The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat

The goat kept on eating grass, of which there was an ample supply in the yard of the Corner House.

“What shall we do?” cried Agnes.

“Run into the house and get a strong blanket or quilt,” advised Mr. Howbridge quickly, but in a quiet, insistent voice which seemed to calm the excitement of every one. “Bring the blanket here. We will hold it beneath the basket like a fire net, though I do not believe there is any immediate danger of the children falling. The rope seems to be firmly caught in the pulley block.”

His quick eye had taken in this detail of the “elevator.” The rope really had jammed in the block, and, as long as it held, the basket could not descend suddenly. Even if the rope should be unexpectedly loosened, there would still be the weight of the attached goat to act as a drag on the end of the cable, thus counterbalancing, in a measure, the weight of the girls in the clothes basket.

“But I don’t want to take any chances,” explained the lawyer. “We’ll take hold and extend the blanket under them, in case they should fall.”

“I have my apron ready now!” cried Mrs. MacCall. “Oh, the puir bairns! What ever possit it ye twa gang an’ reesk their lives this way, ye tapetless one?” she cried to Sammy angrily, suddenly, in her excitement, using the broadest of Scotch.

“Well, they wanted to ride in an elevator, an’ I – I made one,” he declared.

And that is just what he had done. Whether it was his idea or that of Tess and Dot did not then develop. What Sammy had done was to take the largest clothes basket, getting it unobserved when Mrs. MacCall and Linda were busy over Ruth’s party. He had fastened the basket to a long rope, which had been thrown over the high limb of the oak tree. Then Sammy had passed the rope through a pulley block, obtained no one knew where, and had hitched to the cable the goat, Billy Bumps.

By walking away from the tree Billy had pulled on the rope. The straightaway pull was transformed, by virtue of the pulley, into an upward motion, and the basket ascended. It had formed the “elevator” to which Uncle Rufus alluded.

And, really, it did elevate Dot and Tess. They had been pulled up and had descended as Sammy made the goat back, thus releasing the pull on the rope. All had gone well for several trips until the rope jammed in the pulley, thus leaving the two girls suspended in the basket at the highest point. Their screams, the fright of Sammy, the alarms of Uncle Rufus and Mrs. MacCall had followed in quick succession.

“Here’s the blanket!” cried Agnes speeding to the scene with a large woolen square under her arm. “Have they fallen yet?”

Behind her came stringing the guests. It had been impossible for them to remain in the library with their minds on civic betterment ideas when they heard what had happened.

“Well, did you ever!” cried one of the number in astonishment.

“What can it mean?” burst out a second.

“Looks to me like an amateur circus,” giggled a third. She was a lighthearted girl and had not taken much of an interest in the rather dry meeting.

“Those children will be hurt,” cried a nervous lady. “Oh, dear, why did they let them do such an awful thing as that?”

“I think they did it on their own account,” said another lady. “Our Tommy is just like that – into mischief the minute your back is turned.”

“I’m glad they came!” said Mr. Howbridge. “They may all take hold of the edges of the blanket and extend it as firemen do the life net. You may stand aside now, Mrs. MacCall, if you will,” he told the Scotch housekeeper, and not until then did she lower her apron and move out from under the swaying basket, murmuring as she did so something about Sammy being a “tapetless gowk” who needed a “crummock” or a good “flyte,” by which the girls understood that the boy in question was a senseless dolt who needed a severe whipping or a good scolding.

Ruth, Agnes and the guests took hold of the heavy blanket and held it under the basket as directed by Mr. Howbridge. Then, seeing there would be little danger to the children in case the basket should suddenly fall, the lawyer directed Sammy to loosen the goat from the rope.

“He’ll run if I do,” objected Sammy.

“Let him run, you ninnie!” cried Mrs. MacCall. “An’ if ever ye fetchet him yon again I’ll – I’ll – ”

But she could not call up a sufficiently severe punishment, and had to subside.

Meanwhile the mischievous boy had led Billy Bumps off to one side, by the simple process of loosening the rope from the wagon harness to which it was fastened. Mr. Howbridge then took a firm hold of the cable and, after loosening it from where it had jammed in the pulley block, he braced his feet in the earth, against the downward pull of the basket, and so gently lowered Tess and Dot to the ground.

“I’m never going to play with you again, Sammy Pinkney!” cried Tess, climbing out of the basket and shaking her finger at the boy.

“Nor me, either!” added Dot, smoothing out the rumpled dress of her Alice-doll.

“Well, you asked me to make some fun and I did,” Sammy defended himself.

“Yes, and you made a lot of excitement, too,” added Ruth. “You had better come into the house now, children,” she went on. “And, Sammy, please take Billy away.”

“Yes’m,” he murmured. “But they asked me to elevator ’em up, an’ I did!”

“To which I shall bear witness,” said Mr. Howbridge, laughing.

Mrs. MacCall “shooed” Tess and Dot into the house, murmuring her thanks to providence over the escape, and, after a while, the excitement died away and Ruth went on with her meeting.

The Civic Betterment League was formed that afternoon and eventually, perhaps, did some good. But what this story is to concern itself with is the adventure on a houseboat of the Corner House girls. Meanwhile about a week went by. There had been no more elevator episodes, though this does not mean that Sammy did not make mischief, nor that Tess and Dot kept out of it. Far from that.

One bright afternoon, when school was out and the pre-supper appetites of Dot and Tess had been appeased, the two came running into the room where Ruth and Agnes sat.

“He’s here! He’s come!” gasped Tess.

“And he’s got, oh, such a dandy!” echoed Dot.

“Who’s here, and what has he?” asked Agnes, flying out of her chair.

“You shouldn’t say anything is a ‘dandy,’” corrected Ruth to her youngest sister.

“Well it is, and you told me always to tell the truth,” was the retort.

“It’s Mr. Howbridge and he’s out in front with a – the – er the beautifulest automobile!” cried Tess. “It’s all shiny an’ it’s got wheels, an’ – an’ everything! It’s newer than our car.”

Ruth was sufficiently interested in this news to look from the window.

“It is Mr. Howbridge,” she murmured, as though there had been doubts on that point.

“And he must have a new auto,” added Agnes. “Oh, he has!” she cried.

A moment later they were welcoming their guardian at the door, while the smaller children formed an eager and anxious background.

“What has happened?” asked Agnes, while Ruth, remembering her position as head of the family, asked:

“Won’t you come in?”

“I’d much rather you would come out, Miss Ruth,” the man responded. “It is just the sort of day to be out – not in.”

“Especially in such a car as that!” exclaimed Agnes. “It’s a – ”

“Be careful,” murmured Ruth, with an admonishing glance from Agnes to the smaller girls. “Little pitchers, you know – ”

“It’s a wonderful car!” went on Agnes. “Is it yours?”

“Well, I sometimes doubt a little, when I recall what it cost me,” her guardian answered with a laugh. “But I am supposed to be the owner, and I have come to take you for a ride.”

“Oh, can’t we go?” came in a chorus from Tess and Dot.