Betty opened her mouth to speak hotly, then closed it again. Argument was useless, and the distressed expression on Mrs. Peabody's face reminded the girl that it takes two to make a quarrel.
Dinner was finished in silence, and as soon as he had finished Mr. Peabody strode off to the barn.
A plan that had been forming in Betty's mind took concrete form, and as she helped clear the table she did not carry all the food down cellar to the swinging shelf, but made several trips to one of the window sills. Then, after the last dish was wiped and Mrs. Peabody had gone upstairs to lie down, for her strength was markedly slow in returning, Betty slipped out to the cellar window, reached in and got her plate, and, carefully assuring herself that Mr. Peabody was nowhere in sight, flew down the road to where she knew Bob was trimming underbrush.
"Gee, but you're a good little pal, Betty," said the boy gratefully, as she came up to him. "I'm about starved to death, that's a fact."
"There isn't much there—just bread and potatoes and some corn," said Betty hurriedly. "Eat it quick, Bob. I didn't dare touch the meat, because it would be noticed at supper. Seems to me we have less to eat than ever."
"Can't you see it's because Wapley and Lieson are gone?" demanded Bob, his mouth full. "We're lucky to get anything at all to eat. Your cupboard all bare?"
"Haven't a single can of anything, nor one box of crackers," Betty announced dolefully. "The worst of it is, I haven't a cent of money. What can be the reason Uncle Dick doesn't write?"
"Oh, you'll hear before very long. Jumping around the way he does, he can't write a letter every day," returned Bob absently.
He handed back the plate to Betty and picked up his scythe.
"Don't let old Peabody catch you with that plate," he warned her. "He's got a fierce grouch on to-day, because the road commissioners notified him to get this trimming done. He's so mean he hates to take any time off the farm to do road work."
Betty went happily back to the house, forgetting to be cautious in her satisfaction of getting food to Bob, and at the kitchen door she walked plump into Mr. Peabody.
"So that's what you've been up to!" he remarked unpleasantly. "Sneaking food out to that no-'count, lazy boy! I'll teach you to be so free with what isn't yours and to upset my discipline. Set that plate on the table!"
Betty obeyed, rather frightened.
"Now you come along with me." And, grasping her arm by the elbow, Mr. Peabody marched her upstairs to her own room very much as though she were a rebellious prisoner he had captured.
"Sit down in that chair, and don't let me hear a word out of you," said the farmer, pushing her none too gently into the single chair the room contained.
From his pocket he drew a handful of nails, and, using the door weight as a hammer, he proceeded deliberately to nail up the window that opened on to the porch roof.
"Now there'll be no running away," he commented grimly, when he had finished. "Give kids what's coming to 'em, and they flare up and try to wriggle out of it. You'll stay right here and do a little thinking till I'm ready to tell you different. It's time you learned who's running this house."
He went out, and Betty heard him turn a key in the lock as he closed the door.
"So he's carried a key all the time!" cried the girl furiously. "I thought there wasn't any for that door! And the idea of speaking to me as he did—the miserable old curmudgeon!"
She supposed she would have to stay locked in till it suited Mr. Peabody to release her, and quite likely she would have nothing to eat. If he could punish Bob in that fashion, there was no reason to think he intended to be any more lenient with her.
"Even bread and water would be better than nothing at all," said Betty aloud.
The sound of wheels attracted her attention, and she peered through the window to see Mr. Peabody in conversation with a stranger who had driven in with a horse and buggy.
Mrs. Peabody was stirring, and presently Betty heard her go downstairs, and a few minutes later she came out into the yard ready to feed her chickens.
"Don't let the hens out in the morning," ordered Mr. Peabody, meeting her directly under Betty's open window. The girl knelt down to listen, angry and resentful. "Ryerson was just here, and I've sold the whole yard to him. I want to try Wyandottes next. He'll be over about ten in the morning, and it won't hurt to keep them in the henhouses till then."
"Oh, Joseph!" Mrs. Peabody's voice was reproachful. "I've just got those hens ready to be good layers this fall. You don't know how I've worked over 'em, and culled the best and sprayed those dirty old houses and kept 'em clean and disinfected. I don't want to try a new breed. I want a little of the money these will earn this winter."
"Well, this happens to be my farm and my livestock," replied her husband cruelly. "If I see a chance to improve the strain, I'm going to take it. You just do as I say, and don't let the hens out to-morrow morning."
His wife dragged herself out to the chicken yard, her brief insistence having completely collapsed. The girl listening wondered how any woman could give in so easily to such palpable injustice.
"I suppose she doesn't care," thought Betty, stumbling on the heart of the matter blindly. "If she did have her own way, that wouldn't change him; he'd still be mean and small and not very honest and she'd have to despise him just as much as ever. Things wouldn't make up to her for the kind of man her husband is."
Supper time came and went, and the odor of frying potatoes came up to Betty in delicious whiffs, though she had been known to turn up her little freckled nose when this dish was passed to her.
About eight o'clock Mr. Peabody unlocked the door and set inside a plate of very dry bread and a small pitcher of water, locking the door after him. Betty slid the bolt angrily and this gave her some satisfaction. She ate her bread and water and listened for a while at the window, hoping to hear Bob's whistle. But nothing disturbed the velvety silence of the night, and by half-past nine Betty was undressed and in bed, asleep.
She woke early, as usual, dressed and unbolted her door, hungry enough to be humble. But no bread and water arrived.
The rattle of milk pails and the sounds which indicated that breakfast was in progress ceased after a while and the house seemed unusually quiet. Then, just as Betty decided to try tying the bedclothes into a rope and lowering herself from the window, she heard Bob's familiar whistle.
"Hello, Princess Golden Hair!" Bob grinned up at her from the old shelter of the lilac bush. "Let down your hair, and I'll send you up some breakfast."
This was an old joke with them, because Betty's hair was dark, and while thick and smooth was not especially long.
"I want you to help me get out of here!" hissed Betty furiously. "I won't stay locked in here like a naughty little child. Can't you get me a ladder or something, Bob, and not stand there like an idiot?"
