<h2>CHAPTER V<br/> <small>MRS. PEABODY WRITES</small></h2>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> bad, little stubborn horse standing on the
track at the mercy of the coming comet! That
was Betty's thought as she sped down the road.
In the hope that a sense of the danger might have
reached the animal's instinct, she gave the bridle a
desperate tug when she reached the horse, but it
was of no use. Feverishly Betty set to work to
unharness the little bay horse.</p>
<p>She was unaccustomed to many of the buckles,
and the harness was stiff and unyielding. Working
at it in a hurry was very different from the
few times she had done it for fun, or with some
one to manage all the hard places. She had finished
one side when the whistle sounded again.
To the girl's overwrought nerves it seemed to be
just around the curve. She had no thought of
abandoning the animal, however, and she set her
teeth and began on the second set of snaps and
buckles. These, too, gave way, and with a strong
push Betty sent the buggy flying backward free
of the tracks, and, seizing the bridle, she led the
cause of all the trouble forward and into safety.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</SPAN></span>
For the third time the whistle blew warningly,
and this time the noise of the train could be plainly
heard. But it was nearly a minute before the
glare of the headlight showed around the curve.</p>
<p>"Look what didn't hit you, no thanks to you,"
Betty scolded the horse, as a relief to herself. "I
'most wish I'd left you there; only then we never
would get Uncle Dick home."</p>
<p>Poor Betty had now the hardest part of her
task before her. She went back and dragged the
buggy over the tracks, up to the horse and started
the tedious business of harnessing again. She was
not sure where all the straps went, but she hoped
enough of them would hold together till they
could get home. When she had everything as
nearly in place as she could get them she climbed
down into the pit.</p>
<p>To her surprise, her uncle's eyes were open.
He lay gazing at the buggy lamp she had left.</p>
<p>"Uncle Dick," she whispered, "are you hurt?
Can you walk? Because you're so big, I can't
pull you out very well."</p>
<p>"Why, I can't be hurt," said her uncle slowly
in his natural voice. "What's happened? Where
are we? Goodness, child, you look like a ghost
with a dirty face."</p>
<p>Betty was not concerned with her looks at that
moment, and she was so delighted to find her
uncle conscious that she did not feel offended at<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</SPAN></span>
his uncomplimentary remark. In a few words she
sketched for him what had happened.</p>
<p>"My dear child!" he ejaculated when she had
told him, "have you been through all that? Why,
you're the pluckiest little woman I ever heard
of! No wonder you look thoroughly done up.
All I remember is whistling for you to come
ahead and then taking a step that landed me
nowhere. In other words, I must have stepped
into this pit. I'm not hurt—just a bit dazed."</p>
<p>To prove it, he got to his feet a trifle shakily.
Declining Betty's assistance, he managed to
scramble out of the pit, up on to the road. His
head cleared rapidly, and in a few more moments
he declared he felt like himself.</p>
<p>"In with you," he ordered Betty, after a preliminary
examination of the harness which, he
announced, was "as right as a trivet." "You've
done your share for to-night. Go to sleep, if you
like, and I'll wake you up in time to hear Mrs.
Arnold send Ted out to take the horse around to
the livery stable. It wouldn't do for me to do it—I
might murder the owner!"</p>
<p>Betty leaned her head against her uncle's
broad shoulder, for a minute she thought, and
when she woke found herself being helped gently
from the buggy.</p>
<p>"You're all right, Betty," soothed Mrs. Arnold's<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span>
voice in the darkness. "I've worried myself
sick! Do you know it's one o'clock?"</p>
<p>Mr. Gordon took the wagon around to the
stable, and Betty, with Mrs. Arnold's help, got
ready for bed.</p>
<p>Betty was fast asleep almost before the undressing
was completed, and she slept until late
the next morning. When she came down to the
luxury of a special breakfast, she found only Mrs.
Arnold in the house.</p>
<p>"Your uncle's gone out to post a letter," that
voluble lady informed her. "Both boys have
gone fishing again. I'm only waiting for their
father to come home and straighten 'em out.
Will you have cocoa, dearie?"</p>
<p>Before she had quite finished her breakfast,
Mr. Gordon came back from the post-office, and
then, as Mrs. Arnold wanted to go over to a
neighbor's to borrow a pattern, he sat down opposite
Betty.</p>
<p>"You look rested," he commented. "I don't
like to think what might have happened last night.
However, we'll be optimistic and look ahead.
I've written to Mrs. Peabody, dear, and to-morrow
I think you and Mrs. Arnold had better go
shopping. I'll write you a check this morning.
Agatha will want you to come, I know. And to
tell you the truth, Betty, I've had a letter that
makes me anxious to be off. I want to stay to see<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span>
you safely started for Bramble Farm, and then I
must peg away at this new work. Finished?
Then let's go into the sitting room and I'll explain
about the check."</p>
<p>The next morning Betty and Mrs. Arnold
started for Harburton with what seemed to Betty
a small fortune folded in her purse. Mrs. Arnold
had shown her how to cash the check at the Pineville
Bank, and she was to advise as to material
and value of the clothing Betty might select; but
the outfit was to represent Betty's choice and was
to please her primarily—Uncle Dick had made
this very clear.</p>
<p>Betty had learned a good deal about shopping
in the last months of her mother's illness, and she
did not find it difficult to choose suitable and
pretty ginghams for her frocks, a middy blouse or
two, some new smocks, and a smart blue sweater.
