BOB HAS GREAT NEWS
The new minister proved to be a gentle old man, evidently retired to
a country charge and, in his way, quite as diffident as Mrs. Peabody.
He was apparently charmed to be entertained on the porch, and saw
nothing wrong with the neglected house and grounds. His near-sighted
eyes, beaming with kindness and good-will, apparently took comfort
and serenity for granted, and when Betty came out half an hour after
his arrival, carrying a little tray of lemonade and cakes, he was
deep in a recital of the first charge he had held upon his graduation
from the theological seminary forty years before.
"There, that's over!" sighed Mrs. Peabody, quite like the
experienced hostess, when the minister's shabby black buggy was well
on its way out of the lane. "You're dreadful good, Betty, to help me
through with it. He won't come again for another six months--it takes
him that long to cover his parish, the farms are so far apart. Let me
help you carry back the chairs."
Betty longed to suggest that they leave them out and use the porch
as an outdoor sitting room, but she knew that such an idea would be
sure to meet with active opposition from the master of Bramble Farm.
Long before he came in to supper that night the chairs had been
restored to their proper places and Mrs. Peabody had resumed the gray
wrapper she habitually wore. Only the vase of flowers on the table
was left to show that the afternoon had been slightly out of the
ordinary. That and the tray of glasses Betty had unfortunately left
on the draining board of the sink, intending to wash them with the
supper dishes.
"Whose glasses, and what's been in 'em?" demanded Mr. Peabody
suspiciously. "There's sugar in the bottom of one of 'em. You haven't
been making lemonade?" He turned to his wife accusingly.
Bob had not come home yet, and there was only Ethan, the hired man,
Betty, and the Peabodys at the supper table.
"I made lemonade," said Betty quietly. "Those are my own glasses I
bought in Glenside, and the sugar and lemons were mine, too. So were
the cakes."
This silenced Peabody, for he knew that Betty's uncle sent her money
from time to time, and though he fairly writhed to think that she
Could spend it so foolishly, he could not interfere.
As soon as it was dark the Peabody household retired, to save
lighting lamps, and this evening was no exception. Betty learned from
a stray question Mrs. Peabody put to Ethan, the hired man, that Bob
was not expected home until ten or eleven o'clock. There was no
thought of sitting up for him, though Betty knew that in all
likelihood he would have had no supper, having no money and knowing
no one in Trowbridge.
She was not sleepy, and having brushed and braided her hair for the
night, she threw her sweater over her dressing gown and sat down at
the window of her room, a tin of sardines and a box of crackers in
her lap, determined to see to it that Bob had something to eat.
There was a full moon, and the road lay like a white ribbon between
the silver fields. Betty could follow the lane road out to where it
met the main highway, and now and then the sound of an automobile
horn came to her and she saw a car speed by on the main road. Sitting
there in the sweet stillness of the summer night, she thought of her
mother, of the old friends in Pineville, and, of course, of her
uncle. She wondered where he was that night, if he thought of her,
and what would be his answer to her letter.
"Is that a horse?" said Betty to herself, breaking off her reverie
abruptly. "Hark! that sounds like a trotting horse."
She was sure that she could make out the outlines of a horse and
rider on the main road, but it was several minutes before she was
positive that it had turned into the lane. Yes, it must be Bob. No
one else would be out riding at that hour of the night. Betty glanced
at her wrist-watch--half-past ten.
The rhythmic beat of the horse's hoofs sounded more plainly, and
soon Betty heard the sound of singing. Bob was moved to song in that
lovely moonlight, as his sorry mount was urged to unaccustomed spirit
and a feeling of freedom.
"When in thy dreaming,
moons like these shall shine again,
And, daylight beaming,
prove thy dreams are vain."
Bob's fresh, untrained voice sounded sweet and clear on the night
air, and to Betty's surprise, tears came unbidden into her eyes. She
was not given to analysis.
"Moonlight always makes me want to cry," she murmured, dashing the
drops from her eyes. "I hope Bob will look up and know that I'm at
the window. I don't dare call to him."
But Bob, who had stopped singing while still some distance from the
house, clattered straight to the barn.
Betty hurried over to her lamp, lit it, and set it on the window sill.
"He'll see it from the barn," she argued wisely, "and know that I am
not asleep."
Her reasoning proved correct, for in a few minutes a well-known
whistle sounded below her window. She blew out the light and leaned
out.
"Oh, Betty!" Bob's tone was one of repressed excitement. "I've got
something great to tell you."
"Have you had any supper?" demanded Betty, more concerned with that
question than with any news. "I've something for you, if you're
hungry."
