Chapter VI: Just Out of Reach

Ruth Kenway, however, realized that it was Tess who was the instrument which was being used in arousing public interest in the Women's and Children's Hospital--and likewise in Mrs. Eland, who had given five years of faithful work to the institution.

She was particularly impressed on this very afternoon, when poor Agnes was journeying toward Mr. Marks' office with her fellow-culprits of the basket ball team, with Tess' preachment of the need of money for the hospital. Ruth came home from school to find Mr. Howbridge waiting for her in the sitting room with Tess, who had arrived some time before, entertaining him.

As the door was open into the hall, Ruth heard the murmur of their voices while she was still upstairs at her toilet-table; so when she tripped lightly down the broad front stairs it was not eavesdropping if she continued to listen to her very earnest little sister and the lawyer.

"But just supposing Uncle Peter _had_ been 'approached,' as you say, for money for that hospital--and s'pose he knew just how nice Mrs. Eland was--don't you think he would have left them some in his will, Mr. Howbridge?"

"Can't say I do, my dear--considering what I know about Mr. Peter Stower," said the lawyer, drily.

"Well," sighed Tess, "I do wish he had met my Mrs. Eland! I am sure he would have been int'rested in her."

"Do you think so?"

"Oh, yes! For she is the very nicest lady you ever saw, Mr. Howbridge. And I _do_ think you might let us give some of the money to the hospital that Uncle Peter forgot to give--if he had been reminded, of course."

"That child should enter my profession when she grows up," said Mr. Howbridge to Ruth, when Tess had been excused. "She'll split hairs in argument even now. What's started her off on this hospital business?"

Ruth told him. She told, too, what Tess did each month with her own pin money, and the next allowance day Tess was surprised to find an extra half dollar in her envelope.

"Oh--ee!" she cried. "Now I _can_ give something to the hospital fund, can't I, Ruthie?"

Meanwhile, Agnes, with Eva Larry, Myra Stetson, and others of her closest friends (Agnes had a number of bosom chums) waited solemnly in Mr. Marks' office. More than the basket ball team was present in anxious waiting for the principal's appearance.

"Where's Trix Severn?" demanded Eva in a whisper of the other girls. "She ought to be in this."

"In what?" demanded another girl, trying to play the part of innocence.

"Ah-yah!" sneered Eva, very inelegantly. "As though you didn't know what it is all about!"

"Well, I'm sure I don't," snapped this girl. "Mr. Marks sent for me. I don't belong to your old basket ball team."

"No. But you were with us on that car last May," said Agnes, sharply, "You know what we're all called here for."

"No, I don't."

"If you weren't told so publicly as we were to come here, you'll find that he knows all about your being in it," said Eva.

"And that will amount to the same thing in the end, Mary Breeze," groaned Agnes.

"I don't know at all what you are talking about," cried Miss Breeze, tossing her head, and trying to bolster up her own waning courage.

"If you don't know now, you'll never learn, Mary," laughed Myra Stetson. "We are all in the same boat."

"You bet we are!" added the slangy Eva.

"Every girl here was on that car that day coming from Fleeting," announced Agnes, after a moment, having counted noses. "You were in the crowd, Mary."

"What day coming from Fleeting?" snapped the girl, who tried to "bluff," as Neale O'Neil would have termed it.

"The time the car broke down," cried another. "Oh, I remember!"

"Of course you do. So does Mary," Eva said. "We were all in it."

"And, oh, weren't those berries good!" whispered Myra, ecstatically.

"Well, I don't care!" said Mary Breeze, "you started it, Aggie Kenway."

"I know it," admitted Agnes, hopelessly.

"But nobody tied you hand and foot and dragged you into that farmer's strawberry patch--so now, Mary!" cried Eva Larry. "You needn't try to creep out of it."

"Say! Trix seems to be creeping out of it," drawled Myra. "Don't you s'pose Mr. Marks has heard that she was in the party?"

"Sh!" said Agnes, suddenly. "Here he comes."

The principal came in, stepping in his usual quick, nervous way. He was a small, plump man, with rosy cheeks, eyeglasses, and an ever present smile which sometimes masked a series of very sharp and biting remarks. On this occasion the smile covered but briefly the bitter words he had to say.

"Young ladies! Your attention, please! My attention has been called to the fact that, on the twenty-third of last May--a Saturday--when our basket ball team played that of the Fleeting schools, you girls--all of you--on the way back from the game, were guilty of entering Mr. Robert Buckham's field at Ipswitch Curve, and appropriated to your own use, and without permission, a quantity--whether it be small or large--of strawberries growing in that field. The farmer himself furnishes me with the list of your names. I have not seen him personally as yet; but as Mr. Buckham has taken the pains to trace the culprits after all this time has elapsed he must consider the matter serious.

"What particular punishment shall be meted out to you, I have not decided. As a general and lasting rebuke, however, I had thought of forfeiting all the games the team has already won in the county series, and refuse permission to you to play again this year. But by doing that the schools of Milton would be punished in total, for the athletic standing of all would be lowered.

