Etext of Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm
By Alice B. Emerson Pseud. of Stratemeyer Syndicate;  Plot
Outline by Edward Stratemeyer; Ghostwritten by Josephine
Lawrence
 New York: Cupples & Leon, 1920

CHAPTER I WAITING FOR WORD

"I do wish you'd wear a sunbonnet, Betty," said Mrs. Arnold,
glancing up from her ironing board as Betty Gordon came into the
kitchen. "You're getting old enough now to think a little about your
complexion." 

Betty's brown eyes laughed over the rim of the glass of water she
had drawn at the sink. 

"I can't stand a sunbonnet," she declared vehemently, returning the
glass to the nickel holder under the shelf. "I know just how a horse
feels with blinders on. You know you wouldn't like it, Mrs.
Arnold, if I pulled up half your onion sets in mistake for weeds
because I couldn't see what I was doing."     

Mrs. Arnold shook her head over the white ruffle she was fluting
with nervous, skillful fingers. "There's no call for you to go
grubbing in that onion bed," she said. "I'd like you to have nice
hands and not be burnt black as an Indian when your uncle comes.
But then, nobody pays any attention to what I say."     

There was more truth in this statement than Mrs. Arnold herself
suspected. She was one of these patient, anxious women who
unconsciously nag every one about them and whose stream of
complaint never rises above a constant murmur. Her family were
so used to Mrs. Arnold's monotonous fault-finding that they rarely
if ever knew what she was complaining about. They did not mean
to be disrespectful, but they had fallen into the habit of not
listening.      

"Uncle' Dick won't mind if I'm as black as an Indian," said Betty
confidently, spreading out her strong, little brown right hand and
eyeing it critically. "With all the traveling he's done, I guess he's
seen people more tanned than I am, You're sure there wasn't a
letter this morning?" 

"The young ones said there wasn't," returned Mrs. Arnold,
changing her cool iron for a hot one, and testing it by holding it
close to her flushed face. "But I don't know that Ted and George
would know a letter if they saw it, their heads are so full of
fishing." 

"I thought' Uncle Dick would write again," observed Betty
wistfully. "But perhaps there wasn't time. He said he might come
any day." "I don't know what he'll say," worried Mrs. 

Arnold, her eyes surveying the slender figure leaning against the
sink. "Your not being in mourning will certainly seem queer to
him. I hope you'll tell him Sally Pettit and I offered to make you
black frocks." 

Betty smiled, her peculiarly vivid, rich smile. "Dear Mrs. Arnold!"
she said, affection warm in her voice. "Of course I'll tell him. He
will understand, and not blame you. And now I'm going to tackle
those weeds." 

The screen door banged behind her. 

Betty Gordon was an orphan, her mother having died in March (it
was now June) and her father two years before. The
twelve-year-old girl had to her knowledge but one single living
relative in the world, her father's brother, Richard Gordon. Betty
had never seen this uncle. For years he had traveled about the
country, wherever his work called him, sometimes spending
months in large cities, sometimes living for weeks in the desert.
Mr. Gordon was a promoter of various industrial enterprises and
was frequently sent for to investigate new mines, oil wells and
other large developments. 

"I'd love to travel," thought Betty, pulling at an especially stubborn
weed. "I hope Uncle Dick will like me and take me with him
wherever he goes. Wouldn't it be just like a fairy story if he should
come here and scoop me out of Pineville and take me hundreds of
miles away to beautiful and exciting adventures!" 

This enchanting prospect so thrilled the  energetic young gardener
that she sat down comfortably in the middle of the row to dream a
little more. While her father lived, Betty's home had been in a
small, bustling city where she had gone to school in the winter.
The family had always gone to the seashore in the summer; but the
only exciting adventure she could recall had been a tedious attack
of the measles when she was six years old.  Mrs. Gordon, upon her
husband's sudden death, had taken her little daughter and come
back to Pineville, the only home she had known as a lonely young
orphan girl. She had many kind friends in the sleepy country town,
and when she died these same friends had taken loving charge of
Betty. 

The girl's grief for the loss of her mother baffled the villagers who
would have known how to deal with sorrow that expressed itself in
words or flowed out in tears. Betty's long silences, her desire to be
left quite alone in her mother's room, above all her determination
not to wear mourn- ing, puzzled them. That she had sustained a
great shock no one could doubt. White and mis- erable, she went
about, the shadow of her former gay-hearted self. For the first time
in her life she was experiencing a real bereavement. 

When Betty's father had died, the girl's grieving was principally for
her mother's evident pain. She had always been her mother's
confidante and chum, and the bond between them, naturally close,
had been strengthened by Mr. Gordon's frequent absences on the
road as a salesman. It was Betty and her mother who locked up the
house at night, Betty and her mother who discussed household
finances and planned to surprise the husband and father. The
daughter felt his death keenly, but she could never miss his actual
presence as she did that of the mother from whom she had never
been separated for one night from the time she was born. 

The neighbors took turns staying with the stricken girl in the little
brown house that had been home for the two weeks following Mrs.
Gordon's death. Then, as Betty seemed to be re- covering her
natural poise, a discussion of her affairs was instigated. The house
had been a rented one and Betty owned practically nothing in the
world except the simple articles of furniture that had been her
mother's household effects. These Mrs. Arnold stored for her in a
vacant loft over a store, and Mrs. Arnold, her mother's closest
friend, bore the lonely child off to stay with them till Richard
Gordon could be heard from and some arrangement made for the
future. Communication with Mr. Gordon was necessarily slow,
since he moved about so frequently, but when the news of his
sister-in-law's death reached him, he wrote immediately to Betty,
promising to come to Pineville as soon as he could plan his
business affairs to release him. 

"Betty!" a shrill whisper, apparently in the lilac bushes down by
the fence, startled Betty from her day dreams. 

"Betty!" came the whisper again. 

"Is that you, Ted?" called Betty, standing up and looking
expectantly toward the bushes. 

"Sh! don't let ma hear you." Ted Arnold parted the lilac bushes
sufficiently to show his round, perspiring face. "George and me's
going fishing, and we hid the can of worms under the
wheelbarrow. Hand 'em to us, will you, Betty? If ma sees us, she'll
want something done." 

"Did you go to the post-office this morning?" demanded Betty
severely. 

"Sure I did. There wasn't anything but a postal from pa," came the
answer from the bushes. "He's coming home next week, and then
it'll be nothing but work in the garden all day long. Hand us the can
of worms, like a good sport, won't you?" 

"Where did you hide them?" asked Betty absently. 

"Under the wheelbarrow, there at the end of the arbor," directed
Ted.  "Thanks awfully, Betty." 

"Where's George?" she asked. "Isn't there another mail at eleven,
Ted?" 

"Oh, Betty, how you do harp on one subject," complained Ted,
poking about in his can of worms with a stick, but keeping
carefully out of sight of the kitchen window and the maternal eye.
"Hardly anything ever comes in that eleven o'clock mail. Anyway,
didn't mother say your uncle would probably come without
bothering to write again?" 

"I suppose he will," sighed Betty. "Only it seems so long to wait.
Where did you say George was?" 

Ted answered reluctantly. 

"He's in swimming." 

"Well I must say!   You wait till your father comes home," said
Betty ominously. 

The boys had been forbidden to go swimming in the treacherous
creek hole, and George was where he had no business to be. 

"You needn't tell everything you know," mut- tered Ted
uncomfortably, picking up his treasured can and preparing to
depart. 

"Oh, I won't tell," promised Betty quickly. She went back to her
weeding, and Ted scuf- fled off to fish. 

"Goodness!" Betty pushed the hair from her forehead with a grimy
hand. "I do believe this 

is the warmest day we've had!  I'll be glad when I get down to the
other end where the arbor makes a little shade." 

She had reached the end of the long row and had stood up to rest
her back when she saw some one leaning over the white picket
fence. 

"Probably wants a drink of water," thought Betty, crossing the strip
of garden and grass to ask him, after the friendly fashion of
Pineville folk. "I've never seen him before." 

The stranger was leaning over the fence, staring abstractedly at a
border of sweet alyssum which straggled down one side of the
sunken brick walk. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and his
straw hat pushed slightly back on his head revealed a keen, tanned
face and close-cropped iron gray hair. He did not look up as Betty
drew near and suddenly she felt shy. 

"I—I beg your pardon," she faltered, "were you looking for any
particular house?" 

The stranger lifted his hat, and a pair of sharp blue eyes smiled
pleasantly into Betty's brown ones. 

"I was looking, not for a particular house, but for a particular
person," admitted the man, gazing at her intently. "I shouldn't
wonder if I had found her, too. Can you guess who I am?" Betty's
mind was so full of one subject that it would have been strange
indeed if she had failed to guess correctly. 

"You're Uncle Dick!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck
and running the risk of spiking herself on the sharp pickets. "Oh, I
thought you'd never come!" 

Uncle Dick, for it really was Mr. Gordon, hurdled the low fence
lightly and stood smiling down on his niece. 

"I don't believe in wasting time writing  letters," he declared
cheerfully, "especially as I seldom know my plans three days
ahead. You're the image of your father, child. I should have known
you anywhere." 

Betty put her hands behind her, suddenly conscious that they could
not be very clean. 

"I'm afraid I mussed your collar," she apologized contritely. "Mrs.
Arnold was hoping you'd write so she could have me all scrubbed
up for you;" and here Betty's dimple would flicker out. 

Mr. Gordon put an arm about the little figure in the grass-stained
rose-colored smock. 

"I'd rather find you a garden girl," he announced contentedly. "Isn't
there a place where you and I can have a little talk before we go in
to see Mrs. Arnold and make our explanations?" Betty drew him
toward the arbor. She knew they would be undisturbed there. 

CHAPTER II UNCLE DICK'S PLAN

THE arbor was rather small and rickety, but at least it was shady.
Betty sat down beside her uncle, who braced his feet against the
opposite seat to keep his place on the narrow ledge. 

"I'm afraid I take up a good deal of room," he said apologetically.
"Well, my dear, had you begun to think I was never coming?" 

Betty glanced up at him bravely. "It was pretty long—waiting," she
admitted. "But now you're here, Uncle Dick, everything is all right.
When can we go away?" 

"Aren't you happy here, dear?" asked her uncle, plainly troubled. "I
thought from your first letter that Mrs. Arnold was a pretty good
kind of friend, and I pictured you as contented as a girl could
possibly be after a bitter loss like yours." 

He smiled a bit ruefully. 

"Maybe I'm not strong on pictures," he added. "I thought of you as
a little girl, Betty. Don't know what'll you say, but there's a doll in
my grip for you." 

Betty laughed musically. 

"I've always saved my old doll," she confided, slipping a hand into
Uncle Dick's broad fist where it lay clinched on his knee. He was
very companionable, was this uncle, and she felt that she already
loved him dearly.  "But, Uncle Dick, I haven't really played with
dolls since we moved from the city. I like outdoor things." 

"Well, now, so do I," agreed her uncle. "I can't seem to breathe
properly unless I'm outdoors. But about this going away—do you
want to leave Pineville, Sister?" 

Betty's troubled eyes rested on the little garden hot in the bright
sunshine. 

"It isn't home any more, without mother," she said slowly. "And—I
don't belong, Uncle Dick. Mrs. Arnold is a dear, and I love her and
she loves me. But they want to go to California, though they won't
talk it before me, 'cause they think I'll feel in the way. Mr. Arnold
has a brother on a fruit farm, and he's wild to move out there.   As
soon as you take me somewhere, they're going to pack up." 

"Well, then, we'll have to see that you do belong somewhere," said
Mr. Gordon firmly. "Anything else, Sister?" 

Betty drew a deep breath. 

"It's heavenly to have you to listen to me," she declared. "I want to
go! I've never been anywhere, and I feel as though I could go and
go and never stop. Daddy was like that. Mother used to say if he
hadn't had us to look after he would have been an explorer, but that
he had to manage to earn a living and do his traveling as a
salesman. Couldn't I learn to be a salesman, a saleswoman, I
mean? Lots of girls do travel." 

"We'll think it over," answered her uncle diplomatically. 

"And then there's another thing," went on Betty, her pent-up
thoughts finding relief in speech. "Although Mrs. Arnold was
mother's dearest friend, I can't make her understand how mother
felt about wearing mourning." 

Betty indicated her rose smock. 

"Lots of Pineville folks think I don't care about losing my mother,"
she asserted softly, "because I haven't a single black dress.  But
mother said mourning was selfish. She wouldn't wear black when
daddy died. Black makes other people feel sorry. But I did love
mother! And do yet!" 

Uncle Dick's keen blue eyes misted and the brave little figure in
the bright smock was blurred for a moment. 

"I suppose the whole town has been giving you reams of advice,"
he said irrelevantly. "Well Betty, I can't promise to take you with
me—bless me, what would an old bachelor like me do with a young
lady like you? But I think I know of a place where you can spend a
summer and be neither lonesome nor unhappy. And perhaps in the
fall we can make other arrangements." 

Betty was disappointed that he did not promise to take her with
him at once. But she had been trained not to tease, and she
accepted the compromise as pleasantly as it was offered. 

"Mrs. Arnold will be disappointed if you don't go round to the
front door," she informed her uncle, as he stretched his long legs
preparatory to rising from the low seat. "Company always comes
to the front door, Uncle Dick." 

Mr. Gordon stepped out of the summer house and turned toward
the gate. 

"We'll walk around and make a proper entry," he declared
obligingly. "I meant to, and then as I came up the street I
remembered how we used to cut across old Clinton's lot and climb
the fence. So I had to come the back way for old times' sake." 

Betty's eyes were round with wonder. 

"Did you ever live in Pineville?" she asked in astonishment. 

