The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 33

The party arrived home to find the Corner House lit up as though for a reception. But it was not in honor of their arrival. The telegram announcing Ruth's coming had scarcely been noticed by Mrs. McCall.

Mrs. McCall had recovered a measure of her composure and good sense; but she could scarcely welcome the guests properly. Aunt Sarah Maltby had gone to bed, announcing that she was utterly prostrated and should never get up again unless Tess and Dot were found. Linda and Uncle Rufus were equally distracted.

"But where are Agnes and Neale?" Ruth demanded, very white and determined. "What are they doing?"

"They started out in the machine around eight o'clock," explained Mrs.

McCall. "They are searching high and low for the puir bairns."

"All alone?" gasped Ruth.

"Mr. Pinkney has gone with them. And I believe they were to pick up a constable. That Neale O'Neil declares he will raid every Gypsy camp and tramp's roost in the county. And Sammy's father took a pistol with him."

"And you let Agnes go with them!" murmured Ruth. "Suppose she gets shot?"

"My maircy!" cried the housekeeper, clasping her hands. "I never thought about that pistol being dangerous, any more than Uncle Rufus's gun with the broken hammer."

CHAPTER XXIV--THE CAPTIVES

That ride, shut in the Gypsy van, was one that neither Tess nor Dot nor Sammy Pinkney were likely soon to forget. The car plunged along the country road, and the distance the party traveled was considerable, although the direction was circuitous and did not, after two hours, take the Gypsy clan much farther from Milton than they had been at the previous camp.

By eleven o'clock they pulled off the road into a little glade that had been well known to the leaders of the party. A new camp was established in a very short time. Tents were again erected, fires kindled for the late supper, and the life of the Gypsy town was re-begun.

But Sammy and the two little Corner House girls were forbidden to leave the van in which they had been made to ride.

Big Jim came over himself, banged Sammy with his broad palm, and told him:

"You keep-a them here--you see? If those kids get out, I knock you good. See?"

Sammy saw stars at least! He would not answer the man. There was something beside stubbornness to Sammy Pinkney. But stubbornness stood him in good stead just now.

"Don't you mind, Tess and Dot," he whispered, his own voice broken with half-stifled sobs. "I'll get you out of it. We'll run away first chance we get."

"But it never does _you_ any good to run away, Sammy," complained Tess. "You only get into trouble. Dot and I don't want to be beaten by that man. He is horrid."

"I wish we could see those nice ladies who sold us the basket," wailed Dot, quite desperate now. "I--I'd be _glad_ to give 'em back the bracelet."

"Sh!" hissed Sammy. "We'll run away and we'll take the bracelet along.

These Gyps sha'n't ever get it again, so there!"

"Humph! I don't see what you have to say about _that_, Sammy," scoffed Tess. "If the women own it, of course they have got to have it. But I don't want that Big Jim to have it--not at all!"

"He won't get it. You leave it to me," said Sammy, with recovered a.s.surance.

The van door was neither locked nor barred. But if the children had stepped out of it the firelight would have revealed their figures instantly to the Gypsies.

Either the women bending over the pots and pans at the fires or the children running about the encampment would have raised a hue and cry if the little captives had attempted to run away. And there were a dozen burly men sitting about, smoking and talking and awaiting the call to supper.

This meal was finally prepared. The fumes from the pots reached the nostrils of Tess, Dot, and Sammy, and they were all ravenously hungry.

Nor were they denied food. The Gypsies evidently had no intention of maltreating the captives in any particular as long as they obeyed and did not try to escape.

One young woman brought a great pan of stew and bread and three spoons to the van and set it on the upper step for the children.

"You eat," said she, smiling, and the firelight shining on her gold earrings. "It do you goot--yes?"

"Oh, Miss Gypsy!" begged Tess, "we want to go home."

"That all right. Beeg Jeem tak-a you. To-morrow, maybe."

She went away hurriedly. But she had left them a plentiful supper. The three were too ravenous to be delicate. They each seized a spoon and, as Sammy advised, "dug in."

"This is the way all Gypsies eat," he said, proud of his knowledge.

"Sometimes the men use their pocket knives to cut up the meat. But they don't seem to have any forks. And I guess forks aren't necessary anyway."

"But they are nicer than fingers," objected Tess.

"Huh? Are they?" observed the young barbarian.

After they had completely cleared the pan of every sc.r.a.p and eaten every crumb of bread and drunk the milk that had been brought to them in a quart cup, Dot naturally gave way to sleepiness. She began to whimper a little too.

"If that big, bad Gypsy man doesn't take us home pretty soon I shall have to sleep here, Sister," she complained.

"You lie right down on this bench," said Tess kindly, "and I will cover you up and you can sleep as long as you want to."

So Dot did this. But Sammy was not at all sleepy. His mind was too active for that. He was prowling about the more or less littered van.

"Say!" he whispered to Tess, "there is a little window here in the front overlooking the driver's seat. And it swings on a hinge like a door."

"I don't care, Sammy. I--I'm sleepy, too," confessed Tess, with a yawn behind her hand.

"Say! don't _you_ go to sleep like a big kid," snapped the boy. "We've got to get away from these Gyps."

"I thought you were going to stay with them forever."

"Not to let that Big Jim bang me over the head. Not much!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sammy fiercely. "If my father saw him do that--"

"But your father isn't here. If he was--"

"If he was you can just bet," said Sammy with confidence, "that Big Jim would not dare hit me."

"I--I wish your father would come and take us all home then," went on Tess, with another yawn.

"Well," admitted Sammy, "I wish he would, too. Crickey! but it's awful to have girls along, whether you are a pirate or a Gypsy."

"You needn't talk!" snapped Tess, quite tart for her. "We did not ask to come. And you were here 'fore we got here. And now you can't get away any more than Dot and I can."