Uncle Rufus was a tall, thin, brown negro, with a gently deprecating air and a smile that suddenly changed his naturally sad features into a most humorous cast without an instant’s notice.

Ruth left him still sitting gingerly on the edge of the chair in the dining-room, while she slowly went upstairs to Aunt Sarah. It was seldom that the oldest Kenway girl confided in, or advised with, Aunt Sarah, for the latter was mainly a most unsatisfactory confidante. Sometimes you could talk to Aunt Sarah for an hour and she would not say a word in return, or appear even to hear you!

Ruth felt deeply about the old colored man. The twist of soiled paper in her hand looked to Ruth like a direct command from the dead uncle who had bequeathed her and her sisters this house and all that went with it.

Since her last interview with Mr. Howbridge, the fact that they were so much better off than ever before, had become more real to Ruth. They could not only live rather sumptuously, but they could do some good to other people by the proper use of Uncle Peter’s money!

Here was a case in point. Ruth did not know but what the old negro would be more than a little useless about the Corner House; but it would not cost much to keep him, and let him think he was of some value to them.

So she opened her heart to Aunt Sarah. And Aunt Sarah listened. Indeed, there never was such a good audience as Aunt Sarah in this world before!

“Now, what do you think?” asked Ruth, breathlessly, when she had told the story and shown the paper. “Is this Uncle Peter’s handwriting?”

Aunt Sarah peered at the scrawl. “Looks like it,” she admitted. “Pretty trembly. I wouldn’t doubt, on’y it seems too kind a thought for Peter to have. He warn’t given to thinking of that old negro.”

“I suppose Mr. Howbridge would know?”

“That lawyer? Huh!” sniffed Aunt Sarah. “He might. But that wouldn’t bring you anything. If he put the old man out once, he would again. No heart nor soul in a lawyer. I always did hate the whole tribe!”

Aunt Sarah had taken a great dislike to Mr. Howbridge, because the legal gentleman had brought the news of the girls’ legacy, instead of telling her she was the heir of Uncle Peter. On the days when there chanced to be an east wind and Aunt Sarah felt a twinge of rheumatism, she was inclined to rail against Fate for making her a dependent upon the “gals’ charity,” as she called it. But she firmly clung to what she called “her rights.” If Uncle Peter had not left his property to her, he should have done so – that is the way she looked at it.

Such comment as Ruth could wring from Aunt Sarah seemed to bolster up her own resolve to try Uncle Rufus as a retainer, and tell Mr. Howbridge about it afterward.

“We’ll skimp a little in some way, to make his wages,” thought Ruth, her mind naturally dropping into the old groove of economizing. “I don’t think Mr. Howbridge would be very angry. And then – here is the paper,” and she put the crumpled scrap that the old colored man had given her, safely away.

“Take care of Uncle Rufus.”

She found Agnes and explained the situation to her. Aunt Sarah had admitted Uncle Rufus was a “handy negro,” and Agnes at once became enthusiastic over the possibility of having such a serving man.

“Just think of him in a black tail-coat and white vest and spats, waiting on table!” cried the twelve year old, whose mind was full of romantic notions gathered from her miscellaneous reading. “This old house just needs a liveried negro servant shuffling about it – you know it does, Ruth!”

“That’s what Uncle Rufus thinks, too,” said Ruth, smiling. What had appealed to the older girl was Uncle Rufus’ wistful and pleading smile as he stated his desire. She went back to the dining-room and said to the old man:

“I am afraid we cannot pay you much, Uncle Rufus, for I really do not know just how much money Mr. Howbridge will allow us to spend on living expenses. But if you wish to come – ”

“Glo-ree!” exclaimed the old man, rolling his eyes devoutedly. “Das sho’ de good news for disher collud pusson. Nebber min’ payin’ me wages, Missie. I jes’ wanter lib an’ die in de Ol’ Co’ner House, w’ich same has been my home endurin’ twenty-four years – ya-as’m!”

