“Rosa is wearing her heart out for you, June Wildwood. And your father isn’t drinking any more. He has a steady job. You come back to them and you needn’t be afraid of those Gypsies.”
“They’ll try to get me back. Doc. Raynes’ wife was one of them. The old doctor died a year ago, and since then I’ve been with that gang,” said June Wildwood.
“Were the doctor and his wife the folks you ran away with?”
“Yes. I danced and sang and dressed up in character to help entertain their audiences when he sold bitters and salve,” the girl explained. “The old doctor treated me all right. But these thieving Gypsies are different. Mrs. Doc. Raynes is Big Jim’s sister.”
“Don’t you be afraid of them any more. We’ll set the police after them,” Ruth declared. “Where have you been since the day my sisters were with you?”
“I’ve been washing dishes at a hotel here in Pleasant Cove. But I kept under cover. I was afraid of them,” said the girl.
They reached the door then, and went into the cottage. Mrs. Bobster ushered them right into the sitting-room and at once all the girls halted in amazement. There was an armchair standing between the window and the center table, where the lamp sat. Leaning against the chair was the broom, and on the business end of that very useful household implement was a hat that had probably once belonged to the husband of the little old woman who lived in a shoe.
“My goodness sake!” ejaculated Agnes, the first to get her breath. “Then it was not company you had at all, Mrs. Bobster?”
“No,” said the widow, in a business-like way, removing the hat from the broom and standing the latter in the corner. “But I didn’t want folks to know it. There’s some stragglers around here after dark, and I wanted ’em to think there was a man in the house.”
At that moment Rosa Wildwood came running downstairs in wrapper and slippers. “I heard her! I heard her!” she shrieked, and the next moment the two sisters were hugging each other frantically.