CHAPTER XXIII
IN AMIABLE CONFERENCE
Betty's sole idea of a court had been gained from a scene or two in the once-a-week Pineville motion picture theater, and Bob had even less knowledge. They both thought there might be a crowd, a judge in a black gown, and some noise and excitement.
Instead Recorder Bender unlocked the door of a little one-story building and ushered them into a small room furnished simply with a long table, a few chairs, and a case of law books.
Presently two men came in, nodded to Mrs. Bender, and conferred in whispers with Mr. Bender. There was a scuffling step outside the door and Mr. Peabody entered.
"Huh, there you are!" he greeted Bob. "For all of you, I might have been hunting my horse and wagon all night. Mighty afraid to let any one know where you are."
"Mr. Peabody?" asked the recorder crisply, and suddenly all his quiet friendliness was gone and an able official with a clear, direct gaze and a rather stern chin faced the farmer. "Sit down, please, until we're all ready."
Mr. Peabody subsided into a chair, and the two men went away. They were back in a few moments, and with them they brought Wapley and Lieson and a lad, little more than a boy, who was evidently the truck driver.
"Close the door," directed the recorder. "Now, Mr. Peabody, if you'll just sit here – " he indicated a chair at one side of the table. With a clever shifting of the group he soon had them arranged so that Wapley, Lieson, the truck driver, and the two men who had brought them in were sitting on one side of the table, and Betty, Bob, Mrs. Bender and Mr. Peabody on the other. He himself took a seat between Betty and Mr. Peabody.
"Now you all understand," he said pleasantly, "that this is merely an informal hearing. We want to learn what both sides have to say."
Mr. Peabody gave a short laugh.
"I don't see what the other side can have to say!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "They've been caught red-handed, stealing my chickens."
The recorder ignored this, and turned to Lieson.
"You've worked for farmers about here in other seasons," he said. "And, from all I can hear, your record was all right. What made you put yourself in line for a workhouse term?"
Lieson cleared his throat, glancing at Wapley.
"It can't be proved we was stealing," he argued sullenly. "Them chickens was going to be sold on commission."
"Taking 'em off at ten o'clock at night to save 'em from sunburn, wasn't you?" demanded Mr. Peabody sarcastically. "You never was a quick thinker, Lieson."
"Now, Lieson," struck in Mr. Bender patiently, "that's no sort of use. Miss Gordon here overheard your plans. We know those chickens came from the Peabody farm, and that you and Wapley had a bargain with Tubbs to sell them in Petria. What I want to hear is your excuse. It's been my experience that every one who takes what doesn't belong to him has an excuse, good or bad. What's yours?"
At the mention of Betty's name, Lieson and Wapley had shot her a quick look. She made a little gesture of helplessness, infinitely appealing.
"I'm so sorry," the expressive brown eyes told them, "I just have to tell what I heard, if I'm asked, but I wouldn't willingly do you harm."
Lieson threw back his head and struck the table a sounding blow.
"I'll tell you why we took those blamed chickens!" he cried. "You can believe it or not, but we were going to sell 'em in Petria, and all over and above twenty-five dollars they brought, Peabody would have got back. He owes us that amount. Ask him."
"It's a lie!" shouted Peabody, rising, his face crimson. "A lie, I tell you! A lie cooked up by a sneaking, crooked, chicken-thief to save himself!"
Lieson and Wapley were on their feet, and Betty saw the glint of something shiny in Peabody's hand.
"Sit down, and keep quiet!" said the recorder levelly. "That will be about all the shouting, please, this morning. And, Mr. Peabody, I'll trouble you for that automatic!"
The men dropped into their chairs, and Peabody pushed his pistol across the table. The recorder opened a drawer and dropped the evil little thing into it.
"Can you prove that wages are owed you by Mr. Peabody?" he asked, as if nothing had happened.
Wapley, who had been silent all along, pulled a dirty scrap of paper from his pocket.
"There's when we came to Bramble Farm and when we left, and the money we've had," he said harshly. "And when we left, it was 'cause he wouldn't give us what was coming to us – not just a dollar or two of it to spend in Glenside, Miss Betty can tell you that."
"Yes," said Betty eagerly. "That was what they quarreled about."
