MEASLES
Betty Gordon's active mind could not let this incident pass without
further investigation. Not alone was she interested in the beautiful black
mare and the girl in the neighborhood shop, but she wanted to know how
they came to have the same name.
Betty was a practical girl. Bob often said it was not easy to fool Betty.
She had just as strong an imagination as any other girl of her age and
loved to weave fancies in her own mind when it was otherwise idle. But she
knew her dreams were dreams, and her imaginings unreal.
It struck her that the name "Ida Bellethorne" was more suitable for a
horse than for a girl. Betty wondered all in a flash if the English girl
who had sold her the silk sweater in the neighborhood shop that morning
and who confessed that she had come from England practically alone had not
chosen this rather resounding name to use as an alias. Perhaps she had run
away from her friends and was hiding her identity behind the name of a
horse that she had heard of as being famous on the English turf.
This was not a very hard thing for Betty to imagine. And, in any case, her
interest was stirred greatly by the discovery she had made. She was about
to speak to the little, crooked man regarding the name when something
occurred to draw her attention from the point of her first surprise.
The mare, Ida Bellethorne, coughed. She coughed twice.
"Ah-ha, my lydy!" exclaimed the rubber, shaking his head and stepping away
from the door of the stall that the mare should not muzzle his clothing.
"That's a fine sound--wot?"
"Is it dust in her poor nose?" asked the interested Betty.
"'Tis worse nor dust. 'Tis wot they call 'ere the 'orse distemper, Miss.
You tyke it from 'Unches Slattery, the change in climate and crossin' the
hocean ain't done Ida Bellethorne a mite of good."
"Is that your name? 'Hunches Slattery'?" Betty asked curiously.
"That's wot they've called me this ten year back. You see, I was a jockey
when I was a lad, and a good one, too, if Hi do say it as shouldn't. But I
got throwed in a steeplechase race. When they let me out o' the 'orspital
I was like this--'unchbacked and crooked. I been 'Unchie ever since,
Miss."
"I am so sorry," breathed Betty Gordon softly.
But the crooked little rubber was more interested in Ida Bellethorne's
history than he was in his own misfortune, which was an old story.
"I was working in the Bellethorne stables when this mare was foaled. I was
always let work about her. She's a wonnerful pedigree, Miss--aw, yes,
wonnerful! And she was named for an 'igh and mighty lydy, sure enough."
"Named for a lady?" cried Betty. "Don't you mean for a girl?"
"Aw, not much! Such a lydy, Miss! Fine, an' tall, and wonnerful to look
at. They said she could sing like a hangel, that she could. Miss Ida
Bellethorne, she was. She ought've been a lord's daughter, she ought."
"What became of her?" asked the puzzled Betty.
"I don't know, Miss. I don't rightly know what became of all the family. I
kept close to the mare 'ere; the family didn't so much bother me. But
there was trouble and ruin and separation and death; and, after all,"
added the rubber in a lower tone, "for all I know, there was cheating and
swindling of the fatherless and orphan, too. But me, I kept close to this
lydy 'ere," and he fondled the mare's muzzle again.
"It's quite wonderful," admitted Betty. But what seemed wonderful to her,
the stableman did not know anything about. "I suppose the pretty mare is
worth a lot of money?"
"Hi don't know wot Mr. Bolter would sell 'er for, if at all. But 'e paid
four thousand pun, laid down at the stables where she was kep' after the
smash of the Bellethorne family. She's got a pedigree longer than some
lord's families, and 'er track record was what brought Mr. Lewis Bolter to
Hengland when she was quietly put on the market.
"Maybe they couldn't 'ave sold 'er to Henglish turfman," he added,
whispering softly in Betty's ear, "for maybe the title to 'er would be
clouded hand if she won another race somebody might go into court about
it."
Betty did not understand this; and just then the mare began to cough again
and she was troubled by Ida Bellethorne's condition.
"Is that the black mare, Slattery?" demanded a voice behind them.
"Yes, sir," said the crooked little man respectfully, touching his cap.
Betty turned to see a gentleman in riding boots and a short coat with a
dog-whip in his gloved hand, whom she believed at once to be Mr. Bolter.
Nor was she mistaken.
"She's a beauty, isn't she, my dear?" the horseman said kindly. "But I do
not like that cough. I've made up my mind, Slattery. She goes to-morrow to
Cliffdale, and of course you go with her. Pack your bag to-night. I have
already telephoned for a stable-car to be on the siding in the morning."
"Yes, sir. Wot she needs is dry hair, an' the 'igher the better," said the
crooked man, nodding.
"They will put her on her feet again," agreed Mr. Bolter. "The balsam air
around Cliffdale is the right lung-healer for man or beast."
