Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm: or, The Mystery of a Nobody

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. Peabody 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 Peabody'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 belonged 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 profile, 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 alms-house!"