NEALE O'NEIL GETS ESTABLISHED
Perhaps Billy Bumps was as much amazed as anybody when he heard what seemed to be the pig expressing his dissatisfaction in a broad Irish brogue on the other side of the fence.
The old goat's expression was indeed comical. He backed away from the hole through which he had just shot the raider head-first, shook his own head, stamped, and seemed to listen intently to the hostile language.
"Be th' powers! 'Tis a dirthy, mane thrick, so ut is! An' th' poor pig kem t'roo th' hole like it was shot out of a gun."
"It's Mr. Murphy!" whispered Ruth, almost as much overcome with laughter as Agnes herself.
Neale O'Neil was frankly amazed; but in a moment he, like the girls, jumped to the right conclusion. The cobbler had run to the rescue of his pet. He had seized it by the ears as it was trying to crowd under the fence, and tugged, too. When old Billy Bumps had released his pigship, the latter had bowled the cobbler over.
Mr. Con Murphy possessed a vocabulary of most forceful and picturesque words, well colored with the brogue he had brought on his tongue from "the ould dart." Mr. Murphy's "Irish was up" and when he got his breath, which the pig had well nigh knocked out of him, the little old cobbler gave his unrestrained opinion of the power that had shot the pig under the fence.
Ruth could not allow the occurrence to end without an explanation. She ran to the fence and peered over.
"Oh, Mr. Murphy!" she cried. "You're not really hurt?"
"For the love av mercy!" ejaculated the cobbler. "Niver tell me that youse was the one that pushed the pig through the fince that har-rd that he kem near flyin' down me t'roat? Ye niver could have done it, Miss Kenway—don't be tillin' me. Is it wan o' thim big Jarmyn guns youse have got in there, that the pa-apers do be tillin' erbout?"
He was a comical looking old fellow at best, and out here at this early hour, with only his trousers slipped on over his calico nightshirt, and heelless slippers on his feet, he cut a curious figure indeed.
Mr. Con Murphy was a red-faced man, with a fringe of sandy whiskers all around his countenance like a frame, having his lips, chin and cheeks smoothly shaven. He had no family, lived alone in the cottage, and worked very hard at his cobbler's bench.
"Why, Mr. Murphy!" cried Ruth. "Of course I didn't push your pig through the fence."
"It was Billy Bumps," giggled Agnes.
"Who is that, thin?" demanded Mr. Murphy, glaring at Neale O'Neil. "That young felley standin' there, I dunno?"
"No. I only cracked your pig over the nose with this fence paling," said the boy. "I wonder you don't keep the pig at home."
"Oh, ye do, do ye?" cried the little Irishman. "Would ye have me lock him into me spare bedroom?"
"I would if he were mine—before I'd let him be a nuisance to the neighbors," declared Neale O'Neil.
"Oh, Neale!" interposed Ruth. "You mustn't speak so. Of course the pig is annoying——"
"He's a nuisance. Anybody can see that," said the boy, frankly.
"'Tis a smart lad ye ar-re," sneered Mr. Murphy. "Show me how ter kape the baste at home. The fince is not mine, whativer ye say. If it isn't strong enough to kape me pig out——"
"I'll fix it for you in half a day—if you'll pay me for it," interrupted Neale O'Neil.
"How will ye do ut? and how much will ye tax me?" queried the cautious cobbler.
"I'd string a strand of barbed wire all along the bottom of the fence. That will stop the pig from rooting, I'll be bound."
The old Irishman rubbed his chin reflectively. "'Twill cost a pretty penny," he said.
"Then," said Neale O'Neil, winking at the girls, "let's turn Billy Bumps loose, and the next time the pig comes in I hope he'll butt his head off!"
"Hi!" shouted Mr. Murphy. "Who's this Billy Bumps ye air talkin' so fast about?"
"That's our goat," explained Agnes, giggling.
Mr. Murphy's roving eyes caught sight of the billy, just then reflectively nibbling an old shoe that had been flung into the pen.
"Is that the baste that shot me pig under the fince?" he yelped.
