Tess and Dot Kenway set off for the hospital in good season that Saturday morning, their arms laden with great bunches of flowers, all wrapped about with layers of tissue paper, for the November air was keen.
On the corner of High Street, the wind being somewhat blusterous, Dot managed to run into somebody; but she clung to the flowers nevertheless.
"Hoity-toity!" ejaculated a rather sharp voice. "Where are you going, young lady?"
"To—to the horsepistol," declared the muffled voice of the matter-of-fact Dot.
"Hospital! hospital!" gasped Tess, in horror. "This is Miss Pepperill."
"Ah! So it is Theresa and her little sister," said the teacher. "Humph! A child who mispronounces the word so badly as that will never get to the institution itself without help. Let me carry those flowers, Dorothy. I am going past the Women's and Children's Hospital myself."
"Thank her, Dot!" hissed Tess. "It's very kind of her."
"You can carry the flowers, Miss Pepperill," said the smallest Corner House girl, "if you want to. But I want Mrs. Eland to know I brought some as well as Tess."
The red-haired lady laughed—rather a short, brusk laugh, that might have been a cough.
"So you are going to see your Mrs. Eland, are you, Theresa?" she asked her pupil.
"Yes, Miss Pepperill. We always see Mrs. Eland when we go to the hospital," said Tess. "But we like to see the children, too."
"Yes," said Dot; "there is a boy there with only one arm. Do you suppose they'll grow a new one on him?"
That time Miss Pepperill did laugh in good earnest; but Tess despaired. "Goodness, Dot! they don't grow arms on folks."
"Why not?" demanded the inquisitive Dorothy. "Our teacher was reading to us how new claws grow on lobsters when they lose 'em fighting. But perhaps that boy wasn't fighting when he lost his arm."
"For pity's sake! I should hope not," observed Miss Pepperill. In a minute they came in sight of the hospital, and she added, in her very tartest tone of voice: "I shall go in with you, Theresa. I should like to meet your Mrs. Eland."
"Yes, ma'am," Tess replied dutifully, but Dot whispered:
"I don't like the way she says 'Theresa' to you, Tess. It—it sounds just as though you were going to have a tooth pulled."
Miss Pepperill had stalked ahead with Dot's bunch of flowers. Dot did not much mind having the flowers carried for her; but she did not propose letting anybody at the hospital make a mistake as to who donated that particular bouquet. As they went in she said to the porter, who was quite well acquainted with the two smallest Corner House girls by this time:
"Good morning, Mr. John. We are bringing some flowers for the children's ward, Tess and me. That lady with—with the light hair, is carrying mine."
Fortunately the red-haired school teacher did not hear this observation on the part of Dot.
Half-way down the corridor, Mrs. Eland chanced to come out of one of the offices to meet the school teacher, face to face. "Oh! I beg your pardon," said the little, gray lady—for she dressed in that hue in the house as well as on the street. "Did you wish to see me?"
The matron was small and plump; the teacher was tall and lean. The rosy, pleasant face of Mrs. Eland could not have been put to a greater contrast than with the angular and grim countenance of the bespectacled Miss Pepperill.
The latter seemed, for the moment, confused. She was not a person easily disturbed in any situation, it would seem; but she was almost bashful as the little matron confronted her.
"I—I—— Really, are you Mrs. Eland?" stammered the school teacher.
"Yes," said the quietly smiling gray lady.
"I—I have heard Theresa, here, speak so much of you——" She actually fell back upon Tess for support! "Theresa! introduce me to Mrs. Eland," she commanded.
"Oh, yes, Mrs. Eland," said the cordial Tess. "I wanted you to meet Miss Pepperill. You know—she's my teacher."
"Oh! who wanted you to learn the succession of the rulers of England?" said Mrs. Eland, laughing, with a sweet, mellow tone.
"Yes, ma'am. The sovereigns of England," Tess said.
"Of course!" Mrs. Eland added:
"That old rhyme!" Miss Pepperill said, hastily, recovering herself somewhat. "You taught it to Theresa?"
"I wrote it out for her," confessed Mrs. Eland. "I could never forget it. I learned it when I was a very little girl."
"Indeed?" said Miss Pepperill, almost gasping the ejaculation. "So did I."
"That was some time ago," Mrs. Eland said, in her gentle way. "My mother taught me."
"Oh! did she?" exclaimed the other lady.
"Yes. She was an English woman. She had been a governess herself in England."
"Indeed!" Again the red-haired teacher almost barked the expression. She seemed to labor under some strong emotion. Tess noted the strange change in Miss Pepperill's usual manner as she spoke to the matron.
"I think it must have been my mother who taught me," the teacher said, in the same jerky way. "I'm not sure. Or—perhaps—I picked it up from hearing it taught to somebody else.
