The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 11

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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 gra.s.s 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 a.s.surance 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?"