mother saying this. It was truly a sort of sacred bequest, although their mother had not made it a mandatory charge upon the girls.

“But mother never forgot the peppermints herself. Why should we forget them?” Ruth asked.

Aunt Sarah Stower was a care, too, left to the Kenway girls’ charge. Aunt Sarah was an oddity.

She seldom spoke, although her powers of speech were not in the least impaired. Moreover, she seldom moved from her chair during the day, where she sewed, or crocheted; yet she had the active use of her limbs.

Housework Aunt Sarah abhorred. She had never been obliged to do it as a girl and young woman; so she had never lifted her hand to aid in domestic tasks since coming to live with the Kenways—and Ruth could barely remember her coming.

Aunt Sarah was only “Aunt” to the Kenway girls by usage. She was merely their mother’s uncle’s half-sister! “And that’s a relationship,” as Aggie said, “that would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out.”

As Tess and Dot came down the littered stoop of the tall brick house they lived in, a rosy, red-haired boy, with a snub nose and twinkling blue eyes, suddenly popped up before them. He was dressed in fringed leggings and jacket, and wore a band of feathers about his cap.

“Ugh! Me heap big Injun,” he exclaimed, brandishing a wooden tomahawk before the faces of the startled girls. “Scalp white squaw! Kill papoose!” and he clutched at the Alice-doll.

Dot screamed—as well she might. The thought of seeing her most beloved child in the hands of this horrid apparition——

“Now, you just stop bothering us, Tommy Rooney!” commanded Tess, standing quickly in front of her sister. “You go away, or I’ll tell your mother.”

“Aw—‘Tell-tale tit! Your tongue shall be split!’” scoffed the dancing Indian. “Give me the papoose. Make heap big Injun of it.”

Dot was actually crying. Tess raised her hand threateningly.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Tommy Rooney,” she said, decisively, “but I shall slap you, if you don’t let us alone.”

“Aw—would you? would you? Got to catch first,” shouted Tommy, making dreadful grimaces. His cheeks were painted in black and red stripes, and these decorations added to Dot’s fright. “You can’t scare me!” 

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