"I do hope and pray," Aunt Sarah Maltby declared, "that Mrs. Pinkney
won't 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 Sammy's 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. Pinkney's sake."
"I wonder," murmured Dot to Tess, "why it is Aunt Sarah always says she
'hopes and prays'? Wouldn't just praying be enough? You're sure to get
what you pray for, aren't you?"
"But what is the use of praying if you don't hope?" demanded Tess, the
hair-splitting theologian. "They must go together, Dot. I should think
you'd see that."
Mrs. Pinkney had lost hope of finding Sammy, however, right at the
start. She knew him of course of old. He had been running away ever
since he could toddle out of the gate; but she and Mr. Pinkney tried to
convince themselves that each time would be the last--that he was
"cured."
For almost always Sammy's runaway escapades ended disastrously for him
and covered him with ridicule. Particularly ignominious was the result
of his recent attempt, which is narrated in the volume immediately
preceding this, to accompany the Corner House Girls on their canal-boat
cruise, when he appeared as a stowaway aboard the boat in the company of
Billy Bumps, the goat.
"And he hasn't even taken Buster with him this time," proclaimed Mrs.
Pinkney. "He chained Buster down cellar and the dog began to howl. So
mournful! It got on my nerves. I went down after Mr. Pinkney went to
business early this morning and let Buster out. Then, because of the
dog's actions, I began to suspect Sammy had gone. I called him. No
answer. And he hadn't had any supper last night either."
"I am awfully sorry, Mrs. Pinkney," Agnes said. "It was too bad about
the beets. But he needn't have run away because of _that_. Ruth sent him
his fifty cents, you know."
"That's just it!" exclaimed the distracted woman. "His father did not
give Sammy the half dollar. As long as the boy was so sulky last
evening, and refused to come down to eat, Mr. Pinkney said let him wait
for that money till he came down this morning. _He_ thought Ruth was too
good. Sammy is always doing something."
"Oh, he's not so bad," said the comforting Agnes. "I am sure there are
lots worse boys. And are you sure, Mrs. Pinkney, that he has really run
away this time?"
"Buster can't find him. The poor dog has been running around and
snuffing for an hour. I've telephoned to his father."
"Who--_what_? Buster's father?"
"Mr. Pinkney," explained Sammy's mother. "I suppose he'll tell the
police. He says--Mr. Pinkney does--that the police must think it is a
'standing order' on their books to find Sammy."
"Oh, my!" giggled Agnes, who was sure to appreciate the comical side of
the most serious situation. "I should think the policemen would be so
used to looking for Sammy that they would pick him up anywhere they
chanced to see him with the idea that he was running away."
"Well," sighed Mrs. Pinkney, "Buster can't find him. There he lies
panting over by the currant bushes. The poor dog has run his legs off."
"I don't believe bulldogs are very keen on a scent. Our old Tom Jonah
could do better. But of course Sammy went right out into the street and
the scent would be difficult for the best dog to follow. Do you think
Sammy went early this morning?"
"That dog began to howl soon after we went to bed. Mr. Pinkney sleeps so
soundly that it did not annoy him. But I _knew_ something was wrong when
Buster howled so.
"Perhaps I'm superstitious. But we had an old dog that howled like that
years ago when my grandmother died. She was ninety-six and had been
bedridden for ten years, and the doctors said of course that she was
likely to die almost any time. But that old Towser _did_ howl the night
grandma was taken."
"So you think," Agnes asked, without commenting upon Mrs. Pinkney's
possible trend toward superstition, "that Sammy has been gone
practically all night?"
"I fear so. He must have waited for his father and me to go to bed. Then
he slipped down the back stairs, tied Buster, and went out by the cellar
door. All night long he's been wandering somewhere. The poor, foolish
boy!"
She took Agnes up to the boy's room--a museum of all kinds of "useless
truck," as his mother said, but dear to the boyish heart.
"Oh, he's gone sure enough," she said, pointing to the bank which was
supposed to be incapable of being opened until five dollars in dimes had
been deposited within it. A screw-driver, however, had satisfied the
burglarious intent of Sammy.
She pointed out the fact, too, that a certain extension bag that had
figured before in her son's runaway escapades was missing.
"The silly boy has taken his bathing suit and that cowboy play-suit his
father bought him. I never did approve of that. Such things only give
boys crazy notions about catching dogs and little girls with a rope, or
shooting stray cats with a popgun.
