The Corner House Girls Solve a Mystery

Out of the moonlight shadows he came, a timid and shrinking figure of a Chinese.

THE

CORNER HOUSE GIRLS

SOLVE A MYSTERY

WHAT IT WAS, WHERE IT WAS, AND

WHO FOUND IT

BY

GRACE BROOKS HILL

Author of “The Corner House Girls,”

“The Corner House Girls on Palm Island,” Etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

THELMA GOOCH

BARSE & HOPKINS

PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK, N.Y. NEWARK, N.J.

Copyright, 1923

by

Barse & Hopkins

The Corner House Girls Solve a Mystery

Printed in the U. S. A.

ILLUSTRATIONS

• [Out of the moonlight shadows he came, a timid and shrinking figure of a Chinese]
• [The two men looked up quickly, having been stopped by Ruth’s voice]
• [There sat Tess on a flat rock in a shallow place in the middle of the brook]
• [The younger Corner House girls poked into the dark corners of the cellar]

THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY

CHAPTER I
A DROP IN EGGS

“Hello!”

“Goodness sakes! don’t holler like that again, Sammy Pinkney.”

“He almost made me drop the cake batter!”

Tess Kenway, who had administered the rebuke to the small boy when he gave a shout, thrusting his head in through the half-opened kitchen door, fanned herself with her apron as she closed the oven of the stove. Her sister Dot, who was pouring something from a brown bowl into a tin pan, set the former down on the table and shook her finger at Sammy.

“What are you doin’?” asked Sammy, as he slid farther into the kitchen and possessed himself of a chair near the table, looking casually over what it contained.

“Cakes,” answered Tess. “I guess the oven’s hot enough now, Dot,” she went on, again opening and closing the door.

“Cakes!” exclaimed Sammy, smacking his lips. “I should think if you made one cake it would be——”

“We’re each making a cake, if you please!” declared Tess, with a superior air. “And we wish you wouldn’t come around here bothering us—don’t we, Dot?”

“Yes, we do,” joined in the other small sister.

“And if you want any of my cake, Sammy Pinkney—Oh, don’t you dare sit in that chair!” she shrieked as, dropping a spoon covered with cake batter and thereby spattering the boy, she made a rush for him just in time to prevent him from occupying another chair nearer to the scene of the cake-making.

“What’s the matter with that chair?” protested Sammy, in a grieved tone, as he went back to his original place.

“My—my Alice-doll!” answered Dot faintly.

“You—you nearly squashed her, Sammy.” And, pulling the chair out from beneath the table, she disclosed her very choicest child—the loved “Alice-doll.”

“Aw, how’d I know she was there?” asked Sammy.

“You didn’t have to come in,” retorted Tess, who, though older than her sister, yet shared in the latter’s love for Alice and did not want to see her “squashed.”

“Pooh, I don’t have to come in if I don’t want to,” declared Sammy independently. “But I was goin’ to show you how you could have some fun.”

“Some fun?” questioned Tess, alive to the possibilities in that word.

“What kind of fun?” Dot wanted to know, putting her Alice-doll in a safer place.

“Aw, what good would it do me to tell you!” and Sammy affected an air of injured innocence. “All you care about is bakin’ cakes!”

“We do not—so there!” cried Tess, with an uptilting of her little nose, as she had seen Nalbro Hastings affect on occasions. “If you know any fun, Sammy Pinkney, you ought to tell us, ’cause we’ll soon have to go back to school.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Dot. “When I was on Plam Island I never thought of school.”

“’Tisn’t Plam Island,” corrected Sammy. “It’s——”

“I know what it is! I don’t have to get you to tell me!” snapped Dot, for she was a bit sensitive about her mispronunciation, having been corrected so often. “But when my cake’s done you can have some, Sammy,” she added, more gently, as if ashamed of her little outburst.

“And I’ll give you some of mine,” offered Tess. “It’s going to be chocolate.”

“Good!” cried Sammy, and all his ill-feeling vanished.

“Mine’s cocoanut,” said Dot. “And I guess we’d better put ’em in the oven, Tess. Mrs. MacCall said to put ’em in when the oven felt hot to your hand.”

“All right.”

The two little girls, having poured their cake batter into separate tins, placed their concoctions in the oven and closed the door.

“There!” announced Tess. “Now you can tell us about the fun, Sammy,” and she seemed to have shaken from her small shoulders the cares of the universe.

