“She did tell me so—she did!” wailed Sammy. “And I’m going. My mother said I could—and that you girls was awful nice to take me.”
“Cricky!” murmured Neale, all of a broad grin now. “You got a reputation that time, Aggie, for goodness, without meaning it.”
“I don’t care——”
“The thing is now,” interrupted Ruth, decidedly, “how to send him home.”
At that Sammy lifted up his voice in a wail that might have touched a heart of stone. And really, after all, there was not a heart of stone in the whole party of tourists from the old Corner House—not even in Tom Jonah’s breast. The old dog went up to Sammy and tried to lap his tears away.
“Oh, see here, kid! don’t yell like that,” begged Neale. “Turn off the sprinkler. That won’t get you anywhere.”
“Will you tell me what we are to do with him, then?” demanded Ruth, quite put out. “There is no room for him in the car.”
“I can stay where I was. I don’t mind,” gulped Sammy.
“Never!” declared Agnes. “You made a show out of us all the way through town. We’ll never hear the last of it.”
“We were boarded by a pirate, sure enough,” chuckled Neale.