Chapter XIII: Agnes in the Woods

Perfectly dreadful things were always happening to Dot Kenway's Alice-doll. That child certainly was born under an unlucky star, as Mrs. MacCall often declared.

Yet she was the most cherished of all the smallest Corner House girl's large and growing family of doll-babies. Dot lived with the Alice-doll in a world of make-believe, and where romance lapped over the border of reality it was hard for Dot to tell.

The children--Dot and Tess--fed the birds from the bedroom windows whenever the snow was on the ground. And Neale, when he was at hand, hung pieces of fat and suet in the trees for the jays and shrikes, and other of the "meat-eaters."

The smaller birds were so tame that they hopped right upon the window-sills to eat. On one sill Neale had built a rather ingeniously contrived "sleeping porch" for the Alice-doll, in which Dot put her--bundled in Uncle Rufus' napkin-bag--every night. The screened side served as a ventilator for the children's bedroom.

The top of this boxlike arrangement was of oiled paper, pasted over a wooden frame, and one eager sparrow, pecking at crumbs on the taut paper, burst a hole right through; so he, or another, hopped saucily down through the hole and tried to peck out the Alice-doll's bead-like eyes!

"Why--why--you cannibal!" gasped Dot, and ran to her child's rescue.

With a frightened chirp the sparrow shot up through the torn paper and winged his flight over the housetop.

"You'll have to paste up that hole, Dot," Tess said, "or something more than a sparrow will get in at your Alice-doll."

"Oh, me! what _shall_ I do?" moaned Dot. "Alice must sleep in her porch. The doctors all say so."

"I've a piece of silk you may have to paste over the top of your porch, honey," Ruth said. "That will let the light through, and the birds won't peck it to shreds."

"Oh, thank you, sister!" said Dot, much relieved.

"I'll run for the glue bottle," Tess added, wishing to be helpful.

But having brought the bottle Tess was obliged to help Agnes with the beds. There were certain duties the Corner House girls had to do every day, and on Saturdays three of the early morning hours at least were spent by all of them save Dot in housework of one kind or another, and even she had some light household duties. The house was very large and Mrs. MacCall and Linda could not do all the work. As for Aunt Sarah Maltby, she only "ridded up" her own room, and never lifted her fingers to work outside it.

So just now Dot was left alone with the silk and the glue bottle. It was not a difficult task, and even Dot might be expected to do it with neatness and despatch.

But when Ruth chanced to come into the room some time later, Dot was still struggling with the glue bottle. She had not yet been successful in removing the cork.

"Goodness me! what a mean, mean thing," Dot cried, quite unaware that she was being observed. "Now I tell you what," she added, addressing the cork with which she was struggling, "I'm going to get you _out_, if I have to push you _in_--so there!"

This cheered up the family considerably when it was repeated; but Dot was used to furnishing amusement for the Corner House family. Usually the hour spent at the dinner table was the most enjoyable of all the day for the girls, for all that had happened during the day was there and then discussed.

It had been just the evening before that Dot was taken to task quite seriously by Ruth for a piece of impoliteness of which the little girl stood confessed.

"Sister was sorry to see this afternoon, when you were talking at the gate with Mr. Seneca Sprague, Dot, that you ate cookies out of a paper bag and did not offer Mr. Sprague any."

"Didn't," said Dot. "'Twas crackers."

"Well, crackers, then. You should always offer any person whom you are with, a share of your goodies."

"Why, Ruthie!" exclaimed Dot. "You know very well Seneca Sprague wouldn't have eaten any of those crackers."

"Why not?" asked Ruth, still serious.

"Isn't he a--a vegetablearian?" propounded Dot, quite warmly.

"A vegetarian--yes," admitted the older sister.

"Well!" exclaimed Dot, in triumph, "he wouldn't have eaten 'em then. They were _animal_ crackers."

Agnes made her preparations that evening for a visit she proposed to make the next day. After their work was done on Saturday the Corner House girls sometimes separated to follow different paths for the remainder of the holiday. This week Agnes was going to visit Mr. Bob Buckham and his invalid wife, who lived some distance from Milton, but not far off the interurban car line.

When she started about ten o'clock to go to the car, not only Tess and Dot, but Tom Jonah was ready to accompany her. The old dog was always glad to be in any expedition; but Agnes did not want him to follow the car and she told him to go back.

"Oh, don't do that, sister," begged Tess. "We'll look out for Tom Jonah. You know he'll mind us--Dot and me. We'll bring him home from the corner."

So he was allowed to pace sedately behind the trio to the corner of Ralph Avenue where Agnes purposed to take the car. This was not far down Main Street from the Parade Ground, and the children could easily find their way home again.

As the three sisters passed the drug store they saw coming out a woman in long, black garments, a veil, and a huge collar and a sort of hood of starched white linen.

