CHAPTER XII
BETTY DEFENDS HERSELF
Apparently Mr. Peabody had never taken Betty's threat to ask her uncle to take her away seriously, and her presence at the farm soon came to be an accepted fact. Conditions did not improve, but Betty developed a sturdy, wholesome philosophy that helped her to make the best of everything. Uncle Dick wrote seldom, but packages from Philadelphia continued to come at intervals, and always proved to be practical and needful.
"Though as to that, he couldn't have the lawyer send me anything that wouldn't be useful," said Betty to herself. "I never saw a place where there was so much nothing as here at Bramble Farm."
One morning when the pouring rain kept her indoors, Betty was exploring the little used parlor. Mrs. Peabody seldom entered the room save to clean it and close it up, and Betty opened a corner of the blind with something like trepidation. A large shotgun over the mantel attracted her attention at once.
"Don't touch that thing—it's always kept loaded," said the voice of Lieson at the door.
Betty shivered and drew away from the shelf. Lieson showed his tobacco-stained teeth in a friendly grin.
"I was up attic getting my rubber boots," he explained, "and I saw the mail wagon stop at the box. Do you want I should go down and get the mail?"
"Oh, would you?" Betty's tone was eager. "Perhaps there is a letter from my uncle. That would be so kind of you, Mr. Lieson, because otherwise I may have to wait till it stops raining."
"I'll go," said Lieson awkwardly, and he went stumping down the hall.
Wapley and Lieson were rough and untidy, but Betty found herself liking them better and feeling sorry for them as time went on. They worked hard and were never thanked and had very little pleasure after their day's work was over. Several times now they had done little kindnesses for Betty, and she had tried to show that she appreciated their efforts.
Lieson came back from the mail box carrying a square package, but no letter. Though Mr. Peabody was presumably waiting in the barn for him and fuming at his delay, the man showed such a naive interest in the parcel that Betty could not resist asking him to wait while she opened it.
"Why, it's a camera!" she exclaimed delightedly, as she took out the square box. "I'll take your picture, Mr. Lieson, as soon as the sun comes out, to pay you for walking through all this rain to get the mail for me."
"Say, would you?" Lieson showed more animation than Betty had ever noticed in him. "Honest? I got a lady friend, and she's always at me to send her my picture. She sure would admire to have one of me."
"All right, she hasn't long to wait," promised Betty gaily. "Here are two rolls of film, and luckily I know how to operate a camera. Mr. Arnold had a good one and he taught me. The first sunny day, remember, Mr. Lieson."
The rain continued all that day, and at night when Betty went up to bed she heard it pattering on the tin roof of the porch which was under her window.
Betty had managed to make her room more habitable, and, relieved of any fear of embarrassing her hostess, had tacked netting at the two windows and bought herself a lamp with a good burner. She scrupulously paid Mr. Peabody for the oil she used, and while he showed plainly that he considered burning a light at night in summer a wicked extravagance, he did not interfere.
"Now let me see," mused Betty. "Shall I answer Mrs. Arnold's last letter or go to bed? I guess I'll go to bed. I'll have all day to write letters to-morrow."
She was brushing her hair when a noise in the next room startled her. She knew that it was not occupied, for, besides herself, the Peabodys were the only ones who slept on the second floor. Bob Henderson and the hired men were housed in the attic. The Peabodys' bedroom was further down the hall, on the other side of the house.
"Pshaw!" Betty put her brush back on the table and gave her head a shake. "I mustn't get nervous. We're too far out in the country for burglars; and, besides, what in the world would they come here after?"
Mr. Peabody differed from the majority of his neighbors in that he banked most of his funds. Some said it was because, if he had been in the habit of keeping money in the house, his help would have murdered him cheerfully and taken the cash as a reward. Be that as it may, it was well known that Joseph Peabody seldom had actual money in his pocket or in his tin strong box, and now Betty was glad to recall this.
She had braided her hair and put out the light and was just slipping into bed when she heard the noise again. This time it sounded against the wall. Betty stealthily crept out of bed and ran to her door. There was no door key, but she shot the bolt.
"That's some protection," she murmured, hopping into bed again. "If there are burglars in the house, I suppose I've locked 'em out to scare Mr. and Mrs. Peabody to death. But at any rate they have each other, and I'm all alone."
Closing her eyes tight, Betty began to say her prayers, but she fell asleep before she had finished.
She woke in the dark to hear a noise directly under her bed!
She sat up, her eyes trying to pierce the darkness, wondering why she had not taken the precaution of looking under the bed before she locked herself into a room with a burglar.
"If I look now and see his legs, I'll faint away, I know I shall," she thought, her teeth chattering, though the night was warm. "I wish to goodness Uncle Dick had sent me a revolver."
That reminded her of the shotgun downstairs. With Betty to think was to act, and she sprang noiselessly out of bed and ran to the door. Thank goodness, the bolt slipped without squeaking. Downstairs ran Betty and lifted the heavy shotgun from its place over the mantel. She was no longer afraid, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. She was having a grand adventure. She had shot a gun a few times under Mr. Arnold's instructions and careful supervision when he was teaching his boys how to handle one, and she thought she knew all about it.
She gained her room, breathless, for the gun was heavy. At the threshold she stopped a moment to listen. Yes, there was the noise again. The burglar was unaware of her flight.
Unaware herself of the absurdity of her deductions, Betty raised the heavy gun and pointed it toward the bed. As well as she could tell, she was aiming under the bed. She shut her eyes tight and fired.
The gun kicked unmercifully, and Betty ejaculated a loud "Ow!" which was lost in the babble of sound that immediately followed the shot. There was the sound of breaking glass under the bed, a shrill scream from Mrs. Peabody, and the thunderous bellow of Mr. Peabody demanding: "What in Sam Hill are those varmints up to now?" Evidently he attributed the racket to Wapley and Lieson, who had been known to come home late from Glenside.
In a few minutes they were all gathered at Betty's door, Bob open-mouthed and speechless, the two men sleepily curious, the Peabodys loudly demanding to know what the matter was.
"Are you hurt, Betty?" asked Mrs. Peabody anxiously. "Where did you get the gun, dear? Did something frighten you?"
"It's a burglar!" declared Betty. "I heard him under the bed! But I got him, I know I did!"
"Light the lamp and look under the bed, Bob," commanded Mr. Peabody harshly. "I don't believe this burglar stuff, but the girl's shot off a good charge of buckshot, no doubt of that. Find out what she hit."
Bob lit the lamp and stooped down to look. Then his lips twitched.
"Rat!" he announced briefly. "A big one."
"Haul him out," directed Lieson. "Let's have a look at him."
Betty had shrunk inside the doorway when the lamp was lit, conscious of her attire, and now she managed to reach her dressing gown and fling it around her.
"He's in too many pieces," said Bob doubtfully. "Guess we'll have to get a dustpan and brush."
