Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm; Or, The Mystery of a Nobody Read online

  CHAPTER XIII

  FOLLOWING THE PRESCRIPTION

  THE sound of some one chopping wood caught the alert ear of BobHenderson as he came whistling through the yard on his way to the toolhouse. Some peculiar quality in the strokes seemed to suggest somethingto him, and he turned aside and made for the woodshed.

  "For the love of Mike! Betty Gordon, what do you call it you'redoing now?" he inquired, standing in the frame of the woodshed, at arespectful distance from the energetic figure by the wood block.

  "Chopping wood!" snapped Betty, hacking a dry rail viciously. "Did youthink I was cutting out paper dolls?"

  "My dear child, that isn't the way to chop wood," insisted Bobpaternally. "Here, let me show you. You'll ruin the axe, to say nothingof chopping off your own right ear."

  Betty brought the axe down on the rail with unnecessary violence.

  "Let me alone," she said ominously. "I'm mad! This is Uncle Dick'sprescription, but I can't see that it works. The more I chop, themadder I get!"

  Bob grinned, and then as a shout of "You, Bob!" sounded from outside,his expression changed.

  "Wapley is waiting for nails to fix the fence with," he said hurriedly."I'll have to hurry. But come on down to the cornfield, can't you,Betty? We can talk there."

  Bob ran off, and Betty regarded the axe resentfully.

  "Seems to me he's hoed enough corn to reach round the earth," she saidaloud. "I wonder if Bob ever gets mad? Well, I guess I will go down andtalk to him, though I did mean to weed the garden for Mrs. Peabody. Ican do that this afternoon."

  In spite of the absence of fresh eggs and milk from her diet, the weeksat Bramble Farm had benefited Betty. She was deeply tanned from daysspent in the sun, and while perceptibly thinner, a close observer wouldhave known that she was hardy and strong. She was growing taller, too.

  "Mr. Peabody is so mean!" she scolded, dropping down under a scrubbywild cherry tree in the field where Bob was already hard at work hoeingcorn, having delivered the nails to Wapley. "You know this is the firstfair day we've had since those three rainy ones, and I promised Mr.Lieson I'd take his picture. He wants it for his girl. And Mr. Peabodywouldn't let him go upstairs and put on his best clothes. Said it washis time and that foolishness could wait till after supper. You know Ican't take a snapshot after supper!"

  Bob hoed a few minutes in silence.

  "Try a little diplomacy, Betty," he finally advised. "Sunday is thetime to take Lieson in his glad rags. He looks fierce all dressed up,I think; it probably will break off the match if his girl is marryinghim for his beauty. But Lieson the way he is now--in that soft shirtand without his hat--isn't half bad. He's got a kind of wistful, gentleface, for all he can jaw so terribly; have you noticed it? Go down inthe potato field and take his picture while he's working and tell himyou'll take him dressed up Sunday and he can have both pictures. He'llbe so pleased, he'll offer to let you hold a pig."

  Betty made a little face. Lieson had already done just that. Thinkingthat Betty, who made such a fuss over the baby lambs, would be equallydelighted with the little pigs, Lieson had told her to shut her eyesone day and hold out her hands; into them he had dropped a squirming,slippery, squealing baby pig and Bob had always declared he could nottell which made the most noise--Betty when she opened her eyes, or thepig when she dropped him. Lieson had been much disappointed.

  "I'll go and get the camera now," said Betty, jumping up, all traces oftemper vanished. "I'll put in the film that holds a dozen and just goround taking everything. That will be fun!"

  She went running up the field and Bob's eyes followed her wistfully.

  "She's a good kid," he said to himself. "Trouble is, she's never beenup against it before and she doesn't always know how to take it. Itdoes make her so mad to see old Peabody walk all over every one; butthere's no sense in letting her buck against him when you can turn herthoughts in another direction. Gee, I'm sick of this blamed corn!"

  Bob went up and down the endless rows, and Betty skipped about,"snapping" views of Bramble Farm to her heart's content. Lieson wasdelighted to learn that he might have two pictures of himself, andthough it seemed to him a waste of time to be photographed in hiswork clothes, still he admitted that even an "ordinary" picture waspreferable to none.

  "My lady friend," he announced proudly, as Betty clicked her bulb, "shelike me anyway."

  Wapley, while without the excuse of a "lady friend," was neverthelessalmost childishly pleased to pose for his photograph, and him, too,Betty promised to take again on Sunday. Mrs. Peabody, weeding in thelarge vegetable garden that was her regular care, alone refused to betaken.

  "Oh, no!" she shrank down among the cabbages and pulled her hideoussunbonnet further over her eyes when Betty pressed her to reconsiderher refusal. "Child, don't ask me. When I look at the picture of metaken in my wedding dress and then see myself in the mirror mornings, Iwonder if I'm the same person. I wouldn't have my picture taken for onehundred dollars!"

