BARNABETTA
"Why, there isn't any girl here at all!" Agnes Kenway exclaimed, as she
faced the two people who had been sitting by the bonfire.
They were shabby people and both had bundles tied to the end of stout
staves. Evidently they had either walked far, or had stolen a ride upon
a freight train to this spot. There was a water-tank in sight.
The boy, who was thin, and tall, and wiry looking, slipped the bundle
off his stick, and seizing the stick itself as a club, advanced
stealthily around one side of the fire. The man seemed to be a much more
indecisive sort of creature. His smooth face was like parchment; his
ears stood out like bats' wings. No one could honestly call him good
looking. Rather was he weak looking; and his expression was one of
melancholy.
Somehow, Agnes was not much afraid of the man. It was the boy who made
her tremble. He looked so wild, and his eyes blazed so as he clutched
the stick, creeping nearer to Agnes all the time.
As he advanced, Agnes began to retreat, stepping slowly backward. She
would have run at once, trusting to her lightness of foot to relieve her
of the boy's company in a few rods, had it not been that she remembered
the unknown and savage beast that had followed her to this spot.
It must have been this boy's voice she had heard; yet it sounded just
like a girl's. Agnes was greatly puzzled by the youth's appearance. She
looked again over his supple, crouching body as he advanced. It was
wide-hipped, narrow-waisted, and not at all boyish looking. Despite the
thinness of this young stroller, his figure did not at all suggest the
angles of a boy's frame.
Aside from being puzzled, Agnes Kenway was much afraid of him. His face
was so keenly threatening in expression, and his stealthy actions so
antagonistic, that the Corner House girl almost screamed aloud. Finally,
she found relief in speech.
"What are you going to do with that stick? Put it down!" she cried.
"I--I----You've been listening to us talking," said the boy. But it was the
girl's voice that spoke.
It did not sound like a boy's voice at all. It was too high, and there
was a certain sweetness to it despite the tremor of the notes. Agnes
began to recover her self-possession. She might have been afraid of a
reckless boy. But she was strong herself, and agile. Even if the other
did have a stick--
"You were listening," cried the other accusingly, again. "Yes, I was
listening--a little," confessed the Corner House girl. "But so would
you--"
"No, I wouldn't. That's sneaky," snapped the other.
"How about your finding out about the book of money you spoke of?" asked
Agnes, boldly. "Didn't you do anything 'sneaky' to find out about
_that_?"
The other started and dropped the stick. The man sat down suddenly. It
was plain, even to usually unobservant Agnes Kenway, that her remark had
startled both of them.
"I was alone--and lost," Agnes went on to explain. "I was trying to reach
Mr. Bob Buckham's farm, and a wolf chased me--"
"A wolf!" interrupted the youthful tramp. "Now I know you're telling a
wicked story."
"It was. Or something," said Agnes, stoutly. "I was scared. Then I saw
your smoke."
"Why didn't you walk right in and speak to us instead of snoopin'?"
"You'd have 'snooped'," flashed back Agnes, with some heat. "I was
alone, and I was afraid of tramps--"
"Well, we're tramps," said the boy, stooping and picking up the dropped
stick.
"Not the kind I am afraid of," Agnes replied, trying to smile.
The boy would not be pacified, but the man said, shakingly, from his
seat on the log:
"We wouldn't hurt you, girl. Put down that stick, Barney. This is my
son, Barney, and I'm Asa Scruggs. I'm a joey when I'm in luck, and
Barney--he's a trapeze artist. He's good."
"Oh, Pop!" shrilled the youthful trapeze artist, "might's well tell the
truth this time. She's nothing but a girl herself."
"And that's what you are!" cried Agnes, with excitement.
"Yes. I'm Barnabetta, not Barney, Scruggs. Nice name, isn't it?" scoffed
the strange girl. "My mother was Pennsylvania Dutch; that's where I got
my name, Barnabetta. But it's safer to travel as a boy, so I'm Barney on
the road. Besides, skirts would be in the way, climbing in and out of
'rattlers.'"
"Oh, what fun!" gasped Agnes. "Do you and your father always travel this
way?"
"You bet we don't! Not when we have an engagement. We've ridden in
Pullman cars--haven't we, Pop?"
The man nodded. He did not say much but watched Agnes with eyes that, in
a child, the girl would have thought expressed terror. Barnabetta was
much the stronger character of the two, the Corner House girl was
positive.
"But where are you traveling now?" asked the interested Agnes.
"We're aimin' on gettin' South, miss. There's tent shows there all
winter long," said the man, plaintively. "I've been laid up with my
ankle, and it's too late to get any bookings worth while through the
usual vaudeville agencies. We been workin' for Twomley & Sorber's
Herculean Circus and Menagerie; but of course they're in winter quarters
now at Tiverton. That's where I got hurt--right at the end of the season,
too."
Agnes' brain was working busily. Twomley & Sorber's at Tiverton.
Tiverton was where the letter was postmarked that had taken Neale O'Neil
away from home so strangely. The talk she had just overheard assured her
that these two circus performers had been conversing about Neale and the
old album full of money and bonds that he had taken away with him.
But she caught the disguised Barnabetta watching her very sharply. That
girl's black eyes were like glittering steel points. They seemed to say:
"How much does this girl who listened guess--how much does she
suspect--how much does she know?"
