“Yas’um, dat’s whut it is,” said the old colored man. “Tess an’ Dot done got cotched in de elevator!”
[CHAPTER IV—AN AUTO RIDE]
Mr. Howbridge had been making an address to Ruth’s assembled girl chums when the interruption came. He had been telling them just how to go about it to organize the kind of society Ruth had in mind. In spite of her half refusal to attend the session, Agnes had decided to be present, and she was sitting near the door when Uncle Rufus made his statement about the two smallest Kenways being “cotched.”
“But how can they be in an elevator?” demanded Agnes. “We haven’t an elevator on the place—there hardly is one in Milton.”
“I don’t know no mo’ ’bout it dan jest dat!” declared the old colored man. “Sammy he done say dey is cotched in de elevator an’—”
“Oh, Sammy!” cried Agnes. “If Sammy has anything to do with it you might know—”
She was interrupted by a further series of cries, unmistakably coming from Tess and Dot, and, mingled with their shouts of alarm, was the voice of Mrs. MacCall saying:
“Come along, Ruth! Oh, Agnes! Oh, the poor bairns! Oh, the wee ones!” and then she lapsed into her broadest Scotch so that none who heard understood.
“Something must have happened!” declared Ruth.
“It is very evident,” added Agnes, and the two sisters hurried out, brushing past Uncle Rufus in the hall.