Mr. Severn bought many of his supplies in Shawmit, and Trix was forever running over there in the car. It did not strain one’s imagination very much to picture Trix hearing about Mr. Reynolds’ dog and recognizing Tom Jonah from the description. Besides, the Severns had been coming to Pleasant Cove for several seasons, and Trix might easily have seen the dog when he lived with his first master.
“Oh, dear me!” sighed Agnes. “It does seem too bad that one’s very best friends sometimes turn out to be one’s enemies. Who’d have thought Trix Severn would do such a thing?”
“Of course, we don’t know,” admitted Ruth, trying to be fair. “But who else could have told Mr. Reynolds about Tom Jonah?”
Ruth went into the first store in the village that sold such things and bought a new leash. This she snapped into the ring of his collar and made the old dog walk beside them more decorously.
Tess and Dot could scarcely keep from hugging him all the time; they wanted Ruth to agree to take the very next train back to Milton, for they thought with the dog once at the old Corner House, nobody could take him away from them.
“I didn’t like that man at all, anyway,” Tess declared. “He had red whiskers.”
“Is—is that a sign that a man’s real mean if he has red whiskers, Tess?” asked Dot, wonderingly.
“It’s a sign Tess doesn’t like him,” laughed Agnes. “But I don’t like that Reynolds man myself. Do you, Ruthie?”
“We’re all agreed on that point I should hope,” said Ruth. “But we won’t run away with Tom Jonah. If that man comes for him again, I’ll find some way to circumvent him. The good old dog belongs to us, if he does to anybody. And as long as he wants to live with us, he shall. So now!”
The other Corner House girls finally forgot their worriment about Tom Jonah. Ruth warned them not to talk about it to the girls they met. They did their errands in the village and then went on to Spoondrift bungalow where they spent a very enjoyable day.