The recorder, who had been studying the bit of paper, asked a question without raising his eyes.
"What's this thirty-four cents subtracted from this two dollars for – June twenty-fourth, it seems to be?"
"Oh, that was when we had the machinist who came to fix the binder stay to supper," explained Wapley simply. "Lieson and me paid Peabody for butter on the table that night, 'cause Edgeworth's mighty particular about what he gets to eat. He'd come ten miles to fix the machine, and we wanted him to have a good meal."
Mr. Peabody turned a vivid scarlet. He did not relish these disclosures of his domestic economy.
"What in tarnation has that got to do with stealing my chickens?" he demanded testily, "Ain't you going to commit these varmints?"
The truck driver, who had been studying Mr. Peabody with disconcerting steadiness, suddenly announced the result of his scrutiny, apparently not in the last in awe of the jail sentence shadow under which he stood.
"Well, you poor, little, mean-livered, low-down, pesky, slithering snake-in-the-grass," he said slowly and distinctly, addressing himself to Mr. Peabody with unflattering directness, "now I know where I've seen your homely mug before. You're the skunk that scattered ground glass on that stretch of road between the crossroads and Miller's Pond, and then laughed when I ruined four of my good tires. I knew I'd seen you somewhere, but I couldn't place you.
"Why, do you know, Mr. Bender," he turned excitedly to the recorder, "that low-down coward wouldn't put ground glass on his own road – might get him into trouble with the authorities. No, he goes and scatters the stuff on some other farmer's highway, and when I lodge a complaint against the man whose name was on the mail box and face him in Glenside, he isn't the man I saw laughing at all! I made a complete fool of myself. I suppose this guy had a grudge against some neighbor and took that way of paying it out; and getting some motorist in Dutch, too. These rubes hates automobiles, anyway."
"It's a lie!" retorted Mr. Peabody, but his tone did not carry conviction. "I never scattered any ground glass."
The recorder fluttered a batch of papers impressively.
"Well, I've two complaints that may be filed against you," he announced decisively. "One for uncollected wages due James Wapley and Enos Lieson, and one charging that you willfully made a public highway dangerous for automobile traffic. Also, I believe, this boy, Bob Henderson, has not been sent to school regularly."
This was a surprise to Bob, who had long ago accepted the fact that school for him was over. But Mr. Peabody was plainly worried.
"What you want me to do?" he whined. "I'm willing to be fair. No man can say I'm not just."
The recorder leaned back in his chair, and his good wife, watching, knew that he had gained his point.
"Litigation and law-squabble," he said tranquilly, "waste money, time, and too often defeat the ends. Why, in this instance, don't we effect a compromise? You, Mr. Peabody, pay these men the money you owe them and drop the charge of stealing; you will have your chickens back and the knowledge that their enmity toward you is removed. Tubbs, I'm sure, will agree to forget the broken glass, and the schooling charge may lapse, provided something along that line is done for Bob this winter."
Mr. Peabody was shrewd enough to see that he could not hope for better terms. As long as he had the chickens to sell to Ryerson, he had no grounds for complaint. He hated "like sin" as Bob said, to pay the money to Wapley and Lieson, but under the recorder's unwavering eye, he counted out twenty-five dollars – twelve dollars and fifty cents apiece – which the men pocketed smilingly. A word or two of friendly admonition from Mr. Bender, and the men were dismissed.
"I'm so glad," sighed Betty as they left the room, "that I didn't have to say anything against them."
"Well, are you coming along with me?" asked Peabody, almost graciously for him. "There's a letter there for you, Betty. From your uncle, I calculate, since the postmark is Washington. And my word, Bob, you don't seem in any great hurry to get back to your chores; the sorrel must be eating his head off in Haverford's stable."
The recorder exchanged a look with his wife.
"Mr. Peabody," he said, "I shall be detained here an hour or so, and I don't want these young folks to leave until I have a word with them. Mrs. Bender will be only too glad to have you stay for lunch with us, and I'll meet you up at the house. My wife, Mr. Peabody."
"Pleased to meet you, Ma'am," stammered Mr. Peabody awkwardly. "I ought to be getting on toward home. But I suppose, if the chickens were fed this morning, they can wait."
