In "The Corner House Girls at School," the second volume, the four Kenway sisters extended the field of their acquaintance in Milton and thereabout, entered the local schools in the several grades to which they were assigned, made more friends and found some few rivals. They began to feel, too, that responsibility which comes with improved fortunes, for Uncle Peter Stower had left a considerable estate to the four girls, of which Mr. Howbridge, the lawyer, was administrator as well as the girls' guardian.
Now the second summer of their sojourn at the old Corner House was just ending, and the girls had but recently returned from a most delightful outing at Pleasant Cove, on the Atlantic Coast, some distance away from Milton, which was an inland town.
All the fun and adventure of that vacation are related in "The Corner House Girls Under Canvas," the third volume of the series, and the one immediately preceding the present story.
Tess was seldom vindictive; but after she had puzzled her poor brain for this half hour, trying to pick out and to get straight the Williams and Stephens and Henrys and Johns and Edwards and Richards, to say nothing of the Georges, who had reigned over England, she was quite flushed and excited.
"I know I'm just going to de-test that Miss Pepperpot!" she exclaimed. "I—I could throw this old history at her—I just could!"
"But you couldn't hit her, Tess," Dot observed placidly. "You know you couldn't."
"Why not?"
"Because you can't throw anything straight—no straighter than Sammy Pinkney's ma. I heard her scolding Sammy the other day for throwing stones. She says, 'Sammy, don't you let me catch you throwing any more stones.'"
"And did he mind her?" asked Tess.
"I don't know," Dot replied reflectively. "But he says to her: 'What'll I do if the other fellers throw 'em at me?' 'Just you come and tell me, Sammy, if they do,' says Mrs. Pinkney."