The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 17

"Better not let Ruth hear you use that expression, child," laughed Agnes. "But what about being observant--or _un_observant?"

"He told us," Tess went on to say, "to watch closely, and then asked for somebody to give him a number. So somebody said thirty-two."

"Yes?"

"And Mr. Marks went to the board and wrote twenty-three on it. Of course, none of us said anything. Then Mr. Marks asked for another number and somebody gave him ninety-four. Then he wrote forty-nine on the board, and n.o.body said a word."

"Why didn't you?" asked Agnes in wonder. "Did you think he was teaching you some new game?"

"I--I guess we were too polite. You see, he was a visitor. And he said right out loud to our teacher: 'You see, they do not observe. Is it dense stupidity, or just inattention?' That's _just_ what he said,"

added Tess, her eyes flashing.

"Oh!" murmured Dot. "Didn't he know how to write the number right?"

"So," continued Tess, "I guess we all felt sort of hurt. And Belle Littleweed got so fidgety that she raised her hand. Mr. Marks says: 'Very well, you give me a number.'

"Belle lisps a little, you know, Aggie, and she said right out: 'Theventy-theven; thee if you can turn that around!' He didn't think we noticed anything, and were stupid; but I guess he knows better now," added Tess with satisfaction.

"That is all right," said Agnes with a sigh. "I heartily wish you and Dot had been observant when those women gave you the basket and you had found the bracelet in it before they got away. It is going to make us trouble I am afraid."

Agnes told the little ones nothing about the strange junkman and his claim. Nor did she mention the affair to any of the remainder of the Corner House family. She only added:

"So don't you take the bracelet out of the house or let anybody at all have it--if Neale or I are not here."

"Why, it would not be right to give the bracelet to anybody but the Gypsy ladies, would it?" said Tess.

"Of course not," agreed Dot. "And _they_ haven't come after it."

Agnes did not notice these final comments of the two smaller girls.

She had given them instructions, and those instructions were sufficient, she thought, to avert any trouble regarding the mysterious bracelet--whether it was "Queen Alma's" or not.

The junkman, Costello, certainly had filled Agnes' mind with most romantic imaginations! If the old silver bracelet was a Gypsy heirloom and had been handed down through the Costello tribe--as the junkman claimed--for three hundred years and more, of course it would not be considered stolen property.

The mystery remained why the Gypsy women had left the bracelet in the basket they had almost forced upon the Kenway children. The explanation of this was quite beyond Agnes, unless it had been done because the Gypsy women feared that this very Costello was about to claim the heirloom, and they considered it safer with Tess and Dot than in their own possession. True, this seemed a far-fetched explanation of the affair; yet what so probable?

The Gypsies might be quite familiar with Milton, and probably knew a good deal about the old Corner House and the family now occupying it.

The little girls would of course be honest. The Gypsies were shrewd people. They were quite sure, no doubt, that the Kenways would not give the bracelet to any person but the women who sold the basket, unless the right to the property could be proved.

"And even if that Costello man does own the bracelet, how is he going to prove it?" Agnes asked Neale, as they ran the car out of the garage after dinner. "I guess we are going to hand dear old Mr. Howbridge a big handful of trouble."

"Crickey! isn't that a fact?" grumbled Neale. "The more I think of it, the sorrier I am we put that advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper, Aggie."

There was nothing more to be said about that at the time, for Mr.

Pinkney was already waiting for them on his front steps. His wife was at the door and she looked so weary-eyed and pale of face that Agnes at least felt much sympathy for her.

"Oh, don't worry, Mrs. Pinkney!" cried the girl from her seat beside Neale. "I am sure Sammy will turn up all right. Neale says so--everybody says so! He is such a plucky boy, anyway. Nothing would happen to him."

"But this seems worse than any other time," said the poor woman. "He must have never meant to come back, or he would not have taken that picture with him."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed her husband cheerfully. "Sammy sort of fancied himself in that picture, that is all. He is not without his share of vanity."

"That is what _you_ say," complained Sammy's mother. "But I just feel that something dreadful has happened to him this time."

"Never mind," called Neale, starting the engine, "we'll go over the hills and far away, but we'll find some trace of him, Mrs. Pinkney.

Sammy can't have hidden himself so completely that we cannot discover where he has been and where he is going."

That is exactly what they did. They flew about the environs of Milton in a rapid search for the truant. Wherever they stopped and made inquiries for the first hour or so, however, they gained no word of Sammy.

It was three o'clock, and they were down toward the ca.n.a.l on the road leading to Hampton Mills, when they gained the first possible clue of the missing one. And that clue was more than twenty-four hours old.

A storekeeper remembered a boy who answered to Sammy's description buying something to eat the day before, and sitting down on the store step to eat it. That boy carried a heavy extension-bag and went on after he had eaten along the Hampton Mills road.

"We've struck his trail!" declared Neale with satisfaction. "Don't you think so, Mr. Pinkney?"

"How did he pay you for the things he bought?" asked the father of the runaway, addressing the storekeeper again. "What kind of money did he have?"

"He had ten cent pieces, I remember. And he had them tied in a handkerchief. Nicked his bank before he started, did he?" and the man laughed.

"That is exactly what he did," admitted Mr. Pinkney, returning hurriedly to the car. "Drive on, Neale. I guess we are on the right trail."

CHAPTER XIV--ALMOST HAD HIM

Neale drove almost recklessly for the first few miles after pa.s.sing the roadside store; but the eyes of all three people in the car were very wide open and their minds observant. Anything or anybody that might give trace of the truant Sammy were scrutinized.

"He was at that store before noon," Agnes shouted into Neale's ear.

"How long before he would be hungry again?"

"No knowing. Pretty soon, of course," admitted her chum. "But I heard that storekeeper tell Mr. Pinkney that the boy bought more than he could eat at once and he carried the rest away in a paper bag."

"That is so," admitted Mr. Pinkney, leaning over the forward seat.

"But he has an appet.i.te like a boa constrictor."

"A _boy_-constrictor," chuckled Neale. "I'll say he has!"

"He would not likely stop anywhere along here to buy more food, then,"

Agnes said.

"He could have gone off the road, however, for a dozen different things," said the missing boy's father. "That child has got more crotchets in his head than you can shake a stick at. There is no knowing--"

"Hold on!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Neale suddenly. "There are some kids down there by that pond. Suppose I run down and interview them?"

"I don't see anybody among them who looks like Sammy," observed Agnes, standing up in the car to look.

"Never mind. You go ahead, Neale. They will talk to you more freely, perhaps, than they will to me. Boys are that way."