AT THE VENDUE
"You, Bob!"
The shout awakened Betty at dawn the next morning, and running to
the window she saw Bob disappear into the barn, Mr. Peabody close on
his heels.
"Oh, goodness, I suppose he's scolding about something," sighed the
girl. "There always is something to find fault about. I hope Bob will
keep his temper, because I want him to be able to take me to the
vendue this afternoon."
Joseph Peabody came into breakfast in a surly frame of mind, a
mental condition faithfully reflected in the attitude of his hired
man who jerked back his chair and subsided into it with a grunt.
Betty's irrepressible sense of humor pictured the dog (the Peabodys
kept no dog because the head of the house considered that dogs ate
more than they were worth) tucking his tail between his legs and
slinking under the table as a port in the storm. The dog, she
decided, glancing at Mrs. Peabody's timid face, was all that was
needed to set the seal on a scene of ill-nature and discomfort.
Bob, when he came in late with the milk pails, wore a black scowl
and set his burden down with a crash that spilled some of the
precious fluid on to the oilcloth top of the side table.
"Be a little more careful with that," growled Mr. Peabody, taking
the last piece of ham, which left nothing but the fried potatoes and
bread for Bob's breakfast. "The cows are going dry fast enough
without you trying to waste the little they give."
Bob, looking as though he could cheerfully fling the contents of
both pails over his employer, sullenly began to pump water into the
hand basin. This habit of "washing up" at the kitchen sink while a
meal was in progress always thoroughly disgusted Betty, and Bob
usually performed his ablutions on the back porch. This morning he
was evidently too cross to consider a second person's feelings.
"Always ready enough to throw out what doesn't belong to you," went
on Mr. Peabody grumbling. "Born in the poorhouse, you're in a fair
way to die there. If I didn't watch you every minute, you'd waste
more than I can save in a year."
Bob, his face buried in the roller towel, lost his temper at this
point.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, shut up!" he muttered.
But Mr. Peabody had heard. With a quickness that surprised even his
wife, for ordinarily he slouched his way around, he sprang from his
chair, reached the side of the unconscious Bob, and soundly boxed his
ears twice.
"I'll take no impudence from you!" he cried, enraged. "Here, come
back!" he yelled, as Bob started for the door. "You come back here
and sit down. When you don't come to the table, it will be because I
say so. Sit down, I say!"
Bob, his face livid, his ears ringing, dropped into a chair at the
table. Ethan continued to eat stolidly, and Betty kept her eyes
resolutely fastened on her plate.
"Just for that, you stay home from the Faulkner sale!" announced Mr.
Peabody who was more than ordinarily loquacious that morning. "I'll
find something for you to do this afternoon that'll keep your hands
busy, if not your tongue. Eat your breakfast. I'll have no mincing
over food at my table."
Poor Bob, who had often been forbidden a meal as punishment, now
mechanically tried to eat the unappetizing food placed before him.
Betty was terribly disappointed about the sale, for she had set her
heart on going. There were few pleasures open to her as a member of
the household at Bramble Farm, and, with the exception of the Guerin
girls in town, she had no girl friends her own age. Bob had proved
himself a sympathetic, loyal chum, and he alone had made the summer
endurable.
"Don't care!" she cried, to console the boy, as Peabody and his
helper went out of the house to begin the field work for the day.
"Don't care, Bob. I really don't mind not going to the sale."
Mrs. Peabody was in the pantry, straining the milk.
"We're going," whispered Bob. "You meet me right after dinner at the
end of the lane. I'm sick of being knocked around, and I think Jim
Turner will be at the sale. I want to see him. Anyway, we're going."
"But--but Mr. Peabody will be furious!" ventured Betty. "You know
what a scene he will make, Bob. Do you think we had better go?"
"You needn't," said Bob ungraciously. "I am."
"Of course, if you go, so will I," replied Betty, swallowing a sharp
retort. Bob was badgered enough without a contribution from her.
"Perhaps he will not miss us--we can get back in time for supper."
Immediately after dinner at noon Mr. Peabody sent Bob out to the hay
loft to pitch down hay for the balers who were expected to come and
set up their machine that night, ready for work the next day. He
could not have selected a meaner job, for the hay loft was stifling
in the heat of the midday sun which beat down on the roof of the
barn, and there were only two tiny windows to supply air. Mr. Peabody
himself was going up in the woods to mark trees for some needed fence
rails.
Bob departed with a significant backward glance at Betty, which sent
her flying upstairs to get into a clean frock. Mrs. Peabody
manifested so little interest in her activities that the girl
anticipated no difficulty in getting safely out of the house. As it
happened, her hostess made the way even easier.
"If you're going to Glenside, Betty," she remarked dully, stopping
in the doorway of Betty's room as the girl pulled on her hat, "I wish
you'd see if Grimshaw has any meat scraps. Joseph might get me a bit
the next time he goes over. Just ask how much it is, an' all--the
hens need something more than they're getting."