“I’m going to be in it, and so is my Alice-doll!” declared Dot, as she brought the pretend-child from the shelf where she had placed her for safety.

“Is Mrs. Mac around?” asked Sammy suspiciously, for he was a bit afraid of the bluff but kind Scotch housekeeper.

“No, she’s away upstairs,” answered Tess encouragingly. “She won’t be down for a long time. She and Ruth and Agnes are talking about doing over one of the rooms. That girl who had something the matter with her teeth is coming to stay a while.”

“We’re going to have a party,” confided Dot. “But these cakes aren’t for that,” she hastened to say, lest Sammy might think he would have to wait too long for the promised reward.

“You mean that that Nally Hastings you’re always talking about is coming?” asked the boy.

“Yes!” answered both little girls. They did not want to talk too much for they desired to hear what fun Sammy had in prospect.

Miss Nalbro Hastings, from Boston, had become acquainted with the Corner House girls some time before. At first she had had the reputation of being affected and “stuck up,” especially in the manner of her talk.

But later it was learned that she was suffering from the loss of some teeth, which had been knocked out in a runaway-horse accident, and this accounted for her speaking of Neale O’Neil as:

“That charming Mistah O’Neil, who ith tho interethting!”

“Well, if Mrs. Mac isn’t around,” began Sammy slowly—“But where’s your Aunt Sarah?” he suddenly demanded, for he had sharp recollections of how Miss Maltby had more than once sent him “a-kiting,” as she called it, when he had been up to some of his mischief.

“Oh, Aunt Sarah has gone for a ride,” chuckled Tess. “You can tell us, Sammy. But we’ve got to stay in the kitchen until our cakes are done,” she added, lest Sammy’s plan involve going afield with the cake batter still in the oven.

“Oh, we can have some of the fun right here,” replied Sammy. “I guess this is the best place for it, anyhow. You sure Mrs. Mac won’t come down and catch me?” he asked, looking about and cocking his head on one side, to listen more sharply.

“No, she and Agnes and Ruth just went upstairs,” reported Tess. “They’ll be there a long time. Mrs. Mac got the things for us to make the cakes and told us just how to do it. I’ve made a cake before, but Dot hasn’t,” and Tess assumed her superior air which moved Dot to exclaim:

“Well, I’ve eaten cakes, anyhow!”

“So’ve I!” chuckled Sammy. “And I’m ready to do it again. Well, if nobody’s coming I’ll show you the fun. Got any raw beefsteak?” he asked, suddenly.

“Raw beefsteak?” questioned Dot, wonderingly.

“Sammy Pinkney, have you got a new dog?” demanded Tess, excitedly. “If you have——”

“Naw, I haven’t got a new dog,” declared Sammy. “Maybe I’m goin’ to have one, though, for Robbie Foote, who delivers groceries for Mrs. Kranz, the delicatessen lady, says he thinks he knows where he can get me a dog if my mother’ll let me have it. But I don’t guess she will as long as I have Buster.”

“I should think not,” said Tess, with an air of motherly wisdom.

“But a dog is nice,” said Dot. “And if you had one with a very soft and shaggy back, Sammy, I’d let my Alice-doll ride on him. Buster’s only a bulldog and not at all nice. He’s really horrid!” and Dot sniffed a little.

“Well, I haven’t got the dog—yet,” Sammy said.

“Then what do you want the raw beefsteak for?” demanded Tess.

“For the alligator,” whispered Sammy, as if he feared that Mrs. MacCall, the Scotch housekeeper, would hear him, even on the top floor of the old and rambling Corner House.

“The alligator!” cried Tess.

“The one we brought you from Plam Island?” demanded Dot.

“’Tisn’t Plam Island, I tell you!” insisted Sammy. “It’s Palm, and——”

“I call it Plam,” remarked Dot sweetly and with an air of finality. “But where is he, Sammy—the alligator I mean? He was so cute, even if he was homely.”

“I have him outside,” Sammy answered. “I didn’t want to bring him in until I was sure it was all right. That’s the reason I looked in first and said ‘hello!’”

“And nearly made me drop my cake,” sighed Dot.

“But what about the raw beefsteak?” asked Tess.

“That’s to make the alligator do the trick,” explained Sammy.

“What trick?” cried both little girls at once.

“I’ll show you.”

Sammy went outside again. Tess and Dot were so eager they could scarcely await his return, but it was not many minutes before Sammy again made his appearance with a small box which he put on the kitchen table, shoving to one side spoons, pans and dishes that had been used with prodigal extravagance in the making of two very small cakes.

