CHAPTER IX
THE LIVE WIRE OCTETTE
It was not an easy thing to do; but Betty Gordon did it. She confessed thewhole wretched thing to Uncle Dick and was assured of his forgiveness. Butperhaps his serious forgiveness was not the easiest thing for the girl tobear.
"I am sure, as you say, that you did not mean to be careless," Mr. RichardGordon said gently. It was hard for him to be strict with Betty; but heknew her impulsiveness sometimes led her into a reckless path. "But markyou, Betty: The value of that locket should have, in itself, made youparticularly careful of it."
"I--I valued it more because you gave it to me, Uncle Dick," she sobbed.
"And yet that did not make you particularly careful," the gentlemanreminded her. "The main trouble with you, Betty, is that you have no veryclear appreciation of the value of money."
"Oh, Uncle Dick!" and she looked at him with trembling chin and tearswelling into her eyes.
"And why should you?" he added, laughing more lightly and patting herhand. "You have never been obliged to earn money. Think back to the timeyou were with the Peabodys. The money my lawyer sent you for your own usejust burned holes in your pinafore pockets, didn't it?"
"I didn't wear pinafores, Uncle Dick," Betty said soberly. "Girls don'tnowadays."
"No, I see they don't," he rejoined, smiling broadly again. "But they didin my day. However, in whatever pocket you put that money as you got it,the hole was figuratively burned, wasn't it?"
"We--ell, it went mostly for food. Mr. Peabody was such a miser!And--and----"
"And so when you wanted to come away from Bramble Farm you actually had toborrow money," went on Uncle Dick. "Of course, you were fortunate enoughfinally to get the lawyer's check and pay your debts. But the fact remainsthat you seem unable to keep money."
"Oh, Uncle Dick!"
"Now," continued her guardian still soberly, "a miser like Mr. Peabody forinstance is a very unpleasant person. But a spendthrift often does evenmore harm in the world than a miser. I don't want my Betty-girl to be aspendthrift."
"Oh, Uncle Dick!"
"The loss of your pretty locket, my dear, has come because of that traitin your character which ignores a proper appreciation of the value ofmoney and what can be bought with it. Now, I can buy you anotherlocket----"
"No, no, Uncle Dick! I don't deserve it," she said with her face hiddenagainst his shoulder as she sat in his lap.
"That is true, my dear. I don't really think you do deserve another--notright at once. And, anyway, we will advertise for the locket in thenewspapers and may recover it in that way. So we will postpone thepurchase of any other piece of jewelry at present.
"What I have in my mind, however, and have had for some time, is thereorganization of your financial affairs," and now he smiled broadly asshe raised her head to look at him. "I think of putting you on a monthlyallowance of pocket money and asking you to keep a fairly exact account ofyour expenditures. Not an account to show me. I don't want you to feel asthough you were being watched."
"What do you mean, Uncle Dick?"
"I want you to keep account for your own satisfaction. I want you to knowat the end of the month where your money has gone to. It is the besttraining in the world for a girl, as well as a boy, to know just what shehas done with the money that has passed through her hands. And in thiscase I am sure in time that it will give you a just comprehension ofmoney's value.
"If we do not recover the locket, why, in time, we will look about foranother pretty trinket----"
"No, Uncle Dick," Betty said seriously. "I loved that locket. I shouldhave been more careful of it. I hope it will be found and returned to me.I do! I do! But I don't want you to give me another."
"Why not?" he asked, yet giving her quite an understanding look.
"I guess you know, Uncle Dick," she sighed. "I don't really deserve it.And it wouldn't be that locket that you gave me for Christmas, you see."
"Well, my dear----"
"Wait, dear Uncle Dick! I want to say something more," said the girl,hugging him tightly again. "If you give me a certain sum of money to spendfor myself every month I am going to save out of it until I have enough tobuy a locket exactly like that one I lost--If it isn't found, I mean."
"Ah!"
"You approve, Uncle Dick?"
"Most assuredly. That would be following out my suggestion of learning totake care of money in the fullest sense, my dear."
"Then," said Betty, bouncing happily on his knee, "that is what I am goingto try to do. But I do hope my locket will be found!"
This serious conference was broken up at this point by the arrival of thetelegram Uncle Dick had been expecting from Mountain Camp. Mrs. JonathanCanary had signed it herself and it was to the effect that the youngfriends of Mr. Richard Gordon would be as welcome as that gentlemanhimself.
Bob immediately saddled a horse and galloped to the Derbys and the Tuckersto carry the news. Final plans were made for departure the next morningand in spite of a rather threatening change in the weather the party leftFairfields on time and in high spirits for upper New York State.
A few flakes of snow had begun fluttering down as the train pulled out ofWashington; and as it raced across the Maryland fields and through thehills which grace that State the snow blew faster and faster and thickerand thicker. But even in midwinter snow storms do not much obstructtraffic so far south, and the gay party from Fairfields had no suspicionthat it was being borne into any peril or trouble. What was a little snowwhich scarcely, at first, caught upon the brown fields?
