In this present instance Sammy Pinkney was not obliged to exert his
imagination to any very great degree to make himself believe that he was
having real adventure. Romance very soon took the embryo pirate by the
hand and led him into most exciting and quite unlooked-for events.
Sammy's progress was slow because of the weight of the extension-bag.
Yet as he trudged on steadily he put a number of miles behind him that
afternoon.
Had his parents known in which direction to look for him they might
easily have overtaken the runaway. Neale O'Neil could have driven out
this road in the Kenway's car and brought Sammy back before supper time.
Mr. Pinkney, however, labored under the delusion that because Sammy was
piratically inclined, he would head toward the sea. So he got in touch
with people all along the railroad line to Pleasant Cove, suspecting
that the boy might have purchased a ticket in that direction with a part
of the contents of his burglarized bank.
The nearest thing to the sea that Sammy came to after passing the canal
on the edge of Milton was a big pond which he sighted about
mid-afternoon. Its dancing blue waters looked very cool and refreshing,
and the young traveler thought of his bathing suit right away.
"I can hide this bag and take a swim," he thought eagerly. "I bet that
pond is all right. Hullo! There's some kids. I wonder if they would
steal my things if I go in swimming?"
He was not incautious. Being mischievously inclined himself, he
suspected other boys of having similar propensities. The boys he had
observed were playing down by the water's edge where an ice-house had
once stood. But the building had been destroyed by fire, all but its
roof. The eaves of this shingled roof, which was quite intact, now
rested on the ground.
The boys were sliding from the ridge of the roof to the ground, and then
climbing up again to repeat the performance. It looked to be a lot of
fun.
After Sammy had hidden his extension-bag in a clump of bushes, he
approached the slide. One boy, who was the largest and oldest of the
group, called to Sammy:
"Come on, kid. Try it. The slide's free."
It looked to be real sport, and Sammy could not resist the invitation
given so frankly. He saw that the bigger boy sat on a piece of board
when he slid down the shingles; but the others slid on the seat of their
trousers--and so did Sammy.
It proved to be an hilarious occasion. One might have heard those boys
shouting and laughing a mile away.
A series of races were held, and Sammy Pinkney managed to win his share
of them. This so excited him that he failed for all of the time to
notice what fatal effect the friction was having upon his trousers.
He was suddenly reminded, however, by a startling happening. All the
shingles on that roof were not worn smooth. Some were "splintery." Sammy
emitted a sharp cry as he reached the ground after a particularly swift
descent of the roof, and rising, he clapped his hand to that part of his
anatomy upon which he had been tobogganing, with a most rueful
expression on his countenance.
"Oh, my! Oh, my!" cried Sammy. "I've got two big holes worn right
through my pants! My good pants, too. My maw will give me fits, so she
will. I'll never _dare_ go home now."
The big boy who had saved his own trousers from disaster by using the
piece of board to slide on, shouted with laughter. But another of the
party said to Sammy:
"Don't tell your mother. I aren't going to tell _my_ mother, you bet. By
and by she'll find the holes and think they just wore through
naturally."
"Well," said Sammy, with a sigh, "I guess I've slid down enough for
to-day, anyway. Good-bye, you fellers, I'll see you later."
He did not feel at all as cheerful as he spoke. He was really smitten
with remorse, for this was almost a new suit he had on. He wished
heartily that he had put on that cowboy suit--even his bathing
suit--before joining that coasting party.
"That big feller," grumbled Sammy, "is a foxy one, he is! He didn't wear
through his pants, you bet. But _me_--"
Sammy was very much lowered in his own estimation over this mishap. He
was by no means so smart as he had believed himself to be. He felt
gingerly from time to time of the holes in his trousers. They were of
such a nature that they could scarcely be hidden.
"Crickey!" he muttered, "she sure will give me fits."
The boys he had been playing with disappeared. Sammy secured his bag and
suddenly found it very, very heavy. Evening was approaching. The sun was
so low now that its almost level rays shone into his eyes as he plodded
along the road.