Not easily forgotten when once learned."
"Very true," Mrs. Eland said quietly. "I believe my little sister learned it listening to mother and me saying it over and over."
"Ah! yes," Miss Pepperill observed. "Your sister? I suppose much younger than you?"
"Oh, no; only about four years younger," said Mrs. Eland, sadly. "But I lost her when we were both very young."
"Oh! ah!" was Miss Pepperill's abrupt comment. "Death is sad—very sad," and she shook her head.
At the moment somebody spoke to the matron and called her away. Otherwise she might have stopped to explain that her sister had been actually lost, and that she had no knowledge as to whether she were dead or alive.
The red-haired teacher and the two little Corner House girls went on to the children's ward.
The rehearsal of The Carnation Countess that afternoon went most dreadfully.
"It really is a shame!" chuckled Neale to Agnes, as he sat beside her for a few minutes after the boys acquitted themselves very well in their part. "It really is a shame," he went on, "what some of you girls can do to a part when it comes to acting. Talk about Hamlet's father being murdered to make a Roman holiday!"
"Hush, you ridiculous boy! That isn't the quotation at all," admonished Agnes.
"No? Well, Hamlet's father was murdered, wasn't he?"
"I prefer to believe him a mythical character," said Agnes, primly.
"At any rate, something as bad will happen to you, Neale O'Neil, if you revile the girls of Milton High," declared Eva Larry, who was near enough to hear the boy's comment. "Oh, dear me! I believe I could make something of that part of Cheerful Grigg, myself. Rose Carey is a regular stick!"
"Hear! hear!" breathed Neale, soulfully. "I'm sorry for Professor Ware."
"Well! he gave them the parts," snapped Eva. "I'm not sorry for him!"
The musical director was a patient man; but he saw the play threatened with ruin by the stupidity of a few. If his voice grew sharp and his manner impatient before the rehearsal was over, there was little wonder.
The choruses, and even the little folks' parts, went splendidly—with snap and vigor. Some of the bigger girls walked through their rôles as though they were in a trance.
"I declare I should expect more animation and a generally better performance from marionettes," cried the despairing professor.
Mr. Marks came in, saw how things were going, and whispered a few words to Professor Ware. The latter fairly threw up his hands.
"I give it up for to-day," he cried. "You all act like a set of puppets. Pray, pray, young ladies! try to get into the spirit of your parts by next Friday. Otherwise, I shall be tempted to recommend that the whole play be given up. We do not want to go before the Milton public and make ourselves ridiculous."
Neale said to Agnes as he walked home with her: "Why don't you learn the part of Innocent Delight? I bet you couldn't do it so much better than Trix, after all."
She looked at him with scorn. "Learn it?" she repeated. "I know it by heart—and all the other girl's parts, too. I've acted them all out in my room before the mirror." She laughed a little ruefully. "Lots of good it does me, too! And Ruth says I will have to sleep in another room, all by myself, if I don't stop it.
"If I couldn't do the part of Innocent Delight better than Trix Severn——"
She left the remainder of the observation to his imagination.
The Thanksgiving recess was to last only from Wednesday afternoon till the following Monday morning. Friday and Saturday would be taken up with rehearsals—mostly because of the atrociously bad acting of some of the girls.
The holiday itself, however, was free. Dinner was to be a joyous affair at the old Corner House. There were but two guests expected: Mr. Howbridge and Neale. Mr. Howbridge, their uncle's executor, and the Kenway sisters' guardian, was a bachelor, and he felt a deep interest in the Corner House girls. Of course, Agnes begged to have Neale come.
In the Stower tenements in Meadow Street there was great rejoicing, too. Mr. Howbridge's own automobile had taken around the Thanksgiving baskets and the lawyer's clerk delivered them and made a brief speech at each presentation. The Corner House girls could not attend, for they were too busy in school and (at least, three of them) with their parts in the play. But Sadie Goronofsky reported the affair to Tess in these expressive words:
"Say! you'd oughter seen my papa's wife and the kids. You'd think they'd never seen anything to eat before—an' we always has a goose Passover week. My! it was fierce! But there was so much in that basket that it made 'em all fair nutty. You'd oughter seen 'em!"
Mrs. Kranz, the "delicatessen lady," as Dot called her, and Joe Maroni, helped fill the baskets. They were the two "rich tenants" on the Stower estate, and the example of the Corner House girls in generosity had its good effect upon the lonely German woman and the voluble Italian fruiterer.
There were other needy people whom the Corner House girls remembered at this season with substantial gifts. Petunia Blossom, and her shiftless husband and growing family, looked to "gran'pap's missus" for their Thanksgiving fowl. And this year Seneca Sprague came in for a share of the Corner House bounty.
