Grace Brooks Hill

“ 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?”
“Sammy and Luke are,” agreed Dot. ”

“ There was really no thought in the mind of the littlest Corner House girl to take that which did not belong to her. Most children believe implicitly in “findings-keepings,” and it seemed to Dot Kenway that as they had bought the green and yellow basket in good faith of the two Gypsy women, everything it contained should belong to them.
This, too, was Sammy Pinkney’s idea of the matter. Sammy considered himself very worldly wise.
“Say! what’s the matter with you, Tess Kenway? Of course that bracelet is yours—if you want it. Who’s going to stop you from keeping it, I want to know?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who really knows where this bracelet came from, and who actually owns it? Maybe it is not Queen Alma’s ornament after all. Dear, me! this Kenway family is forever getting mixed up in difficulties that positively have nothing to do with us.
“The silly old bracelet! Why couldn’t those Gypsy women have sold that basket to Margaret and Holly Pease, or to some other little girls instead of to our Tess and Dot. Mrs. McCall says that some people seem to attract trouble, just as lightning-rods attract lightning, and I guess the Kenways are some of those people!” ”

“ How can I tell you, sir, and the honest Kenway? It has always belong to the Costello. Yes, yes, yes! That so-ancient bracelet, Beeg Jeem have no right to it.”
“But he was the one who lost it!” exclaimed Neale, being quite confident now of the identity of “Beeg Jeem.”
“Yes, yes, yes! So he say. I no believe. Then I see the reading here in the pape’, of the honest Kenway”—tap, tap, tapping once more of the forefinger—“and I see it must be so. I—”
“Hold on!” exclaimed Neale. “You did not lose the bracelet. This other fellow did. You bring him here and let him prove ownership.” ”

“ He would not answer the man. There was something beside stubbornness to Sammy Pinkney. But stubbornness stood him in good stead just now.
“Don’t you mind, Tess and Dot,” he whispered, his own voice broken with half-stifled sobs. “I’ll get you out of it. We’ll run away first chance we get.”
“But it never does you any good to run away, Sammy,” complained Tess. “You only get into trouble. Dot and I don’t want to be beaten by that man. He is horrid.”
“I wish we could see those nice ladies who sold us the basket,” wailed Dot, quite desperate now. “I—I’d be glad to give ’em back the bracelet.” ”

“ And often children are trained in those shows to be acrobats who are doubtless picked up around the country—usually children who have no guardians. And the Gypsies sometimes pick up such.”
“Oh, but, Mr. Pinkney!” cried Agnes, “we are so careful of Tess and Dot. Usually, I mean. I don’t know what Ruth will say when she gets home to-night. It looks as though we had been very careless while she was gone.”
“I know what children have to go through in a circus,” said Neale soberly. “But why should the Gypsies have selected Tess and Dot?” ”

“ 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 253 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. ”

“ 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 255 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.” ”

“ Ruth observed thoughtfully, “that Neale had better run the car out again and look about town for those Gypsy women. They can’t have got far away.”
“Say, Ruth! it’s most supper time,” objected Neale. “Have a heart!”
“Anyway, I wouldn’t trouble myself about a crowd of Gypsies,” said Agnes. “They may have stolen the bracelet.”
“Oh!” gasped Tess and Dot in unison.
“You know what June Wildwood told us about them. And she lived with Gypsies for months.” 28
“Gypsies are not all alike,” the elder sister said confidently in answer to this last remark by Agnes. ”

“ Are they camped there?” asked Tess.
“No. But a man with an automobile will meet you there. He is a man who will take you right to the Gypsy camp and bring you back again. Don’t be afraid, kids. It’s all right.”
He went away then, and the little girls could not call him back. They wanted to ask further questions; but it was evident that the boy had delivered his message and was not to be cross-examined.
“What shall we do?” Tess exclaimed.
“Oh, let’s wait. Let’s wait till Ruth comes home,” cried Dot, saying something very sensible indeed. ”

