Up to this time Tess and Dot Kenway had heard nothing about the Gypsy
junkman haunting the house at night, or about other threatening things
connected with the wonderful silver bracelet.
Their young minds were quite as excited about the ornament as in the
beginning, however; for in the first place they had to keep run
exactly of whose turn it was to "wear" the Gypsies' gift.
"I don't see what we'll do about it when Alice grows up," Dot said.
She was always looking forward in imagination to the time when her
favorite doll should become adult. "She will want to wear that belt,
Tess, for evening dress. You know, a lady's jewelry should belong to
her."
"I'm not going to give up my share to your Alice-doll," announced
Tess, quite firmly for her. "And, anyway, you must not be so sure that
it is going to be ours all the time. See! Aggie says we can't take it
out of the house to play with."
"I don't care!" whined Dot. "I don't want to give it back to those
Gypsy ladies."
"Neither do I. But we must of course, if we can find them. Honest is
honest."
"It--it's awful uncomfortable to be so dreadful' honest," blurted out
the smaller girl. "And I think they meant us to have the bracelet."
"All right, then. It's only polite to offer it back to them. Then if
they don't want it we'll know that it is ours and even Ruth won't say
anything."
"But--but when my Alice-doll grows up--"
"Now, don't be a little piggie, Dot Kenway!" exclaimed Tess, rather
crossly. "When your wrist gets big enough so the bracelet won't slip
over your hand so easy, you will want to wear it yourself--just as I
do. And Agnes wants it, too."
"Oh! But it's ours--if it isn't the Gypsy ladies'," Dot hastened to
say.
Two claimants for the ornament were quite enough. She did not wish to
hear of any other people desiring to wear it.
As it chanced, Tess and Dot heard about the Gypsy encampment on the
Buckshot Road through the tongue of neighborhood gossip, quite as had
Sammy's mother. Margaret and Holly Pease heard the store man tell
their mother; and having enviously eyed the silver bracelet in the
possession of the Kenway girls, they ran to tell the latter about the
Gypsies.
"They've come back," declared Margaret decidedly, "to look for that
bracelet you've got. You'll see them soon enough."
"Oh, Margie! do you think so?" murmured Tess, while Dot was
immediately so horror-stricken that tears came to her eyes.
"Maybe they will bring the police and have you locked up," continued
the cheerful Pease child. "You know they might accuse you of stealing
the bracelet."
"We never!" wailed Dot. "We never! They gave it to us!"
"Well, they are going to take it back, so now!" Margaret Pease
declared.
"I don't think it is nice of you to say what you do, Margie," said
Tess. "Everybody knows we are honest. Why! if Dot and I knew how to
find them, we would take the bracelet right to the Gypsy ladies.
Wouldn't we, Dot?"
"But--but we don't know where to find them," blurted out the youngest
Corner House girl.
"You can find them I guess--out on the Buckshot Road."
"We don't know that _our_ Gypsy ladies are there," said Tess, with
some defiance.
"You don't dare go to see," said Margaret Pease.
It was a question to trouble the minds of Tess and Dot. Should they
try to find the Gypsies, and see if the very ladies who had given them
the bracelet were in that encampment?
At least it was a leading question in Tess Kenway's mind. It must be
confessed that Dot only hoped it would prove a false alarm. She was
very grateful to the strange Gypsy women for having put the silver
ornament in the green and yellow basket; but she hoped never to see
those two kind women again!
The uncertainty was so great in both of the small girls' minds that
they said nothing at all about it in the hearing of any other member
of the family. Had Ruth been at home they might have confided in her.
They had always confided everything to their eldest sister. But just
now the two smaller Corner House girls were living their own lives,
very much shut away from the existence Agnes, for instance, was
leading.
Agnes had a secret--several of them, indeed. She did not take Tess and
Dot into her confidence. So, if for no other reason, the smaller girls
did not talk to Agnes about the Gypsies.
The Kenways owned some tenement property in a much poorer part of the
town than that prominent corner on which the Corner House stood. Early
in their coming to Milton from Bloomsburg, the Corner House girls had
become acquainted with the humble tenants whose rents helped swell the
funds which Mr. Howbridge cared for and administered.
Some of these poorer people, especially the children near their own
age, interested the Kenway girls very much because they met these
poorer children in school. So when news was brought to Agnes one
afternoon (it was soon after lunch) that Maria Maroni, whose father
kept the coal, wood, ice and vegetable cellar in one of the Stower
houses and who possessed a wife and big family of children as well,
had been taken ill, Agnes was much disturbed.
Agnes liked Maria Maroni. Maria was very bright and forward in her
studies and was a pretty Italian girl, as well. The Maronis lived much
better than they once had, too. They now occupied one of the upstairs
tenements over Mrs. Kranz's delicatessen store, instead of all living
in the basement.
The boy who ran into the Kenway yard and told Agnes this while she was
tying up the gladioli stems after a particularly hard night's rain,
did not seem to be an Italian. Indeed, he was no boy that Agnes ever
remembered having seen before.
But tenants were changing all the time over there where Maria lived.
This might be a new boy in that neighborhood. And, anyway, Agnes was
not bothered in her mind much about the boy. It was Maria's illness
that troubled her.
"What is the matter with the poor girl?" Agnes wanted to know. "What
does the doctor say it is?"
