Chapter XXI: "everything at Sixes and Sevens"

"I do declare," said Agnes Kenway, that very evening. "We don't seem like ourselves. The house doesn't seem like our house. And we're all at sixes and sevens! What ever is the matter with Ruthie?"

For the eldest Corner House girl had spoken crossly to Tess, and had fairly shaken Dot for leaving a chocolate-cream on a chair where she, Ruth, sat down upon it in her best dress, and finally she had flown out of the sitting room in tears and run up to bed.

"And Neale didn't stay to eat supper last night, and he hasn't been here to-day," grieved Tess.

"Here's all his Christmas presents," said Dot. "Don't you s'pose he wants them a-tall? Is Neale mad, too?"

"I'm afraid Ruthie is coming down with something--like Sammy Pinkney with the scarlet fever," Tess said, in a worried tone.

Agnes knew that it must be worry over the lost album and money that had got upon her older sister's nerves. But even she did not suspect the full measure of Ruth's trouble, for the latter had said nothing about the discovery in Lemuel Aden's old diary. But Agnes heartily wished she had never made that odd find in the garret.

She had not seen Barnabetta save at dinner time, and the clown had not left his room. Agnes was troubled about Barnabetta. The little girls found the trapeze artist a most delightful companion; but Barnabetta had scarcely a word to say to either of the older Corner House sisters.

As for Neale--Agnes Kenway could have cried about Neale. She and the white-haired boy had been the very best of friends.

"And I'm sure _I_ didn't say anything to anger him. He needn't have got mad at _me_," was Agnes' thought. "Whatever he wanted in that closet last night--

"There! I won't believe it was Neale at all. Why should he want to _steal_ anything here, when he could have had it for the asking?

"But who else could have gotten out of that porch door, past Tom Jonah, without being eaten up?" murmured poor Agnes. "Oh, dear me! how can I believe it of him?"

Really, everything _was_ at sixes and at sevens. The week began badly. The two smallest Corner House girls seemed afflicted with a measure of the unhappiness that cloaked Ruth, Agnes and their guest, Barnabetta Scruggs.

Dot actually quarreled with Mabel Creamer! It came about in this wise:

After school on Monday the smallest Corner House girl had been to the store for Mrs. MacCall. Coming home, as she came past the Creamer cottage she heard Mrs. Creamer scolding Mabel.

"You bad, bad girl!" the unwise mother was saying to the sullen Mabel. "I should think your little brother _would_ cry whenever you come near him. You don't deserve to have a dear, baby brother. Get out of my sight, you naughty child!"

When Mabel appeared at her gate to face the wondering Dot, she did not look heart-broken because Bubby had taken a sudden dislike to her.

"What ever is the matter, Mabel Creamer?" asked the smallest Corner House girl.

"Oh--nothin'. Only I just fixed that kid for once," declared Mabel, with impish satisfaction. "I don't believe they'll leave me to watch him all the time while Lyddy and Peg go off to a movin' pitcher show."

"Oh, my!" said the awe-struck Dot. "What ever did you do?"

"I'll tell you what I did, Dot Kenway," said Mabel, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Bubby wants to be played with all the time. You don't get a minute to call your soul your own," she added, quoting some of her elders.

"So, if he wanted to be amused all so fine, I amused him. I smeared molasses on his fingers and then I gave him a feather out of the pillow. Oh, he was amused! He was trying to pick that feather off his fingers for half an hour, and was just as still as _still!_ It might ha' lasted longer, too, only he got mad with the feather, and bawled."

Dot did not know whether to laugh at, or be horrified by, such depravity as this. But she was glad that Mabel was free to go home with her at this time, for Tess had been kept after school.

"We've got four of just the cunningest kittens," Dot said, to her visitor. "Of course, they are really Almira's. Santa Claus got them for her. But we _call_ them ours."

"My! isn't that fine?" cried Mabel. "We've got two cats, but they're lazy old things. _They_ never have any kittens. We call them Paul and Timothy."

Almira's young family still nested upon Unc' Rufus' old coat in the woodshed. Dot put two in her apron to bring them out on the porch where the cunning little things could be seen. But when Mabel grabbed up the other two there was a good deal of noise attending the operation.

"Oh, Mabel! don't hurt them," cried Dot.

"I'm not hurting them," responded Mabel, sharply. "I'm carrying them just as careful as I can by their stems."

"Oh, dear--_don't!_" shrieked Dot, quite horrified. "Them's their tails, Mabel Creamer."

"Huh! what else are they for, I'd like to know?" propounded the visitor. "A cat's tail is made for it to be grabbed by."