Dot's eyes grew big and round as she watched this figure, and finally she whispered: "Oh, Aggie; who is that?"

"That is a sister of charity," replied Agnes.

Dot pondered deeply for a moment and then returned to the charge with: "Say, Aggie, which sister is she--Faith or Hope?"

"Hear that child!" sighed Tess. "I never heard of such a ridiculous question, did you, Aggie?" she asked the laughing, older sister.

Just then the car Agnes must take came along and the older girl ran to climb aboard, after kissing the little ones good-bye. And there was Tom Jonah, bounding right behind her.

"No, no! You must not! You can't, Tom Jonah," Agnes cried, stopping at the car step. "Go back, Tom Jonah!"

The dog's ears and tail drooped. He turned slowly away, disappointed.

"You know I can't take you in the car," Agnes said. "Go home with Tess and Dottie."

She stepped aboard. The conductor just then rang the bell for starting. Agnes pitched into a seat as the car jumped forward and failed to see whether the dog returned to her sisters or not.

It was a long ride in rather a round-about way to the Buckham farm. Mr. Bob Buckham raised strawberries for market and was a good friend of the Corner House girls. Agnes particularly was a favorite of the farmer and his invalid wife.

Although the interurban car passed one end of the Buckham farm, there was another point where Agnes could leave the car to cut across lots and through the woods to reach the house. She had been this way once with Neale, and she thought it a much pleasanter, if somewhat longer, walk.

So, when the car came to the road in the woods which the Corner House girl was sure was the right one, she signaled the conductor to stop and she stepped down into the snow beside the track.

Agnes was to learn, however, that the woods look different under a blanket of snow, from what they do when the ground is bare.

The road into which she ventured was merely a track leading into a place where cordwood had been cut. Wagons had gone back and forth, but not for several days. The path led in a direction quite different from the Buckham house and every minute she walked this way took her farther and farther from the road to Strawberry Farm.

The air was invigorating, the sun shone, and the path was hard under her feet, so Agnes found the walk very pleasant indeed. Being quite unconscious of her mistake, nothing troubled her mind. She tramped on, rejoicing, expecting to come into familiar territory within a mile or so.

The forest grew thicker as she advanced. The only tracks she saw in the snow on either side of the wood road were those of birds and rabbits. Jays shot through the leafless woods shouting their raucous call; crows cawed in the distance; close at hand, squirrels chattered and scolded at her from the trees as she passed under the stark, bare branches.

Finally the impression was forced upon Agnes Kenway's mind that the wood was very lonely. She heard no axe--and an axe can be heard for miles. She noticed, too, at length, that the tracks in the road--both of men and horses--were not fresh. She had not observed before that a light snow powdered these marks--and it had not snowed for three days.

"Why! can it be possible that nobody has been to Mr. Buckham's by this road for so long?" murmured Agnes.

She turned around to look behind her. As she did so some creature--quite a big and shaggy animal--darted across the path and disappeared in the brush.

Mercy! How startled Agnes was for a moment. It might be a bear! Or a wolf! Then, of course, she came to herself, shrugged her shoulders, and laughed.

"It's a dog. Somebody is out hunting. But goodness! how he did scare me," she thought.

Agnes went on again, cheerfully enough. The road was by no means straight. If she looked back she could see only a short distance, for the brush and trees hid the back stretches.

She turned again. There was the creature just darting once more into the shrubbery!

Agnes halted in her tracks. She was suddenly smitten with fear. She could not shake the feeling off. Surely there was something dogging her footsteps.

She puckered her lips to whistle; but no sound came. She tried to call; but her tongue seemed dry and her throat contracted. She _knew_ it was a dog; yet the possibility of its being some savage beast instead, terrified her.

Even a bad dog would be dangerous to meet in this lonely place. And he followed her so stealthily!

Agnes was panic-stricken at midday. It was almost noon now, and how strange that she had not reached the Buckham house! Why! she had been walking for an hour.

It came over the girl suddenly that she was lost.

"Yet I don't see how that can be," she murmured. "I'm in the road and it's plain enough. Surely it should lead somewhere."

Nevertheless she would have turned about and gone back to the car tracks had it not been for the apparition that seemed dogging her steps.

She dared not turn back and face that Unknown!

Slily she looked over her shoulder again. There it was--dim, shaggy, slinking close to the snow. Agnes was sure now that she knew what it was. Naught but a wolf would act like that--would trail her so silently and with such determination.

Agnes was truly terror-stricken. She began to run--and running was not easy in this rutty road. She fell once; but she did not mind the bruises and scratches she received, for all she could think of was that the wolf might leap upon her while she was down.

Up the poor girl scrambled and ran on, crying now--all her brave temper quenched. She dared look behind no more. How close her awful pursuer was she dared not know.

