SCALAWAG GETS A NEW HOME
A dog barking aroused Sammy. He must, after all, have fallen into a light doze. With Dot sleeping contentedly on the bag of potatoes and his coat, and the only nearby sounds the rustling noise that he had finally become scornful of, the boy could not be greatly blamed for losing himself in sleep.
But he thought the dog barking must be either his Buster or old Tom Jonah, the Corner House girls' dog. Were they coming to search for him and Dot?
"Oh, wake up, Dot! Wake up!" cried Sammy, shaking the little girl. "There's something doing."
"I wish you wouldn't, Tess," complained the smallest Corner House girl. "I don't want to get up so early. I—I've just come asleep," and she would have settled her cheek again into Sammy's jacket had the boy not shaken her.
"Oh, Dot! Wake up!" urged the boy, now desperately frightened. "There's—there's smoke."
"Oe-ee!" gasped Dot, sitting up. "What's happened? Is the chimney leaking?"
"There's something afire. Hear that pounding! And the dog!"
It was the desperate kicking of the mules, John and Jerry, they heard. And the kicking and the barking of Beauty, the hound, continued until the Corner House automobile, with the bucket brigade aboard, roared down to the canalboat and stopped.
The fire was under great headway, and every person in the party helped to quench it. The girls, as well as the men and boys, rushed to the work. To see the old boat burn when it was the whole living of the Quiggs, gained the sympathy of all.