Grace Brooks Hill

“ But Tess and Dot thought that he ought to become acquainted with the un-named kittens in the basket immediately.
“If they get used to him, you know,” said Tess, “they’ll all live together just like a ‘happy family.’”
“Like us?” suggested Dot, who did not quite understand the reference, having forgotten the particular cage thus labeled in the circus they had seen the previous summer.
“Why! of course like us!” laughed Tess, and Sandyface being away foraging for her brood, Tess seized the basket and carried it out on the porch, setting it down before Tom Jonah who was lying in the sun. ”

“ She might have been a year or two older than Ruth.
“I don’t know—somehow—she reminds me of somebody,” murmured the latter.
“Who?”
“The girl.”
“She reminds me of that chicken-thief Tom Jonah treed on the henhouse roof,” chuckled Agnes.
“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth; “all Gypsies can’t be alike.”
“Humph! you never heard a good word said for them,” sniffed Agnes.
“But that doesn’t prove there are not good ones. They are a wandering people and have no particular trade or standing in any community. Naturally they have a lot of crimes laid upon their shoulders that they never commit,” said the just Ruth. ”

“ He was rested, and he acted as though he were sure of his position here at the old Corner House.
“Good old fellow!” cried Tess, putting out a hand to pat him.
At once Tom Jonah put up his right paw to shake hands. He repeated the feat with Dot the next moment, to the delight of both girls.
“Oh!” gasped Dot, “he’s a trick dog.”
“He’s just what his collar says; he’s a gentleman,” sighed Tess, happily. “Oh! I hope his folks won’t ever come after him.”
Ruth had to come down for Tess and Dot or they would not have been bathed and dressed in time for breakfast. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII—THE NIGHT OF THE BIG WIND
“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell you a boat.”
“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell an elephant—and it’s so cute!”
“For the land’s sake!” gasped Ruth, throwing down a sputtering pen, where she was writing on the chest of drawers in the tent. “How can a body write? And an elephant, no less!”
She rushed out to see Dot’s elephant, as that seemed more important than Tess’ announcement that a man had merely a boat for sale. Dot’s man was a gangling young fellow with a covered basket from which he was selling sugar cakes made into fancy shapes. ”

“ There was the big dog leaping savagely toward the low eaves of the hennery. A kicking figure was sprawled on the roof, clinging with both hands to the ridge of it. The girls obtained a glimpse of a dark face, with flashing teeth, and big gold rings in the marauder’s ears.
“Tak’ dog away! Tak’ dog away!” the man said, in a strangled voice.
“He’s one of those Gypsies,” whispered Agnes, in an awed voice. ”

“ At any rate, I couldn’t tell you for the life of me whether it is a man or a woman that comes to see the little old woman who lives in a shoe. Isn’t it odd, Ruth?”
“I should say it was,” admitted Ruth.
“But she treats me well,” sighed Rosa. “I wouldn’t do her any harm for the world. But I am awfully curious!”
It was this day, too—the day of Dot’s party—that the wooden-legged clam-digger came along through the Willowbend tent colony again. He always came to the tent of the Corner House girls when he appeared; Ruth was a regular customer, for she and her sisters were fond of shellfish. ”

“ Tess and Dot were very anxious to go upstairs and see the rooms in the “shoe,” and they made the request to Ruth in an audible whisper.
“For sure!” cried Mrs. Bobster. “All the children that come here want to go upstairs. If I had ’em of my own, that’s where I’d put ’em all to bed after I’d fed ’em bread and ‘whipped ’em all soundly,’” and she laughed.
“I don’t believe you’d have whipped the children, if you’d been the really truly little old woman that lived in the shoe,” quoth Dot, putting a confiding hand into the apple-faced lady’s hard palm. ”

“ And that strange girl was interested in Rosa Wildwood. Of that Ruth was as sure as she could be.
“Maybe she’ll follow you up to the camp,” said Lucy Poole. “I’d be afraid to live all alone in that tent if I were you girls.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Agnes. “What’s going to hurt us!”
“The crabs might come up the beach at night and pinch your toes,” laughed Maud Everts.
“I don’t know,” Pearl said, seriously. “I wouldn’t want those Gyps interested in me.”
“Now you are trying to frighten us,” laughed Ruth. “We have plenty of neighbors. Don’t you come up there and try to play tricks on us in the tent. ”

“ The Gypsies glanced swiftly and covertly at one another, falling back farther from the vicinity of the girls.
Indeed, several of them returned to the card game. The fortune-teller mumbled her foolish prophecies quickly. Into the glade, along a wood-path from the thicker timber, came two spans of oxen dragging three great logs. A pleasant-faced young man swung the ox-goad and spoke cheerily to the slow-moving, ponderous animals.
“Let’s go at once, Pearl!” begged Ruth. “We’ll keep close to this lumberman. ”

