Chapter X: What Mr. Con Murphy DID Not Know

The children saw Dr. Forsyth coming out of Sammy Pinkney's house that afternoon and they ran to ask him how their neighbor was getting on.

"For we're awful int'rested in Sammy," Dot explained. "I'm int'rested because he's going to be a pirate, and Tess is int'rested because he gave her a goat."

"You children stay across the street where you are," commanded the busy doctor, getting briskly into his automobile. "You're quite near enough to me. This is my last call and I'm going home now to fumigate my clothing."

"Oh, dear me!" cried Dot, "has Sammy scarlet fever and quarantine, _both?_"

"Huh?" said the doctor, trying his starter. Then he laughed. "I should say he had. And you children must stay away from there. It's bad enough to have one scarlet fever patient on Willow Street. I don't want an epidemic."

That last puzzled Dot a good deal. She went back into the house very soberly when the doctor drove away.

"Mrs. MacCall," she asked, "what is a epidermis? Dr. Forsyth doesn't want one."

"Well, that's 'no skin off your nose,' Dot," said Agnes, giggling at her own fun.

"If the doctor had no epidermis he'd be a rare lookin' object," said the housekeeper, "for that's his skin, just as your sister says."

"He said 'epidemic,'" Tess declared, with disgust. "Dot! you do make the greatest mistakes."

"Well, has Sammy got _that_ too?" cried Dot, horrified by the possibility of such a complication of diseases. "Has he got scarlet fever, and quarantine, and ep--epic--well, that other thing, too?"

Ruth came through the kitchen dressed to go out. Her face was very grave and her eyes suspiciously red; but she pulled her veil down over her face and so hid the traces of her emotion from the family.

"Where are you going, Ruthie?" asked Dot, eagerly.

"Sister's going out on an errand," replied Ruth.

"Oh! let me go?" cried the smallest Corner House girl.

"Not this time," said Ruth, quietly. "I can't take you to-day, Dot."

Dot began to pout. "Oh, come along, Dot," said Tess, who never could bear to see her little sister with a frown. "Let us go upstairs and dress all the dolls in their best clothes, and have a party."

"No," said Dot. "I can't. Muriel has spoiled her party dress. She spilled tea on it, you know. Bonnie-Betty's broken her arm and it's in splints. And you know Ann Eliza and Eliza Ann, the twins, are all spotted up, and I don't know yet whether it's measles or smallpox."

"For goodness' sake!" gasped Mrs. MacCall. "If they need a quarantine anywhere I should think 'twould be in that nursery."

Ruth went out, leaving them all laughing at Dorothy. She was in no mood for laughter herself. Since she and her sisters had come to live at the old Corner House, Ruth had never felt more troubled.

She said nothing further to Agnes either about the absence of Neale O'Neil, or the disappearance of the old album. The next to the oldest Corner House girl had noted nothing strange in Ruth's manner or speech. Agnes Kenway was not very observant.

Ruth went out the side gate and along Willow Street. Beyond Mrs. Adam's little cottage there was a narrow lane called Willow Wythe, which ran back, in a sort of L-shaped passage to the rear street on which Mr. Con Murphy had his tiny house and shop.

Neale always came to the Corner House by a 'short cut'--over the fence into the back premises from Mr. Murphy's yard; and Agnes had been known to come and go by the same route. It was several minutes' walk by way of Willow Street and Willow Wythe to the door of the cobbler's little shop.

Neale O'Neil had lived here with Mr. Murphy, occupying an upstairs room, almost ever since he had come to Milton to go to school. Mr. Murphy's pig had served as an introduction between Neale and the cobbler. Mr. Murphy always thought a good deal of his pig. Later he thought so much of Neale that he offered to buy the boy's services from his Uncle Bill Sorber, when that gentleman had tried to take Neale back to the circus.

"Shure," Mr. Murphy had said, "there's more to a bye than to a pig, afther all--though there's much to be said in favor of the pig, by the same token!"

However, either the cobbler's generosity, or something else, had shamed Mr. Sorber into agreeing to let Neale have his chance for an education; and he was willing to pay the boy's expenses while he went to school, too. But Neale worked hard to help support himself, for he disliked being a burden on his uncle.

