Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Charles Franks andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON
OR
Strange Adventures in a Great City
BY
ALICE B. EMERSON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE GORED COW
II HOSPITALITY UNDER DIFFICULTIES
III BOB HAS GREAT NEWS
IV AT THE VENDUE
V CONSEQUENCES
VI THE RUNAWAY MISSED
VII A BELATED LETTER
VIII GOOD-BY TO BRAMBLE FARM
IX NEW FRIENDS
X FELLOW TRAVELERS
XI A SERIOUS MIX-UP
XII STRAIGHTENING THINGS OUT
XIII WASHINGTON MONUMENT
XIV LIBBIE IS ROMANTIC
XV OFF TO INVESTIGATE
XVI WHAT HALE HAD TO TELL
XVII MORE SIGHTSEEING
XVIII BETTY UNDERSTANDS
XIX AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
XX MUTUAL CONFIDENCES
XXI THE ACCIDENT
XXII BEING RESCUED
XXIII ANOTHER RESCUE
XXIV BOB IS CLEARED
XXV FUTURE PLANS
BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON
CHAPTER I
THE GORED COW
For lack of a better listener, Betty Gordon addressed the saucylittle chipmunk that sat on the top rail of the old worn fence andstared at her with bright, unwinking eyes.
"It is the loveliest vase you ever saw," said Betty, busily sortingthe tangled mass of grasses and flowers in her lap. "Heavy oldcolonial glass, you know, plain, but with beautiful lines."
The chipmunk continued to regard her gravely.
"I found it this morning when I was helping Mrs. Peabody clean thekitchen closet shelves," the girl went on, her slim fingers selectingand discarding slender stems with fascinating quickness. "It was onthe very last shelf, and was covered with dust. I washed it, andwe're going to have it on the supper table to-night with this bouquetin it. There! don't you think that's pretty?"
She held out the flowers deftly arranged and surveyed them proudly.The chipmunk cocked his brown head and seemed to be withholding hisopinion.
Betty put the bouquet carefully down on the grass beside her andstretched the length of her trim, graceful self on the turf, buryingher face luxuriously in the warm dry "second crop" of hay that hadbeen raked into a thin pile under the pin oak and left thereforgotten. Presently she rolled over and lay flat on her back,studying the lazy clouds that drifted across the very blue sky.
"I'd like to be up in an airplane," she murmured drowsily, hereyelids drooping. "I'd sail right into a cloud and see--What was that?"
She sat up with a jerk that sent the hitherto motionless chipmunkscurrying indignantly up the nearest tree, there to sit and shake hishead angrily at her.
"Sounds like Bob!" said Betty to herself. "My goodness, that was Mr.Peabody--they must be having an awful quarrel!"
The voices and shouts came from the next field, separated from herby a brook, almost dry now, and a border of crooked young willowtrees grown together in an effective windbreak.
"Anybody who'll gore a cow like that isn't fit to own a single dumbcreature!" A clear young voice shaking with passion was carried bythe wind to the listening girl.
"When I need a blithering, no-'count upstart to teach me mybusiness, I'll call on you and not before," a deeper, harsh voicesnarled. "When you're farming for yourself you can feed theneighbors' critters on your corn all you've a mind to!"
"Oh, dear!" Betty scrambled to her feet, forgetting the bouquet socarefully culled, and darted in the direction of the willow hedge. "Ido hope Mr. Peabody hasn't been cruel to an animal. Bob is always sofurious when he catches him at that!"
She crossed the puttering little brook by the simple expedient ofjumping from one bank to the other and scrambled through the willowtrees, emerging, flushed and anxious-eyed, to confront a boy aboutfourteen years old in a torn straw hat and faded overalls and a tall,lean middle-aged man with a pitchfork in his hands.
"Well?" the latter grunted, as Betty glanced fearfully at him. "Whatdid you come for? I suppose you think two rows of corn down flat issomething to snicker at?"
They stood on the edge of a flourishing field of corn, and,following the direction of Mr. Peabody's accusing finger, BettyGordon saw that two fine rows had been partially eaten and trampled.
"Oh, that's too bad!" she said impulsively, "What did it--a straycow?"
"Keppler's black and white heifer," answered Mr. Peabody grimly."Bob here is finding fault with me because I didn't let it eat itshead off."
"No such thing!" Bob Henderson was stung into speech. "Because thepoor creature didn't get out fast enough to suit you--and youbewildered her with your shouting till she didn't know which way toturn--you jabbed her with the pitchfork. I saw the blood! And I saynobody but an out and out coward would do a thing like that to a dumbanimal."
"Oh!" breathed Betty again, softly. "How could you!"
