Grace Hill - The Corner House Girls

“So, you’re the Corner House girls, are you? Do tell!” said one old lady on Willow Street, who stopped the Kenway sisters the first time they all trooped to Sunday School.

“Let’s see; you favor your father’s folks,” she added, pinching Agnes’ plump cheek. “I remember Leonard Kenway very well indeed. He broke a window for me once – years ago, when he was a boy.

“I didn’t know who did it. But Lenny Kenway never could keep anything to himself, and he came to me and owned up. Paid for it, too, by helping saw my winter’s wood,” and the old lady laughed gently.

“I’m Mrs. Adams. Come and see me, Corner House girls,” she concluded, looking after them rather wistfully. “It’s been many a day since I had young folks in my house.”

Already Agnes had become acquainted with a few of the storekeepers, for she had done the errands since their arrival in Milton. Now they were welcomed by the friendly Sabbath School teachers and soon felt at home. Agnes quickly fell in love with a bronze haired girl with brown eyes, who sat next to her in class. This was Eva Larry, and Aggie confided to Ruth that she was “just lovely.”

They all, even the little girls, strolled about the paths of the parade ground before returning home. This seemed to be the usual Sunday afternoon promenade of Milton folk. Several people stopped the Corner House girls (as they were already known) and spoke kindly to them.

Although Leonard Kenway and Julia Stower had moved away from Milton immediately upon their marriage, and that had been eighteen years before, many of the residents of Milton remembered the sisters’ parents, and the Corner House girls were welcomed for those parents’ sake.

“We certainly shall come and call on you,” said the minister’s wife, who was a lovely lady, Ruth thought. “It is a blessing to have young folk about that gloomy old house.”

“Oh! we don’t think it gloomy at all,” laughed Ruth.

When the lady had gone on, the Larry girl said to Agnes: “I think you’re awfully brave. I wouldn’t live in the Old Corner House for worlds.”

“Why not?” asked Agnes, puzzled. “I guess you don’t know how nice it is inside.”

“I wouldn’t care if it was carpeted with velvet and you ate off of solid gold dishes!” exclaimed Eva Larry, with emphasis.

“Oh, Eva! you won’t even come to see us?”

“Of course I shall. I like you. And I think you are awfully plucky to live there – ”

“What for? What’s the matter with the house?” demanded Agnes, in wonder.

“Why, they say such things about it. You’ve heard them, of course?”

“Surely you’re not afraid of it because old Uncle Peter died there?”

“Oh, no! It began long before your Uncle Peter died,” said Eva, lowering her voice. “Do you mean to say that Mr. Howbridge – nor anybody – has not told you about it?”

“Goodness me! No!” cried Agnes. “You give me the shivers.”

“I should think you would shiver, you poor dear,” said Eva, clutching at Aggie’s arm. “You oughtn’t to be allowed to go there to live. My mother says so herself. She said she thought Mr. Howbridge ought to be ashamed of himself – ”

“But what for ?” cried the startled Agnes. “What’s the matter with the house?”

“Why, it’s haunted!” declared Eva, solemnly. “Didn’t you ever hear about the Corner House Ghost?”

“Oh, Eva!” murmured Agnes. “You are fooling me.”

“No, Ma’am! I’m not.”

“A – a ghost?”

“Yes. Everybody knows about it. It’s been there for years.”

“But – but we haven’t seen it.”

“You wouldn’t likely see it – yet. Unless it was the other night when the wind blew so hard. It comes only in a storm.”

“What! the ghost?”

“Yes. In a big storm it is always seen looking out of the windows.”

“Goodness!” whispered Agnes. “What windows?”

“In the garret. I believe that’s where it is always seen. And, of course, it is seen from outside. When there is a big wind blowing, people coming across the parade here, or walking on this side of Willow Street, have looked up there and seen the ghost fluttering and beckoning at the windows – ”

“How horrid!” gasped Agnes. “Oh, Eva! are you sure ?”

“I never saw it,” confessed the other. “But I know all about it. So does my mother. She says it’s true.”

“Mercy! And in the daytime?”

“Sometimes at night. Of course, I suppose it can be seen at night because it is phosphorescent. All ghosts are, aren’t they?”

“I – I never saw one,” quavered Agnes. “And I don’t want to.”

“Well, that’s all about it,” said Eva, with confidence. “And I wouldn’t live in the house with a ghost for anything!”

“But we’ve got to,” wailed Agnes. “We haven’t any other place to live.”

“It’s dreadful,” sympathized the other girl. “I’ll ask my mother. If you are dreadfully frightened about it, I’ll see if you can’t come and stay with us.”

This was very kind of Eva, Agnes thought. The story of the Corner House Ghost troubled the twelve-year-old very much. She dared not say anything before Tess and Dot about it, but she told the whole story to Ruth that night, after they were in bed and supposed the little girls to be asleep.

“Why, Aggie,” said Ruth, calmly, “I don’t think there are any ghosts. It’s just foolish talk of foolish people.”

“Eva says her mother knows it’s true. People have seen it.”

“Up in our garret?”

“Ugh! In the garret of this old house – yes,” groaned Agnes. “Don’t call it our house. I guess I don’t like it much, after all.”

“Why, Aggie! How ungrateful.”

“I don’t care. For all of me, Uncle Peter could have kept his old house, if he was going to leave a ghost in the garret.”

“Hush! the children will hear you,” whispered Ruth.

That whispered conversation between Ruth and Agnes after they were abed that first Sunday night of the Kenways’ occupancy of the Old Corner House, bore unexpected fruit. Dot’s ears were sharp, and she had not been asleep.

From the room she and Tess occupied, opening out of the chamber in which the bigger girls slept, Dot heard enough of the whispered talk to get a fixed idea in her head. And when Dot did get an idea, it was hard to “shake it loose,” as Agnes declared.

Mrs. McCall kept one eye on Tess and Dot as they played about the overgrown garden, for she could see this easily from the kitchen windows. Mrs. McCall had already made herself indispensable to the family; even Aunt Sarah recognized her worth.

Ruth and Agnes were dusting and making the beds on this Monday morning, while Tess and Dot were setting their playhouse to rights.

“I just heard her say so, so now, Tessie Kenway,” Dot was saying. “And I know if it’s up there, it’s never had a thing to eat since we came here to live.”

“I don’t see how that could be,” said Tess, wonderingly.

“It’s just so ,” repeated the positive Dot.

“But why doesn’t it make a noise?”

“We-ell,” said the smaller girl, puzzled, too, “maybe we don’t hear it ’cause it’s too far up – there at the top of the house.”

“I know,” said Tess, thoughtfully. “They eat tin cans, and rubber boots, and any old thing. But I always thought that was because they couldn’t find any other food. Like those castaway sailors Ruth read to us about, who chewed their sealskin boots. Maybe such things stop the gnawing feeling you have in your stomach when you’re hungry.”