Chapter XXI: Tess and Dot Take a Hand

Up to this time Tess and Dot Kenway had heard nothing about the Gypsy junkman haunting the house at night, or about other threatening things connected with the wonderful silver bracelet.

Their young minds were quite as excited about the ornament as in the beginning, however; for in the first place they had to keep run exactly of whose turn it was to "wear" the Gypsies' gift.

"I don't see what we'll do about it when Alice grows up," Dot said. She was always looking forward in imagination to the time when her favorite doll should become adult. "She will want to wear that belt, Tess, for evening dress. You know, a lady's jewelry should belong to her."

"I'm not going to give up my share to your Alice-doll," announced Tess, quite firmly for her. "And, anyway, you must not be so sure that it is going to be ours all the time. See! Aggie says we can't take it out of the house to play with."

"I don't care!" whined Dot. "I don't want to give it back to those Gypsy ladies."

"Neither do I. But we must of course, if we can find them. Honest is honest."

"It--it's awful uncomfortable to be so dreadful' honest," blurted out the smaller girl. "And I think they meant us to have the bracelet."

"All right, then. It's only polite to offer it back to them. Then if they don't want it we'll know that it is ours and even Ruth won't say anything."

"But--but when my Alice-doll grows up--"

"Now, don't be a little piggie, Dot Kenway!" exclaimed Tess, rather crossly. "When your wrist gets big enough so the bracelet won't slip over your hand so easy, you will want to wear it yourself--just as I do. And Agnes wants it, too."

"Oh! But it's ours--if it isn't the Gypsy ladies'," Dot hastened to say.

Two claimants for the ornament were quite enough. She did not wish to hear of any other people desiring to wear it.

As it chanced, Tess and Dot heard about the Gypsy encampment on the Buckshot Road through the tongue of neighborhood gossip, quite as had Sammy's mother. Margaret and Holly Pease heard the store man tell their mother; and having enviously eyed the silver bracelet in the possession of the Kenway girls, they ran to tell the latter about the Gypsies.

"They've come back," declared Margaret decidedly, "to look for that bracelet you've got. You'll see them soon enough."

"Oh, Margie! do you think so?" murmured Tess, while Dot was immediately so horror-stricken that tears came to her eyes.

"Maybe they will bring the police and have you locked up," continued the cheerful Pease child. "You know they might accuse you of stealing the bracelet."

"We never!" wailed Dot. "We never! They gave it to us!"

"Well, they are going to take it back, so now!" Margaret Pease declared.

"I don't think it is nice of you to say what you do, Margie," said Tess. "Everybody knows we are honest. Why! if Dot and I knew how to find them, we would take the bracelet right to the Gypsy ladies. Wouldn't we, Dot?"

"But--but we don't know where to find them," blurted out the youngest Corner House girl.

"You can find them I guess--out on the Buckshot Road."

"We don't know that _our_ Gypsy ladies are there," said Tess, with some defiance.

"You don't dare go to see," said Margaret Pease.

It was a question to trouble the minds of Tess and Dot. Should they try to find the Gypsies, and see if the very ladies who had given them the bracelet were in that encampment?

At least it was a leading question in Tess Kenway's mind. It must be confessed that Dot only hoped it would prove a false alarm. She was very grateful to the strange Gypsy women for having put the silver ornament in the green and yellow basket; but she hoped never to see those two kind women again!

The uncertainty was so great in both of the small girls' minds that they said nothing at all about it in the hearing of any other member of the family. Had Ruth been at home they might have confided in her. They had always confided everything to their eldest sister. But just now the two smaller Corner House girls were living their own lives, very much shut away from the existence Agnes, for instance, was leading.

Agnes had a secret--several of them, indeed. She did not take Tess and Dot into her confidence. So, if for no other reason, the smaller girls did not talk to Agnes about the Gypsies.

The Kenways owned some tenement property in a much poorer part of the town than that prominent corner on which the Corner House stood. Early in their coming to Milton from Bloomsburg, the Corner House girls had become acquainted with the humble tenants whose rents helped swell the funds which Mr. Howbridge cared for and administered.

Some of these poorer people, especially the children near their own age, interested the Kenway girls very much because they met these poorer children in school. So when news was brought to Agnes one afternoon (it was soon after lunch) that Maria Maroni, whose father kept the coal, wood, ice and vegetable cellar in one of the Stower houses and who possessed a wife and big family of children as well, had been taken ill, Agnes was much disturbed.

Agnes liked Maria Maroni. Maria was very bright and forward in her studies and was a pretty Italian girl, as well. The Maronis lived much better than they once had, too. They now occupied one of the upstairs tenements over Mrs. Kranz's delicatessen store, instead of all living in the basement.

The boy who ran into the Kenway yard and told Agnes this while she was tying up the gladioli stems after a particularly hard night's rain, did not seem to be an Italian. Indeed, he was no boy that Agnes ever remembered having seen before.

But tenants were changing all the time over there where Maria lived. This might be a new boy in that neighborhood. And, anyway, Agnes was not bothered in her mind much about the boy. It was Maria's illness that troubled her.

"What is the matter with the poor girl?" Agnes wanted to know. "What does the doctor say it is?"

