Grace Hill: The Corner House Girls on a Tour

There was a deal of bustle and a twittering like an eager flock of sparrows in the big kitchen of the old Corner House, which stood facing Main Street in Milton, but with its long side and rear yard and garden running far back on Willow Street.

The four Kenway girls had the room all to themselves at this early hour on Saturday morning, for Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah Maltby had not yet come downstairs, while Linda, the maid, had deserted the kitchen and pantry altogether for the time being.

Ruth, the eldest and most sedate of the sisters, was filling sandwiches at the dresser – and such a variety as there was of them!

Chicken, with mayonnaise and a lettuce leaf; pink ham cut thin and decorated with little golden dabs of mustard; peanut butter sandwiches; nut and cheese sandwiches, the filling nestling in a salad leaf, too; tuna fish, with narrow slices of red, red Spanish peppers decorating it; and of course sardines, carefully split and laid between soda crackers. What picnic lunch would be complete without sardines?

Agnes, the next oldest to Ruth and the beauty of the family, was slicing bread as exactly as though it were a problem in geometry and in such quantity that Tess declared it looked as though they were to feed an army.

Tess herself was seriously attending to the boiling of two dozen eggs in a big saucepan.

“Though why you need to watch ’em so closely I can’t see,” complained Agnes. “There are other things you might be doing when there is so much to do – goodness knows! Those eggs won’t get away.”

“No,” joined in Dot, the youngest of the Corner House girls, and quite seriously, too. “No. It isn’t like boiling lobsters.”

“Right, Dottums,” chuckled Agnes, recovering from her vexation immediately. “Eggs are an entirely different kind of shellfish.”

“Well,” said the little girl, explaining, “Mrs. Adams boiled some raw lobsters the other day, and one hopped right out of the pot on to the floor and started for the door – it really did!”

“Oo-ee!” gasped Tess, attracted for a moment from the bobbing eggs by this statement. “The poor thing!”

“Who’s a poor thing – Mrs. Adams?” asked Ruth, laughing gayly.

“Why, no,” said Tess, who was nothing if not tender-hearted. “The lobster.”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Agnes. “Do you s’pose it hurts a lobster to be boiled?”

“ Why doesn’t it?” demanded Tess, promptly.

“’Cause it has a shell,” ventured Dot.

“Why – because they always do boil them,” said Agnes, rather at a loss for an answer to Tess’ question.

“Sometimes they broil them,” said the oldest sister, smiling.

“Well, they’re used to it, anyway,” declared Agnes, with conviction.

“I – I don’t believe anybody could get used to being boiled,” observed Tess, slowly. “Look at Sammy Pinkney.”

“Where?” demanded Agnes, jumping. “I hope that horrid child isn’t coming over so early. I hoped we’d get away without having him around.”

“Oh, my!” murmured Dot. “You know he’s just got over the scarlet fever.”

“But he hasn’t got over being a nuisance,” declared the older girl.

“I didn’t mean that Sammy was really here – to look at,” explained the serious Tess. “I meant – I meant – ”

“Well, what did you mean?” asked Agnes, who was inclined to be impatient.

“She meant, ‘consider Sammy,’ didn’t you, Tessie?” suggested Ruth, kindly.

“Why – yes.”

“Oh! Were you taking him for an example?” cried Agnes. “But Sammy hasn’t ever been boiled – although maybe he ought to have been.”

“No; he hasn’t been boiled,” said the serious Tess, still watching the eggs bobbing in the boiling water. “But he’s punished lots of times – at school, I mean. And he doesn’t seem to get used to it. He hollers just as loud now as the first time I ever heard him.”

“Did the lobster holler?” chuckled Agnes. “Did it, Dot?”

But Dot – who was not allowed to “mess in” with the lunch – had found another subject for consideration. She had been looking at Ruth, dexterously opening a second can of sardines. Now, when the cover was laid back and the oil drained off, the smallest girl pointed a dimpled finger at the contents of the can.

“What’s the matter, honey?” asked Ruth, smiling down at the serious face of the fairy-like Dot. “What is it?”

“Why, Ruthie,” said Dot, wonderingly, “I was only thinking if that middle fish wanted to turn over, what a lot of trouble it would have!”

Amid the laughter of the two older girls at this, the door banged open and a boy with a mop of flaxen hair – a regular “whitehead” and a football cut at that – burst into the room.

“My goodness me, girls! aren’t you ready yet?” he demanded. “And it’s half-past seven.”

“The eggs are,” Tess declared, the first to speak, for she had not been laughing.

“Well, then,” said the boy, “you and I, Tess, will just take the eggs and go.”

“What’s the matter, Neale O’Neil? Won’t your horse stand?” drawled Agnes, tossing her head.

“We would have been ready long ago if it had not been for you, Neale,” said Ruth, promptly.

“How’s that? I’ve been up since five. And the car’s right here at the side gate. Cracky! it’s a scrumptious auto, girls. I don’t believe there ever was a finer.”

“When our Mr. Howbridge does anything, he always does it right,” proclaimed Tess, giving up the guardianship of the eggs to Ruth. “And Mr. Howbridge had the car built for us.”

“But we wouldn’t ever have had it,” put in Dot, eager to tell all she knew, “if Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill hadn’t given us the money ’cause we found their Uncle Lemon Aden’s money.”

“Oh, goodness!” gasped Tess. “ Lem-u-el , Dot!”

But Dot ignored the correction. “It was awfully nice of them to give us the car because we found the fortune in our garret.”

“Lots you did towards finding it,” chuckled Neale O’Neil.

“I’d like to know why I didn’t help find it!” cried the smallest Corner House girl, indignantly. “I saw it first – so there! I opened the book it was hid in and I thought it was pitchers.”

“Say! that isn’t getting us anywhere,” began the boy again. “Can’t you hurry? Just think! the first ride in your car!”

“Don’t remind me,” gasped Agnes, cutting a crooked slice. “My nerves are all jumping now like – like a delightful toothache !”

“Glory! listen to her,” laughed Neale. “But say, Miss Ruthiford Ten -ways, why do you say that it is my fault that you are not all ready?”

“Because we have to put up lunch enough to satisfy your appetite,” said Ruth, running cold water on the eggs from the open faucet.

“Well! I like that!” said Neale.

“I fancy you will, sonny,” said Agnes, looking at him slyly. “There are lots of goodies in it.”

“Now run and get your hats and wraps, children,” commanded Ruth seizing the last two slices of bread Agnes had cut. “That will do, Aggie. Leave a little bread for the folks to eat to-day while we’re gone. That basket is all packed, Neale, and you may take it out and put it in the tonneau.”

“Oh, my!” gasped Agnes, clasping her hands. “Doesn’t that sound fine?”

“What sounds fine!” asked her boy chum, surreptitiously putting the last crumb of a broken sandwich he had found into his mouth.