The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 9

"That is a real pretty name I think," said Ruth, absently. "And quite new I am sure."

Agnes demanded again where the smallest Corner House girl had seen the name, 'Nosmo' painted. "Why!" she exclaimed, "it says 'king'--that's what is painted on that door, children."

"Oh, but, Sister!" exclaimed Tess. "_That_ is the other half of the big door. They've shut the half that was open when we rode along before and opened the other one." But Agnes was not listening to this explanation.

She had turned back to Ruth and Cecile.

Dot was eagerly repeating something over and over to herself. Tess turned to demand what it was.

"Oh, Tessie!" the smallest Corner House girl cried, "that sounds b-e-a-u-ti-ful!"

"What does?" demanded her sister.

"I've just the nicest middle name for this sailor-baby," and she hugged her new possession again.

"What is it?" asked the interested Tess.

"Nosmo King Kenway. Isn't that nice?" eagerly cried the little girl.

"It's--it's so 'ristocratic. Don't you think so, Tess?"

Tess repeated the full name, too. It did sound rather nice. The oftener you said it the better it sounded. And--yet--there was something a wee bit peculiar about it. But Tess was too kind-hearted to suggest anything wrong with the name, as long as Dot liked it so much. And she had found it all her very own self!

"I wonder what Sammy will say to _that_," murmured Dot placidly. "I guess he'll think it is a nice name, won't he?"

"Well, if he doesn't it won't make any difference," Tess said loftily.

Just at that time, however, (though quite unsuspected by the Corner House girls) Sammy Pinkney had his mind quite filled with other and more important matters.

Since his long illness in the spring Sammy had remained something of a stranger to his oldtime boy friends. Of course, as soon as he got into school again and a.s.sociated with the boys of his own cla.s.s once more, he would get back into the "gang" as he called it. He was not a boy to be gibed because he played with girls so much.

However, habit brought him to the side gate of the Corner House on this afternoon, whether the little girls were at home or not. He was so often in and out of the house that neither Mrs. MacCall nor Linda paid much attention to him; for although Sammy Pinkney was as "full of mischief as a chestnut is of meat" (to quote Mrs. MacCall) he never touched anything about the house that was not his, nor wandered into the rooms upstairs, save the one from the window of which the aerial tramway was strung to the window of his own bedroom "scatecornered" across Willow Street.

His aim was the window of the little girls' big playing and sleeping room now, for the wire basket chanced to be fastened at this end of the line. He had it in his mind to pull the basket over to his own house, fill it there with some sort of cargo, and draw it back and forth, amusing himself by imagining that he was loading a ship from the dock.

"Or, maybe," Sammy ruminated, "I'll have the old ship wrecked, and the lifesavers will put out the life buoy; and we'll bring the pa.s.sengers ash.o.r.e. Crickey! that'll be just the thing. I'll save 'em all from drownin'--that's what I'll do!"

Then he looked about in some anxiety for the wrecked pa.s.sengers of the foundered steamship which he immediately imagined was cast on the reef just about as far from the Corner House as his own domicile stood.

"Got to have pa.s.sengers!" cried Sammy. "Oh, crickey! the dolls would be just the thing. But I promised I wouldn't touch them. Aw, pshaw! a feller can't have much fun after all where there's a lot of girls around."

Not that the girls were here to bother Sammy Pinkney now; but he felt the oppressive effect of Dot's mandatory decree.

"If a fellow had _forty_ dolls he wouldn't be afraid to give them a ride on this aerial tramway!"

Wandering downstairs again and out upon the side porch he found Sandyface lying in the sun, but within sight and hearing of the four new blind babies which were nested upon Uncle Rufus' old coat just within the shed door.

"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" gasped Sammy, his eyes big with a sudden idea.

He knelt down beside the little soft b.a.l.l.s of fur, and Sandyface came to rub around him and worship likewise. But she had no idea of the thought that ran riot in Sammy's head.

"Say! they'd never know they was disturbed," muttered the boy.

