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

"I won't give up, I won't give up!" she was crying aloud through clenched teeth when the voice of Bob Henderson calling, "Betty! Betty! it's all right!" sounded close to her shoulder.

"You dear, darling Bob!" Betty turned radiantly to face the boy. "How did you get out? Hurry! We must hurry! Mrs. Peabody is so sick!"

"Easy there!" Bob caught her elbow as she stumbled over a bit of rough ground. "The noise woke me up, and when we heard you and Peabody, Lieson lowered me out of the window by the bedsheet. We weren't sure what he'd do to you. Say, Betty, you'd better let me go in and telephone unless you're afraid to go back. If the Kepplers see you like that, they'll know there's been a row, and they'll insist on your staying with them."

"Oh, I have to go back," said Betty in a panic. "Mrs. Peabody needs me. And I'm not afraid, if Doctor Guerin comes. I'll wait under this tree for you, Bob. Only please hurry." And the boy hurried off.

"Doctor'll be right out," reported Bob, coming back after what seemed a long wait but was in reality a scant ten minutes. "I had a great time waking the Kepplers up and a worse time getting hold of Central. And of course Mrs. Keppler wanted all the details – just like a woman. But doc answered right away after I gave his number and said he'd be here in twenty minutes. He sure can run his car when he has a clear road at night."

"Bob," whispered Betty, beginning to tremble, "I – I guess maybe I am afraid to go back to the house. Let's sit on the bank at the head of the lane and wait for Doctor Guerin. He'll take us in the car. Mr. Peabody won't dare do anything with a third person around."

"Sure we will," agreed Bob. "It's fine and cool out here, isn't it? Wonder why it can't be like this in the daytime."

They walked back to the lane, cross-lots, and sat down under a thorn-apple tree. Betty tucked her gown cosily around her feet and sat close to Bob, prepared to watch the stars and await quietly the doctor's coming. Then, to her astonishment as much as to Bob's consternation, she began to cry. She could not stop crying. And after she had cried a few minutes she began to laugh. She laughed and sobbed and could not stop herself, and in short, for the first time in her life, Betty had a case of hysterics.

It was all very foolish, of course, and when Doctor Guerin found them there in the road at half-past two in the morning, he scolded them both soundly.

"I gave you credit for more sense, Bob," said the doctor curtly, as he helped Betty into the machine. "You should have left Betty with Mrs. Keppler over night, or at least taken her straight home. If she hasn't a heavy cold to pay for this it won't be your fault. I never heard of anything quite so senseless!"

"I wasn't going to stay with the Kepplers!" retorted Betty with vigor. "I don't know them at all, and I hadn't anything to wear down to breakfast! 'Sides there is Mrs. Peabody dreadfully sick with no one to help her and Bob has a festered finger. He had a high temperature this afternoon."

"I'll look at the finger," promised Doctor Guerin grimly. "Don't let me have to hunt for you, either, young man; no hiding out of sight when you're wanted. And, Betty, you go to bed. I'll get Mrs. Peabody comfortable and give her something so that she'll sleep till I can send some one out from town. You can't nurse her and run the house, you know. Your Uncle Dick would come up and shoot us all. Go to bed immediately, and you'll be ready to help us in the morning."

They had reached the house and Betty followed the doctor's orders. Every one obeyed Doctor Guerin. Even Mr. Peabody, summoned from the barn, though he was surly and far from pleasant, brought hot water and a teaspoon and a tumbler at his bidding. Mrs. Peabody had had these attacks before, and when she had taken the medicine was soon relieved. Doctor Guerin stayed with her till she fell asleep and then went down to the kitchen, taking the unwilling Bob with him. The cut finger was lanced and dressed and strict instructions issued that in two days Bob was to present himself at the doctor's office to have the dressing changed.

"And you needn't assume that obstinate look," said the doctor, who watched him closely. "If you're so afraid you won't be able to pay me, we'll drive a bargain. You recollect that odd little wooden charm you made for Norma last summer? Well, the girls at boarding school have 'gone crazy,' to quote my daughter, over the trinket, and one of them offered her a dollar for it. Carve me a couple more, when you have time, and that will make us square. The girls were wondering the other day if you could do more."

"I'll make six – " Bob was beginning radiantly, when the doctor stopped him.

"You will not," he said positively. "One dollar is your price, and two of them will fully meet your obligations to me. If you can be dog-gone businesslike, so can I."

Doctor Guerin drove over again in the morning, bringing a tall raw-boned red-haired Irish-woman who looked as though she were able to protect herself from any insult or injury, real or fancied. Wapley and Lieson were pitiably in awe of her, and Mr. Peabody simply shriveled before her belligerent eye. She was to stay, said the doctor, for a week at least and as much longer as Mrs. Peabody needed her.

"Did you see her spreading the butter on her bread?" demanded Bob in a whisper, meeting Betty on the kitchen doorstep after the first dinner Mrs. O'Hara had prepared.

"Did you see Mr. Peabody?" returned Betty, in a twitter of delight. "I was afraid to look at him, or I should have laughed. She tells me to 'run off, child, and play; young things should be outdoors all day,' and she does a barrel of work. Mrs. Peabody declares she is living like a queen, with her meals served up to her. Poor soul, she doesn't know what it means to have some one wait on her."

Bob dared not stay away from Doctor Guerin's office; and indeed, after receiving the order for the wooden charms, he was willing to go. It was understood that he was to begin his carving as soon as the finger had healed, and Betty was interested in the little trinket he brought back with him to serve as a guide.