"Gee, you are hungry," said Bob with commiseration. "Dangle me down a string, Princess, and I'll send you up some bread with butter on it. I helped myself to both. We can talk while you eat."
Betty managed to find a strong, long string, and she threw one end down to Bob, who tied the packet to it; then Betty hauled it up and fell upon the food ravenously.
"I got you into this pickle," said Bob regretfully. "Old Peabody licked me for good measure last night, or I would have been round at this window trying to talk to you. Awfully sorry, Betty. It must be hot, too, with that other window nailed up."
"Do you mean he whipped you?" gasped Betty, horrified. "Why? And what did you do yesterday?"
"Oh, yesterday I wouldn't back him up in a lie he tried to tell the road commissioner," said Bob cheerfully. "And last night I sassed him when I heard what he'd done to you. So we had an old-fashioned session in the woodshed. But that's nothing for you to worry over."
"Where is he now?" asked Betty fearfully.
"Gone over to Kepplers to see about buying more chickens," answered Bob. "Mrs. Peabody has gone to salt the sheep, and I'm supposed to be cleaning harness in the barn."
"Get me a ladder—now's my time!" planned Betty swiftly. "I could bob my hair and you might lend me a pair of overalls, Bob. For I simply won't come back here. It's too far to jump to the ground, or I should have tried it. Hurry up, and bring me a ladder."
"I'll get a ladder on one condition," announced Bob stubbornly. "You must promise to go to Doctor Guerin's. Not cutting your hair and wandering around the country in boy's clothes. Promise?"
Betty shook her head obstinately.
"All right, you stay where you are," decreed Bob. "I have to go to Laurel Grove, anyway, and I ought to be hitching up right now."
He turned away.
"All right, I promise," capitulated Betty, "Hurry with the ladder before Mr. Peabody comes back and catches us."
Bob ran to the barn and was back in a few minutes with a long ladder.
Betty capered exultantly when she was on the ground.
"I packed my things last night," she informed Bob. "If Mr. Peabody isn't too mean, he'll keep the trunk for me and send it when I write him to. Here, I'll help you carry back the ladder."
"Take your sweater and hat," advised the practical Bob, pointing to these articles lying on a chair on the porch where Betty had left them the afternoon before. "You don't want to travel too light. I think we'll have a storm before noon."
Betty helped carry the ladder back to the barn and put it in place. Then she hung around watching Bob harness up the sorrel to the dilapidated old wagon preparatory to driving to Laurel Grove, a town to the east of Glenside.
"I'd kind of like to say good-bye to Mrs. Peabody," ventured Betty, trying to fix a buckle.
"Well, you can't. That would get us both in trouble," returned Bob shortly. "There! you've dawdled till here comes the old man. Scoot out the side door and keep close to the hedge. If I overtake you before you get to the crossroads I'll give you a lift. Doc Guerin will know what you ought to do."
Her heart quaking, Betty scuttled for the narrow side door and crept down the lane, keeping close to the osage orange hedge that made a thick screen for the fence. Evidently she was not seen, for she reached the main road safely, hearing no hue and cry behind her.
"So you haven't started?" Peabody greeted the somewhat flustered Bob, entering the barn and looking, for him, almost amiable. "Well, hitch the horse, and go over to Kepplers. He wants you to help him catch a crate of chickens. The horse can wait and you can come home at twelve and go to Laurel Grove after dinner."
Bob would have preferred to start on his errand at once, so that he might be at a safe distance when Betty's absence should be discovered; but he hoped that Peabody might not go near her room till afternoon, and he knew Mrs. Peabody was too thoroughly cowed to try to communicate with Betty, fond as she was of her.
"I'll take a chance," thought Bob. "Anyway, the worst he can do to me is to kill me."
This not especially cheerful observation had seen Bob through many a tight place in the past, and now he tied the patient horse under a shady tree and went whistling over to the Keppler farm to chase chickens for a hot morning's work.
"Oh, Bob!" To his amazement, Mrs. Peabody came running to meet him when he came back at noon to get his dinner. "Oh, Bob!"
Poor Bob felt a wobbling sensation in his knees.
"Yes?" he asked shakily. "Yes, what is it?"
"The most awful thing has happened!" Mrs. Peabody wiped the perspiration from her forehead with her apron. "The most awful thing! I never saw Joseph in such a temper, never! He swore till I thought he'd shrivel up the grass! And before Mr. Ryerson, too!"
Bob's face cleared.
"Did he try to cheat Ryerson?" he asked eagerly. "That is, er—I mean did he think Ryerson was trying to cheat him?"
"Cheat?" repeated Mrs. Peabody, sitting down on an old tree stump to get her breath. "No one said anything about cheating. I don't know exactly how to tell you, Bob. Betty has gone and she's taken all the chickens with her!"
Bob opened his eyes and mouth to their widest extent. Chickens! Betty! The words danced through his brain stupidly.
"I don't wonder you look like that," said Mrs. Peabody. "I was in a daze myself."
"But she couldn't have taken the chickens!" argued Bob, restraining a mad desire to laugh. "How could she? And what would she want with them?"
"Well, of course, I don't mean she took them with her," admitted Mrs. Peabody. "But she was mad at Joseph, you know, for locking her in her room, and he says she's just driven the hens off to the woods to spite him."
Bob walked out to the poultry yard, followed by Mrs. Peabody. The doors of the henhouses were flung wide open, and there was not a fowl in sight.
"When did you find it out?" he asked.
"When Mr. Ryerson drove in for the hens," answered Mrs. Peabody. "Joseph went out with him to help him bag 'em, and the minute he opened the door he gave a yell. I was making beds, but I heard him. The way he carried on, Bob, was a perfect scandal. I never heard such talk, never!"
"Where is he now?" said Bob briefly.
"He's gone over to the woods, hunting for the hens," replied Mrs. Peabody. "He wouldn't stop for dinner, or even to take the horse. He says you're to start for Laurel Grove, soon as you've eaten. He's going to search the woods and then follow the Glenside road, looking for Betty."