"You--you----You're cruel, Mabel Creamer!" gasped Dot. "Put them down!"

She tumbled the two staggering kittens out of her own lap and ran to rescue the poor, squalling mites in Mabel's hands. Mabel was not a child to be driven in any case. There was a struggle. Dot rescued the two little mites, but Mabel slapped the little Corner House girl's cheek twice--and her hand left its mark.

"You're a nasty little thing, Dot Kenway!" scolded Mabel, marching down the steps and out at the gate. "I never _did_ like you much, and I just _hate_ you, now."

Dot sat down, sobbing, on the step, and nursed the bruised cheek. The four little kittens squirmed all over her lap and tumbled about like drunken caterpillars--and that helped some. For soon the tears were dried and Dot began to laugh at their antics. Just the same, Mabel's blow had left a bruise upon the smallest Corner House girl's heart which she long remembered.

Tess had had a rather hard day, too. Of course, there was a new teacher ruling over the eighth grade; and strict as Miss Pepperill had been, even Sammy Pinkney would have been glad to "swap back" for the red-haired teacher, after a session's experience with Miss Grimsby.

Miss Grimsby was young, but she looked a lot older than most of the other teachers. She wore her sleek, black hair brushed straight back from a high, blue-veined forehead. She wore enormous, shell-bowed spectacles.

Miss Grimsby was what is known as a substitute teacher. She had brought to her work in the eighth grade the very newest ideas about teaching taught in the normal schools. She knew all about her textbooks, and how to teach the studies allotted her; but she did not know the first living thing about those small animals known as boys and girls.

She was fond of standing up before the class and giving little lectures upon a multitude of subjects. This method of teaching was much approved by the faculty of the normal college from which Miss Grimsby had just graduated.

Poor Jakey Gerlach had already come into conflict with the new teacher, and once having decided that Jakey was a "bad" boy, Miss Grimsby saw him only in that peculiar light, no matter what he did.

"Children," said she, on one occasion, "you should be able to do anything equally well with either hand. That is called 'being ambidextrous.' See! I write with either hand, like this," and she illustrated with chalk upon the blackboard.

"With a little practice you will find it just as easy to do anything with one hand as it is with the other. Will you try? Jakey Gerlach! What are you squirming there for in that disgraceful manner?"

"I--I--please, Teacher," stammered Jakey, "I was only trying to put mine left hand in mine right-hand trousers' pocket."

And Jakey remained after school for this. He was not alone in his punishment. More than half the eighth grade began to report late at their homes nowadays.

On this special "blue Monday," Tess Kenway was one of the unfortunates. Without being a goody-goody girl, Tess had a remarkable record for deportment. It hurt her cruelly to be told to remain with the other culprits on this occasion.

Nor did she think she deserved the punishment. It came about through her trying to help Etta Spears, who sat across the aisle from Tess.

Etta got up to recite and dropped her slate pencil. When the next girl, Julia Bowen, was called to arise, she would be sure to put her foot upon the pencil and break it. So Tess leaned from her seat to rescue the pencil.

"What are you doing--crawling on the floor there--Theresa?" demanded Miss Grimsby, sharply.

"I--I was reaching for this pencil, please, Teacher," said Tess, holding up her prize.

"Bring it here instantly! If you can't keep your pencils in their proper place in your desk, you must lose them."

"Oh, but _please_, Miss Grimsby! It isn't my pencil," gasped Tess.

"Then, what are you doing with it?" demanded the teacher, severely.

"Oh, Teacher!" almost sobbed Tess.

"Bring that pencil here!"

"But it is Etta's!" Tess, in desperation, cried.

"How came it on the floor?"

"She dropped it, Teacher."

"Bring it here. Etta will go without her pencil for a day. You, Theresa, will remain after school for interfering with the pencil and for interrupting the class.

"Next girl! Julia Bowen! Rise!"

So Tess was not at home when Mabel Creamer slapped Dot and broke the truce that had endured for a long time between the Creamer cottage and the old Corner House.

Of course, Dot told her all about it. Tess was the gentlest child imaginable, but that Dot should have been struck, stirred the older sister "all up."

"The awful thing!" she gasped. "Why--why didn't you call Ruthie--or Aggie?"

"Why--ee!" said Dot, slowly. "What good would that do, Tessie? They couldn't put the slap back. My face would have ached just the same."

"Never mind, dear," crooned Tess. "I'll give you my best pencil. I don't much care for pencils any more, anyway."