"They ain't got no doc," said the boy. "She's just sick, Maria is. I
don't know what she's got besides."
This sounded bad enough to Agnes. And the fact that the sick girl had
no medical attention was the greater urge for the Kenway girl to do
something about it. Of course, Joe and his wife must have a doctor for
Maria at once.
Agnes went into the house and told Mrs. McCall about it. She even
borrowed the green and yellow basket from the little girls and packed
some jelly and a bowl of broth and other nice things to take to Maria
Maroni. The Kenways seldom went to the tenements empty-handed.
She would have taken Neale with her, only she felt that after their
incipient "quarrel" of the previous morning she did not care
immediately to make up with the boy. Sometimes she felt that Neale
O'Neil took advantage of her easy disposition.
So Agnes went off alone with her basket. Half an hour later a boy rang
the front door bell of the Corner House. He had a note for Mrs.
McCall. It was written in blue pencil, and while the housekeeper was
finding her reading glasses the messenger ran away so that she could
not question him.
The note purported to be from Hedden, Mr. Howbridge's butler. It said
that the lawyer had been "brought home" and had asked for Mrs. McCall
to be sent for. It urged expedition in her answer to the request, and
it threw Mrs. McCall into "quite a flutter" as she told Linda and Aunt
Sarah Maltby.
"The puir mon!" wailed the Scotch woman who before she came to the old
Corner House to care for the Kenway household had been housekeeper for
Mr. Howbridge himself for many years. "There is something sad happened
to him, nae doot. I must go awa' wi' me at aince. See to the bairns,
Miss Maltby, that's the good soul. Even Agnes is not in the hoose."
"Of course I will see to them--if it becomes necessary," said Aunt
Sarah.
Her idea of attending to the younger children, however, was to remain
in her own room knitting, only occasionally going to the head of the
back stairs to ask Linda if Tess and Dot were all right. The Finnish
girl's answer was always "Shure, Mum," and in her opinion Tess and Dot
were all right as long as she did not see that they were in trouble.
To tell the truth, Linda saw the smaller girls very little after Mrs.
McCall hurried out of the house to take the street car for the
lawyer's residence. Once Linda observed Tess and Dot in the side yard
talking to a boy through the pickets. She had no idea that the
sharp-featured boy was the same who had brought the news of Maria
Maroni's illness to Agnes, and the message from Hedden to Mrs. McCall!
The boy in question had come slowly along the pavement on Willow
Street, muttering to himself as he approached as though saying over
several sentences that he had learned by rote. He was quite evidently
a keen-minded boy, but he was not at all a trustworthy looking one.
Tess and Dot both saw him, and that he was a stranger made the little
girls eye him curiously. When he hailed them they were not quite sure
whether they ought to reply or not.
[Illustration: "They want that silver thing back. It wasn't meant for
you."]
"I guess you don't know us," Tess said doubtfully. "You don't belong
in this neighborhood."
"I know you all right," said the boy. "You're the two girls those
women sold the basket to. I know you."
"Oh!" gasped Tess.
"The Gypsy ladies!" murmured Dot.
"That's the one. They sold you the basket for forty-five cents. Didn't
they?"
"Yes," admitted Tess.
"And it's _ours_," cried Dot. "We paid for it."
"That's all right," said the boy slowly. "But you didn't buy what was
in it. No, sir! They want it back."
"Oh! The basket?" cried Tess.
"What you found in it."
The boy seemed very sure of what he was saying, but he spoke slowly.
"They want that silver thing back. It wasn't meant for you. It was a
mistake. You know very well it isn't yours. If you are honest--and you
told them you were--you will bring it back to them."
"Oh! They did ask us if we were honest," Tess said faintly. "And of
course we are. Aren't we, Dot?"
"Why--why-- Do we have to be so dreadful' honest," whispered the
smallest Corner House girl, quite borne down with woe.
"Of course we have. Just think of what Ruthie would say," murmured
Tess. Then to the boy: "Where are those ladies?"
"Huh?" he asked. "What ladies?"
"The Gypsy ladies we bought the basket from?"
"Oh, _them_?" he rejoined hurriedly, glancing along the street with
eagerness. "You go right out along this street," and he pointed in the
direction from which he had come. "You keep on walking until you reach
the brick-yard."
"Oh! Are they camped there?" asked Tess.
"No. But a man with an automobile will meet you there. He is a man who
will take you right to the Gypsy camp and bring you back again. Don't
be afraid, kids. It's all right."
He went away then, and the little girls could not call him back. They
wanted to ask further questions; but it was evident that the boy had
delivered his message and was not to be cross-examined.
"What _shall_ we do?" Tess exclaimed.
"Oh, let's wait. Let's wait till Ruth comes home," cried Dot, saying
something very sensible indeed.
But responsibility weighed heavily on Tess's mind. She considered that
if the Gypsy women wished their bracelet returned, it was her duty to
take it to them without delay. Besides, there was the man in the
automobile waiting for them.
Why the man had not come to the house with the car, or why he had not
brought the two Gypsy women to the Corner House, were queries that did
not occur to the little girls. If Tess Kenway was nothing else, she
was strictly honest.
"No," she sighed, "we cannot wait. We must go and see the women now. I
will go in and get the bracelet, Dot. Do you want your hat? Mrs.
McCall and Agnes are both away. We will have to go right over and tend
to this ourselves."