Mr. Peabody and the two men went grumbling back to bed, Peabody taking the gun for safekeeping, but Mrs. Peabody sent Bob down to the kitchen for the articles he mentioned, declaring that Betty should not have to finish the night in a room with a dead rat.
"If there was another bed made up, I'd move you into it," she said. "But I haven't an extra place ready."
Betty had pinned up her hair and put on her slippers before Bob came back, and had put her best pink crepe dressing gown around Mrs. Peabody, who presented an incongruous vision so attired. Bob looked at Betty in admiration. With her tumbled dark hair and pink cheeks and blue gown and slippers, the boy thought her the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
"I didn't want to tell you—don't look," he whispered, getting down on his knees to sweep out the remains of the slaughtered rat, "but the buckshot hit two olive bottles, and there's some mess here under your bed. I guess the rat was after the crackers."
Bob carried down the dead rat and mopped up the brine from the olives and threw out the debris, making several trips downstairs without a murmur. Finally it was all cleaned up, and they could go back to their rooms and finish the remainder of the night in probable peace.
"If you hear a noise"—Bob could not resist this parting shot—"run down and grab the dinner bell. We'll hear it just as quick, and you might shoot the potted ham full of bullets next time."
Betty did not sleep well, and once she woke, sure that she had heard loud talking and shouts. She thought the noise came from the attic.
"Lieson had the nightmare after your shindy," announced Bob at the breakfast table. "He suddenly began shouting and got me by the throat, declaring that if I didn't pay him every cent I owed him he'd kill me. Wapley had to come and pull him away, or I don't know but he would have choked the breath out of me."
"I had a bad dream," said Lieson sullenly.
The rain was still coming down and all the good-nature of the day before had left Lieson. He refused to answer a remark of Mr. Peabody's, and was evidently in a bad humor.
"He and the old man had a run in before breakfast," whispered Bob, pulling on his boots preparatory to carrying out food to the pigs. Betty stood at the window and they could talk without being overheard. "It was something about money. Well, Betty, are you going gunning to-day?"
"You needn't tease me," replied Betty, laughing. "I feel foolish enough, without being reminded of last night. I think I'll go upstairs and sew on buttons as a penance. There's nothing I hate to do worse."
"Do it well then," suggested the irrepressible Bob, slamming the door just in time to avoid the glass of water Betty tossed after him.
CHAPTER XIII
FOLLOWING THE PRESCRIPTION
The sound of some one chopping wood caught the alert ear of Bob Henderson as he came whistling through the yard on his way to the tool house. Some peculiar quality in the strokes seemed to suggest something to him, and he turned aside and made for the woodshed.
"For the love of Mike! Betty Gordon, what do you call it you're doing now?" he inquired, standing in the frame of the woodshed, at a respectful distance from the energetic figure by the wood block.
"Chopping wood!" snapped Betty, hacking a dry rail viciously. "Did you think I was cutting out paper dolls?"
"My dear child, that isn't the way to chop wood," insisted Bob paternally. "Here, let me show you. You'll ruin the axe, to say nothing of chopping off your own right ear."
Betty brought the axe down on the rail with unnecessary violence.
"Let me alone," she said ominously. "I'm mad! This is Uncle Dick's prescription, but I can't see that it works. The more I chop, the madder I get!"
Bob grinned, and then as a shout of "You, Bob!" sounded from outside, his expression changed.
"Wapley is waiting for nails to fix the fence with," he said hurriedly. "I'll have to hurry. But come on down to the cornfield, can't you, Betty? We can talk there."
Bob ran off, and Betty regarded the axe resentfully.
"Seems to me he's hoed enough corn to reach round the earth," she said aloud. "I wonder if Bob ever gets mad? Well, I guess I will go down and talk to him, though I did mean to weed the garden for Mrs. Peabody. I can do that this afternoon."
In spite of the absence of fresh eggs and milk from her diet, the weeks at Bramble Farm had benefited Betty. She was deeply tanned from days spent in the sun, and while perceptibly thinner, a close observer would have known that she was hardy and strong. She was growing taller, too.
"Mr. Peabody is so mean!" she scolded, dropping down under a scrubby wild cherry tree in the field where Bob was already hard at work hoeing corn, having delivered the nails to Wapley. "You know this is the first fair day we've had since those three rainy ones, and I promised Mr. Lieson I'd take his picture. He wants it for his girl. And Mr. Peabody wouldn't let him go upstairs and put on his best clothes. Said it was his time and that foolishness could wait till after supper. You know I can't take a snapshot after supper!"
Bob hoed a few minutes in silence.
"Try a little diplomacy, Betty," he finally advised. "Sunday is the time to take Lieson in his glad rags. He looks fierce all dressed up, I think; it probably will break off the match if his girl is marrying him for his beauty. But Lieson the way he is now—in that soft shirt and without his hat—isn't half bad. He's got a kind of wistful, gentle face, for all he can jaw so terribly; have you noticed it? Go down in the potato field and take his picture while he's working and tell him you'll take him dressed up Sunday and he can have both pictures. He'll be so pleased, he'll offer to let you hold a pig."
Betty made a little face. Lieson had already done just that. Thinking that Betty, who made such a fuss over the baby lambs, would be equally delighted with the little pigs, Lieson had told her to shut her eyes one day and hold out her hands; into them he had dropped a squirming, slippery, squealing baby pig and Bob had always declared he could not tell which made the most noise—Betty when she opened her eyes, or the pig when she dropped him. Lieson had been much disappointed.
"I'll go and get the camera now," said Betty, jumping up, all traces of temper vanished. "I'll put in the film that holds a dozen and just go round taking everything. That will be fun!"
She went running up the field and Bob's eyes followed her wistfully.
"She's a good kid," he said to himself. "Trouble is, she's never been up against it before and she doesn't always know how to take it. It does make her so mad to see old Peabody walk all over every one; but there's no sense in letting her buck against him when you can turn her thoughts in another direction. Gee, I'm sick of this blamed corn!"
Bob went up and down the endless rows, and Betty skipped about, "snapping" views of Bramble Farm to her heart's content. Lieson was delighted to learn that he might have two pictures of himself, and though it seemed to him a waste of time to be photographed in his work clothes, still he admitted that even an "ordinary" picture was preferable to none.
"My lady friend," he announced proudly, as Betty clicked her bulb, "she like me anyway."
Wapley, while without the excuse of a "lady friend," was nevertheless almost childishly pleased to pose for his photograph, and him, too, Betty promised to take again on Sunday. Mrs. Peabody, weeding in the large vegetable garden that was her regular care, alone refused to be taken.
"Oh, no!" she shrank down among the cabbages and pulled her hideous sunbonnet further over her eyes when Betty pressed her to reconsider her refusal. "Child, don't ask me. When I look at the picture of me taken in my wedding dress and then see myself in the mirror mornings, I wonder if I'm the same person. I wouldn't have my picture taken for one hundred dollars!"
