The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 19

Pinkney, accepting the supposition as a fact on the instant. "What will I ever say to Sam'l to-night when he comes home?"

"Well," said Tess, encouragingly, "I guess he won't spank Sammy for doing that. At least, I shouldn't think he would."

The older folk did not pay much attention to her philosophy. They were all more or less worried, including Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah. The latter displayed more trouble over Dot's absence than one might have expected, knowing the maiden lady's usual unattached manner of looking at all domestic matters.

Ruth, feeling more responsibility after all than anybody else--and perhaps with more anxious love in her heart for Dot than the others, for had she not had the princ.i.p.al care of Dot since babyhood?--could not be convinced now that all they could do was to wait.

"There must be some way of tracing them," she declared. "If they were over on Meadow Street somebody must have seen them after they left Mrs.

Kranz's store."

"That is the place to take up their trail, Ruth," Luke said. "Tell me how to find the store and I'll go down there and make enquiries."

"I will go with you," the eldest Corner House girl said quickly. "I know the people there and you don't."

"I'll go, too!" cried Agnes, wiping her eyes.

"No," said her sister decisively. "No use in more going. You remain at home with Tess and Cecile. I am much obliged to you, Luke. We'll start at once."

"And without your lunch?" cried Mrs. MacCall.

Ruth had no thought for lunch, and Luke denied all desire for the midday meal. "Come on!" he prophesied boldly, "we'll find those kids before we eat."

"Oh!" sighed Agnes, "I wish Neale O'Neil had not gone fishing. Then he could have chased around in the automobile and found those naughty children in a hurry."

"He would not know where to look for them any more than we do," her sister said. "All ready, Luke."

They set off briskly for the other side of town. Luke said:

"Wish I knew how to run an auto myself. That's going to be my very next addition to the sum of my knowledge. I could have taken you out in your car myself."

"Not without a license in this county," said Ruth. "And we'll do very well. I _hope_ nothing has happened to these children."

"Of course nothing has," he said comfortingly. "That is, nothing that a little soap and water and a spanking won't cure."

"No. Dot has never been punished in that way."

"But Sammy has--oft and again," chuckled Luke. "And of course he is to blame for this escapade."

"I'm not altogether sure of that," said the just Ruth, who knew Dot's temperament if anybody did. "It doesn't matter which is the most to blame. I want to find them."

But this was a task not easy to perform, as they soon found out after reaching Meadow Street. Certainly Mrs. Kranz remembered all about the children coming to her store that morning--all but one thing. She stuck to it that Dot had said they were going on a picnic. The word "pirates"

was strange to the ear of the German woman, so having misunderstood it the picnic idea was firmly fixed in her mind.

Maria Maroni had been too busy to watch which way Dot and Sammy went; nor did her father remember this important point. After leaving the store the runaways seemed to have utterly disappeared.

Ruth did not admit this woful fact until she had interviewed almost everybody she knew in the neighborhood. Sadie Goronofsky and her brothers and sisters scattered in all directions to find trace of Dot and Sammy. There was a mild panic when one child came shrieking into Mrs. Kranz's store that a little girl with a dog had been seen over by the blacksmith shop, and that she had been carried off on a ca.n.a.lboat.

"Them ca.n.a.lboatmen would steal anything, you bet," said Sadie Goronofsky, with confidence. "They're awful pad men--sure!"

Luke went down to the blacksmith shop and learned that the horsesh.o.e.r knew exactly who the ca.n.a.lboatman in question was. And he knew about the little girl seen with him as well.

"That's Cap'n Bill Quigg and Louise. She is his twelve year old gal--and as smart as Bill is lazy. The dog belongs to them. Ornery hound. Wasn't anybody with them, and the old _Nancy Hanks_, their barge, has gone on toward Durginville. Went along about the time it showered."

The thunderstorm that had pa.s.sed lightly over the edge of Milton had occurred before Ruth and Luke left the Corner House. This news which the young man brought back from the blacksmith shop seemed not to help the matter in the least. He and Ruth went over to the ca.n.a.l and asked people whom they met. Many had seen the ca.n.a.lboat going toward Durginville; but n.o.body had spied Sammy and Dot.

Where else could they go with any reasonable hope of finding trace of the runaways? Sammy and Dot, going directly across the open fields to the moored ca.n.a.lboat, and getting aboard that craft and into the hold, their small figures had not been spied by those living or working in the neighborhood.

The searchers went home, Ruth almost in tears and Luke vastly perturbed because he could not really aid her. Besides, he was getting very much worried now. It did seem as though something serious must have happened to Sammy Pinkney and Dot Kenway.

CHAPTER XIV

AN UNEXPECTED DELIGHT

Sammy and Dot, held prisoners in the hold of the _Nancy Hanks_, made one painful discovery at least. They learned that without light the time pa.s.sed with great slowness.

It seemed as though they had been in the dark many hours longer than was actually the case. They sat down side by side and seriously ate all the gumb.a.l.l.s. These scarcely satisfied their youthful appet.i.tes and, anyway, as Dot said, it _must_ be supper time.

So they ate all of the provisions they could possibly swallow. This attack made fearful inroads upon the stock of provisions. There was no cheese left, few of the animal crackers, and half of the peanut b.u.t.ter was literally "licked up," for they had to use their fingers.

"Ho!" said Sammy, "what's the odds? Fingers was made before spoons."

"Not our fingers, Sammy Pinkney," retorted Dot. "But maybe pirates don't mind about table manners."

Just then her boy comrade was not thinking much about the pirate play.

If he had ever felt that he was fitted to rove the seas under the Jolly Roger banner, on a career of loot and bloodshed, he had quite got over the hallucination.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to get Dot home. He had a very decided belief that if his father interviewed him after this escapade something serious would happen to him.

Dot, having recovered from her first fright, and being blessed now with a very full stomach, began to nod. She finally fell fast asleep with her head on Sammy's shoulder. He let her sink down on the boards, putting the sack of potatoes and his jacket under her head for a pillow.

He could not sleep himself. Of course not! He must keep watch all night long. No knowing when the people who had stolen the barge might come and open the hatchway and attack them. Sammy was quite convinced that the man and the girl had illegally taken possession of the ca.n.a.lboat.

He sat beside the softly breathing Dot and listened to certain rustling sounds in the hold, wondering fearfully what they meant. It seemed to him that no rats could make such noises.

"Might be wolves--or snakes," thought the boy, and shivered desperately as he sat in the dark.

The ca.n.a.lboat continued to go its blundering way, and scarcely a sound from out-of-doors reached the little boy's ears. Captain Bill Quigg fell asleep at the rudder arm and only woke up now and then when he came close to losing his pipe from between his teeth. "Lowise" kept close at the heels of the ancient mules, urging them with voice and goad. The hound, misnamed Beauty, slept the unhappy sleep of the flea-ridden dog.

The thunderstorm had cleared the air. It was a beautiful afternoon. For although the children in the hold thought it long past their usual supper-time, it was nothing of the kind.

The air in the hold began to feel close and it made Sammy very sleepy as well as Dot. But the boy was faithful to his trust. He propped his eyelids open and manfully held his watch.

Frightened? Never more so, was Sammy Pinkney. But there was some pluck in the youngster and he felt he must put on a bold front before Dot.

As for the ca.n.a.lboat captain and his "crew," they apparently went the even tenor of their way. Cap'n Bill Quigg was not a very smart man--either physically or mentally. The blacksmith at Milton had told Luke Shepard the truth. Little Louise was the smartest member of the Quigg family, which consisted only of herself, her father and the hound dog, Beauty.