Tess and Dot ran off in delight, forgetting their small bickerings, to find Uncle Rufus. The old colored man, as long as he could get about, would do anything for “his chillun,” as he called the four Kenway sisters. It needed no coaxing on the part of Tess and Dot to get their will of the old man on this occasion.
Scalawag was fat and lazy enough in any case. In the spring Neale had plowed and harrowed the garden with him and on occasion he was harnessed to a light cart for work about the place. His main duty, however, was to draw the smaller girls about the quieter streets of Milton in a basket phaeton. To this vehicle he was now harnessed by Uncle Rufus.
“You want to be mought’ car’ful ‘bout them automobiles, chillun,” the old man admonished them. “Dat Sammy Pinkney boy was suah some good once in a while. He was a purt’ car’ful driber.”
“But he’s a good driver now—wherever he is,” said Dot. “You talk as though Sammy would never get back home from being a pirate. Of course he will. He always does!”
Secretly Tess felt herself to be quite as able to drive the pony as ever Sammy Pinkney was. She was glad to show her prowess.
Scalawag shook his head, danced playfully on the old stable floor, and then proceeded to wheel the basket phaeton out of the barn and into Willow Street. By a quieter thoroughfare than Main Street, Tess Kenway headed him for the other side of town.
“Maybe we’ll run across Sammy,” suggested Dot, sitting sedately with her ever-present Alice-doll. “Then we can tell his mother where he is being a pirate. She won’t be so extracted then.”
Tess overlooked this mispronunciation, knowing it was useless to object, and turned the subject by saying:
“Or maybe we’ll see those Gypsies.”
“Oh, I hope not!” cried the smaller girl. “I hope we’ll never see those Gypsy women again.”