Chapter XX: Lemuel Aden's Diary

Agnes slept so late that Sunday morning that she had to "scrabble," as she herself confessed, to get down to breakfast before everybody else was through.

As the members of the Corner House family who had risen earlier made no remarks about burglars in the night, Agnes decided she would better say nothing of her own experience.

It really seemed to Agnes now as though it had been a dream. Only she noticed when she sat down at the table that the big brass key was missing from the lock of the closet door.

Aunt Sarah said nothing at that time about her midnight rambling; nor about what she had locked up in the chimney-place cupboard. Ruth looked much worried and disturbed. Of course, the missing album had not come to light. Ruth truly believed that a great fortune had been within their grasp and it was now utterly gone.

"And gone beyond redemption. We shall never see it again," she said to Agnes.

Agnes did not want to discuss this with her sister. She was quite as puzzled as was Ruth over the disappearance of the old album in which had been pasted the bonds and money; only she could not bring herself to believe, as Ruth did, that the bonds and money were good.

She wondered if Neale O'Neil had found the answer to this problem while he was in Tiverton. Then she winced when she thought of Neale. He did not appear at the old Corner House on this Sunday morning, as he usually did.

They must wait until Monday for Ruth to go to the bank again and have the right ten dollar bill examined. She admitted that she might have shown the new banknote instead of the old one to Mr. Crouch.

"Though lots of good it will do us to know for certain whether the money was good and legal tender or not, now that it has been stolen," Ruth grieved.

Barnabetta appeared at breakfast and Agnes noticed that the circus girl's eyes were red and her manner much subdued.

The Corner House family prepared for church much as usual. Aunt Sarah always made most of her preparations--even to the filling of her dress pocket with a handful of peppermint lozenges--the night before.

Time was when the Kenway sisters had to scrimp and save to find the five pennies weekly to purchase Aunt Sarah's supply of peppermints; now they were bought in quantity and--

"I don't see why you young ones can't leave 'em alone," said the old lady, severely, as she swept down into the hall in her best silk dress and popped the first lozenge of the day into her mouth.

"I forgot 'em last night till I'd got to bed, and when I come down here for 'em, I declare I couldn't scurce find 'em in that cupboard. But I got 'em locked away now an' I guess you won't be so free with 'em."

At this Agnes was attacked by "a fit of the giggles," as Aunt Sarah expressed it. But the girl was not laughing at Aunt Sarah. Her thought was:

"My goodness me! was _that_ what the burglar was after--Aunt Sarah's peppermints?" But she missed seeing Barnabetta's face at this juncture.

Dot cried: "Oh, my, Miss Barnabetta! don't you feel well a-_tall_ this morning?"

"Oh, yes, my dear, I am quite well," said the circus girl, hastily.

Tess said doubtfully: "I--I hope we didn't tire you last night asking for stories?"

"No, indeed."

"But you just _did_ look as though you were going to faint," said Dot.

"There, there," said Mrs. MacCall. "Appearances aren't everything. The looks of a toad don't tell how far he's goin' to hop."

"No-o," agreed Tess. "And, anyway, toads are very useful animals, even if they are so very ugly."

Barnabetta had the two little girls again, one on either side of her, before the fire. She had plainly become their fast friend.

Barnabetta said, more cheerfully: "Toads are not always ugly. Didn't you ever see a toad early in the mornin'--when the grass and everything is all sparklin' with dew? Oh! I must tell you a story about _that_."

"Do, Miss Barnabetta," breathed Tess, eagerly.

"Oh! that will be lovely!" murmured Dot.

"Once upon a time a little brown toad--a very warty toad--lived in a little house he had scooped for himself in the dirt right under a rose tree. He was a very sensible, hard-workin' toad, only he grieved because he was so ugly.

"He never would have known he was so ugly, for he had no mirror in his house, if it hadn't been for the rose. But lookin' up at the buddin' rose, he saw how beautiful she was and knew that in contrast he was the very ugliest beast that moved upon the earth."

"The poor thing!" murmured Tess, the tender-hearted.

"He near about worshipped that rose," pursued Barnabetta, her own eyes brighter as the children followed her story breathlessly. "Every day he watched her unfold her petals more and more. He caught all the bugs and flies and ugly grubs he could to keep them from comin' at the rose and doin' her harm.

"Then came the mornin'," said Barnabetta, "when the rose was fully unfolded. The dew overnight had bejeweled each petal and when the first rays of the sun hurried to kiss her, the dewdrops sparkled like all manner of gems and precious stones.

"'Oh, see!' sighed the poor toad, 'how beautiful is the rose and how ugly I am.'

"But the rose heard him and she looked kindly down upon the poor toad. She knew how faithfully he had guarded her from the creepin' and flyin' things that would have spoiled her beauty.

"'Come here,' she said to the toad, bendin' down upon her stalk to see him better. And the toad hopped close beneath her. 'Come here,' said the rose, 'and I will make you, too, beautiful.'

