Mr. Pinkney, Sammy's 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 O'Neil 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.
"I've 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
you'll 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
son's 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 Sammy's father.
Here Tess put in a soothing word, as usual: "Of course he didn't mean to
pull up all your beets, Mrs. McCall."
"And I don't 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. Pinkney's 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 doesn't seem to know beets! Oh, what a
boy!"
So Mr. Pinkney brought home the story of Sammy's 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
"didn't want no supper."
"He must be sick," she observed to her husband, somewhat anxiously.
"He's sick of the mess he's made--that's all," declared Mr. Pinkney
cheerfully. "Let him alone. He'll 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 don't you report it to the police?" croaked Aunt Sarah Maltby.
"Maybe they'll try to rob the house."
"O-oh," gasped Dot, round-eyed.
"Who? The police?" giggled Agnes in Ruth's ear.
"Maybe we ought to look again for those Gypsy ladies," Tess said. "But
the bracelet is awful pretty."
"I tell you! Let's ask June Wildwood. She knows all about Gypsies,"
cried Agnes. "She used to travel with them. Don't 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 O'Neil, who was present. "You don't believe
in that stuff, do you, Aggie?"
"I don't know whether I do or not. But it's 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 Byburg's candy
store. Some queen, I'll tell the world!"
"Neale!" admonished Ruth. "_Such_ slang!"
"Come on, Neale," said the excited Agnes. "Let you and me go down to
Byburg's and ask her about the bracelet."
"I really don't 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! 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. 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."
"But they made that basket," Agnes urged. "Perhaps it didn't cost them
so much as Ruth thinks."
June smiled in a superior way. "Oh, no, they didn't make it. They don't
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 Jim's 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. Don't 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 don't believe in bugaboos," Agnes declared. "We'll just tell Ruth."
This she proceeded to do. But perhaps she did not repeat June Wildwood's
warning against the Gypsy band with sufficient emphasis to impress
Ruth's 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 isn't
_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-morrow's train to see for myself.
I don't 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, don't _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 Ruth's 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 isn't Sammy's dog," wailed Mrs. Pinkney. "It is Sammy himself. I
can't find him."
"Can't find Sammy?" repeated Agnes.
"His bed hasn't 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.