Betty Gordon in Washington | Page 8

to buy a ticket to Washington," she assured him. "That's all we need, isn't it, Bob? Oh, how I wish Uncle Dick would send for me!"
CHAPTER IV
AT THE VENDUE
"You, Bob!"
The shout awakened Betty at dawn the next morning, and running to the window she saw Bob disappear into the barn, Mr. Peabody close on his heels.
"Oh, goodness, I suppose he's scolding about something," sighed the girl. "There always is something to find fault about. I hope Bob will keep his temper, because I want him to be able to take me to the vendue this afternoon."
Joseph Peabody came into breakfast in a surly frame of mind, a mental condition faithfully reflected in the attitude of his hired man who jerked back his chair and subsided into it with a grunt. Betty's irrepressible sense of humor pictured the dog (the Peabodys kept no dog because the head of the house considered that dogs ate more than they were worth) tucking his tail between his legs and slinking under the table as a port in the storm. The dog, she decided, glancing at Mrs. Peabody's timid face, was all that was needed to set the seal on a scene of ill-nature and discomfort.
Bob, when he came in late with the milk pails, wore a black scowl and set his burden down with a crash that spilled some of the precious fluid on to the oilcloth top of the side table.
"Be a little more careful with that," growled Mr. Peabody, taking the last piece of ham, which left nothing but the fried potatoes and bread for Bob's breakfast. "The cows are going dry fast enough without you trying to waste the little they give."
Bob, looking as though he could cheerfully fling the contents of both pails over his employer, sullenly began to pump water into the hand basin. This habit of "washing up" at the kitchen sink while a meal was in progress always thoroughly disgusted Betty, and Bob usually performed his ablutions on the back porch. This morning he was evidently too cross to consider a second person's feelings.
"Always ready enough to throw out what doesn't belong to you," went on Mr. Peabody grumbling. "Born in the poorhouse, you're in a fair way to die there. If I didn't watch you every minute, you'd waste more than I can save in a year."
Bob, his face buried in the roller towel, lost his temper at this point.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, shut up!" he muttered.
But Mr. Peabody had heard. With a quickness that surprised even his wife, for ordinarily he slouched his way around, he sprang from his chair, reached the side of the unconscious Bob, and soundly boxed his ears twice.
"I'll take no impudence from you!" he cried, enraged. "Here, come back!" he yelled, as Bob started for the door. "You come back here and sit down. When you don't come to the table, it will be because I say so. Sit down, I say!"
Bob, his face livid, his ears ringing, dropped into a chair at the table. Ethan continued to eat stolidly, and Betty kept her eyes resolutely fastened on her plate.
"Just for that, you stay home from the Faulkner sale!" announced Mr. Peabody who was more than ordinarily loquacious that morning. "I'll find something for you to do this afternoon that'll keep your hands busy, if not your tongue. Eat your breakfast. I'll have no mincing over food at my table."
Poor Bob, who had often been forbidden a meal as punishment, now mechanically tried to eat the unappetizing food placed before him. Betty was terribly disappointed about the sale, for she had set her heart on going. There were few pleasures open to her as a member of the household at Bramble Farm, and, with the exception of the Guerin girls in town, she had no girl friends her own age. Bob had proved himself a sympathetic, loyal chum, and he alone had made the summer endurable.
"Don't care!" she cried, to console the boy, as Peabody and his helper went out of the house to begin the field work for the day. "Don't care, Bob. I really don't mind not going to the sale."
Mrs. Peabody was in the pantry, straining the milk.
"We're going," whispered Bob. "You meet me right after dinner at the end of the lane. I'm sick of being knocked around, and I think Jim Turner will be at the sale. I want to see him. Anyway, we're going."
"But--but Mr. Peabody will be furious!" ventured Betty. "You know what a scene he will make, Bob. Do you think we had better go?"
"You needn't," said Bob ungraciously. "I am."
"Of course, if you go, so will I," replied Betty, swallowing a sharp retort. Bob was badgered enough without a contribution from her. "Perhaps he will not miss us--we can get back