CHAPTER VI
THE RUNAWAY MISSED
Bob's absence was not discovered till breakfast time, for Ethan, whowas a sound sleeper, when he woke and saw Bob's empty cot, supposedthe boy had risen earlier than usual and gone to the barn. Mr.Peabody, too, took it for granted that the boy was milking, and itwas not until they were seated at the table and half way through themeal that anything out of the ordinary was suspected.
"Why in tarnation doesn't that good for nothing bring in the milk?"grumbled Mr. Peabody. "I declare he gets later and later everymorning. The balers will be over to start work at seven, and if hethinks he's going to spend half an hour dawdling over his breakfastafter they get here, he's much mistaken."
The men who were to bale the hay had slept at the adjoining farm,according to the agreement made, and would be at Bramble Farm fordinner and supper and to spend that night.
"You're finished, Ethan. Go hurry him up," ordered Joe Peabody."Send him in here flying and turn the cows out to pasture."
"He hasn't milked!" Ethan cleared the porch steps at a single boundand burst into the kitchen, shouting this intelligence. Excitementwas scarce in Ethan's life, and he enjoyed the pleasurable sensationof carrying unusual tidings, even if unpleasant. "The barn door wasshut and the cows were bellowing their heads off. Not a one of 'em'sbeen milked!"
"I want to know!" said Joseph Peabody stupidly. "Was he in bed whenyou came down, Ethan?"
"No, he wasn't," answered the hired man. "I thought he'd gone onout. Do you suppose something's happened to him?"
Mr. Peabody stepped to the porch and gave a quick glance at thebench where the milk pails were usually left to air and dry. Theywere there, just as they had been left the night before.
"I think he's cleared out!" he announced: grimly. "Betty, do youknow what this young scoundrel is up to?"
Betty's eyes brimmed over, and she flung herself blindly into Mrs.Peabody's arms which closed around her, though that good woman wasunaccustomed to demonstrations of affection.
"There, there." She tried to soothe the girl, for Betty's convulsivesobbing really alarmed her.
"Don't you go to feel bad, dearie. If Bob's gone, he's gone, andthat's all there is to it."
Peabody, milk pail in hand, motioned to Ethan to go out and beginmilking.
"That isn't all there is to it, not by a long shot!" he growled athis wife. "If I get my hands on that boy he'll rue the day he everset foot off this farm. He'll go back to the poorhouse and therehe'll stay till he's of age."
Betty sat up, pushing the tumbled hair from her hot forehead.
"I'm glad Bob ran away!" she cried recklessly. "He's gone where youwon't catch him, either. You never treated him fairly, and you knowit."
Peabody banged the kitchen door by way of relieving his feelings,but the latch did not fasten so that he heard Betty's next sentenceaddressed to his wife.
"I'm only waiting for a letter from Uncle Dick," confided Betty."Then I'm going to Washington. Things will never be any differenthere, Mrs. Peabody; you've said so yourself. I wish Uncle Dick wouldhurry and write. It's been a good while since I heard." And there wasa catch in the girl's voice.
The man slouched off the porch, a peculiar smile on his lean, shrewdface. One hand, thrust into his ragged coat pocket, rested on aletter there. As he felt it beneath his fingers, his crafty eyesbrightened with a gleam of mockery.
Mrs. Peabody may have been curious about Bob's departure, but sheasked no questions, somewhat to Betty's surprise.
"I'm glad she doesn't ask me," thought Betty, helping mechanicallyin the preparations for dinner which were more elaborate than usualbecause of the presence of the three balers. "Bob must be half way toWashington by now, and I don't believe they have the slightest ideahe is headed for there." The Peabodys, she reasoned, knew nothing ofLockwood Hale, and of the attraction the capital of the country heldfor the orphan lad.
Betty insisted on doing a fair share of the extra work after thenoon meal, and then ran upstairs to get ready to go over to Glenside.She wanted to tell the Guerins that Bob had gone, and from theirhouse she knew she could telephone to those other good friends, theBenders. Laurel Grove was too far to walk, even for a practised hikerlike Betty.
To her dismay, as she left the house, Mr. Peabody joined her andfell into step.
"I'll go as far as Durlings with you," he announced affably, Durlingbeing their neighbor on the south, his farm lying along the road inthe direction of Glenside. "Sorry the horses haven't shoes, Betty, oryou might drive."
Betty shot him a suspicious glance. The three horses never wereshod, except when a certain amount of traveling had to be done on thestone road. In all the weeks she had spent at Bramble Farm a horsehad never been offered for her convenience, and all of her trips totown had been either afoot, or taken with Bob in the rattling,shabby, one-horse work wagon.
"Where did you say Bob was going?" came next.
Betty bit her lip.
"I didn't say," she said evenly. "I--I don't think it's fair to askme."