“ The hotel-keeper’s daughter would not look at the Corner House girls. She, certainly, had proved herself their enemy. Ruth wondered if Trix had had anything to do with bringing Mr. Reynolds to Pleasant Cove, searching for his dog.
Ruth knew that the hotel-keeper’s daughter often rode over to Shawmit; she was probably on her way there now with her party. And after the way Trix had acted at the time the Spoondrift bungalow was burned, one might expect anything mean of Trix. For once Ruth allowed her suspicions to color her thoughts. ”

“ A tribe of the nomads in question had passed through Milton but a day or two before, and the girls had been frightened by the appearance of the men of the tribe who had called at the old Corner House.
Now, whether this marauder belonged to the same people or not, Ruth saw that he looked like a Gypsy. For another reason, too, her mind was relieved at once; Tom Jonah was only savage toward the man on the roof. ”

“ Don’t you wish you had a nickel?”
“He isn’t a peanut man,” said Tess, after a sharp look at the man pushing the little wagon along the road before them.
“Isn’t he?” returned Dot, disappointedly.
“It’s a hot-frankfurter man,” declared Tess.
“Oh, Tess! a nickel would buy two frankfurter sandwiches,” gasped Dot. “And I’m so hungry.”
So was Tess. The thought of the steaming sausages lying on the split Vienna roll, with a spoonful of mustard on each half-sausage, was enough to make any hungry person’s mouth water. At least, any hungry person of the age of Tess and Dot Kenway. ”

“ MacCall had insisted upon having all the trunks and bags packed the day before, for on this Friday morning the Corner House girls had little time for anything but saying “good-bye” to their many friends, both human and dumb.
“Whatever will Tom Jonah think?” cried Tess, hugging the big dog that had taken up his abode at the Corner House so strangely. “He’ll think we have run away from him, poor fellow!”
“Oh! don’t you think that, Tom Jonah!” begged Dot, seizing the dog on the other side. “We all love you so! And we’ll come back to you.” ”

“ Several low-browed, roughly dressed men sat in a group on the grass playing cards. They were smoking, and one was tipping a black bottle to his lips just as the girls from Milton came near.
“Let’s hurry right by, Pearl!” begged Ruth.
Pearl, however, was not as observant as the Corner House girl. She failed to see danger in the situation, or in the looks the disturbed men cast upon the unprotected party of girls. As several of the fellows rose, Pearl called to them:
“Where’s your Pythoness? Where is the Queen of the Gypsies? We want our fortunes told.” ”

“ Trix Severn had taken her crowd into a forward coach. Her father owning one of the big hotels at the Cove, the railroad company had presented him with a sheaf of chair coupons. So, as Pearl Harrod laughingly said, “Trix’s party was as swell as a wet sponge.”
“I don’t suppose any of that crowd at the Overlook House will talk to us,” said Pearl. “Just the same, I guess I can show you girls a good time at Spoondrift. Uncle always lets us do just as we like. He’s the dearest man.” ”

“ Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks at a bungalow owned by her parents; and the adventures they meet with make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls. ”

“ We farmers are getting about ready to run them out, now I tell ye!”
Ruth said nothing—not even to Agnes—about what she had discovered. She had penetrated “Queen Zaliska’s” disguise. She believed that the supposed old crone was the handsome, dark girl whom she had observed so narrowly on the train.
Perhaps nobody but Ruth, of the party of ten girls, really understood that they had been in peril from the Gypsies. She believed that, had they not gotten away from the camp as they had, the men would have robbed them.
The Gypsies were afraid of the husky lumberman, and they did not follow the girls. ”

“ Even Aunt Sarah looked with approval upon the new acquisition to the family of the old Corner House. She had heard the tale of his rescue of Ruth’s poultry from the marauding Gypsy, and patted Tom Jonah’s noble head.
“It’s a good thing to have a watch-dog on the premises,” she said, “with all that old silver and trash you girls insist upon keeping out of the plate-safe. Your Uncle Peter would turn in his grave if he knew how common you was makin’ the Stower plate.” ”

“ Despite the loss of her “soulmate,” Agnes was pretty cheerful. She was to graduate from grammar school; and although she was sorry to lose Miss Georgiana Shipman as a teacher, she was delighted to get out of “the pigtail classes,” as she rudely termed the lower grades.
“I’m going to do up my hair, Ruthie, whatever you say,” she declared, “just as soon as I get into high school next fall. I’m old enough to forget braids and hair-ribbons, I should hope!”
“Not yet, my child, not yet,” laughed Ruth. “Why! there are more girls in High who wear their hair down than up.” ”