They had engaged two whole sections for the young folks and an extra placefor Uncle Dick. The latter did not interfere at all with the fun andfrolic of his charges. He was--he should have been--used by now to theridiculous antics of the Tucker twins and the overflowing spirits of therest of the octette. Bachelor as he was, Mr. Richard Gordon consideredhimself pretty well acquainted with young folks of their age.
The two sections occupied by the eight girls and boys were opposite eachother and they had that end of the car pretty much to themselves. Ofcourse, people sometimes had to go through the aisle--and others besidesthe conductor and the porter; but after running the gauntlet of thatlively troop once the restless passenger usually tried to keep out of the"line of fire."
The fun the party had was good-natured sport for the most part. Theirpractical jokes were aimed at each other rather than at their fellowpassengers. But it was a fact that there was very little peace for anervous person in that Pullman coach.
"We're the live-wire octette, and we are going to let everybody know it,"proclaimed Tommy Tucker vociferously. "Say! there's a chap up at the otherend of the car, sprawled all over his seat--fresh kid, he is. Did younotice him?"
"I did," replied his twin. "I fell over his foot twice when I went for adrink."
"Why didn't you look where you were walking?" grinned Bob Hendersoncraning his neck to see up the aisle and mark the passenger in question.
"Huh!" grumbled Ted, "he stuck it out for me to tumble over bothtimes--and you know this train is joggling some."
"Ill say so," agreed Bob.
But Betty had jumped up to look and she said eagerly:
"Do you mean the man with the silk handkerchief over his head? He must beasleep, or trying to sleep."
"I tell you he is just a fresh kid," said Tommy Tucker. "And I'm going tofix him."
"Now, boys, be careful what you do," advised Louise, who occasionallyconsidered it her duty to put on a sober, admonishing air.
Tommy, however, started for the nearest exit to the platform of the car.He was gone some time, and when he reappeared he carried in both hands agreat soggy snowball, bigger than the biggest grapefruit.
"Gee, folks!" he whispered, "it's snowing, and then some! I never saw sucha snow. And the porter says it is likely to get worse the farther north wego. Suppose we should be snowbound?"
There was a chorus of cries--of fearful delight on the part of the girls,at least--at this announceme
nt.
"Never mind," Bob Henderson said, "we have a dining car hitched to thistrain, so we sha'n't starve I guess, if we are snowed up. What are yougoing to do with that snow, Tommy?"
The Tucker twin winked prodigiously. "I'm going to take it up the aisleand show it to Mr. Gordon. He doesn't know it's snowing like this," saidthe boy quite soberly.
"Why, Tommy Tucker!" cried Betty, "of course Uncle Dick knows it issnowing. Can't he see it through the window?"
But when she looked herself at the window beside her she was amazed to seethat the pane was masked with wet snow and one could scarcely see throughit at all. Besides, evening was falling fast.
"I do hope," Teddy remarked, watching his brother start up the aisle, "hetumbles in the right place."
"What is he going to do with that snowball?" demanded Louise.
"I know! I know!" giggled Bobby, in sudden delight. "That man with thesilk hander chief over his head is going to get a shower."
"He isn't a man. He's just a fresh kid," declared Ted, but he said itsomewhat anxiously now.
"Stop him, somebody!" cried Louise. "He'll get into trouble."
"If you ask me," drawled Bob Henderson, "I think that somebody else isgoing to get into trouble. I saw that chap stick his foot out and tripTed before."
"He did it unknowingly," cried Betty, under her breath. "He's asleep."
"If he is he won't be long," whispered Bobby, clutching at Betty andholding her into the seat. "Let Tommy Tucker be. If that fellow tripshim----"
The next instant Tommy did trip. Without any doubt the well shod foot ofthe man lolling in the seat slid into the aisle as the boy with thesnowfall approached, and Tommy pitched over it with almost a certainty offalling headlong. Indeed, he would have gone to the floor of the car hadhe not let go of the mass of snow in his hands and clutched at the seatarms.
"Whoo!" burst out Teddy Tucker in delight. "Now that fresh kid's got his!"
For the soft snowball in Tommy's hands landed plump upon thehandkerchief-covered crown of the person sprawling so ungracefully in thePullman seat! The victim uttered a howl audible above the drumming of thecar wheels. And he leaped upright between the seats of his section, beatthe fast-melting snow off his head and face, and displayed the latter tothe young peoples' amazement as that of a very stern looking gentlemanindeed with a bald head and gray side whiskers.
"Oh, my aunt's cat and all her kittens!" gasped Bob Henderson. "Now Tommyhas done it! See who it is, Ted?"
Teddy Tucker was as pale as the snow his brother had brought in fromoutside and which now showered about the victim of the ill-timed jest.
"Ma--Major Pater! From Salsette! He has an artificial leg, and that's whyit was sticking out in the aisle whenever he nodded off. Oh,Jimminy-beeswax! what's going to become of Tommy?"