t pulled, didn't you?"

Dot clapped a tentative finger into her mouth. When she drew it forth,
it was with a pained and surprised expression. The place where the tooth
should have been was empty.

"There it is," chuckled Neale, "hanging on the doorknob. Didn't I tell
you that was the way to get your tooth pulled?"

"My!" gasped Dot. "It wasn't pulled out of me, you see. When Aggie ran
in and knocked me over, _I was just putted away from the tooth_!"

They all burst out laughing at that, and Dot laughed with them. She
recovered more quickly from the loss of her tooth than Agnes did from
the loss of her temper!

CHAPTER VII

NEALE IN DISGUISE

The Parade Ground was in the center of Milton. Its lower end bordered
Willow Street, and the old Corner House was right across from the
termination of the Parade's principal shaded walk.

Ranged all around the Parade (which had in colonial days been called
"the training ground" where the local militia-hands drilled) were the
principal public buildings of the town, although the chief business
places were situated down Main Street, below the Corner House.

The brick courthouse with its tall, square tower, occupied a prominent
situation on the Parade. The several more important church edifices,
too, faced the great, open common. Interspersed were the better
residences of Milton. Some of these were far more modern than the old
Stower homestead, but to the Kenway girls none seemed more homelike in
appearance.

At the upper end of the Parade were grouped the schools of the town.
There was a handsome new high school that Ruth was going to enter; the
old one was now given over to the manual training departments. The
grammar and primary school was a large, sprawling building with plenty
of entrances and exits, and in this structure the other three Kenway
girls found their grades.

The quartette of Corner House girls were not the only young folk anxious
about entering the Milton schools for the forthcoming year. There was
Neale O'Neil. The Kenways knew by the way he spoke, that his expected
experiences at school were uppermost in his thoughts all the time.

Ruth had talked the matter over with Mrs. MacCall, although she had not
seen Mr. Howbridge, and they had decided that the boy was a very welcome
addition to the Corner House household, if he would stay.

But Neale O'Neil did not want charity--nor would he accept anything that
savored of it for long. Even while he wa