"Here"s your opener," said the man, "if that"s what you"re looking for.
Here, you get the gla.s.ses and I"ll open the bottles. We"re in kind of a hurry. Got to catch a train."
Well, they were not the only people who had to catch a train, Betsy thought sadly. They drank in gulps and departed, cramming doughnuts into their mouths. Betsy wished ardently that the girl would come back. She was now almost sure that she had forgotten and would dance there till nightfall. But there, there she came, running along, as light-footed after an hour"s dancing as when she had left the booth.
"Here you are, kid," said the young man, producing a quarter. "We"ve had the time of our young lives, thanks to you."
Betsy gave him back one of the nickels that remained to her, but he refused it.
"No, keep the change," he said royally. "It was worth it."
"Then I"ll buy two doughnuts with my extra nickel," said Betsy.
"No, you won"t," said the girl. "You"ll take all you want for nothing ...
Momma"ll never miss "em. And what you sell here has got to be fresh every day. Here, hold out your hands, both of you."
"Some people came and bought things," said Betsy, happening to remember as she and Molly turned away. "The money is on that shelf."
"Well, NOW!" said the girl, "if she didn"t take hold and sell things!
Say ... "--she ran after Betsy and gave her a hug--"you smart young one, I wish"t I had a little sister just like you!"
Molly and Betsy hurried along out of the gate into the main street of the town and down to the station. Molly was eating doughnuts as she went. They were both quite hungry by this time, but Betsy could not think of eating till she had those tickets in her hand.
She pushed her quarter and a nickel into the ticket-seller"s window and said "Hillsboro" in as confident a tone as she could; but when the precious bits of paper were pushed out at her and she actually held them, her knees shook under her and she had to go and sit down on the bench.
"My! Aren"t these doughnuts good?" said Molly. "I never in my life had ENOUGH doughnuts before!"
Betsy drew a long breath and began rather languidly to eat one herself; she felt, all of a sudden, very, very tired.
She was tireder still when they got out of the train at Hillsboro Station and started wearily up the road toward Putney Farm. Two miles lay before them, two miles which they had often walked before, but never after such a day as now lay back of them. Molly dragged her feet as she walked and hung heavily on Betsy"s hand. Betsy plodded along, her head hanging, her eyes all gritty with fatigue and sleepiness. A light buggy spun round the turn of the road behind them, the single horse trotting fast as though the driver were in a hurry, the wheels rattling smartly on the hard road. The little girls drew out to one side and stood waiting till the road should be free again. When he saw them the driver pulled the horse back so quickly it stood almost straight up. He peered at them through the twilight and then with a loud shout sprang over the side of the buggy.
It was Uncle Henry--oh, goody, it was Uncle Henry come to meet them!
They wouldn"t have to walk any further!
But what was the matter with Uncle Henry? He ran up to them, exclaiming, "Are ye all right? Are ye all right?" He stooped over and felt of them desperately as though he expected them to be broken somewhere. And Betsy could feel that his old hands were shaking, that he was trembling all over. When she said, "Why, yes, Uncle Henry, we"re all right. We came home on the cars," Uncle Henry leaned up against the fence as though he couldn"t stand up. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead and he said--it didn"t seem as though it could be Uncle Henry talking, he sounded so excited--"Well, well--well, by gosh! My! Well, by thunder!
Now! And so here ye are! And you"re all right! WELL!"
He couldn"t seem to stop exclaiming, and you can"t imagine anything stranger than an Uncle Henry who couldn"t stop exclaiming.
After they all got into the buggy he quieted down a little and said, "Thunderation! But we"ve had a scare! When the Wendells come back with their cousins early this afternoon, they said you were coming with the Vaughans. And then when you didn"t come and DIDN"T come, we telephoned to the Vaughans, and they said they hadn"t seen hide nor hair of ye, and didn"t even know you were TO the Fair at all! I tell you, your Aunt Abigail and I had an awful turn! Ann and I hitched up quicker"n scat and she put right out with Prince up toward Woodford and I took Jessie down this way; thought maybe I"d get trace of ye somewhere here. Well, land!"
He wiped his forehead again. "Wa"n"t I glad to see you standin"
there ... get along, Jess! I want to get the news to Abigail soon as I can!"
"Now tell me what in thunder DID happen to you!"
Betsy began at the beginning and told straight through, interrupted at first by indignant comments from Uncle Henry, who was outraged by the Wendells" loose wearing of their responsibility for the children. But as she went on he quieted down to a closely attentive silence, interrupting only to keep Jess at her top speed.
Now that it was all safely over, Betsy thought her story quite an interesting one, and she omitted no detail, although she wondered once or twice if perhaps Uncle Henry were listening to her, he kept so still.
"And so I bought the tickets and we got home," she ended, adding, "Oh, Uncle Henry, you ought to have seen the prize pig! He was TOO funny!"
They turned into the Putney yard now and saw Aunt Abigail"s bulky form on the porch.
"Got "em, Abby! All right! No harm done!" shouted Uncle Henry.
Aunt Abigail turned without a word and went back into the house. When the little girls dragged their weary legs in they found her quietly setting out some supper for them on the table, but she was wiping away with her ap.r.o.n the joyful tears which ran down her cheeks, such white cheeks! It seemed so strange to see rosy Aunt Abigail with a face like paper.
