CHAPTER VII

THE CORE OF THE APPLE

Dot Kenway came home a day or two after this, quite full of her first "easy lessons in physiology." It always seemed to Dot that when she learned a new fact it was the very first time it had ever been learned by anybody.

"Dot is just like a hen," Neale O'Neil said, chuckling. "She gets hold of a thing and you'd think n.o.body ever knew it before she did. She is the original discoverer of every fact that gets into her little noddle."

"But how does that make her like a hen?" demanded Ruth.

"Why, a hen lays an egg, and then gets so excited about it and makes such a racket, that you'd think that was the first egg that had been laid since the world began."

"What is all this you learned, Dottie?" demanded Neale, as they all sat around the study lamp; for Neale was often at the old Corner House with his books in the evening. He and Agnes were in the same grade.

"Oh, Neale! did you know you had a spinal cord?" demanded the smallest Corner House girl.

"No! you don't tell me? Where is it?" asked the boy, quite soberly.

"Why," explained the literal Dot, "it's a string that runs from the back of your head to the bottom of your heels."

At the shout of laughter that welcomed this intelligence, Tess said, comfortingly:

"Don't mind, Dot. That isn't half as bad as what Sammy Pinkney said to Miss Pepperill the other day. She asked us which was the most important to keep clean, your face or your teeth, and Sammy shouted: 'Your teeth, teacher, 'cause they can rot off and your face can't.'"

"And I guess that awful Miss Pepperpot punished him for that," suggested Dot, awed.

"Yes. Sammy is always getting punished," said Tess. "He never _does_ manage to say the right thing. And I think Miss Pepperill is kind of hard on him. But--but she's real nice to me."

"Well, why shouldn't she be, honey?" Ruth said. "You're not to be compared with that rude boy, I am sure," for Ruth Kenway did not much approve of boys, and only tolerated Neale O'Neil because the other children liked him so much.

"I should hope not!" agreed Agnes, who did like boys, but did not like the aforesaid scapegrace, Sammy Pinkney.

"I guess it was the sovereigns of England that makes her nice to me,"

said Tess, thoughtfully. "I 'spected to have an awfully hard time in Miss Pepperill's cla.s.s; but she has never been real cross with me. And what do you s'pose?"

"I couldn't guess," Ruth said smilingly.

"To-day she asked me about Mrs. Eland."

"Mrs. Eland?"

"Yes," said Tess, nodding. "She asked me if I'd seen Mrs. Eland lately, and if she'd found her sister. For you see," explained Tess, "I'd told her how poor Mrs. Eland felt so bad about losing her sister when she was a little girl and never being able to find her."

"Oh, yes, I remember," Ruth said.

"But I had to tell Miss Pepperill that I'd only seen her the one time--when she taught me the sovereigns of England. I'd really love to see Mrs. Eland once more. Wouldn't you, Dot?"

"Dear me, yes!" agreed the smaller girl. "I wonder if she ever got those apples?"

"Of course she did," put in Neale. "Didn't I tell you I took them to the hospital myself?"

"We--ell! But she never told us so--did she, Dot?" complained Tess.

However, the very next day the children heard from the bag of apples. A delightfully suspicious package awaited Tess and Dot at the old Corner House after school. It had been delivered by no less a person than Dr.

Forsyth himself, who stopped his electric runabout in front of the old Corner House long enough to run in and set the pasteboard box on the sitting room table.

"What forever is that, Doctor?" demanded Mrs. MacCall.

"I hope it's something to make these children sick," declared the doctor, gruffly. "They are too disgracefully healthy for anything."

"Yes, thank our stars!" said the housekeeper.

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried the apparently very savage medical man. "But what would become of all us poor doctors if everybody were as healthy as this family, I'd like to know?" and he tramped out to his car again in much make-believe wrath.

Dot came first from school and was shown the box. It was only about six inches square and it had a card tied to it addressed to both her and Tess. Dot eyed it with the roundest of round eyes, when she heard who had brought it.

"Why don't you open it, child?" demanded Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be downstairs. "Bring it here and I'll snip the string for you with my scissors."

"Oh! I couldn't, Aunt Sarah!" Dot declared.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" snapped the old lady. "It's not too heavy for you to carry, I should hope?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. But I can't open it till Tess comes," said Dot.

"Why not, I should admire to know?" repeated Aunt Sarah, in her jerky way.

"Why, it wouldn't be fair," said the smallest Corner House girl, gravely.

"Huh!" snorted the old lady.

"Tess wouldn't do that to me," Dot said, with a.s.surance.

Agnes chanced to get home next. "What ever do you s'pose is in it, Dottums?" she cried. "There's no name on it except yours and Tess'. And the doctor brought it!"

"Yes. But I know it isn't pills," declared Dot, seriously.

"How do you know that?" laughed Agnes.

"The box is too big," was the prompt reply. "He brings pills in just the _cunningest_ little boxes."

"Maybe it's charlotte russe," suggested Agnes. "They put them in boxes like this at the bakery."

"Oh! do you think so?" gasped Dot, scarcely able to contain herself.

"If they are charlotte rushings," chuckled Neale, who had brought home Agnes' books for her, "be careful and not be so piggish as the country boy who ate the pasteboard containers as well as the cake and cream of the charlotte russe. He said he liked them fine, only the crust was tough."

"Mercy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Agnes. "That's like a boy."