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diff --git a/36400.txt b/36400.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a5dee4 --- /dev/null +++ b/36400.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6839 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies, by +Grace Brooks Hill, Illustrated by Thelma Gooch + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies + How They Met, What Happened, and How It Ended + + +Author: Grace Brooks Hill + + + +Release Date: June 12, 2011 [eBook #36400] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE +GYPSIES*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 36400-h.htm or 36400-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36400/36400-h/36400-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36400/36400-h.zip) + + + + + +[Illustration: One young woman brought a great pan of stew and bread +and three spoons to the van. _Frontispiece._] + + +THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES + +How They Met +What Happened +And How It Ended + +by + +GRACE BROOKS HILL + +Author of "The Corner House Girls," "The Corner House +Girls on a Houseboat," etc. + +Illustrated by Thelma Gooch + + + + + + + +Barse & Hopkins +Publishers +Newark, N. J. New York, N. Y. + + + * * * * * + + + BOOKS FOR GIRLS + The Corner House Girls Series + By Grace Brooks Hill + _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated._ + + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT + THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES + + Publishers + BARSE & HOPKINS + Newark, N. J. New York, N. Y. + + * * * * * + + +Copyright, 1921, +by +Barse & Hopkins + +_The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies_ +Printed in U. S. A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I The Fretted Silver Bracelet 9 + II A Profound Mystery 20 + III Sammy Pinkney in Trouble 31 + IV The Gypsy Trail 40 + V Sammy Occasions Much Excitement 50 + VI The Gypsy's Words 60 + VII The Bracelet Again To the Fore 70 + VIII The Misfortunes of a Runaway 81 + IX Things Go Wrong 90 + X All Is Not Gold That Glitters 100 + XI Mysteries Accumulate 108 + XII Getting in Deeper 114 + XIII Over the Hills and Far Away 122 + XIV Almost Had Him 134 + XV Uncertainties 143 + XVI The Dead End of Nowhere 149 + XVII Ruth Begins To Worry 157 + XVIII The Junkman Again 165 + XIX The House Is Haunted 175 + XX Plotters at Work 184 + XXI Tess and Dot Take a Hand 195 + XXII Excitement Galore 206 + XXIII A Surprising Meeting 217 + XXIV The Captives 234 + XXV It Must Be All Right 244 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + One young woman brought a great pan of stew and bread and three + spoons to the van Title + + "You have found it!" he chattered with great excitement 112 + + The girls could sit under the trees while Luke reclined on a + swinging cot 158 + + "They want that silver thing back. It wasn't meant for you" 203 + + + + +THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE FRETTED SILVER BRACELET + + +If Sammy Pinkney had not been determined to play a "joey" and hooked +back one of the garage doors so as to enter astride a broomstick with a +dash and the usual clown announcement, "Here we are again!" all would +not have happened that did happen to the Corner House girls--at least, +not in just the way the events really occurred. + +Even Dot, who was inclined to be forgiving of most of Sammy's sins both +of omission and commission, admitted that to be true. Tess, the next +oldest Corner House girl (nobody ever dignified her with the name of +"Theresa," unless it were Aunt Sarah Maltby) was inclined to reflect the +opinion regarding most boys held by their oldest sister, Ruth. Tess's +frank statement to this day is that it was entirely Sammy's fault that +they were mixed up with the Gypsies at all. + +But-- + +"Well, if I'm going to be in your old circus," Sammy announced doggedly, +"I'm going to be a joey--or _nothin'_." + +"You know very well, Sammy, that you can't be that," said Tess +reprovingly. + +"Huh? Why can't I? I bet I'd make just as good a clown as Mr. Sully +Sorber, who is Neale's half-uncle, or Mr. Asa Scruggs, who is +Barnabetta's father." + +"I don't mean you can't be a clown," interrupted Tess. "I mean you can't +be just _nothing_. You occupy space, so you must be something. Our +teacher says so." + +"Shucks!" ejaculated Sammy Pinkney. "Don't I know that? And I wish you +wouldn't talk about school. Why! we're only in the middle of our +vacation, I should hope." + +"It seems such a long time since we went to school," murmured Dot, who +was sitting by, nursing the Alice-doll in her arms and waiting her turn +to be called into the circus ring, which was the cleared space in the +middle of the cement floor. + +"That's because all you folks went off cruising on that houseboat and +never took me with you," grumbled Sammy, who still held a deep-seated +grouch because of the matter mentioned. "But 'tain't been long since +school closed--and it isn't going to be long before the old thing opens +again." + +"Why, Sammy!" admonished Tess. + +"I just _hate_ school, so I do!" vigorously announced the boy. "I'd +rather be a tramp--or a Gypsy. Yes, I would." + +"Or a pirate, Sammy?" suggested Dot reflectively. "You know, me and you +didn't have a very nice time when we went off to be pirates. 'Member?" + +"Huh!" grumbled Sammy, "that was because you was along. Girls can't be +pirates worth shucks. And anyway," he concluded, "I'm going to be the +joey in this show, or I won't play." + +"It will be supper time and the others will be back with the car, so +none of us can play if we don't start in pretty soon," Tess observed. +"Dot and I want to practice our gym work that Neale O'Neil has been +teaching us. But you can clown it all you want to, Sammy." + +"Well, that lets me begin the show anyway," Sammy stated with +satisfaction. + +He always did want to lead. And now he immediately ran to hook back the +door and prepared to make his entrance into the ring in true clowning +style, as he had seen Sully Sorber do in Twomley & Sorber's Herculean +Circus and Menagerie. + +The Kenway garage opened upon Willow Street and along that pleasantly +shaded and quiet thoroughfare just at this time came three rather odd +looking people. Two were women carrying brightly stained baskets of +divers shapes, and one of these women--usually the younger one--went into +the yard of each house and knocked at the side or back door, offering +the baskets for sale. + +The younger one was black-eyed and rather pretty. She was neatly dressed +in very bright colors and wore a deal of gaudy jewelry. The older woman +was not so attractive--or so clean. + +Loitering on the other side of the street, and keeping some distance +behind the Gypsy women, slouched a tall, roughly clad fellow who was +evidently their escort. The women came to the Kenway garage some time +after Sammy Pinkney had made his famous "entrance" and Dot had abandoned +the Alice-doll while she did several handsprings on the mattress that +Tess had laid down. Dot did these very well indeed. Neale O'Neil, who +had been trained in the circus, had given both the smaller Corner House +girls the benefit of his advice and training. They loved athletic +exercises. Mrs. McCall, the Corner House housekeeper, declared Tess and +Dot were as active as grasshoppers. + +The two dark-faced women, as they peered in at the open doorway of the +garage, seemed to think Dot's handsprings were marvelously well done, +too; they whispered together excitedly and then the older one slyly +beckoned the big Gypsy man across the street to approach. + +When he arrived to look over the women's heads it was Tess who was +actively engaged on the garage floor. She was as supple as an eel. Of +course, Tess Kenway would not like to be compared to an eel; but she was +proud of her ability to "wriggle into a bow knot and out again"--as Sammy +vociferously announced. + +"Say, Tess! that's a peach of a trick," declared the boy with +enthusiasm. "Say! Lemme--Huh! What do _you_ want?" For suddenly he saw +the two Gypsy women at the door of the garage. The man was now out of +sight. + +"Ah-h!" whined the old woman cunningly, "will not the young master and +the pretty little ladies buy a nice basket of the poor Gypsy? Good +fortune goes with it." + +"Gee! who wants to buy a basket?" scoffed Sammy. "You only have to carry +things in it." The bane of Sammy Pinkney's existence was the running of +errands. + +"But they _are_ pretty," murmured Tess. + +"Oh--oo! See that nice green and yellow one with the cover," gasped Dot. +"Do you suppose we've got money enough to buy that one, Tess? How nice +it would be to carry the children's clothes in when we go on picnics." + +By "children" Dot meant their dolls, of which, the two smaller Corner +House girls possessed a very large number. Several of these children, +besides the Alice-doll, were grouped upon a bench in the corner of the +garage as a part of the circus audience. The remainder of the spectators +were Sandyface and her family. Sandyface was now a great, _great_ +grandmother cat, and more of her progeny than one would care to catalog +tranquilly viewed the little girls' circus or rolled in kittenish frolic +on the floor. + +It sometimes did seem as though the old Corner House demesne was quite +given up to feline inhabitants. And the recurrent appearance of new +litters of kittens belonging to Sandyface herself, her daughters and +granddaughters, had ceased to make even a ripple in the pool of Corner +House existence. + +This explanation regarding the dolls and cats is really aside from our +narrative. Tess and Dot both viewed with eager eyes the particular +covered basket held out enticingly by the old Gypsy woman. + +Of course the little girls had no pockets in their gymnasium suits. But +in a pocket of her raincoat which Tess had worn down to the garage over +her blouse and bloomers, she found a dime and two pennies--"just enough +for two ice-cream cones," Sammy Pinkey observed. + +"Oh! And my Alice-doll has eight cents in her cunning little beaded +bag," cried Dot, with sudden animation. + +She produced the coins. But there was only twenty cents in all! + +"I--I--What do you ask for that basket, please?" Tess questioned +cautiously. + +"Won't the pretty little ladies give the poor old Gypsy woman half a +dollar for the basket?" + +The little girls lost hope. They were not allowed to break into their +banks for any purpose without asking Ruth's permission, and their +monthly stipend of pocket money was very low. + +"It is a very nice basket, little ladies," said the younger Gypsy +woman--she who was so gayly dressed and gaudily bejeweled. + +"I know," Tess admitted wistfully. "But if we haven't so much money, how +can we buy it?" + +"Say!" interrupted the amateur joey, hands in pockets and viewing the +controversy quite as an outsider. "Say, Tess! if you and Dot really want +that old basket, I've got two-bits I'll lend you." + +"Oh, Sammy!" gasped Dot. "A whole quarter?" + +"Have you got it here with you?" Tess asked. + +"Yep," announced the boy. + +"I don't think Ruth would mind our borrowing twenty-five cents of you, +Sammy," said Tess, slowly. + +"Of course not," urged Dot. "Why, Sammy is just like one of the family." + +"Only when you girls go off cruising, I ain't," observed Sammy, his face +clouding with remembrance. "_Then_ I ain't even a step-child." + +But he produced the quarter and offered it to Tess. She counted it with +the money already in her hand. + +"But--but that makes only forty-five cents," she said. + +The two Gypsy women spoke hissingly to each other in a tongue that the +children did not, of course, understand. Then the older woman thrust the +basket out again. + +"Take!" she said. "Take for forty-fi' cents, eh? The little ladies can +have." + +"Go ahead," Sammy said as Tess hesitated. "That's all the old basket is +worth. I can get one bigger than that at the chain store for seven +cents." + +"Oh, Sammy, it isn't as bee-_you_-tiful as this!" gasped Dot. + +"Well, it's a basket just the same." + +Tess put the silver and pennies in the old woman's clawlike hand and the +longed-for basket came into her possession. + +"It is a good-fortune basket, pretty little ladies," repeated the old +Gypsy, grinning at them toothlessly. "You are honest little ladies, I +can see. You would never cheat the old Gypsy, would you? This is all the +money you have to pay for the beautiful basket? Forty-fi' cents?" + +"Aw, say!" grumbled Sammy, "a bargain is a bargain, ain't it? And +forty-five cents is a good deal of money." + +"If--if you think we ought to pay more--" + +Tess held the basket out hesitatingly. Dot fairly squealed: + +"Don't be a ninny, Tessie Kenway! It's ours now." + +"The basket is yours, little ladies," croaked the crone as the younger +woman pulled sharply at her shawl. "But good fortune goes with it only +if you are honest with the poor old Gypsy. Good-bye." + +The two strange women hurried away. Sammy lounged to the door, hands in +pockets, to look after them. He caught a momentary glimpse of the tall +Gypsy man disappearing around a corner. The two women quickly followed +him. + +"Oh, what a lovely basket!" Dot was saying. + +"I--I hope Ruth won't scold because we borrowed that quarter of Sammy," +murmured Tess. + +"Shucks!" exclaimed their boy friend. "Don't tell her. You can pay me +when you get some more money." + +"Oh, no!" Tess said. "I would not hide anything from Ruth." + +"You couldn't, anyway," said the practical Dot. "She will want to know +where we got the money to pay for the basket. Oh, _do_ open it, Tess. +Isn't it lovely?" + +The cover worked on a very ingeniously contrived hinge. Had the children +known much about such things they must have seen that the basket was +worth much more than the price they had paid for it--much more indeed +than the price the Gypsies had first asked. + +Tess lifted the cover. Dot crowded nearer to look in. The shadows of the +little girls' heads at first hid the bottom of the basket. Then both saw +something gleaming dully there. Tess and Dot cried out in unison; but it +was the latter's brown hand that darted into the basket and brought +forth the bracelet. + +"A silver bracelet!" Tess gasped. + +"Oh, look at it!" cried Dot. "Did you _ever_? Do you s'pose it's real +silver, Tess?" + +"Of course it is," replied her sister, taking the circlet in her own +hand. "How pretty! It's all engraved with fret-work--" + +"Hey!" ejaculated Sammy coming closer. "What's that?" + +"Oh, Sammy! A silver bracelet--all fretted, too," exclaimed the highly +excited Dot. + +"Huh! What's that? 'Fretted'? When my mother's fretted she's--Say! how +can a silver bracelet be cross, I want to know?" + +"Oh, Sammy," Tess suddenly ejaculated, "these Gypsy women will be cross +enough when they miss this bracelet!" + +"Oh! Oh!" wailed Dot. "Maybe they'll come back and want to take it and +the pretty basket, Tess. Let's run and hide 'em!" + + + + +CHAPTER II--A PROFOUND MYSTERY + + +Tess Kenway was positively shocked by her sister Dot's suggestion. To +think of trying to keep the silver bracelet which they knew must belong +to the Gypsy woman who had sold them the green and yellow basket, was +quite a horrifying thought to Tess. + +"How _can_ you say such a thing, Dottie Kenway?" she demanded sternly. +"Of course we cannot keep the bracelet. And that old Gypsy lady said we +were honest, too. She could _see_ we were. And, then, what would Ruthie +say?" + +Their older sister's opinion was always the standard for the other +Corner House girls. And that might well be, for Ruth Kenway had been +mentor and guide to her sisters ever since Dot, at least, could +remember. Their mother had died so long ago that Tess but faintly +remembered her. + +The Kenways had lived in a very moderately priced tenement in Bloomsburg +when Mr. Howbridge (now their guardian) had searched for and found them, +bringing them with Aunt Sarah Maltby to the old Corner House in Milton. +In the first volume of this series, "The Corner House Girls," these +matters are fully explained. + +The six succeeding volumes relate in detail the adventures of the four +sisters and their friends--and some most remarkable adventures have they +had at school, under canvas, at the seashore, as important characters in +a school play, solving the mystery of a long-lost fortune, on an +automobile tour through the country, and playing a winning part in the +fortunes of Luke and Cecile Shepard in the volume called "The Corner +House Girls Growing Up." + +In "The Corner House Girls Snowbound," the eighth book of the series, +the Kenways and a number of their young friends went into the North +Woods with their guardian to spend the Christmas Holidays. Eventually +they rescued the twin Birdsall children, who likewise had come under the +care of the elderly lawyer who had so long been the Kenway sisters' good +friend. + +During the early weeks of the summer, just previous to the opening of +our present story, the Corner House girls had enjoyed a delightful trip +on a houseboat in the neighboring waters. The events of this trip are +related in "The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat." During this outing +there was more than one exciting incident. But the most exciting of all +was the unexpected appearance of Neale O'Neil's father, long believed +lost in Alaska. + +Mr. O'Neil's return to the States could only be for a brief period, for +his mining interests called him back to Nome. His son, however, no +longer mourned him as lost, and naturally (though this desire he kept +secret from Agnes) the boy hoped, when his school days were over, to +join his father in that far Northland. + +There was really no thought in the mind of the littlest Corner House +girl to take that which did not belong to her. Most children believe +implicitly in "findings-keepings," and it seemed to Dot Kenway that as +they had bought the green and yellow basket in good faith of the two +Gypsy women, everything it contained should belong to them. + +This, too, was Sammy Pinkney's idea of the matter. Sammy considered +himself very worldly wise. + +"Say! what's the matter with you, Tess Kenway? Of course that bracelet +is yours--if you want it. Who's going to stop you from keeping it, I want +to know?" + +"But--but it must belong to one of those Gypsy ladies," gasped Tess. "The +old lady asked us if we were honest. Of course we are!" + +"Pshaw! If they miss it, they'll be back after that silver thing fast +enough." + +"But, Sammy, suppose they don't know the bracelet fell into this +basket?" + +"Then you and Dot are that much in," was the prompt rejoinder of their +boy friend. "You bought the basket and all that was in it. They couldn't +claim the _air_ in that basket, could they? Well, then! how could they +lay claim to anything else in the basket?" + +Such logic seemed unanswerable to Dot's mind. But Tess shook a doubtful +head. She had a feeling that they ought to run after the Gypsies to +return to them at once the bracelet. Only, neither she nor Dot was +dressed properly to run through Milton's best residential streets after +the Romany people. As for Sammy-- + +Happily, so Tess thought, she did not have to decide the matter. +Musically an automobile horn sounded its warning and the children ran +out to welcome the two older Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil, who +acted as their chauffeur on this particular trip. + +They had been far out into the country for eggs and fresh vegetables, to +the farm, in fact, of Mr. Bob Buckham, the strawberry king and the +Corner House girls' very good friend. In these times of very high prices +for food, Ruth Kenway considered it her duty to save money if she could +by purchasing at first cost for the household's needs. + +"Otherwise," this very capable young housewife asked, "how shall we +excuse the keeping of an automobile when the up-keep and everything is +so high?" + +"Oh, _do_," begged Agnes, the flyaway sister, "_do_ let us have +something impractical, Ruth. I just hate the man who wrote the first +treatise on political economy." + +"I fancy it is 'household economy' you mean, Aggie," returned her +sister, smiling. "And I warrant the author of the first treatise on that +theme was a woman." + +"Mrs. Eva Adam, I bet!" chuckled Neale O'Neil, hearing this controversy +from the driver's seat. "It has always been in my mind that the First +Lady of the Garden of Eden was tempted to swipe those apples more +because the price of other fruit was so high than for any other reason." + +"Then Adam was stingy with the household money," declared Agnes. + +"I really wish you would not use such words as 'swipe' before the +children, Neale," sighed Ruth who, although she was no purist, did not +wish the little folk to pick up (as they so easily did) slang phrases. + +She stepped out of the car when Neale had halted it within the garage +and Agnes handed her the egg basket. Tess and Dot immediately began +dancing about their elder sister, both shouting at once, the smallest +girl with the green and yellow basket and Tess with the silver bracelet +in her hand. + +"Oh, Ruthie, what do you think?" + +"See how pretty it is! And they never missed it." + +"_Can't_ we keep it, Ruthie?" This from Dot. "We paid those Gypsy ladies +for the basket and all that was in it. Sammy says so." + +"Then it must be true of course," scoffed Agnes. "What is it?" + +"Well, I guess I know some things," observed Sammy, bridling. "If you +buy a walnut you buy the kernel as well as the shell, don't you? And +that bracelet was inside that covered basket, like the kernel in a nut." + +"Listen!" exclaimed Neale likewise getting out of the car. "Sammy's a +very Solomon for judgment." + +"Now don't you call me that, Neale O'Neil!" ejaculated Sammy angrily. "I +ain't a pig." + +"Wha--what! Who called you a pig, Sammy?" + +"Well, that's what Mr. Con Murphy calls _his_ pig--'Solomon.' You needn't +call me by any pig-name, so there!" + +"I stand reproved," rejoined Neale with mock seriousness. "But, see +here: What's all this about the basket and the bracelet--a two-fold +mystery?" + +"It sounds like a thriller in six reels," cried Agnes, jumping out of +the car herself to get a closer view of the bracelet and the basket. +"My! Where did you get that gorgeous bracelet, children?" + +The beauty of the family, who loved "gew-gaws" of all kinds, seized the +silver circlet and tried it upon her own plump arm. Ruth urged Tess to +explain and had to place a gentle palm upon Dot's lips to keep them +quiet so that she might get the straight of the story from the more +sedate Tess. + +"And so, that's how it was," concluded Tess. "We bought the basket after +borrowing Sammy's twenty-five cent piece, and of course the basket +belongs to us, doesn't it, Ruthie?" + +"Most certainly, my dear," agreed the elder sister. + +"And inside was that beautiful fretted silver bracelet. And that--" + +"Just as certainly belongs to the Gypsies," finished Ruth. "At least, it +does not belong to you and Dot." + +"Aw shu-u-cks!" drawled Sammy in dissent. + +Even Agnes cast a wistful glance at the older girl. Ruth was always so +uncompromising in her decisions. There was never any middle ground in +her view. Either a thing was right, or it was wrong, and that was all +there was to it! + +"Well," sighed Tess, "that Gypsy lady _said_ she knew we were honest." + +"I think," Ruth observed thoughtfully, "that Neale had better run the +car out again and look about town for those Gypsy women. They can't have +got far away." + +"Say, Ruth! it's most supper time," objected Neale. "Have a heart!" + +"Anyway, I wouldn't trouble myself about a crowd of Gypsies," said +Agnes. "They may have stolen the bracelet." + +"Oh!" gasped Tess and Dot in unison. + +"You know what June Wildwood told us about them. And she lived with +Gypsies for months." + +"Gypsies are not all alike," the elder sister said confidently in answer +to this last remark by Agnes. "Remember Mira and King David Stanley, and +how nice they were to Tess and Dottie?" she asked, speaking of an +incident related in "The Corner House Girls on a Tour." + +"I don't care!" exclaimed Agnes, pouting, and still viewing the bracelet +on her arm with admiration. "I wouldn't run _my_ legs off chasing a band +of Gypsies." + +They were all, however, bound to be influenced by Ruth's decision. + +"Well, I'll hunt around after supper," Neale said. "I'll take Sammy with +me. You'll know those women if you see them again, won't you, kid?" + +"Sure," agreed Sammy, forgiving Neale for calling him "kid" with the +prospect of an automobile ride in the offing. + +"But--but," breathed Tess in Ruth's ear, "if those Gypsy ladies don't +take back the bracelet, it belongs to Dot and me, doesn't it, Sister?" + +"Of course. Agnes! do give it back, now. I expect it will cause trouble +enough if those women are not found. A bone of contention! Both these +children will want to wear the bracelet at the same time. Don't _you_ +add to the difficulty, Agnes." + +"Why," drawled Agnes, slowly removing the curiously engraved silver +ornament from her arm, "of course they will return for it. Or Neale will +find them." + +This statement, however, was not borne out by the facts. Neale and Sammy +drove all about town that evening without seeing the Gypsy women. The +next day the smaller Corner House girls were taken into the suburbs all +around Milton; but nowhere did they find trace of the Gypsies or of any +encampment of those strange, nomadic people in the vicinity. + +The finding of the bracelet in the basket remained a mystery that the +Corner House girls could not soon forget. + +"It does seem," said Tess, "as though those Gypsy ladies couldn't have +meant to give us the bracelet, Dot. The old one said so much about our +being honest. She didn't expect us to _steal_ it." + +"Oh, no!" agreed Dot. "But Neale O'Neil says maybe the Gypsy ladies +stole it, and were afraid to keep it. So they gave it to us." + +"M-mm," considered Tess. "But that doesn't explain it at all. Even if +they wanted to get rid of the bracelet, they need not have given it to +us in such a lovely basket. Ruth says the basket is worth a whole lot +more than the forty-five cents we paid for it." + +"It _is_ awful pretty," sighed Dot in agreement. + +"Some day they will surely come back for the bracelet." + +"Oh, I hope not!" murmured the littlest Corner House girl. "It makes +such a be-_you_-tiful belt for my Alice-doll, when it's my turn to wear +it." + + + + +CHAPTER III--SAMMY PINKNEY IN TROUBLE + + +Uncle Rufus, who was general factotum about the old Corner House and +even acted as butler on "date and state occasions," was a very brown man +with a shiny bald crown around three-quarters of the circumference of +which was a hedge of white wool. Aided by Neale O'Neil (who still +insisted on earning a part of his own support in spite of the fact that +Mr. Jim O'Neil, his father, expected in time to be an Alaskan +millionaire gold-miner), Uncle Rufus did all of the chores about the +place. And those chores were multitudinous. + +Besides the lawns and the flower gardens to care for, there was a +good-sized vegetable garden to weed and to hoe. Uncle Rufus suffered +from what he called a "misery" in his back that made it difficult for +him to stoop to weed the small plants in the garden. + +"I don't know, Missy Ruth," complained the old darkey to the eldest +Corner House girl, "how I's goin' to get that bed of winter beets +weeded--I dunno, noways. My misery suah won't let me stoop down to them +rows, and there's a big patch of 'em." + +"Do they need weeding right now, Uncle Rufus?" + +"Suah do, Missy. Dey is sufferin' fo' hit. I'd send wo'd for some o' mah +daughter Pechunia's young 'uns to come over yere, but I knows dat all o' +them that's big enough to work is reg'larly employed by de farmers out +dat a-way. Picking crops for de canneries is now at de top-notch, Missy; +and even Burnejones Whistler and Louise-Annette is big enough to pick +beans." + +"Goodness me!" exclaimed Agnes, who overheard the old man's complaint. +"There ought to be kids enough around these corners to hire, without +sending to foreign lands for any. They are always under foot if you +_don't_ want them." + +"Ain't it de truf?" chuckled the old man. "Usual' I can't look over de +hedge without spyin' dat Sammy Pinkney and a dozen of his crew. They's +jest as plenty as bugs under a chip. But now--" + +"Well, why not get Sammy?" interrupted Ruth. + +"He ought to be of some use, that is sure," added Agnes. + +"Can yo' put yo' hand on dat boy?" demanded Uncle Rufus. "'Nless he's in +mischief I don't know where to look for him." + +"I can find him all right," Agnes declared. "But I cannot guarantee that +he will take the job." + +"Offer him fifty cents to weed those beet rows," Ruth said briskly. "The +bed I see is just a mat of weeds." They had walked down to the garden +while the discussion was going on. "If Sammy will do it I'll be glad to +pay the half dollar." + +She bustled away about some other domestic matter; for despite the fact +that Mrs. McCall bore the greater burden of housekeeping affairs, Ruth +Kenway did not shirk certain responsibilities that fell to her lot both +outside and inside the Corner House. + +After all was said and done, Sammy Pinkney looked upon Agnes as his +friend. She was more lenient with him than even Dot was. Ruth and Tess +looked upon most boys as merely "necessary evils." But Agnes had always +liked to play with boys and was willing to overlook their shortcomings. + +"I got a lot to do," ventured Sammy, shying as usual at the idea of +work. "But if you really want me to, Aggie--" + +"And if you want to make a whole half dollar," suggested Agnes, not much +impressed by the idea that Sammy would weed beets as a favor. + +"All right," agreed the boy, and shooing Buster, his bulldog, out of the +Corner House premises, for Buster and Billy Bumps, the goat, were sworn +enemies, Sammy proceeded to the vegetable garden. + +Now, both Uncle Rufus and Agnes particularly showed Sammy which were the +infant beets and which the weeds. It is a fact, however, that there are +few garden plants grown for human consumption that do not