“Get the beefsteak,” Sammy ordered, with an air of one used to being obeyed.

“I’ll get it. There’s some in the ice box,” offered Tess. “But don’t do the trick until I get back,” she commanded.

“I won’t,” Sammy promised.

While Tess went to the pantry Dot knelt in a chair as close to the mysterious box as she could get.

“Let me just peek at him until Tess comes back,” she pleaded. “You don’t need do the trick.”

Sammy obligingly raised the cover of the box slightly.

“Oh, Sammy Pinkney, what have you done to the lovely alligator?” cried Dot, starting back.

“Keep still! It’s part of the trick,” answered Sammy.

“Oh, you said you wouldn’t do it while I was gone!” cried Tess accusingly, as she came in with some shreds of meat and heard the last words.

“I didn’t,” declared Sammy. “I was just showing him to Dot. I’ll lift him out now. Put the meat on the table.”

“I haggled off one end of a steak,” said Tess. “I hope Mrs. Mac doesn’t notice it.”

“If she does,” chuckled Sammy, “tell her one of the cats did it.”

“There’s plenty of them around, but of course Dot and I don’t tell fibs,” declared Tess. “Now come on. Do the trick, Sammy.”

Sammy looked matters over before opening the box. The shreds of meat that Tess had placed on the table caught his eyes.

“Don’t leave ’em in such big chunks,” he advised. “Snapper will choke on ’em.”

“Is that what you call your alligator—Snapper?” asked Tess, as she proceeded to cut up the meat into smaller bits. She and her sisters had brought the scaly reptile back with them from Palm Island as a souvenir for Sammy.

“Snapper is his name, and my mother says snappish is his nature,” answered the boy. “But he only snaps when he wants things to eat. I guess those are all right,” he went on, as he looked at the bits of steak cut smaller by Tess.

Then he lifted out onto the table a small, tame alligator, at the sight of which the two girls broke into exclamations of:

“Oh, isn’t he cute! How did you ever do it! Oh, he looks just like a circus alligator!”

“Maybe I’ll put him in a circus,” said Sammy. “But it wasn’t easy to dress him up.”

Sammy had, with the expenditure of much time and (for him) labor, made a sort of clown suit for the alligator, a little red jacket and green trousers. The two front legs of the small alligator were thrust through the sleeves of the red jacket, and the two hind legs stuck out of the green legs of the trousers.

“Oh, he’s too funny for anything!” declared Dot.

“Wait! You haven’t seen half yet!” promised the boy.

Again he reached into the box he had carried over from his home, which was catercornered from the Corner House, and this time he lifted out a small wagon, purchased at the five and ten-cent store. To this vehicle he had fastened a harness so that Snapper could be hitched to the toy.

“Oh, isn’t that a darling!” cried Tess in ecstasy.

“You could have a show with that!” declared Dot.

“Maybe I will,” said Sammy. “But wait, you haven’t seen it all yet. Wait till he draws the cart. Keep the meat away from him until I hitch him up,” he went on. “Once he starts to eating raw steak he won’t pull. I have to bribe him to do it till he gets better trained. Don’t let him get the meat, Tess.”

At what, it would seem, was the risk of having her fingers snapped at, the girl removed the bits of meat from in front of the little alligator. Sammy then hitched it to the cart and next, taking a shred of meat, held it a few inches away from Snapper’s nose.

Slowly the alligator from “Plam Island” began crawling across the table, anxious to get the dainty, and, as he crawled, he hauled after him the toy cart.

“Oh, that’s perfectly wonderful!” cried Tess.

“Too cute for anything!” added Dot. “Look, Alice-doll,” she went on, holding her most-loved “child” up to see.

“Aw, what does she know about it?” jeered Sammy.

“My Alice-doll knows more’n you do, Sammy Pinkney, so there!” retorted Dot.

Just then there was a noise at the outer kitchen door, and the three children turned apprehensively, thinking it might be their Aunt Sarah or Mrs. MacCall.

“It’s only Billy Bumps,” remarked Sammy, as he caught sight of the goat entering. Billy was a sort of privileged neighborhood character, but had Mrs. MacCall been present he never would have entered her clean kitchen. However, Sammy, Dot and Tess were not so particular. Besides, they were watching the alligator do his trick with the little cart.

