“I can’t get her out without help,” admitted the boy, in a discouraged tone.
Tess and Dot were crying a little, and Sammy looked at them scornfully. “Aw, you kids make me sick,” he said. “You don’t see me bawling, do you? S’pose you was in a pirate ship, ‘way out in the ocean, and she was wrecked?”
“I don’t want to be a pirate—so there!” sobbed Dot.
Tess said, solemnly: “Wait till you get hungry, Sammy Pinkney.”
This silenced Sammy—for the time being, at least.
Suddenly Agnes cried aloud: “Oh, dear me! here it comes again.”
It certainly sounded as though the tempest were returning, there was such a rattling and jangling behind them on the hill. Neale ran around the automobile to look.
A big wagon with a tarpaulin over it, making it look as large as a load of hay, and drawn by a pair of drenched horses, came rattling down the hill. There were two figures in slickers and rubber hats on the seat under the hood.
“A tin peddler’s outfit, sure as you live,” he cried.
“Oh, dear, Neale,” said Ruth, “maybe they will be rough men and will not help you.”