"Now I have considered a more equitable way of making you young ladies pay the penalty of that very unladylike and dishonest proceeding. If the Board of Education sanctions a production of _The Carnation Countess_ by the pupils of the Milton schools, all you young ladies will be debarred from taking any part whatever in the play.

"I see very well," pursued Mr. Marks, "that you who were guilty of robbing Mr. Buckham are girls who would be quite sure of securing prominent parts in the play. You are debarred. That, at present, is all I shall say on this subject. If the farmer claims damages, that will be another matter."

With his rosy face smiling and his eyeglasses sparkling, the principal dismissed the woeful party. They filed out of the office, very glum indeed. And Mary Breeze was more than a little inclined to blame Agnes.

"I don't care! I took only a few berries myself," she complained. "And we none of us would have thought of going over that fence and raiding the strawberry patch if it hadn't been for Agnes."

"Ah-yah!" repeated Eva, with scorn. "What's the use of saying that? Aggie may have been the first one over the fence; but we were all right after her. She may have a little the quickest mind in this crowd, but her limbs are no quicker."

"And how about Trix?" murmured Myra Stetson. "How is it she has escaped the deluge?"

That is what Neale O'Neil asked when he met Agnes just before she reached the old Corner House.

"Oh, Aggie, how did you come out?" he asked soberly. "Was Mr. Marks just as hard on you as he could be?"

"I think so," Agnes replied gravely. "We don't just know yet what he means to do. Only in part. But that part is just _awful_!"

"Was the row about Buckham's berries?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. What's he going to do to you? Make you forfeit all the games?"

"No. Maybe something worse than that."

"Worse? What is it?" asked Neale, in wonder.

"He says we none of us can act in that play he told about this morning."

"Huh!" muttered the boy, eyeing Agnes' flushed face and tearful eyes in surprise. "Do you care?"

"Oh, Neale! I _know_ I can act. I love it. I've always been crazy for it. And now, when there's maybe a chance, I am not--going--to--be--let!"

"Goodness! do you really feel so bad about it, Aggie?"

"I--I---- Why, my heart will be just _broken_ if I can't act in _The Carnation Countess_," sobbed the Corner House girl.

"Oh, cricky! Don't turn on the sprinkler again, Aggie," begged Neale, in a panic.

"I--I just can't help it! To think of there being a play acted in this town, and I might be in it!" wailed Agnes. "And now it's just out of my reach! It's too mean for anything, that's what it is!"

She threatened to burst into another flood, and Neale tried to head the tears off by saying:

"Don't cry again, Aggie. Oh, don't! If you won't cry I'll try to find some way of getting you out of the scrape."

"You--you can't, Neale O'Neil!"

"We--ell, I can try."

"And I wouldn't want to get out of it myself unless the other girls escaped punishment, too."

"You're a good little sport, Aggie. I always said so," Neale declared, admiringly. "Say, that reminds me!" he added, suddenly. "Were all the girls up before Mr. Marks?"

"All who went over to Fleeting that day, do you mean?"

"Yes. All that were in that car that broke down."

"Why--yes--I think so."

"Huh!" grunted Neale, thoughtfully.

"All but one anyway."

"Hullo! Who was that?"

"The girl who wasn't in Mr. Marks' office?"

"Yes. Who was missing of that bunch of berry raiders?" and Neale grinned.

"Why--Trix," said Agnes, slowly.

"Ah-ha! I smell a mouse!"

"What do you mean by that, Neale O'Neil?" cried the girl.

"Nothing significant in the fact that our festive Beatrice was not there?"

"No. Why should there be?" demanded Agnes.

"And who do you suppose furnished Mr. Marks with his information and the list of you girls' names?"

"Oh, the farmer!"

"Old Buckham?" cried Neale, startled.

"Yes," said Agnes. "Mr. Marks said so."

Neale looked both surprised and doubtful. "Then why didn't Buckham give in Trix's name, too?"

"Oh, I don't know, Neale. No use in blaming her just because she was lucky enough to escape."

"Oh, that's all right. I'll go to my Lady Beatrice, get down on my shin-bones, and beg her pardon, if I wrongfully suspect her," laughed Neale. "But, I say, Aggie! did Mr. Buckham come to see Mr. Marks about it? Did he say?"

"No. I think Mr. Marks said the farmer wrote."

"_Wrote?_" cried the boy. "Why, I don't believe Bob Buckham _can_ write. He's a smart enough old fellow, but he never had any schooling. He told me so. He's not a bad sort, either. He must have been awfully mad about those strawberries to hold a grudge so long as this. I worked for him a while, you know, Aggie."

"Oh, so you did, Neale."

"Yes. I don't believe he is the sort who would make so much trouble for a bunch of girls. Somebody must have egged him on," said Neale, gloomily.

"There you go again, Neale," groaned Agnes. "Hinting at Beatrice Severn."

"Well," grinned Neale, "you want me to help you out of your scrape, don't you?"

"At nobody else's expense," said Agnes.

"Don't know what to make of it," grumbled Neale. "It looks fishy to me. Mr. Buckham writing Mr. Marks! I'm going to find out about _that_. Keep up your pluck, Aggie. I'll see what can be done," and Neale, with his cap on the back of his flaxen head and his hands in his pockets, went off whistling.