"You don't mean to tell me you didn't know that?" Uncle Dick was
as surprised as his niece. "Why, they shipped me into this town to
read law with old Judge Clay before they found there was no law
in me, and your father first met your mother one Sunday when he
drove twenty miles from the farm to see me." 

Betty was still pondering over this when they reached the Arnold
front door and Mrs. Arnold, flustered and delighted, answered Mr.
Gordon's knock. 

"Sit right down on the front porch where it's cool," she insisted
cordially. "I've just put on my dinner, and you'll have time for a
good talk. No, Betty, there isn't a thing you can do to help me—you
entertain your uncle." 

But Betty, who knew that excitement always affected Mrs.
Arnold's bump of neatness, determined to set the table, partly to
help her hostess and partly, it must be confessed, to make sure that
the knives and forks and napkins were in their proper places. 

"I'm sure I don't know where those boys can be," scolded the
flushed but triumphant mother, as she tested the flaky chicken
dumplings and pronounced the dinner "done to a turn." "We'll just
sit down without them, and it'll do 'em good," she decided. 

Betty ran through the hall to call her uncle. Just as she reached the
door two forlorn figures toiled up the porch steps. 

"Where's ma?" whispered Ted, for the moment not seeing the
stranger and appealing to Betty, who stood in the doorway. "In the
kitchen? We thought maybe we could sneak up the front stairs." 

Ted was plastered from head to foot with slimy black mud, and
George, his younger edition, was draped only in a wet bath towel.
Both boys clung to their rough fishing rods, and Ted still carried
the dirty tin can that had once held bait. 

"I should say," observed Mr. Gordon in his deep voice, "that we
had been swimming against orders. Things usually happen in such
cases." 

"Oh, gee!" sighed Ted despairingly. "Who's that? Company?" 

Mrs. Arnold had heard the talk, and she came to the door now,
pushing Betty aside gently. 

"Well, I must say you're a pretty sight," she told her children. "If
your father were at home you know what would happen to you
pretty quick. Betty's uncle here, too! Aren't you ashamed of
yourselves ? I declare, I've a good mind to whip you good. Where
are your clothes, George?" 

"They—they floated away," mumbled George. "Ted borrowed this
towel. It's Mrs. Smith's. Say, ma, we're awful hungry." 

"You march upstairs and get cleaned up," said their mother sternly.
"We're going to sit down to dinner this minute. Chicken and
dumplings. When you come down looking like Christians I'll see
about giving you something to eat." 

Midway in the delicious dinner Ted and George sidled into the
room, very wet and shiny as to hair and conspicuously immaculate
as to shirt and collar. Mrs. Arnold relented at the transformation
and proceeded to pile two plates high with samples of her culinary
skill. 

"Betty," said Mr. Gordon suddenly, "is there a garage here where
we can hire a car?" 

"There isn't a garage in Pineville," answered Betty. "You see we're
off the state road where the automobile traffic goes. There are only
two or three cars in town, and they're for business. . But we can get
a horse and buggy, Uncle Dick." 

"Guess that's better, after all," said Mr. Gordon contentedly. "I
want to talk to you about that plan I spoke of, and we'll stand a
better chance of having our talk if we travel behind a horse. I
wonder—" his eyes twinkled—"if there's a young man about who
would care to earn a quarter by running down to the livery stable
and seeing about a horse and buggy for the afternoon?" 

Ted and George grinned above their respective dishes of ice-cold
rice pudding. 

"I'll go," offered Ted. 

"I'll go, too," promised George. "Can we drive the rig back to the
house?" 

Mr. Gordon said they could, and the two boys dispatched their
dessert in double quick time. While they went down to the town
livery stable, Betty hurried to put on a cool, white frock, but, to
Mrs. Arnold's disappointment, she refused to wear a hat. 

"The buggy top will be up, so my complexion will be safe," Betty
declared merrily, giving Mrs. Arnold a hearty squeeze as that lady
followed her downstairs to the porch where Mr. Gordon was
waiting. 

"What's that? Go without a hat?" he repeated, when Betty
consulted him. "I should say so! You're fifty times prettier with
those smooth braids than with any hat, I don't care how fine it is.
This must be our turnout approaching." 

As he guessed, it was their horse and buggy coming toward the
house. Ted was driving, assisted by George, and the patient horse
was galloping like mad as they urged it on. 

"Never knew a boy of that age who could be trusted to drive
alone," muttered Mr. Gordon, going down to the gate to meet
them. 

The boys beamed at him and Betty, sure that they had pleased with
their haste. They then watched Betty step in, followed by her
uncle, and drive away with something like envy. 

"Are you used to driving, Betty?" asked Mr. Gordon, as he chirped
lightly to the horse that obediently quickened its lagging pace. 

"Why, I've driven some," replied Betty hesitatingly. "But I wouldn't
know what to do if he should be frightened at anything. Do you
like to drive, Uncle?" 

"I'm more used to horseback riding," was the answer. "I hope you'll
have a chance to learn that this summer, Betty. I must have you
measured for a habit and have it sent up to you from the city.
There's no better sport for a man or a woman, to my way of
thinking, than can be found in the saddle." 

"Where am I going?" asked the girl timidly. "Who'll teach me to
ride?" 

"Oh, there'll be some one," said her uncle easily. "I never knew a
ranch yet where there were not good horsemen. The idea came to
me that you might like to spend the summer with Mrs. Peabody,
Betty." 

"Mrs. Peabody?" repeated Betty, puzzled. "Does she live on a
ranch? I'd love to go out West, Uncle Dick." 

CHAPTER III DINING OUT

FOR a moment Mr. Gordon stared at his niece, a puzzled look in
his eyes. Then his face cleared.  

"Oh, I see. You've made a natural mistake," he said. "Mrs. Peabody
doesn't live out West, Betty, but up-state—about one hundred and
fifty miles north of Pineville. I've picked up that word ranch in
California. Everything outside the town limits, from a quarter of an
acre to a thousand, is called a ranch. I should have said farm."  

Betty settled back in the buggy, momentarily disappointed. A farm
sounded so tame and—and ordinary.  

"The plan came to me while I was sitting out on the porch waiting
for dinner," pursued her uncle, unconscious that he had dashed her
hopes. "Your father and I had such a happy childhood on a farm
that I'm sure he would want you to know something about such a
life first-hand. But of course I intend to talk it over with you before
writing to Agatha."  

"Agatha?" repeated Betty.  

"Mrs. Peabody," explained Mr. Gordon. "She and I went to school
together. Last year I happened to run across her brother out in the
mines. He told me that Agatha had married, rather well, I
understood, and was living on a fine, large farm. What did he say
they called their place? 'Bramble Farm'—yes, that's it."  

"Bramble Farm," echoed Betty. "It sounds like wild roses, doesn't
it, Uncle Dick? But suppose Mrs. Peabody doesn't want me to
come to live with her?"  

"Bless your heart, child, this is no permanent arrangement'"
exclaimed her uncle vigorously. "You're my girl, and mighty proud
I am to have such a bonny creature claiming kin with me. I've
knocked about a good bit, and sometimes the going has been right
lonesome."  

He seemed to have forgotten the subject of Bramble Farm for the
moment, and something in his voice made Betty put out a timid
hand and stroke his coat sleeve silently.  

"All right, dear," he declared suddenly, throwing off the serious
mood with the quick shift that Betty was to learn was
characteristic of him. "If your old bachelor uncle had the slightest
idea where he would be two weeks from now, he'd take you with
him and not let you out of his sight. But I don't know; though I
strongly suspect, and it's no place to take a young lady to.
However, if we can fix it up with Agatha for you to spend the
summer with her, perhaps matters will shape up better in the fall.
I'll tell her to get you fattened up a bit; she ought to have plenty of
fresh eggs and milk."  

Betty made a wry face.  

"I don't want to be fat, Uncle Dick," she protested. "I remember a
fat girl in school, and she had an awful time. Is Mrs. Peabody old?" 
Mr. Gordon laughed.  

"That's a delicate question," he admitted. "She's some three or four
years younger than I, I believe, and I'm forty-two. Figure it out to
suit yourself."  

The bay horse had had its own sweet way so far, and now stopped
short, the road barred by a wide gate. It turned its head and looked
reproachfully at the occupants of the buggy.  

"Bless me, I never noticed where we were going," said Mr.
Gordon, surprised. "What's this we're in, Betty, a private lane?
Where does it lead?"  

"Let me open the gate," cried Betty, one foot on the step. "We're in
Mr. Bradway's meadow. Uncle Dick. We can keep right on and
come out on the turnpike. He doesn't care as long as the gates are
kept closed."  

"I'll open the gate," said Mr. Gordon decidedly. "Take the reins and
drive on through."  

Betty obeyed, and Mr. Gordon swung the heavy gate into place
again and fastened it.  

"Is Mrs. Peabody pretty?" asked Betty, as he took his place beside
her and gathered up the lines. "Has she any children?"  

The blue eyes surveyed her quizzically.  

"A real girl, aren't you?" teased her uncle.  

"Why, child, I couldn't tell you to save me, whether Agatha is
pretty or not. I haven't seen her for years. But she has no children.
Her brother, Lem, told me that. She was a pretty girl." Mr. Gordon
added reflectively: "I recollect she had long yellow braids and very
blue eyes. Yes, she's probably a pretty woman."  

To reach the turnpike they had to pass through another barred gate,
and then when they did turn into the main road, Mr. Gordon,
glancing at his watch, uttered an exclamation.  

"Four o'clock," he announced. "Why, it must have been later than I
thought when we started. The horse has taken its own sweet time.
Look, Betty, is there a place around here where we can get some
ice-cream?"  

Betty's eyes danced. Like most twelve-year-old girls, she regarded
ice-cream as a treat.  

"There's a place in Pineville; but let's not go there—the whole town
goes to the drug-store in the afternoons," she answered. "Couldn't
we go as far as Harburton and stop at the ice-cream parlor? The
horse isn't very tired, is it, Uncle Dick?"  

"Considering the pace he has been going, I doubt it." responded
her uncle. "What's the matter with you and me having a regular
lark, Betty? Let's not go back for supper—we'll have it at the hotel.
They can put up the horse, and we'll drive back when it's cooler."  

Betty was thrilled at the idea of eating supper at the Harburton
Hotel; certainly that would be what she called "exciting." But since
her mother's death she had learned to think not only for herself but
for others.  

"Mrs. Arnold would be so worried," she objected, trying to keep
the longing out of her voice. "She'd think we'd been struck at the
grade crossing. And, Uncle Dick, I don't believe this dress is good
enough."  

But Mr. Gordon was not accustomed to being balked by
objections. He swept Betty's aside with a half-dozen words. They
would telephone to Mrs. Arnold. Well, then, if she had no
telephone, they would telephone a near neighbor and get her to
carry the message. As for the dress —here he glanced contentedly at
Betty—he didn't see but that she looked fine enough to attend the
King's wedding. She could wash and freshen up a little when they
reached the hotel.  

Betty's face glowed.  

"You're just like Daddy," she said happily. "Mother used to say she
never had to worry about anything when he was at home. Mrs.
Arnold doesn't either, when her husband's home. Do all husbands
do the deciding, Uncle Dick?"  

Mr. Gordon submitted, amusedly, that as he was not a husband, he
could not give accurate information on that point. But Betty's
active mind was turning over something.  

"Mrs. Arnold says Mr. Arnold makes the boys stand round," she
confided. "I notice they mind him ten times as quick as they do
their mother. But they love him more. Do you make people stand
round, Uncle Dick?"  

Mr. Gordon smiled down into the serious little face tilted to meet
his glance.  

"I haven't much patience with disobedience, I'm afraid," he replied.
"I suppose some of the men I've bossed would consider me a
Tartar. Why, Betty? Are you thinking of going on strike against my
authority? I don't advise you to try it."  

Betty blushed.  

"It isn't that," she said hastily. "But—but— well, I have a temper,
Uncle Dick.  I get so raging mad! If I don't tell you, some one else
will, or else you'll see me 'acting up,' as Mrs. Arnold says, before
you go. So I thought I'd better tell you."  

Mr. Gordon's lips twitched.  

"A temper, out of control, is a mighty useless possession," he said
solemnly. "But as long as you know you've got a spark of fire in
you, Betty, you can watch out for it. Afraid of going on the
rampage while you're at Bramble Farm? Is that what's worrying
you?"  

"Some," confessed his niece, with scarlet cheeks.  

"I'll tell you what to do," counseled Mr. Gordon, and his even,
rather slow voice soothed Betty inexpressibly. "When you get a
'mad fit,' you fly out to the wood pile and chop kindling as hard as
you can. You can't talk and chop wood, and the tongue does most
of the mischief when our tempers get the best of us. You'll
remember that little trick, won't you?"  

Betty promised she would, and, as they were now driving into the
thriving county seat of Harburton, she began to point out the few
places of interest.  

The hotel was opposite the court house, and as they stopped before
the curb and Betty saw the porch well filled with men, with here
and there a woman in a pretty summer dress, she felt extremely
shy. A boy ran up to take their horse and lead it around to the
stables for a rub-down and a comfortable supper. Mr. Gordon
tucked his niece's hand under his arm and marched unconcernedly
up the hotel steps.  

"I suppose he's used to hotels," thought Betty, sinking into one of
the stuffed red velvet chairs at her uncle's bidding and looking
interestedly about her as he went in search of the proprietor. "I
wonder if it's fun to live in a hotel all the time instead of a house."  

Her uncle came back in a few moments with a pleasant-faced,
matronly woman, whom he introduced as the sister of the
proprietor. She was to take Betty upstairs and let her make herself
neat for supper, which would, so the woman said, be ready in
twenty minutes.  

