CHAPTER X
ROAD COURTESY
"We'll have to hurry," said Bob, quickening his steps, "if I'm to get back at eleven. I hope Turner has the sorrel ready."
"Hasn't the horse a name?" queried Betty curiously, running to keep up with Bob. "I must go out and see the cows and things. Do you like pigs, Bob?"
The boy laughed a little at this confusion of ideas.
"No, none of the horses are named," he answered, taking the questions in order. "Peabody has three; but we just call 'em the sorrel and the black and the bay. Nobody's got time to feed 'em lumps of sugar and make pets out of them. Guess that's what you've got in mind, Betty. Old Peabody would throw a fit if he saw any one feeding sugar to a horse."
"But the cows?" urged Betty. "Do they get enough to eat? Or do they have to suffer to save money, like this poor horse we brought over to be shod?"
"Cows," announced Bob sententiously, "are different A cow won't give as much milk if she's bothered, and Joe Peabody can see a butter check as far as anybody else. So the stables are screened and the cows are fed pretty well. Now, of course, they're out on pasture. They're not blood stock, though – just mixed breeds. And I hate pigs!"
Betty was surprised at his vehemence, but she had no chance to ask for an explanation, for by this time they had reached the smithy, and the blacksmith led out the sorrel.
After they were well started on their way toward the farm, she ventured to ask Bob why he hated pigs.
"If you had to take care of 'em, you'd know why," he answered moodily. "I'd like to drown every one of 'em in the pails of slop I've carried out to 'em. And whitewashing the pig house on a hot day – whew! The pigs can go out in the orchard and root around, while I have to clean up after 'em. Besides, if you lived on ham for breakfast the year round, you'd hate the sight of a pig!"
Betty laughed understandingly.
"I know I should," she agreed. "Isn't it funny, I never thought so much about eating in my life as I have since I've been here. It's on my mind continually. I bought this canned stuff to keep up in my room so if I don't want to eat what the Peabodys have every meal I needn't. You can have some, too, Bob. Let's eat these sandwiches now – I'm hungry, aren't you? Why didn't you tell me you were tired of ham and I would have bought something else?"
But Bob was far from despising well-cooked cold, boiled ham, and he thoroughly enjoyed his share of the sandwiches. While eating he glanced once or twice uncertainly at Betty, wishing he could find the courage to tell her how glad he was that she had come to Bramble Farm. Bob's life had had very few pleasant events in it so far.
"Don't you think it was funny that Mr. Peabody let me come?" asked Betty presently, following her own train of thought. "If he's so close, I should think he'd hate to have any one come to see his wife."
"He's doing it for the check your uncle sent," retorted Bob shrewdly. "Didn't you know your board was paid for two weeks in advance? That's why Peabody isn't making a fuss about your going; he figures he'll be in that much. Hello, what's this?"
"This" was a buggy drawn up at one side of the road, the fat, white horse lazily cropping grass, while two slight feminine figures stood helplessly by.
Bob was going to drive past, but Betty put out her hand and jerked the sorrel to a halt.
"Ask 'em what the matter is," she commanded.
"They've lost a wheel," said Bob in a low tone, his practiced eye having detected at once that one of the rear wheels was lying on the grass. "We can't stop, Betty; we're late now, and Joe Peabody's in a raging temper anyway this morning."
"Why, Bob Henderson, how you do talk!" Betty's dark eyes began to shoot fire. "Just because you have to live with the meanest man in the world is no excuse for you to grow like him! If you drive on and don't try to help these women, I'll never speak to you again – never!"
Bob looked shamefaced. His first impulse had been to stop and offer help, but he had had first-hand experience with the Peabody temper and had endured more than one beating for slight neglect of iron-clad orders. When he still hesitated, Betty spoke scornfully.
"They're old ladies – so don't bother," she said bitingly. "Uncle Dick says no one should ever leave any one in trouble on the road, but I suppose he meant men who could whack you over the head if you refused to assist them. Why don't you drive on, Bob?"
"You hush up!" Bob, stung into action, closed his mouth grimly and handed over the reins to his tormentor. "It's a half hour's job to put that wheel on, but I suppose there's no way out of it, so here goes."
The two women were, as Betty had said, old ladies; that is, each had very white hair. And, although the day was warm, they were so muffled up in veils and shawls and gloves that the boy and the girl marveled how they could see to drive.