The old cobbler was a queer character, but with a heart of gold. He tapped away all day at the broken footgear of all the neighbors, ever ready for a bit of gossip, yet exuding a kindly philosophy all his own in dealing with neighborhood topics, or human frailties in general.

"There's so little good in the best of us, and so little bad in the worst of us, that it behooves the most of us to take care how we speak ill of the rest of us," was the sum and substance of Mr. Con Murphy's creed.

"Happy the day when yer shadder falls across the threshold, Miss Ruth," was the Irishman's greeting as she pushed inward the door of his shop which was in what had been the parlor of the tiny house. "Bless yer swate face! what's needed?"

"We want to know what's become of Neale, Mr. Murphy," said Ruth, sitting down in the customer's chair.

"Shure, miss, as I told ye, I'd like to l'arn that same meself."

"You have no idea where he's gone?"

"Not the laist. He give me no warnin' that he was thinkin' of goin' till he walked downstairs, wid the travelin' bag in his hand, and bade me good-bye."

"And he said nothing about where he was going?"

"Not a wor-rd."

"Nor how long he would stay?"

"Not a wor-rd."

"Well!" cried Ruth, with some vigor, "it is the strangest thing! How could he act so? And you have been so kind to him!"

"He was troubled in his mind, Miss Ruth. I kin see you are troubled in yours. Kin old Con help ye?" asked the cobbler, shrewdly.

"I don't know," Ruth said, all of a flutter. "I am dreadfully anxious about Neale O'Neil's going away so abruptly."

"He's a smart boy for his age. He'll get into no trouble, I belave."

"I'm not so much disturbed by that thought," admitted Ruth. "I am really selfish. I want to see him. Agnes let Neale take something we found in our garret, on Christmas Eve, and--and--well, it's something valuable, I believe, and I must show it to Mr. Howbridge as soon as possible."

"Something vallible, is ut?" observed Mr. Murphy, with his head on one side.

"I--I have reason to believe so," replied Ruth, with hesitation.

"What is it?" was the cobbler's direct question.

"A--a sort of scrap-book. An old album. A big, heavy book, Mr. Murphy. Oh! it doesn't seem possible that Neale would have taken it away. Have you seen it anywhere about, sir?"

"He brought it home Christmas Eve, ye say?" was the noncommittal reply.

"That is when Agnes let him have it--yes," said the girl, earnestly.

"I did not see him when he came home that night. I was abed. I told ye he got a letter. I left it on his bureau when I went to me own bed. Shure, he might have brought in an elephant for all I'd knowed about it afther I got to sleep," declared the cobbler, shaking his head. "Old Murphy-us himself, him as was the god of sleep, niver slept sounder nor me, Miss Ruth. He must have been the father of all us Murphies, for we were all sound sleepers, praise the pigs!"

"Perhaps the book is in his room," Ruth said, with final desperation.

"A big book, is ut?"

"Oh, yes, sir. Have you seen it?"

"I have not. But I'll go up and look for ut this instant," Mr. Murphy said, rising briskly.

Ruth told him carefully what to look for--as far as the outside of the volume appeared. She devoutly hoped he would not be curious enough to open it.

For no matter who really owned the old album--and to whom its wonderful contents would be finally awarded--the oldest Corner House girl felt herself to be responsible for the safety of the book and its contents. How it came in the garret, why it was hidden there, and who now had the first right to it, she did not know; but Ruth was sure that the odd find was of great value and that it would be a temptation to almost anybody.

Neale might have gone away for an entirely different reason; yet he had the treasure trove in his possession last, and Ruth would not feel relieved until she had recovered it.

In five minutes Con came downstairs again, but without the book.

"I seen nawthin' of the kind," he said. "But here's the envelope of the letter he resaved."

He handed it to Ruth. The address was written by a hand that certainly was not used to holding a pen. The scarcely decipherable address was to "Mist. Nele O. Sorber."

"Shure the postman skurce knew whether to bring it here, or no," Mr. Murphy explained.

"I--I would like to take this," Ruth said slowly.

"Shure ye may. I brought it down ter ye," said Mr. Murphy, taking up his hammer once more.

"But where do you suppose he could have put that book of ours?" Ruth asked, faintly.

"Shure, ma'am, I dunno. Would he be takin' it away wid him to read?"