"And then she called to the mornin' breeze, 'Shake me!' and the breeze did so--ever so gently--and all the sparklin', twinklin' precious gems of dewdrops shook off the rose and fell upon the toad in a shower.

"And at once," laughed Barnabetta, "the toad was covered with diamonds, and spangles, and glistenin' drops of dew in which the sun was reflected, till the toad appeared to be encased in an armor of silver, trimmed with jewels, and all the creatures in the garden cried:

"'Oh! how beautiful is the toad!'"

Agnes listened with delight to this fantasy from the trapeze performer. This gentle girl, telling pretty tales to Tess and Dot, was quite another person from "Barney" Scruggs, who had been tramping in boy's clothing with the old clown.

"She _can't_ be wicked enough to have stolen that scrap-book," Agnes told herself, with increasing confidence. "Dear me! I wish I'd never found the old thing up garret."

The four Corner House girls went to church with Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah. But Barnabetta would not go. She excused herself by saying that she did not wish to leave her father alone.

Sunday school followed the preaching service almost immediately; but as soon as this was over, Agnes hurried home. Ruth, with Tess and Dot, went around by the hospital to call on Mrs. Eland, the matron, and to enquire after Miss Pepperill.

They chanced to find the little gray lady sitting at her desk, and with certain yellowed old papers and letters, and several small books with ragged sheepskin covers, before her.

"These were Uncle Lemuel's," she explained to Ruth, touching the dog's-eared books. "His diaries. It does seem as though he loved to put down on paper all his miserly thoughts and accounts of his very meanest acts. He must have been a strange combination of business acumen and simple-mindedness."

"I wish for your sake, Mrs. Eland," Ruth said, "that he had kept to the very day of his death the riches he once accumulated."

"Oh! I wish so, too--for Teeny's sake," replied Mrs. Eland, referring to her unfortunate sister by the pet name she had called her in childhood.

"Are these the books and papers Mr. Bob Buckham brought you from the Quoharie poorhouse, where Mr. Aden died?"

"Yes. I have never read through the diaries. I only wanted to find an account of the five hundred dollars belonging to Mr. Buckham's father that _my_ father turned over to Uncle Lemuel.

"But here are notes of really vast sums. Uncle Lemuel must have really been quite beside himself long before he died. In one place he writes about drawing out of several banks sums aggregating over fifty thousand dollars.

"Think of it!" and Mrs. Eland sighed. "It was at the time of the panic. He speaks of being distrustful of banks. So he drew out all he had. But, of course, he did not have so much money as that. Fifty thousand dollars!"

"Perhaps he did have it," said Ruth.

"Then what became of it? He writes in one place of losing a hundred dollars in some transaction, and he goes on about it, in a raving way, as though it was every cent of money he ever owned," declared Mrs. Eland. "Oh, dear! What a terrible thing it must be to be a miser."

"But--but suppose he _did_ have so much money at one time?"

"He dreamed it," laughed the hospital matron.

"You're not sure," ventured the Corner House girl.

"Then what became of it? I am sure he never gave it away," Mrs. Eland said, shaking her head. "And here, where he speaks of coming to live with your Uncle Peter Stower, in the very last year of his life, Uncle Lemuel says:

"'Peter Stower always was a fool. He'll give me bite and sup as long as I need. Let him believe me rich or poor as he pleases.'"

"Oh, dear me," sighed Ruth, "I always have felt bad because Uncle Peter turned him out and Mr. Aden wandered away to die at the Quoharie poorhouse. Your uncle couldn't have been in his right mind."

"Of course he wasn't," rejoined Mrs. Eland. "Why! it shows that here. On almost the last page of his diary--it was written after he left the old Corner House--he says:

"'I don't trust banks; but Peter Stower is too mean to be dishonest. My book is safe with him.'

"I suppose," the little gray lady said, "Uncle Lemuel had an idea of sending these diaries to your Uncle Peter to keep for him. I can't think of any other book he was referring to."

"A book?" murmured Ruth, quaveringly.

"Yes. And once before he speaks here--where is it?--of his diary, I suppose, as his 'beautiful book.' Ah! here it is: 'Have pasted all my Wash. & Pitts. R. R. B.'s in my beautiful book.' Now," and Mrs. Eland laughed, "what do you suppose 'Wash. & Pitts.' means?"

Ruth sprang up, trembling, and with clasped hands.

"Oh, Mrs. Eland!" she cried, "'Washington & Pittsburgh'--and he meant railroad bonds, of course! It must be! it _must_ be!"

"Well--but--my dear!" said Mrs. Eland, amazed by Ruth's excitement. "Of course, Uncle Lemuel may have meant that. However, there are no bonds of any kind pasted into these books. I am sure of that," and she laughed again, but rather ruefully.

Ruth Kenway could not join in her laughter. She had made a tremendous discovery--and one that filled her with actual terror. She scarcely knew how she managed to excuse herself from the hospital matron's presence, and got out upon the street again with Tess and Dot.