On and on she hastened; now running, now walking fast, her limbs shaking with dread and weariness. It seemed as though she must come to some habitation soon. She had had no idea that there was any such wilderness as this anywhere back of Milton!

There were no signs here of man's nearness save the road through the forest, nor had she seen such since leaving the main highway. As she said, surely this road must lead somewhere.

Suddenly Agnes smelled smoke. She saw it rising between the trees ahead. Escape from the prowling beast was at hand. The girl hurried on. The place where the smoke was rising was down a little slope, at the foot of which she suddenly discovered the railroad. She knew something about the locality then. It was some distance from Mr. Bob Buckham's house.

This was a lonely place, too. There was no station anywhere near. Heaps of ties lay about--cords and cords of them. It suddenly smote upon the girl's mind that tramps might be here. Tramps followed the railroad line. And tramps might be more to be feared than a wolf!

She halted in her tracks and waited to get her breath. Of course she glanced fearfully behind again. But the prowling beast was no longer in sight. The vicinity of the fire had doubtless made him hesitate and draw off.

So Agnes could take her time about approaching the campfire. She was sure that was what it must be. The smoke arose from beyond a great heap of railroad ties, and now, when her pulses stopped beating so in her ears, she distinguished voices.

Well! human beings were at hand. She could not help feeling suspicious of them; yet their nearness had driven off the strange and terrible beast that had so frightened her.

After a minute or two the Corner House girl crept forward. Some of her usual courage returned to her. Her heart beat high and her color rose. She bit her lower lip with her pretty, even teeth, as she always did when she labored under suppressed excitement, and tiptoed to the end of the piled up ties.

The voices were louder here--more easily distinguished. There were two of them--a young voice and an old voice. And in a moment she discovered something that pleased and relieved her. The young voice was a girl's voice--Agnes was quite positive of that.

She thought at once: "No harm can come to me if there is a girl here. But who can she be, camping out in the snowy woods?"

In another moment she would have stepped around the corner of the pile of ties and revealed herself to the strangers had not something that was said reached her ears--and that something was bound to arrest Agnes Kenway's attention.

"A book full of money."

The young voice said this, and then the other spoke, it seemed, doubtingly.

Again came the girl's voice with passionate earnestness:

"I tell you I saw it! I know 'twas money."

"It don't sound reasonable," and the man's husky voice was plainer now.

"I tell you I saw it. I had the book in my hand."

"Why didn't you bring it away and let me see it?" demanded the other.

"I'd ha' done it, Pop, if I'd been let. He had it in his bag in his room. I got in and had the book in my hand. It's heavy and big, I tell you! He came in and caught me messin' with his things, and I thought he'd lam me! You know, Neale always was high tempered," added the strange young voice.

Agnes was powerless to move. Mention of money in a book was sufficient to hold her in her tracks. But now they were speaking of Neale O'Neil!

"Where'd he ever get so much money?" demanded the husky voice.

"Stole it, mebbe."

"None of the Sorbers was ever light-fingered--you've got to say that much for them."

"What's that boy doing with all that money, and we so poor?" snarled the young voice, "Wasn't you hurt when that gasoline tank exploded in the big top, just the same as Bill Sorber? And nobody made any fuss over you."

"Well, well, well," muttered the man.

"They're not carin' what becomes of us--neither Twomley nor Sorber. Here you've been laid up, and it's mid-winter and too late for us to get any job till the tent shows open in the spring. An' we must beat it South like hoboes. I say 'tisn't fair!" and the young voice was desperate.

"There ain't many things fair in this world, Barnabetta," said the husky voice, despondently.

"I--I'd steal that money from Neale Sorber if I got the chance. And he'll be coming back to this very next town with it. That's where he's living now--at Milton. I hate all the Sorbers." "There, there, Barnabetta! Don't take on so. We'd have got into some good act in vaudeville 'fore now if I hadn't had to favor my ankle."

"You'd better've let me go into that show alone, Pop."

"No, no, my girl. You're too young for that. No, that warn't the right kind of a show."

The girl's voice sounded wistful now: "Wish we could get an act like that we had in the tent show when Neale was with us. He was a good kid then."

"Yes; but there ain't many like Neale Sorber was. And like enough he's gone stale 'fore now."

"I'd just like to know where he got all that money," said the girl-voice. "And in a book, too. I thought 'twas a photograph album."

"Hist!" said the man-voice, "'Tisn't so much where he got it as it is, is he comin' back here with it."

"He'll come back to Milton, sure. Bill Sorber isn't so sick now."

The voices died to a whisper. Agnes, both troubled and frightened, tried to steal away. But she had been resting her weight upon the corner of the heap of ties. As she moved, the icy timbers shook, slid, and suddenly overturned.

Agnes, her face white, and with a terrified air, found herself facing a man and, not a girl but, a boy, who had sprung up from a log by the fire. And they knew she had overheard their conversation.