"Oh, don't talk socialism or political economy to me!" said Aunt Sarah. "Thank goodness when I went to school young girls did not fill their heads with such nonsense."
"But when she went to school," Ruth said afterward to Mrs. MacCall, "girls I am sure learned to be charitable and loving. And that is all our Tess is, after all."
"Bless her sweet heart!" exclaimed the housekeeper. "She'll never be hurt by that, it's true. But she does bring awfully queer looking characters to the hoose, Ruth. There's no gainsaying that."
As the children met these other children at the public school, Ruth could not see why the Goronofskys and the Maronis and the Tahnjeans, and even Petunia Blossom's pickaninnies, should not, if they were well behaved, come occasionally to the old Corner House. Nor did she forbid her little sisters taking their schoolmates to ride in the basket phaeton, for the calico pony could easily draw all that could pile into the vehicle.
The children from Meadow Street, and from the other poorer quarters of the town, always appeared at the Kenway domicile dressed in their best, and scrubbed till their faces shone. The parents considered it an honor for their children to be invited over by Tess and Dot.
Sammy, of course, would have found it much more agreeable to drive alone with some of the boys than with a lot of the little girls; but he was very fair about it.
"I can't take you 'nless Tess says so," he said to Iky Goronofsky. "I'm only let to drive this pony; I don't own him. Tess and Dot have the say of it."
"And all the kids is sponging on them," grunted Iky, who always had an eye to the main chance. "You know what I would do if the pony was mine?"
"What would you do, Iky?" asked Sammy.
"I'd nefer let a kid in the cart without I was paid a nickel. Sure! A nickel a ride! And I would soon make the cost of the harness and the cart. That's what my father would do too."