Bob did not worry over the possibility of Betty being overtaken by the angry farmer. He counted on her getting a lift to Glenside, since the road was well traveled in the morning, and probably she was at this very moment sitting down to lunch with the doctor's family. He was puzzled about the loss of the chickens, and curious to know how the Peabodys had discovered Betty's escape.
He and Mrs. Peabody sat down to dinner, and, partly because of her excitement and partly because in her husband's absence she dared to be more generous, Bob made an excellent meal. Over his second piece of pie he ventured to ask when they had found out that Betty was not in her room.
"Oh, Joseph thought of her as soon as he missed the chickens," answered Mrs. Peabody. "I never thought she would be spiteful, but I declare it's queer, anyway you look at it. Joseph flew up to her room and unlocked the door, and she wasn't there! Do you suppose she could have jumped from the window and hurt herself?"
Bob thought it quite possible.
"Well, I don't," said Mrs. Peabody shrewdly. "However, I'm not asking questions, so there's no call for you to get all red. Joseph seemed to think she had jumped out, and he's furious because he didn't nail up both windows, though how he expected Betty to breathe in that case is more than I can see."
Bob was relieved to learn that apparently Mr. Peabody did not connect him with Betty's disappearance. He finished his dinner and went out to do the few noon chores. Then he started on the drive to Laurel Grove.
"Looks like a storm," he muttered to himself, as he noted the heavy white clouds piling up toward the south. "I wish to goodness, old Peabody would spend a few cents and get an awning for the seat of this wagon. Last time I was caught in a storm I got soaked, and my clothes didn't dry overnight. I'll be hanged if I'm going to get wet this time—I'll drive in somewhere first."
Bob's predictions of a storm proved correct, and before he had gone two miles he heard distant thunder.
With the first splash of rain Bob hurried the sorrel, keeping his eyes open for a mail-box that would mark the home of some farmer where he might drive into the barn and wait till the shower was over.
He came within sight of some prosperous looking red barns before the rain was heavy, and drove into a narrow lane just as the first vivid streak of lightning ripped a jagged rent in the black clouds.
"Come right on in," called out the farmer, who had seen him coming and thrown open the double doors. "Looks like it might be a hummer, doesn't it? There's a ring there in the wall where you can tie your horse."
"He stands without hitching," grinned Bob. "Only too glad to get the chance. Gee, that wind feels good!"
The farmer brought out a couple of boxes and turned them up to serve as seats.
"I like to watch a storm," he observed. "The house is all locked up—women-folk gone to an all-day session of the sewing circle—or I'd take you in. We'd get soaked walking that short distance, though. You don't live around here, do you?"
"Bramble Farm. I'm a poorhouse rat the Peabodys took to bring up."
He had seldom used that phrase since Betty's coming, but it always irritated him to try to explain who he was and where he came from.
"I was bound out myself," retorted the farmer quickly. "Knocked around a good bit, but now I own this ninety acres, free and clear. You've got just as good a chance as the boy with too much done for him. Don't you forget that, young man."
They were silent for a few moments, watching the play of lightning through the wide doors.
"Didn't two men named Wapley and Lieson used to work for Peabody?" asked the farmer abruptly. "I thought so," as Bob nodded. "They were around the other day asking for jobs."
"Are you sure?" asked Bob. "I thought they had left the state. Lieson, I know, had folks across the line."
"Well, they may have gone now," was the reply. "But I know that two days ago they wanted work. I've a couple of men, all I can use just now, but I sent them on to a neighbor. They looked strong, and good farm help is mighty scarce."
Bob waited till the rain had stopped and the clouds were lifting, then drove on, thanking the friendly farmer for his cordiality.
"Don't be calling yourself names, but plan what you want to make of yourself," was that individual's parting advice.
"If I had a nickel," said Bob to himself, urging the sorrel to a brisk trot, for the time spent in waiting must be made up, "I'd telephone to Betty from Laurel Grove. But pshaw! I know she must be all right."
Bob would not have dismissed his misgivings so contentedly had he been able to see Betty just at that moment.
When she shook the dust of Bramble Farm from her feet, which she did literally at the boundary line on the main road, to the great delight of two curious robins and a puzzled chipmunk, she said firmly that it was forever. As she tramped along the road she kept looking back, hoping to hear the rattle of wheels and to see Bob and the sorrel coming after her. But she reached the crossroads without being overtaken.
Years ago some thoughtful person had taken the trouble to build a rude little seat around the four sides of the guidepost where the road to Laurel Grove and Glenside crossed, and in a nearby field was a boarded-up spring of ice-cold water, so that travelers, on foot and in motor-cars and wagons, made it a point to rest for a few minutes and refresh themselves there. Betty was a trifle embarrassed to find a group of men loitering about the guide-post when she came up to it. They were all strangers to her, but with the ready friendliness of the country, they nodded respectfully.
"Want to sit down a minute, Miss?" asked a gray-haired man civilly, standing up to make room for her. "Didn't expect to see so many idle farmers about on a clear morning, did you?"
Betty shook her head, smiling.
"I won't sit down, thank you," she said in her clear girlish voice. "I'll just get a drink of water and go on; I want to reach Glenside before noon."
"Glenside road's closed," announced one of the younger men, shortly.
"Closed!" echoed Betty. "Oh, no! I have to get there, I tell you."
Her quick, frightened glance fell on the man who had first spoken to her, and she appealed to him.
"The road isn't closed, is it?" she asked breathlessly. "That isn't why you're all here?"
"Now, now, there's nothing to worry your head about," answered the gray-haired farmer soothingly. "Jerry, here, is always a bit abrupt with his tongue. As a matter of fact, the road is closed; but if you don't mind a longer walk, you can make a detour and get to Glenside easily enough."
Betty gazed at him uncertainly.