"Well, I"m glad to see ye," she told them soberly. "Sit right down and have some hot milk. I had some all ready."
The telephone rang, she went into the next room, and they heard her saying, in an unsteady voice: "All right, Ann. They"re here. Your father just brought them in. I haven"t had time to hear about what happened yet. But they"re all right. You"d better come home."
"That"s your Cousin Ann telephoning from the Marshalls"."
She herself went and sat down heavily, and when Uncle Henry came in a few minutes later she asked him in a rather weak voice for the ammonia bottle. He rushed for it, got her a fan and a drink of cold water, and hung over her anxiously till the color began to come back into her pale face. "I know just how you feel, Mother," he said sympathetically. "When I saw "em standin" there by the roadside I felt as though somebody had hit me a clip right in the pit of the stomach."
The little girls ate their supper in a tired daze, not paying any attention to what the grown-ups were saying, until rapid hoofs clicked on the stones outside and Cousin Ann came in quickly, her black eyes snapping.
"Now, for mercy"s sake, tell me what happened," she said, adding hotly, "and if I don"t give that Maria Wendell a piece of my mind!"
Uncle Henry broke in: "_I_"M going to tell what happened. I WANT to do it. You and Mother just listen, just sit right down and listen." His voice was shaking with feeling, and as he went on and told of Betsy"s afternoon, her fright, her confusion, her forming the plan of coming home on the train and of earning the money for the tickets, he made, for once, no Putney pretense of casual coolness. His old eyes flashed fire as he talked.
Betsy, watching him, felt her heart swell and beat fast in incredulous joy. Why, he was proud of her! She had done something to make the Putney cousins proud of her!
When Uncle Henry came to the part where she went on asking for employment after one and then another refusal, Cousin Ann reached out her long arms and quickly, almost roughly, gathered Betsy up on her lap, holding her close as she listened. Betsy had never before sat on Cousin Ann"s lap.
And when Uncle Henry finished--he had not forgotten a single thing Betsy had told him--and asked, "What do you think of THAT for a little girl ten years old today?" Cousin Ann opened the flood-gates wide and burst out, "I think I never heard of a child"s doing a smarter, grittier thing ... AND I DON"T CARE IF SHE DOES HEAR ME SAY SO!"
It was a great, a momentous, an historic moment!
Betsy, enthroned on those strong knees, wondered if any little girl had ever had such a beautiful birthday.
CHAPTER XI
"UNDERSTOOD AUNT FRANCES"
About a month, after Betsy"s birthday, one October day when the leaves were all red and yellow, two very momentous events occurred, and, in a manner of speaking, at the very same time. Betsy had noticed that her kitten Eleanor (she still thought of her as a kitten, although she was now a big, grown-up cat) spent very little time around the house. She came into the kitchen two or three times a day, mewing loudly for milk and food, but after eating very fast she always disappeared at once.
Betsy missed the purring, contented ball of fur on her lap in the long evenings as she played checkers, or read aloud, or sewed, or played guessing games. She felt rather hurt, too, that Eleanor paid her so little attention, and several times she tried hard to make her stay, trailing in front of her a spool tied to a string or rolling a worsted ball across the floor. But Eleanor seemed to have lost all her taste for the things she had liked so much. Invariably, the moment the door was opened, she darted out and vanished.
One afternoon Betsy ran out after her, determined to catch her and bring her back. When the cat found she was being followed, she bounded along in great leaps, constantly escaping from Betsy"s outstretched hand. They came thus to the horse-barn, into the open door of which Eleanor whisked like a little gray shadow, Betsy close behind. The cat flashed up the steep, ladder-like stairs that led to the hay-loft. Betsy scrambled rapidly up, too. It was dark up there, compared to the gorgeous-colored October day outside, and for a moment she could not see Eleanor. Then she made her out, a dim little shape, picking her way over the hay, and she heard her talking. Yes, it was real talk, quite, quite different from the loud, imperious "MIAUW!" with which Eleanor asked for her milk.
This was the softest, prettiest kind of conversation, all little murmurs and chirps and sing-songs. Why, Betsy could almost understand it! She COULD understand it enough to know that it was love-talk, and then, breaking into this, came a sudden series of shrill, little, needle-like cries that fairly filled the hay-loft. Eleanor gave a bound forward and disappeared. Betsy, very much excited, scrambled and climbed up over the hay as fast as she could go.
It was all silent now--the piercing, funny little squalls had stopped as suddenly as they began. On the top in a little nest lay Eleanor, purring so loudly you could hear her all over the big mow, and so proud and happy she could hardly contain herself. Her eyes glistened, she arched her back, rolled over and spread out her paws, disclosing to Betsy"s astounded, delighted eyes--no, she wasn"t dreaming--two dear little kittens, one all gray, just like its mother; one gray with a big bib on his chest.
Oh! How dear they were! How darling, and cuddly, and fuzzy! Betsy put her fingers very softly on the gray one"s head and thrilled to feel the warmth of the little living creature. "Oh, Eleanor!" she asked eagerly.
"CAN I pick one up?" She lifted the gray one gently and held it up to her cheek. The little thing nestled down in the warm hollow of her hand.
She could feel its tiny, tiny little claws p.r.i.c.king softly into her palm. "Oh, you sweetness! You little, little baby-thing!" she said over and over in a whisper.