"We've got to work up some kind of patter to go with our act if we
strike a job," said Barnabetta, still with her eyes fixed on the Corner
House girl. "You've got to have something new if you expect to put any
act over these days. Pop's a good joey--"
"I suppose you mean a clown?" asked Agnes.
"Yep. How'd you know?" sharply retorted Barnabetta.
"I--I've heard the word used before," admitted Agnes, seeing that she had
been unwise. "Then you know circus folks?" observed the suspicious
trapeze artist.
"Oh, no!"
Barnabetta was not convinced, that was plain. But she turned in a
matter-of-fact way to the man. "Well, Pop," she said coolly, "about that
money." The man jumped, and his weak eyes opened wide. But Barnabetta
kept right on and Agnes was sure she was winking at her father. "You
must disbelieve me when I say I saw it, and I'm goin' to say we'll get
it," she declared.
"Huh?" gasped the clown.
"That's the way it must be in our act," the girl said firmly. "In our
act--don't you see?"
"Oh! Ha! Hum!" said the clown, clearing his throat. "I see."
"This is second-story work," the girl explained eagerly. "I'll show you
how to climb up to the window for the money--that's to the trapeze, you
see," she added, throwing the explanation at Agnes.
"Oh! I see," murmured the Corner House girl.
"And you play the joey part, Pop," pursued Barnabetta. "I'll go ahead,
and say 'Hist!' and 'Take care!' and 'Clumsy!' and the like, making
believe we're going to rob a house. You do the joey, as I said, and
climb almost up to the trapeze on the rope, and then make a fall. We've
got to get the laughs," she added again, glancing sidewise at Agnes.
The latter felt very peculiar indeed. Bluntly honest, it was hard for
Agnes to play a part in this way. She knew the girl trapeze performer
was trying to lead her astray. Barnabetta and her father were talking of
Neale and his money before Agnes appeared, and this tale about the new
act was being invented on the spur of the moment to confuse her.
Barnabetta stopped suddenly. Perhaps she saw that her tale was making
little impression upon their visitor.
"Where were you going, miss?" asked Mr. Scruggs, after a minute's
silence.
"I was on my way to visit Mr. and Mrs. Buckham. They expect me," said
Agnes, wisely. "But I must have missed the road. I know where I am now,
however, I'll go down the railroad beyond the water-tank a little way
and find the very crossing of the lane that goes into their dooryard
from the west. Those trees must hide the house from here."
Secretly Agnes wanted to get away, but not to visit Mr. and Mrs.
Buckham. She felt that she ought to communicate with Neale O'Neil just
as soon as possible. This old clown and his disguised daughter might
have a plan to stop Neale on his way home and take the old album and its
precious contents away from him.
For now Agnes, like her sister, Ruth, had begun to believe that the
engraved slips of paper pasted into the book were "really truly"
banknotes. How they had gotten there, and who they originally belonged
to, Agnes could not guess. Nor did she believe that Neale O'Neil had
carried them off with him, knowing them to be good currency.
However, everybody who got a sight of them seemed to think that the
notes were legal tender. Even this strange girl, Barnabetta Scruggs,
thought Neale was carrying around thousands of dollars with him. Dear
me! if Neale would only know enough to go to Mr. Howbridge, there at his
brother's house at Tiverton, the lawyer would tell him just what to do
with the old album.
These thoughts raced like lightning through Agnes' mind as she turned
calmly away from the campfire. "I must be going," she said. "Good-bye."
The man said nothing, but looked away. Barnabetta said: "How about that
wolf you said was chasing you?" and she said it sneeringly, as though
she doubted Agnes' story.
"I guess he won't follow me down upon the railroad tracks," the Corner
House girl said cheerfully.
"Huh! I guess he won't. 'Cause why? There wasn't any wolf," snapped
Barnabetta. "That's a story!"
"It isn't, either!" cried Agnes, hotly.
"I'd like to know what you were hidin' behind that pile of ties and
listenin' to us for?" said the circus girl.
"I told you how I came to do that."
"I don't believe you," was the flat reply.
Agnes was too impulsive to let this stand without answering. She whirled
and spoke hotly to the trapeze performer:
"I tell you the truth. I doubt if you tell me the truth. Why were you so
afraid of being overheard, if all that talk about the money you saw in
the book was just play-acting?"
"You are too smart," snarled Barnabetta.
"I am smart enough to know that you are trying to fool me. I'm not going
to believe you at all--not a word you say. I don't like you. I'm going to
Mr. Buckham's--so now!"
Barnabetta sprang forward, crying: "You're not goin' so fast! Is she,
Pop?"
Agnes had forgotten the clown. He had come silently around the other
side of the fire--evidently at some signal from Barnabetta--and was now
right at her elbow.
"Grab her, Pop! Don't let her get away!" cried the circus girl,
commandingly.
Agnes would have run; but she fairly bumped into the little man. He
seized her by both arms, and she found that she was powerless against
him.
At this point Agnes Kenway became thoroughly frightened. She opened her
lips and screamed for help.
Instantly there was a scrambling in the brush beside the overturned pile
of ties, a savage growl, and a shaggy body sprang into sight and charged
the struggling Corner House girl and the man who held her.