The Kenway girls made the most delightful friends, and what wonderful adventures they had is told in the volumes of this series succeeding the first. These happenings included going to school, camping out, giving a play, making an odd find, touring, and growing up. Once the four were snowbound and had a most amazing time, and again they spent a summer on a houseboat, following which they had a rather “hectic time,” as Agnes called it, among the Gypsies.
Their latest adventures had been on Palm Island, or, as Dot insisted on calling it, “Plam Island,” whither the quartette went because a change to a warmer climate was needed for their health, severe colds having been contracted when Ruth and Agnes attended a party on a stormy wintry day.
In spite of some very exciting and not altogether happy adventures related in “The Corner House Girls on Palm Island,” which is the title of the volume immediately preceding the one you are now reading, the girls enjoyed their summer vacation. They had been home now about two weeks, when there occurred the happening set down in the first chapter of this volume.
Wishing to bring Sammy Pinkney back some souvenir from Palm Island, an alligator, not too large, had been selected, though Dot said he had expressed a preference for a “turkle.” However, the turtles, of which there was an abundance on Palm Island, were far too large to bring north and the young alligator had been a compromise.
That Sammy was delighted with his new pet goes without saying. He even gave Snapper more attention than Buster, his bulldog, received. Then Sammy got the idea of dressing up the alligator and of hitching it to a toy cart.
“Oh, children! what happened?” cried Ruth, despair in her voice.
“I—didn’t—drop—those eggs!” declared Robbie, speaking in gasps, for some yellow was now running into his mouth. “The goat—he butted me.”
“The goat!” cried Agnes, looking around.
“He’s gone out now,” said Sammy mildly. “The alligator bit his tail!”
“The alligator—” Ruth stopped for want of words.