Confederate States bills – they’re United States bills. Don’t you see?” cried Neale.
“Oh, Neale!”
“But you can bet they are counterfeit. Of course they are!”
“Oh, dear!”
“Silly! Good money wouldn’t be allowed to lie in a garret the way this was. Somebody’d have found it long ago. Your Uncle Peter, or Unc’ Rufus – or somebody. What is puzzling me is why it was put in a scrap-book.”
“Oh! they’re only pasted in at the corners. There’s one all loose. For ten dollars, Neale!”
“Well, you go out and try to spend it, Aggie,” chuckled her boy chum. “You’d get arrested and Ruth would have to bail you out.”
“It’s just awful,” Agnes declared, “for folks to make such things to fool other folks.”
“It’s a crime. I don’t know but you can be punished for having the stuff in your possession.”
“Goodness me! Then let’s put it in the stove.”
“Hold on! Let’s count it, first,” proposed Neale, laughing.
Neale was turning the leaves carefully and counting. Past the tens, the pages were filled with twenty dollar bills. Then came several pages of fifties. Then hundred dollar notes. In one case – which brought a cry of amazement to Agnes’ lips – a thousand dollar bill faced them from the middle of a page.
“Oh! goodness to gracious, Neale!” cried the Corner House girl. “What does it mean?”
Neale, with the stub of a pencil, was figuring up the “treasure” on the margin of a page.
“My cracky! look here, Aggie,” he cried, as he set down the last figure of the sum. “That’s what it is!”
The sum was indeed a fortune. The boy and girl looked at each other, all but speechless. If this were only good money!
“And it’s only good for the children to play with,” wailed Agnes.
Neale’s face grew very red and his eyes flashed. He closed the book fiercely. “If I had so much money,” he gasped, “I’d never have to take a cent from Uncle Bill Sorber again as long as I lived, I could pay for my own education – and go to college, too!”
“Oh! Neale! couldn’t you? And if it were mine we’d have an auto,” repeated Agnes, “and a man to run it.”
“Pooh! I could learn to run it for you,” proposed Neale. But it was plain by the look on his face that he was not thinking of automobiles.
“Say! don’t let’s give it to the kids to play with – not yet,” he added.
“Why not?”
“I – I don’t know,” the boy said frankly. “But don’t do it. Let me take the book.”
“Oh, Neale! you wouldn’t try to pass the money?” gasped Agnes.
“Huh! think I’m a chump?” demanded the boy. “I want to study over it. Maybe I’ll show the bonds to somebody. Who knows – they may still be of some small value.”
“We – ell – of course, the money – ”
“That’s phony – sure!” cried Neale, hastily. “But bonds sometimes are worth a little, even when they are as old as these.”
“No-o,” sighed Agnes, shaking her head. “No such good luck.”
“But you don’t mind if I take the book?” Neale urged.
“No. But do take care of it.”
So Neale took the old scrap-book home under his arm, neither he nor Agnes suspecting what trouble and worriment would arise from this simple act.
CHAPTER VII – “GOD REST YE, MERRIE GENTLEMEN”
There was a whisper in the corridor, a patter of softly shod feet upon the stair.
Even Uncle Rufus had not as yet arisen, and it was as black as pitch outside the Corner House windows.
The old dog, Tom Jonah, rose, yawning, from his rug before the kitchen range, walked sedately to the swinging door of the butler’s pantry, and put his nose against it. The whispering and pattering of feet was in the front hall, but Tom Jonah’s old ears were sharp.
The sounds came nearer. Tess and Dot were coming down to see what Santa Claus had left them. Old Tom Jonah whined, put both paws to the door, and slipped through. He bounded through the second swinging door into the dining room just as the two smallest Corner House girls, with their candle, entered from the hall.
“Oh, Tom Jonah!” cried Tess.
“Merry Christmas, Tom Jonah!” shouted Dot, skipping over to the chimney-place. Then she squealed: “Oh-ee! He did come, Tess! Santa Claus has been here!”
“Well,” sighed Tess, thankfully, “it’s lucky Tom Jonah didn’t bite him.”
Dot hurried to move a chair up to the hearth, and climbed upon it to reach her stocking. The tree was in the shadow now, and the children did not note the packages tied to its branches.
Dot unhooked her own and her sister’s stockings and then jumped down, a bulky and “knobby” hose under each arm.
“Come on back to bed and see what’s in them,” proposed Tess.
“No!” gasped Dot. “I can’t wait – I really can’t, Tess. I just feel as though I should faint.”
She dropped right down on the floor, holding her own stocking clasped close to her breast. There her gaze fell upon a shiny, smart-looking go-cart, just big enough for her Alice-doll, that had been standing on the hearth underneath the place where her stocking had hung.
“Oh! oh! OH!” shrieked Dot. “I know I shall faint.”
Tess was finding her own treasures; but Tess could never enjoy anything selfishly. She must share her joy with somebody.
“Oh, Dot! Let’s show the others what we’ve got. And Ruthie and Aggie ought to be down, too,” she urged.
“Let’s take our stockings upstairs and show ’em,” Dot agreed.
She piled her toys, helter skelter, into the doll wagon. “My Alice-doll must see this carriage,” she murmured, and started for the door. Tess followed with her things gathered into the lap of her robe. Tom Jonah paced solemnly after them, and so the procession mounted the front stairs – Dot having some difficulty with the carriage.
Ruth heard them coming and called out “Merry Christmas!” to them; but Agnes was hard to awaken, for she had been up late. The chattering and laughter finally aroused the beauty, and she sat up in bed, yawning to the full capacity of her “red, red cavern with its fringe of white pearls all around.”
“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” they all shouted at her.
“Oh – dear – me! Merry Christmas!” returned Agnes. “But why be so noisy about it?”
“Come over here, Miss Lazybones,” cried Ruth, “and see what Santa Claus has brought the children.”
“What’s that?” demanded Agnes, as she hopped out of bed. “Who’s going down the back stairs?”
“Linda,” said Ruth. “Can’t you tell those clod-hopper shoes she wears? I wonder if everybody in Finland wears such footgear?”
“Maybe she’s going to look at her stocking,” Tess said. “I hope she likes the handkerchiefs I monogrammed for her.”
But before long the pungent smell of freshly ground coffee came up the back stairway and assured the girls that the serving maid was at work.
“Why so ear – ear – ear-ly?” yawned Agnes, again. “Why! it’s still pitch-dark.”
Uncle Rufus was usually the