As Uncle Rufus had stated, his daughter, the pleasant and unctious Petunia Blossom, was to take a week’s vacation from laundry work at New Year’s; but she brought the last wash home a few days after Christmas.

Petunia was very, very black, and monstrous fat! Her father often mournfully wondered “huccome she so brack,” when he was only mahogany brown himself and Petunia’s mother had been “light favahed,” too.

“Nevah did see the lak’ ob her color,” declared Uncle Rufus, shaking his grizzled head. “W’en she was a baby we couldn’t fin’ her in de dark, ‘ceptin’ her eyes was open, or she was a-bellerin’.”

The Corner House girls all liked Petunia Blossom, and her family of cunning piccaninnies. There was always a baby, and in naming her numerous progeny she had secured the help of her white customers, some of whom were wags, as witness a portion of the roll-call of the younger Blossoms:

“Ya’as’m, Miss Tessie. Alfredia’s home takin’ car’ ob de baby. Burne-Jones W’istler—he de artis’ lady named—an’ Jackson Montgomery Simms, done gone tuh pick up wood, where dey is buildin’ dat new row ob flats. Gladiola, she’s jes’ big nuff now tuh mess intuh things. I tol’ Alfredia to keep an eye on Glad.”

“That’s a pretty name,” said Agnes, who heard this; “Gladiola. I hope you’ll find as pretty a name for the baby.”

“I has, Miss Aggie,” Petunia assured her.

“Oh! but that would be hard. He’s a boy. You can’t name him after a flower, as you did little Glad and Hyacinth and Pansy.”

“Oh, ya-as’m,” Petunia said, with confidence. “I done hit. De baby, he named aftah a flower, too. I named him ‘Artuhficial,’ an’ we calls him ‘Arty’ fo’ short.”

“Oh, my dear! ‘Artificial’ flower—of course!” gasped Agnes, and ran away to have her laugh out. It certainly pleased the Corner House family. But Uncle Rufus was critical as usual:

“Sho’ don’t see why de good Lawd send all dem bressed babies t’ dat no-‘count brack woman. He must know dey ain’t a-gettin’ no fittin’ care. Why—see yere! She don’t know how even t’ name ’em propah. Flower names—indeedy, das jes’ mak’ me powerful squeegenny, das does—sho’ nuff! Ain’t dey no sensible names lef’ in dis worl’, Ah’d lak’t’ know?”

There was nobody able to answer Uncle Rufus’ question, and he went away, grumbling to himself. And, as he was not within call later, that was why Dot chanced to go to the drug store for Mrs. MacCall, who could not wait for the old colored man’s return.

Tess was upstairs helping Agnes make the beds. Mrs. MacCall wanted something to use at once and the smallest Corner House girl was eager to be helpful.

“I’ll go! I’ll go, Mrs. MacCall!” she cried, running for her hood and coat and overshoes, and, when she had donned them, seizing her Alice-doll, without which she seldom went anywhere, save to church and school. “I’ll be there and back in just no time—you see if I’m not.”

Mrs. MacCall told her carefully what she wanted, and gave her the dime.

“Oh, I’ll ‘member that!” Dot declared, with assurance, and she went out repeating it over and over to herself.

It was some distance to the druggist’s and there were a lot of things to see on the way, and from frequent repetition of the name of the article the housekeeper wanted, the smallest Corner House girl arrived at her destination with only the sound and not much of the sense of it on her tongue.

“Good morning, little Miss Kenway,” said the druggist, who knew Dot and her sisters very well. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh!” said Dot, breathlessly. “Mrs. MacCall wants a box of glory divine.”

The druggist gasped, looked all around at his shelves helplessly, and murmured:

“What did you say it was you wanted?”

“Ten cents’ worth of glory divine,” repeated the smallest Corner House girl, positively.

“What—what does she do with it?” asked the druggist in desperation.

“Why—why, she puts it down the sink drain, and sprinkles it down cellar, an’—”

“Oh, my aunt!” groaned the druggist. “You mean chloride of lime?”

“Ye—yes, sir,” admitted the somewhat abashed Dot. “I guess that’s mebbe it.”

Dot put the article purchased into the go-cart at Alice’s feet, tucked the rug all around her cherished child, for it was a cold if sunny day, and started for home. As she wheeled the doll-carriage toward the Creamer cottage she saw the laundry wagon stop at that gate, while the driver jumped out and ran up the walk to the Creamers’ side porch.

Dot knew that Mabel’s mother always had her basket of soiled clothes ready for the man when he came and this occasion seemed to be no exception. There was the basket and the man grabbed it, ran back to the wagon, and, putting it in at the back, sprang up to his seat and rattled away to his next customer.

It was after Dot had returned to the old Corner House and delivered the box of “glory divine” to the housekeeper that the neighborhood was treated to a sensation originating in the Creamer cottage.

Tess had joined Dot in the yard of the old Corner House. The weather was much too cold for them to have all their dolls in the garden-house as they did in summer; but Neale had shoveled all the paths neatly since the last snow-storm, and the little girls could parade up and down with their doll carriages to their hearts’ content.

They saw Mrs. Creamer run out upon her porch, look wildly around, and then she began to scream for Mabel.

“Mabel! Mabel! come here with the baby this moment! Didn’t I tell you to let him sleep in the basket?”

Mabel appeared slowly from the back yard.

“You naughty child!” cried the worried woman. “You don’t deserve to have a darling baby brother. And you broke his carriage, too—I verily believe—so you wouldn’t have to wheel him in it. Where is he?”

“Ain’t touched him,” declared Mabel, sullenly.

