Betty Gordon in Washington | Page 3

with
our cow?" grinned fatuously at Betty, showing several gaps in a row of
fine teeth.
"Keep your cow at home where she belongs," directed Bob
magnificently. "She's been making her dinner off our corn."
"Oh, gee," sighed the boy nervously. "I'll bet old Peabody was in a
tearing fury. Look, Bob, something's tore her hide! She must have been
down in the blackberry bushes along the brook."
"Well, see that it doesn't happen again," commanded Bob, gracefully
withdrawing by walking backward. "Corn that's as high as ours is
worth something, you know."
"You never told him about the pitchfork," said Betty accusingly, as
soon as Fred Keppler and the cow were out of earshot. "You let him
think it was blackberry bushes that scratched her like that."
"Well, his father will know the difference," grinned Bob cheerfully.
"Why should I start an argument with Fred? Saving the cow from the
pound ought to be enough, anyway. Mr. Keppler has had to buy more
than one animal out before this; he will not pay attention to his fences."
Betty sat down on a broad boulder and leaned up against an old hickory
tree.
"Stone in my shoe," she said briefly. "You'll have to wait just a minute,
Bob."
Bob sat down on the grass and began to hunt for four leaf clovers, an
occupation of which he never tired.
"Do you think Mr. Peabody opened your letter?" he asked abruptly.

Betty paused in the operation of untying her shoe.
"Who else would?" she said thoughtfully. "It wasn't even pasted
together again, but slit across one end, showing that whoever did it
didn't care whether I noticed it or not. I'll never mail another letter from
that box. I'll walk to Glenside three times a day first!"
"Well, the only thing to do is to clear out," said Bob firmly. "You'll
have to wait till you hear from your uncle, or at least till the Benders
get back. We promised, you know, that we wouldn't run away without
telling them, or if there wasn't time, writing to them and saying where
we go. That shows, I think, that they suspected things might get too hot
to be endured."
"I simply must get a letter from Uncle Dick or go crazy," sighed Betty
feverishly. She put on her shoe and stood up. "I wish he would come
for me himself and see how horrid everything is."
CHAPTER II
HOSPITALITY UNDER DIFFICULTIES
Betty Gordon had come to Bramble Farm, as Mr. Peabody's home was
known, early in the summer to stay until her uncle, Richard Gordon,
should be able to establish a home for her, or at least know enough of
his future plans to have Betty travel with him. He was interested in
mines and oil wells, and his business took him all over the country.
Betty was an orphan, and this Uncle Dick was her only living relative.
He came to her in Pineville after her mother's death and when the
friends with whom she had been staying decided to go to California. He
remembered Mrs. Peabody, an old school friend, and suggested that
Betty might enjoy a summer spent on a farm. These events are related
in the first book of this series, called "Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm."
That story tells how Betty came to the farm to find Joseph Peabody a
domineering, pitiless miser, his wife Agatha, a drab woman crushed in
spirit, and Bob Henderson, the "poorhouse rat," a bright intelligent lad

whom the Peabodys had taken from the local almshouse for his board
and clothes. Betty Gordon found life at Bramble Farm very different
from the picture she and her uncle had drawn in imagination, and only
the fact that her uncle's absence in the oil fields had prevented easy
communication with him had held her through the summer.
Once, indeed, she had run away, but circumstances had brought her and
Bob to the pleasant home of the town police recorder, and Mr. and Mrs.
Bender had proved themselves true and steadfast friends to the boy and
girl who stood sorely in need of friendship. It was the Benders who had
exacted a promise from both Bob and Betty that they would not run
away from Bramble Farm without letting them know.
Betty had been instrumental in causing the arrest of two men who had
stolen chickens from the Peabody farm, and at the hearing before the
recorder something of Mr. Peabody's characteristics and of the
conditions at Bramble Farm had been revealed.
Anxious to have Betty and Bob return, Joseph Peabody had practically
agreed to treat them more humanely, and for a few weeks, during
which the Benders had gone away for their annual vacation, matters at
Bramble Farm had in the main improved. But they were