"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 b.u.mped 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 m.u.f.fled 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 m.u.f.fled voice from inside the burning shack, when he learned who was below. And this the crowd did, pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sortment 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 ap.r.o.n. 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.ses 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.