Chapter II: A Difficult Case

The four orphaned Kenway sisters lived in Bloomsburg when they were first introduced in the initial volume of this series, called “The Corner House Girls.” Ruth, the eldest, had been doing her best for months to mother her sisters and to take care in addition of Aunt Sarah Maltby, who really was a trial.

At a time when Ruth scarcely knew which way to turn for money to support the family, Mr. Howbridge, a lawyer of Milton, appeared with really wonderful tidings. A distant relative of the Kenways, Uncle Peter Stower, had died and left the four Kenway girls all his property. This included the Stower homestead in Milton, known far and wide as the old Corner House.

Mr. Howbridge was appointed guardian of the girls, as well as executor of the Stower Estate, and Ruth, Agnes, Tess and Dot went to Milton, taking Aunt Sarah with them, and began what proved to be a most interesting and exciting existence in the old Corner House—and elsewhere.

How they made the most delightful friends and had the most wonderful adventures is told in the succeeding volumes of the series, and include experiences at school, tenting on the seashore, taking part in a school play, finding a very odd treasure, the discovery of which aided very needy people, adventures on a delightful motor tour. It was in the seventh volume, “The Corner House Girls Growing Up,” that it seemed as though Ruth, who had then left school, had actually met the young man fated to be her partner in life when they both should grow older. Luke Shepard and his sister, Cecile, became as close friends of the Kenways as Neale O’Neil had previously become.

The eighth book of the series, “The Corner House Girls Snowbound,” told of exciting adventures in a winter camp in the Great Woods, and related the recovery of the Birdsall twins who had run away from Mr. Howbridge’s guardianship because they had got an entirely wrong impression of what a guardian was. At the time of this present nutting expedition, the Birdsalls were both at boarding-school and had learned to love Mr. Howbridge very much indeed, finding him, as the Kenways had, a delightful mentor and friend.

The ninth volume of the series related the story of the girls’ experiences on a houseboat, as well as introducing Neale O’Neil’s father who was long supposed to have lost his life in Alaska. The excitement of these incidents was scarcely over when Tess and Dot and Sammy Pinkney managed to get mixed up with a certain gypsy tribe; so the volume immediately preceding this present story, entitled “The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies,” had in it quite as much fun and as many thrills as any of the previous volumes.

Fall had come since then, and school had opened for all but Ruth. This was on a certain Saturday after the frosts had opened the chestnut burrs, and Luke Shepard had come from college to spend the week-end at the Corner House. A nutting expedition was suggested over night, and early on this morning Neale O’Neil, who still acted as the Kenways’ chauffeur, had got out the touring car and had driven the party of young folks to the only chestnut wood left standing, because of the blight, in the vicinity of Milton. Sammy Pinkney had, as usual, attached himself to the party, for he had the nature of a barnacle.

The scene just enacted, and the conversation of the seven members of the nutting party, should serve to introduce them to those new readers who have not previously become acquainted with the Corner House girls and their closer comrades. It was Ruth, of course, who took the lead when the three strange children made their announcement of the disaster that had happened in the woods.

“Where is your father lying?” she asked the spokesman of the trio.

“Over there,” said the girl, pointing rather vaguely, it must be confessed.

“Who is with him?” again questioned Ruth.

“Oh! He’s all alone. He was getting nuts for us. And when he fell and we couldn’t wake him up, we all ran away.”

“We—we were going home to tell mamma,” sobbed the smaller girl.

“We don’t know where she is,” said the boy, who was staring at Sammy Pinkney.

“Don’t you know where your mother is?” cried Agnes. “Fancy!”

“She’s at home,” said the first speaker.

“But we don’t know where home is,” declared the boy.

“I declare! You are lost!” said Agnes.

“What is your name?” Ruth asked of the older of the three.

“Pendleton. I’m Margy Ortwell, and my sister is Carrie Purvis, and my brother is Reginald Shotford Pendleton.”

“Huh!” grumbled the boy, “and they call me ‘Reggy’ and I hate it.”

“Make ’em call you ‘Shot,’” suggested Sammy promptly. “That’s a dandy name. Sounds like you belonged out West—or—or was one of those moving-picture fellows. Yep; Shot Pendleton sounds good to me.”

Neale O’Neil shouted with laughter, and Luke grinned broadly. But this was no time for laughter in the opinion of the older girls. That man might really be dead.

“Come! Lead us back to where your father has fallen,” said Ruth urgently, to Margy Pendleton.

The little girl turned rather waveringly and started off through the thicker wood. But her brother cried:

“Hey! Where you going, Marge? That ain’t the way we came.”

“Yes, ’tis, Reggy.”

“Aw, call me Shot. This fellow is right,” said Reginald, nodding at Sammy. “And, anyway, that isn’t the way to where daddy is.”

“Don’t you youngsters know how you came to this place?” asked Luke Shepard.

“Oh! You are really lost, are you?” Agnes repeated.

“How can we be lost when we are with you folks?” asked the boy.

“Can’t beat that for logic,” muttered the collegian. But like the other older ones he was troubled. “Go ahead and let’s see how we come out.”