"You see," he explained, "King Charles, the prize bull at Greenfields, the big dairy farm, got out this morning, and we suppose he is roaming up and down between here and Glenside. He's worth a mint of money, so they don't want to shoot him, and the dairy has offered a good reward for his safe return. He's got a famous temper, and no one would deliberately set out to meet him unarmed; so we're posted here to warn folks. A few automobiles took a chance and went on, but the horses and wagons and foot passengers take the road to Laurel Grove. You turn off to the left at the first road and follow that and it brings you into Glenside at the north end of town. You'll be all right."
"A girl shouldn't try to make it alone," objected another one of the group. "You take my advice, Sis, and wait till your father or brother can take you over in the buggy. Suppose you met a camp of Gypsies?"
"Oh, I'm not afraid," Betty assured him. "That is, not of people. But I don't know what in the world I should do if I met an angry bull. I'll take the detour, and everything will be all right. I'm used to walking."
The men repeated the directions again, to make sure she understood clearly. Then Betty drank a cup of the fresh, cold spring water, and bravely set off on the new road.
The gray-haired man came running after her.
"If it should storm," he cried, coming up with her, "don't run under a tree. Better stay out in the rain till you reach a house. You'll be safe in any farmhouse."
He meant safe as far as the kind of people she would meet were concerned, but Betty, who had never in her life feared any one, thought he referred to protection from the elements. She thanked him, and trudged on.
"I certainly am hungry," she said, after a half hour of tramping. "Now I know how Bob feels without a cent in his pocket. I'll have to ask Doctor Guerin for some money. I can't get along without a nickel. Uncle Dick must be awfully busy, or else he's sick. Otherwise he would surely let me hear from him."
When she came to an old apple orchard where the trees drooped over a crumbling stone wall, Betty had no scruples about filling the pockets and sleeves of her sweater with the apples that lay on the ground. Bob had told her that portions of trees that grew over the roadside were public property, and she intended to explain to the farmer, if she met him, how she had come to carry off some of his fruit. But she met no one and saw no house, and presently the rumble of distant thunder put all thoughts of apples out of her mind.
"My goodness!" She looked at the mountain of white clouds piling up with something like panic. "I haven't even come to the road that turns, and I just know this will be a hard thunderstorm. Mrs. Peabody said last week that the August storms are terrors. I'll run, and perhaps I'll come to a house."
Holding her sweater stuffed with apples in her arms, and jamming her hat firmly on her head, Betty flew down the road, bouncing over stones, jumping over, without a shudder, a mashed black-snake flattened out in the road by some passing car, and, in defiance of all speed regulations, refusing to slow up at a sharp turn in the road ahead. She took it at top speed, and as she rounded the curve the first drops of rain splashed her nose. But her flight was rewarded.
A long, low, comfortable-looking farmhouse sat back in an overgrown garden on one side of the road.
"D. Smith," read Betty on the mail box at the gate. "Well, Mrs. D. Smith, I hope you're at home, and I hope you'll ask me to come in and rest till the storm's over. Shall I knock at the back or the front door?"
A vivid flash of lightning sent her scurrying across the road and up the garden path. As she lifted the black iron knocker on the front door a peal of thunder rattled the loose casements of the windows.
Betty lifted the knocker and let it fall three times before she decided that either Mrs. D. Smith did not welcome callers at the front of her house, or else she could not hear the knocker from where she was. But a prolonged rat-a-tat-tat on the back door produced no further results.
"She may be out getting the poultry in," said Betty to herself, recalling how hard Mrs. Peabody worked every time a storm came up. "Wonder where the poultry yard is?"
The rain was driving now, and the thunder irritatingly incessant. Betty walked to the end of the back porch and stood on her tiptoes trying to see the outbuildings. Then, for the first time, she noticed what she would surely have seen in one glance at a less exciting time.
There were no outbuildings, only burned and blackened holes in the ground! A few loose bricks marked the site of masonry-work, and a charred beam or two fallen across the gaps showed only too plainly what had been the fate of barns and crib houses.
Betty ran impulsively to a window, and, holding up her hands to shut out the light, peered in. Cobwebs, dust and dirt and a few empty tins in the sink were the only furniture of the kitchen.
"It's empty!" gasped Betty. "No one lives here! Oh, gracious!"
A great fork of lightning shot across the sky, followed at once by a deafening crash of thunder. Far across the field, on the other side of the road, Betty saw a tall oak split and fall.
"I'm going in out of this," she decided, "if I have to break a window or a lock!"
She leaned her sturdy weight against the wooden door, automatically turning the knob without thought of result. The door swung easily open—there had been nothing to hinder her walking in—and she tumbled in so suddenly that she had difficulty in keeping her feet.
Betty closed the door and looked about her.
The storm shut out, she immediately felt a sense of security, though a hasty survey of the three rooms on one side of the hall failed to reveal any materials for a fire or a meal, two comforts she was beginning to crave. She took an apple from her sweater pocket, and, munching that, set out to explore the rooms on the other side of the hall.
A curious, yet familiar, noise drew her attention to the front room, probably in happier days the parlor of the farmhouse. Peering in through the partly open folding doors, Betty saw seven crates of chickens!
"Why—how funny!" She was puzzled. "Where could they have come from? And what are they doing here? Even if they saved them from the fire, they wouldn't be left after all the furniture was moved out."
She went up to the crates and examined them more closely.
"That black rooster is the living image of Mrs. Peabody's," she thought, "And the White Leghorns look like hers, too. But, then, I suppose all chickens look alike. I never could see how their hen mothers told them apart."
Still carrying her sweater with the apples, she wandered upstairs, trying to people the vacant, dusty rooms and wondering what had happened to those who had dwelt here and where they had gone.
"I wonder if the fire was at night and whether they were terribly frightened," she mused. "I should say they were mighty lucky to save the house, though perhaps the barns are the most necessary buildings on a farm. Why didn't they build them up again, instead of moving out? I would."
