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.”
CHAPTER III – SAMMY PINKNEY IN TROUBLE
Uncle Rufus, who was general factotum about the old Corner House and even acted as butler on “date and state occasions,” was a very brown man with a shiny bald crown around three-quarters of the circumference of which was a hedge of white wool. Aided by Neale O’Neil (who still insisted on earning a part of his own support in spite of the fact that Mr. Jim O’Neil, his father, expected in time to be an Alaskan millionaire gold-miner), Uncle Rufus did all of the chores about the place. And those chores were multitudinous.
Besides the lawns and the flower gardens to care for, there was a good-sized vegetable garden to weed and to hoe. Uncle Rufus suffered from what he called a “misery” in his back that made it difficult for him to stoop to weed the small plants in the garden.
“I don’t know, Missy Ruth,” complained the old darkey to the eldest Corner House girl, “how I’s goin’ to get that bed of winter beets weeded – I dunno, noways. My misery suah won’t let me stoop down to them rows, and there’s a big patch of ’em.”
“Do they need weeding right now, Uncle Rufus?”
“Suah do, Missy. Dey is sufferin’ fo’ hit. I’d send wo’d for some o’ mah daughter Pechunia’s young ‘uns to come over yere, but I knows dat all o’ them that’s big enough to work is reg’larly employed by de farmers out dat a-way. Picking crops for de canneries is now at de top-notch, Missy; and even Burnejones Whistler and Louise-Annette is big enough to pick beans.”
“Goodness me!” exclaimed Agnes, who overheard the old man’s complaint. “There ought to be kids enough around these corners to hire, without sending to foreign lands for any. They are always under foot if you don’t want them.”
“Ain’t it de truf?” chuckled the old man. “Usual’ I can’t look over de hedge without spyin’ dat Sammy Pinkney and a dozen of his crew. They’s jest as plenty as bugs under a chip. But now – ”
“Well, why not get Sammy?” interrupted Ruth.
“He ought to be of some use, that is sure,” added Agnes.
“Can yo’ put yo’ hand on dat boy?” demanded Uncle Rufus. “‘Nless he’s in mischief I don’t know where to look for him.”
“I can find him all right,” Agnes declared. “But I cannot guarantee that he will take the job.”
“Offer him fifty cents to weed those beet rows,” Ruth said briskly. “The bed I see is just a mat of weeds.” They had walked down to the garden while the discussion was going on. “If Sammy will do it I’ll be glad to pay the half dollar.”
She bustled away about some other domestic matter; for despite the fact that Mrs. McCall bore the greater burden of housekeeping affairs, Ruth Kenway did not shirk certain responsibilities that fell to her lot both outside and inside the Corner House.
After all was said and done, Sammy Pinkney looked upon Agnes as his friend. She was more lenient with him than even Dot was. Ruth and Tess looked upon most boys as merely “necessary evils.” But Agnes had always liked to play with boys and was willing to overlook their shortcomings.
“I got a lot to do,” ventured Sammy, shying as usual at the idea of work. “But if you really want me to, Aggie – ”
“And if you want to make a whole half dollar,” suggested Agnes, not much impressed by the idea that Sammy would weed beets as a favor.
“All right,” agreed the boy, and shooing Buster, his bulldog, out of the Corner House premises, for Buster and Billy Bumps, the goat, were sworn enemies, Sammy proceeded to the vegetable garden.
Now, both Uncle Rufus and Agnes particularly showed Sammy which were the infant beets and which the weeds. It is a fact, however, that there are few garden plants grown for human consumption that do not have their counterpart among the noxious weeds.
The young beets, growing in scattered clumps in the row (for each seed-burr contains a number of seeds), looked much like a certain weed of the lambs’-quarters variety; and this reddish-green weed pretty well covered the beet bed.
Tess and Dot had gone to a girls’ party at Mrs. Adams’, just along on Willow Street, that afternoon, so they did not appear to disturb Sammy at his task. In fact, the boy had it all his own way. Neither Uncle Rufus nor any other older person came near him, and he certainly made a thorough job of that beet bed.
Mrs. McCall “set great store,” as she said, by beets – both pickled and fresh – for winter consumption. When Neale O’Neil chanced to go into the garden toward supper time to see
