“Oh, that happened long ago,” said Sammy, quite as airy as the trousers. “And I’m having the time of my life here. Nobody sends me errands, or makes me—er—weed beet beds! So there! I can do just as I please.”
“You look as though you had, Sammy,” was Tess’s critical speech. “I guess your mother wouldn’t want you home looking the way you do.”
“I look well enough,” he declared defiantly. “And don’t you tell where I am. Will you?”
“But, Sammy!” exclaimed Dot, “you ran away to be a pirate.”
“What if I did?”
“But you can’t be a pirate here.”
“I can be a Gypsy. And that’s lots more fun. If I joined a pirate crew I couldn’t get to be captain right away of course, so I would have to mind somebody. Here I don’t have to mind anybody at all.”
“Well, I never!” ejaculated Tess Kenway.
“Well, I never!” repeated Dot, with similar emphasis.
“Say, what are you kids here for?” demanded Sammy, with an attempt to turn the conversation from his own evident failings.