But she did not find Dot. She wandered back to the front of the Corner House just as Mrs. Pinkney, rather wild-eyed and disheveled, appeared at the side fence on Willow Street and called to Ruth:
"Have you seen Sammy?"
"Have you seen Dot?" repeated Tess, quite as earnestly.
Ruth was finally shaken out of her composure. She rose from her seat, folding the work in her lap, and demanded:
"What do you suppose has become of them? For of course, if neither Sammy nor Dot can be found, they have gone off somewhere together."
CHAPTER XIII
THE HUE AND CRY
Ruth Kenway's suggestion bore the stamp of common sense, and even the excited mother of Sammy Pinkney accepted that as a fact. Sammy had been playing almost exclusively with the little Corner House girls of late (quite to his anxious mother's satisfaction, be it said) and if Dot was absent the boy was in all probability with her.
"Well, he certainly cannot have got into much mischief with little Dorothy along," sighed Mrs. Pinkney, relieved. "But I most certainly shall punish him when he comes back, for I forbade his leaving the yard this morning. And I shall tell his father."