The Corner House Girls' Odd Find Part 22

"A wolf!" interrupted the youthful tramp. "Now I know you're telling a wicked story."

"It was. Or something," said Agnes, stoutly. "I was scared. Then I saw your smoke."

"Why didn't you walk right in and speak to us instead of snoopin'?"

"You'd have 'snooped'," flashed back Agnes, with some heat. "I was alone, and I was afraid of tramps-"

"Well, we're tramps," said the boy, stooping and picking up the dropped stick.

"Not the kind I am afraid of," Agnes replied, trying to smile.

The boy would not be pacified, but the man said, shakingly, from his seat on the log:

"We wouldn't hurt you, girl. Put down that stick, Barney. This is my son, Barney, and I'm Asa Scruggs. I'm a joey when I'm in luck, and Barney-he's a trapeze artist. He's good."

"Oh, Pop!" shrilled the youthful trapeze artist, "might's well tell the truth this time. She's nothing but a girl herself."

"And that's what you are!" cried Agnes, with excitement.

"Yes. I'm Barnabetta, not Barney, Scruggs. Nice name, isn't it?" scoffed the strange girl. "My mother was Pennsylvania Dutch; that's where I got my name, Barnabetta. But it's safer to travel as a boy, so I'm Barney on the road. Besides, skirts would be in the way, climbing in and out of 'rattlers.'"

"Oh, what fun!" gasped Agnes. "Do you and your father always travel this way?"

"You bet we don't! Not when we have an engagement. We've ridden in Pullman cars-haven't we, Pop?"

The man nodded. He did not say much but watched Agnes with eyes that, in a child, the girl would have thought expressed terror. Barnabetta was much the stronger character of the two, the Corner House girl was positive.

"But where are you traveling now?" asked the interested Agnes.

"We're aimin' on gettin' South, miss. There's tent shows there all winter long," said the man, plaintively. "I've been laid up with my ankle, and it's too late to get any bookings worth while through the usual vaudeville agencies. We been workin' for Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie; but of course they're in winter quarters now at Tiverton. That's where I got hurt-right at the end of the season, too."

Agnes' brain was working busily. Twomley & Sorber's at Tiverton.

Tiverton was where the letter was postmarked that had taken Neale O'Neil away from home so strangely. The talk she had just overheard a.s.sured her that these two circus performers had been conversing about Neale and the old alb.u.m full of money and bonds that he had taken away with him.

But she caught the disguised Barnabetta watching her very sharply. That girl's black eyes were like glittering steel points. They seemed to say: "How much does this girl who listened guess-how much does she suspect-how much does she know?"

"We've got to work up some kind of patter to go with our act if we strike a job," said Barnabetta, still with her eyes fixed on the Corner House girl. "You've got to have something new if you expect to put any act over these days. Pop's a good joey-"

"I suppose you mean a clown?" asked Agnes.

"Yep. How'd you know?" sharply retorted Barnabetta.

"I-I've heard the word used before," admitted Agnes, seeing that she had been unwise. "Then you know circus folks?" observed the suspicious trapeze artist.

"Oh, no!"

Barnabetta was not convinced, that was plain. But she turned in a matter-of-fact way to the man. "Well, Pop," she said coolly, "about that money." The man jumped, and his weak eyes opened wide. But Barnabetta kept right on and Agnes was sure she was winking at her father. "You must disbelieve me when I say I saw it, and I'm goin' to say we'll get it," she declared.

"Huh?" gasped the clown.

"That's the way it must be in our act," the girl said firmly. "In our act-don't you see?"

"Oh! Ha! Hum!" said the clown, clearing his throat. "I see."

"This is second-story work," the girl explained eagerly. "I'll show you how to climb up to the window for the money-that's to the trapeze, you see," she added, throwing the explanation at Agnes.

"Oh! I see," murmured the Corner House girl.

"And you play the joey part, Pop," pursued Barnabetta. "I'll go ahead, and say 'Hist!' and 'Take care!' and 'Clumsy!' and the like, making believe we're going to rob a house. You do the joey, as I said, and climb almost up to the trapeze on the rope, and then make a fall. We've got to get the laughs," she added again, glancing sidewise at Agnes.

The latter felt very peculiar indeed. Bluntly honest, it was hard for Agnes to play a part in this way. She knew the girl trapeze performer was trying to lead her astray. Barnabetta and her father were talking of Neale and his money before Agnes appeared, and this tale about the new act was being invented on the spur of the moment to confuse her.

Barnabetta stopped suddenly. Perhaps she saw that her tale was making little impression upon their visitor.

"Where were you going, miss?" asked Mr. Scruggs, after a minute's silence.

"I was on my way to visit Mr. and Mrs. Buckham. They expect me," said Agnes, wisely. "But I must have missed the road. I know where I am now, however, I'll go down the railroad beyond the water-tank a little way and find the very crossing of the lane that goes into their dooryard from the west. Those trees must hide the house from here."

Secretly Agnes wanted to get away, but not to visit Mr. and Mrs.

Buckham. She felt that she ought to communicate with Neale O'Neil just as soon as possible. This old clown and his disguised daughter might have a plan to stop Neale on his way home and take the old alb.u.m and its precious contents away from him.

For now Agnes, like her sister, Ruth, had begun to believe that the engraved slips of paper pasted into the book were "really truly"

banknotes. How they had gotten there, and who they originally belonged to, Agnes could not guess. Nor did she believe that Neale O'Neil had carried them off with him, knowing them to be good currency.

However, everybody who got a sight of them seemed to think that the notes were legal tender. Even this strange girl, Barnabetta Scruggs, thought Neale was carrying around thousands of dollars with him. Dear me! if Neale would only know enough to go to Mr. Howbridge, there at his brother's house at Tiverton, the lawyer would tell him just what to do with the old alb.u.m.

These thoughts raced like lightning through Agnes' mind as she turned calmly away from the campfire. "I must be going," she said. "Good-bye."

The man said nothing, but looked away. Barnabetta said: "How about that wolf you said was chasing you?" and she said it sneeringly, as though she doubted Agnes' story.

"I guess he won't follow me down upon the railroad tracks," the Corner House girl said cheerfully.

"Huh! I guess he won't. 'Cause why? There wasn't any wolf," snapped Barnabetta. "That's a story!"

"It isn't, either!" cried Agnes, hotly.

"I'd like to know what you were hidin' behind that pile of ties and listenin' to us for?" said the circus girl.

"I told you how I came to do that."

"I don't believe you," was the flat reply.

Agnes was too impulsive to let this stand without answering. She whirled and spoke hotly to the trapeze performer:

"I tell you the truth. I doubt if you tell me the truth. Why were you so afraid of being overheard, if all that talk about the money you saw in the book was just play-acting?"

"You are too smart," snarled Barnabetta.

"I am smart enough to know that you are trying to fool me. I'm not going to believe you at all-not a word you say. I don't like you. I'm going to Mr. Buckham's-so now!"