have their +counterpart among the noxious weeds. + +The young beets, growing in scattered clumps in the row (for each +seed-burr contains a number of seeds), looked much like a certain weed +of the lambs'-quarters variety; and this reddish-green weed pretty well +covered the beet bed. + +Tess and Dot had gone to a girls' party at Mrs. Adams', just along on +Willow Street, that afternoon, so they did not appear to disturb Sammy +at his task. In fact, the boy had it all his own way. Neither Uncle +Rufus nor any other older person came near him, and he certainly made a +thorough job of that beet bed. + +Mrs. McCall "set great store," as she said, by beets--both pickled and +fresh--for winter consumption. When Neale O'Neil chanced to go into the +garden toward supper time to see what Sammy was doing there, it was too +late to save much of the crop. + +"Well, of all the dunces!" ejaculated Neale, almost immediately seeing +what Sammy had been about. "Say! you didn't do that on purpose, did you? +Or don't you know any better?" + +"Know any better'n _what_?" demanded the bone-weary Sammy, in no mood to +endure scolding in any case. "Ain't I done it all right? I bet you can't +find a weed in that whole bed, so now." + +"Great grief, kid!" gasped the older boy, seeing that Sammy was quite in +earnest, "I don't believe you've left anything _but_ weeds in those +rows. It--it's a knock-out!" + +"Aw--I never," gulped Sammy. "I guess I know beets." + +"Huh! It looks as though you don't even know _beans_," chortled Neale, +unable to keep his gravity. "What a mess! Mrs. McCall will be as sore as +she can be." + +"I don't care!" cried the tired boy wildly. "I saved just what Aggie +told me to, and threw away everything else. And see how the rows are." + +"Why, Sammy, those aren't where the rows of beets were at all. See! +_These_ are beets. _Those_ are weeds. Oh, great grief!" and the older +boy went off into another gale of laughter. + +"I--I do-o-on't care," wailed Sammy. "I did just what Aggie told me to. +And I want my half dollar." + +"You want to be paid for wasting all Mrs. McCall's beets?" + +"I don't care, I earned it." + +Neale could not deny the statement. As far as the work went, Sammy +certainly had spent time and labor on the unfortunate task. + +"Wait a minute," said Neale, as Sammy started away in anger. "Maybe all +those beet plants you pulled up aren't wilted. We can save some of them. +Beets grow very well when they are transplanted--especially if the ground +is wet enough and the sun isn't too hot. It looks like rain for +to-night, anyway." + +"Aw--I--" + +"Come on! We'll get some water and stick out what we can save. I'll help +you and the girls needn't know you were such a dummy." + +"Dummy, yourself!" snarled the tired and over-wrought boy. "I'll never +weed another beet again--no, I won't!" + +Sammy made a bee-line out of the garden and over the fence into Willow +Street, leaving Neale fairly shaking with laughter, yet fully realizing +how dreadfully cut-up Sammy must feel. + +The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune seem much greater to the +mind of a youngster like Sammy Pinkney than to an adult person. The +ridicule which he knew he must suffer because of his mistake about the +beet bed, seemed something that he really could not bear. Besides, he +had worked all the afternoon for nothing (as he presumed) and only the +satisfaction of having earned fifty cents would have counteracted the +ache in his muscles. + +Harried by his disappointment, Sammy was met by his mother in a stern +mood, her first question being: + +"Where have you been wasting your time ever since dinner, Sammy Pinkney? +I never did see such a lazy boy!" + +It was true that he had wasted his time. But his sore muscles cried out +against the charge that he was lazy. + +He could not explain, however, without revealing his shame. To be +ridiculed was the greatest punishment Sammy Pinkney knew. + +"Aw, what do you want me to do, Maw? Work _all_ the time? Ain't this my +vacation?" + +"But your father says you are to work enough in the summer to keep from +forgetting what work is. And look how grubby you are. Faugh!" + +"What do you want me to do, Maw?" + +"You might do a little weeding in our garden, you know, Sammy." + +"Weeding!" groaned the boy, fairly horrified by the suggestion after +what he had been through that afternoon. + +"You know very well that our onions and carrots need cleaning out. And I +don't believe you could even find our beets." + +"Beets!" Sammy's voice rose to a shriek. He never was really a bad boy; +but this was too much. "Beets!" cried Sammy again. "I wouldn't weed a +beet if nobody ever ate another of 'em. No, I wouldn't." + +He darted by his mother into the house and ran up to his room. Her +reiterated command that he return and explain his disgraceful speech and +violent conduct did not recall Sammy to the lower floor. + +"Very well, young man. Don't you come down to supper, either. And we'll +see what your father has to say about your conduct when he comes home." + +This threat boded ill for Sammy, lying sobbing and sore upon his bed. He +was too desperate to care much what his father did to him. But to face +the ridicule of the neighborhood--above all to face the prospect of +weeding another bed of beets!--was more than the boy could contemplate. + +"I'll run away and be a pirate--that's just what I'll do," choked Sammy, +his old obsession enveloping his harassed thoughts. "I'll show 'em! +They'll be sorry they treated me so--all of 'em." + +Just who "'em" were was rather vague in Sammy Pinkney's mind. But the +determination to get away from all these older people, whom he +considered had abused him, was not vague at all. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE GYPSY TRAIL + + +Mr. Pinkney, Sammy's father, heard all about it before he arrived home, +for he always passed the side door of the old Corner House on his return +from business. He came at just that time when Neale O'Neil was telling +the assembled family--including Mrs. McCall, Uncle Rufus, and Linda the +maid-of-all-work--about the utter wreck of the beet bed. + +"I've saved what I could--set 'em out, you know, and soaked 'em well," +said the laughing Neale. "But make up your mind, Mrs. McCall, that +you'll have to buy a good share of your beets this winter." + +"Well! What do you know about that, Mr. Pinkney?" demanded Agnes of +their neighbor, who had halted at the gate. + +"Just like that boy," responded Mr. Pinkney, shaking his head over his +son's transgressions. + +"Just the same," Neale added, chuckling, "Sammy says you showed him +which were weeds and which were beets, Aggie." + +"Of course I did," flung back the quick-tempered Agnes. "And so did +Uncle Rufus. But that boy is so heedless--" + +"I agree that Sammy pays very little attention to what is told him," +said Sammy's father. + +Here Tess put in a soothing word, as usual: "Of course he didn't mean to +pull up all your beets, Mrs. McCall." + +"And I don't like beets anyway," proclaimed Dot. + +"He certainly must have worked hard," Ruth said, producing a fifty-cent +piece and running down the steps to press it into Mr. Pinkney's palm. "I +am sure Sammy had no intention of spoiling our beet bed. And I am not +sure that it is not partly our fault. He should not have been left all +the afternoon without some supervision." + +"He should be more observing," said Mr. Pinkney. "I never did see such a +rattlebrain." + +"'The servant is worthy of his hire,'" quoted Ruth. "And tell him, Mr. +Pinkney, that we forgive him." + +"Just the same," cried Agnes after their neighbor, "although Sammy may +know beans, as Neale says, he doesn't seem to know beets! Oh, what a +boy!" + +So Mr. Pinkney brought home the story of Sammy's mistake and he and his +wife laughed over it. But when Mrs. Pinkney called upstairs for the boy +to come down to a late supper she got only a muffled response that he +"didn't want no supper." + +"He must be sick," she observed to her husband, somewhat anxiously. + +"He's sick of the mess he's made--that's all," declared Mr. Pinkney +cheerfully. "Let him alone. He'll come around all right in the morning." + +Meanwhile at the Corner House the Kenway sisters had something more +important (at least, as they thought) to talk about than Sammy Pinkney +and his errors of judgment. What Dot had begun to call the "fretful +silver bracelet" was a very live topic. + +The local jeweler had pronounced the bracelet of considerable value +because of its workmanship. It did not seem possible that the Gypsy +women could have dropped the bracelet into the basket they had sold the +smaller Corner House girls and then forgotten all about it. + +"It is not reasonable," Ruth Kenway declared firmly, "that it could just +be a mistake. That basket is worth two dollars at least; and they sold +it to the children for forty-five cents. It is mysterious." + +"They seemed to like Tess and me a whole lot," Dot said complacently. +"That is why they gave it to us so cheap." + +"And that is the very reason I am worried," Ruth added. + +"Why don't you report it to the police?" croaked Aunt Sarah Maltby. +"Maybe they'll try to rob the house." + +"O-oh," gasped Dot, round-eyed. + +"Who? The police?" giggled Agnes in Ruth's ear. + +"Maybe we ought to look again for those Gypsy ladies," Tess said. "But +the bracelet is awful pretty." + +"I tell you! Let's ask June Wildwood. She knows all about Gypsies," +cried Agnes. "She used to travel with them. Don't you remember, Ruth? +They called her Queen Zaliska, and she made believe tell fortunes. Of +course, not being a real Gypsy she could not tell them very well." + +"Crickey!" ejaculated Neale O'Neil, who was present. "You don't believe +in that stuff, do you, Aggie?" + +"I don't know whether I do or not. But it's awfully thrilling to think +of learning ahead what is going to happen." + +"Huh!" snorted her boy friend. "Like the weather man, eh? But he has +some scientific data to go on." + +"Probably the Gypsy fortune tellers have reduced their business to a +science, too," Ruth calmly said. + +"Anyhow," laughed Neale, "Queen Zaliska now works in Byburg's candy +store. Some queen, I'll tell the world!" + +"Neale!" admonished Ruth. "_Such_ slang!" + +"Come on, Neale," said the excited Agnes. "Let you and me go down to +Byburg's and ask her about the bracelet." + +"I really don't see how June can tell us anything," observed Ruth +slowly. + +"Anyway," Agnes briskly said, putting on her hat, "we need some candy. +Come on, Neale." + +The Wildwoods were Southerners who had not lived long in Milton. Their +story is told in "The Corner House Girls Under Canvas." The Kenways were +very well acquainted with Juniper Wildwood and her sister, Rosa. Agnes +felt privileged to question June about her life with the Gypsies. + +"I saw Big Jim in town the other day," confessed the girl behind the +candy counter the moment Agnes broached the subject. "I am awfully +afraid of him. I ran all the way home. And I told Mr. Budd, the +policeman on this beat, and I think Mr. Budd warned Big Jim to get out +of town. There is some talk about getting a law through the Legislature +putting a heavy tax on each Gypsy family that does not keep moving. +_That_ will drive them away from Milton quicker than anything else. And +that Big Jim is a bad, bad man. Why! he's been in jail for stealing." + +"Oh, my! He's a regular convict, then," gasped Agnes, much impressed. + +"Pshaw!" said Neale. "They don't call a man a convict unless he has been +sent to the State prison, or to the Federal penitentiary. But that Big +Jim looked to be tough enough, when we saw him down at Pleasant Cove, to +belong in prison for life. Remember him, Aggie?" + +"The children did not say anything about a Gypsy man," observed his +friend. "There were two Gypsy women." + +She went on to tell June Wildwood all about the basket purchase and the +finding of the silver bracelet. The older girl shook her head solemnly +as she said: + +"I don't understand it at all. Gypsies are always shrewd bargainers. +They never sell things for less than they cost." + +"But they made that basket," Agnes urged. "Perhaps it didn't cost them +so much as Ruth thinks." + +June smiled in a superior way. "Oh, no, they didn't make it. They don't +waste their time nowadays making baskets when they can buy them from the +factories so much cheaper and better. Oh, no!" + +"Crackey!" exclaimed Neale. "Then they are fakers, are they?" + +"That bracelet is no fake," declared Agnes. + +"That is what puzzles me most," said June. "Gypsies are very tricky. At +least, all I ever knew. And if those two women you speak of belonged to +Big Jim's tribe, I would not trust them at all." + +"But it seems they have done nothing at all bad in this case," Agnes +observed. + +"Tess and Dot are sure ahead of the game, so far," chuckled Neale in +agreement. + +"Just the same," said June Wildwood, "I would not be careless. Don't let +the children talk to the Gypsies if they come back for the bracelet. Be +sure to have some older person see the women and find out what they +want. Oh, they are very sly." + +June had then to attend to other customers, and Agnes and Neale walked +home. On the way they decided that there was no use in scaring the +little ones about the Gypsies. + +"I don't believe in bugaboos," Agnes declared. "We'll just tell Ruth." + +This she proceeded to do. But perhaps she did not repeat June Wildwood's +warning against the Gypsy band with sufficient emphasis to impress +Ruth's mind. Or just about this time the older Corner House girl had +something of much graver import to trouble her thought. + +By special delivery, on this evening just before they retired, arrived +an almost incoherent letter from Cecile Shepard, part of which Ruth read +aloud to Agnes: + + "... and just as Aunt Lorina is only beginning to get better! I feel + as though this family is fated to have trouble this year. Luke was + doing so well at the hotel and the proprietor liked him. It isn't + _his_ fault that that outside stairway was untrustworthy and fell with + him. The doctor says it is only a strained back and a broken wrist. + But Luke is in bed. I am going by to-morrow's train to see for myself. + I don't dare tell Aunt Lorina--nor even Neighbor. Neighbor--Mr. + Northrup--is not well himself, and he would only worry about Luke if he + knew.... Now, don't _you_ worry, and I will send you word how Luke is + just the minute I arrive." + +"But how can I help being anxious?" Ruth demanded of her sister. "Poor +Luke! And he was working so hard this summer so as not to be obliged to +depend entirely on Neighbor for his college expenses next year." + +Ruth was deeply interested in Luke Shepard--had been, in fact, since the +winter previous when all the Corner House family were snowbound at the +Birdsall winter camp in the North Woods. Of course, Ruth and Luke were +both very young, and Luke had first to finish his college course and get +into business. + +Still and all, the fact that Luke Shepard had been hurt quite dwarfed +the Gypsy bracelet matter in Ruth's mind. And in that of Agnes, too, of +course. + +In addition, the very next morning Mrs. Pinkney ran across the street +and in at the side door of the Corner House in a state of panic. + +"Oh! have you seen him?" she cried. + +"Seen whom, Mrs. Pinkney?" asked Ruth with sympathy. + +"Is Buster lost again?" demanded Tess, poising a spoonful of breakfast +food carefully while she allowed her curiosity to take precedence over +the business of eating. "That dog always _is_ getting lost." + +"It isn't Sammy's dog," wailed Mrs. Pinkney. "It is Sammy himself. I +can't find him." + +"Can't find Sammy?" repeated Agnes. + +"His bed hasn't been slept in! I thought he was just sulky last night. +But he is _gone_!" + +"Well," said Tess, practically, "Sammy is always running away, you +know." + +"Oh, this is serious," cried the distracted mother. "He has broken open +his bank and taken all his money--almost four dollars." + +"My!" murmured Dot, "it must cost lots more to run away and be pirates +now than it used to." + +"Everything is much higher," agreed Tess. + + + + +CHAPTER V--SAMMY OCCASIONS MUCH EXCITEMENT + + +"I do hope and pray," Aunt Sarah Maltby declared, "that Mrs. Pinkney +won't go quite distracted about that boy. Boys make so much trouble +usually that a body would near about believe that it must be an occasion +for giving thanks to get rid of one like Sammy Pinkney." + +This was said of course after Sammy's mother had gone home in tears--and +Agnes had accompanied her to give such comfort as she might. The whole +neighborhood was roused about the missing Sammy. All agreed that the boy +never was of so much importance as when he was missing. + +"I do hope and pray that the little rascal will turn up soon," continued +Aunt Sarah, "for Mrs. Pinkney's sake." + +"I wonder," murmured Dot to Tess, "why it is Aunt Sarah always says she +'hopes and prays'? Wouldn't just praying be enough? You're sure to get +what you pray for, aren't you?" + +"But what is the use of praying if you don't hope?" demanded Tess, the +hair-splitting theologian. "They must go together, Dot. I should think +you'd see that." + +Mrs. Pinkney had lost hope of finding Sammy, however, right at the +start. She knew him of course of old. He had been running away ever +since he could toddle out of the gate; but she and Mr. Pinkney tried to +convince themselves that each time would be the last--that he was +"cured." + +For almost always Sammy's runaway escapades ended disastrously for him +and covered him with ridicule. Particularly ignominious was the result +of his recent attempt, which is narrated in the volume immediately +preceding this, to accompany the Corner House Girls on their canal-boat +cruise, when he appeared as a stowaway aboard the boat in the company of +Billy Bumps, the goat. + +"And he hasn't even taken Buster with him this time," proclaimed Mrs. +Pinkney. "He chained Buster down cellar and the dog began to howl. So +mournful! It got on my nerves. I went down after Mr. Pinkney went to +business early this morning and let Buster out. Then, because of the +dog's actions, I began to suspect Sammy had gone. I called him. No +answer. And he hadn't had any supper last night either." + +"I am awfully sorry, Mrs. Pinkney," Agnes said. "It was too bad about +the beets. But he needn't have run away because of _that_. Ruth sent him +his fifty cents, you know." + +"That's just it!" exclaimed the distracted woman. "His father did not +give Sammy the half dollar. As long as the boy was so sulky last +evening, and refused to come down to eat, Mr. Pinkney said let him wait +for that money till he came down this morning. _He_ thought Ruth was too +good. Sammy is always doing something." + +"Oh, he's not so bad," said the comforting Agnes. "I am sure there are +lots worse boys. And are you sure, Mrs. Pinkney, that he has really run +away this time?" + +"Buster can't find him. The poor dog has been running around and +snuffing for an hour. I've telephoned to his father." + +"Who--_what_? Buster's father?" + +"Mr. Pinkney," explained Sammy's mother. "I suppose he'll tell the +police. He says--Mr. Pinkney does--that the police must think it is a +'standing order' on their books to find Sammy." + +"Oh, my!" giggled Agnes, who was sure to appreciate the comical side of +the most serious situation. "I should think the policemen would be so +used to looking for Sammy that they would pick him up anywhere they +chanced to see him with the idea that he was running away." + +"Well," sighed Mrs. Pinkney, "Buster can't find him. There he lies +panting over by the currant bushes. The poor dog has run his legs off." + +"I don't believe bulldogs are very keen on a scent. Our old Tom Jonah +could do better. But of course Sammy went right out into the street and +the scent would be difficult for the best dog to follow. Do you think +Sammy went early this morning?" + +"That dog began to howl soon after we went to bed. Mr. Pinkney sleeps so +soundly that it did not annoy him. But I _knew_ something was wrong when +Buster howled so. + +"Perhaps I'm superstitious. But we had an old dog that howled like that +years ago when my grandmother died. She was ninety-six and had been +bedridden for ten years, and the doctors said of course that she was +likely to die almost any time. But that old Towser _did_ howl the night +grandma was taken." + +"So you think," Agnes asked, without commenting upon Mrs. Pinkney's +possible trend toward superstition, "that Sammy has been gone +practically all night?" + +"I fear so. He must have waited for his father and me to go to bed. Then +he slipped down the back stairs, tied Buster, and went out by the cellar +door. All night long he's been wandering somewhere. The poor, foolish +boy!" + +She took Agnes up to the boy's room--a museum of all kinds of "useless +truck," as his mother said, but dear to the boyish heart. + +"Oh, he's gone sure enough," she said, pointing to the bank which was +supposed to be incapable of being opened until five dollars in dimes had +been deposited within it. A screw-driver, however, had satisfied the +burglarious intent of Sammy. + +She pointed out the fact, too, that a certain extension bag that had +figured before in her son's runaway escapades was missing. + +"The silly boy has taken his bathing suit and that cowboy play-suit his +father bought him. I never did approve of that. Such things only give +boys crazy notions about catching dogs and little girls with a rope, or +shooting stray cats with a popgun. + +"Of course, he has taken his gun with him and a bag of shot that he had +to shoot in it. The gun shoots with a spring, you know. It doesn't use +real powder, of course. I have always believed such things are +dangerous. But, you know, his father-- + +"Well, he wore his best shoes, and they will hurt him dreadfully, I am +sure, if he walks far. And I can't find that new cap I bought him only +last week." + +All the time she was searching in Sammy's closet and in the bureau +drawers. She stood up suddenly and began to peer at the conglomeration +of articles on the top of the bureau. + +"Oh!" she cried. "It's gone!" + +"What is it, Mrs. Pinkney?" asked Agnes sympathetically, seeing that the +woman's eyes were overflowing again. "What is it you miss?" + +"Oh! he is determined I am sure to run away for good this time," sobbed +Mrs. Pinkney. "The poor, foolish boy! I wish I had said nothing to him +about the beets--I do. I wonder if both his father and I have not been +too harsh with him. And I'm sure he loves us. Just think of his taking +_that_." + +"But what is it?" cried Agnes again. + +"It stood right here on his bureau propped up against the glass. Sammy +must have thought a great deal of it," flowed on the verbal torrent. +"Who would have thought of that boy being so sentimental about it?" + +"Mrs. Pinkney!" begged the curious Agnes, almost distracted herself now, +"_do_ tell me what it is that is missing?" + +"That picture. We had it taken--his father and Sammy and me in a group +together--the last time we went to Pleasure Cove. Sammy begged to keep it +up here. And--now--the dear child--has--has carried--it--away with him!" + +Mrs. Pinkney broke down utterly at this point. She was finally convinced +that at last Sammy had fulfilled his oft-repeated threat to "run away +for good and all"--whether to be a pirate or not, being a mooted +question. + +Agnes comforted her as well as she could. But the poor woman felt that +she had not taken her son seriously enough, and that she could have +averted this present disaster in some way. + +"She is quite distracted," Agnes said, on arriving home, repeating Aunt +Sarah's phrase. "Quite distracted." + +"But if she is extracted," Dot proposed, "why doesn't she have Dr. +Forsyth come to see her?" + +"Mercy, Dot!" admonished Tess. "_Dis_tracted, not _ex_tracted. You do so +mispronounce the commonest words." + +"I don't, either," the smaller girl denied vigorously. "I don't +mispernounce any more than you do, Tess Kenway! You just make believe +you know so much." + +"Dot! Mis_per_nounce! There you go again!" + +This was a sore subject, and Ruth attempted to change the trend of the +little girls' thoughts by suggesting that Mrs. McCall needed some +groceries from a certain store situated away across town. + +"If you can get Uncle Rufus to harness Scalawag you girls can drive over +to Penny & Marchant's for those things. And you can stop at Mr. +Howbridge's house with this note. He must be told about poor Luke's +injury." + +"Why, Ruthie?" asked little Miss Inquisitive, otherwise Dot Kenway. "Mr. +Howbridge isn't Luke Shepard's guardian, too, is he?" + +"Now, don't be a chatterbox!" exclaimed the elder sister, who was +somewhat harassed on this morning and did not care to explain to the +little folk just what she had in her mind. + +Ruth was not satisfied to know that Cecile had gone to attend her +brother. The oldest Kenway girl longed to go herself to the resort in +the mountains where Luke Shepard lay ill. But she did not wish to do +this without first seeking their guardian's permission. + +Tess and Dot ran off in delight, forgetting their small bickerings, to +find Uncle Rufus. The old colored man, as long as he could get about, +would do anything for "his chillun," as he called the four Kenway +sisters. It needed no coaxing on the part of Tess and Dot to get their +will of the old man on this occasion. + +Scalawag was fat and lazy enough in any case. In the spring Neale had +plowed and harrowed the garden with him and on occasion he was harnessed +to a light cart for work about the place. His main duty, however, was to +draw the smaller girls about the quieter streets of Milton in a basket +phaeton. To this vehicle he was now harnessed by Uncle Rufus. + +"You want to be mought' car'ful 'bout them automobiles, chillun," the +old man admonished them. "Dat Sammy Pinkney boy was suah some good once +in a while. He was a purt' car'ful driber." + +"But he's a good driver _now_--wherever he is," said Dot. "You talk as +though Sammy would never get back home from being a pirate. Of course he +will. He always does!" + +Secretly Tess felt herself to be quite as able to drive the pony as ever +Sammy Pinkney was. She was glad to show her prowess. + +Scalawag shook his head, danced playfully on the old stable floor, and +then proceeded to wheel the basket phaeton out of the barn and into +Willow Street. By a quieter thoroughfare than Main Street, Tess Kenway +headed him for the other side of town. + +"Maybe we'll run across Sammy," suggested Dot, sitting sedately with her +ever-present Alice-doll. "Then we can tell his mother where he is being +a pirate. She won't be so extracted then." + +Tess overlooked this mispronunciation, knowing it was useless to object, +and turned the subject by saying: + +"Or maybe we'll see those Gypsies." + +"Oh, I hope not!" cried the smaller girl. "I hope we'll never see those +Gypsy women again." + +For just at this time the Alice-doll was wearing the fretted silver +bracelet for a girdle. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE GYPSY'S WORDS + + +That very forenoon after the two smallest girls had set out on their +drive with Scalawag a telegram came to the old Corner House for Ruth. + +As Agnes said, a telegram was "an event in their young sweet lives." And +this one did seem of great importance to Ruth. It was from Cecile +Shepard and read: + + "Arrived Oakhurst. They will not let me see Luke." + +Aside from the natural shock that the telegram itself furnished, +Cecile's declaration that she was not allowed to see her brother was +bound to make Ruth Kenway fear the worst. + +"Oh!" she cried, "he must be very badly hurt indeed. It is much worse +than Cecile thought when she wrote. Oh, Agnes! what shall I do?" + +"Telegraph her for particulars," suggested Agnes, quite practically. "A +broken wrist can't be such an awful thing, Ruthie." + +"But his back! Suppose he has seriously hurt his back?" + +"Goodness me! That would be awful, of course. He might grow a hump like +poor Fred Littleburg. But I don't believe that anything like that has +happened to Luke, Ruthie." + +Her sister was not to be easily comforted. "Think! There must be +something very serious the matter or they would not keep his own sister +from seeing him." Ruth herself had had no word from Luke since the +accident. + +Neither of the sisters knew that Cecile Shepard had never had occasion +to send a telegram before and had never received one in all her life. + +But she learned that a message of ten words could be sent for thirty-two +cents to Milton, so she had divided what she wished to say in two equal +parts! The second half of her message, however, because of the mistake +of the filing clerk at the telegraph office in Oakhurst, did not arrive +at the Corner House for several hours after the first half of the +message. + +Ruth Kenway meanwhile grew almost frantic as she considered the possible +misfortune that might have overtaken Luke Shepard. She grew quite as +"extracted"--to quote Dot--as Mrs. Pinkney was about the absence of Sammy. + +"Well," Agnes finally declared, "if I felt as you do about it I would +not wait to hear from Mr. Howbridge. I'd start right now. Here's the +time table. I've looked up the trains. There is one at ten minutes to +one--twelve-fifty. I'll call Neale and he'll drive you down to the +station. You might have gone with the children if that telegram had come +earlier." + +Agnes was not only practical, she was helpful on this occasion. She +packed Ruth's bag--and managed to get into it a more sensible variety of +articles than Sammy Pinkey had carried in his! + +"Now, don't be worried about _us_," said Agnes, when Ruth, dressed for +departure, began to speak with anxiety about domestic affairs, including +the continued absence of the little girls. "Haven't we got Mrs. +McCall--and Linda? You _do_ take your duties so seriously, Ruth Kenway." + +"Do you think so?" rejoined Ruth, smiling rather wanly at the flyaway +sister. "If anything should happen while I am gone--" + +"Nothing will happen that wouldn't happen anyway, whether you are at +home or not," declared the positive Agnes. + +Ruth made ready to go in such a hurry that nobody else in the Corner +House save Agnes herself realized that the older sister was going until +the moment that Neale O'Neil drove around to the front gate with the +car. Then Ruth ran into Aunt Sarah's room to kiss her good-bye. But Aunt +Sarah had always lived a life apart from the general existence of the +Corner House family and paid little attention to what her nieces did +save to criticise. Mrs. McCall was busy this day preserving--"up tae ma +eyen in wark, ma lassie"--and Ruth kissed her, called good-bye to Linda, +and ran to the front door before any of the three actually realized what +was afoot. + +Agnes ran with her to the street. At the gate stood a dark-faced, +brilliantly dressed young woman, with huge gold rings in her ears, +several other pieces of jewelry worn in sight, and a flashing smile as +she halted the Kenway sisters with outstretched hand. + +"Will the young ladies let me read their palms?" she said suavely. "I +can tell them the good fortune." + +"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Agnes, pushing by the Gypsy. "We can't stop to +have our fortunes told now." + +Ruth kept right on to the car. + +"Do not neglect the opportunity of having the good fortune told, young +ladies," said the Gypsy girl shrewdly. "I can see that trouble is +feared. The dark young lady goes on a journey because of the threat of +_ill_ fortune. Perhaps it is not so bad as it seems." + +Agnes was really impressed. Left to herself she actually would have +heeded the Gypsy's words. But Ruth hurried into the car, Neale reached +back and slammed the tonneau door, and they were off for the station +with only a few minutes to catch the twelve-fifty train. + +"There!" ejaculated Agnes, standing at the curb to wave her hand and +look after the car. + +"The blonde young lady does not believe the Gypsy can tell her something +that will happen--and in the near future?" + +"Oh!" exclaimed Agnes. "I don't know." And she dragged her gaze from the +car and looked doubtfully upon the dark face of the Gypsy girl which was +now serious. + +The latter said: "Something has sent the dark young lady from home in +much haste and anxiety?" + +The question was answered of course before it was asked. Any observant +person could have seen as much. But Agnes's interest was attracted and +she nodded. + +"Had your sister," the Gypsy girl said, guessing easily enough at the +relationship of the two Corner House girls, "not been in such haste, she +could have learned something that will change the aspect of the +threatened trouble. More news is on the way." + +Agnes was quite startled by this statement. Without explaining further +the Gypsy girl glided away, disappearing into Willow Street. + +Agnes failed to see, as the Gypsy quite evidently did, the leisurely +approach of the telegraph messenger boy with the yellow envelope in his +hand and his eyes fixed upon the old Corner House. + +Agnes ran within quickly. She was more than a little impressed by the +Gypsy girl's words, and a few minutes later when the front doorbell rang +and she took in the second telegram addressed to Ruth, she was pretty +well converted to fortune telling as an exact science. + + * * * * * + +Sammy Pinkney had marched out of the house late at night, as his mother +suspected, lugging his heavy extension-bag, with a more vague idea of +his immediate destination than was even usual when he set forth on such +escapades. + +To "run away" seemed to Sammy the only thing for a boy to do when home +life and restrictions became in his opinion unbearable. It might be +questioned by stern disciplinarians if Mr. and Mrs. Pinkney had properly +punished Sammy after he had run away the first few times, the boy would +not have been cured of his wanderlust. + +Fortunately, although Sammy's father was stern enough, he very well knew +that this desire for wandering could not be beaten out of the boy. +Merely if he were beaten, when he grew big enough to fend for himself in +the world, he would leave home and never return rather than face +corporal punishment. + +"I was just such a kid when I was his age," admitted Mr. Pinkney. "My +father licked me for running away, so finally I ran away when I was +fourteen, and stayed away. Sammy has less reason for leaving home than I +had, and he'll get over his foolishness, get a better education than I +obtained, and be a better man, I hope, in the end. It's in the Pinkney +blood to rove." + +This, of course, while perhaps being satisfactory to a man, did not at +all calm Sammy's mother. She expected the very worst to happen to her +son every time he disappeared; and as has been shown on this occasion, +the boy's absence stirred the community to its very dregs. + +Had Mrs. Pinkney known that after tramping as far as the outskirts of +the town, and almost dropping from exhaustion, Sammy had gone to bed on +a pile of straw in an empty cow stable, she would have been even more +troubled than she was. + +Sammy, however, came to no harm. He slept so soundly in fact on the rude +couch that it was mid-forenoon before he awoke--stiff, sore in muscles, +clamorously hungry, and in a frame of mind to go immediately home and +beg for breakfast. + +He had more money tied up in his handkerchief, however, than he had ever +possessed before when he had run away. There was a store in sight at the +roadside not far ahead. He hid his bag in the bushes and bought +crackers, ham, cheese, and a big bottle of sarsaparilla, and so made a +hearty if not judicious breakfast and lunch. + +At least, this picnic meal cured the slight attack of homesickness which +he suffered. He was no longer for turning back. The whole world was +before him and he strode away into it--lugging that extension-bag. + +While his troubled mother was showing Agnes Kenway the unmistakable +traces of his departure for parts unknown, Sammy was trudging along +pretty contentedly, the bag awkwardly knocking against his knees, and +his sharp eyes alive to everything that went on along the road. + +Sammy had little love for natural history or botany, or anything like +that. He suffered preparatory lessons in those branches of enforced +knowledge during the school year. + +He did not care a bit to know the difference between a gray squirrel and +a striped chipmunk. They both chattered at him saucily, and he stopped +to try a shot at each of them with his gun. + +To Sammy's mind they were legitimate game. He visualized himself +building a fire in a fence corner, skinning and cleaning his game and +roasting it over the flames for supper. But the squirrel and the +chipmunk visualized quite a different outcome to the adventure and they +refused to be shot by the amateur sportsman. + +Sammy struck into a road that led across the canal by a curved bridge +and right out into a part of the country with which he was not at all +familiar. The houses were few and far between, and most of them were set +well back from the road. + +Sometimes dogs barked at him, but he was not afraid of watch dogs. He +did not venture into the yards or up the private lanes. He had bought +enough crackers and cheese to make another meal when he should want it. +And there were sweet springs beside the road, or in the pastures where +the cattle grazed. + +Few vehicles passed him in either direction. It was the time of the late +hay harvest and everybody was at work in the fields--and usually when he +saw the haymakers at all, they were far from the road. + +He met no pedestrians at all. Being quite off the line of the railroad, +there were no tramps on this road, and of course there was nothing else +to harm the boy. His mother, in her anxiety, peopled the world with +those that would do Sammy harm. In truth, he was never safer in his +life! + +But adventure? Why, the world was full of it, and Sammy Pinkney expected +to meet any number of exciting incidents as he went on. + +"Sammy," Dot Kenway once said, "has just a _wunnerful_ 'magination. Why! +if he sees our old Sandyface creeping through the grass after a poor +little field mouse, Sammy can think she's a whole herd of tigers. His +'magination is just wunnerful!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE BRACELET AGAIN TO THE FORE + + +While Sammy's sturdy, if short, legs were leaving home and Milton +steadily behind him, Dot and Tess were driving Scalawag, the calico +pony, to Penny & Marchant's store, and later to Mr. Howbridge's house to +deliver the note Ruth had entrusted to them. + +Their guardian had always been fond of the Kenway sisters--since he had +been appointed their guardian by the court, of course--and Tess and Dot +could not merely call at Mr. Howbridge's door and drive right away +again. + +Besides, there were Ralph and Rowena Birdsall. The Birdsall twins had of +late likewise come under Mr. Howbridge's care, and circumstances were +such that it was best for their guardian to take the twins into his own +home. + +Having two extremely active and rather willful children in his household +had most certainly disturbed Mr. Howbridge out of the rut of his old +existence. And Ralph and Rowena quite "turned the 'ouse hupside down," +to quote Hedden, Mr. Howbridge's butler. + +The moment the twins spied Tess and Dot in the pony phaeton they tore +down the stairs from their quarters at the top of the Howbridge house, +and flew out of the door to greet the little Corner House girls. + +"Oh, Tessie and Dot!" cried Rowena, who looked exactly like her brother, +only her hair was now grown long again and she no longer wore boy's +garments, as she had when the Kenways first knew her. "How nice to see +you!" + +"Where's Sammy?" Ralph demanded. "Why didn't he come along, too?" + +"We're glad to see you, Rowena and Rafe," Tess said sedately. + +But Dot replied eagerly to the boy twin: + +"Oh, Rafe! what do you think? Sammy's run away again." + +"Get out!" + +"I'm going to," said Dot, considering Ralph's ejaculation of amazement +an invitation to alight, and she forthwith jumped down from the step of +the phaeton. + +"You can't mean that Sammy has run off?" cried Ralph. "Listen to this, +Rowdy." + +"What a silly boy!" criticised his sister. + +"I don't know," chuckled Ralph Birdsall. "'Member how you and I ran away +that time, Rowdy?" + +"Oh--well," said his sister. "We had reason for doing so. But you know +Sammy Pinkney's got a father and a mother--And for pity's sake, Rafe, +stop calling me Rowdy." + +"And he's got a real nice bulldog, too," added Dot, reflectively +considering any possibility why Sammy should run away. "I can't +understand why he does it. He only has to come back home again. I did it +once, and I never mean to run away from home again." + +Meanwhile Tess left Ralph to hitch Scalawag while she marched up the +stone steps of the Howbridge house to deliver Ruth's note into Hedden's +hand, who took it at once to Mr. Howbridge. + +Dot interested the twins almost immediately in another topic. Rowena +naturally was first to spy the silver girdle around the Alice-doll's +waist. + +"What a splendid belt!" cried Rowena Birdsall. "Is it real silver, Dot?" + +"It--it's fretful silver," replied the littlest Corner House girl. "Isn't +it pretty?" + +"Why," declared Ralph after an examination, "it's an old, old bracelet." + +"Well, it is old, I s'pose," admitted Dot. "But my Alice-doll doesn't +know that. _She_ thinks it is a brand new belt. But of course she can't +wear it every day, for half the time the bracelet belongs to Tess." + +This statement naturally aroused the twins' curiosity, and when Tess ran +back to join them in the front yard the story of the Gypsy basket and +the finding of the bracelet lost nothing of detail by being narrated by +both of the Corner House girls. + +"Oh, my!" cried Rowena. "Maybe those Gypsies are just waiting to grab +you. Gypsies steal children sometimes. Don't they, Rafe?" + +"Course they do," agreed her twin. + +Dot looked rather frightened at this suggestion, but Tess scorned the +possibility. + +"Why, how foolish," she declared. "Dot and I were lost once--all by +ourselves. Even Tom Jonah wasn't with us. Weren't we, Dot? And we slept +out under a tree all night, and a nice Gypsy woman found us in the +morning and took us to her camp. Didn't she, Dot?" + +"Oh, yes! And an owl howled at us," agreed the smaller girl. "And I'd +much rather sleep in a Gypsy tent than have owls howl at me." + +"The owl _hooted_, Dot," corrected Tess. + +"Well, what's the difference between a hoot and a howl?" demanded Dot, +rather crossly. She did so hate to be corrected! + +"Well, of course," said Rowena Birdsall thoughtfully, "if you are +acquainted with Gypsies maybe you wouldn't be scared. But I don't +believe they gave you this bracelet for nothing." + +"No," agreed Dot quickly. "For forty-five cents. And we still owe Sammy +Pinkney twenty-five cents of it. And he's run away." + +So they got around again to the first exciting piece of news Tess and +Dot had brought, and were discussing that when Mr. Howbridge came out to +speak to the little visitors, giving them his written answer to Ruth's +note. He heard about Sammy's escapade and some mention of the Gypsies. + +"Well," he chuckled, "if Sammy Pinkney has been carried off by the +Gypsies, I sympathize with the Gypsies. I have a very vivid recollection +of how much trouble Sammy can make--and without half trying. + +"Now, children, give my note to Ruth. I am very sorry that Luke Shepard +is ill. If he does not at once recover it may be well to bring him here +to Milton. With his aunt only just recovering from her illness, it would +be unwise to take the boy home." + +This he said more to himself than to the little girls. Because of their +errand Tess and Dot could remain no longer. Ralph unhitched the pony and +Tess drove away. + +Around the very first corner they spied a dusty, rather battered +touring-car just moving away. A big, dark man, with gold hoops in his +ears, was driving it. There was a brilliantly dressed young woman in the +tonneau, which was otherwise filled with boxes, baskets, a crate of +fruit, and odd-shaped packages. + +"Oh, Tess!" squealed Dot. "See there!" + +"Oh, Dot!" rejoined her sister quite as excitedly. "That is the young +Gypsy lady." + +"Oh-oo!" moaned Dot. "Have we _got_ to give her back this fretful silver +bracelet, Tessie?" + +"We must _try_," declared Tess firmly. "Ruth says so. Get up, Scalawag! +Come on--hurry! We must catch them." + +The touring-car was going away from the pony-phaeton. Scalawag objected +very much to going faster than his usual easy jog trot--unless it were to +dance behind a band! _He_ didn't care to overtake the Gypsies' +motor-car. + +And that car was going faster and faster. Tess stopped talking to the +aggravating Scalawag and lifted up her voice to shout after the Gypsies. + +"Oh, stop! Stop!" she called. "Miss--Miss Gypsy! We've got something for +you! Why, Dot, you are not hollering at all!" + +"I--I'm trying to," wailed the smaller girl. "But I do so hate to make +Alice give up her belt." + +The Gypsy turned his car into a cross street ahead and disappeared. When +Scalawag brought the Corner House girls to that corner the car was so +far away that the girls' voices at their loudest pitch could not have +reached the ears of the Romany folk. + +"Now, just see! We'll never be able to give that bracelet back if you +don't do your share of the hollering, Dot Kenway," complained Tess. + +"I--I will," promised Dot. "Anyway, I will when it's your turn to wear +the bracelet." + +The little girls reached home again at a time when the whole Corner +House family seemed disrupted. To the amazement of Tess and Dot their +sister Ruth had departed for the mountains. Neale had only just then +returned from seeing her aboard the train. + +"And it's too late to stop her, never mind what Mr. Howbridge says in +this note," cried Agnes. "That foolish Cecile! Here is the second half +of her telegraph message," and she read it aloud again: + + "Until afternoon; will wire you then how he is." + +"Crickey!" gasped Neale, red in the face with laughter, and taking the +two telegrams to read them in conjunction: + + "Arrived Oakhurst. They will not let me see Luke until afternoon. Will + wire you then how he is." + +"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'?" + +"I'm just traveling, Ma'am," Sammy returned with much dignity. +"Could--could you sell me some breakfast?" + +"Breakfast, is it?" repeated the smiling woman. "Shure, I'd give yez +it, if mate wasn't so high now. Come in me kitchen and sit ye down. +There's tay in the pot, and I'll fry yez up a spider full o' pork and +taters, if that'll do yez?" + +The menu sounded tempting indeed to Sammy. He accepted the woman's +invitation instantly and entered the house, past the staring children. +The two oldest of the group, a shrewd-faced boy and a sharp-featured +girl, stood back and whispered together while they watched the +visitor. + +Sammy was so much interested in the bountiful breakfast with which the +housewife supplied him that he thought very little about the children +peering in at the door and open windows. When he had eaten the last +crumb he asked his hostess how much he should pay her. + +"Well, me bye, I'll not overcharge ye," she replied. "If yez have ten +cents about ye we'll call it square--an' that's only for the mate, as I +said before is so high, I dunno." + +Sammy produced the knotted handkerchief, put it on the table and +untied it, displaying the coins it held with something of a flourish. +The jingle of so many dimes brought a sigh of wonder in unison from +the young spectators at door and windows. The woman accepted her dime +without comment. + +Sammy thanked her politely, wiped his mouth on his sleeve (napery was +conspicuous by its absence in this household) and started out the +door. The smaller children scattered to give him passage; the older +boy and girl had already gone out of the badly fenced yard and were +loitering along the road in the direction Sammy was traveling. + +"Hullo! Here's raggedy-pants," said the girl saucily, when Sammy came +along. + +"How did you get them holes in your breeches, kid?" added the boy. + +"Never you mind," rejoined Sammy gruffly. "They're _my_ pants." + +"Stuck up, ain't you?" jeered the girl and stuck out her tongue at +him. + +Sammy thought these were two very impolite children, and although he +was not rated at home for his own chivalrous conduct, he considered +these specimens in the road before him quite unpleasant young people. + +"Ne'er mind," said the boy, looking at Sammy slyly, "he don't know +everything. He ain't seen everything if he is traveling all by +himself. I bet he's run away." + +"I ain't running away from you," was Sammy's belligerent rejoinder. + +"You would if I said 'Boo!' to you." + +"No, I wouldn't." + +"Ya!" scoffed the girl, leering at Sammy, "don't talk so much. Do +something to him, Peter." + +Peter glanced warily back at the house. Perhaps he knew the large, +red-faced woman might take a hand in proceedings if he pitched upon +the strange boy. + +"I bet," he said, starting on another tack, "that he never saw a +cherry-colored calf like our'n." + +"I bet he never did," crowed the girl in delight. + +"A cherry-colored calf," scoffed Sammy. "Get out! There ain't such a +thing. A calf might be red; there _are_ red cows--" + +"This calf is cherry-colored," repeated the boy earnestly. "It's down +there in our pasture." + +"Don't believe it," said Sammy flatly. + +"'Tis so!" cried the girl. + +"I tell you," said the very shrewd-looking boy. "We'll show it to you +for ten cents." + +"I don't believe it," repeated Sammy, but more doubtfully. + +The girl laughed at him more scornfully than before. "He's afraid to +spend a dime--an' him with so much money," she cried. + +"I don't believe you've got a cherry-colored calf to show me." + +"Gimme the dime and I'll show you whether we have or not," said Peter. + +"No," said the cautious Sammy. "I'll give you a dime _if_ you show it +to me. But no foolin'. I won't give you a cent if the calf is any +other color." + +"All right," shouted the other boy. "Come on and I'll show you. Come +on, Liz." + +"All right, Peter," said the girl, quite as eagerly. "Hurry up, +raggedy-pants. We can use that dime, Peter and me can." + +The bare-legged youngsters got through a rail fence and darted down a +path into a scrubby pasture, as wild as unbroken colts. Sammy, feeling +fine after the bountiful breakfast he had eaten, chased after them +wishing that he had thought to remove his shoes and stockings too. +Peter and Liz seemed so much more free and untrammeled than he! + +"Hold on!" puffed Sammy, coming finally to the bottom of the slope. "I +ain't going to run my head off for any old calf--Huh!" + +From behind a clump of brush appeared suddenly a cow--a black and white +cow, probably of the Holstein breed. There followed a scrambling in +the bushes. Liz jumped into them with a shriek and drove out a little, +blatting, stiff-legged calf. It was all of a glossy black, from its +nose to the tip of its tail. + +"That's him! That's him!" shrieked Liz. "A cherry-colored calf." + +"What did I tell you?" demanded the boy, Peter. "Give us the dime." + +"You go on!" exclaimed Sammy. "I knew all the time you were +story-telling. That's no cherry-colored calf." + +"'Tis too! It's just the color of a black-heart cherry," giggled Liz. +"You got to give up ten cents." + +"Won't neither," Sammy declared. + +"I'll take it off you," threatened Peter, growing belligerent. + +"You won't," stubbornly declared Sammy, who did not propose to be +cheated. + +Peter jumped for him and Sammy could not run. One reason why he could +not retreat was because Liz grabbed him from the rear, holding him +around the waist. + +She pulled him over backward, while her brother began to pummel Sammy +most heartily from above. It was a most unfair attack and a most +uncomfortable situation for the runaway. Although he managed to defend +his face for the most part from Peter's blows, he could do little +else. + +"Lemme up! Lemme up!" bawled Sammy. + +"Gimme the dime," panted Peter. + +"I won't! 'Tain't fair!" gasped Sammy, too plucky to give in. + +Liz had now squirmed from under the struggling boys. She must have +seen at the house in which pocket Sammy kept the knotted handkerchief, +for she thrust her hand into that pocket and snatched out the hoard of +dimes before the owner realized what she was doing. + +"Hey! Stop! Lemme up!" roared Sammy again. + +"I got it, Peter!" shrieked Liz, and, springing up, she darted into +the bushes and disappeared. + +"Stop! She's stole my money," gasped Sammy in horror and alarm. + +"She never! You didn't have no money!" declared Peter, and with a +final blow that stunned Sammy for the moment, the other leaped up and +followed his wild companion into the brush. + +Sammy, weeping in good earnest now, bruised and scratched in body and +sore in spirit, climbed slowly to his feet. Never before in any of his +runaway escapades had he suffered such ignominy and loss. + +Why! he had actually fallen among thieves. First his bag and all his +chattels therein had been stolen. Now these two ragamuffins had robbed +him of every penny he possessed. + +He dared not go back to the house where he had bought breakfast and +complain. The other youngsters there might fall upon and beat him +again! + +Sammy Pinkney at last was tasting the bitter fruits of wrong doing. +Even weeding another beet-bed could have been no more painful than +these experiences which he was now suffering. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--MYSTERIES ACCUMULATE + + +"And if you go to the store, or anywhere else for Mrs. McCall or +Linda, remember _don't_ take that bracelet with you," commanded Agnes +in a most imperative manner, fairly transfixing her two smaller +sisters with an index finger. "Remember!" + +"Ruthie didn't say so," complained Dot. "Did she, Tess?" + +"But I guess we'd better mind what Agnes says when Ruth isn't at +home," confessed Tess, more amenable to discipline. "You know, Aggie +has got to be responsible now." + +"Well," muttered the rebellious Dot, "never mind if she is +'sponserble, she needn't be so awful bossy about it!" + +Agnes did, of course, feel her importance while Ruth was away. It was +not often that she was made responsible for the family welfare in any +particular. And just now the matter of the silver bracelet loomed big +on her horizon. + +She scarcely expected the advertisement in the _Morning Post_ to bring +immediate results. Yet, it might. The Gypsies' gift to the little +girls was a very queer matter indeed. The suggestion that the bracelet +had been stolen by the Romany folk did not seem at all improbable. + +And if this was so, whoever had lost the ornament would naturally be +watching the "Lost and Found" column in the newspaper. + +"Unless the owner doesn't know he has lost it," Agnes suggested to +Neale. + +"How's that? He'd have to be more absent-minded than Professor Ware +not to miss a bracelet like that," scoffed her boy chum. + +"Oh, Professor Ware!" giggled Agnes, suddenly. "_He_ would forget +anything, I do believe. Do you know what happened at his house the +other evening when the Millers and Mr. and Mrs. Crandall went to +call?" + +"The poor professor made a bad break I suppose," grinned Neale. "What +did he do?" + +"Why, Mrs. Ware saw the callers coming just before they rang the bell +and the professor had been digging in the garden. Of course she +straightened things up a little before she appeared in the parlor to +welcome the visitors. But the professor did not appear. Somebody asked +for him at last and Mrs. Ware went to the foot of the stairs to call +him. + +"'Oh, Professor!' she called up the stairs, and the company heard him +answer back just as plain: + +"'Maria, I can't remember whether you sent me up here to change my +clothes or to go to bed.'" + +"I can believe it!" chortled Neale O'Neil. "He has made some awful +breaks in school. But I don't believe _he_ ever owned that bracelet, +Aggie." + + * * * * * + +The first person who displayed interest in the advertisement in the +_Post_ about the bracelet, save the two young people who put it in the +paper, proved to add much to the mystery of the affair and nothing at +all to the peace of mind of Agnes, at least. + +Agnes was busy at some mending--actually hose-darning, for Ruth +insisted that the flyaway sister should mend her own stockings, which +Aunt Sarah's keen eyes inspected--when she chanced to raise her head to +glance out of the front window of the sewing room. A strange looking +turnout had halted before the front gate. + +The vehicle itself was a decrepit express wagon on the side of which +in straggling blue letters was painted the one word "JUNK," but the +horse drawing the wagon was a surprisingly well-kept and good looking +animal. + +The back of the wagon was piled high with bundles of newspapers, and +bags, evidently stuffed with rags, were likewise in the wagon body. +The man climbing down from the seat just as Agnes looked did not seem +at all like the usual junk dealer who passed through Milton's streets +heralded by a "chime" of tin-can bells. + +He was a small, swarthy man, and even at the distance of the front +gate from Agnes' window the girl could see that he wore gold hoops in +his ears. He was quick but furtive in his motions. He glanced in a +birdlike way down the street and across the Parade Ground, which was +diagonally opposite the old Corner House, before he entered the front +gate. + +"He'd better go around to the side door," thought Agnes aloud. "He +must be a very fashionable junkman to come to the front of the house. +And at that I don't believe Mrs. McCall has any rags or papers to sell +just now." + +The swarthy man came straight on to the porch and up the steps. Agnes +heard the bell, and knowing Linda was busy and being likewise rather +curious, she dropped her stocking darning and ran into the front hall. + +The moment she unlatched the big door the swarthy stranger inserted +himself into the house. + +"Why! who are you?" she demanded, fairly thrust aside by the man's +eagerness. + +She saw then that he had a folded paper in one hand. He thrust it +before her eyes, pointing to a place upon it with a very grimy finger. + +"You have found it!" he chattered with great excitement. "That ancient +bracelet which has for so many generations been an heirloom--yes?--of +the Costello. Queen Alma herself wore it at a time long ago. You have +found it?" + +Agnes was made almost speechless by his vehemence as well as by the +announcement itself. + +"I--I--What _do_ you mean?" she finally gasped. + +"You know!" he ejaculated, rapping on the newspaper with his finger +like a woodpecker on a dead limb. "You put in the paper--_here_. It is +lost. You find. _You_ are Kenway, and you say the so-antique bracelet +shall be give to who proves property." + +"We will return it to the owner. Only to the owner," interrupted +Agnes, backing away from him again, for his vehemence half frightened +her. + +"Shall I bring Queen Alma here to say it was her property?" he cried. + +[Illustration: "You have found it!" he chattered with great excitement.] + +"That would be better. If Queen Alma--whoever she is--owns the bracelet +we will give it to her when she proves property." + +The little man uttered a staccato speech in a foreign tongue. Agnes +did not understand. He spread wide his arms in a gesture of seemingly +utter despair. + +"And Queen Alma!" he sputtered. "She is dead these two--no! t'ree +hundred year!" + +"Mercy me!" gasped Agnes, backing away from him and sitting suddenly +down in one of the straight-backed hall chairs. "Mercy me!