The Corner House Girls at School Part 32

There was another movement on the sofa. The two cats were dressed in doll clothes, and their activities were somewhat restricted, but they had sensed the presence of the dog the instant it had come into the room.

"Oh! oh!" cried Dot, suddenly. "Bungle! you be good. Petal! don't you dare move!"

The cheerful little dog, quite unsuspicious of harm, had trotted after its mistress. Despite the clinging doll clothes, the tails of Bungle and Popocatepetl swelled, their backs went up, and they began to spit!

"Tootsie!" screamed the doctor's wife in alarm.

Dot shouted at the cats, too, but neither they, nor the dog, were in a mood to obey. The Pomeranian was too scared, and Bungle and Popocatepetl were too angry.

Tootsie saw her enemies just as the cats leaped. Hampered by the garments Dot had put upon them, both Bungle and Popocatepetl went head-over-heels when they first landed on the floor, and with a frightened "ki, yi!" Tootsie distanced them to the far end of the room.

There was no cover there for the terrified pup, and when the two cats--clawing at the dresses and threatening vengeance--came after the dog, Tootsie tried to crawl under the three-sided walnut "whatnot" that stood in the corner between the windows.

The whatnot was shaky, having only three short, spindle legs. Tootsie darted under and then darted out again. Bungle got in one free-handed slap at the little dog as she went under, while Popocatepetl caught her on the rebound as Tootsie came out.

The long, silky hair of the dog saved her from any injury. But she was so scared that she yelped as though the claws of both cats had torn her.

"Oh! my poor Tootsie!" wailed the doctor's wife. "They will kill her."

Dot stood, open mouthed. She could not quench the fury of the angered cats.

"That--that's my Alice-doll's next-to-best dress, Bungle!" she managed to say. "You're tearing it! you're tearing it!"

Just then the door opened. Uncle Rufus came tottering in with the feather duster. The old man's rheumatism still troubled him and he was not steady on his feet.

Tootsie saw a way of escape. She darted between Uncle Rufus' legs, still yelping as loudly as she could.

"Wha' fo' dat? wha' fo' dat?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Uncle Rufus, and he fell back against the door which closed with a slam. If Tootsie had possessed a long tail it certainly would have been caught.

"Git erway f'om yere, you pesky cats!" shouted Uncle Rufus as Bungle and Popocatepetl charged the door on the trail of the terrified dog.

"Oh, dear me! Don't let them out," begged Dot, "till I can get my doll's clothes off."

"My poor Tootsie!" cried Mrs. Forsyth again.

"Hush yo'! hush yo'!" said Uncle Rufus, kindly. "Dar's a do' shet 'twixt dat leetle fice an' dem crazy cats. Dar's sho' nuff wot de papahs calls er armerstice 'twixt de berlig'rant pahties--ya-as'm! De berry wust has happen' already, so yo' folkses might's well git ca'm--git ca'm."

The old colored man's philosophy delighted the doctor's wife so much that she had to laugh. Yet she was not wholly a.s.sured that Tootsie was not hurt until the older girls had trailed the Pomeranian under the bed in one of the chambers. She had only been hurt in her feelings.

The cats could not seem to calm down either, and Uncle Rufus had to hold one after the other while Dot removed what remained of the doll's clothes, in which she had decked out her favorites.

"I guess I don't want cats for doll-babies any more," Dot said, with gravity, examining a scratch on her plump wrist, after supper that evening. "They don't seem able to learn the business--not _good_."

Agnes laughed, and sing-songed:

"Cats delight To scratch and bite, For 'tis their nature to; But pretty dolls With curly polls, Have something else to do."

"I think our Aggie is going to be a poetess," said Tess, to Ruth, secretly. "She rhymes so easy!"

"I'd rather have her learn to pick up her things and put them properly away," said Ruth, who was trying to find her own out-door clothing on the back hall rack. "My goodness! everything I put my hand on belongs to Agnes."

"That's because I'm rich," returned Agnes cheerfully. "For once in my life I have a mult.i.tude of clothes," and she started off, cheerfully whistling and swinging her skates. Ruth had almost to run to catch up with her before she struck across into the Parade.

The weather had moderated that day, and at noon the gutters were flooded and the paths ran full streams. The boys, however, had p.r.o.nounced the ice in the snow castle to be in fine shape.

"Perhaps this will be the last night we can skate there," Ruth said as they tramped along the Parade walk, side by side.

"Oh, I hope not!" cried Agnes.

"But Neale says the weight of the towers and the roof of the castle will maybe make the walls slump right down there, if it begins to thaw."

"Oh! I don't believe it," said Agnes, who did not _want_ to believe it.

"It looks just as strong!"

They could see the gaily illuminated snow castle through the branches of the leafless trees. The fiery star above it and the lights below shining through the ice-windows, made it very brilliant indeed.

"Well," Ruth said, with a sigh, "if the boys say it isn't safe, we mustn't go in to-night, Agnes."

There were only a few young folk already a.s.sembled about the castle when the Corner House girls arrived. A man in a blue uniform with silver b.u.t.tons, had just come out of the castle with Joe Eldred and Neale O'Neil.

"I don't know whether it's safe, or not," the fireman was saying. "Give me a frame building, and I can tell all right and proper. But I never ran to a fire in a snowhouse, and I don't know much about them--that's a fact," and he laughed.

Neale looked serious when he walked over to the two Corner House girls.

"What's the matter, Sir Lachrymose?" demanded Agnes, gaily.

"I believe the further wall of this snowhouse has slumped," he said.

"Maybe there is no danger, but I don't know."

"Oh, n.o.body will go in, of course," Ruth cried.

"Sure they will, Ruth. Don't be a goose," said Agnes, sharply.

"_I_ certainly will not," her sister said. "It was real warm this noon and maybe the house is just tottering. Isn't that so, Neale?"

"I don't know," said the boy. "Wish I did."

"Let's go in and find out," said Agnes, the reckless.

"Wait," drawled Neale. "I'd rather find out, out here than in there--especially if the thing is coming down."

"There goes Trix Severn--and Wilbur Ketch.e.l.l," said Agnes, rather crossly. "They're going to risk it."

"Let them go, Aggie," said Neale. "I'm not going into that place until I'm sure."

"Nor am I," Ruth announced, with emphasis.

"Well, I don't see----" Agnes began, when Neale exclaimed: