The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 31

Dot came home to the old Corner House the first day of the school term with what Neale O'Neil would have called "serious trouble in the internal department." She was ravenously hungry; and yet she had eaten a good lunch and did not like to demand of Mrs. MacCall that bite between meals which was so abhorred by the Scotchwoman.

"You have no more right to eat 'twixt one meal and t'other by day than you have to demand a loonch in the middle of the night," was often the good woman's observation when she was asked for a mid-afternoon lunch.

Ruth was easier. She had not been brought up in the rigid, repressive school that had surrounded Mrs. MacCall's childhood. As for Linda, the Finnish girl, if she had her way she would be "stuffing" (to quote Mrs.

MacCall) the children all the time.

"You sh'd train your stomach to be your clock, child," Mrs. MacCall declared on this occasion, after Dot had finally mustered up her courage to ask for the lunch.

"I try to, Mrs. Mac," said the smallest Corner House girl apologetically. "But sometimes my stomach's fast."

That started the ball rolling that evening, and the dinner table proved to be a hilarious place. But Ruth was very quiet and her countenance carried a serious cast that might have been noticed had the others not all been so gay and excited. The first day of the term is always an exciting time. Everything about the school--even old things--seems strange.

Dot had of course learned to write as well as to read; and indeed she wrote a very plain and readable hand. Even Mrs. MacCall could see it "without her specs."

"I do abominate these folks whose handwriting is so fine that I have to run to get my gla.s.ses to know whether it's an invitation to tea or to tell me some bad news," the housekeeper declared, in discussing Dot's improved writing.

The little girl was pa.s.sing around a paper on which she had copied a sentence that her teacher had written on the blackboard just before closing hour that day. With an idea of testing the children's knowledge of English, the teacher had written the line and told her cla.s.s to think it over and, in the morning, bring her the sentence rewritten in different words, but retaining the original meaning.

It was the old proverb: "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse."

"Of course, I know what it _means_," Dot said. "If a horse is blind he wouldn't see you nodding or winking. And winking isn't polite, anyway--Ruth says it isn't."

"Correct, Dottums," Agnes agreed. "It is very bad and bold to wink--especially at the boys."

"Wouldn't it be impolite to wink at a horse, too, Aggie?" asked the puzzled Dot. "Don't you think Scalawag would feel he was insulted if I wunk at him?"

"Oh, my eye!" gasped Neale, who chanced to be at hand. "Wink, w.a.n.k, wunk. Great declension, kid."

"Don't call me 'kid'!" cried Dot. "I am sure _that_ is not polite, Neale O 'Neil."

"Discovered, Neale!" chuckled Agnes.

"You are right, Dottie," said the boy, with a twinkle in his eye. "And to repay you for my slip in manners, I will aid you in transposing that sentence so that your teacher will scarcely recognize it."

And he did so. It greatly delighted Dot, for she did so love polysyllables. The other members of the family were convulsed when they read Neale's effort. The little girl carried the paper to school the next day and the amazed teacher read the following paraphrase of "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse:"

"A spasmodic movement of the eye is as adequate as a slight motion of the cranium to an equine quadruped devoid of its visionary capacities."

"Goodness!" Tess declared when she had heard this read over several times. "I don't think you would better read that to Scalawag, Dot. It would make any horse mad."

"Scalawag isn't a horse," responded her sister. "He's a pony. And Neale says he'll never grow up to be a horse. He's just always going to be our cute, cunning little Scalawag!"

"But suppose," sighed Tess, thoughtfully, "that he ever acts like that brown pony of Mrs. Heard's. Jonas, you know."

"Oh, Jonas! He is a _bad_ pony. He gets stuck and won't go," Dot said.

"Our Scalawag wouldn't do that."

"He balks, Dot--balks," reproved Tess. "He doesn't get stuck."

"I don't care. You can't push him, and you can't pull him. He just stands."

"Until our Neale whispers something in his ear," suggested Tess.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed her little sister. "Suppose Scalawag _should_ be taken that way. What _would_ we do? We don't know what Neale whispered to Mrs. Heard's pony."

"That's so," agreed Tess. "And Neale won't tell me. I've asked him, and _asked_ him! He was never so mean about anything before."

But Neale, with a rea.s.suring smile, told the little girls that Scalawag would never need to be whispered to. In fact, whispering to the calico pony would merely be a waste of time.

"There's nothing the matter with the old villain but inborn laziness,"

the youth chuckled. "You have to shout to Scalawag, not whisper to him."

"Oh!" murmured Tess, "don't call him a villain. He is so pretty."

"And cute," added Dot.

Uncle Rufus had built him a nice box stall and Neale took time early each morning to brush and curry the pony until his coat shone and his mane was "crinkly."

Before the week was out, too, the basket phaeton arrived and a very pretty russet, nickel-trimmed harness. Even the circus tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs had never fitted Scalawag better than this new harness, and he tossed his head and pawed, as he had been trained to do, arching his neck and looking just as though he were anxious to work.

"But it's all in his looks," observed Neale. "He doesn't mean it."

Which seemed to be the truth when the two little girls and Sammy Pinkney got into the phaeton with Neale and took their first drive about the more quiet residential streets of Milton.

Scalawag jogged along under compulsion; but to tell the truth he acted just as though, if he had his own choice, he would never get out of a walk.

"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" muttered Sammy. "It's lucky we don't want to go anywhere in a hurry."

It was great fun to drive around the Parade Ground and see the other children stare. When Sammy was allowed to hold the lines he sat up like a real coachman and was actually too proud for speech.

The responsibilities of his position immediately impressed the embryo pirate. Neale taught him carefully how to drive, and what to do in any emergency that might arise. Scalawag was an easy-bitted pony and minded the rein perfectly. The only danger was the pony's slowness in getting into action.

"I reckon," declared Neale, with some disgust, "if there was a bomb dropped behind him, old Scalawag wouldn't get out of the way quick enough, even if there was a five-minute time fuse on the bomb."

"Well, I guess he'll never run away then," said Tess, with a sigh of satisfaction. Nothing could be said about Scalawag that one or the other of the two little girls could not find an excuse for, or even that the criticism was actually praise.

"One thing you want to remember, children," Neale said one day, earnestly. "If you're ever out with Scalawag without me, and you hear a band playing, or anything that sounds like a band, you turn him around and beat it the other way."

"All right," responded the little girls.

"What for?" asked Sammy, at once interested.

"Never mind what for. You promise to do as I say, or it's all off.

You'll get no chance to drive the girls alone."

"Sure, I'll do what you say, Neale. Only I wondered what for. Don't he like band music?"

But Neale, considering it safer to say nothing more, merely repeated his warning.