The Corner House Girls Growing Up

by Grace Brooks Hill

  CHAPTER XXI

  ADVENTURES WITH SCALAWAG

  Dot came home to the old Corner House the first day of the school termwith what Neale O'Neil would have called "serious trouble in theinternal department." She was ravenously hungry; and yet she had eaten agood lunch and did not like to demand of Mrs. MacCall that bite betweenmeals which was so abhorred by the Scotchwoman.

  "You have no more right to eat 'twixt one meal and t'other by day thanyou have to demand a loonch in the middle of the night," was often thegood woman's observation when she was asked for a mid-afternoon lunch.

  Ruth was easier. She had not been brought up in the rigid, repressiveschool that had surrounded Mrs. MacCall's childhood. As for Linda, theFinnish girl, if she had her way she would be "stuffing" (to quote Mrs.MacCall) the children all the time.

  "You sh'd train your stomach to be your clock, child," Mrs. MacCalldeclared on this occasion, after Dot had finally mustered up her courageto ask for the lunch.

  "I try to, Mrs. Mac," said the smallest Corner House girlapologetically. "But sometimes my stomach's fast."

  That started the ball rolling that evening, and the dinner table provedto be a hilarious place. But Ruth was very quiet and her countenancecarried a serious cast that might have been noticed had the others notall been so gay and excited. The first day of the term is always anexciting time. Everything about the school--even old things--seemsstrange.

  Dot had of course learned to write as well as to read; and indeed shewrote a very plain and readable hand. Even Mrs. MacCall could see it"without her specs."

  "I do abominate these folks whose handwriting is so fine that I have torun to get my glasses to know whether it's an invitation to tea or totell me some bad news," the housekeeper declared, in discussing Dot'simproved writing.

  The little girl was passing around a paper on which she had copied asentence that her teacher had written on the blackboard just beforeclosing hour that day. With an idea of testing the children's knowledgeof English, the teacher had written the line and told her class to thinkit over and, in the morning, bring her the sentence rewritten indifferent words, but retaining the original meaning.

  It was the old proverb: "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse."

  "Of course, I know what it _means_," Dot said. "If a horse is blind hewouldn't see you nodding or winking. And winking isn't polite,anyway--Ruth says it isn't."

  "Correct, Dottums," Agnes agreed. "It is very bad and bold towink--especially at the boys."

  "Wouldn't it be impolite to wink at a horse, too, Aggie?" asked thepuzzled Dot. "Don't you think Scalawag would feel he was insulted if Iwunk at him?"

  "Oh, my eye!" gasped Neale, who chanced to be at hand. "Wink, wank,wunk. Great declension, kid."

  "Don't call me 'kid'!" cried Dot. "I am sure _that_ is not polite, NealeO 'Neil."

  "Discovered, Neale!" chuckled Agnes.

  "You are right, Dottie," said the boy, with a twinkle in his eye. "Andto repay you for my slip in manners, I will aid you in transposing thatsentence so that your teacher will scarcely recognize it."

  And he did so. It greatly delighted Dot, for she did so lovepolysyllables. The other members of the family were convulsed when theyread Neale's effort. The little girl carried the paper to school thenext day and the amazed teacher read the following paraphrase of "A winkis as good as a nod to a blind horse:"

  "A spasmodic movement of the eye is as adequate as a slight motion ofthe cranium to an equine quadruped devoid of its visionary capacities."

  "Goodness!" Tess declared when she had heard this read over severaltimes. "I don't think you would better read that to Scalawag, Dot. Itwould make any horse mad."

  "Scalawag isn't a horse," responded her sister. "He's a pony. And Nealesays he'll never grow up to be a horse. He's just always going to be ourcute, cunning little Scalawag!"

  "But suppose," sighed Tess, thoughtfully, "that he ever acts like thatbrown pony of Mrs. Heard's. Jonas, you know."

  "Oh, Jonas! He is a _bad_ pony. He gets stuck and won't go," Dot said."Our Scalawag wouldn't do that."

  "He balks, Dot--balks," reproved Tess. "He doesn't get stuck."

  "I don't care. You can't push him, and you can't pull him. He juststands."

  "Until our Neale whispers something in his ear," suggested Tess.

  "Oh, my!" exclaimed her little sister. "Suppose Scalawag _should_ betaken that way. What _would_ we do? We don't know what Neale whisperedto Mrs. Heard's pony."

  "That's so," agreed Tess. "And Neale won't tell me. I've asked him, and_asked_ him! He was never so mean about anything before."

  But Neale, with a reassuring smile, told the little girls that Scalawagwould never need to be whispered to. In fact, whispering to the calicopony would merely be a waste of time.

