Grace Hill - The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies

If Sammy Pinkney had not been determined to play a “joey” and hooked back one of the garage doors so as to enter astride a broomstick with a dash and the usual clown announcement, “Here we are again!” all would not have happened that did happen to the Corner House girls – at least, not in just the way the events really occurred.

Even Dot, who was inclined to be forgiving of most of Sammy’s sins both of omission and commission, admitted that to be true. Tess, the next oldest Corner House girl (nobody ever dignified her with the name of “Theresa,” unless it were Aunt Sarah Maltby) was inclined to reflect the opinion regarding most boys held by their oldest sister, Ruth. Tess’s frank statement to this day is that it was entirely Sammy’s fault that they were mixed up with the Gypsies at all.

But —

“Well, if I’m going to be in your old circus,” Sammy announced doggedly, “I’m going to be a joey – or nothin’ .”

“You know very well, Sammy, that you can’t be that,” said Tess reprovingly.

“Huh? Why can’t I? I bet I’d make just as good a clown as Mr. Sully Sorber, who is Neale’s half-uncle, or Mr. Asa Scruggs, who is Barnabetta’s father.”

“I don’t mean you can’t be a clown,” interrupted Tess. “I mean you can’t be just nothing . You occupy space, so you must be something. Our teacher says so.”

“Shucks!” ejaculated Sammy Pinkney. “Don’t I know that? And I wish you wouldn’t talk about school. Why! we’re only in the middle of our vacation, I should hope.”

“It seems such a long time since we went to school,” murmured Dot, who was sitting by, nursing the Alice-doll in her arms and waiting her turn to be called into the circus ring, which was the cleared space in the middle of the cement floor.

“That’s because all you folks went off cruising on that houseboat and never took me with you,” grumbled Sammy, who still held a deep-seated grouch because of the matter mentioned. “But ’tain’t been long since school closed – and it isn’t going to be long before the old thing opens again.”

“Why, Sammy!” admonished Tess.

“I just hate school, so I do!” vigorously announced the boy. “I’d rather be a tramp – or a Gypsy. Yes, I would.”

“Or a pirate, Sammy?” suggested Dot reflectively. “You know, me and you didn’t have a very nice time when we went off to be pirates. ’Member?”

“Huh!” grumbled Sammy, “that was because you was along. Girls can’t be pirates worth shucks. And anyway,” he concluded, “I’m going to be the joey in this show, or I won’t play.”

“It will be supper time and the others will be back with the car, so none of us can play if we don’t start in pretty soon,” Tess observed. “Dot and I want to practice our gym work that Neale O’Neil has been teaching us. But you can clown it all you want to, Sammy.”

“Well, that lets me begin the show anyway,” Sammy stated with satisfaction.

He always did want to lead. And now he immediately ran to hook back the door and prepared to make his entrance into the ring in true clowning style, as he had seen Sully Sorber do in Twomley & Sorber’s Herculean Circus and Menagerie.

The Kenway garage opened upon Willow Street and along that pleasantly shaded and quiet thoroughfare just at this time came three rather odd looking people. Two were women carrying brightly stained baskets of divers shapes, and one of these women – usually the younger one – went into the yard of each house and knocked at the side or back door, offering the baskets for sale.

The younger one was black-eyed and rather pretty. She was neatly dressed in very bright colors and wore a deal of gaudy jewelry. The older woman was not so attractive – or so clean.

Loitering on the other side of the street, and keeping some distance behind the Gypsy women, slouched a tall, roughly clad fellow who was evidently their escort. The women came to the Kenway garage some time after Sammy Pinkney had made his famous “entrance” and Dot had abandoned the Alice-doll while she did several handsprings on the mattress that Tess had laid down. Dot did these very well indeed. Neale O’Neil, who had been trained in the circus, had given both the smaller Corner House girls the benefit of his advice and training. They loved athletic exercises. Mrs. McCall, the Corner House housekeeper, declared Tess and Dot were as active as grasshoppers.

The two dark-faced women, as they peered in at the open doorway of the garage, seemed to think Dot’s handsprings were marvelously well done, too; they whispered together excitedly and then the older one slyly beckoned the big Gypsy man across the street to approach.

When he arrived to look over the women’s heads it was Tess who was actively engaged on the garage floor. She was as supple as an eel. Of course, Tess Kenway would not like to be compared to an eel; but she was proud of her ability to “wriggle into a bow knot and out again” – as Sammy vociferously announced.

“Say, Tess! that’s a peach of a trick,” declared the boy with enthusiasm. “Say! Lemme – Huh! What do you want?” For suddenly he saw the two Gypsy women at the door of the garage. The man was now out of sight.

“Ah-h!” whined the old woman cunningly, “will not the young master and the pretty little ladies buy a nice basket of the poor Gypsy? Good fortune goes with it.”

“Gee! who wants to buy a basket?” scoffed Sammy. “You only have to carry things in it.” The bane of Sammy Pinkney’s existence was the running of errands.

“But they are pretty,” murmured Tess.

“Oh – oo! See that nice green and yellow one with the cover,” gasped Dot. “Do you suppose we’ve got money enough to buy that one, Tess? How nice it would be to carry the children’s clothes in when we go on picnics.”

By “children” Dot meant their dolls, of which, the two smaller Corner House girls possessed a very large number. Several of these children, besides the Alice-doll, were grouped upon a bench in the corner of the garage as a part of the circus audience. The remainder of the spectators were Sandyface and her family. Sandyface was now a great, great grandmother cat, and more of her progeny than one would care to catalog tranquilly viewed the little girls’ circus or rolled in kittenish frolic on the floor.

It sometimes did seem as though the old Corner House demesne was quite given up to feline inhabitants. And the recurrent appearance of new litters of kittens belonging to Sandyface herself, her daughters and granddaughters, had ceased to make even a ripple in the pool of Corner House existence.

This explanation regarding the dolls and cats is really aside from our narrative. Tess and Dot both viewed with eager eyes the particular covered basket held out enticingly by the old Gypsy woman.

Of course the little girls had no pockets in their gymnasium suits. But in a pocket of her raincoat which Tess had worn down to the garage over her blouse and bloomers, she found a dime and two pennies – “just enough for two ice-cream cones,” Sammy Pinkey observed.

“Oh! And my Alice-doll has eight cents in her cunning little beaded bag,” cried Dot, with sudden animation.

She produced the coins. But there was only twenty cents in all!

“I – I – What do you ask for that basket, please?” Tess questioned cautiously.

“Won’t the pretty little ladies give the poor old Gypsy woman half a dollar for the basket?”

The little girls lost hope. They were not allowed to break into their banks for any purpose without asking Ruth’s permission, and their monthly stipend of pocket money was very low.