"Hungry? Gee, I'm starved!" was the response. "I didn't dare stop to
ask for a meal anywhere, because I knew I'd be late getting home as
it was. The horse was never cut out for a saddle horse; I'm so stiff
I don't believe I can move to-morrow. Where's the eats?"
"Here. I'll let it down in a moment," answered Betty, tying a string
to the parcel. "Sorry it isn't more, Bob, but the larder's getting
low again."
Bob untied the can and cracker box she lowered to him, and Betty
pulled in the string to be preserved for future use.
"Thanks, awfully," said Bob. "You're a brick, Betty. And, say, what
do you think I heard over in Trowbridge?"
"Don't talk so loud!" cautioned Betty. "What, Bob?"
"Why, the poorhouse farm is this side of the town," said Bob,
munching a cracker with liveliest manifestations of appreciation.
"Coming back to-night--that's what made me late--Jim Turner, who's
poormaster now, called me in. Said he had something to tell me. It
seems there was a queer old duffer spent one night there a while
back--Jim thought it must have been a month ago. He has a secondhand
bookshop in Washington, and he came to the poorhouse to look at some
old books they have there--thought they might be valuable. They
opened all the records to him, and Jim says he was quite interested
when he came to my mother's name. Asked a lot of questions about her
and wanted to see me. Jim said he was as queer as could be, and all
they could get out of him was that maybe he could tell me something
to interest me. He wouldn't give any of the poorhouse authorities an
inkling of what he knew, and insisted that he'd have to see me first."
"Where is he?" demanded Betty energetically. "I hope you didn't come
away without seeing him, Bob. What's his name? How does he look?"
"His name," said Bob slowly, "is Lockwood Hale. And he went back to
Washington the next day."
Betty's air castles tumbled with a sickening slump.
"Bob Henderson!" she cried, remembering, however, to keep her voice
low. "The idea! Do you mean to tell me they let that man go without
notifying you? Why I never heard of anything so mean!"
"Oh, I'm not important," explained Bob, quite without bitterness.
"Poorhouse heads don't put themselves out much for those under
'em--though Jim Turner's always treated me fair enough. But Lockwood Hale
had to go back to Washington the next day, Betty. There honestly
wasn't time to send for me."
"Perhaps they gave him your address," said Betty hopefully. "But,
oh, Bob, you say he was there a month ago?"
Bob nodded unhappily.
"He hasn't my address," he admitted. "Jim says he meant to give it
to him, but the old fellow left suddenly without saying a word to any
one. Jim thought maybe he had the name in mind and would write
anyway. I'd get it, you know, if it went to the poorhouse. But I
guess Hale's memory is like a ragbag--stuffed with odds and ends that
he can't get hold of when he wants 'em. No, Betty, I guess the only
thing for me to do is to go to Washington."
"Well, if you don't go to bed, young man, I'll come down there and
help you along," an angry whisper came from the little window up
under the roof. "You've been babbling and babbling steady for half an
hour," grumbled the annoyed Ethan. "How do you expect me to get any
sleep with that racket going on? Come on up to bed before the old man
wakes up."
Thankful that it was Ethan instead of Mr. Peabody, Bob gathered up
his sardines and the remnants of the crackers and tiptoed up the
attic stairs to the room he shared with the hired man.
Betty hastily slipped into bed, and though Bob's news had excited
her, she was tired enough to fall asleep readily.
In the morning she watched her chance to speak to Bob alone, and
when she heard him grinding a sickle in the toolhouse ran out to tell
him something.
"You must let me lend you some money, Bob," she said earnestly. "I
know you haven't enough to go to Washington on. I've been saving,
thanks to your advice, and I have more than I need. Besides, I could
borrow from the Guerins or the Benders. You will take some, won't you?"
"I have enough, really I have," insisted Bob. "You know Dr. Guerin
sold every one of those charms I carved, and I haven't spent a cent.
It's all buried in a little canvas bag under the rose bush, just like
a movie. I hate to take money from a girl, Betty."
"Don't be silly!" Betty stamped her foot angrily. "It's only a loan,
Bob. And you'd feel cheap, wouldn't you, if you had to come back
after you ran away because you didn't have enough money? You take
this, and you can pay it back as soon as you please after you have
seen the old bookstore man."
She pushed a tight little wad of money into the boy's perspiring hand.
"All right," he capitulated. "I'll borrow it. I would like to know I
had enough. Sure I'm not crippling you, Betsey?"
Betty shook her head, smiling.
"I've enough to buy a ticket to Washington," she assured him.
"That's all we need, isn't it, Bob? Oh, how I wish Uncle Dick would
send for me!"