Living as he did, just catercornered across Willow Street from the side door of the old Corner House, Sammy had been the most familiar playfellow of Tess and Dot since they had come to Milton. Sammy's affairs had always entertained the Corner House family-even his attempts to run away to be a pirate.

Whatever Tess and Dot did, Sammy had a share in. During the brief time when they were kept indoors because Ruth and Agnes were so ill, Sammy concluded that he ought to do something big for the little girls on the coming holiday.

"I got to give something nice to Tess and Dot," he told his mother and father. "They have done a lot of things for me, haven't they?"

"They are very good friends of yours," agreed his father.

"You could not have nicer playmates," said Mrs. Pinkney with satisfaction. "What do you want to give Tess and Dot?"

"I don't know yet," answered Sammy thoughtfully. "I want it to be something they'll remember me by after I get so big that I won't want to play with girls any more."

"Why, Sammy!" exclaimed his mother, "I hope that day will never come."

"Huh!" growled her young son. "It's bad for boys to play with girls all the time. Makes 'em sissies."

Mrs. Pinkney was troubled; but her husband laughed loudly.

"Let me pick out something sweet for the little girls, Sammy," said his mother, with a sigh.

"What do you mean, Mom? Candy?" asked Sammy suspiciously. "They always have candy."

"No, no. I mean something pretty-for them to wear or look at."

"Huh!" was the doubtful response. "They don't need any clothes. Do you mean pictures? For they've got a lot of them. Their playroom walls are covered with 'em. Pictures printed on the wall-paper. Don't see much good in that myself."

Again Mr. Pinkney expressed his amus.e.m.e.nt. His wife, who was wholly without a sense of humor or fun, frowned at her husband's openly expressed amus.e.m.e.nt. Moreover, she wished that Sammy was less boisterous. And she blamed Mr. Pinkney for encouraging Sammy's ruder tastes.

"He is getting old enough now to appreciate better things," she said in private to Mr. Pinkney. "See how nice it is of him to think of giving the little girls a nice present. I wonder what he will decide upon."

"You leave it to Sammy," chuckled her husband. "He'll think of something that will surprise them-and probably surprise you, too."

"I hope it will be nice."

"Remember," said the man in warning, "that it was Sammy who gave Tess and Dot that goat, Billy b.u.mps. It's been a cross to the rest of the Corner House crowd, I have no doubt."

"Oh, dear! Don't suggest such a thing!" gasped Mrs. Pinkney.

Meanwhile the suggestion Dr. Forsyth had made to Mr. Howbridge regarding a winter trip South for the Corner House girls, bore fruit. The lawyer had business at St. Sergius, the capital of one of the island colonies in the Caribbean Sea. St. Sergius was a commercial port of some importance, and the business that called Mr. Howbridge there was of moment.

He had intended to remain at a hotel there for some weeks, and had even written for hotel booklets and the like. Now he proposed to make the trip a real outing, and he broached the matter to Ruth.

"Oh, Guardy!" she sighed, "that sounds fine," and she began, Mrs.

MacCall said, "to perk up immediately." Heretofore she had shown little power of recovery from her illness-not as much as Agnes showed. Now she became almost as enthusiastic as her livelier sister over the proposed journey into warmer climes.

Of course she wrote at once to Luke about it and from him received the most amazing reply, worded about like this:

"Tell it not in Gath-nor in Pawtucket! I've been as worried as a ball of knitting-wool in the claws of a six-weeks'-old kitten! I had a chance offered me, and I didn't know what to do about it. Believe me, the wind is tempered to the lawn sham! Professor Keeps, who is a good friend of mine, is going to spend some weeks in the Caribbean, starting soon after New Year's, and he offered me the chance to go along-and get a salary for so doing! Think of it! Luke Shepard is to be a.s.sistant to a grave professor who is curious about the botany of those tropic isles.

"I am going to tell him now that I am his for keeps! Pardon the pun.

I will be there with bells on, Ruthie. You can't lose me. Maybe we can sail in the same boat for St. Sergius. Tell Mr. Howbridge to try to make the _Horridole_ of the Black Pennant Line. She is some boat.

I am coming down to see you before the start. Package of remembrances starts with this letter for Christmas. Hang 'em on the tree. I forbid your peeping into yours, Ruthie, until Christmas morning."

Naturally this news could not be hidden. All the household at once knew that Luke Shepard would be able to spend some of the time, at least, with the party which was to go to St. Sergius.

By this time, too, Tess and Dot, knowing that they were to be included in the party, were telling everybody they met of the good times in store for them.

"Huh! You'd better stay home," said Sammy Pinkney disappointedly, for he knew that this was a party which he could have no part in. "There'll be more going on here than down there in the West Indies. You wait and see!"

"But they won't be the same things," declared Tess. "We know all about the things that happen in Milton in winter."

"You don't know everything," said the boy, wagging his head.

"What's going to happen here, Sammy?" cried Dot. "Oh! Do tell us."

"You're going to get a present."

"We always get presents," said Tess.

"What sort of present?" demanded Dot. "Something for my Alice-doll?"

"It's going to be a great one!" said Sammy. "I'm going to give it to you. Mike Donlan--Well, never mind! You're going to be surprised."

"I like to be surprised," confessed Dot.

"You will be," said Sammy, nodding vigorously.

"Well, we are not going until after Christmas," said Tess, with sudden memory. "So it will be all right."

"But if I give you this present you ought to stay home and look out for it," declared their boy friend.

"It must be alive," said Tess thoughtfully.

At that, Sammy, much afraid that he might "give it away," departed in haste. He could not be confident of his own ability to dodge any cross-examination of Tess Kenway's.

Christmas Eve came at last. For the first time she could remember Ruth went to bed without putting the last touches to the Christmas tree in the big dining-room. But she really was not equal to it. So Mrs. MacCall did all that, aided by Linda and old Uncle Rufus.

As usual the toys and games for the little folks were numberless. And n.o.body was forgotten. Sammy Pinkney, however, had come to Uncle Rufus early in the evening and begged him to leave the side door of the Corner House unlocked when the family had got through dressing the tree.

"What yo' got in your haid, boy?" Uncle Rufus demanded.

"'Tain't in my head. It's in our woodshed," confessed Sammy. "But don't you tell n.o.body, Uncle Rufus."

"I can't tell what I don't know," admitted the old colored man, who always entered into the spirit of the children's plays.

"It's going to be a surprise for everybody," declared Sammy. "You leave the door unlocked, Uncle Rufus, and you'll all know what it is in the morning."

And it certainly was a surprise! Sammy Pinkney was famous for surprising people.