Betty used up one roll of films that morning, but she decided to save the other roll for Sunday, as she was not sure she could get another in Glenside. She determined to take her pictures over that afternoon and have them developed, for she was as eager to see the results as Lieson and Wapley. Bob, too, owned up to a desire to see how he "turned out."
"It's a pretty hot day," ventured Mrs. Peabody uncertainly, when Betty, at the dinner table, announced her intention of walking to Glenside that afternoon. "Maybe, dearie, if you wait till after supper, some one will be driving over."
"Horses ain't going a step off this farm this week," said Mr. Peabody impressively. "They're working without shoes, as anybody with any interest in the place would know. If some folks haven't any more to do than gad around spending good money, it's none of my affair; but I don't aim to run a stage between here and Glenside for their convenience."
Dinner was finished in silence after this speech, and immediately after she had helped Mrs. Peabody with the dishes, Betty went up to her room to change her dress. She did not mind the walk; indeed she had taken it several times before, and knew that one side of the road would be comparatively shady all the way.
Betty took an inexplicable whim to put on her prettiest dress, a delicate pink linen with white collars and cuffs that Mrs. Arnold had taught her to embroider herself in French knots. She untied the black velvet ribbon she usually wore on her broad-brimmed hat and substituted a sash of pink mull.
"You look too nice!" exclaimed Mrs. Peabody when the girl came downstairs. "Don't you think you should take an umbrella, though? Those big white clouds mean a thunder storm."
Betty laughingly declined the umbrella, and, promising Mrs. Peabody "something pretty," started off on her walk. Poor Mrs. Peabody, though Betty was too inexperienced to realize it, was beginning, very slowly it is true, but still beginning, to break under the long strain of hard work and unhappiness. Betty only knew that she was pitifully pleased with the smallest gift from the town stores.
"If I don't see a girl of my own age to speak to pretty soon," declared Betty to herself, walking swiftly up the lane, "I don't know what I shall do! Bob is nice, but, goodness! he isn't interested in lots of things I like. Crocheting, for instance. I never was crazy about fancy work, but now I'm kind of hungry for a crochet needle."
Half way to Glenside a farmer overtook her, and after the pleasant country fashion offered her a "lift." Betty accepted gladly. He lived, as she discovered after a few minutes' conversation, on the farm next to the Peabodys, and he had heard about her and knew who she was.
"When you get time," he said kindly, when she told him she was going to Glenside, "walk through the town and out toward Linden. There's quite a nursery out that way, and you'd like to see the flowers. Folks come from the city to buy their plants there."
At the nearest crossroads to Glenside he turned, and Betty got out, thanking him heartily for the ride. It was a matter of only a few moments now to reach Glenside, and she found herself in the town much sooner than she had counted on. So when the drug-store clerk said he would have her pictures developed and printed within an hour if she could wait, Betty determined to wait instead of having them mailed to her. She had a sundae and bought some chocolates for Mrs. Peabody, and then remembered the farmer's remark about the nursery.
"How far is it to the nursery they talk about?" she said to the woman clerk who had weighed out the candy.
"Baxter's? Oh, not more than three-quarters of a mile," was the answer. "You go right up Main Street an far as the sidewalk goes. When it stops, keep right on, and pretty soon you'll see a big sign of a watering-pot; that's it."
Betty followed these directions implicitly, and she had reached the end of the town sidewalk when she heard the distant mutter of thunder.
"I guess I can reach the nursery and be looking at the flowers while it storms," she said to herself.
Betty had no more fear of thunderstorms than of a tame cat, but she mightily disliked the idea of getting her hat wet. So she hurried conscientiously.
The sun went under a heavy cloud, and a violent crash of thunder directly overhead stimulated her into a run. There was not a house in sight, and Betty began to wish she had turned and gone back to the town. At least she could have found shelter in a shop.
Splash! A huge drop of rain flattened in the dust of the road. The tall trees on either side began to sway in the slowly rising wind.
"I'll bet it will be a big storm, and I'll be soaked!" gasped Betty. "Where is that plaguey nursery!"
She began to run, and the drops came faster and faster. Then, without warning, the long line of swaying trees stopped, and a tidy white picket fence began on the side of the road nearest Betty. Back of the pickets was a well-kept green lawn; and set in the center of a circle of glorious elm trees was a comfortable white house with green blinds and a wide porch. A woman and two girls were hastily taking in a swing and a quantity of sofa pillows to protect them from the storm.
"Come in, quick!" called the woman, as Betty came in sight. "Hurry, before you're soaked. Just lift the latch and the gate swings in."
"Just lift the latch." Betty thought she had never heard a more cordial or welcome invitation.
CHAPTER XIV
WINNING NEW FRIENDS
Betty opened the gate and ran up the path. The younger girl, who seemed about her own age, put out a friendly hand and touched her sleeve.
"Not wet a bit, Mother!" she announced triumphantly. "And I don't believe her hat's spotted, either!"
A jagged streak of lightning and another thundering crash sent them all scurrying indoors. The lady led the way into a pleasant room where an open piano, books, and much gay cretonne-covered wicker furniture gave an atmosphere at once homelike and modern. Betty had craved the sight of such a room since leaving Pineville and her friends.
"Pull down the shades, Norma; and, Alice, light the lamp," directed the mother of the two girls.
The younger girl drew the shades and Alice, who was evidently some years older than her sister, lighted the pretty wicker lamp on the center table.
"I'm so glad you reached our house before the storm fairly broke," said their mother, smiling at Betty. "In another second you would have been drenched, and there isn't a house between here and Baxter's nursery."
Betty explained that she had been on her way to the nursery, and thinking that her kind hostess should know her guest's name, gave it, and said that she was staying at Bramble Farm.
"Oh, yes, we've heard of you," said the lady, in some surprise. "I am Mrs. Guerin, and my husband, Dr. Guerin, learns all the news, you know, on his rounds among his patients. Mrs. Keppler, I believe, was the one who told him there was a girl visiting the Peabodys."
Betty wondered rather uncomfortably what had been said about her and whether she was regarded with pity because of the conditions endured by any one who had the misfortune to be a member of the Peabody household. The Kepplers, she knew, were their nearest neighbors.
Norma and Alice each took a seat on the arms of their mother's chair, and regarded the guest curiously, but kindly.
"Do you like the country?" asked the younger girl, feeling that something in the way of conversation was expected of her.
Betty replied in the affirmative, adding that, aside from lonesomeness now and then, she had enjoyed the outdoor life immensely.
"But what do you do all day long?" persisted Norma. "The Peabodys are so queer!"
"Norma!" reproved her mother and Alice in one breath.
