The Corner House Girls on Palm Island Part 10

"You horrid boy! How can you be so cheerful, Neale O'Neil, when I'm go-going so-so far away?"

"Crackey, Aggie!" he exclaimed, "I thought you wanted to go!"

"I-I do! But Ruth is going to have Luke along, while you-you--"

"Hold on, Aggie! Don't turn on the sprinkler," he begged. "I'd thought of that. You bet I have been thinking about it every minute.

And-and--Oh, you wait!"

He dashed away, and she did not see him again during Christmas day. But Mr. Howbridge was surprised to receive a visit from Neale O'Neil, whose affairs were in his care while Mr. O'Neil was in Alaska.

"What's the matter now, Neale?" asked the old bachelor guardian. "What's gone wrong?"

"Nothing, sir. Nothing yet, I mean. But something is bound to go wrong if you and those girls go off to the West Indies without making a provision that you have not thought of."

"Yes? Is that so? I thought I had arranged for almost everything. Will you please tell me what you have discovered missing in the arrangements Hedden and I have made?" and the lawyer smiled grimly.

"First of all, I want you to look at that report, Mr. Howbridge," said Neale respectfully, handing Mr. Howbridge a report from the princ.i.p.al of his school.

"Humph! Yes! I had already observed it. And I must say, Neale, that your standing does you credit."

"Thank you, sir," the young fellow said, glowing at this praise. "And I am away ahead in my cla.s.ses. I can keep up all right if I chance to be out of school for a few weeks. I can show you--"

"What's this? What's this?" demanded the lawyer.

"Yes, sir, that's just what I mean!" cried Neale O'Neil, rus.h.i.+ng on. "I have just got to go with you all, Mr. Howbridge. I couldn't bear to be left behind. And-and Agnes couldn't bear it either."

"Ah-ha!" cried the lawyer. "Sits the wind in that quarter? Then that is the explanation of the note I got this very day from our surprising Sister Agnes."

"What's that?" demanded Neale, amazed.

"She says here," Mr. Howbridge said, reading the note which was written in Agnes' unmistakable hand, but rather shakily, "that she thinks she doesn't want to go with the party, but would rather go back to school and catch up with her cla.s.s. And she needs the voyage just as much as Ruth does."

"The blessed kid!" exploded Neale O'Neil, his face very red.

"Quite so, Neale," said the lawyer soberly, and laying a hand upon the boy's sleeve. "That is exactly what our Agnes is-'a blessed kid.' Don't forget it. She is an impulsive, loving, _blessed_ girl."

"Yes, sir," gulped Neale.

"Never forget it," repeated Mr. Howbridge. "But I want to tell you that I had already favorably considered taking you along. I think I can make use of you down there. Goodness! I can't be expected to look out for four girls without any help at all, can I?"

This matter being satisfactorily settled, there was nothing left to do but to pack their trunks and otherwise prepare for the voyage into tropic climes, as Agnes, having suddenly recovered all her gayety, expressed it.

The new year came in with an old-fas.h.i.+oned snowstorm and Agnes and Ruth began to cough again. Mr. Howbridge looked grave, but Dr. Forsyth prophesied that the coughs would wear off as soon as the afflicted girls got into the belt of steady, warm weather.

On the third of January they started. Mrs. MacCall was red-eyed and Linda was really not fit to be seen! Old Uncle Rufus was as mournful as could be, but tried to show some cheerfulness.

Sammy, having observed certain weddings in the neighborhood, tied a number of old shoes on the back of the automobile for luck and was restrained with difficulty from throwing rice all over the Corner House girls as they left home.

Mr. Howbridge had taken Luke Shepard's advice, and had booked pa.s.sage on the steams.h.i.+p _Horridole_ from the port of Boston. Luke met them with Professor Keeps and his outfit at the dock. It was a gay party indeed that went aboard and sought their reservations among the best staterooms on the boat.

"Dear me!" sighed Agnes ecstatically, and now quite her pleasure-loving self, "it is so nice to be wealthy. If we should ever be poor again, Ruth, I know I should be the hatefulest thing in skirts."

"Why, Aggie! Don't talk that way."

"It is the truth," said the flyaway sister. "Nothing poor or mean can ever satisfy me again. I sometimes think I shall have to marry a millionaire, or else I shall make my husband very miserable."

"You won't have to worry about that yet," laughed Ruth, but she flushed very prettily and looked at Luke, who was out of earshot.

CHAPTER VIII

LOTS OF FUN

There was one matter which had troubled Ruth, and her friends, as well, before they left Milton and the old Corner House. Even her illness could not entirely turn Ruth's mind from the sad case of the Pendletons.

While she had been so ill she could not visit the little family on Plane Street which seemed to have been so sorely stricken. But she knew that Mr. Pendleton had got up and was about, after a fortnight or so, and that Mr. Howbridge had found him a job. Dr. Forsyth told Ruth that with proper care the man would suffer no serious results from his fall in the chestnut woods.

At Christmas the family, especially the three children, was lavishly remembered by the Kenways. Margaret Ortwell Pendleton did not go to the same school as Tess and Dot, so the little Corner House girls did not see much of her, but they heard about the Pendleton children-especially of "Shot" Pendleton-quite frequently through Sammy. Sammy was a rover, and he kept in touch with the acquaintances which he made to a remarkable degree.

But it was through her guardian that Ruth Kenway learned more about Oscar Pendleton and his troubles and learned what was going on in the investigation into the robbery at the warehouse of Kolbeck & Roods. Mr.

Howbridge had become interested in the case.

"My clerk has not really raked up anything satisfactory about that affair," the lawyer reflected, as he sat with Ruth on the deck of the _Horridole_ the second day out from port. "He has got Pendleton's story from him and-my clerk, I mean-believes the man is innocent. It is not a mere opinion; he gains his judgments through logical reflection.

"But there is no evidence to the contrary that would be accepted by any court. You see, Kolbeck and Roods are not sure enough themselves to have Pendleton arrested. That makes it very bad--"

"Why, Guardy! I think that makes it very good. Consider how poor Mrs.

Pendleton would feel if her husband was taken off to jail."

"You don't see very far, Ruth," said the lawyer. "If he was arrested we'd bail him out, hurry the trial, and make Kolbeck and Roods try to prove their allegation. They couldn't do so and the man would be discharged and his name practically cleared. We have no 'Scotch verdicts' in America."

"What is a Scotch verdict, Guardian?"

"It is a custom in some courts of that country, when guilt is not a.s.sured, to render a verdict of 'not proven'; but it does not clear the victim's reputation. It is neither guilt nor acquittal. But if Kolbeck and Roods could not bring forward convincing proof of Oscar Pendleton's guilt, he would be acquitted."

"Oh! And can't your clerk dig up any facts on the other side-that Mr.

Pendleton could not have committed the robbery?"

"That is the job I have left him to do," said Mr. Howbridge. "He tells me the man who saved Pendleton from arrest in the first place is Israel Stumpf."

"'Israel Stumpf'? Let me see-haven't I heard that name before?"

"Perhaps. I understand he is Mr. Kolbeck's stepson."

"That is it!" cried Ruth. "Miss t.i.tus spoke of him. And-and somehow I drew from what she said that Israel Stumpf was not a friend to Mr.

Pendleton."