The Corner House Girls at School Part 17

"Is Miss Andrews so dreadfully strict?" asked Dot, round-eyed.

"Yes, she is--awful!"

"I hope she'll get married, then, and leave school before I get into her grade."

"But maybe she won't ever marry," Tess declared.

"Don't all ladies marry--some time?" queried Dot, in surprise.

"Aunt Sarah never did, for one."

"Oh--well----Don't you suppose there's enough men to go 'round, Tess?"

cried Dot, in some alarm. "Wouldn't it be dreadful to grow up like Aunt Sarah--or your Miss Andrews?"

Tess tossed her head. "I am going to be a suffragette," she announced.

"They don't have to have husbands. Anyway, if they have them," qualified Tess, "they don't never bother about them much!"

Tess' mind, however, was full of that proposed Christmas tree. Maria Maroni was going to bring an orange for each pupil--girls and boys alike--to be hung on the tree. Her father had promised her that.

Alfredia Blossom, Jackson Montgomery Simms Blossom, and Burne-Jones Whistler Blossom had stored bushels of hickory nuts and b.u.t.ternuts in the c.o.c.kloft of their mother's cabin, and they had promised to help fill the stockings that the girls' sewing cla.s.s was to make.

Every girl of Tess' acquaintance was going to do something "lovely," and she wanted to know what _she_ could do?

"Why, Sadie Goronofsky says maybe she'll _buy_ something to hang on the tree. She is going to have a lot of money saved by Christmas time,"

declared Tess.

"Why, Tess," said Agnes, "isn't Sadie Goronofsky Mrs. Goronofsky's little girl that lives in one of our tenements on Meadow Street?"

"No. She's _Mister_ Goronofsky's little girl. The lady Mr. Goronofsky married is only Sadie's step-mother. She told me so."

"But they are very poor people," Ruth said. "I know, for they can scarcely pay their rent some months. Mr. Howbridge told me so."

"There are a lot of little children in the family," said Agnes.

"And Sadie is the oldest," Tess said. "You see, she told me how it was.

She has to go home nights and wash and dry the dishes, and sweep, and take care of the baby--and lots of things. She never has any time to play.

"But on Friday night--that's just like our Sat.u.r.day night, you know,"

explained Tess, "for they celebrate Sat.u.r.day as Sunday--they're Jewish people. Well, on Friday night, Sadie tells me, her step-mother puts a quarter for her in a big red bank in their kitchen."

"Puts a quarter each week in Sarah's bank?" said Ruth. "Why, that's fine!"

"Yes. It's because Sadie washes the dishes and takes care of the baby so nice. And before Christmas the bank is going to be opened. Then Sadie is going to get something nice for all her little step-brothers and sisters, and something nice for our tree, too."

"She'll have a lot of money," said Agnes. "Must be they're not so poor as they make out, Ruth."

"Mr. Goronofsky has a little tailor business, and that's all," Ruth said, gravely. "I--I sha'n't tell Mr. Howbridge about Sadie and her bank."

Thanksgiving came and went--and it was a real Thanksgiving for the Corner House girls. They had never had such a fine time on that national festival before, although they were all alone--just the regular family--at the table.

Neale was to have helped eat the plump hen turkey that Mrs. MacCall roasted, but the very night before Thanksgiving he came to Ruth and begged off.

"I got to talking with Mr. Murphy this afternoon," said Neale, rather shamefacedly, "and he said he hadn't eaten a Thanksgiving dinner since his wife and child drowned in the Johnstown flood--and that was years and years ago, you know.

"So I asked him if he'd have a good dinner if I stayed and ate it with him, and the old fellow said he would," Neale continued. "And Mrs. Judy Roach--the widow woman who does the extra cleaning for him--will come to cook the dinner.

"He's gone out to buy the turkey--the biggest gobbler he can get, he told me--for Mrs. Judy has a raft of young ones, 'all av thim wid appet.i.tes like a famine in ould Ireland,' he told me."

"Oh, Neale!" cried Ruth, with tears in her eyes.

"He's a fine old man," declared Neale, "when you get under the skin.

Mrs. Judy Roach and her brood will get a square meal for once in their lives--believe me."

So Neale stayed at the cobbler's and helped do the honors of that Thanksgiving dinner. He reported to the Corner House girls later how it "went off."

"'For phat we are about to resave,' as Father Dooley says--Aloysius, ye spalpane! ye have an eye open, squintin' at the tur-r-rkey!--'lit us be trooly thankful,'" observed Mr. Con Murphy, standing up to carve the huge, brown bird. "Kape your elbows off the table, Aloysius Roach--ye air too old ter hev such bad manners. What par-r-rt of the bir-r-d will ye have, Aloysius?"

"A drumstick," announced Aloysius.

"A drumstick it is--polish that now, ye spalpane, and polish it well.

And Alice, me dear, phat will _youse_ hev?" pursued Mr. Murphy.

"I'll take a leg, too, Mr. Murphy," said the oldest Roach girl.

"Quite right. Iv'ry par-r-rt stringthens a par-r-rt--an' 'tis a spindle-shanks I notice ye air, Alice. And you, Patrick Sarsfield?" to the next boy.

"Leg," said Patrick Sarsfield, succinctly.

Mr. Murphy dropped the carver and fork, and made a splotch of gravy on the table.

"_What?_" he shouted. "Hev ye not hear-r-rd two legs already bespoke, Patrick Sarsfield, an' ye come back at me for another? Phat for kind of a baste do ye think this is? I'm not carvin' a cinterpede, I'd hev ye know!"

At last the swarm of hungry Roaches was satisfied, and, according to Neale's report, the dinner went off very well indeed, save that his mother feared she would have to grease and roll Patrick Sarsfield before the fire to keep him from bursting, he ate so much!

It was shortly after Thanksgiving that Milton suffered from its famous ice-storm. The trees and foliage in general suffered greatly, and the _Post_ said there would probably be little fruit the next year. For the young folk of the town it brought great sport.

The Corner House girls awoke on that Friday morning to see everything out-of-doors a glare of ice. The shade trees on the Parade were borne down by the weight of the ice that covered even the tiniest twig on every tree. Each blade of gra.s.s was stiff with an armor of ice. And a sc.u.m of it lay upon all the ground.

The big girls put on their skates and dragged Tess and Dot to school.

Almost all the older scholars who attended school that day went on steel. At recess and after the session the Parade was the scene of races and impromptu games of hockey.

The girls of the sixth grade, grammar, held races of their own. Trix Severn was noted for her skating, and heretofore had been champion of all the girls of her own age, or younger. She was fourteen--nearly two years older than Agnes Kenway.

But Agnes was a vigorous and graceful skater. She skated with Neale O'Neil (who at once proved himself as good as any boy on the ice) and _that_ offended Trix, for she had wished to skate with Neale herself.

Since the green tinge had faded out of Neale's hair, and it had grown to a respectable length, the girls had all cast approving glances at him.

Oddly enough, his hair had grown out a darker shade than before. It could not be the effect of the dye, but he certainly was no longer "the white-haired boy."