"Well they are!" muttered Norma. "Miss Gordon isn't a relation of theirs, is she? So why do I have to be polite?"
"I'm only twelve," said Betty, embarrassed by the "Miss Gordon," and puzzled to know how to avoid a discussion of the Peabodys. "No one ever calls me 'Miss.' My Uncle Dick went to school with Mrs. Peabody, and he thought it would be pleasant for me to board with them this summer."
"When you get lonesome for girls, come over and see us," suggested Mrs. Guerin cordially. "Come whenever you are in Glenside, anyway. Norma hasn't many friends of her own age in town, and she'll probably talk you deaf, dumb and blind."
"I don't get over very often," said Betty, thinking how fortunate Norma was to have such a lovely, tactful mother, "because I usually have to walk. But if your husband is a doctor, couldn't he bring you over to call some afternoon? Doctors are always on the road, I know."
A curious expression swept over Mrs. Guerin's face, inexplicable to Betty. She avoided a direct answer to the invitation by sending the girls out to the kitchen for lemonade and cakes and blowing out the lamp and raising the shades herself. The brief thunderstorm was about over, and the sun soon shone brightly.
Alice wheeled the tea-wagon out on the porch, and the four spent a merry half hour together. Betty felt that she had made three real friends, and the Guerins, for their part, were agreeably delighted with the young girl who was so alone in the world and who, while they knew she must have a great deal that was unpleasant to contend with, resolutely talked only of her happy times.
Betty had just risen to go when a runabout stopped at the curb and a gray-haired man got out and came up the path.
"There's father!" cried Norma, jumping up to meet him. "Father, the Rutans telephoned over an hour ago. I couldn't get you anywhere. It was before the storm."
"Hal, this is Betty Gordon," said the doctor's wife, drawing Betty forward. "She is the girl staying with the Peabodys. Do you have to go out directly?"
"Just want to get a few things, then I'm off," answered the doctor cheerily. "Miss Betty, if you don't mind waiting while I stop in at the drug store, I'm going half of your way and will be glad to give you a lift. The roads will be muddy after this rain."
Betty accepted the kind offer thankfully, and Mrs. Guerin and the girls went down to the car with her. They each kissed her good-bye, and Mrs. Guerin's motherly touch as she tucked the linen robe over Betty's knees brought thoughts of another mother to the little pink-frocked figure who waved a farewell as the car coughed its sturdy way up the street.
At the drug store the doctor got his medicines and Betty her pictures, which she paid for and slipped into her bag without looking at. She liked Doctor Guerin instinctively, and indeed he was the type of physician whom patients immediately trusted and in whom confidence was never misplaced.
"You look like an outdoor girl," he told her as he turned the car toward the open country. "I don't believe you've had to take much in the way of pills and powders, have you?"
Betty smiled and admitted that her personal acquaintance with medicine was extremely limited.
"Mrs. Peabody has headaches all the time," she said anxiously. "I think she ought to see a doctor. And one day last week she fainted, but she insisted on getting supper."
Doctor Guerin bit his lip.
"Guess you'll have to be my ally," he said mysteriously. "Mrs. Peabody was a patient of mine, off and on, for several years—ever since I've practiced in Glenside, in fact. But—well, Mr. Peabody forbade my visits finally; said he was paying out too much for drugs. I told him that his wife had a serious trouble that might prostrate her at any time, but he refused to listen. Ordered me off the place one day when Mrs. Guerin was in the car with me, and was so violent he frightened her. That was some time ago." The doctor shook his head reminiscently. "Mrs. Peabody in the house was groaning with pain and Mrs. Guerin was imploring me to back the car before Peabody killed me. He was shouting like a mad man, and it was Bedlam let loose for sure.
"I went, because there was nothing else to do, but I managed to get word to the poor soul, through that boy, Bob Henderson, that if she ever had a bad attack and would send me word, day or night, I'd come if I had to bring the constable to lock that miser up out of the way first. I suspect he is a coward as well as a bully, but fighting him wouldn't better his wife's position any; he would only take it out on her."
"Yes, I think he would," agreed Betty. "I used to wonder how she stood him. But telling her what I think of him doesn't help her, and now I don't do that any more if I think in time."
"Well, you may be able to help her by sending me word if she is taken ill suddenly," said the doctor. "I'm sure it is a comfort to her to have you with her this summer. Now here's the boundary line. Sorry I can not take you all the way in, but it would only mean an unpleasant row."
Instead of half way, the doctor had taken her almost to the Peabody lane, and Betty jumped down and thanked him heartily. She was glad to have been saved the long muddy walk. She was turning away when a thought struck her.
"How could I reach you if Mrs. Peabody were ill?" she asked. "There's no 'phone at Bramble Farm, you know."
"The Kepplers have one," was the reply, Doctor Guerin cranking his car. "They'll be glad to let you use it any time for any message you want to send."
Betty found no one in the house when she reached it, the men being still at work in the field and Mrs. Peabody out in the chicken yard. Betty took off her pretty frock and put on a blue and white gingham and her white shoes. She was determined not to allow herself to get what Mrs. Peabody called "slack," and she scrupulously dressed every afternoon, whether she went off the farm or not.
The pictures, she discovered when she examined them, were exceptionally good. Lieson, in particular, had proved an excellent subject, and Betty privately decided that he was more attractive in his working clothes than he could ever hope to be in the stiff black and white she knew he would assume for Sunday. She took the prints and went downstairs to await an opportunity to show them.
Bob Henderson was in the kitchen, doing something to his hand. Betty experienced a sinking sensation when she saw a blood-stained rag floating in the basin of water on the table.
"Bob!" she gasped. "Did you hurt yourself?"
Bob glanced up, managing a smile, though he was rather white around the mouth.
"I cut my finger," he said jerkily. "The blame thing won't stop bleeding."
"I have peroxide upstairs!" Betty flew to get the bottle.
It was a nasty cut, but she set her teeth and washed it thoroughly with the antiseptic and warm water before binding it up with the clean, soft handkerchief she had brought back with her. Bob had been clumsily trying to make a bandage with his dark blue bandana handkerchief, all the lad had.
"How did you do it?" asked Betty, as she tied a neat knot and tucked the ends in out of sight. "I'll fix you some more cloths to-night; you'll have to wash that cut again in the morning."
Bob was putting away the basin and now he went off to get the pails of slop for the pigs. Betty thought he had not heard her question, but when Lieson came in for a drink of water and saw the pictures he unconsciously set her right. Lieson was greatly pleased with his picture, and looked so long at the other prints that Betty feared lest Mr. Peabody should come in and make an accusation of wasted time.
"That's a good picture of Bob, too," commented Lieson. "He cut his hand this afternoon on the hoe. The old man come down where he was hoeing corn, and just as he got there Bob cut a stalk; you can't always help it. Peabody flew into a rage and grabbed the hoe. Bob thought he was going to strike him with it and he put up his hand to save his head, and Peabody brought the sharp edge of the hoe down so it nicked his finger. Guess he won't be able to milk to-night."
