CHAPTER XIV
WINNING NEW FRIENDS
BETTY opened the gate and ran up the path. The younger girl, who seemedabout her own age, put out a friendly hand and touched her sleeve.
"Not wet a bit, Mother!" she announced triumphantly. "And I don'tbelieve her hat's spotted, either!"
A jagged streak of lightning and another thundering crash sent them allscurrying indoors. The lady led the way into a pleasant room where anopen piano, books, and much gay cretonne-covered wicker furniture gavean atmosphere at once homelike and modern. Betty had craved the sightof such a room since leaving Pineville and her friends.
"Pull down the shades, Norma; and, Alice, light the lamp," directed themother of the two girls.
The younger girl drew the shades and Alice, who was evidently someyears older than her sister, lighted the pretty wicker lamp on thecenter table.
"I'm so glad you reached our house before the storm fairly broke," saidtheir mother, smiling at Betty. "In another second you would have beendrenched, and there isn't a house between here and Baxter's nursery."
Betty explained that she had been on her way to the nursery, andthinking that her kind hostess should know her guest's name, gave it,and said that she was staying at Bramble Farm.
"Oh, yes, we've heard of you," said the lady, in some surprise. "I amMrs. Guerin, and my husband, Dr. Guerin, learns all the news, you know,on his rounds among his patients. Mrs. Keppler, I believe, was the onewho told him there was a girl visiting the Peabodys."
Betty wondered rather uncomfortably what had been said about her andwhether she was regarded with pity because of the conditions endured byany one who had the misfortune to be a member of the Peabody household.The Kepplers, she knew, were their nearest neighbors.
Norma and Alice each took a seat on the arms of their mother's chair,and regarded the guest curiously, but kindly.
"Do you like the country?" asked the younger girl, feeling thatsomething in the way of conversation was expected of her.
Betty replied in the affirmative, adding that, aside from lonesomenessnow and then, she had enjoyed the outdoor life immensely.
"But what do you do all day long?" persisted Norma. "The Peabodys areso queer!"
"Norma!" reproved her mother and Alice in one breath.
"Well they are!" muttered Norma. "Miss Gordon isn't a relation oftheirs, is she? So why do I have to be polite?"
"I'm only twelve," said Betty, embarrassed by the "Miss Gordon," andpuzzled to know how to avoid a discussion of the Peabodys. "No one evercalls me 'Miss.' My Uncle Dick went to school with Mrs. Peabody, and hethought it would be pleasant for me to board with them this summer."
"When you get lonesome for girls, come over and see us," suggested Mrs.Guerin cordially. "Come whenever you are in Glenside, anyway. Normahasn't many friends of her own age in town, and she'll probably talkyou deaf, dumb and blind."
"I don't get over very often," said Betty, thinking how fortunate Normawas to have such a lovely, tactful mother, "because I usually have towalk. But if your husband is a doctor, couldn't he bring you over tocall some afternoon? Doctors are always on the road, I know."
A curious expression swept over Mrs. Guerin's face, inexplicable toBetty. She avoided a direct answer to the invitation by sending thegirls out to the kitchen for lemonade and cakes and blowing out thelamp and raising the shades herself. The brief thunderstorm was aboutover, and the sun soon shone brightly.
Alice wheeled the tea-wagon out on the porch, and the four spent amerry half hour together. Betty felt that she had made three realfriends, and the Guerins, for their part, were agreeably delightedwith the young girl who was so alone in the world and who, while theyknew she must have a great deal that was unpleasant to contend with,resolutely talked only of her happy times.
Betty had just risen to go when a runabout stopped at the curb and agray-haired man got out and came up the path.
"There's father!" cried Norma, jumping up to meet him. "Father, theRutans telephoned over an hour ago. I couldn't get you anywhere. It wasbefore the storm."
"Hal, this is Betty Gordon," said the doctor's wife, drawing Bettyforward. "She is the girl staying with the Peabodys. Do you have to goout directly?"
"Just want to get a few things, then I'm off," answered the doctorcheerily. "Miss Betty, if you don't mind waiting while I stop in at thedrug store, I'm going half of your way and will be glad to give you alift. The roads will be muddy after this rain."
Betty accepted the kind offer thankfully, and Mrs. Guerin and the girlswent down to the car with her. They each kissed her good-bye, and Mrs.Guerin's motherly touch as she tucked the linen robe over Betty's kneesbrought thoughts of another mother to the little pink-frocked figurewho waved a farewell as the car coughed its sturdy way up the street.
At the drug store the doctor got his medicines and Betty her pictures,which she paid for and slipped into her bag without looking at. Sheliked Doctor Guerin instinctively, and indeed he was the type ofphysician whom patients immediately trusted and in whom confidence wasnever misplaced.
