“Oh, Sammy! How you’ve grown!” she declared, when she had hugged and kissed the would-be pirate, and then stood off to look at him.
“Huh! that’s Ruth’s fault,” he said. “She made me wash so often. You know, watering things like that is what makes ’em grow.”
“This Corner House is the loneliest place in the world without you lassies in it,” declared Mrs. MacCall, having hugged the four girls in rotation, and then started all over again.
Aunt Sarah expressed herself as glad to see her nieces again. “As long as you haven’t been killed in that automobile, I presume we should all be thankful,” she said. “But I did not expect to see you all return with whole bones.”
“And one time, when me and Tess were lost, and before we found the Gypsies,” confessed Dot, “I thought that funny bone in my back was broke, Aunt Sarah. But it got mended again.”
There was a regular “party” of all the Corner House girls’ young friends soon after their return, and the adventures of the tour by automobile were related to everybody.
Ruth could remember all about the beautiful scenery they saw and the queer old inns they stopped at. She really had gained much entertainment from the trip.
Agnes’ mind was full of the incidents of the stolen automobile, and how it had been found, and how she and Neale had chased the thieves to the Hickton station where the car was captured. To hear her tell it, it had been a most exciting time.
Dot’s mind seemed full of the Gypsies and her adventures with Tess when they were lost and had slept all night under a tree. “And that old owl that shouted at us and wanted to know our names,” she said. “Just as plain as could be, he hollered: ‘Who? Who? Who?’”
But Tess was thoughtful. Somebody asked her what she was thinking of.