Tess Kenway was positively shocked by her sister Dot's suggestion. To
think of trying to keep the silver bracelet which they knew must belong
to the Gypsy woman who had sold them the green and yellow basket, was
quite a horrifying thought to Tess.
"How _can_ you say such a thing, Dottie Kenway?" she demanded sternly.
"Of course we cannot keep the bracelet. And that old Gypsy lady said we
were honest, too. She could _see_ we were. And, then, what would Ruthie
say?"
Their older sister's opinion was always the standard for the other
Corner House girls. And that might well be, for Ruth Kenway had been
mentor and guide to her sisters ever since Dot, at least, could
remember. Their mother had died so long ago that Tess but faintly
remembered her.
The Kenways had lived in a very moderately priced tenement in Bloomsburg
when Mr. Howbridge (now their guardian) had searched for and found them,
bringing them with Aunt Sarah Maltby to the old Corner House in Milton.
In the first volume of this series, "The Corner House Girls," these
matters are fully explained.
The six succeeding volumes relate in detail the adventures of the four
sisters and their friends--and some most remarkable adventures have they
had at school, under canvas, at the seashore, as important characters in
a school play, solving the mystery of a long-lost fortune, on an
automobile tour through the country, and playing a winning part in the
fortunes of Luke and Cecile Shepard in the volume called "The Corner
House Girls Growing Up."
In "The Corner House Girls Snowbound," the eighth book of the series,
the Kenways and a number of their young friends went into the North
Woods with their guardian to spend the Christmas Holidays. Eventually
they rescued the twin Birdsall children, who likewise had come under the
care of the elderly lawyer who had so long been the Kenway sisters' good
friend.
During the early weeks of the summer, just previous to the opening of
our present story, the Corner House girls had enjoyed a delightful trip
on a houseboat in the neighboring waters. The events of this trip are
related in "The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat." During this outing
there was more than one exciting incident. But the most exciting of all
was the unexpected appearance of Neale O'Neil's father, long believed
lost in Alaska.
Mr. O'Neil's return to the States could only be for a brief period, for
his mining interests called him back to Nome. His son, however, no
longer mourned him as lost, and naturally (though this desire he kept
secret from Agnes) the boy hoped, when his school days were over, to
join his father in that far Northland.
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?"
"But--but it must belong to one of those Gypsy ladies," gasped Tess. "The
old lady asked us if we were honest. Of course we are!"
"Pshaw! If they miss it, they'll be back after that silver thing fast
enough."
"But, Sammy, suppose they don't know the bracelet fell into this
basket?"
"Then you and Dot are that much in," was the prompt rejoinder of their
boy friend. "You bought the basket and all that was in it. They couldn't
claim the _air_ in that basket, could they? Well, then! how could they
lay claim to anything else in the basket?"
Such logic seemed unanswerable to Dot's mind. But Tess shook a doubtful
head. She had a feeling that they ought to run after the Gypsies to
return to them at once the bracelet. Only, neither she nor Dot was
dressed properly to run through Milton's best residential streets after
the Romany people. As for Sammy--
Happily, so Tess thought, she did not have to decide the matter.
Musically an automobile horn sounded its warning and the children ran
out to welcome the two older Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil, who
acted as their chauffeur on this particular trip.
They had been far out into the country for eggs and fresh vegetables, to
the farm, in fact, of Mr. Bob Buckham, the strawberry king and the
Corner House girls' very good friend. In these times of very high prices
for food, Ruth Kenway considered it her duty to save money if she could
by purchasing at first cost for the household's needs.
"Otherwise," this very capable young housewife asked, "how shall we
excuse the keeping of an automobile when the up-keep and everything is
so high?"
"Oh, _do_," begged Agnes, the flyaway sister, "_do_ let us have
something impractical, Ruth. I just hate the man who wrote the first
treatise on political economy."
"I fancy it is 'household economy' you mean, Aggie," returned her
sister, smiling. "And I warrant the author of the first treatise on that
theme was a woman."
"Mrs. Eva Adam, I bet!" chuckled Neale O'Neil, hearing this controversy
from the driver's seat. "It has always been in my mind that the First
Lady of the Garden of Eden was tempted to swipe those apples more
because the price of other fruit was so high than for any other reason."
"Then Adam was stingy with the household money," declared Agnes.
"I really wish you would not use such words as 'swipe' before the
children, Neale," sighed Ruth who, although she was no purist, did not
wish the little folk to pick up (as they so easily did) slang phrases.
She stepped out of the car when Neale had halted it within the garage
and Agnes handed her the egg basket. Tess and Dot immediately began
dancing about their elder sister, both shouting at once, the smallest
girl with the green and yellow basket and Tess with the silver bracelet
in her hand.
