I dont 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 arent 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 isnt too hot. It looks like rain for to-night, anyway.
Aw I
Come on! Well get some water and stick out what we can save. Ill help you and the girls neednt know you were such a dummy.
Dummy, yourself! snarled the tired and over-wrought boy. Ill never weed another beet again no, I wont!
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? Aint 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 dont believe you could even find our beets.
Beets! Sammys voice rose to a shriek. He never was really a bad boy; but this was too much. Beets! cried Sammy again. I wouldnt weed a beet if nobody ever ate another of em. No, I wouldnt.
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. Dont you come down to supper, either. And well 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.
Ill run away and be a pirate thats just what Ill do, choked Sammy, his old obsession enveloping his harassed thoughts. Ill show em! Theyll be sorry they treated me so all of em.
Just who em were was rather vague in Sammy Pinkneys 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, Sammys 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 ONeil 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.
Ive 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 youll 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 sons 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 Sammys father.
Here Tess put in a soothing word, as usual: Of course he didnt mean to pull up all your beets, Mrs. McCall.
And I dont 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. Pinkneys 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 doesnt seem to know beets! Oh, what a boy!
So Mr. Pinkney brought home the story of Sammys 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 didnt want no supper.
He must be sick, she observed to her husband, somewhat anxiously.
Hes sick of the mess hes made thats all, declared Mr. Pinkney cheerfully. Let him alone. Hell 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 dont you report it to the police? croaked Aunt Sarah Maltby. Maybe theyll try to rob the house.
O-oh, gasped Dot, round-eyed.
Who? The police? giggled Agnes in Ruths ear.
Maybe we ought to look again for those Gypsy ladies, Tess said. But the bracelet is awful pretty.
I tell you! Lets ask June Wildwood. She knows all about Gypsies, cried Agnes. She used to travel with them. Dont 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 ONeil, who was present. You dont believe in that stuff, do you, Aggie?
I dont know whether I do or not. But its 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 Byburgs candy store. Some queen, Ill tell the world!
Neale! admonished Ruth. Such slang!
Come on, Neale, said the excited Agnes. Let you and me go down to Byburgs and ask her about the bracelet.
I really dont 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! hes been in jail for stealing.
Oh, my! Hes a regular convict, then, gasped Agnes, much impressed.
Pshaw! said Neale. They dont 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 dont 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 didnt cost them so much as Ruth thinks.
June smiled in a superior way. Oh, no, they didnt make it. They dont 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 Jims 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. Dont 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 dont believe in bugaboos, Agnes declared. Well just tell Ruth.
This she proceeded to do. But perhaps she did not repeat June Wildwoods warning against the Gypsy band with sufficient emphasis to impress Ruths 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 isnt 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-morrows train to see for myself. I dont 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, dont 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 Ruths 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 isnt Sammys dog, wailed Mrs. Pinkney. It is Sammy himself. I cant find him.
Cant find Sammy? repeated Agnes.
His bed hasnt 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 wont 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 Sammys 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. Pinkneys sake.
I wonder, murmured Dot to Tess, why it is Aunt Sarah always says she hopes and prays? Wouldnt just praying be enough? Youre sure to get what you pray for, arent you?