“Oh, all right,” assented Tess, after a brief pause, “bring her along,” and she assumed the resigned air she had sometimes noticed in Agnes when Ruth insisted on something being done in a certain correct way.
“Did bad sister Tess want me to leave you home, Alice-doll?” crooned Dot, as they walked across the street, catercornered, to Sammy’s house. “Well, I just wouldn’t!”
Tess and Dot found Sammy on his back porch, in the sun, busy feeding bits of meat to the pet alligator.
“Look how big he’s getting!” cried the boy proudly. “I guess maybe by next summer he’ll be big enough to hitch to my regular express wagon and he can draw me around.”
“Oh, that would be scrumptious!” cried Dot, clapping her hands. “Could I ride with you, Sammy?”
“Sure!”
“Hum!” murmured Tess, as she smoothed out her dress. “I think it would look very queer, and maybe you would be arrested.”
“Arrested for what?” scoffed Sammy. “Not for speedin’, that’s sure. Snapper can’t go very fast.”
“Well, maybe you’d be arrested for something,” declared Dot, ready now to agree with Tess. “I don’t know what. But it’s something.”
“Maybe she means cruelty to animals, like that Italian banana peddler who was arrested once,” suggested Tess.