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII--GETTING IN DEEPER + + +"You see, Mees Kenway," sputtered the swarthy man eagerly, "I catch +the paper, here." He rapped the _Post_ again with his finger. "I read +the Engleesh--yes. I see the notice you, the honest Kenway, have put in +the paper--" + +"Let me tell you, sir," said Agnes, starting up, "_all_ the Kenways +are honest. I am not the only honest person in our family I should +hope!" + +Agnes was much annoyed. The excitable little foreigner spread abroad +his hands again and bowed low before her. + +"Please! Excuse!" he said. "I admire all your family, oh, so very +much! But it is to you who put in the paper the words here, about the +very ancient silver bracelet." Again that woodpecker rapping on the +Lost and Found column in the _Post_. "No?" + +"Yes. I put the advertisement in the paper," acknowledged Agnes, but +wishing very much that she had not, or that Neale O'Neil was present +at this exciting moment to help her handle the situation. + +"So! I have come for it," cried the swarthy man, as though the matter +were quite settled. + +But Agnes' mind began to function pretty well again. She determined +not to be "rushed." This strange foreigner might be perfectly honest. +But there was not a thing to prove that the bracelet given to Tess and +Dot by the Gypsy women belonged to him. + +"How do you know," she asked, "that the bracelet we have in our +possession is the one you have lost?" + +"I? Oh, no, lady! I did not lose the ancient heirloom. Oh, no." + +"But you say--" + +"I am only its rightful owner," he explained. "Had Queen Alma's +bracelet been in my possession it never would have been lost and so +found by the so--gracious Kenway. Indeed, no!" + +"Then, what have you come here for?" cried Agnes, in some desperation. +"I cannot give the bracelet to anybody but the one who lost it--" + +"You say here the owner!" cried the man, beginning again the +woodpecker tapping on the paper. + +"But how do I know you own it?" she gasped. + +"Show it me. In one moment's time can I tell--at the one glance," was +the answer of assurance. "Oh, yes, yes, yes!" + +These "yeses" were accompanied by the emphatic tapping on the paper. +Agnes wondered that the _Post_ at that spot was not quite worn +through. + +Perhaps it was fortunate that at this moment Neale O'Neil came in. +That he came direct from the garage and apparently from a struggle +with oily machinery, both his hands and face betrayed. + +"Hey!" he exploded. "If we are going to take Mr. Pinkney out on a +cross-country chase after that missing pirate this afternoon, we've +got to get a hustle on. You going to be ready, Aggie? Mr. Pinkney gets +home at a quarter to one." + +"Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, turning eagerly to greet the boy. "Talk to +this man--do! I don't know what to say to him." + +The boy's countenance broadened in a smile. + + "'Say "Hullo!" and "How-de-do!" + "How's the world a-using you?"'" + +quoted Neale, and chuckled outright. "What's his name? What does he +want?" + +"Costello--that me," interposed the strange junkman. He gazed curiously +at Neale with his snapping black eyes. "_You_ are not Kenway--here in +the pape'?" + +Again the finger tapped upon the Lost and Found column in the _Post_. +Neale shook his head. He glanced out of the open door and spied the +wagon and its informative sign. + +"You are a junkman, are you, Mr. Costello?" + +"Yes, yes, yes! I buy the pape', buy the rag and bot'--buy anytheeng I +get cheap. But not to buy do I come this time to Mees Kenway. No, no! +I come because of this in the paper." + +His tapping finger called attention again to the advertisement of the +bracelet. Neale expelled a surprised whistle. + +"Oh, Aggie!" he said, "is he after the Gypsy bracelet?" + +The swarthy man's face was all eagerness again. + +"Yes, yes, yes!" he sputtered. "I am Gypsy. Spanish Gypsy. Of the +tribe of Costello. I am--what you say?--direct descendent of Queen Alma +who live three hunder'--maybe more--year ago, and she own that bracelet +the honest Kenway find!" + +"She--she's dead, then? This Queen Alma?" stammered Neale. + +"_Si, si!_ Yes, yes! But the so-antique bracelet descend by right to +our family. That Beeg Jeem--" + +He burst again into the language he had used before which was quite +unintelligible to either of his listeners; but Neale thought by the +man's expression of countenance that his opinion of "Beeg Jeem" was +scarcely to be told in polite English. + +"Wait!" Neale broke in. "Let's get this straight. We--we find a +bracelet which we advertise. You say the bracelet is yours. Where and +how did you lose it?" + +"I already tell the honest Kenway, I do _not_ lose it." + +"It was stolen from you, then?" + +"Yes, yes, yes! It was stole. A long ago it was stole. And now Beeg +Jeem say he lose it. You find--yes?" + +"This seems to be complicated," Neale declared, shaking his head and +gazing wonderingly at Agnes. "If you did not lose it yourself, Mr. +Costello--" + +"But it is mine!" cried the man. + +"We don't know that," said Neale, somewhat bruskly. "You must prove +it." + +"Prove it?" + +"Yes. In the first place, describe the bracelet. Tell us just how it +is engraved, or ornamented, or whatever it is. How wide and thick is +it? What kind of a bracelet is it, aside from its being made of +silver?" + +"Ah! Queen Alma's bracelet is so well known to the Costello--how shall +I say? Yes, yes, yes!" cried the man, with rather graceful gestures. +"And when Beeg Jeem tell me she is lost--" + +"All right. Describe it," put in Neale. + +Agnes suddenly tugged at Neale's sleeve. Her pretty face was aflame +with excitement. + +"Oh, Neale!" she interposed in a whisper. "Even if he can describe it +exactly we do not know that he is the real owner." + +"Shucks! That's right," agreed the boy. + +He turned to Costello again demanding: + +"How can you prove that this bracelet--if it is the one you think it +is--belongs to you?" + +"She belong to the Costello family. It is an heirloom. I tell it you." + +"That's all right. But you've got to prove it. Even if you describe +the thing that only proves that you have seen it, or heard it +described yourself. It might be so, you know, Mr. Costello. You must +give us some evidence of ownership." + +"Queen Alma's bracelet--" began Costello. + +The junkman made a despairing gesture with wide-spread arms. + +"Me? How can I tell you, sir, and the honest Kenway? It has always +belong to the Costello. Yes, yes, yes! That so-ancient bracelet, Beeg +Jeem have no right to it." + +"But he was the one who lost it!" exclaimed Neale, being quite +confident now of the identity of "Beeg Jeem." + +"Yes, yes, yes! So he say. I no believe. Then I see the reading here +in the pape', of the honest Kenway"--tap, tap, tapping once more of the +forefinger--"and I see it must be so. I--" + +"Hold on!" exclaimed Neale. "You did not lose the bracelet. This other +fellow did. You bring him here and let him prove ownership." + +"No, no!" raved Costello, shaking both clenched hands above his head. +"He shall not have it. It is mine. I am _the_ Costello. Queen Alma, +she give it to the great, great, great gran'mudder of _my_ great, +great, great--" + +"Shucks!" ejaculated Neale. "Now you are going too deep into the +family records for me. I can't follow you. It looks to me like a case +for the courts to settle." + +"Oh, Neale!" gasped Agnes. + +"Why, Aggie, we'd get into hot water if we let this fellow, or any of +those other Gypsies, have the bracelet offhand. If this chap wants it, +he will have to see Mr. Howbridge." + +"Oh, yes!" murmured the girl with sudden relief in her voice. "We can +tell Mr. Howbridge." + +"Guess we'll have to," agreed Neale. "We certainly have bit off more +than we can chew, Aggie. I'll say we have. I guess maybe we'd have +been wiser if we had told your guardian about the old bracelet before +advertising it. And Ruth has nothing on us, at that! She did not tell +him. + +"We're likely," concluded Neale, with a side glance at the swarthy +man, "to have a dozen worse than this one come here to bother us. We +surely did start something when we had that ad. printed, Aggie." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY + + +Costello, the junkman, could not be further ignored, for at this point +he began another excitable harangue. The Queen Alma bracelet, "Beeg +Jeem," his own sorrows, and the fact that he saw no reason why Agnes +should not immediately give up to him the silver bracelet, were all +mixed up together in a clamor that became almost deafening. + +"Oh, what shall I do? What _shall_ I do?" exclaimed the Corner House +girl. + +But Neale O'Neil was quite level-headed. Like Agnes, at first he had +for a little while been swept off his feet by the swarthy man's +vehemence. He regained his balance now. + +"We're not going to do anything. We won't even show him the bracelet," +said the boy firmly. + +"But it is mine! It is the heirloom of the Costello! I, myself, tell +you so," declared the junkman, beating his breast now instead of the +newspaper. + +"All right. I believe you. Don't yell so about it," said Neale, but +quite calmly. "That does not alter the fact that we cannot give the +bracelet up. That is, Miss Kenway cannot." + +"But she say here--in the paper--" + +"Oh, stop it!" exclaimed the exasperated boy. "It doesn't say in that +paper that she will hand the thing out to anybody who comes and asks +for it. If this other fellow you have been talking about should come +here, do you suppose we would give it up to him, just on his say so?" + +"No, no! It is not his. It never should have been in the possession of +his family, sir. I assure you _I_ am the Costello to whose ancestors +the great Queen Alma of our tribe delivered the bracelet." + +"All right. Let it go at that," answered Neale. "All the more reason +why we must be careful who gets it now. If it is honestly your +bracelet you will get it, Mr. Costello. But you will have to see Miss +Kenway's guardian and let him decide." + +"Her--what you call it--does he have the bracelet?" cried the man. + +"He will have it. You go there to-morrow. I will give you his address. +To-morrow he will talk to you. He is not in his office to-day. He is a +lawyer." + +"Oh, la, la! The law! I no like the law," declared Costello. + +"No, I presume you Gypsies don't," muttered Neale, pulling out an +envelope and the stub of a pencil with which to write the address of +Mr. Howbridge's office. "There it is. Now, that is the best we can do +for you. Only, nobody shall be given the bracelet until you have +talked with Mr. Howbridge." + +"But, I no like! The honest Kenway say here, in the paper--" + +As he began to tap upon the newspaper again Neale, who was a sturdy +youth, crowded him out upon the veranda of the old Corner House. + +"Now, go!" advised Neale, when he heard the click of the door latch +behind him. "You'll make nothing by lingering here and talking. +There's your horse starting off by himself. Better get him." + +This roused the junk dealer's attention. The horse was tired of +standing and was half a block away. Costello uttered an excited yelp +and darted after his junk wagon. + +Agnes let Neale inside the house again. She was much relieved. + +"There! isn't this a mess?" she said. "I am glad you thought of Mr. +Howbridge. But I _do_ wish Ruth had been at home. She would have known +just what to say to that funny little man." + +"Humph! Maybe it would have been a good idea if she had been here," +admitted Neale slowly. "Ruth is awfully bossy, but things do go about +right when she is on the job." + +"We'll have to see Mr. Howbridge--" + +"But that can wait until to-morrow morning," Neale declared. "We can't +do so this afternoon in any case. I happen to know he is out of town. +And we have promised Mr. Pinkney to take him on a hunt for Sammy." + +"All right. It is almost noon. You'd better go and wash your face, +Neale," and she began to giggle at him. + +"Don't I know that? I came in here just to remind you to begin to +prink before dinner or you'd never be ready." + +She was already halfway up the stairs and she leaned over the +balustrade to make a gamin's face at him. + +"Just you tend to your own apple cart, Neale O'Neil!" she told him. "I +will be ready as soon as you are." + +At dinner, which was eaten in the middle of the day at this time of +year at the old Corner House, Agnes appeared ready all but her hat for +the car. + +"Oh, Aggie! can we go too?" cried Dot. "We want to ride in the +automobile, don't we, Tess?" + +"We maybe want to go riding," confessed the other sister slowly. "But +I guess we can't, Dot. You forget that Margie and Holly Pease are +coming over at three o'clock. They haven't seen the fretted silver +bracelet." + +"That reminds me," said Agnes firmly. "You must not take that bracelet +out of the house. Understand? Not at all." + +"Why, Aggie!" murmured Tess, while Dot grew quite red with +indignation. + +"If you wish to play with it indoors, all right," Agnes said. "Whose +turn to have it, is it to-day?" + +"Mine," admitted Tess. + +"Then I hold you responsible. Not out of the house. We have got to get +Mr. Howbridge's advice about it, in any case." + +"Ruth didn't say we couldn't wear the bracelet out-of-doors," declared +Dot, pouting. + +"I am in Ruth's place," responded the older sister promptly. "Now, +remember! You might lose it anyway. And _then_ what would we do if the +owner really comes for it?" + +"But they won't!" cried Dot, confidently. "Those Gypsy ladies gave it +to us for keeps. I am sure." + +"You certainly would not wish to keep the bracelet if the person the +Gypsies stole it from came here to get it?" said Agnes sternly. + +"Oh--oo! No-o," murmured Dot. + +"Of course we would not, Sister," Tess declared briskly. "If we knew +just where their camp is we would take it to them anyway. Of course we +would, Dot!" + +"Oh, of course," agreed Dot, but very faintly. + +"You children are so seldom observant," went on Agnes in her most +grown-up manner. "You should have looked into that basket when you +bought it of the Gypsies. Then you would have seen the bracelet before +the women got away. You are almost _never_ observant." + +"Why, Aggie!" Tess exclaimed, rather hurt by the accusation of her +older sister. "That is what your Mr. Marks said when he came into our +grade at school just before the end of term last June." + +Mr. Curtis G. Marks was the principal of the High School which Agnes +attended. + +"What was Mr. Marks doing over in your room, Tess?" Agnes asked +curiously. + +"Visiting. Our teacher asked him to 'take the class.' You know, +visiting teachers always _are_ so nosey," added Tess with more +frankness than good taste. + +"Better not let Ruth hear you use that expression, child," laughed +Agnes. "But what about being observant--or _un_observant?" + +"He told us," Tess went on to say, "to watch closely, and then asked +for somebody to give him a number. So somebody said thirty-two." + +"Yes?" + +"And Mr. Marks went to the board and wrote twenty-three on it. Of +course, none of us said anything. Then Mr. Marks asked for another +number and somebody gave him ninety-four. Then he wrote forty-nine on +the board, and nobody said a word." + +"Why didn't you?" asked Agnes in wonder. "Did you think he was +teaching you some new game?" + +"I--I guess we were too polite. You see, he was a visitor. And he said +right out loud to our teacher: 'You see, they do not observe. Is it +dense stupidity, or just inattention?' That's _just_ what he said," +added Tess, her eyes flashing. + +"Oh!" murmured Dot. "Didn't he know how to write the number right?" + +"So," continued Tess, "I guess we all felt sort of hurt. And Belle +Littleweed got so fidgety that she raised her hand. Mr. Marks says: +'Very well, you give me a number.' + +"Belle lisps a little, you know, Aggie, and she said right out: +'Theventy-theven; thee if you can turn that around!' He didn't think +we noticed anything, and were stupid; but I guess he knows better +now," added Tess with satisfaction. + +"That is all right," said Agnes with a sigh. "I heartily wish you and +Dot had been observant when those women gave you the basket and you +had found the bracelet in it before they got away. It is going to make +us trouble I am afraid." + +Agnes told the little ones nothing about the strange junkman and his +claim. Nor did she mention the affair to any of the remainder of the +Corner House family. She only added: + +"So don't you take the bracelet out of the house or let anybody at all +have it--if Neale or I are not here." + +"Why, it would not be right to give the bracelet to anybody but the +Gypsy ladies, would it?" said Tess. + +"Of course not," agreed Dot. "And _they_ haven't come after it." + +Agnes did not notice these final comments of the two smaller girls. +She had given them instructions, and those instructions were +sufficient, she thought, to avert any trouble regarding the mysterious +bracelet--whether it was "Queen Alma's" or not. + +The junkman, Costello, certainly had filled Agnes' mind with most +romantic imaginations! If the old silver bracelet was a Gypsy heirloom +and had been handed down through the Costello tribe--as the junkman +claimed--for three hundred years and more, of course it would not be +considered stolen property. + +The mystery remained why the Gypsy women had left the bracelet in the +basket they had almost forced upon the Kenway children. The +explanation of this was quite beyond Agnes, unless it had been done +because the Gypsy women feared that this very Costello was about to +claim the heirloom, and they considered it safer with Tess and Dot +than in their own possession. True, this seemed a far-fetched +explanation of the affair; yet what so probable? + +The Gypsies might be quite familiar with Milton, and probably knew a +good deal about the old Corner House and the family now occupying it. +The little girls would of course be honest. The Gypsies were shrewd +people. They were quite sure, no doubt, that the Kenways would not +give the bracelet to any person but the women who sold the basket, +unless the right to the property could be proved. + +"And even if that Costello man does own the bracelet, how is he going +to prove it?" Agnes asked Neale, as they ran the car out of the garage +after dinner. "I guess we are going to hand dear old Mr. Howbridge a +big handful of trouble." + +"Crickey! isn't that a fact?" grumbled Neale. "The more I think of it, +the sorrier I am we put that advertisement in the paper, Aggie." + +There was nothing more to be said about that at the time, for Mr. +Pinkney was already waiting for them on his front steps. His wife was +at the door and she looked so weary-eyed and pale of face that Agnes +at least felt much sympathy for her. + +"Oh, don't worry, Mrs. Pinkney!" cried the girl from her seat beside +Neale. "I am sure Sammy will turn up all right. Neale says +so--everybody says so! He is such a plucky boy, anyway. Nothing would +happen to him." + +"But this seems worse than any other time," said the poor woman. "He +must have never meant to come back, or he would not have taken that +picture with him." + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed her husband cheerfully. "Sammy sort of fancied +himself in that picture, that is all. He is not without his share of +vanity." + +"That is what _you_ say," complained Sammy's mother. "But I just feel +that something dreadful has happened to him this time." + +"Never mind," called Neale, starting the engine, "we'll go over the +hills and far away, but we'll find some trace of him, Mrs. Pinkney. +Sammy can't have hidden himself so completely that we cannot discover +where he has been and where he is going." + +That is exactly what they did. They flew about the environs of Milton +in a rapid search for the truant. Wherever they stopped and made +inquiries for the first hour or so, however, they gained no word of +Sammy. + +It was three o'clock, and they were down toward the canal on the road +leading to Hampton Mills, when they gained the first possible clue of +the missing one. And that clue was more than twenty-four hours old. + +A storekeeper remembered a boy who answered to Sammy's description +buying something to eat the day before, and sitting down on the store +step to eat it. That boy carried a heavy extension-bag and went on +after he had eaten along the Hampton Mills road. + +"We've struck his trail!" declared Neale with satisfaction. "Don't you +think so, Mr. Pinkney?" + +"How did he pay you for the things he bought?" asked the father of the +runaway, addressing the storekeeper again. "What kind of money did he +have?" + +"He had ten cent pieces, I remember. And he had them tied in a +handkerchief. Nicked his bank before he started, did he?" and the man +laughed. + +"That is exactly what he did," admitted Mr. Pinkney, returning +hurriedly to the car. "Drive on, Neale. I guess we are on the right +trail." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--ALMOST HAD HIM + + +Neale drove almost recklessly for the first few miles after passing +the roadside store; but the eyes of all three people in the car were +very wide open and their minds observant. Anything or anybody that +might give trace of the truant Sammy were scrutinized. + +"He was at that store before noon," Agnes shouted into Neale's ear. +"How long before he would be hungry again?" + +"No knowing. Pretty soon, of course," admitted her chum. "But I heard +that storekeeper tell Mr. Pinkney that the boy bought more than he +could eat at once and he carried the rest away in a paper bag." + +"That is so," admitted Mr. Pinkney, leaning over the forward seat. +"But he has an appetite like a boa constrictor." + +"A _boy_-constrictor," chuckled Neale. "I'll say he has!" + +"He would not likely stop anywhere along here to buy more food, then," +Agnes said. + +"He could have gone off the road, however, for a dozen different +things," said the missing boy's father. "That child has got more +crotchets in his head than you can shake a stick at. There is no +knowing--" + +"Hold on!" ejaculated Neale suddenly. "There are some kids down there +by that pond. Suppose I run down and interview them?" + +"I don't see anybody among them who looks like Sammy," observed Agnes, +standing up in the car to look. + +"Never mind. You go ahead, Neale. They will talk to you more freely, +perhaps, than they will to me. Boys are that way." + +"I'll try," said Neale, and jumped out of the car and ran down toward +the roof of the old ice-house that the afternoon before had so +attracted Sammy Pinkney--incidentally wrecking his best trousers. + +As it chanced, Neale had seen and now interviewed the very party of +boys with whom Sammy had previously made friends. But Neale said +nothing at first to warn these boys that he was searching for one whom +they all considered "a good kid." + +"Say, fellows," Neale began, "was this an ice-house before it got +burned down?" + +"Yep," replied the bigger boy of the group. + +"And only the roof left? Crickey! What have you chaps been doing? +Sliding down it?" For he had observed as he came down from the car two +of the smaller boys doing just that. + +"It's great fun," said the bigger boy, grinning, perhaps at the memory +of what had happened to Sammy Pinkney's trousers the previous +afternoon. "Want to try?" + +Neale grinned more broadly, and gave the shingled roof another glance. +"I bet _you_ don't slide down it like those little fellows I just saw +doing it. How do their pants stand it?" + +The boys giggled at that. + +"Say!" the bigger one said, "there was a kid came along yesterday that +didn't get on to that--_till afterward_." + +"Oh, ho!" chuckled Neale. "He wore 'em right through, did he?" + +"Yes, he did. And then he was sore. Said his mother would give him +fits." + +"Where does he live? Around here?" asked Neale carelessly. + +"I never saw him before," admitted the bigger boy. "He was a good +fellow just the same. You looking for him?" he asked with sudden +suspicion. + +"I don't know. If he's the boy I mean he needn't be afraid to go home +because of his torn pants. You tell him so if you see him again." + +"Sure. I didn't know he was running away. He didn't say anything." + +"Didn't he have a bag with him--sort of a suitcase?" + +"Didn't see it," replied the boy. "We all went home to supper and he +went his way." + +"Which way?" + +"Could not tell you that," the other said reflectively, and was +evidently honest about it. "He was coming from that way," and he +pointed back toward Milton, "when he joined us here at the slide." + +"Then he probably kept on toward--What is in that direction?" and Neale +pointed at the nearest road, the very one into which Sammy had turned. + +"Oh, that goes up through the woods," said the boy. "Hampton Mills is +over around the pond--you follow yonder road." + +"Yes, I know. But you think this fellow you speak of might have gone +into that by road?" + +"He was headed that way when we first saw him," said the boy. "Wasn't +he, Jimmy?" + +"Sure," agreed the smaller boy addressed. "And, Tony, I bet he _did_ +go that way. When I looked back afterward I remember I saw a boy +lugging something heavy going up that road." + +"I didn't see that that fellow had a bag," argued the bigger boy. "But +he might have hid it when he came down here." + +"Likely he did," admitted Neale. "Anyway, we will go up that road +through the woods and see." + +"_Is_ his mother going to give him fits for those torn pants?" asked +another of the group. + +"She'll be so glad to see him home again," confessed Neale, "that he +could tear every pair of pants he's got and she wouldn't say a word!" + +He made his way up the bank to the car and reported. + +"I don't know where that woods-road leads to. I neglected to bring a +map. But it looks as though we could get through it with the car. +We'll try, sha'n't we?" + +"Oh, do, Neale," urged Agnes. + +"I guess it is as good a lead as any," observed Mr. Pinkney. "Somehow, +I begin to feel as though the boy had got a good way off this time. +Even this clue is almost twenty-four hours old." + +"He must have stayed somewhere last night," cried Agnes suddenly. "If +there is a house up there in the woods--or beyond--we can ask." + +"Right you are, Aggie," agreed Neale, starting the car again. + +"Sammy Pinkney is an elusive youngster, sure enough," said the +truant's father. "Something has got to stop him from running away. It +costs too much time and money to overtake him and bring him back." + +"And we haven't done that yet," murmured Agnes. + +The car struck heavy going in the road through the woods before they +had gone very far up the rise. In places the road was soft and had +been cut up by the wheels of heavy trucks or wagons. And they did not +pass a single house--not even a cleared spot in the wood--on either +hand. + +"If he started up this way so near supper time last evening, as those +boys say," Mr. Pinkney ruminated, "where was he at supper time?" + +"Here, or hereabout, I should say!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil. "Why, it +must have been pretty dark when he got this far." + +"If he really came this far," added Agnes. + +"Well, let us run along and see if there is a house anywhere," Mr. +Pinkney said. "Of course, Sammy might have slept out--" + +"It wouldn't be the first time, I bet!" chuckled Neale. + +"And of course there would be nothing to hurt him in these woods?" +suggested Agnes. + +"Nothing bigger than a rabbit, I guess," agreed their neighbor. + +"Well--" + +Neale increased the speed of the car again, turned a blind corner, and +struck a soft place in the road before he could stop. Having no +skidding chains on the rear wheels of course, the car was out of +control in an instant. It slued around. Agnes screamed. Mr. Pinkney +shouted his alarm. + +The car slid over the bank of the ditch beside the road and both right +wheels sank in mud and water to the hubs. + +"Some pretty mess--I'll tell the world!" groaned Neale O'Neil, shutting +off the engine, while Agnes clung to his arm grimly to keep from +sliding out into the ditch, too. + +"Now, you _have_ done it!" shrilled the girl. + +"Thanks. Many thanks. I expected you to say that, Aggie," he replied. + +"M-mm! Well, I don't suppose you meant to--" + +"No use worrying about how it was done or who did it," interposed Mr. +Pinkney, briskly getting out of the tonneau on the left side. "The +question is, how are we going to right the car and get under way +again?" + +"A truer word was never spoken," agreed Neale O'Neil. "Come on, Agnes. +We'll creep out on this side, too. That's it. Looks to me, Mr. +Pinkney, as though we should need a couple of good, strong levers to +pry up the wheels. You and I can do that while Agnes gets in under the +wheel and manipulates the mechanism, as it were." + +"You are the boss, here, Neale," said the older man, immediately +entering the wood on the right side of the road. "I see a stick here +that looks promising." + +He passed under the broadly spreading branches of a huge chestnut +tree. There were several of these monsters along the edge of the wood. +Mr. Pinkney suddenly shouted something, and dropped upon his knees +between two outcropping roots of the tree. + +"What is it, Mr. Pinkney?" cried Agnes, running across the road. + +Their neighbor appeared, erect again. In his hand he bore the +well-remembered extension-bag which Sammy Pinkney had so often borne +away from home upon his truant escapades. + +"What do you know about this?" demanded Sammy's father. "Here's his +bag--filled with his possessions, by the feel of it. But where is the +boy?" + +"He--he's got away!" gasped Agnes. + +"And we almost had him," was Neale's addition to the amazed remarks of +the trio of searchers. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--UNCERTAINTIES + + +The secret had now been revealed! But of course it did not do Sammy +Pinkney the least bit of good. His extension-bag had not been stolen +at all. + +Merely, when that sleepy boy had stumbled away the night before to the +spring for a drink of water, he had not returned to the right tree for +the remainder of the night. In his excitement in the morning, after +discovering his loss, Sammy ran about a good deal (as Uncle Rufus +would have said) "like a chicken wid de haid cut off." He did not +manage to find the right tree at all. + +The extension-bag was now in his father's hands. Mr. Pinkney brought +it to the mired car and opened it. There was no mistaking the contents +of the bag for anything but Sammy's possessions. + +"What do you know about that?" murmured the amazed father of the +embryo pirate. He rummaged through the conglomeration of chattels in +the bag. "No, it is not here." + +"What are you looking for, Mr. Pinkney?" demanded Agnes, feeling +rather serious herself. Something might have happened to the truant. + +"That picture his mother spoke of," the father answered, with a sigh. + +"Hoh!