"I'll wait for you right here," promised Mr. Gordon, divining in
Betty's anxious glance a fear that she would have to search for him
on the crowded piazza.  

"You drove in, didn't you?" asked Mrs. Holmes, leading the way
upstairs and ushering Betty into a pretty, chintz-hung room. "You'll
find fresh water in the pitcher, dear.  Didn't your father say you
were from Pineville?"  

Betty, pouring the clear, cool water into the basin, explained that
Mr. Gordon was her uncle and said that they had driven over from
Pineville that afternoon.  

"Well, you want to be careful driving back," cautioned Mrs.
Holmes.  "The flag man goes off duty at six o'clock, and that
crossing lies right in a bad cut. There was a nasty accident there
last week."  

Betty had read of it in the Pineville Post, and thanked Mrs. Holmes
for her warning. When that kind woman had ascertained that Betty
needed nothing more, she excused herself and went down to
superintend the two waitresses.  

Betty managed to smooth her hair nicely with the aid of a
convenient sidecomb, and after bathing her face and hands felt
quite refreshed and neat again. She found her uncle reading a
magazine.  

"Well, you look first rate," he greeted her. "I picked this up off the
table without glancing at it; it's a fashion magazine. It reminds me,
Betty, you'll need some new clothes this summer, eh? You'll have
to take Mrs. Arnold when you go shopping. I wouldn't know a
bonnet from a pair of gloves."  

Betty laughed and slipped her hand into his, and they went toward
the dining room. What a dear Uncle Dick was! She had not had
many new clothes since her father's death. 

CHAPTER IV AT THE CROSSING 

THE country hotel supper was no better than the average of its
kind, but to Betty, to whom any sort of change was "fun," it was
delicious. She and Uncle Dick became better acquainted over the
simple meal in the pleasant dining room than they could ever have
hoped to have been with Mrs. Arnold and the two boys present,
and it was not until her dessert was placed before her that Betty
remembered her friend. 

"Mrs. Arnold will think we're lost!" she exclaimed guiltily. "I
meant to telephone! And oh, Uncle Dick, she does hate to keep
supper waiting." 

Uncle Dick smiled. 

"I telephoned the neighbor you told me about," he said
reassuringly. "She said she would send one of her children right
over with the message. That was while you were upstairs. So I
imagine Mrs. Arnold has George and Ted hard at work drying the
dishes by this time." 

"They don't dry the dishes, 'cause they're boys," explained Betty
dimpling. "In Pineville, the men and boys never think of helping
with the housework. Mother said once that was one reason she fell
in love with daddy—because he came out and helped her to do a
pile of dishes one awfully hot Sunday afternoon." 

After supper Betty and her uncle walked about Harburton a bit,
and Betty glanced into the shop windows.  She knew that probably
her new dresses, at least the material for them, would be bought
here, and she was counting more on the new frocks than even
Uncle Dick knew. 

When they went back to the hotel it was still light, but the horse
was ordered brought around, for they did not want to hurry on the
drive home. 

"I guess I missed not belonging to any body," she said shyly, after a
long silence. 

Uncle Dick glanced down at her understandingly. 

"I've had that feeling, too," he confessed. "We all need a sense of
kinship, I think, Betty. Or a home. I haven't had either for years.
Now you and I will make it up to each other, my girl." 

The darkness closed in on them, and Uncle Dick got out and lit the
two lamps on the dashboard and the little red danger light behind.
Once or twice a big automobile came glaring out of the road ahead
and swept past them with a roar and a rush, but the easy going
horse refused to change its steady trot. But presently, without
warning, it stopped. 

Uncle Dick slapped the reins smartly, with no result. 

"He balks," said Betty apologetically. "I know this horse. The
livery stable man says he never balks on the way home, but I
suppose he was so good all the afternoon he just has to act up
now." 

"Balks!" exploded Uncle Dick.  "Why, no stable should send out a
horse with that habit. Is there any special treatment he favors,
Betty?" he added ironically. Betty considered. 

"Whipping him only makes him worse, they say," she answered.
"He puts his ears back and kicks. Once he kicked a buggy to
pieces. I guess' we'll have to get out and coax him, Uncle Dick." 

Mr. Gordon snorted, but he climbed down and went to the horse's
head. 

"You stay where you are, Betty," he commanded. "I'm not going to
have you dancing all over this dark road and likely to be run down
by a car any minute simply to cater to the whim of a fool horse.
You hold the reins and if he once starts don't stop him; I'll catch
the step as it goes by." 

Betty held the reins tensely and waited. There was no moon, and
clouds hid whatever light they 

might have gained from the stars. It was distinctly eery to be out
on the dark road, miles from any house, with no noise save the
incessant low hum of the summer insects. Betty shivered slightly. 

She could hear her uncle talking in a low tone to the dejected,
drooping, stubborn bay horse, and she could see the dim outline of
his figure. The rays of the buggy lamps showed her a tiny patch of
the wheels and road, but that was every bit she could see. 

Up over the slight rise of ground before them shone a glare,
followed in a second by the headlights of a large touring car.
Abreast of the buggy it stopped. 

"Tire trouble?" asked some one with a hint of laughter in the deep
strong voice. 

"No, head trouble," retorted Mr. Gordon, stepping over to the
driver of the car. "Balky horse." 

"You don't say!" The motorist seemed surprised and interested. "I'd
give you a tow if you were going my way. But, do you know, my
son who runs a farm for me has a way of fixing a horse like that.
He says it's all mental. Beating 'em is a waste of time. Jim
unharnesses a horse that balks with him, leads it on a way and then
rolls the wagon up and gears up again. Horse thinks he's starting all
over—new trip, you see. What's the word I want?" 

"Psychological?" said the sweet, clear voice of Betty promptly. 

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" the motorist swept off his cap. "Thank you,
whoever you are. That's what I wanted to say. Yes, nowadays they
believe in reasoning with a horse. I'll help you unhitch if you say
so." 

"Let me," pleaded Betty. "Please, Uncle Dick. I know quite a lot
about unharnessing. Can't I get out and do one side?" 

The motorist was already out of his car, and at her uncle's brief "all
right," Betty slipped down and ran to the traces. The stranger
observed her curiously. 

"Thought you were older," he said genially. "Where did a little
tyke like you get hold of such a long word?" 

"I read it," replied Betty proudly. "They use   it in the Ladies' Aid
when they want to raise more money than usual and they hate to
ask for it Mrs. Banker says there's a psychological moment to ask
for contributions, and I have to copy the secretary's notes for her." 

"I see," said the stranger. "There! Now, Mr. Heady here is free, and
we'll lead him up the road a way. 

Uncle Dick led the horse, who went willingly enough, and Betty
and the kind friend-in-need, as she called him to herself, each took
a shaft of the light buggy and pulled it after them. To their
surprise, when the horse was again harnessed to the wagon it
started at the word "gid-ap," and gave every evidence of a
determination to do as all good horses do—whatever they are
ordered. 

"Guess he's all right," said the motorist, holding out his hand to
Mr. Gordon. "Now, don't thank me—only ordinary road courtesy, I
assure you. Hope your troubles are over for the night." 

The two men exchanged cards, and, lifting his hat to Betty, though
he couldn't see her in the buggy, the stranger went back to his car. 

"Wasn't he nice?" chattered Betty, as the horse trotted briskly.
Uncle Dick grimly resolved to make it pay for the lost time. "We
might have been stuck all night." 

"Every indication of it," admitted Mr. Gordon. "However, I'm glad
to say that I've always found travelers willing to go to any trouble
to help. Don't ever leave a person in trouble on the road if you can
do one thing to aid him, Betty. I want you to remember that." 

Betty promised, a bit sleepily, for the motion and the soft, night air
were making her drowsy. She sat up, however, when they came in
sight of the winking red and green lights that showed the railroad
crossing. 

"No gateman, is there?" inquired her uncle. "Well, I'll go ahead and
look, and you be ready to drive across when I whistle." 

He climbed down and ran forward, and Betty sat quietly, the reins
held ready in her hand. In a few moments she heard her signal, a
clear, sharp whistle. She spoke to the horse, who moved on at an
irritatingly slow pace. 

"For goodness sake!" said Betty aloud, "can't you hurry?" 

She peered ahead, trying to make out her uncle's figure, but the
heavy pine trees that grew on either side of the road threw shadows
too deep for anything to be plainly outlined. Betty, nervously on
the lockout, scarcely knew when they reached the double track, but
she realized her position with a sickening heart thump when the
horse stopped suddenly. The bay had chosen the grade crossing as
a suitable place to enjoy a second fit of balkiness. 

"Uncle Dick!" cried Betty in terror. "Uncle Dick, he's stopped
again! Come and help me unhitch!" 

No one answered. 

Betty had nerves as strong and as much presence of mind as any
girl of her age, but a woman grown might consider that she had
cause for hysterics if she found herself late at night marooned in
the middle of a railroad track with a balky horse and no one near
to give her even a word of advice. For a moment Betty rather lost
her head and screamed for her uncle. This passed quickly though,
and she became calmer. The whip she knew was useless. So was
coaxing. There was nothing to do with any certainty of success but
to unharness the horse and lead her over. But where was Uncle
Dick?          

Betty jumped down from the buggy and ran ahead into the
darkness, calling. 

"Uncle Dick!" shouted Betty. "Uncle Dick, where are you?" 

The cheery little hum of the insects filled the silence as soon as her
voice died away. There was no other sound. Common sense
coming to her aid, Betty reasoned that her uncle would not have
gone far from the crossing, and she soon began to retrace her
steps) calling at intervals. As she came back to the twinkling red
and green lights, she heard a noise that brought her heart into her
throat. Some one had groaned! 

"He's hurt!" she thought instantly. 

The groan was repeated, and, listening care- fully, Betty detected
that it came from the other side of the road. A few rods away from
the flagman's house was a pit that had recently been excavated for
some purpose and then abandoned. Betty peered down into this. 

"Uncle Dick?" she said softly. 

Another deep groan answered her. 

Betty ran back to the buggy and managed to twist one of the lamps
from the dashboard. She was back in a second, and carefully
climbed down into the pit. Sure enough, huddled in a deplorable
heap, one foot twisted under him, lay Mr. Gordon. 

Betty had had little experience with accidents, but she instinctively
took his head in her lap and loosened his collar.  He was
unconscious, but when she moved him he groaned again
heartbreakingly. 

"How shall I ever get him up to the road?" wondered Betty,
wishing she knew something of first-aid treatment. "If I could drag
him up and then go and get the horse and buggy—" 

Her pulse gave an astounding leap and her brown eyes dilated. 
Putting her uncle's head back gently on the gravel, she scrambled
to her feet, feeling only that whatever she did she must  not waste
time in screaming. She had heard the whistle of a train! 

CHAPTER IV AT THE CROSSING 

THE country hotel supper was no better than the average of its
kind, but to Betty, to whom any sort of change was "fun," it was
delicious. She and Uncle Dick became better acquainted over the
simple meal in the pleasant dining room than they could ever have
hoped to have been with Mrs. Arnold and the two boys present,
and it was not until her dessert was placed before her that Betty
remembered her friend. 

"Mrs. Arnold will think we're lost!" she exclaimed guiltily. "I
meant to telephone! And oh, Uncle Dick, she does hate to keep
supper waiting." 

Uncle Dick smiled. 

"I telephoned the neighbor you told me about," he said
reassuringly. "She said she would send one of her children right
over with the message. That was while you were upstairs. So I
imagine Mrs. Arnold has George and Ted hard at work drying the
dishes by this time." 

"They don't dry the dishes, 'cause they're boys," explained Betty
dimpling. "In Pineville, the men and boys never think of helping
with the housework. Mother said once that was one reason she fell
in love with daddy—because he came out and helped her to do a
pile of dishes one awfully hot Sunday afternoon." 

After supper Betty and her uncle walked about Harburton a bit,
and Betty glanced into the shop windows.  She knew that probably
her new dresses, at least the material for them, would be bought
here, and she was counting more on the new frocks than even
Uncle Dick knew. 

When they went back to the hotel it was still light, but the horse
was ordered brought around, for they did not want to hurry on the
drive home. 

"I guess I missed not belonging to any body," she said shyly, after a
long silence. 

Uncle Dick glanced down at her understandingly. 

"I've had that feeling, too," he confessed. "We all need a sense of
kinship, I think, Betty. Or a home. I haven't had either for years.
Now you and I will make it up to each other, my girl." 

The darkness closed in on them, and Uncle Dick got out and lit the
two lamps on the dashboard and the little red danger light behind.
Once or twice a big automobile came glaring out of the road ahead
and swept past them with a roar and a rush, but the easy going
horse refused to change its steady trot. But presently, without
warning, it stopped. 

Uncle Dick slapped the reins smartly, with no result. 

"He balks," said Betty apologetically. "I know this horse. The
livery stable man says he never balks on the way home, but I
suppose he was so good all the afternoon he just has to act up
now." 

"Balks!" exploded Uncle Dick.  "Why, no stable should send out a
horse with that habit. Is there any special treatment he favors,
Betty?" he added ironically. Betty considered. 

"Whipping him only makes him worse, they say," she answered.
"He puts his ears back and kicks. Once he kicked a buggy to
pieces. I guess' we'll have to get out and coax him, Uncle Dick." 

Mr. Gordon snorted, but he climbed down and went to the horse's
head. 

"You stay where you are, Betty," he commanded. "I'm not going to
have you dancing all over this dark road and likely to be run down
by a car any minute simply to cater to the whim of a fool horse.
You hold the reins and if he once starts don't stop him; I'll catch
the step as it goes by." 

