“Doan you-all worry now, honey,” he said, speaking to all the girls as one. “I’ll clean up dish yeah trash in no time. I done got de lawn like a billiard table, an’ I’ll pick up dish yeah trash. De ash man ought to have been along early dis mawnin’ fo’ to get it. I set it dar fo’ him.”
That explained the presence on the side porch of the barrel of odds and ends collected for the ash man to remove. He had not called, and seeing the receptacle there, with an old feather pillow among the other refuse, Tess thought she had her opportunity.
“Run along now, my bonny bairns! Run along!” counseled the old Scotch woman. “’Tis late it’s getting, and the lassies will be here to lunch before we know it.”
“Yes, do run along,” begged Ruth. “And then come back to be washed and have your hair combed. I want you to look nice if, accidentally, you appear on the scene.”
Thus bidden, and fortified with another cookie each, Tess and Dot hurried on to the store, Dot tenderly trying to pinch into shape the flattened nose of her Alice-doll.
Rufus got a broom and began to clean the scattered trash to put back into the barrel, and Mrs. MacCall hurried into her kitchen, where Linda was humming a Finnish song as she clattered amid the pots and pans.
“Oh, we must finish the parlor and library,” declared Ruth. “Do come and help, Agnes.”
“Coming, Ruth. Oh, here’s Neale!” she added, pausing to look toward the gate through which at that moment appeared a sturdy lad of pleasant countenance.
“He acts as though he had something on his mind,” went on Agnes, as the youth broke into a run on seeing her and her sister on the steps. “Wait a moment, Ruth. He may have something to tell us.”
“The fates forbid that it is anything more about Tess and Dot!” murmured Ruth, for the children had some minutes before disappeared down the street.