Betty waited till the hay was pitched down, then followed Bob to the main floor of the barn.
"Couldn"t I walk just a little way with you?" she asked wistfully.
"How soon are you going to start? I could go as far as the end of the lane."
"I"d rather you went to bed and to sleep," said Bob kindly. "You couldn"t very well traipse around at night, Betty, and I"m not going till it is good and dark. There"s no moon to-night, and you might have trouble getting back to the house."
"Well--all right," conceded Betty forlornly. "There doesn"t seem to be anything I can do. Whistle under my window, please do, Bob. I"ll be awake. And I could say good-by. I won"t make a fuss, I promise."
The boy"s packing was of the simplest, for he owned neither suitcase nor trunk, and his few belongings easily went into a square of old wrapping paper. He had earned them, few as they were, and felt no compunctions about taking them with him.
After the bundle was tied up he waited a half hour or so, purely as a precaution, for the Peabody household went to bed with the chickens and, with the possible exception of Mrs. Peabody, slumbered heavily.
Bob slipped down the stairs, waking no one, unfastened the heavy front door, never locked and only occasionally, as to-night, bolted with a chain, and stepped softly around to the bush where his precious tin box was buried.
This box was Bob"s sole inheritance from his mother, and he had only a vague knowledge of the papers entrusted to it. Among the yellowed slips was the marriage certificate of his parents, and he knew that there were one or two letters. When Joseph Peabody had taken him from the poorhouse, the lad had buried the box for safekeeping, and during the three or four years he had been with Mr. Peabody had never taken it up.
It was not buried very deeply, and he easily uncovered it, smoothing down the earth to hide the traces of his hasty excavating. He went around to Betty"s window and whistled softly, half hoping that she might be asleep.
"h.e.l.lo, Bob dear!" she called instantly, leaning from the window, her vivid face so alight with affection and hope for him that it was a pity he could not see her clearly. "I"m wishing you the best of luck, and I hope the old bookstore man has splendid news for you. You wait for me in Washington."
"I will!" whispered Bob heartily. "And you tell Mr. Bender, won"t you? He"ll understand. I"ll write him the first chance I get, and Doc Guerin, too. Good-by, Betty--I--I--"
To his surprise and confusion, Bob suddenly choked.
"Here"s something to take with you," said Betty softly, dropping a little packet that landed at his feet. "Good-by, Bob. I just know things will turn out all right for you."
The dark head was withdrawn, and Bob, picking up the little package, turned and began his long walk to the Glenside station. A hoot-owl screeched at mournful intervals, and the night sounds would have tried a city lad"s nerves in that long dark stretch that led him finally to the station. But Bob could identify every sound, and nature had always proved kind to him, far kinder than many of the people he had known. He trudged along st.u.r.dily, and, twenty minutes before the train was due, found himself the solitary pa.s.senger on the Glenside platform.
He stood under the uncertain rays of the lamp to examine the parting gift Betty had given him. Tucked under half a dozen chocolate wafers was a five dollar bill folded into the tiniest possible wad. The choky feeling a.s.sailed Bob again.
"She certainly is some girl!" he thought with mixed grat.i.tude and admiration.
CHAPTER VI
THE RUNAWAY MISSED
Bob"s absence was not discovered till breakfast time, for Ethan, who was a sound sleeper, when he woke and saw Bob"s empty cot, supposed the boy had risen earlier than usual and gone to the barn. Mr.
Peabody, too, took it for granted that the boy was milking, and it was not until they were seated at the table and half way through the meal that anything out of the ordinary was suspected.
"Why in tarnation doesn"t that good for nothing bring in the milk?"
grumbled Mr. Peabody. "I declare he gets later and later every morning. The balers will be over to start work at seven, and if he thinks he"s going to spend half an hour dawdling over his breakfast after they get here, he"s much mistaken."
The men who were to bale the hay had slept at the adjoining farm, according to the agreement made, and would be at Bramble Farm for dinner and supper and to spend that night.
"You"re finished, Ethan. Go hurry him up," ordered Joe Peabody.
"Send him in here flying and turn the cows out to pasture."
"He hasn"t milked!" Ethan cleared the porch steps at a single bound and burst into the kitchen, shouting this intelligence. Excitement was scarce in Ethan"s life, and he enjoyed the pleasurable sensation of carrying unusual tidings, even if unpleasant. "The barn door was shut and the cows were bellowing their heads off. Not a one of "em"s been milked!"
"I want to know!" said Joseph Peabody stupidly. "Was he in bed when you came down, Ethan?"
"No, he wasn"t," answered the hired man. "I thought he"d gone on out. Do you suppose something"s happened to him?"
Mr. Peabody stepped to the porch and gave a quick glance at the bench where the milk pails were usually left to air and dry. They were there, just as they had been left the night before.
"I think he"s cleared out!" he announced: grimly. "Betty, do you know what this young scoundrel is up to?"
Betty"s eyes brimmed over, and she flung herself blindly into Mrs.
Peabody"s arms which closed around her, though that good woman was unaccustomed to demonstrations of affection.
"There, there." She tried to soothe the girl, for Betty"s convulsive sobbing really alarmed her.
"Don"t you go to feel bad, dearie. If Bob"s gone, he"s gone, and that"s all there is to it."
Peabody, milk pail in hand, motioned to Ethan to go out and begin milking.
"That isn"t all there is to it, not by a long shot!" he growled at his wife. "If I get my hands on that boy he"ll rue the day he ever set foot off this farm. He"ll go back to the poorhouse and there he"ll stay till he"s of age."
Betty sat up, pushing the tumbled hair from her hot forehead.
"I"m glad Bob ran away!" she cried recklessly. "He"s gone where you won"t catch him, either. You never treated him fairly, and you know it."
Peabody banged the kitchen door by way of relieving his feelings, but the latch did not fasten so that he heard Betty"s next sentence addressed to his wife.
"I"m only waiting for a letter from Uncle d.i.c.k," confided Betty.
"Then I"m going to Washington. Things will never be any different here, Mrs. Peabody; you"ve said so yourself. I wish Uncle d.i.c.k would hurry and write. It"s been a good while since I heard." And there was a catch in the girl"s voice.
The man slouched off the porch, a peculiar smile on his lean, shrewd face. One hand, thrust into his ragged coat pocket, rested on a letter there. As he felt it beneath his fingers, his crafty eyes brightened with a gleam of mockery.
Mrs. Peabody may have been curious about Bob"s departure, but she asked no questions, somewhat to Betty"s surprise.
"I"m glad she doesn"t ask me," thought Betty, helping mechanically in the preparations for dinner which were more elaborate than usual because of the presence of the three balers. "Bob must be half way to Washington by now, and I don"t believe they have the slightest idea he is headed for there." The Peabodys, she reasoned, knew nothing of Lockwood Hale, and of the attraction the capital of the country held for the orphan lad.
Betty insisted on doing a fair share of the extra work after the noon meal, and then ran upstairs to get ready to go over to Glenside.
She wanted to tell the Guerins that Bob had gone, and from their house she knew she could telephone to those other good friends, the Benders. Laurel Grove was too far to walk, even for a practised hiker like Betty.
To her dismay, as she left the house, Mr. Peabody joined her and fell into step.
"I"ll go as far as Durlings with you," he announced affably, Durling being their neighbor on the south, his farm lying along the road in the direction of Glenside. "Sorry the horses haven"t shoes, Betty, or you might drive."
Betty shot him a suspicious glance. The three horses never were shod, except when a certain amount of traveling had to be done on the stone road. In all the weeks she had spent at Bramble Farm a horse had never been offered for her convenience, and all of her trips to town had been either afoot, or taken with Bob in the rattling, shabby, one-horse work wagon.
"Where did you say Bob was going?" came next.
Betty bit her lip.