The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 9

"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 p.r.o.nounces 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 owners.h.i.+p 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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.