Since the fatal day when Billy Bumps had secured a share of the prophet's generous thatch, Ruth had felt she owed Seneca something. The boys plagued him as he walked the streets in his flapping linen duster and broken straw hat; and older people were unkind enough to make fun of him.
Seneca followed the scriptural command to the Jews regarding swine—and more, for he ate no meat of any kind. But the plump and luscious pig was indeed an abomination to Seneca.
One day when Ruth went to market she saw a crowd of the market loiterers teasing Seneca Sprague, the man having ventured among them to peddle his tracts.
The girl saw a smeary-aproned young butcher slip up behind the old man and drop a pig's tail into one of the pockets of his flapping duster.
To the bystanders it was a harmless joke; to Seneca, Ruth knew, it would mean infamy and contamination. He would be months purging his conscience of the stain of "touching the unclean thing," as he expressed it.
The girl went up to Seneca and spoke to him. She had a heavy basket of provisions and she asked the prophet to carry it home for her, which he did with good grace.
When they arrived at the old Corner House Ruth told him if he would remove the linen coat she would sew up a tear in the back for him; and in this way she smuggled the "porker's appendage," as Neale O'Neil called it, out of the prophet's pocket.
"And you ought to see the inside of that shack of his down on Bimberg's wharf," Neale O'Neil said. "I got a peep at it one day. You know it's an old office Bimberg used to use before he moved up town, and it's attached to his store-shed, and at the far end.
"Seneca's got a little stove, and a cupboard, a cot to sleep on, a chair to sit in, and the walls are lined with bookshelves filled with old musty books."
"Books!" exclaimed Agnes. "Does he read?"
"Why, in his way, he's quite erudite," declared Neale, smiling. "He reads Josephus and the Apocrypha, and believes them quite as much inspired as the rabbinical books of the Old Testament, I believe. Most of his other books relate to the prophetical writings of the old patriarchs.
"He believes that the Pilgrims were descended from the lost tribes of Israel and that God allowed them to people this country and raise up a nation which should be a refuge and example to all the peoples of the earth."
"Why! I think that is really a wonderful thought," Ruth said.
"He's strong on patriotism; and his belief in regard to the divine direction of George Washington does nobody any harm. If everybody believed as Seneca does, we would all have a greater love of country, that's sure."
Ruth sent down to the little hut on the river dock a basket of such good things as she knew Seneca Sprague would appreciate.
"I'd love to send him warm underwear," she sighed.
"And a cap and mittens," Agnes put in. "He gives me the shivers when I see him pass along this cold weather, with his duster flapping."
"Thank goodness he has put on socks and wears carpet slippers," said Ruth. "He believes it is unhealthy to wear many clothes. And he is healthy enough—goodness knows!"
"But clothes are awfully comfortable," said the luxury-loving Dot.
"Right you are, Dottums," agreed Agnes. "And I'd rather be comfortable than so terribly healthy."
The weather had become intensely cold during the past fortnight. Steady frost had chained the river and ponds. There had been no snow, but there was fine skating by Thanksgiving.
On the morning of the holiday the two older Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil set off to meet a party of their school friends for a skating frolic on the canal and river. They met at the Park Lock, and skated down the solidly frozen canal to where it debouched into the river.
Milton young folks were out in full force on this Thanksgiving morning, despite the keen wind blowing from the northwest. Jack Frost nipped fingers and toes; but there were huge bonfires burning here and there along the bank, and at these the skaters could go ashore to warm themselves when they felt too cold.
River traffic, of course, was over for the season. The docks were for the most part deserted. Some reckless small boys built a fire of shavings and old barrels right on Bimberg's dock.
When the first tar-barrel began to crackle, the sparks flew. Older skaters saw the danger; but when they rushed to put the fire out, it was beyond control. The Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil were among the first to see the danger. Seneca Sprague's shack was then afire.
"Never mind. The old man's up town," cried one boy. "If it burns up it won't be much loss."
"And it will burn before the fire department gets here," said one of the girls.
"Poor Seneca! I expect his poor possessions are treasures to him," said Ruth.
"Cracky!" ejaculated Neale, suddenly, as the flames mounted higher. "What about the poor old duffer's books?"
"Oh, Neale!" gasped Ruth. "And they mean so much to him."
"Pshaw!" observed one of the other boys. "They're not really worth anything, are they?"
"Whether they are or not, they are valuable to Seneca," Ruth repeated.
"Well, goodness!" was the ejaculation of a third boy. "I wouldn't risk going into that shack if they were worth a million. See! the whole end of it is ablaze!"
Skaters from both up and down the river augmented the crowd of spectators gathered along the shore to watch the fire. The fire-bells were clanging uptown, but as yet the first machine had not appeared. The firemen would have to attack the blaze from the street end of the dock, anyway.