Betty stood in the doorway of the kitchen and stared away into the serene green fields.
"It looks so peaceful," she thought wearily. "And yet to live in such a place doesn't seem to have the slightest effect on people's dispositions. I wonder why?"
CHAPTER XV
NURSE AND PATIENT
When the next Sunday came round the shrill song of the locusts began early, foretelling a hot day. The heat and the flies and the general uninviting appearance of the breakfast table irritated Betty more than usual, and only consideration for Mrs. Peabody, who looked wretchedly ill, kept her at the table through the meal. Lieson and Mr. Peabody bickered incessantly, and Wapley, who had taken cold, coughed noisily.
"Guess I'll go over and see Doc Guerin an' get him to give me something for this cold," Wapley mumbled, after a particularly violent paroxysm. "Never knew folks had colds in summer, but I got one for sure."
"You take some of that horse medicine out on the barn shelf," advised Peabody. "The bottle's half full, and I'll sell it to you for a quarter. The doctor's stuff will cost you all of a dollar, and that horse medicine will warm you up fine. That's all you want, anyway, something to kind of heat up your pipes."
Betty hoped fervently that the man would not follow this remarkable prescription, and it was with actual relief that she saw him come downstairs an hour later arrayed in his best clothes ready to walk to town. She had her camera ready and stood patiently in the sun for fifteen minutes till she had taken the promised pictures. Wapley was snapped alone and with Lieson, and then a photograph of Lieson alone, and then it was Bob's turn. That usually amiable youth was inclined to be sulky, but finally yielded to persuasion. Betty was anxious to send a full set of pictures to her uncle, and while Bob's "Sunday best" was exactly the same as his week-day attire, still, as she pointed out, he could wear his pleasantest expression for a "close up."
The cause for Bob's crossness was revealed after Lieson and Wapley had started for Glenside. His sore finger was swollen and gave him considerable pain.
"Why didn't you go with them and see the doctor?" scolded Betty. "Go now. I think the cut should be opened, Bob."
"I'm not going," said Bob flatly. "Where'd I get any money to pay him?"
"I have some——" Betty was beginning, but he cut her short with the curt announcement that he was not going to let her do everything for him.
"Well, then, go over and let Doctor Guerin examine your finger and offer to work it out for him in some way," urged Betty. "Don't be silly about money, Bob; any doctor does his work first and then asks about his pay. Won't you go?"
"No, I won't," retorted Bob ungraciously. "I'm too dog-gone tired to walk that far, anyway. Let's take books out to the orchard, and if you have any crackers or anything, we won't come back for dinner. I hate that hot kitchen!"
This was very unlike Bob, and Betty noticed that his face was flushed and his eyes heavy. She was sure he had fever, but she knew it was useless to argue with him. So, like the sensible girl she was, she tried to make him comfortable without further consulting him. She had a new parcel of magazines he had not seen, and without asking Mrs. Peabody, she took a square rug from the parlor for him to lie on and the pillow from her bed. Mrs. Peabody she knew would not object to the rug being used, but Mr. Peabody was shaving in the kitchen, and if he heard the request would instantly deny it.
On her last trip to the town Betty had bought a dozen lemons and a package of soda fountain straws, and when Bob complained of thirst, she surprised him with a lemonade. Fortunately the water from the spring in one of the meadows was icy cold.
Bob's "Gee, that's good!" more than repaid her for her trouble and the heat headache that throbbed in her temples from her hurried journeys down to the spring.
There was a faint breeze stirring fitfully in the orchard, and it was shady. Betty read aloud to Bob until he fell asleep. After he was unconscious, she looked at him pityingly, noting the sore finger held stiffly away from its fellows and the pathetic droop of the boyish mouth.
"His mother would be so sorry!" she thought, folding up a paper to serve as a fan and beginning to fan him gently. "I wonder how he happened to be born in the poorhouse. He has nice hands and feet, well-proportioned, that is, and mother always said that was a mark of good breeding. Besides, I know from the way he speaks and acts that he is different from these hired men."
Betty continued to fan till she saw Mrs. Peabody come out of the kitchen and go to the woodshed. Then she ran in to tell her that Bob would probably sleep through dinner and that would be one less for the noon meal. Sunday dinner was never an elaborate affair in the Peabody household, and Betty insisted on helping Mrs. Peabody to-day, since she could not induce her to go away from the kitchen and lie down. The men had said they were going to stay in town till milking time, and only Mr. and Mrs. Peabody and Betty sat down to the sorry repast at one o'clock. There was little conversation, and Mr. Peabody was the only one who made a pretense of eating what was served.
"Now you go upstairs, and let me do the dishes," said Betty to Mrs. Peabody, as her husband put on his hat and went out at the conclusion of the meal. "If you'll undress and go to bed, I'll get supper and feed the chickens. You look so fagged out."
"It's the heat," sighed Mrs. Peabody. "Land, child, I've crawled through a sight of summers, and won't give out awhile yet, I guess. You're the one to watch out. Keep in out of the sun, and don't run your feet off waiting on Bob. I'll show you something, though, if you won't let on."
She beckoned Betty to one corner of the kitchen where a fly-specked calendar hung.
"Look here," said Mrs. Peabody. "Nobody knows what these pencil marks mean but me—I made 'em. Now's the second week in July—there's seventeen days of July left. Thirty-one days in August. And most generally you can count on the first week of September being hot—that makes fifty-five days. Three meals a day to get, or one hundred and sixty-five meals in all."
"Then what?" asked the hypnotized Betty.
"Oh, then it begins to get a little cooler," said Mrs. Peabody listlessly. "I've counted this way for three summers now. Somehow it makes the summer go faster if you can see the days marked off and know so many meals are behind you."
Inexperienced as Betty was, it seemed infinitely pathetic to her that any one should long for the summer days to be over, and she realized dimly that the loneliness and dullness of her hostess' daily life must be beginning to prey on her mind. She helped dry the dishes, went upstairs with Mrs. Peabody and bathed her forehead with cologne and closed the shutters of her room for her. Then, hoping she might sleep for a few hours as she resolutely refused to give up for the rest of the day, Betty hurried to put on her thinnest white frock and went back to the orchard. She found her patient awake and decidedly feeling aggrieved.
"I've been awake for ages," he greeted her. "Gee, isn't it hot! You look kind of pippin' too. Do you know, I've been thinking about that riding habit of yours, Betty. What are you going to do with it?"
"Keep it till I go somewhere else where there'll be a chance to learn to ride," answered Betty. "Why?"