"Of course, he has taken his gun with him and a bag of shot that he had
to shoot in it. The gun shoots with a spring, you know. It doesn't use
real powder, of course. I have always believed such things are
dangerous. But, you know, his father--
"Well, he wore his best shoes, and they will hurt him dreadfully, I am
sure, if he walks far. And I can't find that new cap I bought him only
last week."
All the time she was searching in Sammy's closet and in the bureau
drawers. She stood up suddenly and began to peer at the conglomeration
of articles on the top of the bureau.
"Oh!" she cried. "It's gone!"
"What is it, Mrs. Pinkney?" asked Agnes sympathetically, seeing that the
woman's eyes were overflowing again. "What is it you miss?"
"Oh! he is determined I am sure to run away for good this time," sobbed
Mrs. Pinkney. "The poor, foolish boy! I wish I had said nothing to him
about the beets--I do. I wonder if both his father and I have not been
too harsh with him. And I'm sure he loves us. Just think of his taking
_that_."
"But what is it?" cried Agnes again.
"It stood right here on his bureau propped up against the glass. Sammy
must have thought a great deal of it," flowed on the verbal torrent.
"Who would have thought of that boy being so sentimental about it?"
"Mrs. Pinkney!" begged the curious Agnes, almost distracted herself now,
"_do_ tell me what it is that is missing?"
"That picture. We had it taken--his father and Sammy and me in a group
together--the last time we went to Pleasure Cove. Sammy begged to keep it
up here. And--now--the dear child--has--has carried--it--away with him!"
Mrs. Pinkney broke down utterly at this point. She was finally convinced
that at last Sammy had fulfilled his oft-repeated threat to "run away
for good and all"--whether to be a pirate or not, being a mooted
question.
Agnes comforted her as well as she could. But the poor woman felt that
she had not taken her son seriously enough, and that she could have
averted this present disaster in some way.
"She is quite distracted," Agnes said, on arriving home, repeating Aunt
Sarah's phrase. "Quite distracted."
"But if she is extracted," Dot proposed, "why doesn't she have Dr.
Forsyth come to see her?"
"Mercy, Dot!" admonished Tess. "_Dis_tracted, not _ex_tracted. You do so
mispronounce the commonest words."
"I don't, either," the smaller girl denied vigorously. "I don't
mispernounce any more than you do, Tess Kenway! You just make believe
you know so much."
"Dot! Mis_per_nounce! There you go again!"
This was a sore subject, and Ruth attempted to change the trend of the
little girls' thoughts by suggesting that Mrs. McCall needed some
groceries from a certain store situated away across town.
"If you can get Uncle Rufus to harness Scalawag you girls can drive over
to Penny & Marchant's for those things. And you can stop at Mr.
Howbridge's house with this note. He must be told about poor Luke's
injury."
"Why, Ruthie?" asked little Miss Inquisitive, otherwise Dot Kenway. "Mr.
Howbridge isn't Luke Shepard's guardian, too, is he?"
"Now, don't be a chatterbox!" exclaimed the elder sister, who was
somewhat harassed on this morning and did not care to explain to the
little folk just what she had in her mind.
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 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.
Scalawag was fat and lazy enough in any case. In the spring Neale had
plowed and harrowed the garden with him and on occasion he was harnessed
to a light cart for work about the place. His main duty, however, was to
draw the smaller girls about the quieter streets of Milton in a basket
phaeton. To this vehicle he was now harnessed by Uncle Rufus.
"You want to be mought' car'ful 'bout them automobiles, chillun," the
old man admonished them. "Dat Sammy Pinkney boy was suah some good once
in a while. He was a purt' car'ful driber."
"But he's a good driver _now_--wherever he is," said Dot. "You talk as
though Sammy would never get back home from being a pirate. Of course he
will. He always does!"
Secretly Tess felt herself to be quite as able to drive the pony as ever
Sammy Pinkney was. She was glad to show her prowess.
Scalawag shook his head, danced playfully on the old stable floor, and
then proceeded to wheel the basket phaeton out of the barn and into
Willow Street. By a quieter thoroughfare than Main Street, Tess Kenway
headed him for the other side of town.
"Maybe we'll run across Sammy," suggested Dot, sitting sedately with her
ever-present Alice-doll. "Then we can tell his mother where he is being
a pirate. She won't be so extracted then."
Tess overlooked this mispronunciation, knowing it was useless to object,
and turned the subject by saying:
"Or maybe we'll see those Gypsies."
"Oh, I hope not!" cried the smaller girl. "I hope we'll never see those
Gypsy women again."
For just at this time the Alice-doll was wearing the fretted silver
bracelet for a girdle.