"The wheel just came off without warning," said the taller of the two, in a high, sweet voice, as Bob asked to be allowed to help them. "Sister and I were so frightened! It might have been serious, you know, but Phyllis is such a good horse! She never even attempted to run."
Bob with difficulty repressed a grin. Looking at the fat sides of Phyllis he would have said that physical handicaps, rather than an inherent sweetness of disposition, kept Phyllis where she belonged between the shafts.
"You've lost a nut," announced the boy, after a brief examination.
"Dear, dear!" fluttered both ladies. "Isn't that unfortunate! You haven't a – a – nut with you, Mr. – ?"
"I'm Bob Henderson," said the lad courteously. "I'll look around here in the dust a bit and maybe the nut will turn up. Why don't you sit down in the shade and rest awhile?"
The two ladies accepted his suggestion gratefully. They retired to a crooked old apple tree growing on the bank further down the road, evincing no desire to make the acquaintance of Betty, who sat quietly in the wagon holding the reins.
"I suppose they think we're backwoods country folks," thought Betty, the blood coming into her face. "Don't know that I blame them, seeing that this wagon is patched and tied together in a hundred places and the horse looks like a shadow of a skeleton."
Bob continued to search in the dust of the road painstakingly. The two women clearly had shifted their trouble to him, and apparently had no further interest in the outcome. Betty longed to offer to help him, but the severity of his profile, as she glimpsed it now and then, deterred her.
"I wish I could stop before I say so much," mourned the girl to herself. "I ought to know that Bob can't help being afraid of Mr. Peabody. If he had control over me, I'd probably act just as his wife and Bob do. When you can get away from an ogre, it's easy enough to say you're not afraid of him. Doesn't Bob dominate the situation, as Mrs. Arnold used to say!"
Bob had found the nut, and was now fitting the wheel into place, working with a quickness and skill that fascinated Betty. She timidly called to him and asked if she should not come and hold the axle, but he refused her offer curtly. In a very few minutes the wheel was screwed on and the two ladies at liberty to resume their journey. They were insistent that Bob accept pay for his help, but the boy declined, politely but resolutely, and seemingly at no loss for diplomatic words and phrases.
"Were you born in the poorhouse, Bob?" Betty asked curiously, wondering where the lad had developed his ability to meet people on their own ground. The volubly thankful ladies had driven on, and the sorrel was now trotting briskly toward Bramble Farm.
"Yes, I was," said Bob shortly. "But my mother wasn't, nor my father. I've got a box buried in the garden that's mine, though the clothes on my back belong to old Peabody. And if I'm like Joe Peabody in other things, perhaps I'll learn to make money and save it. My father couldn't, or I wouldn't have been born in an alms-house!"
"Oh, Bob!" Betty cried miserably, "I didn't mean you were like Mr. Peabody – you know I didn't. I'm so sorry! I always say things I don't mean when I'm mad. Uncle Dick told me to go out and chop wood when I get furious, and not talk. I am so sorry!"
"We've got a wood pile," grinned Bob. "I'll show you where it is. The rest of it's all right, Betty. I'd probably have stayed awake all night if I'd driven by those women. Only I suppose Peabody will be in a towering rage. It must be noon."
If Betty was not afraid of Mr. Peabody, it must be confessed that she looked forward with no more pleasure than Bob to meeting him. Still she was not prepared for the cold fury with which he greeted them when they drove into the yard.
"Just as I figured," he said heavily. "Here 'tis noon, and that boy hasn't done a stroke of work since breakfast. Gallivanting all over town, I'll be bound. Going to be like his shiftless, worthless father and mother – a charge on the township all his days. You take that pail of whitewash and don't let me see you again till you get the pig house done, you miserable, sneaking poorhouse rat! You'll go without dinner to pay for wasting my time like this! Clear out, now."
"How dare you!" Betty's voice was shaking, but she stood up in the wagon and looked down at Mr. Peabody bravely. "How dare you taunt a boy with what he isn't responsible for? It isn't his fault that he was born in the poorhouse, nor his fault that we're late. I made him stop and help put a buggy wheel on. Oh, how can you be so mean, and close and hateful?"
