The Corner House Girls at School Part 40

"But we're not going to let him take you away, Neale! Oh, we won't! Ruth says we must hide you--somewhere. She's gone out the Old Ridge Road to meet you."

"She'll get lost out that way," said the boy, suddenly. "She's never been over that way, has she?"

"Never mind--Ruth," Agnes said. "It's you we're thinking of----"

"We'll drive around and get Ruth," Neale said, decisively, and he began to turn the horses.

"Oh, Neale!" groaned Agnes. "What an _awful_ man your uncle must be. He says he used to put you in a cage full of lions----"

Neale O'Neil suddenly began to laugh. Agnes looked at him in surprise.

For a moment--as she told Ruth afterward--she was afraid that the shock of what she had told him about Mr. Sorber's appearance, had "sort of turned his brain."

"Why, Neale!" she exclaimed.

"Those poor, old, toothless, mangy beasts," chuckled Neale. "They had to be poked up half an hour before the crowd came in, or they wouldn't act their part at all. And half the time when the crowd thought the lions were opening their mouths savagely, they were merely yawning."

"Don't!" gasped Agnes. "You'll spoil every menagerie I ever see if you keep talking that way."

The laugh seemed to bring Neale back to a better mind. He sighed and then shrugged his shoulders. "We'll find Ruth," he said, with determination, "and then drive home. I'll see what Mr. Murphy says, and then see Mr. Sorber."

"But he's come to take you away, Neale!" cried Agnes.

"What good will it do for me to run? He knows I'm here," said the boy, hopelessly. "It would spoil my chance at school if I hid out somewhere.

No; I've got to face him. I might as well do so now."

CHAPTER XXV

A BRIGHT FUTURE

That Sat.u.r.day night supper at the old Corner House was rather different from any that had preceded it. Frequently the Corner House girls had company at this particular meal--almost always Neale, and Mr. Con Murphy had been in before.

Once Miss s.h.i.+pman, Agnes' and Neale's teacher, had come as the guest of honor; and more than once Mr. Howbridge had pa.s.sed his dish for a second helping of Mrs. MacCall's famous beans.

It was an elastic table, anyway, that table of the Corner House girls.

It was of a real cozy size when the family was alone. Mrs. MacCall sat nearest the swing-door into the butler's pantry, although Uncle Rufus would seldom hear to the housekeeper going into the kitchen after she had once seated herself at the table.

She always put on a clean ap.r.o.n and cap. At the other end of the table was Aunt Sarah's place. No matter how grim and speechless Aunt Sarah might be, she could not glare Mrs. MacCall out of countenance, so that arrangement was very satisfactory.

The four girls had their seats, two on either side. The guests, when they had them, were placed between the girls on either side, and the table was gradually drawn out, and leaves added, to suit the circ.u.mstances.

Neale always sat between Tess and Dot. He did so to-night. But beside him was the Irish cobbler. Opposite was the stout and glowing Mr.

Sorber, prepared to do destruction to Mrs. MacCall's viands first of all, and then to destroy Neale's hopes of an education afterward.

At least, he had thus far admitted no change of heart. He had met Neale with rough cordiality, but he had stated his intention as irrevocable that he would take the boy back to the circus.

Tess and Dot were almost horrified when they came to understand that their friend the lion tamer proposed to take Neale away. They could not understand such an evidently kind-hearted tamer of wild beasts doing such a cruel thing!

"I guess he's only fooling," Tess confided to Dot, and the latter agreed with several nods, her mouth being too full for utterance, if her heart was not.

"These beans," declared Mr. Sorber, pa.s.sing his plate a third time, "are fit for a king to eat, and the fishcakes ought to make any fish proud to be used up in that manner. I never eat better, Ma'am!"

"I presume you traveling people have to take many meals haphazardly,"

suggested Mrs. MacCall.

"Not much. My provender," said Mr. Sorber, "is one thing that I'm mighty particular about. I feeds my lions first; then Bill Sorber's next best friend is his own stomach--yes, Ma'am!

"The cook tent and the cooks go ahead of the show. For instance, right after supper the tent is struck and packed, and if we're traveling by rail, it goes right aboard the first flat. If we go by road, that team gets off right away and when we catch up to it in the morning, it's usually set up on the next camping ground and the coffee is a-biling.

"It ain't no easy life we live; but it ain't no dog's life, neither. And how a smart, bright boy like this here nevvy of mine should want to run away from it----"

"Did ye iver think, sir," interposed the cobbler, softly, "that mebbe there was implanted in the la-ad desires for things ye know nothin' of?"

"Huh!" grunted Sorber, balancing a mouthful of beans on his knife to the amazement of Dot, who had seldom seen any person eat with his knife.

"Lit me speak plainly, for 'tis a plain man I am," said the Irishman.

"This boy whom ye call nephew----?"

"And he is," Sorber said.

"Aye. But he has another side to him that has no Sorber to it. 'Tis the O'Neil side. It's what has set him at his books till he is the foinest scholar in the Milton Schools, bar none. Mr. Marks told me himself 'twas so."

This surprised Neale and the girls for they had not known how deep was the Irishman's interest in his protege.

"He's only half a Sorber, sir. Ye grant that?"

"But he's been with the show since he was born," growled the showman.

"Why shouldn't he want to be a showman, too? All the Sorbers have been, since away back. I was thinkin' of changing his name by law so as to have him in the family in earnest."

"I'll never own to any name but my own again," declared Neale, from across the table.

"That's your answer, Mr. Sorber," declared Murphy, earnestly. "The boy wants to go his own way--and that's the way of his fathers, belike. But I'm a fair man. I can see 'tis a loss to you if Neale stays here and goes to school."

"I guess it is, Mister," said the showman, rather belligerently. "And I guess you don't know how much of a loss."

"Well," said the cobbler, coolly. "Put a figure to it. How much?"

"How much _what_?" demanded Mr. Sorber, bending his brows upon the Irishman, while the children waited breathlessly.

"Money. Neale's a big drawin' kyard ye say yerself. Then, how much money will ye take for your right to him?"

Mr. Sorber laid down his knife and fork and stared at Mr. Murphy.

"Do you mean that, sir?" he asked, with strange quietness.

"Do I mean am I willin' to pay the bye out of yer clutches?" demanded the cobbler, with growing heat. "'Deed and I am! and if my pile isn't big enough, mebbe I kin find good friends of Neale O'Neil in this town that'll be glad to chip in wid me and give the bye his chance.