"I'm clean, anyway, and that makes me feel good, so why should I care how I look?" was Bob's defense when his appearance was commented on.

"I'm so hungry," announced Betty, coming out of her room, once more trim and neat, and sniffing the delicious odor of hot waffles. "I wonder if I could pin my hair up in a towel and dry it after lunch?"

"Of course you may," said Mrs. Will Watterby warmly. "Did you fix a place for Betty, Grandma?"

"What a silly question, Emma," reproved old Grandma Watterby severely. "Here, Betty, you sit next to me, and Bob can have Will's place. He's gone over to Flame City with a bolt he wants the blacksmith to tinker up."

Ki, the Indian who helped with the farm work, smiled at Betty but said nothing more than the single "Howdy," which was his stock form of salutation. Mrs. Watterby's waffles were quite as good as they smelled, and she apparently had mixed an inexhaustible quant.i.ty of batter. Every one ate rapidly and in comparative silence, a habit to which Bob and Betty were by now quite accustomed. When Mr. Gordon was present he insisted on a little conversation, but his presence was lacking to-day.

"You go right out in the sun and dry your hair, Betty," said Mrs.

Watterby, when the meal was over. "No, I don't need any help with the dishes. Grandma and me, we're going over to town in the car this afternoon and I don't care whether I do the dishes till I come back or not."

This, for Mrs. Watterby, was a great step forward. Before the purchase of the automobile, bought with a legacy inherited by Grandma Watterby, dishes and housework had been the sum total of Mrs. Will Watterby's existence. Now that she could drive the car and get away from her kitchen sink at will, she seemed another woman.

Betty voiced something of this to Bob as she unfastened the towel and let her heavy dark hair fall over her shoulders. She was sitting on the back porch where the afternoon sun shone un.o.bstructed.

"Yes, I guess automobiles are a good thing," admitted Bob absently. "I want Aunt Faith to get one. A runabout would be handy for them--one like Doctor Guerin's. Remember, Betty?"

"My goodness, I haven't read Norma's letter!" said Betty hastily. "I left it in my other blouse. Wait a minute, and I'll get it."

She dashed into the house and was back again in a moment, the letter Bob had handed her just before the shower of oil, in her hand.

Bob, in his favorite att.i.tude of lying on his back and staring at the sky, was startled by an exclamation before Betty had finished the first page of the closely written missive.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, sitting up. "Anybody sick?"

"Oh, Bob, such fun!" Betty's eyes danced with pleasure. "What do you think! Norma and Alice Guerin are going to Shadyside!"

"Well, I'm willing to jump with joy, but could you tell me what Shadyside is, and where?" said Bob humbly. "Why do the Guerin girls want to go there?"

"I forgot you didn't know," apologized Betty. "Shadyside is the boarding school, Bob. That's the name of the station, too. It's five hours' ride from Washington. Let's see, there's Bobby and Louise Littell and Libbie, and now Norma and Alice--five girls I know already! I guess I won't be homesick or lonely."

But as she said it she glanced uncertainly at Bob.

That young man snickered, turned it into a cough, and that failing, essayed to whistle.

"Bob, you act too funny for anything!" This time Betty's glance was not one of approval. "What does ail you?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, Betsey," Bob a.s.sured her. "I'm my usual charming self. Are Norma and Alice going to Washington first?"

"No. I wish they were," answered Betty, taking up the letter again.

"Bob, I'm afraid they're having a hard time with money matters. You know Dr. Guerin is so easy-going he never collects one-third of the bills he sends out, and any one can get his services free if they tell him a hard luck story. Norma writes that she and Alice have always wanted to go to Shadyside because their mother graduated from there when it was only a day school. Mrs. Guerin's people lived around there somewhere. And last year, you know, Norma went to an awfully ordinary school--good enough, I suppose, but not very thorough. She couldn't prepare for college there."

"Well, couldn't we fix it some way for them?" asked Bob interestedly.

"I'd do anything in the world for Doctor Guerin. Didn't he row me that time he found us out in the fields at two o'clock in the morning? You think up some way to make him accept some money, Betty."

Doctor Hal Guerin and his wife and daughters had been good friends to Bob and Betty in the Bramble Farm days. The doctor, with a large country practice that brought him more affection and esteem than ready cash, had managed to look after the boy and girl more or less effectively, and Norma, his daughter, had supplied Bob with orders from her school friends for little carved pendants that he made with no better tools than an old knife. This money had been the first Bob had ever earned and had given him his first taste of independence.

"I don't think you could make Doctor Guerin take money, even as a loan," said Betty slowly, in answer to Bob's proposal. "Norma wouldn't like it if she thought her letter had suggested such a thing. What makes it hard for them, I think, is that Mrs. Guerin expected to have quite a fortune some day. Her mother was really wealthy, and she was an only child. I don't know where the money went, but I do know the Guerins never had any of it."

Bob jumped to his feet as she finished the sentence.

"Here's Uncle d.i.c.k!" he cried. "Did you see the new well come in, sir?"

CHAPTER III

SURPRISING BOB

Betty shook back her hair and rose to kiss the gray-haired gentleman who put an arm affectionately about her.

"I heard about that blast," he said, and smiled good-humoredly. "Lee Chang was much worried when I went in to dinner. His one consolation was that you had eaten the tart before the oil began to fall."

"We were all right, only of course it rather daubed us up," said Bob.

"Betty had to wash her hair."

"My hair's nothing," declared Betty scornfully. "But my brand-new blouse that I worked on for two days--you ought to see it, Uncle d.i.c.k! Grandma Watterby thinks maybe she can get the oil out, but she says the color may come out, too."

Mr. Gordon sat down on the step and took off his hat.

"You've a clear claim for damages, Betty," he a.s.sured his niece gravely.

"To save time, I'm willing to make good; what does a new blouse cost?"

"This wasn't exactly new," explained Betty fairly. "Aunt Faith had the material in her trunk for years. But it was the first thing I ever made, and I was so proud of it."

"Well, we'll see that you have something to take its place," promised her uncle, drawing her down beside him. "I have some news for you, Betsey.

When you go East next week, I'm going, too. That is, as far as Chicago.

From there I take a little run up into Canada."

"But you said you'd spend Christmas with us!" argued Betty.

"Oh, Christmas is months off," returned Mr. Gordon comfortably. "I expect to be back in the States long before the holidays. And Bob's aunts have finally made up their minds where they want to spend the winter. Aunt Faith has commissioned me to buy two tickets for southern California."

"But there's Bob!" Betty gazed anxiously at her uncle. "What's Bob going to do without any one at all, Uncle d.i.c.k?"

Mr. Gordon looked at Bob, and an unwilling grin turned the corners of the boy's mouth.

"That's the way he's been acting all day," scolded Betty. "What ails him? I think it's silly to sit there and smile when there's nothing to smile about."

"I suspect Bob doesn't take kindly to secrets," returned her uncle.

"Suppose you 'fess up, Bob, and when the atmosphere is clear we can have a little talk."

"All right," said Bob, with manifest relief. "I kept quiet only because I wanted to be sure I was going, sir. Betty, Mr. Littell wrote me about a military academy in the East and put me in, touch with several boys who attend it. Uncle d.i.c.k thinks it is just the school for me, and I'm going.

Timothy Derby is one of the boys. He's a son of the man I worked for in Washington."

"How splendid!" With characteristic enthusiasm Betty forgot her momentary displeasure at Bob's method of keeping a secret. "When are you going, Bob? Where is the school?"