A BRIGHT FUTURE
That Saturday night supper at the old Corner House was rather different from any that had preceded it. Frequently the Corner House girls had company at this particular meal—almost always Neale, and Mr. Con Murphy had been in before.
Once Miss Shipman, Agnes' and Neale's teacher, had come as the guest of honor; and more than once Mr. Howbridge had passed his dish for a second helping of Mrs. MacCall's famous beans.
It was an elastic table, anyway, that table of the Corner House girls. It was of a real cozy size when the family was alone. Mrs. MacCall sat nearest the swing-door into the butler's pantry, although Uncle Rufus would seldom hear to the housekeeper going into the kitchen after she had once seated herself at the table.
She always put on a clean apron and cap. At the other end of the table was Aunt Sarah's place. No matter how grim and speechless Aunt Sarah might be, she could not glare Mrs. MacCall out of countenance, so that arrangement was very satisfactory.
The four girls had their seats, two on either side. The guests, when they had them, were placed between the girls on either side, and the table was gradually drawn out, and leaves added, to suit the circumstances.
Neale always sat between Tess and Dot. He did so to-night. But beside him was the Irish cobbler. Opposite was the stout and glowing Mr. Sorber, prepared to do destruction to Mrs. MacCall's viands first of all, and then to destroy Neale's hopes of an education afterward.
At least, he had thus far admitted no change of heart. He had met Neale with rough cordiality, but he had stated his intention as irrevocable that he would take the boy back to the circus.
Tess and Dot were almost horrified when they came to understand that their friend the lion tamer proposed to take Neale away. They could not understand such an evidently kind-hearted tamer of wild beasts doing such a cruel thing!
"I guess he's only fooling," Tess confided to Dot, and the latter agreed with several nods, her mouth being too full for utterance, if her heart was not.
"These beans," declared Mr. Sorber, passing his plate a third time, "are fit for a king to eat, and the fishcakes ought to make any fish proud to be used up in that manner. I never eat better, Ma'am!"
"I presume you traveling people have to take many meals haphazardly," suggested Mrs. MacCall.
"Not much. My provender," said Mr. Sorber, "is one thing that I'm mighty particular about. I feeds my lions first; then Bill Sorber's next best friend is his own stomach—yes, Ma'am!
"The cook tent and the cooks go ahead of the show. For instance, right after supper the tent is struck and packed, and if we're traveling by rail, it goes right aboard the first flat. If we go by road, that team gets off right away and when we catch up to it in the morning, it's usually set up on the next camping ground and the coffee is a-biling.
"It ain't no easy life we live; but it ain't no dog's life, neither. And how a smart, bright boy like this here nevvy of mine should want to run away from it——"
"Did ye iver think, sir," interposed the cobbler, softly, "that mebbe there was implanted in the la-ad desires for things ye know nothin' of?"
"Huh!" grunted Sorber, balancing a mouthful of beans on his knife to the amazement of Dot, who had seldom seen any person eat with his knife.
"Lit me speak plainly, for 'tis a plain man I am," said the Irishman. "This boy whom ye call nephew——?"
"And he is," Sorber said.
"Aye. But he has another side to him that has no Sorber to it. 'Tis the O'Neil side. It's what has set him at his books till he is the foinest scholar in the Milton Schools, bar none. Mr. Marks told me himself 'twas so."
This surprised Neale and the girls for they had not known how deep was the Irishman's interest in his protégé.
"He's only half a Sorber, sir. Ye grant that?"
"But he's been with the show since he was born," growled the showman. "Why shouldn't he want to be a showman, too? All the Sorbers have been, since away back. I was thinkin' of changing his name by law so as to have him in the family in earnest."
"I'll never own to any name but my own again," declared Neale, from across the table.
"That's your answer, Mr. Sorber," declared Murphy, earnestly. "The boy wants to go his own way—and that's the way of his fathers, belike. But I'm a fair man. I can see 'tis a loss to you if Neale stays here and goes to school."
"I guess it is, Mister," said the showman, rather belligerently. "And I guess you don't know how much of a loss."
"Well," said the cobbler, coolly. "Put a figure to it. How much?"
"How much what?" demanded Mr. Sorber, bending his brows upon the Irishman, while the children waited breathlessly.
"Money. Neale's a big drawin' kyard ye say yerself. Then, how much money will ye take for your right to him?"
