Part 4 (1/2)

”Aw, what do you want me to do, Maw? Work _all_ the time? Ain't this my vacation?”

”But your father says you are to work enough in the summer to keep from forgetting what work is. And look how grubby you are. Faugh!”

”What do you want me to do, Maw?”

”You might do a little weeding in our garden, you know, Sammy.”

”Weeding!” groaned the boy, fairly horrified by the suggestion after what he had been through that afternoon.

”You know very well that our onions and carrots need cleaning out. And I don't believe you could even find our beets.”

”Beets!” Sammy's voice rose to a shriek. He never was really a bad boy; but this was too much. ”Beets!” cried Sammy again. ”I wouldn't weed a beet if n.o.body ever ate another of 'em. No, I wouldn't.”

He darted by his mother into the house and ran up to his room. Her reiterated command that he return and explain his disgraceful speech and violent conduct did not recall Sammy to the lower floor.

”Very well, young man. Don't you come down to supper, either. And we'll see what your father has to say about your conduct when he comes home.”

This threat boded ill for Sammy, lying sobbing and sore upon his bed. He was too desperate to care much what his father did to him. But to face the ridicule of the neighborhood--above all to face the prospect of weeding another bed of beets!--was more than the boy could contemplate.

”I'll run away and be a pirate--that's just what I'll do,” choked Sammy, his old obsession enveloping his hara.s.sed thoughts. ”I'll show 'em!

They'll be sorry they treated me so--all of 'em.”

Just who ”'em” were was rather vague in Sammy Pinkney's mind. But the determination to get away from all these older people, whom he considered had abused him, was not vague at all.

CHAPTER IV--THE GYPSY TRAIL

Mr. Pinkney, Sammy's father, heard all about it before he arrived home, for he always pa.s.sed the side door of the old Corner House on his return from business. He came at just that time when Neale O'Neil was telling the a.s.sembled family--including Mrs. McCall, Uncle Rufus, and Linda the maid-of-all-work--about the utter wreck of the beet bed.

”I've saved what I could--set 'em out, you know, and soaked 'em well,”

said the laughing Neale. ”But make up your mind, Mrs. McCall, that you'll have to buy a good share of your beets this winter.”

”Well! What do you know about that, Mr. Pinkney?” demanded Agnes of their neighbor, who had halted at the gate.

”Just like that boy,” responded Mr. Pinkney, shaking his head over his son's transgressions.

”Just the same,” Neale added, chuckling, ”Sammy says you showed him which were weeds and which were beets, Aggie.”

”Of course I did,” flung back the quick-tempered Agnes. ”And so did Uncle Rufus. But that boy is so heedless--”

”I agree that Sammy pays very little attention to what is told him,”

said Sammy's father.

Here Tess put in a soothing word, as usual: ”Of course he didn't mean to pull up all your beets, Mrs. McCall.”

”And I don't like beets anyway,” proclaimed Dot.

”He certainly must have worked hard,” Ruth said, producing a fifty-cent piece and running down the steps to press it into Mr. Pinkney's palm. ”I am sure Sammy had no intention of spoiling our beet bed. And I am not sure that it is not partly our fault. He should not have been left all the afternoon without some supervision.”

”He should be more observing,” said Mr. Pinkney. ”I never did see such a rattlebrain.”