The Corner House Girls Growing Up

by Grace Brooks Hill

  CHAPTER XVII

  SCALAWAG GETS A NEW HOME

  A dog barking aroused Sammy. He must, after all, have fallen into alight doze. With Dot sleeping contentedly on the bag of potatoes and hiscoat, and the only nearby sounds the rustling noise that he had finallybecome scornful of, the boy could not be greatly blamed for losinghimself in sleep.

  But he thought the dog barking must be either his Buster or old TomJonah, the Corner House girls' dog. Were they coming to search for himand Dot?

  "Oh, wake up, Dot! Wake up!" cried Sammy, shaking the little girl."There's something doing."

  "I wish you wouldn't, Tess," complained the smallest Corner House girl."I don't want to get up so early. I--I've just come asleep," and shewould have settled her cheek again into Sammy's jacket had the boy notshaken her.

  "Oh, Dot! Wake up!" urged the boy, now desperately frightened."There's--there's smoke."

  "Oo-ee!" gasped Dot, sitting up. "What's happened? Is the chimneyleaking?"

  "There's something afire. Hear that pounding! And the dog!"

  It was the desperate kicking of the mules, John and Jerry, they heard.And the kicking and the barking of Beauty, the hound, continued untilthe Corner House automobile, with the bucket brigade aboard, roared downto the canalboat and stopped.

  The fire was under great headway, and every person in the party helpedto quench it. The girls, as well as the men and boys, rushed to thework. To see the old boat burn when it was the whole living of theQuiggs, gained the sympathy of all.

  Neale leaped right down into the water and filled buckets and handedthem up as fast as possible. Luke and the girls carried the full pailsand either threw the contents on the flames or set the pails down forMr. Sorber to handle.

  The ringmaster was in his element, for he loved to direct. His shoutedcommands would have made an impression upon an organized firedepartment. And he let it be known, in true showman's style, that theTwomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie was doing all in itspower to put out the fire.

  Cap'n Bill Quigg and Louise ran to loosen the mules. It was a wonder thecanalboat girl was not kicked to death she was so fearless. And themules by this time were wildly excited.

  Fortunately the fire had burned an outlet through the roof of the cabinand had not spread to the stable. But the heat was growing in intensityand the smoke was blinding. Especially after Mr. Sorber began to throwon water to smother the blaze.

  The mules were released without either the girl or her father beinghurt. But John and Jerry could not be held. Immediately they tore away,raced over the narrow gangplank, and started across somebody's ploughedfield at full gallop. They never had shown such speed since they hadbecome known on the towpath.

  Then Louise and her father could help put out the fire. Cap'n Bill, aswell as the mules, actually showed some speed. He handed up buckets ofwater with Neale, and amid the encouraging shouts of the crowd acrossthe canal, the fire was finally quenched. Mr. Sorber immediately seizedthe occasion as a good showman, or "ballyhoo," should.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," he shouted, standing at the rail and bowing,flourishing his arm as though he were snapping the long whip lash hetook into the ring with him, "this little exciting episode--thisepicurean taste of the thrills to follow in the big tent--although of animpromptu nature, merely goes to show the versatility of Twomley andSorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie, and our ability, when theunexpected happens, to grapple with circumstances and throw them,sir--throw them! That is what we did in this present thrillinghappening. The fire is out. Every spark is smothered. The Fire Demon nolonger seeks to devour its prey. Ahem! Another and a more quenchingelement has driven the Fire Demon back to its last spark and cinder--andthen quenched the spark and cinder! Now, ladies and gentlemen, havingviewed this entirely impromptu and nevertheless exciting manifestationof Fire and Water, we hope that your attention will be recalled to theglories of the Twomley and Sorber Herculean Circus and Menagerie. Thebig show will begin in exactly twenty-two minutes, ladies and gentlemen.At that time I shall be happy to see you all in your places in ourcomfortable seats as I enter the ring for the grand entrance. I thankyou, one and all!"

  He bowed gracefully and retired a step just as Cap'n Bill Quigg kickedoff the forward hatch-cover to let the smoke out of the hold. He let outsomething else--and so surprised was the canalboatman, that he actuallysprang back.

  Two childish voices were shouting as loud as possible: "Let us out! Oh,let--us--o-o-out!"

  "Come on, Dot!" Sammy Pinkney cried, seeing the opening above theirheads. "We can get out now."

  "And we'll get right off this horrid boat, Sammy," declared Dot. "Idon't ever mean to go off and be pirates with you again--never. Me andmy Alice-doll don't like it at all."

