The Corner House Girls in a Play. Hill Grace Brooks
know," Neale said. "If the farmer had been sure who you were, or any of the electric car men had told – Had the car all to yourselves, didn't you?"
"We girls were the only passengers," said Agnes.
"Then make up your mind to it," the wise Neale rejoined, "that if Mr. Marks has only recently been told of the raid, some girl has been blabbing. The farmer or the conductor or the motorman would have told at once. They wouldn't have waited until three months and more had passed."
"Oh dear, Neale! do you think that?"
"It looks just like a mean girl's trick. Some telltale," returned the boy, in disgust.
"Trix Severn might do it, I s'pose, because she doesn't like me any more."
"You remember what Mr. Marks told us all last spring when we grammar grade fellows were let into the high school athletics? He said that one's conduct outside of school would govern the amount of latitude he would allow us in school athletics. I guess he meant you girls, too."
"He's an awfully strict old thing!" complained Agnes.
"They tell me," pursued Neale O'Neil, "that once a part of the baseball nine played hookey to go swimming at Ryer's Ford, and Mr. Marks immediately forfeited all the games in the Inter-scholastic League for that year, and so punished the whole school."
"That's not fair!" exploded Agnes.
"I don't know whether it is or not. But I know the baseball captain this year was mighty strict with us fellows."
The topic of the promised punishment of the basket ball team for an old offense was discussed almost as much at the Corner House that evening as was the "lady in gray" and the sovereigns of England.
Tess kept these last subjects alive, for she was studying the rhyme and would try to recite it to everybody that would listen – including Linda, who scarcely understood ten words of English, and Sandyface and her family, gathered for their supper in the woodshed. Tess was troubled about the closing of the Women's and Children's Hospital, because of its effect upon Mrs. Eland, too.
"'First William, the Norman,
Then William, the son;
Henry, Stephen and – '
I do hope," ruminated Tess, "that that poor Mrs. Eland won't be turned out of her place. Don't you hope so, Ruthie?"
"I am sure it would be a calamity if the hospital were closed," agreed the older sister. "And the matron must be a very lovely lady, as you say, Tess."
"She is awfully nice – isn't she, Dot?" pursued Tess, who usually expected the support of Dorothy.
"Just as nice as she can be," agreed the smallest Corner House girl. "Couldn't she come to live in our house if she can't stay in the horsepistol any longer?"
"At the what, child?" gasped Agnes. "What is it you said?"
"Well – where she lives now," Dot responded, dodging the doubtful word.
"Goodness, dear!" laughed Ruth, "we can't make the old Corner House a refuge for destitute females."
"I don't care!" spoke up Dot, quickly. "Didn't they make the Toomey-Smith house, on High Street into a home for indignant old maids?"
At that the older girls shouted with laughter. "'In-di-gent' – 'in-di-gent'! child," corrected Agnes, at last. "That means without means – poor – unable to care for themselves. 'Indignant old maids,' indeed!"
"Maybe they were indignant," suggested Tess, too tender hearted to see Dot's ignorance exposed in public, despite her own private criticism of the little one's misuse of the English language. "See how indignant Aunt Sarah is – and she's an old maid."
This amused Ruth and Agnes even more than Dot's observation. It was true that Aunt Sarah Maltby was frequently "an indignant old maid."
But Tess endured the laughter calmly. She was deeply interested in the problem of Mrs. Eland's future, and she said:
"Maybe Uncle Peter ought to have left the hospital some of his money when he died, instead of leaving it all to us and to Aunt Sarah."
"Do you want to give up some of your monthly allowance to help support the hospital, Tess?" demanded Ruth, briskly.
"I – I – Well, I couldn't give much," said the smaller girl, seriously, "for a part of it goes to missions and the Sunday School money box, and part to Sadie Goronofsky's cousin who has a nawful bad felon, and can't work on the paper flowers just now – "
"Why, child!" the oldest Kenway said, with a tender smile, and putting her hand lightly on Tess' head, "I didn't know about that. How much of your pin money goes each month to charity already? You only have a dollar and a half."
"I – I keep half a dollar for myself," confessed Tess. "I could give part of that to the hospital."
"I'll give some of my pin money, too," announced Dot, gravely, "if it will keep Mrs. Eland from being turned out of the horsepistol."
Ruth and Agnes did not chide the little one for her mispronunciation of the hard word this time, but they looked at each other seriously. "I wonder if Uncle Peter was one of those rich people who should have remembered the institution in his will?" Ruth said.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Agnes. "If we go around hunting for duties Uncle Peter Stower left undone, and do them for him, where will we be? There will be no money left for ourselves."
"You need not be afraid," Ruth said, with a smile. "Mr. Howbridge will not let us use our money foolishly. He is answerable for every penny of it to the Court. But maybe he will approve of our giving a proper sum towards a fund for keeping the Women's and Children's Hospital open."
"Is there such a fund?" demanded Agnes.
"There will be, I think. If everybody is interested – "
"And how you going to interest 'em?" asked the skeptical Agnes.
"Talk about it! Publicity! That is what is needed," declared Ruth, vigorously. "Why! we might all do something."
"Who – all? I want to know!" responded her sister. "I don't have a cent more than I need for myself. Only two dollars and a half." Agnes' allowance had been recently increased half a dollar by the observant lawyer.
"All of us can help," said Ruth. "Boys and girls alike, as well as grown people. The schools ought to do something to raise money for the hospital's support."
"Like a fair, maybe – or a bazaar," cried Agnes, eagerly. "That ought to be fun."
"You are always looking for fun," said Ruth.
"I don't care. If we can combine business with pleasure, so much the better," laughed Agnes. "It's easier to do things that are amusing than those that are dead serious."
"There you go!" sighed Ruth. "You are becoming the slangiest girl. I believe you get it all from Neale O'Neil."
"Poor Neale!" sniffed Agnes, regretfully. "He gets blamed for all my sins and his own, too. If I had a wooden arm, Ruth, you'd say I caught it of him, you detest boys so."
Part of this conversation between her older sisters must have made a deep impression on Tess Kenway's mind. She went forth as an apostle for the Women's and Children's Hospital, and for Mrs. Eland in particular. She said to Mr. Stetson, their groceryman, the next morning, with profound gravity:
"Do you know, Mr. Stetson, that the Women's and Children's Hospital has got to be closed?"
"Why, no, Tess – is that so?" he said, staring at her. "What for?"
"Because there is no money to pay Mrs. Eland. And now she won't have any home."
"Mrs. Eland?"
"The matron, you know. And she's such a nice lady," pursued Tess. "She taught me the sovereigns of England."
Mr. Stetson might have laughed. He was frequently vastly amused by the queer sayings and doings of the two youngest Corner House girls, as he often told his wife and Myra. But on this occasion Tess was so serious that to laugh at her would have hurt her feelings. Mr. Stetson