Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm | Page 3

particular house?"
The stranger lifted his hat, and a pair of sharp blue eyes smiled pleasantly into Betty's brown ones.
"I was looking, not for a particular house, but for a particular person," admitted the man, gazing at her intently. "I shouldn't wonder if I had found her, too. Can you guess who I am?" Betty's mind was so full of one subject that it would have been strange indeed if she had failed to guess correctly.
"You're Uncle Dick!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and running the risk of spiking herself on the sharp pickets. "Oh, I thought you'd never come!"
Uncle Dick, for it really was Mr. Gordon, hurdled the low fence lightly and stood smiling down on his niece.
"I don't believe in wasting time writing letters," he declared cheerfully, "especially as I seldom know my plans three days ahead. You're the image of your father, child. I should have known you anywhere."
Betty put her hands behind her, suddenly conscious that they could not be very clean.
"I'm afraid I mussed your collar," she apologized contritely. "Mrs. Arnold was hoping you'd write so she could have me all scrubbed up for you;" and here Betty's dimple would flicker out.
Mr. Gordon put an arm about the little figure in the grass-stained rose-colored smock.
"I'd rather find you a garden girl," he announced contentedly. "Isn't there a place where you and I can have a little talk before we go in to see Mrs. Arnold and make our explanations?" Betty drew him toward the arbor. She knew they would be undisturbed there.
CHAPTER II
UNCLE DICK'S PLAN
THE arbor was rather small and rickety, but at least it was shady. Betty sat down beside her uncle, who braced his feet against the opposite seat to keep his place on the narrow ledge.
"I'm afraid I take up a good deal of room," he said apologetically. "Well, my dear, had you begun to think I was never coming?"
Betty glanced up at him bravely. "It was pretty long--waiting," she admitted. "But now you're here, Uncle Dick, everything is all right. When can we go away?"
"Aren't you happy here, dear?" asked her uncle, plainly troubled. "I thought from your first letter that Mrs. Arnold was a pretty good kind of friend, and I pictured you as contented as a girl could possibly be after a bitter loss like yours."
He smiled a bit ruefully.
"Maybe I'm not strong on pictures," he added. "I thought of you as a little girl, Betty. Don't know what'll you say, but there's a doll in my grip for you."
Betty laughed musically.
"I've always saved my old doll," she confided, slipping a hand into Uncle Dick's broad fist where it lay clinched on his knee. He was very companionable, was this uncle, and she felt that she already loved him dearly. "But, Uncle Dick, I haven't really played with dolls since we moved from the city. I like outdoor things."
"Well, now, so do I," agreed her uncle. "I can't seem to breathe properly unless I'm outdoors. But about this going away--do you want to leave Pineville, Sister?"
Betty's troubled eyes rested on the little garden hot in the bright sunshine.
"It isn't home any more, without mother," she said slowly. "And--I don't belong, Uncle Dick. Mrs. Arnold is a dear, and I love her and she loves me. But they want to go to California, though they won't talk it before me, 'cause they think I'll feel in the way. Mr. Arnold has a brother on a fruit farm, and he's wild to move out there. As soon as you take me somewhere, they're going to pack up."
"Well, then, we'll have to see that you do belong somewhere," said Mr. Gordon firmly. "Anything else, Sister?"
Betty drew a deep breath.
"It's heavenly to have you to listen to me," she declared. "I want to go! I've never been anywhere, and I feel as though I could go and go and never stop. Daddy was like that. Mother used to say if he hadn't had us to look after he would have been an explorer, but that he had to manage to earn a living and do his traveling as a salesman. Couldn't I learn to be a salesman, a saleswoman, I mean? Lots of girls do travel."
"We'll think it over," answered her uncle diplomatically.
"And then there's another thing," went on Betty, her pent-up thoughts finding relief in speech. "Although Mrs. Arnold was mother's dearest friend, I can't make her understand how mother felt about wearing mourning."
Betty indicated her rose smock.
"Lots of Pineville folks think I don't care about losing my mother," she asserted softly, "because I haven't a single black dress. But mother said mourning was selfish. She wouldn't wear black when daddy died. Black makes other people feel sorry. But I did love mother! And do yet!"
Uncle Dick's keen blue eyes