  "There was a rush for the open hatchway and a chorus ofexcited voices"]

  There was a rush for the open hatchway and a chorus of excited voices.

  "Oh, Dot, Dot! Are you there, dear?" cried Ruth.

  "You little plague, Sammy Pinkney!" gasped Agnes. "I've a mind to boxyour ears for you!"

  "Easy, easy," advised Neale, who was dripping wet from his waist down."Let us see if they are whole and hearty before we turn on thepunishment works. Give us your hands, Dottie."

  He lifted the little girl, still hugging her Alice-doll, out of the holdand kissed her himself before he put her into Ruth's arms.

  "Come on up, now, Sammy, and take your medicine," Neale urged, stoopingover the hatchway.

  "Huh! Don't you kiss _me_, Neale O'Neil," growled Sammy, trying to bringthe potatoes and the basket of fruit both up the ladder with him. "I'llget slobbered over enough when I get home--first."

  "And what second?" asked Luke, vastly amused as well as relieved.

  But Sammy was silent on that score. Nor did he ever reveal to the CornerHouse girls and their friends just what happened to him when he got backto his own home.

  Mr. Sorber was shaking hands with them all in congratulatory mood. Cap'nBill Quigg was lighting his pipe and settling down against the scorchedside of the cabin to smoke. Dot was passed around like a doll, from handto hand. Louise looked on in mild amazement.

  "If I'd knowed that little girl was down in the hold, I sure would havehad her out," she said to Neale. "My! ain't she pretty. And what ascrumptious doll!"

  Dot saw the canalboat girl in her faded dress, and the lanky boatman,and she had to express her curiosity.

  "Oh, please!" she cried. "Are you and that man pirates, like Sammy andme!"

  "No," said Louise, wonderingly. "Pap's a Lutheran and I went to a'piscopalean Sunday-school last winter."

  The laugh raised by the excited party from the Corner House quenched anyfurther curiosity on Dot's part. And just here Mr. Sorber suggested amost delightful thing.

  "Now, Neale wants to come over to the dressing tent and put on somethingdry," said the ringmaster. "And on the way you can stop at that houseyonder by the bridge and telephone home that you are all right and theyoung'uns have been found. Then you'll all be my guests at Twomley andSorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. The big show will commence injust fourteen minutes. Besides Scalawag wants to see his littlemistress."

  "Who is Scalawag?" was the chorused question.

  "That pony, Uncle Bill?" asked Neale.

  "Oh!" gasped Sammy Pinkney, quite himself once more. "The calico ponywith pink on him! Je-ru-sa-_lem_!"

  "Exactly," agreed Mr. Sorber, answering all the queries with one word.Then he turned to little Louise Quigg, to add:

  "That means you and your dad. You will be guests of the circus, too.Come on, now, Neale, turn your car around and hurry. I'm due to get intoanother ring suit-- I always keep a fresh one handy in case ofaccident--and walk out before the audience in just--le's see--elevenminutes, now!"

  That was surely a busy eleven minutes for all concerned. The Quiggs hadto be urged a little to leave their canal boat again; but Beauty hadfaithfully remained aboard, even if she had gone to sleep at her post;so they shut her into the partly
burned cabin to guard the fewpossessions that remained to them.

  "We never did have much, and we ain't likely to ever have much," saidthe philosophical Louise. "We can bunk to-night in the hold, Pap. Wecouldn't find John and Jerry till morning, anyway. We might's wellcelebrate 'cause the old _Nancy Hanks_ didn't _all_ go up in smoke."

  Luke telephoned the good news to the old Corner House that Dot and Sammywere found, safe and sound, and that they were all going to the circus.Poor Tess had to be satisfied with the promise that the long-expectedpony would be at Milton in a few days. News of the runaways' safety wascarried quickly to the Pinkney cottage across Willow Street.

  "It strikes me that these kids are getting rewarded instead of punishedfor running away," Luke observed to Ruth, when he returned fromtelephoning.

  "But what can we do?" the girl asked him. "I am so glad to get Dot backthat I could not possibly punish her. And I don't know that she didanything so very wrong. Nor do I believe she will do anything like itagain."

  "How about Sammy?" the collegian asked.

  "To tell the truth," said honest Ruth, "from what they both say I fancyDot urged Sammy to run away. I can't blame him if I don't blame her, canI?"

  "They've got enough, I guess," chuckled Luke. "Two reformed pirates!Goodness! aren't kids the greatest ever?"

