the state, in fact; but it was not a very busy waterway. Now and then
a battered old barge was drawn through by a pair of equally battered
horses or mules. Milton people held the canal folk in some contempt. But
then, they knew very little about the followers of the inland waterways
as a class.

Sometimes some of the canal boatmen came over as far as Meadow Street to
purchase provisions of Mrs. Kranz, or of Joe Maroni, both of whom
occupied stores on property belonging now to the four Corner House
girls; and the way the two small runaways took on this day led them
directly past this Meadow Street property.

"If we are going to be pirates," said Sammy rather soberly for him, "we
must lay in a stock of provisions. We've got to eat, you know."

"Oh! have we?" asked the little girl, to whom the fact of piracy was a
sublimated sort of existence in which she had not considered it would be
necessary to think of mundane things.

"I've got the money, and we'll lay in a stock," Sammy said, proud of his
position now as acknowledged leader of the expedition.

Mrs. Kranz, the German woman who kept the delicatessen store, was not at
all surprised to see Dot. The Corner House girls often visited her and
the other tenants on the property, and Dot was particularly beloved by
the good woman.

"My! my! Undt de baby, too? Coom right in undt haf some nice
pop-sarsaparilla. I haf some on de ice yet--you undt your young man."

"Oh, Mrs. Kranz!" cried Dot, eagerly, "we haven't come to visit you.
We've come to buy something."

But Sammy nudged her quickly. "Let's have the sarsaparilla," he
whispered in Dot's ear, as the generous woman bustled away to the
icebox. "That'll go fine."

Maria Maroni, oldest of the fruit dealer's family, who dwelt in the
cellar of the building but lived mostly with Mrs. Kranz, waited upon
Sammy; so the storekeeper herself had no idea of the queer order Sammy
gave.

He bought crackers--mostly of the animal kind; a piece of cheese;
fishhooks; a ball of twine; a sack of potatoes (Maria ran and got those
from her father); a pencil and a pad of paper; some raisins; a jar of
peanut butter; some drop-cakes; and ten cents' worth of a confection
just then very popular, called by the children "gumballs."

All these things, save the gumballs, he had put in a flour sack, and
told Dot they were ready to depart.

"Undt dat iss a pig pundle of t'ings Mrs. MacCall sent you for," said
Mrs. Kranz placidly, as the runawa