The Corner House Girls' Odd Find Part 34

"'Oh! how beautiful is the toad!'"

Agnes listened with delight to this fantasy from the trapeze performer.

This gentle girl, telling pretty tales to Tess and Dot, was quite another person from "Barney" Scruggs, who had been tramping in boy's clothing with the old clown.

"She _can't_ be wicked enough to have stolen that sc.r.a.p-book," Agnes told herself, with increasing confidence. "Dear me! I wish I'd never found the old thing up garret."

The four Corner House girls went to church with Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah. But Barnabetta would not go. She excused herself by saying that she did not wish to leave her father alone.

Sunday school followed the preaching service almost immediately; but as soon as this was over, Agnes hurried home. Ruth, with Tess and Dot, went around by the hospital to call on Mrs. Eland, the matron, and to enquire after Miss Pepperill.

They chanced to find the little gray lady sitting at her desk, and with certain yellowed old papers and letters, and several small books with ragged sheepskin covers, before her.

"These were Uncle Lemuel's," she explained to Ruth, touching the dog's-eared books. "His diaries. It does seem as though he loved to put down on paper all his miserly thoughts and accounts of his very meanest acts. He must have been a strange combination of business ac.u.men and simple-mindedness."

"I wish for your sake, Mrs. Eland," Ruth said, "that he had kept to the very day of his death the riches he once acc.u.mulated."

"Oh! I wish so, too-for Teeny's sake," replied Mrs. Eland, referring to her unfortunate sister by the pet name she had called her in childhood.

"Are these the books and papers Mr. Bob Buckham brought you from the Quoharie poorhouse, where Mr. Aden died?"

"Yes. I have never read through the diaries. I only wanted to find an account of the five hundred dollars belonging to Mr. Buckham's father that _my_ father turned over to Uncle Lemuel.

"But here are notes of really vast sums. Uncle Lemuel must have really been quite beside himself long before he died. In one place he writes about drawing out of several banks sums aggregating over fifty thousand dollars.

"Think of it!" and Mrs. Eland sighed. "It was at the time of the panic.

He speaks of being distrustful of banks. So he drew out all he had. But, of course, he did not have so much money as that. Fifty thousand dollars!"

"Perhaps he did have it," said Ruth.

"Then what became of it? He writes in one place of losing a hundred dollars in some transaction, and he goes on about it, in a raving way, as though it was every cent of money he ever owned," declared Mrs.

Eland. "Oh, dear! What a terrible thing it must be to be a miser."

"But-but suppose he _did_ have so much money at one time?"

"He dreamed it," laughed the hospital matron.

"You're not sure," ventured the Corner House girl.

"Then what became of it? I am sure he never gave it away," Mrs. Eland said, shaking her head. "And here, where he speaks of coming to live with your Uncle Peter Stower, in the very last year of his life, Uncle Lemuel says:

"'Peter Stower always was a fool. He'll give me bite and sup as long as I need. Let him believe me rich or poor as he pleases.'"

"Oh, dear me," sighed Ruth, "I always have felt bad because Uncle Peter turned him out and Mr. Aden wandered away to die at the Quoharie poorhouse. Your uncle couldn't have been in his right mind."

"Of course he wasn't," rejoined Mrs. Eland. "Why! it shows that here. On almost the last page of his diary-it was written after he left the old Corner House-he says:

"'I don't trust banks; but Peter Stower is too mean to be dishonest. My book is safe with him.'

"I suppose," the little gray lady said, "Uncle Lemuel had an idea of sending these diaries to your Uncle Peter to keep for him. I can't think of any other book he was referring to."

"A book?" murmured Ruth, quaveringly.

"Yes. And once before he speaks here-where is it?-of his diary, I suppose, as his 'beautiful book.' Ah! here it is: 'Have pasted all my Wash. & Pitts. R. R. B.'s in my beautiful book.' Now," and Mrs. Eland laughed, "what do you suppose 'Wash. & Pitts.' means?"

Ruth sprang up, trembling, and with clasped hands.

"Oh, Mrs. Eland!" she cried, "'Washington & Pittsburgh'-and he meant railroad bonds, of course! It must be! it _must_ be!"

"Well-but-my dear!" said Mrs. Eland, amazed by Ruth's excitement. "Of course, Uncle Lemuel may have meant that. However, there are no bonds of any kind pasted into these books. I am sure of that," and she laughed again, but rather ruefully.

Ruth Kenway could not join in her laughter. She had made a tremendous discovery-and one that filled her with actual terror. She scarcely knew how she managed to excuse herself from the hospital matron's presence, and got out upon the street again with Tess and Dot.

CHAPTER XXI

"EVERYTHING AT SIXES AND SEVENS"

"I do declare," said Agnes Kenway, that very evening. "We don't seem like ourselves. The house doesn't seem like our house. And we're all at sixes and sevens! What ever is the matter with Ruthie?"

For the eldest Corner House girl had spoken crossly to Tess, and had fairly shaken Dot for leaving a chocolate-cream on a chair where she, Ruth, sat down upon it in her best dress, and finally she had flown out of the sitting room in tears and run up to bed.

"And Neale didn't stay to eat supper last night, and he hasn't been here to-day," grieved Tess.

"Here's all his Christmas presents," said Dot. "Don't you s'pose he wants them a-tall? Is Neale mad, too?"

"I'm afraid Ruthie is coming down with something-like Sammy Pinkney with the scarlet fever," Tess said, in a worried tone.

Agnes knew that it must be worry over the lost alb.u.m and money that had got upon her older sister's nerves. But even she did not suspect the full measure of Ruth's trouble, for the latter had said nothing about the discovery in Lemuel Aden's old diary. But Agnes heartily wished she had never made that odd find in the garret.

She had not seen Barnabetta save at dinner time, and the clown had not left his room. Agnes was troubled about Barnabetta. The little girls found the trapeze artist a most delightful companion; but Barnabetta had scarcely a word to say to either of the older Corner House sisters.

As for Neale-Agnes Kenway could have cried about Neale. She and the white-haired boy had been the very best of friends.

"And I'm sure _I_ didn't say anything to anger him. He needn't have got mad at _me_," was Agnes' thought. "Whatever he wanted in that closet last night-

"There! I won't believe it was Neale at all. Why should he want to _steal_ anything here, when he could have had it for the asking?

"But who else could have gotten out of that porch door, past Tom Jonah, without being eaten up?" murmured poor Agnes. "Oh, dear me! how can I believe it of him?"

Really, everything _was_ at sixes and at sevens. The week began badly.

The two smallest Corner House girls seemed afflicted with a measure of the unhappiness that cloaked Ruth, Agnes and their guest, Barnabetta Scruggs.

Dot actually quarreled with Mabel Creamer! It came about in this wise:

After school on Monday the smallest Corner House girl had been to the store for Mrs. MacCall. Coming home, as she came past the Creamer cottage she heard Mrs. Creamer scolding Mabel.