Ruth only nodded coolly. Agnes turned her back on him, while the little girls stared as wonderingly at Lycurgus Billet as they would had he been a creature from another world.

Bob Buckham and little Sissy, as he called her, were having a talk at one side. Something that shone brightly pa.s.sed from the farmer's hand into the child's grimed palm.

"Come on, Pap!" said Sue, bruskly. "Let's go home. These folks don't want us here."

"Lazy, shiftless, inconsequential critter," growled Bob Buckham, coming back to the dead eagle, as Lycurgus and his daughter moved slowly away across the field.

But then the old man's face cleared up quickly, though he sighed as he spoke.

"That only goes to show ye! Some folks never have no chick nor child and others has got 'em so plentiful that they kin afford ter use 'em for eagle bait."

His lips took a humorous twist at the corners, his eyes sparkled, and altogether his bewhiskered countenance took on a very pleasant expression. The Corner House girls--at least, Ruth and Tess and Dorothy--began to like the old farmer right away.

"Got to take that critter home," declared Mr. Bob Buckham, as enthusiastic as a boy over his good luck. "Don't know how I come to lug my old gun along to-day when I started down this way. I never amounted to much as a hunter before. Always have left that to fellers like Lycurgus."

"It was very fortunate for that poor little Sue that you had your rifle," Ruth said warmly.

"Oh, no, ma'am," returned Mr. Buckham. "It was that dog of yourn saved little Sissy. But I reckon I saved the dog."

"And we're awfully much obliged to you for _that_, sir," spoke up Tess.

"Aren't we, Dot?"

"Oh, yes!" agreed the smallest Corner House girl. "I thought poor Tom Jonah was going to be carried right up in the air, and that the aigrets would eat him!"

"The _what_ would eat him?" demanded the farmer, paying close attention to what the little girls said, but puzzled enough at Dot's "a.s.sociation of ideas."

Tess explained. "She means the young eagles. She expects the nest is full of hungry little eagles. It would have been dreadful for Tom Jonah to have been carried off just like a lamb. I've seen a picture of an eagle carrying away a lamb in his claws."

"And many a one I reckon this big critter has stole," agreed the farmer.

"Right out of my own flock, perhaps. But your dog was too big a load for him."

"Now, son," he added, briskly to Neale, "you give me a h'ist with the bird. I'm going to take him home across my shoulders. Don't dare leave him here for fear some varmint will git him. I'll send the carca.s.s right to town and have it stuffed." "Goodness!" murmured the startled Tess.

"You don't _eat_ eagles, do you, sir?"

"Ho, ho!" laughed the farmer. "No-sir-ree-sir! I mean we'll have the skin stuffed. When Mr. Eagle is mounted, you'll see him looking down from the top of that old corner cupboard of mine in the sittin'

room--you remember it, Neale?"

"Yes, sir," said Neale, as he helped lift the heavy bird to the farmer's shoulders.

"What are you and these young ladies doin' around here to-day, Neale?"

asked Mr. Buckham.

Neale told him. "Got a team, have you?" said the farmer. "Then drive right around to the house. You know the way, boy. I wanter git better acquainted with these little gals," and he smiled broadly upon Tess and Dot.

Ruth was doubtful. Agnes shook her head behind the old man's back and pouted "No!"

"I see that dog's ear is torn," went on Mr. Buckham. "I wanter doctor it a bit. These eagle's talons may be pizen as nightshade."

So Ruth politely thanked Mr. Bob Buckham and said they would drive to his house. So near was the farmhouse, indeed, that Tess and Dot begged to walk with the farmer and so be a.s.sured that Tom Jonah should have "medical attention" immediately. Of course, the old dog would not leave the children to go with the strange man alone.

"We can open the gates, too, for Mr. Buckham," said Tess.

"Run along, then, children," the eldest sister said. "We will soon drive over with the chestnuts." Then she added rather sharply, but under her breath, to Agnes: "I don't see what your objection is to going to Mr.

Buckham's house. I think he is a real nice old man."

"Oh, I know he is," wailed her sister. "But you never stole his berries!"

"Aggie's conscience is troubling her," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "But don't you fret, Aggie. Old Bob Buckham won't know that _you_ were one of the raiders last May."

"Of course he will. When he knows my name. Didn't he send my name to Mr.

Marks with the others?"

"Did he?" returned Neale. "I wonder!"

CHAPTER X

SOMETHING ABOUT OLD TIMES

By the time Tess and Dot Kenway arrived at the rambling old farmhouse at Ipswitch Curve, where Mr. Buckham lived, they were as chatty and chummy with the man who had shot the eagle as though he were a life-long friend.

Without any doubt Mr. Bob Buckham loved children--little girls especially. And Mrs. Bob Buckham loved them, too.

There was a big-armed, broad-shouldered country girl in the wide, clean kitchen into which the children were first ushered. She was the maid-of-all-work, and she welcomed Tess and Dot kindly, if she did scold Mr. Buckham for tracking up her recently scrubbed floor with his muddy boots.

"Now, you jest hesh, Posy," he told her, good-naturedly. "You know you wouldn't have work enough to keep you interested, if 'twarn't for me.

Where's marm?"

"In the sittin' room, Mr. Buckham--and don't you darst to go in there without sc.r.a.pin' your feet. And _do_ put that nasty, great bird down outside."

"Don't darst to," said Mr. Buckham. "The dogs'll tear it to pieces. I wanter fix this Tom Jonah's ear. He's a brave dog, Posy. If it hadn't been for him, I swow! Lycurgus Billet's Sue would have been kerried off by this old eagle," and he told the wondering girl about the adventure.

"Now, you take these little gals in to marm, while I fix up Tom Jonah,"

Mr. Buckham urged.

So Tess and Dot were ushered into the sitting room by the big girl, Posy. Mrs. Buckham was not likely to be found anywhere but in her chair, poor woman, as the children very soon learned. She was a gentle, gray-haired, becapped old lady who never left her chair, saving for her bed at night. She was a paralytic and could not walk at all; but her fingers were busy, and she was fairly surrounded by bright colored worsteds and wools, finished pieces of knitting and crocheting, and incompleted work of like character.

Out of this hedge of bright-hued fancy-work, Mrs. Buckham smiled upon the smaller Corner House girls quite as warmly as did Mr. Buckham himself.

"I do declare! this is a pleasure," she cried, drawing one little girl after the other to her to be kissed. "Little flower faces! Aren't they, Posy? Wish I had a garden full o' them--that I do!"

"My mercy, Mrs. Buckham! I'm glad you ain't," laughed the maid. "Not if they all favored Mr. Buckham and brought as much mud in on their feet as he does."

"Never mind, Posy," cried the very jolly invalid. "_I_ don't track up your clean floors--and that's a blessing, isn't it?"

Dot looked rather askance at the bright-colored afghan that hid the crippled legs of the good woman. The legs were so still, and the afghan covered them so completely, that to the little girl's mind it seemed as though she had no lower limbs at all!