The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 26

Luke telephoned the good news to the old Corner House that Dot and Sammy were found, safe and sound, and that they were all going to the circus.

Poor Tess had to be satisfied with the promise that the long-expected pony would be at Milton in a few days. News of the runaways' safety was carried quickly to the Pinkney cottage across Willow Street.

"It strikes me that these kids are getting rewarded instead of punished for running away," Luke observed to Ruth, when he returned from telephoning.

"But what can we do?" the girl asked him. "I am so glad to get Dot back that I could not possibly punish her. And I don't know that she did anything so very wrong. Nor do I believe she will do anything like it again."

"How about Sammy?" the collegian asked.

"To tell the truth," said honest Ruth, "from what they both say I fancy Dot urged Sammy to run away. I can't blame him if I don't blame her, can I?"

"They've got enough, I guess," chuckled Luke. "Two reformed pirates!

Goodness! aren't kids the greatest ever?"

The escapade of Sammy and Dot had carried its own punishment with it.

Ruth was right when she said that Dot would never yield to such a temptation again. She had learned something about running away. As for Sammy, he was more subdued than the Corner House girls had ever seen him before.

That is, he was subdued until they were in what Mr. Sorber called "a private box" at the ringside of the circus and things began to happen.

Then, what small boy could remain subdued with the joys and wonders of a real circus evolving before his eyes?

If the tents were dusty and patched, and some of the costumes as frayed and tarnished as they could be after two-thirds of a season's wear, all the glamour of the famous entertainment was here--the smell of the animals, the dancing dust in the lamplight, the flaring torches, the blaring of the band, the distant roaring of the lions being fed for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the spectators.

The grand entrance was a marvel to the children. The curveting horses, the gaily decked chariots, the daring drivers in pink and blue tights and the very pink-cheeked women in the wonderful, glittering clothes--all these things delighted Sammy and Dot as well as Louise Quigg, who had never in her cramped life seen such a show.

When Mr. Sorber entered in his fresh suit and cracked his whip, and the band began to play, Louise became absorbed. When the clowns leaped into the ring with a chorused: "Here we are again!" Dot and Sammy and Louise clutched hands without knowing it, and just "held on" to themselves and each other during most of the entertainment that followed.

But the greatest excitement for the smaller people in the private box occurred toward the end of the evening when a squad of ponies came in to do their tricks. There were black ponies and white, and dappled and red ponies; but the prettiest of all (both Dot and the gasping Louise declared it) was the brown and cream colored Scalawag, with the pink nose and ears.

Sammy, feeling his superiority as a boy in most instances, even at the circus, dropped every appearance of calm when Neale pointed out Scalawag as the calico pony promised Tess and Dot by Uncle Bill Sorber.

"Oh, my granny!" gasped the youngster, his eyes fairly bulging, "you don't mean that's the pony I thought was like a Teddy bear?"

"That's the one the girls are going to have for their very own. Uncle Rufus has been building a stall in the far shed for it--next to Billy b.u.mps," Neale a.s.sured him.

"And it _is_ chocolate and cream and _pink_!" exclaimed Sammy. He turned suddenly to Agnes. "Oh, I say, Aggie!" he shouted. "You _did_ know all about what a calico pony was like, didn't you?"

Agnes herself was delighted with the pretty creature. Of course, he was awfully round and fat; but he appeared so funny and cute when he looked out at the audience from under his braided bang, that Scalawag quite endeared himself to all their hearts.

He was something of a clown in the troupe of ponies. He always started last when an order was given and when he had anything to do by himself he appeared "to really hate" to do it. Mr. Sorber seemed to get very angry, and he lashed at the pony quite furiously and shouted at him, so that the little girls squealed.

But the whiplash only wound about Scalawag's neck and did not hurt him, while he put his head around and looked at the ringmaster when he shouted, as though to ask Uncle Bill Sorber: "What's your hurry?"

"He's almost the oldest live thing in the show," chuckled Neale to Luke.

"I can remember him when I was a little fellow and was first taken into the ring as the 'Infantile Wonder of the Ages'. I rode Scalawag. He was so fat then that I couldn't have rolled off his back very easily.

"Nothing older with the show, I guess, except Monolith, the moth-eaten old elephant, and the big tortoise in the sideshow. They say the elephant's over a hundred, and some think the tortoise is two hundred years old. So they go Scalawag a little better in age."

At the end of the pony act Mr. Sorber made Scalawag do something that thrilled Dot so that she whispered to Agnes she thought she "_should_ faint!" The ringmaster led the old pony right over in front of the private box, and while all the people looked on, he presented Scalawag to Dot and her absent sister, whom Mr. Sorber spoke of as "T'ressa."

