The Corner House Girls Growing Up

The fellow he spoke to leaped out as the green van came to a halt. He carried a net like a fish seine over his arm. Before the little girls who were fondling Tom Jonah realized that danger threatened – before the frightened Sammy could do more than shout his useless warning – the man threw the net, and old Tom Jonah was entangled in its meshes.

The little girls screamed. Sammy roared a protest. The men paid no attention to the uproar.

"Got a big fish this time, Harry," said Bill, dragging the struggling, growling Tom Jonah to the back of the van. "Give us a hand."

For the big dog, his temper roused, would have done his captor some injury had he been able. The driver of the dog catchers' van drove the other dogs back from the door with a long pole, and then between them he and his mate heaved Tom Jonah into the vehicle.

Sammy Pinkney scurried around for some missile to throw at the dog catchers. The little girls' shrieks brought neighboring children to yards and doors and windows. But there chanced not to be an adult on the block to whom the dog catchers might have listened.

"Oh, Mister! Don't! Don't!" begged Tess, sobbing, and trying to hold by the coat the man who had netted Tom Jonah. "He's a good dog – a real good dog. Don't take him away."

"If you hurt Tom Jonah my sister Ruthie will do something awful to you!" declared Dot, too angry to cry.

"Wish my father was home," said Sammy, threateningly. "He'd fix you dog-catchers!"

"Aw-gowan!" exclaimed the man, pushing Tess so hard that she almost fell, and breaking her hold upon his coat.

But Tess forgot herself in her anxiety for Tom Jonah. She bravely followed him to the very step of the van.

"Give him back! Give him back!" she cried. "You must not hurt Tom Jonah. He never did you any harm. He never did anybody any harm. Give him back to us! Please!"

Her wail made no impression on the man.

"Drive on, Harry," he said. "These kids give me a pain."

The green van moved on. Tom Jonah's gray muzzle appeared at the screened door at the back. He howled mournfully as the van headed toward Main Street.

"Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?" cried Tess, wringing her hands.

"Let's run tell Ruthie," gasped Dot.

"I wish Neale O'Neil was here," growled Sammy.

But Tess was the bravest of the three. She had no intention of losing sight of poor Tom Jonah, whose mournful cries seemed to show that he knew the fate in store for him.

"Where are you going, Tess?" shouted Sammy, as the Corner House girl kept on past the gate of her own dooryard, after the green van.

"They sha'n't have Tom Jonah!" declared the sobbing Tess. "I – I won't let them."

"And – and Iky Goronofsky says that they make frankfurters out of those poor dogs," moaned Dot, repeating a legend prevalent among the rougher school children at that time.

"Pshaw! he was stringin' you kids," said Sammy, with more wisdom, falling in with Dot behind the determined Tess. "What'll we do? Tess is going right after that old van."

"We mustn't leave her," Dot said. "Oh! I wish Ruthie had seen those horrid men take Tom Jonah."

As it was there seemed nothing to do but to follow the valiant Tess on her quest toward the dog pound. As for Tess herself she had no intention of losing sight of Tom Jonah. She made up her mind that no matter how far the van went the poor old dog who had been their friend for so long should not be deserted.

At the seashore, soon after Tom Jonah had first come to live with the Corner House girls, the dog had been instrumental in saving the lives of both Tess and Dot. He had often guarded them when they played and when they worked. They depended upon him at night to keep away prowlers from the Corner House henroost. No ill-disposed persons ever troubled the premises at the Corner of Willow and Main Streets after one glimpse of Tom Jonah.

"I don't care!" sobbed Tess, her plump cheeks streaked with tears, when her little sister and Sammy caught up with her a block away from home. "I don't care. They sha'n't put poor Tom Jonah in the gas chamber. I know what they do to poor doggies. They sha'n't treat him so!"

"But what'll you do, Tess!" demanded Sammy, amazed by the determination and courage of his little friend.

"I don't know just what I'll do when I get there but I'll do something – you see if I don't, Sammy Pinkney!" threatened this usually mild and retiring Tess Kenway.

CHAPTER XXIV

IT ENGAGES AUNT SARAH'S ATTENTION

Ruth, as has been said, was away from the house when this dreadful thing happened to Tom Jonah. Uncle Rufus was too lame to have followed the dog catchers' van in any case, had he seen the capture of their pet.

But Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah were sitting together sewing in the latter's big front room over the dining-room of the Corner House. Looking out of the window by which she sat, and biting off a thread reflectively, the housekeeper said:

"It's on my mind, Miss Maltby, that our Ruth is not so chirpy as she used to be."

"She's growing up," said Aunt Sarah. "I'll be glad when they're all grown up." And then she added something that would have quite shocked all four of the Corner House girls. "I'll be glad when they are all grown up, and married, and settled down."

"My certie! but you are in haste, woman," gasped the housekeeper. "And it sounds right-down wicked. Wishing the bairns' lives away."

"Do you realize what it's going to mean – these next four or five years?" snapped Aunt Sarah.

"In what way, Miss Maltby?" asked Mrs. MacCall.

"For us," said Aunt Sarah, nodding emphatically. "We're going to have the house cluttered up with boys and young men who will want to marry my nieces."

"Lawk!" gasped the housekeeper. "Will they be standin' in line, think you? Not but the bonny lassies deserve the best there is – "

"Which isn't saying much when it comes to a choice of men," Aunt Sarah sniffed.

"Well," returned Mrs. MacCall, slowly, "of course there'll be none worthy of the lassies. None who deserves our Ruthie. Yet – I'm thinkin' – that that young laddie that was here now – you know, Miss Maltby. Luke Shepard."

"A likeable boy," admitted Aunt Sarah, and that was high praise from the critical spinster.

"Aye," Mrs. MacCall hastened to say, "a very fine young man indeed. And I am moved to say Ruthie liked him."

"Eh!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah.

"You maybe didn't see it. It was plain to me. They two were very fond of each other. Yes, indeed!"

"My niece fond of a boy?" gasped the spinster, bridling.

"Why! were ye not just now speakin' of such a possibeelity?" demanded the housekeeper, and in her surprise, dropping for the moment into broad Scotch. "And they are baith of them old enough tae be thinkin' of matin'. Yes!"

Aunt Sarah still stared in amazement. "Can it be that that seems to have changed Ruth so?" she asked at last.

"You've noticed it?" cried the Scotchwoman.

"Yes. As you have suggested, she seems down-hearted. But why – "