He gathered up the old coat, with the four little mites in it, and started stealthily for the back stairs. Sandyface, not at all disturbed in her mind, followed, purring, but with no intention of quite losing sight of her babies. The little girls were in the habit of carrying her progeny all about the place and always brought them back in safety.

Sammy stole up the stairs on tiptoe. He knew very well he was up to mischief and he did not wish to meet Mrs. MacCall, or even Linda. For the Finnish girl who helped the housekeeper had her private opinion of Sammy Pinkney--and often expressed it publicly.

"If I haf a boy brudder like him, I sew him up in a bag--oh, yes!" was one of the mildest threats that Linda ever made regarding Sammy.

Sammy pushed up the screen and placed the coat, with the four kittens asleep on it, carefully in the deep wire basket. Sandyface, interested, leaped upon the window sill, and smelled of the kittens and the basket.

Then she craned her neck to look down to the ground.

"You'd better not jump, cat," warned Sammy, unfastening the rope that ran through blocks at both ends and so enabled one to pull the basket back and forth. "It's a long way to the ground."

Sandyface had no such silly idea in her wise old head. As Sammy turned away for a moment she stepped gingerly into the basket, moved the squirming kittens over, and settled down to nurse them. A little thing like being twenty feet or so up in the air with her babies did not disturb Sandyface--much.

"Hey, you!" exclaimed Sammy, grabbing the old cat away before the snuffling little kittens had really found she was with them. "Can't take the whole crew and all the pa.s.sengers off the wreck at once. You'll overload the lifecar. Scat!" and he put her down upon the floor.

But the kittens began to whine now; they were being cheated, they thought, and they desired their mother very much. Sandyface replied to them and jumped upon the window sill again.

"Hey!" Sammy said, "didn't I tell you to wait till the next load? Aw!

look at that cat!"

For the mother cat had stepped into the basket again, purring, and once more settled down.

"All right, then," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sammy in disgust, "if you're bound to go along! But don't blame _me_ if you're so heavy that the old carrier busts."

He carefully drew the basket out upon the wire, away from the house.

Sandyface lifted her head; but as she was very comfortable and had her family with her, she made no great objection as the basket swung out into s.p.a.ce.

"Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" gasped Sammy, with fearful joy. "Bet that old basket would hold all the other cats too. Wish I had the bunch of 'em--Spotty, and Almira, and Popocatepetl, and Bungle, and Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet! And Almira's got four kittens of her own somewhere. And so's Popocatepetl. Whew! that makes--makes--"

But Sammy did not like arithmetic enough to figure up this sum; and he did not seem to have fingers enough just then to count them. So he gave it up. A cat and four kittens swinging out over Willow Street, with all the winds of heaven blowing about them, should have satisfied even Sammy Pinkney.

The boy pulled the basket cautiously to the extreme end of the wire--until the carrier b.u.mped against the clapboards under his own bedroom window. He saw Sandyface raise her head again and glare around.

Half asleep until this time she had not realized that she and her babies were being so marvelously transported from their own home to the cottage where Sammy resided.

"Crickey!" exclaimed the boy suddenly. "If mother comes out and sees 'em--or if that there bulldog Buster hears those cats meowing, there'll be trouble over there."

He started anxiously to draw the cats and the carrier back to the Corner House. In some way the line by which he drew the basket became fouled at the other end; or the pulleys on the wire became chocked. Sammy could not tell just what the trouble was, anyway.

But to his dismay the basket stuck midway of the line. High over the middle of Willow Street it stopped, and Sandyface was now standing up and telling the neighborhood just how scared she felt for her babies and herself.

"Lie down, cat!" the perturbed Sammy cried to her. "You'll fall overboard and drown--I mean, break your silly neck! S-st! Lie down!"

Tom Jonah, the old house dog, appeared suddenly below and began to bark.

Billy b.u.mps came galloping around the house, shook his horns in disapproval, and "bla-ated" loudly.

Linda came to the kitchen door, beheld the cat in the basket high on the wire, and seemed to understand the cause of the trouble with uncanny certainty.