The wood grew thicker as they progressed, and it was hard on the little folk. It was Ruth who called a halt.

“It cannot be that they came this way, Luke,” she said. “They could not have got through these briars.”

“If they did,” muttered Neale O’Neil, “they left no trail behind them.”

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” sobbed little Carrie Pendleton. “Then we’ve lost daddy and we’ll never find him again!”

“Of course we’ll find him, child,” cried Agnes soothingly, “only not in this direction.”

“But—but where shall we look?” murmured Ruth.

“Mamma will scold us dreadfully if we come home without daddy,” sobbed Margy.

Luke and Neale, as well as Ruth and Agnes, had become much troubled. It was evident that the Pendleton children had been so startled by their father’s fall and subsequently so frightened by his being unconscious, perhaps dead, that they knew very little of the course they had taken through the woods. They had run, crying and shouting, without any regard as to paths or directions. And now to locate the place where the accident had occurred was going to be difficult.

“What shall we do, Luke?” demanded Ruth of the young collegian.

But it was Agnes, with her complete trust in Neale, who hit upon the more direct scheme to solve the problem. She exclaimed:

“Neale O’Neil! You’re so awfully smart, why don’t you find out where the poor man is? You have said there isn’t a place about this part of the country that you haven’t tramped through. Can’t you identify the spot where these poor kiddies left their daddy?”

“Good idea, Aggie,” said the boy. “Wait. Give me a chance to cross-question them. Here, little folks, don’t cry any more. Stop crying and answer a few questions, and I promise to find your father.”

His assurance impressed the frightened Pendletons, small as they were. Margy and Reginald ceased their tears, at least.

“I don’t know where we were when it happened,” said Margy doubtfully.

“Now, just wait,” said Neale. “Tell me first of all where you live?”

“On Plane Street,” was the prompt reply.

“Oh, I know where that is!” cried Agnes. “It’s ’way out on the west side of town.”

“Just leave this to me. Don’t interrupt, Aggie,” said her boy friend. “Now, Margy, how did you get to these woods?”

“We walked. We started right after breakfast, and we brought our lunch——”

“And we eated—eated it all up,” gulped Carrie, the smallest Pendleton. “And I’m hungry,” she added in a mournful tone.

“Aw, don’t be a baby,” grumbled her brother. “Of course you’re hungry. You always are.”

“Now, hold on!” urged Neale again. “You walked out to the woods. And from Plane Street? Then I guess you got into the woods about where that old quarry is, didn’t you? That deep hole in the ground where it is all rocks?”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Margy. “And there’s a railing round it, and daddy told us not to go near, for the railing might break if we leaned on it.”

“That’s the place,” Neale said. “Now we’re getting to it. And after you got into the wood a way you saw a place where a little house had been burned down—oh! A long time ago?”

“You bet we did!” interrupted Reginald. “But I got some smut on my hands just the same,” and he displayed two very grimy hands.

“Getting warmer,” laughed Neale, yet he was serious the next moment. “Where did you go after you passed that burned cabin?”

“Why, we went after nuts,” said Margy soberly.

Luke grinned. “That stumps you, my boy?”

“Not so’s you’d notice it. I know that part of the wood. I know where the only good trees are in that direction. Now, see, Margy: Did you pass a dead tree with no leaves on it—Oh! A tall tree?”

“Yes, we did!” cried Reginald. “And we found our first nuts under it.”

“Aw, shucks!” exploded Sammy Pinkney. “How’d you do that? Nuts under a dead tree? Rats!”

“I think you are the most impolite boy, Sammy,” murmured Tess admonishingly.

“But we did,” said Margy. “I remember.”

“Of course you did,” said Neale quickly. “There is a fine big chestnut tree right next to that dead oak. I remember it. When the burrs fall and the nuts scatter, of course some of them fall under the dead tree.”

“I got a pocket full, so there!” said Reginald, looking hard at Sammy.

“Aw,” muttered Master Pinkney, but was otherwise dumb.

“All right,” Neale went on cheerfully. “We are getting on. And where did you go next?”

“Why, we went right on,” said Margy. “And we put the nuts we found in a bag that daddy carried. He said maybe we’d get enough to sell some.”

“But I want them to eat!” cried Carrie, who was evidently a child with an appetite not easily appeased.

“How long was it before your father climbed the tree?” was Neale’s next question.

“Pretty soon after we got into the real woods,” said Margy eagerly. “There was a fence there, for Daddy got a pole from it and knocked off some of the lowest burrs. Then he climbed up. And a branch broke and—and—Oh! Oh! I know he must be dreadfully hurt, for he wouldn’t speak to us after he fell.”

“Come on!” exclaimed Neale, starting off in a hurry. “I know just where that old fence is. All we’ve got to do is to find this end of it and then follow it up until we come to the place.”

“The poor man!” whispered Ruth to Luke, as the party set off in the wake of Neale O’Neil and Agnes.

But Agnes said to Neale, in a very broken voice:

“Oh, Neale! Suppose he is dead? What ever shall we do?”