Mrs. Adams had the tea on her back lawn in the shade of a big tulip tree. She had just the sort of cakes girls like best, and strawberries and cream, and the “cambric tea,” as Mrs. Adams called it, was rich with cream and sugar. Mrs. Adams herself took a cup of tea that had brewed much longer; she said she wanted it “strong enough to bite,” or it did not give her a mite of comfort. From where the pleasant little party sat, they could look over the fence into the big yard belonging to the Pease place. “Your folks,” said Mrs. Adams to her next door neighbors, “are going to have a right smart lot of cherries. That tree’s hanging full.” The tree in question was already aflame with the ripening fruit. Margaret said: “Mother says we’ll have plenty of cherries to do up for once—if the birds and the boys don’t do too much damage. There are two nests of robins right in that one tree, and they think they own all the fruit. And the boys!” “I expect that Sammy Pinkney has been around,” said Mrs. Adams. “There’s worse than him,” said Holly Pease, shaking her flaxen head. “This morning papa chased an awfully ragged boy out of that tree. The sun was scarcely up, and if it hadn’t been for the robins scolding so, papa wouldn’t have known the boy was there.” “A robber boy!” cried Mrs. Adams. “I wager that’s who got my milk. I set a two quart can out in the shed last night, because it was cool there. And this morning more than half of the milk was gone. The little rascal had used the can cover to drink out of.” “Oh!” said Tess, pityingly, “the poor boy must have been hungry.” “He’s probably something else by now,” said Mrs. Adams, grimly. “Half ripe cherries and milk! My soul and body! Enough to snarl anybody’s stomach up into a knot, but a boy’s. I guess boys can eat anything—and recover.” Holly said, quietly: “There was a boy worked for Mrs. Hovey yesterday. He was awfully hungry and ragged. I saw him carrying in wood from her woodpile. And he just staggered, he was so small and weak. And his hair looked so funny——” “What was the matter with his hair?” asked her sister. “It was red. Brick red. I never saw such red hair before.” “Oh!” cried Tess. “Did he have sure enough _red_ hair?” Then she turned to Dot. “Do you s’pose it could be Tommy Rooney, Dot?” “Who’s Tommy Rooney?” asked Mrs. Adams. The Corner House girls told them all about Tommy, and how he had run away from home, and why they half believed he had come here to Milton. “To shoot Indians!” exclaimed Mrs. Adams. “Whoever heard of such a crazy notion? Mercy! boys get worse and worse, every day.” Perhaps it was because of this conversation that Tess and Dot at once thought of Tommy on the way home that evening after the party, when they saw a man and a dog chasing a small boy across Willow Street near the old Corner House. “That’s Sammy Pinkney’s bulldog,” declared Tess, in fright. “And it’s Sammy’s father, too.”