The Corner House Girls Part 11

The smaller Kenway sisters went meekly away. Of course, if Agnes had overheard the conversation, she would have given them as good as they sent. But Tess and Dot were hurt to the quick.

Dot said to Ruth, at supper: "Was our Uncle Peter crazy, Ruthie?"

"Of course not," said the bigger girl, wonderingly. "What put such a silly idea into your little head?"

The tale came out, then. Agnes bristled up, of course.

"Let me catch them talking to you that way!" she cried. "_I'll_ tell them something!"

"Oh, don't let us quarrel with them," urged Ruth, gently. "But you and Tess, Dot, had better not put yourselves in their way again."

"Dey's berry bad chillen-dem Creamers," put in Uncle Rufus, who was shuffling about the dining-room, serving. Although he was faultless in his service, with the privilege of an old retainer when the family was alone, he _would_ a.s.sist in the general conversation.

In Agnes' eyes, Uncle Rufus made a perfect picture. Out of his bulging traveling bag had appeared just the sort of a costume that she imagined he should wear-even to the gray spats!

"It makes me feel just _rich_!" the twelve year old said to Ruth, with a contented sigh. "And real silver he got out of the old chest, and polished it up-and the cut gla.s.s!"

They began to use the dining-room for meals after Uncle Rufus came.

The old man gently insisted upon it.

"Sho'ly, Missie, you wants ter lib up ter de customs ob de ol' Co'ner House. Mars' Peter drapped 'em all off latterly; but de time was w'en dis was de center ob sa.s.siety in Milton-ya-as'm!"

"But goodness!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ruth, in some timidity, "we do not expect to be in society _now_. We don't know many people yet. And not a soul has been inside the door to call upon us since we arrived."

However, their circle of acquaintance was steadily widening.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CAT THAT WENT BACK

Agnes put her hand upon it in the pantry and dropped a gla.s.s dish ker-smash! She screamed so, that Ruth came running, opened the door, and, as it scurried to escape into the dining-room, the oldest Kenway girl dodged and struck her head with almost stunning force against the doorframe. She "saw stars" for a few moments.

"Oh! oh!" screamed Agnes.

"Ow! ow!" cried Ruth.

"Whatever is the matter with you girls?" demanded Mrs. McCall, hurrying in from the front hall.

She suddenly saw it, following the baseboard around the room in a panic of fear, and Mrs. McCall gathered her skirts close about her ankles and called Uncle Rufus.

"He, he!" chuckled the black man, making one swoop for Mrs. Mouse and catching her in a towel. "All disher combobberation over a leetle, teeny, gray mouse. Glo-ree! s'pose hit had been a rat?"

"The house is just over-run with mice," complained Mrs. McCall. "And traps seem to do no good. I always _would_ jump, if I saw a mouse. I can't help it."

"Me, too," cried Agnes. "There's something so sort of _creepy_ about mice. Worse than spiders."

"Oh, dear!" moaned Ruth, holding the side of her head. "I wish you'd find some way of getting rid of them, Uncle Rufus. I'm afraid of them, too."

"Lor' bress yo' heart an' soul, Missie! I done cotched this one fo'

you-uns, an' I wisht I could ketch 'em all. But Unc' Rufus ain't much of a mouser-naw suh! What you-alls wants is a cat."

"We ought to have a good cat-that's a fact," admitted Mrs. McCall.

"I like cats," said Dot, who had come in to see what the excitement was all about. "There's one runs along our back fence. Do you 'spect we could coax her to come in here and hunt mouses? Let's show her this one Uncle Rufus caught, and maybe she'll follow us in," added the hopeful little girl.

Although this plan for securing a cat did not meet with the family's approval, Agnes was reminded of the cat problem that very afternoon, when she had occasion to go to Mr. Stetson's grocery store, where the family traded.

She liked Myra Stetson, the groceryman's daughter, almost as well as she did Eva Larry. And Myra had nothing to say about the "haunt" which was supposed to pester the old Corner House.

Myra helped about the store, after school hours and on Sat.u.r.days. When Agnes entered this day, Mr. Stetson was scolding.

"I declare for't!" he grumbled. "There's no room to step around this store for the cats. Myra! I can't stand so many cats-they're under foot all the time. You'll have to get rid of some of your pets. It's making me poor to feed them all, in the first place!"

"Oh, father!" cried Myra. "They keep away the mice, you know."

"Yes! Sure! They keep away the mice, because there's so many cats and kittens here, the mice couldn't crowd in. I tell you I can't stand it-and there's that old Sandy-face with four kittens in the basket behind the flour barrels in the back room. Those kittens have got their eyes open. Soon you can't catch them at all. I tell you, Myra, you've got to get rid of them."

"Sandy-face and all?" wailed Myra, aghast.

"Yes," declared her father. "That'll be five of 'em gone in a bunch.

Then maybe we can at least _count_ those that are left."

"Oh, Myra!" cried Agnes. "Give them to us."

"What?" asked the store-keeper's girl. "Not the whole five?"

"Yes," agreed Agnes, recklessly. "Mrs. McCall says we are over-run with mice, and I expect we could feed more than five cats for a long time on the mouse supply of the old Corner House."

"Goodness! Old Sandy-face is a real nice mother cat--"

"Let's see her," proposed Agnes, and followed Myra out into the store-room of the grocery.

In a broken hand-basket in which some old clothes had been dropped, Sandy-face had made her children's cradle. They looked like four spotted, black b.a.l.l.s. The old cat herself was with them, and she stretched and yawned, and looked up at the two girls with perfect trust in her speckled countenance.

Her face looked as though salt and pepper, or sand, had been sprinkled upon it. Her body was marked with faint stripes of black and gray, which proved her part "tiger" origin. She was "double-toed" on her front feet, and her paws were big, soft cushions that could unsheath dangerous claws in an instant.

"She ought to be a good mouser," said Agnes, reflectively. It _did_ look like a big contract to cart five cats home at once!

"But I wouldn't feel right to separate the family-especially when the kittens are so young," Myra said. "If your folks will let you take them-well! it would be nice," she added, for she was a born lover of cats and could not think, without positive pain, of having any of the cunning kittens cut short in their feline careers.

"Oh, Ruth will be glad," said Agnes, with a.s.surance. "So will Mrs.

McCall. We need cats-we just actually _need_ them, Myra."

"But how will you get them home?" asked the other girl, more practical than the impulsive Agnes.