Everybody had at last gone to bed in the big house-Linda and Uncle Rufus on the third floor, and Mrs. McCall and the rest of the family in their several rooms on the second. Midnight had some time pa.s.sed when everybody was awakened-but that gradually-by a tintinnabulation of silvery bells.

"What is it?" gasped Dot, from her little bed, to Tess, in hers. It was a wonder that the littlest Corner House girl woke up at all, for she was usually a very sound sleeper. But her head was full of Santa Claus on this night. "Is that reindeer bells, Tess?" she demanded.

"Then they are inside the house, and I don't believe they could come down our chimney, big as it is," declared Tess.

"Sammy Pinkney came down it once-you remember?"

"But he doesn't ring like bells," was the very practical reply.

Even Aunt Sarah Maltby heard the bells. She poked her head out of her room door in her nightcap and demanded:

"What's all that? Those are the bells on the Christmas tree. What does it mean, Mrs. MacCall?"

The housekeeper was already up. She came out into the hall and sent the little folks back to bed.

"Whatever it is, human or sperrit, I'll be goin' by myself tae see," she declared. "The night before Christmas is no time for you bairns to be out of your beds."

"Do you s'pose it is Saint Nick?" asked Dot, in an awed tone.

"It may be," said the housekeeper, descending the front stairs. "And if it is, he doesn't want to see you. Go back to bed as I tell ye."

CHAPTER VII

INTO TROPIC CLIMES

The tinkle of the bells on the Christmas tree was silvery in tone, and there was nothing about the sound to frighten even Dot. But it was mysterious, and Mrs. MacCall approached the door of the dining-room with some hesitation.

She had only recently left the room with the arrangements completed for Christmas morning when the youngsters should first run down to look at the present-laden tree, and exclaim in "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" at the sight.

She could imagine nothing that would cause the tree to sway and thus make the silvery bells tinkle. There was no window open which would create a draft and so wag the branches back and forth. What could be the cause of the bells' ringing?

She turned the k.n.o.b of the door and pushed it open a tiny bit. There was no light in the room, although the tree was strung with electric bulbs of rainbow hues. Instead of an open fireplace now, as there once had been, there was a gas log under the old mantelpiece. But this was turned off. The steam-heating plant in the cellar warmed the house sufficiently and the logs were used only in the fall and spring before and after Uncle Rufus and Neale started the heater.

Mrs. MacCall's finger searched for the b.u.t.ton on the wall just inside the door which would light all the lamps in the room. And just then she heard a m.u.f.fled thumping sound, and the bells all rang again!

"Slosh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the housekeeper. "'Tis ghosties, sure enough!"

She did not mean that, of course. She was just puzzled. But she knew, in spite of the darkness, that there was something moving under the Christmas tree where the rug had been turned back for the framework, which held the tree, to stand.

"Who is it?" demanded Aunt Sarah from above.

"I'm nae so sure 'tis not Sammy Pinkney," grumbled the housekeeper.

"He's always up to something. To be sure! I was right," she added, for now she had pressed the electric light b.u.t.ton and the whole room was ablaze with light.

The thing under the tree jumped again and the bells once more jingled.

The housekeeper stepped forward in wonder. Was it another big cat?

Or-or--

"For the land's sake!" gasped Mrs. MacCall. "I knew I was right. n.o.body but that dratted Sammy would have brought in a rabbit and tied it to that tree. And there's a Christmas card tied to the creature's neck."

She had to laugh, however. It was not a cat, but a big Belgian hare-the biggest Mike Donlan had in his pen. And the price of it had simply wiped out Sammy's bank account!

He had scrawled on a mistletoe bepictured card the following:

"Fore Tes and Dot, from there fathefull frend S. P."

Mrs. MacCall had not the heart to say anything about it when she went upstairs again, after having confined the Belgian hare in the sink closet in the kitchen, out of which he was not likely to gnaw his way before morning. The "Christmas bells" had ceased ringing, and so the two little girls went back to sleep without learning of their unexpected present until the proper time.

But a lot of fun was had over that gift of Sammy's. Neale and Uncle Rufus made a proper pen for the Belgian hare in one end of the goat shed where Billy b.u.mps chewed his cud in lonely glory.

"Billy won't eat him up, and maybe the two will become good friends,"

said Neale.

"What won't that boy think of next?" gasped Agnes, weak from laughter.

What Mrs. Pinkney said about it when she learned the nature of her son's "nice present" to Tess and Dot, was plenty! And how Sammy's father laughed!

"I can't understand," said the worried Mrs. Pinkney, "how that boy comes to do such ridiculous things. I know I never had such ideas when I was a child and I don't believe you did."

"No, I never did," her husband chuckled. "I own up that Sammy has inventive traits-and others-that he does not come by, by heredity."

"Say, Mom!" said Sammy thoughtfully.

"What is it, you strange boy?" sighed his mother.

"Didn't you have a chance to see me before I was born?"

"Goodness! No," gasped Mrs. Pinkney.

"Then I guess you must have 'bought a pig in a poke' and that's something Mrs. MacCall says is awful silly to do. You ought to have been more careful when you was picking out a boy to last."

Of course, Christmas was a great day in and about the old Corner House.

Although the older girls could not, as usual, visit their tenants in a poor part of the town and take them presents, Neale drove the little girls over there in the automobile and Mrs. Kranz, the "delicatessen lady," and the girls' very good friend, undertook to distribute the gifts to the needy.

Uncle Rufus's daughter, Petunia Blossom, and her large family, came in for a generous share of the good will that spilled out of the Corner House.

Neale O'Neil's good friend, Mr. Con Murphy, the cobbler, with whom the boy still lived, was not forgotten, and included in his list of presents was a fine green ribbon which Neale soberly produced and proceeded to tie around the fat neck of the perennial pig that occupied a clean sty in Mr. Murphy's back yard. For the old cobbler was always very fond of "the gintleman that pays the rint," which was his name for the pig.

Agnes tried to be as merry as her condition would allow. And on Christmas afternoon her school friends came in, and they had a little party.

"Aggie is managing to inject considerable pep into these proceedings, in spite of her lack of strength," Neale remarked to Ruth.

The news that the Corner House girls were going South for two months or so, was now general knowledge; so the young folks when they departed bade the Kenways good-by. It was positive that Agnes' face grew longer and longer during this proceeding, and when they had all gone she suddenly looked at Neale, gulped, grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him a bit, sobbing: