As they came out there was Joe Maroni himself, the neat, smiling, brown little Italian in his corduroy suit and with gold rings in his ears, ready waiting with a basket piled high with fruit.
"For the leetle padrona," Joe said, with a smiling bow, sending his usual gift to Ruth, whom he considered a grand signora and, as his "landlady," deserving of such thoughtful attentions.
"Aw, say!" cried Sammy his eyes growing big; "that's scrumptious."
"But they are for Ruthie," complained Dot. "We'll have to lug them all around with us—and no knowing when we'll get home from being pirates."
"Get home!" snorted the boy. "Why, we can't never go home again. If they catch us they'll hang us in chains."
Dot's mouth became suddenly a round "O" and nothing more, while her eyes Neale O'Neil would have said had he seen them, "bulged out." The assurance in Sammy's tone seemed final. She could not go home again! And "hanging in chains" somehow had an awfully creepy sound.
But as the boy himself did not seem to take these terrible possibilities very seriously, Dot took comfort from that fact and went on again cheerfully. Nor did she mind carrying the basket of attractive fruit. One of the peaches on top was a little mellow and she stuck a tentative finger into the most luscious spot she could see upon the cheek of that particular peach.
The juice was just as sweet! She touched it with her finger again and then put the finger to her lips.
By this time they had come out of Meadow Street and were crossing the open common toward the canal. On one hand was a blacksmith shop, and the smith was getting ready to shoe a pair of mules which, with drooping ears and saddened aspect, waited in the shade.
There was no moving boat on the canal and nothing stirring along the towpath. But a battered looking old barge was moored to the nigh bank, and Sammy's face brightened.