"Now I've heard about enough of that!" retorted Mr. Peabody angrily."If you'd both attend to your own business and leave me to mind mine,we'd save a lot of time. You, Bob, go let down the bars and turn thatcritter into the road. Maybe Keppler will wake up and repair hisfences after all his stock runs off. You'd better help him, Betty. Hemight step on a grub-worm if you don't go along to watch him!"
Bob strode off, kicking stones as he went, and Betty followedsilently. She helped him lower the bars and drive the cow into theroad, then put the bars in place again.
"Where are you going?" she ventured in surprise, as Bob moodilytrudged after the animal wending an erratic way down the road.
"Going to take her home," snapped Bob, "Peabody would like to seeKeppler have to get her out of the pound, but I'll save him thattrouble. You can go on back and read your book."
"Just because you're mad at Mr. Peabody is no reason why you shouldbe cross to me," said Betty with spirit. "I wasn't reading a book,and I'm coming with you. So there!"
Bob laughed and told her to "come on." He was seldom out of sortslong. Indeed, of the two, Betty had the quicker temper and cherisheda grudge more enduringly.
"Just the same, Betty," Bob announced, as he skillfully persuadedthe cow to forego the delights of a section of particularly sweetgrass and proceed on her course, "I'm about through. I can't stand itmuch longer; and lately I've been afraid that in a rage I mightstrike Mr. Peabody with something and either kill him or hurt himbadly. Of course, I wouldn't do it if I stopped to think, but when hegets me furious as he did to-day, I don't stop to think."
"Well, for mercy's sake, Bob Henderson," ejaculated Betty in aninstant alarm, "don't kill him, whatever you do. Then you'd be put inprison for life!"
"All right," agreed Bob equably, "I won't kill him--just nick him ina few places--how will that do?"
"But I'm really serious," insisted Betty. "Don't let the cow turn upthat lane. Think how awful you would feel if you were sent to prison,Bob."
Bob took refuge in a masculine stronghold.
"If that isn't just like a girl!" he said scornfully. "Who said Iwas going to prison? I merely say I don't want to lose my temper anddo something rash, and you have me convicted and sentenced for life.Gee, Betty, have a little mercy!"
Betty's lips trembled.
"I can't bear to think of you going away and leaving me here," shefaltered. "I'm not going to stay either, Bob, not one minute after Ihear from Uncle Dick. I'm sure if the Benders knew how
things weregoing, they would think we had a right to leave. I had the loveliestletter from Mrs. Bender this morning--but it had been opened."
Bob switched an unoffending flower head savagely.
"You come out of that!" he shouted to the perverse cow that seemeddetermined to turn to the left when she was plainly asked to turn tothe right. "Wait a minute, Betty; here's Fred Keppler."
The half-grown boy who accosted them with "What are you doing withour cow?" grinned fatuously at Betty, showing several gaps in a rowof fine teeth.
"Keep your cow at home where she belongs," directed Bobmagnificently. "She's been making her dinner off our corn."
"Oh, gee," sighed the boy nervously. "I'll bet old Peabody was in atearing fury. Look, Bob, something's tore her hide! She must havebeen down in the blackberry bushes along the brook."
"Well, see that it doesn't happen again," commanded Bob, gracefullywithdrawing by walking backward. "Corn that's as high as ours isworth something, you know."
"You never told him about the pitchfork," said Betty accusingly, assoon as Fred Keppler and the cow were out of earshot. "You let himthink it was blackberry bushes that scratched her like that."
"Well, his father will know the difference," grinned Bob cheerfully."Why should I start an argument with Fred? Saving the cow from thepound ought to be enough, anyway. Mr. Keppler has had to buy morethan one animal out before this; he will not pay attention to hisfences."
Betty sat down on a broad boulder and leaned up against an oldhickory tree.
"Stone in my shoe," she said briefly. "You'll have to wait just aminute, Bob."
Bob sat down on the grass and began to hunt for four leaf clovers,an occupation of which he never tired.
"Do you think Mr. Peabody opened your letter?" he asked abruptly.
Betty paused in the operation of untying her shoe.
"Who else would?" she said thoughtfully. "It wasn't even pastedtogether again, but slit across one end, showing that whoever did itdidn't care whether I noticed it or not. I'll never mail anotherletter from that box. I'll walk to Glenside three times a day first!"
"Well, the only thing to do is to clear out," said Bob firmly."You'll have to wait till you hear from your uncle, or at least tillthe Benders get back. We promised, you know, that we wouldn't runaway without telling them, or if there wasn't time, writing to themand saying where we go. That shows, I think, that they suspectedthings might get too hot to be endured."
"I simply must get a letter from Uncle Dick or go crazy," sighedBetty feverishly. She put on her shoe and stood up. "I wish he wouldcome for me himself and see how horrid everything is."