Mrs. McCall approved of his coming, when Ruth told her. As Uncle Rufus said, he was “spry an’ pert,” and there were many little chores that he could attend to which relieved both the housekeeper and the Kenway girls themselves.

That very afternoon Uncle Rufus reappeared, and in his wake two of Petunia Blossom’s pickaninnies, tugging between them a bulging bag which contained all the old man’s worldly possessions.

One of these youngsters was the widely smiling Alfredia Blossom, and Tess and Dot were glad to see her again, while little Jackson Montgomery Simms Blossom wriggled, and grinned, and chuckled in a way that assured the Corner House girls of his perfect friendliness.

“Stan’ up – you!” commanded the important Alfredia, eyeing her younger brother with scorn. “What you got eatin’ on you, Jackson Montgom’ry? De wiggles? What yo’ s’pose mammy gwine ter say ter yo’ w’en she years you ain’t got yo’ comp’ny manners on, w’en you go ter w’ite folkses’ houses? Stan’ up – straight!”

Jackson was bashful and was evidently a trial to his sister, when she took him into “w’ite folks’ comp’ny.” Tess, however, rejoiced his heart with a big piece of Mrs. McCall’s ginger-cake, and the little girls left him munching, while they took Alfredia away to the summer house in the garden to show her their dolls and playthings.

Alfredia’s eyes grew big with wonder, for she had few toys of her own, and confessed to the possession of “jes’ a ol’ rag tar-baby wot mammy done mak’ out o’ a stockin’-heel.”

Tess and Dot looked at each other dubiously when they heard this. Their collection of babies suddenly looked to be fairly wicked! Here was a girl who had not even a single “boughten” dollie.

Dot gasped and seized the Alice-doll, hugging it close against her breast; her action was involuntary, but it did not signal the smallest Kenway girl’s selfishness. No, indeed! Of course, she could not have given away that possession, but there were others.

She looked down the row of her china playmates – some small, some big, some with pretty, fresh faces, and some rather battered and with the color in their face “smootchy.”

“Which could we give her, Dot?” whispered Tess, doubtfully. “There’s my Mary-Jane – ”

The older sister proposed to give up one of her very best dolls; but Mary-Jane was not pink and pretty. Dot stepped up sturdily and plucked the very pinkest cheeked, and fluffiest haired doll out of her own row.

“Why, Dot! that’s Ethelinda!” cried Tess. Ethelinda had been found in Dot’s stocking only the previous Christmas, and its purchase had cost a deal of scrimping and planning on Ruth’s part. Dot did not know that; she had a firm and unshakable belief in Santa Claus.

“I think she’ll just love Alf’edia,” declared Dot, boldly. “I’m sure she will,” and she thrust the doll suddenly into the colored girl’s open arms. “You’ll just take good care of her – won’t you, Alf’edia?”

“My goodness!” ejaculated Alfredia. “You w’ite gals don’ mean me ter keep this be-you-ti-ful doll-baby? You don’t mean that?”

“Of course we do,” said Tess, briskly, taking pattern after Dot. “And here’s a spangled cloak that belonged to one of my dolls, but she hasn’t worn it much – and a hat. See! they both fit Ethelinda splendidly.”

Alfredia was speechless for the moment. She hugged her new possessions to her heart, and her eyes winked hard. Then she grinned. Nobody or nothing could quench Alfredia’s grin.

“I gotter git home – I gotter git home ter mammy,” she chattered, at last. “I cyan’t nebber t’ank you w’ite chillen enough. Mammy, she done gotter thank yo’ for me.”

Uncle Rufus came out and stopped his grandchild, ere she could escape. “Whar you done got dat w’ite doll-baby, Alfredia Blossom?” he asked, threateningly.

Dot and Tess were right there to explain. Uncle Rufus, however, would not let his grandchild go until “Missie Ruth,” as he called the eldest Kenway girl, had come to pronounce judgment.

“Why, Dot!” she said, kissing her little sister, “I think it is very nice of you to give Alfredia the doll – and Tess, too. Of course, Uncle Rufus, she can take the doll home. It is hers to keep.”

