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Read Ebook: The Corner House Girls Solve a Mystery What It Was Where It Was and Who Found It by Hill Grace Brooks Gooch Thelma Illustrator
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Ebook has 2002 lines and 49898 words, and 41 pages
Out of the moonlight shadows he came, a timid and shrinking figure of a Chinese
The two men looked up quickly, having been stopped by Ruth's voice
There sat Tess on a flat rock in a shallow place in the middle of the brook
The younger Corner House girls poked into the dark corners of the cellar
THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY
"Hello!"
"Goodness sakes! don't holler like that again, Sammy Pinkney."
"He almost made me drop the cake batter!"
Tess Kenway, who had administered the rebuke to the small boy when he gave a shout, thrusting his head in through the half-opened kitchen door, fanned herself with her apron as she closed the oven of the stove. Her sister Dot, who was pouring something from a brown bowl into a tin pan, set the former down on the table and shook her finger at Sammy.
"What are you doin'?" asked Sammy, as he slid farther into the kitchen and possessed himself of a chair near the table, looking casually over what it contained.
"Cakes," answered Tess. "I guess the oven's hot enough now, Dot," she went on, again opening and closing the door.
"Yes, we do," joined in the other small sister.
"What's the matter with that chair?" protested Sammy, in a grieved tone, as he went back to his original place.
"My--my Alice-doll!" answered Dot faintly.
"Aw, how'd I know she was there?" asked Sammy.
"You didn't have to come in," retorted Tess, who, though older than her sister, yet shared in the latter's love for Alice and did not want to see her "squashed."
"Pooh, I don't have to come in if I don't want to," declared Sammy independently. "But I was goin' to show you how you could have some fun."
"Some fun?" questioned Tess, alive to the possibilities in that word.
"What kind of fun?" Dot wanted to know, putting her Alice-doll in a safer place.
"Aw, what good would it do me to tell you!" and Sammy affected an air of injured innocence. "All you care about is bakin' cakes!"
"We do not--so there!" cried Tess, with an uptilting of her little nose, as she had seen Nalbro Hastings affect on occasions. "If you know any fun, Sammy Pinkney, you ought to tell us, 'cause we'll soon have to go back to school."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Dot. "When I was on Plam Island I never thought of school."
"I know what it is! I don't have to get you to tell me!" snapped Dot, for she was a bit sensitive about her mispronunciation, having been corrected so often. "But when my cake's done you can have some, Sammy," she added, more gently, as if ashamed of her little outburst.
"And I'll give you some of mine," offered Tess. "It's going to be chocolate."
"Good!" cried Sammy, and all his ill-feeling vanished.
"Mine's cocoanut," said Dot. "And I guess we'd better put 'em in the oven, Tess. Mrs. MacCall said to put 'em in when the oven felt hot to your hand."
"All right."
The two little girls, having poured their cake batter into separate tins, placed their concoctions in the oven and closed the door.
"There!" announced Tess. "Now you can tell us about the fun, Sammy," and she seemed to have shaken from her small shoulders the cares of the universe.
"I'm going to be in it, and so is my Alice-doll!" declared Dot, as she brought the pretend-child from the shelf where she had placed her for safety.
"Is Mrs. Mac around?" asked Sammy suspiciously, for he was a bit afraid of the bluff but kind Scotch housekeeper.
"No, she's away upstairs," answered Tess encouragingly. "She won't be down for a long time. She and Ruth and Agnes are talking about doing over one of the rooms. That girl who had something the matter with her teeth is coming to stay a while."
"We're going to have a party," confided Dot. "But these cakes aren't for that," she hastened to say, lest Sammy might think he would have to wait too long for the promised reward.
"You mean that that Nally Hastings you're always talking about is coming?" asked the boy.
"Yes!" answered both little girls. They did not want to talk too much for they desired to hear what fun Sammy had in prospect.
Miss Nalbro Hastings, from Boston, had become acquainted with the Corner House girls some time before. At first she had had the reputation of being affected and "stuck up," especially in the manner of her talk.
But later it was learned that she was suffering from the loss of some teeth, which had been knocked out in a runaway-horse accident, and this accounted for her speaking of Neale O'Neil as:
"That charming Mistah O'Neil, who ith tho interethting!"
"Well, if Mrs. Mac isn't around," began Sammy slowly--"But where's your Aunt Sarah?" he suddenly demanded, for he had sharp recollections of how Miss Maltby had more than once sent him "a-kiting," as she called it, when he had been up to some of his mischief.
"Oh, Aunt Sarah has gone for a ride," chuckled Tess. "You can tell us, Sammy. But we've got to stay in the kitchen until our cakes are done," she added, lest Sammy's plan involve going afield with the cake batter still in the oven.
"Oh, we can have some of the fun right here," replied Sammy. "I guess this is the best place for it, anyhow. You sure Mrs. Mac won't come down and catch me?" he asked, looking about and cocking his head on one side, to listen more sharply.
"No, she and Agnes and Ruth just went upstairs," reported Tess. "They'll be there a long time. Mrs. Mac got the things for us to make the cakes and told us just how to do it. I've made a cake before, but Dot hasn't," and Tess assumed her superior air which moved Dot to exclaim:
"Well, I've eaten cakes, anyhow!"
"So've I!" chuckled Sammy. "And I'm ready to do it again. Well, if nobody's coming I'll show you the fun. Got any raw beefsteak?" he asked, suddenly.
"Raw beefsteak?" questioned Dot, wonderingly.
"Naw, I haven't got a new dog," declared Sammy. "Maybe I'm goin' to have one, though, for Robbie Foote, who delivers groceries for Mrs. Kranz, the delicatessen lady, says he thinks he knows where he can get me a dog if my mother'll let me have it. But I don't guess she will as long as I have Buster."
"I should think not," said Tess, with an air of motherly wisdom.
"But a dog is nice," said Dot. "And if you had one with a very soft and shaggy back, Sammy, I'd let my Alice-doll ride on him. Buster's only a bulldog and not at all nice. He's really horrid!" and Dot sniffed a little.
"Well, I haven't got the dog--yet," Sammy said.
"Then what do you want the raw beefsteak for?" demanded Tess.
"For the alligator," whispered Sammy, as if he feared that Mrs. MacCall, the Scotch housekeeper, would hear him, even on the top floor of the old and rambling Corner House.
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