Chapter VIII: Reforming a "pirate"

"Well! you said I could come, Aggie Kenway--so there!"

This was Sammy's initial statement when Neale dragged him off his perch and brought him around to the side of the car where all could see him.

"Why! you awful boy! I never!" declared Agnes, shaking her head at him angrily.

"Yes, you did," repeated Sammy.

"Don't add to your wickedness by telling such a story, Sammy Pinkney," admonished Ruth.

"Oh, Sammy!" gasped Tess, dolefully.

"I don't believe even pirates tell stories," added Dot, with grave conviction.

"I ain't! I ain't telling a story," repeated the small boy, with earnestness. "She did! she did!"

"I never! I never!" responded Agnes.

"Wait!" put in Ruth, firmly. "We are getting nowhere. Of course you did not tell him he could come, Aggie; but he must have thought you said something like that. What _did_ she say, Sammy Pinkney?"

"She said--she said," choked the now much-abused-sounding Sammy. "She said she'd like to see me find room aboard the car--_and I did!_" and he concluded with something like triumph.

"Oh!" gasped Agnes.

"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Heard, and it must be confessed she was immensely amused. "What a boy!"

"Did you ever hear the like of that?" repeated Ruth, using one of Mrs. MacCall's favorite expressions of amazement.

"I'm sure I didn't mean----" began Agnes, but her older sister said, quickly:

"Of course you didn't, deary! And that boy should have known better."

"She _did_ tell me so--she did!" wailed Sammy. "And I'm going. My mother said I could--and that you girls was awful nice to take me."

"Cricky!" murmured Neale, all of a broad grin now. "You got a reputation that time, Aggie, for goodness, without meaning it."

"I don't care----"

"The thing is now," interrupted Ruth, decidedly, "how to send him home."

At that Sammy lifted up his voice in a wail that might have touched a heart of stone. And really, after all, there was not a heart of stone in the whole party of tourists from the old Corner House--not even in Tom Jonah's breast. The old dog went up to Sammy and tried to lap his tears away.

"Oh, see here, kid! don't yell like that," begged Neale. "Turn off the sprinkler. That won't get you anywhere."

"Will you tell me what we are to do with him, then?" demanded Ruth, quite put out. "There is no room for him in the car."

"I can stay where I was. I don't mind," gulped Sammy.

"Never!" declared Agnes. "You made a show out of us all the way through town. We'll never hear the last of it."

"We were boarded by a pirate, sure enough," chuckled Neale.

"He's worse than any pirate," sighed Ruth. "We'd know what to do with a real pirate."

"I wonder?" murmured Neale, his eyes twinkling.

But Ruth ignored him. She thought she saw her duty, and was determined to do it. "I suppose we shall have to go back," she hesitated.

"Oh, no, Ruthie!" begged the two little girls in chorus.

"I wouldn't go back for that horrid little scamp!" snapped Agnes, her face flushing. "Sammy Pinkney, you are the worst boy!"

Sammy sniffed and looked at her. "I found that ring you lost that time, Aggie Kenway. 'Member?" he asked.

"But you _are_ an awful nuisance," pronounced Ruth, with conviction.

"You never would have knowed your hens was layin' in Mr. Benjamin's lot last week if I hadn't ha' told you, Ruthie Kenway--so there," responded the youngster.

"And you told me that--that sick man was carrying a brick in his hat--and he wasn't," Dot put in faintly.

Sammy grinned at that; but he was prompt to say, too: "Well, who found all your dolls out on the grass where you'd played lawn party, and brought 'em in just before the thunder shower the other day? Heh?"

"Cricky!" exclaimed Neale, under his breath, and with some admiration, "the kid's making out a case."

Tess, the kind-hearted, would make no accusation; but Ruth, despite the boy's rejoinders, remained firm.

"No," she said. "He must go home. Is there a railroad station near from which we can send him, Neale? We'll telephone to his mother. We are a long way from town."

At that Sammy Pinkney, who prided himself on being "tough" and who was in training for a piratical future, broke down completely.

"Ow! ow! ow!" he howled, digging his grimy fist first into one eye and then into the other. "I don't wanter! I don't wanter! I don't wanter go back. I ain't got nobody to play with. And ma'll lick me 'cause I said you'd 'vited me to go--an' now Aggie s-s-says she didn't. And I been sick, anyway, and I can't play with the fellers, 'cause it tires me so.

"I--I--I never git to go nowheres," pursued Sammy, using the most atrocious English, but utterly abandoned in his grief. "You Corner House girls git all the go--go--good times, and _I_ ain't got even a s-s-sister to play with----"

At this point a most astonishing thing overtook Agnes Kenway. She had begun by glaring at Sammy in anger; but as he went on to bewail his hard state, her pretty face flushed, then paled; her blue eyes filled with tears which soon began to spill over. She drew nearer to the miserable little chap, standing, dirty and forlorn, in the middle of the road.

"Now, stop that, Sammy!" she suddenly blurted out. "Just stop. Don't cry any more."

"He can't go. There isn't room," Ruth was repeating.

Agnes turned toward the eldest Corner House girl sharply and stamped her foot.

"He shall go, Ruth Kenway--so there! He can squeeze in on the seat between Neale and me. Here! take that bag up, Neale O'Neil. There's room for it right in here," and she pointed. "Now! stop your crying, Sammy. You shall go; but you'll have to be good."

"Oh, Aggie," cried the happy youngster, "I'll be as good as gold. You'll see."

"Well!" gasped Ruth, yet not sorry that for once Agnes had usurped authority.

Mrs. Heard laughed. Dot said:

"Well, it's true. He _hasn't_ any sister."

"And I'm sure he _can_ be good," put in Tess, the optimist.

Neale was chuckling to himself as he put Sammy's suitcase in the place indicated.

"What is the matter with _you_, Neale O'Neil?" demanded Agnes, hotly, brushing the tears out of her eyes.

"I was just thinking that this party has assumed a good deal of a contract," said the light-haired boy.

"What for?"

"For reforming a pirate," said Neale.