CHAPTER XIII
FOLLOWING THE PRESCRIPTION
The sound of some one chopping wood caught the alert ear of Bob Henderson as he came whistling through the yard on his way to the tool house. Some peculiar quality in the strokes seemed to suggest something to him, and he turned aside and made for the woodshed.
"For the love of Mike! Betty Gordon, what do you call it you're doing now?" he inquired, standing in the frame of the woodshed, at a respectful distance from the energetic figure by the wood block.
"Chopping wood!" snapped Betty, hacking a dry rail viciously. "Did you think I was cutting out paper dolls?"
"My dear child, that isn't the way to chop wood," insisted Bob paternally. "Here, let me show you. You'll ruin the axe, to say nothing of chopping off your own right ear."
Betty brought the axe down on the rail with unnecessary violence.
"Let me alone," she said ominously. "I'm mad! This is Uncle Dick's prescription, but I can't see that it works. The more I chop, the madder I get!"
Bob grinned, and then as a shout of "You, Bob!" sounded from outside, his expression changed.
"Wapley is waiting for nails to fix the fence with," he said hurriedly. "I'll have to hurry. But come on down to the cornfield, can't you, Betty? We can talk there."
Bob ran off, and Betty regarded the axe resentfully.
"Seems to me he's hoed enough corn to reach round the earth," she said aloud. "I wonder if Bob ever gets mad? Well, I guess I will go down and talk to him, though I did mean to weed the garden for Mrs. Peabody. I can do that this afternoon."
In spite of the absence of fresh eggs and milk from her diet, the weeks at Bramble Farm had benefited Betty. She was deeply tanned from days spent in the sun, and while perceptibly thinner, a close observer would have known that she was hardy and strong. She was growing taller, too.
"Mr. Peabody is so mean!" she scolded, dropping down under a scrubby wild cherry tree in the field where Bob was already hard at work hoeing corn, having delivered the nails to Wapley. "You know this is the first fair day we've had since those three rainy ones, and I promised Mr. Lieson I'd take his picture. He wants it for his girl. And Mr. Peabody wouldn't let him go upstairs and put on his best clothes. Said it was his time and that foolishness could wait till after supper. You know I can't take a snapshot after supper!"
Bob hoed a few minutes in silence.
"Try a little diplomacy, Betty," he finally advised. "Sunday is the time to take Lieson in his glad rags. He looks fierce all dressed up, I think; it probably will break off the match if his girl is marrying him for his beauty. But Lieson the way he is now – in that soft shirt and without his hat – isn't half bad. He's got a kind of wistful, gentle face, for all he can jaw so terribly; have you noticed it? Go down in the potato field and take his picture while he's working and tell him you'll take him dressed up Sunday and he can have both pictures. He'll be so pleased, he'll offer to let you hold a pig."
Betty made a little face. Lieson had already done just that. Thinking that Betty, who made such a fuss over the baby lambs, would be equally delighted with the little pigs, Lieson had told her to shut her eyes one day and hold out her hands; into them he had dropped a squirming, slippery, squealing baby pig and Bob had always declared he could not tell which made the most noise – Betty when she opened her eyes, or the pig when she dropped him. Lieson had been much disappointed.
"I'll go and get the camera now," said Betty, jumping up, all traces of temper vanished. "I'll put in the film that holds a dozen and just go round taking everything. That will be fun!"
She went running up the field and Bob's eyes followed her wistfully.
"She's a good kid," he said to himself. "Trouble is, she's never been up against it before and she doesn't always know how to take it. It does make her so mad to see old Peabody walk all over every one; but there's no sense in letting her buck against him when you can turn her thoughts in another direction. Gee, I'm sick of this blamed corn!"
Bob went up and down the endless rows, and Betty skipped about, "snapping" views of Bramble Farm to her heart's content. Lieson was delighted to learn that he might have two pictures of himself, and though it seemed to him a waste of time to be photographed in his work clothes, still he admitted that even an "ordinary" picture was preferable to none.
"My lady friend," he announced proudly, as Betty clicked her bulb, "she like me anyway."
Wapley, while without the excuse of a "lady friend," was nevertheless almost childishly pleased to pose for his photograph, and him, too, Betty promised to take again on Sunday. Mrs. Peabody, weeding in the large vegetable garden that was her regular care, alone refused to be taken.
"Oh, no!" she shrank down among the cabbages and pulled her hideous sunbonnet further over her eyes when Betty pressed her to reconsider her refusal. "Child, don't ask me. When I look at the picture of me taken in my wedding dress and then see myself in the mirror mornings, I wonder if I'm the same person. I wouldn't have my picture taken for one hundred dollars!"
