Grace Hill: The Corner House Girls on a Tour

Mrs. Eland and her sister, Miss Pepperill, who has been Tess Kenway’s school teacher, become very good friends of the Corner House girls. In the volume of the series immediately preceding this present narrative, entitled “The Corner House Girls’ Odd Find” the Kenways find an old, apparently worthless, album in the garret of the mansion – a treasure room which seems inexhaustible in its supply of mystery and amusing incidents.

This album seems to contain a lot of counterfeit money and bonds, which in the end prove to have been hidden in the Stower house by a miserly uncle of Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill, Mr. Lemuel Aden, who had died too suddenly to make a will or to tell of his hidden treasure – and the money and bonds are really perfectly good.

The four Kenway sisters, therefore, saw their friends, the hospital matron and the school teacher, made comfortably wealthy for life; and the beautiful, seven passenger touring car, with self-starter, “quick top,” and all the modern appurtenances of a good automobile, was the gift of the legatees of Mr. Lemuel Aden.

“But it might as well be a flivver,” said Agnes, in disgust, “if we’ve got to sit here all day and watch a fat brown pony whisk his tail.”

“I don’t see what I can do, my dear,” said the woman in the basket phaeton. “You can’t lead him, and you can’t push him, and I verily believe if you built a fire under him he’d just move up far enough to burn the cart, and stand there until his harness scorched him.”

Agnes giggled at that, and was her own jolly self again. “It’s up to you, Neale O’Neil,” she declared. “You’re the chauffeur and are supposed to make us go. Make us!”

“Get out and walk around the pony,” proposed Neale, grinning.

“And what about the car?”

“Do you think we could lift it over?” said Ruth, with scorn.

“Now, young man,” Agnes pursued, with gravity. “It is your duty to get us to Marchenell Grove. We’re still twenty-five or thirty miles away from it – ”

“My goodness!” exclaimed the lady in front. “Were you young folks going there?”

“We had an idea of doing so when we started, ma’am,” said Agnes, quickly.

“I should have gone there to-day, too – ”

“Not with that pony?” shrieked Agnes, clasping her hands.

“Why – no,” said the lady, smiling. “But if my nephew hadn’t lost his automobile he would have taken me. Oh, dear! Now I shall have to ride behind Jonas all the time.”

“You really don’t call this riding, do you, ma’am?” asked the irrepressible Agnes.

The woman laughed. She liked Agnes Kenway from the first, as almost everybody who met her did.

“I’m not riding fast just now, and that’s a fact,” she said, nodding her bonnet with its many bows. “Nor does Jonas take me over the roads very rapidly at his very best pace.”

Neale O’Neil had got slowly out of the car and now walked around to the head of the fat brown pony. The pony had blue eyes, and they were very mild. But he seemed to have no idea of going on and getting himself and his mistress out of the way of the automobile. Maybe he did not like automobiles.

“You see, my nephew bought a car and we let Jonas kick up his heels in the paddock. Oh! he’s lively enough when he wants to be – Jonas, I mean. But my nephew’s car was stolen day before yesterday – and he’s worried almost to death about it, poor man.”

“Oh!” cried Ruth, “who is your nephew, Madam?”

“Why, Philip Collinger is my nephew. He’s the county surveyor, you know. A very bright young man – if I do say it. But not bright enough to keep from having his auto stolen,” she added, ruefully.

Just then Agnes, who had been watching Neale O’Neil, called:

“What are you doing to that pony, Neale?”

The boy had rubbed the fat brown pony’s nose. He had lifted first one foot and then the other, going all around the pony to do so. He had patted his neck. Jonas had seemed rather to like these attentions. He still whisked flies calmly.

Now Neale reached over and took one of the pony’s ears in his hand, holding it firmly. To the other ear the boy put his lips and seemed to be whispering something privately to Jonas.

“What are you doing to that pony, Neale?” cried Agnes again.

“Mercy! what is the boy doing? Why, Jonas doesn’t pay any attention to me when I fairly yell at him. He’s deaf, I believe.”

And then the lady stopped, startled. The four Corner House girls all expressed their amazement with a united cry. Neale had taken the pony firmly by the bridle and was leading him quietly out of the middle of the road.

“For pity’s sake!” gasped the pony’s mistress, “I never saw the like of that before.”

Jonas seemed to have forgotten all about balking. He still wagged his ears to keep the flies away and whisked his tail industriously.

Neale, leading the pony, turned a corner in the lane, and there came upon a house. The lady had left the phaeton to speak to the girls more companionably. Neale tied the pony to the picket fence before the house, leaving the hitching strap long enough to allow the animal to graze.

“Well, I want to know!” cried the woman, when the boy returned to the car. “How did you do that? What did you do to Jonas to make him change his mind?”

“This is Mrs. Heard, Neale,” said Ruth, smiling. “You sometimes do prove to be a smart boy. What did you do to him?”

Neale grinned broadly. He had been used to horses all his life and he knew a few tricks of the Gypsies and the horse-traders.

“I just told him something,” the boy said.

“Oo-ee!” cried Tess. “Did you really whisper to him?”

Neale nodded.

“ What did you whisper to the pony?” asked Dot, wide-eyed.

Agnes snapped, thinking Neale was fooling her: “I don’t believe it!”

“Yes, I whispered to him,” said the boy, seriously.

“Oh, Neale!” remonstrated Ruth.

“Well! For all I ever heard!” exclaimed Mrs. Heard. “What did you whisper to that vexatious brute of a pony?”

“If I told what it was, that would spoil the charm,” said Neale, gravely.

“Nonsense!” ejaculated Agnes, flushing.

“Now you know that is ridiculous,” said Ruth, inclined to be exasperated with the boy as much as she had been with the pony.

“No. It is a fact,” said the boy, decidedly.

“Now, you know that isn’t so, Neale O’Neil!” cried Agnes.

“I assure you it is. Anyway, they say if you tell it – what you say – to anybody else, the horse will balk again right away. It’s a secret between him and the person – ”

“I never heard such a ridiculous thing in all my life,” gasped Mrs. Heard.

“I think you are not very polite, Neale,” said Ruth, quite sternly.

“Now see here!” cried the badgered boy, getting rather vexed himself. “I tell you I can’t tell you – ”

“You’re talking anything but English,” complained Agnes.

“Well, maybe I didn’t talk English into the pony’s ear,” retorted Neale, grinning suddenly again. “Anyway, the old Gyp who taught me that trick told me I must never say the words aloud, or to anybody who would not make proper use of the magic formula.”

“Oh, shucks!” exclaimed Agnes, in disgust. “Tell me. I’ll try it on Billy Bumps when he balks,” said Tess, in a small voice.

At that they all laughed and Neale got in behind the steering wheel again. The two older girls were much interested in Mrs. Heard and that woman was evidently pleased with the sisters.

“Why, yes; I ought to know you Corner House girls. Goodness knows I’ve heard enough about you – and my name being Heard, I heard a lot!” and she laughed. “But you see, I live away on this side of town, and don’t go to your church; so we have never met before.”