The Corner House Girls Part 37

AUNT SARAH SPEAKS OUT

Tommy Rooney's capture explained some of the mysterious happenings about the old Corner House, but he could not satisfy Ruth regarding the figure she had seen appear at the garret window. For _that_ happened before Tommy had ever been in the house.

They were all kind to Tommy, however-all but Mrs. Treble-after Tess had pleaded for him. Mrs. McCall washed his face and hands, and even kissed him-on the sly-and then set him down to a very satisfying meal. For as often as he had raided Mrs. McCall's pantry at night since taking up his abode in the garret of the old Corner House, he had not had a real "_square_" meal for a month.

The house was so big that, by keeping to the two upper floors of the main part during the daytime, and venturing out-of-doors by way of the cellar window only at night, Master Tommy had been able to avoid the family for weeks.

He had entered the house first on that evening when he was chased by Mr. Pinkney and the bulldog. Finding the back door open, he had run up the back stairs, and so climbed higher, and higher, until he reached the garret.

n.o.body said anything to Master Tommy about the ghost, although Agnes wanted to. Ruth forbade her to broach the subject to the runaway.

Tommy had made a nest behind the old clothes, but some nights he had slept in a bed on the third floor. The day Ruth and Agnes ransacked the garret for Uncle Peter's will, he had been down in that third floor room. When Ruth discovered the print of his body on the feather-bed, he was on the floor, under that bed, hidden by the comforter which hung down all around it.

He was pretty tired of the life he had been leading. He admitted to the Corner House girls that he had not seen a single Indian in all his wanderings. He was ready to go home-even if his mother thrashed him.

So Ruth telegraphed Mrs. Rooney. She took Tommy to a nearby store and dressed him neatly, if cheaply, and then bought his ticket and put him in the care of the conductor of the Bloomingsburg train. Tommy, much wiser than he had been, and quite contrite, went home.

"I s'pose he's a dreadful bad boy," sighed Dot. "But my! no girl would ever have such things happen to her-would she?"

"Would you want to be chased by bulldogs, and live in garrets, and steal just enough to keep alive-and-and never have on anything clean, Dot Kenway?" demanded Tess, in horror.

"No, I don't s'pose I would," confessed Dot. Then she sighed, and added: "It's _awful_ commonplace, just the same, bein' a girl, isn't it?"

"I agree with you, Dot-ums," cried Agnes, who heard her. "Nothing ever happens to us."

Almost on the heels of that statement, however, something happened to them that satisfied even Agnes' longing for romance, for some time thereafter.

It was on Sat.u.r.day that Tommy Rooney went home to his anxious mother.

The weather had been of a threatening character for several days. That night the wind shrieked and moaned again around the old Corner House and the rain beat with impotent hands against the panes.

A rainy Sunday is not often a cheerful day. Ruth Kenway always tried to interest her sisters on such occasions in books and papers; or they had quiet talks about "when mother was with us," or those more ancient times "before father went away."

If they could possibly get to Sabbath School on such stormy days, they did so. This particular mid-August Sunday was no exception.

The rain ceased for a while about noon and the four set forth, under two umbrellas, and reached the church in season. They were glad they had come, so few scholars were there, and they helped swell the attendance.

Coming home, it rained a little, and their umbrellas were welcome.

Tess and Dot were under the smaller umbrella and the older girls had the larger one. Coming across the parade ground, the path they followed approached the old Corner House from the side.

"Oh, see there!" cried Tess, suddenly. "Somebody's waving to us from the window."

"What window?" demanded Agnes, with sudden nervousness, trying to tip up the big umbrella, so that she could see, too.

"Why!" cried Tess. "It's in the garret."

"Oh, I see it!" agreed Dot.

"Oh! mercy me!" groaned Agnes.

"Stop that!" gasped Ruth, shaking her by the arm. "You want to scare those children?"

"It's-it's the ghost," whispered Agnes, too afraid to look again.

Tess and Dot were merely curious. Ruth had seen the waving figure.

Immediately it seemed to leap upward and disappear.

"Do you suppose it was Lillie?" asked Tess.

"We'll find out when we go in," said Ruth, in a shaken voice.

Agnes was almost in tears. She clung to Ruth's arm and moaned in a faint voice:

"I don't want to go in! I never want to go into that horrid old house again."

"What nonsense you do talk, Ag," said Ruth, as the little girls ran ahead. "We have been all over that garret. We know there is really nothing there--"

"That's just it," groaned Agnes. "It _must_ be a ghost."

Ruth, unhappy as she felt, determined to discover the meaning of that spectral figure. "Let's go right up there and find out about it," she said.

"Oh, Ruth!"

"I mean it. Come on," said the older sister, as they entered the big hall.

Tess and Dot heard her, and clamored to go, too, but Ruth sent the smaller girls back. At the head of the front stairs, they met Mrs.

Treble.

"Have you, or Lillie, been up in the attic?" asked Ruth, sharply.

"There was something at the window up there--"

"What are you trying to do, girl?" demanded the lady from Ypsilanti, scornfully. "Trying to scare me with a ridiculous ghost story?"

"I don't know what it is," said Ruth. "I mean to find out. Were you up there?"

"I should have gone to the garret had I wished," Mrs. Treble said, scornfully. "You must have something hidden away there, that you don't want me to see. I wonder what it is?"

"Oh, Mrs. Treble!" began Ruth, and just then she saw that Aunt Sarah's door was open. Aunt Sarah stood at the opening.

"Niece Ruth!" exclaimed the old lady, harshly, "why don't you send that woman away? She's got no business here."

"I've more right here than _you_ have, I should hope," cried Mrs.

Treble, loudly. "And more right than these girls. You'll all find out when the courts take the matter up."

"Oh, Mrs. Treble! We none of us know--"

"Yes we do, too," declared the lady from Ypsilanti, interrupting Ruth.

"My husband's mother was Peter Stower's sister. Perhaps my Lillie shall have _all_ the property-and this ugly old house, too. I tell you what I'll do first thing, when it comes into my hands as guardian of my child."