"I'm sure you're hungry yourself," answered Mrs. Bender, slipping an arm about Betty. "Suppose we walk up to the house now, Mr. Peabody, and I'll have lunch ready by the time Mr. Bender is free."
Betty looked back as they were leaving the room and saw the truck driver slouched disconsolately in a chair opposite the recorder.
"Is – is he arrested?" she whispered half-fearfully to Mrs. Bender. Mr. Peabody and Bob were walking on ahead.
"No, dear," was the answer. "But Mr. Bender will doubtless give him a good raking over the coals, which is just what he needs. Fred Tubbs is a Laurel Grove boy, and his mother is one of the sweetest women in town. He's always been a little wild, and lately he's been in with all kinds of riff-raff. Harry heard rumors that he was trucking in shady transactions, but he never could get hold of proof. Now he has him just where he wants him. He'll tell Fred a few truths and maybe knock some sense into him before he does something that will send him to state's prison."
CHAPTER XXIV
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
Mrs. Bender insisted that Mr. Peabody should sit down on her shady front porch while she set the table and got luncheon. Betty followed her like a shadow, and while they were laying the silver together the woman smiled at the downcast face.
"What is it, dear?" she asked gently. "You don't want to go back to Bramble Farm; is that it?"
Betty nodded miserably.
"Why do I have to?" she argued. "Can't I go and stay with the Guerins? They'd like to have me, I'm sure they would."
"Well, we'll see what Mr. Bender has to say," answered Mrs. Bender diplomatically. "Here he comes now. You call Bob and Mr. Peabody, and mind, not a word while we're at the table. Mr. Bender hates to have an argument while he's eating."
The luncheon was delicious, and Mr. Peabody thoroughly enjoyed it, if the service was rather confusing. He thought the Benders were very foolish to live as they did instead of saving up money for their old age, but since they did, he was glad they did not retrench when they had company. That, by the way, was Mr. Peabody's original conception of hospitality – to save on his guests by serving smaller portions of food.
"We'll go into the living-room and have a little talk now," proposed the recorder, leading the way into the pleasant front room where a big divan fairly invited three to sit upon it.
"Betty and Bob on either side of me," said Mr. Bender cordially, pointing to the sofa, "and, Mr. Peabody, just roll up that big chair."
Mrs. Bender sat down in a rocking chair, and the recorder seated himself between the two young folks.
"Betty doesn't want to come back with me," said Mr. Peabody resentfully. "I can tell by the way she acts. But her uncle sent her up to us, and there she should stay, I say, till he sends for her again. It doesn't look right for a girl to be gallivanting all over the township."
"I could stay with the Guerins," declared Betty stubbornly. "Mrs. Guerin is lovely to me."
"I should think you'd have a little pride about asking 'em to take you in, when they've got two daughters of their own and he as hard up as most country doctors are," said the astute Mr. Peabody. "Your uncle pays me for your board and I certainly don't intend to turn over any checks to Doc Guerin."
Betty flushed. She had not thought at all about the monetary side of the question. She knew that Doctor Guerin's practice was largely among the farmers, who paid him in produce as often as in cash, and, as Mr. Peabody said, he could not be expected to take a guest for an indefinite time.
"You know you could stay with me, Betty," Mrs. Bender broke in quickly, "but we're going away for a month next week, and there isn't time to change the plans. Mr. Bender has his vacation."
"Gee, Betty," came from Bob, "if you're not coming back, what'll I do?"
"Work," said Mr. Peabody grimly.
Betty's quick temper flared up suddenly.
"I won't go back!" she declared passionately. "I'll do housework, I'll scrub or wash dishes, anything! I hate Bramble Farm!"
"Now, now, sister," said the recorder in his even, pleasant voice. "Keep cool, and we'll find a way. There's this letter Mr. Peabody speaks about. Perhaps that will bring you good news."
"I suppose it's from Uncle Dick," admitted Betty, wiping her eyes. "Maybe he will want me to come where he is."
"Well now, Betty," Mr. Peabody spoke persuasively, "you come along home with me and maybe things will be more to your liking. Perhaps I haven't always done just as you'd like. But then, you recollect, I ain't used to girls and their notions. Your uncle won't think you're fit to be trusted to travel alone if I write him and tell him you run away from the farm."