She was standing in one of the back rooms, and from the window she could look down and see what had once been the garden. The drenched rosebushes still showed a late blossom or two, and there was a faint outline of orderly paths and a tangle of brilliant color where flowers, self-sown, struggled to force their way through the choking weeds. The drip, drip of the rain sounded dolefully on the tin roof, and a cascade ran off at one corner of the house showing where a leader was broken. Toward the west the clouds were lifting, though the thunder still grumbled angrily.
Betty went through the rather narrow hall and entered a pleasant, prettily papered room where a low white rocking chair and a pink sock on the floor spoke mutely of the baby whose kingdom had been bounded by the wide bay window.
"They forgot the rocker," said Betty, drawing it up to the window and resting her elbows on the narrow window ledge. "I hope he was a fat, pretty baby," she went on, picking up the sock and holding it in her hand. "Is that some one coming down the road?"
It was—two people in fact; and as they drew nearer Betty's eyes almost popped out with astonishment. The pair talking together so earnestly, completely oblivious of the rain, were Lieson and Wapley, the two men who had worked for Mr Peabody! And they were turning in at the path guarded by the mail box inscribed "D. Smith."
Betty flew to the door of the room where she sat and drew the bolt.
Over in one corner of the bay-window room, as Betty had already named it, was a black register in the floor, designed to let the warm air from a stove in the parlor below heat the bedroom above. Toward this Betty crept cautiously, testing each floor board for creaks before she trusted her whole weight to it. She reached the register, which was open, and was startled at the view it opened up for her. She drew back hastily, afraid that she would be discovered.
Lieson and Wapley stood almost squarely under the register, above the crates of chickens and looking down on the fowls.
"I began to think you wasn't coming," Lieson said slowly, putting a hand on his companion's shoulder to steady himself as he lurched and swayed. "I got soaked to the skin waiting for you in those bushes."
"Well, it's some jaunt to Laurel Grove," came Wapley's response. "I got a man, though. Coming at ten to-night. There's no moon, and he says he can make the run to Petria in six or seven hours, barring tire trouble."
"Does he take us, too?" demanded Lieson. "I'm tired of hanging around here. What kind of a truck has he got?"
Wapley was so long in answering that Betty nervously wondered if he could have discovered the register. She risked a peep and found that both men were absorbed in filling their pipes. These lighted and drawing well, Wapley consented to answer his companion's question.
"Got a one-ton truck. Plenty of room under the seat for us. He's kind of leery of the constables, 'cause he's been doing a nice little night trade between Laurel Grove and Petria carrying one thing and another, but he's willing to do the job on shares."
Lieson yawned noisily.
"Wish we had some grub," he observed. "Guess the training we got at Peabody's will come in handy if we don't eat again till we sell the chickens. Wouldn't you like to have seen the old miser's face when he found his chickens were gone?"
So, thought Betty, she had not been mistaken; the black rooster was the same one who had been the pride of Mrs. Peabody's heart.
A burst of harsh laughter from Wapley startled her. Leaning forward, she could see him stretched out on the floor, his head resting on his coat, doubled up to form a pillow.
"What do you know!" he gurgled, the tears standing in his eyes. "Didn't I run into Bob Henderson, of all people!"
Lieson was incredulous.
"You're fooling," he said sullenly. "What would Bob be doing in Laurel Grove? Unless he was playing ferret! I'd wring his neck with pleasure if I thought the old man sent him over to spy."
"Don't worry," counseled Wapley, waving his pipe airily. "The lad doesn't hook us up with the missing biddies. They never knew they were stolen till ten o'clock this morning. The old man sold 'em to Ryerson, and the hen houses stayed shut up till he came to get 'em. Can you beat that for luck?"
Both men went off into roars of laughter.
"We needn't have spent the night lifting 'em," said Lieson when he could speak. "I hate to lose my night's rest. What did Bob say about it? Was the old man mad?"
"'Bout crazy," admitted Wapley gravely. "Bob wasn't home, but the old lady told him he carried on somethin' great. Wish we could 'a' heard him rave. But, Lieson, you haven't got it all. Betty Gordon's run off, and Peabody's doped it out she ran off with the hens!"
The girl in the room above clapped her hand to her mouth. She had almost cried out. So Mr. Peabody could accuse her of being a thief! But what were the men saying?
"What would the girl do with hens?" propounded Lieson. "Bob think she stole 'em?"
"Bob's so close-mouthed," growled Wapley. "But I guess he knows where she went all right. He says she had nothing to do with the hens disappearing, and I told him I thought he was right! But Peabody figures out she was mad and chased 'em into the woods to spite him. And he's hunting for her and his hens with fire in his eye."
Lieson knocked the ashes from his pipe and yawned again.
"Wonder what Peabody's got against her now?" he speculated. "For a boarder, that kid had a pretty pindling time. Well, if we're going to be bumped around in a truck all night, I'll say we ought to take a nap while we can get it."
"All right," agreed Wapley. "But I ain't aiming to go on any such trip without a bite of supper. The rain's stopped, and I'm going to snooze a bit and then go down the road to that farmhouse and see how they feel about feeding a poor unfortunate who's starving. I'll milk for 'em for a square meal."
Betty, shivering with excitement, crouched on the floor afraid to risk moving until they should be asleep. Her one thought was to get away from the house and find Bob. Bob would know what to do. Bob would get the chickens back to the Peabodys and herself over to the haven of Doctor Guerin's house, somehow. Bob would be sorry for Wapley and Lieson even if they had turned chicken thieves. If she could only get to Bob before he set out for home or if she might meet him on the road, everything would be all right, Bob must wait for her.
There were no back stairs to the house, and it required grit to go softly down the one flight of stairs and steal past the door of the parlor where the two men lay, but Betty set her teeth and did it. Once on the porch she put on her hat and sweater, for a cool wind had sprung up; and then how she ran!
The road was muddy, and her skirt was splashed before she slowed down to gain her breath. Anxiously she scanned the road ahead, wondering if there was another way Bob could take to reach Bramble Farm. As usual when one is worried, a brand-new torment assailed her. Suppose he should take the road to Glenside, that he might stop in to see her! He, of course, pictured her safe at the doctor's.
"Want a lift?" drawled a lazy, pleasant voice.