Ruth had been to the bank again at noon. She showed the old banknote to the cashier, Mr. Crouch being out. The cashier said the bill was perfectly good.

"And that settles it," she said, wearily, to Agnes, on their way home from school. "If one bill is good the others must be."

"Oh! I can't believe it!" murmured Agnes. "Fifty thousand dollars in cash!"

"And as much more in unregistered railroad bonds. They were perfectly good, too--and there must be a lot of dividends due upon them. Oh, a fortune indeed!" groaned Ruth, in conclusion.

"I can't believe it," repeated her astonished sister.

"_I_ can believe it--very easily," Ruth retorted. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Agnes that all that fortune they had lost belonged to Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. But Agnes said:

"But Neale could not possibly have known it was good."

"Oh! Neale!" exclaimed Ruth, exasperated.

"You don't really believe he would do anything wrong, do you, Ruthie?" queried Agnes, pleadingly.

"He did enough wrong when he carried that book away with him to Tiverton."

"But _I_ let him have the book," Agnes confessed.

"He had no right to go off with it," the other said stubbornly. "And when he brought it back, why did he throw it down there on the porch in that careless manner?"

"Of course he didn't know the money was good," Agnes repeated, trying to bolster up her own shaking faith in Neale O'Neil.

For a very unhappy thought had come into Agnes' mind. Ruth had been so certain that the money and the bonds were good that she might have convinced Neale that evening, when he had come home from Tiverton. Agnes was quite sure he had not considered the printed banking paper worth anything before that time. Had he found a chance to take the book out of the bag and hide it after he had flung himself in anger out of the sitting room?

"I don't know how he could have done it," groaned Agnes, to herself. "But why did he come back again that night, if it wasn't for the album?"

She had to admit that Neale must have been the midnight visitor to the dining room. There was no other explanation of _that_ incident.

Neale had not been to church on Sunday, but she had seen him at school on this day, for he was in her grade; but he had not spoken to her or even looked at her.

Agnes was hurt to the quick by this. She felt that Ruth had been unkind to Neale; but on her part she was sure she was guilty of no unfriendliness.

"He needn't spit it out on _me_," was the way Agnes inelegantly expressed it. "And why did he want to come over here and play burglar Saturday night? And goodness! what did he want in that closet in the dining room chimney?

"He surely wouldn't want Aunt Sarah's peppermints," she giggled. "And what else is there in that cupboard?"

The thought sent Agnes marching into the dining room to look at the locked door. And there stood Barnabetta Scruggs!

Barnabetta was at the door of the closet in the chimney. She did not appear to hear Agnes come into the room. She was closely examining the lock on the closet door.

"What under the sun is _she_ after?" thought Agnes. "What's that in her hand? A pair of shears?"

Barnabetta raised the shears just as though she contemplated trying to pick the lock with them. She laid hold upon the knob and shook the door.

"For pity's sake, Barnabetta!" exclaimed Agnes. "What do you want there?"

The circus girl jumped and actually screamed. Her thin face flushed and then paled. Her eyes flashed.

"I might ha' known 'twas _you_--always snoopin' around!" snarled Barnabetta.

"Why--why--"

"Can't I look at that old lock if I want to? I'm not hurtin' it."

"And I'm pretty sure you can't unlock it with those shears," returned the wondering Agnes.

"Who's trying to unlock it?" snapped Barnabetta.

"You were."

"Weren't, neither!" declared the circus girl, throwing down the shears. "Leastways, not for myself," she added.

"I'd like to know what it is you want out of that closet--what anybody wants there," Agnes said, wonderingly.

"Your auntie wants some more peppermints," said Barnabetta, boldly. "She couldn't unlock it with the key. I didn't know but the lock could be picked."

"Where's the key?" asked Agnes, swiftly.

"Your auntie took it away with her again."

Agnes stared at her in amazement. She believed Barnabetta must be telling an untruth. "I'm going to find out what's in that closet--that's what I am going to do," she declared.

She marched out of the room. She heard Barnabetta laugh unpleasantly as she closed the door. Agnes went up to Aunt Sarah's room.

"Aunt Sarah," Agnes said earnestly, "won't you let me have the key of the dining room closet? I want to get something out of it."

"Good Land of Liberty!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah, with asperity. "You're welcome to that old key, I'm sure. I dunno why I brought it up here again. Ye can't unlock it, gal. I declare! I was an old silly to lock the door the other night. Now the lock's fouled and ye can't turn the key neither-which-way!"

She took the big brass key out of her bag and handed it to the amazed Agnes. Agnes was amazed because she had discovered that Barnabetta had told the truth about it!