The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 36

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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 owners.h.i.+p 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