"Father's got goods stored in the shed," said Clarence Bimberg, "and they'll try to save them. I guess Seneca's old shack will have to go."
"And all those books you told us about, Neale," Agnes cried.
"Wish I could get 'em out for him!" declared the generous boy.
"Pshaw! I can tell you how to do it. But you wouldn't dare," chuckled Clarence.
"How?" demanded Neale.
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Well—mebbe not. But tell me anyhow."
"There's an old trap-door in the dock under that office-shack."
"You don't mean it, Clarry?"
"Yes, there is. I know it's there. But it mightn't be open now—I mean maybe it's nailed down. I don't believe Seneca knows it's there. The boards just match."
"Let's try it!" exclaimed Neale.
"Oh, Neale, you wouldn't!" gasped Agnes, who had heard the conversation.
"Of course he wouldn't," scoffed Clarence. "He's only bluffing. Father used to let us play around the old shack before Seneca got it to live in. And I found the trap. But I never said anything about it."
Neale looked serious, but he said: "Just show me how to reach it, Clarry."
"Why," said Clarence, "the ice is solid underneath the wharf. You can see it is. Skate right under, if you want," and he laughed again, believing Neale in fun.
"Show me," said the white-haired boy.
"Not much I won't! Why, the wharf boards are afire already, and the sparks will soon be raining down there."
"Show me," demanded Neale. "If there is a trap there——"
"Oh, Neale!" Agnes cried again. "Don't!"
"Don't you be a little goose, Aggie," said the earnest boy. "Come on, Clarry."
"Oh, I don't want to," said the other boy, seeing that Neale was in earnest now. "We'll get burned."
Neale grabbed his hand and whirled him around, and they shot in toward the burning wharf, whether Clarence would or no!
"Hey, boys, keep away from there!" shouted a man from the next dock. "You'll get burned."
"Oh, Neale, come back!" wailed Agnes.
"You hear, Neale O'Neil?" gasped Clarence, struggling in the bigger boy's grasp. "I don't want to go!"
"Show me where the trap is," said the boy who had been brought up in a circus. "Then you can run if you like. I'm not afraid."
"I am!" squealed Clarence Bimberg.
But he was forced by the stronger Neale to skate under the burning wharf. They bumped about for half a minute among the piles and the broken ice. They could hear the flames crackling overhead, and the smoke puffed in between the planks. The black ice was solid and there was light enough to see fairly well.
"There! There!" shrieked the frightened Clarence. "You can see it now, Neale! Let me go!"
It did not look like a trap-door to Neale. Yet some short, rotting steps led up out of the frozen water to the flooring of the old wharf. The moment he essayed to climb these steps on his skates, Clarence broke away and shot out from under the burning dock.
Neale was too determined to reach the interior of Seneca Sprague's shack to save the old prophet's books, to bother about the defection of his schoolmate. If Joe Eldred had only been at hand, he would have stood by!
"Oh, Neale! can you open it?" quavered a voice behind and below him.
Neale almost tumbled backward from the steps, he was so amazed. He looked down to see Agnes' rosy, troubled face turned up to his gaze.
"For pity's sake! get out of here, Aggie," he begged.
"I won't!" she returned, tartly.
"You'll get burned."
"So will you."
"But aren't you afraid?" the boy demanded, in growing wonder.
"Of course I am!" she gasped. "But I can stand it if you can."
"Oh, me!"
"Hurry up!" cried Agnes. "I can help carry out some of the books."
Meanwhile Neale had been pounding on the boards overhead. Suddenly two of them lifted a little.
"I've got it!" yelled Neale, in delight, and above the crackling of the flames and the confusion of other sounds without.
He burst up the rickety, old trap with his shoulders, and was met immediately by a stifling cloud of smoke. The interior of Seneca Sprague's shack was filled with the pungent vapor, although the flames were still on the outside.
"Don't get burned, Neale!" cried Agnes, coughing below from a rift of smoke, as the boy climbed into the little room.
"You better go away," returned Neale, in a muffled voice.
"I'll take an armful of books when I do go—if you'll hand 'em down to me," cried his girl chum.
"Oh, Aggie! if you get hurt Ruth will never forgive me," cried Neale, really troubled about the Corner House girl's presence in this place of danger.
"I tell you to give me some of those books, Neale O'Neil!" cried Agnes. "If you don't I'll come up in there and get them."
"Oh, don't be in such a hurry!" returned Neale.
He came to the smoky opening with his arms full and began to descend the steps, which creaked under his weight. He slipped on the skates which he had had no time to remove, and came down with a crash, sitting upon the lowest step. But he did not loose his hold on the books.
