The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies

“Isn’t that just like a girl?”

“No more like a girl than it is like a boy,” snapped Agnes. “I’m sure all the brains in the world are not of the masculine gender.”

“I stand corrected,” meekly agreed her friend. “Just the same, I don’t think that even you, Aggie, would award Cecile Shepard a medal for perspicuity.”

“Why —why,” gasped the listening Dot, “has Cecile got one of those things the matter with her? I thought it was Luke who got hurt?”

“You are perfectly right, Dottie,” said Agnes, before Neale could laugh at the little girl. “It is Luke who is hurt. But this Neale O’Neil is very likely to dislocate his jaw if he pronounces many such big words. He is only showing off.”

“Squelched!” admitted Neale good-naturedly. “Well, what do you wish done with the car? Shall I put it up? Can’t chase Ruth’s train in it, and bring her back.”

“You might chase the Gypsies,” suggested Tess slowly. “We saw them again – Dot and me.”

“Oh! The Gypsies? What do you think, Neale? I do believe there is something in that fortune-telling business,” Agnes cried.

“I bet there is,” agreed Neale. “Money for the Gypsies.”

But Agnes repeated what the Gypsy girl had said to Ruth and herself just as the elder Corner House girl was starting for the train.

“I saw that Gyp of course,” agreed Neale. “But, pshaw! she only just guessed. Of course there isn’t any truth in what those fortune tellers hand you. Not much!”

“There was something in that basket they handed Tess and me,” said Dot, complacently eyeing the silver girdle on the Alice-doll.

“Say! About that bracelet, Aggie,” broke in Neale. “Do you know what I believe?”

“What, Neale?”

“I believe those Gypsies must have stolen it. Then they got scared, thinking that the police were after them, and the women dropped it into the basket the kids bought, believing they could get the bracelet back when it was safe for them to do so.”

“Do you really suppose that is the explanation?”

“I am afraid the bracelet is ‘stolen goods.’ Perhaps the children had better not carry it away from the house any more. Or until we are sure. The police – ”

“Mercy me, Neale! you surely would not tell the police about the bracelet?”

“Not yet. But I was going to suggest to Ruth that she advertise the bracelet in the Milton Morning Post. Advertise it in the ‘Lost and Found’ column, just as though it had been picked up somewhere. Then let us see if the Gypsies – or somebody else – comes after it.”

“And if somebody does?”

“Well, we can always refuse to give it up until ownership is proved,” declared Neale.

“All right. Let’s advertise it at once. We needn’t wait for Ruth to come back,” said the energetic Agnes. “How should such an advertisement be worded, Neale?”

They proceeded to evolve a reading notice advertising the finding of the silver bracelet, which when published added not a little to the complications of the matter.

CHAPTER VIII – THE MISFORTUNES OF A RUNAWAY

In this present instance Sammy Pinkney was not obliged to exert his imagination to any very great degree to make himself believe that he was having real adventure. Romance very soon took the embryo pirate by the hand and led him into most exciting and quite unlooked-for events.

Sammy’s progress was slow because of the weight of the extension-bag. Yet as he trudged on steadily he put a number of miles behind him that afternoon.

Had his parents known in which direction to look for him they might easily have overtaken the runaway. Neale O’Neil could have driven out this road in the Kenway’s car and brought Sammy back before supper time.

Mr. Pinkney, however, labored under the delusion that because Sammy was piratically inclined, he would head toward the sea. So he got in touch with people all along the railroad line to Pleasant Cove, suspecting that the boy might have purchased a ticket in that direction with a part of the contents of his burglarized bank.

The nearest thing to the sea that Sammy came to after passing the canal on the edge of Milton was a big pond which he sighted about mid-afternoon. Its dancing blue waters looked very cool and refreshing, and the young traveler thought of his bathing suit right away.

“I can hide this bag and take a swim,” he thought eagerly. “I bet that pond is all right. Hullo! There’s some kids. I wonder if they would steal my things if I go in swimming?”

He was not incautious. Being mischievously inclined himself, he suspected other boys of having similar propensities. The boys he had observed were playing down by the water’s edge where an ice-house had once stood. But the building had been destroyed by fire, all but its roof. The eaves of this shingled roof, which was quite intact, now rested on the ground.

The boys were sliding from the ridge of the roof to the ground, and then climbing up again to repeat the performance. It looked to be a lot of fun.

