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Oh! I know a nice story about Allie Newmans little brother, declared Dot eagerly.
That little terror! murmured Agnes.
He is one tough little kid, admitted Neale ONeil, in an undertone.
What about the little Newman boy? asked Ruth indulgently. And then we must all study.
Why, said Dot, big-eyed and very much in earnest, you know Robbie Newman doesnt go to school yet; and hes an awful trial to his mother.
That is gossip, Dot, Tess interposed severely.
But the smallest Corner House girl was not to be derailed from the main line of her story, and went right on:
He was naughty the other day and his mamma told him shed shut him up somewhere all by himself. If you do, Mamma, he said, Ill just smash evrything in the room.
Oh-oo! gasped Tess, proving herself to be quite as much interested in the gossip as the others around the evening lamp. What a wicked boy!
But he didnt smash anything, Dot was quick to explain. For his mother put him right out in the henhouse.
The henhouse! Fancy! said Agnes.
There wasnt anything for him to smash there, said Dot. But when she had locked him in, Robbie put his head out of the little door where the hens go in and out, and he called after her:
Mamma, you can lock me in here all you want to; but I wont lay any eggs!
I am not sure that it isnt gossip, chuckled Agnes, when the general laugh had subsided.
That will be all now, Ruth said with severity. Study time is here.
But there was another and more important subject in all their minds than either school happenings, the eccentricities of their friends, or the lesson books themselves.
The holidays! The thought of going to Red Deer Lodge! A winter vacation in the deep woods, and to live in picnic fashion, as they supposed, lent a charm to the plan that delighted every member of the Corner House party.
Ruth and Agnes wrote to the Shepards to Cecile at home with her Aunt Lorena, and to Luke at college and they were immediately enamored of the plan and returned enthusiastic acceptances of the invitation, thanking Mr. Howbridge, of course, as well.
The lawyer was having a great deal to do at this time, and he came to the old Corner House more than once to talk about the Birdsall twins to Ruth and the others. As he said, it gave him comfort to talk over something he did not know anything about with the oldest Corner House sister.
He sat one stormy day in the cozy sitting-room, with Dot and the Alice-doll on one knee and Tess and Almira, who was now a quite grown-up cat and had kittens of her own, on his other knee. All the Corner House cats were pets, no matter how grown-up they were.
It is worrying me a great deal, Ruthie, he said to the sympathetic girl. Look at a day like this. We dont know where those poor children are. Rodgers says they could have had but little money. In fact, they scarcely knew what money was for, having always had everything needful supplied them.
Twelve-year-old
children nowadays, Mr. Howbridge, said Ruth, are usually quite capable of looking after themselves.
You think so? queried the worried guardian.
You remember what Agnes was at twelve. And look at our Tess.
The lawyer pinched Tess cheek. I see what she is. And she is going to be twelve some day, I suppose, he agreed. But what would she and say Sammy Pinkney do, turned out alone into the world?
Oh! cried Dot, the little pitcher with the big ears, Sammy and I went off alone to be pirates. And Im younger than Tess.
I hope I shouldnt run away with Sammy! said Tess, in some disdain.
Why, Dot put in, suppose Sammy was your brother? I felt quite sisterly to him that time we were hid in the canalboat.
I guess that we all feel sisterly to Sammy, laughed Ruth. And I am sure, Tess, you would know what to do if you were away from home with him.
I guess I would, agreed Tess severely. Id march him right back again.
The lawyer joined in the laugh. But he was none the less anxious about Ralph and Rowena Birdsall. There was an undercurrent of feeling in his mind, too, that he had been derelict in his duty toward his wards.
Three months after their father died, and I had not seen them, he said more than once. I blame myself. As you say, Ruth, I should have won their confidence in that time.
Oh, Mr. Howbridge, you are not to blame for that! You are unused to children, anyway.
But it was selfishness on my part arrant selfishness, Franks children should have been my personal care. But, twins! and he groaned.
One might have been amused by his bachelor horror of the thought of two children in his quiet home; only the situation was really too serious to breed laughter. Two twelve-year-old children striking out into the world for themselves might get into all sorts of mischief and trouble.
The lawyer had done all he could, however, toward recovering the runaways. The police of two States were on the watch for them, and private detectives were likewise hunting for them. The advertisements Mr. Howbridge put in the papers brought no helpful replies. There seemed to be many children wandering about the country, singly and in pairs, but none of them answered at all the description of the Birdsall twins.