CHAPTER VI
THE POORHOUSE RAT
"THE next station's yours, Miss," said the porter, breaking in onBetty's reflections. "Any small luggage? No? All right, I'll see thatyou get off safely."
Betty gathered up her coat and stuffed the magazine she had boughtfrom the train boy, but scarcely glanced at, into her bag. Then shecarefully put on her pretty grey silk gloves and tried to see her facein the mirror of the little fitted purse. She wanted to look nice whenthe Peabodys first saw her.
The train jarred to a standstill.
Betty hurried down the aisle to find the porter waiting for her withhis little step. She was the only person to leave the train at Hagar'sCorners, and, happening to glance down the line of cars, she saw hertrunk, the one solitary piece of baggage, tumbled none too gently tothe platform.
The porter with his step swung aboard the train which began to moveslowly out. Betty felt unaccountably small and deserted standingthere, and as the platform of the last car swept past her, she wasconscious of a lump in her throat.
"Hello!" blurted an oddly attractive voice at her shoulder, a boy'svoice, shy and brusque but with a sturdy directness that promisedstrength and honesty.
The blue eyes into which Betty turned to look were honest, too, and theshock of tow-colored hair and the half-embarrassed grin that displayeda set of uneven, white teeth instantly prepossessed the girl in favorof the speaker. There was a splash of brown freckles across the snubnose, and the tanned cheeks and blue overalls told Betty that a countrylad stood before her.
"Hello!" she said politely. "You're from Mr. Peabody's, aren't you? Didthey send you to meet me?"
"Yes, Mr. Peabody said I was to fetch you," replied the boy. "I knew itwas you, 'cause no one else got off the train. If you'll give me yourtrunk check I'll help the agent put it in the wagon. He locks up andgoes off home in a little while."
Betty produced the check and the boy disappeared into the littleone-room station. The girl for the first time looked about her. Hagar'sCorners, it must be confessed, was not much of a place, if one judgedfrom the station. The station itself was not much more than a shanty,sadly in need of paint and minus the tiny patch of green lawn thatoften makes the least pretentious railroad station pleasant to the eye.Cinders filled in the road and the ground about the platform. Hitchedto a post Betty now saw a thin sorrel horse harnessed to a dilapidatedspring wagon with a board laid across it in lieu of a seat. To herastonishment, she saw her trunk lifted into this wagon by the stationagent and the boy who had spoken to her.
"Why--why, it doesn't look very comfortable," said Betty to herself. "Iwonder if that's the best wagon Mr. Peabody has? But perhaps his goodhorses are busy, or the carriage is broken or something."
The boy unhitched the sorry nag and drove up to the platform whereBetty was waiting. His face flushed under his tan as he jumped down tohelp her in.
"I'm afraid it isn't nice enough for you," he said, glancing withevident admiration at Betty's frock. "I spread that salt bag on theseat so you wouldn't get rust from the nails in that board on yourdress. I'm awfully sorry I haven't a robe to put over your lap."
"Oh, I'm all right," Betty hastened to assure him tactfully. Then, witha desire to put him at his ease, "Where is the town?" she asked.
They had turned from the station straight into a country road, andBetty had not seen a single house.
"Hagar's Corners is just a station," explained the lad. "Mostly milk isshipped from it. All the trading is done at Glenside. There's storesand schools and a good-sized town there. Mr. Peabody had you come toHagar's Corners 'cause it's half a mile nearer than Glenside. The horsehas lost a shoe, and he doesn't want to run up a blacksmith's bill tillthe foot gets worse than it is."
Betty's brown eyes widened with amazement.
"That horse is limping now," she said severely, "Do you mean to tellme Mr. Peabody will let a horse get a sore foot before he'll pay out alittle money to have it shod?"
The boy turned and looked at her with something smoldering in his facethat she did not understand. Betty was not used to bitterness.
"Joe Peabody," declared the boy impressively, "would let his own wifego without shoes if he thought she could get through as much work asshe can with 'em. Look at my feet!" He thrust out a pair of rough,heavy work shoes, the toes patched abominably, the laces knotted inhalf a dozen places; Betty noticed that the heel of one was rippedso that the boy's skin showed through. "Let his horse go to save ablacksmith's bill!" repeated the lad contemptuously. "I should thinkhe would! The only thing that counts with Joe Peabody in this world ismoney!"
Betty's heart sank. To what kind of a home had she come? Her head wasbeginning to ache, and the glare of the sun on the white, dusty roadhurt her eyes. She wished that the wagon had some kind of top, or thatthe board seat had a back.
"Is it very much further?" she asked wearily.
"I'll bet you're tired," said the boy quickly. "We've a matter of threemiles to go yet. The sorrel can't make extra good time even when he hasa fair show, but I aim to favor his sore foot if I do get dished out ofmy dinner."