After Sammy had hidden his extension-bag in a clump of bushes, he approached the slide. One boy, who was the largest and oldest of the group, called to Sammy:

“Come on, kid. Try it. The slide’s free.”

It looked to be real sport, and Sammy could not resist the invitation given so frankly. He saw that the bigger boy sat on a piece of board when he slid down the shingles; but the others slid on the seat of their trousers – and so did Sammy.

It proved to be an hilarious occasion. One might have heard those boys shouting and laughing a mile away.

A series of races were held, and Sammy Pinkney managed to win his share of them. This so excited him that he failed for all of the time to notice what fatal effect the friction was having upon his trousers.

He was suddenly reminded, however, by a startling happening. All the shingles on that roof were not worn smooth. Some were “splintery.” Sammy emitted a sharp cry as he reached the ground after a particularly swift descent of the roof, and rising, he clapped his hand to that part of his anatomy upon which he had been tobogganing, with a most rueful expression on his countenance.

“Oh, my! Oh, my!” cried Sammy. “I’ve got two big holes worn right through my pants! My good pants, too. My maw will give me fits, so she will. I’ll never dare go home now.”

The big boy who had saved his own trousers from disaster by using the piece of board to slide on, shouted with laughter. But another of the party said to Sammy:

“Don’t tell your mother. I aren’t going to tell my mother, you bet. By and by she’ll find the holes and think they just wore through naturally.”

“Well,” said Sammy, with a sigh, “I guess I’ve slid down enough for to-day, anyway. Good-bye, you fellers, I’ll see you later.”

He did not feel at all as cheerful as he spoke. He was really smitten with remorse, for this was almost a new suit he had on. He wished heartily that he had put on that cowboy suit – even his bathing suit – before joining that coasting party.

“That big feller,” grumbled Sammy, “is a foxy one, he is! He didn’t wear through his pants, you bet. But me– ”

Sammy was very much lowered in his own estimation over this mishap. He was by no means so smart as he had believed himself to be. He felt gingerly from time to time of the holes in his trousers. They were of such a nature that they could scarcely be hidden.

“Crickey!” he muttered, “she sure will give me fits.”

The boys he had been playing with disappeared. Sammy secured his bag and suddenly found it very, very heavy. Evening was approaching. The sun was so low now that its almost level rays shone into his eyes as he plodded along the road.

A farmer going to Milton market in an auto-truck, its load covered with a brown tarpaulin, passed Sammy. If it had not been for the holes in his trousers, and what his mother would do and say about it, the boy surely would have asked the farmer for a ride back home!

His hesitancy cost him the ride. And he met nobody else on this road he was traveling. He struggled on, his courage beginning to ebb. He had eaten the last crumbs of his lunch. After the pond was out of sight behind him the runaway saw no dwellings at all. The road had entered a wood, and that wood grew thicker and darker as he advanced.

Fireflies twinkled in the bushes. There was a hum of insect life and somewhere a big bullfrog tuned his bassoon – a most eerie sound. A bat flew low above his head and Sammy dodged, uttering a startled squawk.

“Crickey! I don’t like this a bit,” he panted.

But the runaway was no coward. He was quite sure that there was nothing in these woods that would really hurt him. He could still see some distance back from the road on either hand, and he selected a big chestnut tree at the foot of which, between two roots, there was a hollow filled with leaves and trash.

This made not a bad couch, as he very soon found. He thrust the bag that had become so heavy farther into the hollow and lay down before it. But tired as he was, he could not at once go to sleep.

Somewhere near he heard a trickle of water. The sound made the boy thirsty. He finally got up and stumbled through the brush, along the roadside in the direction of the running water.

He found it – a spring rising in the bank above the road. Sammy carried a pocket-cup and soon satisfied his thirst by its aid. He had some difficulty in finding his former nest; but when he did come to the hollow between two huge roots, with the broadly spreading chestnut tree boughs overhead, he soon fell asleep.

Nothing disturbed Sammy thereafter until it was broad daylight. He awoke as much refreshed as though he had slept in his own bed at home.

Young muscles recover quickly from strain. All he remembered, too, was the fun he had had the day before, while he was foot-loose. Even the disaster to his trousers seemed of little moment now. He had always envied ragged urchins; they seemed to have so few cares and nobody to bother them.

