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CHAPTER XX
NEALE'S ENDLESS CHAIN

Skaters from both up and down the river augmented the crowd of spectators gathered along the shore to watch the fire. The fire-bells were clanging uptown, but as yet the first machine had not appeared. The firemen would have to attack the blaze from the street end of the dock, anyway.

"Father's got goods stored in the shed," said Clarence Bimberg, "and they'll try to save them. I guess Seneca's old shack will have to go."

"And all those books you told us about, Neale," Agnes cried.

"Wish I could get 'em out for him!" declared the generous boy.

"Pshaw! I can tell you how to do it. But you wouldn't dare," chuckled Clarence.

"How?" demanded Neale.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Well – mebbe not. But tell me anyhow."

"There's an old trap-door in the dock under that office-shack."

"You don't mean it, Clarry?"

"Yes, there is. I know it's there. But it mightn't be open now – I mean maybe it's nailed down. I don't believe Seneca knows it's there. The boards just match."

"Let's try it!" exclaimed Neale.

"Oh, Neale, you wouldn't!" gasped Agnes, who had heard the conversation.

"Of course he wouldn't," scoffed Clarence. "He's only bluffing. Father used to let us play around the old shack before Seneca got it to live in. And I found the trap. But I never said anything about it."

Neale looked serious, but he said: "Just show me how to reach it, Clarry."

"Why," said Clarence, "the ice is solid underneath the wharf. You can see it is. Skate right under, if you want," and he laughed again, believing Neale in fun.

"Show me," said the white-haired boy.

"Not much I won't! Why, the wharf boards are afire already, and the sparks will soon be raining down there."

"Show me," demanded Neale. "If there is a trap there – "

"Oh, Neale!" Agnes cried again. "Don't!"

"Don't you be a little goose, Aggie," said the earnest boy. "Come on, Clarry."

"Oh, I don't want to," said the other boy, seeing that Neale was in earnest now. "We'll get burned."

Neale grabbed his hand and whirled him around, and they shot in toward the burning wharf, whether Clarence would or no!

"Hey, boys, keep away from there!" shouted a man from the next dock. "You'll get burned."

"Oh, Neale, come back!" wailed Agnes.

"You hear, Neale O'Neil?" gasped Clarence, struggling in the bigger boy's grasp. "I don't want to go!"

"Show me where the trap is," said the boy who had been brought up in a circus. "Then you can run if you like. I'm not afraid."

"I am!" squealed Clarence Bimberg.

But he was forced by the stronger Neale to skate under the burning wharf. They bumped about for half a minute among the piles and the broken ice. They could hear the flames crackling overhead, and the smoke puffed in between the planks. The black ice was solid and there was light enough to see fairly well.

"There! There!" shrieked the frightened Clarence. "You can see it now, Neale! Let me go!"

It did not look like a trap-door to Neale. Yet some short, rotting steps led up out of the frozen water to the flooring of the old wharf. The moment he essayed to climb these steps on his skates, Clarence broke away and shot out from under the burning dock.

Neale was too determined to reach the interior of Seneca Sprague's shack to save the old prophet's books, to bother about the defection of his schoolmate. If Joe Eldred had only been at hand, he would have stood by!

"Oh, Neale! can you open it?" quavered a voice behind and below him.

Neale almost tumbled backward from the steps, he was so amazed. He looked down to see Agnes' rosy, troubled face turned up to his gaze.

"For pity's sake! get out of here, Aggie," he begged.

"I won't!" she returned, tartly.

"You'll get burned."

"So will you."

"But aren't you afraid?" the boy demanded, in growing wonder.

"Of course I am!" she gasped. "But I can stand it if you can."

"Oh, me!"

"Hurry up!" cried Agnes. "I can help carry out some of the books."

Meanwhile Neale had been pounding on the boards overhead. Suddenly two of them lifted a little.

"I've got it!" yelled Neale, in delight, and above the crackling of the flames and the confusion of other sounds without.