"I'm so hungry," declared Betty, restored to vivacity at the thoughtof luncheon. "All I had on the train was a cup of chocolate and asandwich. Aren't you hungry, too?"
"Considering that all I've had since breakfast at six this morning, isan apple I stole while hunting through the orchard for the turkeys,I'll say I'm starved," admitted the boy. "But I'll have to wait tillsix to-night, and so will you."
"But I haven't had any lunch!" Betty protested vigorously. "Of course,Mrs. Peabody will let me have something--perhaps they'll wait for me."
The boy pulled on the lines mechanically as the sorrel stumbled.
"If that horse once goes down, he'll die in the road and that'll bethe first rest he's known in seven years," he said cryptically. "No,Miss, the Peabodys won't wait for you. They wouldn't wait for their ownmother, and that's a fact. Don't I remember seeing the old lady, whowas childish the year before she died, crying up in her room becauseno one had called her to breakfast and she came down too late to getany? Mrs. Peabody puts dinner on the table at twelve sharp, and themas aren't there have to wait till the next meal. Joe Peabody counts itthat much food saved, and he's got no intentions of having late-comersgobble it up."
Betty Gordon's straight little chin lifted. Meekness was not one ofher characteristics, and her fighting spirit rose to combat with smallencouragement.
"My uncle's paying my board, and I intend to eat," she announcedfirmly. "But maybe I'm upsetting the household by coming so late inthe afternoon; only there was no other train till night. I have somechocolate and crackers in my bag--suppose we eat those now?"
"Gee, that will be corking!" the fresh voice of the boy beside her wascharged with fervent appreciation. "There's a spring up the road apiece, and we'll stop and get a drink. Chocolate sure will taste good."
Betty was quicker to observe than most girls of her age, her sorrowhaving taught her to see other people's troubles. As the boy drewrein at the spring and leaped down to bring her a drink from its cooldepths, she noticed how thin he was and how red and calloused were hishands.
"Thank you." She smiled, giving back the cup. "That's the coldest waterI ever tasted. I'm all cooled off now."
He climbed up beside her again, and the wagon creaked on its journey.As Betty divided the chocolate and crackers, unobtrusively giving herdriver the larger portion, she suggested that he might tell her hisname.
"I suppose you know I'm Betty Gordon," she said. "You've probably heardMrs. Peabody say she went to school with my Uncle Dick. Tell me who youare, and then we'll be introduced."
The mouth of the boy twisted curiously, and a sullen look came into theblue eyes.
"You can do without knowing me," he said shortly. "But so long asyou'll hear me yelled at from sun-up to sun-down, I might as wellmake you acquainted with my claims to greatness. I'm the 'poorhouserat'--now pull your blue skirt away."
"You have no right to ta
lk like that," Betty asserted quietly. "Ihaven't given you the slightest reason to. And if you are reallyfrom the poorhouse, you must be an orphan like me. Can't we be goodfriends? Besides, I don't know your name even yet."
The boy looked at the sweet girl face and his own cleared.
"I'm a pig!" he muttered with youthful vehemence. "My name's BobHenderson, Miss. I hadn't any call to flare up like that. But livingwith the Peabodys doesn't help a fellow when it comes to manners. AndI am from the poorhouse. Joe Peabody took me when I was ten years old.I'm thirteen now."
"I'm twelve," said Betty. "Don't call me Miss, it sounds so stiff. I'mBetty. Oh, dear, how dreadfully lame that horse is!"
The poor beast was limping, and in evident pain. Bob Hendersonexplained that there was nothing they could do except to let him walkslowly and try to keep him on the soft edge of the road.
"He'll have to go five miles to-morrow to Glenside to theblacksmith's," he said moodily. "I'm ashamed to drive a horse throughthe town in the shape this one's in."
Betty thought indignantly that she would write to the S. P. C. A. Theymust have agents throughout the country, she knew, and surely it couldnot be within the law for any farmer to allow his horse to suffer asthe sorrel was plainly suffering.
"Is Mr. Peabody poor, Bob?" she ventured timidly. "I'm sure Uncle Dickthought Bramble Farm a fine, large place. He wanted me to learn to ridehorseback this summer."
"Have to be on a saw-horse," replied Bob ironically. "You bet Peabodyisn't poor! Some say he's worth a hundred thousand if he's worth apenny. But close--say, that man's so close he puts every copper throughthe wringer. You've come to a sweet place, and no mistake, Betty. I'mkind of sorry to see a girl get caught in the Peabody maw."
"I won't stay 'less I like it," declared Betty quickly. "I'll write toUncle Dick, and you can come, too, Bob. Why are we turning in here?"
"This," said Bob Henderson pointing with his whip dramatically, "isBramble Farm."