"Oh, but could he?" gasped Ruth. "It was heavy."

"So was his bag heavy. I knowed by the way he carried it. And I see it's few of his clo'es he took, by the same token, for they are all hangin' in his closet, save the ones he's got on."

Ruth's thoughts fairly terrified her. She got up and was scarcely able to thank Mr. Murphy. She had to get out into the air and recover her self-control.

Neale! The boy whom they had befriended and helped and trusted! Under temptation, Neale had fallen!

For Ruth knew well how the ex-circus boy disliked taking money from his Uncle Bill Sorber, or being beholden to him in any way. Neale worked hard--very hard indeed for a boy of his age--in order to use as little as possible of Mr. Sorber's money.

Sorber held Neale's long-lost father in light repute, and could not understand the boy's desiring an education and wishing to be something besides a circus performer. To the mind of the old circus man it was an honor to be connected with such an aggregation as Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. And Neale's father had left the company years before in search of a better fortune.

Ruth's mind was filled with suspicion regarding Neale now. Knowing his longing for independence, why should she not believe that seeing a chance to obtain a great sum of money with no effort at all he had fallen before the temptation and run away with the old album and its wonderful contents?

Ruth knew there was a fortune in that old and shabby volume which must have lain long in the garret of the old Corner House. If one of the notes was good, why not all the others--and the bonds, too?

She opened her purse and withdrew the folded ten-dollar bill. At the same moment another banknote fell to the ground--another of the same denomination.

"Oh!" she said aloud. "That's the bill Mr. Howbridge gave me when he went away, saying I might need something extra."

She picked it up. It was folded exactly like the other one; but it never entered Ruth's mind that she might have handed Mr. Crouch the wrong bill to examine.

Ruth replaced the banknotes in her purse and walked home with a face still troubled. She could take nobody into her confidence--least of all Agnes--regarding the missing album. It might be, of course, that Neale O'Neil had only hidden away the old book until his return. Possibly it was perfectly safe, and Neale O'Neil might have no more idea that the money was good than had Agnes.

But oh! if Mr. Howbridge were only at home! That was the burden of Ruth's troubled thought.

She went into the house, her return not being remarked by the younger children. Upstairs Agnes was at her dresser putting the finishing touches to her hair and her frock in readiness for dinner.

"What's that?" she asked Ruth, as the latter put down her purse and likewise the torn envelope Mr. Con Murphy had given her.

"Oh!" ejaculated Ruth. "I must have brought it away with me."

"Brought what away with you--and from where?" demanded Agnes, picking up the paper. Then in a moment she cried: "Why! it's addressed to Neale--by his circus name, 'Neale Sorber.' Where'd you get it, Ruth?"

"I saw Mr. Murphy," the older sister confessed. "He thinks that the letter that came in this envelope was the cause of Neale's going away so suddenly."

"Goodness! it's some trouble about his uncle," said Agnes. "How Neale hates to be called 'Sorber,' too!"

"That isn't his uncle's writing," Ruth said.

"Of course it isn't," the second sister replied scornfully. "Mr. Bill Sorber doesn't write at all. Don't you remember? That's why he thinks it so foolish for Neale to want an education. But it's somebody Uncle Bill's got to write for him."

Agnes' practical explanation could not be gainsaid. She did not connect for a moment the disappearance of the old album with Neale's sudden flight from Milton. The bonds and banknotes pasted into the big volume she had found in the garret gave Agnes not the least anxiety. But she looked closely at the envelope.

"Wish Mr. Murphy had found the letter, too," she said. "Then we could have learned what made that horrid boy run off so."

"'Tiverton,' Humph! Where's Tiverton? That's where this letter was mailed. Seems to me somebody said 'Tiverton' to me only lately," murmured Agnes.

Ruth did not hear her, and Agnes said no more about it. But after she had retired that night and was almost in dreamland--in that state 'twixt waking and sleeping when the happenings of the day pass through one's mind in seemingly endless procession--suddenly Agnes sat up in bed.

"Oh! I know where I've heard of Tiverton before," she whispered shrilly in the darkness. "That's where Mr. Howbridge has gone--to see his sick brother. Say, Ruth!"

Ruth was asleep. And by morning Agnes had forgotten all about the matter. So the coincidence was not called to the older sister's attention.