Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm | Page 2

wear mourn- ing, puzzled them. That she had sustained a great shock no one could doubt. White and mis- erable, she went about, the shadow of her former gay-hearted self. For the first time in her life she was experiencing a real bereavement.
When Betty's father had died, the girl's grieving was principally for her mother's evident pain. She had always been her mother's confidante and chum, and the bond between them, naturally close, had been strengthened by Mr. Gordon's frequent absences on the road as a salesman. It was Betty and her mother who locked up the house at night, Betty and her mother who discussed household finances and planned to surprise the husband and father. The daughter felt his death keenly, but she could never miss his actual presence as she did that of the mother from whom she had never been separated for one night from the time she was born.
The neighbors took turns staying with the stricken girl in the little brown house that had been home for the two weeks following Mrs. Gordon's death. Then, as Betty seemed to be re- covering her natural poise, a discussion of her affairs was instigated. The house had been a rented one and Betty owned practically nothing in the world except the simple articles of furniture that had been her mother's household effects. These Mrs. Arnold stored for her in a vacant loft over a store, and Mrs. Arnold, her mother's closest friend, bore the lonely child off to stay with them till Richard Gordon could be heard from and some arrangement made for the future. Communication with Mr. Gordon was necessarily slow, since he moved about so frequently, but when the news of his sister-in-law's death reached him, he wrote immediately to Betty, promising to come to Pineville as soon as he could plan his business affairs to release him.
"Betty!" a shrill whisper, apparently in the lilac bushes down by the fence, startled Betty from her day dreams.
"Betty!" came the whisper again.
"Is that you, Ted?" called Betty, standing up and looking expectantly toward the bushes.
"Sh! don't let ma hear you." Ted Arnold parted the lilac bushes sufficiently to show his round, perspiring face. "George and me's going fishing, and we hid the can of worms under the wheelbarrow. Hand 'em to us, will you, Betty? If ma sees us, she'll want something done."
"Did you go to the post-office this morning?" demanded Betty severely.
"Sure I did. There wasn't anything but a postal from pa," came the answer from the bushes. "He's coming home next week, and then it'll be nothing but work in the garden all day long. Hand us the can of worms, like a good sport, won't you?"
"Where did you hide them?" asked Betty absently.
"Under the wheelbarrow, there at the end of the arbor," directed Ted. "Thanks awfully, Betty."
"Where's George?" she asked. "Isn't there another mail at eleven, Ted?"
"Oh, Betty, how you do harp on one subject," complained Ted, poking about in his can of worms with a stick, but keeping carefully out of sight of the kitchen window and the maternal eye. "Hardly anything ever comes in that eleven o'clock mail. Anyway, didn't mother say your uncle would probably come without bothering to write again?"
"I suppose he will," sighed Betty. "Only it seems so long to wait. Where did you say George was?"
Ted answered reluctantly.
"He's in swimming."
"Well I must say! You wait till your father comes home," said Betty ominously.
The boys had been forbidden to go swimming in the treacherous creek hole, and George was where he had no business to be.
"You needn't tell everything you know," mut- tered Ted uncomfortably, picking up his treasured can and preparing to depart.
"Oh, I won't tell," promised Betty quickly. She went back to her weeding, and Ted scuf- fled off to fish.
"Goodness!" Betty pushed the hair from her forehead with a grimy hand. "I do believe this
is the warmest day we've had! I'll be glad when I get down to the other end where the arbor makes a little shade."
She had reached the end of the long row and had stood up to rest her back when she saw some one leaning over the white picket fence.
"Probably wants a drink of water," thought Betty, crossing the strip of garden and grass to ask him, after the friendly fashion of Pineville folk. "I've never seen him before."
The stranger was leaning over the fence, staring abstractedly at a border of sweet alyssum which straggled down one side of the sunken brick walk. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and his straw hat pushed slightly back on his head revealed a keen, tanned face and close-cropped iron gray hair. He did not look up as Betty drew near and suddenly she felt shy.
"I--I beg your pardon," she faltered, "were you looking for any