Betty used up one roll of films that morning, but she decided to save the other roll for Sunday, as she was not sure she could get another in Glenside. She determined to take her pictures over that afternoon and have them developed, for she was as eager to see the results as Lieson and Wapley. Bob, too, owned up to a desire to see how he "turned out."
"It's a pretty hot day," ventured Mrs. Peabody uncertainly, when Betty, at the dinner table, announced her intention of walking to Glenside that afternoon. "Maybe, dearie, if you wait till after supper, some one will be driving over."
"Horses ain't going a step off this farm this week," said Mr. Peabody impressively. "They're working without shoes, as anybody with any interest in the place would know. If some folks haven't any more to do than gad around spending good money, it's none of my affair; but I don't aim to run a stage between here and Glenside for their convenience."
Dinner was finished in silence after this speech, and immediately after she had helped Mrs. Peabody with the dishes, Betty went up to her room to change her dress. She did not mind the walk; indeed she had taken it several times before, and knew that one side of the road would be comparatively shady all the way.
Betty took an inexplicable whim to put on her prettiest dress, a delicate pink linen with white collars and cuffs that Mrs. Arnold had taught her to embroider herself in French knots. She untied the black velvet ribbon she usually wore on her broad-brimmed hat and substituted a sash of pink mull.
"You look too nice!" exclaimed Mrs. Peabody when the girl came downstairs. "Don't you think you should take an umbrella, though? Those big white clouds mean a thunder storm."
Betty laughingly declined the umbrella, and, promising Mrs. Peabody "something pretty," started off on her walk. Poor Mrs. Peabody, though Betty was too inexperienced to realize it, was beginning, very slowly it is true, but still beginning, to break under the long strain of hard work and unhappiness. Betty only knew that she was pitifully pleased with the smallest gift from the town stores.
"If I don't see a girl of my own age to speak to pretty soon," declared Betty to herself, walking swiftly up the lane, "I don't know what I shall do! Bob is nice, but, goodness! he isn't interested in lots of things I like. Crocheting, for instance. I never was crazy about fancy work, but now I'm kind of hungry for a crochet needle."
Half way to Glenside a farmer overtook her, and after the pleasant country fashion offered her a "lift." Betty accepted gladly. He lived, as she discovered after a few minutes' conversation, on the farm next to the Peabodys, and he had heard about her and knew who she was.
"When you get time," he said kindly, when she told him she was going to Glenside, "walk through the town and out toward Linden. There's quite a nursery out that way, and you'd like to see the flowers. Folks come from the city to buy their plants there."
At the nearest crossroads to Glenside he turned, and Betty got out, thanking him heartily for the ride. It was a matter of only a few moments now to reach Glenside, and she found herself in the town much sooner than she had counted on. So when the drug-store clerk said he would have her pictures developed and printed within an hour if she could wait, Betty determined to wait instead of having them mailed to her. She had a sundae and bought some chocolates for Mrs. Peabody, and then remembered the farmer's remark about the nursery.
"How far is it to the nursery they talk about?" she said to the woman clerk who had weighed out the candy.
"Baxter's? Oh, not more than three-quarters of a mile," was the answer. "You go right up Main Street an far as the sidewalk goes. When it stops, keep right on, and pretty soon you'll see a big sign of a watering-pot; that's it."
Betty followed these directions implicitly, and she had reached the end of the town sidewalk when she heard the distant mutter of thunder.
"I guess I can reach the nursery and be looking at the flowers while it storms," she said to herself.
Betty had no more fear of thunderstorms than of a tame cat, but she mightily disliked the idea of getting her hat wet. So she hurried conscientiously.
The sun went under a heavy cloud, and a violent crash of thunder directly overhead stimulated her into a run. There was not a house in sight, and Betty began to wish she had turned and gone back to the town. At least she could have found shelter in a shop.
Splash! A huge drop of rain flattened in the dust of the road. The tall trees on either side began to sway in the slowly rising wind.
"I'll bet it will be a big storm, and I'll be soaked!" gasped Betty. "Where is that plaguey nursery!"
She began to run, and the drops came faster and faster. Then, without warning, the long line of swaying trees stopped, and a tidy white picket fence began on the side of the road nearest Betty. Back of the pickets was a well-kept green lawn; and set in the center of a circle of glorious elm trees was a comfortable white house with green blinds and a wide porch. A woman and two girls were hastily taking in a swing and a quantity of sofa pillows to protect them from the storm.
"Come in, quick!" called the woman, as Betty came in sight. "Hurry, before you're soaked. Just lift the latch and the gate swings in."
"Just lift the latch." Betty thought she had never heard a more cordial or welcome invitation.