Betty's eyes overflowed as she gathered up her bundles and jumped to the ground. Mrs. Peabody, standing in the doorway, was a silent witness to her outburst, and the two hired men, who had come up to the house for dinner, were watching curiously. Bob had disappeared with the bucket of whitewash. No one would say anything, thought Betty despairingly, if a murder were committed in this awful place.
"Been spending your money?" sneered Mr. Peabody, eyeing the bundles with disfavor. "Never earned a cent in your life, I'll be bound, yet you'll fling what isn't yours right and left. Let me give you a word of advice, young lady; as long as you're in my house you hold your tongue if you don't want to find yourself in your room on a diet of bread and water. Understand?"
Betty Gordon fled upstairs, her one thought to reach the haven of her bed. Anger and humiliation and a sense of having lowered herself to the Peabody level by quarreling when in a bad temper swept over her in a wave. She buried her head in the hard little pillow.
CHAPTER XI
A KEEN DISAPPOINTMENT
"I'm just as bad as he is, every bit," sobbed poor little Betty. "Uncle Dick would say so. I'm in his house, much as I hate it, and I hadn't any right to call him names – only he is so hateful! Oh, dear, I wonder if I shall ever get away from here!"
She cried herself into a headache, and had no heart to open the parcel of groceries or to go down to ask Mrs. Peabody for something to eat, though indeed the girl knew she stood small chance of securing as much as a cracker after the dinner hour.
Suddenly some one put a soothing hand on her hot forehead, and, opening her swollen eyes, Betty saw Mrs. Peabody standing beside the bed.
"You poor lamb!" said the woman compassionately. "You mustn't go on like this, dear. You'll make yourself sick. I'm going to close the blinds and shut out the sun; then I'll get a cold cloth for your head. You'd feel better if you had something to eat, though. You mustn't go without your meals, child."
"I've got some crackers and bouillon cubes," replied Betty wearily. "I suppose Mr. Peabody wouldn't mind if I used a little hot water from the tea kettle?"
She bit her tongue with vexation at the sarcasm, but Mrs. Peabody apparently saw no implication.
"The kitchen fire's gone out, but the kettle's still hot," she answered. "I'll step down and get you a cup. I have just ninety cobs to get supper on, or I'd build up a fresh fire for you. Joe counts the cobs; he wants they should last till the first of July."
"Oh, how do you stand it?" burst from Betty. "I should think you'd go crazy. Don't you ever want to scream?"
Mrs. Peabody stopped in the doorway.
"I used to care," she admitted apathetically. "Not any more. You can get used to anything. Besides, it's no use, Betty; you'll find that out. Flinging yourself against a stone wall only bruises you – the wall doesn't even feel you trying."
"Bring up two cups," called Betty, as Mrs. Peabody started down stairs.
"I'll bet she flung herself against the stone wall till all the spirit and life was crushed out of her," mused the girl, lying flat on her back, her eyes fixed on the fly-specked ceiling. "Poor soul, it must be awful to have to give up even trying."
Mrs. Peabody came back with two cracked china cups and saucers, and a tea kettle half full of passably hot water. Betty forgot her throbbing head as she bustled about, spreading white paper napkins on the bed – there was no table and only one chair in the room – and arranging her crackers and a package of saltines which she deftly spread with potted ham.
"We'll have a make-believe party," she declared tactfully, dropping a couple of soup cubes in each cup and adding the hot water. "I'm sure you're hungry; you jump up so much at the table, you don't half eat your meals."
Mrs. Peabody raised her eyes – faded eyes but still honest.
"I've no more pride left," she said quietly.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Betty, "I bought you something this morning, and haven't given it to you."
Mrs. Peabody was as pleased as a child with the pretty bottle of toilet water, and Betty extracted a promise from her that she would use it for her headaches, and not "save" it.
"If I was going to stay," thought Betty, stowing her packages of goodies under the bed as the most convenient place presenting itself, "I might be able to make things a little pleasanter for Mrs. Peabody. I do wonder when Uncle Dick will write."
She had allowed four days as the shortest time in which her uncle could possibly get an answer to her, so she was agreeably delighted when, on going out to the mailbox at the head of the lane the third morning, she found a letter addressed to her and postmarked "Philadelphia." There was no other mail in the box. The Peabodys did not even subscribe for a weekly paper.
