The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 14

As they came out there was Joe Maroni himself, the neat, smiling, brown little Italian in his corduroy suit and with gold rings in his ears, ready waiting with a basket piled high with fruit.

"For the leetle padrona," Joe said, with a smiling bow, sending his usual gift to Ruth, whom he considered a grand signora and, as his "landlady," deserving of such thoughtful attentions.

"Aw, say!" cried Sammy his eyes growing big; "that's scrumptious."

"But they are for Ruthie," complained Dot. "We'll have to lug them all around with us--and no knowing when we'll get home from being pirates."

"Get _home_!" snorted the boy. "Why, we can't never go home again. If they catch us they'll hang us in chains."

Dot's mouth became suddenly a round "O" and nothing more, while her eyes Neale O'Neil would have said had he seen them, "bulged out." The a.s.surance in Sammy's tone seemed final. She could not go home again! And "hanging in chains" somehow had an awfully creepy sound.

But as the boy himself did not seem to take these terrible possibilities very seriously, Dot took comfort from that fact and went on again cheerfully. Nor did she mind carrying the basket of attractive fruit.

One of the peaches on top was a little mellow and she stuck a tentative finger into the most luscious spot she could see upon the cheek of that particular peach.

The juice was just as sweet! She touched it with her finger again and then put the finger to her lips.

By this time they had come out of Meadow Street and were crossing the open common toward the ca.n.a.l. On one hand was a blacksmith shop, and the smith was getting ready to shoe a pair of mules which, with drooping ears and saddened aspect, waited in the shade.

There was no moving boat on the ca.n.a.l and nothing stirring along the towpath. But a battered looking old barge was moored to the nigh bank, and Sammy's face brightened.

"Come on, Dot," he said, glancing back at the little girl. "There's a ship and I guess there isn't anybody aboard. Anyhow, if there is, we'll fight our way over the bulwarks, kill half the crew, and make the others walk the plank. That is what pirates would do."

"Oo-ee!" squealed Dot--and she dropped the basket of fruit.

"Aw, say!" growled Sammy. "What kind of a pirate will _you_ make? Of course we have to do what all pirates do."

But it was not anything to do with the true business of pirating that had brought forth that squeal from Dot Kenway. Just as she had been about to touch that peach again with her pink finger, where the sweet juice was oozing out, a great ugly, yellow wasp came along and lit right on that juicy spot!

"Oo-ee!" squealed Dot again. Sammy valiantly came to the rescue, and beat away the "stinger" with his cap. But he carried the fruit himself, as well as the bag of other provisions, the rest of the way to the ca.n.a.lboat.

"Can't trust you with it, Dot," he declared. "You'd have the things all mush if you dropped them every time you saw a bee."

"I don't like bees," declared his little comrade.

"And you was one yourself, once," grinned Sammy. "In that show, you know."

"Oh, but I didn't sting anybody," the little girl replied. "I wouldn't be so mean!"

"How do you know this fellow was going to sting you?" demanded Sammy.

"Why, Sammy Pinkney! Of course he was!" declared Dot, earnestly. "I--I could see it right in his face! He was _so_ ugly."

The ca.n.a.lboat was high out of the water, for its hold was empty; but the runaways climbed aboard easily. Sammy was as brave as a lion. He proposed to take possession of the craft and drive ash.o.r.e anybody who might already be there. Only, there was n.o.body aboard.

"The crew maybe saw us coming and deserted her," he said to Dot. "Lots of 'em do. When they see the Black Roger flying at our peak--"

"What's the Black Roger?" demanded Dot, big-eyed again. She was gaining considerable information regarding pirates and "pirating."

"Our flag. And when the crews of the merchant ships see it, they tremble," went on Sammy.

"But we haven't got any flag," said the rather literal Dot. "You know we haven't, Sammy."

"Well," he returned cheerfully, "we'll have to make one. I made one once. I got one of my father's handkerchiefs, and blacked it with ma's liquid s...o...b..acking, all but white spots in the center for a skull and crossbones. But--but," he admitted, "ma took it away from me."

"Never mind," said Dot, kindly. "I've got a handkerchief," and she pulled forth from her pocket a diminutive bit of cambric. "You get some s...o...b..acking and we'll make another."

Sammy was for getting settled at once, and he went to the door of the decked over cabin intending to put their possessions inside. But the door was made fast with a big padlock.

However, a hatch cover was off one of the hatchways, and the sunshine shone down into the hold of the ca.n.a.lboat. It seemed dry and comfortable just under this opening and there was a rough ladder which gave access to the hold. Sammy went down first; then Dot delivered the package of groceries into his arms, then the basket of fruit, and lastly backed over the edge herself in a most gingerly way, and was helped down gallantly by the pirate chief.

"Now what'll we do, Sammy?" asked the little girl eagerly.

"We'll unpack our things first," said Sammy. "Then I'll rig up a fish-line. We'll have to catch fish to help out with the rest of the grub," added the practical youngster.

"But not with worms!" cried Dot, with a shudder. "If you bring any of those horrid, squirmy worms aboard this boat, I--I'll just go right home and not be pirates any more."

"Oh! All right," said the scornful Sammy, who found "female pirates"

rather more trying than he had supposed. "I'll fish with gra.s.shoppers."

"We-ell," agreed Dot. "Only don't let 'em jump on me. For if they do I'll scream-- I know I shall, Sammy."

"Pooh! Pirates don't scream," growled the boy.

"Not--not even girl pirates?"

"No," said the boy doggedly. "'Taint the thing to do. We got to be real savage and--"

"Oh, but, Sammy!" gasped the little girl, "I couldn't be savage to a gra.s.shopper."

However, they unpacked their provisions and arranged them on a board.

Dot really could not keep her finger off that mellow peach.

"I don't believe Ruthie would mind," she said at last. "And, anyway, it's getting so juicy that maybe it wouldn't be good by the time we got home--"

"Don't I tell you we ain't going home no more!" demanded Sammy.

"Er--well, then I guess we'd better eat the peach to save it," said the little girl, with some hesitancy. "You cut it in half, Sammy," she added with more decision.

Inroads were made upon most of the other provisions within the first hour. For, indeed, what else is there more interesting in being pirates than using up the food laid in for a voyage? Sammy had spent his two dollars with the cheerfulness and judgment of a sailor ash.o.r.e with his pay in his pocket. And he did not propose to let any greedy little girl eat her share and his own of their stock.

Several times Sammy ran up the ladder to examine the vicinity of the _Nancy Hanks_, as the battered old ca.n.a.lboat was named--its t.i.tle being painted in big letters along either side of the decked-over cabin, which was a little higher than the remainder of the deck--but the pirate chief sighted no prey on the ca.n.a.l. The waters of that raging main seemed deserted of all craft whatsoever.

Suddenly, however, he sighted an approaching group. It came from the direction of the blacksmith shop. The mules they had seen waiting to be shod ambled ahead at a pace warranted to bring them to the towpath in time. Behind, at the same gait, came a tall, shambling man, what appeared to be a girl some twelve years of age in tattered calico, and shoeless, and a droop-eared, forlorn, yellow hound.

"Hist!" said Sammy, down the well of the hold.

Dot did not know just what to reply to this thrilling summons, but she ventured to ask: