"What's to be done with a boy like that?" demanded Mrs. MacCall. "Being kicked to death with gra.s.shoppers would be mild punishment for him, wouldn't it? What's to be done with eight mice?"

"One kitten will have to go without," said Dot, the literal, as she and Tess joined the party on the porch.

"Come on, now! You gotter let 'em out. I gotter have the trap," was Sammy's gruff statement. He saw that his present was not entirely appreciated by the human members of the Corner House family, whether the feline members approved or not.

"Oh, I'll call the family!" cried Dot, and raised her voice in a shrill cry for "Spotty, Almira, Popocatepetl, Bungle, Starboard, Port, Hard-a-Lee and Mainsheet!" She was breathless when she had finished.

Cats came from all directions. Indeed, they seemed to appear most mysteriously from the ground. Big cats and little cats, black cats and gray cats, striped cats and spotted cats.

"If there were any more of them they'd eat us out of house and home,"

declared Mrs. MacCall.

"But Almira isn't here!" wailed Dot. "Oh, Ruthie! don't let him open the cage till Almira comes. _She_ wants a chance to catch a mouse."

"I believe you children are little cannibals!" exclaimed the housekeeper. "How _can_ you? Wanting those cats to catch the poor little mice!"

"D'you want 'em for pets?" demanded Sammy, grinning at the housekeeper.

"Ugh! I hate the pests!" cried Mrs. MacCall.

"Do find Almira, Ruthie," begged Dot.

"I gotter take this cage back," said Sammy. "Can't fool here all day with a parcel of girls."

"But Almira-"

But Ruth had gone into the woodshed. She peered into the corners and all around the barrels. Suddenly she heard a cat purring-purring hard, just like a mill!

"Where are you, Almira?" she asked, softly.

"Purr! purr! purr!" went Almira-oh, _so_ loud, and _so_ proudly!

"What is it, Almira?" asked Ruth. "There! I see you-down in that corner.

Why, you're on Uncle Rufus' old coat! Oh! _What's this?_"

The eight mice had been caught by the other cats and killed. Tess came to the woodshed door.

"Oh, Ruth," she asked, "has anything happened to Almira?"

"I should say there had!" laughed the oldest Corner House girl.

"Oh! what is it?" cried Dot, running, too, to see.

"Santa Claus came ahead of time-to Almira, anyway," declared Ruth. "Did you ever see the like? You cunning 'ittle s'ings! Look, children! Four tiny, little, black kittens."

"Oh-oh-ee!" squealed Tess, falling right down on her knees to worship.

But Dot looked gravely at the undisturbed Sandyface, rubbing around her feet.

"Goodness me, Sandyface, you're a grandmother!" she said.

CHAPTER V

NO NEWS FOR CHRISTMAS

Almira's addition to the Corner House family was not the only happening which came on this eventful day to fill the minds and the hearts of the Kenway sisters.

Ruth went around with a very serious face, considering the holiday season and all that she and Agnes and Tess and Dot had to make them joyful. Nor was her expression of countenance made any more cheerful by some news bluff Dr. Forsyth gave her when he stopped, while on his afternoon round of calls, to leave four packages marked "Ruth," "Agnes,"

"Tess" and "Dot."

"Not to be opened till to-morrow, mind," said the doctor. "That's what the wife says. Now, I must hurry on. I've got to go back to the hospital again to-night. I've a bothersome patient there."

"Oh! Not Miss Pepperill?" Ruth cried, for the red-haired school teacher and the matron of the hospital, her sister, were to be the guests of the Corner House girls on the morrow.

Dr. Forsyth took off his hat again and frowned into it. "No," he said, "not her-not now."

"Why, Doctor! what do you mean? Isn't she getting on well?"

"Well? No!" blurted out the physician. "She doesn't please me. She doesn't get back her strength. Her nerves are jumpy. I hear that she was considered a Tartar in the schoolroom. Is that right?"

"Ask Tommy Pinkney," smiled Ruth. "I believe she was considered strict."

"Humph! yes. Short tempered, sharp tongued, children afraid of her, eh?"

"I believe so," admitted Ruth.

"Good reason for that," said the doctor, shaking his head. "Her nerves are worn to a frazzle. I'm not sure that it isn't a teacher's disease.

It's prevalent among 'em. The children just wear them out-if they don't take things easily."

"But, Miss Pepperill?"

"I can't get her on her pins again," growled the doctor.

"Oh, Doctor! Can't she come over here with her sister to-morrow?"

"Yes, she'll come in my machine," said the good physician, putting on his hat once more. "What I am talking about is her lack of improvement.

She stands still. She makes no perceptible gain. She talks about going back to teaching, and all that. Why, she is no more fit to be a teacher at present than I am fit to be an angel!"

Ruth smiled up at him and patted his burly shoulder. "I am not so sure that you are not an angel, Doctor," she said.

"Yes. That's what they tell me when I've pulled 'em out of trouble by the very scruff of their necks," growled Dr. Forsyth. "Other times, when I am giving them bad tasting medicine, they call me anything but an angel," and he laughed shortly.

"But now-in this case-she's not a bad patient. She can't help her nerves. They have gotten away from her. Out of control. She's not fit to go back to her work-and won't be for a couple of years."

"Oh!" cried Ruth, with pain. She knew what such a thing meant to the two sisters at the hospital. It was really tragic. Mrs. Eland's salary was small, and Miss Pepperill was not the person to wish to be a burden upon her sister. "The poor thing!" Ruth added.