The Corner House Girls Under Canvas Read online

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  Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out forhelp, they were out of sight of the camp.]

  THE CORNER HOUSE

  GIRLS UNDER CANVAS

  HOW THEY REACHED PLEASANT COVE AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARD

  BY

  GRACE BROOKS HILL

  Author of "The Corner House Girls,""The Corner House Girls at School," etc.

  _ILLUSTRATED BY_

  _R. EMMETT OWEN_

  NEW YORK

  BARSE & HOPKINS

  PUBLISHERS

  BOOKS FOR GIRLS

  The Corner House Girls Series

  By Grace Brooks Hill

  _Illustrated._

  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR

  (_Other volumes in preparation_)

  BARSE & HOPKINS

  Publishers--New York

  Copyright, 1915,

  by

  Barse & Hopkins

  _The Corner House Girls Under Canvas_

  Printed in U. S. A.

  CONTENTS

  I. Tom Jonah II. Something to Look Forward To III. The Dance at Carrie Poole's IV. The Mystery of June Wildwood V. Off for the Seaside VI. On the Train VII. Something Ahead VIII. The Gypsy Camp IX. The Spoondrift Bungalow X. Some Excitement XI. The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe XII. A Picnic with Agamemnon XIII. The Night of the Big Wind XIV. An Important Arrival XV. Two Girls in a Boat--to Say Nothing of the Dog! XVI. The Gypsies Again XVII. On Wild Goose Island XVIII. The Search XIX. A Startling Meeting XX. The Frankfurter Man XXI. Mrs. Bobster's Mysterious Friend XXII. The Yarn of the "Spanking Sal" XXIII. The Shadow XXIV. Brought to Book XXV. The End of the Outing

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Before either Tess or Dot thought to cry out for help,they were out of sight of the camp

  A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clingingwith both hands to the ridge of it

  Ruth actually went back, groping through thegathering smoke, for the doll. With it she scrambledout upon the shingles

  The dog was perplexed. He started after the man;he started back for the girls. He whined and hebarked

  THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS

  CHAPTER I

  TOM JONAH

  "Come here, Tess! Come quick and look at this poor dog. He's justdrip-ping-_wet_!"

  Dot Kenway stood at a sitting-room window of the old Corner House,looking out upon Willow Street. It was a dripping day, and anything oranybody that remained out-of-doors and exposed to the downpour forhalf an hour, was sure to be saturated.

  Nothing wetter or more miserable looking than the dog in question hadcome within the range of the vision of the two younger Corner Housegirls that Saturday morning.

  Tess, who was older than Dot, came running. Anything as frightfullydespondent and hopeless looking as that dog was bound to touch thetender heart of Tess Kenway.

  "Let's--let's take him to the porch and feed him, Dot," she cried.

  "Will Ruthie let us?" asked Dot.

  "Of course. She's gone for her music lesson and won't know, anyway,"declared Tess, recklessly.

  "But maybe Mrs. MacCall won't like it?"

  "She's upstairs and won't know, either. Besides," Tess said,bolstering up her own desire, "she says she hasn't ever sent anybodyaway hungry from her door; and that poor dog looks just as hungry asany tramp that ever came to the old Corner House."

  The girls ran out of the sitting-room into the huge front hall which,in itself, was almost big enough for a ballroom. It was finished indark, dark oak; there was a huge front door--like the door of acastle; the furniture was walnut, upholstered in haircloth, worn shinyby more than three generations of use; and out of the middle of thehall a great stairway arose, dividing when half-way up into twosections, while a sort of gallery was built all around the hall at thesecond floor, out of which the doors of the principal chambers opened.

  There was a third story above, and above that a huge garret--often theplayroom of the Corner House girls on such days as this. In the rearwere two wings built on to the house, each three stories in height.The house had its "long" side to Willow Street, and only a narrowgrass plot and brick walk separated the sitting-room windows from theboundary fence.

  It faced Main Street, at its head, where the Parade Ground began. Thedripping trees on the Parade were now in full leaf and the lush grassbeneath them was green. The lawns of the old Corner House needed themower, too; and at the back Uncle Rufus--the general factotum of theestablishment--had laid out a wonderful kitchen garden which alreadyhad yielded radishes and tender onions and salad, and promised greenpeas to accompany the spring lamb to the table on the approachingFourth.