  Betty used up one roll of films that morning, but she decided to savethe other roll for Sunday, as she was not sure she could get another inGlenside. She determined to take her pictures over that afternoon andhave them developed, for she was as eager to see the results as Liesonand Wapley. Bob, too, owned up to a desire to see how he "turned out."

  "It's a pretty hot day," ventured Mrs. Peabody uncertainly, when Betty,at the dinner table, announced her intention of walking to Glensidethat afternoon. "Maybe, dearie, if you wait till after supper, some onewill be driving over."

  "Horses ain't going a step off this farm this week," said Mr. Peabodyimpressively. "They're working without shoes, as anybody with anyinterest in the place would know. If some folks haven't any moreto do than gad around spending good money, it's none of my affair;but I don't aim to run a stage between here and Glenside for theirconvenience."

  Dinner was finished in silence after this speech, and immediately aftershe had helped Mrs. Peabody with the dishes, Betty went up to her roomto change her dress. She did not mind the walk; indeed she had takenit several times before, and knew that one side of the road would becomparatively shady all the way.

  Betty took an inexplicable whim to put on her prettiest dress, adelicate pink linen with white collars and cuffs that Mrs. Arnold hadtaught her to embroider herself in French knots. She untied the blackvelvet ribbon she usually wore on her broad-brimmed hat and substituteda sash of pink mull.

  "You look too nice!" exclaimed Mrs. Peabody when the girl camedownstairs. "Don't you think you should take an umbrella, though? Thosebig white clouds mean a thunder storm."

  Betty laughingly declined the umbrella, and, promising Mrs. Peabody"something pretty," started off on her walk. Poor Mrs. Peabody, thoughBetty was too inexperienced to realize it, was beginning, very slowlyit is true, but still beginning, to break under the long strain ofhard work and unhappiness. Betty only knew that she was pitifullypleased with the smallest gift from the town stores.

  "If I don't see a girl of my own age to speak to pretty soon," declaredBetty to herself, walking swiftly up the lane, "I don't know what Ishall do! Bob is nice, but, goodness! he isn't interested in lots ofthings I like. Crocheting, for instance. I never was crazy about fancywork, but now I'm kind of hungry for a crochet needle."

  Half way to Glenside a farmer overtook her, and after the pleasantcountry fashion offered her a "lift." Betty accepted gladly. He lived,as she discovered after a few minutes' conversation, on the farm nextto the Peabodys, and he had heard about her and knew who she was.

  "When you get time," he said kindly, when she told him she was going toGlenside, "walk through the town and out toward Linden. There's quitea nursery out that way, and you'd like to see the flowers. Folks comefrom the city to buy their plants there."

  At the nearest crossroads to Glenside he turned, and Betty got out,thanking him heartily for the ride. It was a matter of only a fewmoments now to reach Glenside, and she found herself in the town muchsooner than she had counted on. So when the drug-store clerk s
aid hewould have her pictures developed and printed within an hour if shecould wait, Betty determined to wait instead of having them mailed toher. She had a sundae and bought some chocolates for Mrs. Peabody, andthen remembered the farmer's remark about the nursery.

  "How far is it to the nursery they talk about?" she said to the womanclerk who had weighed out the candy.

  "Baxter's? Oh, not more than three-quarters of a mile," was theanswer. "You go right up Main Street an far as the sidewalk goes. Whenit stops, keep right on, and pretty soon you'll see a big sign of awatering-pot; that's it."

  Betty followed these directions implicitly, and she had reached the endof the town sidewalk when she heard the distant mutter of thunder.

  "I guess I can reach the nursery and be looking at the flowers while itstorms," she said to herself.

  Betty had no more fear of thunderstorms than of a tame cat, but shemightily disliked the idea of getting her hat wet. So she hurriedconscientiously.

  The sun went under a heavy cloud, and a violent crash of thunderdirectly overhead stimulated her into a run. There was not a house insight, and Betty began to wish she had turned and gone back to thetown. At least she could have found shelter in a shop.

  Splash! A huge drop of rain flattened in the dust of the road. The talltrees on either side began to sway in the slowly rising wind.

  "I'll bet it will be a big storm, and I'll be soaked!" gasped Betty."Where is that plaguey nursery!"

  She began to run, and the drops came faster and faster. Then, withoutwarning, the long line of swaying trees stopped, and a tidy whitepicket fence began on the side of the road nearest Betty. Back of thepickets was a well-kept green lawn; and set in the center of a circleof glorious elm trees was a comfortable white house with green blindsand a wide porch. A woman and two girls were hastily taking in a swingand a quantity of sofa pillows to protect them from the storm.

  "Come in, quick!" called the woman, as Betty came in sight. "Hurry,before you're soaked. Just lift the latch and the gate swings in."

  "Just lift the latch." Betty thought she had never heard a more cordialor welcome invitation.