"They ain't got no doc," said the boy. "She's just sick, Maria is. I don't know what she's got besides."

This sounded bad enough to Agnes. And the fact that the sick girl had no medical attention was the greater urge for the Kenway girl to do something about it. Of course, Joe and his wife must have a doctor for Maria at once.

Agnes went into the house and told Mrs. McCall about it. She even borrowed the green and yellow basket from the little girls and packed some jelly and a bowl of broth and other nice things to take to Maria Maroni. The Kenways seldom went to the tenements empty-handed.

She would have taken Neale with her, only she felt that after their incipient "quarrel" of the previous morning she did not care immediately to make up with the boy. Sometimes she felt that Neale O'Neil took advantage of her easy disposition.

So Agnes went off alone with her basket. Half an hour later a boy rang the front door bell of the Corner House. He had a note for Mrs. McCall. It was written in blue pencil, and while the housekeeper was finding her reading glasses the messenger ran away so that she could not question him.

The note purported to be from Hedden, Mr. Howbridge's butler. It said that the lawyer had been "brought home" and had asked for Mrs. McCall to be sent for. It urged expedition in her answer to the request, and it threw Mrs. McCall into "quite a flutter" as she told Linda and Aunt Sarah Maltby.

"The puir mon!" wailed the Scotch woman who before she came to the old Corner House to care for the Kenway household had been housekeeper for Mr. Howbridge himself for many years. "There is something sad happened to him, nae doot. I must go awa' wi' me at aince. See to the bairns, Miss Maltby, that's the good soul. Even Agnes is not in the hoose."

"Of course I will see to them--if it becomes necessary," said Aunt Sarah.

Her idea of attending to the younger children, however, was to remain in her own room knitting, only occasionally going to the head of the back stairs to ask Linda if Tess and Dot were all right. The Finnish girl's answer was always "Shure, Mum," and in her opinion Tess and Dot were all right as long as she did not see that they were in trouble.

To tell the truth, Linda saw the smaller girls very little after Mrs. McCall hurried out of the house to take the street car for the lawyer's residence. Once Linda observed Tess and Dot in the side yard talking to a boy through the pickets. She had no idea that the sharp-featured boy was the same who had brought the news of Maria Maroni's illness to Agnes, and the message from Hedden to Mrs. McCall!

The boy in question had come slowly along the pavement on Willow Street, muttering to himself as he approached as though saying over several sentences that he had learned by rote. He was quite evidently a keen-minded boy, but he was not at all a trustworthy looking one.

Tess and Dot both saw him, and that he was a stranger made the little girls eye him curiously. When he hailed them they were not quite sure whether they ought to reply or not.

"I guess you don't know us," Tess said doubtfully. "You don't belong in this neighborhood."

"I know you all right," said the boy. "You're the two girls those women sold the basket to. I know you."

"Oh!" gasped Tess.

"The Gypsy ladies!" murmured Dot.

"That's the one. They sold you the basket for forty-five cents. Didn't they?"

"Yes," admitted Tess.

"And it's _ours_," cried Dot. "We paid for it."

"That's all right," said the boy slowly. "But you didn't buy what was in it. No, sir! They want it back."

"Oh! The basket?" cried Tess.

"What you found in it."

The boy seemed very sure of what he was saying, but he spoke slowly.

"They want that silver thing back. It wasn't meant for you. It was a mistake. You know very well it isn't yours. If you are honest--and you told them you were--you will bring it back to them."

"Oh! They did ask us if we were honest," Tess said faintly. "And of course we are. Aren't we, Dot?"

"Why--why-- Do we have to be so dreadful' honest," whispered the smallest Corner House girl, quite borne down with woe.

"Of course we have. Just think of what Ruthie would say," murmured Tess. Then to the boy: "Where are those ladies?"

"Huh?" he asked. "What ladies?"

"The Gypsy ladies we bought the basket from?"

"Oh, _them_?" he rejoined hurriedly, glancing along the street with eagerness. "You go right out along this street," and he pointed in the direction from which he had come. "You keep on walking until you reach the brick-yard."

"Oh! Are they camped there?" asked Tess.

"No. But a man with an automobile will meet you there. He is a man who will take you right to the Gypsy camp and bring you back again. Don't be afraid, kids. It's all right."

He went away then, and the little girls could not call him back. They wanted to ask further questions; but it was evident that the boy had delivered his message and was not to be cross-examined.

"What _shall_ we do?" Tess exclaimed.

"Oh, let's wait. Let's wait till Ruth comes home," cried Dot, saying something very sensible indeed.

But responsibility weighed heavily on Tess's mind. She considered that if the Gypsy women wished their bracelet returned, it was her duty to take it to them without delay. Besides, there was the man in the automobile waiting for them.

Why the man had not come to the house with the car, or why he had not brought the two Gypsy women to the Corner House, were queries that did not occur to the little girls. If Tess Kenway was nothing else, she was strictly honest.

"No," she sighed, "we cannot wait. We must go and see the women now. I will go in and get the bracelet, Dot. Do you want your hat? Mrs. McCall and Agnes are both away. We will have to go right over and tend to this ourselves."