The Corner House Girls in a Play

"All but one anyway."

"Hullo! Who was that?"

"The girl who wasn't in Mr. Marks' office?"

"Yes. Who was missing of that bunch of berry raiders?" and Neale grinned.

"Why – Trix," said Agnes, slowly.

"Ah-ha! I smell a mouse!"

"What do you mean by that, Neale O'Neil?" cried the girl.

"Nothing significant in the fact that our festive Beatrice was not there?"

"No. Why should there be?" demanded Agnes.

"And who do you suppose furnished Mr. Marks with his information and the list of you girls' names?"

"Oh, the farmer!"

"Old Buckham?" cried Neale, startled.

"Yes," said Agnes. "Mr. Marks said so."

Neale looked both surprised and doubtful. "Then why didn't Buckham give in Trix's name, too?"

"Oh, I don't know, Neale. No use in blaming her just because she was lucky enough to escape."

"Oh, that's all right. I'll go to my Lady Beatrice, get down on my shin-bones, and beg her pardon, if I wrongfully suspect her," laughed Neale. "But, I say, Aggie! did Mr. Buckham come to see Mr. Marks about it? Did he say?"

"No. I think Mr. Marks said the farmer wrote."

"Wrote?" cried the boy. "Why, I don't believe Bob Buckham can write. He's a smart enough old fellow, but he never had any schooling. He told me so. He's not a bad sort, either. He must have been awfully mad about those strawberries to hold a grudge so long as this. I worked for him a while, you know, Aggie."

"Oh, so you did, Neale."

"Yes. I don't believe he is the sort who would make so much trouble for a bunch of girls. Somebody must have egged him on," said Neale, gloomily.

"There you go again, Neale," groaned Agnes. "Hinting at Beatrice Severn."

"Well," grinned Neale, "you want me to help you out of your scrape, don't you?"

"At nobody else's expense," said Agnes.

"Don't know what to make of it," grumbled Neale. "It looks fishy to me. Mr. Buckham writing Mr. Marks! I'm going to find out about that. Keep up your pluck, Aggie. I'll see what can be done," and Neale, with his cap on the back of his flaxen head and his hands in his pockets, went off whistling.

CHAPTER VII

THE CORE OF THE APPLE

Dot Kenway came home a day or two after this, quite full of her first "easy lessons in physiology." It always seemed to Dot that when she learned a new fact it was the very first time it had ever been learned by anybody.

"Dot is just like a hen," Neale O'Neil said, chuckling. "She gets hold of a thing and you'd think nobody ever knew it before she did. She is the original discoverer of every fact that gets into her little noddle."

"But how does that make her like a hen?" demanded Ruth.

"Why, a hen lays an egg, and then gets so excited about it and makes such a racket, that you'd think that was the first egg that had been laid since the world began."

"What is all this you learned, Dottie?" demanded Neale, as they all sat around the study lamp; for Neale was often at the old Corner House with his books in the evening. He and Agnes were in the same grade.

"Oh, Neale! did you know you had a spinal cord?" demanded the smallest Corner House girl.

"No! you don't tell me? Where is it?" asked the boy, quite soberly.

"Why," explained the literal Dot, "it's a string that runs from the back of your head to the bottom of your heels."

At the shout of laughter that welcomed this intelligence, Tess said, comfortingly:

"Don't mind, Dot. That isn't half as bad as what Sammy Pinkney said to Miss Pepperill the other day. She asked us which was the most important to keep clean, your face or your teeth, and Sammy shouted: 'Your teeth, teacher, 'cause they can rot off and your face can't.'"

"And I guess that awful Miss Pepperpot punished him for that," suggested Dot, awed.

"Yes. Sammy is always getting punished," said Tess. "He never does manage to say the right thing. And I think Miss Pepperill is kind of hard on him. But – but she's real nice to me."

"Well, why shouldn't she be, honey?" Ruth said. "You're not to be compared with that rude boy, I am sure," for Ruth Kenway did not much approve of boys, and only tolerated Neale O'Neil because the other children liked him so much.

"I should hope not!" agreed Agnes, who did like boys, but did not like the aforesaid scapegrace, Sammy Pinkney.

"I guess it was the sovereigns of England that makes her nice to me," said Tess, thoughtfully. "I 'spected to have an awfully hard time in Miss Pepperill's class; but she has never been real cross with me. And what do you s'pose?"

"I couldn't guess," Ruth said smilingly.

"To-day she asked me about Mrs. Eland."

"Mrs. Eland?"

"Yes," said Tess, nodding. "She asked me if I'd seen Mrs. Eland lately, and if she'd found her sister. For you see," explained Tess, "I'd told her how poor Mrs. Eland felt so bad about losing her sister when she was a little girl and never being able to find her."

"Oh, yes, I remember," Ruth said.

"But I had to tell Miss Pepperill that I'd only seen her the one time – when she taught me the sovereigns of England. I'd really love to see Mrs. Eland once more. Wouldn't you, Dot?"

"Dear me, yes!" agreed the smaller girl. "I wonder if she ever got those apples?"

"Of course she did," put in Neale. "Didn't I tell you I took them to the hospital myself?"

"We – ell! But she never told us so – did she, Dot?" complained Tess.