The Corner House Girls at School
that almost always smiled. She did not possess a single beautiful feature; yet that smile of hers-friendly,
l-almost at once; and the boldest and most unruly boy dropp
r teachers' deportment books-somehow managed to reach the door of Miss Georgiana's room without being dismissed fro
t he could spend a year with Miss Georgiana Shipman, in nine cases out of ten these hard-to-man
form and cried: "Se sesame! change!" the young pirates often came through Miss Georgiana'
about it? Oh! they would merely hang their heads, and scrape a foot back
ging you on. And if you did not work, Miss Georgiana felt aggrieved, and that made any nice girl feel dreadfully mean! Besides, you took u
than half of her girls would be sure to hang around the school ent
ks of the Parade soon after school closed for the day, or chattering along Whipple Street on which Miss Georgian
ge back from the street-line. There were three big oaks in the front yard, and no grass
dd afternoon indeed that did not find a number of girls here. To be invited to stay to te
She had their confidence and some of them came to her with troub
as noticeable that girls who had no mothers at all, found in the little, plump, rather dowdy "old maid sch
d her influence was-to use a trite description-like a stone flung into a still pool of wat
ew her for just the "stormy petrel" that she was. Agnes gravitated to scrapes as naturally as
did at the nearest desk. The custom was, in verbal recitation, for the pupil to rise in her (or his) seat and recite.
es herself) did not hear it. But it got on Agnes' nerves and one afternoon, before the first week of school
pering that way, Trix S
d Miss Shipman. "W
d Agnes, stormily. "
sproving her own statement in that particu
!" insis
sternly enough, for the whole room was d
ipman," declared Trix,
You need not recite, and I will see both of you aft
the jealous girl added: "You Corner House girls think you are going to run thin
iss Georgiana made her investigation of the i
er accusation that Trix's whispering
Trix, tossing her head. "I'm not s
" said Miss Georgiana, smiling, "too, too fond to hur
it all on,"
t to fly into a passion and be unladylike. Beatrice, you must not whisper and annoy your neighb
ack was turned, Trix screwed her face into a horrid mask and ra
o she missed the first part of an incident of some moment.
Corner House, soon after the Kenway girls came to live there. Petal was Ruth's particular pet-or, had been, when she was a kitten. Agnes' choice was the black
et of mature age and now and then the girls were fairly convulsed wit
cked them into a box in a corner of the kitchen, so that the down would not be scatte
s chasing a stray feather about the floor and in diving behind the big range for it, she kn
as three ordinary tails and fur standing erect upon her b
on the floor, supposedly out of the way. Mrs. MacCall was measuring molasses
o many of you cats erbout disher house, an' dat's a fa
eral. "Aren't there as many as five mice left? You know you said yo
n to purty few numbers," agreed Unc
had left the table for a momen
, and darted for the p
r back, spit angrily, and then dove from the table. In her flight she overturned the china cu
!" Mrs. MacC
ged Ruth, trying
ere covered. Wherever she stepped she left an imprint. And when the excited Ruth grabbed for
"stuck-up" now, Popocatep
ind her. She made a single lap around the kitchen trying for an ou
r!" shri
chen!" wailed
ders!" gasped Uncle Rufus. "She don
t, in chorus, and clinging tog
t appeared to be an animated feather-boa dashing abou
' sake is the matt
h she had been shot out of a gun, leaving a trail of feathers i