"Oh, Neale! are you hurt?" Agnes demanded.
"Only in my dignity," growled the boy, grimly.
Agnes began to giggle at that; but she grabbed the books from him. "Go back and get some more—that's a good boy!" she cried, and, whirling about, shot out from under the wharf.
The worried Ruth, who had not seen the first of this adventure, was standing near. Agnes deposited the volumes at her sister's feet.
"Look out for them, Ruthie!" Agnes cried. "Neale's going to get them all."
With this reckless promise she sped back under the burning wharf. Water was pouring upon the goods' shed now, freezing almost as fast as it left the hose-pipes, but the firemen had not reached the little shack.
Joe Eldred and some of the other boys reached the scene of Ruth's trouble and quickly understood the situation. If Neale O'Neil wanted to save Seneca Sprague's books, of course they would help him—not, as Joe said, that they "gave a picayune for the crazy old duffer."
"Form a chain, boys! form a chain!" commanded Neale's muffled voice from inside the burning shack, when he learned who was below. And this the crowd did, passing the armfuls of books back and out from under the wharf as fast as Neale could gather them and hand them down.
Agnes found herself put aside when Joe and his comrades got to work. But they praised her pluck, nevertheless.
"Those Corner House girls are all right!" was the general comment.
Poor Seneca came running to the end of a neighboring dock and took a flying leap—linen duster, carpet slippers, and all—down upon the ice. He was determined at first to get to his shack on the wharf, for he did not see what the boys were doing for him.
Men in the crowd ran to hold the poor old prophet back from what would likely have been his doom. He screamed anathemas upon them until they led him to where Ruth stood and showed him the great heap of books. Then almost immediately he became calm.
It was truly a Thanksgiving feast at the old Corner House that day, and it was enjoyed to the full by all. Nor was there a table in all Milton around which sat a more apparently incongruous company.
At first glance one might have thought that the Corner House girls had put forth a special effort to gather together a really fantastical company to celebrate the holiday. Uncle Rufus, at least, had never served quite so odd an assortment of guests during all the years he had been in Mr. Peter Stower's employ.
At one end of the table the old Scotch housekeeper presided, in a fresh cap and apron. Her hard, rosy face looked as though it had received an extra polishing with the huck towel on the kitchen roller.
At the far end of the long board, covered with the best old damask the house afforded, and laid with the heavy, sterling plate that Unc' Rufus tended so lovingly, and the cut glass of old-fashioned pattern, was silver-haired Mr. Howbridge. He was a man very precise in his dress, given to the niceties of the toilet in every particular. He wore rimless glasses perched on his aristocratic beak of a nose, a well cared-for mustache much darker than his hair, and had very piercing eyes.
On his right was prim Aunt Sarah—Aunt Sarah, who never seemed to belong to the family, who lived so self-centered an existence, but who was sure to have her meddling finger in everything that went on in the old Corner House, especially if it was desired that she should not.
Aunt Sarah glared across the table at a tall, lean, ascetic-looking man in a rusty, old-fashioned, black, tail coat that was a world too wide for him across the shoulders, and with his sleek, long hair parted very carefully in the middle, and falling below the high collar of the coat.
Those who had never seen Seneca Sprague save in his flapping duster and straw hat, would scarcely have recognized him now.
Ruth, after the fire, when the prophet had been made to understand that all his possessions for which he really cared were saved, had induced him to come home with them to eat the Thanksgiving feast.
"It is fitting that we should give thanks—yea, verily," agreed Seneca, his mind rather more muddled than usual by the excitement of the fire. "I saw the armies of Armageddon advancing with flame-tipped spears and flights of flashing arrows. They were all—all—aimed to overwhelm me. But their hands were stayed—they could not prevail against me. Thank you, young man," he added, briskly, to Neale O'Neil. "You have a pretty wit, and by it you have saved my library—my books that could not be duplicated. I have the only Apocrypha extant with notes by the great Swedenborg. Do you know the life of George Washington, young man?"
"Pretty well, sir, thank you," said Neale, gravely.
"It is well. Study it. That great being who sired our glorious country, is yet to come again. And he will purge the nation with fire and cleanse it with hyssop. Verily, it shall come to pass in that day——"
"But we mustn't keep Mrs. MacCall waiting for us, Mr. Sprague," Ruth had interrupted him by saying. "You can tell us all about it later."
They had bundled him into a carriage near the burned dock, to hide his torn duster and wild appearance, and had brought him to the old Corner House—Ruth and Agnes and Neale. There he was soon quieted. Neale helped him remove the traces of the struggle he had had with those who kept him from going into the fire, and likewise helped him dress for dinner.