Betty held the reins tensely and waited. There was no moon, and
clouds hid whatever light they 

might have gained from the stars. It was distinctly eery to be out
on the dark road, miles from any house, with no noise save the
incessant low hum of the summer insects. Betty shivered slightly. 

She could hear her uncle talking in a low tone to the dejected,
drooping, stubborn bay horse, and she could see the dim outline of
his figure. The rays of the buggy lamps showed her a tiny patch of
the wheels and road, but that was every bit she could see. 

Up over the slight rise of ground before them shone a glare,
followed in a second by the headlights of a large touring car.
Abreast of the buggy it stopped. 

"Tire trouble?" asked some one with a hint of laughter in the deep
strong voice. 

"No, head trouble," retorted Mr. Gordon, stepping over to the
driver of the car. "Balky horse." 

"You don't say!" The motorist seemed surprised and interested. "I'd
give you a tow if you were going my way. But, do you know, my
son who runs a farm for me has a way of fixing a horse like that.
He says it's all mental. Beating 'em is a waste of time. Jim
unharnesses a horse that balks with him, leads it on a way and then
rolls the wagon up and gears up again. Horse thinks he's starting all
over—new trip, you see. What's the word I want?" 

"Psychological?" said the sweet, clear voice of Betty promptly. 

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" the motorist swept off his cap. "Thank you,
whoever you are. That's what I wanted to say. Yes, nowadays they
believe in reasoning with a horse. I'll help you unhitch if you say
so." 

"Let me," pleaded Betty. "Please, Uncle Dick. I know quite a lot
about unharnessing. Can't I get out and do one side?" 

The motorist was already out of his car, and at her uncle's brief "all
right," Betty slipped down and ran to the traces. The stranger
observed her curiously. 

"Thought you were older," he said genially. "Where did a little
tyke like you get hold of such a long word?" 

"I read it," replied Betty proudly. "They use   it in the Ladies' Aid
when they want to raise more money than usual and they hate to
ask for it Mrs. Banker says there's a psychological moment to ask
for contributions, and I have to copy the secretary's notes for her." 

"I see," said the stranger. "There! Now, Mr. Heady here is free, and
we'll lead him up the road a way. 

Uncle Dick led the horse, who went willingly enough, and Betty
and the kind friend-in-need, as she called him to herself, each took
a shaft of the light buggy and pulled it after them. To their
surprise, when the horse was again harnessed to the wagon it
started at the word "gid-ap," and gave every evidence of a
determination to do as all good horses do—whatever they are
ordered. 

"Guess he's all right," said the motorist, holding out his hand to
Mr. Gordon. "Now, don't thank me—only ordinary road courtesy, I
assure you. Hope your troubles are over for the night." 

The two men exchanged cards, and, lifting his hat to Betty, though
he couldn't see her in the buggy, the stranger went back to his car. 

"Wasn't he nice?" chattered Betty, as the horse trotted briskly.
Uncle Dick grimly resolved to make it pay for the lost time. "We
might have been stuck all night." 

"Every indication of it," admitted Mr. Gordon. "However, I'm glad
to say that I've always found travelers willing to go to any trouble
to help. Don't ever leave a person in trouble on the road if you can
do one thing to aid him, Betty. I want you to remember that." 

Betty promised, a bit sleepily, for the motion and the soft, night air
were making her drowsy. She sat up, however, when they came in
sight of the winking red and green lights that showed the railroad
crossing. 

"No gateman, is there?" inquired her uncle. "Well, I'll go ahead and
look, and you be ready to drive across when I whistle." 

He climbed down and ran forward, and Betty sat quietly, the reins
held ready in her hand. In a few moments she heard her signal, a
clear, sharp whistle. She spoke to the horse, who moved on at an
irritatingly slow pace. 

"For goodness sake!" said Betty aloud, "can't you hurry?" 

She peered ahead, trying to make out her uncle's figure, but the
heavy pine trees that grew on either side of the road threw shadows
too deep for anything to be plainly outlined. Betty, nervously on
the lockout, scarcely knew when they reached the double track, but
she realized her position with a sickening heart thump when the
horse stopped suddenly. The bay had chosen the grade crossing as
a suitable place to enjoy a second fit of balkiness. 

"Uncle Dick!" cried Betty in terror. "Uncle Dick, he's stopped
again! Come and help me unhitch!" 

No one answered. 

Betty had nerves as strong and as much presence of mind as any
girl of her age, but a woman grown might consider that she had
cause for hysterics if she found herself late at night marooned in
the middle of a railroad track with a balky horse and no one near
to give her even a word of advice. For a moment Betty rather lost
her head and screamed for her uncle. This passed quickly though,
and she became calmer. The whip she knew was useless. So was
coaxing. There was nothing to do with any certainty of success but
to unharness the horse and lead her over. But where was Uncle
Dick?          

Betty jumped down from the buggy and ran ahead into the
darkness, calling. 

"Uncle Dick!" shouted Betty. "Uncle Dick, where are you?" 

The cheery little hum of the insects filled the silence as soon as her
voice died away. There was no other sound. Common sense
coming to her aid, Betty reasoned that her uncle would not have
gone far from the crossing, and she soon began to retrace her
steps) calling at intervals. As she came back to the twinkling red
and green lights, she heard a noise that brought her heart into her
throat. Some one had groaned! 

"He's hurt!" she thought instantly. 

The groan was repeated, and, listening care- fully, Betty detected
that it came from the other side of the road. A few rods away from
the flagman's house was a pit that had recently been excavated for
some purpose and then abandoned. Betty peered down into this. 

"Uncle Dick?" she said softly. 

Another deep groan answered her. 

Betty ran back to the buggy and managed to twist one of the lamps
from the dashboard. She was back in a second, and carefully
climbed down into the pit. Sure enough, huddled in a deplorable
heap, one foot twisted under him, lay Mr. Gordon. 

Betty had had little experience with accidents, but she instinctively
took his head in her lap and loosened his collar.  He was
unconscious, but when she moved him he groaned again
heartbreakingly. 

"How shall I ever get him up to the road?" wondered Betty,
wishing she knew something of first-aid treatment. "If I could drag
him up and then go and get the horse and buggy—" 

Her pulse gave an astounding leap and her brown eyes dilated. 
Putting her uncle's head back gently on the gravel, she scrambled
to her feet, feeling only that whatever she did she must  not waste
time in screaming. She had heard the whistle of a train! 

CHAPTER V  MRS. PEABODY WRITES 

THE bad, little stubborn horse standing on the track at the mercy
of the coming comet! That was Betty's thought as she sped down
the road. In the hope that a sense of the danger might have reached
the animal's instinct, she gave the bridle a desperate tug when she
reached the horse, but it was of no use. Feverishly Betty set to
work to unharness the little bay horse. 

She was unaccustomed to many of the buckles, and the harness
was stiff and unyielding. Working at it in a hurry was very
different from the few times she had done it for fun, or with some
one to manage all the hard places. She had finished one side when
the whistle sounded again. To the girl's overwrought nerves it
seemed to be just around the curve. She had no thought of
abandoning the animal, however, and she set her teeth and began
on the second set of snaps and buckles. These, too, gave way, and
with a strong push Betty sent the buggy flying backward free of the
tracks, and, seizing the bridle, she led the cause of all the trouble
forward and into safety. 

For the third time the whistle blew warningly, and this time the
noise of the train could be plainly heard. But it was nearly a
minute before the glare of the headlight showed around the curve. 

"Look what didn't hit you, no thanks to you," Betty scolded the
horse, as a relief to herself. "I 'most wish I'd left you there; only
then we never would get Uncle Dick home." 

Poor Betty had now the hardest part of her task before her. She
went back and dragged the buggy over the tracks, up to the horse
and started the tedious business of harnessing again. She was not
sure where all the straps went, but she hoped enough of them
would hold together till they could get home. When she had
everything a» nearly in place as she could get them, she climbed
down into the pit. 

To her surprise, her uncle's eyes were open. He lay gazing at the
buggy lamp she had, left. 

"Uncle Dick," she whispered, "are you hurt?  Can you walk?
Because you're so big, I can't pull you out very well." 

"Why, I can't be hurt," said her uncle slowly in his natural voice.
"What's happened? Where are we? Goodness, child, you look like
a ghost with a dirty face." 

Betty was not concerned with her looks at that moment, and she
was so delighted to find her uncle conscious that she did not feel
offended at his uncomplimentary remark. In a few words she
sketched for him what had happened. 

"My dear child!" he ejaculated when she had told him, "have you
been through all that? Why, you're the pluckiest little woman I
ever heard of! No wonder you look thoroughly done up. All I
remember is whistling for you to come ahead and then taking a
step that landed me nowhere. In other words, I must have stepped
into this pit. I'm not hurt—just a bit dazed." 

To prove it, he got to his feet a trifle shakily. Declining Betty's
assistance, he managed to scramble out of the pit, up on to the
road. His head cleared rapidly, and in a few more moments he
declared he felt like himself. 

"In with you," he ordered Betty, after a preliminary examination of
the harness which, he announced, was "as right as a trivet."
"You've done your share for to-night. Go to sleep, if you like, and
I'll wake you up in time to hear Mrs. Arnold send Ted out to take
the horse around to the livery stable. It wouldn't do for me to do it—
I might murder the owner!" 

Betty leaned her head against her uncle's broad shoulder, for a
minute she thought, and when she woke found herself being
helped gently from the buggy. 

"You're all right, Betty," soothed Mrs. Arnold's voice in the
darkness. "I've worried myself sick! Do you know it's one o'clock?" 

Mr. Gordon took the wagon around to the stable, and Betty, with
Mrs. Arnold's help, got ready for bed. 

Betty was fast asleep almost before the undressing was completed,
and she slept until late the next morning. When she came down to
the luxury of a special breakfast, she found only Mrs. Arnold in the
house. 

"Your uncle's gone out to post a letter," that voluble lady informed
her.  "Both boys have gone fishing again. I'm only waiting for their
father to come home and straighten 'em out. Will you have cocoa,
dearie?" 

Before she had quite finished her breakfast, Mr. Gordon came
back from the post-office, and then, as Mrs. Arnold wanted to go
over to a neighbor's to borrow a pattern, he sat down opposite
Betty. 

"You look rested," he commented. "I don't like to think what might
have happened last night. However, we'll be optimistic and look
ahead. I've written to Mrs. Peabody, dear, and to-morrow I think
you and Mrs. Arnold had better go shopping. I'll write you a check
this morning. Agatha will want you to come, I know. And to tell
you the truth, Betty, I've had a letter that makes me anxious to be
off. I want to stay to see you safely started for Bramble Farm, and
then I must peg away at this new work.  Finished? Then let's go
into the sitting room and I'll ex- plain about the check." 

The next morning Betty and Mrs. Arnold started for Harburton
with what seemed to Betty a small fortune folded in her purse.
Mrs. Arnold had shown her how to cash the check at the Pineville
Bank, and she was to advise as to material and value of the
clothing Betty might select; but the outfit was to represent Betty's
choice and was to please her primarily—Uncle Dick had made this
very clear. 

Betty had learned a good deal about shopping in the last months of
her mother's illness, and she did not find it difficult to choose
suitable and pretty ginghams for her frocks, a middy blouse or two,
some new smocks, and a smart blue sweater. She very sensibly
decided that as she was to spend the summer on a farm she did not
need elaborate clothes, and she knew, from listening to Mrs.
Arnold, that those easiest to iron would probably please Mrs.
Peabody most whether she did her own laundry work or had a
washerwoman. 

When the purchases came home Uncle Dick delighted Betty with
his warm approval. For a couple of days the sewing machine
whirred from morning to night as the village dressmaker sewed
and fitted the new frocks and made the old presentable. Then the
letter from Mrs. Peabody arrived. 

"I will be very glad to have your niece spend the summer with me,"
she wrote, in a fine, slanting hand. "The question of board, as you
arrange it, is satisfactory. I would not take anything for her, you
know, Dick, and for old times' sake would welcome her without
compensation, but living is so dreadfully high these days. Joseph
has not had good luck lately, and there are so many things against
the farmer . . . Let me know when to expect Betty and some one
will meet her." 

The letter rambled on for several pages, complaining rather
querulously of hard times and the difficulties under which the
writer and her husband managed to "get along." 

"Doesn't sound like Agatha, somehow," worried Uncle Dick, a
slight frown between his eyes. "She was always a good-natured,
happy kind of girl. But most likely she can't write a sunny letter. I
know we used to have an aunt whose letters were always referred
to as 'calamity howlers.' Yet to meet her you'd think she hadn't a
care in the world. Yes, probably Agatha puts her blues into her
letters and so doesn't have any left to spill around where she lives." 

Several times that day Betty saw him pull the letter from his
pocket and re-read it, always with the puzzled lines between his
brows. Once he called to her as she was going upstairs. 

"Betty," he said rather awkwardly, "I don't know exactly how to
put it, but you're going to board with Mrs. Peabody, you know.
You'll be independent—not 'beholden,' as the country folk say, to
her. I want you to like her and to help her, but, oh, well, I guess I
don't know what I am trying to say. Only remember, child, if you
don't like Bramble Farm for any good reason, I'll see that you don't
have to remain there." 

A brand-new little trunk for Betty made its appearance in the front
hall of the Arnold house, and two subdued boys—for Mr. Arnold
had returned home—helped her carry down her new treasures and,
after the clothes were neatly packed, strap and lock the trunk.
There was a tiny "over-night" bag, too, fitted with toilet articles
and just large enough to hold a nightdress and a dressing gown and
slippers. Betty felt very young-ladyish indeed with these traveling
accessories. 

