The Corner House Girls' Odd Find

“What do you mean, you silly boy?” demanded Ruth, with rising asperity. “I tell you that money must have all been good money, whether the bonds were valuable or not.”

It was then Neale’s turn to say, “Well?”

“Neale O’Neil!” shouted Agnes, shaking him. “What are you trying to do – torment us to death? What do you know about this?”

“Why, I told you the old book was in my bag on the porch when I left here Saturday night,” drawled the boy. “But do you suppose I would have flung it down there so carelessly if the money and bonds had been in it?”

CHAPTER XXV – AGNES IS PERFECTLY HAPPY

“Oh, Neale! Oh, Ruth! I’m going to faint!” murmured Agnes Kenway, and she sank into a chair and began to “stiffen out” in approved fainting fashion.

But when she saw the boy pick up a vase, grab the flowers out of it with ruthless hand, and start to douse her with the water it was supposed to contain, the Corner House girl “came to” very promptly.

“Don’t do that!” she cried. “You’ll spoil those roses. And if there was water in that vase it would ruin my dress. Goosey! Those are artificial flowers, anyway. That’s all a boy knows!”

“Neale seems to know a great deal that we do not,” Ruth said faintly, really more overcome than Agnes was by the bomb Neale had flung.

“Say! haven’t you heard from Mr. Howbridge?” demanded the youth.

“Mr. Howbridge?” murmured Ruth. “No.”

“Then he’ll be home himself to-morrow, and thought it wasn’t worth while to write.”

“What do you mean, Neale O’Neil?” demanded Agnes.

“Did you see Mr. Howbridge?” asked Ruth.

“Sure!”

“But I thought you went to see your uncle, Mr. Sorber,” said the oldest Corner House girl.

“So I did. Poor Uncle Bill! He was pretty well done up. But he’s better now, as I told you. But that’s why I took the old book with me.”

“What is why?” demanded Agnes.

“Such ‘langwitch’!” exclaimed Neale, with laughter. “I tell you I carried that album away with me because I wanted to show the stuff in it to Mr. Howbridge. I remembered he was up there in Tiverton, too.”

“Oh, dear me! I had forgotten it!” cried Ruth.

“I remembered, but I forgot to tell you,” said Agnes.

“I didn’t think the stuff was any good. But I thought Mr. Howbridge ought to see it and judge for himself. So I took it to him. He was busy when I first called and I left the book with him. That was at his brother’s house.”

“Oh, Neale!” groaned Ruth. “Why didn’t you write us about it?”

“Didn’t think of it. I give you my word I did not believe that the bonds were worth anything; and I was confident the money was phony.”

“Oh, dear!” said Agnes. “And it’s all safe? Mr. Howbridge has all that great lot of money?”

“Yes. I saw him Saturday before I came down to Milton. He pretty nearly took me off my feet when he said that it was all good stuff, with lots of dividend money coming to the owner of the bonds, too. And he wanted to know all the particulars of your finding the album. Bless you! he doesn’t know what to think about it. He is only sure that your Uncle Peter never owned the bonds or the cash.”

“He didn’t,” sighed Agnes, “more’s the pity. Oh, no, Ruthie. I am not sorry Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill are going to be rich. But we could have made good use of some of that money.”

“Buying an automobile, for instance?” suggested Neale, chuckling.

“Be careful, young man,” Agnes warned him. “If you carry a joke too far, you shall never be allowed to run the Corner House automobile when we do get it.”

“I’ll be good,” said Neale, promptly. “For I have a sneaking sort of idea that maybe you will have one, Aggie, before long.”

“Oh, Neale!”

“Fact. Somebody’s going to get a bunch of money for finding that album. And you are the one who really made the find, Aggie Kenway.”

“Now I know I shall faint!” gasped the next to the oldest Corner House girl.

“We wouldn’t want money for giving Mrs. Eland what belongs to her,” Ruth said quietly.

“Maybe not,” said Neale, grimly. “But I guess Mr. Howbridge knows his business. He is your guardian. He will apply to the court for the proper reward for you, if it isn’t forthcoming from the beneficiaries themselves.”

“Goodness, Neale O’Neil! How you talk,” said Agnes, in wonder. “You talk just like a lawyer yourself.”

“Maybe I will be one some day,” said the boy, diffidently. “But Mr. Howbridge talked a lot to me about the matter on Saturday. He said of course the real owners of the money and bonds must be hunted up. Perhaps he has some shrewd suspicion as to who they may be.

“But you girls have got rights in any treasure trove found in the old Corner House – ”

“Gracious mercy me! I hope I shall find a lot more money and bonds,” declared Agnes. “I’m going right up to the attic to-morrow and hunt some more.”

But of course she did not. There were too many things happening on the morrow. Mr. Howbridge came from Tiverton and the girls found him at the Corner House when they came home from school.

He brought with him a statement showing how much money there was in that treasure trove found in the garret, and the value of the railroad bonds and the dividends due on them.

He was quite ready to believe Ruth’s discovery regarding the true ownership of the treasure, too.

“I have heard Peter Stower often say that he wondered what Lemuel Aden did with his money. He stuck to it that Lem was a wealthy man, but the very worst kind of a miser.

“And that he should bring his wealth here and hide it in the old Corner House is not at all surprising. As a boy he played about here with your Uncle Peter. He knew the old garret as well as you children do, I warrant.”

Later Mr. Howbridge went with Ruth to call on the matron of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Mrs. Eland produced the diaries and Mr. Howbridge read the notes referring to the old miser’s “Beautiful Book.”

It was decided by the Courts, at a later time, that the money and bonds all belonged to the two sisters, sole remaining heirs of Lemuel Aden. Mr. Howbridge acted for both parties in the transaction and nothing was said about any reward due the Corner House girls for making the odd find in the garret.

That is, there was little said about any reward just then. But Agnes went about with such a smiling face that everybody who knew her stopped to ask what it meant.

“Why, don’t you know?” she said. “Just as soon as we can have it built, there will be a garage in our back yard. And Neale O’Neil is studying at the Main Street Garage every day after school, so he can run a car and take out a license like Joe Eldred. And – ”

“But you haven’t a car, Aggie Kenway!” cried Eva Larry, who was one of the most curious.

“Oh, no; not yet,” drawled Agnes, with fine nonchalance. “But we’re having one built for us. Mr. Howbridge himself ordered it for us. And it’s going to be big enough to take out the whole Corner House family.”