Uncle Peter Stower's ancient wardrobe furnished the most of Seneca's holiday garb. "Mr. Stower was a meaty man," the prophet said, in some scorn. "His girth should have been upon his conscience, for verily he lived for the greater part of his life on the fat of the land. His latter days were lean ones, it is true; but they could not absolve him from his youthful gastronomic sins."
Ruth had some fear that the odd, old fellow might make trouble at the table; but Seneca Sprague had not always lived the untamed life he now did. He had been well brought up, and had associated with the best families of Milton and the county in his younger days.
Mr. Howbridge was surprised to find Seneca Sprague sitting in the ancient parlor of the old Corner House when he arrived—an unfriendly room which was seldom opened by the girls. But the lawyer shook hands with Seneca and told him how glad he was to hear that his library had been saved from the fire.
"One may say by a miracle," the prophet declared solemnly. "As Elijah was fed by the raven in the wilderness, so was my treasure cared for in time of stress."
He talked after that quite reasonably, and when the girls in their pretty dresses fluttered to their seats about the table, and with Neale O'Neil filled them all, the company being complete, Ruth, looked to Seneca to ask a blessing.
His reverent grace, spoken humbly, was most fitting. Linda opened the door. A great breath of warm, food-laden air rushed in. Uncle Rufus appeared, proudly bearing the great turkey, browned beautifully and fairly bursting with tenderness and—dressing!
"Oh-ee!" whispered ecstatically, the smallest Corner House girl. "He looks so noble! Do—do you s'pose, Tess, that it will hurt him when Uncle Rufus carves?"
"My goodness!" exclaimed Neale, "it will hurt us if he doesn't carve the turk. I couldn't imagine any greater punishment than to sit here and taste the other good things and renege on that handsome bird."
But Seneca Sprague did not hear this comment. He ate heartily of the plentiful supply of vegetables; but he would not taste the turkey or the suet pudding.
It was a merry feast. They sat long over it. Uncle Rufus set the great candelabra on the table and by the wax-light they cracked nuts and drank sweet cider, and the younger ones listened to the stories of their elders.
Even Aunt Sarah livened up. "My soul and body!" she croaked, with rather a sour smile, it must be confessed, "I wonder what Peter Stower would say to see me sitting here. Humph! He couldn't keep me out of my home forever, could he?"
But nobody made any reply to that statement.
The day following Thanksgiving that year would ever be known as "Black Friday" in the annals of Milton school history. And it came about like this.
Professor Ware had given notice the Saturday previous that there would be two rehearsals on that day of The Carnation Countess. The morning rehearsal was for the choruses, the dance numbers and tableaux, and especially for those halting Thespians whom the professor called "lame ducks"—those who had such difficulty in learning their parts.
The afternoon rehearsal was the first full rehearsal—every actor, both amateur and professional, must be present, and the play was to be run through from the first note of the overture to the final curtain. For the first time the scholars would hear the orchestral arrangement of the music score.
And right at the start—at the beginning of the morning rehearsal—the musical director was balked. Innocent Delight was not present.
"What's the matter with that girl?" demanded the irate professor of everybody in general and nobody in particular. "Was Thanksgiving too much for her? I expected some of you boys would perform gastronomic feats to make the angels tremble. But girls!"
"The Severns went down to Pleasant Cove over Thanksgiving. They haven't got home yet," announced a neighbor of the missing Trix.
"What? Gone out of town? And after all I said about the importance of to-day's rehearsals!" exclaimed the director. "This is no time for a part as important as that of Innocent Delight to be read."
But they had to go on with the play in that halting manner. Trix Severn's lines were read; but her absence spoiled the action of each scene in which she should have appeared.
"But goodness knows!" snapped Eva Larry, who, with the rest of the "penitent sisterhood," as Neale called them, watched the rehearsal, "Trix will spoil the play anyway. But won't she get it when she comes this afternoon?"
The play halted on to the bitter end. The amateur performers grew tired; the director grew fussy. His sarcastic comments toward the end did not seem to inspire the young folk to a spirited performance of their parts. They were discouraged.
"We should announce this on the bills as a burlesque of The Carnation Countess," declared Professor Ware, "and as nothing else. Milton people will laugh us out of town."
The girls and teachers in the audience realized even better than the performers just how bad it was. The little folk were excused, for they had all done well, while the director tried his best to whip the others into some sort of shape for the afternoon session.
"I know very well that Madam Shaw will refuse to sing her part with a background of such blunderers!" exclaimed Professor Ware, bitterly, at the last. "Nor will the other professionals be willing to risk their reputations, and the play itself, in such a performance. Our time has gone for nothing. And if Innocent Delight does not appear for the afternoon performance——"
His futile threats made little impression upon the girls and boys. They were—for the time—exhausted. Ruth went home in tears—although she had not drawn one word or look of critical comment from the sharp-spoken director. Tess was very solemn, and continued to repeat her part of Swiftwing over and over to herself—although she knew it perfectly.