"But you know," snapped Mr. Peabody. "I guess I have a right to knowwhere he's gone. I'm responsible for him. I've got papers that showit. The poorhouse folks are going to ask me what becomes of him. Youjust tell me where he went, and I'll satisfy 'em. I won't follow himand try to bring him back, Betty. He's too old for that. Making hisbed, he'll have to lie on it. I won't follow him."
The girl twisted her handkerchief nervously. She was not afraid ofthe man. That is, she feared no physical violence at his hands, buthe was capable, she knew, of forcing her back to the farm and lockingher up in her room till she furnished him with the requiredinformation. And what harm could it do Bob? It was not likely thatPeabody could find the boy in a large city.
"He won't be made to come back," repeated her tormentor.
"I wish I could believe you," said Betty pitifully.
She looked so young and helpless, trying to pit her girlishintelligence and strength against the wily miser, that another manwould have been ashamed to press her. Not so Peabody--he had alwaysconsidered that he was entitled to whatever he could get from others,information, cash, or work, it mattered not.
They were approaching the Durling farm now, and suddenly Betty'spointed chin lifted.
"I won't tell you!" she said firmly. "I do know where Bob went, buthe was perfectly justified in leaving a place where he was treatedworse than a dog. You would do him no good--I'm sure of that. And ifthe poorhouse authorities make a fuss about his running off, I'lltell them what he had to endure."
Joseph Peabody's mouth dropped in astonishment. He had seen Bettylose her temper before, but she had never so openly defied him.
"You think you're high and mighty," he sneered. "Let me tell you,Miss, there's more ways than one of getting what you want in thisworld. Joe Peabody isn't checkmated very often, and it takes morethan an impudent girl to do it. I'm going into Lem Durling's andtelephone Jim Turner, the poormaster. I kind of surmise he can giveme a line on the direction Bob's taken."
Betty walked on, disdaining to answer, her head very high in the airbut her heart in her shoes. Jim Turner would be sure to tell ofLockwood Hale, and Mr. Peabody would be astute enough to guess thatBob's destination was Washington.
When she reached Doctor Guerin's house, between the heat and thedust and the long walk and her anxiety, she was in a highly excitedstate, and the doctor's wife made her lie down on the couch and restbefore she would allow her to telephone to the Benders. Mrs. Bender'ssister answered the telephone. The recorder and his wife had made adetour on their homeward trip that would extend their absence foranother week.
"Betty, you'll be ill if you're going to get all worked up likethis," scolded Mrs. Guerin, for Betty was crying as she hung up thereceiver. "I never saw you so unstrung, my dear. You won't be fit togo to your uncle when he does send for you. I wonder if the doctorhadn't better see you?"
Norma and Alice Guerin, two pretty girls, the former about Betty'sage, the latter a year or two older, l
ooked at her anxiously. Bettyin tears was an unusual sight to them.
"I'm all right," gulped that young person, inwardly alarmed at thethought of being too ill to travel when the word came. "I didn'tsleep very well last night, thinking of Bob. Is that the secretary hebid on at the Faulkner sale?"
Knowing that the quickest way for Betty to get control of her nerveswas to forget her troubles, Mrs. Guerin entered into an enthusiasticdescription of the beauties of the old desk, showing the secretdrawer and the half score of carved pigeonholes and dwelling on thedoctor's delight in securing such a treasure at a bargain. Mrs.Guerin succeeded in having Betty more like her old self before DoctorHal Guerin came in from a round of calls.
He was delighted to see Betty, who was an especial favorite of his,and much interested in her account of Bob's flight.
"Did the lad have money enough?" he growled. "I suppose he'd walkbefore he'd borrow from me."
"He had enough," Betty assured him. "All the charms you sold for himamounted to quite a lot, and he had saved every cent of that."
"And you probably helped him out," commented the doctor shrewdly."Well, well, the lad may yet whittle his way to fame and fortune."
He referred to Bob's knack for fashioning pretty and quaint littlewooden charms and pendants, which he polished to satin smoothness andpainted and stained in bright colors. Norma Guerin had worn one atboarding school, and it was through her and her father that Bob hadsecured a large number of orders which had netted him a tidy littlesum.
When the time came for Betty to go, the doctor insisted that hewould take her as far as the lane, and on the trip she told him thatas soon as she heard from her uncle she meant to pack her trunk andleave for Washington.
"I don't like the idea of your making the journey alone," grumbledDoctor Guerin; "but I don't see who there is to go with you. Onething, Betty girl, brushing up against the Peabodys has given you apractical fund of self-reliance. You're better fitted than Alice tofind your way about alone. Not that I would have chosen to have youget your knocks just in the manner they've been handed to you, butthe results leave nothing to be desired. You're standing squarely onyour own feet, Betsey, and it's this summer's grilling training thathas done it."