"I'll order a riding habit for you in the first large city I get to,"
promised her uncle. "I want you to learn to ride—1 wrote Agatha
that. She doesn't say anything about saddle horses, but they must
have something you can ride. And you'll write to me, my dear,
faithfully?" 

"Of course," promised Betty, clinging to him, for she had learned
to love him dearly even in the short time they had been together. 
"I'll write to you, Uncle Dick, and I'll do everything you ask me to
do. Then, this winter, do let's keep house." 

"We will," said Uncle Dick, fervently, "if we have to keep house
on the back of a camel in the desert!" At this Betty giggled
delightedly. 

Betty's train left early in the morning, and her uncle went to the
station with her. Mrs. Arnold cried a great deal when she said
good-bye, but Betty cheered her up by picturing the long, chatty
letters they would write to each other and by assuring her friend
that she might yet visit her in California. 

Mr. Gordon placed his niece in the care of the conductor and the
porter, and the last person Betty saw was this gray-haired uncle
running beside the train, waving his hat and smiling at her till her
car passed beyond the platform. 

"Now," said Betty methodically, "if I think back, I shall cry; so I'll
think ahead." 

Which she proceeded to do. She pictured Mrs. Peabody as a
gray-haired, capable, kindly woman, older than Mrs. Arnold, and
perhaps more serene. She might like to be called "Aunt Agatha."'
Mr. Peabody, she decided, would be short and round, with
twinkling blue eyes and perhaps a white stubby beard. He would
probably call her "Sis," and would always be studying how to
make things about the house comfortable for his wife. 

"I hope they have horses and pigs and cows and sheep," mused
Betty, the flying landscape slipping past her window unheeded. 
"And if they have sheep, they'll have a dog. Wouldn't I love to have
a dog to take long walks with! And, of course, there will be a
flower garden. 'Bramble Farm' sounds like a bed of roses to me." 

The idea of roses persisted, and while Betty outwardly was strictly
attentive to the things about her, giving up her ticket at the proper
time, drinking the cocoa and eating the sandwich the porter
brought her (on Uncle Dick's orders she learned) at eleven o'clock,
she was in reality busy picturing a white farmhouse set in the
center of a rose garden, with a hedge of hollyhocks dividing it
from a scarcely less beautiful and orderly vegetable kingdom. 

Day dreams, she was soon to learn. 

CHAPTER VI  THE POORHOUSE RAT 

"THE next station's yours, Miss," said the porter, breaking in on
Betty's reflections. "Any small luggage? No? All right, I'll see that
you get off safely." 

Betty gathered up her coat and stuffed the magazine she had
bought from the train boy, but scarcely glanced at, into her bag.
Then she carefully put on her pretty grey silk gloves and tried to
see her face in the mirror of the little fitted purse. She wanted to
look nice when the Peabodys first saw her. 

The train jarred to a standstill. 

Betty hurried down the aisle to find the porter waiting for her with
his little step. She was the only person to leave the train at Hagar's
Corners, and, happening to glance down the line of cars, she saw
her trunk, the one solitary piece of bag- gage, tumbled none too
gently to the platform. 

The porter with his step swung aboard the train which began to
move slowly out. Betty felt unaccountably small and deserted
standing there, and as the platform of the last car swept past her,
she was conscious of a lump in her throat. 

"Hello!" blurted an oddly attractive voice at her shoulder, a boy's
voice, shy and brusque but with a sturdy directness that promised
strength and honesty. 

The blue eyes into which Betty turned to look were honest, too,
and the shock of tow-colored hair and the half-embarrassed grin
that displayed a set of uneven, white teeth instantly prepossessed
the girl in favor of the speaker. There was a splash of brown
freckles across the snub nose, and the tanned cheeks and blue
overalls told Betty that a country lad stood before her. 

"Hello!" she said politely. "You're from Mr. Peabody's, aren't you?
Did they send you to meet me?" 

"Yes, Mr. Peabody said I was to fetch you," replied the boy. "I
knew it was you, 'cause no one else got off the train. If you'll give
me your trunk check I'll help the agent put it in 'the wagon. He
locks up and goes off home in a little while." 

Betty produced the check and the boy disappeared into the little
one-room station. The girl for the first time looked about her. 
Hagar's Corners, it must be confessed, was not much of a place, if
one judged from the station. The station itself was not much more
than a shanty, sadly in need of paint and minus the tiny patch of
green lawn that often makes the least pretentious railroad station
pleasant to the eye. Cinders filled in the road and the ground about
the platform. Hitched to a post Betty now saw a thin sorrel horse
harnessed to a dilapidated spring wagon with a board laid across it
in lieu of a seat. To her astonishment, she saw her trunk lifted into
this wagon by the station agent and the boy who had spoken to her. 

"Why—why, it doesn't look very comfort- able," said Betty to
herself. "I wonder if that's the best wagon Mr. Peabody has? But
perhaps his good horses are busy, or the carriage is broken or
something." 

The boy unhitched the sorry nag and drove up to the platform
where Betty was waiting. His face flushed under his tan as he
jumped down to help her in. 

"I'm afraid it isn't nice enough for you," he said, glancing with
evident admiration at Betty's frock. "I spread that salt bag on the
seat so you wouldn't get rust from the nails in that board on your
dress. I'm awfully sorry I haven't a robe to put over your lap." 

"Oh, I'm all right," Betty hastened to assure him tactfully. Then,
with a desire to put him at his ease, "Where is the town?" she
asked. They had turned from the station straight into a country
road, and Betty had not seen a single house. 

"Hagar's Corners is just a station," explained the lad. "Mostly milk
is shipped from it. All the trading is done at Glenside. There's
stores and schools and a good-sized town there. Mr. Peabody had
you come to Hagar's Corners 'cause it's half a mile nearer than
Glenside. The horse has lost a shoe, and he doesn't want to run up
a blacksmith's bill till the foot gets worse than it is." 

Betty's brown eyes widened with amazement. 

"That horse is limping now," she said severely. "Do you mean to
tell me Mr. Peabody will let a horse get a sore foot before he'll pay
out a little money to have it shod?" 

The boy turned and looked at her with something smoldering in his
face that she did not understand. Betty was not used to bitterness. 

"Joe Peabody," declared the boy impressively, "would let his own
wife go without shoes if he thought she could get through as much
work as she can with 'em. Look at my feet!" He thrust out a pair of
rough, heavy work shoes, the toes patched abominably, the laces
knotted in half a dozen places; Betty noticed that the heel of one
was ripped so that the boy's skin showed through. "Let his horse go
to save a blacksmith's bill!" repeated the lad contemptuously. "I
should think? he would! The only thing that counts with Joe
Peabody in this world is money!" 

Betty's heart sank. To what kind of a home had she come ? Her
head was beginning to ache, and the glare of the sun on the white,
dusty road hurt her eyes. She wished that the wagon had some kind
of top, or that the board seat had a back. 

"Is it very much further?" she asked wearily. 

"I'll bet you're tired," said the boy quickly. "We've a matter of three
miles to go yet. The sorrel can't make extra good time even when
he has a fair show, but I aim to favor his sore foot if I do get dished
out of my dinner," 

"I'm so hungry," declared Betty, restored to vivacity at the thought
of luncheon. "All I had on the train was a cup of chocolate and a
sandwich. Aren't you hungry, too?" 

"Considering that all I've had since breakfast at six this morning, is
an apple I stole while hunting through the orchard for the turkeys,
I'll say I'm starved," admitted the boy. "But I'll have to wait till six
to-night, and so will you." 

"But I haven't had any lunch!" Betty protested vigorously. "Of
course, Mrs. Peabody will let me have something—perhaps they'll
wait for me." 

The boy polled on the lines mechanically as the sorrel stumbled. 

"If that horse once goes down, he'll die in the road and that'll be the
first rest he's known in seven years," he said cryptically.  "No,
Miss, the Peabodys won't wait for you. They wouldn't wait for their
own mother, and that's a fact. Don't I remember seeing the old
lady, who was childish the year before she died, crying up in her
room because no one had called her to breakfast and she came
down too late to get any? Mrs. Peabody puts dinner on the table at
twelve sharp, and them as aren't there have to wait till the next
meal. Joe Peabody counts it that much food saved, and he's got no
intentions of having late-comers gobble it up." 

Betty Gordon's straight little chin lifted. Meekness was not one of
her characteristics, and her fighting spirit rose to combat with
small encouragement. 

"My uncle's paying my board, and I intend to eat," she announced
firmly. "But maybe I'm upsetting the household by coming so late
in the afternoon; only there was no other train till night. I have
some chocolate and crackers in my bag— suppose we eat those
now?" 

"Gee, that will be corking!" the fresh voice of the boy beside her
was charged with fervent appreciation.  "There's a spring up the
road a piece, and we'll stop and get a drink. Chocolate sure will
taste good." 

Betty was quicker to observe than most girls of her age, her sorrow
having taught her to see other people's troubles. As the boy drew
rein at the spring and leaped down to bring her a drink from its
cool depths, she noticed how thin he was and how red and
calloused were his hands. 

"Thank you." She smiled, giving back the cup. "That's the coldest
water I ever tasted. I'm all cooled off now." 

He climbed up beside her again, and the wagon creaked on its
journey. As Betty divided the chocolate and crackers,
unobtrusively giving her driver the larger portion, she suggested
that he might tell her his name. 

"I suppose you know I'm Betty Gordon," she said. "You've
probably heard Mrs. Peabody say she went to school with my
Uncle Dick. Tell me who you are, and then we'll be introduced." 

The mouth of the boy twisted curiously, and a sullen look came
into the blue eyes. 

"You can do without knowing me," he said shortly. "But so long as
you'll hear me yelled at from sun-up to sun-down, I might as well
make you acquainted with my claims to greatness. I'm the
'poorhouse rat'—now pull your blue skirt away." 

"You have no right to talk like that," Betty asserted quietly. "I
haven't given you the slightest reason to. And if you are really from
the poorhouse, you must be an orphan like me. Can't we be good
friends? Besides, I don't know your name even yet." 

The boy looked at the sweet girl face and his own cleared. 

"I'm a pig!" he muttered with youthful vehemence. "My name's
Bob Henderson, Miss. I hadn't any call to flare up like that. But
living with the Peabodys doesn't help a fellow when it comes to
manners. And I am from the poorhouse. Joe Peabody took me
when I was ten years old. I'm thirteen now." 

"I'm twelve," said Betty. "Don't call me Miss, it sounds so stiff. I'm
Betty. Oh, dear, how dreadfully lame that horse is!" 

The poor beast was limping, and in evident pain. Bob Henderson
explained that there was nothing they could do except to let him
walk slowly and try to keep him on the soft edge of the road. 

"He'll have to go five miles to-morrow to Glenside to the
blacksmith's," he said moodily. "I'm ashamed to drive a horse
through the town in the shape this one's in." 

Betty thought indignantly that she would write to the S. P. C. A.  
They must have agents throughout the country, she knew, and
surely it could not be within the law for any farmer to allow his
horse to suffer as the sorrel was plainly suffering. 

"Is Mr. Peabody poor, Bob?" she ventured timidly. "I'm sure Uncle
Dick thought Bramble Farm a fine, large place. He wanted me to
learn to ride horseback this summer." 

"Have to be on a saw-horse," replied Bob ironically. "You bet
Peabody isn't poor! Some say he's worth a hundred thousand if he's
worth a penny. But close—s'ay, that man's so close he puts every
copper through the wringer. You've come to a sweet place, and no
mistake, Betty. I'm kind of sorry to see a girl get caught in the
Peabody maw." 

"I won't stay less I like it," declared Betty quickly. "I'll write to
Uncle Dick, and you can come, too, Bob. Why are we turning in
here?" "This," said Bob Henderson pointing with his whip
dramatically, "is Bramble Farm." 

CHAPTER VII  BRAMBLE FARM 

THE wagon was rattling down a narrow lane, for though the horse
went at a snail's pace, every bolt and hinge in the wagon was loose
and contributed its own measure of noise to their progress. Betty
looked about her with interest. On either side of the lane lay
rolling fertile fields— in the highest state of cultivation, had she
known it. Bramble Farm was famed for its good crops, and
whatever people said of its master, the charge of poor farming was
never laid at his door. The lane turned abruptly into a neglected
driveway, and this led them up to the kitchen door of the
farmhouse. 

"Never unlocks the front door 'cept for the minister or your
funeral," whispered Bob in an aside to Betty, as the kitchen door
opened and a tall, thin man came out. 

"Took you long enough to get here," he greeted the two young
people sourly. "Dinner's been over two hours and more. Hustle that
trunk inside, you Bob, and put up the horse. Wapley and Lieson
need you to help 'em set tomato plants." 

Betty had climbed down and stood helplessly beside the wagon.
Mr. Peabody, for she judged the tall, thin man must be the owner
of Bramble Farm, though he addressed no word directly to her and.
Bob, was too evidently subdued to at- tempt any introduction, but
swung on his heel and strode off in the direction of the barn. There
was nothing for Betty to do but to follow Bob and her trunk into
the house. 

The kitchen was hot and swarming with flies. There were no
screens at the windows, and though the shades were drawn down,
the pests easily found their way into the room. 

"How do you do, Betty? I hope your trip was pleasant. Dinner's all
put away, but it won't be long till supper time. I'm just trying to
brush some of the flies out," and to Betty's surprise a thin flaccid
hand was thrust into hers.   Mrs. Peabody was carrying out her idea
of a hand- shake. 

Betty stared in wonder at the lifeless creature who smiled wanly at
her. What would Uncle Dick say if he saw Agatha Peabody now?
Where were the long yellow braids and the blue eyes he had
described? This woman, thin, absolutely colorless in face, voice
and manner, dressed in a faded, cheap, blue calico wrapper—was
this Uncle Dick's old school friend? 