"Oh, I was just thinking," and Bob turned over on his back to stare up through the branches. "You'll get away from here sooner than I shall, Betty. But, believe me, the first chance I get I'm going to streak out. Peabody's got no claim on me, and I've worked out all the food and clothes he's ever given me. The county won't care—they've got more kids to look after now than they can manage, and one missing won't create any uproar. I'd like to try to walk from here to the West. They say my mother had people out there somewhere."
"Tell me about her," urged Betty impulsively. "Do you remember her, Bob?"
"She died the night I was born," said Bob quietly. "My father was killed in a railroad wreck they figured out. You see my mother was a little out of her head with grief and shock when they found her walking along the road, singing to herself. All she had was the clothes on her back and a little black tin box with her marriage certificate in it and some papers that no one rightly could understand. They sent her to the alms-house, and a month later I was born. The old woman who nursed her said her mind was perfectly clear the few hours she lived after that, and she said that 'David,' my father, had been bringing her East to a hospital when their train was wrecked. She couldn't remember the date nor tell how long before it had happened, and after she died no one was interested enough to trace things up. I was brought up in the baby ward and went to school along with the others. Many is the boy I've punched for calling me 'Pauper!' And then, when I was ten, Peabody came over and said he wanted a boy to help him on his farm; I could go to school in the winters, and he'd see that I had clothes and everything I needed. I've never been to school a day since, and about all I needed, according to him, was lickings. But if I ever get away from here I mean to find out a few things for myself."
Bob paused for breath. His fever made him talkative, and Betty had never known him so communicative.
"Where is the tin box?" she asked with interest.
"Buried, in the garden. I had sense enough to do that the first night I came to Bramble Farm, and I've never dared dig it up since. Afraid old Peabody might catch me. It's safer to leave it alone."
Presently Bob went off to sleep again and Betty mused silently till he woke, hungry, and then she gave him bouillon cubes dissolved in hot water, for Mrs. Peabody was getting supper and Bob refused to go to the table. The men came back and did the milking, grumbling a little, but on the whole willing to save Bob's finger. They had a rough fondness for the lad.
When the heavy dew began to fall Betty had to appeal to Leison to make Bob go into the house. He declared fretfully that the attic was hot, and Betty knew it was like an oven, but it was out of the question for him to lie in the damp grass. She dressed his finger freshly for him, Mrs. Peabody looking on, but offering not a word, either of pity or curiosity. Betty wondered if she had grown into the habit of keeping still till now it was impossible for her to voice an emotion.
Bob's finger dressed, Lieson bore him upstairs despite his protests, and before the others went up to their rooms, Betty had the satisfaction of hearing that Bob had already gone to sleep.
Betty herself was extremely tired, for she had worked hard all day, waiting on Bob and trying to save Mrs. Peabody in many ways. She brushed out her thick hair and slipped into her nightgown, thankful for the prospect of rest even the hardest of beds offered her. She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
She had been asleep only a few minutes, or so it seemed, when something woke her.
She sat up in bed, startled. Had some one groaned?
CHAPTER XVI
A MIDNIGHT CALL
Betty's first thought was of Bob. Was he really sick? Then she remembered that the boy slept in the attic and that she probably could not have heard him if he had made the noise that woke her.
Then the sound began again, deep guttural groans that sent a shudder through the girl listening in the dark, and Betty knew that Mrs. Peabody must be ill. She lit her lamp and looked at her watch. Half-past one! She had been asleep several hours. Slipping on her dressing gown and slippers, Betty opened her door, intending to go down the hall to the Peabodys' room and see what she could do. To her relief, she saw Mr. Peabody, fully dressed except for his shoes, which he carried in his hand, coming shuffling down the hall.
"You're going for the doctor?" said Betty eagerly. "Is Mrs. Peabody very ill? Shall I go down and heat some water?"
"I don't know how sick she is," answered the man sourly. "But I do know I ain't going for that miserable, no-account doctor I ordered off this farm once. If you're going to die, you're going to die, is the way I look at it, and all the groaning in the world ain't going to help you. And a doctor to kill you off quicker ain't necessary, either. I'm going out to the barn to get a little sleep. Here I've got a heavy day's work on to-morrow, and she's been carrying on like this for the better part of an hour."
Betty stared at Mr. Peabody in horror. Something very like loathing, and an amazement not unmixed with terror, seized her. It was inconceivable that any one should talk as he did.
"She must have a doctor!" she flung at him. "Send Bob—or one of the men, Bob's half sick himself. If you won't call them, I will. I won't stay here and let any one suffer like that. Listen! Oh, listen!"
Betty put her hands over her ears, as a shrill scream of pain came from Mrs. Peabody's room.
"Send the men on a wild goose chase at this time of night?" snarled Mr. Peabody. "Not if I know it. Morning will do just as well if she's really sick. You will, will you?" He lunged heavily before Betty, divining her intention to reach the stairway that led to the attic. A heavy door stood open for the freer circulation of air, and this Peabody slammed and locked, dropping the key triumphantly in his pocket.
"You take my advice and go back to bed," he said. "One woman raising Cain at a time's enough. Go to bed and keep still before I make you."
Betty scarcely heard the implied threat. She heard little but the heart-breaking groans that seemed to fill the whole house. Her mind was made up.
"I'm going myself!" she blazed, wrapping her gown about her. "Don't you dare stop me! You've killed your wife, but at least the neighbors are going to know about it. I'm going to telephone to Doctor Guerin!"
With a quick breath Betty blew out the lamp, which bewildered Peabody for a moment. She dashed past him as he fumbled and mumbled in the dark and slid down the banisters and jerked open the front door, which luckily for her was seldom locked at night. She ran down the steps, across the yard and into the field, her heart pounding like a trip hammer. On and on she ran, not daring to stop to look behind her. When she heard steps gaining on her, her feet dragged with despair, but her spirit flogged her on.
"I won't give up, I won't give up!" she was crying aloud through clenched teeth when the voice of Bob Henderson calling, "Betty! Betty! it's all right!" sounded close to her shoulder.
"You dear, darling Bob!" Betty turned radiantly to face the boy. "How did you get out? Hurry! We must hurry! Mrs. Peabody is so sick!"
"Easy there!" Bob caught her elbow as she stumbled over a bit of rough ground. "The noise woke me up, and when we heard you and Peabody, Lieson lowered me out of the window by the bedsheet. We weren't sure what he'd do to you. Say, Betty, you'd better let me go in and telephone unless you're afraid to go back. If the Kepplers see you like that, they'll know there's been a row, and they'll insist on your staying with them."
"Oh, I have to go back," said Betty in a panic. "Mrs. Peabody needs me. And I'm not afraid, if Doctor Guerin comes. I'll wait under this tree for you, Bob. Only please hurry." And the boy hurried off.
"Doctor'll be right out," reported Bob, coming back after what seemed a long wait but was in reality a scant ten minutes. "I had a great time waking the Kepplers up and a worse time getting hold of Central. And of course Mrs. Keppler wanted all the details—just like a woman. But doc answered right away after I gave his number and said he'd be here in twenty minutes. He sure can run his car when he has a clear road at night."
