The Corner House Girls at School Part 26

When Ruth Kenway had an idea--a real _good_ idea--it usually bore fruit.

She had evolved one of her very best that snowy night while she and Agnes and Neale O'Neil were drinking hot chocolate in Mrs. Kranz's parlor.

It was impossible for Ruth to get downtown on Sat.u.r.day. One reason was, they all got up late, having crept into bed at half-past four. Then, there were the usual household tasks, for all four of the Corner House girls had their established duties on Sat.u.r.day.

The streets were so full of snow that it would have been almost impossible for Ruth to have gotten to Mr. Howbridge's office then; but she went there Monday afternoon.

Mr. Howbridge had been Uncle Peter Stower's lawyer, and it was he who had brought the news to the four Kenway girls when they lived in Bloomingsburg, that they were actually rich.

He was a tall, gray gentleman, with sharp eyes and a beaklike nose, and he looked wonderfully stern and implacable unless he smiled. But he always had a smile for Ruth Kenway.

The lawyer had acquired a very deep respect for Ruth's good sense and for her character in general. As he said, there were so many narrow, stingy souls in the world, it was refres.h.i.+ng to meet a generous nature like that of the oldest Corner House girl.

"And what is it now, Miss Ruth?" asked the gentleman when she entered his private office, and shaking hands with her. "Have you come to consult me professionally, or am I honored by a social call?"

"You are almost the best man who ever lived, Mr. Howbridge," laughed Ruth. "I _know_ you are the best guardian, for you let me do mostly just as I please. So I am confident you are going to grant _this_ request----"

Mr. Howbridge groaned. "You are beginning in your usual way, I see," he said. "You want something of me--but it is for somebody else you want it, I'll be bound."

"Oh, no, sir! it is really for me," declared Ruth. "I'd like quite some money."

"What for, may I ask?"

"Of course, sir. I've come to consult you about it. You see, it's the tenants."

"Those Meadow Street people!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Your Uncle Peter made money out of them; and his father did before him. But my books will show little profit from those houses at the end of this year--of that I am sure."

"But, if we have made so much out of the houses in the past, shouldn't we spend some of the profit on the tenants _now_?" asked Ruth earnestly.

"You are the most practical _im_practical person I ever met," declared Mr. Howbridge, laughing rather ruefully.

Ruth did not just understand that; but she was much in earnest and she put before the lawyer the circ.u.mstances of some of the tenants of the old houses on Meadow Street, as she had heard them from Mrs. Kranz and Maria Maroni.

She did not forget the Goronofskys, despite Tess' story of Sadie's bank in which she was saving her Christmas money; but she did not mention this last to the lawyer.

Ruth wanted of the lawyer details of all the families on the estate's books. She wished to know the earning capacity of each family, how they lived, the number of children in each, and their ages and s.e.x.

"You see, Mr. Howbridge, a part of our living--and it is a good living--comes from these people. We girls should know more about them.

And I am anxious to do something for them this Christmas--especially for the little children."

"Well, I suppose I shall give in to you; but my better judgment cries out against it, Miss Ruth," declared the lawyer. "You see Perkins--my clerk. He collects the rents and knows all the tenants. I believe he knows when each man gets paid, how much he gets, and all about it. And, of course, as you say, you'll want some money."

"Yes, sir. This is for all of us--all four of us Corner House girls.

Agnes, and Tess, and Dot, are just as anxious to help these people as I am. I am sure, Mr. Howbridge, whatever else you may do with money of the estate, _this_ expense will never be questioned by any of us."

From Mrs. Kranz and Perkins, Ruth obtained the information that she wished. The Corner House girls knew they could do no great thing; but for the purchase of small presents that children would appreciate, the twenty-five dollars Ruth got from Mr. Perkins, would go a long way.

And what fun the Corner House girls had doing that shopping! Tess and Dot did their part, and that the entire five and ten cent store was not bought out was not _their_ fault.

"You can get such a lot for your money in that store," Dot gravely announced, "that a dollar seems twice as big as it does anywhere else."

"But I don't want the other girls to think we are just 'ten-centers,'"

Agnes said. "Trix Severn says she wouldn't be seen going into such a cheap place."

"What do you care what people call you?" asked Ruth. "If you had been born in Indiana they'd have called you a 'Hoosier'; and if in North Carolina, they'd call you a 'Tar Heel.'"

"Or, if you were from Michigan, they'd say you were a 'Michigander,'"

chuckled Neale, who was with them. "In _your_ case, Aggie, it would be 'Michigoose.'"

"Is that so?" demanded Agnes, to whom Neale had once confessed that he was born in the state of Maine. "Then I suppose we ought to call _you_ a 'Maniac,' eh?"

"Hit! a palpable hit!" agreed Neale, good-naturedly. "Come on! let's have some of your bundles. For goodness' sake! why didn't you girls bring a bushel basket--or engage a pack-mule?"

"We seem to have secured a very good subst.i.tute for the latter," said Ruth, demurely.

All this shopping was done early in Christmas week, for the Corner House girls determined to allow nothing to break into their own home Christmas Eve celebration. The tree in Tess' room at school was going to be lighted up on Thursday afternoon; but Wednesday the Kenway girls were all excused from school early and Neale drove them over to Meadow Street in a hired sleigh.

They stopped before the doors of the respective shops of Mrs. Kranz and Joe Maroni. Joe's stand was strung with gay paper flowers and greens. He had a small forest of Christmas trees he was selling, just at the corner.

"Good-a day! good-a day, leetla padrona!" was his welcome for Ruth, and he bowed very low before the oldest Kenway girl, whom he insisted upon considering the real mistress of the house in which he and his family lived.

The little remembrances the girls had brought for Joe's family--down to a rattle for the baby--delighted the Italian. Tess had hung a special present for Maria on the school tree; but that was a secret as yet.

They carried all the presents into Mrs. Kranz's parlor and then Neale drove away, leaving the four Corner House girls to play their parts of _Lady Bountiful_ without his aid.

They had just sallied forth for their first visit when, out of the Stower tenement in which the Goronofskys lived, boiled a crowd of shrieking, excited children. Sadie Goronofsky was at their head and a man in a blue suit and the lettered cap of a gas collector seemed the rallying point of the entire savage little gang.

"Oh! what is the matter, Sadie?" cried Tess, running to the little Jewish girl's side.

"He's a thief! he's a gonnif! he's a thief!" shrieked Sadie, dragging at the man's coat. "He stole mine money. He's busted open mine bank and stoled all mine money!"

"That red bank in the kitchen?" asked Tess, wonderingly. "That one your mother put the quarter in every week for you?"

"Sure!" replied the excited Sadie. "My mother's out. I'm alone with the kids. In this man comes and robs mine bank----"

"What _is_ the trouble?" asked Ruth of the man.

"Why, bless you, somebody's been fooling the kid," he said, with some compa.s.sion. "And it was a mean trick. They told her the quarter-meter was a bank and that all the money that was put in it should be hers.

"She's a good little kid, too. I've often seen her taking care of her brothers and sisters and doing the work. The meter had to be opened to-day and the money taken out--and she caught me at it."

Afterward Agnes said to Ruth: "I could have _hugged_ that man, Ruthie--for he didn't laugh!"

CHAPTER XVI

A QUARTETTE OF LADY BOUNTIFULS