Part 31 (1/2)

Meantime the bigger Corner House girls tried to help the smaller ones entertain Lillie. Lillie was not like any normal girl whom they had ever known. She wanted to do only things in which she could lead, and if she was denied her way in any particular, she ”wouldn't play” and threatened to go up stairs and tell her mother.

”Why,” said Agnes, first to become exasperated. ”You want to be the whole show-including the drum-major at the head of the procession, and the little boys following the clown's donkey-cart at the end!”

Lillie made a face.

”I think,” said Ruth, quietly, ”that if I were you, Lillie, and went to visit, I'd try to make my new friends like me.”

”Huh!” said Lillie. ”I'm not visiting-don't you fool yourselves. My mother and I have come here to stay. We're not going to be put out like we were at Aunt Adeline's and Uncle Noah's. Mother says we've got more right to this old house than you Kenways have, and she's going to get her rights.”

That made Dot cry, and Tess looked dreadfully serious. Agnes was too angry to play with the girl any more, and Ruth, even, gave her up as impossible. Lillie wandered off by herself, for her mother would not be bothered with her just then.

When Mrs. McCall went out into the kitchen that afternoon to start dinner, she missed the bag of dried apples that had been left on the table. There had been nearly four pounds of them.

”What under the canopy's become of that bag?” demanded the good lady.

”This is getting too much, I declare. I _know_ I missed the end of the corned beef yesterday, and half a loaf of bread. I couldn't be sure about the cookies and doughnuts, and the pie.

”But there that bag of dried apples stood, and there it _isn't_ now!

What do you know about such crazy actions?” she demanded of Ruth, who had come at her call.

”Why! it's a mystery,” gasped the eldest of the Corner House girls. ”I can't understand it, dear Mrs. McCall. Of course none of us girls have taken the dried apples. And if you have missed other things from your pantry of late, I am just as sure we are not at fault. I have warned the girls about raiding the cookie jars between meals.”

”Well,” said Mrs. McCall, with awe, ”what can have taken them? And a bag of dried apples! Goodness! It's enough to give one the s.h.i.+vers and shakes.”

Ruth was deeply mystified, too. She knew very well that Sandy-face, the cat, could not be accused with justice of this loss. Cats certainly do not eat dried apples-and such a quant.i.ty!

It began to rain before evening, and Tess and Dot rushed out to rescue their dolls and other playthings, for there was wind with the rain and they were afraid it would blow in upon their treasures.

Here poor Dot received an awful shock. The Alice-doll was gone!

Dot went in crying to Ruth and would not be comforted. She loved the missing doll as though it was a real, live baby-there could be no doubt of that. And why should a thief take that lovely doll only, and leave all the others?

Mysteries were piling upon mysteries! It was a gloomy night out of doors and a gloomy night inside the old Corner House as well. Mrs.

Treble's air and conversation were sufficient alone to make the Kenway girls down-hearted. Dot cried herself to sleep that night, and not even Agnes could comfort her.

The wind howled around the house, and tried every latch and shutter fastening. Ruth lay abed and wondered if the thing she had seen at the window in the garret on that other windy day was now appearing and vanis.h.i.+ng in its spectral way?

And what should she do about Mrs. Treble and her little girl? What would Mr. Howbridge say when he came home again?

Had she any right to spend more of the estate's money in caring for these two strangers who were (according to the lady herself) without any means at all? Ruth Kenway put in two very bad hours that night, before she finally fell asleep.

The sun shone brightly in the morning, however. How much better the world and all that is in it seems on a clean, suns.h.i.+ny morning! Even Dot was able to control her tears, as she went out upon the back porch with Tess, before breakfast.

The rain had saturated everything. The brown dirt path had been scoured and then gullied by the hard downpour. Right at the corner of the woodshed, where the water ran off in a cataract, when it _did_ rain, was a funny looking mound.

”Why-why! what's that?” gasped Dot.

”It looks just as though a poor little baby had been buried there,”

whispered Tess. ”But of course, it isn't! Maybe there's some animal trying to crawl out of the ground.”