A gawky, blue-eyed boy about Bob Henderson's age beamed at her from a dilapidated old buggy. The fat, white horse also seemed to regard her benevolently.
"It's sort of muddy," said the boy diffidently. "If you don't mind the stuffing on the seat—it's worn through—I can give you a ride to Laurel Grove."
Betty accepted thankfully, but she was not very good company, it must be confessed, her thoughts being divided between schemes to hasten the desultory pace of the fat white horse and wonder as to how she was to find Bob in the town.
The fat white horse stopped of his own accord at a pleasant looking house on the outskirts of the town, and Betty, in a brown study, was suddenly conscious that the boy was waiting for her.
"Oh!" she said in some confusion. "Is this your house? Well, you were ever so kind to give me a lift, and I truly thank you!"
She smiled at him and climbed out, and the lad, who had been secretly admiring her and wondering what she could be thinking about so absorbedly, wished for the tenth time that he had a sister.
Laurel Grove was a bustling country town, a bit livelier than Glenside, and Betty, when she had traversed the main street twice, began to be aware that curious glances were being cast at her.
"I'd go shopping, I'd do anything, for an excuse to go into every store," she thought distractedly, "if only I had a dollar bill! Where can Bob be? I can't have missed him!"
There was every reason to think she had missed him, except her determined optimism, but after she had been to the drug store and the hardware store and the post-office, all more or less public meeting places, and found no sign of Bob, Betty began to feel a trifle discouraged. Then two men on the curb gave her a clue.
"I've been hanging around all day," declared one, evidently a thrifty farmer. "Came over to get some grinding done, and the blame mill machinery broke. They just started grinding an hour ago."
So there was a mill, and Bob often had to go to mills for Mr. Peabody. Betty did not know why he should have to come so far, but it was quite possible that some whim of the master of Bramble Farm had sent him to the Laurel Grove mill. Betty stepped up to the farmer and addressed him quietly.
"Please, will you tell me where the mill is?" she asked.
He was a nice, fatherly kind of person, and he insisted on walking with Betty to the corner and pointing out the low roof of the mill down a side street.
"No water power, just electricity," he explained. "Give me a water mill, every time; this current stuff is mighty unreliable."
Betty thanked him, and hurried down the street. She was sure she saw the sorrel tied outside the mill, and when she reached the hitching posts, sure enough, there was the familiar old wagon, with some filled bags in it, and the drooping, tired old sorrel horse that had come to meet her when she stepped from the train at Hagar's Corners.
"Betty! For the love of Mike!" Bob's language was expressive, if not elegant.
Betty whirled. She had not seen the boy come down the steps of the mill office, and she was totally unprepared to hear his voice.
"Why, Bob!" The unmistakable relief and gladness that shone in her tired face brought a little catch to Bob's throat.
To hide it, he spoke gruffly.
"What are you doing here? It's after four o'clock, and I'll get Hail Columbia when I get back. Mill's been out of order all day, and I had to wait. Haven't you been to Doctor Guerin's?"
"No, not yet." Betty pulled at his sleeve nervously. "Oh, Bob, there's so much I must tell you! And after ten o'clock it will be too late. To think he thought I stole his old chickens! And where is Petria?"
Bob gazed at her in amazement. This incoherent stream of words meant nothing to him.
"Petria?" he repeated, catching at a straw. "Why, Petria's a big city, sort of a center for farm products. All the commission houses have home offices there. Why?"
"That's where Mr. Peabody's chickens are going," Betty informed him, "unless you can think of a way to stop 'em."
"Mr. Peabody's chickens? Have you got 'em?" asked Bob in wonder.
Betty stamped her foot.
"Bob Henderson, how can you be so stupid!" she stormed. "What would I be doing with stolen chickens—unless you think I stole them?"
"Now don't go off into a temper," said Bob placidly. "I see where I have to drive you to Glenside, anyway. Might as well go the whole show and be half a day late while I'm about it. Hop in, Betty, and you can tell me this wonderful tale while we're traveling."
Betty was tired out from excitement, fear, insufficient food and the long distance she had walked. Her nerves protested loudly, and to Bob's astonishment and dismay she burst into violent weeping.
"Oh, I say!" he felt vainly in his pocket for a handkerchief. "Betty, don't cry like that! What did I say wrong? Don't you want to go to Glenside? What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to listen," sobbed Betty. "I'm trying to tell you as fast as I can that Wapley and Lieson stole Mr. Peabody's chickens. They've got 'em all crated, and an automobile truck is coming at ten o'clock to-night to take them to Petria. So there!"
Bob asked a few direct questions that soon put him in possession of all the facts. When he had heard the full story he took out the hitching rope he had put under the seat and tied the sorrel to the railing again.
"Come on," he said briefly.
"Where—where are we going?" quavered Betty, a little in awe of this stern new Bob with the resolute chin.
"To the police recorder's," was the uncompromising reply.
The recorder was young and possessed of plenty of what Bob termed "pep," and when he heard what Bob had to tell him, for Betty was stricken with sudden dumbness, he immediately mapped out a plan that should catch all the wrong-doers in one net.
"The fellow we want to get hold of is this truck driver," he explained. "You didn't hear his name?"
Betty shook her head.
"Well, to get him, our men will have to wait till he comes for the crates," said the recorder. "I'll send a couple of 'em out to this farm—they know the old D. Smith place well enough—and they can hang around till the truck comes and then take 'em all in. I'm sorry, but I'll have to hold the girl here as a witness. My wife will look after her, and she'll be all right."
"I'll stay, too, Betty," Bob promised her hastily, noting the plea in her eyes.
"All right, so much the better," said the recorder heartily. "We'll put you both up for the night. It won't be necessary for you to see the prisoners to-night, and to-morrow you'll both be mighty good witnesses for this Mr. Peabody. I'll send for him in the morning."
Bob's sense of humor was tickled at the thought of stabling the sorrel in a livery stable and charging the bill to his employer. A vision of what would be said to him caused his eyes to dance as he gave orders to the stableman to see that the horse had an extra good measure of oats.