Betty looked dumbly at Mr. Bender.
"I think you had better go with Mr. Peabody," he said kindly, answering her unspoken question. "You see, Betty, it isn't very easy to explain, but when you want to leave a place, any place, always go openly and as far as possible avoid the significance of running away. You do not have to stay for one moment where any one is actively unkind to you, but since your uncle placed you in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Peabody, if you can, it is wiser to wait till you hear from him before making any change."
"Make him be nicer to Bob," urged Betty obstinately.
"I aim to send him to school this winter," said Mr. Peabody, rushing to his own defense. "And I can get a man now to help out with the chores. He's lame, but a good milker. Can get him right away, too – this afternoon. Came by asking for work and I guess he'll stay all winter. Bob can take it easy for a day or two."
"Then he can drive over with Betty Saturday afternoon and spend Sunday with us." Mrs. Bender was quick to seize this advantage. "That will be fine. We'll see you, Betty, before we go away. And, dear, you must write to me often."
So it was settled that Betty was to return to Bramble Farm. The Benders were warmly interested in both young folks, and they were not the sort of people to lose sight of any one for whom they cared. Mr. Peabody knew that Bob and Betty had gained friends who would be actively concerned for their welfare, and he was entirely sincere in promising to make it easier for them in the future.
He and Bob and Betty and the crated chickens drove into the lane leading to Bramble Farm about half-past four.
Betty's first thought was for her letter. The moment she saw the hand-writing, she knew it was from her uncle.
"Bob, Bob! Where are you?" she called, running out to the barn, waving the letter wildly after the first reading. "Oh, Bob, why aren't you ever where I want you?"
Mr. Peabody and his wife were still busy over the chickens.
Bob, it seemed, was engaged in the unlovely task of cleaning the cow stables, after having, on Mr. Peabody's orders, gone after the lame man to engage him for the fall and winter work. But Betty was so eager to share her news with him that she stood just outside the stable and read him bits of the letter through the open window.
"Uncle Dick's in Washington!" she announced blithely. "He's been there a week, and he hopes he can send for me before the month is up. Won't that be fine, Bob? I'm not going to unpack my trunk, because I want to be able to go the minute he sends me word. And, oh, yes, he sends me another check. Now we can have some more goodies from the grocery store, next time you go to Glenside."
"You cash that check and put the money away where you and no one else can find it," advised Bob seriously. "Don't let yourself get out of funds again, Betty. It may be another long wait before you hear from your uncle."
"Oh, no, that won't happen again," said Betty carelessly. "He's in Washington, so everything must be all right. But, Bob, isn't it funny? he hasn't had one of my letters! He says he supposes there's a pile of mail for him at the lawyer's office, but he hasn't had time to run up there, and, anyway, the lawyer is ill and his office is in great confusion. Uncle Dick writes he is glad to think of me enjoying the delights of Bramble Farm instead of the city's heat – Washington is hot in summer, I know daddy used to say so. And he sends the kindest messages to Mr. and Mrs. Peabody – I wish he knew that old miser! I've written him all about you, but of course he hasn't read the letters."
All through supper and the brief evening that followed Betty was light-hearted and gay. She re-read her Uncle Dick's letter twenty times, and because of the relief it promised her found it easy to be gracious to Mr. Peabody. That man was put out because his new hired hand refused to sleep in the attic, declaring that the barn was cooler, as in fact it was.
"If I catch you smoking in there, I'll wring your neck," was the farmer's amiable good-night to the lame man as he limped out toward his selected sleeping place.
CHAPTER XXV
THEIR MUTUAL SECRETS
Betty woke to find her room almost as light as day. She had been dreaming of breakfasting with her uncle in a blue and gold dining-room of her own furnishing, and for the moment she thought it was morning. But the light flickered too much for sunlight, and as she became more fully awake, she realized it was a red glare. Fire!
"Fire!" Bob's voice vocalized her cry for her, and he came tumbling down the uncarpeted attic stairs with a wild clatter of shoes.
She called to him to wait; but he did not hear, and raced on out to the barn. The inarticulate bellow of Mr. Peabody sounded next as, yelling loudly, he rushed down the stairs and out through the kitchen.
