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Perhaps she was using it for unworthy purposes, and it was unlawful to wear a scout badge without authority. The offence was punishable by law. Rose thoroughly understood all this, but how could she reach Tessie to warn her! Even a dismissed scout must return her badge and buttons to the organization, and there was Tessie Wartliz forging her way on the strength of that special merit badge!
So Tessie Wartliz was suffering from an inherited disease commonly called "Greed." Her parents were greedy for money, and she was greedy for good times. She wanted much of anything she enjoyed, and had little care how that abnormal amount was obtained. Tessie at first thought little or nothing of the trinket.
If Frank should decide she was the girl from Flosston runaway Tessie Wartliz! "Well, all the same," Frank added, turning on the gas after a slow-down for an old lady with a small boy and a large bundle, "I have some regard for a girl who wants to cut loose and make good.
"You may do as you please, Miss Wartliz," she exclaimed. "But I am not going to tramp these streets all night. I don't want to end up in a nice little rat-ridden police cell. We don't have rats over our way." "And I suppose we do. Well, Miss Smarty, what do you propose to do? Maybe you wouldn't mind letting your friend in on the game!"
Not even the talkative Kate Jordan, who worked next to Mrs. Brodix and kept her eyes and ears attentive during Molly Cosgrove's visit to the afflicted mill hand, guessed any of this, while the escape of Tessie Wartliz, from the very grasp of Officer Cosgrove, remained a secret with those who directly encountered the business end of that experience.
Molly was always jolly, if not singing she would be "chirping" as her brother Martin termed the queer sort of lispy whistle she indulged in, and even while dressing, it was a practice of hers to vary the operations with home-made jazz. During all this Rose was making up her mind to go straight out in the big world and find Tessie Wartliz.
The sensational news of two girls having run away from the Fluffdown mills was now quickly making its way through Flosston and near-by communities. The Wartliz family had done its part in spreading the scandal, while the Brodix people said little, wagged their heads and grieved sincerely, for their Dagmar was a cherished daughter, and her loss had sadly strained the humble home circle.
"Oh, my beautiful Dagmar!" she wailed. "It is that vile street runner Theresa, who has carried her away!" was the burden of her lamentations. "The smartest girl in all Millville was my Tessie," insisted Mrs. Wartliz. "It was that baby-faced kitten, Dagmar Brodix, who coaxed her off.
She was relieved now that an attempt, at least, had been made to acquaint Molly Cosgrove with some few of the facts regarding the disappearance of Tessie Wartliz, but Molly hadn't seemed the least bit surprised, rather she laughed the subject off, as if Rose were making a mountain out of a mole hill. So no mention was made of the Merit Badge.
Tessie Wartliz was enmeshed in that oftquoted "tangled web," coincident with the first attempt at deception. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!" Reading those lines mean very little to the girl who has never been so unfortunate as to know their fullest meaning, but Tessie knew not the lines, it was their threat she felt, their dark story she was living through.
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