Page:Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil.djvu/75

Rh Nothing but huge columns of heavy black smoke that smudges up the landscape."

"Like the lamp that smoked one night when Mrs. Peabody turned it down too low—remember, Bob?" suggested Betty. "Next morning everything in the room was peppered with greasy soot."

"Look ahead, and you'll see the Watterby farm—'place,' in the vernacular of the countryside," announced Mr. Gordon. "Unlike the Eastern farms, very few homes are named. There's Grandma Watterby watching for us."

Bob and Betty looked with interest. They saw a gaunt, plain house, two stories in height, without window blinds or porch of any sort, and if ever painted now so weather-beaten that the original color was indistinguishable. A few flowers bloomed around the doorstep but there was no attempt at a lawn. A huddle of buildings back of the house evidently made up the barns and out-houses, and chickens stalked at will in the road-side.

These fled, squawking, when Mr. Gordon ran the car into the ditch and an old woman hobbled out to greet him.

"Well, Grandma," he called cheerily, raising his voice, for she was slightly deaf, "I've brought you two young folks bag and baggage, just as I