Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
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
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 2002 lines and 49898 words, and 41 pages
"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.
"The alligator!" cried Tess.
"The one we brought you from Plam Island?" demanded Dot.
"I have him outside," Sammy answered. "I didn't want to bring him in until I was sure it was all right. That's the reason I looked in first and said 'hello!'"
"And nearly made me drop my cake," sighed Dot.
"But what about the raw beefsteak?" asked Tess.
"That's to make the alligator do the trick," explained Sammy.
"What trick?" cried both little girls at once.
"I'll show you."
Sammy went outside again. Tess and Dot were so eager they could scarcely await his return, but it was not many minutes before Sammy again made his appearance with a small box which he put on the kitchen table, shoving to one side spoons, pans and dishes that had been used with prodigal extravagance in the making of two very small cakes.
"Get the beefsteak," Sammy ordered, with an air of one used to being obeyed.
"I'll get it. There's some in the ice box," offered Tess. "But don't do the trick until I get back," she commanded.
"I won't," Sammy promised.
While Tess went to the pantry Dot knelt in a chair as close to the mysterious box as she could get.
"Let me just peek at him until Tess comes back," she pleaded. "You don't need do the trick."
Sammy obligingly raised the cover of the box slightly.
"Oh, Sammy Pinkney, what have you done to the lovely alligator?" cried Dot, starting back.
"Keep still! It's part of the trick," answered Sammy.
"Oh, you said you wouldn't do it while I was gone!" cried Tess accusingly, as she came in with some shreds of meat and heard the last words.
"I didn't," declared Sammy. "I was just showing him to Dot. I'll lift him out now. Put the meat on the table."
"I haggled off one end of a steak," said Tess. "I hope Mrs. Mac doesn't notice it."
"If she does," chuckled Sammy, "tell her one of the cats did it."
"There's plenty of them around, but of course Dot and I don't tell fibs," declared Tess. "Now come on. Do the trick, Sammy."
Sammy looked matters over before opening the box. The shreds of meat that Tess had placed on the table caught his eyes.
"Don't leave 'em in such big chunks," he advised. "Snapper will choke on 'em."
"Is that what you call your alligator--Snapper?" asked Tess, as she proceeded to cut up the meat into smaller bits. She and her sisters had brought the scaly reptile back with them from Palm Island as a souvenir for Sammy.
"Snapper is his name, and my mother says snappish is his nature," answered the boy. "But he only snaps when he wants things to eat. I guess those are all right," he went on, as he looked at the bits of steak cut smaller by Tess.
Then he lifted out onto the table a small, tame alligator, at the sight of which the two girls broke into exclamations of:
"Oh, isn't he cute! How did you ever do it! Oh, he looks just like a circus alligator!"
"Maybe I'll put him in a circus," said Sammy. "But it wasn't easy to dress him up."
Sammy had, with the expenditure of much time and labor, made a sort of clown suit for the alligator, a little red jacket and green trousers. The two front legs of the small alligator were thrust through the sleeves of the red jacket, and the two hind legs stuck out of the green legs of the trousers.
"Oh, he's too funny for anything!" declared Dot.
"Wait! You haven't seen half yet!" promised the boy.
Again he reached into the box he had carried over from his home, which was catercornered from the Corner House, and this time he lifted out a small wagon, purchased at the five and ten-cent store. To this vehicle he had fastened a harness so that Snapper could be hitched to the toy.
"Oh, isn't that a darling!" cried Tess in ecstasy.
"You could have a show with that!" declared Dot.
"Maybe I will," said Sammy. "But wait, you haven't seen it all yet. Wait till he draws the cart. Keep the meat away from him until I hitch him up," he went on. "Once he starts to eating raw steak he won't pull. I have to bribe him to do it till he gets better trained. Don't let him get the meat, Tess."
At what, it would seem, was the risk of having her fingers snapped at, the girl removed the bits of meat from in front of the little alligator. Sammy then hitched it to the cart and next, taking a shred of meat, held it a few inches away from Snapper's nose.
Slowly the alligator from "Plam Island" began crawling across the table, anxious to get the dainty, and, as he crawled, he hauled after him the toy cart.
"Oh, that's perfectly wonderful!" cried Tess.
"Too cute for anything!" added Dot. "Look, Alice-doll," she went on, holding her most-loved "child" up to see.
"My Alice-doll knows more'n you do, Sammy Pinkney, so there!" retorted Dot.
Just then there was a noise at the outer kitchen door, and the three children turned apprehensively, thinking it might be their Aunt Sarah or Mrs. MacCall.
"It's only Billy Bumps," remarked Sammy, as he caught sight of the goat entering. Billy was a sort of privileged neighborhood character, but had Mrs. MacCall been present he never would have entered her clean kitchen. However, Sammy, Dot and Tess were not so particular. Besides, they were watching the alligator do his trick with the little cart.
But peace and quiet was not to reign for long. Billy Bumps, discovering on a small table in a corner a bit of lettuce, began munching this. His tail was toward the larger table, on which Snapper was performing, and, as luck would have it, just then the alligator in his wanderings came to the edge of the table. The goat's slightly moving tail was within easy reach of the jaws.
Perhaps Snapper might have recognized in the goat's tail a resemblance to some dainty he was accustomed to feed on while a resident of Palm Island. Or perhaps Snapper took the goat's tail for a new form of beefsteak, of which he was very fond.
However that may be, this is what happened.
Snapper reached forward and, aiming to bite out a generous section of the goat's tail, took a firm hold.
"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated the goat.
He wheeled around suddenly, and with such force that he swung Snapper from the table to the floor, the alligator loosening its grip. But Billy Bumps had been frightened. He also thought he had been mistreated. With another bleat, in which rage and reproach were mingled, he made a dash for the door by which he had entered.
Just as he reached it there entered Robbie Foote with some eggs that Mrs. Kranz, the "delicatessen lady," had sent up to the Corner House from her store.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page