He burst up the rickety, old trap with his shoulders, and was met immediately by a stifling cloud of smoke. The interior of Seneca Sprague's shack was filled with the pungent vapor, although the flames were still on the outside.

"Don't get burned, Neale!" cried Agnes, coughing below from a rift of smoke, as the boy climbed into the little room.

"You better go away," returned Neale, in a muffled voice.

"I'll take an armful of books when I do go – if you'll hand 'em down to me," cried his girl chum.

"Oh, Aggie! if you get hurt Ruth will never forgive me," cried Neale, really troubled about the Corner House girl's presence in this place of danger.

"I tell you to give me some of those books, Neale O'Neil!" cried Agnes. "If you don't I'll come up in there and get them."

"Oh, don't be in such a hurry!" returned Neale.

He came to the smoky opening with his arms full and began to descend the steps, which creaked under his weight. He slipped on the skates which he had had no time to remove, and came down with a crash, sitting upon the lowest step. But he did not loose his hold on the books.

"Oh, Neale! are you hurt?" Agnes demanded.

"Only in my dignity," growled the boy, grimly.

Agnes began to giggle at that; but she grabbed the books from him. "Go back and get some more – that's a good boy!" she cried, and, whirling about, shot out from under the wharf.

The worried Ruth, who had not seen the first of this adventure, was standing near. Agnes deposited the volumes at her sister's feet.

"Look out for them, Ruthie!" Agnes cried. "Neale's going to get them all."

With this reckless promise she sped back under the burning wharf. Water was pouring upon the goods' shed now, freezing almost as fast as it left the hose-pipes, but the firemen had not reached the little shack.

Joe Eldred and some of the other boys reached the scene of Ruth's trouble and quickly understood the situation. If Neale O'Neil wanted to save Seneca Sprague's books, of course they would help him – not, as Joe said, that they "gave a picayune for the crazy old duffer."

"Form a chain, boys! form a chain!" commanded Neale's muffled voice from inside the burning shack, when he learned who was below. And this the crowd did, passing the armfuls of books back and out from under the wharf as fast as Neale could gather them and hand them down.

Agnes found herself put aside when Joe and his comrades got to work. But they praised her pluck, nevertheless.

"Those Corner House girls are all right!" was the general comment.

Poor Seneca came running to the end of a neighboring dock and took a flying leap – linen duster, carpet slippers, and all – down upon the ice. He was determined at first to get to his shack on the wharf, for he did not see what the boys were doing for him.

Men in the crowd ran to hold the poor old prophet back from what would likely have been his doom. He screamed anathemas upon them until they led him to where Ruth stood and showed him the great heap of books. Then almost immediately he became calm.

CHAPTER XXI
THE CORNER HOUSE THANKSGIVING

It was truly a Thanksgiving feast at the old Corner House that day, and it was enjoyed to the full by all. Nor was there a table in all Milton around which sat a more apparently incongruous company.

At first glance one might have thought that the Corner House girls had put forth a special effort to gather together a really fantastical company to celebrate the holiday. Uncle Rufus, at least, had never served quite so odd an assortment of guests during all the years he had been in Mr. Peter Stower's employ.

At one end of the table the old Scotch housekeeper presided, in a fresh cap and apron. Her hard, rosy face looked as though it had received an extra polishing with the huck towel on the kitchen roller.

At the far end of the long board, covered with the best old damask the house afforded, and laid with the heavy, sterling plate that Unc' Rufus tended so lovingly, and the cut glass of old-fashioned pattern, was silver-haired Mr. Howbridge. He was a man very precise in his dress, given to the niceties of the toilet in every particular. He wore rimless glasses perched on his aristocratic beak of a nose, a well cared-for mustache much darker than his hair, and had very piercing eyes.

On his right was prim Aunt Sarah – Aunt Sarah, who never seemed to belong to the family, who lived so self-centered an existence, but who was sure to have her meddling finger in everything that went on in the old Corner House, especially if it was desired that she should not.