Billy Bumps raised his head, shook his venerable beard, and blatted at the cobbler.
"He admits the accusation," chuckled Agnes.
"Shure," said Mr. Murphy, wagging his head, "if that thunderin' ould pi-rat of a goat ever gits a good whack at me pig, he'd dr-rive him through a knothole! Kem over and see me by and by, la-a-ad," he added, to Neale, his eyes twinkling, "and we'll bargain about that barbed wire job."
"I'll be over to see you, sir," promised the white-haired boy.
For Ruth had nudged his elbow and whispered: "You must stay to breakfast with us, Neale."
The boy did so; but he successfully kept up that wall between the girls' curiosity and his own private history. He frankly admitted that he had gone hungry of late to save the little sum he had hoarded for the opening of the Milton schools.
"For I'll have to buy some books—the superintendent told me so. And I won't have so much time then to earn money for my keep," he said. "But I am going to school whether I eat regularly, or not. I never had a chance before."
"To eat?" asked Agnes, slily.
"Not like this!" declared Neale, laughing, as he looked about the abundant table.
But without asking him point-blank just what his life had been, and why he had never been to school, Ruth did not see how she was to learn more than the white-haired boy wished to tell them.
The girls all liked him. Of course, Aunt Sarah, who was very odd, when she came to table did not speak to the boy, and she glared at him whenever he helped himself to one of Mrs. MacCall's light biscuit. But the housekeeper appreciated the compliment he gave her cooking.
"I guess I don't make such bad biscuit after all," she said. "Sometimes you girls eat so little at breakfast that I've thought my days for hot bread making were over."
Neale blushed and stopped eating almost at once. Although frank to admit his poverty, he did not like to make a display of his appetite.
Ruth had been thinking seriously of the proposition, and after breakfast she told Neale that he might remain at the old Corner House—and welcome—until he found just the place he desired.
"But I must pay you," said the boy, earnestly.
"We don't really need to be paid, Neale," said Ruth, warmly. "There are so many empty rooms here, you know—and there is always enough for one more at our table."
"I couldn't stop if I didn't do something to pay you," Neale said, bluntly. "I'm no beggar."
"I tell you!" Ruth cried, having a happy thought. "You can help us clean house. We must get it all done before school begins, so as to help Mrs. MacCall. Uncle Rufus can't beat rugs, and lift and carry, like a younger person."
"I'll do anything," promised Neale O'Neil. "But first I'll fix that Irishman's fence so his pig can't root into your yard any more."
He was over at the cobbler's most of the day, but he showed up for the noon dinner. Ruth had made him promise to come when he was called.
Mrs. MacCall insisted upon heaping his plate with the hearty food. "Don't tell me," she said. "A boy's always hollow clean down to his heels—and you're pretty tall for your age. It'll take some time to fill you up properly."
"If I just let myself go, I really can eat," admitted Neale O'Neil. "And this is so much better cooking than I have been used to."
There it was again! Ruth and Agnes wanted—oh! so much—to ask him where he had lived, and with whom, that he had never before had proper food given him. But although Neale was jolly, and free to speak about everything else, the moment anything was suggested that might lead to his explaining his previous existence, he shied just like an unbroken colt.
"Just as if he didn't have any existence at all," complained Agnes, "before he ran through our side gate this morning, yelling to me to 'hold on.'"
"Never mind. We will win his confidence in time," Ruth said, in her old-fashioned way.
"Even if he had done something——"
"Hush!" commanded Ruth. "Suppose somebody should hear? The children for instance."
"Well! of course we don't really know anything about him."
"And I am sure he has not done anything very bad. He may be ashamed of his former life, but I am sure it is not because of his own fault. He is just very proud and, I think, very ambitious."
Of the last there could be no doubt. Neale O'Neil was not content to remain idle at all. As soon as he had finished at Mr. Murphy's, he returned to the old Corner House and beat rugs until it was time for supper.
There was little wonder that his appetite seemed to increase rather than diminish—he worked so hard!
"I don't believe you ever did have enough to eat," giggled Agnes.