Dot danced along, saying: "Well! I don't care! I buzzed all right—I know I did! Buzz! buzz! buzz-z-z-z!"
"Goodness gracious!" ejaculated the nervous Agnes, who felt for them all, though not having a thing to do with the play—— "Goodness gracious! you were wishing for a 'buzzer,' Dot Kenway. I don't think you need one. Nature must have made a mistake and meant you for a bee, anyway. I don't see how you ever came to be born into the Kenway family, instead of a bee-hive!"
Dot pouted at that, but quickly changed her expression when she saw Sammy Pinkney careering along the street like a young whirlwind. Sammy, for his sins, had been forbidden to participate in The Carnation Countess—not that it seemed to trouble him a bit! Anything that occurred in the schoolhouse was trial and tribulation to Master Pinkney. They could not fool him into believing differently, just by calling it a "play!"
"Oh, bully! bully! bully!" he sang, coming along the street in a "hop, skip and a jump pace," the better to show his joy. "Oh, Dot! oh, Tess! you never can guess what's happened."
"Something awful, I just know," said Tess, "or you wouldn't be so glad."
"Huh!" grunted Sammy, stopping in the middle of his fantastic dance, and glaring at the next to the youngest Corner House girl, "You wait, Tess Kenway! You're 'teacher's pet'; but nobody else likes old Pepperpot. I guess it will be in the paper to-night, and everybody will be glad of it."
"What has happened to Miss Pepperill?" demanded Ruth, seeing into the mystery of the boy's speech—at least, for a little way.
"Then you ain't heard?" crowed Sammy.
"And we're not likely to, if you don't hurry up and say something," snapped Agnes.
"Well!" growled Sammy. "She's hurt-ed. She was run down by an automobile on High Street. They wanted to take her to the hospital—the one for girls and babies, you know——"
"Oh! Mrs. Eland's hospital!" gasped Tess.
"Yep. But she wouldn't go there. They say she made 'em take her to her boarding house. And she's hurt bad. And, oh, goody! there won't be any school Monday!" cried the young savage, beginning to dance again.
"Don't you fool yourself!" exclaimed Agnes, for Tess was crying frankly, and Dot had a finger in her mouth. "Don't you fool yourself, Sammy Pinkney! They'll have plenty of time to find a substitute teacher before school opens on Monday."
"Oh, they won't!" wailed the boy.
"Yes they will. And I hope it will be somebody a good deal worse than Miss Pepperill. So there!"
"Oh, but there ain't nobody worse," said Sammy, with conviction, while Tess looked at her older sister with tearful surprise.
"Why, Aggie!" she said sorrowfully. "I hope you don't mean that. 'Cause I've got to go to school Monday as well as Sammy."
Tess was really much disturbed over the news of Miss Pepperill's injury. She would not wait for luncheon but went straight over to the house where her teacher boarded, and inquired for her.
The red-haired, sharp-tongued lady was really quite badly hurt. There was a compound fracture of the leg, and Dr. Forsyth feared some injury to the brain, for Miss Pepperill's head was seriously cut. Tess learned that they had been obliged to shave off all the teacher's red, red hair!
"And that's awful!" she told Dot, on her return. "For goodness only knows what color it will be when it grows out again. Miss Lippit (she's the landlady where Miss Pepperill boards) showed it to me. And it's beautiful, long, long hair."
"Mebbe it will come out like Mrs. MacCall's—pepper-and-salt color," said Dot, reflectively. "We haven't got a pepper-and-salt teacher in school, have we?"
Such light reflections as this did not please Tess. She really forgot to repeat the part of Swiftwing, the hummingbird, in her anxiety about the injured Miss Pepperill.
At two o'clock the big rehearsal was called.
"I don't believe I will go back with you," Agnes said, to Ruth. "I can't sit there and hear Trix murder that part. Oh, dear!"
"I bet you won't ever eat any more strawberries," chuckled Neale, who had come over the back fence of the Corner House premises, that being his nearest way to school.
"Don't speak to me of them!" cried Agnes. "A piece of Mrs. MacCall's strawberry shortcake would give me the colic, I know—just to look at it!"
"Oh, you'll get all over that before the strawberry season comes around again," her older sister said placidly. "You'd better come, Aggie."
"No."
"Oh, yes, Aggie, do come!" urged Neale. "Be a sport. Come and see and hear us slaughter The Carnation Countess. It'll be more fun than moping here alone."
"Well, I'll just cover my eyes and ears when Innocent Delight comes on," Agnes declared.
