The Corner House Girls Solve a Mystery What It Was, Where It Was, and Who Found It — Inside the Classic

ts of steak cut smaller by Tess.

Then he lifted out onto the table a small, tame alligator, at the sight of which the two girls broke into exclamations of:

“Oh, isn’t he cute! How did you ever do it! Oh, he looks just like a circus alligator!”

“Maybe I’ll put him in a circus,” said Sammy. “But it wasn’t easy to dress him up.”

Sammy had, with the expenditure of much time and (for him) labor, made a sort of clown suit for the alligator, a little red jacket and green trousers. The two front legs of the small alligator were thrust through the sleeves of the red jacket, and the two hind legs stuck out of the green legs of the trousers.

“Oh, he’s too funny for anything!” declared Dot.

“Wait! You haven’t seen half yet!” promised the boy.

Again he reached into the box he had carried over from his home, which was catercornered from the Corner House, and this time he lifted out a small wagon, purchased at the five and ten-cent store. To this vehicle he had fastened a harness so that Snapper could be hitched to the toy.

“Oh, isn’t that a darling!” cried Tess in ecstasy.

“You could have a show with that!” declared Dot.

“Maybe I will,” said Sammy. “But wait, you haven’t seen it all yet. Wait till he draws the cart. Keep the meat away from him until I hitch him up,” he went on. “Once he starts to eating raw steak he won’t pull. I have to bribe him to do it till he gets better trained. Don’t let him get the meat, Tess.”

At what, it would seem, was the risk of having her fingers snapped at, the girl removed the bits of meat from in front of the little alligator. Sammy then hitched it to the cart and next, taking a shred of meat, held it a few inches away from Snapper’s nose.

Slowly the alligator from “Plam Island” began crawling across the table, anxious to get the dainty, and, as he crawled, he hauled after him the toy cart.

“Oh, that’s perfectly wonderful!” cried Tess.

“Too cute for anything!” added Dot. “Look, Alice-doll,” she went on, holding her most-loved “child” up to see.

“Aw, what does _she_ know about it?” jeered Sammy.

“My Alice-doll knows more’n you do, Sammy Pinkney, so there!” retorted Dot.

Just then there was a noise at the outer kitchen door, and the three children turned apprehensively, thinking it might be their Aunt Sarah or Mrs. MacCall.

“It’s only Billy Bumps,” remarked Sammy, as he caught sight of the goat entering. Billy was a sort of privileged neighborhood character, but had Mrs. MacCall been present he never would have entered her clean kitchen. However, Sammy, Dot and Tess were not so particular. Besides, they were watching the alligator do his trick with the little cart.

But peace and quiet was not to reign for long. Billy Bumps, discovering on a small table in a corner a bit of lettuce, began munching this. His tail was toward the larger table, on which Snapper was performing, and, as luck would have it, just then the alligator in his wanderings came to the edge of the table. The goat’s slightly moving tail was within easy reach of the jaws.

Perhaps Snapper might have recognized in the goat’s tail a resemblance to some dainty he was accustomed to feed on while a resident of Palm Island. Or perhaps Snapper took the goat’s tail for a new form of beefsteak, of which he was very fond.

However that may be, this is what happened.

Snapper reached forward and, aiming to bite out a generous section of the goat’s tail, took a firm hold.

“Baa-a-a-a!” bleated the goat.

He wheeled around suddenly, and with such force that he swung Snapper from the table to the floor, the alligator loosening its grip. But Billy Bumps had been frightened. He also thought he had been mistreated. With another bleat, in which rage and reproach were mingled, he made a dash for the door by which he had entered.

Just as he reached it there entered Robbie Foote with some eggs that Mrs. Kranz, the “delicatessen lady,” had sent up to the Corner House from her store.

“Oh!” gasped Robbie. And again: “Oh!”

Well might he say that, for the plunging goat took him in the stomach and down went Robbie.

Down went the eggs also, in a smash of shells, whites and yellows on the kitchen floor, and Snapper the alligator, wondering what it was all about, started to crawl through the mess.

“Oh,” gasped Tess faintly.

“Oh dear!” cried Dot, more loudly.

“This—this—this is fierce!” stuttered Sammy, gazing wildly at the scene of wreck and confusion.

CHAPTER II: A QUEER PAIR

“Agnes, did you hear anything?”