He ran with a whoop to the spring, drank his fill from it, and then doused his face and hands therein. The sun and air dried his head after his ablutions and there was nobody to ask if “he had washed behind his ears.”

He returned to the chestnut tree where he had lain all night, whistling. Of course he was hungry; but he believed there must be some house along the road where he could buy breakfast. Sammy Pinkney was not at all troubled by his situation until, stooping to look into the cavity near which he had slept, he made the disconcerting discovery that his extension-bag was not there!

“Wha – wha —what?” stammered Sammy. “It’s gone! Who took it?”

That he had been robbed while he went to the spring was the only explanation there could be of this mysterious disappearance. At least, so thought Sammy.

He ran around the tree, staring all about – even up into the thickly leaved branches where the clusters of green burrs were already formed. Then he plunged through the fringe of bushes into the road to see if he could spy the robber making away in either direction.

All he saw was a rabbit hopping placidly across the highway. A jay flew overhead with raucous call, as though he laughed at the bereft boy. And Sammy Pinkney was in no mood to stand being laughed at!

“You mean old thing!” he shouted at the flashing jay – which merely laughed at him again, just as though he did know who had stolen Sammy’s bag and hugely enjoyed the joke.

In that bag were many things that Sammy considered precious as well as necessary articles of clothing. There was his gun and the shot for it! How could he defend himself from attack or shoot game in the wilds, if either became necessary?

“Oh, dear!” Sammy finally sniffed, not above crying a few tears as there was nobody by to see. “Oh, dear! Now I’ve got to wear this good suit – although ’tain’t so good anyway with holes in the pants.

“But all my other things – crickey! Ain’t it just mean? Whoever took my bag, I hope he’ll have the baddest kind of luck. I – I hope he’ll have to go to the dentist’s and have all his teeth pulled, so I do!” which, from a recent experience of the runaway, seemed the most painful punishment that could be exacted from the thief.

Wishing any amount of ill-fortune for the robber would not bring back his bag. Sammy quite realized this. He had his money safely tied into a very grubby handkerchief, so that was all right. But when he started off along the road at last, he was in no very cheerful frame of mind.

CHAPTER IX – THINGS GO WRONG

Of course there was no real reason why life at the old Corner House should not flow quite as placidly with Ruth away as when the elder sister was at home. It was a fact, however, that things seemed to begin to go wrong almost at once.

Having written the notice advertising the silver bracelet as though it had been found by chance, Agnes made Neale run downtown again at once with it so as to be sure the advertisement would be inserted in the next morning’s Post.

As the automobile had not been put into the garage after the return from taking Ruth to the station, Neale used it on this errand, and on his way back there was a blowout. Of course if Ruth had been at home she could scarcely have averted this misfortune. However, had she been at home the advertisement regarding the bracelet might not have been written at all.

Meanwhile, Mrs. McCall’s preserve jars did not seal well, and the next day the work had to be done all over again. Linda cut her finger “to the bone,” as she gloomily announced. And Uncle Rufus lost a silver dollar somewhere in the grass while he was mowing the lawn.

“An’ dollars is as scarce wid me as dem hen’s teef dey talks about,” said the old darkey. “An’ I never yet did see a hen wid teef – an’ Ah reckon I’ve seen a million of ’em.”

“Oh-oo!” murmured Dot Kenway. “A million hens, Unc’ Rufus? Is there that many?”

“He, he!” chuckled the old man. “Ain’t that the beatenes’ chile dat ever was? Always a-questionin’ an’ a-questionin’. Yo’ can’t git by wid any sprodigious statement when she is around – no, suh!”

Nor could such an expression as “sprodigious” go unchallenged with Dot on the scene – no, indeed! A big word in any case attracted Miss Dorothy.

“What does that mean, Unc’ Rufus?” she promptly demanded. “Is – is ‘sprodigious’ a dictionary word, or just one of your made-up words?”

“Go ‘long chile!” chuckled the old man. “Can’t Uncle Rufus make up words just as good as any dictionary-man? If I knows what Ah wants to say, Ah says it, ne’er mind de dictionary!”

“That’s all very well, Unc’ Rufus,” Tess put in. “But Ruthie only wants us to use language that you find in books. So I guess you’d better not take that one from Uncle Rufus, Dottie.”

“Howcome Missy Ruth so pertic’lar?” grumbled the old man. “Yo’ little gals is gettin’ too much l’arnin’ – suah is! But none of hit don’t find de ol’ man his dollar.”