  Tess and Dot Kenway crossed the big hall of the Corner House, and wenton through the dining-room with its big table, huge, heavily carvedsideboard and comfortably armed chairs, through the butler's pantryinto the kitchen. As Tess had said, Mrs. MacCall, their good-naturedand lovable housekeeper, was not in sight. Nobody delayed them, andthey stepped out upon the half-screened porch at the back. Thewoodshed joined it at the far end. The steps faced Willow Street.

  On the patch of drying green a goat was tethered, lying down in therain, reflectively chewing a cud. He bleated when he saw the girls,but did not offer to rise; the rain did not disturb him in the least.

  "Billy Bumps likes the rain," Dot said, thoughtfully.

  The dog outside the gate did not seem to be enjoying himself. He haddropped down upon the narrow strip of sward between the flagged walkand the curbing; his sides heaved as though he had run a long way, andhis pink tongue lolled out of his mouth and dripped.

  "My!" Dot murmured, as she saw this, "the rain's soaked right throughthe poor doggy--hasn't it? And it's just dripping out of him!"

  Tess, more practical, if no more earnest in her desire to relieve thedog's apparent misery, ran down to the gate through the falling rainand called to him:

  "Poor, poor doggie! Come in!"

  She opened the gate temptingly, but the strange dog merely wagged histail and looked at her out of his beautiful brown eyes. He was aNewfoundland dog, with a cross of some breed that gave him patches ofdeep brown in his coat and very fine, long, silky hair that curled upat the ends. He was strongly built and had a good muzzle which waspowdered with the gray hairs of age.

  "Come here, old fellow," urged Tess, "_Do_ come in!"

  She snapped her fingers and held the gate more invitingly open. Hestaggered to his feet and limped toward her. He did not crouch andslink along as a dog does that has been beaten; but he eyed herdoubtfully as though not sure, after all, of this reception.

  He was muddied to his flanks, his coat was matted with green burrs,and there was a piece of frayed rope knotted about his neck. The dogfollowed Tess doubtfully to the porch. Billy Bumps climbed to his feetand shook his head threateningly, stamping his feet; but the strangedog was too exhausted to pay the goat any attention.

  The visitor at first refused to mount the steps, but he looked up atDot and wagged his tail in greeting.

  "Oh, Tess!" cried the smallest girl. "He thinks he knows me. Do yousuppose we have ever seen him before?"

  "I don't believe so," said Tess, bustling into the woodshed and outagain with a pan of broken meat that had been put aside for Sandyfaceand her children. "I know I should remember him if I had ever seen himbefore. Come, old fellow! Good doggie! Come up and eat."

  She put the pan down on the porch and stood back from it. The browneyes of the dog glowed
more brightly. He hesitatingly hobbled up thesteps.

  A single sniff of the tidbits in the pan, and the dog fell towolfishly, not stopping to chew at all, but fairly jerking the meatinto his throat with savage snaps.

  "Oh, don't gobble so!" gasped Dot. "It--it's bad for yourindigestions--and isn't polite, anyway."

  "Guess you wouldn't be polite if you were as hungry as he is," Tessobserved.

  The dog was so tired that he lay right down, after a moment, and atewith his nose in the pan. Dot ventured to pat his wet coat and hethumped his tail softly on the boards, but did not stop eating.

  At this juncture Uncle Rufus came shuffling up the path from thehen-coop. Uncle Rufus was a tall, stoop-shouldered, pleasantly brownnegro, with a very bald crown around which was a narrow growth oftight, grizzled "wool." He had a smiling face, and if the whites ofhis eyes were turning amber hued with age he was still "purtypert"--to use his own expression--save when the rheumatism laid himlow.

  "Whar' yo' chillen done git dat dawg?" he wanted to know, inastonishment.

  "Oh, Uncle Rufus!" cried Dot. "He came along looking _so_ wet----"

  "And he was _so_ tired and hungry," added Tess.

  "I done spec' yo' chillen would take in er wild taggar, ef one comeerlong lookin' sort o' meachin'," grumbled the colored man.

  "But he's so good!" said Tess. "See!" and she put her hand upon thehandsome head of the bedraggled beast.

  "He jes' er tramp dawg," said Uncle Rufus, doubtfully.

  "He's only tired and dirty," said Tess, earnestly. "I don't believe hewants to be a tramp. He doesn't look at all like the tramps Mrs.MacCall feeds at the back door here."

  "Nor like those horrid Gypsies that came to the house the other day,"added Dot eagerly. "I was afraid of them."

  "Well, it suah ain't b'long 'round yere--dat dawg," muttered UncleRufus. "It done run erway f'om somewhar' an' hit trabbelfar--ya-as'm!"