“I’m not sure, Ruth, but I did think I heard something in the kitchen, still——”

“I shouldn’t have left Dot and Tess there alone to finish making their cakes, I’m afraid,” went on the oldest of the Corner House girls. “But they begged and teased so to be allowed to bake something by themselves, that I gave in against my better judgment. I’m always doing that!”

“Don’t reproach yourself,” murmured Agnes. “Oh, I’m afraid I’ve broken one of my nails,” she exclaimed, looking at her well-manicured hands. “Yes, it _is_ broken!” she sighed. “And I was going to——”

“Something else besides a fingernail is broken, to judge by the racket down in the kitchen!” exclaimed Ruth, interrupting her “beauty sister,” as she sometimes called Agnes.

Ruth had opened the door of the room in which she and her sister, with the housekeeper, Mrs. MacCall, had been discussing the advisability of having it repapered in anticipation of the time when Miss Hastings should come to visit them, the Boston girl having accepted a very cordial invitation to stay a few weeks at the Corner House.

“Something _has_ happened!” declared Ruth, with conviction.

“Oh, the puir bairns!” exclaimed motherly Mrs. MacCall. “Hech! Hech! Mayhap the dratted stove hae burned them! Oh, woe is me!”

“They know better than to get burned,” answered Ruth. “But I think we’d better go down and see what has happened.”

“You _think_!” gasped Agnes, looking at her fractured nail. “I just _know_ we had!”

Followed by Mrs. MacCall, with her ominous “hech! hech!” the while mumbling incomprehensible Scotch words, the two sisters hastened down the stairs. When they caught sight of the kitchen with its mixture of eggs and alligator, Ruth felt like saying what Sammy had said—with added adjectives.

“Oh, what _has_ happened?” cried Agnes.

“Sammy was doing a trick, Aggie, and—” began Dot. Then she caught sight of her Alice-doll on the floor with a slowly moving trail of egg yellow, like lava from a volcano, working toward her, and with a cry sprang to save her.

“Trick!” spluttered Robbie Foote, as he arose and wiped some white of egg from his face. “If you call that a trick——”

“What’s burning?” asked Ruth.

“Oh, my cake! My cake!” shouted Tess.

Mrs. MacCall simply raised her hands in the air. She was beyond speech.

“This,” said Sammy Pinkney again, “is _fierce_!”

But it was not always thus in the Corner House. Usually the house was as quiet and orderly as is the normal household inhabited by four healthy, happy girls and their friends and playmates. However, this confusion will serve one good purpose. It will enable me to acquaint my new readers more formally with the characters who are to play their parts in this story.

Bloomingsburg was the former home of the Kenway sisters when you first met them in the opening volume of this series, called “The Corner House Girls.” There was a reason for that name, since the quartette came to live in the Corner House at Milton. A distant relative of the Kenways, Uncle Peter Stower, had died and left the four orphan girls all his property. This included the Stower homestead, known far and wide in that section as the old Corner House.

Mr. Howbridge, who was named the guardian of the girls, managed matters for them and saw to it that Ruth, Agnes, Dot and Tess were safely domiciled in the Corner House. With them came Aunt Sarah Maltby, an old lady who was rather a trial at times, for she was always afraid something was going to happen. What this “something” was she never could be sure of, but it was an ever-present fear.

However, the looking after the girls devolved more upon stanch Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus, the devoted colored servant of the late Peter Stower, so Aunt Sarah did not need to be relied upon.

Thus Ruth, the oldest, and her three sisters, came to live in the Corner House, the poverty days in Bloomingsburg being a thing of the past.

“She might have come along and visited us just as we are, and just as she was,” complained Ruth. “But I suppose she thought she had to run back to Boston for more dresses.”

“That reminds me,” said Agnes thoughtfully, carefully filing her broken nail. “I suppose we shall need new gowns for the party. Oh, can’t we afford it, Ruth?”

“I think so.” And Ruth smiled. “We haven’t been very extravagant, Mr. Howbridge says.” She referred to their man of affairs. “He says we have some of our summer allowance left.”

“Good! Then I’m going to have that voile I’ve wanted so long. And it’s going to be lavender, too.”

“I suppose that’s Neale’s favorite color,” remarked Ruth.

“What if it is? Doesn’t Luke like those pale, neutral tints, and——”

“I like them myself,” interrupted Ruth demurely, “and I saw the loveliest shade of—Who are those two men coming in?” she broke off to ask the housekeeper.

“Wha’ twa min, dearie?”

