THE RUNAWAY MISSED
Bob's absence was not discovered till breakfast time, for Ethan, who
was a sound sleeper, when he woke and saw Bob's empty cot, supposed
the boy had risen earlier than usual and gone to the barn. Mr.
Peabody, too, took it for granted that the boy was milking, and it
was not until they were seated at the table and half way through the
meal 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 every
morning. The balers will be over to start work at seven, and if he
thinks he's going to spend half an hour dawdling over his breakfast
after 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 for
dinner 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 bound
and burst into the kitchen, shouting this intelligence. Excitement
was scarce in Ethan's life, and he enjoyed the pleasurable sensation
of carrying unusual tidings, even if unpleasant. "The barn door was
shut and the cows were bellowing their heads off. Not a one of 'em's
been milked!"
"I want to know!" said Joseph Peabody stupidly. "Was he in bed when
you came down, Ethan?"
"No, he wasn't," answered the hired man. "I thought he'd gone on
out. Do you suppose something's happened to him?"
Mr. Peabody stepped to the porch and gave a quick glance at the
bench where the milk pails were usually left to air and dry. They
were there, just as they had been left the night before.
"I think he's cleared out!" he announced: grimly. "Betty, do you
know 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 was
unaccustomed to demonstrations of affection.
"There, there." She tried to soothe the girl, for Betty's convulsive
sobbing really alarmed her.
"Don't you go to feel bad, dearie. If Bob's gone, he's gone, and
that's all there is to it."
Peabody, milk pail in hand, motioned to Ethan to go out and begin
milking.
"That isn't all there is to it, not by a long shot!" he growled at
his wife. "If I get my hands on that boy he'll rue the day he ever
set foot off this farm. He'll go back to the poorhouse and there
he'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 you
won't catch him, either. You never treated him fairly, and you know
it."
Peabody banged the kitchen door by way of relieving his feelings,
but the latch did not fasten so that he heard Betty's next sentence
addressed 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 different
here, Mrs. Peabody; you've said so yourself. I wish Uncle Dick would
hurry and write. It's been a good while since I heard." And there was
a catch in the girl's voice.
The man slouched off the porch, a peculiar smile on his lean, shrewd
face. One hand, thrust into his ragged coat pocket, rested on a
letter there. As he felt it beneath his fingers, his crafty eyes
brightened with a gleam of mockery.
Mrs. Peabody may have been curious about Bob's departure, but she
asked no questions, somewhat to Betty's surprise.
"I'm glad she doesn't ask me," thought Betty, helping mechanically
in the preparations for dinner which were more elaborate than usual
because of the presence of the three balers. "Bob must be half way to
Washington by now, and I don't believe they have the slightest idea
he is headed for there." The Peabodys, she reasoned, knew nothing of
Lockwood Hale, and of the attraction the capital of the country held
for the orphan lad.
Betty insisted on doing a fair share of the extra work after the
noon 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 their
house she knew she could telephone to those other good friends, the
Benders. Laurel Grove was too far to walk, even for a practised hiker
like Betty.
To her dismay, as she left the house, Mr. Peabody joined her and
fell into step.
"I'll go as far as Durlings with you," he announced affably, Durling
being their neighbor on the south, his farm lying along the road in
the direction of Glenside. "Sorry the horses haven't shoes, Betty, or
you might drive."
Betty shot him a suspicious glance. The three horses never were
shod, except when a certain amount of traveling had to be done on the
stone road. In all the weeks she had spent at Bramble Farm a horse
had never been offered for her convenience, and all of her trips to
town 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 ask
me."
"But you know," snapped Mr. Peabody. "I guess I have a right to know
where he's gone. I'm responsible for him. I've got papers that show
it. The poorhouse folks are going to ask me what becomes of him. You
just tell me where he went, and I'll satisfy 'em. I won't follow him
and try to bring him back, Betty. He's too old for that. Making his
bed, he'll have to lie on it. I won't follow him."
The girl twisted her handkerchief nervously. She was not afraid of
the man. That is, she feared no physical violence at his hands, but
he was capable, she knew, of forcing her back to the farm and locking
her up in her room till she furnished him with the required
information. And what harm could it do Bob? It was not likely that
Peabody 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 girlish
intelligence and strength against the wily miser, that another man
would have been ashamed to press her. Not so Peabody--he had always
considered 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's
pointed chin lifted.
"I won't tell you!" she said firmly. "I do know where Bob went, but
he was perfectly justified in leaving a place where he was treated
worse than a dog. You would do him no good--I'm sure of that. And if
the poorhouse authorities make a fuss about his running off, I'll
tell them what he had to endure."
Joseph Peabody's mouth dropped in astonishment. He had seen Betty
lose 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 this
world. Joe Peabody isn't checkmated very often, and it takes more
than an impudent girl to do it. I'm going into Lem Durling's and
telephone Jim Turner, the poormaster. I kind of surmise he can give
me a line on the direction Bob's taken."
Betty walked on, disdaining to answer, her head very high in the air
but her heart in her shoes. Jim Turner would be sure to tell of
Lockwood Hale, and Mr. Peabody would be astute enough to guess that
Bob's destination was Washington.
When she reached Doctor Guerin's house, between the heat and the
dust and the long walk and her anxiety, she was in a highly excited
state, and the doctor's wife made her lie down on the couch and rest
before she would allow her to telephone to the Benders. Mrs. Bender's
sister answered the telephone. The recorder and his wife had made a
detour on their homeward trip that would extend their absence for
another week.
"Betty, you'll be ill if you're going to get all worked up like
this," scolded Mrs. Guerin, for Betty was crying as she hung up the
receiver. "I never saw you so unstrung, my dear. You won't be fit to
go to your uncle when he does send for you. I wonder if the doctor
hadn't better see you?"
Norma and Alice Guerin, two pretty girls, the former about Betty's
age, the latter a year or two older, looked at her anxiously. Betty
in tears was an unusual sight to them.
"I'm all right," gulped that young person, inwardly alarmed at the
thought of being too ill to travel when the word came. "I didn't
sleep very well last night, thinking of Bob. Is that the secretary he
bid on at the Faulkner sale?"
Knowing that the quickest way for Betty to get control of her nerves
was to forget her troubles, Mrs. Guerin entered into an enthusiastic
description of the beauties of the old desk, showing the secret
drawer and the half score of carved pigeonholes and dwelling on the
doctor's delight in securing such a treasure at a bargain. Mrs.
Guerin succeeded in having Betty more like her old self before Doctor
Hal 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 walk
before he'd borrow from me."
"He had enough," Betty assured him. "All the charms you sold for him
amounted 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 little
wooden charms and pendants, which he polished to satin smoothness and
painted and stained in bright colors. Norma Guerin had worn one at
boarding school, and it was through her and her father that Bob had
secured a large number of orders which had netted him a tidy little
sum.
When the time came for Betty to go, the doctor insisted that he
would take her as far as the lane, and on the trip she told him that
as soon as she heard from her uncle she meant to pack her trunk and
leave for Washington.
"I don't like the idea of your making the journey alone," grumbled
Doctor Guerin; "but I don't see who there is to go with you. One
thing, Betty girl, brushing up against the Peabodys has given you a
practical fund of self-reliance. You're better fitted than Alice to
find your way about alone. Not that I would have chosen to have you
get your knocks just in the manner they've been handed to you, but
the results leave nothing to be desired. You're standing squarely on
your own feet, Betsey, and it's this summer's grilling training that
has done it."