The Corner House Girls in a Play

However, the very next day the children heard from the bag of apples. A delightfully suspicious package awaited Tess and Dot at the old Corner House after school. It had been delivered by no less a person than Dr. Forsyth himself, who stopped his electric runabout in front of the old Corner House long enough to run in and set the pasteboard box on the sitting room table.

"What forever is that, Doctor?" demanded Mrs. MacCall.

"I hope it's something to make these children sick," declared the doctor, gruffly. "They are too disgracefully healthy for anything."

"Yes, thank our stars!" said the housekeeper.

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried the apparently very savage medical man. "But what would become of all us poor doctors if everybody were as healthy as this family, I'd like to know?" and he tramped out to his car again in much make-believe wrath.

Dot came first from school and was shown the box. It was only about six inches square and it had a card tied to it addressed to both her and Tess. Dot eyed it with the roundest of round eyes, when she heard who had brought it.

"Why don't you open it, child?" demanded Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be downstairs. "Bring it here and I'll snip the string for you with my scissors."

"Oh! I couldn't, Aunt Sarah!" Dot declared.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" snapped the old lady. "It's not too heavy for you to carry, I should hope?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. But I can't open it till Tess comes," said Dot.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" repeated Aunt Sarah, in her jerky way.

"Why, it wouldn't be fair," said the smallest Corner House girl, gravely.

"Huh!" snorted the old lady.

"Tess wouldn't do that to me," Dot said, with assurance.

Agnes chanced to get home next. "What ever do you s'pose is in it, Dottums?" she cried. "There's no name on it except yours and Tess'. And the doctor brought it!"

"Yes. But I know it isn't pills," declared Dot, seriously.

"How do you know that?" laughed Agnes.

"The box is too big," was the prompt reply. "He brings pills in just the cunningest little boxes."

"Maybe it's charlotte russe," suggested Agnes. "They put them in boxes like this at the bakery."

"Oh! do you think so?" gasped Dot, scarcely able to contain herself.

"If they are charlotte rushings," chuckled Neale, who had brought home Agnes' books for her, "be careful and not be so piggish as the country boy who ate the pasteboard containers as well as the cake and cream of the charlotte russe. He said he liked them fine, only the crust was tough."

"Mercy!" ejaculated Agnes. "That's like a boy."

"I do hope Tess comes pretty quick!" murmured Dot. "I – I'm just about going crazy!"

Tess came finally; but at first she was so excited by something that had happened in school that she could not listen to Dot's pleading that she should "come and look at the box."

Of course, Sammy Pinkney was in difficulties with the teacher again. And Tess could not see for once why he should be punished.

"I'm sure," she said earnestly, "Sammy did his best. And I brought the composition he wrote home for you to see, Ruthie. Sammy dropped it out of his book and I will give it to him to-morrow.

"But Miss Pepperill acted just like she thought Sammy had misbehaved himself. She said she hoped she hadn't a 'humorist in embryo' in her class. What did she mean by that, Ruthie? What's a humorist in embryo!"

"A sprouting funny man," said Agnes, laughing. "Maybe Sammy Pinkney will grow up to write for the funny columns in the newspapers."

"Let us see the paper, Tess," said Ruth. "Maybe that will explain just what Miss Pepperill meant."

"And poor Sammy's got to stay after school for a week," said Tess, sympathetically, producing a much smudged and wrinkled sheet of composition paper.

"Do come and see the box!" wailed Dot.

Tess went with her smaller sister then, leaving Ruth to read aloud for the delight of the rest of the family Sammy Pinkney's composition on

"THE DUCK

"The duck is a low heavyset bird he is a mighty poor singer having a coarse voice like crows only worse caused by getting to many frogs in his neck. He is parshal to water and aks like hed swallowed a toy balloon that keeps him from sinking the best he can do is to sink his head straight down but his tail fethers is always above water. Duks has only two legs and they is set so far back on his running gears by Nachur that they come pretty near missin' his body altogether. Some ducks when they get big curls on their tails is called drakes and don't have to set or hatch but just loaf and go swimming and eat ev'rything in sight so if I had to be a duck I'd ruther be a drake. There toes are set close together the web skin puts them in a poor way of scratching but they have a wide bill for a spade and they walk like they was tipsy. They bounce and bump from side to side and if you scare them they flap there wings and try to make a pass at singing which is pore work. That is all about ducks."

"Do you suppose," cried Agnes in wonder, "that that boy doesn't know any better than that composition sounds?"

"Evidently Miss Pepperill thinks he does," laughed Ruth. "But it is funny. I wonder what will happen to Sammy Pinkney when he grows up?"

"The question is, what will happen to him before he grows up," chuckled Neale. "That kid is a public nuisance. I don't know but that the dog-catchers will get him yet."

Meanwhile the two little girls had secured the paper box and opened it. Their squeals drew all the others to the sitting room. Inside the neatly wrapped box was a round object in silver and gold foil, and when this was carefully unwound, a big, splendid golden pippin lay on the table.

"Why!" cried Dot, "it's one of our own apples."

"It is surely off our pippin tree," agreed Agnes.

"Who could have sent it?" Tess surmised. "And Dr. Forsyth brought it."

"Bringing coals to Newcastle," chuckled Neale.

But when Tess took up the apple, it broke in half. It had been cunningly cut through and through, and then the core scooped out, and the halves of the apple fastened together again.

"Oo-ee!" squealed Dot again.

For in the core of the apple was a wad of paper, and Tess spread this out on the table. It was a note and the reading of it delighted the two smaller girls immensely:

"My dear Lesser Half of the Corner House Quartette," it began. "Your kindness in sending me the nice bag of apples has not been overlooked. I wanted to come and see you, and thank you in person; but my duties at present will not allow me to do so. We are short-handed here at the Women's and Children's Hospital and I can not spare the time for even an afternoon call.

"I would, however, dearly love to have you little girls, Theresa and Dorothy, both come to call on me, and take tea, some afternoon – the time to be set by your elder sister, Miss Ruth. Ask her to write to me when you may come – on your way home from school, if you like.

"Hoping I shall have the pleasure of entertaining you soon, I am,

    "Your loving and sincere friend,
    Marion Eland."