The Corner House Girls' Odd Find

“No,” said the farmer, “I’ll take the pung. And I’ll fill the body with straw, so ‘t that poor chap won’t get his ankle hurt no more. How’s the streets in town, Aggie? How’s High Street?”

“Why, it’s good sledding,” declared the girl. “We see nothing now but automobiles and sleighs.”

“Strawberry Farm ain’t got quite as fur as an auto yet,” chuckled Mr. Buckham. “But maybe we will in time,” and he went out to hitch up.

Without having been told further, Posey now brought in a cup of hot cocoa and a nice little luncheon. In the midst of eating this welcome feast, Agnes remembered the forlorn party camping amid the railroad ties.

“Oh, dear me! I don’t suppose Mr. Scruggs and Barnabetta have anything at all to eat – poor things!” she cried.

So a big basket was filled with food and a can of coffee, and that Agnes carried out to the sleigh when it appeared at the side porch, and climbed into the great heap of straw with it, and burrowed down. The colts started off briskly, and they left Posey on the porch watching them while Mrs. Buckham waved her hand at the window.

The farmer knew how to drive right to the spot where the Scruggs were encamped, although it was not on his land. When the colts came through the woods, their bells jingling and the snow and ice flying from their sharpened hoofs, Barnabetta appeared suddenly on the pile of ties to see who came.

“Is that the gal?” asked Farmer Buckham of Agnes.

“Yes.”

“She’s a wild lookin’ critter, ain’t she?” was Mr. Buckham’s comment. “And looks for all the world like a boy!”

Barnabetta disappeared in a moment and when he drew the colts in beside the fire, there she stood with her staff, as though to defend the old clown from the newcomers.

“So you’re back again, are you?” was her greeting for Agnes.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d bring help?” shouted the Corner House girl, gaily.

“Humph! I don’t see what help you can be for the like of us,” said the trapeze performer ungraciously.

But Agnes Kenway was not to be balked in her good intentions. “Of course we can help you. I’ve come to take you home,” she declared. “And here’s some lunch.”

“What d’you mean —home? We haven’t got a home, Pop and me.”

“But I have,” Agnes said.

“That’s nothin’ to do with us,” grumbled Barnabetta.

She looked very sullen and unhappy. The clown was crouching close to the fire, but had drawn his shoe and stocking on again. He looked very miserable, and warm-hearted Agnes determined not to allow herself to become angry with Barnabetta.

“Now, Barnabetta,” she said coaxingly, “don’t be cross. I want to be friends with you.”

“What for?” demanded the other girl, sharply.

“I want to take you to my house,” pursued Agnes, without answering the last question. “The Corner House, you know. We’ve plenty of room and I know my sister, Ruth, will be kind to you.”

Barnabetta and her father looked at each other now in stunned surprise. Why Agnes should really want to help them they could not understand.

“Mr. Buckham is kind enough to take us all in his sleigh,” pursued Agnes, after calling to Tom Jonah to stay on the other side of the sleigh, for Barnabetta was a little afraid of the big dog. “We’ll be in Milton in two hours and there your father can be made comfortable.”

“Say! this isn’t a trick?” ejaculated the trapeze performer at last.

“What kind of trick?” asked Agnes, in wonder.

“Well,” said Barnabetta, doubtfully, “you might make us trouble. We’re sort of vagrants. Once, when we were travelin’, Pop and me, we got pulled by a fresh constable, and I was afraid they’d find out I wasn’t a boy.”

“Oh, my!” gasped Agnes, for the romance of Barnabetta’s situation appealed strongly to the Corner House girl.

“You’re not thinkin’ of handin’ us over to the police, are you?” added Barnabetta, shrewdly.

“Great goodness, girl!” gasped Mr. Buckham, “it must ha’ been your fortune to meet mighty mean folks in your short life.”

“Yep, it has,” said the circus girl, drily. “We’ve got plenty good friends in the business. Circus folks are nice folks. Only we got on the outs with the Sorbers. But outside – well, there’s plenty folks down on them that have to tramp it. And we’ve had our experiences,” concluded Barnabetta, nodding her head and pursing her lips.

“Well, these Corner House girls ain’t no bad kind,” said the farmer, earnestly. “If you need help, you’ve come to the right shop for it.”

“I never asked her for help!” flared up the circus girl.

“You need help just the same,” answered Mr. Buckham. “And you’d better take it when it’s kindly offered. You know your father ain’t in no shape to camp out this weather. And it’s getting colder.”

“Well,” said Barnabetta, ungraciously enough. “What do you say, Pop?”

Poor Scruggs was evidently used to “playing second fiddle,” as Mr. Buckham would have himself expressed it. He just nodded, and said:

“I leave it to you, Barney. We’ll do just like you say.”

The circus girl poised herself on one foot and looked doubtful. Her father did not stir.

“You know,” said Agnes, “Neale maybe will be home soon. He’ll know how to help you,” she added, with confidence in her boy chum’s wisdom.

Barnabetta’s black eyes suddenly flashed. “All right,” she said, grumpily enough, and turned away to help her father rise.

Agnes’ heart was suddenly all of a flutter. She could not help wondering if Barnabetta was thinking of the money in the old album that Neale O’Neil was carrying about the country with him. Yet that seemed an ungenerous thought and Agnes put it behind her. Later it was to return in spite of her – and with force.

CHAPTER XVI – SEVERAL ARRIVALS

Perhaps no girl but a Corner House girl would have planned to take two perfect strangers home with her, especially strangers who seemed of a somewhat doubtful character.

It must be confessed that the Corner House girls, with no mother or father to confide in or advise with, sometimes did things on the spur of impulse that ordinary girls would not think of doing.

Agnes Kenway really had serious doubts about the honesty of Barnabetta Scruggs and her father. Just the same she was deeply interested in the circus girl, and she pitied the meek little clown. Barnabetta was quite the most interesting girl Agnes had ever met.

To think of a girl traveling about the country – “tramping it” – dressed as a boy, and so successfully hiding her identity! Why! if she did not speak, nobody would guess her sex, Agnes was sure.

What lots of adventures she must have had! How free and untrammeled her life on the road must be! Agnes herself had often longed for the freedom of trousers. She was jealous of Neale O’Neil because he could do things, and enjoy fun that she could not partake of because of the skirts she wore.

And it was nothing new for the next to the oldest Corner House girl to fall desperately in love with a strange girl at first sight. Neale said, scornfully, that she was forever getting “new spoons.” He added that she “had a crush” on some girl almost always; but she seldom kept one of these loves longer than one term of school – sometimes not so long.

Her “very dearest friend” was not always chosen wisely; but while that one was in vogue, Agnes was as loyal to her as ever Damon was to Pythias. And it must be admitted that it was usually by no fault of Agnes’ that these friendships were broken off.

For more than one reason did Agnes Kenway contract this sudden and violent fancy for Barnabetta Scruggs.