"Bob!" shouted Betty, hurdling a fence and bearing down upon that youth as he hoed corn in a near by field. "Bob, here's a letter from Uncle Dick! He's answered so soon, I'm sure he says I can come to him. Won't that be great?"
Bob nodded grimly and went on with his work while Betty eagerly tore open her envelope. After she had read the first few lines the brightness went out of her face, and when she looked up at Bob she was crying.
"What's the matter, is he sick?" asked the boy in alarm.
"He hasn't had my letter at all!" wept Betty. "He never got it! This was written the same day I wrote him, and he says he's going out to the oil wells and won't be in touch with civilization for some weeks to come. His lawyer in Philadelphia is to hold his mail, and send the checks for my board. And he thinks I'm having a good time with his old friend Agatha and encloses a check for ten dollars for me to spend. Oh, Bob!" and the unhappy Betty flung her arms around the neck of the astonished Bob and cried as though her heart would break.
"There, there!" Bob patted her awkwardly, in his excitement hitting her with the hoe handle, but neither of them knew that. "There, Betty, maybe things won't be as bad as you think. You can go to Glenside and get books from the library – they've got a right nice little library. It would be nice if you had a bicycle or something to go on, but you haven't."
"Uncle's sending me a riding habit," said Betty, wiping her eyes. "And a whole bundle of books and a parcel of magazines. He says he never yet saw a farm with enough reading material on the parlor table. I will be glad to have something to read."
"Sure. And Sundays I can borrow a magazine," and Bob's eyes shone with anticipated enjoyment. "Sunday's the one day I have any time to myself and there's never much to do."
Betty slipped the letter into her blouse pocket. She was bitterly disappointed to think that she must stay at Bramble Farm, and she did not relish the idea of having to confess to the Peabodys that her plans for leaving them had been rather premature.
"I say," Bob looked up from his hoeing, the shrewd light in his eyes that made him appear older than his thirteen years. "I say, Betty, if you're wise, you won't say anything about this letter up at the house. Old Peabody doesn't know you've written to your uncle, and he'll think you changed your mind. I half believe he thinks you were only speaking in a fit of temper, anyway. If you tell him you can't reach your uncle by letter, and have to stay here for the next few weeks whether you will or no, he'll think he has you right where he wants you. He can't help taking advantage of every one."
"Doesn't any one ever come to call?" Betty asked a day or two later, following Bob out to the pasture to help him salt the sheep.
It was a Sunday morning, and even Mr. Peabody so far respected the Sabbath that he exacted only half as much as usual from his help. The milking, of course, had to be done, and the stock fed, but that accomplished, after breakfast, Wapley and Lieson, the hired men, had set off to walk to Glenside to spend their week's wages as they saw fit. They had long ago, after wordy battles, learned the futility of trying to borrow a horse from Mr. Peabody.
Bob had finished his usual chores, and after salting the sheep would be practically free for the day. He and Betty had planned to take their books out into the orchard and enjoy the peaceful sunniness of the lovely June weather.
"Come to call?" repeated Bob, letting down the bars of the rocky pasture. "What would they come to call for? No one would be civil to 'em, and Mrs. Peabody runs when she sees any one coming. She hasn't got a decent dress; so I don't blame her much. Here, you sit down and I'll call them."
Betty sat down on a flat rock and Bob spread out his salt on another. The sheep knew his voice and came slowly toward him.
"Come on now, Betty, and let's have a whack at that magazine, the one about out West," said Bob at last.
The promised package of books and magazines had arrived, and Betty had generously placed them at the disposal of the household. Wapley and Lieson had displayed a pathetic eagerness for "pictures," and sat up after supper as long as the light lasted, turning over the illustrated pages. Betty doubted if they could read.
CHAPTER XII
BETTY DEFENDS HERSELF
Apparently Mr. Peabody had never taken Betty's threat to ask her uncle to take her away seriously, and her presence at the farm soon came to be an accepted fact. Conditions did not improve, but Betty developed a sturdy, wholesome philosophy that helped her to make the best of everything. Uncle Dick wrote seldom, but packages from Philadelphia continued to come at intervals, and always proved to be practical and needful.
"Though as to that, he couldn't have the lawyer send me anything that wouldn't be useful," said Betty to herself. "I never saw a place where there was so much nothing as here at Bramble Farm."
