The Corner House Girls on a Tour

“You mustn’t go so fast, Sammy,” urged Tess. “You know we haven’t got to catch a train. And do go away, Tom Jonah! You’re all wet. When you shake yourself I’d just as lief be walking close behind a sprinkling-cart.”

Both the boy and the dog laughed at her; but Dot, realizing that Alice’s best gown might be ruined, almost fell off her stepping-stone as Tom Jonah deliberately shook himself again and she tried to shield her doll’s finery.

“Oh, bully!” shouted Sammy, suddenly. “There’s blackberries.”

The bushes were overhanging the steep wall of the ravine on one side. Tess looked doubtfully up the rocky slope.

“They’re mostly red, Sammy,” she objected. “Or green.”

“Some of ’em’s black enough,” declared the boy. “Come on! Let’s get some.”

Sammy scrambled up the rough side of the gully. Tom Jonah bounded after him and then looked back at his little mistresses to see if they were coming too.

“Well! I won’t be beaten by a boy,” said Tess, with sudden decision. “Let’s go too, Dot.”

It was a rather hard pull for the little girls; and Dot got her knees “scrubby,” although she saved the Alice-doll’s dress. They came to the top of the height all but breathless and with flushed faces.

Sammy was coolly picking the best berries and cramming them into a mouth which betrayed to all who might behold his greediness. “You better hurry up,” he advised, with a lofty detachment from all chivalry, “or there won’t be any left. There ain’t many ripe ones, after all.”

“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Tess. “You aren’t very polite, Sammy Pinkney.”

“You – you might have saved us some!” protested Dot.

The little girls looked all about. They did not see any other blackberry bushes in the vicinity. But Tess sighted something else.

“Oh, Dot! Roses! Lovely, pink, wild, roses! Did you ever see so many?”

There was a veritable hedge of the pretty, fragrant, delicate flowers at the far side of this little field. The two girls raced over to them at once, forgetting both Sammy’s greediness and the berries. Tom Jonah bounded after them, and rushed through a gap in the rose hedge. Instantly there was excitement on the far side of the hedge, just out of sight.

An angry and excited voice rose in a familiar: “Bla-a-a-t! bla-a-a-t!”

“Oh, my! what’s that?” asked Dot, startled.

“It sounds just like Billy Bumps,” said Tess.

Again it sounded: “Ba-a-a! bla-a-a-t!” Tom Jonah barked. Sammy came running over to them.

“Hear that old Billy goat?” he shouted. “I bet Tom Jonah’s treed him!”

He dived through the break in the hedge and perforce, because of their curiosity, the little Corner House girls were drawn after him. There they found both Tom Jonah and the boy dancing about a rather savage-looking black-faced ram that had been tied to a stump and that was now so wound up in his rope that he could do little but stamp his hoofs and shake his horns at his tormentors.

“Oh, Sammy! don’t worry the poor goat,” begged Dot.

“Come here, Tom Jonah!” commanded Tess sternly, and the dog obeyed if the boy did not.

“Aw, what’s the odds? He can’t get at us,” said Sammy, careless of both his grammar and the ethics of the case. “And he’s only an old goat.”

“That is just horrid of you, Sammy Pinkney!” declared Tess. “Suppose it was our own poor Billy Bumps?”

The girls, no more than the boy, did not recognize the difference between the goat they knew well and the ram that they had never seen before. The black-faced rogue had been tied because it was not safe to let him run loose with the herd.

“We must help him,” declared Tess, having made Tom Jonah go to the rear. “We can’t leave him tied here to suffer – and all wound up in that rope. If Neale were only here – ”

“Oh, yes!” agreed Dot. “Neale would fix it all right.”

“Say,” declared Sammy, spurred to the quick, “I ain’t afraid. If Neale could do it, I guess I can. But just the same, I bet if we let him loose he’ll chase us.”

“Oh, no! he wouldn’t do that, would he?” cried Dot.

“He wouldn’t be so ungrateful,” said Tess severely.

“Poor, poor old Billy,” cooed Dot, putting out her hand to the ram.

“He – he doesn’t look just like our goat; but I know he’s suffering,” Tess declared.

The noise the ram made would naturally lead one to think that he was suffering. If not urged on by this appearance, Sammy desired to make a certain impression upon his companions. He walked boldly up to the stump to which the ram was tethered. Things began to happen immediately! That black-faced ram had no more idea of gratitude than a rattlesnake.

Sammy got two loops of the rope off the stump, and another off the ram’s hind leg. The beast immediately put down its head and bumped Sammy just as hard as he possibly could.

“Ow! Ouch!” yelled Sammy. “Get out, you mean thing!”

“Bla-a-at!” said the ram, and tried to charge again. Sammy attempted to scramble out of the way; the little girls screamed; Tom Jonah began to bark and to jump about the excited party.

The ram ran several times around the stump in the right direction to unwind his rope; but in so doing he got Sammy and the rope entangled. In a moment more the modern pirate was lashed to the post, yelling vigorously, while the ram was brought to a stop again on too short a rope to do the boy any damage with his ugly horns, although he threatened Sammy continuously.

The screams of the three children and the barking of Tom Jonah was bound to raise the neighborhood. A shout soon replied, and the screaming of other youthful voices. Into the field at its far end came a man, running, and close upon his heels several ragged and bare-legged children, both boys and girls.

“What are ye doin’ there, ye little imps?” roared the man, bearing down on the little Corner House girls and their unfortunate champion in a very ugly way.

“Oh, do help Sammy!” begged Tess, with clasped hands, of the ugly man.

Dot, hugging the Alice-doll closely, stared wonderingly at the horde of little ragamuffins that came dancing and screeching to the scene of Sammy’s disaster.

“Take him off, mister, an’ lemme get away,” cried Sammy. “I won’t never do it again.”

It was so natural for Sammy Pinkney to be blamed in whatever situation he found himself, that he offered his apologies at once. The ugly man scowled down at him.

“I’d oughter let old Dewey lam’ you good,” he growled.

“Cut the rope and let old Dewey go for ’em, Uncle Jim!” yelled one of the young savages.

At that both Tess and Dot burst into despairing wails. At the same moment Neale O’Neil and Agnes burst through the bushes, having been drawn to the spot by the uproar.

“Oh, Aggie!” shrieked Tess.

“Oh, Neale!” cried Dot.

Sammy pluckily held his tongue; but the way he looked at the bigger boy belonging to the automobile party would have touched a much stonier heart than that of Neale O’Neil.