"Oh, Ruthie, what do you think?"
"See how pretty it is! And they never missed it."
"_Can't_ we keep it, Ruthie?" This from Dot. "We paid those Gypsy ladies
for the basket and all that was in it. Sammy says so."
"Then it must be true of course," scoffed Agnes. "What is it?"
"Well, I guess I know some things," observed Sammy, bridling. "If you
buy a walnut you buy the kernel as well as the shell, don't you? And
that bracelet was inside that covered basket, like the kernel in a nut."
"Listen!" exclaimed Neale likewise getting out of the car. "Sammy's a
very Solomon for judgment."
"Now don't you call me that, Neale O'Neil!" ejaculated Sammy angrily. "I
ain't a pig."
"Wha--what! Who called you a pig, Sammy?"
"Well, that's what Mr. Con Murphy calls _his_ pig--'Solomon.' You needn't
call me by any pig-name, so there!"
"I stand reproved," rejoined Neale with mock seriousness. "But, see
here: What's all this about the basket and the bracelet--a two-fold
mystery?"
"It sounds like a thriller in six reels," cried Agnes, jumping out of
the car herself to get a closer view of the bracelet and the basket.
"My! Where did you get that gorgeous bracelet, children?"
The beauty of the family, who loved "gew-gaws" of all kinds, seized the
silver circlet and tried it upon her own plump arm. Ruth urged Tess to
explain and had to place a gentle palm upon Dot's lips to keep them
quiet so that she might get the straight of the story from the more
sedate Tess.
"And so, that's how it was," concluded Tess. "We bought the basket after
borrowing Sammy's twenty-five cent piece, and of course the basket
belongs to us, doesn't it, Ruthie?"
"Most certainly, my dear," agreed the elder sister.
"And inside was that beautiful fretted silver bracelet. And that--"
"Just as certainly belongs to the Gypsies," finished Ruth. "At least, it
does not belong to you and Dot."
"Aw shu-u-cks!" drawled Sammy in dissent.
Even Agnes cast a wistful glance at the older girl. Ruth was always so
uncompromising in her decisions. There was never any middle ground in
her view. Either a thing was right, or it was wrong, and that was all
there was to it!
"Well," sighed Tess, "that Gypsy lady _said_ she knew we were honest."
"I think," 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."
"Gypsies are not all alike," the elder sister said confidently in answer
to this last remark by Agnes. "Remember Mira and King David Stanley, and
how nice they were to Tess and Dottie?" she asked, speaking of an
incident related in "The Corner House Girls on a Tour."
"I don't care!" exclaimed Agnes, pouting, and still viewing the bracelet
on her arm with admiration. "I wouldn't run _my_ legs off chasing a band
of Gypsies."
They were all, however, bound to be influenced by Ruth's decision.
"Well, I'll hunt around after supper," Neale said. "I'll take Sammy with
me. You'll know those women if you see them again, won't you, kid?"
"Sure," agreed Sammy, forgiving Neale for calling him "kid" with the
prospect of an automobile ride in the offing.
"But--but," breathed Tess in Ruth's ear, "if those Gypsy ladies don't
take back the bracelet, it belongs to Dot and me, doesn't it, Sister?"
"Of course. Agnes! do give it back, now. I expect it will cause trouble
enough if those women are not found. A bone of contention! Both these
children will want to wear the bracelet at the same time. Don't _you_
add to the difficulty, Agnes."
"Why," drawled Agnes, slowly removing the curiously engraved silver
ornament from her arm, "of course they will return for it. Or Neale will
find them."
This statement, however, was not borne out by the facts. Neale and Sammy
drove all about town that evening without seeing the Gypsy women. The
next day the smaller Corner House girls were taken into the suburbs all
around Milton; but nowhere did they find trace of the Gypsies or of any
encampment of those strange, nomadic people in the vicinity.
The finding of the bracelet in the basket remained a mystery that the
Corner House girls could not soon forget.
"It does seem," said Tess, "as though those Gypsy ladies couldn't have
meant to give us the bracelet, Dot. The old one said so much about our
being honest. She didn't expect us to _steal_ it."
"Oh, no!" agreed Dot. "But Neale O'Neil says maybe the Gypsy ladies
stole it, and were afraid to keep it. So they gave it to us."
"M-mm," considered Tess. "But that doesn't explain it at all. Even if
they wanted to get rid of the bracelet, they need not have given it to
us in such a lovely basket. Ruth says the basket is worth a whole lot
more than the forty-five cents we paid for it."
"It _is_ awful pretty," sighed Dot in agreement.
"Some day they will surely come back for the bracelet."
"Oh, I hope not!" murmured the littlest Corner House girl. "It makes
such a be-_you_-tiful belt for my Alice-doll, when it's my turn to wear
it."