  The escapade of Sammy and Dot had carried its own punishment with it.Ruth was right when she said that Dot would never yield to such atemptation again. She had learned something about running away. As forSammy, he was more subdued than the Corner House girls had ever seen himbefore.

  That is, he was subdued until they were in what Mr. Sorber called "aprivate box" at the ringside of the circus and things began to happen.Then, what small boy could remain subdued with the joys and wonders ofa real circus evolving before his eyes?

  If the tents were dusty and patched, and some of the costumes as frayedand tarnished as they could be after two-thirds of a season's wear, allthe glamour of the famous entertainment was here--the smell of theanimals, the dancing dust in the lamplight, the flaring torches, theblaring of the band, the distant roaring of the lions being fed for theamusement of the spectators.

  The grand entrance was a marvel to the children. The curveting horses,the gaily decked chariots, the daring drivers in pink and blue tightsand the very pink-cheeked women in the wonderful, glitteringclothes--all these things delighted Sammy and Dot as well as LouiseQuigg, who had never in her cramped life seen such a show.

  When Mr. Sorber entered in his fresh suit and cracked his whip, and theband began to play, Louise became absorbed. When the clowns leaped intothe ring with a chorused: "Here we are again!" Dot and Sammy and Louiseclutched hands without knowing it, and just "held on" to themselves andeach other during most of the entertainment that followed.

  But the greatest excitement for the smaller people in the private boxoccurred toward the end of the evening when a squad of ponies came in todo their tricks. There were black ponies and white, and dappled and redponies; but the prettiest of all (both Dot and the gasping Louisedeclared it) was the brown and cream colored Scalawag, with the pinknose and ears.

  Sammy, feeling his superiority as a boy in most instances, even at thecircus, dropped every appearance of calm when Neale pointed out Scalawagas the calico pony promised Tess and Dot by Uncle Bill Sorber.

  "Oh, my granny!" gasped the youngster, his eyes fairly bulging, "youdon't mean that's the pony I thought was like a Teddy bear?"

  "That's the one the girls are going to have for their very own. UncleRufus has been building a stall in the far shed for it--next to BillyBumps," Neale assured him.

  "And it _is_ chocolate and cream and _pink_!" exclaimed Sammy. He turnedsuddenly to Agnes. "Oh, I say, Aggie!" he shouted. "You _did_ know allabout what a calico pony was like, didn't you?"

  Agnes herself was delighted with the pretty creature. Of course, he wasawfully round and fat; but he appeared so funny and cute when he lookedout at the audience from under his braided bang, that Scalawag quiteendeared himself to all their hearts.

  He was something of a clown in the troupe of ponies. He always startedlast when an order was given and when he had anything to do by himselfhe appeared "to really hate" to do it. Mr. Sorber seemed to get veryangry, and he lashed at the pony quite furiously and shouted at him, sothat the little girls squealed.

  But the whiplash only wound about Scalawag's neck and did not hurt him,while he put his head around and looked at the ringmaster when heshouted, as though to ask Uncle Bill Sorber: "What's your hurry?"

  "He's almost the oldest live thing in the show," chuckled Neale to Luke."I can remember him when I was a little fellow and was first taken intothe ring as the 'Infantile Wonder of the Ages'. I rode Scalawag. He wasso fat then that I couldn't have rolled off his back very easily.

  "Nothing older with the show, I guess, except Monolith, the moth-eatenold elephant, and the big tortoise in the sideshow. They say theelephant's over a hundred, and some think the tortoise is two hundredyears old. So they go Scalawag a little better in age."

  At the end of the pony act Mr. Sorber made Scalawag do something thatthrilled Dot so that she whispered to Agnes she thought she "_should_faint!" The ringmaster led the old pony right over in front of theprivate box, and while all the people looked on, he presented Scalawagto Dot and her absent sister, whom Mr. Sorber spoke of as "T'ressa."

  "Ladies and gentlemen, and all friends," began the ringmaster. "Twomleyand Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie never does things byhalves. Even when we find ourselves obliged to get rid of one of ourfaithful pufformers we make provision for that pufformer's happy oldage.

  "Scalawag has always been a trial; but we have borne with him. We havestood his tricks and his laziness for these many moons--many moons,ladies and gentlemen. Now he is going to a good home for the rest of hislazy life where all the work, privations, et cetera of circus life willbe but a memory in his equine mind. Scalawag! Salute your new mistress!"

  The fat pony rose on his hind legs and pawed the air, seemingly lookingstraight at Dot. It was then the smallest Corner House girl thoughtsurely she would faint.