"Perhaps you'd like to go upstairs to your room and lie down a
while," Mrs. Peabody was saying. "I'll show you where you're to
sleep. How did you leave your uncle, dear?" 

Betty answered dully that he was well. Her mind was too taken up
with new impressions to know very clearly what was said to her. 

"I'm sorry there aren't any screens," apologized her hostess. "But
the flies aren't bad on this side of the house, and the mosquitoes
only come when there's a marsh wind. You'll find water in the
pitcher, and I laid out a clean towel for you. Do you want I should
help you unpack your trunk?" 

Betty declined the offer with thanks, for she wanted to be alone.
She had not noticed Mrs. Peabody's longing glance at the smart
little trunk  but later she was to understand that that afternoon she
had denied a real heart hunger for handling pretty clothes and the
dainty accessories that women love. 

When the door had closed on Mrs. Peabody, Betty sat down on the
bed to think. She found herself in a long, narrow room with two
windows, the sashes propped up with sticks. The floor was bare
and scrubbed very clean and the sheets and pillow cases on the
narrow iron bed, though of coarse unbleached muslin, were
immaculate. Something peculiar about the pillow case made her
lean closer to examine it. It was made of flour or salt bags,
overcasted finely together! 

"'Puts every copper through the wringer.'" The phrase Bob had
used came to Betty. 

"There's no excuse for such things if he isn't poor," she argued
indignantly. "Well, I suppose I'll have to stay a week, anyway. I
might as well wash." 

A half hour later, the traces of travel removed and her dark frock
changed to a pretty pink chambray dress, Betty descended the
stairs to begin her acquaintance with Bramble Farm. She wandered
through several darkened rooms on the first floor and out into the
kitchen without finding Mrs. Peabody. A heavy-set, sullen-faced
man was getting a drink from the tin dipper at the sink. 

"Want some?" he asked, indicating the pump. Betty declined, and
asked if he knew where Mrs. Peabody was. 

"Out in the chicken yard," was the reply. "You the boarder they
been talking about?" 

"I'm Betty Gordon," said the girl pleasantly. 

"Yes, they've been going on for a week about you. Old man's got it
all figured out what he'll do with your board. The missis rather
thought she ought to have half, but he shut her up mighty quick.
Women and money don't hitch up in Peabody's mind." 

He laughed coarsely and went out, drawing a plug of tobacco from
his hip pocket and taking a tremendous chew from it as he closed
the door. 

Betty felt a sudden longing for fresh air, and, waiting only for the
man to get out of sight, she stepped out on the back porch. A
regiment of milk pans were drying in the late afternoon sun and a
churn turned up to air showed that Mrs. Peabody made her own
butter. Betty was still hungry, and the thought of slices of
home-made bread and golden country butter smote her
tantalizingly. 

"I wonder where the chicken yard is," she thought, going down to
the limp gate that swung disconsolately on a rusty hinge. 

The Bramble Farm house, she discovered, looking at it critically,
was apparently suffering for the minor repairs that make a home
attractive. The blinds sagged in several places and in some
instances were missing altogether; once white, the paint was now a
dirty gray; half the pickets were gone from the garden fence; the
lawn was ragged and overgrown with weeds; and the two
discouraged-looking flower-beds were choked this early in the
season. Betty's weeding habits moved her irresistibly to kneel
down and try to free a few of the plants from the mass of tangled
creepers that flourished among them. 

"Better not let Joe Peabody see you doing that," said Bob
Henderson's voice above her. bent head. "He hasn't a mite of use
for a person who wastes time on flower-beds. If you want to see
things in good shape, take a look at the vegetable gardens. The
missis has to keep that clear, 'cause after it's once planted, she's
supposed to feed us all summer from it." 

Betty shook back her hair from a damp forehead. 

"For mercy's sake," she demanded with heat, "is there one pleasant,
kind thing connected with this place? Who was that awful man I
met in the kitchen?" 

"Guess it was Lieson, one of the hired men," replied Bob. "He
came down to the house to get a drink a few minutes ago. He's all
right, Betty, though not much to look at." 

"You, Bob!" came a stentorian shout that shot Bob through the
gate and in the general direction of the voice with a speed that was
little less than astonishing. 

Betty stood up, shook the earth from her skirt, and, guided by the
shrill cackle of a proud hen. picked her way through a rather
cluttered barnyard till she came to a wire-enclosed space that was
the chicken yard. Mrs. Peabody, staggering under the weight of
two heavy pails of water, met her at the gate. 

"How nice you look!" she said wistfully. "Don't come in here, dear;
you might get something on your dress." 

"Oh, it washes," returned Betty carelessly. "Do you carry water for
the chickens?" 

"Twice a day in summer," was the answer. "Before Joe, Mr.
Peabody, had water put in the barns, it was an awful job; but he
couldn't get a man to help him with the cows unless he had running
water at the barn, so this system was new last year. It's a big help." 

Silently, and feeling in the way because she could not help, Betty
watched the woman fill troughs and drinking vessels for the
parched hens that had evidently spent an uncomfortable and dry
afternoon in the shadeless yard. Scattering a meager ration of corn,
Mrs. Peabody went into the hen house and reappeared presently
with a basket filled with eggs. 

"They'd lay better if I could get 'em some meat scraps," she
confided to Betty as they walked toward the house. "But I
dunno—it's so hard to get things done, I've about given up arguing." 

She would not let Betty help her with the sup- per, and was so
insistent that she should not touch a dish that Betty yielded, though
reluctantly. The heat of the kitchen was intense, for Mrs. Peabody
had built a fire of corn cobs in the range Gas, of course, there was
none, and she evidently had not an oil stove or a fireless cooker. 

Precisely at six o'clock the men came in. 

"They milk after supper, summers," Mrs. Pea- body had explained.
"The milk stays sweet longer." 

Betty watched in round-eyed amazement as Mr. Peabody and the
two hired men washed at the sink, with much sputtering and
blowing, and combed their hair before a small cracked mirror
tacked over the sink. If she had not been very hungry, she was sure
the sight would have taken her appetite away. Bob did not come in
till they were seated. He had washed outside, he explained, and
Betty cherished the idea that perhaps he had acted out of
consideration for her. 

"What's that?" demanded Mr. Peabody, pointing his fork at a tiny
pat of butter before Betty's  plate. 

There was no other butter on the table, and only a very plain meal
of bread, fried potatoes, raspberries and hot tea. 

"I—1 had a little butter left over from the last churning," faltered
Mrs. Peabody. " 'Twasn't enough to make even a quarter-pound
print, Joe." 

"Don't believe it," contradicted her husband. "I told you flat,
Agatha, that there was to be no pampering. Betty can eat what we
eat, or go without. Take that butter oft, do you hear me?" 

A sallow flush rose to Mrs. Peabody's thin cheeks, and her lips
moved rebelliously. Evidently her husband was practiced at
reading her soundless words. 

"Board?" he cried belligerently. "What do I care whether she's
paying board or not? Don't I have to be the judge of how the house
should be run? Food was never higher than 'tis now, and you've got
to watch every scrap. You take that butter off and don't let me
catch you doing nothin' like that again." 

The men were eating stolidly, evidently too used to quarrels to pay
any attention to anything but their food. Betty had listened silently,
but the bread she ate seemed to choke her. Suddenly she rose to
her feet, shaking with rage. 

"Take your old butter!" she stormed at the astonished Mr. Peabody.
"I wouldn't eat it, if you begged me to. And I won't stay in your
house one second longer than it takes to have Uncle Dick send for
me—you—you old miserable miser!" 

CHAPTER VIII  BETTY MAKES UP HER MIND 

BETTY had a confused picture of Mr. Peabody staring at her, his
fork arrested half way to his mouth, before she dashed from the
kitchen and fled to her room. She flung herself on the bed and
burst into tears. 

She lay there for a long time, sobbing uncontrollably and more
unhappy than she had ever been in her short life. She missed her
mother and father intolerably, she longed for the kindness of the
good, if querulous, Mrs. Arnold and the comfort of Uncle Dick's
tenderness and protection. 

"He wouldn't want me to stay here, I know he wouldn't!" she
whispered stormily. "He never would have let me come if he had
known what kind of a place Bramble Farm is. I'll write to him
to-night." 

A low whistle came to her. She ran to the window. 

"Ssh! Got a piece of string?" came a sibilant whisper. Bob
Henderson peered up at her from around a lilac bush. "I brought
you some bread with raspberries mashed between it. Let down a
cord and I'll tie it on." 

"I'll come down," said Betty promptly. "Can't we take a walk? It
looks awfully pretty up the lane." 

"I have to clean two more horses and bed down a sick cow and
carry slops to the pigs yet," recited Bob in a matter of fact way, as
though these few little duties were commonly performed at the
close of his long day. "After that, though, we might go a little way.
It won't be dark." 

"Well, whistle when you're ready," directed Betty. "I won't come
down and run the risk of having to talk to Mr. Peabody. And save
me the bread!" 

It seemed a long time before Bob whistled, and the gray summer
dusk was deepening when Betty ran down to join him. He handed
her the bread, wrapped in a bit of clean paper, diffidently. 

"I didn't touch it with my hands," he assured her. 

Bob's face was shining from a vigorous scrubbing and his hair was
plastered tight to his head and still wet. He had so evidently tried
to make himself neat and his poor frayed overalls and ridiculous
shoes made the task so hopeless that Betty was divided between
pity for him and anger at the Peabodys who could treat a member
of their household so shabbily. 

"I guess you kind of shook the old man up," commented Bob,
unconscious of her thoughts. "For half a minute after you slammed
the door, he sat there in a daze. Mrs. Peabody wanted to take some
supper up to you, but he wouldn't let her. She's deathly afraid of
him." 

"Did he ever hit her?" asked Betty, horrified. 

"No, I don't know that he ever did.  He doesn't have to hit her; his
talk is worse. They say she used to answer back, but I never heard
her open her mouth to argue with him, and I've been here three
years." 

"Do they pay you well?" 

The boy looked at Betty sharply. 

"I thought you were kidding," he said frankly. "Poorhouse children
don't get paid. We get our board till we're eighteen. We're not
supposed to do enough work to cover more'n that. Just the same, I
do as much as Wapley or Leisen, any day." 

Betty walked along eating her bread and wondering about Bob
Henderson. Who, she speculated, had been his father and mother,
and how had he happened to find himself in the poorhouse? And
why, oh, why, should such a boy have had the bad luck to be
"taken" by a man like Mr. Peabody? Betty was a courteous girl,
and she could not bring herself to ask Bob these questions
pointblank, however her curiosity urged her. Perhaps when they
were better acquainted, she might have a chance. But that thought
suggested to Betty her letter. 

"I'm going to write to Uncle Dick before I go to bed to-night," she
announced. "He said I needn't stay if for any good reason I found I
wasn't happy here. I can't stay, Bob, honestly I can't. He wouldn't
want me to. Shall I ask him about a place for you? And where do I
mail my letter?" 

Bob Henderson's face fell. He had hoped that this bright, pretty
girl, with her independent and friendly manner, might spend the
summer at Bramble Farm. Bob had been so long cut off from
communication with a companion of his own age that it was a
perfect luxury for him to have Betty to talk to. Still, he could not
help admitting, the Peabody circle had nothing to offer Betty. 

"Don't mail your letter in the box at the end of the lane," he
advised her. "Joe Peabody might see it and take it out. I'll take it to
Glenside with me to-morrow—unless you want to go along? Say,
that would be great, wouldn't it?" 

Betty liked the idea, and so before they turned back to the house
they arranged to mail the letter secretly in Glenside the following
morning. Immensely cheered, Betty went in to write to her uncle
and Bob disappeared up the stairs to the attic, where he and the
two hired men shared quarters. 

It was too dark to see clearly in her room, and after Betty had
groped around in a vain hunt for a lamp and matches, she went
down to the kitchen intending to ask for a light. 

Mrs. Peabody stood at the table, mixing some- thing in a pan, and
a small glass lamp gave the room all the light it had. 

"I'm setting my bread," the woman explained, as Betty came in.
"Where have you been, dear? You must be hungry." 

"No, I'm not hungry," answered Betty, avoiding explanations. "I've
been out for a little walk. May I have a lamp, Mrs. Peabody?" 

Her hostess glanced round to make sure that the door was shut. 

"You can take this one in just a minute," she said, indicating the
small lamp on the table. "Mr. Peabody's gone up to bed. You see
we don't use lights much in summer—we go to bed early 'cause all
hands have to be up at half-past four. And lamps brings the
mosquitoes." 

Betty sat down in a chair to wait for her lamp.  She was tired from
her journey and the exciting events of the day, but she had made
up her mind to write to her uncle that night, and her mind made
up, Betty was sure to stick to it. 

"Aren't you going to bed?" asked Betty, taking up the lamp when
Mrs. Peabody had finished. 

Mrs. Peabody made no move to leave the kitchen. 

"I like to sit out on the back stoop awhile" and get cooled off," she
said. "Sometimes I go to sleep leaning against the post, and one
night I didn't wake up till morning and Bob Henderson fell over
me running out for wood to start the fire. I like to sit quiet.
Sometimes I wish I had a dog to keep me company, but Mr.
Peabody don't like dogs." 

Betty went back to her room and began her letter. But all the while
she was writing the thought of that lonely woman "sitting quiet" on
the doorstep haunted her. What a life! And she had probably
looked forward to happiness with her husband and home as all
girls do. 

The mosquitoes were singing madly about the light before the first
five minutes had passed, but Betty stuck it out and sealed and
addressed her letter, putting it under her pillow for safe keeping.
Then she blew out the light and undressed in the dark. The bed
was the hardest thing she had ever lain upon, but, being a healthy
young person and very tired, she fell asleep as quickly as though
the mattress had been filled with softest down and only wakened
when a shaft of sunlight fell across her face. Some one was
whistling softly beneath her window. 

