The Corner House Girls' Odd Find Part 42

"And he might come right over here and say something cross to Barnabetta and to poor Mr. Scruggs, and then everybody'd be unhappy," Agnes told herself. "Barnabetta is repentant for all she did. It would be mean to accuse her of something she hadn't done at all."

So Agnes went rather soberly down the back yard paths to the end of the chicken run. She never contemplated for an instant going round by Willow Street and Willow Wythe to reach the cobbler's front door.

Only a high board fence separated the Corner House premises from the little back yard of Mr. Con Murphy. There was the corner where Neale got over, and Agnes was enough of a tomboy to know the most approved fas.h.i.+on of mounting the barrier.

But she hesitated a moment before she did this. Maybe Neale was not there. Maybe he was still so angry that he would not see her if she went into Con's little shop. She must cajole him.

Therefore she sent a tentative call over the back fence:

"Oh-ee! Oh-ee! Oh-ee!"

She waited half a minute and repeated it. But there was no answer.

"Oh, dear me!" thought Agnes. "Is he still huffy? Or isn't he home?"

She ventured a third call, but to no avail. Agnes, however, had a determined spirit. She felt that Neale might help them in the emergency which had arisen, and she proposed to get his help in some fas.h.i.+on.

So she started to climb the fence. Just as she did so-spang! A s...o...b..ll burst right beside her head. She was showered with snow and, screeching, let go her hold and fell back into the Corner House yard.

"Oh! oh! oh! Who was that?" sputtered Agnes.

She glanced around under the bare-limbed trees and tried to peer into the shadows cast by the hen house and Billy b.u.mps' abode. Not a soul there, she was sure.

"Some boy going by on the street must have thrown it," Agnes thought.

"But how could he see me away in here?"

She essayed to climb the fence again, and a second s...o...b..ll-not quite as hard as the first-struck her right between the shoulder blades.

"Oh! you horrid thing!" exclaimed Agnes, turning to run toward the street fence. "I'd like to get my hands on you! I bet if Neale were here you wouldn't fling s...o...b..a.l.l.s at a girl!"

"Don't blow too much about what Neale O'Neil would do!" cried a voice; and a figure appeared at the corner of the hen house.

"Oh! you horrid thing! Neale O'Neil! You flung those s...o...b..a.l.l.s yourself!" gasped Agnes.

She was plucky and she started for him instantly, grabbing a good-sized handful of snow as she did so. Neale uttered a shout and turned to run; but he caught his heel in something and went over backward into the drift he himself had piled up at the hen house door when he had shoveled the path.

"I've got you-you scamp!" declared the Corner House girl, and fell upon him with the s...o...b..ll and rubbed his face well with it. Neale actually squealed for mercy.

"Lemme up!"

"Got enough?"

"Yep!"

"Say 'enough,' then," ordered Agnes, cramming some more snow down the victim's neck.

"Can't-it tickles my tongue. Ouch! Look out! Your turn will come yet, miss."

"Do anything I say if I let you up?" demanded Agnes, who had half buried Neale by her own weight in the soft snow.

"Yep! Ouch! Don't! Play fair!"

"Then you'll come right into the house and talk to me and Ruthie about that awful money?" demanded Agnes, getting up.

Neale started to rise, and then sat back in the snow.

"What money?" he demanded.

"The money and bonds that were stuck into the old alb.u.m."

"What about them?"

"Oh, Neale! Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, on the verge of tears. "The money is gone."

"Huh?"

"It isn't in the book! We-we never looked till to-night, and-what do you think? Somebody got into the house and robbed us-of all that money! And it belonged to Mrs. Eland and her sister. Mr. Lemuel Aden hid it in our garret. Now! isn't that awful?"

For a minute Neale made no reply. Agnes thought he must be struck actually dumb by the horror and surprise which the announcement caused him. Then he made a funny noise and got up out of the snow. His face was in the shadow.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded Agnes."Didn't you hear?"

"Yes-I heard," said Neale, in a peculiar tone. "What did you say about that stuff in the book?"

"Why, Neale! it is good. At least, the money is. Ruth went again to the bank and she is _sure_ she had the right banknote examined this time.

And, of course, if one was good the rest were!"

"Ye-es," said Neale, still speaking oddly. "But what about Mrs. Eland?"

"It belonged to her-all that money-and her sister. You see, Lemuel Aden stayed here at the old Corner House just before he died and he left this book here because he believed it would be safe. He said Uncle Peter was a fool, but honest. Horrid old thing!"

"Who-Uncle Peter?" asked Neale.

"No-Lemuel Aden. And then he went and died and never said anything about the money only in his diary, and Mrs. Eland showed it to Ruth in the diary, and Ruth knew what it meant, but she didn't tell Mrs. Eland. And now, Neale O'Neil, somebody's followed you down from that Tiverton place, knowing you had that book, and got into our house and taken all that money-"

"Gee, Aggie!" cried the boy, interrupting the stream of this monologue.

"You'll lose your breath talking so much. Let's go in and see about this."

"Oh, Neale! Will you?"

"Yes. I was coming to call you out anyway," said the boy, gruffly.

"You're a good kid, Aggie. But Ruth can be too fresh-"

"You don't know how worried she's been-how worried we've both been,"

Agnes said.

"That's all right. But I'm honest. I wouldn't have stolen that money."

"Of course not, Neale," cried Agnes, but secretly condemned because there had been a time when, for a few hours, she herself had almost doubted the honesty of the white-haired boy.