A farmer going to Milton market in an auto-truck, its load covered with
a brown tarpaulin, passed Sammy. If it had not been for the holes in his
trousers, and what his mother would do and say about it, the boy surely
would have asked the farmer for a ride back home!
His hesitancy cost him the ride. And he met nobody else on this road he
was traveling. He struggled on, his courage beginning to ebb. He had
eaten the last crumbs of his lunch. After the pond was out of sight
behind him the runaway saw no dwellings at all. The road had entered a
wood, and that wood grew thicker and darker as he advanced.
Fireflies twinkled in the bushes. There was a hum of insect life and
somewhere a big bullfrog tuned his bassoon--a most eerie sound. A bat
flew low above his head and Sammy dodged, uttering a startled squawk.
"Crickey! I don't like this a bit," he panted.
But the runaway was no coward. He was quite sure that there was nothing
in these woods that would really hurt him. He could still see some
distance back from the road on either hand, and he selected a big
chestnut tree at the foot of which, between two roots, there was a
hollow filled with leaves and trash.
This made not a bad couch, as he very soon found. He thrust the bag that
had become so heavy farther into the hollow and lay down before it. But
tired as he was, he could not at once go to sleep.
Somewhere near he heard a trickle of water. The sound made the boy
thirsty. He finally got up and stumbled through the brush, along the
roadside in the direction of the running water.
He found it--a spring rising in the bank above the road. Sammy carried a
pocket-cup and soon satisfied his thirst by its aid. He had some
difficulty in finding his former nest; but when he did come to the
hollow between two huge roots, with the broadly spreading chestnut tree
boughs overhead, he soon fell asleep.
Nothing disturbed Sammy thereafter until it was broad daylight. He awoke
as much refreshed as though he had slept in his own bed at home.
Young muscles recover quickly from strain. All he remembered, too, was
the fun he had had the day before, while he was foot-loose. Even the
disaster to his trousers seemed of little moment now. He had always
envied ragged urchins; they seemed to have so few cares and nobody to
bother them.
He ran with a whoop to the spring, drank his fill from it, and then
doused his face and hands therein. The sun and air dried his head after
his ablutions and there was nobody to ask if "he had washed behind his
ears."
He returned to the chestnut tree where he had lain all night, whistling.
Of course he was hungry; but he believed there must be some house along
the road where he could buy breakfast. Sammy Pinkney was not at all
troubled by his situation until, stooping to look into the cavity near
which he had slept, he made the disconcerting discovery that his
extension-bag was not there!
"Wha--wha--_what_?" stammered Sammy. "It's gone! Who took it?"
That he had been robbed while he went to the spring was the only
explanation there could be of this mysterious disappearance. At least,
so thought Sammy.
He ran around the tree, staring all about--even up into the thickly
leaved branches where the clusters of green burrs were already formed.
Then he plunged through the fringe of bushes into the road to see if he
could spy the robber making away in either direction.
All he saw was a rabbit hopping placidly across the highway. A jay flew
overhead with raucous call, as though he laughed at the bereft boy. And
Sammy Pinkney was in no mood to stand being laughed at!
"You mean old thing!" he shouted at the flashing jay--which merely
laughed at him again, just as though he did know who had stolen Sammy's
bag and hugely enjoyed the joke.
In that bag were many things that Sammy considered precious as well as
necessary articles of clothing. There was his gun and the shot for it!
How could he defend himself from attack or shoot game in the wilds, if
either became necessary?
"Oh, dear!" Sammy finally sniffed, not above crying a few tears as there
was nobody by to see. "Oh, dear! Now I've _got_ to wear this good
suit--although 'tain't so good anyway with holes in the pants.
"But all my other things--crickey! Ain't it just mean? Whoever took my
bag, I hope he'll have the baddest kind of luck. I--I hope he'll have to
go to the dentist's and have all his teeth pulled, so I do!" which, from
a recent experience of the runaway, seemed the most painful punishment
that could be exacted from the thief.
Wishing any amount of ill-fortune for the robber would not bring back
his bag. Sammy quite realized this. He had his money safely tied into a
very grubby handkerchief, so that was all right. But when he started off
along the road at last, he was in no very cheerful frame of mind.