“Those queer-looking ones—like two tramps. I just saw them going around toward the side entrance. Dot and Tess are on the porch. I don’t want tramps to frighten them or Linda. I’d better go down and see who they are. I don’t like their looks.”

“But we haven’t settled about the paper for Nally’s room!” called Agnes.

“You settle it with Mrs. Mac,” returned Ruth. “I must see about those two queer men.”

Dot and Tess had not long lived in their new home before they made the acquaintance of Sammy Pinkney, who dwelt catercornered from the Corner House, and Sammy, Dot and Tess had royal good times together.

Ruth and Agnes, being older—in fact, Ruth now being quite a young lady—had more mature friends. Among them might especially be mentioned Luke Shepard. His name was being coupled with Ruth’s in “quite a matrimonial manner,” Agnes laughingly remarked, at which Ruth retorted:

“You needn’t talk! What about Neale O’Neil?”

Whereat Agnes had the grace to blush.

Luke Shepard was a young collegian who was more or less at the Corner House—less when at college and more often during vacation times. Luke lived with his sister Cecile at Grantham, not many miles away. Their Aunt Lorena kept house for the young folks. They had a very good neighbor, and this neighbor had aided Luke in going to college. But now the young man was helping himself, having become an assistant during his vacations to a certain Professor Keeps. Often Luke came to Milton, staying with Neale O’Neil when he did so.

As for Neale, there was a romantic history connected with him. After running away from the circus he had lived with the Milton cobbler, and there was a mystery about his father who had gone to Alaska in search of gold. There were dark days for Neale until his father came back, not fabulously rich, but in much better circumstances than when he went away.

However, the wanderlust called Mr. O’Neil, and he went away again, first, however, providing well for his son. Had he wished, Neale might have had a house of his own, but he continued to live with old but loving Con Murphy, and he continued, too, to look after many details for the Kenway girls around their place. That this gave him a chance to see Agnes more often, may have had something to do with it.

The Kenway girls made the most delightful friends, and what wonderful adventures they had is told in the volumes of this series succeeding the first. These happenings included going to school, camping out, giving a play, making an odd find, touring, and growing up. Once the four were snowbound and had a most amazing time, and again they spent a summer on a houseboat, following which they had a rather “hectic time,” as Agnes called it, among the Gypsies.

Their latest adventures had been on Palm Island, or, as Dot insisted on calling it, “Plam Island,” whither the quartette went because a change to a warmer climate was needed for their health, severe colds having been contracted when Ruth and Agnes attended a party on a stormy wintry day.

In spite of some very exciting and not altogether happy adventures related in “The Corner House Girls on Palm Island,” which is the title of the volume immediately preceding the one you are now reading, the girls enjoyed their summer vacation. They had been home now about two weeks, when there occurred the happening set down in the first chapter of this volume.

Wishing to bring Sammy Pinkney back some souvenir from Palm Island, an alligator, not too large, had been selected, though Dot said he had expressed a preference for a “turkle.” However, the turtles, of which there was an abundance on Palm Island, were far too large to bring north and the young alligator had been a compromise.

That Sammy was delighted with his new pet goes without saying. He even gave Snapper more attention than Buster, his bulldog, received. Then Sammy got the idea of dressing up the alligator and of hitching it to a toy cart.

“Oh, children! what happened?” cried Ruth, despair in her voice.

“I—didn’t—drop—those eggs!” declared Robbie, speaking in gasps, for some yellow was now running into his mouth. “The goat—he butted me.”

“The goat!” cried Agnes, looking around.

“He’s gone out now,” said Sammy mildly. “The alligator bit his tail!”

“The alligator—” Ruth stopped for want of words.

“Our cakes are burning! Oh, our cakes are burning!” wailed Dot.

There was a decided odor of too-much-baked cake permeating the kitchen.

“I’ll take ’em out for ye!” offered Mrs. MacCall. “Oh, ye puir bairns! Sorrow is the day!”

“Tess, tell me about it!” commanded Ruth, when the cakes had been rescued, and only just in time.

While the mess of eggs was being cleaned from the floor by Linda, the maid, who had been down in the laundry during the excitement, and when Sammy had ascertained by close examination that his alligator was unharmed (though one wheel of the cart was broken), peace and quiet once more reigned in the Corner House.

“But don’t ever do anything like that again, Sammy!” cautioned Ruth, shaking a warning finger at the boy. “If you want to show off your alligator, do it in the garage.”