  "There's nothing the matter with the old villain but inborn laziness,"the youth chuckled. "You have to shout to Scalawag, not whisper to him."

  "Oh!" murmured Tess, "don't call him a villain. He is so pretty."

  "And cute," added Dot.

  Uncle Rufus had built him a nice box stall and Neale took time earlyeach morning to brush and curry the pony until his coat shone and hismane was "crinkly."

  Before the week was out, too, the basket phaeton arrived and a verypretty russet, nickel-trimmed harness. Even the circus trimmings hadnever fitted Scalawag better than this new harness, and he tossed hishead and pawed, as he had been trained to do, arching his neck andlooking just as though he were anxious to work.

  "But it's all in his looks," observed Neale. "He doesn't mean it."

  Which seemed to be the truth when the two little girls and Sammy Pinkneygot into the phaeton with Neale and took their first drive about themore quiet residential streets of Milton.

  Scalawag jogged along under compulsion; but to tell the truth he actedjust as though, if he had his own choice, he would never get out of awalk.

  "Je-ru-sa-_lem_!" muttered Sammy. "It's lucky we don't want to goanywhere in a hurry."

  It was great fun to drive around the Parade Ground and see the otherchildren stare. When Sammy was allowed to hold the lines he sat up likea real coachman and was actually too proud for speech.

  The responsibilities of his position immediately impressed the embryopirate. Neale taught him carefully how to drive, and what to do in anyemergency that might arise. Scalawag was an easy-bitted pony and mindedthe rein perfectly. The only danger was the pony's slowness in gettinginto action.

  "I reckon," declared Neale, with some disgust, "if there was a bombdropped behind him, old Scalawag wouldn't get out of the way quickenough, even if there was a five-minute time fuse on the bomb."

  "Well, I guess he'll never run away then," said Tess, with a sigh ofsatisfaction. Nothing could be said about Scalawag that one or the otherof the two little girls could not find an excuse for, or even that thecriticism was actually praise.

  "One thing you want to remember, children," Neale said one day,earnestly. "If you're ever out with Scalawag without me, and you hear aband playing, or anything that sounds like a band, you turn him aroundand beat it the other way."

  "All right," responded the little girls.

  "What for?" asked Sammy, at once interested.

  "Never mind what for. You promise to do as I say, or it's all off.You'll get no chance to drive the girls alone."

  "Sure, I'll do what you say, Neale. Only I wondered what for. Don't helike band music?"

  But Neale, considering it safer to say nothing more, merely repeated hiswarning.

  The children drove out every pleasant afternoon when school was over,and within the fortnight Sammy and Tess and Dot were going about Miltonwith the pony through the shady and quiet streets, as though they hadalways done so. Therefore the older Corner House girls and Neale couldtake their friends to drive in the motor-car, without crowding in thetwo smaller children.

  The "newness" of the automobile having worn off for Tess and Dot, theymuch preferred the basket carriage and the fat pony. They, too, cou
ldtake their little friends driving, and this added a feeling ofimportance to their pleasure in the pony.

  Had Tess had her way every sick or crippled child in town would haveridden behind the calico pony. She wanted at once to go to the Women'sand Children's Hospital, where their very dear friend, Mrs. Eland, hadbeen matron and for the benefit of which _The Carnation Countess_ hadbeen given by the school children of Milton, and take every unfortunatechild, one after another, out in the basket carriage.

  Their schoolmates especially had to be invited to ride, and SadieGoronofsky from Meadow Street, and Alfredia Blossom, Uncle Rufus'granddaughter, were not neglected.

  "I do declare!" said Aunt Sarah, with some exasperation, as she saw thepony and cart, with its nondescript crew, start off one afternoon for ajog around the Parade Ground. "I do declare! What riffraff Tess managesto pick up. For she certainly must be the biggest influence in gatheringevery rag, tag and bobtail child in the neighborhood. I never did seesuch a youngster."

  "It isn't that Tessie's tastes are so heterodox," Ruth said, smilingquietly, "but her love for others is so broad."

  "Humph!" snapped Aunt Sarah. "It's a wonder to me the child hasn'tbrought smallpox into the family from going as she does to those awfultenements on Meadow Street."

  Aunt Sarah had always been snobbish in her tendencies, even in her daysof poverty; and since she enjoyed the comforts and luxuries of the oldCorner House it must be confessed that this unpleasant trait in the oldwoman's character had been considerably developed.

  "The only tenements she goes to on Meadow Street are our own," Ruthreplied with vigor. "If they are conducted so badly that diseases becomeepidemic there, _we_ shall be to blame--shall we not?"