Seizing her dressing gown and flinging it across her shoulders,
Betty peered out. Bob Henderson, swinging a milk pail in either
hand, was back of the lilac bush again. 

"Say, it's quarter of six," he called anxiously, as he saw Betty's face
at the window. "Breakfast is at six, and if you don't hurry you'll be
cheated out of that. I'm going to Glenside right after, too." 

"I'll hurry," promised Betty. "Thank you for telling me. Have you
been up long?" 

"Hour and a half," came the nonchalant answer as Bob hurried on
to the barn. 

Betty sat down on the floor to put on her shoes and stockings. At
first she was angry to think that she should be made to rush like
this in order to have any breakfast when her uncle was paying her
board and in any other household she would have been accorded
some consideration as a guest. Then the humor of the situation
appealed to her and she laughed till the tears came. She, Betty
Gordon, who often had to be called three times in the morning,
was scrambling into her clothes at top speed in the hope of
securing something to eat. 

"It's too funny!" she gasped as she pulled a middy blouse on over
her head. "I'll bet the Peabody's never have to call any one twice to
come to the table; not if they're within hearing distance. They
come first call without coaxing." 

The breakfast table was set in the kitchen, and when Betty entered
Mrs. Peabody was putting small white saucers of oatmeal at each
place. Ordinarily Betty did not care for oatmeal in warm weather,
but this morning she was in no mood to quarrel with anything
eatable and she dispatched her portion almost as quickly as Bob
did his. Mr. Peabody grunted something which she took to mean
good-morning, and the two hired men simply nodded to her. After
the oatmeal came fried potatoes, bread without butter, ham and
coffee. There was no milk to drink and no eggs. 

"If I was going to stay," thought Betty to her- self, "I'd get some
stuff over in town and hide it in my room. I wonder if I couldn't
anyway. When I leave, Bob would have it." 

She fell to planning what she would buy and became as silent as
any of the other five at that queer table. 

CHAPTER IX  ONE ON BOB 

As soon as the men finished eating they rose silently and shuffled
out. Any diffidence Betty might have felt about facing any one at
the table after her dramatic exit of the night before was speedily
dispelled; no one paid the slightest attention to her. Mrs. Peabody
had risen and begun to wash the dishes at the sink before Betty had
finished. 

"I want to ride over to Glenside with Bob," said the girl a trifle
uncertainly as she pushed back her chair. "You don't care, do you,
Mrs. Peabody? And can I do any errands for you?" 

"No, I dunno as I want anything," said the woman dully. "You go
along and try to enjoy yourself. Bob's got to get back by eleven to
whitewash the pig house." 

"Come, drive over with us this morning," urged Betty kindly. "I'll
help you with the work when we get back. The air will do you
good. You look as though you had a headache." 

"Oh, I have a. headache 'most all the time," admitted Mrs.
Peabody, apparently not thinking it worth discussion. "And I
couldn't go to town, child, I haven't a straw hat. I don't know when
I've been to Glenside. Joe fusses so about the collection, I gave up
going to church two years ago." 

Betty heard the sound of wheels and ran out to join Bob, an ache in
her throat. 

"I think it's a burning shame!" she announced hotly to that youth,
as he put out a helpful hand to pull her up to the seat. "I pity Mrs.
Peabody from the bottom of my heart. Why can't she have a straw
hat? Doesn't she take care of the poultry and the butter and do all
the work in the house? If she can't have a hat, I'd like to know why
not!" 

"Regular pepper-pot, aren't you?" commented Bob admiringly.
"Gee, I wanted to laugh when you lit into old Peabody last night.
Didn't dare, though—he'd have up and pasted me one." 

It was a beautiful summer morning, and in spite of injustice and
unlovely human traits housed under the roof they had left, in spite
of the sight of the poor animal before them suffering pain at every
step, the two young people managed to enjoy themselves. Betty
had a hundred questions to ask about Bramble Farm, and Bob was
in the seventh heaven of delight to have this friendly, cheerful
companion to talk to instead of only his own thoughts for
company. 

"I've got the letter to Uncle Dick here in my pocket," Betty was
saying as they came in sight of the blacksmith's shop on the
outskirts of Glenside. "I suppose I'll have to be patient about
waiting for an answer. It may take a week. I don't know just where
he is, but I've written to the address he gave me, and marked it
'Please forward.' " 

The blacksmith came out and took the horse, Bob helping him
unharness and Betty improving the opportunity to see the inside of
a smithy. 

"I guess you'll want to look around town a bit?" suggested Bob,
coming up to her when the sorrel was tied in place awaiting his
turn to be shod. Two other horses were before him. "I'll wait here
for you." 

Betty looked at him in surprise. 

"Why, Bob Henderson!" she ejaculated, keeping her voice low so
that the two or three loungers about the door could not hear. "Are
you willing to let me go around by myself in a perfectly strange
town? I don't even know my way to the post-office. Don't you want
to go with me?" 

Bob was evidently embarrassed. 

"I—I—I don't look fit!" he blurted out. "The collar's torn off this
shirt, and I get only one clean pair of overalls a week—Monday
morning. I don't look good enough to go round with you." 

"Don't be silly!" said Betty severely. "You look all right for a work
day. Come on, or we won't be back by the time the shoe is on." 

Between the shop and the town there was a rather deserted strip of
land, very conspicuous as to concrete walks and building lots
marked off, but rather lacking in actual houses. Betty seized her
opportunity to do a little tactful financiering. She knew that Bob
had no money of his own—indeed it was doubtful if the lad had
ever handled even small change that he was not accountable for. 

"Uncle Dick gave me some money to spend," remarked Betty,
rather hurriedly, for she did not know how Bob was going to take
what she meant to say. "And before you show me the different
stores, I want you to take me to the drug store. I'm going to buy
Mrs. Peabody the largest bottle of violet toilet water I can find. It
will do her headache heaps of good. If I give you the money, you'll
buy it for me, won't you Bob?" 

"Sure I will," agreed the unsuspecting Bob, and he pocketed the
five dollar bill she gave him readily enough. 

The wily Betty hoped that the drug store would be modern, for she
had a plan tucked up her white sleeve. 

"Want to go to the drug store first or to the post-office?" asked
Bob. 

"Oh, the post-office!" Betty was suddenly anxious to know that her
letter was actually on the way. 

"Don't forget—get a big bottle," said Betty warningly, as she and
Bob entered the drug store. 

Her dancing dark eyes discovered what she had hoped for the
moment they were inside the screen door—a large soda fountain
with a white-jacketed clerk behind it. 

Bob led the way to the perfume counter, and though the clerk, who
evidently knew him, seemed surprised at his order, he very civilly
set out several bottles of toilet water for their inspection. Betty
chose a handsome large bottle, and when it was wrapped, and with
it some soap, for Betty did not fancy the thin wafer of yellow
kitchen soap she had found in her soapdish, Bob paid for the
package and received the change quite as though he were
accustomed to such proceedings. Indeed he stood straighter, and
Betty knew she was right in her conclusions that he had
sensitiveness and pride. 

The time had come to put her plan into action. 

"Oh, Bob!" She pulled his coat sleeve as they were passing the
fountain on their way out. "Let's have a sundae!" 

The clerk had heard her, and he came forward at once, pushing
toward them a printed card with the names of the drinks served.
Bob opened his mouth, then closed it. He sat down on one of the
high stools and Betty on another. 

"I'll have a chocolate marshmallow nut sundae," ordered Betty
composedly, having selected the most expensive and fanciful
concoction listed with the fervent hope that it would be plentiful
and good. 

"I'll have the same," mumbled Bob, just as Betty had trusted he
would. 

While the clerk was mixing the delectable dainty, Betty stole a
look at Bob. His mouth was. set grimly. Then he turned and caught
her eye. An unwilling grin flickered across his face and he
capitulated as Betty broke into a delighted giggle. 

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" admitted Bob, "you've certainly put it over
on me." 

They laughed and chattered over the sundaes, and. Betty, when
they were gone, would not listen to reason, but insisted they must
have another. She did not want a second one, but she knew Bob's
longing for sweets must have gone ungratified a long time, and she
was too young to worry about the ultimate effect on his surprised
organs of digestion. Bob was fairly caught, and could not object
without putting himself in an unfavorable light with the impressive
young clerk, so two more sundaes were ordered and disposed of.
Then Bob paid for them from the change in his pocket and he and
Betty found themselves on the sunny sidewalk. 

"That's the first sundae I ever had," confessed Bob shyly. "Of
course we had ice-cream at the poorhouse sometimes for a
treat—Christmas and sometimes Fourth of July. But I never ate a
sundae. Do you want your change back now?" 

"No, keep it," said Betty. "I want to go to a grocery store now. And
where do they keep mosquito netting?" 

"Same place—Liscom's general store," answered Bob. 

The general store was well-named. Betty, who had never been in a
place of this kind, was fascinated by the shelves and the wonderful
assortment of goods they contained. Everything, she privately
decided, from a pink chiffon veil to a keg of nails could be bought
here, and her deductions were very near the truth. 

"I can't stand being chewed by the mosquitoes another night," she
whispered to Bob. "So I'm going to get some netting and tack it on
the window casings. I'd buy a lamp if I was going to stay." 

After the netting was measured off, Betty, to Bob's astonishment,
began to buy groceries. She chose cans of sardines and tuna fish,
several packages of fancy crackers, a bottle or two of olives, a
pound of dried apricots, a box of dates and one or two other
articles. These were all wrapped together in a neat bundle. 

"Do they make sandwiches here?" asked Betty, watching a
machine shaving off a pink slice of cold boiled ham and a layer of
cheese and the storekeeper's assistant butter two slabs of bread
with sweet-looking butter at the order of a teamster who stood
waiting. 

"Sure we do, Miss," the proprietor assured her. "Nice, fresh
sandwiches made while you wait, and wrapped in waxed paper." 

"I'll have two ham and two cheese, please," responded Betty,
adding in an aside to Bob: "We can eat 'em going home." 

She was afraid that perhaps she had spent more money than she
had left from the five dollar bill. But Bob had enough to pay for
her purchases, it seemed, and they left the store with their bundles,
well pleased with the morning's work. 

CHAPTER X  ROAD COURTESY 

"WE'LL have to hurry," said Bob, quickening his steps, "if I'm to
get back at eleven. I hope Turner has the sorrel ready." 

"Hasn't the horse a name?" queried Betty curiously, running to
keep up with Bob. "I must go out and see the cows and things. Do
you like pigs, Bob?" 

The boy laughed a little at this confusion of ideas. 

"No, none of the horses are named," he answered, taking the
questions in order. "Peabody has three; but we just call 'em the
sorrel and the black and the bay. Nobody's got time to feed 'em
lumps of sugar and make pets out of them. Guess that's what
you've got in mind, Betty. Old Peabody would throw a fit if he saw
any one feeding sugar to a horse." 

"But the cows?" urged Betty. "Do they get enough to eat? Or do
they have to suffer to save money, like this poor horse we brought
over to be shod?" 

"Cows," announced Bob sententiously, "are different. "A cow
won't give as much milk if she's bothered, and Joe Peabody can see
a butter check as far as anybody else. So the stables are screened
and the cows are fed pretty well. Now, of course, they're out on
pasture. They're not blood stock, though—just mixed breeds. And I
hate pigs!" 

Betty was surprised at his vehemence, but she had no chance to
ask for an explanation, for by this time they had reached the
smithy, and the blacksmith led out the sorrel. 

After they were well started on their way toward the farm, she
ventured to ask Bob why he hated pigs. 

"If you had to take care of 'em, you'd know why," he answered
moodily. "I'd like to drown every one of 'em in the pails of slop I've
carried out to 'em. And whitewashing the pig house on a hot
day—whew! The pigs can go out in the orchard and root around,
while I have to clean up after 'em. Besides, if you lived on ham for
breakfast the year round, you'd hate the sight of a pig!" 

Betty laughed understandingly. 

"I know I should," she agreed. "Isn't it funny, I never thought so
much about eating in my life as I have since I've been here. It's on
my mind continually. I bought this canned stuff to keep up in my
room so if I don't want to eat what the Peabodys have every meal I
needn't. You can have some, too, Bob. Let's eat these sandwiches
now—I'm hungry, aren't you? Why didn't you tell me you were tired
of ham and I would have bought something else?" 

But Bob was far from despising well-cooked cold, boiled ham, and
he thoroughly enjoyed his share of the sandwiches. While eating
he glanced once or twice uncertainly at Betty, wishing he could
find the courage to tell her how glad he was that she had come to
Bramble Farm. Bob's life had had very few pleasant events in it so
far. 

"Don't you think it was funny that Mr. Pea- body let me come?"
asked Betty presently, following her own train of thought. "If he's
so close, I should think he'd hate to have any one come to see his
wife." 

"He's doing it for the check your uncle sent," retorted Bob
shrewdly. "Didn't you know your board was paid for two weeks in
advance? That's why Peabody isn't making a fuss about your going;
he figures he'll be in that much. Hello, what's this?" 

"This" was a buggy drawn up at one side of the road, the fat, white
horse lazily cropping grass, while two slight feminine figures stood
helplessly by. 

Bob was going to drive past, but Betty put out her hand and jerked
the sorrel to a halt. 

"Ask 'em what the matter is," she commanded. "They've lost a
wheel," said Bob in a low tone, his practiced eye having detected
at once that one of the rear wheels was lying on the grass. "We
can't stop, Betty; we're late now, and Joe Pea- body's in a raging
temper anyway this morning." 