"You look like an outdoor girl," he told her as he turned the cartoward the open country. "I don't believe you've had to take much inthe way of pills and powders, have you?"
Betty smiled and admitted that her personal acquaintance with medicinewas extremely limited.
"Mrs. Peabody has headaches all the time," she said anxiously. "I thinkshe ought to see a doctor. And one day last week she fainted, but sheinsisted on getting supper."
Doctor Guerin bit his lip.
"Guess you'll have to be my ally," he said mysteriously. "Mrs. Peabodywas a patient of mine, off and on, for several years--ever since I'vepracticed in Glenside, in fact. But--well, Mr. Peabody forbade myvisits finally; said he was paying out too much for drugs. I told himthat his wife had a serious trouble that might prostrate her at anytime, but he refused to listen. Ordered me off the place one day whenMrs. Guerin was in the car with me, and was so violent he frightenedher. That was some time ago." The doctor shook his head reminiscently."Mrs. Peabody in the house was groaning with pain and Mrs. Guerin wasimploring me to back the car before Peabody killed me. He was shoutinglike a mad man, and it was Bedlam let loose for sure.
"I went, because there was nothing else to do, but I managed to getword to the poor soul, through that boy, Bob Henderson, that if sheever had a bad attack and would send me word, day or night, I'd comeif I had to bring the constable to lock that miser up out of the wayfirst. I suspect he is a coward as well as a bully, but fighting himwouldn't better his wife's position any; he would only take it out onher."
"Yes, I think he would," agreed Betty. "I used to wonder how she stoodhim. But telling her what I think of him doesn't help her, and now Idon't do that any more if I think in time."
"Well, you may be able to help her by sending me word if she is takenill suddenly," said the doctor. "I'm sure it is a comfort to her tohave you with her this summer. Now here's the boundary line. Sorry Ican not take you all the way in, but it would only mean an unpleasantrow."
Instead of half way, the doctor had taken her almost to the Peabodylane, and Betty jumped down and thanked him heartily. She was gladto have been saved the long muddy walk. She was turning away when athought struck her.
"How could I reach you if Mrs. Peabody were ill?" she asked. "There'sno 'phone at Bramble Farm, you know."
"The Kepplers have one," was the reply, Doctor Guerin cranking his car."They'll be glad to let you use it any time for any message you want tosend."
Betty found no one in the house when she reached it, the men beingstill at work in the field and Mrs. Peabody out in the chicken yard.Betty took off her pretty frock and put on a blue and white ginghamand her white shoes. She was determined not to allow herself to getwhat Mrs. Peabody called "slack," and she scrupulously dressed everyafternoon, whether she went off the farm or not.
The pictures, she discovered when she examined them, were exceptionallygood. Lieson, in particular, had proved an excellen
t subject, andBetty privately decided that he was more attractive in his workingclothes than he could ever hope to be in the stiff black and whiteshe knew he would assume for Sunday. She took the prints and wentdownstairs to await an opportunity to show them.
Bob Henderson was in the kitchen, doing something to his hand. Bettyexperienced a sinking sensation when she saw a blood-stained ragfloating in the basin of water on the table.
"Bob!" she gasped. "Did you hurt yourself?"
Bob glanced up, managing a smile, though he was rather white around themouth.
"I cut my finger," he said jerkily. "The blame thing won't stopbleeding."
"I have peroxide upstairs!" Betty flew to get the bottle.
It was a nasty cut, but she set her teeth and washed it thoroughly withthe antiseptic and warm water before binding it up with the clean,soft handkerchief she had brought back with her. Bob had been clumsilytrying to make a bandage with his dark blue bandana handkerchief, allthe lad had.
"How did you do it?" asked Betty, as she tied a neat knot and tuckedthe ends in out of sight. "I'll fix you some more cloths to-night;you'll have to wash that cut again in the morning."
Bob was putting away the basin and now he went off to get the pailsof slop for the pigs. Betty thought he had not heard her question,but when Lieson came in for a drink of water and saw the pictureshe unconsciously set her right. Lieson was greatly pleased with hispicture, and looked so long at the other prints that Betty feared lestMr. Peabody should come in and make an accusation of wasted time.
"That's a good picture of Bob, too," commented Lieson. "He cut his handthis afternoon on the hoe. The old man come down where he was hoeingcorn, and just as he got there Bob cut a stalk; you can't always helpit. Peabody flew into a rage and grabbed the hoe. Bob thought he wasgoing to strike him with it and he put up his hand to save his head,and Peabody brought the sharp edge of the hoe down so it nicked hisfinger. Guess he won't be able to milk to-night."
Betty stood in the doorway of the kitchen and stared away into theserene green fields.
"It looks so peaceful," she thought wearily. "And yet to live insuch a place doesn't seem to have the slightest effect on people'sdispositions. I wonder why?"