"I don't know that I ever did," admitted Neale.
"Suppose you should wake up in the night?" she suggested. "If you were real hungry it would be dreadful. I think you'd better take some crackers and cheese upstairs with, you when you go to bed."
Neale took this all in good temper, but Mrs. MacCall exclaimed, suddenly:
"There! I knew there was something I forgot from the store to-day. Tess, do you and Dot want to run over to Mr. Stetson's after supper and bring me some crackers?"
"Of course we will, Mrs. MacCall," replied Tess.
"And I'll take my Alice-doll. She needs an airing," declared Dot. "Her health isn't all that we might wish since that Lillie Treble buried her alive."
"Buried her alive?" cried Neale. "Playing savages?"
"No," said Tess, gravely. "And she buried dried apples with her, too. It was an awful thing, and we don't talk about it—much," she added, in a whisper, with a nod toward Dot's serious face.
Out of this trip to the grocery arose a misunderstanding that was very funny in the end. Ruth had chosen the very room, at the back of the house, in which the lady from Ipsilanti and her little daughter had slept, for the use of Neale O'Neil. After supper she had gone up there to make the bed afresh, and she was there when Tess and Dorothy returned home from the store, filled to the lips, and bursting, with a wonderful piece of news.
"Oh, dear me, Ruthie!" cried Dot, being the leader, although her legs were not the longest. "Did you know we all have to be 'scalloped before we can go to school here in Milton?"
"Be what?" gasped the oldest Kenway girl, smoothing up the coverlet of the bed and preparing to plump the pillows.
"No," panted Tess, putting her bundle on the stand by the head of the bed. "'Tisn't 'scalloped, Tess. It's vac—vacilation, I believe. Anyway, it's some operation, and we all have to have it."
"Goodness me!" exclaimed Ruth, laughing. "We've all been vaccinated, kiddies—and it wasn't such a dreadful operation, after all. All we'll have to do is to show our arms to the doctor and he'll see we were vaccinated recently."
"Well!" said Dot. "I knew it had something to do with that 'scallop mark on my arm," and she tried to roll up the sleeve of her frock to see the small but perfect scar that was the result of her vaccination.
They all left the room, laughing. Two hours later the house quieted down, for the family had retired to their several rooms.
To Neale O'Neil, the waif, the big house was a very wonderful place. The fine old furniture, the silver plate of which Uncle Rufus took such loving care, the happy, merry girls, benevolent Mrs. MacCall and her odd sayings, even Aunt Sarah with her grim manner, seemed creatures and things of another world. For the white-haired boy had lived, since he could remember, an existence as far removed from this quiet home-life at the old Corner House, as could be imagined!
He told Agnes laughingly that he would be afraid to leave his room during the night, for fear of getting lost in the winding passages, and up and down the unexpected flights of stairs at the back of the house.
He heard the girls go away laughing when they had showed him to his room. There was a gas-jet burning and he turned it up the better to see the big apartment.
"Hullo! what's this?" Neale demanded, as he spied a paper bag upon the stand.
He crossed to the head of the bed, and put his hand on the package. There was no mistaking the contents of the bag at first touch.
Crackers!
"That's the fat girl!" exclaimed Neale, and for a moment he was really a little angry with Agnes.
It was true, he had gorged himself on Mrs. MacCall's good things. She had urged him so, and he had really been on "short commons" for several days. Agnes had suggested his taking crackers and cheese to bed with him—and here was a whole bag of crackers!
He sat down a moment and glowered at the package. For one thing, he was tempted to put on his cap and jacket and leave the Corner House at once.
But that would be childish. And Ruth had been so kind to him. He was sure the oldest Kenway girl would never perpetrate such a joke.
"Of course, Aggie didn't mean to be unkind," he thought, at last, his good judgment coming to his rescue. "I—I'd like to pay her back. I—I will!"
He jumped up and went to the door, carrying the bag of crackers with him. He opened the door and listened. Somewhere, far away, was the sound of muffled laughter.
"I bet that's that Aggie girl!" he muttered, "and she's laughing at me."