CHAPTER XIV
WINNING NEW FRIENDS
Betty opened the gate and ran up the path. The younger girl, who seemed about her own age, put out a friendly hand and touched her sleeve.
"Not wet a bit, Mother!" she announced triumphantly. "And I don't believe her hat's spotted, either!"
A jagged streak of lightning and another thundering crash sent them all scurrying indoors. The lady led the way into a pleasant room where an open piano, books, and much gay cretonne-covered wicker furniture gave an atmosphere at once homelike and modern. Betty had craved the sight of such a room since leaving Pineville and her friends.
"Pull down the shades, Norma; and, Alice, light the lamp," directed the mother of the two girls.
The younger girl drew the shades and Alice, who was evidently some years older than her sister, lighted the pretty wicker lamp on the center table.
"I'm so glad you reached our house before the storm fairly broke," said their mother, smiling at Betty. "In another second you would have been drenched, and there isn't a house between here and Baxter's nursery."
Betty explained that she had been on her way to the nursery, and thinking that her kind hostess should know her guest's name, gave it, and said that she was staying at Bramble Farm.
"Oh, yes, we've heard of you," said the lady, in some surprise. "I am Mrs. Guerin, and my husband, Dr. Guerin, learns all the news, you know, on his rounds among his patients. Mrs. Keppler, I believe, was the one who told him there was a girl visiting the Peabodys."
Betty wondered rather uncomfortably what had been said about her and whether she was regarded with pity because of the conditions endured by any one who had the misfortune to be a member of the Peabody household. The Kepplers, she knew, were their nearest neighbors.
Norma and Alice each took a seat on the arms of their mother's chair, and regarded the guest curiously, but kindly.
"Do you like the country?" asked the younger girl, feeling that something in the way of conversation was expected of her.
Betty replied in the affirmative, adding that, aside from lonesomeness now and then, she had enjoyed the outdoor life immensely.
"But what do you do all day long?" persisted Norma. "The Peabodys are so queer!"
"Norma!" reproved her mother and Alice in one breath.
"Well they are!" muttered Norma. "Miss Gordon isn't a relation of theirs, is she? So why do I have to be polite?"
"I'm only twelve," said Betty, embarrassed by the "Miss Gordon," and puzzled to know how to avoid a discussion of the Peabodys. "No one ever calls me 'Miss.' My Uncle Dick went to school with Mrs. Peabody, and he thought it would be pleasant for me to board with them this summer."
"When you get lonesome for girls, come over and see us," suggested Mrs. Guerin cordially. "Come whenever you are in Glenside, anyway. Norma hasn't many friends of her own age in town, and she'll probably talk you deaf, dumb and blind."
"I don't get over very often," said Betty, thinking how fortunate Norma was to have such a lovely, tactful mother, "because I usually have to walk. But if your husband is a doctor, couldn't he bring you over to call some afternoon? Doctors are always on the road, I know."
A curious expression swept over Mrs. Guerin's face, inexplicable to Betty. She avoided a direct answer to the invitation by sending the girls out to the kitchen for lemonade and cakes and blowing out the lamp and raising the shades herself. The brief thunderstorm was about over, and the sun soon shone brightly.
Alice wheeled the tea-wagon out on the porch, and the four spent a merry half hour together. Betty felt that she had made three real friends, and the Guerins, for their part, were agreeably delighted with the young girl who was so alone in the world and who, while they knew she must have a great deal that was unpleasant to contend with, resolutely talked only of her happy times.
Betty had just risen to go when a runabout stopped at the curb and a gray-haired man got out and came up the path.
"There's father!" cried Norma, jumping up to meet him. "Father, the Rutans telephoned over an hour ago. I couldn't get you anywhere. It was before the storm."
"Hal, this is Betty Gordon," said the doctor's wife, drawing Betty forward. "She is the girl staying with the Peabodys. Do you have to go out directly?"
"Just want to get a few things, then I'm off," answered the doctor cheerily. "Miss Betty, if you don't mind waiting while I stop in at the drug store, I'm going half of your way and will be glad to give you a lift. The roads will be muddy after this rain."
Betty accepted the kind offer thankfully, and Mrs. Guerin and the girls went down to the car with her. They each kissed her good-bye, and Mrs. Guerin's motherly touch as she tucked the linen robe over Betty's knees brought thoughts of another mother to the little pink-frocked figure who waved a farewell as the car coughed its sturdy way up the street.
At the drug store the doctor got his medicines and Betty her pictures, which she paid for and slipped into her bag without looking at. She liked Doctor Guerin instinctively, and indeed he was the type of physician whom patients immediately trusted and in whom confidence was never misplaced.