"Betty!" Mrs. Peabody ran in as Betty struggled hastily to dress. "Betty! the barn's on fire! No one knows how long it's been burning. If we only had a dog, he might have barked! Or a telephone!"
Betty stifled a hysterical desire to laugh as she followed the moaning Mrs. Peabody downstairs. It was not the main barn, she saw with a little throb of relief as they ran through the yard. Instead it was the corncrib and wagon house which stood a little apart from the rest of the buildings. The cribs were practically empty of corn, for of course the new crop had not yet matured, and the only loss would be the two shabby old wagons and a quantity of more or less worn machinery stored in the loft overhead. A huge rat, driven from his home under the corncrib, ran past Betty in the dark.
"It's all insured," said Mr. Peabody complacently, watching Bob dash buckets of water on the tool shed, which was beginning to blister from the heat. "Well, Keppler, see the blaze from your place? Nice little bonfire, ain't it?"
Mr. Keppler and his two half-grown sons had run all the way and were too out of breath to reply immediately. They were not on especially good terms with Mr. Peabody, but as his nearest neighbor they could not let his buildings burn down without making an effort to help him. They had left the mother of the family at the telephone with instructions to call the surrounding neighbors if Mr. Keppler signaled her to do so with the pistol he carried.
"Guess you won't need any more help," said Mr. Keppler, regaining his breath. "How'd she start?"
"Why, when I thought it was the barn, I said to myself that lazy good-for-nothing lame Phil's been smoking," replied Mr. Peabody. "But I don't know how he could set the corncribs afire."
"Where is he now?" cried Betty, remembering the man's affliction. "He couldn't run – perhaps he tried to sleep in the wagon and is burned."
"No, he isn't," said Phil behind her.
He had been watching the fire from the safe vantage point of a boulder in the apple orchard, he admitted when cross-questioned. Yes, the flames had awakened him in the barn where he slept. No, he couldn't guess how they had started unless it could have been spontaneous combustion from the oiled rags he had noticed packed tightly in a corner of the wagon shed that afternoon.
"Spontaneous combustion!" ejaculated Mr. Peabody angrily. "If you know that much, why couldn't you drop me a word, or take away the rags?"
The lame man looked at him with irritating intentness.
"I thought you might wring my neck if I did," he said.
"I don't know whether Phil's a fool or not," confided Bob to Betty the next morning; "but he has old Peabody guessing, that's sure. He was quoting Shakespeare to him at the pump this morning."
Betty lost little time in speculation concerning Phil, for another worry claimed her attention.
"How can we go to see the Benders Saturday?" she asked Bob. "Both wagons are burned up."
"Well, we still have the horse," Bob reminded her cheerfully. "A wagon without a horse isn't much good, but a horse without a wagon is far from hopeless. You leave it to me."
Betty was willing. She was dreaming day dreams about Washington and Uncle Dick, dreams in which she generously included Bob and the Benders and Norma Guerin. It was fortunate for her that she could not see ahead, or know how slowly the weeks were to drag by without another letter. How Betty waited and waited and finally went to the Capitol City to find her uncle herself will be told in the next volume of this series, to be called, "Betty Gordon in Washington; or, Strange Adventures in a Great City." High-spirited, headstrong, pretty Betty finds adventures aplenty, not unmixed with a spice of danger, in the beautiful city of Washington, and quite unexpectedly she again meets Bob Henderson, who has left Bramble Farm to seek his fortune.
That Bob was planning a surprise in connection with their visit to the Benders, she was well aware, but she would not spoil his enjoyment by trying to force him to divulge his secret. Betty had a secret of her own, saved up for the eventful day, which she had no idea of disclosing till the proper time should arrive.
Saturday morning dawned warm and fair, and Bob tore into his morning's work, determined to leave Mr. Peabody no loophole for criticism and, possibly, detention, though he had promised Bob the afternoon off. Phil was with them no more, having ambled off one night without warning and taken his peculiarities to a possibly more appreciative circle.
Bob was hungry at noon, but he hardly touched his dinner, so eager was he to get away from the table and wash and dress ready for the trip to Laurel Grove. Poor Bob had no best clothes, but he resolutely refused to wear overalls to the Benders, and he had coaxed Mrs. Peabody to get his heavy winter trousers out of the mothballs and newspapers in which she had packed them away. She had washed and ironed a faded shirt for him, and at least he would be whole and clean.
