The Corner House Girls Under Canvas

Tess and Dot Kenway had a very serious matter to decide. Ruth had determined that, as they were all enjoying themselves at Pleasant Cove so much, the Corner House flag should continue to wave for a time longer over their tent in the Willowbend Camp.

But there was something at home in Milton, at the old Corner House itself, that the younger girls thought they must attend to.

“It’s really a nawful state of affairs,” Tess declared, nodding her sunny head, gravely, and with her lips pursed up. “They are growing right up without knowing their own names. Why! I don’t see how their own mother knows them apart.”

“Oh!” gasped Dot, to whom this was a new idea indeed. “I never thought of that.”

“Well, it’s so,” said Tess. “I – I wish Ruth had sent for them and had had them brought down here when Rosa and Tom Jonah came.”

“But they couldn’t leave their mother, Tess,” objected Dot. “They’re too small.”

“I – don’t – know,” said Tess, doubtfully. “At any rate, it’s high time they were named. You know, Mrs. MacCall says so herself.”

Dot picked up the letter that the kind housekeeper at the old Corner House had written especially to the two smaller Kenway girls.

“She says they chase their tails all day long and they have had to put them out in the woodshed to keep them from being under foot,” Dot said, reading slowly, for Mrs. MacCall’s writing was not like print.

“They must be named,” repeated Tess, with conviction.

“But Ruth won’t let us go home to do it,” quoth Dot.

“And I don’t want to. Do you?” demanded Tess, hastily. “I don’t want to leave the beach now, just when we’re having so much fun.”

Neither did Dot. But the state of the unchristened kittens – the youngest family of Sandyface – troubled her exceedingly.

Tess, however, suddenly had one of her very brilliant ideas. “I tell you what let’s do!” she cried.

“What?”

“Let’s write Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus a letter, and ask them to name Sandyface’s children their own selves.”

“But – but we want to name them,” cried Dot.

“Goosey!” exclaimed Tess. “We’ll choose the names; but Mrs. MacCall and Uncle Rufus can give them to the kittens. Don’t you see?”

“Oh, Tess! we might,” agreed Dot, delighted.

Tess ran to the tent for paper and pencil, and bespoke the favor of an envelope addressed in ink to Mrs. MacCall.

“Of course, I’ll address one for you,” said Ruth, kindly. “But what’s all the hurry about writing home?”

Tess explained the necessity that had arisen. Sandyface’s family of kittens was growing up without being christened – and something might happen to them.

“You know,” said Tess, gravely, “it would be dreadful if one of them died and we didn’t know what to put on the headboard. It would be dreadful!”

“And what names shall we send Mrs. MacCall?” Dot wanted to know, when Tess had started the letter “Deare Missus Mcall” and was chewing the pencil as an aid to further thought.

“Let’s call them by seashore names,” suggested Tess. “Then they’ll remind us of the fun we had here at Pleasant Cove.”

“Oh-oo! Let’s,” agreed Dot.

“Well, now,” said Tess, promptly. “What will be the very first one? I’ll write Mrs. MacCall what we want,” and she proceeded to indite the following paragraph to begin the letter:

“We are having so much fun down here at plesent cove that we cant find time to come home and name Sandface’s babbies. But we want you and unc rufs to do it for us and we are going to send you the names we chose. They are – ”

Here Tess’s laboring pencil came to a full stop. “Now, you got the first name, Dot?” she asked.

“I got two,” declared Dot, confidently.

“What are they!” queried Tess. “Now, we want them to be real salt-water names. Just like fishes’ names – or boats’ names – or like that.”

“I got two,” declared Dot, soberly. “Lots of men must be named those names about here. I hear them hollerin’ to each other when they are out in the boats.”

“Well, well!” cried Tess, impatiently. “What are the names?”

“One’s ‘Starboard’ and the other’s ‘Port,’” declared Dot, seriously. “And they are real nice names, I think.”

Tess was rather taken aback. She had a hazy opinion that “Starboard” and “Port” were not Christian names; they might be, however, and she had heard them herself a good deal. Besides, she wanted to agree with Dot if she could, and so she sighed and wrote as follows:

“We got to names alreddy, Missus Mcall, and one’s Starborde and the other is Port. They are very pretty names, we think and we hope you an unc rufs and Sandface will like them, to. You give them to the kittens that they seem to fit the best, pleas.”

Neale, and Ruth, and Agnes came along some time afterward and found the smaller Corner House girls reduced almost to a state of distraction. They had been unable to decide upon two more names. “Starboard” and “Port” had been inspired, it seemed. Now they were “stuck.”

“It does seem as though there should be some other seashore names that would sound good for kittens,” sighed Tess. “I think ‘Starboard’ and ‘Port’ are real pretty – don’t you, Ruth?”

“Very fine,” agreed her older sister, while Agnes restrained her giggles.

“Why not call one of the others ‘Hard-a-Lee’?” suggested Neale, gravely.

“Is that a seashore name?” asked Tess, doubtfully.

“Just as salt as a dried codfish,” declared Neale, confidently.

“I think it is real pretty,” Dot ventured.

“Then we’ll call the third one ‘Hard-a-Lee,’” declared Tess. “I’ll tell Mrs. MacCall so,” and she laboriously went at the misspelled letter again.

“But how about the fourth one?” asked Agnes, laughing. “He’s not going to be a step-child, is he? Isn’t he to have a name?”

“Yes. We must have one more,” Tess said, wearily. “Won’t you give us one, Aggie?”

“Sure!” said Agnes, promptly. “Main-sheet.’”

“‘Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Main-sheet.’ Some names, those!” declared Neale.

“I like them,” Tess said, reflectively. “They don’t sound like other cats’ names – do they, Ruthie?”

“They most certainly do not,” admitted the oldest Corner House girl.