"You look like an outdoor girl," he told her as he turned the car toward the open country. "I don't believe you've had to take much in the way of pills and powders, have you?"
Betty smiled and admitted that her personal acquaintance with medicine was extremely limited.
"Mrs. Peabody has headaches all the time," she said anxiously. "I think she ought to see a doctor. And one day last week she fainted, but she insisted on getting supper."
Doctor Guerin bit his lip.
"Guess you'll have to be my ally," he said mysteriously. "Mrs. Peabody was a patient of mine, off and on, for several years – ever since I've practiced in Glenside, in fact. But – well, Mr. Peabody forbade my visits finally; said he was paying out too much for drugs. I told him that his wife had a serious trouble that might prostrate her at any time, but he refused to listen. Ordered me off the place one day when Mrs. Guerin was in the car with me, and was so violent he frightened her. That was some time ago." The doctor shook his head reminiscently. "Mrs. Peabody in the house was groaning with pain and Mrs. Guerin was imploring me to back the car before Peabody killed me. He was shouting like a mad man, and it was Bedlam let loose for sure.
"I went, because there was nothing else to do, but I managed to get word to the poor soul, through that boy, Bob Henderson, that if she ever had a bad attack and would send me word, day or night, I'd come if I had to bring the constable to lock that miser up out of the way first. I suspect he is a coward as well as a bully, but fighting him wouldn't better his wife's position any; he would only take it out on her."
"Yes, I think he would," agreed Betty. "I used to wonder how she stood him. But telling her what I think of him doesn't help her, and now I don't do that any more if I think in time."
"Well, you may be able to help her by sending me word if she is taken ill suddenly," said the doctor. "I'm sure it is a comfort to her to have you with her this summer. Now here's the boundary line. Sorry I can not take you all the way in, but it would only mean an unpleasant row."
Instead of half way, the doctor had taken her almost to the Peabody lane, and Betty jumped down and thanked him heartily. She was glad to have been saved the long muddy walk. She was turning away when a thought struck her.
"How could I reach you if Mrs. Peabody were ill?" she asked. "There's no 'phone at Bramble Farm, you know."
"The Kepplers have one," was the reply, Doctor Guerin cranking his car. "They'll be glad to let you use it any time for any message you want to send."
Betty found no one in the house when she reached it, the men being still at work in the field and Mrs. Peabody out in the chicken yard. Betty took off her pretty frock and put on a blue and white gingham and her white shoes. She was determined not to allow herself to get what Mrs. Peabody called "slack," and she scrupulously dressed every afternoon, whether she went off the farm or not.
The pictures, she discovered when she examined them, were exceptionally good. Lieson, in particular, had proved an excellent subject, and Betty privately decided that he was more attractive in his working clothes than he could ever hope to be in the stiff black and white she knew he would assume for Sunday. She took the prints and went downstairs to await an opportunity to show them.
Bob Henderson was in the kitchen, doing something to his hand. Betty experienced a sinking sensation when she saw a blood-stained rag floating in the basin of water on the table.
"Bob!" she gasped. "Did you hurt yourself?"
Bob glanced up, managing a smile, though he was rather white around the mouth.
"I cut my finger," he said jerkily. "The blame thing won't stop bleeding."
"I have peroxide upstairs!" Betty flew to get the bottle.
It was a nasty cut, but she set her teeth and washed it thoroughly with the antiseptic and warm water before binding it up with the clean, soft handkerchief she had brought back with her. Bob had been clumsily trying to make a bandage with his dark blue bandana handkerchief, all the lad had.
"How did you do it?" asked Betty, as she tied a neat knot and tucked the ends in out of sight. "I'll fix you some more cloths to-night; you'll have to wash that cut again in the morning."
Bob was putting away the basin and now he went off to get the pails of slop for the pigs. Betty thought he had not heard her question, but when Lieson came in for a drink of water and saw the pictures he unconsciously set her right. Lieson was greatly pleased with his picture, and looked so long at the other prints that Betty feared lest Mr. Peabody should come in and make an accusation of wasted time.
"That's a good picture of Bob, too," commented Lieson. "He cut his hand this afternoon on the hoe. The old man come down where he was hoeing corn, and just as he got there Bob cut a stalk; you can't always help it. Peabody flew into a rage and grabbed the hoe. Bob thought he was going to strike him with it and he put up his hand to save his head, and Peabody brought the sharp edge of the hoe down so it nicked his finger. Guess he won't be able to milk to-night."
Betty stood in the doorway of the kitchen and stared away into the serene green fields.
"It looks so peaceful," she thought wearily. "And yet to live in such a place doesn't seem to have the slightest effect on people's dispositions. I wonder why?"