Alfredia, and “Jackson And-so-forth,” as Agnes nicknamed the colored boy, ran off, delighted. The old man said to Ruth:

“Lor’ bless you, Missie! I done know you is Mars’ Peter’s relatifs; but sho’ it don’t seem like you was re’l blood kin to de Stowers. Dey ain’t nebber give nawthin’ erway – no Ma’am!”

The Kenway girls had heard something about Uncle Peter’s closeness before; he had been counted a miser by the neighbors. His peculiar way of living alone, and seldom appearing outside of the door during the last few years of his life, had encouraged such gossip regarding him.

On Main Street, adjoining the premises of the Corner House, was a pretty cottage in which there lived a family of children, too. These neighbors did not attend the same church which the Kenways had gone to on Sunday; therefore no opportunity had yet occurred for Tess and Dot to become acquainted with the Creamer girls. There were three of them of about the same ages as Agnes, Tess and Dot.

“They’re such nice looking little girls,” confessed Tess. “I hope we get to know them soon. We could have lots of fun playing house with them, Dot, and going visiting, and all.”

“Yes,” agreed Dot. “That one they call Mabel is so pretty! She’s got hair like our Agnes – only it’s curly.”

So, with the best intentions in the world, Tess and Dot were inclined to gravitate toward the picket fence dividing the two yards, whenever they saw the smaller Creamer girls out playing.

Once Tess and Dot stood on their side of the fence, hand in hand, watching the three sisters on the other side playing with their dolls near the dividing line. The one with the curls looked up and saw them. It quite shocked Dot when she saw this pretty little creature twist her face into an ugly grimace.

“I hope you see us!” she said, tartly, to Tess and Dot. “What you staring at?”

The Kenways were amazed – and silent. The other two Creamer children laughed shrilly, and so encouraged the one who had spoken so rudely.

“You can just go away from there and stare at somebody else!” said the offended small person, tossing her head. “We don’t want you bothering us.”

“O-o-o!” gasped Dot.

“We – we didn’t mean to stare,” stammered Tess. “We – we don’t know any little girls in Milton yet. Don’t you want to come over and play with us?”

“No, we don’t!” declared the curly head. “We got chased out of that old place enough, when we first came to live here, by that old crazy man.”

“She means Uncle Peter,” said Tess to Dot.

“Was he crazy?” asked the wondering Dot.

“Of course he wasn’t,” said Tess, sturdily.

“Yes he was, too!” snapped the Creamer girl. “Everybody says so. You can ask them. I expect you folks are all crazy. Anyway, we don’t want to play with you, and you needn’t stand there and stare at us!”

The smaller Kenway sisters went meekly away. Of course, if Agnes had overheard the conversation, she would have given them as good as they sent. But Tess and Dot were hurt to the quick.

Dot said to Ruth, at supper: “Was our Uncle Peter crazy, Ruthie?”

“Of course not,” said the bigger girl, wonderingly. “What put such a silly idea into your little head?”

The tale came out, then. Agnes bristled up, of course.

“Let me catch them talking to you that way!” she cried. “I’ll tell them something!”

“Oh, don’t let us quarrel with them,” urged Ruth, gently. “But you and Tess, Dot, had better not put yourselves in their way again.”

“Dey’s berry bad chillen – dem Creamers,” put in Uncle Rufus, who was shuffling about the dining-room, serving. Although he was faultless in his service, with the privilege of an old retainer when the family was alone, he would assist in the general conversation.

In Agnes’ eyes, Uncle Rufus made a perfect picture. Out of his bulging traveling bag had appeared just the sort of a costume that she imagined he should wear – even to the gray spats!

“It makes me feel just rich!” the twelve year old said to Ruth, with a contented sigh. “And real silver he got out of the old chest, and polished it up – and the cut glass!”

They began to use the dining-room for meals after Uncle Rufus came. The old man gently insisted upon it.

“Sho’ly, Missie, you wants ter lib up ter de customs ob de ol’ Co’ner House. Mars’ Peter drapped ’em all off latterly; but de time was w’en dis was de center ob sassiety in Milton – ya-as’m!”