Mr. Sorber laid down his knife and fork and stared at Mr. Murphy.
"Do you mean that, sir?" he asked, with strange quietness.
"Do I mean am I willin' to pay the bye out of yer clutches?" demanded the cobbler, with growing heat. "'Deed and I am! and if my pile isn't big enough, mebbe I kin find good friends of Neale O'Neil in this town that'll be glad to chip in wid me and give the bye his chance.
"I've been layin' a bit av money by, from year to year—God knows why! for I haven't chick nor child in the wor-r-rld. Save the bit to kape me from the potter's field and to pay for sayin' a mass for me sowl, what do the likes of me want wid hoardin' gold and silver?
"I'll buy a boy. I have no son of me own. I'll see if Neale shall not do me proud in the years to come—God bliss the bye!"
He seized the boy's hand and wrung it hard. "Oh, Mr. Murphy!" murmured Neale O'Neil and returned the pressure of the cobbler's work-hardened palm.
But Agnes got up and ran around the table and hugged him! "You—you are the dearest old man who ever lived, Mr. Murphy!" she sobbed, and implanted a tearful kiss right upon the top of the cobbler's little snub nose!
"Huh!" grunted Mr. Sorber. Then he said "Huh!" again. Finally he burst out with: "Say, young lady, ain't you going to pass around some of those kisses? Don't I get one?"
"What?" cried Agnes, turning in a fury. "Me kiss you?"
"Sure. Why not?" asked the showman. "You don't suppose that man sitting there is the only generous man in the world, do you? Why, bless your heart! I want Neale back bad enough. And he does make us a tidy bit of money each season—and some of that's to his credit in the bank—I've seen to it myself.
"He's my own sister's boy. I—I used to play with him when he was a little bit of a feller—don't you remember them times, Neale?"
"Yes, sir," said the boy, with hanging head. "But I'm too big for play now. I want to learn—I want to know."
Mr. Sorber looked at him a long time. He had stopped eating, and had dropped the napkin which he had tucked under his chin. Finally he blew a big sigh.
"Well, Mr. Murphy," he said. "Put up your money. You've not enough to buy the boy, no matter how much you have laid away. But if he feels that way——
"Well, what the Old Scratch I'll say to Twomley I don't know. But I'll leave the boy in your care. I'm stickin' by my rights, though. If he's a big success in this world, part of it'll be due to the way I trained him when he was little. There's no doubt of that."
So, that is the way it came about that Neale O'Neil remained at school in Milton and lost the "black dog of trouble" that had for months haunted his footsteps.
The Corner House girls were delighted at the outcome of the affair.
"If we grow to be as old as Mrs. Methuselah," declared Agnes, "we'll never be so happy as we are over this thing."
But, of course, that is an overstatement of the case. It was only a few weeks ahead that Agnes would declare herself surfeited with happiness again—and my readers may learn the reason why if they read the next volume of this series, entitled "The Corner House Girls Under Canvas."
But this settlement of Neale's present affairs was really a very great occasion. Mr. Sorber and Mr. Con Murphy shook hands on the agreement. Mrs. MacCall wiped her eyes, declaring that "such goings-on wrung the tears out o' her jest like water out of a dishclout!"
What Aunt Sarah said was to the point, and typical: "For the marcy's sake! I never did see thet boys was either useful enough, or ornamental enough, to make such a fuss over 'em!"
Uncle Rufus, hovering on the outskirts of the family party, grinned hugely upon Neale O'Neil. "Yo' is sho' 'nuff too good a w'ite boy tuh be made tuh dance an' frolic in no circus show—naw-zer! I's moughty glad yo's got yo' freedom."
Neale, too, was glad. The four Corner House girls got around him, joined hands, and danced a dance of rejoicing in the big front hall.
"And now you need not be afraid of what's going to happen to you all the time," said Ruth, warmly.
"Oh, Neale! you'll tell us all about what happened to you in the circus, won't you, now?" begged Agnes.
"Will you please show me how to do cartwheels, Neale?" asked Tess, gravely. "I've always admired seeing boys do them."
But Dot capped the climax—as usual. "Neale," she said, with serious mien a day or two after, "if that circus comes to town this summer, will you show us how you played Little Daniel in the Lions' Den? I should think that would be real int'resting—and awfully religious!"
THE END