But when he came back to the recorder's for supper he found Betty sitting close beside the recorder's wife, crying as though her heart would break.
"Why, Betty!" he protested. "You don't usually act like this. What does ail you—are you sick?"
"It isn't fair!" protested Betty passionately. "Wapley and Lieson worked so hard and Mr. Peabody was mean to 'em! I don't want to save his old chickens for him! I'd much rather the hired men got the money. And I won't be a witness for him and get them into prison!"
Bob looked shocked at this outburst, but Mrs. Bender only continued to soothe the girl, and presently Betty's sobs grew less violent, and by and by ceased.
After supper Mrs. Bender played for them and sang a little, and then, declaring that Betty looked tired to death, took her upstairs to the blue and white guest-room, where, after she had helped her to undress and loaned her one of her own pretty nightgowns, she turned off the lights and sat beside her till she fell asleep. For the first time in months, Betty was encouraged to talk about her mother, and she told this new friend of her great loss, her life with the Arnolds, and about her Uncle Dick. It both rested and refreshed her to give this confidence, and her sleep that night was unbroken and dreamless.
Long after Betty was asleep, Bob and the recorder played checkers, Mrs. Bender sitting near with her sewing. Bob was starved for companionship, and something about the lad, his eager eyes, perhaps, or his evident need of interested guidance, appealed to Recorder Bender.
"You say you were born in the poorhouse?" he asked, between games. "Was your mother born in this township?"
Bob explained, and the Benders were both interested in the mention of the box of papers. Encouraged by friendly auditors, Bob told his meager story, unfolding in its recital a very fair picture of conditions as they existed at Bramble Farm.
Betty lay in dreamless sleep, but Bob, in a room across the hall, tossed and turned restlessly. At half-past ten he heard the recorder go out, and knew he was going to see if the chicken thieves and motor truck driver had been brought in by his men. Bob wondered how it seemed to be arrested, and he fervently resolved never to court the experience. He was asleep before the recorder returned, but woke once during the night. A heavy truck was lumbering through the street, the driver singing in a high sweet tenor voice, probably to keep himself awake, Bob's swift thoughts flew to Wapley and Lieson, and he wondered if they were asleep. How could they sleep in jail?
Breakfast in the Bender household was just as pleasant and cheerful and unhurried as supper had been. Mrs. Bender in a white and green morning frock beamed upon Bob and Betty and urged delicious viands upon them till they begged for mercy. It was, she said, so nice to have "four at the table."
Mr. Bender pushed back his chair at last, glancing at his watch.
"The hearing is set for ten o'clock," he announced quietly. "Mr. Peabody has been notified and should be here any minute. I think we had better walk down to the office. Catherine, if you're ready——"
Mrs. Bender smiled at Betty. She had promised to see her through.
Betty's sole idea of a court had been gained from a scene or two in the once-a-week Pineville motion picture theater, and Bob had even less knowledge. They both thought there might be a crowd, a judge in a black gown, and some noise and excitement.
Instead Recorder Bender unlocked the door of a little one-story building and ushered them into a small room furnished simply with a long table, a few chairs, and a case of law books.
Presently two men came in, nodded to Mrs. Bender, and conferred in whispers with Mr. Bender. There was a scuffling step outside the door and Mr. Peabody entered.
"Huh, there you are!" he greeted Bob. "For all of you, I might have been hunting my horse and wagon all night. Mighty afraid to let any one know where you are."
"Mr. Peabody?" asked the recorder crisply, and suddenly all his quiet friendliness was gone and an able official with a clear, direct gaze and a rather stern chin faced the farmer. "Sit down, please, until we're all ready."
Mr. Peabody subsided into a chair, and the two men went away. They were back in a few moments, and with them they brought Wapley and Lieson and a lad, little more than a boy, who was evidently the truck driver.
"Close the door," directed the recorder. "Now, Mr. Peabody, if you'll just sit here—" he indicated a chair at one side of the table. With a clever shifting of the group he soon had them arranged so that Wapley, Lieson, the truck driver, and the two men who had brought them in were sitting on one side of the table, and Betty, Bob, Mrs. Bender and Mr. Peabody on the other. He himself took a seat between Betty and Mr. Peabody.
"Now you all understand," he said pleasantly, "that this is merely an informal hearing. We want to learn what both sides have to say."
Mr. Peabody gave a short laugh.
"I don't see what the other side can have to say!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "They've been caught red-handed, stealing my chickens."
The recorder ignored this, and turned to Lieson.
"You've worked for farmers about here in other seasons," he said. "And, from all I can hear, your record was all right. What made you put yourself in line for a workhouse term?"
Lieson cleared his throat, glancing at Wapley.
"It can't be proved we was stealing," he argued sullenly. "Them chickens was going to be sold on commission."
"Taking 'em off at ten o'clock at night to save 'em from sunburn, wasn't you?" demanded Mr. Peabody sarcastically. "You never was a quick thinker, Lieson."
"Now, Lieson," struck in Mr. Bender patiently, "that's no sort of use. Miss Gordon here overheard your plans. We know those chickens came from the Peabody farm, and that you and Wapley had a bargain with Tubbs to sell them in Petria. What I want to hear is your excuse. It's been my experience that every one who takes what doesn't belong to him has an excuse, good or bad. What's yours?"
At the mention of Betty's name, Lieson and Wapley had shot her a quick look. She made a little gesture of helplessness, infinitely appealing.
"I'm so sorry," the expressive brown eyes told them, "I just have to tell what I heard, if I'm asked, but I wouldn't willingly do you harm."
Lieson threw back his head and struck the table a sounding blow.
"I'll tell you why we took those blamed chickens!" he cried. "You can believe it or not, but we were going to sell 'em in Petria, and all over and above twenty-five dollars they brought, Peabody would have got back. He owes us that amount. Ask him."
"It's a lie!" shouted Peabody, rising, his face crimson. "A lie, I tell you! A lie cooked up by a sneaking, crooked, chicken-thief to save himself!"