Aunt Sarah glared across the table at a tall, lean, ascetic-looking man in a rusty, old-fashioned, black, tail coat that was a world too wide for him across the shoulders, and with his sleek, long hair parted very carefully in the middle, and falling below the high collar of the coat.

Those who had never seen Seneca Sprague save in his flapping duster and straw hat, would scarcely have recognized him now.

Ruth, after the fire, when the prophet had been made to understand that all his possessions for which he really cared were saved, had induced him to come home with them to eat the Thanksgiving feast.

"It is fitting that we should give thanks – yea, verily," agreed Seneca, his mind rather more muddled than usual by the excitement of the fire. "I saw the armies of Armageddon advancing with flame-tipped spears and flights of flashing arrows. They were all – all – aimed to overwhelm me. But their hands were stayed – they could not prevail against me. Thank you, young man," he added, briskly, to Neale O'Neil. "You have a pretty wit, and by it you have saved my library – my books that could not be duplicated. I have the only Apocrypha extant with notes by the great Swedenborg. Do you know the life of George Washington, young man?"

"Pretty well, sir, thank you," said Neale, gravely.

"It is well. Study it. That great being who sired our glorious country, is yet to come again. And he will purge the nation with fire and cleanse it with hyssop. Verily, it shall come to pass in that day – "

"But we mustn't keep Mrs. MacCall waiting for us, Mr. Sprague," Ruth had interrupted him by saying. "You can tell us all about it later."

They had bundled him into a carriage near the burned dock, to hide his torn duster and wild appearance, and had brought him to the old Corner House – Ruth and Agnes and Neale. There he was soon quieted. Neale helped him remove the traces of the struggle he had had with those who kept him from going into the fire, and likewise helped him dress for dinner.

Uncle Peter Stower's ancient wardrobe furnished the most of Seneca's holiday garb. "Mr. Stower was a meaty man," the prophet said, in some scorn. "His girth should have been upon his conscience, for verily he lived for the greater part of his life on the fat of the land. His latter days were lean ones, it is true; but they could not absolve him from his youthful gastronomic sins."

Ruth had some fear that the odd, old fellow might make trouble at the table; but Seneca Sprague had not always lived the untamed life he now did. He had been well brought up, and had associated with the best families of Milton and the county in his younger days.

Mr. Howbridge was surprised to find Seneca Sprague sitting in the ancient parlor of the old Corner House when he arrived – an unfriendly room which was seldom opened by the girls. But the lawyer shook hands with Seneca and told him how glad he was to hear that his library had been saved from the fire.

"One may say by a miracle," the prophet declared solemnly. "As Elijah was fed by the raven in the wilderness, so was my treasure cared for in time of stress."

He talked after that quite reasonably, and when the girls in their pretty dresses fluttered to their seats about the table, and with Neale O'Neil filled them all, the company being complete, Ruth, looked to Seneca to ask a blessing.

His reverent grace, spoken humbly, was most fitting. Linda opened the door. A great breath of warm, food-laden air rushed in. Uncle Rufus appeared, proudly bearing the great turkey, browned beautifully and fairly bursting with tenderness and – dressing!

"Oh-ee!" whispered ecstatically, the smallest Corner House girl. "He looks so noble! Do – do you s'pose, Tess, that it will hurt him when Uncle Rufus carves?"

"My goodness!" exclaimed Neale, "it will hurt us if he doesn't carve the turk. I couldn't imagine any greater punishment than to sit here and taste the other good things and renege on that handsome bird."

But Seneca Sprague did not hear this comment. He ate heartily of the plentiful supply of vegetables; but he would not taste the turkey or the suet pudding.

It was a merry feast. They sat long over it. Uncle Rufus set the great candelabra on the table and by the wax-light they cracked nuts and drank sweet cider, and the younger ones listened to the stories of their elders.

Even Aunt Sarah livened up. "My soul and body!" she croaked, with rather a sour smile, it must be confessed, "I wonder what Peter Stower would say to see me sitting here. Humph! He couldn't keep me out of my home forever, could he?"

But nobody made any reply to that statement.