"Bob," whispered Betty, beginning to tremble, "I—I guess maybe I am afraid to go back to the house. Let's sit on the bank at the head of the lane and wait for Doctor Guerin. He'll take us in the car. Mr. Peabody won't dare do anything with a third person around."
"Sure we will," agreed Bob. "It's fine and cool out here, isn't it? Wonder why it can't be like this in the daytime."
They walked back to the lane, cross-lots, and sat down under a thorn-apple tree. Betty tucked her gown cosily around her feet and sat close to Bob, prepared to watch the stars and await quietly the doctor's coming. Then, to her astonishment as much as to Bob's consternation, she began to cry. She could not stop crying. And after she had cried a few minutes she began to laugh. She laughed and sobbed and could not stop herself, and in short, for the first time in her life, Betty had a case of hysterics.
It was all very foolish, of course, and when Doctor Guerin found them there in the road at half-past two in the morning, he scolded them both soundly.
"I gave you credit for more sense, Bob," said the doctor curtly, as he helped Betty into the machine. "You should have left Betty with Mrs. Keppler over night, or at least taken her straight home. If she hasn't a heavy cold to pay for this it won't be your fault. I never heard of anything quite so senseless!"
"I wasn't going to stay with the Kepplers!" retorted Betty with vigor. "I don't know them at all, and I hadn't anything to wear down to breakfast! 'Sides there is Mrs. Peabody dreadfully sick with no one to help her and Bob has a festered finger. He had a high temperature this afternoon."
"I'll look at the finger," promised Doctor Guerin grimly. "Don't let me have to hunt for you, either, young man; no hiding out of sight when you're wanted. And, Betty, you go to bed. I'll get Mrs. Peabody comfortable and give her something so that she'll sleep till I can send some one out from town. You can't nurse her and run the house, you know. Your Uncle Dick would come up and shoot us all. Go to bed immediately, and you'll be ready to help us in the morning."
They had reached the house and Betty followed the doctor's orders. Every one obeyed Doctor Guerin. Even Mr. Peabody, summoned from the barn, though he was surly and far from pleasant, brought hot water and a teaspoon and a tumbler at his bidding. Mrs. Peabody had had these attacks before, and when she had taken the medicine was soon relieved. Doctor Guerin stayed with her till she fell asleep and then went down to the kitchen, taking the unwilling Bob with him. The cut finger was lanced and dressed and strict instructions issued that in two days Bob was to present himself at the doctor's office to have the dressing changed.
"And you needn't assume that obstinate look," said the doctor, who watched him closely. "If you're so afraid you won't be able to pay me, we'll drive a bargain. You recollect that odd little wooden charm you made for Norma last summer? Well, the girls at boarding school have 'gone crazy,' to quote my daughter, over the trinket, and one of them offered her a dollar for it. Carve me a couple more, when you have time, and that will make us square. The girls were wondering the other day if you could do more."
"I'll make six——" Bob was beginning radiantly, when the doctor stopped him.
"You will not," he said positively. "One dollar is your price, and two of them will fully meet your obligations to me. If you can be dog-gone businesslike, so can I."
Doctor Guerin drove over again in the morning, bringing a tall raw-boned red-haired Irish-woman who looked as though she were able to protect herself from any insult or injury, real or fancied. Wapley and Lieson were pitiably in awe of her, and Mr. Peabody simply shriveled before her belligerent eye. She was to stay, said the doctor, for a week at least and as much longer as Mrs. Peabody needed her.
"Did you see her spreading the butter on her bread?" demanded Bob in a whisper, meeting Betty on the kitchen doorstep after the first dinner Mrs. O'Hara had prepared.
"Did you see Mr. Peabody?" returned Betty, in a twitter of delight. "I was afraid to look at him, or I should have laughed. She tells me to 'run off, child, and play; young things should be outdoors all day,' and she does a barrel of work. Mrs. Peabody declares she is living like a queen, with her meals served up to her. Poor soul, she doesn't know what it means to have some one wait on her."
Bob dared not stay away from Doctor Guerin's office; and indeed, after receiving the order for the wooden charms, he was willing to go. It was understood that he was to begin his carving as soon as the finger had healed, and Betty was interested in the little trinket he brought back with him to serve as a guide.
"Did you really make that, Bob?" she cried in surprise. "Why, it's beautiful—such an odd shape and so beautifully stained. You must be ever so clever with your fingers. I believe, if you had some paints, you could paint designs and perhaps sell a lot of them to a city shop. Girls would just love to have them to wear on chains and cords."
Bob was immediately fired with ambition to make some money, and indeed he could evolve marvelous and quaint little charms with no more elaborate tools than an old knife and a bit of sandpaper. He had an instinctive knowledge of the different grains, and the wood he picked up in the woodshed, carefully selecting smooth satiny bits.
So all unknown to the Peabodys, Bob in his leisure time began to carve curious treasures, and with his carving to dream boyish dreams that lifted him out of the dreary present and carried him far away from Bramble Farm to big cities and open prairies, to freedom and opportunity.
And Betty, who sometimes read aloud to him as he carved and sometimes sewed, sitting beside him, began to dream dreams too. Always of a home somewhere with Uncle Dick, a real home in which there should be a fireplace and an extra chair for Bob. For your girl dreamer always plans for her friends and for their happiness, and she seldom dreams for herself alone.
So July with its heat and thunderstorms ran into August.
CHAPTER XVII
AN OMINOUS QUARREL
Mrs. O'Hara went back to Glenside at the end of ten days, leaving Mrs. Peabody well enough to be about, though the doctor had cautioned her repeatedly not to overdo. Doctor Guerin came for Mrs. O'Hara in his car, and it was to be his last visit unless he was sent for again. Bob's finger had healed, and he was hard at work at his carving in spare moments.
"Norma hopes you will come over to see her soon," said Doctor Guerin to Betty, as he was leaving. "She and Alice have their heads full of boarding school. By the way, Betty, what do you intend to do about school?"
"Well, I keep hoping Uncle Dick will write. It's been three weeks since I've had any kind of letter," answered Betty. She had long ago told the doctor about her uncle and the reasons that led to her coming to Bramble Farm. "When he wrote he was in a town where there were only six houses and no hotel. He must come East soon, and then he will receive my letters and send for me. I'm sure I could go to school and keep house for him, too."
The car with the doctor and his convincing personality and Mrs. O'Hara and her quick tongue and heavy hand were hardly out of sight, before Mr. Peabody assumed command of his household. He had been chafing under the rule of that "red-haired female," as he designated the capable Irish-woman, and now he was bound to make the most of his restored power.
