"I _do_ hope Tess comes pretty quick!" murmured Dot. "I--I'm just about going crazy!"

Tess came finally; but at first she was so excited by something that had happened in school that she could not listen to Dot's pleading that she should "come and look at the box."

Of course, Sammy Pinkney was in difficulties with the teacher again. And Tess could not see for once why he should be punished.

"I'm sure," she said earnestly, "Sammy did his best. And I brought the composition he wrote home for you to see, Ruthie. Sammy dropped it out of his book and I will give it to him to-morrow.

"But Miss Pepperill acted just like she thought Sammy had misbehaved himself. She said she hoped she hadn't a 'humorist in embryo' in her cla.s.s. What did she mean by that, Ruthie? What's a humorist in embryo!"

"A sprouting funny man," said Agnes, laughing. "Maybe Sammy Pinkney will grow up to write for the funny columns in the newspapers."

"Let us see the paper, Tess," said Ruth. "Maybe that will explain just what Miss Pepperill meant."

"And poor Sammy's got to stay after school for a week," said Tess, sympathetically, producing a much smudged and wrinkled sheet of composition paper.

"_Do_ come and see the box!" wailed Dot.

Tess went with her smaller sister then, leaving Ruth to read aloud for the delight of the rest of the family Sammy Pinkney's composition on

"THE DUCK

"The duck is a low heavyset bird he is a mighty poor singer having a coa.r.s.e voice like crows only worse caused by getting to many frogs in his neck. He is parshal to water and aks like hed swallowed a toy balloon that keeps him from sinking the best he can do is to sink his head straight down but his tail fethers is always above water. Duks has only two legs and they is set so far back on his running gears by Nachur that they come pretty near missin' his body altogether. Some ducks when they get big curls on their tails is called drakes and don't have to set or hatch but just loaf and go swimming and eat ev'rything in sight so if I had to be a duck I'd ruther be a drake. There toes are set close together the web skin puts them in a poor way of scratching but they have a wide bill for a spade and they walk like they was tipsy. They bounce and b.u.mp from side to side and if you scare them they flap there wings and try to make a pa.s.s at singing which is pore work. That is all about ducks."

"Do you suppose," cried Agnes in wonder, "that that boy doesn't know any better than that composition _sounds_?"

"Evidently Miss Pepperill thinks he does," laughed Ruth. "But it _is_ funny. I wonder what will happen to Sammy Pinkney when he grows up?"

"The question is, what will happen to him before he grows up," chuckled Neale. "That kid is a public nuisance. I don't know but that the dog-catchers will get him yet."

Meanwhile the two little girls had secured the paper box and opened it.

Their squeals drew all the others to the sitting room. Inside the neatly wrapped box was a round object in silver and gold foil, and when this was carefully unwound, a big, splendid golden pippin lay on the table.

"Why!" cried Dot, "it's one of our own apples."

"It is surely off our pippin tree," agreed Agnes.

"Who could have sent it?" Tess surmised. "And Dr. Forsyth brought it."

"Bringing coals to Newcastle," chuckled Neale.

But when Tess took up the apple, it broke in half. It had been cunningly cut through and through, and then the core scooped out, and the halves of the apple fastened together again.

"Oo-ee!" squealed Dot again.

For in the core of the apple was a wad of paper, and Tess spread this out on the table. It was a note and the reading of it delighted the two smaller girls immensely:

"My dear Lesser Half of the Corner House Quartette," it began.

"Your kindness in sending me the nice bag of apples has not been overlooked. I wanted to come and see you, and thank you in person; but my duties at present will not allow me to do so. We are short-handed here at the Women's and Children's Hospital and I can not spare the time for even an afternoon call.

"I would, however, dearly love to have you little girls, Theresa and Dorothy, both come to call on me, and take tea, some afternoon--the time to be set by your elder sister, Miss Ruth.

Ask her to write to me when you may come--on your way home from school, if you like.

"Hoping I shall have the pleasure of entertaining you soon, I am,

"Your loving and sincere friend, "MARION ELAND."

"I think that is just too sweet for anything of her," sighed Tess, ecstatically. "To call and take tea with her! Won't that be fine, Dot?"

"Fine!" echoed Dot. She bit tentatively into her half of the apple which had contained the invitation. "This--this apple isn't hurt a mite, Tess," she added and immediately proceeded to eat it.

CHAPTER VIII

LYCURGUS BILLET'S EAGLE BAIT

Ruth set the day--and an early one--for Tess and Dot to take tea with their new friend, Mrs. Eland. She wrote a very nice note in reply to that found in the core of the apple, and the little girls looked forward with delight to seeing the matron of the Woman's and Children's Hospital.

But before the afternoon in question arrived something occurred in which all the Corner House girls had a part, and Neale O'Neil as well; and it was an adventure not soon to be forgotten by any of them. Incidentally, Tom Jonah was in it too.

Ruth tried, on pleasant Sat.u.r.days, to invent some game or play that all could have a part in. This kept the four sisters together, and it was seldom that any Corner House girl found real pleasure away from the others. Ruth's only cross was that Agnes would drag Neale O'Neil into their good times.

Not that Ruth had anything against the white-haired boy. In spite of the fact that Neale was brought up in a circus--his uncle was Mr. Bill Sorber of Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie--he was quite the nicest boy the Corner House girls knew. But Ruth did not approve of boys at all; and she thought Agnes rude and slangy enough at times without having her so much in the company of a real boy like Neale.

She suggested a drive into the country for this late September Sat.u.r.day, chestnuts being their main object, there having been a sharp frost. Of course Neale had to arrange for the hiring of the livery team, and the stableman refused to let them have a spirited span of horses unless Neale drove.

"Well, get an automobile then!" exclaimed Agnes. "It's only three dollars an hour, with a man to drive, at Acton's garage. Goodness knows I'm just _crazy_ to ride in an auto--one of those big, beautiful seven-pa.s.senger touring cars. I wish we could have one, Ruthie!"

"I wish we could," said Ruth, for she, too, was automobile hungry like the rest of the world.

"Do! _do!_ ask Mr. Howbridge," begged Agnes.

"Not for the world," returned Ruth, decidedly. "He'd think we were crazy, indeed. There is money enough to educate us, and clothe and feed us; but I do not believe that Uncle Peter's estate will stand the drain of automobiles--no indeed!"

"Well," sighed Agnes. "We're lucky to have Neale about. You know very well if it were not for him the livery man would give us a pair of dead-and-alive old things. Mr. Skinner knows Neale is to be trusted with any horse in his stable."

This was true enough; but it added Neale O'Neil to the party. When they were about to depart from the old Corner House there was another unexpected member added to the company.

Tess and Dot were squeezed in beside Neale on the front seat. Ruth and Agnes occupied the back of the carriage with wraps and boxes and baskets of eatables. This was to be an all day outing with a picnic dinner in the chestnut woods.

"All aboard?" queried Neale, flourishing the whip. "Got everything?

Haven't left anything good to eat behind, have you?"

"Oh, you boys!" groaned Ruth. "Always thinking of your stomachs."

"Well! why were stomachs put in front of us, if not to be thought of and considered?" Neale demanded. "If not, they might as well have been stuck on behind like a knapsack, or like our shoulder-blades.