He went out and Betty heard the girls calling to her. She thanked Hunchie
Slattery, patted Ida Bellethorne's nose, and ran out of the stable.
But her head was full of the mystery of the striking name of "Ida
Bellethorne." She felt she must tell somebody, and Bobby of course, who
was her very closest chum, must be the recipient of her story as the
cavalcade started homeward. It was Bobby whom Betty wanted to have the
blue blouse just as soon as the shopgirl finished it.
"Now, what do you think of that?" Betty demanded, after she had delivered,
almost in a breath, a rather garbled story of the strange girl and the
black mare from England.
"Goodness, Betty, how wonderful!" exclaimed her friend. "I do so want to
see that over-blouse you bought. And you say she is making another?"
"Is that all you've got to say about it?" demanded Betty, staring.
"Why--er--you know, it really is none of our business, is it?" asked
Bobby, but with dancing eyes. "You know Miss Prettyman told us that the
greatest fault of character under which young ladies labor to-day is
vulgar curiosity. Oh, my! I can see her say it now," declared naughty
Bobby, shaking her head.
"But, Bobby! Do think a bit! A girl and a horse both of the same name, and
just recently from England! I'm going to ask right out what it means."
"Who are you going to ask--the horse?" giggled Bobby.
"Oh, you! No, I can't ask the pretty black mare," Betty said, shaking her
head. "For she is going to be sent away for her health. She's got what
they call 'distemper.' She has to be acclimated, or something."
"It sounds as though it might hurt," observed Bobby gravely.
"Something ought to hurt you," said Betty laughing. "You are forever and
ever poking fun. But I am going to see Ida Bellethorne in the shop and
find out what she knows about the pretty mare."
"Well, I'm sorry I didn't see the horse," confessed Bobby. "But I'll go
with you to see the girl. And I do want to see the blouse."
That, Betty showed her the moment they arrived at Fairfields and could run
upstairs to the room the two girls shared while Betty visited here. The
latter unfolded the orange-silk blouse and spread it on the bed. Bobby
went into exstacies over it, as in duty bound.
"Wait till you see the one she is making for you," Betty said. "You'll
love it!"
"What is that you are going to love?" asked a voice outside the open door.
"Measles?"
"Oh, Bob! Who ever heard the like?" demanded Betty. "Love measles, indeed.
Why--What makes you look so queer?"
"Greatest thing you ever heard, girls!" cried Bob, his face very red and
his eyes shining. "I didn't really understand how much I had come to hate
books and drill these last few weeks."
"What do you mean?" demanded Roberta Littell. "If you don't tell us at
once!"
"Why, didn't you hear? Telegrams have come. To all our parents and
guardians. Measles! Measles! Measles!"
He began to dance a very poor imitation of the Highland Fling in the hall.
The girls ran out and seized him, one on either side, and big as Bob was
they managed to shake him soundly.
"Tell us what you mean!" commanded Betty.
"Who has the measles?" cried Bobby.
"Everybody! Or, pretty near everybody, I guess. The chaps who had it and
were quarantined when we came away from Salsette, gave it to the servants.
And it has spread to the village. And Miss Prettyman's got it and a lot of
the other folks at Shadyside. Oh, my eye!"
"Are you fooling us, Bob?" demanded Betty.
"Honor bright! It is just as I say. Of course, it all isn't in the
messages the two schools have sent out to 'parents and guardians.' That is
the way the messages are headed, you know. But the Shadyside _Mirror_ has
come, too, and tells all about it. Opening is postponed for a fortnight.
What do you know about that?" and Bob began his clumsy dance again.
Betty broke away and darted down the stairs. She scarcely touched the
steps with her feet she flew so fast, and if it had not been for the
banister she surely would have come to the bottom in a heap.
She ran out on the porch to find her Uncle Dick smoking a cigar and
reading the paper in a warm corner. Like a stone from a catapult she flung
herself into his arms.
"Oh, Uncle Dick! Uncle Dick! Now we can go!" she cried, seizing him
tightly around the neck.
"Goodness, child!" choked Uncle Dick, fairly throttled by her exuberance.
"What is it? Go where, Betty?"
"To Mountain Camp! With you! All of us! No school for more than two weeks!
Oh, Uncle Dick!" Then she suddenly stopped and her glowing face lost its
color and her excitement subsided. "Dear me!" she quavered, "I 'member now
I had 'em when I was six, and they say you can't have 'em but once."
"What can't you have but once?"
"Measles," said Betty, sighing deeply. "I suppose after all I can go back
to Shadyside. Maybe Mrs. Eustice will expect all of us that have had 'em
to come."