“Stop!” she said to the wrathful Mrs. Treble, when that lady appeared. “Tommy is a friend of ours. And he’s been ’most drowned. You wouldn’t want to punish him any more to-day. Dot and I invited him home, and you mustn’t all _pounce_ on him this way. You know, his mother’s a long way from here, and he hasn’t seen her lately, and—and he’s sorry anyway. And it must be just _awful_ to be so hungry that you have to _steal_.” At this point gentle Tess’ eyes ran over, and she turned to take the red haired boy’s hand. To her amazement, Tommy’s grimy face was likewise streaked with tears. CHAPTER XXIV AUNT SARAH SPEAKS OUT Tommy Rooney’s capture explained some of the mysterious happenings about the old Corner House, but he could not satisfy Ruth regarding the figure she had seen appear at the garret window. For _that_ happened before Tommy had ever been in the house. They were all kind to Tommy, however—all but Mrs. Treble—after Tess had pleaded for him. Mrs. McCall washed his face and hands, and even kissed him—on the sly—and then set him down to a very satisfying meal. For as often as he had raided Mrs. McCall’s pantry at night since taking up his abode in the garret of the old Corner House, he had not had a real “_square_” meal for a month. The house was so big that, by keeping to the two upper floors of the main part during the daytime, and venturing out-of-doors by way of the cellar window only at night, Master Tommy had been able to avoid the family for weeks. He had entered the house first on that evening when he was chased by Mr. Pinkney and the bulldog. Finding the back door open, he had run up the back stairs, and so climbed higher, and higher, until he reached the garret. Nobody said anything to Master Tommy about the ghost, although Agnes wanted to. Ruth forbade her to broach the subject to the runaway. Tommy had made a nest behind the old clothes, but some nights he had slept in a bed on the third floor. The day Ruth and Agnes ransacked the garret for Uncle Peter’s will, he had been down in that third floor room. When Ruth discovered the print of his body on the feather-bed, he was on the floor, under that bed, hidden by the comforter which hung down all around it. He was pretty tired of the life he had been leading. He admitted to the Corner House girls that he had not seen a single Indian in all his wanderings. He was ready to go home—even if his mother thrashed him. So Ruth telegraphed Mrs. Rooney. She took Tommy to a nearby store and dressed him neatly, if cheaply, and then bought his ticket and put him in the care of the conductor of the Bloomingsburg train. Tommy, much wiser than he had been, and quite contrite, went home. “I s’pose he’s a dreadful bad boy,” sighed Dot. “But my! no girl would ever have such things happen to her—would she?” “Would you want to be chased by bulldogs, and live in garrets, and steal just enough to keep alive—and—and never have on anything clean, Dot Kenway?” demanded Tess, in horror.