The Corner House Girls Under Canvas

There was a glass of warm milk, fresh from the cow, on the stand beside the head of her little chintz-hung bed every morning when Rosa awoke. For Mrs. Bobster was up and about by daybreak.

When Rosa came down to the sunlit kitchen, breakfast was ready and the little old woman who lived in a shoe declared she had all her “outside” chores done, saving her regular work in her garden.

Rosa sometimes helped about the housework. The doctor had told her that certain forms of housework would be good for her. But she had to be very exact and careful in doing the work about the shoe-house, for Mrs. Bobster was a New England housekeeper of the old school and was as methodical as Grandfather’s Clock.

The girls from Milton did not neglect Rosa Wildwood. At least, the Corner House girls and their friends did not. Pearl Harrod and the girls at Spoondrift Bungalow came with a wagonette and took her driving. The repairs had been made upon the bungalow and Pearl’s party was there again – all but the Corner House girls.

Ruth had decided to stick to the tent for the remainder of their stay at Pleasant Cove. And Willowbend Camp was becoming the liveliest spot along the entire beach-front.

Ruth and her sisters came after Rosa and took her out in their boat. The boys who were living at Willowbend, too, took an interest in the frail Southern girl. For Rosa Wildwood, with the color stealing back into her cheeks and lips, and her eyes bright again, was a very attractive girl indeed!

Dot Kenway’s birthday came at this time, and that was the date set for the Frankfurter Party. Dot’s guesses about the origin and nature of the hearty and inviting, if not delicate, frankfurter, had delighted the campers who heard the story; and Dot’s sisters and Neale spent some time and a good deal of ingenuity in preparing for the festive occasion.

Rosa came over to the tent colony and helped the girls prepare for the party. Moreover, she had a secret to impart to Ruth.

“Don’t let the other girls hear, Ruth Kenway,” she said, with much mystery. “But Mrs. Bobster is the oddest thing!”

“Well! I guess she is,” laughed Ruth. “But she’s good.”

“Good as gold,” agreed Rosa. “But she has some funny ways. Of course I go to bed early. The doctor told me I should.”

“Well?”

“You’d think she’d go to bed early, too, when she’s up so soon in the morning?”

“Well – I suppose that’s a matter of taste,” Ruth observed.

“Anyway, you know how lonesome it is over there?”

“I guess there are not many people about – after dark.”

“That’s just it!” cried Rosa. “Mrs. Bobster scurries around and does all her out of doors chores before dark. And she locks and bolts all the doors. She is really afraid after dark.”

Ruth nodded. She remembered how once the little old woman who lived in a shoe had spoken to her about being afraid.

“Well, she locks and bolts the doors,” said Rosa, “and then we have supper and I go to bed. Sometimes, like a good child, I go right to sleep. Sometimes, like a bad child, I don’t.”

“Well – what then?”

“Then I hear Mrs. Bobster talking. She has company. I never hear the company come in, or go out; but she has it every night.”

“And never says anything about it?”

“Not a word,” said Rosa. “I hinted once or twice that she must have company every night, and all she said was that she didn’t like sitting alone.”

“Is it a man or a woman?” asked Ruth.

“I don’t know,” laughed Rosa. “That’s one of the funny things about it. Although I hear Mrs. Bobster sometimes chattering like a magpie, I never hear an answer.”

“What?” gasped Ruth, in amazement.

“That’s right,” said Rosa, nodding confidently. “Whoever it is talks so low that I haven’t heard his, or her, voice yet!”

“A dumb person?” suggested Ruth.

“Maybe. At any rate, I couldn’t tell you for the life of me whether it is a man or a woman that comes to see the little old woman who lives in a shoe. Isn’t it odd, Ruth?”

“I should say it was,” admitted Ruth.

“But she treats me well,” sighed Rosa. “I wouldn’t do her any harm for the world. But I am awfully curious!”

It was this day, too – the day of Dot’s party – that the wooden-legged clam-digger came along through the Willowbend tent colony again. He always came to the tent of the Corner House girls when he appeared; Ruth was a regular customer, for she and her sisters were fond of shellfish.

“I’ll have fifty to-day, Mr. Kuk,” she said to the saltish individual when he hailed her from outside the tent. Ruth had learned that his name was Habakuk Somes; everybody along the beach called him “Kuk,” and Ruth, to be polite, tagged him with “Mister” in addition.

Tom Jonah appeared and showed his disapproval of the clam man by a throaty growl. “That thar dawg don’t like me none too well,” said the clam man. “What d’yeou call him?”

“Tom Jonah.”

“Thet’s enough to sink him,” said the man with a grin. “How’d ye come ter call him that?”

“It’s his name,” said Ruth. “It was engraved on his collar when he came to our house in Milton.”

“Oh! then he ain’t allus been your dawg, shipmet?” demanded the man.

“No. He came to us. We don’t know where from. But he is a gentleman, and he is going to stay with us as long as he will.”

The clam man blinked, and said nothing more. But he cast more than one glance at Tom Jonah before he went away.

The preparations made for the birthday party included the purchase of a good many pounds of first quality frankfurters. And when they were delivered to the Corner House girls’ tent, the fun began.

Tess and Dot were sent away for the morning to play with some of the children at Enterprise Camp. Then Ruth and Agnes and Rosa and Neale set to work to make frankfurters into the very funniest looking things that you could imagine!

With bits of tinsel and colored paper and pins and other small wares, the young folks set to work. They made frankfurters look like caricatures of all kinds of beasts and birds, and insects as well. One was the body of a huge, gaily-winged butterfly. Another was striped and horned like a worm of ferocious aspect.

They were made into fishes, with tails and fins. Neale made a nest with several “young” frankfurters poking their heads out for food, while the mother frankfurter was just poised upon the edge of the nest, her wings spread to balance her.

There were short-legged frankfurters, with long, flapping ears, like dachshunds, and long, stiff-legged frankfurters, with abbreviated tails, and appearing to gambol like lambs. There were several linked together and apparently creeping about like a species of jointed, horrid caterpillar.

Then they actually were bunched like bananas! while some grew, husked, like sweetcorn, and some had the green, fluffy tops of carrots cunningly fastened to them and were tied together as carrots are bunched in the market.

Neale’s ingenuity, however, rose to its height when he stretched a slanting wire across the tent, higher than the partition, and made several “aeroplanes” with bodies of the succulent sausage, which he could start at one end of the wire to “fly” to the other end.

The young folks came to Willowbend Camp about five o’clock to enjoy the festivities. The older Corner House girls, with the help of some of their friends, served the crowd a hearty supper, the main course of which was hot frankfurters, prepared by the “frankfurter man” whose acquaintance Tess and Dot had made.

When the fun was over the guests took the fancy-dressed sausages home as souvenirs.

Neale and Agnes and Ruth went home with Rosa, for it was a long walk, and part of the way it was lonely. One of the ladies who had chaperoned the party remained with Tess and Dot while their sisters were absent.