“ Stop! Lemme up!” roared Sammy again.
“I got it, Peter!” shrieked Liz, and, springing up, she darted into the bushes and disappeared. 107
“Stop! She’s stole my money,” gasped Sammy in horror and alarm.
“She never! You didn’t have no money!” declared Peter, and with a final blow that stunned Sammy for the moment, the other leaped up and followed his wild companion into the brush.
Sammy, weeping in good earnest now, bruised and scratched in body and sore in spirit, climbed slowly to his feet. Never before in any of his runaway escapades had he suffered such ignominy and loss. ”

“ You, Linda,” for the Finnish girl now appeared, “run to the neighbors—all of them! See if you can find those bairns.”
“Tess and Dottie, mum?” cried the Finnish girl, already in tears. “Oh! they ain’t losted are they?”
“For all you know they are!” declared Mrs. McCall. “Look around the house for them, Uncle Rufus. I will look inside—”
“They may be upstairs with Aunt Sarah,” cried Agnes, getting her breath at last. ”

“ The three, Sammy looking very important, went to find Big Jim. He was just as smiling as ever.
“Oh, yes! The little ladies are not to be worried. The women they want will soon come.”
“You see?” said Sammy, boldly. “It will be all right. Why, these people treat you right. I tell you! You can do just as you please in a Gypsy camp and nobody says anything to you.”
“See!” exclaimed Tess suddenly. “Are they packing up to leave? Or do they stay here all the time?”
It was now late afternoon. Instead of the supper fires being revived, they were smothered. ”

“ McCall bore the greater burden of housekeeping affairs, Ruth Kenway did not shirk certain responsibilities that fell to her lot both outside and inside the Corner House.
After all was said and done, Sammy Pinkney looked upon Agnes as his friend. She was more lenient with him than even Dot was. Ruth and Tess looked upon most boys as merely “necessary evils.” But Agnes had always liked to play with boys and was willing to overlook their shortcomings. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Honest is honest.”
“It—it’s awful uncomfortable to be so dreadful’ honest,” blurted out the smaller girl. “And I think they meant us to have the bracelet.”
“All right, then. It’s only polite to offer it back to them. Then if they don’t want it we’ll know that it is ours and even Ruth won’t say anything.”
“But—but when my Alice-doll grows up—”
“Now, don’t be a little piggie, Dot Kenway!” exclaimed Tess, rather crossly. “When your wrist gets big enough so the bracelet won’t slip over your hand so easy, you will want to wear it yourself—just as I do. And Agnes wants it, too.” ”

“ McCall says we can’t go wading without asking permission.”
“Crickey! how you going to run away from these Gypsies if you’ve got to mind what you’re told all the time?” asked Sammy desperately.
“But won’t the water be cold? And why wade in it, anyway?”
“So the dogs can’t follow our scent. They can’t follow scent through water. Come on. We got to find a brook or something.”
“There’s the canal,” ventured Tess, in an awed whisper.
“The canal, your granny!” exclaimed the exasperated boy. “That’s over your head, Tess Kenway.” ”

“ 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 don’t understand it at all. Gypsies are always shrewd bargainers. They never sell things for less than they cost.” ”

“ 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! he’s been in jail for stealing.”
“Oh, my! He’s a regular convict, then,” gasped Agnes, much impressed.
“Pshaw!” said Neale. “They don’t call a man a convict unless he has been sent to the State prison, or to the Federal penitentiary. ”

“ Ruth was not satisfied to know that Cecile had gone to attend her brother. The oldest Kenway girl longed to go herself to the resort in the mountains where Luke Shepard lay ill. But she did not wish to do this without first seeking their guardian’s permission.
Tess and Dot ran off in delight, forgetting their 58 small bickerings, to find Uncle Rufus. The old colored man, as long as he could get about, would do anything for “his chillun,” as he called the four Kenway sisters. It needed no coaxing on the part of Tess and Dot to get their will of the old man on this occasion. ”