"Gee, he sure is a driver," whispered the perspiring Bob, as Betty came down to the field where the boy was cultivating corn. Betty had brought a pail of water and a dipper, and Bob drank gratefully.
"No, don't give the horse any," he interposed, as Betty seemed about to hold the pail out to the sorrel who looked around with patient, pleading eyes. "He'll have to wait till noon. 'Tisn't good to water a horse when he's working, anyway. Put the pail under that tree and it'll keep cool. Lieson and Wapley go over to the spring when they're thirsty, but Peabody said he'd whale me if he caught me leaving the cultivator."
"The mean old thing!" Betty could hardly find a word to express her indignation.
"Oh, it's all in the day's work," returned Bob philosophically. "What are you doing?"
"Hanging out clothes for Mrs. Peabody. She's getting another basketful ready now. She would wash, and that's as much as she'll let me do to help her, though of course when she irons I can be useful. I don't think she ought to get up and go to washing, but you can't stop her."
"Having a woman come to wash about killed the old man," chuckled Bob, starting the horse as he saw Mr. Peabody climbing stiffly over the fence. "Thanks for the water, Betty."
Betty had no wish to meet her host, for whom another check had come that morning from her uncle's lawyer. Betty herself was out of money, Uncle Dick having sent no letter for three weeks and apparently having made no provision to bridge the gap.
She hung out clothes till dinner time, and then helped put the boiled dinner on the table in the hot, steamy kitchen. Wapley and Lieson ate in silence, and Bob found a chance to whisper to Betty that he thought there was "something doing" between them and their employer.
Whatever this something was, there were no further developments till after supper. Peabody got up from the table and lurched out to the kitchen porch to sit on the top step, as was his invariable custom. He was too mean, his men said, to smoke a pipe, though he did chew tobacco. Bob had already taken the milk pails and gone to the barn.
As Mrs. Peabody and Betty finished the dishes, Wapley and Lieson came downstairs, dressed in their good clothes, and went out on the porch where Mr. Peabody sat silently.
"Can you let me have a couple of dollars to-night?" asked Lieson civilly. "Jim and me's going over to town for a few hours."
"You'll get no money from me," was the surly answer. "Fooling away your time and money Saturday night ought to be enough, without using the middle of the week for such extravagance. Anyway, you know well enough I never pay out in advance."
There was an angry murmur from Wapley.
"Who's asking you for money in advance?" he snarled. "Lieson and me's both got money coming to us, and you know it. You pay us right up to the jot to-night or we quit!"
Peabody was quite unmoved. He stood up, leaning against a porch post, his hands in his pockets.
"You can quit, and good riddance to you," he drawled. "But you won't get a cent out of me. You overdrew, both of you, last Saturday, and there's nothing coming to you till a week from this Saturday."
The men were a little confused, neither accustomed to reckoning without the aid of pencil and paper, but Wapley held doggedly to his argument.
"We quit anyway," he announced with more dignity than Betty thought he possessed. She and Mrs. Peabody were listening nervously at the window, both afraid of what the quarrel might lead to. "You go pack our suitcases, Lieson, and I will figure up what he owes us. Never again do we work for a man who cheats."
Peabody leaned up against his post and chewed tobacco reflectively, while Wapley, tongue in cheek, struggled with a stub of pencil and a bit of brown wrapping paper.
"There's twenty-five dollars coming to us," he announced. "Twelve and a half apiece. Pay us, and we go."
"I don't know about the going, but I know there won't be any paying done," sneered Peabody, just as Lieson with the two heavy suitcases staggered through the door and Bob with his two foaming pails of milk came up the steps.
Bob put down the milk pails to listen, and Wapley took a step toward Mr. Peabody, his face working convulsively.
"You cheater!" he gasped. "You miserable sneak! You've held back money all season, just to keep us working through harvest. If I had a gun I'd shoot you!"
The man was in a terrible rage, and Betty wondered how Mr. Peabody could face him so calmly. Suddenly she saw something glitter in his hand.
"I've got my pistol right here," he said, raising his hand to wave the blunt-nosed revolver toward Wapley. "I'll give you two just three minutes to get off this place. Go on—I said go!"
Wapley whirled about and saw the milk pails. He seized one in either hand, raised them high above his head and dashed the contents furiously over Bob, Mr. Peabody, the steps and the porch impartially, sprinkling himself and Lieson liberally, too.
"I never knew how much milk those cows gave," Bob said later. "Seems like there must have been a regular ocean let loose."
Mr. Peabody was furious and very likely would have fired, but Bob put out his foot and tripped him, though he managed to pass the matter off as an accident. Wapley and Lieson trudged slowly up the lane, carrying the heavy cheap leather suitcases. Betty watched them as far as she could see them, feeling inexpressibly sorry for the two who had worked through the long hot summer and were now leaving an unpleasant place with what she feared was only a too well-founded grievance.
"Some of you women," Peabody included Betty in the magnificent gesture, "get to work out there and clean up the milk. There's several pounds of butter lost, thanks to those no-'count fools. I'm going after my gun."
"Gun?" faltered Mrs. Peabody.
"Yes, gun," snapped her husband. "I don't suppose it occurs to you those idiots may take it into their heads to come back and burn the barns? Bob and me will sit up all night and try to save the cattle, at least."
Bob was furious at the idea of playing lookout all night, and he was in the frame of mind by early morning where he probably would have cheerfully supplied any arson-plotters with the necessary match. But nothing happened, and very cross and sleepy, he and Mr. Peabody came in to breakfast as usual.
Betty, too, had not slept well, having wakened and pattered to the window many times to see if the barns were blazing. Indeed, if Lieson and Wapley had deliberately planned to upset the Peabody family, they could not have succeeded better.
Bob made up his lost sleep the next night, but his appetite came in for Mr. Peabody's criticism.
"You seem to be aiming to eat me out of house and home," he observed at dinner a day or two later. "You don't have to eat everything in sight, you know. There'll be another meal later."
Bob blushed violently, not because of the reproof, for he was used to that, but because of the public disgrace. Betty, the cause of his distress, was as uncomfortable as he, and she experienced an un-Christianlike impulse to throw the dish of beans at the head of her host.
The following day Bob did not come in to dinner, and Betty, thinking perhaps that he had not heard Mrs. Peabody call, rose from the table with the intention of calling him a second time.
"Where are you going?" demanded Mr. Peabody suspiciously.
"To call Bob to dinner," said Betty. "I'm afraid he didn't hear Mrs. Peabody. The meat will be all cold."
"You sit down, and don't take things on yourself that are none of your concern," commanded Mr. Peabody shortly. "Bob isn't here for dinner, because I told him not to come. He's getting too big to thrash, and the only way to bring him to terms is to cut down his food. Living too high makes him difficult to handle. This morning he flatly disobeyed me, but I guess he'll learn not to do that again. Well, Miss, don't swallow your impudence. Out with it!"