CHAPTER XXII
CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE

The day following Thanksgiving that year would ever be known as "Black Friday" in the annals of Milton school history. And it came about like this.

Professor Ware had given notice the Saturday previous that there would be two rehearsals on that day of The Carnation Countess. The morning rehearsal was for the choruses, the dance numbers and tableaux, and especially for those halting Thespians whom the professor called "lame ducks" – those who had such difficulty in learning their parts.

The afternoon rehearsal was the first full rehearsal – every actor, both amateur and professional, must be present, and the play was to be run through from the first note of the overture to the final curtain. For the first time the scholars would hear the orchestral arrangement of the music score.

And right at the start – at the beginning of the morning rehearsal – the musical director was balked. Innocent Delight was not present.

"What's the matter with that girl?" demanded the irate professor of everybody in general and nobody in particular. "Was Thanksgiving too much for her? I expected some of you boys would perform gastronomic feats to make the angels tremble. But girls!"

"The Severns went down to Pleasant Cove over Thanksgiving. They haven't got home yet," announced a neighbor of the missing Trix.

"What? Gone out of town? And after all I said about the importance of to-day's rehearsals!" exclaimed the director. "This is no time for a part as important as that of Innocent Delight to be read."

But they had to go on with the play in that halting manner. Trix Severn's lines were read; but her absence spoiled the action of each scene in which she should have appeared.

"But goodness knows!" snapped Eva Larry, who, with the rest of the "penitent sisterhood," as Neale called them, watched the rehearsal, "Trix will spoil the play anyway. But won't she get it when she comes this afternoon?"

The play halted on to the bitter end. The amateur performers grew tired; the director grew fussy. His sarcastic comments toward the end did not seem to inspire the young folk to a spirited performance of their parts. They were discouraged.

"We should announce this on the bills as a burlesque of The Carnation Countess," declared Professor Ware, "and as nothing else. Milton people will laugh us out of town."

The girls and teachers in the audience realized even better than the performers just how bad it was. The little folk were excused, for they had all done well, while the director tried his best to whip the others into some sort of shape for the afternoon session.

"I know very well that Madam Shaw will refuse to sing her part with a background of such blunderers!" exclaimed Professor Ware, bitterly, at the last. "Nor will the other professionals be willing to risk their reputations, and the play itself, in such a performance. Our time has gone for nothing. And if Innocent Delight does not appear for the afternoon performance – "

His futile threats made little impression upon the girls and boys. They were – for the time – exhausted. Ruth went home in tears – although she had not drawn one word or look of critical comment from the sharp-spoken director. Tess was very solemn, and continued to repeat her part of Swiftwing over and over to herself – although she knew it perfectly.

Dot danced along, saying: "Well! I don't care! I buzzed all right – I know I did! Buzz! buzz! buzz-z-z-z!"

"Goodness gracious!" ejaculated the nervous Agnes, who felt for them all, though not having a thing to do with the play – "Goodness gracious! you were wishing for a 'buzzer,' Dot Kenway. I don't think you need one. Nature must have made a mistake and meant you for a bee, anyway. I don't see how you ever came to be born into the Kenway family, instead of a bee-hive!"

Dot pouted at that, but quickly changed her expression when she saw Sammy Pinkney careering along the street like a young whirlwind. Sammy, for his sins, had been forbidden to participate in The Carnation Countess– not that it seemed to trouble him a bit! Anything that occurred in the schoolhouse was trial and tribulation to Master Pinkney. They could not fool him into believing differently, just by calling it a "play!"

"Oh, bully! bully! bully!" he sang, coming along the street in a "hop, skip and a jump pace," the better to show his joy. "Oh, Dot! oh, Tess! you never can guess what's happened."

"Something awful, I just know," said Tess, "or you wouldn't be so glad."

"Huh!" grunted Sammy, stopping in the middle of his fantastic dance, and glaring at the next to the youngest Corner House girl, "You wait, Tess Kenway! You're 'teacher's pet'; but nobody else likes old Pepperpot. I guess it will be in the paper to-night, and everybody will be glad of it."

