A general laugh hailed this announcement. Agnes asked: What happened, Carrie? I dont know anything about rice myself cepting that its good in cakes and you throw it after brides for luck and and Chinamen live on it.
Wait! urged Carrie, solemnly. Its nothing to laugh at. I began cooking it in a four quart saucepan, so as to give it plenty of room; and when father came in just before supper time, I had the whole top of our big range covered with pots and pans into which I had dipped the overflow of that two pounds of rice!
Oh, yes, I had! said Carrie, warmly, while the others screamed with laughter. And I had gotten so excited by that time that I begged father to go out to the washhouse and bring in the big clothes boiler, sos to see if I could keep the stuff from running over onto the stove.
You never saw such a mess, concluded Carrie, shaking her head. And we had to eat rice for a week!
It was just here that Agnes spied something far ahead beside the woodspath.
Oh! she cried, are we in sight of the tent colony you tell about, so soon?
Nonsense! exclaimed Pearl Harrod. Were nowhere near the river.
But theres a tent! exclaimed Agnes, earnestly.
And I see the top of another, said Lucy Poole.
Dirty brown things, both of them. Look more like Indian wigwams, announced Ann Presby.
My goodness, girls! there are the Gypsies Uncle Phil wrote about, said Pearl, in some excitement. Lets get our fortunes told.
Oh, dear me, said Ruth, rather worriedly. I dont just like Gypsies.
Oh, you havent got to hug and kiss them! laughed Pearl. Come on! theyre lots of fun.
But when the party of girls drew nearer to the Gypsy camp, this particular tribe of Nomads did not appear to be lots of fun, after all.
In the first place, the tents as Ann had said were very shabby and dirty. The two covered wagons were dilapidated, too. Gypsies usually have good horses, but those the girls saw feeding in the little glade were mere crowbaits.
Several low-browed, roughly dressed men sat in a group on the grass playing cards. They were smoking, and one was tipping a black bottle to his
lips just as the girls from Milton came near.
Lets hurry right by, Pearl! begged Ruth.
Pearl, however, was not as observant as the Corner House girl. She failed to see danger in the situation, or in the looks the disturbed men cast upon the unprotected party of girls. As several of the fellows rose, Pearl called to them:
Wheres your Pythoness? Where is the Queen of the Gypsies? We want our fortunes told.
One man a tall fellow with a scarred face turned and shouted something in a strange tongue at the tents. Ruth recognized the language in which the woman had talked to the dark-faced girl on the train.
And then, the next moment, Ruth caught sight of the face of the very woman in question, peering from between the flaps of one of the dingy tents.
CHAPTER IX THE SPOONDRIFT BUNGALOW
Why, Dot! gasped Tess. That man there is the very fellow who tried to steal Ruths chickens!
Oh o-o!
Yes, he is, whispered the amazed Tess. Hes the young man Tom Jonah chased up on to the henhouse roof.
Well, said the philosophical Dot, he cant steal our chickens here .
Just the same I wish Tom Jonah was here with us. I Id feel better about meeting him, confessed Tess.
The other girls did not hear this conversation between the two youngest Kenways. Ruth and Agnes, however, were really troubled by the meeting with the Gypsies; the former was, in addition, suspicious of the woman who had been on the train with them.
This strange woman did not come out of the tent. Indeed, almost at once she disappeared, dropping the curtain. She did not wish to be observed by the girls from Milton.
Oh, come on! cried the reckless Pearl. Theyll only ask us a dime each. Cross their palms with silver, you know. And they do tell the queerest things sometimes.
I dont believe wed better stop this afternoon, Pearl, ventured Ruth, as one of the rough fellows drew nearer to the girls.
Let the little ladies wait but a short time, said this man. They will have revealed to them all they wish to know.
He had an ugly leer, and had Pearl looked at him she would have been frightened by his expression. But she was searching her chain-purse for dimes. It did not look to Ruth Kenway as though that purse would last long in the company of these evil fellows.
Now the same tent flap was pushed aside again and into the open hobbled an old crone. She seemed to be a toothless creature, and leaned upon a crutch. Gray strands of coarse hair straggled over her wrinkled forehead. She had a hump on her back or seemed to have, for she wore a long cloak, the bedraggled tail of which touched the ground.
She hobbled across the lawn toward the girls. Ruth watched her closely for, it seemed, she came more hurriedly than seemed necessary.
A dog one of the mongrels that infested the camp ran at her, and the old crone struck at the creature with her crutch; he ran away yelping. She was plainly more vigorous of arm than one would have believed from her decrepit appearance.