The Corner House Girls Part 27

"She looks just as though she had," determined Tess.

"You-you are an awful bad cat, Sandy-face," said Dot, almost in tears. "And I just hope those walnuts will disagree with your stomach--so now!"

Tess was quite angry with the cat herself. She stamped her foot and cried "Shoo!" Sandy-face leaped away, surprised by such attentions, and scrambled up stairs in a hurry. Almost at once the two girls heard her utter a surprised yowl, and down she came from the garret, her tail as large as three tails, her eyes like saucers, and every indication of panic in her movements.

She shot away for the back stairs, and so down to the hall and out of doors.

"I don't care," exclaimed Dot. "I know those walnuts are disagreeing with her right now, and I'm glad. My! but she was punished soon for her greediness, wasn't she, Tess?"

There was something going on at the Creamer cottage, next door to the old Corner House. Tess and Dot became aware of this fact at about this time, so did not bother their heads much about Sandy's supposed gluttony. Some of the windows on the second floor of the cottage were darkened, and every morning a closed carriage stopped before the house and a man went in with a black bag in his hand.

Tess and Dot were soon wondering what could be happening to the little Creamer girls. The only one they saw was the curly haired one, who had spoken so unpleasantly to them on a particular occasion. They saw her wandering about the yard, and knew that she did not play, and was often crying by herself behind the clumps of bushes.

So Tess, whose heart was opened immediately to any suffering thing, ventured near the picket fence again, and at last spoke to the Creamer girl.

"What's the matter, please?" Tess asked. "Did you lose anything? Can we help you find it?"

The curly headed girl looked at her in surprise. Her pretty face was all streaked with tears.

"You-you want to keep away from me!" she blurted out.

"Oh, dear, me!" said Tess, clinging to Dot's hand. "I didn't mean to offend you again."

"Well, you'll catch it, maybe," sniffled the Creamer girl, whose name was Mabel.

"Catch what?" asked Tess.

"Something dreadful. All my sisters have it."

"Goodness!" breathed Dot.

"What is it?" asked Tess, bravely standing her ground.

"It's _quarantine_," declared Mabel Creamer, solemnly. "And I have to sleep in the library, and I can't go up stairs. Neither does pop. And mamma never comes down stairs at all. And I have to play alone here in the yard," sighed Mabel. "It's just awful!"

"I should think it was," gasped Tess. "Then, that must be a doctor that comes to your house every day?"

"Yes. And he is real mean. He won't let me see mamma-only she comes to the top of the stairs and I have to stay at the bottom.

Quarantine's a _nawful_ thing to have in the house.

"So you'd better stand farther off from that fence. I was real mean to you girls once, and I'm sorry enough now. But I hadn't ought to play with you, for maybe _I'll_ have the quarantine, too, and I'll give it to you if you come too close."

"But we can play games together without coming too near," said Tess, her kind heart desiring to help their neighbor. "We'll play keep house-and there'll be a river between us-and we can talk over a telephone-and all that." And soon the three little girls were playing a satisfying game together and Mabel's tears were dried and her heart comforted for the time being.

That night at dinner, however, Dot waxed curious. "Is quarantine a very bad disease? Do folks die of it?" she asked.

So the story came out, and the older girls laughed at the young one's mistake. It was learned that all the Creamer children save Mabel had the measles.

Ruth, however, was more puzzled about the novelty of a cat eating peanut b.u.t.ter and walnut creams than Dot had been about that wonderful disease, "quarantine."

CHAPTER XVII

"MRS. TROUBLE"

"You girls go through this pantry," complained Mrs. McCall, "like the plague of locusts. There isn't a doughnut left. Nor a sugar cookie. I managed to save some of the seed-cakes for tea, if you should have company, by hiding them away.

"I honestly thought I made four apple pies on Monday; I can't account but for three of them. A hearty appet.i.te is a good gift; but I should suggest more bread and b.u.t.ter between meals, and less sweets."

Ruth took the matter up with the Corner House girls in convention a.s.sembled:

"Here it is only Thursday, and practically all the week's baking is gone. We must restrain ourselves, children. Remember how it used to be a real event, when we could bake a raisin cake on Sat.u.r.day? We have no right to indulge our tastes for sweets, as Mrs. McCall says. Who knows? We may have to go back to the hard fare of Bloomingsburg again, sometime."

"Oh, never!" cried Agnes, in alarm.

"You don't mean that, sister?" asked Tess, worried.

"Then we'd better eat all the good things we can, now," Dot, the modern philosopher, declared.

"You don't mean that, Ruth," said Agnes, repeating Tess' words. "There is no doubt but that Uncle Peter meant us to have this house and all his money, and we'll have it for good."

"Not for bad, I hope, at any rate," sighed Ruth. "But we must mind what Mrs. McCall says about putting our hands in the cookie jars."

"But, if we get hungry?" Agnes declared.

"Then bread and b.u.t.ter will taste good to us," finished Ruth.

"I am sure I haven't been at the cookie jar any more than usual this week," the twelve-year-old said.

"Nor me," Tess added.

"Maybe Sandy did it," suggested Dot. "She ate up all the dolls'

dinner-greedy thing!"

Agnes was puzzled. She said to the oldest Corner House girl when the little ones were out of earshot:

"I wonder if it _was_ that cat that ate the dolls' feast yesterday?"

"How else could it have disappeared?" demanded Ruth.

"But a cat eating cream walnuts!"

"I don't know," said Ruth. "But of course, it wasn't Sandy-face that has been dipping into the cookie jars. We must be good, Agnes. I tell you that we may be down to short commons again, as we used to be in Bloomingsburg. We must be careful."

Just why Ruth seemed to wish to economize, Agnes could not understand.