“Yes’m,” mumbled Sammy.

The three younger children were sent out-of-doors, with some of the newly baked cakes, and the conference upstairs, as to what kind of paper should be put on the guest room, was resumed.

“Nally is so—so particular,” murmured Agnes, “though she is a dear girl. I’d like her to have a nice room.” They all called Nalbro, Nally now.

CHAPTER III: DISQUIETING NEWS

Ruth Kenway reached the rear porch of the house just as the two queer men—ragged and dirty they were, too—were starting down the outside cellar steps. Ruth had noticed that Tess, Dot and Sammy had departed, probably having gone over to Sammy’s house, so there was no fear that the children would be frightened by the tramps. And tramps they seemed to be.

They were really evil-looking men, and for a moment Ruth hesitated. But she had not acted as mother to her younger sisters all these years for nothing. Besides, was not the stout Linda within call and was not Neale in the garage, working over the car? He could be called in a moment. Therefore it was with a very cool, calm and collected voice that she asked:

“Oh—er—you see, lady——”

The two men looked up quickly, having been stopped by Ruth’s voice on the topmost cellar step. The two looked up, but the evidently older, and certainly the uglier, of the pair, did the talking.

“There’s been—there’s been a leak in the street water main, lady, and we’ve been sent to look over your pipes,” he mumbled. “We’re from the water department,” he added. “We just want to make sure your pipes are all right.”

He mumbled his words and seemed ill at ease, still Ruth, after hearing that the men were from the water department, did not pay much attention. Once before there had been a break in their street, and the water had to be shut off for a whole day. Ruth remembered this and so said:

“I hope you don’t have to turn the water off. If you do, wait until I have the maid draw some.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to shut it off, lady,” said the uglier man, his companion having already disappeared into the black depths of the cellar. “If we do I’ll let you know.”

“All right,” Ruth assented as she turned away. It was not uncommon for the gas man, the one who read the electric meter, and the one who kept tally of the water meter, to enter the cellar by this rear door unannounced during the summer when the door was kept open. “The water turns off up in front,” added the girl, thinking the men might not know where to find the stop. “But don’t shut it off without letting me know.”

“No’m,” muttered the spokesman, as he followed his companion.

Ruth walked through the kitchen, which now, under the powerful ministrations of Linda, was resuming its wonted neat appearance.

“What was it, Ruthie?” asked Agnes, coming down with Mrs. MacCall.

“Just some men from the water department to see about a leak.”

“They must na shoot it off until I gang away an’ draw some,” protested the housekeeper. “Linda, lass——”

“No, they won’t turn it off without telling us,” Ruth assured her. “Now about the paper—did you settle on a pattern? I want to get the room in shape for Nally.”

“I think this is the prettiest,” suggested Agnes, holding out a sample, one of several the decorator had left.

“Yes, that will do nicely,” agreed Ruth. “And now—Oh, what about eggs?” she asked quickly. “I suppose those poor Robbie brought were all smashed.”

“A regular omelet!” laughed Agnes.

“I must telephone Mrs. Kranz for more,” said Ruth.

“The boy, he have gone after some,” announced Linda. “But he say he hope he no have to pay for them what is braked, ’cause he——”

“Of course we wouldn’t think of letting poor Robbie pay for them,” declared Ruth. “It wasn’t his fault. It was Sammy’s—with the girls’ goat and his alligator.”

“As much the fault of Dot and Tess as Sammy,” declared Agnes. “They shouldn’t have let him turn the kitchen table into a circus ring.”

“Oh, well,” and Ruth smiled, “I’ll just telephone Mrs. Kranz to put the second dozen on our bill and not to scold Robbie,” and as she went into the other room to the telephone, Mrs. MacCall softly observed:

“Your sister, she thinks of everything, Aggie, my dear! She wauld nae hae Rabbie scoldit the day.”

“And quite proper, too. But you are right, Mrs. Mac. Ruth is an angel!”

When Ruth, unaware of the kind words spoken in her absence, had finished straightening out the egg matter, Agnes telephoned for the paper hanger to come and see about redecorating the room Miss Hastings was to occupy during her stay. There were to be other guests at the house party, which was to last at least a week, but the Boston girl was the one over whom the most “fuss” was made.

“We want to give her a good impression of us,” said Agnes.

“Oh, it isn’t exactly that,” declared Ruth. “She isn’t a bit haughty and stand-offish, as we at first supposed.”