"Ladies and gentlemen, and all friends," began the ringmaster. "Twomley and Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie never does things by halves. Even when we find ourselves obliged to get rid of one of our faithful pufformers we make provision for that pufformer's happy old age.

"Scalawag has always been a trial; but we have borne with him. We have stood his tricks and his laziness for these many moons--many moons, ladies and gentlemen. Now he is going to a good home for the rest of his lazy life where all the work, privations, et cetera of circus life will be but a memory in his equine mind. Scalawag! Salute your new mistress!"

The fat pony rose on his hind legs and pawed the air, seemingly looking straight at Dot. It was then the smallest Corner House girl thought surely she would faint.

CHAPTER XVIII

A LONG LOOK AHEAD

Before the Corner House party and their guests could get away in their automobile after the show, and before Cap'n Quigg and Louise had, in their bashful way, thanked the young folks from Milton for helping save the burning ca.n.a.lboat, Uncle Bill Sorber appeared to bid the party good-night.

Right then and there the ringmaster made a bargain with the captain of the _Nancy Hanks_ to transport Scalawag to Milton on this return trip.

The circus had shown at the home town of the Corner House girls while they were away on their motor trip earlier in the summer; so Mr. Sorber would not again be in Milton during the open season.

"Old Scalawag has done his last tricks in the ring to-night," the showman said. "I'd made my mind up to that before you young people appeared. And now we had a chance to make a little fancy business of it.

I believe in advertising the circus in season and out. The papers will give us half a column at least to-morrow, what with the fire on that barge and the presentation of Scalawag to this little girlie here," and he shook hands again with Dot.

Dot was sound asleep before the car was off the circus field. She and Sammy slept most of the way home and, it was so late, when they arrived most of the congratulations and all the punishment due the youngsters was postponed.

To tell the truth, Dot rose the next morning with a vague feeling that the venture in piracy, as Luke Shepard for a long time called it, was something that had happened to her and Sammy in a dream. And the adults were all so glad that the affair had turned out happily that even scoldings were mild.

Sammy, however, had an interview with his father that next evening that made a deep impression upon the boy's mind.

For the first time Sammy began to understand that he had an influence upon other people--especially small people--that must be for good rather than ill. He was the older, and he should not have allowed Dot to lead him astray. Besides, it was not manly for a boy to encourage a little girl to do things that might bring her to harm.

"When I go off to be a real pirate," Sammy confessed later to Neale, "I ain't goin' to take a girl anyway. No more. My father says pirates that carried off women with 'em never came to a good end."

The flurry of excitement and anxiety regarding Dot and Sammy blew over as all similar things did. With Mrs. MacCall, one may believe that there was seldom a day pa.s.sed at the old Corner House that did not bring its own experiences of a startling nature. Aunt Sarah declared she was kept "in a fidgit" all the time by the children.

"I don't know what a fidgit is," Tess confessed; "but we've got to be careful what we do now for a while, Dottie."

"Why?" asked the little girl.

"'Cause Aunt Sarah seems awfully uncomfortable when she's in one of those fidgits. Yesterday, when you were lost, she was walking up and down stairs and all over the house. She must have walked _miles_! I guess fidgits are wearing on her."

The older Corner House girls did not mean that their guests should feel neglected because of the excitement about the lost children. One day's planned amus.e.m.e.nt for Cecile and Luke Shepard was lost. The latter declared, however, that pursuing embryo pirates and saving burning ca.n.a.lboats, to say nothing of attending the circus, seemed to him to have made up a more or less interesting and exciting day.

Luke was making himself much liked by every member of the Corner House family. Even Aunt Sarah endured his presence with more than usual complacency. Agnes found him a most cheerful philosopher and friend. The little girls considered him, next to Neale O'Neil, to be the nicest boy they had ever known.

Mrs. MacCall had her say regarding Luke Shepard, too. It was to Ruth, and the outburst came after the Scotch woman had ample time to consider and form her opinion of the young man.

"Hech, ma la.s.sie! there's a time coming when all o' ye will be thinkin'

o' young men, an' bringin' them to the hoose. Forbye it's natural ye should. But 'tis in ma mind, Ruthie, ye'll never find one more suited to ye than yon bonnie lad."

"Oh, Mrs. Mac!" gasped Ruth, blus.h.i.+ng furiously, and she actually ran out of the room to escape the keen scrutiny of the old housekeeper.