One morning when the pouring rain kept her indoors, Betty was exploring the little used parlor. Mrs. Peabody seldom entered the room save to clean it and close it up, and Betty opened a corner of the blind with something like trepidation. A large shotgun over the mantel attracted her attention at once.
"Don't touch that thing – it's always kept loaded," said the voice of Lieson at the door.
Betty shivered and drew away from the shelf. Lieson showed his tobacco-stained teeth in a friendly grin.
"I was up attic getting my rubber boots," he explained, "and I saw the mail wagon stop at the box. Do you want I should go down and get the mail?"
"Oh, would you?" Betty's tone was eager. "Perhaps there is a letter from my uncle. That would be so kind of you, Mr. Lieson, because otherwise I may have to wait till it stops raining."
"I'll go," said Lieson awkwardly, and he went stumping down the hall.
Wapley and Lieson were rough and untidy, but Betty found herself liking them better and feeling sorry for them as time went on. They worked hard and were never thanked and had very little pleasure after their day's work was over. Several times now they had done little kindnesses for Betty, and she had tried to show that she appreciated their efforts.
Lieson came back from the mail box carrying a square package, but no letter. Though Mr. Peabody was presumably waiting in the barn for him and fuming at his delay, the man showed such a naive interest in the parcel that Betty could not resist asking him to wait while she opened it.
"Why, it's a camera!" she exclaimed delightedly, as she took out the square box. "I'll take your picture, Mr. Lieson, as soon as the sun comes out, to pay you for walking through all this rain to get the mail for me."
"Say, would you?" Lieson showed more animation than Betty had ever noticed in him. "Honest? I got a lady friend, and she's always at me to send her my picture. She sure would admire to have one of me."
"All right, she hasn't long to wait," promised Betty gaily. "Here are two rolls of film, and luckily I know how to operate a camera. Mr. Arnold had a good one and he taught me. The first sunny day, remember, Mr. Lieson."
The rain continued all that day, and at night when Betty went up to bed she heard it pattering on the tin roof of the porch which was under her window.
Betty had managed to make her room more habitable, and, relieved of any fear of embarrassing her hostess, had tacked netting at the two windows and bought herself a lamp with a good burner. She scrupulously paid Mr. Peabody for the oil she used, and while he showed plainly that he considered burning a light at night in summer a wicked extravagance, he did not interfere.
"Now let me see," mused Betty. "Shall I answer Mrs. Arnold's last letter or go to bed? I guess I'll go to bed. I'll have all day to write letters to-morrow."
She was brushing her hair when a noise in the next room startled her. She knew that it was not occupied, for, besides herself, the Peabodys were the only ones who slept on the second floor. Bob Henderson and the hired men were housed in the attic. The Peabodys' bedroom was further down the hall, on the other side of the house.
"Pshaw!" Betty put her brush back on the table and gave her head a shake. "I mustn't get nervous. We're too far out in the country for burglars; and, besides, what in the world would they come here after?"
Mr. Peabody differed from the majority of his neighbors in that he banked most of his funds. Some said it was because, if he had been in the habit of keeping money in the house, his help would have murdered him cheerfully and taken the cash as a reward. Be that as it may, it was well known that Joseph Peabody seldom had actual money in his pocket or in his tin strong box, and now Betty was glad to recall this.
She had braided her hair and put out the light and was just slipping into bed when she heard the noise again. This time it sounded against the wall. Betty stealthily crept out of bed and ran to her door. There was no door key, but she shot the bolt.
"That's some protection," she murmured, hopping into bed again. "If there are burglars in the house, I suppose I've locked 'em out to scare Mr. and Mrs. Peabody to death. But at any rate they have each other, and I'm all alone."
Closing her eyes tight, Betty began to say her prayers, but she fell asleep before she had finished.
She woke in the dark to hear a noise directly under her bed!
She sat up, her eyes trying to pierce the darkness, wondering why she had not taken the precaution of looking under the bed before she locked herself into a room with a burglar.
"If I look now and see his legs, I'll faint away, I know I shall," she thought, her teeth chattering, though the night was warm. "I wish to goodness Uncle Dick had sent me a revolver."
That reminded her of the shotgun downstairs. With Betty to think was to act, and she sprang noiselessly out of bed and ran to the door. Thank goodness, the bolt slipped without squeaking. Downstairs ran Betty and lifted the heavy shotgun from its place over the mantel. She was no longer afraid, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. She was having a grand adventure. She had shot a gun a few times under Mr. Arnold's instructions and careful supervision when he was teaching his boys how to handle one, and she thought she knew all about it.
