Page:Betty Gordon in Washington.djvu/51

Rh 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