But peace and quiet was not to reign for long. Billy Bumps, discovering on a small table in a corner a bit of lettuce, began munching this. His tail was toward the larger table, on which Snapper was performing, and, as luck would have it, just then the alligator in his wanderings came to the edge of the table. The goat’s slightly moving tail was within easy reach of the jaws.

Perhaps Snapper might have recognized in the goat’s tail a resemblance to some dainty he was accustomed to feed on while a resident of Palm Island. Or perhaps Snapper took the goat’s tail for a new form of beefsteak, of which he was very fond.

However that may be, this is what happened.

Snapper reached forward and, aiming to bite out a generous section of the goat’s tail, took a firm hold.

“Baa-a-a-a!” bleated the goat.

He wheeled around suddenly, and with such force that he swung Snapper from the table to the floor, the alligator loosening its grip. But Billy Bumps had been frightened. He also thought he had been mistreated. With another bleat, in which rage and reproach were mingled, he made a dash for the door by which he had entered.

Just as he reached it there entered Robbie Foote with some eggs that Mrs. Kranz, the “delicatessen lady,” had sent up to the Corner House from her store.

“Oh!” gasped Robbie. And again: “Oh!”

Well might he say that, for the plunging goat took him in the stomach and down went Robbie.

Down went the eggs also, in a smash of shells, whites and yellows on the kitchen floor, and Snapper the alligator, wondering what it was all about, started to crawl through the mess.

“Oh,” gasped Tess faintly.

“Oh dear!” cried Dot, more loudly.

“This—this—this is fierce!” stuttered Sammy, gazing wildly at the scene of wreck and confusion.

CHAPTER II
A QUEER PAIR

“Agnes, did you hear anything?”

“I’m not sure, Ruth, but I did think I heard something in the kitchen, still——”

“I shouldn’t have left Dot and Tess there alone to finish making their cakes, I’m afraid,” went on the oldest of the Corner House girls. “But they begged and teased so to be allowed to bake something by themselves, that I gave in against my better judgment. I’m always doing that!”

“Don’t reproach yourself,” murmured Agnes. “Oh, I’m afraid I’ve broken one of my nails,” she exclaimed, looking at her well-manicured hands. “Yes, it is broken!” she sighed. “And I was going to——”

“Something else besides a fingernail is broken, to judge by the racket down in the kitchen!” exclaimed Ruth, interrupting her “beauty sister,” as she sometimes called Agnes.

Ruth had opened the door of the room in which she and her sister, with the housekeeper, Mrs. MacCall, had been discussing the advisability of having it repapered in anticipation of the time when Miss Hastings should come to visit them, the Boston girl having accepted a very cordial invitation to stay a few weeks at the Corner House.

“Something has happened!” declared Ruth, with conviction.

“Oh, the puir bairns!” exclaimed motherly Mrs. MacCall. “Hech! Hech! Mayhap the dratted stove hae burned them! Oh, woe is me!”

“They know better than to get burned,” answered Ruth. “But I think we’d better go down and see what has happened.”

“You think!” gasped Agnes, looking at her fractured nail. “I just know we had!”

Followed by Mrs. MacCall, with her ominous “hech! hech!” the while mumbling incomprehensible Scotch words, the two sisters hastened down the stairs. When they caught sight of the kitchen with its mixture of eggs and alligator, Ruth felt like saying what Sammy had said—with added adjectives.

“Oh, what has happened?” cried Agnes.

“Sammy was doing a trick, Aggie, and—” began Dot. Then she caught sight of her Alice-doll on the floor with a slowly moving trail of egg yellow, like lava from a volcano, working toward her, and with a cry sprang to save her.

“Trick!” spluttered Robbie Foote, as he arose and wiped some white of egg from his face. “If you call that a trick——”

“What’s burning?” asked Ruth.

“Oh, my cake! My cake!” shouted Tess.

Mrs. MacCall simply raised her hands in the air. She was beyond speech.

“This,” said Sammy Pinkney again, “is fierce!”

But it was not always thus in the Corner House. Usually the house was as quiet and orderly as is the normal household inhabited by four healthy, happy girls and their friends and playmates. However, this confusion will serve one good purpose. It will enable me to acquaint my new readers more formally with the characters who are to play their parts in this story.