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil, "if the kid thinks as much of it as +Mrs. Pinkney says, he's got it with him. Of course." + +"It looks so," admitted Mr. Pinkney. "But why should he abandon his +clothes--and all?" + +"Oh, maybe he hasn't!" cried Agnes eagerly. "Maybe he is coming back +here." + +"You think this old tree," said Mr. Pinkney in doubt, "is Sammy's +headquarters?" + +"I--don't--know--" + +"That wouldn't be like Sammy," declared Neale, with conviction. "He +always keeps moving--even when he is stowaway on a canalboat," and he +chuckled at the memory of that incident. "For some reason he was +chased away from here. Or," hitting the exact truth without knowing +it, "he tucked the bag under that tree root and forgot where he put +it." + +"Does that sound reasonable?" gasped Agnes. + +"Quite reasonable--for Sammy," grumbled Mr. Pinkney. "He is just so +scatter-brained. But what shall I tell his mother when I take this bag +home to her? She will feel worse than she has before." + +"Maybe we will find him yet," Agnes interposed. + +"That's what we are out for," Neale added with confidence. "Let's not +give up hope. Why, we're finding clues all the time." + +"And now you manage to get us stuck in the mud," put in Agnes, giving +her boy friend rather an unfair dig. + +"Have a heart! How could I help it? Anyway, we'll get out all right. +We sha'n't have to camp here all night, if Sammy did." + +"That is it," interposed Sammy's father. "I wonder if he stayed here +all night or if he abandoned the bag here and kept on. Maybe the woods +were too much for his nerves," and he laughed rather uncertainly. + +"I bet Sammy was not scared," announced Neale, with confidence. "He is +a courageous chap. If he wasn't, he would not start out alone this +way." + +"True enough," said Mr. Pinkney, not without some pride. "But +nevertheless it would help some if we were sure he was here only +twelve hours ago, instead of twenty-four." + +"Let's get the car out of the ditch and see if we can go on," Neale +suggested. "I'll get that pole you saw, Mr. Pinkney. And I see another +lever over there." + +While Mr. Pinkney buckled the straps of the extension-bag again and +stowed the bag under the seat, Neale brought the two sticks of small +timber which he thought would be strong enough to lift the wheels of +the stalled car out of the ditch. But first he used the butt of one of +the sticks to knock down the edge of the bank in front of each wheel. + +"You see," he said to Agnes, "when you get it started you want to turn +the front wheels, if you can, to the left and climb right out on to +the road. Mr. Pinkney and I will do the best we can for you; but it is +the power of the engine that must get us out of the ditch." + +"I--I don't know that I can handle it right, Neale," hesitated Agnes. + +"Sure you can. You've got to!" he told her. "Come on, Mr. Pinkney! +Let's see if we can get these sticks under the wheels on this side." + +"Wait a moment," urged the man, who was writing hastily on a page torn +from his notebook. "I must leave a note for Sammy--if perhaps he should +come back here looking for his bag." + +"Better not say anything about his torn trousers, Mr. Pinkney," +giggled Agnes. "He will shy at that." + +"He can tear all his clothes to pieces if he'll only come home and +stop his mother's worrying. Only, the little rascal ought to be +soundly trounced just the same for all the trouble he is causing us." + +"If only I had stayed with him at that beet bed and made sure he knew +what he was doing," sighed Agnes, who felt somewhat condemned. + +"It would have been something else that sent him off in this way, if +it hadn't been beets," grumbled Mr. Pinkney. "He was about due for a +break-away. I should have paid more attention to him myself. But +business was confining. + +"Oh, well; we always see our mistakes when it is too late. But that +boy needs somebody's oversight besides his mother's. She is always +afraid I will be too harsh with him. But she doesn't manage him, that +is sure." + +"We'd better catch the rabbit before we make the rabbit stew," +chuckled Neale O'Neil. "Sammy is a good kid, I tell you. Only he has +crazy notions." + +"Pooh!" put in Agnes. "You need not talk in so old-fashioned a way. +You used to have somewhat similar 'crazy notions' yourself. You ran +away a couple of times." + +"Well, did I have a real home and a mother and father to run from?" +demanded the boy. "Guess not!" + +"You've got a father now," laughed Agnes. + +"But he isn't like a real father," sighed Neale. "He has run away from +me! I know it is necessary for him to go back to Alaska to attend to +that mine. But I'll be glad when he comes home for good--or I can go to +him." + +"Oh, Neale! You wouldn't?" gasped the girl. + +"Wouldn't what?" he asked, surprised by her vehemence. + +"Go away up to Alaska?" + +"I'd like to," admitted the boy. "Wouldn't you?" + +"Oh--well--if you can take me along," rejoined Agnes with satisfaction, +"all right. But under no other circumstances can you go, Neale +O'Neil." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--THE DEAD END OF NOWHERE + + +Mr. Pinkney and Neale went to work to hoist the motor-car into the +road again. No easy nor brief struggle was this. A dozen times Agnes +started the car and the wheels slipped off the poles or Neale or Mr. +Pinkney lost his grip. + +Before long they were well bespattered with mud (for there was +considerable water in the ditch) and so was the automobile. Neale and +their neighbor worked to the utmost of their muscular strength, and +Agnes was in tears. + +"Pluck up your courage, Aggie," panted her boy friend. "We'll get it +yet." + +"I just feel that it is my fault," sobbed the girl. "All this slipping +and sliding. If I could only just get it to start right--" + +"Again!" cried Neale cheerfully. + +And this time the forewheels really got on solid ground. Mr. Pinkney +thrust his lever in behind the sloughed hind wheel and blocked it from +sliding back. + +"Great!" yelled Neale. "Once more, Aggie!" + +She obeyed his order, and although the automobile engine rattled a +good deal and the car itself plunged like a bucking broncho, they +finally got all the wheels out of the mud and on the firm road. + +"Crickey!" gasped Neale. "It looks like a battlefield." + +"And we look as though we had been in the battle all right," said Mr. +Pinkney. "Guess Mamma Pinkney will have something to say about _my_ +trousers when we get home, let alone Sammy's." + +"Do you suppose the car will run all right?" asked the anxious Agnes. +"I don't know what Ruth would say if we broke down." + +"She'd say a-plenty," returned Neale. "But wait till I get some of +this mud off me and I'll try her out again. By the way she bucked that +last time I should say there was nothing much the matter with her +machinery." + +This proved to be true. If anything was strained about the mechanism +it did not immediately show up. Neale got the automobile under way +without any difficulty and they drove ahead through the now fast +darkening road. + +The belt of woods was not very wide, but the car ran slowly and when +the searchers came out upon the far side, the old shack which housed +the big, red-faced woman, who had been kind to Sammy, and her brood of +children, some of whom had been not at all kind, the place looked to +be deserted. + +In truth, the family were berry pickers and had been gone all day +(after Sammy's adventure with the cherry-colored calf) up in the hills +after berries. They had not yet returned for the evening meal, and +although Neale stopped the car in front of the shack Mr. Pinkney +decided Sammy would not have remained at the abandoned place. + +And, of course, Sammy had not remained here. After his exciting fight +with Peter and Liz, and fearing to return to the house to complain, he +had gone right on. Where he had gone was another matter. The +automobile party drove to the town of Crimbleton, which was the next +hamlet, and there Mr. Pinkney made exhaustive inquiries regarding his +lost boy, but to no good result. + +"We'll try again to-morrow, Mr. Pinkney, if you say so," urged Neale. + +"Of course we will," agreed Agnes. "We'll go every day until you find +him." + +Their neighbor shook his head with some sadness. "I am afraid it will +do no good. Sammy has given us the slip this time. Perhaps I would +better put the matter in the hands of a detective agency. For myself, +I should be contented to wait until he shows up of his own volition. +But his mother--" + +Agnes and Neale saw, however, that the man was himself very desirous +of getting hold of his boy again. They made a hasty supper at the +Crimbleton Inn and then started homeward at a good rate of speed. + +When they came up the grade toward the old house beside the road, at +the edge of the wood, the big woman and her family had returned, made +their own supper, and gone to bed. The place looked just as deserted +as before. + +"The dead-end of nowhere," Neale called it, and the automobile +gathered speed as it went by. So the searchers missed making inquiry +at the very spot where inquiry might have done the most good. The +trail of Sammy Pinkney was lost. + +Neale O'Neil wanted to satisfy himself about one thing. He said +nothing to Agnes about it, but after he had put up the car and locked +the garage, he walked down Main Street to Byburg's candy store. + +June Wildwood was always there until half past nine, and Saturday +nights until later. She was at her post behind the sweets counter on +this occasion when Neale entered. + +"I am glad to see you, Neale," she said. "I'm awfully curious." + +"About that bracelet?" + +"Yes," she admitted. "What has come of it? Anything?" + +"Enough. Tell me," began Neale, before she could put in any further +question, "while you were with the Gypsies did you hear anything about +Queen Alma?" + +"Queen Zaliska. I was Queen Zaliska. They dressed me up and stained my +face to look the part." + +"Oh, I know all about that," Neale returned. "But this Queen Alma was +some ancient lady. She lived three hundred years ago." + +"Goodness! How you talk, Neale O'Neil. Of course I don't know anything +about such a person." + +"Those Gypsies you were with never talked of her?" + +"I didn't hear them. I never learned much of the language they use +among themselves." + +"Well, we got a tip," said the boy, "that the bracelet belonged to +this Queen Alma, and that there is a row among the Gypsies over the +ownership of it." + +"You don't tell me!" + +"I am telling you. We heard so. Say, is that Big Jim a Spaniard? A +Spanish Gypsy, I mean?" + +"I don't know. Maybe. He looks like a Spaniard, or a Mexican, or an +Italian." + +"Yes. I thought he did. He comes of some Latin race, anyway. What is +his last name?" + +"Why--I--I am not sure that I know." + +"Is it Costello? Did you hear that name while you were with the +Gypsies, June?" + +"Some of them are named Costello. It is a family name among them I +guess. And about that Jim. Do you know that I saw him yesterday +driving down Main Street in an automobile?" + +"You don't mean it? Gypsies are going to become flivver traders +instead of horse swappers, are they?" and Neale laughed. + +"Oh, it was a big, seven-passenger car," said June. "Those Gypsies +have money, if they want to spend it." + +"Did you ever hear of a Gypsy junkman?" chuckled Neale. + +"Of course not. Although I guess junkmen make good money nowadays," +drawled June Wildwood, laughing too. "You are a funny boy, Neale +O'Neil. Do you want to know anything else?" + +"Lots of things. But I guess you cannot tell me much more about the +Gypsies that would be pertinent to the bracelet business. We hear that +the Costello Gypsies are fighting over the possession of the +heirloom--the bracelet, you know. That is why one bunch of them wanted +to get it off their hands for a while--and so gave it into the keeping +of Tess and Dot." + +"Mercy!" + +"Does that seem improbable to you, June?" + +"No-o. Not much. They might. It makes me think that maybe the Gypsies +have been watching the old Corner House and know all about the +Kenways." + +"They might easily do that. You know, they might know us all from that +time away back when we brought you home from Pleasant Cove with us. +This is some of the same tribe you were with--sure enough!" + +"I know it," sighed June Wildwood. "I've been scared a little about +them too. But for my own sake. I haven't dared tell Rosa; but pap +comes down here to the store for me every evening and beaus me home. I +feel safer." + +"The bracelet business has nothing to do with you, of course?" + +"Of course not. But those Gypsies might have some evil intent about +Ruth and her sisters." + +"Guess they are just trying to use them for a convenience. While that +bracelet is in the Corner House no other claimant but those Gypsy +women are likely to get hold of it. Believe me, it is a puzzle," he +concluded. "I guess we will have to put it up to Mr. Howbridge, sure +enough." + +"Oh! The Kenways's lawyer?" cried June. + +"Their guardian. Sure enough. That is what we will have to do." + +But when Neale and Agnes Kenway, after an early breakfast, hurried +downtown to Mr. Howbridge's office the next morning to tell the lawyer +all about the Gypsies and Queen Alma's bracelet, they made a +surprising discovery. + +Mr. Howbridge had left town the evening before on important business. +He might not return for a week. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--RUTH BEGINS TO WORRY + + +Oakhurst, in the mountains, was a very lovely spot. Besides the hotel +where Luke Shepard had worked and where he had met with his accident, +there were bungalows and several old-fashioned farmhouses where +boarders were received. There was a lake, fine golf links, bridlepaths +through the woods, and mountains to climb. It was a popular if quiet +resort. + +Ruth and Cecile Shepard had rooms in one of the farmhouses, for the +hotel was expensive. Besides, the farmer owned a beautifully shaded +lawn overlooking the lake and the girls could sit there under the +trees while the invalid, as they insisted upon calling Luke, reclined +on a swinging cot. + +"Believe me!" Cecile often insisted, "I will never send another +telegram as long as I live. I cannot forgive myself for making such a +mess of it. But then, if I hadn't done so, you would not be here now, +Ruthie." + +"Isn't that a fact?" agreed her brother. "You are all right, Sis! I am +for you, strong." + +Ruth laughed. Yet there were worried lines between her eyes. + +"It is all right," she murmured. "I might have come in any case--for +Mr. Howbridge advised it by this letter that they remailed to me. But +I should not have left in such haste, and I should have left somebody +besides Mrs. McCall to look after the girls." + +"Pooh!" ejaculated Luke. "What is the matter with Agnes?" + +"That is just it," laughed Ruth again, but shaking her head too. "It +is Agnes, and what she may do, that troubles me more than anything +else." + +"Goodness me! She is a big girl," declared Cecile. "And she has lots +of sense." + +"She usually succeeds in hiding her good sense, then," rejoined Ruth. +"Of course she can take care of herself. But will she give sufficient +attention to the little ones. That is the doubt that troubles me." + +"Well, you just can't go away now!" wailed Cecile. "You have got to +stay till the doctor says we can move Luke. I can't take him back +alone." + +"Now, don't make me out so badly off. I am lying here like a poor log +because that sawbones and you girls make me. But I know I could get up +and play baseball." + +[Illustration: The girls could sit under the tree while Luke reclined +on a swinging cot.] + +"Don't you dare!" cried his sister. + +"You would not be so unwise," said Ruth promptly. + +"All right. Then you stop worrying, Ruth," the young fellow said. +"Otherwise I shall 'take up my bed and walk'--you see! This lying +around like an ossified man is a nuisance, and it's absurd, anyway." + +Ruth had immediately written to Mr. Howbridge asking him to look +closely after family affairs at the Corner House. Had she known the +lawyer was not at home when her letter arrived in Milton she certainly +would have started back by the very next train. + +She wrote Mrs. McCall, too, for exact news. And naturally she poured +into her letter to Agnes all the questions and advice of which she +could think. + +Agnes was too busy when that letter arrived to answer it at all. +Things were happening at the old Corner House at that time of which +Ruth had never dreamed. + +Ruth was really glad to be with Cecile and Luke in the mountains. And +she tried to throw off her anxiety. + +Luke insisted that his sister and Ruth should go over to the hotel to +dance in the evening when he had to go to bed, as the doctor ordered. +He had become acquainted with most of the hotel guests before his +injury, and the young people liked Luke Shepard. + +They welcomed his sister and Ruth as one of themselves, and the two +girls had the finest kind of a time. At least, Cecile did, and she +said that Ruth might have had, had she not been thinking of the +home-folk so much. + +Several days passed, and although Ruth heard nothing from home save a +brief and hurried note from Agnes, telling of their unsuccessful +search for Sammy--and nothing much else--the older Kenway girl began to +feel that her anxiety had been unnecessary. + +Then came Mrs. McCall's labored letter. The old Scotchwoman was never +an easy writer. And her thoughts did not run to the way of clothing +facts in readable English. She was plain and blunt. At least a part of +her letter immediately made Ruth feel that she was needed at home, and +that even her interest in Luke Shepard should not detain her longer at +Oakhurst. + + * * * * * + +"We have got to have another watchdog. Old Tom Jonah is too old; it is +my opinion. I mind he is getting deaf, or something, or he wouldn't +have let that man come every night and stare in at the window. Faith, +he is a nuisance--the man, I mean, Ruth, not the old dog. + +"I have spoke to the police officer on the beat; but Mr. Howbridge +being out of town I don't know what else to do about that man. And +such a foxy looking man as he is! + +"Neale O'Neil, who is a good lad, I'm saying, and no worse than other +boys of his age for sure, offers to watch by night. But I have not +allowed it. He and Aggie talk of Gypsies, and they show me that silver +bracelet--a bit barbarous thing that you remember the children had to +play with--and say the dark man who comes to the window nights is a +Gypsy. I think he is a plain tramp, that is all, my lass. + +"Don't let these few lines worry you. Linda goes to bed with the stove +poker every night, and Uncle Rufus says he has oiled up your great +uncle's old shotgun. But I know that gun has no hammer to it, so I am +not afraid of the weapon at all. I just want to make that black-faced +man go away from the house and mind his own business. It is a nuisance +he is." + + * * * * * + +"I must go home--oh, I must!" Ruth said to Cecile as soon as she had +read this effusion from the old housekeeper. "Just think! A man spying +on them--and a Gypsy!" + +"Pooh! it can't be anything of importance," scoffed Cecile. + +"It must be. Think! I told you about the Gypsy bracelet. There must be +more of importance connected with that than we thought." + +She had already told Luke and Cecile about the mystery of the silver +ornament. + +"Why, I thought you had told Mr. Howbridge about it," Cecile said. + +"I did not. I really forgot to when the news of Luke's illness came," +and Ruth blushed. + +"That quite drove everything else out of your head, did it?" laughed +the other girl. "But now why let it bother you? Of course Mr. +Howbridge will attend to things--" + +"But he seems to be away," murmured Ruth. "Evidently Mrs. McCall and +Agnes have not been able to reach him. Oh, Cecile! I must really go +home." + +"Then you will have to come back," declared Cecile Shepard. "I could +not possibly travel with Luke alone." + +The physician had confided more to the girls than to Luke himself +about the young man's physical condition. The medical man feared some +spinal trouble if Luke did not remain quiet and lie flat on his back +for some time to come. + +But the day following Ruth's receipt of Mrs. McCall's anxiety-breeding +letter, Dr. Moline agreed to the young man's removal. + +"But only in a compartment. You must take the afternoon train on which +you can engage a compartment. He must lie at ease all the way. I will +take him to the station in my car. And have a car to meet him when you +get to the Milton station." + +The first of these instructions Ruth was able to follow faithfully. +The cost of such a trip was not to be considered. She would not even +allow Luke and Cecile to speak about it. + +Ruth had her own private bank account, arranged for and supervised, it +was true, by Mr. Howbridge, and she prided herself upon doing business +in a businesslike way. + +Just before they boarded the train at Oakhurst station she telegraphed +home that they were coming and for Neale to meet them with the car, +late though their arrival would be. If on time, the train would stop +at Milton just after midnight. + +When that telegram arrived at the old Corner House it failed to make +much of a disturbance in the pool of the household existence. And for +a very good reason. So much had happened there during the previous few +hours that the advent of the King and Queen of England (and this Mrs. +McCall herself said) would have created a very small "hooroo." + +As for Neale O'Neil's getting out the car and going down to the +station to meet Ruth and her friends when they arrived, that seemed to +be quite impossible. The coming of the telegram was at an hour when +already the Kenway automobile was far away from Milton, and Neale and +Agnes in it were having high adventure. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--THE JUNKMAN AGAIN + + +When Ruth started home with Luke and Cecile Shepard several days had +elapsed since Neale O'Neil and Agnes had discovered that Mr. Howbridge +was out of town. + +The chief clerk at the lawyer's office had little time to give to the +youthful visitors, for just then he had his hands full with a caller +whom Neale and Agnes had previously found was a person not easily to +be pacified. + +"There is a crazy man in here," grumbled the clerk. "I don't know what +he means. He says he 'comes from Kenway,' and there is something about +Queen Alma and her bracelet. What do you know about this, Miss +Kenway?" + +"Oh, my prophetic soul!" gasped Neale O'Neil. "Costello, the junkman!" + +"Dear, me! We thought we could see Mr. Howbridge before that man +came." + +"Tell me what it means," urged the clerk. "Then I will know what to +say to the lunatic." + +"I guess he's a nut all right," admitted Neale. He told the lawyer's +clerk swiftly all they knew about the junkman, and all they knew about +the silver bracelet. + +"All right. It is something for Mr. Howbridge to attend to himself," +declared the clerk. "You hang on to that bracelet and don't let +anybody have it. I'll try to shoo off this fellow. Anyway, it may not +belong to his family at all. I'll hold him here till you two get +away." + +Neale and Agnes were glad to escape contact with the junkman again. He +was too vehement. + +"He'll walk right in and search the house for the thing," grumbled +Neale. "We can't have him frightening the children." + +"And I don't want to be frightened myself," added Agnes. + +They hurried home, and all that day, every time the bell rang or she +heard a voice at the side door, the girl felt a sudden qualm. "Wish we +had never advertised that bracelet at all," she confessed in secret. +"Dear, me! I wonder what Ruth will say?" + +Nevertheless she failed to take her older sister into her confidence +regarding Queen Alma's bracelet when she wrote to her. She felt quite +convinced that Ruth would not approve of what she and Neale had done, +so why talk about it? + +This was the attitude Agnes maintained. Perhaps the whole affair would +be straightened out before Ruth came back. And otherwise, she +considered, everything was going well at the Corner House in Milton. + +It was Miss Ann Titus who evinced interest next in the "lost and +found" advertisement. Miss Ann Titus was the woman whom Dot called +"such a fluid speaker" and who said so many "and-so's" that +"ain't-so's." In other words, Miss Titus, the dressmaker, was a very +gossipy person, although she was not intentionally unkind. + +She came in this afternoon, "stopping by" as she termed it, from +spending a short sewing day with Mrs. Pease, a Willow Street neighbor +of the Corner House girls. + +"And I must say that Mrs. Pease, for a woman of her age, has young +idees about dress," Miss Titus confided to Mrs. McCall and Agnes, who +were in the sewing room. Aunt Sarah "couldn't a-bear" Miss Ann Titus, +so they did not invite the seamstress to go upstairs. + +"Yes, her idees is some young," repeated Miss Titus. "But then, +nowadays if you foller the styles in the fashion papers nobody can +tell you and your grandmother apart, back to! Skirts are so skimpy--and +_short_!" + +Miss Titus fanned herself rapidly, and allowed her emphasis to suggest +her own opinion of modern taste in dress. + +"Of course, Mrs. Pease is slim and ain't lost all her good looks; but +it does seem to me if I was a married woman," she simpered here a +little, for Miss Titus had by no means given up all hope of entering +the wedded state, "I should consider my husband's feelings. I would +not go on the street looking below my knees as though I was twelve +year old instead of thirty-two." + +"Maybe Mr. Pease likes her to look young," suggested Agnes. + +"Hech! Hech!" clucked Mrs. McCall placidly. "Thirty-twa is not so very +auld. Not as we live these days, at any rate." + +"But think of the example she sets her children," sniffed Miss Titus, +bridling. + +"Tut, tut! How much d'you expect Margie and Holly Pease is influenced +by their mother's style o' dress?" exclaimed the housekeeper. "The twa +bairns scarce know much about that." + +"I guess that is so," chimed in Agnes. "And I think she is a pretty +woman and dresses nicely. So there!" + +"Ah, you young things cannot be expected to think as I do," smirked +Miss Titus. + +"I take that as a compliment, my dear," said the housekeeper +comfortably. "And I never expect tae be vairy old until I die. Still +and all, I am some older than Agnes." + +"That reminds me," said Miss Titus, more briskly (though it did not +remind her, for she had come into the Corner House for the special +purpose of broaching the subject that she now announced), "which of +you Kenways is it has found a silver bracelet?" + +"Now, _that_ is Agnes' affair," chuckled Mrs. McCall. + +"Oh! It is not Ruth that advertised?" queried the curious Miss Titus. + +"Na, na! Tell it her, Agnes," said the housekeeper. + +But Agnes was not sure she wished to describe to this gossipy +seamstress all the incidents connected with Queen Alma's bracelet. She +only said: + +"Of course, you do not know anybody who has lost such a bracelet?" + +"How can I tell till I have seen it?" demanded Miss Titus. + +"Well, we have about decided that until somebody comes who describes +the bracelet and can explain how and where it was lost that we had +better not display it at all," Agnes said, with more firmness than was +usual with her. + +"Oh!" sniffed Miss Titus. "I hope you do not think that _I_ have any +interest--any personal interest--in inquiring about it?" + +"If I thought it was yours, Miss Titus, I would let you see it +immediately," Agnes hastened to assure her. "But of course--" + +"There was a bracelet lost right on this street," said Miss Titus +earnestly, meaning Willow Street and pointing that way, "that never +was recovered to my knowledge." + +"Oh! You don't mean it?" cried the puzzled girl. "Of course, we don't +_know_ that this one belongs to any of those Gypsies--" + +"I should say not!" clucked Miss Titus. "The bracelet I mean was worn +by Sarah Turner. She and I went together regular when we were girls. +And going to prayer meeting one night, walking along here by the old +Corner House, Sarah dropped her bracelet." + +"But--but!" gasped Agnes, "that must have been some time ago, Miss +Titus." + +"It is according to how you compute time," the dressmaker said. "Sarah +and I were about of an age. And she isn't more than forty years old +right now!" + +"I don't think this bracelet we have is the one your friend lost," +Agnes said faintly, but confidently. She wanted to laugh but did not +dare. + +"How do you know?" demanded Miss Ann Titus in her snappy way--like the +biting off of a thread when she was at work. "I should know it, even +so long after it was lost, I assure you." + +"Why--how?" asked the Corner House girl curiously. + +"By the scratches on it," declared Miss Titus. "Sarah's brother John +made them with his pocketknife--on the inside of the bracelet--to see if +it was real silver. Oh! he was a bad boy--as bad as Sammy Pinkney. And +what do you think of _his_ running away again?" + +Agnes was glad the seamstress changed the subject right here. It +seemed to her as though she had noticed scratches on the bracelet the +Gypsies had placed in the basket the children bought. Could it be +possible-- + +"No! That is ridiculous!" Agnes told herself. "It could not be +possible that a bracelet lost forty years ago on Willow Street should +turn up at this late date. And, having found it, why should those +Gypsy women give it to Tess and Dot? There would be no sense in that." + +Yet, when the talkative Miss Titus had gone Agnes went to the room the +little folks kept their playthings and doll families in, and picked up +the Alice-doll which chanced that day to be wearing the silver band. +She removed it from the doll and took it to the window where the light +was better. + +Yes! It was true as she had thought. There were several