The Corner House Girls at School Part 11

Dot clapped a tentative finger into her mouth. When she drew it forth, it was with a pained and surprised expression. The place where the tooth should have been was empty.

"There it is," chuckled Neale, "hanging on the doork.n.o.b. Didn't I tell you that was the way to get your tooth pulled?"

"My!" gasped Dot. "It wasn't pulled out of me, you see. When Aggie ran in and knocked me over, _I was just putted away from the tooth_!"

They all burst out laughing at that, and Dot laughed with them. She recovered more quickly from the loss of her tooth than Agnes did from the loss of her temper!

CHAPTER VII

NEALE IN DISGUISE

The Parade Ground was in the center of Milton. Its lower end bordered Willow Street, and the old Corner House was right across from the termination of the Parade's princ.i.p.al shaded walk.

Ranged all around the Parade (which had in colonial days been called "the training ground" where the local militia-hands drilled) were the princ.i.p.al public buildings of the town, although the chief business places were situated down Main Street, below the Corner House.

The brick courthouse with its tall, square tower, occupied a prominent situation on the Parade. The several more important church edifices, too, faced the great, open common. Interspersed were the better residences of Milton. Some of these were far more modern than the old Stower homestead, but to the Kenway girls none seemed more homelike in appearance.

At the upper end of the Parade were grouped the schools of the town.

There was a handsome new high school that Ruth was going to enter; the old one was now given over to the manual training departments. The grammar and primary school was a large, sprawling building with plenty of entrances and exits, and in this structure the other three Kenway girls found their grades.

The quartette of Corner House girls were not the only young folk anxious about entering the Milton schools for the forthcoming year. There was Neale O'Neil. The Kenways knew by the way he spoke, that his expected experiences at school were uppermost in his thoughts all the time.

Ruth had talked the matter over with Mrs. MacCall, although she had not seen Mr. Howbridge, and they had decided that the boy was a very welcome addition to the Corner House household, if he would stay.

But Neale O'Neil did not want charity--nor would he accept anything that savored of it for long. Even while he was so busy helping the girls clean house, he had kept his eyes and ears open for a permanent lodging.

And on Sat.u.r.day morning he surprised Ruth by announcing that he would leave them after supper that night.

"Why, Neale! where are you going?" asked the oldest Corner House girl.

"I am sure there is room enough for you here."

"I know all about that," said Neale, grinning quickly at her. "You folks are the best ever."

"Then, why----?"

"I've made a d.i.c.ker with Mr. Con Murphy. You see, I won't be far from you girls if you want me any time," he pursued.

"You are going to live with Mr. Murphy?"

"Yes. He's got a spare room--and it's very neat and clean. There's a woman comes in and 'does' for him, as he calls it. He needs a chap like me to give him a hand now and then--taking care of the pig and his garden, you know."

"Not in the winter, Neale," said Ruth, gently. "I hope you are not leaving us for any foolish reason. You are perfectly welcome to stay.

You ought to know that."

"That is fine of you, Ruth," he said, gratefully. "But you don't _need_ me here. I can feel more independent over there at Murphy's. And I shall be quite all right there, I a.s.sure you."

The house was now all to rights--"spick and span," Mrs. MacCall said--and Sat.u.r.day was given up to preparing for the coming school term.

It was the last day of the long vacation.

Dot had no loose tooth to worry her and she was busy, with Tess, in preparing the dolls' winter nursery. All summer the little girls had played in the rustic house in the garden, but now that September had come, an out-of-door playroom would soon be too cold.

Although the great garret made a grand playroom for all hands on stormy days, Ruth thought it too far for Dot and Tess to go to the top of the house alone to play with their dolls. For her dolls were of as much importance to Dot as her own eating or sleeping. She lived in a little world of her own with the Alice-doll and all her other "children"; and she no more thought of neglecting them for a day than she and Tess neglected Billy b.u.mps or the cats.

There was no means of heating the garret, so a room in the wing with their bed chambers, and which was heated from the cellar furnace, was given up to "the kiddies'" nursery.

There were many treasures to be taken indoors, and Dot and Tess toiled out of the garden, and up the porch steps, and through the hall, and climbed the stairs to the new playroom--oh! so many times.

Mr. Stetson, the groceryman, came with an order just as Dot was toiling along with an armful to the porch.

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!" he exclaimed. "Don't you want some help with all that load, Miss Dorothy?" She was a special favorite of his, and he always stopped to talk with her.

"Ruthie says we got to move all by ourselves--Tess and me," said Dot, with a sigh. "I'm just as much obliged to you, but I guess you can't help."

She had sat down on the porch steps and Sandyface came, purring, to rub against her.

"You can go right away, Sandy!" said Dot, sternly. "I don't like you--much. You went and sat right down in the middle of my Alice-doll's old cradle, and on her best knit coverlet, and went to sleep--and you're moulting! I'll never get the hairs off of that quilt."

"Moulting, eh!" chuckled Mr. Stetson. "Don't you mean shedding?"

"We--ell, maybe," confessed Dot. "But the hens' feathers are coming out and they're moulting--I heard Ruth say so. So why not cats? Anyway, you can go away, Sandyface, and stop rubbing them off on _me_."

"What's become of that kitten of yours--Bungle, did you call it?" asked the groceryman.

"Why, don't you know?" asked Dot, in evident surprise.

"I haven't heard a word," confessed Mr. Stetson. "Did something happen to it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was it poisoned?"

"Oh, no!"

"Drowned?"

"No, sir."

"Did somebody steal it?" queried Mr. Stetson.

"No, indeed!"

"Was it hurt in any way?"

"No, sir."