"And everybody at my house is mean to me, too," added the little girl, stirring up her own bile by the audible reiteration of her thoughts. "Yes, they are!" "Huh!" repeated the scornful Sammy. "They ain't nowhere near as mean to you as my folks are to me." "You don't know--" "Did they lick you?" demanded the boy fiercely. "No-o." "And then make you stay in your room and have your supper there?" "No-o." "Ma brought it up on a tray," the boy said fiercely, "so I couldn't get no second helping of apple dumpling." "Oh, Sammy!" Somehow, after all, his misery seemed greater than her own. Yet there was a sore spot in the little girl's heart. "I--I wish I could run away," she blurted out, never having thought of such a thing until that very moment. "_Then_ they'd see." "Hist!" breathed Sammy, coming closer and putting his lips as close to the little girl's ear as the pickets would allow. "Hist! _I am going to run away!_" Dot took this statement much more calmly than he expected. "Oh, yes," she said. "When you go to be a pirate. You've told me that before, Sammy Pinkney." In fact, she had been hearing this threat ever since she had come to the old Corner House and become acquainted with this youngster. "And I _am_ going to be a pirate," growled Sammy, with just as deep a voice as he could muster. "Oh! not _now_?" gasped Dot, suddenly realizing that this occasion was fraught with more seriousness than any previous one of like character. "You aren't going right off now to be a pirate, Sammy Pinkney?" "Yes, I am," declared the boy. "Not now? Not this morning? Not before your mother comes back from marketing?" for she had seen Mrs. Pinkney's departure a few minutes before. "Yes, I am," and Sammy clinched it with a vigorous nod, although he had not meant to run away until nightfall. People usually waited for night to run away so it seemed to Sammy, but he was not going to have his intention doubted. "Oh, Sammy!" gasped Dot, clasping her hands across the Alice-doll's stomach, "are--are there _girl_ pirates?" "Are there what?" questioned Sammy in doubt. "Can girls run away and be pirates, too?" "Why--er--they wouldn't dars't." "Yes, I would." "You! Dot Kenway?" "Yes I would," repeated Dot stubbornly. "You want to be a pirate?" repeated Sammy. Of course he would rather have a boy to run away with. But then-- "Why can't girls be pirates?" demanded the logical Dot. "Don't pirates have to have somebody to cook and wash and keep house for them?" "I--I don't know," admitted Sammy honestly. "I never read about any girl pirates. But," as he saw Dot's pretty face beginning to cloud over, "I don't know why there shouldn't be, if they wasn't too 'fraid." "I won't be afraid," Dot declared, steeling herself as she had once done when she was forced to go to the dentist's office. "We-ell," began Sammy still doubtfully. But Dot was nothing if not determined when once she made up her mind.