Bloomingsburg was the former home of the Kenway sisters when you first met them in the opening volume of this series, called “The Corner House Girls.” There was a reason for that name, since the quartette came to live in the Corner House at Milton. A distant relative of the Kenways, Uncle Peter Stower, had died and left the four orphan girls all his property. This included the Stower homestead, known far and wide in that section as the old Corner House.

Mr. Howbridge, who was named the guardian of the girls, managed matters for them and saw to it that Ruth, Agnes, Dot and Tess were safely domiciled in the Corner House. With them came Aunt Sarah Maltby, an old lady who was rather a trial at times, for she was always afraid something was going to happen. What this “something” was she never could be sure of, but it was an ever-present fear.

However, the looking after the girls devolved more upon stanch Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus, the devoted colored servant of the late Peter Stower, so Aunt Sarah did not need to be relied upon.

Thus Ruth, the oldest, and her three sisters, came to live in the Corner House, the poverty days in Bloomingsburg being a thing of the past.

“She might have come along and visited us just as we are, and just as she was,” complained Ruth. “But I suppose she thought she had to run back to Boston for more dresses.”

“That reminds me,” said Agnes thoughtfully, carefully filing her broken nail. “I suppose we shall need new gowns for the party. Oh, can’t we afford it, Ruth?”

“I think so.” And Ruth smiled. “We haven’t been very extravagant, Mr. Howbridge says.” She referred to their man of affairs. “He says we have some of our summer allowance left.”

“Good! Then I’m going to have that voile I’ve wanted so long. And it’s going to be lavender, too.”

“I suppose that’s Neale’s favorite color,” remarked Ruth.

“What if it is? Doesn’t Luke like those pale, neutral tints, and——”

“I like them myself,” interrupted Ruth demurely, “and I saw the loveliest shade of—Who are those two men coming in?” she broke off to ask the housekeeper.

“Wha’ twa min, dearie?”

“Those queer-looking ones—like two tramps. I just saw them going around toward the side entrance. Dot and Tess are on the porch. I don’t want tramps to frighten them or Linda. I’d better go down and see who they are. I don’t like their looks.”

“But we haven’t settled about the paper for Nally’s room!” called Agnes.

“You settle it with Mrs. Mac,” returned Ruth. “I must see about those two queer men.”

Dot and Tess had not long lived in their new home before they made the acquaintance of Sammy Pinkney, who dwelt catercornered from the Corner House, and Sammy, Dot and Tess had royal good times together.

Ruth and Agnes, being older—in fact, Ruth now being quite a young lady—had more mature friends. Among them might especially be mentioned Luke Shepard. His name was being coupled with Ruth’s in “quite a matrimonial manner,” Agnes laughingly remarked, at which Ruth retorted:

“You needn’t talk! What about Neale O’Neil?”

Whereat Agnes had the grace to blush.

Luke Shepard was a young collegian who was more or less at the Corner House—less when at college and more often during vacation times. Luke lived with his sister Cecile at Grantham, not many miles away. Their Aunt Lorena kept house for the young folks. They had a very good neighbor, and this neighbor had aided Luke in going to college. But now the young man was helping himself, having become an assistant during his vacations to a certain Professor Keeps. Often Luke came to Milton, staying with Neale O’Neil when he did so.

As for Neale, there was a romantic history connected with him. After running away from the circus he had lived with the Milton cobbler, and there was a mystery about his father who had gone to Alaska in search of gold. There were dark days for Neale until his father came back, not fabulously rich, but in much better circumstances than when he went away.

However, the wanderlust called Mr. O’Neil, and he went away again, first, however, providing well for his son. Had he wished, Neale might have had a house of his own, but he continued to live with old but loving Con Murphy, and he continued, too, to look after many details for the Kenway girls around their place. That this gave him a chance to see Agnes more often, may have had something to do with it.

The Kenway girls made the most delightful friends, and what wonderful adventures they had is told in the volumes of this series succeeding the first. These happenings included going to school, camping out, giving a play, making an odd find, touring, and growing up. Once the four were snowbound and had a most amazing time, and again they spent a summer on a houseboat, following which they had a rather “hectic time,” as Agnes called it, among the Gypsies.

Their latest adventures had been on Palm Island, or, as Dot insisted on calling it, “Plam Island,” whither the quartette went because a change to a warmer climate was needed for their health, severe colds having been contracted when Ruth and Agnes attended a party on a stormy wintry day.

In spite of some very exciting and not altogether happy adventures related in “The Corner House Girls on Palm Island,” which is the title of the volume immediately preceding the one you are now reading, the girls enjoyed their summer vacation. They had been home now about two weeks, when there occurred the happening set down in the first chapter of this volume.