“But goodness!” ejaculated Ruth, in some timidity, “we do not expect to be in society now. We don’t know many people yet. And not a soul has been inside the door to call upon us since we arrived.”

However, their circle of acquaintance was steadily widening.

CHAPTER VIII – THE CAT THAT WENT BACK

Agnes put her hand upon it in the pantry and dropped a glass dish ker-smash! She screamed so, that Ruth came running, opened the door, and, as it scurried to escape into the dining-room, the oldest Kenway girl dodged and struck her head with almost stunning force against the doorframe. She “saw stars” for a few moments.

“Oh! oh!” screamed Agnes.

“Ow! ow!” cried Ruth.

“Whatever is the matter with you girls?” demanded Mrs. McCall, hurrying in from the front hall.

She suddenly saw it, following the baseboard around the room in a panic of fear, and Mrs. McCall gathered her skirts close about her ankles and called Uncle Rufus.

“He, he!” chuckled the black man, making one swoop for Mrs. Mouse and catching her in a towel. “All disher combobberation over a leetle, teeny, gray mouse. Glo-ree! s’pose hit had been a rat?”

“The house is just over-run with mice,” complained Mrs. McCall. “And traps seem to do no good. I always would jump, if I saw a mouse. I can’t help it.”

“Me, too,” cried Agnes. “There’s something so sort of creepy about mice. Worse than spiders.”

“Oh, dear!” moaned Ruth, holding the side of her head. “I wish you’d find some way of getting rid of them, Uncle Rufus. I’m afraid of them, too.”

“Lor’ bress yo’ heart an’ soul, Missie! I done cotched this one fo’ you-uns, an’ I wisht I could ketch ’em all. But Unc’ Rufus ain’t much of a mouser – naw suh! What you-alls wants is a cat.”

“We ought to have a good cat – that’s a fact,” admitted Mrs. McCall.

“I like cats,” said Dot, who had come in to see what the excitement was all about. “There’s one runs along our back fence. Do you ’spect we could coax her to come in here and hunt mouses? Let’s show her this one Uncle Rufus caught, and maybe she’ll follow us in,” added the hopeful little girl.

Although this plan for securing a cat did not meet with the family’s approval, Agnes was reminded of the cat problem that very afternoon, when she had occasion to go to Mr. Stetson’s grocery store, where the family traded.

She liked Myra Stetson, the groceryman’s daughter, almost as well as she did Eva Larry. And Myra had nothing to say about the “haunt” which was supposed to pester the old Corner House.

Myra helped about the store, after school hours and on Saturdays. When Agnes entered this day, Mr. Stetson was scolding.

“I declare for’t!” he grumbled. “There’s no room to step around this store for the cats. Myra! I can’t stand so many cats – they’re under foot all the time. You’ll have to get rid of some of your pets. It’s making me poor to feed them all, in the first place!”

“Oh, father!” cried Myra. “They keep away the mice, you know.”

“Yes! Sure! They keep away the mice, because there’s so many cats and kittens here, the mice couldn’t crowd in. I tell you I can’t stand it – and there’s that old Sandy-face with four kittens in the basket behind the flour barrels in the back room. Those kittens have got their eyes open. Soon you can’t catch them at all. I tell you, Myra, you’ve got to get rid of them.”

“Sandy-face and all?” wailed Myra, aghast.

“Yes,” declared her father. “That’ll be five of ’em gone in a bunch. Then maybe we can at least count those that are left.”

“Oh, Myra!” cried Agnes. “Give them to us.”

“What?” asked the store-keeper’s girl. “Not the whole five?”

“Yes,” agreed Agnes, recklessly. “Mrs. McCall says we are over-run with mice, and I expect we could feed more than five cats for a long time on the mouse supply of the old Corner House.”

“Goodness! Old Sandy-face is a real nice mother cat – ”

“Let’s see her,” proposed Agnes, and followed Myra out into the store-room of the grocery.

