Betty Gordon in Washington | Page 3

ours is worth something, you know."
"You never told him about the pitchfork," said Betty accusingly, as soon as Fred Keppler and the cow were out of earshot. "You let him think it was blackberry bushes that scratched her like that."
"Well, his father will know the difference," grinned Bob cheerfully. "Why should I start an argument with Fred? Saving the cow from the pound ought to be enough, anyway. Mr. Keppler has had to buy more than one animal out before this; he will not pay attention to his fences."
Betty sat down on a broad boulder and leaned up against an old hickory tree.
"Stone in my shoe," she said briefly. "You'll have to wait just a minute, Bob."
Bob sat down on the grass and began to hunt for four leaf clovers, an occupation of which he never tired.
"Do you think Mr. Peabody opened your letter?" he asked abruptly.
Betty paused in the operation of untying her shoe.
"Who else would?" she said thoughtfully. "It wasn't even pasted together again, but slit across one end, showing that whoever did it didn't care whether I noticed it or not. I'll never mail another letter from that box. I'll walk to Glenside three times a day first!"
"Well, the only thing to do is to clear out," said Bob firmly. "You'll have to wait till you hear from your uncle, or at least till the Benders get back. We promised, you know, that we wouldn't run away without telling them, or if there wasn't time, writing to them and saying where we go. That shows, I think, that they suspected things might get too hot to be endured."
"I simply must get a letter from Uncle Dick or go crazy," sighed Betty feverishly. She put on her shoe and stood up. "I wish he would come for me himself and see how horrid everything is."
CHAPTER II
HOSPITALITY UNDER DIFFICULTIES
Betty Gordon had come to Bramble Farm, as Mr. Peabody's home was known, early in the summer to stay until her uncle, Richard Gordon, should be able to establish a home for her, or at least know enough of his future plans to have Betty travel with him. He was interested in mines and oil wells, and his business took him all over the country.
Betty was an orphan, and this Uncle Dick was her only living relative. He came to her in Pineville after her mother's death and when the friends with whom she had been staying decided to go to California. He remembered Mrs. Peabody, an old school friend, and suggested that Betty might enjoy a summer spent on a farm. These events are related in the first book of this series, called "Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm."
That story tells how Betty came to the farm to find Joseph Peabody a domineering, pitiless miser, his wife Agatha, a drab woman crushed in spirit, and Bob Henderson, the "poorhouse rat," a bright intelligent lad whom the Peabodys had taken from the local almshouse for his board and clothes. Betty Gordon found life at Bramble Farm very different from the picture she and her uncle had drawn in imagination, and only the fact that her uncle's absence in the oil fields had prevented easy communication with him had held her through the summer.
Once, indeed, she had run away, but circumstances had brought her and Bob to the pleasant home of the town police recorder, and Mr. and Mrs. Bender had proved themselves true and steadfast friends to the boy and girl who stood sorely in need of friendship. It was the Benders who had exacted a promise from both Bob and Betty that they would not run away from Bramble Farm without letting them know.
Betty had been instrumental in causing the arrest of two men who had stolen chickens from the Peabody farm, and at the hearing before the recorder something of Mr. Peabody's characteristics and of the conditions at Bramble Farm had been revealed.
Anxious to have Betty and Bob return, Joseph Peabody had practically agreed to treat them more humanely, and for a few weeks, during which the Benders had gone away for their annual vacation, matters at Bramble Farm had in the main improved. But they were gradually slipping back to the old level, and this morning, when Peabody had gored the cow with his pitchfork, Bob had thought disgustedly that it was useless to expect anything good at the hands of the owner of Bramble Farm.
As he and Betty tramped back after delivering the cow, Bob's mind was busy with plans that would free him from Mr. Peabody and set him forward on the road that led to fortune. Bob included making a fortune in his life work, having a shrewd idea that money rightly used was a good gift.
"Where do you suppose your uncle is?" he asked Betty,