crosswise +scratches on the inside of the circlet. They might easily have been +made by a boy's jackknife. + +"I declare! Who really knows where this bracelet came from, and who +actually owns it? Maybe it is not Queen Alma's ornament after all. +Dear, me! this Kenway family is forever getting mixed up in +difficulties that positively have nothing to do with _us_. + +"The silly old bracelet! Why couldn't those Gypsy women have sold that +basket to Margaret and Holly Pease, or to some other little girls +instead of to our Tess and Dot. Mrs. McCall says that some people seem +to attract trouble, just as lightning-rods attract lightning, and I +guess the Kenways are some of those people!" + +Neale did not come over again that day, so she had nobody to discuss +this new slant in the matter with. And if Agnes could not "talk out +loud" about her troubles, she was apt to grow irritable. At least, the +little girls said after supper that she was cross. + +"Ruth doesn't talk that way to us," declared Tess, quite hurt, and +gathering up her playthings from the various chairs in the sitting +room where the family usually gathered in the evenings. "I don't think +I should like her to be away all the time." + +This was Tess's polite way of criticising Agnes. But Dot was not so +hampered by politeness. + +"Crosspatch!" she exclaimed. "That's just what you are, Aggie Kenway." + +And she started for bed in quite a huff. Agnes was glad, a few minutes +later, that the two smaller girls had gone upstairs, even if they had +gone away in this unhappy state of mind. Mrs. McCall had come in and +sat down at some mending and the room was very quiet. Suddenly a noise +outside on the porch made Agnes raise her head and look at the nearest +window. + +"What is the matter wi' ye, lassie?" asked Mrs. McCall, startled. + +"Did you hear that?" whispered the girl, staring at the window. + +The shade was not drawn down to the sill, and the curtains were the +very thinnest of scrim. At the space of four inches below the shade +Agnes saw a white splotch against the pane. + +"Oh! See! A face!" gasped Agnes in three smothered shrieks. + +"Hech, mon! Such a flibbertigibbet as the lass is." Mrs. McCall +adjusted her glasses and stared, first at the frightened girl, then at +the window. But she, too, saw the face. "What can the matter be?" she +demanded, half rising. "Is that Neale O'Neil up tae some o' his +jokes?" + +"Oh, no, Mrs. Mac! It's not Neale," half sobbed Agnes. "I know who it +is. It's that awful junkman!" + +"A junkman?" repeated Mrs. McCall. "At this time o' night? We've +naethin' tae sellit him. The impudence!" + +She rose, quite determined to drive the importunate junkman away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--THE HOUSE IS HAUNTED + + +"Why do ye fash yoursel' so?" demanded Mrs. McCall in growing wonder +and exasperation. "Let me see the foolish man." + +She approached the window and raised the shade sharply. Then she +hoisted the sash itself. But Costello, the junkman, was gone. + +"There is naebody here," she complained, looking out on the side +porch. + +"But he _was_ there! You saw him," faintly declared Agnes. + +"He was nae ghost, if that's what you mean," said the housekeeper +dryly. "But what and who is he? A junkman? How do you come to know +junkmen, lassie?" + +"I only know that junkman," explained Agnes. + +"Aye?" The housekeeper's eyes as well as her voice was sharp. "And +when did you make his acquaintance? Costello, d'you say?" + +"So he said his name was. He--he is one of the Gypsies, I do believe!" + +"Gypsies! The idea! Is the house surrounded by Gypsies?" + +"I don't know, Mrs. McCall," said Agnes faintly. "I only know they are +giving us a lot of trouble." + +"Who are?" + +"The Gypsies." + +"Hear the lass!" exclaimed the troubled housekeeper. "Who ever heard +the like? Why should Gypsies give us any trouble? Is it that bit +bracelet the bairns play wi'? Then throw it out and let the Gypsies +have it." + +"But that would not be right, would it, Mrs. McCall?" demanded the +troubled girl. "If--if the bracelet belongs to them--" + +"Hech! To this junkman?" + +"He claims it," confessed Agnes. + +"Tut, tut! What is going on here that I do not know about?" demanded +the Scotch woman with deeper interest. + +She closed the window, drew the shade again, and returned to her seat. +She stared at Agnes rather sternly over her glasses. + +"Come now, my lass," said the housekeeper, "what has been going on so +slyly here? I never heard of any Costello, junkman or not. Who is he? +What does he want, peering in at a body's windows at night?" + +Agnes told the whole story then--and managed to tell it clearly enough +for the practical woman to gain a very good idea of the whole matter. + +"Of course," was her comment, grimly said, "you and that Neale could +not let well enough alone. You never can. If you had not advertised +the bit bracelet, this junkman would not have troubled you." + +"But we thought it ought to be advertised," murmured Agnes in defense. + +"Aye, aye! Ye thought mooch I've nae doot. And to little good purpose. +Well, 'tis a matter for Mr. Howbridge now, sure enough. And what he'll +say--" + +"But I hope that Costello does not come to the house again," ventured +the girl, in some lingering alarm. + +"You or Neale go to Mr. Howbridge's clerk in the morning and tell him. +He should tell the police of this crazy man. A Gypsy, too, you say?" + +"I think he must be. The bracelet seems to be a bone of contention +between two branches of the Gypsy tribe. If it belonged to that old +Queen Alma--" + +"Fiddle-faddle!" exclaimed the housekeeper. "Who ever heard of a queen +among those dirty Gypsies? 'Tis foolishness." + +The fact that Costello, the junkman, was lingering about the old +Corner House was not to be denied. They saw him again before bedtime. +Uncle Rufus had gone to bed and Linda was so easily frightened that +Mrs. McCall did not want to tell her. + +So the housekeeper grabbed a broom and started out on the side porch +with the avowed intention of "breaking the besom over the chiel's +head!" But the lurker refused to be caught and darted away into the +shadows. And all without making a sound, or revealing in any way what +his intention might be. + +Mrs. McCall and the trembling Agnes went all about the house, locking +each lower window, and of course all the doors. Tom Jonah, the old +Newfoundland dog, slept out of doors these warm nights, and sometimes +wandered away from the premises. + +"We ought to have Buster, Sammy Pinkney's bulldog, over here. Then +that horrid man would not dare come into the yard," Agnes said. + +"You might as well turn that old billy-goat loose," sniffed Mrs. +McCall. "He'd do little more harm than that bull pup--and nae more +good, either." + +They went to bed--earlier than usual, perhaps. And that may be the +reason why Agnes could not sleep. She considered the possibility of +Costello's climbing up the porch posts to the roof, and so reaching +the second story windows. + +"If he is going to haunt the house like this," Agnes declared to the +housekeeper in the morning, "let us make Neale come here and stay at +night." + +"That lad?" returned the housekeeper, who had no very exalted opinion +of boys in any case--no more than had Ruth. "Haven't we all troubles +enough, I want to know? This is a case for the police. You go tell Mr. +Howbridge's clerk about the Gypsy, that is what you do." + +But Agnes would not do even that without taking Neale into her +confidence. Neale at once was up in arms when he heard of the lurking +junkman. He declared he would come over and hide in the closet on the +Kenways' back porch and try to catch the man if he appeared again at +night. + +"He is a very strong man, Neale," objected Agnes. "And he might have a +knife, too. You know, those Gypsies are awfully fierce-tempered." + +"I don't know that he is," objected Neale. "He looked to me like just +plain crazy." + +"Well, you come down to the office with me," commanded Agnes. "I don't +even want to meet that excitable Costello man on the street when I am +alone." + +"I suppose you are scared, Aggie. But I don't think he would really +hurt you. Come on!" + +So they went down to Mr. Howbridge's office again and interviewed the +clerk, telling him first of all of the appearance of the junkman the +night before. + +"I had fairly to drive him out of these offices," said the clerk. "He +is of a very excitable temperament, to say the least. But I did not +think there was any real harm in him." + +"Just the same," Neale objected, "he wants to keep away from the house +and not frighten folks at night." + +"Oh, we will soon stop that," said Mr. Howbridge's representative. "I +will report it to the police." + +"But perhaps he does not mean any harm," faltered Agnes. + +"I do not think he does," said the man. "Nevertheless, we will warn +him." + +This promise relieved Agnes a good deal. She was tender-hearted and +she did not wish the junkman arrested. But when evening came and he +once more stared in at the windows, and tapped on the panes, and +wandered around and around the house-- + +"Well, this is too much!" cried the girl, when Neale and Mrs. McCall +both ran out to try to apprehend the marauder. "I do wish we had a +telephone. I am going to _beg_ Ruth to have one put in just as soon as +she comes back. We could call the police and they would catch that +man." + +Perhaps the police, had they been informed, might have caught +Costello. But Mrs. McCall and Neale did not. The latter remained until +the family went to bed and then the boy did a little lurking in the +bushes on his own account. But he did not spy the strange man again. + +In the morning, without saying anything to the Kenway family about it, +Neale O'Neil set out to find Costello, the junkman. He certainly was +not afraid of the man by daylight. He had had experience with him. + +From Mr. Howbridge's clerk he had already obtained the address the +junkman had given when he was at the office. The place was down by the +canal in the poorer section of the town, of course. + +There were several cellars and first-floors of old houses given up to +ragpickers and dealers in junk of all kinds. After some inquiry among +a people who quite evidently were used to dodging the answering of +incriminating questions, Neale learned that there had been a junkman +living in a certain room up to within a day or two before, whose name +was Costello. But he had disappeared. Oh, yes! Neale's informant was +quite sure that Costello had gone away for good. + +"But he had a horse and wagon. He had a business of his own. Where has +he gone?" demanded the boy. + +He was gone. That was all these people would tell him. They pointed +out the old shed where Costello had kept his horse. Was it a good +horse? It was a good looking horse, with smiles which seemed to +indicate that Costello was a true Gypsy and was not above "doctoring" +a horse into a deceiving appearance of worthiness. + +"He drove away with that horse. He did not say where he was going. I +guess he go to make a sale, eh? He will come back with some old plug +that he make look fine, eh?" + +This was the nearest to real information that Neale could obtain, and +this from a youth who worked for one of the established junk dealers. + +So Neale had to give up the inquiry as useless. When he came back to +the old Corner House he confessed to Agnes: + +"He is hiding somewhere, and coming around here after dark. Wish I had +a shotgun--" + +"Oh, Neale! How wicked!" + +"Loaded with rock-salt," grinned the boy. "A dose of that might do the +Gyp. a world of good." + + + + +CHAPTER XX--PLOTTERS AT WORK + + +The adventures of the Corner House girls and their friends did not +usually include anything very terrible. Perhaps there was no +particular peril threatened by Costello, the Gypsy junkman, who was +lurking about the premises at night. Just the same, Agnes Kenway was +inclined to do what Mrs. McCall suggested and throw the silver +bracelet out upon the ash heap. + +Of course they had no moral right to do that, and the housekeeper's +irritable suggestion was not to be thought of for a serious moment. +Yet Agnes would have been glad to get rid of the responsibility +connected with possession of Queen Alma's ornament. + +"If it is that Costello heirloom!" she said. "Maybe after all it +belongs to Miss Ann Titus's friend, Sarah Whatshername. Goodness! I +wonder how many other people will come to claim the old thing. I do +wish Ruth would return." + +"Just so you could hand the responsibility over to her," accused +Neale. + +"M-mm. Well?" + +"We ought to hunt up those Gypsies--'Beeg Jeem' and his crowd--and get +their side of the story," declared Neale. + +"No! I will not!" cried Agnes. "I have met all the Gypsies I ever want +to meet." + +But within the hour she met another. She was in the kitchen, and Linda +and Mrs. McCall were both in the front of the house, cleaning. There +came a timid-sounding rap on the door. Agnes unthinkingly threw it +open. + +A slender girl stood there--a girl younger than Agnes herself. This +stranger was very ragged, not at all clean looking, and very brown. +She had flashing white teeth and flashing black eyes. + +Agnes actually started back when she saw her and suppressed a scream. +For she instantly knew the stranger was one of the Gypsy tribe. That +she seemed to be alone was the only thing that kept Agnes from +slamming the door again right in the girl's face. + +"Will the kind lady give me something to eat?" whined the beggar. "I +am hungry. I eat nothing all the day." + +Agnes was doubtful of the truth of this. The dark girl did not look +ill-fed. But she had an appearance of need just the same; and it was a +rule of the Corner House household never to turn a hungry person away. + +"Stay there on the mat," Agnes finally said. "Don't come in. I will +see what I can find for you." + +"Yes, Ma'am," said the girl. + +"Haven't you had any breakfast?" asked Agnes, moving toward the +pantry, and her sympathies becoming excited. + +"No, Ma'am. And no supper last night. Nobody give me nothing." + +"Well," said Agnes, with more warmth, expanding to this tale of woe, +as was natural, "I will see what I can find." + +She found a plate heaped with bread and meat and a wedge of cake, +which she brought to the screen door. The girl had stood there +motionless, only her black eyes roved about the kitchen and seemed to +mark everything in it. + +"Sit down there on the steps and eat it," said Agnes, passing the +plate through a narrow opening, as she might have handed food into the +cage of an animal at a menagerie. She really was half afraid of the +girl just because she looked so much like a Gypsy. + +The stranger ate as though she was quite as ravenously hungry as she +had claimed to be. There could be no doubt that the food disappeared +with remarkable celerity. She sat for a moment or two after she had +eaten the last crumb with the plate in her lap. Then she rose and +brought it timidly to the door. + +"Did you have enough?" asked Agnes, feeling less afraid now. + +"Oh, yes, Lady! It was so nice," and the girl flashed her teeth in a +beaming smile. She was quite a pretty girl--if she had only been clean +and decently dressed. + +She handed the plate to Agnes, and then turned and ran out of the yard +and down the street as fast as she could run. Agnes stared after her +in increased amazement. Why had she run away? + +"If she is a Gypsy--Well, they are queer people, that is sure. Oh! What +is this?" + +Her fingers had found something on the under side of the plate. She +turned it up and saw a soiled piece of paper sticking there. Agnes, +wondering, if no longer alarmed, drew the paper from the plate, turned +it over, and saw that some words were scrawled in blue pencil on the +paper. + +"Goodness me! More mysteries!" gasped the Corner House girl. + +Briefly and plainly the message read: _Do not_ _give the bracelet to +Miguel. He is a thief._ + +Agnes sat down and stared almost breathlessly at the paper. That it +was a threatening command from one crowd of Gypsies or the other, she +was sure. But whether it was from Big Jim's crowd or from Costello, +the junkman, she did not know. + +Her first thought, after she had digested the matter for a few +moments, was to run with the paper to Mrs. McCall. But Mrs. McCall was +not at all sympathetic about this bracelet matter. She was only angry +with the Gypsies, and, perhaps, a little angry with Agnes for having +unwittingly added to the trouble by putting the advertisement in the +paper. + +Neale, after all, could be her only confident; and, making sure that +no other dark-visaged person was in sight about the house, the girl +ran down the long yard beyond the garden to the stable and Billy +Bumps' quarters, and there climbed the board fence that separated the +Kenway yard from that of Con Murphy, the cobbler. + +"Hoo, hoo! Hoo, hoo!" Agnes called, looking over the top rail of the +fence. + +"Hoo, hoo, yerself!" croaked a voice. "I'd have yez know we kape no +owls on these premises." + +The bent figure of Mr. Murphy, always busy at his bench, was visible +through the back window of his shop. + +"Is it that young yahoo called Neale O'Neil that yez want, Miss +Aggie?" added the smiling cobbler. "If so--" + +But Neale O'Neil appeared just then to answer to the summons of his +girl friend. He had been to the store, and he tumbled all his packages +on Con's bench to run out into the yard to greet Agnes. + +"What's happened now?" he cried, seeing in the girl's face that +something out of the ordinary troubled her. + +"Oh, Neale! what do you think?" she gasped. "There's been another of +them at the house." + +"Not one of those Gypsies?" + +"I believe she was." + +"Oh! A _she_!" said the boy, much relieved. "Well, she didn't bite +you, of course?" + +"Come here and look at this," commanded his friend. + +Neale went to the fence, climbed up and took the paper that Agnes had +found stuck to the plate on which she had placed the food for the +Gypsy girl. When he had read the abrupt and unsigned message, Neale +began to grow excited, too. + +"Where did you get this?" + +Agnes told him about it. Of course, the hungry girl had been a +messenger from one party of Gypsies or the other. Which? was Agnes' +eager question. + +"Guess I can answer that," Neale said gravely. "It does look as though +things were getting complicated. I bet this girl you fed is one of Big +Jim's bunch." + +"How can you be so positive?" + +"There are probably only two parties of Gypsies fighting over the +possession of that old bracelet. Now, I learned down there in that +junk neighborhood that Costello--the Costello who is bothering us--is +called Miguel. They are all Costellos--Big Jim's crowd and all. June +Wildwood says so. They distinguish our junkman from themselves by +calling him by his first name. Therefore--" + +"Oh, of course I see," sighed Agnes. "It is a terrible mess, Neale! I +do wish Mr. Howbridge would get back. Or that the police would find +that junkman and shut him up. Or--or that Ruthie would come home!" + +"Oh, don't be a baby, Aggie!" ejaculated Neale. + +"Who is the baby, I want to know?" flashed back the girl. "I'm not!" + +"Then pluck up your spirits and don't turn on the sprinkler," said the +slangy youth. "Why, this is nothing to cry about. When it is all over +we shall be looking back at the mystery as something great in our +young lives." + +"You can try to laugh if you want to," snapped Agnes. "But being +haunted by a junkman, and getting notes from Gypsies like that! Huh! +who wouldn't be scared? Why, we don't know what those people might do +to us if we give up the bracelet to the wrong person." + +"It doesn't belong to any of the Gypsies, perhaps." + +"That is exactly it!" she cried. "Maybe, after all, it is the property +of Miss Ann Titus' friend, Sarah." + +"And was lost somewhere on Willow Street--about where your garage now +stands--forty years ago!" scoffed Neale. "Well, you are pretty soft, +Agnes Kenway." + +This naturally angered the girl, and she pouted and got down from the +fence without replying. As she went back up the yard she saw Mrs. +Pinkney, with her head tied up with a towel, shaking a dustcloth at +one of her front windows. It at least changed the current of the +girl's thought. + +"Oh, Mrs. Pinkney!" she cried, running across the street to speak to +Sammy's mother, "have you heard anything?" + +"About Sammy? Not a word," answered the woman. "I have to keep working +all the time, Agnes Kenway, or I should go insane. I know I should! I +have cleaned this whole house, from attic to cellar, three times since +Sammy ran away." + +"Why, Mrs. Pinkney! If you don't go insane--and I don't believe you +will--I am sure you will overwork and be ill." + +"I must keep doing. I must keep going. If I sit down to think I +imagine the most horrible things happening to the dear child. It is +awful!" + +Agnes knew that never before had the woman been so much disturbed by +her boy's absences from home. It seemed as though she really had lost +control of herself, and the Corner House girl was quite worried over +Mrs. Pinkney. + +"If we could only help you and Mr. Pinkney," said Agnes doubtfully. +"Do you suppose it would do any good to go off in the car again--Neale +and me and your husband--to look for Sammy?" + +"Mr. Pinkney is so tied down by his business that he cannot go just +now," she sighed. "And he has put the search into the hands of an +agency. I did not want the police to get after Sammy. But what could +we do? And they say there are Gypsies around." + +"Oh!" gasped Agnes. "Do you suppose--?" + +"You never can tell what those people will do. I am told they have +stolen children." + +"Isn't that more talk than anything else?" asked Agnes, trying to +speak quite casually. + +"I don't know. One of my neighbors tells me she hears that there is a +big encampment of Gypsies out on the Buckshot Road. You know, out +beyond the Poole farm. They have autovans instead of horses, so they +say, and maybe could carry any children they stole out of the state in +a very short time." + +"Oh, dear me, Mrs. Pinkney! I would not think of such things," Agnes +urged. "It does not sound reasonable." + +"That the Gypsies should travel by auto instead of behind horse?" +rejoined Sammy's mother. "Why not? Everybody else is using automobiles +for transportation. I tell Mr. Pinkney that if we had a machine +perhaps Sammy might not have been so eager to leave home." + +"Oh, dear, me!" thought Agnes, as she made her way home again, "I am +sorry for Mr. Pinkney. Just now I guess he is having a hard time at +home as well as at business!" + +But she treasured up what she had heard about the Gypsy encampment on +the Buckshot Road to tell Neale--when she should not be so "put-out" +with him. The Buckshot Road was in an entirely different direction +from Milton than that they had followed in their automobile on the +memorable search for Sammy. Agnes did not suppose for a moment that +the missing boy had gone with the Gypsies. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--TESS AND DOT TAKE A HAND + + +Up to this time Tess and Dot Kenway had heard nothing about the Gypsy +junkman haunting the house at night, or about other threatening things +connected with the wonderful silver bracelet. + +Their young minds were quite as excited about the ornament as in the +beginning, however; for in the first place they had to keep run +exactly of whose turn it was to "wear" the Gypsies' gift. + +"I don't see what we'll do about it when Alice grows up," Dot said. +She was always looking forward in imagination to the time when her +favorite doll should become adult. "She will want to wear that belt, +Tess, for evening dress. You know, a lady's jewelry should belong to +her." + +"I'm not going to give up my share to your Alice-doll," announced +Tess, quite firmly for her. "And, anyway, you must not be so sure that +it is going to be ours all the time. See! Aggie says we can't take it +out of the house to play with." + +"I don't care!" whined Dot. "I don't want to give it back to those +Gypsy ladies." + +"Neither do I. But we must of course, if we can find them. Honest is +honest." + +"It--it's awful uncomfortable to be so dreadful' honest," blurted out +the smaller girl. "And I think they meant us to have the bracelet." + +"All right, then. It's only polite to offer it back to them. Then if +they don't want it we'll know that it is ours and even Ruth won't say +anything." + +"But--but when my Alice-doll grows up--" + +"Now, don't be a little piggie, Dot Kenway!" exclaimed Tess, rather +crossly. "When your wrist gets big enough so the bracelet won't slip +over your hand so easy, you will want to wear it yourself--just as I +do. And Agnes wants it, too." + +"Oh! But it's ours--if it isn't the Gypsy ladies'," Dot hastened to +say. + +Two claimants for the ornament were quite enough. She did not wish to +hear of any other people desiring to wear it. + +As it chanced, Tess and Dot heard about the Gypsy encampment on the +Buckshot Road through the tongue of neighborhood gossip, quite as had +Sammy's mother. Margaret and Holly Pease heard the store man tell +their mother; and having enviously eyed the silver bracelet in the +possession of the Kenway girls, they ran to tell the latter about the +Gypsies. + +"They've come back," declared Margaret decidedly, "to look for that +bracelet you've got. You'll see them soon enough." + +"Oh, Margie! do you think so?" murmured Tess, while Dot was +immediately so horror-stricken that tears came to her eyes. + +"Maybe they will bring the police and have you locked up," continued +the cheerful Pease child. "You know they might accuse you of stealing +the bracelet." + +"We never!" wailed Dot. "We never! They gave it to us!" + +"Well, they are going to take it back, so now!" Margaret Pease +declared. + +"I don't think it is nice of you to say what you do, Margie," said +Tess. "Everybody knows we are honest. Why! if Dot and I knew how to +find them, we would take the bracelet right to the Gypsy ladies. +Wouldn't we, Dot?" + +"But--but we don't know where to find them," blurted out the youngest +Corner House girl. + +"You can find them I guess--out on the Buckshot Road." + +"We don't know that _our_ Gypsy ladies are there," said Tess, with +some defiance. + +"You don't dare go to see," said Margaret Pease. + +It was a question to trouble the minds of Tess and Dot. Should they +try to find the Gypsies, and see if the very ladies who had given them +the bracelet were in that encampment? + +At least it was a leading question in Tess Kenway's mind. It must be +confessed that Dot only hoped it would prove a false alarm. She was +very grateful to the strange Gypsy women for having put the silver +ornament in the green and yellow basket; but she hoped never to see +those two kind women again! + +The uncertainty was so great in both of the small girls' minds that +they said nothing at all about it in the hearing of any other member +of the family. Had Ruth been at home they might have confided in her. +They had always confided everything to their eldest sister. But just +now the two smaller Corner House girls were living their own lives, +very much shut away from the existence Agnes, for instance, was +leading. + +Agnes had a secret--several of them, indeed. She did not take Tess and +Dot into her confidence. So, if for no other reason, the smaller girls +did not talk to Agnes about the Gypsies. + +The Kenways owned some tenement property in a much poorer part of the +town than that prominent corner on which the Corner House stood. Early +in their coming to Milton from Bloomsburg, the Corner House girls had +become acquainted with the humble tenants whose rents helped swell the +funds which Mr. Howbridge cared for and administered. + +Some of these poorer people, especially the children near their own +age, interested the Kenway girls very much because they met these +poorer children in school. So when news was brought to Agnes one +afternoon (it was soon after lunch) that Maria Maroni, whose father +kept the coal, wood, ice and vegetable cellar in one of the Stower +houses and who possessed a wife and big family of children as well, +had been taken ill, Agnes was much disturbed. + +Agnes liked Maria Maroni. Maria was very bright and forward in her +studies and was a pretty Italian girl, as well. The Maronis lived much +better than they once had, too. They now occupied one of the upstairs +tenements over Mrs. Kranz's delicatessen store, instead of all living +in the basement. + +The boy who ran into the Kenway yard and told Agnes this while she was +tying up the gladioli stems after a particularly hard night's rain, +did not seem to be an Italian. Indeed, he was no boy that Agnes ever +remembered having seen before. + +But tenants were changing all the time over there where Maria lived. +This might be a new boy in that neighborhood. And, anyway, Agnes was +not bothered in her mind much about the boy. It was Maria's illness +that troubled her. + +"What is the matter with the poor girl?" Agnes wanted to know. "What +does the doctor say it is?" + +"They ain't got no doc," said the boy. "She's just sick, Maria is. I +don't know what she's got besides." + +This sounded bad enough to Agnes. And the fact that the sick girl had +no medical attention was the greater urge for the Kenway girl to do +something about it. Of course, Joe and his wife must have a doctor for +Maria at once. + +Agnes went into the house and told Mrs. McCall about it. She even +borrowed the green and yellow basket from the little girls and packed +some jelly and a bowl of broth and other nice things to take to Maria +Maroni. The Kenways seldom went to the tenements empty-handed. + +She would have taken Neale with her, only she felt that after their +incipient "quarrel" of the previous morning she did not care +immediately to make up with the boy. Sometimes she felt that Neale +O'Neil took advantage of her easy disposition. + +So Agnes went off alone with her basket. Half an hour later a boy rang +the front door bell of the Corner House. He had a note for Mrs. +McCall. It was written in blue pencil, and while the housekeeper was +finding her reading