At this complaint Tess and Dot went to work immediately to hunt for the missing dollar. It was while they were searching along the hedgerow next to the Creamers’ premises that the little girls got into their memorable argument with Mabel Creamer about the lobster – an argument, which, being overheard by Agnes, was reported to the family with much hilarity.

Mabel, an energetic and sharp-tongued child, and Bubby, her little brother, were playing in their yard. That is, Bubby was playing while Mabel nagged and thwarted him in almost everything he wanted to do.

“Now, don’t stoop over like that, Bubby. Your face gets all red like a lobster does. Maybe you’ll turn into one.”

“I ain’t a lobs’er,” shouted Bubby.

“You will be one if you get red like that,” repeated his sister in a most aggravating way.

“I won’t be a lobs’er!” wailed Bubby.

“Of course you won’t be a lobster, Bubby,” spoke up Tess from across the hedge. “You’re just a boy.”

“Course I’s a boy,” declared Bubby stoutly, sensing that Tess Kenway’s assurance was half a criticism. “I don’t want to be a lobs’er – nor a dirl, so there!”

“Oh-oo!” gasped Dot.

“You will be a lobster and turn all red if you are a bad boy,” declared Mabel, who was always in a bad temper when she was made to mind Bubby.

“Why, Mabel,” murmured Dot, who knew a thing or two about lobsters herself, “you wouldn’t boil Bubby, would you?”

“Don’t have to boil ’em to make ’em turn red,” declared Mabel, referring to the lobster, not the boy. “My father brought home live lobsters once and the big one got out of the basket on to the kitchen floor.”

“Oh, my!” exclaimed the interested Dot. “What happened?”

With her imagination thus spurred by appreciation, Mabel pursued the fancy: “And there were three little ones in the basket, and that old, big lobster tried to make them get out on the floor too. And when they wouldn’t, what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” breathed Dot.

“Why, he got so mad at them that he turned red all over. I saw him – ”

“Why, Mabel Creamer!” interrupted Tess, unable to listen further to such a flight of fancy without registering a protest. “That can’t be so – you know it can’t.”

“I’d like to know why it can’t be so?” demanded Mabel.

“’Cause lobsters only turn red when they are boiled. They are all green when they are alive.”

“How do you know so much, Tess Kenway?” cried Mabel. “These are my lobsters and I’ll have them turn blue if I want to – so there!”

There seemed to be no room for further argument. Besides, Mabel grabbed Bubby by the hand and dragged him away from the hedge.

“My!” murmured Dot, “Mabel has such a ‘magination. And maybe that lobster did get mad, Tess. We don’t know.”

“She never had a live lobster in her family,” declared Tess, quite emphatically. “You know very well, Dot Kenway, that Mr. Creamer wouldn’t bring home such a thing as a live lobster, when there are little children in his house.”

“M – mm – I guess that’s so,” agreed Dot. “A live lobster would be worse than Sammy Pinkney’s bulldog.”

Thus reminded of the absent Sammy the two smaller Corner House girls postponed any further search for Uncle Rufus’s dollar and went across the street to learn if any news had been gained of their runaway playmate. Mrs. Pinkney was still despairing. She had imagined already a score of misfortunes that might have befallen her absent son, ranging from his eating of green apples to being run over by an automobile.

“But, Mrs. Pinkney!” burst forth Tess at last, “if Sammy has run away to sea to be a pirate, there won’t be any green apples for him to eat – and no automobiles.”

“Oh, you can never tell what trouble Sammy Pinkney will manage to get into,” moaned his mother. “I can only expect the very worst.”

“Well,” Dot remarked with a sigh, as she and Tess trudged home to supper, “I’m glad there is only one boy in my family. My boy doll, Nosmo King Kenway, will probably be a source of great anxiety when he is older.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Tess told her placidly. “If he is very bad you can send him to the reform school.”

“Oh – oo!” gasped Dot, all her maternal instincts aroused at such a suggestion. “That would be awful.”

“I don’t know. They do send boys to the reform school. Jimmy Mulligan, whose mother lives in that little house on Willow Wythe, is in the reform school because he wouldn’t mind his mother.”

“But they don’t send Sammy there,” urged Dot.

“No – o. Of course,” admitted the really tender-hearted Tess, “we know Sammy isn’t really naughty. He is only silly to run away every once in a while.”

