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[Illustration: JANE’S EYES WERE FIXED WITH A FRIGHTENED LOOK ON BILLY.
_Plain Jane and Pretty Betty._ _Page 76_]
Plain Jane and
Pretty Betty
OR
The Girl Who Won Out
BY
MAY HOLLIS BARTON
AUTHOR OF “THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY,” “NELL
GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
BY MAY HOLLIS BARTON
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY
Or Laura Mayford’s City Experiences
THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL
Or The Mystery of the School by the Lake
NELL GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS
Or A City Girl in the Great West
FOUR LITTLE WOMEN OF ROXBY
Or The Queer Old Lady Who Lost Her Way
PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY
Or The Girl Who Won Out
(_Other volumes in preparation._)
CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY
Made in the U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE MOVING VAN 1
II. A BAD SPILL 10
III. MAD MARION 19
IV. THE NEW HOME 24
V. JANE MEETS PRETTY BETTY 32
VI. INVENTIONS 39
VII. THE GREAT FIRE 46
VIII. BENEATH THE WRECKAGE 52
IX. DISASTER 57
X. SUSPECTED 66
XI. BILLY ANSWERS 73
XII. A GENEROUS THOUGHT 81
XIII. JANE LOOKS FOR WORK 89
XIV. A FIRST REFUSAL 96
XV. A TASTE OF SUCCESS 104
XVI. A BUSINESS DAY 112
XVII. BETTY MAKES HER CHOICE 120
XVIII. A DREADFUL DISCOVERY 128
XIX. A CHANGE OF EMPLOYERS 136
XX. BETTY COMES THROUGH 143
XXI. THE NEW HOME 153
XXII. BETTY IS JEALOUS 159
XXIII. JANE AND BILLY 167
XXIV. A SURPRISE 177
XXV. THE REVELATION 188
PLAIN JANE AND
PRETTY BETTY
CHAPTER I
ON THE MOVING VAN
“Here’s the moving van now!”
Jane Cross ran into the front room where Mrs. Powell was sitting
patiently on one of the many roped boxes that was to go with the load.
“It isn’t more than half an hour late, at that,” Jane added, as Mrs.
Powell looked up at her questioningly.
“Pretty good for a moving van,” said the latter, with a faint smile.
“Especially in Coal Run. Is it here?”
For answer, Jane pointed to the big van that had backed its yawning
doors close to the broken boardwalk that led from the road to the
Powell front porch.
Mrs. Powell got up with a gesture of weariness and went out to two
burly men who dropped from the van. Jane followed and remained on the
porch, watching.
Queer thoughts were running through Jane’s head, jubilant thoughts,
almost.
She was leaving Coal Run! That dirty, dreary little town the
population of which consisted to a great extent of miners with their
more or less dirty and stupid families.
Jane was not at home with these people, with the boys and girls who
attended the dingy schoolhouse on Cattle Creek. For some reason that
she could not fathom, the crude ways, the uncouth manners of the
inhabitants of the mining town offended and puzzled her.
Jane had fought against this inherent difference, this instinctive
shrinking. She had been brought up to believe that pride was sinful.
She believed this, and honestly tried to change herself since she
alone was odd among the children of Coal Run.
It was hard, though; and Jane Cross had succeeded but indifferently.
If one had asked her schoolmates, they would have said that she
succeeded not at all, would have given her no credit for a hard fight.
Meanwhile, they felt her difference and resented it.
No matter how poor her clothes, Jane was always neat, her hands and
face were scrubbed to a shining cleanliness, her bobbed brown hair
was brushed sleekly close to her small round head until it shone.
Though she was not homely, was even nice looking in a simple
unobtrusive way, the school children of Coal Run had retaliated by
calling her “Plain Jane,” jeering at her and taunting her in a way
that made the sensitive girl’s life miserable.
There was nothing that she could regret leaving behind in Coal Run
except, perhaps, the little house where she had lived contentedly
with Mrs. Cross for as long back as she could remember.
The latter had been a widow--this, too, for as long as Jane could
remember. Mr. Cross, a miner, had been killed in a mine explosion.
The company he had worked for had provided for his widow during her
lifetime and would have continued to provide for her if she had lived
twenty years longer.
But Mrs. Cross had died quietly one night in her sleep, and Jane
awoke to find herself alone in the world and--penniless.
Things might have gone very hard for the girl--then only ten--had it
not been for the prompt friendliness of Mr. and Mrs. Powell. This
plump and kindly couple took the heartbroken girl into their home,
and into their hearts as well, and from that time on treated her as
though she were their own.
Now Jane was sixteen, though looking and seeming younger by a year or
two, and misfortune had come to Mr. Powell. There was a merger and
a change of officers in the coal company for which Mr. Powell had
worked in their local office for years, with the result that Jane’s
benefactor presently found himself without a position and with only a
little money in the bank.
It was hard on him, a change like this coming late in life, and for
a time it seemed as though the blow had paralyzed him. He rallied
soon, emerging from his dazed state to find himself a position in the
thriving town of Greenville, forty miles from Coal Run.
It was a bookkeeper’s job that did not pay much that had been offered
him, but it was a raft to cling to until he could look about and
find something better. Mr. Powell accepted the post gratefully and
immediately made preparations for the removal of Mrs. Powell and Jane
to their future home.