Betty knew that Joseph Peabody would never buy meat scraps for his
wife's hens. Indeed, she had priced stuff several times at Mrs.
Peabody's request and nothing had ever come of it. But she agreed to
go to Grimshaw's if she got that far in her walk, and Mrs. Peabody
turned aside into her own room without asking any questions.
"Gee! thought you never were coming," complained Bob, when the slim
figure in the navy serge skirt and white middy met him at the end of
the lane road. "The sale starts at one sharp, you know, and we'll
miss the first of it. Lots of 'em will come in overalls, so I'll be
in style."
Before they had walked very far they were overtaken by a rattling
blackboard, drawn by a lean, raw-boned white horse and driven by a
cheerful farmer's wife who invited them to "hop in," an invitation
which they accepted gratefully. She was going to the Faulkner vendue,
she informed them, and her heart was set on three wooden wash tubs
and seven yards of ingrain carpet advertised in the list of household
goods offered for sale.
"My daughter's going to set up for herself next fall," she said
happily, "and that ingrain will be just the thing for her spare room."
When they reached the Faulkner farm, a rather commonplace group of
buildings set slightly in a hollow, they found teams and automobiles
of every description blocking the lane that led to the house.
Bob tied the white horse to an unoccupied post for the woman, and
she hastened away, worried lest the ingrain carpet be sold before she
could reach the crowd surrounding the auctioneer.
Betty, for whom all this was a brand-new experience, enjoyed the
excitement keenly. She followed Bob up to the front porch of the
house where the household effects were being put up for sale, Bob
explaining that the live stock would be sold later.
"Well, look who's here!" cried a hearty voice, as a man, moving
aside to give Betty room, allowed the person standing next to him to
see the girl's face. "Betty Gordon! And Bob, too! Not thinking of
going to farming, are you?"
Gray-haired, kindly-faced Doctor Guerin shook hands cordially, and
kept a friendly arm across Bob's thin shoulders.
"Friends of yours coming home next Tuesday," he said, smiling as one
who knows he brings pleasant news. "The Benders are due in Laurel
Grove. Mrs. Guerin had a postal card last night."
Betty was glad to hear this, for she did not want Bob to leave
Bramble Farm without seeking the advice of the fine young police
recorder who had been so good to them and whose friendship both she
and Bob valued as only those can who need real friends.
"I came to bid on a secretary," Doctor Guerin confided presently.
"It's the only good thing in the whole house. Rest of the stuff is
nothing but trash. That antique dealer from Petria is here, too, and
I suspect he has his eye on the same piece. Don't you want to bid for
me Bob, to keep him in the dark?"
Bob was delighted to do the doctor a service, and when the mahogany
secretary was put up for sale the few other bidders soon dropped out,
leaving the field to the Petria dealer and the lad in the faded
overalls. The dealer, of course, knew that Bob must represent some
buyer, but he could not decide for whom he was bidding, and so was in
the dark as to how high his opponent would go. Had he known that
Doctor Hal Guerin was bidding against him, he would have been
enlightened, for the doctor's collection of antiques was really
famous and the envy of many a professional collector.
"I suppose some rube wants the desk for his sitting room," thought
the Petria man lazily, his eye, keen as it was, failing to see the
doctor in the crowd. "Let him have it, and I'll buy it from him for
ten dollars more before he leaves the sale. He can't resist turning
over his money quick like that."
So when the auctioneer boomed "Sold for forty dollars," and in
answer to his request for the buyer's name Bob said clearly, "Doctor
Guerin," in his own language, the man from Petria was "just plain
sick."
After the household things were sold--and Betty noted with
satisfaction that the three tubs and the ingrain carpet went to the
woman who had so coveted them--she and Bob went out to the barn and
watched the horses and cows, wagons, harnesses and farm machinery
sold. It was an absorbing and colorful scene, and the boy and girl,
fascinated, lingered till the last item was checked off. Then, with a
start, Bob heard a farmer announce that it was half past five.
"Oh dear!" sighed Betty nervously, "you ought to be milking this
minute. Oh, Bob, let's not go home! Couldn't we stay overnight with
Doctor Guerin?"
"Now don't you be afraid, there won't anything happen to scare you,"
responded Bob soothingly. It must be confessed that the knowledge of
the little sum of money tucked away under the rosebush gave him a
bolder outlook on the future.
Hiram Keppler, who owned the farm just beyond the Peabody place,
gave them a lift as far as their lane, and as they hurried down the
road Betty tried her best to master her dread of the coming
interview. She had not a doubt but that Bob's absence would have been
noticed. Looking ahead fearfully, she saw a sight that confirmed her
worst forebodings.
Joseph Peabody stood at the barnyard gate, a horsewhip in his hand