  He pulled the ears of the big dog himself, in a kindly fashion, andthe dog pounded the porch harder with his tail and rolled a trustingeye up at the little group. Evidently the tramp dog was convinced thatthis would be a good place to remain in, and "rest up."

  A pretty girl of twelve or thirteen, with flower-like face, plump, andher blue eyes dancing and laughing in spite of her, ran in at the sidegate. She had a covered basket of groceries on her arm, and wasswathed in a raincoat with a close hood about her face.

  "Agnes!" screamed Dot. "See what we've got! Just the nicest,friendfulnest dog----"

  "Mercy, Dot! More animals?" was the older sister's first comment.

  "But he's such a _nice_ dog," wailed Dot.

  "And so hungry and wet," added Tess.

  "What fine eyes he has!" exclaimed Agnes, stooping down to pat thenoble head. Instantly the dog's pink tongue sought her hand and--Agneswas won!

  "He's splendid! he's a fine old fellow!" she cried. "Of course we'llkeep him, Dot."

  "If Ruthie says so," added Tess, with a loyalty to the oldest CornerHouse girl born of the fact that Ruth had mothered the brood of threeyounger sisters since their real mother had died three years previous.

  "I dunno wot yo' chillen want er dawg for," complained Uncle Rufus.

  "To keep chicken thieves away," said Agnes, promptly, laughingroguishly at the grumbling black man.

  "Oh!" cried Tess. "You said yourself, Uncle Rufus, that those Gypsiesthat stopped here might be looking at Ruth's chickens."

  "Well, I done guess dat tramp dawg knows when he's well off," said theold man, chuckling suddenly. "He's layin' down lak' he's fixin' tuhstay--ya-as'm!"

  The dog had crept to the most sheltered corner of the porch and curledup on an old rag mat Mrs. MacCall had left there for the cats.

  "He ought to have that dirty old rope taken off," said Agnes.

  Uncle Rufus drew out his clasp knife and opened the blade. Heapproached the weary dog and knelt down to remove the rope.

  "Glo-_ree_!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "He done got er collar on him."

  It was hidden in the thick hair about the dog's neck. The three girlscrowded close to see, Uncle Rufus unbuckled it and handed the leatherstrap to Agnes.

  "See if there is any name and address on it, Aggie!" gasped Tess. "Oh!I hope not. Then, if we don't know where he came from, he's ours forkeeps."

  There was a small brass plate; but no name, address, or license numberwas engraved upon it. Instead, in clear script, it was marked:

  "THIS IS TOM JONAH. HE IS A GENTLEMAN."

  "There!" cried Dot, as though this settled the controversy. "What didI tell you? He _can't_ be any tramp dog. He's a gentleman."

  "'Tom Jonah,'" murmured Agnes. "What a funny name!"

  When Ruth came home the younger girls bore her off at once to see TomJonah sleeping comfortably on the porch. The old dog raised hisgrizzled muzzle, wagged his tail, and beamed at her out of his softbrown eyes.

  "The dear love!" cried Tess, clasping her hands. "Isn't he beautiful,Ruthie?"

  "Beautifully dirty," said Ruth, doubtfully.

  "Oh, but Uncle Rufus says he will wash him to-morrow. He's got someinsect--insecty-suicide soap like he puts on the henroosts----"

  "Insecticide, Dot," admonished Tess. "I wish you wouldn't try to saywords that you _can't_ say."

  Dot pouted. But Ruth patted her head and said, soothingly:

  "Never mind, honey. We'll let the poor dog stay till he rests up,anyway. He looks like a kind creature."

  But she, as well as the adults in the old Corner House, did not expectto see Tom Jonah the next morning when they awoke. He was allowed toremain on the porch, and despite the objections of Sandyface, themother cat, and the army of younger felines growing up about her, TomJonah was given a bountiful supper by Mrs. MacCall herself.

  Dot and Tess ran to peep at the dog just before going to bed thatnight. He blinked at them in the lampshine from the open door, andthumped the porch flooring with his tail.

  It was past midnight before anything more was heard of Tom Jonah. Thenthe whole house was aroused--not to say the neighborhood. There was asavage salvo of barks from the porch, and down the steps scrambled TomJonah. They heard him go roaring down the yard.

  Then there arose a great confusion at the hen house--a squawking offrightened hens, the loud "cut, cut, ca-da-cut!" of the rooster,mingling with which was the voice of at least one human being and thesavage baying of Tom Jonah.