Part 11 (2/2)
”Why, Mabel Creamer!” interrupted Tess, unable to listen further to such a flight of fancy without registering a protest. ”That can't be so--you know it can't.”
”I'd like to know why it can't be so?” demanded Mabel.
”'Cause lobsters only turn red when they are boiled. They are all green when they are alive.”
”How do you know so much, Tess Kenway?” cried Mabel. ”These are my lobsters and I'll have them turn blue if I want to--so there!”
There seemed to be no room for further argument. Besides, Mabel grabbed Bubby by the hand and dragged him away from the hedge.
”My!” murmured Dot, ”Mabel has _such_ a 'magination. And maybe that lobster did get mad, Tess. We don't know.”
”She never had a live lobster in her family,” declared Tess, quite emphatically. ”You know very well, Dot Kenway, that Mr. Creamer wouldn't bring home such a thing as a live lobster, when there are little children in his house.”
”M--mm--I guess that's so,” agreed Dot. ”A live lobster would be worse than Sammy Pinkney's bulldog.”
Thus reminded of the absent Sammy the two smaller Corner House girls postponed any further search for Uncle Rufus's dollar and went across the street to learn if any news had been gained of their runaway playmate. Mrs. Pinkney was still despairing. She had imagined already a score of misfortunes that might have befallen her absent son, ranging from his eating of green apples to being run over by an automobile.
”But, Mrs. Pinkney!” burst forth Tess at last, ”if Sammy has run away to sea to be a pirate, there won't be any green apples for him to eat--and no automobiles.”
”Oh, you can never tell what trouble Sammy Pinkney will manage to get into,” moaned his mother. ”I can only expect the very worst.”
”Well,” Dot remarked with a sigh, as she and Tess trudged home to supper, ”I'm glad there is only one boy in _my_ family. My boy doll, Nosmo King Kenway, will probably be a source of great anxiety when he is older.”
”I wouldn't worry about that,” Tess told her placidly. ”If he is very bad you can send him to the reform school.”
”Oh--oo!” gasped Dot, all her maternal instincts aroused at such a suggestion. ”That would be awful.”
”I don't know. They do send boys to the reform school. Jimmy Mulligan, whose mother lives in that little house on Willow Wythe, is in the reform school because he wouldn't mind his mother.”
”But they don't send Sammy there,” urged Dot.
”No--o. Of course,” admitted the really tender-hearted Tess, ”we know Sammy isn't really naughty. He is only silly to run away every once in a while.”
There was much bustle inside the old Corner House that evening. Because they really missed Ruth so much, her sisters invented divers occupations to fill the hours until bedtime. Tess and Dot, for instance, had never cut out so many paper-dolls in all their lives.
Another telegram had arrived from Cecile Shepard (sent, of course, before Ruth had reached Oakhurst), stating that she had been allowed to see her brother and that, although he could not be immediately moved, he was improving and was absolutely in no danger.
”If Ruthie had only waited to get _this_ message,” complained Agnes, ”she would not have gone up there to the mountains at all. And just see, Neale, how right that Gypsy girl was. There was news on the way that changed the whole aspect of affairs. She was quite wonderful, _I_ think.”
By this time Neale saw that it was better not to try to ridicule Agnes'
budding belief in fortune telling. ”Less said, the soonest mended,” was his wise opinion.
”I like Cecile Shepard,” Agnes went on to say, ”and always shall; but I don't think she has shown much sense about her brother's illness.
Scaring everybody to death, and sending telegrams like a patch-work quilt!”
”Maybe Ruth will come right home again when she finds Luke is all right,” said Tess hopefully. ”Dear, me! aren't boys a lot of trouble?”
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