Hill Grace Brooks - The Corner House Girls Snowbound стр 7.

Of course, I will send up my own servants and supplies. Being administrator of the estate, there will be no question of my using the Lodge as I see fit, Mr. Howbridge said cheerfully. And I shall be delighted to have you young folks with me.

I am really going to confer with an old timber cruiser about the standing timber contracted for by the Neven Lumber Company before Frank Birdsall died. This timber cruiser

It sounds like a sea-story! interrupted Agnes, roguishly.

What is a timber cruiser? demanded Ruth, quite as puzzled as her sister.

It is not a what but a who, laughed Mr. Howbridge. In his way, Ike MGraw is quite a famous character up there. A timber cruiser is a man who knows timber so well that just by walking through a wood lot and looking he can number and mark down the trees that are sound and will make good timber.

Ike has written me through a friend (for the old man cannot use a pen himself, save to make his cross) that he has been over the entire Birdsall estate and that his figures and the figures of the Nevens people are too far apart. I fear that the lumber company is trying to put something over on me, and as administrator of the estate I must look out for the twins interests.

You are more careful of their money, Mr. Howbridge, than you are of the twins themselves, are you not? Ruth suggested, in a low voice.

Now, dont tell me that! he cried. I really cannot take those children into my house.

Well, you know, she told him, smiling, you brought this on yourself by asking my advice. And you intend to fill that Lodge up there with us young ones.

But I shall have you to manage for me, Miss Ruth, declared the lawyer. That is different.

Perhaps we might take the twins along with us, and youd get used to them, Ruth said. You say they like it up there in the wilderness.

Frank said they were crazy about it.

Well?

You dont know what you are letting yourselves in for. Ralph and Rowena are young savages.

Cant be much worse than Sammy, yonder, chuckled Neale, who, with Agnes, was much interested in this part of the planning.

Oh, Ruthie! exclaimed the second Kenway sister suddenly, clasping her hands. Theres Cecile and Luke!

Where what ?

I mean we invited them to come to the Corner House for the holidays.

Ah-ha! exclaimed Mr. Howbridge promptly. The Shepards? Of course! I had already included them in my mind.

Mr. Howbridge! It will be more than a party. It will be a convention, gasped Ruth.

Its such a lonely place that well need a big crowd to make it worth while going at all, the lawyer laughed. Yes. Cecile and Luke are invited. I will have them written to at once in addition to your own invitation to them, Miss Ruth.

Dear me! you are just the best guardian, Mr. Howbridge, sighed Agnes ecstatically.

And I think, Ruth added, that you ought to think seriously of taking the Birdsall twins with us.

That was not decided at that time, however. And when the party got back to the old Corner House, just across from the Parade Ground at the head of Main Street, Mr. Howbridge was met with a piece of news that shocked him much more than had the thought of the twins making their home with him in his quiet bachelor residence.

A clerk from the lawyers office awaited Mr. Howbridge. There was a telegram from Rodgers, the Birdsalls ex-butler. It read:

Ralph and Rowena away since yesterday noon. Hospitals searched. Cannot have pond dragged. Two feet of ice. Wire instructions.

Rodgers.

CHAPTER IV ANTICIPATIONS

What do you think of that? And you suggest my keeping those twins those two wild youngsters in my home!

I will tell you what I think of that telegram, said the oldest Kenway girl, handing the yellow sheet of paper back to him. I think that man Rodgers is not a fit person to have charge of the boy and girl.

Why not? he asked in surprise.

Imagine thinking of dragging a pond in mid-winter or at any other time of the year for two healthy children! First idea the man seems to have. I guess the twins had reason for running away.

Hear! Hear! cried Agnes, who deliberately listened.

Why, they have known Rodgers all their lives!

Perhaps that is why they have run away, said Ruth, smiling. Rodgers sounds to me from his telegram as though he had one awful lack.

You frighten me. What lack?

Lack of a sense of humor. And that is fatal in the character of anybody who has a pair of twins on his hands.

Mr. Howbridge threw up his own hands in amazement. I must lack that myself, he said. I see nothing funny, at least, in the idea of having Ralph and Rowena Birdsall in my house.

It helps, said Ruth. A sense of humor is what has kept me going all these years, she added demurely. If you think a pair of twins can be compared to Tess and Dot and Sammy Pinkney to say nothing of Aggie and Neale

Oh! Oh! shouted the two latter in chorus.

You have a mean mind, Ruthie Kenway, declared the blonde beauty.

I knew I wasnt much liked, admitted Neale ONeil. But that is the unkindest cut of all.

You have had experience, I grant you, said Mr. Howbridge, about to take his departure. But I foresee much trouble in the case of these Birdsall twins.