The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 8

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 ca.n.a.l 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s 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 st.u.r.dy, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n 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.