Jane was not sorry to leave Coal Run. Greenville might prove little
better, but at least it would be a change from the mining town, and
youth is hopeful. Jane would try to be very pleasant and patient and
helpful in Greenville. She would truly try to make people like her.
The wounds inflicted by the thoughtlessly cruel children of Coal Run
went deeper than even Jane thought, and, unless quickly healed,
promised to leave scars that might gravely affect her future.
Even now she was shy, shrinking, super-sensitive, quick to see a
slight even where none was intended. It was good for her that she was
leaving Coal Run before the habit of thinking herself inferior became
a fixed obsession.
Now as she watched the moving-men and Mrs. Powell from the vantage
point of the porch she was surprised to see Mr. Powell descend from
the truck, his short legs dangling so far from the ground that he had
to jump to reach it.
Mr. Powell was so short and round and comfortable-looking generally
that few suspected him of possessing the temper of a lean six-footer.
This temper would blaze out at times, blasting all before it, only to
retire as suddenly as it had come, leaving Mr. Powell as bland and
round and smiling as ever. It was a righteous temper however, and
only flashed forth in a righteous cause. Therefore, people feared
it and were wont to treat its owner with a respect they might not
otherwise have accorded him.
Jane loved him, as indeed she loved both these kindly people, and
would have gone on hands and knees to serve either one of them.
Mr. Powell was not in a temper now, Jane was glad to see. In fact,
he appeared very much pleased with himself and was on exceedingly
friendly terms with both the burly moving-men.
“You see I came with them, to make sure they got here before night,
Lou,” the girl heard him call to Mrs. Powell. “And what’s more, I’m
going all the way to Greenville with them, to make sure of the same
thing.”
“What’s to become of Jane and me?” Mrs. Powell retorted.
“You will go on the train, of course,” returned her husband.
“Unless,” jokingly, “you’d like to ride on top of the van.”
It was then that Jane had her bold thought. How she dared put it
into words she never afterward could tell. But in a moment she found
herself running over the broken boards of the walk toward Mr. Powell.
“Oh!” she cried, “I don’t suppose you really would let me go with you
on the van?”
“Bless us!” cried Mr. Powell, appealing to the cheerfully grinning
moving-men to share the joke with him. “Jane has taken me seriously.
She really does want to ride on the top of the van.”
“Not on the top of the van,” Jane wheedled--and she knew just how to
do it, too, with those she loved. “In the front seat, or in the van,
or on the furniture itself--anywhere, so long as I can go with you.”
“Bless us!” said Mr. Powell again. “The child’s in earnest. After
all,” shaking his head and looking attentively at the moving-men,
“what’s to prevent?”
“Nothing, sir,” said one of the latter, grinning broadly. “I can sit
up behind with the load and there’s room for three on the front seat,
if the young lady wants to go along.”
Jane’s eyes began to dance. There was color in her usually pale face.
She looked appealingly at Mrs. Powell.
“Do you mind?” she asked. “Will it be very lonesome for you, going up
without me on the train?”
Mrs. Powell smiled reassuringly.
“I am so tired that I shall probably sleep all the way to Greenville,
anyway,” she said. “If it will be any pleasure to you, go along on
the truck, my dear child, by all means!”
So it was settled, and Jane waited impatiently while the furniture
was piled on the truck and securely fastened in at the back with
ropes.
This took only a short time, for the possessions of the Powells were
limited, and Jane was soon standing beside the truck, her hat and
coat on, waiting for one of the men to hand her to the high seat.
While she stood there, her eyes happened to turn up the road.
She became suddenly white and grasped at the arm of the man nearest
her.
“Oh, please!” she gasped. “Can’t we get away from here? Oh, I must
get away from here, in a hurry!”
Alarmed by her look and manner, the good-hearted fellow half lifted
Jane to the high seat and swung himself up after her.
“All set, Bill!” he called to his mate. “Mr. Powell, ready?”
At the words Mr. Powell himself appeared at the side of the truck and
swung himself up into the seat beside Jane. The girl huddled down
between the two men, her eyes fixed steadily on the road ahead of her.
As the engine of the truck turned over with a grumbling roar the
sound of children’s shrill voices raised tauntingly came from the
road behind them.
“Plain Jane! Plain Jane! Had to ride in the van! Couldn’t ride in the
train! Plain Jane! Plain Jane!”
Long after the voices had been drowned by distance and by the roaring
of the motor they rang in Jane’s ears, filled her eyes with tears and
her heart with an aching pain.
Oh, she was glad to leave Coal Run! Glad! Glad!
After a while the cool air on her face and Mr. Powell’s gently
tactful and very funny conversation soothed her and brought a faint
smile to her lips.
After all, she was a very lucky girl to have such dear, kind friends
as the Powells. And she was leaving Coal Run! Greenville could not be
worse. It might be much, much better.
A half-hour passed. Coal Run was left far behind when a sudden lurch
of the truck caused her to grip the seat with both hands. The driver
was taking a sharp curve on a rough, hilly road at a perilous rate of
speed, Jane thought. She wished he would not be quite so daring.
Then came a noise like the exploding of a cannon in her ears.
Jane cried out in terror as the truck lurched, then skidded
sickeningly across the road.