Lieson and Wapley were on their feet, and Betty saw the glint of something shiny in Peabody's hand.
"Sit down, and keep quiet!" said the recorder levelly. "That will be about all the shouting, please, this morning. And, Mr. Peabody, I'll trouble you for that automatic!"
The men dropped into their chairs, and Peabody pushed his pistol across the table. The recorder opened a drawer and dropped the evil little thing into it.
"Can you prove that wages are owed you by Mr. Peabody?" he asked, as if nothing had happened.
Wapley, who had been silent all along, pulled a dirty scrap of paper from his pocket.
"There's when we came to Bramble Farm and when we left, and the money we've had," he said harshly. "And when we left, it was 'cause he wouldn't give us what was coming to us—not just a dollar or two of it to spend in Glenside, Miss Betty can tell you that."
"Yes," said Betty eagerly. "That was what they quarreled about."
The recorder, who had been studying the bit of paper, asked a question without raising his eyes.
"What's this thirty-four cents subtracted from this two dollars for—June twenty-fourth, it seems to be?"
"Oh, that was when we had the machinist who came to fix the binder stay to supper," explained Wapley simply. "Lieson and me paid Peabody for butter on the table that night, 'cause Edgeworth's mighty particular about what he gets to eat. He'd come ten miles to fix the machine, and we wanted him to have a good meal."
Mr. Peabody turned a vivid scarlet. He did not relish these disclosures of his domestic economy.
"What in tarnation has that got to do with stealing my chickens?" he demanded testily, "Ain't you going to commit these varmints?"
The truck driver, who had been studying Mr. Peabody with disconcerting steadiness, suddenly announced the result of his scrutiny, apparently not in the last in awe of the jail sentence shadow under which he stood.
"Well, you poor, little, mean-livered, low-down, pesky, slithering snake-in-the-grass," he said slowly and distinctly, addressing himself to Mr. Peabody with unflattering directness, "now I know where I've seen your homely mug before. You're the skunk that scattered ground glass on that stretch of road between the crossroads and Miller's Pond, and then laughed when I ruined four of my good tires. I knew I'd seen you somewhere, but I couldn't place you.
"Why, do you know, Mr. Bender," he turned excitedly to the recorder, "that low-down coward wouldn't put ground glass on his own road—might get him into trouble with the authorities. No, he goes and scatters the stuff on some other farmer's highway, and when I lodge a complaint against the man whose name was on the mail box and face him in Glenside, he isn't the man I saw laughing at all! I made a complete fool of myself. I suppose this guy had a grudge against some neighbor and took that way of paying it out; and getting some motorist in Dutch, too. These rubes hates automobiles, anyway."
"It's a lie!" retorted Mr. Peabody, but his tone did not carry conviction. "I never scattered any ground glass."
The recorder fluttered a batch of papers impressively.
"Well, I've two complaints that may be filed against you," he announced decisively. "One for uncollected wages due James Wapley and Enos Lieson, and one charging that you willfully made a public highway dangerous for automobile traffic. Also, I believe, this boy, Bob Henderson, has not been sent to school regularly."
This was a surprise to Bob, who had long ago accepted the fact that school for him was over. But Mr. Peabody was plainly worried.
"What you want me to do?" he whined. "I'm willing to be fair. No man can say I'm not just."
The recorder leaned back in his chair, and his good wife, watching, knew that he had gained his point.
"Litigation and law-squabble," he said tranquilly, "waste money, time, and too often defeat the ends. Why, in this instance, don't we effect a compromise? You, Mr. Peabody, pay these men the money you owe them and drop the charge of stealing; you will have your chickens back and the knowledge that their enmity toward you is removed. Tubbs, I'm sure, will agree to forget the broken glass, and the schooling charge may lapse, provided something along that line is done for Bob this winter."
Mr. Peabody was shrewd enough to see that he could not hope for better terms. As long as he had the chickens to sell to Ryerson, he had no grounds for complaint. He hated "like sin" as Bob said, to pay the money to Wapley and Lieson, but under the recorder's unwavering eye, he counted out twenty-five dollars—twelve dollars and fifty cents apiece—which the men pocketed smilingly. A word or two of friendly admonition from Mr. Bender, and the men were dismissed.
"I'm so glad," sighed Betty as they left the room, "that I didn't have to say anything against them."
"Well, are you coming along with me?" asked Peabody, almost graciously for him. "There's a letter there for you, Betty. From your uncle, I calculate, since the postmark is Washington. And my word, Bob, you don't seem in any great hurry to get back to your chores; the sorrel must be eating his head off in Haverford's stable."
The recorder exchanged a look with his wife.
"Mr. Peabody," he said, "I shall be detained here an hour or so, and I don't want these young folks to leave until I have a word with them. Mrs. Bender will be only too glad to have you stay for lunch with us, and I'll meet you up at the house. My wife, Mr. Peabody."
"Pleased to meet you, Ma'am," stammered Mr. Peabody awkwardly. "I ought to be getting on toward home. But I suppose, if the chickens were fed this morning, they can wait."
"I'm sure you're hungry yourself," answered Mrs. Bender, slipping an arm about Betty. "Suppose we walk up to the house now, Mr. Peabody, and I'll have lunch ready by the time Mr. Bender is free."
Betty looked back as they were leaving the room and saw the truck driver slouched disconsolately in a chair opposite the recorder.
"Is—is he arrested?" she whispered half-fearfully to Mrs. Bender. Mr. Peabody and Bob were walking on ahead.
"No, dear," was the answer. "But Mr. Bender will doubtless give him a good raking over the coals, which is just what he needs. Fred Tubbs is a Laurel Grove boy, and his mother is one of the sweetest women in town. He's always been a little wild, and lately he's been in with all kinds of riff-raff. Harry heard rumors that he was trucking in shady transactions, but he never could get hold of proof. Now he has him just where he wants him. He'll tell Fred a few truths and maybe knock some sense into him before he does something that will send him to state's prison."