"Why, Bob Henderson, how you do talk!" Betty's dark eyes began
to shoot fire. "Just because you have to live with the meanest man
in the world is no excuse for you to grow like him! If you drive on
and don't try to help these women, I'll never speak to you
again—never!" 

Bob looked shamefaced. His first impulse had been to stop and
offer help, but he had had first-hand experience with the Peabody
temper and had endured more than one beating for slight neglect
of iron-clad orders. When he still hesitated, Betty spoke scornfully. 

"They're old ladies—so don't bother," she said bitingly. "Uncle Dick
says no one should ever leave any one in trouble on the road, but I
suppose he meant men who could whack you over the head if you
refused to assist them. Why don't you drive on, Bob?" 

"You hush up!" Bob, stung into action, closed his mouth grimly
and handed over the reins to his tormentor. "It's a half hour's job to
put that wheel on, but I suppose there's no way out of it, so here
goes." 

The two women were, as Betty had said, old ladies; that is, each
had very white hair. And, although the day was warm, they were so
muffled up in veils and shawls and gloves that the boy and the girl
marveled how they could see to drive. 

"The wheel just came off without warning," said the taller of the
two, in a high, sweet voice, as Bob asked to be allowed to help
them. "Sister and I were so frightened! It might have been serious,
you know, but Phyllis is such a good horse! She never even
attempted to run." 

Bob with difficulty repressed a grin. Looking at the fat sides of
Phyllis he would have said that physical handicaps, rather than an
inherent sweetness of disposition, kept Phyllis where she be'
longed between the shafts. 

"You've lost a nut," announced the boy, after a brief examination. 

"Dear, dear!" fluttered both ladies. "Isn't that unfortunate! "You
haven't a—a—nut with you, Mr. —?" 

"I'm Bob Henderson," said the lad courteously. "I'll look around
here in the dust a bit and maybe the nut will turn up. Why don't
you sit down in the shade and rest awhile?" 

The two ladies accepted his suggestion gratefully. They retired to a
crooked old apple tree growing on the bank further down the road,
evincing no desire to make the acquaintance of Betty, who sat
quietly in the wagon holding the reins. 

"I suppose they think we're backwoods country folks," thought
Betty, the blood coming into her face. "Don't know that I blame
them, seeing that this wagon is patched and tied together in a
hundred places and the horse looks like a shadow of a skeleton." 

Bob continued to search in the dust of the road painstakingly.   The
two women clearly had shifted their trouble to him, and apparently
had no further interest in the outcome. Betty longed to offer to
help him, but the severity of his pro- file, as she glimpsed it now
and then, deterred her. 

"I wish I could stop before I say so much," mourned the girl to
herself. "I ought to know that Bob can't help being afraid of Mr.
Peabody. If he had control over me, I'd probably act just as his
wife and Bob do. When you can get away from an ogre, it's easy
enough to say you're not afraid of him. Doesn't Bob dominate the
situation, as Mrs. Arnold used to say!" 

Bob had found the nut, and was now fitting the wheel into place,
working with a quickness and skill that fascinated Betty. She
timidly called to him and asked if she should not come and hold
the axle, but he refused her offer curtly. In a very few minutes the
wheel was screwed on and the two ladies at liberty to resume their
journey. 

They were insistent that Bob accept pay for his help, but the boy
declined, politely but resolutely, and seemingly at no loss for
diplomatic words and phrases. 

"Were you born in the poorhouse, Bob?" Betty asked curiously,
wondering where the lad had developed his ability to meet people
on their own ground. The volubly thankful ladies had driven on,
and the sorrel was now trotting briskly toward Bramble Farm. 

"Yes, I was," said Bob shortly.  "But my mother wasn't, nor my
father. I've got a box buried in the garden that's mine, though the
clothes on my back belong to old Peabody. And if I'm like Joe
Peabody in other things, perhaps I'll learn to make money and save
it. My father couldn't, or I wouldn't have been born in an
almshouse!" 

"Oh, Bob!" Betty cried miserably, "I didn't mean you were like Mr.
Peabody—you know I didn't. I'm so sorry! I always say things I don't
mean when I'm mad. Uncle Dick told me to go out and chop wood
when I get furious, and not talk. I am so sorry!" 

"We've got a wood pile," grinned Bob. "I'll show you where it is.
The rest of it's all right, Betty. I'd probably have stayed awake all
night if I'd driven by those women. Only I suppose Peabody will be
in a towering rage. It must be noon." 

If Betty was not afraid of Mr. Peabody, it must be confessed that
she looked forward with no more pleasure than Bob to meeting
him. Still she was not prepared for the cold fury with which he
greeted them when they drove into the yard. 

"Just as I figured," he said heavily. "Here 'tis noon, and that boy
hasn't done a stroke of work since breakfast. Gallivanting all over
town, I'll be bound.  Going to be like his shiftless, worthless father
and mother—a charge on the township all his days. You take that
pail of whitewash and don't let me see you again till you get the
pig house done, you miserable, sneaking poorhouse rat! You'll go
without dinner to pay for wasting my time like this! Clear out,
now." 

"How dare you!" Betty's voice was shaking, but she stood up in the
wagon and looked down at Mr. Peabody bravely. "How dare you
taunt a boy with what he isn't responsible for? It isn't his fault that
he was born in the poorhouse, nor his fault that we're late. I made
him stop and help put a buggy wheel on. Oh, how can you be so
mean, and close and hateful?" 

Betty's eyes overflowed as she gathered up her bundles and jumped
to the ground. Mrs. Peabody, standing in the doorway, was a silent
witness to her outburst, and the two hired men, who had come up
to the house for dinner, were watching curiously. Bob had
disappeared with the bucket of whitewash. No one would say
anything, thought Betty despairingly, if a murder were committed
in this awful place. 

"Been spending your money?" sneered Mr. Peabody, eyeing the
bundles with disfavor. "Never earned a cent in your life, I'll be
bound, yet you'll fling what isn't yours right and left. Let me give
you a word of advice, young lady; as long as you're in my house
you hold your tongue if you don't want to find yourself in your
room on a diet of bread and water. Under- stand?" 

Betty Gordon fled upstairs, her one thought to reach the haven of
her bed. Anger and humiliation and a sense of having lowered
herself to the Peabody level by quarreling when in a bad temper
swept over her in a wave. She buried her head in the hard little
pillow.  
 
CHAPTER XI  A KEEN DISAPPOINTMENT 

"I'M just as bad as he is, every bit," sobbed poor little Betty.
"Uncle Dick would say so. I'm in his house, much as I hate it, and I
hadn't any right to call him names—only he is so hateful ! Oh, dear,
I wonder if I shall ever get away from here!" 

She cried herself into a headache, and had no heart to open the
parcel of groceries or to go down to ask Mrs. Peabody for
something to eat, though indeed the girl knew she stood small
chance of securing as much as a cracker after the dinner hour. 

Suddenly some one put a soothing hand on her hot forehead, and,
opening her swollen eyes, Betty saw Mrs. Peabody standing beside
the bed. "You poor lamb!" said the woman compassionately. "You
mustn't go on like this, dear. You'll make yourself sick. I'm going
to close the blinds and shut out the sun; then I'll get a cold cloth for
your head. You'd feel better if you had something to eat, though.
You mustn't go without your meals, child." 

"I've got some crackers and bouillon cubes," replied Betty wearily.
"I suppose Mr. Peabody wouldn't mind if I used a little hot water
from the tea kettle?" 

She bit her tongue with vexation at the sarcasm, but Mrs. Peabody
apparently saw no implication. 

"The kitchen fire's gone out, but the kettle's still hot," she
answered. "I'll step down and get you a cup. I have just ninety cobs
to get supper on, or I'd build up a fresh fire for you. Joe counts the
cobs; he wants they should last till the first of July." 

"Oh, how do you stand it?" burst from Betty. "I should think you'd
go crazy. Don't you ever want to scream?" 

Mrs. Peabody stopped in the doorway. "I used to care," she
admitted apathetically. "Not any more. You can get used to
anything. Besides, it's no use, Betty; you'll find that out. Flinging
yourself against a stone wall only bruises you—the wall doesn't
even feel you trying." 

"Bring up two cups," called Betty, as Mrs. Peabody started down
stairs. 

"I'll bet she flung herself against the stone wall till all the spirit and
life was crushed out of her," mused the girl, lying flat on her back,
her eyes fixed on the fly-specked ceiling. "Poor soul, it must be
awful to have to give up even trying." 

Mrs. Peabody came back with two cracked china cups and saucers,
and a tea kettle half full of passably hot water. Betty forgot her
throbbing head as she hustled about, spreading white paper
napkins on the bed—there was no table and only one chair in the
room—and arranging her crackers and a package of saltines which
she deftly spread with potted ham. 

"We'll have a make-believe party," she declared tactfully, dropping
a couple of soup cubes in each cup and adding the hot water. "I'm
sure you're hungry; you jump up so much at the table, you don't
half eat your meals." 

Mrs. Peabody raised her eyes—faded eyes but still honest. 

"I've no more pride left," she said quietly. "Goodness!" exclaimed
Betty, "I bought you something this morning, and haven't given it
to you." 

Mrs. Peabody was as pleased as a child with the pretty bottle of
toilet water, and Betty extracted a promise from her that she would
use it for her headaches, and not "save" it. 

"If I was going to stay," thought Betty, stowing her packages of
goodies under the bed as the most convenient place presenting
itself, "I might be able to make things a little pleasanter for Mrs.
Peabody. I do wonder when Uncle Dick will write." 

She had allowed four days as the shortest time in which her uncle
could possibly get an answer to her, so she was agreeably delighted
when, on going out to the mailbox at the head of the lane the third
morning, she found a letter addressed to her and postmarked
"Philadelphia." There was no other mail in the box. The Peabodys
did not even subscribe for a weekly paper. 

"Bob!" shouted Betty, hurdling a fence and bearing down upon that
youth as he hoed corn in a near-by field. "Bob, here's a letter from
Uncle Dick! He's answered so soon, I'm sure he says I can come to
him. Won't that be great?" 

Bob nodded grimly and went on with his work while Betty eagerly
tore open her envelope. After she had read the first few lines the
brightness went out of her face) and when she looked up at Bob
she was crying. 

"What's the matter, is he sick?" asked the boy in alarm. 

"He hasn't had my letter at all!" wept Betty. "He never got it! This
was written the same day I wrote him, and he says he's going out to
the oil wells and won't be in touch with civilization for some
weeks to come. His lawyer in Philadelphia is to hold his mail, and
send the checks for my board. And he thinks I'm having a good
time with his old friend Agatha and encloses a check for ten
dollars for me to spend. 

Oh, Bob!" and the unhappy Betty flung her arms around the neck
of the astonished Bob and cried as though her heart would break. 

"There, there!" Bob patted her awkwardly, in his excitement
hitting her with the hoe handle, but neither of them knew that.
"There, Betty, maybe things won't be as bad as you think. You can
go to Glenside and get books from the library —they've got a right
nice little library. It would be nice if you had a bicycle or
something to go on, but you haven't." 

"Uncle's sending me a riding habit," said Betty, wiping her eyes.
"And a whole bundle of books and a parcel of magazines. He says
he never yet saw a farm with enough reading material on the parlor
table. I will be glad to have something to read." 

"Sure. And Sundays I can borrow a magazine," and Bob's eyes
shone with anticipated enjoyment. "Sunday's the one day I have
any time to myself and there's never much to do." 

Betty slipped the letter into her blouse pocket. She was bitterly
disappointed to think that she must stay at Bramble Farm, and she
did not relish the idea of having to confess to the Peabodys that her
plans for leaving them had been rather premature. 

"I say," Bob looked up from his hoeing, the shrewd light in his
eyes that made him appear older than his thirteen years. "I say,
Betty, it you're wise, you won't say anything about this letter up at
the house. Old Peabody doesn't know you've written to your uncle,
and he'll think you changed your mind. I half believe he thinks you
were only speaking in a fit of temper, anyway. If you tell him you
can't reach your uncle by letter, and have to stay here for the next
few weeks whether you will or no, he'll think he has you right
where he wants you. He can't help taking advantage of every one." 

"Doesn't any one ever come to call?" Betty asked a day or two
later, following Bob out to the pasture to help him salt the sheep. 

It was a Sunday morning, and even Mr. Peabody so far respected
the Sabbath that he exacted only half as much as usual from his
help. The milking, of course, had to be done, and the stock fed, but
that accomplished, after breakfast, Wapley and Lieson, the hired
men, had set off to walk to Glenside to spend their week's wages as
they saw fit. They had long ago, after wordy battles, learned the
futility of trying to borrow a horse from Mr. Peabody. 

Bob had finished his usual chores, and after salting the sheep
would be practically free for the day. He and Betty had planned to
take their books out into the orchard and enjoy the peaceful
sunniness of the lovely June weather. 

"Come to call?" repeated Bob, letting down the bars of the rocky
pasture. "What would they come to call for? No one would be civil
to 'em, and Mrs. Peabody runs when she sees any one coming. She
hasn't got a decent dress; so I don't blame her much. Here, you sit
down and I'll call them." 

Betty sat down on a flat rock and Bob spread out his salt on
another. The sheep knew his voice and came slowly toward him. 

"Come on now, Betty, and let's have a whack at that magazine, the
one about out West," said Bob at last. 

The promised package of books and magazines had arrived, and
Betty had generously placed them at the disposal of the household.
Wapley and Lieson had displayed a pathetic eagerness for
"pictures," and sat up after supper as long as the light lasted,
turning over the illustrated pages. Betty doubted if they could read. 

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 <I> nothing </I> 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 slumping 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