She gained her room, breathless, for the gun was heavy. At the threshold she stopped a moment to listen. Yes, there was the noise again. The burglar was unaware of her flight.
Unaware herself of the absurdity of her deductions, Betty raised the heavy gun and pointed it toward the bed. As well as she could tell, she was aiming under the bed. She shut her eyes tight and fired.
The gun kicked unmercifully, and Betty ejaculated a loud "Ow!" which was lost in the babble of sound that immediately followed the shot. There was the sound of breaking glass under the bed, a shrill scream from Mrs. Peabody, and the thunderous bellow of Mr. Peabody demanding: "What in Sam Hill are those varmints up to now?" Evidently he attributed the racket to Wapley and Lieson, who had been known to come home late from Glenside.
In a few minutes they were all gathered at Betty's door, Bob open-mouthed and speechless, the two men sleepily curious, the Peabodys loudly demanding to know what the matter was.
"Are you hurt, Betty?" asked Mrs. Peabody anxiously. "Where did you get the gun, dear? Did something frighten you?"
"It's a burglar!" declared Betty. "I heard him under the bed! But I got him, I know I did!"
"Light the lamp and look under the bed, Bob," commanded Mr. Peabody harshly. "I don't believe this burglar stuff, but the girl's shot off a good charge of buckshot, no doubt of that. Find out what she hit."
Bob lit the lamp and stooped down to look. Then his lips twitched.
"Rat!" he announced briefly. "A big one."
"Haul him out," directed Lieson. "Let's have a look at him."
Betty had shrunk inside the doorway when the lamp was lit, conscious of her attire, and now she managed to reach her dressing gown and fling it around her.
"He's in too many pieces," said Bob doubtfully. "Guess we'll have to get a dustpan and brush."
Mr. Peabody and the two men went grumbling back to bed, Peabody taking the gun for safekeeping, but Mrs. Peabody sent Bob down to the kitchen for the articles he mentioned, declaring that Betty should not have to finish the night in a room with a dead rat.
"If there was another bed made up, I'd move you into it," she said. "But I haven't an extra place ready."
Betty had pinned up her hair and put on her slippers before Bob came back, and had put her best pink crepe dressing gown around Mrs. Peabody, who presented an incongruous vision so attired. Bob looked at Betty in admiration. With her tumbled dark hair and pink cheeks and blue gown and slippers, the boy thought her the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
"I didn't want to tell you – don't look," he whispered, getting down on his knees to sweep out the remains of the slaughtered rat, "but the buckshot hit two olive bottles, and there's some mess here under your bed. I guess the rat was after the crackers."
Bob carried down the dead rat and mopped up the brine from the olives and threw out the debris, making several trips downstairs without a murmur. Finally it was all cleaned up, and they could go back to their rooms and finish the remainder of the night in probable peace.
"If you hear a noise" – Bob could not resist this parting shot – "run down and grab the dinner bell. We'll hear it just as quick, and you might shoot the potted ham full of bullets next time."
Betty did not sleep well, and once she woke, sure that she had heard loud talking and shouts. She thought the noise came from the attic.
"Lieson had the nightmare after your shindy," announced Bob at the breakfast table. "He suddenly began shouting and got me by the throat, declaring that if I didn't pay him every cent I owed him he'd kill me. Wapley had to come and pull him away, or I don't know but he would have choked the breath out of me."
"I had a bad dream," said Lieson sullenly.
The rain was still coming down and all the good-nature of the day before had left Lieson. He refused to answer a remark of Mr. Peabody's, and was evidently in a bad humor.
"He and the old man had a run in before breakfast," whispered Bob, pulling on his boots preparatory to carrying out food to the pigs. Betty stood at the window and they could talk without being overheard. "It was something about money. Well, Betty, are you going gunning to-day?"
"You needn't tease me," replied Betty, laughing. "I feel foolish enough, without being reminded of last night. I think I'll go upstairs and sew on buttons as a penance. There's nothing I hate to do worse."
"Do it well then," suggested the irrepressible Bob, slamming the door just in time to avoid the glass of water Betty tossed after him.