The Corner House Girls at School | Page 6

cried Agnes, with some vexation.
"I don't know you and you don't know me," said the boy. "Everybody
that I meet doesn't tell me the truth. So now!"
"Do you always tell the truth?" demanded Agnes, shrewdly.
Again the boy flushed, but there was roguishness in his brown eyes. "I
don't dare tell it--sometimes," he said.
"Well, there's nobody to scare me into story-telling," said Agnes, loftily,
deciding that she did not like this boy so well, after all.
"Oh, I'll risk it--for the peaches," said the white-haired boy, coming
back to the--to him--principal subject of discussion, and immediately
he climbed up the tree.
Agnes gasped again. "My goodness!" she thought. "I know Sandyface
couldn't go up that tree any quicker--not even with Sam Pinkney's
bulldog after her."
He was a slim boy and the limbs scarcely bent under his weight--not
even when he was in the top of the tree. He seemed to know just how to
balance himself, while standing there, and fearlessly used both hands to
pick the remaining fruit.
Two of the biggest, handsomest peaches he dropped, one after the other,
into the lap of Agnes' thick bath-gown as she held it up before her. The
remainder of the fruit he bestowed about his own person, dropping it
through the neck of his shirt until the peaches quite swelled out its
fullness all about his waist. His trousers were held in place by a stout
strap, instead of by suspenders.

He came down from the tree as easily as he had climbed it--and with
the peaches intact.
"They must have a fine gymnasium at the school where you go," said
Agnes, admiringly.
"I never went to school," said the boy, and blushed again.
Agnes was very curious. She had already established herself on the
porch step, wrapped the robe closely around her, shook her two plaits
back over her shoulders, and now sunk her teeth into the first peach.
With her other hand she beckoned the white-haired boy to sit down
beside her.
"Come and eat them," she said. "Breakfast won't be ready for ever and
ever so long yet."
The boy removed the peaches he had picked, and made a little pyramid
of them on the step. Then he put on his jacket and cap before he
accepted her invitation. Meanwhile Agnes was eating the peach and
contemplating him gravely.
She had to admit, now that she more closely inspected them, that the
white-haired boy's garments were extremely shabby. Jacket and
trousers were too small for him, as she had previously observed. His
shirt was faded, very clean, and the elbows were patched. His shoes
were broken, but polished brightly.
When he bit into the first peach his eye brightened and he ate the fruit
greedily. Agnes believed he must be very hungry, and for once the
next-to-the-oldest Kenway girl showed some tact.
"Will you stay to breakfast with us?" she asked. "Mrs. MacCall always
gets up at six o'clock. And Ruth will want to see you, too. Ruth's the
oldest of us Kenways."
"Is this a boarding-house?" asked the boy, seriously.

"Oh, no!"
"It's big enough."
"I 'spect it is," said Agnes. "There are lots of rooms we never use."
"Could--could a feller get to stay here?" queried the white-haired boy.
"Oh! I don't know," gasped Agnes. "You--you'd have to ask Ruth. And
Mr. Howbridge, perhaps."
"Who's he?" asked the boy, suspiciously.
"Our lawyer."
"Does he live here?"
"Oh, no. There isn't any man here but Uncle Rufus. He's a colored man
who lived with Uncle Peter who used to own this house. Uncle Peter
gave it to us Kenway girls when he died."
"Oh! then you own it?" asked the boy.
"Mr. Howbridge is the executor of the estate; but we four Kenway
girls--and Aunt Sarah--have the income from it. And we came to live in
this old Corner House almost as soon as Uncle Peter Stower died."
"Then you could take boarders if you wanted to?" demanded the
white-haired boy, sticking to his proposition like a leech.
"Why--maybe--I'd ask Ruth----"
"I'd pay my way," said the boy, sharply, and flushing again. She could
see that he was a very proud boy, in spite of his evident poverty.
"I've got some money saved. I'd earn more--after school. I'm going to
school across the Parade Ground there--when it opens. I've already seen
the superintendent of schools. He says I belong in the highest grammar
grade."

"Why!" cried Agnes, "that's the grade I am going into."
"I'm older than you are," said the boy, with that quick, angry flush
mounting into his cheeks. "I'm fifteen. But I never had a chance to go
to school."
"That is too bad," said Agnes, sympathetically. She saw that he was
eager to enter school and sympathized with him on that point,