Wishing to bring Sammy Pinkney back some souvenir from Palm Island, an alligator, not too large, had been selected, though Dot said he had expressed a preference for a “turkle.” However, the turtles, of which there was an abundance on Palm Island, were far too large to bring north and the young alligator had been a compromise.

That Sammy was delighted with his new pet goes without saying. He even gave Snapper more attention than Buster, his bulldog, received. Then Sammy got the idea of dressing up the alligator and of hitching it to a toy cart.

“Oh, children! what happened?” cried Ruth, despair in her voice.

“I—didn’t—drop—those eggs!” declared Robbie, speaking in gasps, for some yellow was now running into his mouth. “The goat—he butted me.”

“The goat!” cried Agnes, looking around.

“He’s gone out now,” said Sammy mildly. “The alligator bit his tail!”

“The alligator—” Ruth stopped for want of words.

“Our cakes are burning! Oh, our cakes are burning!” wailed Dot.

There was a decided odor of too-much-baked cake permeating the kitchen.

“I’ll take ’em out for ye!” offered Mrs. MacCall. “Oh, ye puir bairns! Sorrow is the day!”

“Tess, tell me about it!” commanded Ruth, when the cakes had been rescued, and only just in time.

While the mess of eggs was being cleaned from the floor by Linda, the maid, who had been down in the laundry during the excitement, and when Sammy had ascertained by close examination that his alligator was unharmed (though one wheel of the cart was broken), peace and quiet once more reigned in the Corner House.

“But don’t ever do anything like that again, Sammy!” cautioned Ruth, shaking a warning finger at the boy. “If you want to show off your alligator, do it in the garage.”

“Yes’m,” mumbled Sammy.

The three younger children were sent out-of-doors, with some of the newly baked cakes, and the conference upstairs, as to what kind of paper should be put on the guest room, was resumed.

“Nally is so—so particular,” murmured Agnes, “though she is a dear girl. I’d like her to have a nice room.” They all called Nalbro, Nally now.

CHAPTER III
DISQUIETING NEWS

Ruth Kenway reached the rear porch of the house just as the two queer men—ragged and dirty they were, too—were starting down the outside cellar steps. Ruth had noticed that Tess, Dot and Sammy had departed, probably having gone over to Sammy’s house, so there was no fear that the children would be frightened by the tramps. And tramps they seemed to be.

They were really evil-looking men, and for a moment Ruth hesitated. But she had not acted as mother to her younger sisters all these years for nothing. Besides, was not the stout Linda within call and was not Neale in the garage, working over the car? He could be called in a moment. Therefore it was with a very cool, calm and collected voice that she asked:

“What do you want?”

“Oh—er—you see, lady——”

The two men looked up quickly, having been stopped by Ruth’s voice on the topmost cellar step. The two looked up, but the evidently older, and certainly the uglier, of the pair, did the talking.

The two men looked up quickly, having been stopped by Ruth’s voice.

“There’s been—there’s been a leak in the street water main, lady, and we’ve been sent to look over your pipes,” he mumbled. “We’re from the water department,” he added. “We just want to make sure your pipes are all right.”

He mumbled his words and seemed ill at ease, still Ruth, after hearing that the men were from the water department, did not pay much attention. Once before there had been a break in their street, and the water had to be shut off for a whole day. Ruth remembered this and so said:

“I hope you don’t have to turn the water off. If you do, wait until I have the maid draw some.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to shut it off, lady,” said the uglier man, his companion having already disappeared into the black depths of the cellar. “If we do I’ll let you know.”

“All right,” Ruth assented as she turned away. It was not uncommon for the gas man, the one who read the electric meter, and the one who kept tally of the water meter, to enter the cellar by this rear door unannounced during the summer when the door was kept open. “The water turns off up in front,” added the girl, thinking the men might not know where to find the stop. “But don’t shut it off without letting me know.”

“No’m,” muttered the spokesman, as he followed his companion.

Ruth walked through the kitchen, which now, under the powerful ministrations of Linda, was resuming its wonted neat appearance.

“What was it, Ruthie?” asked Agnes, coming down with Mrs. MacCall.

“Just some men from the water department to see about a leak.”

“They must na shoot it off until I gang away an’ draw some,” protested the housekeeper. “Linda, lass——”

“No, they won’t turn it off without telling us,” Ruth assured her. “Now about the paper—did you settle on a pattern? I want to get the room in shape for Nally.”