  "Oh, don't talk socialism or political economy to _me_!" said AuntSarah. "Thank goodness when _I_ went to school young girls did not filltheir heads with such nonsense."

  "But when she went to school," Ruth said afterward to Mrs. MacCall,"girls I am sure learned to be charitable and loving. And that is allour Tess is, after all."

  "Bless her sweet heart!" exclaimed the housekeeper. "She'll never behurt by that, it's true. But she does bring awfully queer lookingcharacters to the hoose, Ruth. There's no gainsaying that."

  As the children met these other children at the public school, Ruthcould not see why the Goronofskys and the Maronis and the Tahnjeans, andeven Petunia Blossom's pickaninnies, should not, if they were wellbehaved, come occasionally to the old Corner House. Nor did she forbidher little sisters taking their schoolmates to ride in the basketphaeton, for the calico pony could easily draw all that could pile intothe vehicle.

  The children from Meadow Street, and from the other poorer quarters ofthe town, always appeared at the Kenway domicile dressed in their best,and scrubbed till their faces shone. The parents considered it an honorfor their children to be invited over by Tess and Dot.

  Sammy, of course, would have found it much more agreeable to drive alonewith some of the boys than with a lot of the little girls; but he wasvery fair about it.

  "I can't take you 'nless Tess says so," he said to Iky Goronofsky. "I'monly let to drive this pony; I don't own him. Tess and Dot have the sayof it."

  "And all the kids is sponging on them," grunted Iky, who always had aneye to the main chance. "You know what I would do if the pony was mine?"

  "What would you do, Iky?" asked Sammy.

  "I'd nefer let a kid in the cart without I was paid a nickel. Sure! Anickel a ride! And I would soon make the cost of the harness and thecart. That's what my father would do too."

  Both of which statements were probably true. But the little Corner Housegirls had no thought for business. They were bent upon having a goodtime and giving their friends pleasure.

  The pony was not being abused in any sense. The work was good for him.But possibly Uncle Bill Sorber had not looked forward to quite such abusy time for Scalawag when he told him in confidence that he was goingto have an easy time of it at the old Corner House. If Scalawag couldhave seen, and been able to speak with, the old ringmaster just then thepony would doubtless have pointed out an important error in the abovestatement.

  Scalawag was petted and fed and well cared for. But as the fall weatherwas so pleasant, each afternoon he was put between the shafts and wasmade to haul noisy, delighted little folk about the Parade Ground.

  They did not always have company in these drives, however. Sometimesonly Tess and Dot were in the basket carriage, though usually Sammy wasalong. Once in a while they went on errands for Mrs. MacCall--to thestore, or to carry things to sick people. The clatter of Scalawag'slittle hoofs became well known upon many of the highways and byways ofMilton.

  Once they drove to the Women's and Children's Hospital with a basket ofhome-made jellies and jams that Mrs. MacCall had just put up and whichRuth wished to donate to the convalescents in the institution. For afterthe departure of Mrs. Eland and her sister, Miss Peperill, for the West,the Corner House Girls had not lost their interest in this charitableinstitution.

  At a corner which they were approaching at Scalawag's usual jog trotwere several carriages, a hearse with plumes, and some men in uniform.Sammy had the reins on this day.

  "Oh, Sammy," said Tess, "we'll have to wait, I guess. It's Mr. Mudge'sfuneral--Mr. Peter Mudge, you know. He was a Grand Army man, and all theother Grand Army men will help bury him. There! Hear the band!"

  Of a sudden, and with a moaning of wind instruments punctuated by theroll of drums, the band struck into a dirge. The procession moved. Andall of a sudden Sammy found that Scalawag was marking time just as hehad been taught to do in the circus ring to any music.

  "Oh, my!" gasped Dot, "what is the matter with Scalawag?"

  "Turn him around, Sammy--please do," begged Tess. "Just see him! Andhe's following the band."

  That is just exactly what the pony intended to do. Sammy could not turnhim. He would mind neither voice nor the tugging rein. Arching his neck,tossing his mane, and stepping high in time to the droning music, thecalico pony turned the corner and followed on at the rear of theprocession.

  "Why--why," gasped Dot, "I don't want to go to a funeral. You stop him,Sammy Pinkney."

  "Can't we turn him up a side street, Sammy?" whispered Tess.

  Everybody was looking from the sidewalk and from the houses they passed.It was a ridiculous situation. The solemn, slow notes of the band seemedjust suited to Scalawag's leisurely action. He kept perfect time.

  "And they're goin' to march clear out to the Calvary Cemetery!"ejaculated Sammy. "It's four miles!"