“You—what do you mean? Where is the basket with the baby in it?” demanded Mrs. Creamer, wildly.

“Oh!” gasped Dot and—as she usually did when she was startled—she grabbed up her Alice-doll and hugged her to her bosom.

“I—I don’t know,” declared Mabel, looking rather scared now. “Honest, Mamma—I haven’t seen him.”

“He’s been kidnapped! Thieves! Gypsies!”

The poor mother’s shrieks might have been heard a block. Neighbors came running. Milton had only a small police force, but one of the officers chanced to be within hearing. He came, heard the exciting tale, and galloped off to the nearest telephone to let them know at headquarters that there was a child mysteriously missing.

“Why, isn’t that funny?” said Dot to Tess. “If he was a kidnapper, he looked just like the laundryman.”

“Who did?” demanded the amazed Theresa.

“The man who took the basket and stole Bubby Creamer.”

“What ever are you saying, Dot Kenway?”

So Dot told her all that she had seen of the strange transaction.

“Why, that was the laundryman, of course!” declared Tess. “The baby is not stolen at all—at least he never meant to take it. I know the laundryman, and he’s got seven children of his own. I don’t believe he’d steal another.”

The whole neighborhood was aroused. Agnes ran out into the yard to learn what the trouble was, and Tess and Dot, with great verbosity, related their version of the occurrence.

“Oh, children! we must tell Mrs. Creamer,” Agnes said. “Of course the laundryman wouldn’t have stolen the baby! He thought the basket held the wash and had been put out there for him.”

She ran across the yard and swarmed over the fence into the Creamers’ premises like a boy. Flying up to the group of lamenting women on the porch, she exploded her information among them like a bomb.

“Telephone to the laundry and find out if the man has got there yet,” suggested one woman.

But Agnes knew that Mrs. Creamer’s was one of the first places at which the laundryman stopped. He did not get back to the laundry until near noon.

Suddenly an automobile coming up Main Street attracted the Corner House girl’s attention. She recognized the driver of the car, and ran out into the street, calling to him to stop.

“Oh, Joe Eldred! Wait! Wait!”

Joe was a boy somewhat older than Neale O’Neil, but one of the latter’s closest friends. He was driving his father’s car, having obtained a license only the month before.

“Joe! Wait!” Agnes repeated, waving her mittened hand to him.

“Hullo! Whose old cat is dead?” was his reply.

“Oh, Joe! such a dreadful thing has happened,” Agnes said breathlessly. “Bubby Creamer has gone off with Mr. Billy Quirk, the laundryman, and his mother’s worried to death.”

“Whew! that’s some kid!” exclaimed Joe. “Didn’t know he could walk yet.”

“He can’t, silly!” returned Agnes, exasperated. “Listen!” and she told the boy how the wonder had occurred. “You know, Mr. Billy Quirk drives away out High Street to collect laundry. Won’t you drive out that way and see if he’s got poor little Bubby in his wagon?”

“Sure!” cried Joe. “Hop in!”

“But—but I didn’t think of going.”

“Say! You don’t suppose I’d take a live baby aboard this car all alone?” gasped Joe. “I—guess—not!”

“Oh, I’ll go!” agreed Agnes, and immediately slipped into the seat beside him. “Do hurry—do! Mrs. Creamer is almost crazy.”

Joe’s engine had been running all the time, and in a minute they rounded the corner into High Street.

“Neale got back yet?” asked Joe, slipping the clutch into high speed.

“Oh—oh!” gasped Agnes, as the car shot forward with suddenly increased swiftness. “How—how did you know he had gone away?”

“Saw him off Christmas morning.”

“Oh, Joe Eldred! did you know Neale was going?”

“Why, not till he went,” admitted the boy. “I was running down to the railroad station to meet my married sister and her kids—they were coming over for Christmas dinner—and I saw Neale lugging his satchel and legging it for the station. That bag weighed a ton, so I took him in.”

“Where did he say he was going?” Agnes asked eagerly.

“He didn’t say. Don’t you know?”

“If I did I wouldn’t ask you,” snapped Agnes. “Mean old thing!”

“Hul-lo!” ejaculated Joe. “Who’s mean?”

“Not you, Joe,” the girl said sweetly. “But that Neale O’Neil. He went off without saying a word to any of us.”

“Close mouthed as an oyster, Neale is. But I asked him what was in the bag, and what d’ you s’pose he said?”

“I don’t know,” returned the girl, idly.

“He said: ‘Either a hundred thousand dollars or nothing.’ Now! what do you know about that?” demanded Joe, chuckling.

“What!” gasped Agnes, sitting straight up and staring at her companion.

“I guess if he’d been lugging such a fortune around it would have been heavy,” added Joe, with laughter.

Agnes was silenced. For once the impulsive Corner House girl was circumspect. Neale’s answer to Joe could mean but one thing. Neale must have carried away with him the old album she had found in the garret of the Corner House.

“Goodness gracious!” thought Agnes, feeling a queer faintness within. “It can’t be that Neale O’Neil really believes that money and the bonds are good! That is too ridiculous! But, if not, what has he carried the book away with him for?

“He was going to show the bonds to somebody, he said. He went off in too great a hurry to do that. And did he take the book because the contents might be valuable and he was afraid to leave it behind him?”

“I never did hear of such a funny mix-up,” concluded Agnes, still in her own mind. “And Ruth acts so strangely about it, too. She looked at the book first. Can it be possible that she thinks that old play money is real? Suppose some of it is good—just some of it?”

Agnes had begun to worry herself now about the old album and its contents. The mystery of it quite overshadowed in her mind the matter of the missing baby.