The Corner House Girls Growing Up

"There's something that went wrong. 'Love's young dream,' as they say, is having a partial eclipse, so it is! I see no letters comin' from that college where the laddie has gone."

"But she hears from Cecile Shepard," said Aunt Sarah. "She reads me extracts from Cecile's letters. A very lively and pleasant girl is Cecile."

"So she is," admitted the housekeeper. "But I'm a sight more interested in the laddie. Why doesn't he write?"

"Why – er – would that be quite the thing, Mrs. MacCall?" asked Aunt Sarah, momentarily losing much of her grimness and seemingly somewhat fluttered by this discussion of Ruth's affair.

"'Twould be almost necessary, Miss Maltby, I can tell you, if he was a laddie of mine," declared the Scotchwoman vigorously. "I'd no have a sweetheart that was either tongue-tied or unable to write."

"Oh, but you take too much for granted," cried Aunt Sarah.

"My observation tells me the two of them are fair lost on each other. I watched 'em while young Shepard was here. It's true they are young; but they'll never be younger, and it's the young lovin' and matin' was made for – not for old bodies."

"You – you quite surprise me," said Aunt Sarah.

"You'd best get over your surprise, Miss Maltby," said the very practical housekeeper. "You should have your eyes opened. You should see them together again."

"Why not?" demanded Aunt Sarah, suddenly.

"Why not what?"

"Let the children have Cecile and her brother here for over Sunday – for a week end. Let them give a little party. I am sure I loved parties when I was a young girl and lived at this Corner House, when mother was alive."

"It's a good idea," said the housekeeper. "I'll make some layer cakes for the party. We'll not need to go to the expense of a caterer – "

She would have gone on immediately planning for the affair had she not, on glancing through the window, seen the dog catchers' green van rattling over the crossing of Main Street.

"There's those dog catchers!" she exclaimed. "I wonder if Tom Jonah's safe. There are some children running and crying after it – they've lost a pet I've no doubt."

Then suddenly she sprang to her feet.

"Miss Maltby!" she cried. "'Tis our Tess and Dot – and Sammy Pinkney, the little scamp! It must be either his bulldog or old Tom Jonah those pestilent men have caught."

Aunt Sarah had very good eyes indeed. She had already spied the party and she could see in the back of the van.

"It is Tom Jonah!" she exclaimed. "They must be stopped. How dared those men take our dog?"

Mrs. MacCall, who had no shoes on, could not hurry out. But Aunt Sarah was dressed for company as she always was in the afternoon. She amazed the sputtering housekeeper by stopping only to throw a fleecy hood over her hair before hurrying out of the front door of the Corner House.

Aunt Sarah Maltby seldom left the premises save for church on Sunday. She did not even ride much in the girls' motor-car. She had made up her mind that an automobile was an unnecessary luxury and a "new-fangled notion" anyway; therefore she seldom allowed herself to be coaxed into the car.

She never went calling, claiming vigorously that she was "no gadabout, she hoped." It was an astonishing sight, therefore, to see her marching along Willow Street in the wake of the crying, excited children, who themselves followed in the wake of the dog catchers' van.

The van traveled so fast that Tess and Dot and Sammy could scarcely keep it in sight; while the children were so far ahead of Aunt Sarah that the old woman could not attract their attention when she called.

It was a most embarrassing situation, to say the least. To add to its ridiculousness, Mrs. MacCall met Agnes as she came in swinging her books, and told her at the side door what had happened.

Agnes flung down her books and "hoo-hooed" with all her might for Neale O'Neil. As soon as he answered, sticking his head out of his little bedroom window under the eaves of Con Murphy's cottage, Agnes left the housekeeper and the excited Finnish girl to explain the difficulty to Neale, while she ran after Aunt Sarah.

Soon, therefore, there was a procession of excited Corner House folk trailing through the Milton Streets to the pound. Sammy and the two little girls trotting on behind the dog catchers' van; then Aunt Sarah Maltby, looking neither to right nor left but appearing very stern indeed; then Agnes running as hard as she could run; followed by Neale at a steady lope.

The boy soon overtook his girl chum.

"What under the canopy are we going to do?" he demanded.

"Save Tom Jonah!" declared Agnes, her cheeks blazing.

"The kids are going to do that," chuckled Neale in spite of his shortness of breath. "Guess we'd better save Aunt Sarah, hadn't we?"

"Goodness, Neale!" giggled Agnes, "they won't try to shut her up in the pound I should hope."

They did not overtake the determined woman before she was in sight of the dog refuge. The van had driven into the yard. Before the gate could be shut Tess, followed closely by the trembling Dot and by the more or less valiant Sammy, pushed through likewise and faced the superintendent of the lost dog department.

"What do you little folks want?" asked this kindly man, smiling down upon the trio.

"We want Tom Jonah," said Tess, her voice quivering but her manner still brave.

"You've just got to give us Tom Jonah," Dot added, gulping down a sob.

"You bet you have!" said Sammy, clenching his fists.

"'Tom Jonah'?" repeated the man. "Is that a dog?"

Tess pointed. There was Tom Jonah at the screened door of the van.

"That's him," she said. "He never did anybody any harm. These men just stole him."

That was pretty strong language for Tess Kenway to use; but she was greatly overwrought.

"You mean they took him out of your yard?"

"They took him off'n the street," said Sammy. "But he'd only jumped the fence because he saw us comin' home from school."

"He isn't muzzled," said the man.

"He – he don't bite," wailed Dot. "He – he ain't got any teeth to bite!"

He was an old dog as the superintendent could see. Besides, he knew that his men were more eager to secure the fines than they were to be kind or fair to the owners of dogs.

"How about this, Harry?" he asked the driver of the van.

"The dog's ugly as sin," growled the man. "Ain't he, Bill?"

"Tried to chew me up," declared the man with the net.

"Say!" blurted out Sammy, "wouldn't you try to chew a feller up if he caught you in a fish-net and dragged you to a wagon like that? Huh!"

Harry burst out laughing. The superintendent said, quietly: