Page:Betty Gordon in Washington.djvu/56

46 "Don't you go to feel bad, dearie. If Bob's gone, he's gone, and that's all there is to it."

Peabody, milk pail in hand, motioned to Ethan to go out and begin milking.

"That isn't all there is to it, not by a long shot!" he growled at his wife. "If I get my hands on that boy he'll rue the day he ever set foot off this farm. He'll go back to the poorhouse and there he'll stay till he's of age."

Betty sat up, pushing the tumbled hair from her hot forehead.

"I'm glad Bob ran away!" she cried recklessly. "He's gone where you won't catch him, either. You never treated him fairly, and you know it."

Peabody banged the kitchen door by way of relieving his feelings, but the latch did not fasten so that he heard Betty's next sentence addressed to his wife.

"I'm only waiting for a letter from Uncle Dick," confided Betty. "Then I'm going to Washington. Things will never be any different here, Mrs. Peabody; you've said so yourself. I wish Uncle Dick would hurry and write. It's been a good while since I heard." And there was a catch in the girl's voice.

The man slouched off the porch, a peculiar smile on his lean, shrewd face. One hand, thrust into his ragged coat pocket, rested on a letter there.