How the girls laid the “garret ghost” and how they proved their right and title to Uncle Peter’s estate against the claims of a certain Mrs. Treble (known as “Mrs. Trouble” to the rather pert Agnes) and her little girl, “Double-Trouble,” is told in the first volume of this series, entitled “The Corner House Girls.”
Afterward the little “Adamless Eden” on the corner of Willow and Main Streets is trespassed upon by a boy who has run away from a circus to get an education—Neale O’Neil. He proves to be a thoroughly likable boy, and even Ruth and Tess, who do not much approve of the opposite sex, are prone to like Neale.
In “The Corner House Girls at School” Neale becomes a fixture in the neighborhood, living with Mr. Con Murphy, the little old cobbler on the street back of the Stower place, and doing chores for the Corner House girls and other neighbors to help support himself while he attends school.
The girls extend their acquaintance widely during this first school year at Milton, and when summer comes they visit Pleasant Cove, where they befriend Rosa and June Wildwood, two Southern girls, and meanwhile have adventures galore along the shore. Indeed, “The Corner House Girls Under Canvas” introduces many new friends to both the girls themselves and to the reader, notable among whom is Tom Jonah, who, although only a dog, is a thorough gentleman.
The girls’ friendliness to all living creatures gathers about them, as is natural, a galaxy of pets, including a rapidly growing menagerie of cats, the dog in question, a goat, and (this is Agnes’ inclusion) Sammy Pinkney, the little boy who is determined to be a pirate when he grows up.
The fall following this summer vacation just mentioned, sees all the Corner House girls taking part in a play produced by the combined effort of the town schools. Their failures and successes in producing The Carnation Countess is interwoven with a mystery surrounding the punishment of Agnes and some of her fellow-classmates for an infraction of the rules—a punishment that promises at one time to spoil the play entirely. “The Corner House Girls in a Play” is interesting and it turns out happily in the end. One of the best things about it is the fact that three thousand dollars is raised by means of the play for the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and Mrs. Eland, the matron, is able to retain her position in that institution.
Mrs. Eland and her sister, Miss Pepperill, who has been Tess Kenway’s school teacher, become very good friends of the Corner House girls. In the volume of the series immediately preceding this present narrative, entitled “The Corner House Girls’ Odd Find” the Kenways find an old, apparently worthless, album in the garret of the mansion—a treasure room which seems inexhaustible in its supply of mystery and amusing incidents.
This album seems to contain a lot of counterfeit money and bonds, which in the end prove to have been hidden in the Stower house by a miserly uncle of Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill, Mr. Lemuel Aden, who had died too suddenly to make a will or to tell of his hidden treasure—and the money and bonds are really perfectly good.
The four Kenway sisters, therefore, saw their friends, the hospital matron and the school teacher, made comfortably wealthy for life; and the beautiful, seven passenger touring car, with self-starter, “quick top,” and all the modern appurtenances of a good automobile, was the gift of the legatees of Mr. Lemuel Aden.
“But it might as well be a flivver,” said Agnes, in disgust, “if we’ve got to sit here all day and watch a fat brown pony whisk his tail.”