But Trix was not at the rehearsal. Information from the Severn house revealed the fact that the family was still at Pleasant Cove. It was evident that Trix's interest in The Carnation Countess had flagged.
Professor Ware gathered the principal professionals around him. His speech was serious. They had given the performance in several cities and large towns, and had whipped into shape some very unpromising material; but the director admitted that he was discouraged with the outlook here.
"I am inclined to say right here and now: Give it up. Not that the children as a whole do not average as high in quality as those of other schools; but the talent is lacking to take the amateur parts which have always been assigned to the girls and boys. The girls' parts are especially weak.
"One or two bad parts might be ignored—overlooked by a friendly audience. But here is this Innocent Delight girl, not here at all at the most important rehearsal we have had. And she is awful in her part, anyway; I admit it.
"I was misinformed regarding her. I received a note before the parts were given out, stating that she had had much experience in amateur theatricals. I do not believe that she ever even acted in parlor charades," added the professor, in disgust. "She must have a friendly letter-writer who is a professional booster.
"Well, it is too late to change such a part, I am afraid. But to read her lines this afternoon, all through the play, will cripple us terribly. Even if she is a stick, she can look the part, and walk through it."
Somebody tugged at the professor's sleeve. When he looked around he saw a flaxen-haired boy with a very eager face.
"I say, Professor! there's a girl here that knows Trix Severn's part better than she does herself."
"What's this? Another booster?" demanded the director, sorrowfully.
"Just try her! She knows it all by heart. And she's a blonde."
"Why haven't I seen her before, if she's so good? Is she in the chorus?" demanded the doubtful professor.
"She hasn't had any part in the play at all—yet," declared Neale O'Neil, banking all upon this chance for Agnes. "But you just try her out!"
"Perfectly," declared the boy, earnestly.
He dared say no more, but he watched the professor's face sharply.
"I don't suppose she can do any more harm than the other," muttered the desperate director. "Send her up here, boy. Odd I should not have known there was an understudy for Innocent Delight."
Neale went down to the row of seats in which Agnes and a few of the "penitent sisterhood" sat. "Say!" he said, grinning at Agnes and whispering into her pretty ear, "Now's your chance to show us what you can do."
"What do you mean, Neale O'Neil?" she gasped.
"The professor is looking for somebody to walk through Trix's part—just for this rehearsal, of course."
"Oh, Neale!" exclaimed the Corner House girl, clasping her hands. "They'd never let me do it."
"I don't believe you can," laughed Neale. "But you can try if you want to. He told me to send you up to him. There he stands on the stage now."
Agnes rose up giddily. At first she felt that she could not stand. Everything seemed whirling about her. Neale, with his past experience of the circus in his mind, had an uncanny appreciation of her feelings.
"Buck up!" he whispered. "Don't have stage-fright. You don't have to say half the words if you don't want to."
She flashed him a wonderful look. Her vision cleared and she smiled. Right there and then Agnes, by some subtle power that had been given her when she was born into this world, became changed into the character of Innocent Delight—the part which she had already learned so well.
She had sat here throughout each rehearsal and listened to Professor Ware's comments and the stage manager's instructions. She knew the cues perfectly. There was not an inflection or pose in the part that she had not perfected her voice and body in. The other girls watched her move toward the stage curiously—Neale with a feeling that he had never really known his little friend before.
"Hello, who's this?" asked one of the male professionals when Agnes came to the group upon the stage.
"The very type!" breathed Madam Shaw, who had just come upon the platform in her street costume. "Professor! why did you not get this girl for Innocent Delight?"
"I have," returned the director, drily. "You are the one who has studied the part?" he asked Agnes.
"Yes, sir," she said, and all her bashfulness left her.
"Open your first scene," commanded the professor, bruskly.
The command might have confused a professional—especially when the player had had no opportunity of rehearsing save in secret. But Agnes had forgotten everything but the character she was to play. She opened her lips and began with a vivacity and dash that made the professionals smile and applaud when she was through.
"Wait!" commanded the professor, immediately. "If you can do that as well in the play——"
"Oh! but, sir," said Agnes, suddenly coming to herself, and feeling her heart and courage sink. "I can't act in the play—not really."
"Why not?" he snapped.
"I am forbidden."
"By whom, I'd like to know?"
"Mr. Marks. We girls of the basket ball team cannot act. It is a punishment."
"Indeed?" said the director, grimly. "And are all the girls Mr. Marks sees fit to punish at this special time, as able as you are to take part?"
"Ye-yes, sir," quavered Agnes.
"Well!" It was a most expressive observation. But the director said nothing further about Mr. Marks and his discipline. He merely turned and cried:
"Ready for the first act! Clear the stage."
To Madam Shaw he whispered: "Of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer."
"But one good, smart girl like this one may come near to saving the day for you, Professor."