"What has happened to Miss Pepperill?" demanded Ruth, seeing into the mystery of the boy's speech – at least, for a little way.

"Then you ain't heard?" crowed Sammy.

"And we're not likely to, if you don't hurry up and say something," snapped Agnes.

"Well!" growled Sammy. "She's hurt-ed. She was run down by an automobile on High Street. They wanted to take her to the hospital – the one for girls and babies, you know – "

"Oh! Mrs. Eland's hospital!" gasped Tess.

"Yep. But she wouldn't go there. They say she made 'em take her to her boarding house. And she's hurt bad. And, oh, goody! there won't be any school Monday!" cried the young savage, beginning to dance again.

"Don't you fool yourself!" exclaimed Agnes, for Tess was crying frankly, and Dot had a finger in her mouth. "Don't you fool yourself, Sammy Pinkney! They'll have plenty of time to find a substitute teacher before school opens on Monday."

"Oh, they won't!" wailed the boy.

"Yes they will. And I hope it will be somebody a good deal worse than Miss Pepperill. So there!"

"Oh, but there ain't nobody worse," said Sammy, with conviction, while Tess looked at her older sister with tearful surprise.

"Why, Aggie!" she said sorrowfully. "I hope you don't mean that. 'Cause I've got to go to school Monday as well as Sammy."

Tess was really much disturbed over the news of Miss Pepperill's injury. She would not wait for luncheon but went straight over to the house where her teacher boarded, and inquired for her.

The red-haired, sharp-tongued lady was really quite badly hurt. There was a compound fracture of the leg, and Dr. Forsyth feared some injury to the brain, for Miss Pepperill's head was seriously cut. Tess learned that they had been obliged to shave off all the teacher's red, red hair!

"And that's awful!" she told Dot, on her return. "For goodness only knows what color it will be when it grows out again. Miss Lippit (she's the landlady where Miss Pepperill boards) showed it to me. And it's beautiful, long, long hair."

"Mebbe it will come out like Mrs. MacCall's – pepper-and-salt color," said Dot, reflectively. "We haven't got a pepper-and-salt teacher in school, have we?"

Such light reflections as this did not please Tess. She really forgot to repeat the part of Swiftwing, the hummingbird, in her anxiety about the injured Miss Pepperill.

At two o'clock the big rehearsal was called.

"I don't believe I will go back with you," Agnes said, to Ruth. "I can't sit there and hear Trix murder that part. Oh, dear!"

"I bet you won't ever eat any more strawberries," chuckled Neale, who had come over the back fence of the Corner House premises, that being his nearest way to school.

"Don't speak to me of them!" cried Agnes. "A piece of Mrs. MacCall's strawberry shortcake would give me the colic, I know —just to look at it!"

"Oh, you'll get all over that before the strawberry season comes around again," her older sister said placidly. "You'd better come, Aggie."

"No."

"Oh, yes, Aggie, do come!" urged Neale. "Be a sport. Come and see and hear us slaughter The Carnation Countess. It'll be more fun than moping here alone."

"Well, I'll just cover my eyes and ears when Innocent Delight comes on," Agnes declared.

But Trix was not at the rehearsal. Information from the Severn house revealed the fact that the family was still at Pleasant Cove. It was evident that Trix's interest in The Carnation Countess had flagged.

Professor Ware gathered the principal professionals around him. His speech was serious. They had given the performance in several cities and large towns, and had whipped into shape some very unpromising material; but the director admitted that he was discouraged with the outlook here.

"I am inclined to say right here and now: Give it up. Not that the children as a whole do not average as high in quality as those of other schools; but the talent is lacking to take the amateur parts which have always been assigned to the girls and boys. The girls' parts are especially weak.

"One or two bad parts might be ignored – overlooked by a friendly audience. But here is this Innocent Delight girl, not here at all at the most important rehearsal we have had. And she is awful in her part, anyway; I admit it.