In a broken hand-basket in which some old clothes had been dropped, Sandy-face had made her children’s cradle. They looked like four spotted, black balls. The old cat herself was with them, and she stretched and yawned, and looked up at the two girls with perfect trust in her speckled countenance.

Her face looked as though salt and pepper, or sand, had been sprinkled upon it. Her body was marked with faint stripes of black and gray, which proved her part “tiger” origin. She was “double-toed” on her front feet, and her paws were big, soft cushions that could unsheath dangerous claws in an instant.

“She ought to be a good mouser,” said Agnes, reflectively. It did look like a big contract to cart five cats home at once!

“But I wouldn’t feel right to separate the family – especially when the kittens are so young,” Myra said. “If your folks will let you take them – well! it would be nice,” she added, for she was a born lover of cats and could not think, without positive pain, of having any of the cunning kittens cut short in their feline careers.

“Oh, Ruth will be glad,” said Agnes, with assurance. “So will Mrs. McCall. We need cats – we just actually need them, Myra.”

“But how will you get them home?” asked the other girl, more practical than the impulsive Agnes.

“Goodness! I hadn’t thought of that,” confessed Agnes.

“You see, cats are funny creatures,” Myra declared. “Sometimes they find their way home again, even if they are carried miles and miles away.”

“But if I take the kittens, too – wouldn’t she stay with her own kittens?”

“Well – p’r’aps. But the thing is, how are you going to carry them all?”

“Say! they’re all in this old basket,” said Agnes. “Can’t I carry them just as they are?”

She picked the basket up. Old Sandy-face just “mewed” a little, but did not offer to jump out.

“Oh!” gasped Agnes. “They’re heavy.”

“You couldn’t carry them all that way. And if Sandy saw a dog – ”

“Maybe I’ll have to blindfold her?” suggested Agnes.

“Put her in a bag!” cried Myra.

“But that seems so cruel!”

“I know. She might smother,” admitted Myra.

“Goodness me!” said Agnes, briskly, “if we’re going to have a cat, I don’t want one that will always be afraid of me because I popped her into a bag. Besides, a cat is a dignified creature, and doing a thing like that would hurt her feelings. Don’t you think so?”

“I guess Sandy-face wouldn’t like it,” agreed Myra, laughing at Agnes’ serious speech and manner.

“I tell you what,” the second-oldest Kenway girl said. “I’ll run home with the groceries your father has put up for me, and get the kids to come and help. They can certainly carry the kittens, while I take Sandy.”

“Of course,” agreed the relieved Myra. She saw a chance of disposing of the entire family without hurting her own, or the cats’ feelings, and she was much pleased.

As for the impulsive Agnes, when she made up her mind to do a thing, she never thought of asking advice. She reached home with the groceries and put them into the hands of Uncle Rufus at the back door. Then she called Tess and Dot from their play in the garden.

“Are your frocks clean, girls?” she asked them, hurriedly. “I want you to go to Mr. Stetson’s store with me.”

“What for, Aggie?” asked Dot, but quite ready to go. By Agnes’ appearance it was easy to guess that there was something exciting afoot.

“Shall I run ask Ruth?” Tess inquired, more thoughtfully.

Uncle Rufus was watching them from the porch. Agnes waved her hand to the black man, as she ushered the two smaller girls out of the yard onto Willow Street.

“No,” she said to Tess. “Uncle Rufus sees us, and he’ll explain to Ruth.” At the moment, she did not remember that Uncle Rufus knew no more about their destination than Ruth herself.

The smaller girls were eager to learn the particulars of the affair as Agnes hurried them along. But the bigger girl refused to explain, until they were in the grocer’s store-room.

“Now! what do you think of them?” she demanded.

Tess and Dot were delighted with the kittens and Sandy-face. When they learned that all four kittens and the mother cat were to be their very own for the taking away, they could scarcely keep from dancing up and down.

Oh, yes! Tess and Dot were sure they could carry the basket of kittens. “But won’t that big cat scratch you, when you undertake to carry her, Aggie?” asked Tess.

