Sammy grinned like it was the finest compliment a boy could think of, and wriggled his toes. Well, sir, that was all Mark needed to give him an idea—just the wiggling of a toe.
“That’s the ticket,” he says in his tickled-to-death voice. “Wasn’t there a fresh-spaded flower-bed just in front of the porch there, Tallow?”
“All raked over and as neat as a pin,” I says. “Bet the seeds hain’t been planted six hours.”
“It’s where they’ll be s-s-sure to see it.”
“Right under anybody’s nose that comes out on the porch.”
“Fine! We’ll give ’em somethin’ to look at, then. Now, Sammy, listen to what I’m a-goin’ to say to you, and listen good. You jest make believe all of you is Injun and that you’re a-crawlin’ up on a camp of enemies. The camp of enemies is the house, and if you git seen they’ll more’n likely burn you at the stake. Well, you go mouchin’ along till you git to that flower-bed, and then you up and step careful right in the middle of it with that b-b-busted foot of yours. Leave a good, plain mark like was in the sand at the cave. Then come back a-kitin’.”
Sammy grinned some more and wriggled his hands and sort of twisted all over like a cat does when it wants you to feed it. We watched him crawl down along the hedge, and then all at once he ducked out of sight, and, no matter how we strained our eyes, we couldn’t catch even a wabble of the bushes.
“If it looks as mysterious to Batten as it did to us I guess they’ll do considerable wonderin’ about it,” I says.
We sat pretty anxious and quiet waiting for Sammy to come back. It didn’t look to us like the folks in the house could do Sammy harm once he got a start, but somebody might come onto him unexpected and swat him with something; and then where’d we be, with nobody to carry the turbine if we did manage to get a hold on it? But we needn’t have worried. The first thing we knew there was Sammy standing right by us, chuckling like all get out.
“Sammy step on flower-bed. Sammy careful—oh, very careful. Make foot show plain. Make Sammy’s funny foot show in dirt. Sammy helps, eh? Big help?”