She very sensibly decided that as she was to spend
the summer on a farm she did not need elaborate
clothes, and she knew, from listening to Mrs.
Arnold, that those easiest to iron would probably
please Mrs. Peabody most whether she did her
own laundry work or had a washerwoman.</p>
<p>When the purchases came home Uncle Dick
delighted Betty with his warm approval. For a
couple of days the sewing machine whirred from
morning to night as the village dressmaker sewed
and fitted the new frocks and made the old presentable.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span>
Then the letter from Mrs. Peabody arrived.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I will be very glad to have your niece spend
the summer with me," she wrote, in a fine, slanting
hand. "The question of board, as you arrange
it, is satisfactory. I would not take anything for
her, you know, Dick, and for old times' sake
would welcome her without compensation, but
living is so dreadfully high these days. Joseph
has not had good luck lately, and there are so
many things against the farmer.... Let me
know when to expect Betty and some one will
meet her."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The letter rambled on for several pages, complaining
rather querulously of hard times and the
difficulties under which the writer and her husband
managed to "get along."</p>
<p>"Doesn't sound like Agatha, somehow," worried
Uncle Dick, a slight frown between his eyes.
"She was always a good-natured, happy kind of
girl. But most likely she can't write a sunny
letter. I know we used to have an aunt whose
letters were always referred to as 'calamity howlers.'
Yet to meet her you'd think she hadn't a
care in the world. Yes, probably Agatha puts
her blues into her letters and so doesn't have any
left to spill around where she lives."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Several times that day Betty saw him pull the
letter from his pocket and re-read it, always with
the puzzled lines between his brows. Once he
called to her as she was going upstairs.</p>
<p>"Betty," he said rather awkwardly, "I don't
know exactly how to put it, but you're going to
board with Mrs. Peabody, you know. You'll be
independent—not 'beholden,' as the country folk
say, to her. I want you to like her and to help
her, but, oh, well, I guess I don't know what I
am trying to say. Only remember, child, if you
don't like Bramble Farm for any good reason, I'll
see that you don't have to remain there."</p>
<p>A brand-new little trunk for Betty made its appearance
in the front hall of the Arnold house,
and two subdued boys—for Mr. Arnold had returned
home—helped her carry down her new
treasures and, after the clothes were neatly
packed, strap and lock the trunk. There was a
tiny "over-night" bag, too, fitted with toilet articles
and just large enough to hold a nightdress
and a dressing gown and slippers. Betty felt
very young-ladyish indeed with these traveling accessories.</p>
<p>"I'll order a riding habit for you in the first
large city I get to," promised her uncle. "I want
you to learn to ride—I wrote Agatha that. She
doesn't say anything about saddle horses, but they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</SPAN></span>
must have something you can ride. And you'll
write to me, my dear, faithfully?"</p>
<p>"Of course," promised Betty, clinging to him,
for she had learned to love him dearly even in
the short time they had been together. "I'll
write to you, Uncle Dick, and I'll do everything
you ask me to do. Then, this winter, do let's
keep house."</p>
<p>"We will," said Uncle Dick, fervently, "if we
have to keep house on the back of a camel in the
desert!" At this Betty giggled delightedly.</p>
<p>Betty's train left early in the morning, and her
uncle went to the station with her. Mrs. Arnold
cried a great deal when she said good-bye, but
Betty cheered her up by picturing the long, chatty
letters they would write to each other and by assuring
her friend that she might yet visit her in
California.</p>
<p>Mr. Gordon placed his niece in the care of the
conductor and the porter, and the last person
Betty saw was this gray-haired uncle running beside
the train, waving his hat and smiling at her
till her car passed beyond the platform.</p>
<p>"Now," said Betty methodically, "if I think
back, I shall cry; so I'll think ahead."</p>
<p>Which she proceeded to do. She pictured Mrs.
Peabody as a gray-haired, capable, kindly woman,
older than Mrs. Arnold, and perhaps more serene.
She might like to be called "Aunt Agatha."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</SPAN></span>
Mr. Peabody, she decided, would be short and
round, with twinkling blue eyes and perhaps a
white stubby beard. He would probably call her
"Sis," and would always be studying how to make
things about the house comfortable for his wife.</p>
<p>"I hope they have horses and pigs and cows
and sheep," mused Betty, the flying landscape
slipping past her window unheeded. "And if
they have sheep, they'll have a dog. Wouldn't I
love to have a dog to take long walks with! And,
of course, there will be a flower garden. 'Bramble
Farm' sounds like a bed of roses to me."</p>
<p>The idea of roses persisted, and while Betty
outwardly was strictly attentive to the things
about her, giving up her ticket at the proper time,
drinking the cocoa and eating the sandwich the
porter brought her (on Uncle Dick's orders she
learned) at eleven o'clock, she was in reality busy
picturing a white farmhouse set in the center of
a rose garden, with a hedge of hollyhocks dividing
it from a scarcely less beautiful and orderly vegetable
kingdom.</p>
<p>Day dreams, she was soon to learn.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</SPAN></span></p>
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