glasses the messenger ran away so that she could +not question him. + +The note purported to be from Hedden, Mr. Howbridge's butler. It said +that the lawyer had been "brought home" and had asked for Mrs. McCall +to be sent for. It urged expedition in her answer to the request, and +it threw Mrs. McCall into "quite a flutter" as she told Linda and Aunt +Sarah Maltby. + +"The puir mon!" wailed the Scotch woman who before she came to the old +Corner House to care for the Kenway household had been housekeeper for +Mr. Howbridge himself for many years. "There is something sad happened +to him, nae doot. I must go awa' wi' me at aince. See to the bairns, +Miss Maltby, that's the good soul. Even Agnes is not in the hoose." + +"Of course I will see to them--if it becomes necessary," said Aunt +Sarah. + +Her idea of attending to the younger children, however, was to remain +in her own room knitting, only occasionally going to the head of the +back stairs to ask Linda if Tess and Dot were all right. The Finnish +girl's answer was always "Shure, Mum," and in her opinion Tess and Dot +were all right as long as she did not see that they were in trouble. + +To tell the truth, Linda saw the smaller girls very little after Mrs. +McCall hurried out of the house to take the street car for the +lawyer's residence. Once Linda observed Tess and Dot in the side yard +talking to a boy through the pickets. She had no idea that the +sharp-featured boy was the same who had brought the news of Maria +Maroni's illness to Agnes, and the message from Hedden to Mrs. McCall! + +The boy in question had come slowly along the pavement on Willow +Street, muttering to himself as he approached as though saying over +several sentences that he had learned by rote. He was quite evidently +a keen-minded boy, but he was not at all a trustworthy looking one. + +Tess and Dot both saw him, and that he was a stranger made the little +girls eye him curiously. When he hailed them they were not quite sure +whether they ought to reply or not. + +[Illustration: "They want that silver thing back. It wasn't meant for +you."] + +"I guess you don't know us," Tess said doubtfully. "You don't belong +in this neighborhood." + +"I know you all right," said the boy. "You're the two girls those +women sold the basket to. I know you." + +"Oh!" gasped Tess. + +"The Gypsy ladies!" murmured Dot. + +"That's the one. They sold you the basket for forty-five cents. Didn't +they?" + +"Yes," admitted Tess. + +"And it's _ours_," cried Dot. "We paid for it." + +"That's all right," said the boy slowly. "But you didn't buy what was +in it. No, sir! They want it back." + +"Oh! The basket?" cried Tess. + +"What you found in it." + +The boy seemed very sure of what he was saying, but he spoke slowly. + +"They want that silver thing back. It wasn't meant for you. It was a +mistake. You know very well it isn't yours. If you are honest--and you +told them you were--you will bring it back to them." + +"Oh! They did ask us if we were honest," Tess said faintly. "And of +course we are. Aren't we, Dot?" + +"Why--why-- Do we have to be so dreadful' honest," whispered the +smallest Corner House girl, quite borne down with woe. + +"Of course we have. Just think of what Ruthie would say," murmured +Tess. Then to the boy: "Where are those ladies?" + +"Huh?" he asked. "What ladies?" + +"The Gypsy ladies we bought the basket from?" + +"Oh, _them_?" he rejoined hurriedly, glancing along the street with +eagerness. "You go right out along this street," and he pointed in the +direction from which he had come. "You keep on walking until you reach +the brick-yard." + +"Oh! Are they camped there?" asked Tess. + +"No. But a man with an automobile will meet you there. He is a man who +will take you right to the Gypsy camp and bring you back again. Don't +be afraid, kids. It's all right." + +He went away then, and the little girls could not call him back. They +wanted to ask further questions; but it was evident that the boy had +delivered his message and was not to be cross-examined. + +"What _shall_ we do?" Tess exclaimed. + +"Oh, let's wait. Let's wait till Ruth comes home," cried Dot, saying +something very sensible indeed. + +But responsibility weighed heavily on Tess's mind. She considered that +if the Gypsy women wished their bracelet returned, it was her duty to +take it to them without delay. Besides, there was the man in the +automobile waiting for them. + +Why the man had not come to the house with the car, or why he had not +brought the two Gypsy women to the Corner House, were queries that did +not occur to the little girls. If Tess Kenway was nothing else, she +was strictly honest. + +"No," she sighed, "we cannot wait. We must go and see the women now. I +will go in and get the bracelet, Dot. Do you want your hat? Mrs. +McCall and Agnes are both away. We will have to go right over and tend +to this ourselves." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--EXCITEMENT GALORE + + +When Agnes Kenway reached the tenement where Maria Maroni resided and +found that brisk young person helping in the delicatessen store as she +did almost every day during the busy hours and when there was no +school, the Corner House girl was surprised; but she was not +suspicious. + +That is, she was not suspicious of any plot really aimed at the +happiness of the Corner House family. She merely believed that the +strange boy had deliberately fooled her for an idle purpose. + +"Maria Maroni! What do you think?" Agnes burst out. "Who could that +boy be? Oh, I'd like to catch him! I'd make him sorry he told me such +a story." + +"It is too bad you were troubled so, Agnes," said Maria, when she +understood all about it. "I can't imagine who that boy could be. But I +am glad you came over to see us, never mind what the reason is that +brings you." + +"A sight you are for sore eyes yet," declared the ponderous Mrs. +Kranz, who had kissed Agnes warmly when she first appeared. "Come the +back room in and sit down. Let Ikey tend to the customers yet, Maria. +We will visit with Agnes, and have some tea and sweet crackers." + +"And you must tell me of somebody in the row, Mrs. Kranz, who needs +these delicacies. Somebody who is ill," said Agnes. "I must not take +them home again. And Maria looks altogether too healthy for jelly and +chicken broth." + +Mrs. Kranz laughed at that. But she added with seriousness: "There is +always somebody sick here in the tenements, Miss Agnes. They will not +take care themselfs of--no! I tell them warm flannels and good food is +better than doctors yet. But they will not mind me." She sighed. + +"Who is ill now?" asked Agnes, at once interested. She loved to play +"Lady Bountiful"; and, really, the Kenway sisters had done a great +deal of good among their poor tenants and others in the row. + +"Mrs. Leary. You know, her new baby died and the poor woman," said +Maria quickly, "is sick of grief, I do believe." + +"Ach, yes!" cried Mrs. Kranz. "She needs the cheerful word. You see +her, Miss Agnes. Then she be better--sure!" + +"Thank you!" cried Agnes, dimpling and blushing. "Do you really think +I can help her?" + +"And there is little Susie Marowsky," urged the delicatessen +shopkeeper. "That child is fading away like a sick rose. She iss doing +just that! If she could have country eggs and country milk--Ach! If we +were all rich!" and she sighed ponderously again. + +"I'll tell our Ruth about her," said Agnes eagerly. "And I'll see her, +too, before I go home. I'll give her the broth, yes? And Mrs. Leary +the jelly, bread, and fruit?" + +"No!" cried Mrs. Kranz. "The fruit to Dominic Nevin, the scissors +grinder. He craves fruit. You know, he cut his hand and got blood +poisoning, and it was so long yet that he could not work. You see him, +too, Miss Agnes." + +So altogether, what with the tea and cakes and the visits to the sick, +Agnes was away from the Corner House quite three hours. When she was +on her way home she was delayed by an unforeseen incident too. + +At the corner of Willow Street not far from the brick-yard a figure +suddenly darted into Agnes' path. She was naturally startled by the +sudden appearance of this figure, and doubly so when she saw it was +the Costello that she knew as the junkman, and whose first name she +now believed to be Miguel. + +"What do you want? Go away!" cried the girl faintly, backing away from +the vehement little man. + +"Oh, do not be afraid! You are the honest Kenway I am sure. You have +Queen Alma's bracelet," urged the little man. "You will give her to +me--yes?" + +"I--I haven't it," cried Agnes, looking all about for help and seeing +nobody near. + +"Ha!" ejaculated the man. "You have not give it to Beeg Jeem?" + +"We have given it to nobody. And we will not let you or anybody have +it until Mr. Howbridge tells us what to do. Go away!" begged Agnes. + +"I go to that man. He no have the Queen Alma bracelet. _You_ have it--" + +"Just as sure as I get home," cried the frightened Agnes, "I will send +that bracelet down to the lawyer's office and they must keep it. It +shall be in the house no longer! Don't you dare come there for it!" + +She got past him then and ran as hard as she could along Willow +Street. When she finally looked back she discovered that the man had +not followed her, but had disappeared. + +"Oh, dear me! I don't care what the children say. That bracelet goes +into Mr. Howbridge's safe this very afternoon. Neale must take it +there for me," Agnes Kenway decided. + +She reached the side door of the Corner House just as Mrs. McCall +entered the front door, having got off the car at the corner. The +housekeeper came through the hall and into the rear premises a good +deal like a whirlwind. She was so excited that Agnes forgot her own +fright and stared at the housekeeper breathlessly. + +"Is it you home again, Agnes Kenway?" cried Mrs. McCall. "Well, thanks +be for _that_. Then you are all right." + +"Why, of course! Though he did scare me. But what is the matter with +you, Mrs. McCall?" + +"What is the matter wi' me? A plenty. A plenty, I tellit ye. If I had +that jackanapes of a boy I'd shake him well, so I would!" + +"What has Neale been doing now?" cried the girl. + +"Not Neale." + +"Then is it Sammy?" + +"Nor Sammy Pinkney. 'Tis that other lad that came here wi' a lying +note tae get me clear across town for naething!" + +"Why, Mrs. McCall! what can you mean? Did a boy fool you, too?" + +"Hech!" The woman started and stared at the girl. "Who brought you +news of that little girl being sick?" + +"But she wasn't sick!" cried Agnes. "That boy was an awful little +story-teller." + +"Ye was fooled then? That Maria Maroni--" + +"Was not ill at all." + +"And," cried Mrs. McCall, "that boy who brought a note to me from +Hedden never came from Mr. Howbridge's house at all. It nearly scar't +me tae death! It said Mr. Howbridge was ill. He isn't even at home +yet, and when Mr. Hedden heard from his master this morning he was all +right--the gude mon!" + +"Oh, Mrs. McCall!" gasped Agnes, gazing at the housekeeper with +terrified visage. "What can it mean?" + +"Somebody has foolit us weel," ejaculated the enraged housekeeper. + +"But why?" + +The woman turned swiftly. She had grown suddenly pale. She called up +the back stairs for Linda. A sleepy voice replied: + +"Here I be, mum!" + +"Where are the children? Where are Tess and Dot?" demanded Mrs. +McCall, her voice husky. + +"They was in the yard, mum, the last I see of them." + +"That girl!" ejaculated the housekeeper angrily. "She neglects +everything. If there's harm happened to those bairns--" + +She rushed to the porch. Uncle Rufus was coming slowly up from the +garden, hoe and rake over his shoulder. It was evident that the old +colored man had been working steadily, and for some time, among the +vegetables. + +"Oh, Uncle Rufus!" cried the excited woman. + +"Ya-as'm! Ya-as'm! I's a-comin'," said the old man rather querulously. + +"Step here a minute," said Mrs. McCall. + +"I's a-steppin', Ma'am," grumbled the other. "Does seem as though dey +wants me for fust one t'ing an' den anudder. I don't no more'n git +t'roo one chore den sumpin' else hops right out at me. Lawsy me!" and +he mopped his bald brown brow with a big bandanna. + +"I only want to ask you something," said the housekeeper, less +raspingly. "Are the little ones down there? Have you seen them?" + +"Them chillun? No'm. I ain't seen 'em fo' some time. They was playin' +up this-a-way den." + +"How long ago?" + +"I done reckon it was nigh two hours ago." + +"Hunt for them, Agnes!" gasped the housekeeper. "I fear me something +bad has happened. You, Linda," for the Finnish girl now appeared, "run +to the neighbors--all of them! See if you can find those bairns." + +"Tess and Dottie, mum?" cried the Finnish girl, already in tears. "Oh! +they ain't losted are they?" + +"For all _you_ know they are!" declared Mrs. McCall. "Look around the +house for them, Uncle Rufus. I will look inside--" + +"They may be upstairs with Aunt Sarah," cried Agnes, getting her +breath at last. + +"I'll know that in a moment!" declared Mrs. McCall, and darted within. + +Agnes ran in the other direction. She felt such a lump in her throat +that she could scarcely speak or breathe. The possibility of something +having happened to the little girls--and with Ruth away!--cost the +second Corner House girl every last bit of her self-control. + +"Oh, Neale! Neale!" she murmured over and over again, as she ran to +the lower end of the premises. + +She fairly threw herself at the fence and scrambled to her usual +perch. There he was cleaning Mr. Con Murphy's yard. + +"Neale!" she gasped. At first he did not hear her, but she drubbed +upon the fence with the toes of her shoes. "Neale!" + +"Why, hullo, Aggie!" exclaimed the boy, turning around and seeing her. + +"Oh, Neale! Come here!" + +He was already coming closer. He saw that again she was much +overwrought. + +"What has happened now?" + +"Have you seen Tess and Dot?" + +"Not to-day." + +"I--I mean within a little while? Two hours?" + +"I tell you I have not seen them at all to-day. I have been busy right +here for Con." + +"Then they are gone! The Gypsies have got them!" + +For Agnes, without much logic of thought, had immediately jumped to +this conclusion. Neale stared. + +"What sort of talk is that, Agnes?" he demanded. "You know that can't +be so." + +"I tell you it is so! It must be so! They got Mrs. McCall and me out +of the house--" + +"Who did?" interrupted Neale, getting hastily over the fence and +taking the girl's hand. "Now, tell me all about it--everything!" + +As well as she could for her excitement and fear, the girl told the +story of the boy who had brought her the false message about Maria +Maroni, and then about the message Mrs. McCall had received calling +her across town. + +"It must be that they have kidnapped the children!" moaned Agnes. + +"Not likely," declared the boy. "The kids have just gone visiting +without asking leave. In fact, there was nobody to ask. But I see that +there is a game on just the same." + +He started hastily for the Corner House and Agnes trotted beside him. + +"But where _are_ Tess and Dot?" she demanded. + +"How do I know?" he returned. "I want to find out if there is +something else missing." + +"What do you mean?" + +"That bracelet." + +"Goodness, Neale! Is it that bracelet that has brought us trouble +again?" + +"It looks like a plot all right to me. A plot to get you and Mrs. +McCall out of the house so that somebody could slip in and steal the +bracelet. Didn't that ever occur to you?" + +"Goodness me, Neale!" cried Agnes again, but with sudden relief in her +voice. "If that is all it is I'll be glad if the old bracelet is +stolen. Then it cannot make us any more trouble, that is one sure +thing!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--A SURPRISING MEETING + + +Tess and Dot Kenway, with no suspicion that anything was awaiting them +save the possible loss of the silver bracelet, but otherwise quite +enjoying the adventure, walked hurriedly along Willow Street as far as +the brick-yard. That they were disobeying a strict injunction in +taking the bracelet out of the house was a matter quite overlooked at +the time. + +They came to the corner and there, sure enough, was a big, dusty +automobile, with a big, dark man in the driver's seat. He smiled at +the two little girls and Tess remembered him instantly. + +"Oh, Dot!" she exclaimed, "it is the man we saw in this auto with the +young Gypsy lady when we were driving home with Scalawag from Mr. +Howbridge's the other day. Don't you remember?" + +"Yes," said Dot, with a sigh. "I guess it is the same one. Oh, dear, +me!" + +For the nearer the time came to give up the silver bracelet, the worse +Dot felt about it. + +The big Gypsy looked around at the two little girls and smiled +broadly. + +"You leetle ladies tak' ride with Beeg Jeem?" he asked. "You go to see +the poor Gypsy women who let you have the fine bracelet to play with? +Yes?" + +"He knows all about it, Tess," murmured Dot. + +"Yes, we will give them back the bracelet," Tess said firmly to the +Gypsy man. "But we will not give it up to anybody else." + +"Get right into my car," said Big Jim, reaching back to open the +tonneau door. "You shall be taken to the camp and there find the ones +who gave you the bracelet. Sure!" + +There was something quite "grownupish" in thus getting into the big +car all alone, and Tess and Dot were rather thrilled as they seated +themselves on the back seat and the Gypsy drove them away. + +Fifteen minutes or so later Agnes came to this very corner and had her +unpleasant interview with Miguel Costello. But of course by that time +the children were far away. + +The big Gypsy drove them very rapidly and by lonely roads into a part +of the country that Tess and Dot never remembered having seen before. +Whenever he saw anybody on the road, either afoot or in other cars, +Big Jim increased his speed and flashed by them so that there was +little likelihood of these other people seeing that the two little +girls were other than Gypsy girls. + +He did nothing to frighten Tess and Dot. Indeed, he was so smiling and +so pleasant that they enjoyed the drive immensely and came finally in +a state of keen enjoyment to the camp which was made a little back +from the highway. + +"Well, if we have to give up the bracelet," sighed Tess, as they got +out of the car, "we can say that we have had a fine ride." + +"That is all right. But how will my Alice-doll feel when she finds out +she can't wear that pretty belt again?" said Dot. + +There were many people in the camp, both men and women and children. +The latter kept at a distance from Tess and Dot, but stared at them +very curiously. They kept the dogs away from the visitors, too, and +the little girls were glad of that. + +"Where can we find the two ladies that--that sold us the basket?" asked +Tess politely, of Big Jim. + +"You look around, leetle ladies. You find," he assured them. + +There were four or five motor vans of good size in which the Gypsies +evidently lived while they were traveling. But there were several +tents set up as well. It was a big camp. + +Timidly at first the two sisters, hand in hand, the silver bracelet +firmly clutched inside Tess's dress against her side, began walking +about. They tried to ask questions about the women they sought; but +nobody seemed to understand. They all smiled and shook their heads. + +"Dear me! it must be dreadful to be born a foreigner," Dot finally +said. "How can they make themselves understood _at all_?" + +"But they seem to be very pleasant persons," Tess rejoined decidedly. + +The children ran away from them. Perhaps they had been ordered to by +the older Gypsies. By and by Tess, at least, grew somewhat worried +when they did not find either of the women who had sold them the +yellow and green basket. Dot, secretly, hoped the two in question had +gone away. + +Suddenly, however, the two Kenway girls came face to face with +somebody they did know. But so astonished were they by this discovery +that for a long minute neither could believe her eyes! + +"Sammy Pinkney!" gasped Tess at last. + +"It--ain't--_never_!" murmured the smaller girl. + +The figure which had tried to dodge around the end of a motor van to +escape observation looked nothing at all like the Sammy Pinkney the +Kenway girls had formerly known. Never in their experience of +Sammy--not even when he had slipped down the chimney at the old Corner +House and landed on the hearth, a very sooty Santa Claus--had the boy +looked so disgracefully ragged and dirty. + +"Well, what's the matter with me?" he demanded defiantly. + +"Why--why there looks to be most _every_thing the matter with you, +Sammy Pinkney," declared Tess, with disgust. "What _do_ you s'pose +your mother would say to you?" + +"I ain't going home to find out," said Sammy. + +"And--and your pants are all tored," gasped Dot. + +"Oh, that happened long ago," said Sammy, quite as airy as the +trousers. "And I'm having the time of my life here. Nobody sends me +errands, or makes me--er--weed beet beds! So there! I can do just as I +please." + +"You look as though you had, Sammy," was Tess's critical speech. "I +guess your mother wouldn't want you home looking the way you do." + +"I look well enough," he declared defiantly. "And don't you tell where +I am. Will you?" + +"But, Sammy!" exclaimed Dot, "you ran away to be a pirate." + +"What if I did?" + +"But you can't be a pirate here." + +"I can be a Gypsy. And that's lots more fun. If I joined a pirate crew +I couldn't get to be captain right away of course, so I would have to +mind somebody. Here I don't have to mind anybody at all." + +"Well, I never!" ejaculated Tess Kenway. + +"Well, I never!" repeated Dot, with similar emphasis. + +"Say, what are you kids here for?" demanded Sammy, with an attempt to +turn the conversation from his own evident failings. + +"Oh, we were brought here on a visit," Tess returned rather haughtily. + +"Huh! You _was_? Who you visiting? Is Aggie with you? Or Neale?" and +he looked around suddenly as though choosing a way of escape. + +"We are here all alone," said Dot reassuringly. "You needn't be +afraid, Sammy." + +"Who's afraid?" he said gruffly. + +"You would be if Neale was with us, for Neale would make you go home," +said the smallest Kenway girl. + +"But who brought you? What you here for? Oh! That old bracelet I bet!" + +"Yes," sighed Dot. "They want it back." + +"Who want it back?" + +"Those two ladies that sold us the basket," explained Tess. + +"Are they with this bunch of Gypsies?" asked Sammy in surprise. "I +haven't seen them. And I've been here two whole days." + +"How did you come to be a Gypsy, Sammy?" asked Dot with much +curiosity. + +"Why, I--er--Well, I lost my clothes and my money and didn't have much +to eat and that big Gypsy saw me on the road and asked me if I wanted +to ride. So I came here with him and he let me stay. And nobody does a +thing to me. I licked one boy," added Sammy with satisfaction, "so the +others let me alone." + +"But haven't you seen either of those two ladies that sold us the +basket?" demanded Tess, beginning to be worried a little. + +"Nope. I don't believe they are here." + +"But that man says they are here," cried Tess. + +"Let's go ask him. I--I won't give that bracelet to anybody else but +one of those ladies." + +"Crickey!" exclaimed Sammy. "Don't feel so bad about it. Course there +is a mistake somehow. These folks are real nice folks. They wouldn't +fool you." + +The three, Sammy looking very important, went to find Big Jim. He was +just as smiling as ever. + +"Oh, yes! The little ladies are not to be worried. The women they want +will soon come." + +"You see?" said Sammy, boldly. "It will be all right. Why, these +people treat you _right_. I tell you! You can do just as you please in +a Gypsy camp and nobody says anything to you." + +"See!" exclaimed Tess suddenly. "Are they packing up to leave? Or do +they stay here all the time?" + +It was now late afternoon. Instead of the supper fires being revived, +they were smothered. Men and women had begun loading the heavier vans. +The tents were coming down. Clotheslines stretched between the trees +were now being coiled by the children. All manner of rubbish was being +thrown into the bushes. + +"I don't know if they are moving. I'll ask," said Sammy, somewhat in +doubt. + +He went to a boy bigger than himself, but who seemed to be friendly. +The little girls waited, staring all about for the two women with whom +they had business. + +"I don't care," whispered Dot. "If they don't come pretty soon, and +these Gypsies are going away from here, we'll just go back home, Tess. +We _can't_ give them the bracelet if we don't see them." + +"But we do not want to walk home," her sister said slowly in return. +"And we ought to make Sammy go with us." + +"You try to _make_ Sammy do anything!" exclaimed Dot, with scorn. + +Their boy friend returned, swaggering as usual. "Well, they are going +to move," he said. "But I'm going with them. That boy--he was the one I +licked, but he's a good kid--says they are going to a pond where the +fishing is great. Wish I had my fishpole." + +"But you must come back home with us, Sammy," began Tess gravely. + +"Not much I won't! Don't you think it," cried Sammy. "But you might +get my fishing tackle and jointed pole and sneak 'em out to me. +There's good kids!" + +"We will do nothing sneaky for you at all, Sammy Pinkney!" exclaimed +Tess indignantly. + +"Aw, go on! You can just as easy." + +"We can, but we won't. So there! And if you don't go home with us when +the man takes us back in his car we certainly will tell where you +are." + +"Be a telltale. _I_ don't care," cried Sammy, roughly. "And I won't +say just where we are going from here, so you needn't think my folks +will find me." + +One of the closed vans--something like a moving van only with windows +in the sides, a stove-pipe sticking out of the roof, and a door at the +rear, with steps--seemed now to be ready to start. A man climbed into +the front seat to drive it. Several women and smaller children got in +at the rear after the various bales and packages that had been tossed +in. The big man suddenly shouted and beckoned to Tess and Dot. + +"Here, little ladies," he said, still smiling his wide smile. "You +come go wit' my mudder, eh? Take you to find the Gypsy women you want +to see." + +"But--er--Mr. Gypsy," said Tess, somewhat disturbed now, "we must go +back home." + +"Sure. Tak' you home soon as you see those women and give them what +you got for them." + +He strode across the camp to them. His smile was quite as wide, but +did not seem to forecast as much good-nature as at first. + +"Come now! Get in!" he commanded. + +"Hey!" cried Sammy. "What you doing? Those little girls are friends of +mine. You want to let them ride in that open car--not in that box. What +d'you think we are?" + +"Get out the way, boy!" commanded Big Jim. + +He seized Tess suddenly by the shoulders, swung her up bodily despite +her screams and tossed her through the rear door of the Gypsy van. Dot +followed so quickly that she could scarcely utter a frightened gasp. + +"Hey! Stop that! Those are the Kenway girls. Why! Mr. Howbridge will +come after them and he'll--he'll--" + +Sammy's excited threat was stopped in his throat. Big Jim's huge hand +caught the boy a heavy blow upon the side of his head. The next moment +he was shot into the motor-van too and the door was shut. + +He heard Tess and Dot sobbing somewhere among the women and children +already crowded into the van. It was a stuffy place, for none of the +windows were open. Although this nomadic people lived mostly out of +doors, and never under a real roof if they could help it, they did not +seem to mind the smothering atmosphere of the van which now, with a +sudden lurch, started out of the place of encampment. + +"Never you mind, Tess and Dot, they won't dare carry you far. Maybe +they are taking you home anyway," said Sammy in a low voice. "The +first time they stop and let us out we'll run away. I will get you +home all right." + +"You--you can't get yourself home, Sammy," sobbed Dot. + +"Maybe you like it being a Gypsy, but we don't," added Tess. + +"I'll fix it for you all right--" + +One of the old crones reached out in the semi-darkness and slapped +Sammy across the mouth. + +"Shut up!" she commanded harshly. But when she tried to slap the boy +again she screamed. It must be confessed that Sammy bit her! + +"You lemme alone," snarled the boy captive. "And don't you hit those +girls. If you do I--I'll bite the whole lot of you!" + +The women jabbered a good deal together in their own tongue; but +nobody tried to interfere with Sammy thereafter. He shoved his way +into the van until he stood beside Tess and Dot. + +"Let's not cry about it," he whispered. "That won't get us anywhere, +that is sure. But the very first chance we get--" + +No chance for escape however was likely to arise while the Gypsy troop +were en route. The children could hear the rumble of the vans behind. +Soon Big Jim in his touring car passed this first van and shouted to +the driver. Then the procession settled into a steady rate of speed +and the three little captives had not the least idea in which +direction they were headed nor where they were bound. + + * * * * * + +Back at the old Corner House affairs were in a terrible state of +confusion. Linda had returned from her voyage among the neighbors with +absolutely no news of the smaller girls. And Agnes had discovered that +the silver bracelet was missing. + +"It was Tess's day for wearing it, but she did not have it on when she +went out to play," the older sister explained. "Do you suppose the +house has been robbed, Neale O'Neil?" + +Neale had been examining closely the piece of paper that Agnes had +found stuck to the plate on which she had fed the beggar girl the day +before and also the note Mrs. McCall had received purporting to come +from Mr. Howbridge's butler. Both were written in blue pencil, and by +the same hand without any doubt. + +"It's a plot clear enough. And naturally we may believe that it was +not hatched by that Miguel Costello, the junkman. It looks as though +it was done by Big Jim's crowd." + +"But what have they done with the bairns?" demanded the housekeeper, +in horror. + +"Oh, Neale! have they stolen Tess and Dot, as well as the silver +bracelet?" was Agnes' bitter cry. + +"Got me. Don't know," muttered the boy. "And what would they want the +children for, anyway?" + +"Let us find out if any Gypsies have been seen about the house this +afternoon," Agnes proposed. "You see, Neale. Don't send Linda." + +Linda, indeed, was in a hopeless state. She didn't know, declared Mrs. +McCall, whether she was on her head or her heels! + +Neale ran out and searched the neighborhood over. When he came back he +had found nobody who had set eyes on any Gypsies; but he had heard +from Mrs. Pease that Gypsies were camped out of town. The store man +had told her so. + +"Oh!" gasped Agnes, suddenly remembering. "I heard about that. Mrs. +Pinkney told me. They are on the Buckshot Road, out beyond where +Carrie Poole lives. You know, Neale." + +"Sure I know where the Poole place is," admitted Neale. "We have all +been there often enough. And I can get the car--" + +"Do! Do!" begged Mrs. McCall. "You cannot go too quickly, Neale +O'Neil. And take the police wi' ye, laddie!" + +"Take me with you, Neale!" commanded Agnes. "We can find a constable +out that way if we need one. I know Mr. Ben Stryker who lives just +beyond the Pooles. And he is a constable, for he stopped the car once +when I was driving and said he would have to arrest me if I did not +drive slower." + +"Sure!" said Neale. "Agnes knows all the traffic cops on the route, I +bet. But we don't _know_ that the children have gone with the +Gypsies." + +"And we never will know if you stand here and argue. Anyway, it looks +as though the silver bracelet has been stolen by them." + +"Or by somebody," granted the boy. + +"Ne'er mind the bit bracelet," commanded the housekeeper. "Find Tess +and Dot. I am going to put on my bonnet and shawl and go to the police +station mysel'. Do you children hurry away in the car as you +promised." + +It was already supper time, but nobody thought of that meal, unless it +was Aunt Sarah. When she came down to see what the matter was--why the +evening meal was so delayed--she found Linda sobbing with her apron +over her head in the kitchen and the tea kettle boiled completely dry. + +That was nothing, however, to the condition of affairs at one o'clock +that night when Ruth, with Luke and Cecile Shepard, arrived at the old +Corner House. They had been delayed at the station half an hour while +Ruth telephoned for and obtained a comfortable touring car for her +visitors and herself. Agnes did not have to beg her older sister to +put in a telephone. After this experience Ruth was determined to do +just that. + +The party arrived home to find the Corner House lit up as though for a +reception. But it was not in honor of their arrival. The telegram +announcing Ruth's coming had scarcely been noticed by Mrs. McCall. + +Mrs. McCall had recovered a measure of her composure and good sense; +but she could scarcely welcome the guests properly. Aunt Sarah Maltby +had gone to bed, announcing that she was utterly prostrated and should +never get up again unless Tess and Dot were found. Linda and Uncle +Rufus were equally distracted. + +"But where are Agnes and Neale?" Ruth demanded, very white and +determined. "What are they doing?" + +"They started out in the machine around eight o'clock," explained Mrs. +McCall. "They are searching high and low for the puir bairns." + +"All alone?" gasped Ruth. + +"Mr. Pinkney has gone with them. And I believe they were to pick up a +constable. That Neale O'Neil declares he will raid every Gypsy camp +and tramp's roost in the county. And Sammy's father took a pistol with +him." + +"And you let Agnes go with them!" murmured Ruth. "Suppose she gets +shot?" + +"My maircy!" cried the housekeeper, clasping her hands. "I never +thought about that pistol being dangerous, any more than Uncle Rufus's +gun with the broken hammer." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--THE CAPTIVES + + +That ride, shut in the Gypsy van, was one that neither Tess nor Dot +nor Sammy Pinkney were likely soon to forget. The car plunged along +the country road, and the distance the party traveled was +considerable, although the direction was circuitous and did not, after +two hours, take the Gypsy clan much farther from Milton than they had +been at the previous camp. + +By eleven o'clock they pulled off the road into a little glade that +had been well known to the leaders of the party. A new camp was +established in a very short time. Tents were again erected, fires +kindled for the late supper, and the life of the Gypsy town was +re-begun. + +But Sammy and the two little Corner House girls were forbidden to +leave the van in which they had been made to ride. + +Big Jim came over himself, banged Sammy with his broad palm, and told +him: + +"You keep-a them here--you see? If those kids get out, I knock you +good. See?" + +Sammy saw stars at least! He would not answer the man. There was +something beside stubbornness to Sammy Pinkney. But stubbornness stood +him in good stead just now. + +"Don't you mind, Tess and Dot," he whispered, his own voice broken +with half-stifled sobs. "I'll get you out of it. We'll run away first +chance we get." + +"But it never does _you_ any good to run away, Sammy," complained +Tess. "You only get into trouble. Dot and I don't want to be beaten by +that man. He is horrid." + +"I wish we could see those nice ladies who sold us the basket," wailed +Dot, quite desperate now. "I--I'd be _glad_ to give 'em back the +bracelet." + +"Sh!" hissed Sammy. "We'll run away and we'll take the bracelet along. +These Gyps sha'n't ever get it again, so there!" + +"Humph! I don't see what you have to say about _that_, Sammy," scoffed +Tess. "If the women own it, of course they have got to have it. But I +don't want that Big Jim to have it--not at all!" + +"He won't get it. You leave it to me," said Sammy, with recovered +assurance. + +The van door was neither locked nor barred. But if the children had +stepped out of it the firelight would have revealed their figures +instantly to the Gypsies. + +Either the women bending over the pots and pans at the fires or the +children running about the encampment would have raised a hue and cry +if the little captives had attempted to run away. And there were a +dozen burly men sitting about, smoking and talking and awaiting the +call to supper. + +This meal was finally prepared. The fumes from the pots reached the +nostrils of Tess, Dot, and Sammy, and they were all ravenously hungry. +Nor were they denied food. The Gypsies evidently had no intention of +maltreating the captives in any particular as long as they obeyed and +did not try to escape. + +One young woman brought a great pan of stew and bread and three spoons +to the van and set it on the upper step for the children. + +"You eat," said she, smiling, and the firelight shining on her gold +earrings. "It do you goot--yes?" + +"Oh, Miss Gypsy!" begged Tess, "we want to go home." + +"That all right. Beeg Jeem tak-a you. To-morrow, maybe." + +She went away hurriedly. But she had left them a plentiful supper. The +three were too ravenous to be delicate. They each seized a spoon and, +as Sammy advised, "dug in." + +"This is the way all Gypsies eat," he said, proud of his knowledge. +"Sometimes the men use their pocket knives to cut up the meat. But +they don't seem to have any forks. And I guess forks aren't necessary +anyway." + +"But they are nicer than fingers," objected Tess. + +"Huh? Are they?" observed the young barbarian. + +After they had completely cleared the pan of every scrap and eaten +every crumb of bread and drunk the milk that had been brought to them +in a quart cup, Dot naturally gave way to sleepiness. She began to +whimper a little too. + +"If that big, bad Gypsy man doesn't take us home pretty soon I shall +have to sleep here, Sister," she complained. + +"You lie right down on this bench," said Tess kindly, "and I will +cover you up and you can sleep as long as you want to." + +So Dot did this. But Sammy was not at all sleepy. His mind was too +active for that. He was prowling about the more or less littered van. + +"Say!" he whispered to Tess, "there is a little window here in the +front overlooking the driver's seat. And it swings on a hinge like a +door." + +"I don't care, Sammy. I--I'm sleepy, too," confessed Tess, with a yawn +behind her hand. + +"Say! don't _you_ go to sleep like a big kid," snapped the boy. "We've +got to get away from these Gyps." + +"I thought you were going to stay with them forever." + +"Not to let that Big Jim bang me over the head. Not much!" ejaculated +Sammy fiercely. "If my father saw him do that--" + +"But your father isn't here. If he was--" + +"If he was you can just bet," said Sammy with confidence, "that Big +Jim would not dare hit me." + +"I--I wish your father would come and take us all home then," went on +Tess, with another yawn. + +"Well," admitted Sammy, "I wish he would, too. Crickey! but it's awful +to have girls along, whether you are a pirate or a Gypsy." + +"You needn't talk!" snapped Tess, quite tart for her. "We did not ask +to come. And you were here 'fore we got here. And now you can't get +away any more than Dot and I can." + +"Sh!" advised Sammy again, and earnestly. "I got an idea." + +"What is it?" asked Tess, without much curiosity. + +"This here window in front!" whispered the boy. "We can open it. It is +all dark at that end of the van. If we can slide out on to the seat +we'll climb down in the dark and get into the woods. I know the way to +the road. I can see a patch of it through the window. What say?" + +"But Dot? She sleeps so hard," breathed Tess. + +"We can poke her through the window on to the seat. Then we will crawl +through. If she doesn't wake up and holler--" + +"I'll stop her from hollering," agreed Tess firmly. "We'll try it, +Sammy, before those awful women get back into the van." + +Fortunately for the attempt of the captives their own supper had been +dispatched with promptness. The Gypsies were still sitting about over +the meal when Sammy opened that front window in the van. + +He and Tess lifted Dot, who complained but faintly and kept her eyes +tightly closed, and pushed her feet first through the small window. +The driver's seat was broad and roomy. The little girl lay there all +right while first Tess and then Sammy crept through the window. + +It was dark here, and they could scarcely see the way to the ground. +But Sammy ventured down first, and after barking his shins a little +found the step and whispered his directions to Tess about passing Dot +down to him. + +They actually got to the ground themselves and brought the smallest +Corner House girl with them without any serious mishap. Sammy tried to +carry Dot over his shoulder, but he could not stagger far with her. +And, too, the sleepy child began to object. + +"Sh! Keep still!" hissed her sister in Dot's ear. "Do you want the +Gypsies to get you again?" + +She had to help Sammy carry the child, however. Dot was such a heavy +sleeper--especially when she first went to sleep--that nothing could +really bring her back to realities. The two stumbled along with her in +the deep shadows and actually reached the woods that bordered the +encampment. + +Suddenly a dog barked. Somebody shouted to the animal and it subsided +with a sullen growl. But in a moment another dog began to yap. The +guards of the camp realized that something was going wrong, although +as yet none of the dogs had scented the escaping children exactly. + +"Oh, hurry! Hurry!" gasped Tess. "The dogs will chase us." + +"I am afraid they will," admitted Sammy. "We got to hide our trail." + +"How'll we do that, Sammy?" gasped Tess. + +"Like the Indians do," declared the boy. "We got to find a stream of +water and wade in it." + +"But I've got shoes and stockings on. And Mrs. McCall says we can't go +wading without asking permission." + +"Crickey! how you going to run away from these Gypsies if you've got +to mind what you're told all the time?" asked Sammy desperately. + +"But won't the water be cold? And why wade in it, anyway?" + +"So the dogs can't follow our scent. They can't follow scent through +water. Come on. We got to find a brook or something." + +"There's the canal," ventured Tess, in an awed whisper. + +"The canal, your granny!" exclaimed the exasperated boy. "That's over +your head, Tess Kenway." + +"Well! I don't know of any other water. Oh! Hear those dogs bark." + +"Don't you s'pose I've got ears?" snapped Sammy. + +"They sound awful savage." + +"Yes. They've got some savage dogs," admitted the boy. + +"Will they bite us? Oh, Sammy! will they bite us?" + +"Not if they don't catch us," replied the boy, staggering on, bearing +the heavier end of Dot while Tess carried her sister's feet. + +They suddenly burst through a fringe of bushes upon the open road. +There was just starlight enough to show them the way. The dogs were +still barking vociferously back at the Gypsy camp. But there seemed to +be no pursuit. + +"Oh, my gracious! I've torn my frock," gasped Tess. "Do wait, Sammy." + +The boy stopped. Indeed he had to, for his own breath had given out. +The three fell right down on the grass beside the road, and Dot began +to whimper. + +"You stop her, Tess!" exclaimed Sammy. "You said you could. She will +bring those Gypsies right here." + +"Dot! Dot!" whispered Tess, shaking the smaller girl. "Do you want to +be a prisoner again? Keep still!" + +"My--my knees are cold," whined Dot. + +"Je-ru-sa-lem!" gasped Sammy explosively. "_Now_ she's done it! We're +caught again." + +He jumped to his feet, but not quickly enough to escape the +outstretched hand of the figure that had suddenly appeared beside +them. A dark face bent over the trio of frightened children. + +"He's a Gyp!" cried Sammy. "We're done for, Tess!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV--IT MUST BE ALL RIGHT + + +As Mrs McCall told Ruth Kenway when she arrived with Luke and Cecile +at the old Corner House, the other Kenway sister and Neale O'Neil had +not started out on their hunt for the Gypsy encampment alone. Mr. +Pinkney, hearing of the absence of the smaller girls, had volunteered +to go with the searchers. + +"Somehow, my wife feels that Sammy may be with Tess and Dot," he +explained to Neale and Agnes. "I never contradict her at such times. +And perhaps he is. No knowing where that boy of mine is likely to turn +up, anyway." + +"But you do not suppose for one instant, Mr. Pinkney, that Sammy has +come and coaxed my sisters to run away?" cried Agnes from the tonneau, +as the car started out through Willow Street. + +"I am not so sure about that. You know, he got Dot to run away with +him once," chuckled Mr. Pinkney. + +"This is nothing like that, I am sure!" declared Agnes. + +"I am with you there, Aggie," admitted Neale. "I guess this is a +serious affair. The Gypsies are in it." + +Between the two, the boy and the girl told Mr. Pinkney all about the +silver bracelet and the events connected with it. The man listened +with appreciation. + +"I don't know, of course, anything about the fight between the two +factions of Gypsies over what you call Queen Alma's bracelet--" + +"If it doesn't prove to be Sarah Turner's bracelet," interjected +Agnes. + +"Yes. That is possible. They may have just found it--those Gypsy women. +And the story Costello, the junkman, told us might be a fake," said +Neale. + +"However," broke in Mr. Pinkney again, "there is a chance that the +bracelet was given to Tess and Dot for a different purpose from any +you have suggested." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked Neale and Agnes in unison. + +"It is a fact that some Gypsies do steal children. Now, don't be +startled! It isn't commonly done. They are often accused without good +reason. But Gypsies are always more or less mixed up with traveling +show people. There are many small tent shows traveling about the +country at this time of year." + +"Like Twomley & Sorber's circus," burst out Agnes. + +"Smaller than that. Just one-ring affairs. And the shows are regular +'fly-by-nights.' Gypsies fraternize with them of course. And often +children are trained in those shows to be acrobats who are doubtless +picked up around the country--usually children who have no guardians. +And the Gypsies sometimes pick up such." + +"Oh, but, Mr. Pinkney!" cried Agnes, "we are so careful of Tess and +Dot. Usually, I mean. I don't know what Ruth will say when she gets +home to-night. It looks as though we had been very careless while she +was gone." + +"I know what children have to go through in a circus," said Neale +soberly. "But why should the Gypsies have selected Tess and Dot?" + +"Because, you tell me, they were playing circus, and doing stunts at +the very time the Gypsy women sold them the basket." + +"Oh! So they were," agreed Agnes. "Oh, Neale!" + +"Crickey! It might be, I suppose. I never thought of that," admitted +the boy. + +He was carefully running the car while this talk was going on. He soon +drove past the Poole place and later stopped at a little house where +the constable lived. + +Mr. Ben Stryker was at home. It was not often that automobile parties +called at his door. Usually they did not want to see Mr. Stryker, who +was a stickler for the "rules of the road." + +"What's the matter?" asked the constable, coming out to the car. "Want +to pay me your fine, so as not to have to wait to see the Justice of +the Peace?" + +He said it jokingly. When he heard about the missing Kenway children +and of the reason to fear Gypsies had something to do with it, he +jumped into the car, taking Mr. Pinkney's place in the front seat +beside Neale. + +"I've had my eye on Big Jim Costello ever since he has been back +here," Stryker declared. "I sent him away to jail once. He is a bad +one. And if he is mixed up in any kidnapping, I'll put him into the +penitentiary for a long term." + +"But of course we would not want to make them trouble if the children +went to the camp alone," ventured Agnes. "You know, they might have +been hunting for the two women who sold them the basket." + +"Those Gypsies know what to do in such a case. They know where I live, +and they should have brought the two little girls to me. I certainly +have it in for Big Jim." + +But as we have seen, when the party arrived at the spot where the +Gypsies had been encamped, not a trace of them was left. That is, no +trace that pointed to the time or the direction of their departure. + +"Maybe these Gypsies did not have a thing to do with the absence of +Tess and Dot," whispered Agnes. + +"And maybe they had everything to do with it," declared Neale, aloud. +"Looks to me as though they had turned the trick and escaped." + +"And in those motor-vans they can cover a deal of ground," suggested +Mr. Pinkney. + +Agnes broke down at this point and wept. The constable had got out and +with the aid of his pocket lamp searched the vicinity. He saw plainly +where the vans had turned into the dusty road and the direction they +had taken. + +"The best we can do is to follow them," he advised. "If I can catch +them inside the county I'll be able to handle them. And if they go +into the next county I'll get help. Well search their vans, no matter +where we catch them. All ready?" + +The party went on. To catch the moving Gypsies was no easy matter. +Frequently Mr. Stryker got down to look at the tracks. This was at +every cross road. + +Fortunately the wheels of one of the Gypsy vans had a peculiar tread. +It was easy to see the marks of these wheels in the dust. Therefore, +although the pursuit was slow, they managed to be sure they were going +right. + +From eleven o'clock until three in the morning the motor-car was +driven over the circuitous route the nomad procession had taken +earlier in the night. Then they came to the new encampment. + +Their approach was announced by the barking of the mongrel dogs that +guarded the camp. Half the tribe seemed to be awake when the car +slowed down and stopped on the roadway. Mr. Stryker got out and +shouted for Big Jim. + +"Come out here!" said the constable threateningly. "I know you are +here, and I want to talk with you, Jim Costello." + +"Well, whose chicken roost has been raided now?" demanded Big Jim, +approaching with his smile and his impudence both in evidence. + +"No chicken thievery," snapped Stryker, flashing his electric light +into the big Gypsy's face. "Where are those kids?" + +"What kids? I got my own--and there's a raft of them. I'll give you a +couple if you want." + +Big Jim seemed perfectly calm and the other Gypsies were like him. +They routed out every family in the camp. The constable and Neale +searched the tents and the vans. No trace of Tess and Dot was to be +found. + +"Everything you lay to the poor Gypsy," said Big Jim complainingly. +"Now it is not chickens--it is kids. Bah!" + +He slouched away. Stryker called after him: + +"Never mind, Jim. We'll get you yet! You watch your step." + +He came back to the Kenway car shaking his head. "I guess they have +not been here. I'll come back to-morrow when the Gypsies don't expect +me and look again if your little sisters do not turn up elsewhere. +What shall we do now?" + +Agnes was weeping so that she could not speak. Neale shook his head +gloomily. Mr. Pinkney sighed. + +"Well," the latter said, "we might as well start for home. No good +staying here." + +"I'll get you to Milton in much shorter time than it took to get +here," said the constable. "Keep right ahead, Mr. O'Neil. We'll take +the first turn to the right and run on till we come to Hampton Mills. +It's pretty near a straight road from there to Milton. And I can get a +ride from the Mills to my place with a fellow I know who passes my +house every morning." + +Neale started the car and they left the buzzing camp behind them. They +had no idea that the moment the sound of the car died away the Gypsies +leaped to action, packed their goods and chattels again, and the tribe +started swiftly for the State line. Big Jim did not mean to be caught +if he could help it by Constable Stryker, who knew his record. + +The Corner House car whirred over the rather good roads to Hampton +Mills and there the constable parted from them. He promised to report +any news he might get of the absent children, and they were to send +him word if Tess and Dot were found. + +The car rounded the pond where Sammy had had his adventure at the +ice-house and had ruined his knickerbockers. It was a straight road +from that point to Milton. Going up the hill beside the pond in the +gray light of dawn, they saw ahead of them a man laboring on in the +middle of the road with a child upon his shoulders, while two other +small figures walked beside him, clinging to his coat. + +"There's somebody else moving," said Mr. Pinkney to Agnes. "What do +you know about little children being abroad at this time of the +morning?" + +"Shall we give them a lift?" asked Neale. "Only I don't want to stop +on this hill." + +But he did. He stopped in another minute because Agnes uttered a +piercing scream. + +"Oh, Tessie! Oh, Dot! It's them! It's the children!" + +"Great Moses!" ejaculated Mr. Pinkney, forced likewise into +excitement, "is that Sammy Pinkney?" + +The man carrying Dot turned quickly. Tess and Sammy both uttered eager +yelps of recognition. Dot bobbed sleepily above the head of the man +who carried her pickaback. + +"Oh, Agnes! isn't this my day for wearing that bracelet? Say, isn't +it?" she demanded. + +The dark man came forward, speaking very politely and swiftly. + +"It is the honest Kenway--yes? You remember Costello? I am he. I find +your sisters with the bad Gypsies--yes. Then you will give me Queen +Alma's bracelet--the great heirloom of our family? I am friend--I bring +children back for you. You give me bracelet?" + +Tess and Dot were tumbled into their sister's arms. Mr. Pinkney jumped +out of the car and grabbed Sammy before he could run. + +Costello, the junkman, repeated his request over and over while Agnes +was greeting the two little girls as they deserved to be greeted. +Finally he made some impression upon her mind. + +"Oh, dear me!" Agnes cried in exasperation, "how can I give it you? I +don't know where it is. It's been stolen." + +"Stolen? That Beeg Jeem!" Again Costello exploded in his native +tongue. + +Tess nestled close to Agnes. She lifted her lips and whispered in her +sister's ear: + +"Don't tell him. He's a Gypsy, too, though I guess he is a good one. I +have got that bracelet inside my dress. It's safe." + +They did not tell Costello, the junkman, that at this time. In fact, +it was some months before Mr. Howbridge, by direction of the Court, +gave Queen Alma's bracelet into the hands of Miguel Costello, who +really proved in the end that he had the better right to the bracelet +that undoubtedly had once belonged to the Queen of the Spanish +Gypsies. + +It had not been merely by chance that the young Gypsy woman who had +sold the green and yellow basket to Tess and Dot had dropped that +ornament into the basket. She had worn the bracelet, for she was Big +Jim's daughter. + +Without doubt it was the intention of the Gypsies to engage the little +girls' interest through this bracelet and get their confidence, to +bring about the very situation which they finally consummated. One of +the women confessed in court that they could sell Tess and Dot for +acrobats. Or they thought they could. + +The appearance of Miguel Costello in Milton, claiming the rightful +ownership of the silver bracelet, made the matter unexpectedly +difficult for Big Jim and his clan. Indeed, the Kenways had much to +thank Miguel Costello for. + +However, these mysteries were explained long after this particular +morning on which the children were recovered. No such home-coming had +ever been imagined, and the old Corner House and vicinity staged a +celebration that will long be remembered. + +Luke Shepard had been put to bed soon after his arrival. But he would +not be content until he got up again and came downstairs in his +bathrobe to greet the returned wanderers. + +Agnes just threw herself into Ruth's arms when she first saw her elder +sister, crying: + +"Oh! don't you _dare_ ever go away again, Ruth Kenway, without taking +the rest of us with you. We're not fit to be left alone." + +"I am afraid some day, Agnes, you will have to get along without me," +said Ruth placidly, but smiling into Luke's eyes as she said it. "You +know, we are growing up." + +"Aggie isn't ever going to grow up," grumbled Neale. "She is just a +kid." + +"Oh, is _that_ so, Mr. Smartie?" cried Agnes, suddenly drying her +eyes. "I'd have you know I am just as much grown up as you are." + +"Oh, dear, me, I'm so sleepy," moaned Dot. "I--I didn't sleep very well +at all last night." + +"Goodness! I should think Sammy and I ought to be the ones to be +sleepy. We didn't have any chance at all!" Tess exclaimed. + +As for Sammy, he was taken home by an apparently very stern father to +meet a wildly grateful mother. Mrs. Pinkney drew the sting from all +verbal punishment Mr. Pinkney might have given his son. + +"And the dear boy! I knew he had not forgotten us when I found he had +taken that picture with him. Did you, Sammy?" + +"Did I what, Mom?" asked Sammy, his mouth comfortably filled with +cake. + +"That picture. You know, the one we all had taken down at Pleasant +Cove that time. The one of your father and you and me that you kept on +your bureau. When I saw that you had taken that with you to remember +us by----" + +"Oh, crickey, Mom! Buster, the bull pup, ate that old picture up a +month ago," said the nonsentimental Sammy. + + + THE END + + + + +Charming Stories for Girls +THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES +By Grace Brooks Hill + + +Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a +rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he +occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find +and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and +make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks +at a bungalow owned by her parents, and the adventures they meet with +make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and +adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls. + + 1 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS. + 2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL. + 3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS. + 4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY. + 5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS' ODD FIND. + 6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR. + 7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP. + 8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND. + 9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT. + 10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES. + 11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND. + 12 THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY. + +BARSE & HOPKINS + +New York, N.Y., Newark, N.J. + + + + +"THE POLLY" SERIES +By Dorothy Whitehill + + +Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to +a boarding school on the Hudson River some miles above New York. By +her pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and +this she holds right through the course. The account of boarding +school life is faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in +her teens. + +Cloth, large 12 mo. Illustrated + + 1 POLLY'S FIRST SUMMER YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL + 2 POLLY'S SUMMER VACATION + 3 POLLY'S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL + 4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR + 5 POLLY AND LOIS + 6 POLLY AND BOB + 7 POLLY'S RE-UNION + 8 POLLY'S POLLY + +BARSE & HOPKINS + +Publishers + +New York, N.Y., Newark, N.J. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE +GYPSIES*** + + +******* This file should be named 36400.txt or 36400.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/4/0/36400 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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