There was much bustle inside the old Corner House that evening. Because they really missed Ruth so much, her sisters invented divers occupations to fill the hours until bedtime. Tess and Dot, for instance, had never cut out so many paper-dolls in all their lives.

Another telegram had arrived from Cecile Shepard (sent, of course, before Ruth had reached Oakhurst), stating that she had been allowed to see her brother and that, although he could not be immediately moved, he was improving and was absolutely in no danger.

“If Ruthie had only waited to get this message,” complained Agnes, “she would not have gone up there to the mountains at all. And just see, Neale, how right that Gypsy girl was. There was news on the way that changed the whole aspect of affairs. She was quite wonderful, I think.”

By this time Neale saw that it was better not to try to ridicule Agnes’ budding belief in fortune telling. “Less said, the soonest mended,” was his wise opinion.

“I like Cecile Shepard,” Agnes went on to say, “and always shall; but I don’t think she has shown much sense about her brother’s illness. Scaring everybody to death, and sending telegrams like a patch-work quilt!”

“Maybe Ruth will come right home again when she finds Luke is all right,” said Tess hopefully. “Dear, me! aren’t boys a lot of trouble?”

“Sammy and Luke are,” agreed Dot.

“All but Neale,” said the loyal Agnes, her boy chum having departed. “I don’t see what this family would do without Neale O’Neil.”

In the morning the older sister’s absence seemed to make quite as great a gap in the household of the old Corner House as at night. But Neale rushed in early with the morning paper to show Agnes their advertisement in print. Under the “Lost and Found” heading appeared the following:

“FOUND: – Silver bracelet, antique design. Owner can regain it by proving property and paying for this advertisement. Apply Kenway, Willow and Main Streets.”

“It sounds quite dignified,” decided Agnes admiringly. “I guess Ruth would approve.”

“Crickey!” ejaculated Neale O’Neil, “this is one thing Ruth is not bossing. We did this off our own bat, Aggie.”

“Just the same,” ruminated Agnes, “I wonder what Mr. Howbridge will say if he reads it?”

“I am glad,” said Neale with gratitude, “that my father doesn’t interfere with what I do. And I haven’t any guardian, unless it is dear old Con Murphy. Folks let me pretty much alone.”

“If they didn’t,” said Agnes saucily, “I suppose you would run away as you did from the circus.”

“No,” laughed her chum. “One runaway in the neighborhood is enough. Mr. Pinkney has been up half the night, he tells me, telephoning and sending telegrams. He has about made up his mind that Sammy hasn’t gone in the direction of Pleasant Cove, after all.”

“We ought to help hunt for Sammy,” cried Agnes eagerly. “Let us take Mrs. Pinkney in the auto, Neale, and search for that little rascal.”

“No. She will not leave the house. She wants to greet Sammy when he comes back – no matter whether it is day or night,” chuckled Neale. “But Mr. Pinkney is going to get away from the office this afternoon, and we’ll take him. He is afraid his wife will be really ill.”

“Poor woman!”

“She cannot be contented to sit down and wait for Sammy to turn up – as he always does.”

“You mean, he always gets turned up,” giggled Agnes. “Somebody is sure to find him.”

“Well, then, it might as well be us,” agreed Neale. “I’ll tune up the engine, and see that the car is all right. We should be able to go over a lot of these roads in an afternoon. Sammy could not have got very far from Milton in two days, or less.”

CHAPTER X – ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS

Quite unsuspicious of the foregoing plans for his apprehension, Sammy Pinkney was journeying on, going steadily away from Milton, and traveling much faster now that he did not have to carry the extension-bag.

The boy had no idea who could have stolen his possessions; but he rubbed his knuckles in his eyes, forced back the tears, and pressed on, feeling that freedom even without a change of garments was preferable to the restrictions of home and all the comforts there to be found.

He walked two miles or more and was very hungry before he came to the first house. It stood just at the edge of the big wood in which Sammy had spent the night.

It was scarcely more than a tumbled-down hut, with broken panes of glass more common than whole ones in the windows, these apertures stuffed with hats and discarded garments, while half the bricks had fallen from the chimney-top. There were half a dozen barefooted children running about, while a very wide and red-faced woman stood in the doorway.

“Hullo, me bye!” she called to Sammy, as he lingered outside the broken fence with a longing eye upon her. “Where be yez bound so airly in the marnin’?”