Читать онлайн
The Corner House Girls Under Canvas
The Corner House Girls Under Canvas / How they reached Pleasant Cove and what happened afterward
CHAPTER I – TOM JONAH
“Come here, Tess! Come quick and look at this poor dog. He’s just drip-ping-wet!”
Dot Kenway stood at a sitting-room window of the old Corner House, looking out upon Willow Street. It was a dripping day, and anything or anybody that remained out-of-doors and exposed to the downpour for half an hour, was sure to be saturated.
Nothing wetter or more miserable looking than the dog in question had come within the range of the vision of the two younger Corner House girls that Saturday morning.
Tess, who was older than Dot, came running. Anything as frightfully despondent and hopeless looking as that dog was bound to touch the tender heart of Tess Kenway.
“Let’s – let’s take him to the porch and feed him, Dot,” she cried.
“Will Ruthie let us?” asked Dot.
“Of course. She’s gone for her music lesson and won’t know, anyway,” declared Tess, recklessly.
“But maybe Mrs. MacCall won’t like it?”
“She’s upstairs and won’t know, either. Besides,” Tess said, bolstering up her own desire, “she says she hasn’t ever sent anybody away hungry from her door; and that poor dog looks just as hungry as any tramp that ever came to the old Corner House.”
The girls ran out of the sitting-room into the huge front hall which, in itself, was almost big enough for a ballroom. It was finished in dark, dark oak; there was a huge front door – like the door of a castle; the furniture was walnut, upholstered in haircloth, worn shiny by more than three generations of use; and out of the middle of the hall a great stairway arose, dividing when half-way up into two sections, while a sort of gallery was built all around the hall at the second floor, out of which the doors of the principal chambers opened.