"Bob," drawled Mr. Peabody, as that youth declined dessert and prepared to rise from the table, "before you go, I want to see the wood box filled, some fresh litter in the pig pens and some fodder in all the cow mangers. If I'm to do the milking, I don't want to have to pitch all the fodder, too."
Bob scowled angrily.
"I haven't time," he muttered. "That'll take me till two or half-past. You said I could have the afternoon."
"And I also told you to fill the wood box yesterday," retorted Mr. Peabody. "You'll do as I say, or stay home altogether. Take your choice."
"He's the meanest man who ever lived!" scolded Betty, following Bob out to the woodshed. "I'll fill up that old box, Bob, and you go do the other chores. I'd like to throw this stick at his head."
Bob laughed, for he had a naturally sweet temper and seldom brooded over his wrongs.
"He did tell me to fill the box yesterday and I forgot," he confessed. "Take your time, Betty, and don't get all hot. And don't scratch your hands – they looked as pretty as Mrs. Bender's; I noticed 'em at the table."
Betty stared after him as he went whistling to the barn, her apron sagging with the wood she had piled into it. She glanced scrutinizingly at her strong, shapely tanned little hands. Did Bob think they were pretty? Betty herself admired very white hands with slim pointed fingers like Norma Guerin's.
She worked to such good purpose that she had the wood box filled and was brushing her hair when she heard Bob go thumping past her door on his way to his room. She was dressed and downstairs when he came down, and he caught hold of her impulsively and whirled her around the porch.
"Betty, you're a wonder!" he cried in admiration. "How did you ever guess the size? And when did you buy it? You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw it spread out there on the bed."
"I'm glad it fits you so well," answered Betty demurely, surveying the neat blue and white shirt she had bought for him. "I took one of your old ones over to Glenside. Oh, it didn't cost much!" she hastened to assure him, interpreting the look he gave her. "I'm saving the money Uncle Dick sent, honestly I am."
Bob insisted that she sit down on the porch and let him drive round for her, and now it was Betty's turn to be surprised. The sorrel was harnessed to a smart rubber-tired runabout.
"Bob Henderson! where did you get it? Whose is it? Does Mr. Peabody know? Let's go through Glenside and show 'em we look right sometimes," suggested the astonished Betty.
Bob, beaming with pride, helped her in and Mrs. Peabody waved them a friendly good-bye. She betrayed no surprise at the sight of the runabout and was evidently in the secret.
"She knows about it," explained Bob, as they drove off. "I borrowed it from the Kepplers. Tried to get a horse, too, but they're going driving Sunday and need the team. This is their single harness. Nifty buckles, aren't they?"
Betty praised the runabout to his heart's content, and they actually did drive through Glenside, though it was a longer way around, and had the satisfaction of meeting the Guerins.
Recorder Bender and his wife were delighted to see them again, and they had a happy time all planned for them. Saturday night there was a moving picture show in Laurel Grove, and the Benders took their guests. Betty had not been to motion pictures since leaving Pineville and it was Bob's second experience with the films.
Sunday morning they all went to church, and the long, delightful summer Sunday afternoon they spent on the cool, shady porch, exchanging confidences and making plans for the future.
"I'm saving the money I get for the carvings," said Bob, "and when I get enough I'll dig up the little black tin box and off I'll go. I've got to get some education and amount to something, and if I stay with the Peabody's till I'm eighteen, my chance will be gone."
"Promise us one thing, Bob," urged Mrs. Bender earnestly. "That you won't go without consulting us, or at least leaving some word for us. And that, wherever you go, you'll write."
"I promise," said Bob gratefully. "I haven't so many friends that I can afford to lose one. You and Mr. Bender have been awfully good to me."
"We like you!" returned the recorder, with one of his rare whimsical flashes. "I want to exact the same promise from Betty – to write to us wherever she may go."
"Of course I will!" promised Betty. "I don't seem to have much luck running away; but when I do go, I'll surely write and let you know where I am. And I'll probably be writing to you very soon from Washington!"