leaned outward, and grasped with her other hand a laden, limb. The peaches were right before her; but she could not pluck them.

"Oh! if I only had a third hand," cried Agnes, aloud.

Then, recklessly determined to reach the fruit, she let go of the window frame and stretched her hand for the nearest blushing peach. To her horror she found her body swinging out from the side of the house!

Her weight bore against the limb, and pushed it farther and farther away from the house-wall; Agnes' peril was plain and imminent. Unable to seize the window frame again and draw herself back, she was about to fall between the peach tree and the side of the house!

* * *