“I won’t let her!” declared Agnes. “Now you take the basket right up when I lift out Sandy.”

“I – I’m afraid she’ll hurt you,” said Dot.

“She’s real kind!” Agnes lifted out the mother-cat. Sandy made no complaint, but kept her eyes fixed upon the kittens. She was used to being handled by Myra. So she quickly snuggled down into Agnes’ arms, purring contentedly. The two smaller girls lifted the basket of kittens between them.

“Oh, this is nice,” said Tess, delightedly. “We can carry them just as easy! Can’t we, Dot?”

“Then go right along. We’ll go out of that side door there, so as not to take them through the store,” instructed Agnes.

Sandy made no trouble at all. Agnes was careful to walk so that the big cat could look right down into the basket where her four kittens squirmed and occasionally squealed their objections to this sort of a “moving day.”

The sun was warm and the little things could not be cold, but they missed the warmth of their mother’s body, and her fur coat to snuggle up against! When they squealed, Sandy-face evinced some disturbance of mind, but Agnes managed to quiet her, until they reached Mrs. Adams’ front gate.

Mrs. Adams was the old lady who had told the Kenways about their father breaking one of her windows when he was a boy. She had shown much interest in the Corner House girls. Now she was out on her front porch and saw them coming along Willow Street.

“Whatever have you girls been up to?” she demanded, pleasantly enough, but evincing much curiosity.

“Why, Mrs. Adams,” said Agnes, eagerly. “Don’t you see? We’ve adopted a family.”

“Humph! A family? Not those young’uns of Petunia Blossom? I see Uncle Rufus back at the old Corner House, and I expect the whole family will be there next.”

“Why,” said Agnes, somewhat surprised by this speech, “these are only cats.”

“Cats?”

“Yes’m. Cats. That is, a cat and four kittens.”

Mrs. Adams started down the path to see. The girls stopped before her gate. At that moment there was a whoop, a scrambling in the road, and a boy and a bulldog appeared from around the nearest corner.

With unerring instinct the bulldog, true to his nature, came charging for the cat he saw in Agnes’ arms.

Poor old Sandy-face came to life in a hurry. From a condition of calm repose, she leaped in a second of time to wild and vociferous activity. Matters were on a war basis instantly.

She uttered a single “Yow!” and leaped straight out of Agnes’ arms to the bole of a maple tree standing just inside Mrs. Adams’ fence. She forgot her kittens and everything else, and scrambled up the tree for dear life, while the bulldog, tongue hanging out, and his little red eyes all alight with excitement, leaped against the fence as though he, too, would scramble over it and up the tree.

“Oh! that horrid dog! Take him away, you Sammy Pinkney!” cried Mrs. Adams. “Come into the yard, girls!”

The gate was open, and the little girls ran in with the basket of kittens. Each kitten, in spite of its youth, was standing stiff-legged in the basket, its tiny back arched, its fur on end, and was “spitting” with all its might.

The mother cat had forgotten her children in this moment of panic. The dancing bulldog outside the fence quite crazed her. She ran out on the first limb of the tree, and leaped from it into the next tree. There was a long row of maples here and the frightened Sandy-face went from one to the other like a squirrel.

“She’s running away! she’s running away!” cried Agnes.

“Where did you get that cat and those kittens, child?” demanded Mrs. Adams.

“At Mr. Stetson’s store,” said Agnes, sadly, as the old cat disappeared.

“She’s going back,” said the lady firmly. “That’s where she is going. A scared cat always will make for home, if she can. And now! what under the canopy are you going to do with that mess of kittens – without a cat to mother them?”

Agnes was stricken dumb for the moment. Tess and Dot were all but in tears. The situation was very complicated indeed, even if the boy had urged his dog away from the gate.

The four little kittens presented a problem to the Corner House girls that was too much for even the ready Agnes to solve. Here were the kittens. The cat had gone back. Agnes had a long scratch on her arm – and it smarted. Tess and Dot were on the verge of tears, while the kittens began to mew and refused to be pacified.