Part 42 (1/2)
”No. Thank the good Lord, I don't. And as I say, I blame myself for ever mentioning it before you gals.”
”'Little pitchers have big ears,'” quoted Agnes.
At that Dot flared up. ”I'm not a little pitcher! And I haven't got big ears!” The smallest Corner House girl knew now that her ill-timed remarks during her first call with Tess on Mrs. Eland had, somehow, made trouble. ”How'd I know that Lem--Lemon Aden's brother was Mrs.
Eland's father? He might have been her uncle.”
They had to laugh at Dot's vehement defense; but Mr. Bob Buckham went on: ”My fault, I tell ye--my fault. But I believe it's going to be all cleared up.”
”How?” asked Agnes, quickly.
”And will my Mrs. Eland feel better in her mind?” Tess asked gravely.
”That's what she will,” declared the farmer, vigorously. ”She told me about the old papers and the book left by her Uncle Lemuel over there to the Quoharis poorfarm where he died. I got a letter from her to the townfarm keeper, and I drove over and got 'em the other day.
”Like ter not got 'em at all--old Lem being dead nigh fifteen years now.
Wal! Marm and me's been looking over that little book. Lem mebbe was a leetle crazy--'specially 'bout money matters, and toward the end of his life. You'd think, to read what he'd writ down, that he died possessed of a lot of property instead of being town's poor. That was his foolishness.
”But 'way back, when he was a much younger man, and his brother Abe got scart over a trick he'd played about a horse trade and went West (the man who was tricked threatened to do him bodily harm), what old Lem wrote in that old diary was easy enough understood.
”There's some letters from Abe, too. Put two and two together,”
concluded Mr. Buckham, ”and it's easy to see where my pap's five hundred dollars went to. It was left by Abe all right in Lem's hands; but it stuck to them hands!”
”Oh!” cried Agnes, ”what a wicked man that Lemuel Aden must have been.”
”Nateral born miser. Hated ter give up a penny he didn't hafter give up.
But them two women--wonderful how they come together after all these years--them two women needn't worry their souls no longer about that five hundred dollars. I never heard as folks could be held accountable for their uncle's sins.”
That was the way the old farmer made Mrs. Eland see it, too. After all, she could only be grateful to the two smallest Corner House girls for bringing her and her sister together.
”If I had not taught Tess the old rhyme:
”'First William, the Norman, Then William, the son,'”
the matron of the Women's and Children's Hospital declared, ”and Tess had not recited it in school, Teeny, you would never have remembered it and felt the strange drawing toward me that you did feel.”
”And if you hadn't met that child, I have an idea that you'd have lost your position at this hospital--and then where'd we be?” said the convalescent Miss Pepperill, sitting propped up in her chair in the matron's room at the inst.i.tution in question. ”That child, Tess, certainly started all the interest now being shown in this hospital.”
That Monday night was the first public presentation of the play for the benefit of the hospital. Few were more anxious or more excited before the curtain went up, for the success of _The Carnation Countess_, than the Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil; but there was in store for them in the immediate future much more excitement than this of performing in the play, all of which will be narrated in the next volume of the series, to be ent.i.tled, ”The Corner House Girls' Odd Find: Where They Made It; and What the Strange Discovery Led To.”
Ruth Kenway felt a share of responsibility for the success of the play, as she naturally would for any matter in which she had even the smallest part. It was Ruth's way to be ”c.u.mbered by many cares.” Mr. Howbridge sometimes jokingly called her ”Martha.”
Dot was only desirous of singing her ”bee” song with the other children, and then hurrying home where she might continue her work on a wonderful Christmas outfit for her Alice-doll. Alice was to have a ”coming out party” during the holiday week, and positively _had_ to have some new clothes. Besides, _The Carnation Countess_ had become rather a stale affair for the smallest Corner House girl by this time.
Tess seriously hoped she would do nothing in her part of Swiftwing, the hummingbird, to detract from the performance. Tess did not take herself at all seriously as an actor; she only desired--as she always did--to do what she had to do, right.
As for Agnes, she was truly filled with delight. The fly-away's very heart and soul was in the character she played. She lived the part of Innocent Delight.
She truly did well in this first performance. No stage fright did she experience. From her first word spoken in the centre of the stage while Madam Shaw was being borne in by the Sedan men, till the last word she spoke in the final act of the play, Agnes Kenway acted her part with credit.