“I think this is the prettiest,” suggested Agnes, holding out a sample, one of several the decorator had left.

“Yes, that will do nicely,” agreed Ruth. “And now—Oh, what about eggs?” she asked quickly. “I suppose those poor Robbie brought were all smashed.”

“A regular omelet!” laughed Agnes.

“I must telephone Mrs. Kranz for more,” said Ruth.

“The boy, he have gone after some,” announced Linda. “But he say he hope he no have to pay for them what is braked, ’cause he——”

“Of course we wouldn’t think of letting poor Robbie pay for them,” declared Ruth. “It wasn’t his fault. It was Sammy’s—with the girls’ goat and his alligator.”

“As much the fault of Dot and Tess as Sammy,” declared Agnes. “They shouldn’t have let him turn the kitchen table into a circus ring.”

“Oh, well,” and Ruth smiled, “I’ll just telephone Mrs. Kranz to put the second dozen on our bill and not to scold Robbie,” and as she went into the other room to the telephone, Mrs. MacCall softly observed:

“Your sister, she thinks of everything, Aggie, my dear! She wauld nae hae Rabbie scoldit the day.”

“And quite proper, too. But you are right, Mrs. Mac. Ruth is an angel!”

When Ruth, unaware of the kind words spoken in her absence, had finished straightening out the egg matter, Agnes telephoned for the paper hanger to come and see about redecorating the room Miss Hastings was to occupy during her stay. There were to be other guests at the house party, which was to last at least a week, but the Boston girl was the one over whom the most “fuss” was made.

“We want to give her a good impression of us,” said Agnes.

“Oh, it isn’t exactly that,” declared Ruth. “She isn’t a bit haughty and stand-offish, as we at first supposed.”

“And since she has her new teeth and talks like a human being I adore her!” declared Agnes. “But that room needed papering anyhow. Now let’s talk about our dresses. I wish we could get some one besides Ann Titus to make them.”

“But she’s the best one in Milton, and she needs the money,” said Ruth, gently.

“I know, but she does talk so! If she’s working here and we happen to have corned beef and cabbage for dinner—as we do sometimes—it’s known all over Milton next day.”

“Yes, she does talk a lot. But—well, we’ll see about it. Have you invited Cecile, Agnes?”

“Of course. Think I’d forget her? I put her invitation in with Luke’s.”

“Oh—” Ruth blushed a little.

“Didn’t you expect to have him come?” demanded the “beauty sister.”

“Oh, yes, he might drop in——”

“Drop in, my dear! He’ll fly in at the least opportunity. It’s my firm belief that he has Linda subsidized!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he bribes her to keep him posted about goings on here, and whenever we have the least bit of festivity Luke arranges his college schedule so he can get time off—make cuts, you know—so as to be here. Of course he only comes to see Neale,” and Agnes tilted her pretty nose into the air.

Ruth laughed, evidently not ill pleased with her sister’s declaration.

“As for Neale,” went on Agnes, “I’m afraid we’ll keep him pretty busy acting as chauffeur. Nally is sure to want to drive around a lot, and there are many pretty places here that we can motor to.”

“Neale likes to be busy,” said Ruth. “After all, he’s a nice boy, rather.”

“I rather like him,” coolly admitted Agnes. “But there’s one thing—he’s never silly. He never tries to hold your hand——”

“When you don’t want him to!” finished the other sister, with a laugh. “Well, all foolishness aside, we must begin to make our plans for the house party. I do hope everything will go off nicely.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will,” declared Agnes. “And when——”

She was interrupted by a crash down in the cellar.

“That sounds as if something went off the swinging shelf!” she exclaimed. “Some of Mrs. Mace’s preserves——”

“Those men!” cried Ruth.

“What men?”

“The water men who went down some time ago. I forgot all about them. Maybe they stumbled over something in the dark. I’ll send Uncle Rufus down to see about it.”

Uncle Rufus was summoned from the garage where he had gone to do some polishing on the car which Neale had left temporarily, to go down town for some part that needed replacing.

“Yes’m, Missie Ruth, what is it, please?” asked the faithful old colored man as he bowed his way in.

“Uncle Rufus, two men from the water department went down into the cellar about an hour ago to see about a leak,” explained Ruth. “They must be there yet, for Agnes and I just heard a noise. I wish you’d see if they’re all right and haven’t broken anything.”

“All right, yes’m, missie, I’ll look after ’em.”

Rufus shuffled away, and the sisters, resuming their talk about the coming party, soon heard him returning, muttering to himself the while. In a moment he appeared before the two girls.

“Did they go, Uncle Rufus?” asked Ruth.

“Yes’m, they done went all right.”

“Just now?”

“No’m, they was leavin’ when I went down.”

“Did they find the leak?”

“’Deed an’ I doan know ’bout dat, Miss Ruth. Dey went out in such a hurry when I walked in dat dey didn’t say what dey done found.”

“Did they break anything, Uncle Rufus?” demanded Agnes.

“No’m, Ah couldn’t see dat dey did. De swing shelf—whut yo’ spoke ’bout—dat was all right, an’ de preserves. I couldn’t see whut dey done. But dey sho’ was a queer couple!”

“What do you mean—queer couple?” asked Ruth quickly.

“Well, I means dat dey went off in such a hasty way, an’ dey didn’t say if dey saw any leak or nuffin’.”

“I guess they didn’t, or they would have told us to shut off the water,” commented Ruth. “As for being queer—certainly they looked like tramps, but I don’t suppose men who have to burrow in trenches and sewers all day long can be spick and span. I’m glad there’s no leak, however. That will be all, Uncle Rufus.”

“Thank-ee, Miss Ruth. I wants to git de automobubble shined up ’fo Mistah Neale gits back,” and out he shuffled.

“I hope nothing goes wrong with the water pipes when we have company,” remarked Agnes. “It would be very inconvenient.”

“Yes, it would. We’ll have the plumber come over to make sure there isn’t a leak. Those men didn’t look any too intelligent. I wonder how they ever got their job.”

It was later in the afternoon, when Neale O’Neil came to the house to announce that the car was now in running order again, that Agnes called to him:

“Neale, did you hear anything about a break in the street water main while you were down town?”

“No, I didn’t,” he answered. “What is it, a joke? If it is I’ll bite. Go on, what’s the answer?”

“It isn’t a joke,” said Ruth, and she detailed the visit of the two strange men.

“Hum,” mused Neale. “That’s rather odd. There hasn’t been any leak up this way or the street gang would have been out. I’ll take a look down cellar myself.”

He did, with the result that he came up shaking his head.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Ruth.

“There isn’t a sign of a leak or a break down there,” the boy replied. “Those men must have gotten in the wrong house. But I know one of the water commissioners and I’ll ask him about it this afternoon. I have to go to the town hall to see about something else.”

That evening, when Neale dropped in, as he often did, and Luke had telephoned to say that he and his sister were in town and were going to call, Ruth remembered to ask him about the two strange men.

“Were they from the water department, Neale?” she wanted to know.

“Who, those fakers?” asked the youth.

“Fakers?” repeated Agnes. “Were they——”

“They weren’t from the water commissioner’s office at all,” declared Neale. “He hasn’t had any men out for a week looking for leaks, for there haven’t been any. They were just plain tramps, in my opinion.”

“Tramps!” gasped Ruth. “Why should tramps spend so much time in our cellar? Oh, Neale——”

“Maybe they’re planning to rob the house!” came in strident tones from Sammy Pinkney, who was sitting in a corner with Dot and Tess. “Maybe they’re burglars!”

CHAPTER IV
IN A HURRY

Dot Kenway gave a long-drawn-out cry of “Ohoo-oo-oo!” and clasped her Alice-doll more closely in her arms. Tess looked over her shoulder and snuggled farther back into the corner. Agnes glanced up from a low chair where she was polishing her nails, and Ruth uttered sharply:

“Don’t talk nonsense, Sammy!”

“Well,” demanded the boy, ready to defend his opinion, “if they weren’t burglars, who were they?”

“Stop it, Sammy Pinkney!” demanded Tess. “Don’t you see you’re scaring Dot?”

“Maybe you’re scared, too,” suggested Sammy.

“I am not!”

“You are so!”

“I am not!”

“Children!” warned Ruth. “Please be quiet. And, Sammy, don’t say such things.”

“Well, s’posin’ they was the truth?”

“They couldn’t be! Those men weren’t burglars at all.”

“Who were they then?” and Sammy triumphantly waited for the answer. “Neale says they weren’t from the water department, and I just know they are burglars and they came in the cellar to look around and see the easiest way to break in to-night.”