"Did you really make that, Bob?" she cried in surprise. "Why, it's beautiful – such an odd shape and so beautifully stained. You must be ever so clever with your fingers. I believe, if you had some paints, you could paint designs and perhaps sell a lot of them to a city shop. Girls would just love to have them to wear on chains and cords."

Bob was immediately fired with ambition to make some money, and indeed he could evolve marvelous and quaint little charms with no more elaborate tools than an old knife and a bit of sandpaper. He had an instinctive knowledge of the different grains, and the wood he picked up in the woodshed, carefully selecting smooth satiny bits.

So all unknown to the Peabodys, Bob in his leisure time began to carve curious treasures, and with his carving to dream boyish dreams that lifted him out of the dreary present and carried him far away from Bramble Farm to big cities and open prairies, to freedom and opportunity.

And Betty, who sometimes read aloud to him as he carved and sometimes sewed, sitting beside him, began to dream dreams too. Always of a home somewhere with Uncle Dick, a real home in which there should be a fireplace and an extra chair for Bob. For your girl dreamer always plans for her friends and for their happiness, and she seldom dreams for herself alone.

So July with its heat and thunderstorms ran into August.

CHAPTER XVII

AN OMINOUS QUARREL

Mrs. O'Hara went back to Glenside at the end of ten days, leaving Mrs. Peabody well enough to be about, though the doctor had cautioned her repeatedly not to overdo. Doctor Guerin came for Mrs. O'Hara in his car, and it was to be his last visit unless he was sent for again. Bob's finger had healed, and he was hard at work at his carving in spare moments.

"Norma hopes you will come over to see her soon," said Doctor Guerin to Betty, as he was leaving. "She and Alice have their heads full of boarding school. By the way, Betty, what do you intend to do about school?"

"Well, I keep hoping Uncle Dick will write. It's been three weeks since I've had any kind of letter," answered Betty. She had long ago told the doctor about her uncle and the reasons that led to her coming to Bramble Farm. "When he wrote he was in a town where there were only six houses and no hotel. He must come East soon, and then he will receive my letters and send for me. I'm sure I could go to school and keep house for him, too."

The car with the doctor and his convincing personality and Mrs. O'Hara and her quick tongue and heavy hand were hardly out of sight, before Mr. Peabody assumed command of his household. He had been chafing under the rule of that "red-haired female," as he designated the capable Irish-woman, and now he was bound to make the most of his restored power.

"Gee, he sure is a driver," whispered the perspiring Bob, as Betty came down to the field where the boy was cultivating corn. Betty had brought a pail of water and a dipper, and Bob drank gratefully.

"No, don't give the horse any," he interposed, as Betty seemed about to hold the pail out to the sorrel who looked around with patient, pleading eyes. "He'll have to wait till noon. 'Tisn't good to water a horse when he's working, anyway. Put the pail under that tree and it'll keep cool. Lieson and Wapley go over to the spring when they're thirsty, but Peabody said he'd whale me if he caught me leaving the cultivator."

"The mean old thing!" Betty could hardly find a word to express her indignation.

"Oh, it's all in the day's work," returned Bob philosophically. "What are you doing?"

"Hanging out clothes for Mrs. Peabody. She's getting another basketful ready now. She would wash, and that's as much as she'll let me do to help her, though of course when she irons I can be useful. I don't think she ought to get up and go to washing, but you can't stop her."

"Having a woman come to wash about killed the old man," chuckled Bob, starting the horse as he saw Mr. Peabody climbing stiffly over the fence. "Thanks for the water, Betty."

Betty had no wish to meet her host, for whom another check had come that morning from her uncle's lawyer. Betty herself was out of money, Uncle Dick having sent no letter for three weeks and apparently having made no provision to bridge the gap.

She hung out clothes till dinner time, and then helped put the boiled dinner on the table in the hot, steamy kitchen. Wapley and Lieson ate in silence, and Bob found a chance to whisper to Betty that he thought there was "something doing" between them and their employer.

Whatever this something was, there were no further developments till after supper. Peabody got up from the table and lurched out to the kitchen porch to sit on the top step, as was his invariable custom. He was too mean, his men said, to smoke a pipe, though he did chew tobacco. Bob had already taken the milk pails and gone to the barn.

As Mrs. Peabody and Betty finished the dishes, Wapley and Lieson came downstairs, dressed in their good clothes, and went out on the porch where Mr. Peabody sat silently.

"Can you let me have a couple of dollars to-night?" asked Lieson civilly. "Jim and me's going over to town for a few hours."

"You'll get no money from me," was the surly answer. "Fooling away your time and money Saturday night ought to be enough, without using the middle of the week for such extravagance. Anyway, you know well enough I never pay out in advance."

There was an angry murmur from Wapley.

"Who's asking you for money in advance?" he snarled. "Lieson and me's both got money coming to us, and you know it. You pay us right up to the jot to-night or we quit!"

Peabody was quite unmoved. He stood up, leaning against a porch post, his hands in his pockets.

"You can quit, and good riddance to you," he drawled. "But you won't get a cent out of me. You overdrew, both of you, last Saturday, and there's nothing coming to you till a week from this Saturday."

The men were a little confused, neither accustomed to reckoning without the aid of pencil and paper, but Wapley held doggedly to his argument.

"We quit anyway," he announced with more dignity than Betty thought he possessed. She and Mrs. Peabody were listening nervously at the window, both afraid of what the quarrel might lead to. "You go pack our suitcases, Lieson, and I will figure up what he owes us. Never again do we work for a man who cheats."

Peabody leaned up against his post and chewed tobacco reflectively, while Wapley, tongue in cheek, struggled with a stub of pencil and a bit of brown wrapping paper.