“You have missed having a brother or two. They are great educators for the feminine mind,” laughed the lady.
However, Sammy behaved himself pretty well—considering—all the time the touring party remained at the Monolith Hotel. The little girls whom Tess and Dot played with looked somewhat askance at Sammy, for his boasted intention of following in the sanguinary wake of Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, and Sir Henry Morgan, set him as a creature apart from the rest of boykind. In fact, among the little folk, Sammy Pinkney was quite the sensation for several days. Then little Eddie Haflinger developed a carbuncle on the back of his neck and Sammy’s swashbuckling tendencies rather paled before the general interest in Eddie’s stiff neck.
However, everybody had a good time at Fort Kritchton; but the “call of the wild,” as Agnes expressed it, was the stronger. They had had so many adventures—pleasant as well as disconcerting—on the road, that even Mrs. Heard was glad when the time came to leave the resort.
“Let’s send our trunks right back to Milton,” Agnes said. “No more ‘Fluffy Ruffles’ for mine till we get home. Let’s rough it.”
Their bags in the automobile really did contain all they would need, so it was agreed to live in plain and serviceable garments for the rest of the trip.
“If we run short of clean linen and handkerchiefs,” said Ruth, “we shall have to stop and do our washing in a brook. How about that?”
“I suppose you’ll want to stretch lines over the auto and dry your clothes as we travel,” growled Neale O’Neil. “Then if we meet some fidgety old farmer-woman with a more fidgety horse—good-night!”
“I wish,” Agnes declared, “that we had brought a tent with us—a nice one like the Shepards have. Wouldn’t it have been fun to camp out every night—just like those Gypsies?”
“How about it when it rained?” asked Ruth.
“Well, we’ve been out in one rainstorm—and we’re neither sugar nor salt,” said her sister, sticking to her guns.