"I was misinformed regarding her. I received a note before the parts were given out, stating that she had had much experience in amateur theatricals. I do not believe that she ever even acted in parlor charades," added the professor, in disgust. "She must have a friendly letter-writer who is a professional booster.

"Well, it is too late to change such a part, I am afraid. But to read her lines this afternoon, all through the play, will cripple us terribly. Even if she is a stick, she can look the part, and walk through it."

Somebody tugged at the professor's sleeve. When he looked around he saw a flaxen-haired boy with a very eager face.

"I say, Professor! there's a girl here that knows Trix Severn's part better than she does herself."

"What's this? Another booster?" demanded the director, sorrowfully.

"Just try her! She knows it all by heart. And she's a blonde."

"Why haven't I seen her before, if she's so good? Is she in the chorus?" demanded the doubtful professor.

"She hasn't had any part in the play at all – yet," declared Neale O'Neil, banking all upon this chance for Agnes. "But you just try her out!"

"She knows the lines?"

"Perfectly," declared the boy, earnestly.

He dared say no more, but he watched the professor's face sharply.

"I don't suppose she can do any more harm than the other," muttered the desperate director. "Send her up here, boy. Odd I should not have known there was an understudy for Innocent Delight."

Neale went down to the row of seats in which Agnes and a few of the "penitent sisterhood" sat. "Say!" he said, grinning at Agnes and whispering into her pretty ear, "Now's your chance to show us what you can do."

"What do you mean, Neale O'Neil?" she gasped.

"The professor is looking for somebody to walk through Trix's part – just for this rehearsal, of course."

"Oh, Neale!" exclaimed the Corner House girl, clasping her hands. "They'd never let me do it."

"I don't believe you can," laughed Neale. "But you can try if you want to. He told me to send you up to him. There he stands on the stage now."

Agnes rose up giddily. At first she felt that she could not stand. Everything seemed whirling about her. Neale, with his past experience of the circus in his mind, had an uncanny appreciation of her feelings.

"Buck up!" he whispered. "Don't have stage-fright. You don't have to say half the words if you don't want to."

She flashed him a wonderful look. Her vision cleared and she smiled. Right there and then Agnes, by some subtle power that had been given her when she was born into this world, became changed into the character of Innocent Delight – the part which she had already learned so well.

She had sat here throughout each rehearsal and listened to Professor Ware's comments and the stage manager's instructions. She knew the cues perfectly. There was not an inflection or pose in the part that she had not perfected her voice and body in. The other girls watched her move toward the stage curiously – Neale with a feeling that he had never really known his little friend before.

"Hello, who's this?" asked one of the male professionals when Agnes came to the group upon the stage.

"The very type!" breathed Madam Shaw, who had just come upon the platform in her street costume. "Professor! why did you not get this girl for Innocent Delight?"

"I have," returned the director, drily. "You are the one who has studied the part?" he asked Agnes.

"Yes, sir," she said, and all her bashfulness left her.

"Open your first scene," commanded the professor, bruskly.

The command might have confused a professional – especially when the player had had no opportunity of rehearsing save in secret. But Agnes had forgotten everything but the character she was to play. She opened her lips and began with a vivacity and dash that made the professionals smile and applaud when she was through.

"Wait!" commanded the professor, immediately. "If you can do that as well in the play – "

"Oh! but, sir," said Agnes, suddenly coming to herself, and feeling her heart and courage sink. "I can't act in the play – not really."

"Why not?" he snapped.

"I am forbidden."

"By whom, I'd like to know?"

"Mr. Marks. We girls of the basket ball team cannot act. It is a punishment."

"Indeed?" said the director, grimly. "And are all the girls Mr. Marks sees fit to punish at this special time, as able as you are to take part?"

"Ye-yes, sir," quavered Agnes.

"Well!" It was a most expressive observation. But the director said nothing further about Mr. Marks and his discipline. He merely turned and cried:

"Ready for the first act! Clear the stage."

To Madam Shaw he whispered: "Of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer."

"But one good, smart girl like this one may come near to saving the day for you, Professor."